Brass Tacks

Jerry reviews PS 1's show "Not for Sale." The show is about art by hot artists that for one reason or other is not for sale. Jerry's review is fair and on target and he deals with the blatant hypocrisy that runs through a show featuring market darlings that "withhold" work from that market - as if this is some form of saying, "...see I have retained my cred - for even though I could sell this - I haven't."
Jerry's addendum is different and worthy of a kick. "...today’s fixation on the market has created two ridiculous camps: the moralists, who sneer that artists and dealers who sell a lot of art are insufficiently radical, and the idiots who believe that art that sells is better than art that doesn’t." I think Jerry has missed the point about the market. It isn't about moralizing, but about the examination of new ideas. If one is able to make something new and exciting or change something to make it better will it be seen?
Lawrence Lessig talks about similar issues in his amazing book Free Culture. In it he discusses the prevalence of large corporate conglomerates that use copyright issues to control the market for their products. It is the same sort of control in the gallery system where the big auction houses, galleries, dealers and artists now have REAL control over what is dissemenated and how things are maintained. This system has been discussed ad nauseum so I'll let it be, but the point is the CONTROL of the visual enterprise is directed by Corporate Market Viability - ie. what shows, what sells, how it's marketed, who buys it, what institutions approve it etc etc. this must fit in with precedential material. A leads to B leads to C with subset a,b & c. It all winds up circling back to the same few galleries, dealers, artists and institutions. If an artist actually has a different view of what constitutes art and is unable to show it because the market is closed to innovation or change - then how does it get disseminated? Markets work on self perpetuation not on innovation. This is not moralism but hard won observation.
Contrary to his quoting Gerhard Richter's notebook writings - while quaint - Richter's observations no longer make sense - artists no longer control the visual dialog, and worse, these writings are grounded in a 19th Century gentleman's idea of business. Art will survive is the message and it will all work out in the end. Yes, but how it will all work out and who will be seen is the rub. If there is opportunity to show in a pluralistic market then new ideas will have a chance - if however that market is limited in its scope and vision beause its capital flow is the guiding principle - then there is a problem for those who find other ideas that contradict precedent and may find a different visual path. Richter sounds like someone who is polishing his own brass - those that rise to the top deserve to be there - which is the conceit of the successful. Richter's work, though intellectually rigorous, was hardly ever innovative or contrary to historical artistic precedent. He is part of the system and though he struggled to be shown at first, he was part of a University, part of a gallery system and now part of the museum system - he is the market. I think Jerry is using the same form of critique here as the curator of the PS1 show and risks being hypocritical. I would love to see Jerry tackle the market system - which he hasn't done to any great depth as yet. He is more adept, more in tune and more involved than most ciritics and he's slowly been picking up the gauntlet. C'mon Jerry, let loose - Like Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles - "let's get down to bwass tacks."
As for the conjunction of sales and quality - what the collector gets is a well made product and in the market of today that is what's being sold. Success is not greatness - it's what sells. True not everything has to be great - but neither does everthing seen have to be success. This steadiness of upscale products has dulled the edges of innovation. What is now considered "outlandish" or "innovative" is usually calculated by issues outside of art like copyright infringement, sexual practices or political intrusion - Jeff Koons - a good example. The way art is made or the ideas that change how something is encountered rarely gain market attention - because they might actually bump the market precedent. For the market - sales do equal quality because it reinforces itself - that's how markets work - the real product being sold is the quality of the market.
Finally, most of us are not hand wringing but trying to innovate. We are not moralists, we are artists doing our job and part of that job is to get the ideas out in whatever way we can. Face it - NYC rents are out of reach for most of us - we work at jobs that "suck our souls" to keep a roof over our heads and most of us do not have the benefits of a tony degree/apprenticeship program available to the select 1%. That's why the internet is flooded with those of us - the 99% that Jerry alludes to - who are hammering away at the system. At least here it is democratic to some degree. We can fight back, we do speak. Whether we get heard is another thing, but at least we have the opportunity - which we don't get elsewhere. Jpegs have now become both the bane (let's face it - they suck!) and possibility (some part of the visual idea gets to many people fast) for we 99ers. Though easily dismissed and clicked over, sometimes the context leads to someone pausing and looking and maybe even asking for a studio visit. I've known a few artists that have had this experience. This also is not moralistic position - it is our reality. The studio visit - well that's a black swan.