The art market downturn will expel hyped-up tosh and allow more enduring work to thrive
Art lovers may think this won’t affect them. But it will, because art, seen at one level, is simply the production of a saleable commodity much like any other but less useful than a washing machine.
The state of the market directly affects contemporary production. When markets are buoyant, the contemporary is kept afloat.
London founded its Frieze Art Fair this autumn. Our capital needs to be able to compete, though with art fairs now overcrowding the cultural calendar (fairs in Berlin, Paris, Cologne, Turin and Miami Beach all take place in the same few months), dealers will be choosing carefully where they want to be represented. And it’s the dealers who control the contemporary scene.
Brit Art was the creation of Charles Saatchi. An advertising man, he understood the power of a certain type of spectacle. And by creating a market value for this, he launched a brand. As prices increased, so did media coverage. And since most of us are less interested in art than in what other people are interested in, Saatchi-style aesthetics were soon being consumed like soup.
This had an adverse effect on artistic standards. “A lot of artists are producing what is known as Saatchi art,” Chris Ofili told The Times. “You know it’s Saatchi art because it’s one-off shockers. And these artists are getting cynical. Some with works already in his collection produce half-hearted crap knowing that he will take it off their hands. And he does.”
But now the buzz of Brit Art is over. Only the strongest will survive the hard times. It is significant that Saatchi has chosen this moment to sell almost his entire collection of the work of Damien Hirst. Hirst was the leader of the Brit pack. His were the pieces that first turned the conceptual into a craze. And this sale marks a turning point. For though Hirst was a trendsetter and will no doubt survive, the fate of many of his followers is less certain.
Over the past years, artists whose work passed all but uncommented upon in the Royal Academy’s landmark Sensation show of 1977 have, one by one, found enthusiastic advocates. This was not necessarily an indication of the calibre of their work.
As far as an Old Master is concerned, there are certain criteria to be met. Experts assess an oil painting according to its condition. They judge the minute distinctions between different impressions of a print. But when it came to the conceptual, an awful lot of the appeal can lie in the fact that a piece is in accordance with a certain dominant trend.
A trend promotes a certain “look”. And in recent years this “look” has focused on lifestyle, pop and youth culture. It has subverted ideals of traditional beauty to appeal to a younger, more diverse, audience. It has been influenced by, and reflected in, the world of fashion and magazines — the Royal Academy of Arts’ Armani retrospective is one example.
This “look” has given a lift to entire areas of the contemporary. And it is these pieces — buoyed by fashion and hype — that, now put under financial pressure, will be subjected to closer scrutiny. As the tide of fashion goes out, observers will start to see who exactly is swimming naked.
The beginnings of this process could well be most marked in photography.
This year Tate Modern broke ground with its huge photographic exhibition Cruel and Tender. But when the show moved to Germany, audiences were far from impressed, says Melanie Puff, a freelance curator. Germany, after all, was the nation that had produced such pioneering photographers as Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth. And these artists had influenced a host of empty imitators.
“Art photography, in the past ten years, has become a commercial career,” says Charlotte Cotton, a curator of photography at the V&A. “And some younger photographers are looking at the work of mature picture makers such as Gursky or Struth and, without having a subject or approach of their own, they are imitating their deadpan aesthetic. They think it will make their work into art. But it doesn’t. It just makes it look like art. These also-rans are just trying to appeal to an assumed constituency of new collectors.”
Such opportunism could survive while the art market was booming and collectors were ready to buy anything that looked as if it could be cool. But as markets grow wary, photography faces a serious reassessment. And MoMA’s spring show, Fashioning Fiction in Photography (the first devoted to fashion photography), is likely to become a focus of argument.
It is high time this happened. Art that endures is not that which simply cashes in on a craze. It tends to be rooted in a profound sense of engagement. Content is as important as style. And this intense engagement with subject matter tends to arise out of periods of silence and retreat, which is precisely what market success won’t allow the creator, because when prices are high so is the corresponding hype. Some of the most creative moments arise when there is little money about.
As far as the contemporary art scene is concerned, economic downturn should be seen as a source of hope. The Brit Art phenomenon began only after the recession of the early 1990s when dealers who survived financial troubles were looking to capitalise on the next big thing. Which is why, in 2004, we should watch the contemporary art world more carefully than ever.
Don't miss...
Vuillard (Royal Academy)
The first major retrospective of a French modern master famed for the warm domestic intimacy of his interior scenes. Jan 31-Apr 18.
The Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature (Tate Britain)
Every intricate detail of nature picked out in pure Pre-Raphaelite colour. Feb 12-May 3.
Roy Lichtenstein (Hayward Gallery)
Wham! Comic-book kitsch on a vast scale by the American Pop pioneer. Feb 26-May 16.
Brancusi (Tate Modern)
40 works by a founder of modern sculpture in all their eloquent simplicity. Jan 29- May 23.
Rubens (Palais des Beaux- Arts)
Lille celebrates being joint Euro Culture Capital with a spectacular show of the great Baroque master. Mar 6-Jun 14.
Cy Twombly at the Serpentine (Tate Britain)
Echoes of our horticultural passions in the master scribblings of one of America’s most admired living artists in the Serpentine Art of the Garden show. Jun 3-Aug 30.
The Liverpool Biennale
New commissioned works by international artists are a focus for the biennale of the city that knows how to party. Sept 18-Nov 28.
Exotic Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500 to 1800 (V&A)
East meets West in a display that charts 300 years of artistic, cultural and technological interaction. Sept 23-Dec 5.
Helen Chadwick (Barbican Art Gallery)
Only in her forties when she died in 1996, Chadwick described the feelings her work provoked as “gorgeously repulsive, exquisitely fun, dangerously beautiful”. Apr 29-Aug 1.
New directions
Charles Saatchi has dumped his works by Damien Hirst, affecting the artist’s “look”. His pieces will still set the upper price limit for new art, but values will fall from there, forcing fellow artists to be less derivative.
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