Soul Searching

Next week, Sotheby's is going to auction off 223 artworks directly from the studio of artist Damien Hirst. This bold move into the primary market by the auction house has stirred up quite a bit of commentary, including in forums that I support and participate in (such as Artworld Salon), but as of yet I have not been able to bring myself to openly write on the topic. Oh I've sent a few hotly worded tirades through back channels, but in re-reading any of them I realized I sounded whiny or reactionary or, worse, anti-artist.

Indeed, my biggest reservation in talking about Sotheby's land grab has been that it's difficult to do so without seeming to question whether or not Hirst should have control over his career, which of course not only should he, but I'm on record as encouraging other artist to think outside the box and have singled Mr. Hirst out specifically as someone who's done so very well. Reserving all my criticism then for the auction houses seemed disingenuous though, because clearly this arrangement is something Mr. Hirst is strongly defending as well.

Also keeping my fingers away from my keyboard, admittedly without courage, was knowing that I really wanted to see how the auction goes before commenting. That would be unfair though. If the auction tanks, then my response would possibly come off as a "told-you-so" postmortem, making me seem both cowardly and petty. If the auction does well, then any reservations I had expressed will seem unprescient, unprogressive, and even more anti-artist.

I felt stuck. This is possibly a total game changer, and I couldn't sort out how to express my visceral sense that this was not something the art world would truly benefit from.

Enter the brilliant Roberta Smith. In a review of an exhibition at the newly opened New York branch of the gallery Haunch of Venison (love, love, love that name) she insightfully nails the potential pitfalls of auction houses tiptoeing into the primary art market. Haunch of Venison, you see, is owned by Christie's auction house, and if their first New York exhibition is any indication, then my gut was right...there are game-changing mutations that come along for the ride here. I like to think I'm forward thinking, but embracing the bold new world doesn't mean you leap blindly into a void.

Smith forewarns of her misgivings in the review's opening sentence, but two later observations were what pieced it altogether for me.

Christie’s acquisition of the gallery, announced early last year, raised questions about conflict of interest, but now the arrangement seems almost quaint. After all, next week Sotheby’s will auction off a large batch of new works by Damien Hirst directly from his studio, completely bypassing art dealers, galleries, the viewing (and reviewing) public.

and

This show should be seen for its high points and a few of [curator David] Anfam’s juxtapositions. But the main lesson here is that it takes more than great art, new walls and a no-sale policy to make an art gallery. Galleries are forms of expression; they need at least a smattering of vision. Absent that, the effect is soulless and corporate.

But even in letting myself cheer at that sentiment, I realized I'm still not addressing why this move is bad for artists. So it's bad for galleries and critics...should artists care? The answer is yes if they care about posterity and whether future generations will feel that the way the art of our time was selected for preservation had any integrity. You see, the strength of an auction-house-backed gallery like Haunch of Venison has a pull somewhat akin to that of a black hole:

More than a third of the show’s 60 or so works have been lent by museums — the Whitney, the Modern and the Albright-Knox among others — which adds a veneer of respectability but leaves one wondering why museums would participate in such a redundant, aggrandizing show. The least offensive answer is that the museums are doing favors for Mr. Anfam, a respected scholar of postwar American art with numerous books and museum exhibitions to his name. Maybe they just want to remain in good standing with Christie’s, or Mr. Pinault. But probably each loan has its own route. For example, Haunch’s international managing director, Robert Fitzpatrick, is the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, which has sent Franz Kline’s 1955 “Vawdavitch.” Although about a dozen of the remaining works are lent by dealers, Mr. Fitzpatrick said that Haunch of Venison, at least, is not selling anything in the show. That may be too slender a hair to split.

Again, God bless Ms. Smith.

I know, because I read the comments here, that there are folks who feel even the current gallery system is too corporate and soulless. Some folks simply feel that art is soiled by commerce, and that it's pointless to draw moral distinctions between an art gallery like, oh say, ours and what Christie's is doing with Haunch of Venison. And perhaps, taking a long view, they're right. But without at least the expectation that a gallery is serving the public with risk-taking exhibitions and artist-centric (as opposed to market-centric) concerns determining at least some of the programming decisions, we do lose just that little bit more of soul in the art world.

Personally, I think these days we should cling to all the soul we can.