Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

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In a period of gigantic ephemeral works, auto-destructive works, oeuvres-concepts and
uncontrollable expansions—all attempts to escape from the cultural ghetto—the luxury trade
in multiples has the primary effect of thrusting the artist constantly back into his past. He is
plunged back into what was a necessary but passing phase during which, often due to lack of
means, he tried out his ideas on small-scale pieces. Hence the proliferation of Mannerist multiples,
those recapitulatory variations on old and already assimilated themes which have therefore
become “exploitable.” While multiples may have a use in ensuring the artist’s daily bread,
they are obviously no way to new developments.
What we are at present witnessing is the metamorphosis of “handicraft” galleries into
neo-capitalist enterprises requiring considerable investment, and thus frequently assistance
from banks. Through take-overs and mergers their activities extend to cover both sides of the
Atlantic. Dealers grow less and less like Père Vollard and more and more like international
businessmen who, with the aid of publicity in specialist reviews, play upon the mimetic reflexes
of cultural institutions and private collectors to “send into orbit” a product symbolizing daring,
culture, a modern outlook....Theidea is implanted that X or Y is quite indispensable to any
modern collection; in the present state of the world market with its increasingly standardized
tastes this is tantamount to several thousand orders. When saturation point for one product is
reached, another is launched.
It happens that the logic of this art commerce is that galleries, diverted from their original
aims, create visual incidents and large-scale demonstrations openly designed to attract publicity.
A massive show concentrates attention on a product which elsewhere is sold in driblets.
The last Documenta Trade Fair in Kassel showed how the method works. On their groundfloor
stands, American dealers displayed outsize works which could be acquired in the basement
in miniature versions, as lithographs, sketches, micro-sculptures, etc.
More serious, as Piero Gilardi has explained in Robho (No. 5), are the aims of “cultural”
enterprises to emasculate the revolutionary potential of the avant- garde.
The ambition of certain American galleries is not to make money out of art but to establish a
position of power within the art world. This ambition is increasingly shared by fund trustees
and collectors. The establishment as a whole exercises very solid social control over the avantgarde
in the West. At the cost of a slight deficit to the galleries (which can in any case be offset
against taxes), its destructive potential is suitably canalized. Control is exercised by capitalist
art-lovers, through the financial and social backing of artists and through the manipulation of
information on the arts.