Whore to Culture

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever been reading a book, and then suddenly you watch a movie on exactly the same thing and then a few days latter you hear a radio program on the very same topic.  I've often thought there should be a name this occurrence. When the universe seems hell bent on putting something in front of you. [ed: serendipity/serendipitous implies luck in making an unexpected discovery.]  It often happens to me when I learn a word and suddenly I hear it or read it all the time. I wonder, was it always around me, in my peripheral, but i had no context for it so I let it pass me by.

So here's how it went... a couple of weeks ago I finally got round to ready Steve Martin's book Object of Beauty. It's meh. I liked reading this to getting felt up for the entire night. Starts out fun.  It feels like it should be going somewhere fun and good but nope that's all there was. The backdrop to the story is the NY art scene in the 80s and 90s. And the business of art- specifically contemporary art. And that is ANYTHING but boring. The business of art didn't start in the 20th century but it was irreparably altered.

The Physical Impossibility of Death
in the Mind of Someone Living, Damien Hirst 1991

Reading the book propelled me to spend a Saturday gallery hopping in the city. The day yielded a few new finds (more on that later) and end with me emailing a friend who is a very successful artist. In the course of our exchange he recommended that I watch a BBC Documentary title Mona Lisa Curse. Brilliantly narrated by Robert Hughes, as polarizing as he can be, the film can't help but give one pause to wonder if in fact the value of art has become greater than its aesethetic. Or does it become more pleasing the more expensive it is. Would you really thing that a shark in a tank of formaldehyde is a work of art or do we give it consideration as art because Charles Saatchi commissioned it. (I know Hirst is a pedestrian example. forgive me. It all comes together at the end. I promise. Just hang in there).

A couple of weeks ago NYMagazine ran a piece about a Hirst retrospective of his spot paintings. He will take over all 11 of Gagosian's galleries - two in London, three in New York, one each in Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Athens, Geneva and Beverly Hills -and hold simultaneous shows. But the article wasn't really about the shows, or about the fact that Hirst doesn't even paint these pictures himself (he has his minions execute his "vision"), what really seems to be the focus was the value of Hirst's work and his title as one of the wealthiest contemporary artists in the world.  And there was the crux for me - so little of this is about the actual art. Hirst is not moving the needle of contemporary art as an art form. Now don't get all yelly and hand-wavey. I didn't suggest that he hasn't change contemporary art - he has. He has forever changed the business of art. He has made value so integral that people don't really understand what they "like" unless they know how much it costs. For me I'm pretty sure I saw the Spots when i was walking through the kids furniture at Ikea last weekend. But put a $1.2million dollar price tag beside it and even I wonder if maybe I'm missing something deep and profound. I'm not. Your not. Trust me. Hirst is a talented impresario. He is an entertainer. He is the Brittany Spears of art.