Is the Concept of Artistic Merit Obsolete in Contemporary Art?
The 3rd Telling Evening at M.Y. Prospects was led by Alfred Steiner, a NY artist who also with a law background, advices on various legal issues in the art world and in particular about intellectual property.
The question he asked was the title of this piece, but he very quickly determined that if it was obsolete, then people would not continue to make judgments about the value of art.
So most of the evening was spent discussing what factors are used to determine quality and whether they are valid or not.
He started with a little contemporary art history suggesting that the moment verisimilitude was no longer of primary goal of painting, artistic merit became harder to qualify. He particularly stressed the impact of photography, read-mades, assemblages, appropriation and radical conceptualism citing Edgar Degas, Chuck Close, Liz Paton, Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Levine Weiner and Tom Friedman.
Steiner then suggested that artistic merit could be divided up into two parts; extrinsic and intrinsic criteria. The first being characteristics such as institutional acceptance and market value and the latter, being characteristics such as inimitability.
He then continued to list some of the particular attributes which could affect the judgment of quality of artwork.
· Scarcity such as the value of the Mona Lisa.
· Social status leading to entry into an admired social strata such as Murakami’s Louis Vuitton bags.
· Institutional acceptance such as by Moma and the Met.
· The extent of influence on latter artists such as Jeff Koons on Jonathan Monk.
· The extent of distribution in terms of geography and volume such as Thomas Kinkade.
· Rankings by institutions such as Artfacts.net.
· The degree of commitment such as On Kawara’s date project which started in the mid 1960s and continues to this day.
· Limited audience such as Liam Gillick’s press releases.
· Cult of personality such as Levine Werner who’s work can be replicated by anyone, but can still sell conceptual work for more than 6 figures.
· Innovation.
Innovation was explored further. The value of innovations versus an artist’s consistency or signature style. Innovation versus popularization explained as the fact that the term innovation can be attributed to the first artist to popularize a concept rather than the very first person to actually use it or create it; giving as an examples, Picasso’s face of the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon which bore amazing resemblance to ancient African masks, and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty earthworks vs the pre-historic Great Serpent Mound in Ohio.
This led to the discussion of whether works be judged based on the criteria of artistic merit at the time the works were created or by contemporary criteria.
All of this led to some very lively discussion amongst the group and I feel it’s a subject which is rarely tackled and should be debated in more open forums. It was intriguing that the topic finally came around to who determined artistic merit and the general consensus was that similarly from the time of the Pharaohs’, through the Renaissance to today, it is the wealthy who control and impact the whole art community including the galleries who’s aim it is to sell to these individuals and the museum who lust after their collections which ultimately determine or at least significantly affect the popular artistic merit judgments.
It was a very interesting evening with fascinating participants. The subject surely deserves a revisit by many of us. We could of continued the evening further with associated topics of the value of art theory in the contemporary art marktets. It really stimulated good dialog. Many thanks again to Miyako Yoshinaga of M.Y. Art Prospects for a very enjoyable evening.
June 14th, 2009 at 6:49 am
I’ve participated often in discussions about artistic merit/who determines what’s good (in terms of quality) and what is bad, and the control of the wealthy on the art world.
But the point is that the only participants of these discussions always were artists. And about 85% of the artists (I think, maybe even more!) cannot be objective about their own art. They identify themselves with their art in terms of: when someone does not like my art, he/she does not like me. Often the intention that the piece of art was made with, runs so deep and is so personal that the artist feels attacked when someone gives honest negative criticism on it. Of course the artist could try to learn something from it and grow, but a lot of artists just feel personally attacked or not acknowledged. It sometimes is quite difficult.
Also amongst artists, just like in the rest of the world, there’s a lot of envy. And sometimes this envy is so big that the person(s) in question will try to pull you down. Or steal your ideas because (they think) they are not as artistic and unique as you are, rather than relying on their own qualities and trying to develop their own style… It’s more easy to speak negative about someone or something, rather than trying to be objective.
It really is very interesting, like you wrote Marina, so I think that it would be great to discuss these subjects in a group equally divided in artists, (gallery and museum) curators, art collectors, art lovers, art historians and maybe even the laity? The last ones to keep everyone down to earth.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:19 am
I like this Kinkade piece. Isn’t this the place the Hobbits lived in.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:38 am
First off.. Bob (Hogge?) that is hysterical!! BECAUSE it comes from you. Gads if I have the wrong Bob.. sorry! lol
It’s interesting to me that Kinkade has essentially done a similar thing as did Warhol.. King of commercialism w/o the “HIP” factor. Does his work make me want to vomit? Humm.. well Hobbits have to live somewhere. I would never deny a Hobbit a home. It is funny to me though, I think a lot of art is considered good because of the “HIP” factor when it actually has no clothes on and no one will admit it.
Esther.. EXACTLY!
June 14th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Someone called Kinkade the “ultimate pop-artist”. He describes himself as “America’s most-collected living artist” and generates an income in excess of “ten’s of millions of dollars”, making him the world’s best selling living artist.
The commercialization of his work, the mass marketing; selling his work through popular magazines and TV leads to critisism. Other accuse him of kitch and art without substance. Whether you love him or loath him, his work certainly inspires heated discussions within the art world and beyond. It shows the diversity of artistic merit judgement.
L.Mario Prian said that the art world akin to the supermarket and product placement. Some artists get to be on the ends of the aisles and the eye level shelves….many tens of other products/artists get shelving space which go on the other shelves….
What a great world we live in!
June 15th, 2009 at 12:43 am
I love the Kinkade piece. Isn’t that the house from the Alfred Hitchcock movie ” PHYCO ” or was that a motel. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm anyway before it was the Bates Motel i think Pee Wee Herman lived there.