I feel like compared to other art writers the clarity of language in this piece makes me connect with it more. Hickey’s description is very detailed and keeps me engaged with the ideas in the work.
I found that the parallels drawn between car culture and the art market in the 1960’s seemed to make sense. Like cars, art objects are selling desires and values rather than just objects. The values apparent to the art of the day is what is pre-approved by the art world.
What he seems to be saying is that commercial art-- or art that took a pre-existing object and “customized” it -- had a brief time in the spotlight but the “transnational bureaucracy” of the art world eventually pushed it out, prizing non-representation and the conceptual.
He argues that since art objects don’t do anything and aren’t worth anything the only thing we can argue about is the values the objects represent. The undertone of the writing suggests that because the idea of combining the commercial object and the artistic practice is somehow insulting to the powers that be, they pushed it out.
However, I don’t think this is the first “birth” of the art market. I think the art market (as in the art beurocracy) has existed for a very long time. This piece seems to be about the fall of customized art, and about the art world being so homogenized and controlled, and institutionally supported/advocated. But art has always been somewhat homogenized, controlled by the church, governments, kings, and MoMa. Images and objects and ideas have power, it’s only natural that people want to control them.
No comments:
Post a Comment