Money’s Triumph Over Art - Truthdig

Coomaraswamy and Robert Hughes would not be amused.

Money’s Triumph Over Art - Truthdig

"If you can believe all the hand-wringing and soul-searching these days among artists, art critics, and sundry other arts professionals, you’d imagine that nobody is really happy about the $142.4 million paid for a Francis Bacon triptych at Christie’s the other day—or the $58.4 million for a Jeff Koons at the same auction or the $104.5 million for a Warhol at Sotheby’s the following night. Those prices are as repellent as Leonardo DiCaprio’s baronial frat house shenanigans in the coming attractions for Martin Scorsese’s new tale of Gilded Age excess, The Wolf of Wall Street. Among the most revolting sports favored by the super-rich is the devaluation of any reasonable sense of value. At Christie’s and Sotheby’s some of the wealthiest members of society, the people who can’t believe in anything until it’s been monetized, are trashing one of our last hopes for transcendence. They don’t know the difference between avidity and avarice. Why drink an excellent $30 or $50 bottle of wine when you can pour a $500 or $1000 bottle down your throat? Why buy a magnificent $20,000 or $1 million painting when you can spend $50 or $100 million and really impress friends and enemies alike?"

Jed Perl

Money’s Triumph Over Art

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/moneys_triumph_over_art_20131206/

Posted on Dec 6, 2013

Like the natural environment, the long decay of the established art world is picking up pace as the super rich shamelessly spend $60 million, $100 million, $140 million on works declared desirable by critics operating more as pimps for the wealthy than loving and enthusiastic guides, critic Jed Perl writesWednesday at The New Republic.
“Among the most revolting sports favored by the super-rich is the devaluation of any reasonable sense of value,” laments Perl, whose recurring theme in recent years has been the steadfast and suicidal refusal of critics, academics and students to explore what is good and bad and why in works created in the present and recent past; suicidal because aesthetics, as a standard of value, has been replaced by money. “At Christie’s and Sotheby’s some of the wealthiest members of society, the people who can’t believe in anything until it’s been monetized, are trashing one of our last hopes for transcendence.”
This abandonment of a discussion of artistic value apart from money has given art’s fate to the rich, Perl writes. And the abdication mirrors society’s other losses. “The art world has become a fantasy object for the professional classes—and that’s a troubling turn of events, because art must be experienced concretely, immediately. Since the democratization of culture began in the nineteenth century, a rising middle class has seen in the arts a dazzling enrichment and complication of its own ideas and ideals—of its belief in fairness, seriousness, standards, transcendence. And now, with the middle class in disarray, art is no longer embraced as anything close to an ideal. Art is just another hope to be abandoned, along with the hope that your children might do better than you’ve done. In place of art as an ideal we have art as an idol. (Or art as an educational tool, by way of the numbingly utilitarian logic that if you learn to play Bach you will improve your math skills.) No wonder everybody is following not the art but the sky-high prices at the auction houses—and the parties at Art Basel Miami Beach, where the same dealers and collectors are gathering this week to play more or less the same games.”
The critic-as-pimp claim is illustrated in the consulting job John Elderfield, the Museum of Modern Art’s chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture, took with Manhattan’s Gagosian Gallery. “Whatever happened to the firewall that separated the long-term cultural thinking of the museums from the short-term commercial gains of the galleries?” Perl asks. In his new role as adviser to the rich, Elderfield has perplexingly contradicted the opinion held by “many of the finest minds of his own generation” in his assessment of works by the late Willem de Kooning. “The same thoughtful people would be deeply troubled by Elderfield’s willingness to turn MoMA’s prestige into Larry Gagosian’s financial advantage,” Perl writes.
The message is clear, Perl concludes. “The cash registers are ringing and that’s the only music anybody any longer really hears in the art world. … One thing is certain. … In the art world as it is now, it’s difficult to convince most people that anything matters more than that.”
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Religious Art

While I often find myself opposed to Coomaraswarmy's strict approach to art, I have realized that even I have instincts that align themselves with Coomaraswarmy. I was thinking about how i often can appreciate religious art outside of its context, but what if I looked at the art of my own religious background, Catholicism.  Catholic art and themes have found their way into popular culture and are know often used with little respect or context.  One just needs to walk into the popular teen retailer, forever 21, to see catholic images and rosaries being sold as purely ornamental.  Perhaps this example hit closer to home and helped me better sympathize with Coomaraswarmy's arguments.  Also, lots of popular artist use religious imagery in their videos and styles, while not always bad videos this often makes me uncomfortable.  I still do not agree with all of Coomaraswarmy's conclusions, but religious art taken out of context can be degrading and hollow.

Rosaries being used as fashion accessories

Madonna's video for "Like a Prayer" is perhaps the most famous example of pop music's use of catholic symbolism.

David Bowie's video for "The Next Day" had many christian groups up in arms.

Lady Gaga uses catholic imagery in her "Alejandro" music video

Pure or Manufactured Art

As I read Coomaraswamy's writing, "What is the use of art?," I began to consider the differences between pure and manufactured art.  If we were to classify each work of art by the reason for its creation, everything could be classified as either being made for profit, or for use.  The purpose of manufactured art is to earn money, which results in less valuable creations.  A work of art should only cost as much as it did to create, otherwise the nature of the artwork is overshadowed.  We lack well-made, beautiful creations in our world because the focus has been put on earning money, rather than creating meaningful works of art. When the maker of any good chooses to create based on personal desire, we are presented with valuable products, and we are therefore able to “get our money’s worth.”

The Use of Art

Does all art have to be useful in order for it to be appreciated? Personally, I fail to recognize everyday objects as beautiful, although often times they are.  When you look at your car do you consider it to be a work of art? Not many people do, but when an object, such as your car, is created properly it is considered art, according to Coomaraswamy at least.  I actually find this concept to be accurate because when something is poorly created, it is difficult to enjoy, but when something is created properly, and is useful, we are able to enjoy its existence and as a result, may view it as art.  However, I still question whether or not something should be useful in order for it to be considered art.

My Final Thoughts.

"If I were forced to state what I take to be the most general underlying theme of the present book, it would be this ability to communicate" (Scharfstein 432).

In the last selection we read of Open Aesthetics, Scharfstein seems to contradict himself.  By making seven points as too support his idea of a universal aesthetics, Scharfstein points out several inconsistencies across cultures as to where values are placed.  For instance Scharfstein says that the literary arts are considered the most esteemed, excluding non-Islamic Africa and the Western world.  That made me consider as to whether the idea of a universal aesthetic was really possible.  However the above quote and the ideas laid out in Scharfstein's section "Final thoughts," led me to believe that those points lay out how different cultures go about communicating ideas about spirituality, individuality, and the intellectual capacity of people, as well as the general beliefs and values of a culture or nation as a whole.  In this regard, I believe Scharfstein to generally follow a central tenet of traditionalists as Coomeraswamy spends a large portion of time also talks about this central traditionalist motif of communication.

In relation to Coomeraswamy's article, and the discussion that was led today concerning the defunding of orchaestras around the United States, what is the current standing of art today?  Both in the article shared by Prof. Langguth, the writing of Coomeraswamy, and even the commentary of Robert Hughes, modern art is criticized by these men as lacking communicative properties.  Rather modern art, serves to evoke a reaction of emotion rather than a thought out response or a conversation between the viewers.  Although this is not always the case, what is the ratio of what can be considered as true art, versus the reactionary modes of what some argue to be the imitations of art.

Furthermore, the article further demonstrates the devaluing of art that isn't profitable, which is true.  Prior to college, I had only been to the Cincinnati Art Museum once and my exposure to other visual art institutions was very limited.  I was never educated as to the importance of classical music.  If I was to listen to the piece of Beethoven today, I would never be able to distinguish it as his work.  I am only now coming to a fuller appreciation of art.  Since last year, I have been to the Cincinnati Art Museum several times, and always look forward to visits there, as well as any art gallery or other artistic institution.  Yet how can we further the education of the general public of the resources of growing in aesthetic appreciation?  Whenever I have gone to the CAM, I find the majority of exhibit empty, and I am usually rushed while I am there.  I have never been able to wander through the museum aimlessly, or sit don't and enjoy the music provided by a quartet of classical players.  What do we nee to change about the current society in which we live to be more fully dedicated or involved in the arts?

Reflections of Red

Let me just say that I absolutely LOVED this performance. Tyler Thomas, good on ya mate!
The same weekend I saw Red I also went to see Cabaret over at Playhouse in the Park, and in my honest opinion, I thought Red blew it out of the water.
I found that a lot of the things that Rothko said about the current state of society and the arts I could relate to, and I often have the same thoughts and feelings. I'm not sure what Rothko was like in life nor do I know how accurately he was portrayed, but I enjoyed watching his character interact. Like Rothko in the play, I'm sickened to my core by our society of flagrant and shameless advertisement, and abhor that great art is becoming more and more a commodity, rather than a profound experience. Do you share similar feelings as Rothko did? Feel free to elaborate below.

From  Alexander Reed Kelly on Truthdig.

The resignation this month of Osmo Vanska from his decade-long role as director of the Minnesota Orchestra over salary disputes with the board spurred John Halle, director of studies in music theory and practice at Bard College, to argueat Jacobin that “the virtues of classical music are inherently hostile to [the] neoliberal mindset now dominant in all sectors of society.”

Hundreds of my own conversations with middle-class youths in classrooms, bars and cafes around the country—compared with conversations with members of elder generations—suggest that Americans are increasingly uncomfortable with distinctions of high and low forms of art, particularly with classical music. Halle points to a time when this was not so, and suggests that difference has to do with support ruling elites offered the arts in the past. In the 1930s, he writes, “while there was some competition from popular music … a clear division between high and low musical forms remained accepted across the board, with what was universally regarded as the precious legacy of concert music claimed and lavishly supported by both fascist and Soviet regimes alike.”

“What has emerged in recent years is the exact opposite,” he continues, and the abdication of economic control to mindless markets by states around the world, with the subsequent selfishness and inequality, is a primary cause. “On the one hand, government lavishes unprecedented economic and social privileges on its elites, taking an axe to programs benefitting those who fall behind. At the same time, the distinction between high and low artistic culture having been erased, the result has been a single standard for qualitative judgments derived from the commercial marketplace.”

It’s hard not to avoid making a connection, Halle writes. “[T]he decline of musical literacy and the large-scale forms which they make possible, the increasing demand for immediately catchy tunes, striking sonorities and flamboyant stage presentations pairs with the impatience of the elites classes” in “the demand for investments to show an immediate short-turn return. Elites have long since jettisoned the expectation for steady growth embodied in the now retired Goldman-Sachs slogan, ‘long-term greedy,’ having come to accept and even embrace … ‘the erosion of the planning function, and any rationality beyond the most crudely instrumental.’ ”

In the present era, austerity is taken as the panacea for both the economy and the arts. “The solution to a supposed ‘culture of poverty,’ ” Halle writes, “consists of work requirements and benefit reductions to break the ‘cycle of dependency’ and promote ‘self-reliance.’ The longstanding crisis in classical music is treated by the imposition of market discipline requiring institutions to devise ‘working business models.’ This means in practice supporting themselves predominantly by ticket sales, something which virtually no major orchestra or opera company in history has done successfully and which would require jettisoning most of the defining virtues of the medium.”

In the past, the high arts have helped the capitalist class legitimize its place in society. “Disparities in wealth and privilege have been justified, or at least tolerated, insofar as those benefitting from them are seen as fulfilling a necessary role in preserving artistic and cultural traditions of unquestioned sophistication, subtlety and refinement.” But today’s elites consider their acquisition of tremendous wealth as “not only justified but self-justifying. Exercises of noblesse oblige, whether investments in the arts and culture, generosity or even simple decency towards others are no longer necessary, by now viewed as sentimental archaisms, vestiges of a pre-meritocratic elite.”

Furthermore, Halle writes, “what is by now an unshakeable faith in the transcendent wisdom of the marketplace not only justifies the withdrawal of elite support but demands it, based on the rationale that they should not ‘pick winners’ or ‘put their thumbs on the scale’ in so doing corrupting market mechanisms taken as omniscient arbiters of value.”

This brings us back to the plight of the players and artistic leaders of the Minnesota Orchestra. US Bancorp CEO Richard K. Davis, also head of the orchestra’s negotiating committee, is demanding sharp wage and benefit reductions from the orchestra’s musicians. “His own yearly compensation of $14.4 million could easily make up for the orchestra’s budget shortfall, by itself, as could a small fraction of the tax breaks, subsidies and bailouts gifted to Davis’s fellow board members over the past two decades,” Halle writes. But the ideologies of neoliberalism and economic austerity, which I regard as confidence tricks used to conceal criminal acts of deliberate greed, “dictates that any such exercises in generosity would be dismissed as counterproductive.”

The orchestra’s audiences appear to think differently, however. At his farewell concert, resigning conductor Osma Vanska asked the audience to hold its applause. As is barely audible in the recording of the encore available below, Vanska said, “I have to say that the situation here is terrible and the orchestra is [in an] almost hopeless situation right now. And that situation doesn’t need any applause.” The New York Times reportedthat “listeners filed out quietly, many in tears,” when the orchestra finished playing the Jean Sibelius piece, Valse Triste, which Vanska described as a dance of death.

Of the situation, Halle writes: “What Minnesota audiences were mourning went beyond the destruction of one of the world’s great orchestras engineered by a team of bean-counting plutocrats. … For many, classical music, its refusal to engage in high-volume harangues, its reliance on aural logic rather than visual spectacle, its commitment to achieving often barely perceptible standards of formal perfection, all serves as a repudiation of late capitalism—a refuge from hideous strip malls, the 24-hour assault of advertising copy, and marketing hype. Ultimately, it is a protest against the cruder, meaner and self-destructive society we have become.”

“Achieving this recognition is not easy, nor are most things worth doing. That’s the underlying lesson learned by a child confronting a Mozart sonata. And it will need to be relearned by adults if we have much hope of surviving the century.”

Read the full piece at Jacobin here

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.