Art Fag City

Adam Lindemann Adds Conflict to Conflict

2010-03-16T13:38:11Z

Skin Fruit, Installation view

Following up on yesterday’s response to Adam Lindemann’s NY Observer “defense” of the New Museum’s Skin Fruit, a selection of work from the collection of Dakis Joannou curated by Jeff Koons, AFC commentor Critic’s critic added the following:

It’s all well and good that Adam Lindemann makes the argument he does in his Observer article. But I for one would have been smirking a little less had he been bold enough to implicate himself in the following paragraph (my additions/suggested revisions are in brackets):

["Alleged problem with the show":]
This represents a “dizzyingly insular circle of art world insiders.”

[Lindemann's "rebuttal":]
The prior Urs Fischer show at the museum was curated by Massimiliano Gioni, who is close to Maurizio Cattelan, who is close to Dakis, who is close to Jeff Koons. Both Dakis and Mr. Koons are close to Jeffrey Deitch. [I, Adam Lindemann, myself belong to the "exclusive group of funders and supporters" Massimiliano Gioni thanked in the Urs Fischer catalogue and I am a collector of Fischer's work, installation shots of which at my Montauk home were included in the New Museum exhibition catalogue.] Is this a problem? Or is this all part of some cabal? If one is offended by power cliques, get out of the art world-it’s full of them.

Urs Fischer’s work is included the Joannou show, so Lindemann might have disclosed his investments. Certainly they inform his position.

Why Isn’t Ivan Navarro’s Nowhere Man 1 Plagiarism?

2010-03-16T13:12:42Z

Ivan Navarro, Nowhere Man 1, 2009, florescent lights, metal fixtures, and electric energy. 66 x 77 inches Galerie Daniel Templon. Photo AFC

Phillip Niemeyer of Double Triple asked me yesterday why Ivan Navarro’s Nowhere Man 1 [pictured above] isn’t a work of plagiarism. I don’t have a sufficient defense. Spotted at the Armory’s Modern fair last week, the title does not acknowledge its origins which are obviously derived from Otl Aicher’s 1972 Munich Olympics designs. Neither one of us was convinced that rendering the piece in neon sufficiently changed the work. Perhaps there’s a commentor out there though who can better defend the work.

Otl Aicher’s 1972 Munich Olympics designs

Fresh Links!

2010-03-16T04:43:07Z

Whitney Biennial Exhibitions - Stars of the Arts - TIME

Richard Lacayo names Nina Berman, Lesley Vance and Kate Gilmore (I really don’t get that last choice) as artists to watch.

AFC Responds to Art Critics: Get Real!

2010-03-15T23:09:20Z

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON
Installation view of Skin Fruit at The New Museum

Art critics just don’t get it. Cronyism is a fact of life, and the sooner we start acting like doormats, the less The New York Observer’s Adam Lindemann will have to think about such pesky subjects. Here’s a list of reasons Lindemann offers in support of the New Museum’s “Skin Fruit” an exhibition of work culled from Dakis Joannou’s collection and curated by Jeff Koons and why he’s wrong.

Lindemann: Museums don’t have enough money to run properly, so this show is a solution.

AFC: This sucks, but it’s not like the only option at a museum’s disposal is to borrow from a collector who’s on their board and hire an artist who has no experience curating to organize the show. The New Museum could always launch fewer shows. I’d rather see a few really good exhibitions than a lot of crappy ones.

I should note that while I am sympathetic the idea that perhaps the museum got caught in a tough time, and this solution was the best they had, naming Jeff Koons as the curator undoes a fair amount of good will I’m willing to lend. It’s like the museum had a competition to come up with the show that employed the largest number of poor decisions.

Lindemann: But thunder has been drained from museums and commercial galleries are launching better shows.

AFC: That’s not true. The Met’s Picture Generation was better than any show I saw at a commercial gallery last year, including Gagosian’s much lauded Manzoni retrospective or Picasso (”uncut” as I like to call it). I’m tired of hearing about how the slanted scholarship of commercial venues bests the work of that done at Museums.

Lindemann: Sometimes a show devalues the work in a collection. Why isn’t anyone talking about that?

AFC: Typically in the lead up to a museum exhibition the value of the artists in these shows increases, regardless of whether it falls after the case. It seems exceedingly unlikely that Dakis Joannou would not profit in some way from this show.

Lindemann: In America, when you accept someone’s money there are strings attached. As such, we should just accept the fact that Joannou chose his friend Jeff Koons to curate the show, because if the museum didn’t it would loose Joannou’s support.

AFC: This is speculation and therefore not an argument for anything.

Lindemann: Joannou is not underwriting the show.

AFC: Good.

Lindemann: MoMA director Glenn Lowry told me museums are not a democracy and I believe him! The New Museum should work with their friends if they want.

AFC: Connections oil the art world, but they aren’t and shouldn’t be the only lubricant. The New Museum needs look beyond it’s doorstep every once and a while if it wants to build a reputation as a world class institution.

Lindemann: The idea that it’s wrong of museums to hang work that is potentially for sale is crazy!

AFC: I wasn’t aware there was much debate on this subject. What ethical debates over The Whitney Biennial and Younger Than Jesus have I been missing?

Whose Excellence? Controversy at The National Museum of Canada

2010-03-15T23:20:03Z

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjhQbFyobEg

(Discussion of diversity at the National Gallery of Canada begins at 1:58)

Test question: The director of the a well known museum says the institution doesn’t showcase the work of minorities because it only “sees excellence” on national television. Is this a) overt racism b) a heartfelt belief spun of ignorance c) a noble mission.

This is the debate currently taking place in the pages of The Ottawa Citizen, after Mark Mayer, the Director of Canada’s National Gallery told CBC’s “The National” that the Museum aren’t creating galleries to showcase work produced by minority communities because “our real mandate is excellence.” Explaining further, he said, “We’re blind to color or ethnic background or even whether you were born in Canada. We don’t care.”

As one might imagine this pissed quite a few people off. A blog titled Excellence at the National Gallery formed by concerned members of the art community wrote an open letter to the Director crying hegemony and providing a suggested reading list. Given that Mayer went on to suggest that minorities weren’t making a lot of art particularly when they first arrived because it wasn’t possible to make a living at it, it’s not hard to see why Excellence took the tone they did. As artist and critic Chris Creighton Kelly points out in the news feature, “to imply that every artist of color just arrived off a boat is ignorant”.

The editors at The Ottawa Citizen however were not taken by Kelly’s words or the response of Excellence. To be fair, having been the recipient of letters from commentors who tell me I’m stupid for not having read the same books they have, I can see how Excellence might have rubbed a few people the wrong way, even if I don’t agree with their editorial. The paper claims outdated identity politics of the nineties were causing unnecessary controversy over the idea that quality should be the first criteria in evaluating art work. Notably the letter cites teaching rap along side Shakespeare as a particularly ludicrous practice of the nineties because two were not of equivalent value. It’s hard to imagine a more racist example designed to flout the actual flaws of affirmative action; the music touches more people today than Shakespeare did in his time.

Following this, the paper took six days to publish a response by curator and critic Emily Falvey on the issue, but somehow managed to find the time to run two other letters supporting their own opinion.They also published a letter by Marion Lewis, a member of Excellence at The National Gallery of Canada on the 13th of March.

My own thoughts on the matter add only slightly from what’s been said already, as I’m not particularly fond of the “let’s give women and minorities their own table” approach to curating proposed by CBC. Separation is rarely an equalizing force. However, Mayer’s comments are troubling and do not reflect well on the National Gallery. At best he is a PR disaster, at worst his lead of the nation’s museum will create an institution of limited vision and scope.

Fresh Links!

2010-03-15T14:05:31Z

A Work by Tino Sehgal at the Guggenheim Walked With You - NYTimes.com

It’s a hard job talking to people all day long. Via: C-Monster

Fresh Links!

2010-03-13T17:35:31Z

Saltz: Remembering Dia, at the End of an Era — Vulture

Bye-bye DIa.

Fresh Links!

2010-03-13T17:35:17Z

Jeff Koons’ “Skin Fruit” vs. Shaq’s “Size Does Matter - artnet Magazine

Ben Davis tallies up the points of each show.

This Week in Comments Part Two: Powhida!

2010-03-13T02:02:52Z

William Powhida, Hooverville, 2010

Following today’s earlier post on comments around the web, part two of our post tracks artist William Powhida’s latest shit storm of attention. Let’s go back a week and work our way forward:

Lindsay Pollock notes Powhida’s 20×200 edition of 200 sold out in less than a day.

A few days later, Time Out’s senior art critic Howard Halle says over Facebook, “Personally, I don’t what the big deal is with William Powhida. Like working the outsider game is such a new or brave thing? It’s an old trick they teach you at the Ivies: Insult your betters to get their attention.” The following conversation occurs:

Andrea Schwan
outsiders who promote themselves aggressively as such = insiders

Howard Halle
exactly. and when all it takes is making a drive-reference in one of drawings to Jerry Saltz to get Jerry to say “Give that guy a show at the New Museum,” you know it’s an insider game being played very shrewdly.

Paddy Johnson
Being an outsider implies a lack of knowledge about the inside. Powhida does a pretty good job at “insulting your betters” because he’s been very thorough and thus knowledgeable about the inside. Still, this kind of art making has limitations. I suspect it’s more in vogue than it has been because social networking makes sharing dirt publicly a little more sexy than it’s been in the past. Everyone wants more transparency in their networks, and Powhida creates this for people, even if he does so through a persona. I personally don’t see the need for the character.

Lisa Beck
court jester

Howard Halle
right. I get it. he’s tapping into some kind of art-world equivalent of tea-party rage. there’s a lot young artists out there who were promised superstar careers in art school, and now, thanks to the shitty economy, they’ve got bubkis. they are networked however, and I guess his work gives them the illusion of power or connection. still, I’ve seen this sort of thing before—this ain’t my first art-world recession—calls to the barricades, blah, blah, blah, and then it’s back to business as usual. The art world is in need of deep reform and has been for a long time. it would be nice of artists really addressed that, mainly I think, by working for themselves first. I don’t see that happening in Powhida’s work.

Paddy Johnson
I follow you up until the last bit. What is it about Powhida’s work that’s not working for himself first?

Sean Capone
I never thought of Powhida as an “outsider”; he seems to have a deep working inner knowledge of art world persons and politics which he gets from I-don’t-know-where. His comics are for a really specific inside audience. Problem is will this work even make sense to anyone 10 years from now, or to anyone outside the inner circle… questions which are obviously besides the point.

Howard Halle:
First Sean: Yes, you’re right; obviously, Powhida is working from a deep knowledge of the art world’s inner workings, but what I was trying to convey by the term “outsider game” was the pose of speaking truth to power, when it’s really not. I mean, when you preface a shot at someone like Jerry Saltz with “I love you Jerry but…” of course, the target is going to be flattered. That’s holding up a mirror in the wrong sort of way. And I agree that this approach has a short shelf life, but I wouldn’t say that the issue is besides the point; it is the point, which takes me to Paddy’s question. “Working for yourself first” means just that: Working through an idea that maybe nobody understands except you, until they do understand it. And yes, this could likely mean not until well after you are dead. What we’ve had over the past 30-35 years isn’t art so much as formula of one sort or the next. Meeting other people’s expectations while giving them some sort of cover of novelty and/or line of theoretical bullshit—which is bullshit. We all know terrific artists who, absent the right connections or right last name, labor for years in obscurity until one day their work surfaces somehow, and everybody goes, Wow, that’s amazing! Conversely, we’ve all seen the work of artists who were huge in their time in a museum somewhere, and immediately wondered, What were people thinking? Neither situation obtains all the time, but enough of the time to make you realize that being an artist is not suppose to be easy. It’s suppose to be hard. It’s almost like the difference between being on a desert island, tossing messages in a bottle into the ocean, and commandeering the giant TV screens at Madison Square Garden. No doubt the latter makes the bigger impression, but does it spark the same sense of wonderment as finding that bottle on the beach? It’s a tough choice, but I don’t think Powhida is making it.

Sean Capone
I just wrote on Jazz’ photo wall that under no circumstances, even in satire, do I like the casting of death-spells on another person (Saltz in question, in the ‘Hooverville’ piece), even if it’s under the guise of working “through a character”. Starts to reek of cynicism; the court jester who envies the emperor instead of pointing out that he has no clothes.

But I may not have all the facts here.

To describe Powhida’s work another way, the drawings are a visual manifestation of media whoring, which unlike years past, is quite socially acceptable these days. I find Sean Capone’s question about its longevity the most challenging to the artist’s practice. Like most people, I put my faith art I think will matter twenty years down the road. Powhida’s an interesting media phenomenon, but I just don’t see enough evidence indicating that his work will have any lasting importance.

Over in Jerry Saltz land, the New York Magazine senior art critic then professes his love of Powhida’s lastest masterpiece at Pulse, Hooverville. This isn’t much of a surprise. Saltz is known to have an affinity for art either about or pertaining to the art world. Being featured in the work probably doesn’t hurt (disclaimer I’m in it too); the piece depicts the five million art world personalities at Art Basel Miami this year. Saltz notes over facebook that he didn’t even attend.

The most amusing response I’ve read to this story comes from Hrag Vartanian (@Hragv) who teases Mr. Powhida (@powhida) over Twitter by saying: Sorry to be crude, but I wonder if you took a dump on Jerry’s head if he’d applaud at this point? Powhida tells Vartanian he’d have to charge for the service.

Meanwhile, artnet’s Walter Robinson moves from harassing bloggers over email to issuing death threats over facebook. He left the following comment on Jerry Saltz’s facebook page:

I can’t believe all you people like that fucken Powhida. I hate him and am going to kill him when I see him for that caricature of me, if only I knew what the little dweeb looks like. It’s ARTNET MAGAZINE editor, you dweeb, not Artnet.com editor. Stupid twerp. He tried to write for me once or twice but he’s so fucken nondescript I wouldn’t recognize him in one of his own stupid drawings. And he couldn’t write worth shit. Never gave me any of his fucken caricatures, either, the drip.

Hmm. That’s a sensible argument.

This Week in Comments: Part One, Warhol! Part Two, Powhida!

2010-03-12T22:29:26Z

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON

Andy Warhol, Red Self Portrait, 1965

The great un-kept secret of the art world dating back to the mid nineties was that dealers could purchase authenticated work from the Andy Warhol Foundation at low prices and resell it to collectors with a considerable mark-up. The Foundation’s prices have since gone up, the stock diminished, and debates over whether the foundation and authentication board are acting in the interest of accuracy or their stake in the market are now being asked. At least this is the case with collector Susan Shaer’s Red Self Portrait, a work denied by the foundation for reasons many claim are to designed to drive up the price of Warhol work. I don’t know enough about the Warhol market to understand why Red Self Portrait is worth more to the pre-existing market unauthenticated, but I assume it has to do with the fact that collectors prefer the touch of the artist’s hand, and in this case, Warhol gave instructions to printer. The problem, according to many experts, is that this practice is what makes the piece important. Warhol pioneered the practice out sourcing art work to skilled laborers, and this work is on the cover of his Catalogue Raisonne at his request. Felix Salmon does a good job writing summing a few aspects of the authenticity debate brought to light once more by Richard Dorment’s book review What is An Andy Warhol but the real jewel comes in Rainer Crone’s 1200 word response in the comment section. Crone is the author of Warhol’s Catalogue Raisonne and worked closely with the artist from 1968 until his death in 1987.

In January 1970, before the publication of my catalogue raisonné, Warhol and I met in his Factory on Union Square to discuss which image should be used for the cover of the raisonné of his work. To demonstrate his unique reproduction technique using silk screens, Warhol showed me two paintings, identical in color and outline, of the same image, from the series Red Self Portrait. He suggested that we use one of these two paintings for the cover to illustrate his repetitive and multiple reproductions of the same image—in this case, his self-portrait. We chose the Red Self Portrait, which had been recently acquired by Warhol’s Swiss dealer and Interview magazine co-owner Bruno Bischofberger and signed and dedicated to “Bruno B.” My 1970 catalog, as well as the revised editions of 1972 (Milan: Mazotta Editore), which included an additional 406 works approved by Warhol, and 1976 (Berlin: Wasmuth), listed this Red Self Portrait as entry #169, but the work was omitted from the Zurich-based gallery Ammann’s 2004 catalogue raisonné (without any notification or query to me)—as if this painting never existed or had been destroyed.

This painting was a perfect example of Warhol’s technique of making multiple silk screens of the same image (for different colors, etc.) and was produced using the more “hands off” approach he continued with in the 1970s and 1980s. Since he often conveyed the artistic design by telephoning details to the silk screen factory, it is appropriate to compare this approach to the historically first “art by telephone” technique, developed in 1922 by the eminent Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, with whom Warhol was familiar through his studies at Carnegie Tech. (See my book The Pictorial Oeuvre of Andy Warhol, a revised catalogue raisonné with about 350 additional entries, that served in 1974 as my Ph.D. thesis and was published by Wasmuth in 1976.)

The artist had chosen at that time the unique and more modern production technique of silk screen over the traditional hand-painted ones; this new technique was a result of Warhol’s new concept of art-making and his rejection of the centuries-old theory of the artist as auteur, the unique artistic originator.

how aware the artist was of the theoretical as well as philosophical implications of his mechanical technique of art-making, using silk screening and other simple reproduction processes (rubber stamp, “blotted line”), became evident in the single published interview Warhol gave that, so far as I know, deserves to be classified as accurate:

“…No one would know whether my picture was mine or somebody else’s.”
“It would turn art history upside down?”
“Yes.”[1]

This concept, arrived at by Warhol in 1962—following progressive experimentation in his commercial art work of the early 1950s with rubber stamp and mono print techniques—can be declared as one of Warhol’s most significant and important contributions to Western art. Intentional and purposefully conceived, it involves a progressive sequence of mechanical image creations: from hand painting to mono prints, lino cuts, rubber stamps, stencils, single and multiple silk screens in the years 1963-1964.

To read the whole response click here.

I should note that the authenticity is simply one side of the debate. A judge ruled last May that while Susan Shaer could pursue claims of fraud and unjust enrichment against a foundation that authenticates the artist’s paintings and prints, her antitrust claims would not proceed to court.

UPDATE: Via: Greg.org in the comment section:

Tip of the iceberg. Crone’s awesome letter was written to the NYRB and was published along with an extraordinary series of threats, non-replies, and rebuttals between Warhol Foundation chairman Joel Wachs, Dorment, and many other interested parties, including owners of another Warhol self-portrait from the series. That family rejected the authentication board’s invitation to submit the painting when they found out the plan was to de-authenticate it, and they have filed another anti-trust suit.

As this unfolds, it should get seriously ugly, but in the mean time, the letters and accusations are pretty riveting. And the Warhol operation’s actions are increasingly looking vastly criminal.

Start with the latest, the link to Crone’s letter, and then just surf around through the various replies. it’s mind-blowing.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23680

Up next: Powhida!