Writing in the New York Times, Roberta Smith looks at the current state of the art market after the arrival of the ‘correction’ forced by the economic environment. The article from the Times’ art critic is a pretty blunt goodbye to the past. She says that after an era where art and artists played engaged roles in society, the future of art and its market will be smaller, leaner and cleaner:
We seem to have failed the too-much-money test, according to those who habitually reprimand the art world as money mad. The oughties will soon be the new ’80s, disdained for rampant excess…
Yet few who deplored the market were exempt from its benefits. It made possible the fledgling alternative spaces at the margins as much as the auction spectacle at the center, and everything in between. It boosted enrollment in art schools, even if some turned into master-of-fine-arts assembly lines with art dealers waiting at the end. It spawned new tenured positions for artists and art historians, even as many of those people deplored the art market.
But art has had a good run over the past 15 years. The definitions of art and artist were under constant revision and expansion, sometimes out of revulsion at the frenetic market and sometimes in opportunistic celebration of it. Art and artists played more visible and engaged roles in society. They designed monuments, lamps and handbags, made movies, provided street theater, sowed gardens, rigged urban waterfalls.
Some nice thinking in there.
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