Sam Radford

Why do we care about art auctions? Why do we care when a well known artist has a painting that sells for a lot of money?

A Jean-Michel Basquiat painting recently sold for a record breaking 110.5 million dollars at auction. Basquiat was homeless for most of his teens and had to sell his painted t-shirts and cards to live. The BBC makes note of its cost, which is over double his previous painting sold which also previously held the record for highest price sold at auction in the US. Before meeting Warhol and others, Basquiat worked in sweaty New York print shops for wages too low to afford a living. The article also described the visuals of the painting and how long betting lasted; ten minutes. For much of his early career, Basquiat sold color xeroxes of his work at noise shows. The article then noted that Basquiat died in 1988 at age 27 of a heroin overdose before ending.

With that in mind, we see that art auctions cannot be for artists as articles about this consist solely of the above information, and perhaps some more details of the buyer (a rich man who, to his credit plans on displaying it to the public) which leads us to believe that it is not about the artist. The painting was first purchased for 19 thousand dollars and will be sold for roughly 5,800 times its original purchase price, none of which will make it to Basquiat or his estate. How cruel is it that an artist who intimately knew poverty and struggle and who actively rallied against inequality and poverty created The Painting Currently Worth The Most Money? Even to consider auctions as a yardstick of an artist’s impact and quality is to relegate the value of art solely to capital. We do this as a society. The artists on the lips of those who don’t frequent museums, galleries, etc. etc. are all the artists whose work was considered to be high capital art. We plaster them on various utilitarian items the same way we would a color or a picture of a plant. They are treated as a natural resource to be plundered rather than protected or even used responsibility, as there is no conscience to capitalism. So if art auctions are not for artists, why do we care about them?

Art appreciators often follow these auctions for whatever reason. I assume its for similar reasons of people who enjoy cataloging and tracking memorabilia, theres an appeal to narrative behind objects. Though ultimately all the provenance added to a work is how much it cost at a certain point in time, which is an indication of an artists importance again only if you tie artistic value to capital. As it is an auction, it becomes a lottery of whether or not these paintings will even be seen by the public and therefore is not an innate value of the art auction but rather a potential occurrence resulting from The Right Buyer purchasing the painting. Why do art appreciators care about auctions, if all they learn is the cost of the painting, and maybe become vindicated about their tastes?

Postmodernism as a mode of thinking has come to practice in such a way that for most people it discourages transformative acts/thought

A lot of artsy types who cling to it w/o really understanding it so this a lot. It started imo with the neogeo movement

----------(Which I would also argue is just a perversion of postmodernism in art which started w/ Dada. Neogeo is pomo1 in the philosophical sense)

I'd also argue that postmodernism as Dada has a stronger link to post-structuralism in philosophy than postmodern philosophers of the 20th century

Ein Sof, 2013

ink jet prints, staple gun

A common trajectory for art students is out of the school and into the working world with their talents collecting dust for years to come. This is true of most majors, but the difference occurs when other fields leave school. There are support systems, internships, places that hire from the school due to loyalty or a good track record. For the majority of fresh young artists ready to express at the world, this is not true. We have, in no inelegant terms, a fucking crapshoot of a career path for anyone who isn’t already rich or immediately hits the ground running looking at solo gallery shows before their thesis exhibit is even graded. Art is perpetually viewed as something to be done on the side, until you make it. Passions diminished, drive sent spiraling to nothing. Schools teaching the values of great physical artwork leave us ill prepared for the fact that art like that can cost a lot of money to make; money that we will likely never come close to earning. There is very little visibility of The Young Emergent Artist or the Just Nearly Famous Artist and as far as I am concerned, the latter is a mythical creature and the former is only covered when they can afford to make Great Physical Art.

What happens once the hats are thrown and caught is that as either a practical matter, or how students are introduced to art/art history, is that young artists are overwhelmingly drawn towards performance, digital and generally cheaper and humbler mediums after graduation. These often newer art forms are attractive not only for their potential but also because you don’t need any money or any materials besides one’s own body. Or laptop. Materials that are already owned and can be reused or generate work without requiring to purchase material beyond the electricity bill. Having all the material for the work on hand means focus can go towards the idea and structure of the piece. Performers are intimately aware of the body so it has a dual fold advantage of low cost and an easy means of making deep and meaningful work.

Likewise with digital art, as we are the generation most intuitively familiar with it, many students flock towards the digital via twine games, 3D renderings, or even simply the infinite canvas of digital image making. On top of being an easy means of entering a “profitable art field”, such as graphic design, material cost is extremely low relative to potential output. It’s been an absolute boon for illustrators and other mediums which tend towards a higher level of visual output. The wave of artists who can subsist on income from Patreon or other patronage site is a wonderful development for artists making work that takes advantage of the platform though it is not a one size fits all solution to making money as an artist. The habitat it creates of soft deadlines and/or content made exclusively for patrons may not translate quite as well into every realm of artmaking, and for the specific realm of art being discussed here, it requires  some negotiating of work and medium to make Patreon a viable means of making money.

The economic reality is that neoliberalism has crushed the creative fields to a point where the “useless art degree” is beyond cliche, it is the standard reality of the world after art school. Art is a field that requires time and effort to create work, time and effort only afforded by either a comfortable job or a generous grant. Both are equally preposterous to achieve. Success as an artist is no longer dependent on the strength of ones work but whether or not one has enough time to make work and connections to display it. The art world becomes unto Dorian Grey with an outward appearance projecting inclusion and progression all the while aging and decaying without analyzing it’s own underlying problems with supporting young artists. The trite carrot on a stick often hung in front of students are school sponsored shows for exposure, recent graduate shows, and alumni gallery exhibitions held for the sole purpose of letting shareholders consider attending an event to pat themselves on the back for such wonderful art being made at the places they give money to. Exposure and virality for all it’s sequin dazzle and flair is still a very low odds means of achieving working practice as an artist. Artists like Taj Bourgeoise and Brad Troemel both create work in modes specifically geared towards viral sharing and memetic exposure, yet for all the literal millions of eyes to see their work online, it is not making a living for these artists. They still work jobs in various industries that allow them to maintain their art practice as something dictated by its own support system. Work becomes specialized to fill in the cracks, it is compromised by the fact that the art world has let artists down and society cannot resolve its own conflicts of interests for the young and poor and hungry. An art show finally put together and on display becomes taken for granted as an amuse bouche of life, a performer we walk past on the subway.  

tug (2015)

printer paper, heat

I’m still very much concerned about how much high art and good art seem to be tied to (borderline reliant on) fabrication, large objects, the well crafted object, and in essence processes that require the labor of uncredited people facilitating the work. this kind of artwork sidesteps many issues brought up with the process because the workers get payed. the fact of the matter is that in this mode of artmaking, the artist essentially serves a role that is part director, part producer, and part screenwriter with the full effect of each role mitigated by being combined with the other; a glorified “idea man”. the little cigar chomping executive that yammers out ideas to a secretary followed by the eternal mantra of privileged bosses, “make it happen.” except that generally executives of this ilk are generally from hollywood which actually has the good spirit to actually credit the majority of people who work on a project. the Proper Art World does not, yet somehow cultivates this aroma and atmosphere of being progressive. about what, im not sure, but if you’re around it enough you begin to notice which good scents are just febreeze and yankee candles.

Notes Written by A Hitchhiker I Picked Up Who Hasn't Payed Me Back $40, (2015)

Wise Guy #3, 2013

Wise Guy #1, 2013

Wise Guy #2, 2013

“In post-Fordism, there exists a permanent disproportion between ‘labor time’ and the more ample ‘production time.’” — Paolo Virno1 Lights Out, Wyatt Niehaus’s first solo show, was held last Saturday evening at Retrospective Gallery, the relatively new venture between Joel Mesler and Zach Feuer (opening in January of this year). The space was filled with temporary transplants from New York City and the surrounding area, feeling like an emptied out Soho loft, a facade broken

This is an interesting (not necessarily in a positive way) take on a show that asks some interesting questions without taking any particular stance. In context of the particular questions of labor and production, a milquetoast artist-slash-lax-marxist cum tech wonderer approach is some what lazy. Though I will grant that perhaps the artist is just genuinely not prepared to make judgements on the transition of physical labor from man to machine. He seems to be more concerned with simulating the work of supervisors from a safe and neutered distance of a gallery. However what Niehaus is observing is nontheless interesting; the state of production labor in a technophilic world that shifts the amount and importance of human labor in places where the hand was the core. Now the core has essentially become the digits of unknown code writers and pen holders jotting down any flaws of the machine. Obviously there is a very strong scent of the removal of low level labor in this situation, one which would make for some very enthralling art, but Niehaus does not seem to want to commit to this particular read of the work at the risk of perhaps sounding too outre, heaven forbid the highest class craftperson take solace with a lower class.

And likewise, the author of this review, La Marre, seems more concerned with the topics one would see in Wired magazine, or Popular Science from decades ago; The Language of Machines. about which he cites a few buzz pieces that amount to little more than applying Borroughs and randomized literature to the context of machines (which is the least revolutionary/new idea to be gleaned from this work). Granted, again, this is an interesting concept, but in terms of writing it serves as a tangental way for La Marre to tack on an editorial that wouldn't fit in any publication tailored to this subject, but because the art is sort of about it, he can tack it on the end of his review. a very common pattern, all things considered.

Arrows, 2013

marking paint, grass cover.

Three Wise Guys, 2013 (installation view)