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This week we continued our discussion about the art market and the shift from passion for art to passion for money.  We also discussed new types of art including street art and interactive pieces.

Bob Hughes continues to express his distaste for this change in art in “The Curse of the Mona Lisa.”  He notes that strategies are necessary in institutions and that when we see art as a spectacle, is distances itself from its context and it ultimately loses its meaning.  With this new craze of the art market, too much is expected out of artwork and too little is actually delivered.  He says that art now equals a checkbook.

When talking to other collectors, they state that they pick out pieces that call to them, or stand out the most.  This emergence of collectors and buyers changed the way artists produced their work.  The production process is now accelerated.  One artist in particular who gave into this mass production was Andy Warhol.  A collector described him as a “visionary artist of our time.”  However, Hughes sees him as an artist who transformed into a celebrity businessman.  He says he thought Warhol was stupid.  He had nothing to say and his work has become dry and repetitious.

I have to agree with Hughes a little bit on this subject.  I personally find Warhol’s pieces to be kind of boring because they are just a bunch of prints of the same thing pit next to one another.  I think it would be more interesting if he made prints like these but with different pictures to make up on large collage.  But hey, I’m no artist.

Hughes reinforces this idea that this modern art represents the death of something he once loved about art.  Art is supposed to give us coherent sensations that we don’t normally have.  It is supposed to give us a sense of clarity and intelligence.  However, from the 60’s and on, art became a way of simply making money.  It has been stripped of everything except its market vale.  Hughes points out that there is no point of art if it can’t tell us about the world we live in.  This just shows the power that money has and how out of touch we are with the world, but this is our world now.

While I understand Hughes’ frustration, he also cannot expect to hold onto the art world prior to the 60’s forever.  The world is constantly changing and evolving.  Although money has become a large factor in any part of life, he cannot expect art and its motives to stay the same forever.  I think that if he truly feels as strongly as he claims to feel, that along with his video he should go out and proactively work toward bringing art back to the way it was.  He may not be successful, but he might be able to get through to some artists so that he at least has some of what he once loved to hold onto.

Maybe Hughes would appreciate street art instead.  Although his taste seems more sophisticated, street art has a connection to artwork free from dictation by institutions.  There are no labeled texts and glass boxes around the work.  The artists work as a community to share ideas and create community spirit.  It is free from constraint, galleries and copyright.

I think street art is really interesting.  Not only does it create this sense of community, but it adds life and personality to the community as well.  It is an expression of the people that make up the community.  But, do things like graffiti count as street art?  I found this truck covered in graffiti while venturing through Union Square last weekend.  I thought it was awesome and it was a great expression of the artist.  However, I feel like most people see graffiti and other street art as vandalism and something that just makes the city look “dirty.”

However, even street art can be institutionalized.  The video shows us some works in Turbine Hall as interactive pieces.  These pieces are vast in size; the people walking around the artwork look like little dots on a map!  I thought these pieces were really interesting, especially the piece where the artist used metal bunk beds to fill the room underneath the huge spider part of the piece.  I would never have known that those were bunk beds if someone didn’t point it out.  I also think seeing the piece with the people walking around from up top really captures the immensity of these pieces and how much space it takes up.


-Kristen