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To Holland Cotter, New York Times January 10, 2008 Art in the Age of Machines Doing It Global Style or Photography is Going to Change the World Some Day Dear Mr. Cotter, Your recent article concerning the rise of feature length narrative video (“Video Art Thinks Big: That’s Showbiz”, January 6th, 2008) is premised on the notion that new markets are new audiences are new worlds – the implication being that the internet holds out the possibility for a more egalitarian society, one where the hierarchies of art are once and for all abolished, where provincialism and perversion are no longer riding coach class because we’re all flying high with JetBlue. Speaking of JetBlue, speaking of cell phones and mp3s (or m4as) and television screens are everywhere and RFID chips are in our brains, who needs Chelsea when you’ve got YouTube? Chelsea, we’re certain you’ve heard, isn’t bringing in the bulk of the art world’s bacon anymore. Chelsea functions as a mall of flagship stores for brands flying JetBlue every December, piles of art in tow, down to the Miami Beach Gun Show. We could say it a little less cynically: Chelsea appeases artists still concerned to exhibit their work with some degree of control over how it is exhibited. You know, keep the help happy and they’ll work harder. The white box with track lighting and “neutral” floors is not ideal for showing all kinds of art work. It is not, in most cases, ideal for video work, just as a darkened movie theater would, in most cases, be an inappropriate place to exhibit paintings. The internet, as a venue for the display of works of art, comes with its own set of exhibition problems – user interactivity, bandwidth, advertising, screen calibration, duplication, etc. - problems that some artists feel are interesting, or at least worth dealing with, largely due to its easy access to a large audience. But while these venue problems may be new-ish, they carry the carry-on luggage of all other venue problems. For the typical gallery exhibition, the artist agrees for the work to be sold and for half the profits to go to the venue. Further, the artist agrees to deal with the business end of the gun - art dealers and art collectors and art critics and art curators and art bureaucrats – all of whom rarely have much to offer concerning the trigger end of art. For film, artists deal with unions and box offices and artificial butter. Sometimes artists take it to the streets and deal with police officers and permits and graffiti and weather. Underlying it all, no matter what Barack Obama says or JetBlue or Ray Kurzweil or Walter Benjamin, all art that people see must fit in the 8 oz. zip-lock bag known as global capitalism. Unfortunate? Certainly. But things are different since September 11th. Yours truly, The Bruce High Quality Foundation LETTERS_TO_EDITORS_files/airplanebruce.jpg
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Letters to Editors