Issue 15 - Pdf Ctrl+P - CTRL+P: a journal of contemporary art

The war is not over, as they say. In the mean time, private and corporate donors step
in to subsidize the true costs—but only during good economic times, and usually with
fickle board members or narrow grant guidelines. Moreover, most donors do not provide
long-term support, and usually do not work closely with arts groups to create sustainable
programs or develop income streams. From the grantseekers’ point of view, much effort
has to be put into cultivating donors despite limited staff time and resources.
Could the art world ever bare its true costs? It has always struggled with the precarious
nature of its own un-sustainability. Moreover, politicians exploit this fissure by
calling attention to controversial art that has received public funding. The politicization
further distracts us from a robust debate about the values of art in society—the arts’
heterogeneity makes it especially difficult to have a coherent voice and an improved set
of rationales. On the other hand, the reward system for the arts is not likely to change
without concerted efforts on the part of the advocates.
Endnotes
1. H. Cotter, “The Boom is Over, Long
Live the Art!” New York Times,
15 February 2009.
2. G. Sandow, “The Arts need a Better
Argument,” The Wall Street Journal, 18
February 2009.
3. W. Baumol, “Unnatural Value: or Art
Investment as Floating Crap Game,”
AEA Papers and Proceedings 76.2 (May
1986), 10-14.
4. B. Lewis, “The Second Tulip Mania,”
Prospect Magazine, Dec 2008.
5. Cited by B. Lewis.
6. D. Kuspit, “Art Values or Market
Values,” artnet, March 2007.
7. B. Frey, “Art Markets and Economics:
An Introduction,” Journal of Cultural
Economics 21(1997): 165-173.
8. J. Heilbrun, “Baumol’s Cost Disease,”
in Ruth Towse, Handbook of Cultural
Economics (2003).
9. M. Blaug, “Final Comments on the
Plenary Session on Baumol and Bowen,”
Journal of Cultural Economics 20 (1996):
249-250.
10. G. Sandow (2009).
Can the Art World Recover?
I realize this essay states the problem in different ways rather than give answers. But
even if there were a Yellow Brick Road, the Wizard of Oz is nothing more than a quack
hiding behind smoke screens and tricks. Since the art market has mostly hijacked arts’
reward system and subsidies are not easily obtained with fuzzy justifications, let us turn
to the issue of value creation. On behalf of art’s defense during IQ2US debate, Chuck
Close asserts that, “Art is a meritocracy. It is a meritocracy because the final arbiters of
what is important are other artists. All the hype, all the spin, all the effort to construct a
career out of thin air, all the efforts to manipulate the market notwithstanding.”
In many ways, the art world that Chuck Close describes is the ideal world when
artists have stable income and their pensions are secured and they would live without
critics, curators, editors, publishers, dealers, brokers, advisers, financiers, lawyers and
event planners. But consider for a moment if artists could become better arbiters, what
would this alternate art world look like? What sort of platform would allow artists to
function better as each other’s arbiters?
In most industries, competition engenders innovation and spurs productivity. Lessons
from recent history tell us that moments of creative fervor come in waves and despite
the fact that they were brief and quickly co-opted by the mainstream—these moments
usually happen when artists work with each other rather than chase after the art market.
In the 1970s in New York, Holland Cotter recalls: “…the energy was collective, but the
mix was different…everybody did everything—painting, writing, performing, filming,
photocopying zines, playing in bands—and new forms arrived, including hip-hop, graffiti,
No Wave cinema, appropriation art and the first definable body of “out” queer art. So did
unusual ways of exhibiting work: in cars, in bathrooms, in subways.”
We are obviously not going to turn the clock backwards as if the same magic formula
still works. For 2010 and beyond, it shall be a different story. Maybe it is time that we take
a different look at what is making the world turn now. How could the arts communicate
better with different sectors of the society? Are there lessons to be learned from the green
revolution? Are there lessons to be learned from the infectious microfinance movement
made famous by Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunnus? What about open source software?
An exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum entitled “Design for the other 90%” showed
how we often forget that 90% of the world’s population have little or no access to products
and services many of us take for granted. Nearly half of this disadvantaged population
does not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. So why shouldn’t the arts
help imagine and create different futures for everyone?
10 Ctrl+P September 2009