Everyone's Writing About Not Writing About Art

Sarah Thorton, sociologist and author of Seven Days In the Art World, has issued a manifesto of sorts. Her
Top Ten Reasons Not to Report On the Art Market, published in TAR Magazine, argues that journalists ought not become the pawns of those who wish to manipulate the art market. She feels that being an art critic must be one of the worst positions one can have in the art world today, and low pay is not the least of it.

http://sarah-thornton.com/

The UK Guardian reports that Dave Hickey, one of America's foremost art critics, is quitting also citing that he wishes to "turn his back on the nasty, stupid world of modern art which he believes has become calcified by too much money, celebrity, and self reverence".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/oct/28/art-critic-dave-hickey-quits-art-world

Adding to this thought stream, Hyperallergenic, the online arts newsletter, has published The 20 Most Powerless People In The Art World-2012 Edition and includes young art critics who are counseled to write only positive reviews, that flattery is the best policy if they want to have a future beyond writing criticism.

http://hyperallergic.com/59221/powerless-20-2012-edition/

I have had my own set of complaints about writing about art, which I do mostly in the city of Philadelphia, yet I cannot say that any dealer here has tried to manipulate my writing for personal gain. We just don't have a huge amount of cash flowing in and out of our "market" to make it worth the while. One could say that there is pressure to promote through reviews what I will call the marketing aims of the city though. The naked truth of matters in a review of art is OK here, as long as that doesn't interfere with the general aim to boost arts tourism and arts education. Negative reviews can actually serve to promote an exhibition. Arts and culture in Philadelphia are seen to serve the economic aims of the city.

Here, of course, as in other cities, there is very little financial remuneration available to compensate for one's trouble to find the right words to express an experience of art, let alone cover transportation costs, ticket fees, etc. That is so whether one is an educated and seasoned critic or the average observer in this newly "democratized" world of critical review. If one has a strong feeling about promoting the city as an arts destination, or if one is an arts professional, expanding one's network of "friends" in offering positive reviews in exchange for future work, recognition or connections, then maybe this low pay is not an issue. But if one is interested in delivering independent and informed reviews, successfully traversing this landscape becomes more problematic. One can count on losing a few "friends" writing what I will call truly independent reviews, even if those reviews tend to be mostly positive ones! Art world players may sense danger in that independence, so the critic must have a real sense of mission and purpose to not only accept the possibility of  isolating oneself professionally, but do so for very little financial compensation.

Alas, most practicing critics these days seem to follow the policy of ArtForum magazine. Most published reviews are usually positive. Choosing to be silent about an actively advertised exhibition is in essence a lazy negative review of it. (For instance, although I have seen the new Barnes Foundation building, I will not do a review of  it!). New Yorker critic Peter Scheljdahl has further claimed that only New York and Los Angeles can sustain real arts criticism, because those cities are large enough for the critic to meet one new friend for every friend he will lose writing honest reviews! There are a few pockets of what one could call "strident honesty" in the art world, but then a mainstream audience may tend to discount the worth of those valuable perspectives. Current art criticism increasingly tends to publicity.Who wants to write against the grain when one's future may be at stake?

The English essayist, Matthew Arnold, who wrote in 1864, The Function of Criticism In the Present Time, believed that honest and independent criticism was absolutely necessary to the health of a culture, especially in epochs of relatively moribund literary achievement. Although Arnold limits his exploration of the role of criticism to literature, I believe we can apply this wisdom to the discussion of art as well. Essentially he argues that a successful critic must exercise a quality of disinterestedness in looking at and writing about art. Disinterestedness is evoked as a kind of serenity, a secure independence, a free play of the mind,  in coming to conclusions about what a work of art conveys and its role as a cultural object. Arnold explains:

But criticism, real criticism, is essentially the exercise of this very quality (disinterestedness). It obeys an instinct prompting it to try to know the best of what is known and thought in the world, irrespective of practice, politics, and everything of the kind: and to value knowledge and thought as they approach this best, without the intrusion of any other considerations whatever.

Arnold further adds:

And how is criticism to show disinterestedness? By keeping aloof from what is called "the practical view of things" ; by resolutely following the law of its own nature, which is to be a free play of the mind on all subjects it touches. By steadily refusing to lend itself to any of those ulterior, political, practical considerations about ideas, which plenty of people will be sure to attach to them quite sufficiently, but which criticism has really nothing to do with.

Here Arnold postulates what some may call an elitist attitude, but nevertheless what he describes is the way of the world:

The mass of mankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas repose, and must repose, the practice of the world. That is as much saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. The rush and roar of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracted effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw him into its vortex.

So there you have it. Given the natural habits of species homo sapiens, criticism driven by market and political considerations yields much mutual backscratching and maybe some short range economic activity, but no way away from status quo. Criticism driven by independence and the desire of the critic to seek the best of what is thought and known in the world yields fresh ideas and cultural and economic well being in the long range. Which would you rather have for the culture our children and grandchildren will live in?

In the current environment of strong art world players, be they dealers or wealthy non profits promoting arts marketing, just who will want this job of critic in the long run? Is the job worth doing under these circumstances?

The Barnes Foundation Education Program- Signs of Its Impending Demise

The new Barnes on the Parkway shall open in May... that seems certain. Without Judge Ott's permission to re-open the case, arguments against the "logic" of the Move shall never be heard. Although the Barnes Friends have vowed to take the case to a higher court, it may take years to get at the truth of this situation, if that ever happens at all. The Barnes saga has for some time been taking on a resemblance to the first scenes of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. There seems to be no end of litigation in sight.

I have become resigned to the fact that this cultural treasure shall be irretrievably altered, as hard as that has been for me. The old Barnes Foundation, its architecture, education program, gardens, etc. was a sanctuary for creative spirits in Philadelphia. Its loss shall weigh heavily upon many.

No solace can be found in the fact that Judge Ott, the Barnes administration, trustees, and philanthropists tried to preserve the educational focus of the old Barnes by mandating that the wall ensembles be replicated in the new building. Perhaps these decision makers did not know that the teaching relationships embedded in those ensembles also once extended from room to room and then out of the building into the gardens. Or maybe they didn't think them important to preserve, so focused were they in finding ways to bring more tourist revenue into the city.

Little by little, the work that Barnes painstakingly accomplished has been disrupted: first by the installation of a parking lot in Merion and now by moving the rooms down to the Parkway into a building that does not relate well to its collection. What happened to the old "unity, variety, rhythm and contrast"? The balance between building, garden, and collection that Barnes and Paul Cret achieved in the old building does not exist in the new building. Its "lines" are excessively in favor of straightness and angularity... boxes and oblongs.

Albert Barnes never documented these design relationships for the same reason he declined to label each painting in the collection. He wanted students to pursue a visual education directly, John Dewey style. He did not want future generations to run to the "code book" in the library to find the "answers" to the design puzzles he left behind. That would have enabled many eager students to study and memorize facts as in the traditional education system- what he and Dewey had wished to improve upon. One might memorize the information, but then never be equipped to approach a work of art not "studied" at the Barnes or somewhere else. To think about the qualities of a work of art, one might always have to consult a text, and then possibly miss the mark in an ensuing art historical confabulation.

Barnes viewed the sometimes imperious attitudes of art historians as anathema for this reason. To be sure, many art historians do understand artists' visual language, if they choose to focus upon it, but that may not necessarily be from the efficacy of the method that they studied art history in school: with a slide projector and the memorization of "facts" about works of art.

This became painfully obvious to me the other day when I heard a relatively new Barnes curator deny to an audience assembled to hear a talk on Barnes history, the relatively obvious assertion that Barnes may have curtailed collecting African art because he only needed so many pieces to "relate" to those works that were inspired by it: Picasso's cubist paintings and Modigliani portraits in his collection. This could not be proven by what material was in the archives she said.

Further this curator was duly annoyed at my suggestion that the clue to many seemingly unsolvable puzzles including this one, could be approached by remembering that Barnes's organizing logic in assembling his collection was to teach a person the visual skills of an artist...that the edifying answer to the question why Barnes stopped collecting African art might lie in examining his teaching philosophy rather than in some neatly coded entry in the archives.

To her mind, if the answer to a question cannot be found to be concretely established (ie. Barnes indicates why in a letter), then a particular assertion is not provable and therefore not true. That's OK as far as it goes, but if the ensemble relationships are not documented in the archives, and we must seek archival proof to ascertain a claim as to Barnes' motivations, then it seems to me we are sacrificing a whole line of fruitful questioning and discovery... one that would reinforce certain truths and guiding philosophies.

Indeed, denial that these relationships are important enough to consider in a question such as this, could give way to a temptation to invent and "prove"convenient new "truths"about this collection.

Perhaps this rebuff against what I would call free inquiry can be interpreted merely as good skeptical scholarly practice by someone who has not had nearly enough time to absorb the complete Barnes oeuvre. But if that is so, perhaps this curator could have responded to my comment with an acknowledgement that this idea is at the very least worth considering. There are hundreds of people in the Philadelphia area who have had the Barnes training, who would no doubt find my assertion reasonable. Together we have hundreds of hours more time working with the collection than she has had. It would thus behoove this curator to take advantage of this situation rather than fight against it.

To be sure, good scholarly practice and critical thinking skills are much welcome in the scholarship undertaken at the new Barnes. But at the same time a rigid indoctrination of these attitudes do not bode well for the health of the education program as Dewey and Barnes imagined it. They are biased toward the literary rather than the visual context, and thus will have consequences if allowed to dominate discourse about the Barnes Foundation.

Among those consequences will be that Philadelphia will not have the benefit of an increasingly enlightened population who might design their personal and public spaces, indeed their lives, with an additional measure of capability. That was Barnes vision. What a shame that this vision never really took full flight at the old Barnes, and seems, at least at this point, to have little chance of flowering at the new.

That Transcendental Spark That Artists and Scientists Require

I was cleaning out and organizing my files the other day and came across a Wall Street Journal book review of Human Accomplishment by Charles Murray. Remember when the WSJ published interesting arts and culture commentary? I do and I miss it.

This news clipping was yellowed with age but its wisdom is timeless to be sure. Human Accomplishment apparently is Murray's effort to rate and rank the likes of Aristotle, Mozart and Einstein. He then further describes the societal conditions that enabled these cultural contributors to flourish. Hmmnnn... didn't Albert Barnes of Philadelphia also try to do that?

Interested to know whether Murray came to some of the same conclusions as Barnes, I read on.

According to Gary Rosen, WSJ's reviewer, Murray's book is replete with observations about the "quality of everyday life in distant eras and the differences between artistic and scientific excellence." Murray explains why so many significant cultural figures arose in the the West, particularly in Europe between the years 1400 and 1950.

As we might expect, excellence in the arts and the sciences has tended to flourish in cities where there is wealth. This is where the mass of critical talent tends to congregate. But the presence of wealth in an environment alone is not enough for scientists and artists to achieve their optimal best. "Freedom of action" or intellectual latitude is also a pre-requisite, but to actually THRIVE, much more is required. Artists and scientists need a "social milieu where life is thought to have purpose, where personal autonomy is encouraged and where a longing for the true, the beautiful and the good provides a transcendental spark."

Many are concerned about the "decline of the West", but Murray's observations cast some light on just what attributes make a society or a city a cultural mecca. Such a society or city is also where innovation is safe to practice, because the wealthy and the powerful have a stake in its flowering, rather than repressing it. Alas consider that it is ultimately good business to ensure that the intellectual and artistic climate serves to feed the souls of these creators.

Broody Rude Philadelphia and Sunny Santa Fe- A Study in Two Art Markets

It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I am not really sure this is always so. I have just returned home to Philadelphia from a extended trip to Santa Fe, N.M. and upon reflection of the days I spent there and the people I have met, I find it ironic that a place so different from Philadelphia has aroused in me a keener consciousness about what was at one time the very best thing about “the City of Brotherly Love.”

From the bitter controversy surrounding the Barnes Foundation move to the “bankruptcy” of the Orchestra, Philadelphia of late has shown a not so brotherly “attytude” concerning the arts. Frankly, the arts have been treated by politicians and philanthropists as a kind of commodity, and the opinions of artists, musicians, and arts lovers have been deemed insignificant in matters that are truly important to them. This has been in stark contrast to its Quaker foundations of tolerance and spirit.

Santa Fe in contrast, surely must have its own artistic scuffles, yet somehow the warmth and generosity of its citizens, the beauty of its landscape, and the ever presence of the sun promote a general civility. Reflected in the habits of its people and its institutions, one finds in abundance here those very traits that Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn wished to instill in citizens of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania back in the 1600’s. One wonders what has happened over the years to the “City of Brotherly Love” to make it today such a contentious, class bound, sometimes downright rude place to be?

Santa Fe, “The City Different”, has an openess and tolerance that William Penn would have loved and that pairs well with its sunny climate. To a visitor, specifically an arts lover, the warm welcome that one experiences when entering a museum or gallery there is like balm for a sore soul. Alas, the edgy and the conceptual art of more “sophisticated” environs do exhaust after a while, sometimes instigating a Stendhalian excess of the reverse sort (so much ugliness, so little time!). Here, a sunnier climate seems to yield a happier art, and strangely enough, for one who lives in a Los Angeles, a New York or a Philadelphia, a trip to Santa Fe can have the consequence of loosening a tight wallet, of actually coaxing the visitor to BUY art. Fancy that.

Many are surprised to learn that Santa Fe has the distinction of having been rated as the number two art market in the United States, second only to the very big market of the “Big Apple”. How do they do it? Surely it takes more than a smile and and a welcome to sell art. Alas, “tolerance” is not a term generally associated with big ticket art sales. “Exclusivity” is the more likely description.

Santa Fe is a small “city”, of only 65,000 residents, rather more like a town. It is difficult to get to as the Alburquerque Sunport is close to 1.5 hours away, but that doesn’t seem to impede the steady flow of tourists. As the oldest capital city in territory that is now the United States, it has a deep cultural history that includes Spanish, Native American as well as “Anglo” (everyone else) influences, which is reflected in the architecture, an interesting cuisine, and its attitudes about the importance of art in everyday life. Artists have been attracted to the beauty and culture of these environs since the early 1900’s, so many works of art are inspired, made and sold here.

Santa Fe has had some successes in its art market that are worth studying and emulating. For Philadelphia to begin to heal itself and approach reaching its goal of becoming a significant arts destination, one place to start would be to remember its roots.

Philly's Art World's Gone Dada!

Art Muse has been playing alot of chess!

A Historical Assessment of Chris Mondic's Inquirer Post Concerning the Breaking of Barnes' Trust

Chris Mondic's 3/23 post to the Inquirer, " Law Review: A Lawyerly Assessment of Breaking Barnes' Trust includes the statement, "It was after Barnes had died following a challenge by Inquirer publisher Walter Annenberg that the Foundation was forced to give the public limited access to its galleries."
Such a statement leads the reader to believe that Annenberg was a hero, who finally opened the gallery to the awaiting eager public. History shows the matter to be far more complex, with Walter Annenberg commencing a systematic undermining of Dr. Barnes'legacy once Barnes passed on.
Here is an excerpt from page 243 of "Dr. Barnes of Merion" by Henry Hart which was published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux in 1963. This is the only authorized biography of the "terrible tempered" Dr. Barnes, and to my mind the only published material that reveals insight into him as a whole human being:

"Barne's lifelong faith in democracy would indeed have been put to the test had he seen how quickly the wreckers began to destroy what he had created and given to the public.
He had been dead only a few months when the Philadelphia "Inquirer", which is published by Walter Annenberg, announced that one of its employees would institute legal proceedings "so the public can see the pictures in a tax free institution." Such demagogy did not at first succeed. The Courts ruled that only the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania could raise the question of improper administration by trustees.
It is widely believed that the publisher of the "Inquirer", because he resents Barnes PERSONALLY (all emphases are Hart's), then prevailed upon the Attorney General to bring such a suit, and that the case quickly became a political football.
All of which was unnecessary, for the Foundation's bylaws provided that AFTER BARNE'S DEATH, AND THAT OF HIS WIFE, the gallery and arboretum should be open to the public on Saturdays, except July and August, and open 5 other days "for educational purposes to students and instructors of institutions which conduct courses in art and art appreciation which are approved by the Foundation's trustees." And as has already been shown, seriously interested members of the public had ALWAYS been admitted to the gallery while Barnes was alive, and continued to be after his death.
It should also be remembered that Mrs. Barnes still lived on the Foundation property, in a building which had been her home for almost thirty years, and that at the time of the "Inquirer's" first harassment, she was 77 years old. Also, that Barnes had given his pictures to the Foundation BECAUSE it was an educational institution and BECAUSE he wanted them used primarily by those who are willing to put forth the effort to study them.
Nevertheless, Pennsyvania's Supreme Court ruled that the Foundation administered TWO trusts- an educational institution and an art gallery- and that the donor's wishes as to how the latter should be administered, while he and his wife lived, were to be set aside. This was tantamount to saying that a man cannot make a gift to the public in his own way, which is but a small legal step from saying a man cannot bequeath his property as he sees fit. And THAT strikes at the foundations of the private property edifice.
This decision has not yet been appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and the Barnes Foundation's gallery has been open to the public on Fridays and Saturday, September through May. When the Foundation announced it would have to charge admission to pay for the extra guards required, and for its other new expenses, the "Inquirer" and the Attorney General's office sought a court injunction. In doing so one of the Attorney General's assistants made mock of the Foundation's Arboretum as an unnecessary expense, saying, "Who looks at trees?" She also suggested that the Foundation shift its investments from bonds to common stocks despite the fact that at that very moment (May 1962) the value of common stock was falling drastically.
Such ignorance in a public official is a menace to public peace and security and I could not help wondering, as I learned of each new maneuver of the "Inquirer" and the Attorney General, what Barnes would have said and done. Here indeed was an instance of how Toynbee's "internal barbarians" disintegrate the culture of any society which allows them to go unchallenged and unchecked.
"The insolence of office" is one of the things it is necessary to combat, Barnes believed, if men are to remain free. It is also one of things that once made him say every city should have a man like himself, who being financially independent, can devote time and attention to the preservation and increase of a community's cultural welfare.
Every city does not have an Alfred Coombs Barnes, and Philadelphia has not seen his like again, for he was a unique phenomenon. Dewey (John) said that in a lifetime of association with scholars he had not encountered a finer intelligence."

Well said from an astute journalist circa 1963...

"The Art of the Steal" Reaction #3

I would have thought that seeing this film twice might be enough to satisfy, especially given how much I have thought about Barnes issues for over 15 years now. Seeing it again (and again) allows me to pay attention to particular aspects each time, such as the thoroughness of its research, artistry as a film, and additional issues that beg clarification in my own or other's minds, etc. Indeed John Anderson, author of "Art Held Hostage: The Battle Over the Barnes Collection" claimed at the 7:30 showing at Bryn Mawr Film Institute last Tuesday night, that he has seen it 15 times, and he STILL finds it compelling and so well done. Given the scholarly depths that Anderson has traversed in writing a book about the Barnes issues, along with his heartfelt sensitivity about why it is important to preserve the collection in Merion, that says much about the quality of this little documentary, which is now taking the country by a storm.

Few critics of the film, even the film experts, are saying much about the ART in "The Art of the Steal". Perhaps that is because the subject matter is so very capable of grabbing minds and mouths, possibly keeping some stuck in how they view the issues. Those who place undue emphasis on the question of whether Rebecca Rimel's photos in the film are "flattering" or whether critic David D'Arcy is justified to say what he really thinks about Ray Perelman's knowledge about art should probe a bit further to the central questions that the film is posing. Who owns art? Do politicians, envious museum world players, self serving foundations and charities, scavenger lawyers, and greedy tourism operatives have the right to tear apart the intention of this donor? What will happen to the jewel, that expertly honed synthesis of educational philosophy and art that is the contiguous Barnes in Merion, when those whose will (and cash) to undermine it exceeds the the best efforts of those dedicated to preserve it?

The panel of speakers at Tuesday night's sold out viewing and discussion included Denise Scott Brown, co-architect with husband Robert Venturi of the Barne's renovations in the mid 90's, Tom Freudenheim, retired Smithsonian professional and current writer for the Wall Street Journal, Hy Myers, a local restoration architect, and the aforementioned John Anderson, author of "Art Held Hostage". All of the panelists are opposed to the Barnes Move. Here are some of their insights offered in tidbit form from their conversation with the audience:

Denise Scott Brown offered that the Paul Cret designed building in Merion is in fine shape now due to the restoration and upgrade efforts by their firm in the mid 90's. Therefore, one cannot justify moving the collection because the building needs "updating".

She relayed to the audience that Walter Annenberg at that time repeatedly attempted to recruit her as partner in his particular design to break up the collection, to "free the paintings from the Barnes". His subtle but direct entreaties were rebuffed.

She also sees the problems that the Kimmel Center and the Orchestra are having today as being created by same personalities or "egos" now participating in this Barnes debacle.

Although Scott Brown does not wish to see the collection moved, she does want the Parkway site be developed appropriately for its location. To Paul Levy, manager of the Center City District, who is slated to speak at the BMFI on behalf of the Move on Sunday 3/26, she asks, "Is this (moving the Barnes) the best use for the land?"

She also relayed that she is particularly concerned about the arts education of urban children.

John Anderson asserted that the movie does not specifically conjecture just who performed the "immaculate appropriation" of $107 million in state funds that later somehow eluded the attention of Judge Ott when he made his decision to allow the Move. There was an audible groan in the audience when Anderson fingered former state legislator Vincent Fumo as perpetrator. Fumo, as we all well know, is currently serving prison time.

Anderson further postulated that squeezing Lincoln (by witholding funds to a cash starved school) was necessary to those who willed the Move, because Lincoln had "standing" in court (such as the Barnes Friends did not). With Lincoln at the time determined to fight losing control of the Barnes Board, their compliance was necessarily bought, as the Pew did not want documents that would have exposed their actions read in court via the discovery process had Lincoln been a party to court proceedings.

Hy Myers, a restoration architect, reminded the audience that tourist dollars of those visiting the Barnes would go to Philadelphia and not the suburbs even with the Barnes remaining in Merion, thus further compromising the argument that the Barnes MUST move for the city to prosper. Hy cited examples of other museums in other cities (in far more inaccessible places, such as the Getty in L.A.) who have devised efficient systems to shuttle tourists.

Hy also stated that the Barnes in Merion is eligible for National Landmark status only if it remains in Merion. He offered that Paul Cret was our "most famous architect ever", that Laura Barnes' garden designs deserve more acknowledgement, and that the Foundation building was designed with specific ensembles of paintings to be shown in specific light. While the new architects Williams and Tsien claim that they will in their new design "improve the lighting", Myers reminded the audience that discussions about how Barnes and Cret wished to provide for lighting (natural light as similar to that in which the canvases were likely to have been painted) are well documented in magazine articles of the time.

Hy also reminded the audience that given this climate of utter disrespect for the wills and legacy of donors, they should sell their paintings before they pass on, rather than donate them to a museum.

Tom Freudenheim, formerly of the Smithsonian, stated that he was ashamed of himself and for members of his own profession, that so many in the museum world have remained silent while the intent to move the Barnes unfolded. He said that he realized that many may have elected to offer no public opinion of this as there has been and continues to be fear of retribution of the controlling Foundations and charities. Freudenheim believes that had his colleagues spoken out about this earlier, the Move might have been forestalled.

Consideration in future posts should be given as to how technique serves to underscore the film's mood and meaning. Also some time should be spent comparing the education program that Barnes intended (the one we need ) as opposed to the loose notion of "education" that defenders of the Move claim will "finally" bring Albert Barnes ideas to the masses.