We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For

Over the holidays I reflected on what I thought might be next in contemporary art, what will happen now that the market is no longer driving things...no longer "the story" of contemporary art. In doing so, I should note, I considered "contemporary art" as a dialog between artists, curators/museums, critics, collectors, fairs, and yes even galleries, although clearly artists are the raison d'etre for the rest of us. With that in mind, I'll save my thoughts on how any of this applies to artists until the end and work through the other players first. Before that, though, permit me to set the stage for these thoughts (you may want to grab a coffee first, this one goes on for a few gigabytes):

Context for My Conclusions
Early on in his career, Andy Warhol embellished his paintings of cartoons and other Pop images with drips and "expressionistic" passages so that the world would know to take him seriously as an artist. Or so the story goes. More likely he simply hadn't reach the point at which he understood himself what he was working toward...who knows for sure?

Yet now that we're this side of Andy's choice to abandon the obligatory tell-tale signs of "seriousness," we can point to it as evidence that art movements have a down-side to them. They can keep artists from clearly focusing on where their explorations might otherwise take them. The "rules" of a movement that might provide the structure for mining deeply into a rich vein also keep directing adherents (or worse, those who see adherence as their only access into the "dialog") back into choices others have predetermined as valid.

Still, often one hears in the cacophonous contemporary art world a longing for a return to the days of movements or at least a salivating anticipation of the "next big thing," either of which will presumably provide some direction, something to really rally behind or invest in. Like waiting for Godot, it borders on tortuous, this sense that their must be something that will bring clarity or at least a wider urgency. I'd like to suggest we take a cue from the improbable new President-elect and consider instead that we are the ones we've been waiting for.

The clarity we seek will not, I suspect, emerge in conjunction with the rise of a dominant voice or bold new direction by a band of brilliant artists (the essential "art world" is probably too dispersed for that now), but rather with a broader point of view, a step back if you will, that permits us to recognize that Pluralism isn't a temporary brainstorming session, but rather a progression into a richer and wider cultural inter-connectivity. I'll explain more in detail below what I think that means in a fine art context.

First, though, for broader context, consider that socially we're already way ahead of this notion and increasingly very comfortable with it. When I check the stats on this blog, I see I enjoy a daily dialog with people living in virtually every corner of the world. My "friends" on Facebook live in nearly every continent and that circle keeps expanding. What we lose in intimacy with such environments, we make up for in immediacy and quantity. Yes, there's plenty of flotsam bobbing about in the blogosphere and social network sites, but there are absolute gems that come to those who put even the tiniest of efforts into finding them as well. But even the flotsam, especially in its database-convenient accumulation, becomes a ponderous thing, a raw material that provides satisfaction via its quantity (think: hit counters).

Of course, there's more value in this than merely the daily dispensing of digital pellets of personal validation. I don't mean to valorize sitting at a computer, but rather to point to how these tools are enriching our off-line social lives. When I meet someone at an art fair who comments on the blog or am prompted to visit an exhibition by a previously unknown "friend" of a "friend" on Facebook (someone whose profile and mutual friends I can see in preview), for example, I encounter these folks with a remarkable jump-start on real-world intimacy. An artist friend of mine just admitted the other day she finally gave in and joined Facebook because she felt she was missing out on too many invitations to events that everyone else seemed to know about.

Furthermore, we are collectively creating an exhilarating and phenomenally accelerating new lingua-franca (centered in English, which is rapidly closing in on 1 million words) through such tools, one that keeps blending all of recorded human history into an ever-widening pool of referents. (See this list of words added to the Oxford Dictionary recently....origins for new "English" words range from Scotland to East Africa to Japan, some of them just now, nearly 100 years after first coinage, and much of them created in response to the need to discuss new technology among ourselves).

More than that, though, we are collectively sorting through the content of recorded history and tagging it...in essence, through the Internet we're building the most remarkable content management system (CMS) the world has ever known. Consider Wikipedia or YouTube. How much money would it have cost someone to find and input all that data, let alone add all that metadata, let alone refine the quality of the data (via ratings and/or feedback) in a socially relevant way? These are truly historic projects, and we're all contributing to their generation (willingly and for free I might add). (Yes such systems suffer from the bane of any database [i.e., garbarge in = garbage out], but I'll get to that in a moment.)

Moreover, with the speed with which you can now access information that the Internet provides, more of history, more of contemporary life, more of everything is quite literally at your fingertips. I recall, for example, a bit they did on Monty Python decades ago and within seconds I'm watching it on YouTube. If I want to share its significance, I no longer need to summarize or transcribe the telescript, I send out a link and voila, we're all watching the exact same bit. This ability accelerates what I can communicate more accurately. It connects us more succinctly (especially as I would have undoubtedly remembered it incorrectly had I been left to summarize it from memory).

Finally, this ability (and more importantly, our collective acceptance of communicating this way) permits me to draw more casually and eventually more effectively from all of history (images and titles and text and video) to try to convey something. When I wish to suggest humorously that the order for the New Year is Hope, it takes me mere minutes to provide a series of images that reach back millennia. A few key strokes and voila, history condensed and sewn together with ease to underscore my point.

It's not just the access (dedicated travelers or scholars could always spend their lives researching dusty volumes or the back roads of the world and then regurgitate what they found toward their own ends), though, but the ease of it. The speed of it begins to blur it all a bit. Indeed, all of world history and human accomplishment is our fertile playground and the ravenous rate with which we can consume it is changing how we feel about boundaries between times, places, and things. It didn't take me a week to make an appointment with a library and then hours of searching to find the Monty Python sketch, during which any number of life events might have derailed my quest or interest. I found it in seconds and combined it with another idea and moved on.

But why isn't this bad, you might ask? This speed surely leads to shallower observations or offerings, no?

Taken individually, perhaps (depending on the effort or the skills of the person offering it), but collectively I would argue the opposite. The following is an excerpt from something I wrote for the Daily Constitutional, Issue 6, Summer 2008:

It's widely accepted that programming has advanced to the point that no mere mortal will ever again consistently be able to beat the best computer applications at playing chess. The best that even the World Chess Champion can consistently hope for is a tie. And that may be but a momentary situation. Indeed, the notion has been raised that the brute force of intelligence available to a computer now produces the same results as the most intuitive human mind (leading to the situation where humans now prefer to pit their machines against each other at chess tournaments). In terms of processing future possibilities, things have reached the point at which quantity becomes indecipherable from quality.

Effectively directing such quantity into meaningful connections (it's not enough to take your opponent's queen if that then facilitates their checkmating you) is still an achievement of high purpose, though. And for human purposes that will always require understanding what is important from a human point of view. Against this furious backdrop, this new rapidly evolving reality, then, what reflects most accurately what's important now? How can you elevate one idea or achievement or time period over another in such a sea of arguably equal options/sources/references? The answer seems to be you don't. Not in the manner you used to at least. Perhaps moving forward, you assess what's important (to you or to society at large if that's your role), not solely through a chronological canon of individual achievements (although those are still essential elements), but rather through our new-found ability to see deeper, more complex, more subtle connections, independent of linear history or place.

What that means for the players in the art world constitutes the balance of this post:

Curators/Museums
Two "trends" (if you will) or perhaps simply emphases in curating seem to be acknowledging that inter-connectivity is important now. The first is overt collaboration, as evidenced most succinctly perhaps by the collective What, How and for Whom (WHW; Ivet Curlin, Ana Devic, Natasa Ilic and Sabina Sabolovic) who formed in 1999 and will be curating the upcoming Istanbul Biennial. Second is the growing interest in mixing historical with contemporary art or older historical works with more recent historical works...any dismissal of linear time seems of urgent interest (see, for example, this, this, this, this, and this) to present a more accurate overall picture of the works' significance or, as the recent exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum called it, to "draw connections." This achronological approach has captured the imagination of nearly everyone I speak with about it these days. Part of the enthusiasm is admittedly designed to correct what's seen an "imbalance of commercial interest." But I suspect more of it is because of the synaptic connection it sparks...evidence of how it answers a floating question about our times.

Critics
Art on Paper has been carefully balancing its coverage of the medium it's dedicated to, independent of the year the work was created, since the early 90s (see their summer issue reviews for a range of their interests). Their medium-specific mission has permitted this connecting thread across history more easily than that of, say, Artforum or other art publications dedicated to contemporary art, but the history of that publication has been one of continuously widening its scope. It's not irrelevant that its publishers are Peter Nesbett and Shelly Bancroft (the brains behind the sometimes controversial and always thought-provoking non-profit space Triple Candie [currently without a physical location]), two art world insiders with a knack for seeing the big picture.

The depth and breadth that focus permits is but one part of what I think art criticism must provide at the moment, though. The writers at the New York Times cover an incredible range of exhibitions, spanning all of art history, and still maintain more credibility collectively than any other daily publication in the world. But that, I believe, is their strength...their collective voice. Other publications have identifiable points of view or voices, but a singular point of view for any publications' readers increasingly seems a fetishization to my mind. So much so that I suspect publications with only one art critic will benefit greatly from those critics also voicing their opinions via other, perhaps less-formal channels, to permit these (non-edited) critiques to balance out their formal contributions. Blogs are one such channel, but other (less time-consuming channels) are being used effectively by writers for this as well.

Collectors
A high-profile contemporary art collector (a fairly brilliant man recognized as such in his industry) recently noted with great enthusiasm that he had moved past the point in building his collection of only buying "brand" names and had found great joy in also acquiring work by less-established artists that complemented or connected his trophy pieces. He had learned enough about contemporary art to connect the dots, so to speak, he said. Juxtaposing works based on formal or conceptual connections had become his new passion. But more than that, the line that cut through from a budding artist to a highly celebrated one seemed more relevant than any individual piece.

Indeed, I suspect such collections will prove to be more important in the future than deep assemblies of brand names. They will prove to have been more insightful of what was really happening at this time. I know I can't say that without seeming to indict a wide range of what are considered very important contemporary collections, mostly because of their remarkable depth (how many pieces they include by "significant" artists), but having informally surveyed visitors to such collections they nearly universally report the ennui such visits left them feeling. Why? I began to wonder. What is it about such an approach that seems so ho-hum now? Why is the idea of connecting the dots so exhilarating?

Fairs
Two years ago we were invited to participate in Art Chicago, which I had never done before (this was the year of its rebirth via the Merchandise Mart team) and we were excited to try it. Upon seeing our placement at the fair, though, I grew rather anxious. We were surrounded by galleries with programs so different from ours (a secondary market gallery that sold important Modernist works, a print gallery, an old Masters gallery, and contemporary galleries that I considered to be having a very different dialog than the one we're investing in [which is my nice way of saying they were too commercial for my tastes]) that I didn't know what to expect. Most of the fairs we had done before were much more consistent in their scope. A few of them were all but homogeneous (you'd find the same well-selling contemporary artists in several booths). Oddly, though, as the week wore on I began to love the context. To see the connections between what our artists were doing and what had come before, sometimes long before, was very eye-opening. Of course I knew the references that were obvious, but sometimes a subtle connection would reveal itself and it was, indeed, exhilarating.

Now that the market has cooled down, I do wonder whether fairs that had focused on traditional (i.e., older) works but began to embrace contemporary art or contemporary fairs that expanded to include more traditional work will back off that trend. I think that would be unfortunate for the public, even as it might be necessary temporarily for some organizers. The homogeneous art fair increasingly has the same impact that the too-indepth collections have on viewers if anecdotal evidence counts for anything.

Galleries
I suspect we're going to see more exhibitions like the one that just ended at Kinz and Tillou, pairing the photography of contemporary artist Kim Keever with paintings by Hudson River School artists. Indeed, if a contemporary art gallery's role is to explain to the public what an artist is doing and why he/she is important, such exhibitions are surely much more effective than lengthy press releases, no? Another gallery presenting work in this manner for years now to great effect is Pavel Zoubok Gallery, which strategically deals in both the primary and secondary market more seamlessly than any other gallery of its size. Presenting their contemporary artists' work alongside historically important work in an ongoing series of group exhibitions, they connect the dots brilliantly (not to mention improve their odds in any market climate).

More than that, though, galleries will see education on inter-connectivity as a solid means of selling work. A friend of mine who owns a gallery rocked my world when she described her program, which seems consistent to me but confuses some of their collectors from time to time, in terms of imagining that each gallery artist were a segment on a color wheel. You have connections between the artists that mimic the relationship of complementary colors and those that are more akin to the relationship of colors next to each other, both formally and conceptually. It may not be immediately obvious how artist A makes sense in the same program as artist B until you see how one completes a segment of the same wheel.

Not all galleries strive for consistency in their programs, of course, but the same thinking can be incredibly useful in connecting certain artists in one's stable with the artists in a collection. Using the axis system of a color wheel and the main categories of formal concerns and conceptual concerns, connections that may have required painful lengthy explanations may be easier to communicate (provided they're actually there, of course).

Artists
If we accept that the role of contemporary art curators is to investigate and present what's important among the studio practices of living artists, then the two "trends" suggested above should be reflected in what artists are doing, no? Collectives are certainly alive and well, even as their membership, raison d'etre, or output ebbs and flows (as is the norm with collectives it seems): from Fluxus to the Gorilla Girls to Forcefield to K48 to What is to Be Done? and countless others, contemporary collectives continue to form in response to issues or merely a convergence of interests and time and place. Whether curating collectives have any meaningful connection to artist collectives is a fair question though.

Collaboration is also not only alive and well, but seemingly reaching a critical point as a medium unto itself among contemporary artists. Not only are artist teams still thriving (husband and wife [or husband and husband or wife and wife] teams seem everywhere interestingly enough), but we're seeing artists now who see collaboration with a wide range of others (artists and non artists alike) as the main thrust of their practice. Most interesting among such approaches (especially for me admittedly) is that practiced by Christopher K. Ho, described by Jonathan Neil as "collaboration [that] implies or even necessitates a certain antagonism. [Ho's] favored analogy is to the tennis match, where two players not only compete against one another but also collaborate in the creation of the match itself, which
somehow exceeds the inevitable outcomes of victory or loss. Here, ‘working together’ is stripped of its hackneyed utopian veneer and set up as a constant and never frictionless negotiation."

So while friction is in abundance still (evidenced as well by the individual goals of artists that can drive collectives apart), a deeper understanding of the value of collaboration is emerging. Indeed, the "match" (the collective series of points, the back and forth, the connection between the players that creates the drama, and the rules that facilitate the accomplishment) itself becomes what is most interesting for the viewer. Any individual play might indeed make all the highlight reels (even go down in history as spectacular), but the satisfaction comes from witnessing the accumulation of individual plays, some fabulous, some merely moving the match forward.

How this seems relevant to artists not working in collectives or using collaboration as a medium is perhaps best illustrated by looking at two ongoing trends in art making that seem to be converging. One is what I'll call the accumulation (connect a thread through Yayoi Kusama, Tara Donovan, and Daniel Zeller to name but a few) and cataloging processes (connect a thread through Mark Lombardi, Jennifer Dalton, and Danica Phelps, again, to name but a few) trend. What these processes have in common is an approach to organizing vast amounts of information, seemingly the greatest mental challenge of our time. The second trend is the battle to realize the 2-D object (read: painting) in space trend (connect a thread through Elizabeth Murray to Frank Stella's wall sculptures to Matthew Ritchie [and yes, Ivin Ballen]).

What the mutation of these seems to be heading toward is a complex approach to composition that incorporates a huge amount of information and presents it in multi-dimensions (I've seen Rauschenberg-esque photog-collage canvases cut into all manner of forms, painted over in parts with outrageous palletes, and installed such that it's all coming out into the room and along the floor recently...exhilarating, but still in the resolution phase I would say. Not to be confused with installation or scatter art, this effort is a single wholly connected object, not architecture or sculpture unto itself either, but a painting in which the artist confines his ambition to a singular composition.)

But even that, I would submit, is only the beginning of where the foundation being laid now can take art. Talking with three of the smartest people I know in the art world in Miami (Jonathan Neil, Franklin Boyd, and András Szántó) it was suggested that where this is heading, these achievements in visualizing so much information, is an incorporation of the fourth dimension, or in other words, the temporal. I'll leave it to artists to figure out what that will look like.

Conclusions
So it seems to me that what some of us are missing, as we're anxiously anticipating the next big thing, is that it's right here, right now, under our noses and that we, in fact, are actually all participating in it. The systematic connecting of the dots across all of history, the uploading and tagging of the videos, the databases we're voluntarily building in social network sites, the knowledge base we're creating and constantly refining in Wikipedia, all of this is a necessary part of building the foundation for the coming new way of seeing and processing the world around us. We're collectively creating a massive content management system, but it is simply a tool, not the product. This multi-dimensional interconnectivity is merely the new "Perspectiva!"

I suspect it's an evolutionary survival strategy, actually. We simply must be able to process information more quickly to survive. But it must be noted again, that as in any content management system, the output (or what you can actually do with the system) is only as good as the input. In other words, the quality of the individual paintings or photography or video or installations that go into this system, that we tag and collectively connect the dots to, is as important as what anyone ever expects to get out of it. Quantity must be directed by high purpose to reach its quality potential. (The real potential there, again, is something I can't wait for artists to show us.)

What this means I feel is that artists are free to focus intensely on their individual contributions, in the media of their choice. Free of adherence to any manifesto other than their own. This, I know, is where we are...the Pluralism that defines our time, and yet, still, you hear the frustration that the lack of a dominant movement has created in talking with one another about what's important now. I would argue that what's important now is what we are collectively doing. It must come first, and in a way it's an essential part of the art of our time.

UPDATE: Ben, of Emvergeoning, offers a thoughtful response and a few counterpoints:

[A]rt world observers still looking for “the next big thing” need to take a deep breath and accept that fragmentation is here to stay; and this is, in fact, “the next big thing.” This isn’t a crisis, it’s just a way of being.