Theoretical Disengagement Part IV

I recently bought the book Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, the author of No Logo. And without finding myself seated in the lunatic fringe section I'd like to play with a few observations. It is Ms. Klein's contention that The Shock Doctrine is the way in which..."America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries." Conspiracy theory aside there are many real ideas of how those in positions of power can and do push their policies into place and set up systems to keep that power in their hands. The book takes a hard look at these Machiavellian techniques used by both political and economic systems in the Postmodern age. It an't pretty.

As I thought about it, I realized that I've been saying something similar about our smaller Art World which has experienced a similar shock indoctrination both aesthetically and economically. Let's discuss the economics of it first. In the early 1990's the art world shrank precipitously after the economic shock of the late 80s. Galleries that had expanded from the East Village into Soho were suddenly faced with the fact that their better-known artists were leaving for more established galleries because the economy had dried up. No one was buying art - the stock market had crashed and money was tight. There were no new millionaires looking to decorate their apartments, and those who had survived the fallout were waiting to see what would happen while they tried to sell their now worthless work. It is called a contraction - a painting that sold for $10000 a year ago was now worth $5000. A lot of artists started to look for a bigger gallery - one that would protect them during just such an economic downturn. It was the beginning of the super gallery - which would take on the look of Pace, Gagosian or Marks - galleries with outlets all over the world. It also began the practice of galleries partnering with auction houses - if I remember right, the first I heard of this was with Emmerich gallery, later Deitch came on board - now the auction houses are actually creating their own galleries. It was a way to create a conduit, an economic line to capital. Galleries were now offically part of the money train known as the secondary market feeding directly into it, and those economics demanded that along with the delivery system - a consistent product had to be developed.

Which brings us to the product. Postmodern theoretics has been around since the early 1960s. About the time that Andy Warhol became a machine a new type of art based on electronic media had begun to develop. Artists became schooled in the discipline. By the 1980s the schools were turning out Postmodernists left and right - they were the generation - most in their 30s - who were part of the boom and part of the new media friendly art world. They were also the ones who suffered when the market collapsed, just as they were beginning to raise families, finding themselves with new financial responsibilities and/or suffering from the horror of AIDs. When the showing markets dried up, those who didn't disappear, went back to the universities. The entrenchment of Postmodernism had begun and continues today. Video, photography, installation, sculpture and painting all began to have a certain look - the theoretics around each new artist began to have a similar sound. A standardization of aesthetics hardened into a pure Mannerism. And with the standardization came all the production values of corporate materialism. Artists and galleries realized that the product would sell better in series. Thus work started to be made in series. A one-off like a painting or sculpture no longer would suffice for a system intent on delivering product. The one-off would be the advertisement. Damien's diamond skull has been the launch pad for a thousand prints. Even better, the image of the artist or the media inflated image of the artist would suffice - limited editions of 10 DVDs of Matthew Barney's movie. Art, to be truly economically successful, had to become accessible to more money.

We've been dealing with a corporatized art for the last 10 years. You can trace the beginnings of it with the move to Chelsea. The entire art community by 2001 was there. After 9/11 the fortunes of the art world went with the privatization politics of the Bush economy. By 2007 there were art fairs, biennials, galleries, and auction houses by the bucketful showing the same works, by the same artists, in the same styles. There hasn't been a serious theoretical challenge to the aesthetic establishment in nearly 25 years. But there is plenty of product. Art is moribund while art products fly off the shelves. As I thought about it - the shock doctrine offers a bit of clarity about the systems. How we get by this is up to us - the rough trade. For us, it's about the personal, about actual vision - how we see - how we experience our lives - in this new media world. It's about seeing life - not about systems, not about text. To rework the visual we have to get back into our physical lives and get over the shock.