Can’t Buy This: Seeking Economic Independence in both the Art and Craft Spheres.

As this year’s Armory Show in New York, the largest annual art fair in the world, comes to an end this week, the art community has galleries, buyers and the market on the mind. This week, I, once again, venture into the blogosphere, examining ways in which other bloggers comment on the state of the market in general. The two posts that I have found interesting both deal with notions of economically independent objects and practices. The first, posted by David Bollier, points to the newly opened exhibition at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, New York, featuring “not for sale” works by art giants such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jeff Koons (his 8.5 ft. Rabbit shown to the right), Tim Hawkinson and Christo. What Bollier is intrigued by is considering ways in which “commercial markets enhance or degrade the essential work of art.” The second post is an excerpt from Dennis Stevens Speech at the NICHE Awards, held on February 18th, 2007 in Philadelphia. Here, Stevens examines new movements and trends in the field of crafts and a break from the commercialization that is often associated with the practice. My comments on either blog are also posted bellow.

From what I gather, this show is an attempt by curator Alanna Heiss to say, look, it is still possible to make art for art’s sake, without a need to sell, to please the market. And I certainly agree with you that her “idea deserves some serious attention.” But what I simply don’t understand is that everyone who has been asked to participate in the show belongs to a very small and exclusive group of artists, who at this point in their career can actually afford to not sell a work or two or hundred. Perhaps it is Heiss’s intention to somehow illustrate her frustration with the art market strictly through major success stories, but how about pointing out renowned artists, who, unlike the Jeff Koons of the art world haven’t geared their entire careers toward creating big, flashy, glossy, seductive objects for sale? How about celebrating artists such as Henry Darger whose works (shown on the left) were in fact never meant for sale? Collections such as his are indeed products of the economically liberated art making process in which Heiss is interested.

I am very glad to see your comments on the position of new craft movements and their search for “economic freedom.” They are both informed and insightful. While I had always thought of crafts as enjoying a comfortable niche in the market, I can see now that reliance on any conditional financial support can serve as a limiting factor in all creative processes. Today, both arts and crafts (though generally separated) are dependent on the support of institutions and, more notably, the markets. While the general functionality and “sellability” of the ladder practice gives craft makers some ease in terms of economic survival, it is nice to see them move away from their comfort zone in order to re-invent themselves and their position (on the right are images of public guerilla works by the group of 11 Houston-based knitters who call themselves Knitta), blurring the lines between the arts and craft. Having had more of a personal contact with a larger and less hegemonic market than most young artists, I believe that craft makers are better suited and more skilled to approach the art world without falling into its economic traps.

Women Rise Up: Feminist Art Invading Major Institutions Throughout America

This week, as March approaches, women are the hot topic in the world of visual arts. Next month will mark the opening of a number of exhibitions at some of the country’s most prominent art institutions. The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art will exhibit WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, the first international, historical exhibition to examine the foundations and legacy of feminist art produced from 1965-80. The show will feature renowned feminist artists such as Judy Chicago and Louise Bourgeois [right]. Exquisite Acts & Everyday Rebellions: 2007 CalArts Feminist Art Symposium and Exhibition March5-10, a curated exhibition of students, faculty and alumni, “seeks to produce discourse around the questions and contexts of contemporary feminist practice in art and society.” Timed to coincide with these exhibitions as well as the opening of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art along with Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum, Shared Women @ LACE, featuring a dynamic group of young feminist lesbian artists, is yet another attempt to further the conversation, bringing women, at least for the time being, to the forefront of the contemporary art scene in America.

This second coming of artistic feminism is no doubt due in part to a general economic gender disparity in today’s art market. As Zoe Williams of The Guardian explains, they are not only “staggeringly under-represented in the world's major galleries… [but] women artists working today still earn the most shaming fraction of what men earn.” In 1997, masked artist/activist group The Guerilla Girls ran a campaign against New York’s Museum of Modern Art for organizing the show Objects of Desire: the Modern Still Life, bringing to public attention the fact that out of 71 featured artists only 3 were white women and 1 a woman of color. At the 2005 Venice Biennale, they continued to shed light on the issue of gender inequality in the art world with their mega posters stating statistics such as “38% women artists in the curated group shows? Who cares that so many national pavilions are only showing men. French Pavilion has solo show by a woman? Who cares that it’s the first time in a 100 years?” While some would argue that both the status and power of women in the art market has undergone drastic changes in the last decade, few would deny the inequality highlighted by groups and individuals such as The Guerilla Girls. For as long as the Market is not advantageous to them, women artists are at a disadvantage in the art world at large. As Janet Bloch, former director of Women-Made Gallery in Chicago, points out, cases such as the “May 2004 Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction in New York City…. Where [out of] 360 pieces of art offered for sale only sixty… were by women artists” is a common occurrence in the art market. Clearly, female artists who cannot make a living as such are most often forced to quit their practice. Although, as Bloch explains, we may be “on an uphill battle with the public, and the art world in general,” the end is not exactly in sight.

Surely, the upcoming events highlighting the works of feminist artists in the US and abroad are significant steps in this struggle. It is a chance for women curators to assert their authority, while utilizing the power of major institutions such as MOCA to promote and establish women artists as significant figures in the art world. Since having one’s work exhibited in the context of such institutions is perhaps the most effective way to boost or even renew an artistic career, one cannot help but wonder why only female artists who can be categorized as feminists are included in these exhibitions. Is the promotion of highly talented women who deal with issues outside the realm of gender and identity less significant in this “uphill battle”? While such artists may not directly address feminism, one cannot deny their place in the feminist movement at large. Here, a consideration of the notions of intention versus result in terms of artistic practice is of importance. If the goal of the artist is not to create feminist art, does that mean that the final product cannot be perceived as promoting feminist ideals? California artist Ruby Osorio , for example, insists that her work [Detained En Route by Moments of Human frailty, 2006 included here] carries no feminist agenda whatsoever. Critiques and a significant portion of her audience, on the other hand, would strongly disagree. Today, many artists refuse to be associated with any movement at all, fearing both creative and financial restrictions, escaping labels and pigeonholes. Perhaps it is not the true purpose of feminism to label and divide, but to celebrate and promote the efforts of all women.

Art Power and Censorship: New Global Art Markets and the De-politicization of the Art World

In this week’s post, I venture into the outside world, commenting on recent posts from two other weblogs, which, I find, deal with similar issues as mine. The first is a post entitled “Abu Dhabi Consolidates Place as ME Cultural/Media Avant Garde," examining Abu Dhabi’s plans for a museum island built in collaboration with the Guggenheim and possibly the Louvre, with designs by renowned architects Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando, and Zaha Hadid (as presented in the image below). The second, "Between Shanghai and Manhattan, Wenda Gu, New Breed of Artist” explores the work of New York-based Chinese-born artist Wenda Gu and the role of Chinese artists in a Western art market at large. In both cases, my comments, also published below, focus on new global trends in the art market and their potential effects on inherently politically-charged art scenes.

It is perhaps true that art is "the best vehicle of crossing borders," but what is not mentioned in this post is the effect that this crossing of borders can have on the art that is created (particularly by Middle Eastern artists). There is no doubt that modern and contemporary art production within the Middle East and its diaspora is indeed for the most part revolutionary. I fear that the emergence of Abu Dhabi as a giant in the international art market will give Arab governments new and effective powers of censorship over an otherwise political and revolutionary art scene, all in the name of the Market. In this manner, the new market can work to depoliticize even the works of Western artists, who may be seen as critical of either Middle Eastern governments or their allies. That which does not please Abu Dhabi’s billionaires can easily be labeled undesirable.

Although the article does touch upon issues of censorship on the part of the Chinese government, what I find missing is a discussion of self-censorship by Chinese artists who are looking to be even more desirable to an already intrigued Western art market. While in the past, in communist China, the very practice of art making within the confines of government surveillance and regulations was an act of political significance, today’s Chinese artists seem to be practicing under far stricter censors, for, as Wenda Gu (pictured to the left) explains, “the most successful art is without political ambition.” Clearly, Gu himself has gone from a blacklisted controversial artist to one dealing with far safer subjects such as “ethnicity, minority, globalization, language and communication.” While it is wonderful to see young Chinese artists finally gaining success and recognition, I cannot help but ask how China, or any other country in a similar situation, is fairing without its actively political artists. Is the country no longer in need of revolutionary artistic voices?

Working with the Boundaries of Censure: The First Slideshow Photography Exhibition in Iran

The first gallery exhibition of slideshows by Iranian photographers to be held in Iran was a very recent initiative of Fanoos Photo, a website dedicated to the online showcasing of work by Iranian artists. The exhibition, which closed several days ago, commenced and continued, as with any other public event in Iran, with the blessings of the central government and its notorious Ministry of Culture. Those familiar with the Iranian art scene would know the complexities and difficulties an organization must face to hold a presentation of any work within the country. The red ribbon across movie posters reading “Banned in Iran” has become a marketing ploy for distribution companies in Europe and America. Internationally recognized filmmakers, such as Mohsen Makhmalbaf, whose screenplays have been meticulously inspected by the Ministry of Culture and have received its approval, discover upon the completion of their projects that their films cannot be displayed in local theaters. It is no wonder then that the success of the slideshow exhibition sponsored by Fanoos website would immediately become the subject of political discussion.

It definitely bears mentioning that Iran is the country with the largest number of weblogs per capita in the world. The phenomenon is even more impressive when we consider that a large portion of the country is yet to have access to broadband internet, and in provincial cities personal computer is yet to become a common household item. As expected, the internet is yet another battleground between the hardliner government and its overwhelmingly young and dissatisfied constituency. ISPs operate under strict governmental supervision, and the web is subject to some of the fiercest filtering programs. Every week hundreds of new websites are added to the blacklist that attempts to block all subversive or sacrilegious content from the nation’s eyes. Everyday new ways of circumventing the barricades are offered. That Fanoos, dealing in the inevitably controversial realm of photography, has managed to thrive as an open organization is an oddity worth considering.

Though it is a simple site, offering only a few photos from each artist, its juxtaposition of well-recognized and obscure names in Iran’s photography have made Fanoos a famous place among Iranian intellectuals. Once one’s initial delight at finding such a neat little treasure in the web of webs subsides, one is confronted with the absence of many factors that would seem essential to such a collection. There is no mention of some obvious choices for any list of Iranian photographers. Abbas, one of the most accomplished Iranian photographers and a prominent member of Magnum Photo, who fell out of favor with the Islamic government from the early years of the revolution, is one such name. Visiting Fanoos, it is possible for one to assume that the new generation of Iranian photographers are increasingly leaning away from politics toward lighter subjects. The illusion, however, is the result of the particular selection of works which has pragmatically excluded most political pieces. There is no biographical information offered on any of the artists, which may be due to the unorthodox backgrounds of quite a few of them, who, like Shirin Neshat (her work is well-represented in the image to the right), walk the thin line between disapproval and total ban by the government.

The most immediately felt absence, however, is that of works portraying modern women in intimate settings, where they would normally not appear in traditional Islamic clothing. The selection, in other words, has excluded all photography that cannot be openly displayed in Iran. Keeping in mind the vast culture of underground and expatriate Iranian art and the prominence of many dissident artists, the handicap can be considered a serious one. As political parties ban unfair elections, so would many Iranian artists and intellectuals rather forgo participation in an artistic environment that excludes some of its best based on a political agenda.

The Fanoos sponsored slide-show exhibition in Tehran represents a sort of triumph for a more pragmatic, participatory approach. It is no small feat to reach both the unlimited world of the web and the tightly controlled canvas of artistic exhibition in Iran. After years of extremely successful activity outside of Iran, Mitra Tabrizian had a chance to display her photographs in her own country. Her theme of desperation and depression among middle-aged professionals in Europe who are losing their jobs to the younger generation (as in the image to the left) must have struck a subtle chord with the Iranian viewers. Reza Paydari in his collection explored the destruction of green space in Tehran, one of the world's most polluted metropolis. Oshin Zakarian and Amir Yegane presented their visually astounding take on Iranian landscapes and ancient architecture. And having passed through the cracks, the restrained, political photography of Mohammad Kheyr-khah, such as the photograph of Iranian women in uniform featured at the top of the post, attracted the most attention from the visitors. Uncaptioned, Kheyr-khah’s photographs depict the seemingly commonplace process of military parades and daily marching of the soldiers.

In my latest visit to Iran, I was surprised by a new tendency in young filmmakers, some of whom are close friends and acquaintances, to seriously consider positions in the state-run television. A few years ago even the thought of such an occupation would have been considered heresy among intellectuals. It is certain that the country is undergoing quiet, yet drastic changes. In a country that in the last decade has lost an entire generation of its most influential artists, the younger generation may choose to test its creativity within the oppressive boundaries inside the country, rather than to maintain a rebellious silence.