ARChITECTURE, DISPATCHES ART, MUSIC, ARChITECTURE, FILM, ShOPPING, NEWS AND ThINGS TO MAKE AND DO… ART, MUSIC, ARChITECTURE, FILM, ShOPPING, NEWS AND ThINGS TO MAKE AND DO…
Tales from The ciTy: New york
words JOShUA MACK
As the dollar withers and the costs through corporate sponsorship,
subprime mortgage market sucks low- is good business. But our public
credit homeowners and money-centre institutions seem to be playing
banks towards Davy Jones’s locker, the same game, offering various levels
the New York art market has dodged the of membership – each with greater
bullet yet again. As of this writing, access to curators and artists –
we have just seen another round of and sponsored evenings on which
obscene auction results and an ensuing the upwardly mobile drink, hang out
celebration that displays an almost and perhaps see an exhibition.
erotic fascination with money (along
with the usual hand-wringing over Whether by choice or necessity, museums
irrational exuberance and the Cassandra seem to be in the business of purveying
warnings of inevitable suffering entertainment and access while
and slump). Behind such reactions showcasing culture. The Guggenheim no
lurks the assumption that the artworld longer resembles a venue maintained in
constitutes some kind of common ground. the public trust but a multinational
I think not. firm pursuing growth for its own
aggrandisement. The Modern’s new home
is as much a venue for art as a shrine
to the vainglory of institutional ego.
Museums are in the
Before commissioning Yoshio Taniguchi
for its rebuild, MoMA’s selection
business of purveying
committee apparently visited his 1995
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, a civic
entertainment and access
monument to the cultural pretensions
of a town built by a car company.
while showcasing culture
That the committee responded to its
soulless design of disjointed galleries
strung together by dramatic public
spaces indicates how focused its
In his new book, The Conscience of a members were on erecting a building
Liberal (2007), economist and New York which would telegraph MoMA’s brand.
Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman
argues – convincingly to me – that the Moreover the museum’s oft-discussed
staggering income inequality in the $20 admission fee disenfranchises an
US today is not the inevitable result expanding economic class: the poor.
of macroeconomic trends but of public Defended as necessary to cover costs,
policy. Federal income taxes, for the very existence of the charge
example, have fallen from a top rate suggests little importance was given
of 90 percent-plus in the immediate to building an $850 million museum
postwar years to 36 percent today. which could offer affordable admission.
Legislation which once fostered unions The free evening once a week does not
– and supported a thriving working obviate the problem, but creates a
class – has been gutted, leaving labour two-tier audience: those who can pay
with little redress in the face of and come at will, and those who can’t.
downward wage-pressure and outsize An artist friend recently emailed:
executive compensation packages. Once ‘If possible, I prefer Friday evening,
regarded as agents for the common good, because admission is free.’
society and government have become
abettors of a massive free-for-all. Because Americans can donate
appreciated securities – thereby
It should come as no surprise that the avoiding taxes on capital gains – and
art market and much of the artworld deduct the appreciated value from
reflect this culture. It’s not just regular income, the public potentially
that the new income distribution underwrites more than 50 percent of
provides the cash which drives prices. every dollar donated to US museums.
Take the art fairs: the exclusive Thus the people who really suffer when
parties, the different levels of VIP things go south potentially constitute
status, the lounges and the chauffeured the biggest pool of cultural patrons in
cars not only establish an economic the country. They might lose houses and
pecking order but also cocoon insiders jobs; big auction spenders might see
from the hoi polloi. Of course fairs the value of their purchases plummet.
are commercial ventures, and catering Many in the artworld will shed more
to those able to spend, and defraying tears when and if the latter happens.
ArTrEvIEw 38
Dispatches_columns_Jan.indd 38 4/12/07 10:40:53
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