Following a very interesting post by Rob Van Beek in the Nottingham Contemporary Free Discussion Group on Facebook I replied to the following which was last paragraph in a much longer and more erudite than my reply piece…..
Comparisons with other Fields and ‘Worlds’
[Relevant to notions of a ‘world’, advice ‘field’, sale ‘sector’ or ‘specialism’, discount a ‘world of worlds’, the various changing structures of ‘worlds’].
I find it is also helpful consider parallels with other fields such as fashion, music, consumer technology, science. You have to look out for the points of dissimilarity well as the points of similarity.
For example, fashion is more driven by a mass market and fine art by cache or exclusiveness (discuss!). The music business has a different structure with different ‘gatekeeper’ roles and consumer technology has distinct patterns of assimilation and obsolescence.
My Reply
Interesting to compare with music structures which far more heavily ‘hit’ by the digital ‘democratisation’ e.g. studio downsizing..free transfer of assetts ( downloads) than art world (so far) . Basic skills in music world…be it playing or sampling are still fairly intact and with increased pressure on ‘performance’ have become more not less relevant.
However in art circles there has been a direct response in the opposite direction…more ‘curation’, more ‘quality control’ ..art books becoming more expensive and therefore precious…
All this decided by a small coterie and a wilfull ignorance of basic skills….this is how Hirst can actually produce paintings of so little value..he worked within (D-Offay gallery) then turned table on a important gatekeeper….
Once established in body artistic he cannot be expelled..ever..too much top dollar on table for that…
Once into the system (to use Rob’s analogy like a virus.) he and other vested interests like Jopling changed the immune system to their way of operating.
We are now feeling pinch down here at the bowels of the International Art World organism because we are not important enough to affect decisions or even register at the command and control level (Art Reviews Power 100..note the name…Power Elite is what it means ). A metaphor of many little men pulling levers in the head in a cold remedy advert comes to mind…
If we do not rate at that level then those institutions who hang on the ‘power elite’s every word’ for legitimisation and a handle on levers of power will accordingly act as a gang of white cells and attack anything which ‘out of place’ or different that challenges that power structure……
Academia has a role to play in challenging these structures but all too often in the last decade financial imperatives have outweighed genuine innovation and challenging work and a downward spiral of nepotism, self congratulation (I am in you are out) smugness and facile ‘art revolutionary practice’ takes hold both within and without the academy which legitimises the institutions standing..cutting edge, contemporary etc etc..chicken and egg syndrome.