What position should the contemporary artist take on the twin institutions of Conceptualism and the Art market within art society today?

George Birkbeck Norman Hill (1897),Johnsonian Miscellanies, vol. II, p. 333

…but before we can even begin there is a problem, a troubling and irreducible problem that threatens to engulf you and I dear reader. Let’s take a minute to reflect on what has transpired and escape this mire that has us in its grasp.

What we have been presented with is a sophomoric essay question followed, inexplicably by an image (or meme2) with border of Islamic calligraphy around it. All of this has been set into the introduction of an art theory essay, a poor start. How would we read a situation like this if it were an artwork in this foul year of our lord, 2010? (And where would we begin?) Should we start with the wolf image or with the quotation from the 18^th century English author Samuel Johnson?[1] Perhaps the best place to start is with the history of text in art, or would a definition of quotation and appropriation be the place to begin? What about language or the deconstruction of language in art or semiotics? How does this quote even relate to the image or our essay? Are there psychoanalytical readings to be made here? Ethnographic concerns? Sociological concerns? Technological ones? How does poor old Samuel Johnson fit in and what is our connection to what he is saying speaking to us from beyond the grave, through the centuries and countless other voices?

The contemporary art world today presents the artist with an unmanageable wellspring of conceptual concerns multiplying like the heads of a Hydra out of an unprecedented freedom in modern artistic methods. In this essay ideas are to be thought of as reflective surfaces creating infinite tunnels when placed next to one another. Let’s take a short journey down one of these fictitious passages and see where we end up.

---

2 http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Meme

[1] This quote is not only a quote from Johnson but is also a quote of a quote taken from another source, the beginning of Hunter S. Thompsons ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’.

Let’s start at the beginning

Ideas preceded art; ancient artifacts (the earliest known painting, sculptures, architecture and so on) do not merely present themselves as aesthetic objects or images but as totems to abstract concepts generally of a religious or spiritual nature. The history of art is a history of ideas (be it religious, mythological or philosophic) relating to an artwork of some description. This essay won’t concern itself with this history, what we are interested in is something a little more recent.

Well we have to begin somewhere so I shall pick a moment in art history and continue from there. In 1917 Marcel Duchamp[1] entered a work titled ‘Fountain’[2] to an open invitation exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York, which he was a board member of. Using ‘R.Mutt’ as an alias Duchamp succeeded in being omitted from this ‘open’ exhibition and resigned from the society as a consequence. None of these events are particularly interesting in themselves but how this event is read and what it has come to represent in the grand art history narrative might be a good place to begin.

Through the idea of the ‘readymade’ (Duchamp’s term for a found object) sculpture Duchamp asserts everything in existence as ‘art’ waiting for an artistic declaration. But what we can also discern is an explicit and an implicit declaration, a dual baptism in the form of “everything is art (and art is conceptual)”. As Joseph Kosuth puts it in his 1969 essay ‘Art after Philosophy’

“All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually.” [3]

Orly?[4] The term ‘Conceptual Art’ emerges in the early 60’s from Fluxus, the artistic movement whose origins lie in the ideas put forward by experimental musician and artist John Cage, one of the offspring from Duchamp’s intellectual oviparity. As a movement Conceptual Arts influence was strongly felt across the world and its devices and tactics were adopted by the likes of Robert Smithson (who gave us the earth), James Turrell (who gave us the sky) and Richard Rauschenberg (who gave us nothing[5]). Kosuth and le Witt who stressed the importance of the new conceptual language of modern art over the traditional “.. depiction of religious themes, portraiture of aristocrats, detailing of architecture…”[6] in line with Duchamp’s criticism of what he called ‘Retinal Art’ or in other words visual art.[7] Because of its obvious limitations this movement hit its peak and by the early seventies the narrow definitions set by these early ‘Concept’ artist saw the fad reach its natural decline… but it never really went away did it?

In the 1950s Duchamp had authorised the reproductions of some of his ‘readymade’ sculptures since most of the originals had probably been thrown out as trash or used to clear driveways. By reproducing an object that hadn’t been made by the artists’ hands but by a manufacturing process and then sold of as art Duchamp significantly reduced the value of the art object and the necessity of the artists hand. If the artists’ hands needn’t produce the work and the production model of industry is acceptable then the formula for a cheap mass-produced ‘fast food’ art makes the most economic sense. A startling idea made all the more so when irradiated by a TV screen. Andy Warhol took the factory mindset and applied it to his art practise employing workers to mass-produce screen prints and sculptures choking the world almost ten thousand works.[8] Andy Warhol’s capitalization and exploitation of the Duchamp’s’ conceptual model was the mould for Koons inc. and Hirst.com[9].

In July 1988 Damien Hirst organized an exhibition of his and his friend’s work in the London docklands called ‘Freeze’ in a deliberate attempt to woo the attention of advertising guru and art collector Charles Saatchi. Hirst was able to find financial backing for his commercial enterprises and Saatchi by widely exhibiting the work of the ‘Young British Artists’ managed to drive up the price of his investments demonstrating the profits possible in contemporary art. The strategies employed by Saatchi eventually attracted other investors seeking to secure and increase their finances by investing in the contemporary art market. With this achievement Hirst found the last piece to complete the unholy trinity of financial success in the art market. The formula goes like this: the devaluation of the artist’s hand combined with industrial methods of production and multiplied by billions of investor dollars creates a commodities market where the house always wins.

In the nineties contemporary art became a commodity on the stock exchange as the prices of contemporary art soared the more investment it attracted. What we started to see in the beginning of the new millennia is a grotesque money snowball in the contemporary art market, increasing eightfold in the years between 2003-2007[10]. Auction houses like Sotheby’s guaranteed the sales of artworks on auction providing a further incentive for the buyers of Warhol many prints[11]. How ‘bout a sheep in a box for the living room? Perhaps your warehouse apartment could use a sculpture of hearts and bows or dots on a canvas they’re made to order don’t you know?[12] Can anyone else see the storm clouds brewing?

The art market initially held out against the Global Financial Crisis (or GFC[13]) but it finally succumbed and by the end of 2007 the market began to plummet eventually shedding 75% of its value dwarfing the market crashes of the nineties. Even our poor anti-hero Hirst felt the economic pinch, his work ‘For the Love of God’ (2007) being unleashed onto the market at the worst possible time. After initially failing to sell Hirsts camp claimed that the work had finally been sold to a ‘private consortium’ of buyers. It was later revealed that Hirst as well as his one of his agents[14] where members of this consortium.[15] Hirsts market value dropped by 50%[16] and by 2009 Hirst had returned to paintings he had actually produced with his own two hands.[17]

Martin Creeds ‘work.88’[18] (1995-?) is a series of crumpled pieces of paper screwed up into balls (or spheres) packed neatly into boxes, complete with their notices of authenticity and shipped out to the hapless consumers of contemporary art. The link to Duchamp’s ‘ready-mades’ here is evident[19] but aside from that what else does Creeds’ balls have to say to us? If we can assign conceptual aims to something so mundane and arbitrary as a screwed up piece of paper then we can do it to anything. If we can conceptualize anything then conceptualism has no meaning or in other words its value has become subjective. Creeds work screams at us through a phonograph of banality “All things are ideas even this paper ball!” These paper spheres represent a punctuation mark at the end of the statement “The idea is King and the King is dead.” This new world is a world where all things fall under the influence concepts and all ideas are valid. Having trouble coming up with an idea for your art practice? Then having trouble coming up with ideas will become your idea. Failing in the art world, in life and love? Perhaps embracing failure is the solution.[20] In ‘The Consipracy of Art” Baudrillard declares

“Raising originality, banality and nullity to the level of values [….] The passage to the aesthetic level salvages nothing; on the contrary it is mediocrity square.”[21]

This point of nullity is the necessary end point[22] for the faithful Conceptualist.

Let us take a cursory glance look into another artist’s practice, an artist who, like Hirst and Creed has profited from the Duchampian model, Jeff Koons. Koons began his career with explorations into the possibilities and ramifications of Duchamp’s ready-mades. In his most recent sculptures and paintings Koons has dramatically reinvented the readymade by remaking the emblems of our ‘Bakelite Age’ and raising them as aesthetic feats of art. By employing a legion of assistants and art dollars into his practice, Koons is at the stage now where he can effectively render any crappy detritus from our disposable society and in any medium. Koons doesn’t just pick random objects and images and stick them in a gallery he sets his minions to work creating meticulous representations of ‘Low Art’ and transforming them into hyper real icons. The precision and volume of his work would not be possible without his numerous anonymous assistants. Unlike Santiago Sierra whose practice deals directly with issues of economy and exploitation Koons practice presents us with glamorous trophies of the possibility of outsourcing. He achieves a level of craftsmanship no single human being can compete with and in doing so trivializes the individuals’ effort. This is artist as foreman of a workforce who toils for the concept of their lords as the slave-force did for the Pharaohs of Egypt.

---

[1] Yes him again.

[2] Yes that work again.

[3] Kosuth, Joseph (1991) Art after philosophy and after, MIT Press. (pg.18)

[4] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/o-rly

[5] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Iris_Clert_Portrait_Rauschenberg.jpg

[6] Kosuth, Joseph (1991) Art after philosophy and after, MIT Press. (pg.44)

[7] One can’t help but wonder what his attitude on ‘Retinal Life’ was.

[8] Have a spare grand and want to be immortalized in the art world? Well Andy Warhol was person who could help you out.

[9] https://www.othercriteria.com/browse/all/clothing/beyond_belief_skull_tshirt/

[10] http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Screen-shot-2010-03-01-at-11.26.58-PM.png

[11] http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119940749725466431.html?mod=blog

[12] https://www.othercriteria.com/

[13] http://img.skitch.com/20081031-p7dgs19sd2fjey8qkxuncndeq.preview.jpg

[14] http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2367

[15] Does it count as sold if you by it off yourself?

[16] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aDeSqB_txtGI

[17] http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/7883/damien-hirst-no-love-lost-blue-paintings-at-the-wallace-collection.html

[18] http://artandmylife.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/work88.jpg

[19] Even down to their accidental disposability.

[20] http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/images/content/Collections/klose.jpg

[21] Baudrillard, Jean (2005) The Conspiracy of Art, Semiotext(e) (pg.27)

[22] Or end of the road.

The Alpha vs. The Omega

If Conceptualism is to be taken seriously as it wishes to be taken within the artistic community is it not reasonable that we consider the validity of some of the claims that Conceptualism has to make in order to be a dominant feature in contemporary art practice? The first of these claims one would think is the belief in the system of imbuing ideas within artworks and for those ideas to be successfully conveyed to an audience.[1] What does an artist do when they set out to make a work? What happens between the idea and the work itself? And what transpires from the work to the audience?[2] What is lost in the process between the idea and the manifestation of the vehicle of that idea? But before we tackle these ideas shouldn’t we interrogate the very act of thinking as well? What are the limitations of rational thought and expressible ideas? How do we accurately see the world?[3] Isn’t art a platform where subjectivity and multiplicity are favored and does this make art the most accurate or effective way of communicating and evaluating high-end philosophical ideas? How can the constellation of movements and ideas within art like Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, Formalism, Arte povera and the Neo-Baroque all coexist peacefully whilst the importance of conceptual clarity and lineage is stressed?[4] Is it desirable to hold to one particular notion or to attempt to persuade people to your way of thinking in an artwork? Should art predominately be honed into a conceptual point in order to affect an instance of communication or is this process itself absurd and unnecessary? Intellectual rigor demands us to follow our ideas to the end, not to censor or ignore the context in which ideas stem from but to include them as the framework in which an idea exists, by which an idea is able to exist. But what of the framework that surrounds the framework? This intellectual rigor quickly arrives at a conceptual turbulence where the flood of ideas to be considered reaches past the outer limits of human understanding and capability. How do we relate to this conceptual matrix (or milieu {or mire})?

But enough of this! I don’t know about you but I’m sick of this stale fountain of speculations and ceaseless questions. It’s time to take a slightly more heuristic approach.

---

[1] But before we can even contemplate this assertion we have to investigate the relationship between thoughts and actions.

[2] Is it possible to even render thoughts effectively?

[3] Are there not the worlds we perceive, the worlds we can articulate and then the world proper?

[4] If multiple conceptual assertions are simultaneously stressed then a clear conceptual transmission cannot take place. To assert a coherent idea or principle it is necessary to counter-assert everything that contradicts the idea being conveyed in order to make sense. What ideas do you contradict or undermine when you put forward an idea in an artwork?