The
hoopla surrounding Art Basel is six months behind us now,
which is why it’s as good a time as any to step back and
assess our current art scene. We’re in the midst of a new
phenomenon going on in our own back yard. Art as a new
commodity: a cultural spectacle of entertainment.
Yet, under the surface,
one can detect signs of discontent and frustration: Our real
estate boom (now doomed and caused to some extent by Art
Basel) drove up prices, changed the urban landscape and
curbed our buying power. Believe it or not, life is harder
now for many artists and alternative spaces. More people are
realizing that between all the planning and executing, plus
the post-Basel syndrome that ensues, the fairs drain the
local scene’s energy from November to January. What’s left?
Paradoxically, because of
the fair phenomena and the relative success they’ve enjoyed,
artists have gotten comfortable and reclusive (waiting for
their shows to happen all over again). What’s worse, many
see themselves as sort of heroes who can operate
—simultaneously — inside and outside the market environment.
More and more critics and
curators realize we’re manufacturing, as Jack Bankowski
defines it, “art-fair art.” According to Bankowski, in our
post-Warholian, post-performative world, success depends on
a “proliferation of extra-art activities and the
museum-ready icons that provide the freewheeling brand a
graphic and institutional identity.” If art is business and
business is art, all the protagonists face the taboo of
becoming active market collaborators. There’s this feeling
that the market and art are separate entities and the two
shouldn’t mix, but in fact that’s what the fair environment
is doing.
“The fair phenomenon
inflates the expectations of a market that becomes too
dependent on something ephemeral,” explains curator Carlos
Basualdo. An important Miami gallery owner, who prefers to
remain anonymous, puts it this way: “Gallerists concentrate
on the fair and some may just go through the motion the rest
of the year.” Is it plausible that the constant
proliferation of art-fair art can contribute to increasing
reiteration and lack of quality? What can we do?
Artists could inject a different sort of energy into the
scene (the socio-economic system that supports them). As in
the 1950s in New York, artists’ studios could become magnets
for discussion and fermentation. As privileged agents in
touch with the social fabric, artists could make more noise
and confront the authorities with alternative tactics.
Performance (in the more general sense of directed public
behavior) can become a tool of change (when Marina Abramovic
came to Miami, I realized that performance too had become
stultified).
Artists can co-sponsor public events, alternative shows,
public lectures and alternative art presentations. Art needs
to go back to the street. Let’s give the market a different
kind of spectacle by turning the spectacle on its head!
Only
a small number of collectors support and encourage our local
scene. The rest exhibit a mix of provincialism (of looking
elsewhere for legitimization) mixed with a bit of
self-importance. Right now, collectors could acquire good
art at reasonable prices, but they have no faith. They
should stop taking the artists for granted and playing it
safe.
Critics need to move out
of the mode of paraphrasing shows (with the same
run-of-the-mill metaphoric appliqués they use every week)
and stimulate more confrontation. Exposure is still fine,
but we need more “value” and fewer “descriptions.” The local
blog sphere, so effervescent three years ago, is now dead.
Blogs need to be revived or transformed. Bloggers need to be
more inventive, participants need to get involved, develop a
thicker skin for debate and stimulate other points of view.
More local shows should be reviewed, more often and
conscientiously, and with higher standards of criticism.
Our art schools need to open up and put more money into
meaningful exchanges that bring world-renowned artists to
Miami. We have perhaps one of the best archives of
contemporary art in the world. Have we created programs
whose content gravitates around these collections? Not yet.
To be more visible as a scene, independently of the fairs,
we should build associations with these collections, while
engaging our best local artists as guest lecturers in our
art curricula.
Museums can simultaneously cater to our local scene while
raising the bar of quality. They should be patient and
constant in nurturing the local talent. Museums should
promote exchanges between Miami artists and elsewhere.
Curators, as propagators of taste, should constantly
challenge their received notions. They are in the very
difficult position of being inside yet pretending (for the
sake of taste arbitration) to be outside. As producers of
art, curators could confront the status quo more often.
In
his The McDonaldization of Society, George Ritzer
describes a culture defined by increasing efficiency,
calculability, predictability and the growth of instrumental
rationalization: a picture of our present local art scene.
Miami’s “art explosion” could evaporate if we don’t create
more permanent and sustainable art-generating projects
throughout the year to compensate for the gravitational pull
of the Art Basel phenomenon.
To
the worst face of the market, we can always present a
socio-aesthetic resistance. As our city keeps evolving,
let’s find ways to interact and flourish, to share and build
for a better and healthier art scene.
By
Michelle Weinberg
Visual art has always been on intimate terms with real
estate. It takes space to make art, more space to store it,
to exhibit it, to collect it, and the ambition of an artist
usually swells, like water seeking its own level, in direct
proportion to the available space allotted in any of those
scenarios. Large canvases or installations or photo shoots
mean large studios, large galleries, home design trends
supplying large wall expanses and, ultimately, large
budgets.
Artists perform a highly specialized function in urban
development, scouting and colonizing new zones. Their
movements are eagerly watched by developers, who gentrify
previously uninhabitable neighborhoods, pushing the artists
to the next frontier. It’s easy to imagine an adversarial
relationship between artists and developers, and yet, the
two groups occasionally, cautiously, form symbiotic
relationships from which they both derive benefit. Several
Miami developers have generously loaned spaces to artists on
a temporary basis for work or exhibition space. They
recognize the promotional allure — and bottom line value —
of converting moribund storefronts or unused office space in
edgy neighborhoods into cultural hotspots. In Wynwood,
developers have hauled huge profits by buying commercial
space on the cheap and selling it high.
So
it is an interesting moment in time when a real estate maven
can advise artists on how to conduct their artistic
practice. And that is precisely what occurred at a very
informative panel discussion presented in the Design
District on Saturday, by LegalArt called “2 Wallets/sq/ft.”
LegalArt’s director, Carolina Garcia, invited developer
David Lombardi; Robert Wennett, president of UIA Management
and a CANDO board member; and Seth Cameron, formerly
creative director of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in
New York, to address a group composed predominantly of
artists. This panel is one in a series of Seminart programs
offered by LegalArt, which also dispenses a grant to a local
emerging artist and provides legal aid for artists, among
other activities. The panelists quickly agreed that “The
Three C’s” — community, culture and commerce — make a city
vibrant, and that citizens who want to prevent Miami from
becoming another resort enclave for the wealthy elite will
have to make their voices heard. The two developers also
agreed that although short-term loans of space to artists
was a good investment, and assisted artists in the process,
it was a temporary stop-gap, and would not solve the root
problem of artists being edged out of their cheap rentals as
high-priced condo and commercial buildings blanket the area.
The real goal is for artists to become property owners, so
that they can benefit from growth in the area. Both
emphasized that the key was government partnerships or
subsidies to private developers and to artists directly,
that there was no economic incentive for private developers
to go it alone. Lombardi noted that subsidies from local
government were necessary to create affordable live/work
space. He cited the failure of Miami 21 to include units for
artists in its framework. He mentioned the importance of
Community Development Corporations (CDC’s), which could
assist qualifying artists to obtain housing, while Wennett
explained that the Miami Beach CANDO creative arts district
is a new model of government protection for “cultural
workers.” They urged artists to contact Robert Parente,
directory of Miami’s Mayor’s Office of Film, Arts and
Entertainment, to set up a meeting to voice concerns and
request action.
Hands went up as some in the audience confessed to being
overwhelmed by the procedures involved in qualifying for
mortgages, applying for subsidized government projects,
meeting with politicians. Some wished the developers would
help out and simply donate space to artists, who already
contribute so much sweat and vision to building a vibrant
city.
This
is where the conversation provided a useful wake-up call to
artists to become more proactive about their fates. If their
work is so inextricably tied to suitable, affordable work
space, the panelists stressed that they needed to refashion
themselves as entrepreneurs. Wennett made a very convincing
point about the dollar value placed on the “creative class”
in an economy being driven more and more by uploadable
“content.” He urged artists to re-evaluate their own
practices in the advent of this new virtual era. He even
suggested that soon we will all require less “space” to live
and work. Some artists may have taken offense at his
comments, but really, he was just returning a favor,
offering free business advice to the artists who have
performed their scouting and colonizing services so well.
It’s certainly overdue to revisit the visual arts economy,
steered as it is by paternalistic gallerists, curators and
collectors whose affections run hot and cold. The hegemony
of pop music industry executives has been toppled by
peer-to-peer sharing of MP3 files, and by artists
communicating directly with their fan base. In comparison,
the art world is stuck in an outmoded 19th-century model
defined by the connoisseurship of experts, which spurns so
called “vanity” productions by artists. But the business
model for artists is changing rapidly, as technology makes
possible new ways of interacting socially. Artists can be
more effective at sustaining their own livelihoods.
LegalArt’s Garcia suggested this as an opportunity for her
organization, a nonprofit, to advocate for artists seeking
affordable live/work space and act as a clearinghouse of
information.
A
closer look at the reality of artists living and/or working
in Wynwood will follow this article.
