The Tricky Thing about Transparency

The feud between artnet AG and Redline Capital Management S.A. (who failed in their hostile takeover bid of artnet back in September 2012, all of which ended up costing a number of my favorite art writers their jobs) continues to play itself out on the pages of Skate's Art Investment Review. Not only do Skate's seem to take every possible opportunity to mock artnet's performance since the bid (artnet AG's stock prices are down to about 2.786 euros compared with the 6.4 euros per share Redline had offered in their takeover attempt a little over a year ago), they are now hinting strongly that artnet stockholders might consider suing the company, because a financial statement its management released shortly before the takeover bid has been revealed to have been "incorrect." The exact words Skate's used in reporting this were "The inaccurate accounts pose a potential threat of major litigation for artnet." 

I'm kind of shocked they didn't publish a sympathetic attorney's phone number.

Skate's argument in the report is that if artnet's shareholders had had the correct financial information, they might not have voted down Redline's offer. Which is fair enough. But context is key to real understanding here. The failed takeover surely sucked for Skate's, who had been hired by Redline to advise on their offer; all of which makes much of the snarky commentary Skate's has published about artnet since then smack of sour grapes.

But that's not why I'm writing about this (I love snark and do think Skate's report contains an important revelation about the information the shareholders were given). Still (and this has been bugging me about Skate's artnet coverage for a while), Skate's is publishing this information within an annoying double standard, in my opinion.  

Why?

Skate's promotes itself with the slogan "Transparency For The Global Art Market Since 2004." It's essentially their raison d'etre. They've even co-organized conferences on "trust and transparency" in the art market. And while I think it's debatable whether the art market truly needs more transparency or not, I don't think it's debatable what the word "transparency" means in the context of a market. Investopedia defines it as such:

The extent to which investors have ready access to any required financial information about a company such as price levels, market depth and audited financial reports. Classically defined as when "much is known by many", transparency is one of the silent prerequisites of any free and efficient market.

When transparency relates to information flow from the company to investors, it is also known as "full disclosure".

Now if Skate's were only communicating with hand-selected investors who are well-informed about the interconnections between the companies on their index and Skate's own complex history, I wouldn't be bothering myself with this topic today. But Skate's also operates a news service of sorts, via their blog, and via  Skate’s Market Notes, which is the same articles emailed far and wide as a self-contained PDF file with its header proclaiming its mission of "transparency." Skate's Market Notes covers a finite range of art market topics, such as  "Amazon Diversifies into the Art Market: New Player Has Potential to Dominate the Online Art Trade" or "Living Artists: A Week of Records Sees Strong Performance by Jeff Koons, Christopher Wool, and Gerhard Richter." It's a publication devoted to what Skate's summarizes as "brief articles that focuses on either a particular company from Skate's Art Stocks Index or a unique sale taking place on the auction or private market." It reads a bit chatty, with a generous helping of snark (again, at least where artnet is concerned), but also often includes plenty of data in tables to where it can expect to be viewed not only as reliable, but mostly objective as well.

And so, while they don't call it "journalism," per se, given how it's written and distributed as such, it still behooves Skate's to adhere to their commitment to "transparency" in Skate’s Market Notes as it is understood in the context of journalism, or trustworthy reporting, or even opinion writing. Just as it is in the market context, transparency in journalism, with regards to information flowing from a writer to his/her readers, is also known as "full disclosure." And "full disclosure" is an ongoing process. It's why you hear TV or radio news programs disclose their affiliation with a company they're reporting on, every time, for example. It requires assuming your reader will make decisions based only on what you present to them in each communication, and that if there are any even potential conflicts of interest in your relationship to any of the involved parties, you need to make those clear.

And so it was what I didn't read in Skate's latest Skate's Market Notes (about artnet's financial report) that started to bother me. While it's easy to understand why they wouldn't make a huge deal out of the fact that Skate's founder, Sergey Skaterschikov, is also an Executive Board Member at Redline Capital Management SA (after all, it's been reported before), in the context of a self-contained communication with an analysis and alarming conclusion as serious as this one (you might consider suing), it would seem to deserve at least some mention. 

Skaterschikov's Linked in profile indicates he ended his official association with Skate's in October 2012 (a month after his client, Redline, failed in their takeover bid of artnet) and that he came on as an Executive Board Member at Redline in March 2012 (when the hostile takeover was presumably in its planning stages). I don't mean to suggest there is anything untoward about these affiliations, but that information would seem critical in a self-contained communication about such a matter. Without that disclosure, for example, a reader might conclude the report is entirely objective and the note about "major litigation" is merely an obvious observation. With that disclosure, however, it would certainly seem a fair conclusion on the part of some readers that perhaps the casual conclusion that lawsuits might be in order isn't so casual after all. Indeed, the more objective-seeming framework of the report without that disclosure is highly convenient for someone still hellbent on seeing a takeover happen here (Skate's noted just in April 2013 that "artnet seems to be screaming for a new takeover suitor. Skate's can bet we will hear about one shortly.")

At the very least, noting the connections in a self-contained report would have demonstrated "full disclosure," the very hallmark of true transparency in any context. In other words, if you're gonna sell your services as a call for transparency, you have to commit to it all the way around.

The Costs of Crazy High Contemporary Art Prices

Let's get a few things out of the way to avoid the rush toward strawmen and red herring rebuttals.

I truly do understand the law of supply and demand. I'm in no way arguing for regulating art prices or the further regulating of any of the channels through which people buy art. I'm simply interested in starting a conversation about why crazy high contemporary art prices are inconsistent with what much of the contemporary art world claims to be about. 

Let's start with "the dialog" and the paradox it's increasingly facing in how it operates within the market.

Art is taught in public schools. Galleries are free. Museums have days or times when discounted or free admission permits those with less means to visit. Many artists bemoan the perceived lack of interest the general public have for contemporary art. Combined, these factors project the idea that the art world believes contemporary art is for everyone. Regardless of your wealth or station in life, so long as you're truly curious and open minded, the art world welcomes you to come see what's being created and join in the discussion of it. 

Yet more and more that supposed embrace of a wider audience is bumping up against demands for exclusivity, unhindered access, and an assertion that art isn't really for everyone within the more competitive segments of the market and within certain quarters of the supposedly welcoming dialog. Increasingly the message is evolving into "art is actually only for those with means." 

Consider the trend among certain contemporary art fairs to not only raise their individual ticket prices to more than most working class families of four spend on dinner, but to increasingly limit the total number of people who can even get those tickets (in the service of an air of exclusivity). This is beginning to go even beyond VIP hours considerations, which as an art seller, I completely understand. And there's a central logic here, of course, that's hard to dispute. If you can't afford to buy the art on display, why would you care about getting in earlier rather than later? But the fact is that some galleries rehang after sales at fairs, so those not let in until later can indeed miss out seeing some of the art they've paid dearly to see. Those early-sale works that disapper are simply not for poorer people's eyes. Again, I'm not saying I don't understand the logic at play here, but that doesn't mean I have to ignore its consequence either.

The supposed desire to include everyone in the dialog about contemporary art is changing outside the (declared channels of the) market as well. Consider the change announced yesterday by Bloomberg news, who are downsizing their arts coverage in general:

Bloomberg plans to continue to cover the arts, but with an emphasis on luxury. In an email sent to employees on Monday, Bloomberg editor-in-chief Matt Winkler said that the company has decided "to scale back arts coverage and no longer use the Muse brand." 

He said Bloomberg will align its leisure reporting with its luxury channel on its website, and with Pursuits, its magazine for wealthy readers.

Bloomberg is essentially admitting they believe only their rich readers will care about art. A self-fulfilling prophecy if you reserve your coverage of it for those readers, no?

Beyond the dialog, though, let's also consider how most people in the art world believe their industry plays a role in contributing to the betterment of humankind. Two stories recently, however, suggest astronomical prices in the arts attract more criminals and gangs into that realm, and violent ones in many cases. You can't lay blame for what criminals do on the people willing to legally pay lots of money for art, of course, but there's no question that the headlines of record prices at auctions lead to more criminal activity and that it's still a societal cost that the portion of the art world dedicated to getting art prices ever higher can't pretend has nothing to do with them.

As the BBC reports:

Det Supt Adrian Green investigates serious heritage crime across the country and told BBC Radio 5 live Investigates that objects are being stolen here and then shipped abroad to be sold to dealers and collectors.

"This is top-level international organised crime and it runs into tens of millions of pounds. 

"What we're seeing is that the value of items is increasing but also the level of violence that they are prepared to use is increasing, which is obviously a major concern to law enforcement. 

"It's robbing our communities of their heritage but it's also putting millions of pounds into the pockets of criminals." 

On Monday, an ACPO-led taskforce, made up of representatives including English Heritage, the National Crime Agency and law enforcement professionals, will unveil their latest strategy to tackle this crime.

"They may major in art and antiquities but very often there will be links to money laundering, there'll be links to violence and firearms, and often of course to drugs. 

"Where there's money to be made, organised criminals will move in if we don't stop them." said Mr Bliss.

And, again, of course that's a law enforcement issue. I'm not suggesting the art world need to "stop them" or that they need to do so by artificially limiting the prices or the reporting. Simply that we don't operate in a vacuum and ignoring how things are related is naive. Crime is clearly one of the societal costs of crazy high auction prices.

The other recent story on how art is attracting criminals (in USA Today) needs a bit more investigation (and editorial prudence, in my opinion), as it's currently mostly conjecture and whispers (indeed the subtitle on the article is not at all supported by the actual reporting), and yet the arguments this journalist makes do indeed echo what some folks are asking behind closed doors: 

Art has become an efficient instrument for hiding cash. Swiss banks are no longer a very private place. But a warehouse in Switzerland — or, for that matter, New Jersey — is nicely confidential. 

And art is a way to clean up your dirty wealth. Say you sell, well, drugs. You might buy a painting for $7 million, paying $2 million in cash (helping the seller to avoid taxes), so the transaction is listed as $5 million. You put it in a warehouse for two years, let it predictably appreciate, and then sell it for $9 million. You've not only made $2 million, but you've cleaned another $2 million. Nobody the wiser. 

Art, too, is a market that can be handily manipulated in a way that is likely more beautiful than art itself to financial fixers. If you own, for instance, five Warhols, you might put one up for auction, participate yourself in bidding up the price — you might even buy it yourself at a high price — thereby increasing the value of your other four paintings (which, now you can borrow against at their higher valuation).

I'm not pointing to this article to validate it. Again, it's mostly conjecture and sloppy journalism in my book, but USA Today is widely read across the country and its editors clearly felt the story had legs enough to publish it. The growing perception that the art world is rife with criminals is simply another of the costs of crazy high auction prices.

All of which makes it more difficult to turn the dialog back to issues of the human experience and contemporary art's importance to us here and now.

"But what are you suggesting we do about it?" a steady stream of people have asked, apparently unwilling to accept any criticism unless it's bundled with some solution that frees them personally from any complicity or obligation to think for themselves.

What I suggest we do about it is exactly this. Rather than myopically celebrating the crazy high auction prices as if they were all good and had no undesired side effects, let's have an open conversation about how the practices of institutions whose sole purpose is to drive higher and higher the prices of what art they sell (which is often whatever they can wrestle away from its current owners merely to get it back on the market) are in many ways inconsistent with other goals of the art world at large, including a more inclusive conversation and a role in helping improve the world.

Design Roll Back

Until Blogger gets its act together with their new designs, such that people can see the comments , I'm rolling back to the previous design.

Sorry for any unexpected deja vu. :-)

The Last Time Art Changed the Way I See the World Was...

...yesterday, but I'll get to that in a moment.

As Jerry Saltz recently observed about the decision to bring a work to auction while its artist was having a major museum retrospective (a serious context in which we would expect the artist's lifework to that point to receive a full appreciation), the seller was essentially "shifting discussion from art to money, while exploiting the market as much as possible." Indeed, this past week has seen a huge shift in the discussion from art to money, with art journalists publishing such breathless quotes about the auctions they would make Victorian romance novelists blush. Everywhere we went this week, the record-setting prices were the main art world talking point. Hell, they even mentioned them repeatedly on 1010 WINS all news radio station, which despite broadcasting what's going on in New York 24/7, otherwise never seems to have space to cover the arts.

Looking at the subject lines of three emails that arrived in my inbox just this morning, I see what's demanding my attention is indeed heavily slanted toward money: 

• Investment Pieces: 6 Artworks You Should Collect This Month
• Living Artists: A Week of Records Sees Strong Performance by JeffKoons [sic], Christopher Wool, and Gerhard Richter
• Art Miami and CONTEXT Excel at All Levels of the Art Market

Murat noted the other day that we barely have an "art world" in New York any more. It's been replaced almost entirely with an "art industry." 

This, however, is a choice New York can make or reject.

We run a business and we're are not at all opposed to discussing money, but we chose this business (rather than other more sensible ways to make money) because we also enjoy discussing art. But to do that requires creating a context in one's own mind worthy of the art. It requires setting aside the time and space to do so. It requires turning off the noise emanating from the non-stop market coverage, and carving out room for a different dialog to co-exist. In other words, with things moving as quickly as they do and all the demands of simply surviving, it requires discipline to stop and let yourself truly look at what artists are spending their lifetimes trying to get us to see. We do this as part of our jobs within the gallery, but I realized from Murat's comment that I need to make sure I do so more outside the gallery as well. And so, I made a conscious decision yesterday, between countless emails and phone calls about money, to enact some discipline in my own life. 

And I will challenge you to do so as well. It's not hard to put yourself in the frame of mine to be open to art over money. Just ask yourself "When was the last time art changed the way I see the world?" and what remains of the "art world" in New York immediately begins to look quite different. 

The answer to that question need not be monumental. Discipline is gained through repetition and awareness, not necessarily through some huge life-changing epiphany. Simple observations accumulate into a new world view over time. But the commitment to practicing is essential.

So, when was the last time art changed the way I see the world? Yesterday. 

We attended the opening of Sarah Morris' exhibition at Petzel. We had been lucky enough to see Morris' exhibition at White Cube in London a month ago or so, where we first saw her new film, the installation of which looked spectacular and really impressed us with its scale and resolution (being the moving-image-art installation geeks that we are). We know directors/artist liaisons in both galleries and were discussing the New York installation of the film a few nights ago with one (before the show opened), wondering how it might differ in what's a very nice but considerably smaller gallery. So we entered the installation with a business-minded agenda, thinking we had seen the film, but realizing when we stopped to look last night that we hadn't yet quite "seen" the film. This time we both realized why this piece needs to be projected so large, it's not the grandeur that we left thinking about, but the way the scale showed us more about the use of big shapes of solid color against geometric grids or patterns (much the way Morris focuses on such in her paintings). The scene in which this popped for me involved the camera moving around a lime green VW Bug, with the architecture behind it serving as grid/ground, which clicked for me as an echo of the shapes in her painting Casa das Canoas [Rio]. Not that the VW had anything to do with the Niemeyer classic, mind you, as much as how it revealed a bit the way Morris sees the world around her, and how I might do so too.


The scale of the projection was critical to this. On a smaller monitor, I'm not sure we would have so readily connected the film (which we hadn't slowed down enough to see in London) to the paintings. Moreover, though, doing so stayed with me such that when, later, after a birthday celebration with a Prohibition era theme (which I note only to explain the hat [see below]), I was reminded of the VW scene when Murat stepped in front of this car in the West Village. At first I was struck merely by the palette of autumn browns, but then the big shapes of solid color became more apparent to me, and how they stood out against the geometry of the fence across the street. 

It was a modest observation, sure, but an immensely enjoyable one, set in motion only because I had committed myself to practicing shutting out the noise of the market for a few minutes and trying to see something new through the eyes of an artist. Some way of viewing the world that was new for me. Which is why I got into the art world in the first place.

And so...for you? When was the last time art (someone else's preferably) changed the way you see the world? If you can't recall...it's perhaps time to rearrange your daily habits just a bit. But if you can, please share.

Are Artists with Day Jobs Serious?

I was talking with the assistant director of a mega-gallery a few months ago--a very nice person who works very hard, but who hasn't risked any of their own money in opening up a gallery. I make that distinction because I was taken aback when they dismissed artists who have galleries, but who also need a day job to survive, as "hobbyists." They said it so naturally, it struck me it must be a commonly held opinion in mega-gallery-land. 

Many years ago, before we had opened our own gallery, I had heard Jeffrey Deitch on a panel at the New School (I think) say he wouldn't work with any artist who wasn't dedicated to their art making full time (i.e., who also had a day job). It struck me as a valid choice for an art dealer at the time, but the economy was pretty strong back then and studio rents (perhaps the biggest expenditure for most struggling artists) were much more reasonable.

Flash forward to 2013, five years into the "recovery," and real estate prices across New York, but especially in neighborhoods where artists and galleries have set up camp, are pushing out all but the extremely wealthy, even among galleries. Studio rents in particular are insane, compared with what they were back when we opened the gallery, pushing artists further and further away from not only the neighborhoods that had long had big concentrations (i.e., communities) of artists in them, but the wealthy New Yorkers who might purchase their work as well.

In fact, it's gotten to the point that the only emerging artists who can afford to work full time on their art, and still live and work in New York, are the wealthy ones. This has become a hot topic in New York, with celebrities like David Byrne arguing that the soaring cost of living is crushing the city's creative culture, at least for non-wealthy creatives, and now The New York Times has published a debate on The Cost of Being an Artist, with varying view points on how to survive in these financially challenging times.

But back to the assumption (let's call it a bias) that artists who have a day job are not serious enough to be represented by the more "serious" galleries. My problem with that is, with the way New York (still the biggest concentration of powerful curators, collectors, and critics in the world) is evolving, is how it more and more favors rich artists. Mind you, I know some wealthy artists whose work is wonderful and a very welcome addition to the dialog (and hopefully canon). But I also know tons of wealthy full-time artists whose work is pretty awful (and some have high-profile galleries, as well). The more they gain an advantage in getting into galleries over other artists whose work may be better, but whose access is more limited, the worse our overall cultural legacy becomes. 

I don't really understand the bias against artists with day jobs. Deitch implied it represented a lack of seriousness, but what's serious about being born with a silver paintbrush in your hand? Until there's ample, affordable studio space in the locations where it matters, to ensure we get the quality of art promoted that we as a society deserve, I think that old-fashioned notion of looking down at artists with other jobs has got to go.

UPDATE: OK, so that last paragraph was poorly considered. I do actually understand the bias, as it has existed historically, but in the current climate I'm not sure it's as important that good artists starve to focus all their time on their art, as it is we can agree that whatever balance is necessary to keep them working on their art will be supported by the system.

The Top 10 Most Useless Art World Lists

It's not my intention at all to ridicule any of the people who appear on any of these lists. As far as I know, you can't really lobby to get on them, and even if you can, it's more my point to deconstruct a bit these clearly popular, but massively news-text-and-time-consuming features in hopes of either nudging their authors to beg their editors to let them write more, er, verifiable articles, or at the very least to craft these crowd-pleasers with a bit more consideration of what it is they lack. 

Without further preface: The Top 10 Most Useless Art World Lists

#10: The 50 Most Powerful Women in the New York Art World by GalleristNY
Published back in 2011, but still popping up with rather telling frequency in their "RECOMMENDED FOR YOU" sidebar widget, Gallerist's list of the 50 most powerful Women in the New York Art World justifies itself with the flimsiest of rationales you'll find on any such list: "[W]e initially resisted the idea of creating a Power List...until we realized we could use one to make a point. There has been a lot of press about women in the art world recently, but for some reason this talk has been for the most part limited to women who work in galleries....What gets left out in the current discussion is the fact that women hold positions of real power in the art world." Er, uh, yeah, so to distinguish those two categories you title your list "Women in the ART WORLD" as opposed to "Women in GALLERIES." And given the very clear precedent of art world Power Lists to include curators, collectors, critics (well, at least until recently), and other non-gallery art world denizens (can anyone find a power list that's limited to Gallery women? I looked, but failed), this rationale seems as arbitrary as its end results. Not to mention that it's now so out-of-date it should either be updated or retired from their feed.

#9: Power 100 by Art Review
My number one issue with the annually updated Power 100 list (other than never appearing on it, or even coming close, or even being considered...where's my scotch?) is how untimely it ultimately is. For example, while the curators of the major biennials around the world wield quite a bit of power leading up to their events, often by the time the list comes out (in which they've rocketed up the ranks), their actual power has begun to cool quite a bit. Bad reviews of their exhibitions or, more so, the art world's insatiable demands for "yeah, so what's next?" makes their appearance on the list seem a bit too nostalgic at times. Yes, this is the complaint of an unappeasble art news glutton, and the list is published near the end of its calendar year, so it serves as a record of power, more than a current barometer, per se, but I often get distracted while reading the list calculating how many positions this or that person will slide down the following year, based on information that came out between the list's assembly and publication. 

#8: {insert number} Artists to Watch in {insert year} by Modern Painters (and published on Artinfo) 
Where to start? With the positive, of course. I give Modern Painters mucho credit for at least inviting artists to assemble this list ("We remain convinced that other artists are the best spotters of talent."), but lists like this remind me of the joke: "The pity about getting one's MFA from Yale is how often, years later, that's the only highlight on the recipient's CV." I'd love to see one of these lists that wasn't so focused on the speculative aspect of the art market, as well, or at least one that seemed to really understand the speculative aspect of the art market (which may be too much to ask from the artist authors, but...). None of the artists in the example linked to here were born before 1979, and yet anyone paying attention knows older, "re-discovered" artists are among the hottest selling in the contemporary realm. And yet none made the list. (Variations on this type list are abundant, and most suffer from the same shortcomings.) 

#7: The ARTNews Top 200 Collectors by ARTNews
You know what would make this list less useless? Publishing their freaking email addresses! Or at least all their photos. I mean, come on! :-) 

#6: Hollywood Reporter Reveals the Industry's Top 25 Art Collectors 
Again, no contact info is supplied :-( . But I'll give this list a bit of a break because, well, it's the Hollywood Reporter, and this is the kind of prose they peddle, but this list deserves special attention for inadvertently highlighting the most cringe-worthy quality behind all such lists (as recently noted by Tyler Green): their blatant starfuckery. Why investigate or analyze trends or issues, or *gasp* write about actual art, when attaching a few celebrities' names to a list will get a gazillion more hits? It's a question writers/editors might want to ask themselves before they're on their death beds. 

#5: The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World by Hyperallergic
Only "useless" because they haven't updated it for 2013 yet. Come on Hrag...we love this stuff. 

#4: 500 Best Galleries by Modern Painters (and published on Artinfo) 
We actually did make this list, which is very kind of Modern Painters (seriously, thank you), but so many other clearly great galleries didn't that it's ultimately a bit embarrassing (which is something I'm sure the editors have already figured out how to fix for me next year, but...). My real issue with this attempt is its scope. Being overly ambitious isn't always helpful. It leads to inconsistencies, which are understandable from a deadline point of view, but some of the omissions are so glaring, you have to wonder whether a bit more time or, preferably, a smaller list wouldn't have been more useful. 

#3: 2013's Fifty Most Powerful and Influential People in the Nonprofit Arts (USA) by Barry's Blog
This is such a sincere effort and obvious labor of love, I almost hate myself for including it on the "useless" list, but as the first comment on the 2013 list brilliantly notes (indicting all such lists in my opinion): "I can't help wondering if it makes sense to single out the most "powerful" and "influential" people in an industry that has neither the power nor influence to keep its theaters, concert halls and galleries full. We're a diminishing industry that's steadily losing customers and steadily losing relevance in the broader culture. To publicly proclaim 50 individuals every year to be power elites when elitism is one of our biggest problems seems to me to be counterproductive. I mean no disrespect to the people on the list; they're good people who deserve recognition. But wouldn't it be more appropriate to focus on humility rather than power for a change, and on measurable results rather than insiders' influence?" 

#2: The Love List: Power Couples of the Art World by Artinfo 
Not only useless, but a touch nauseating, Artinfo mercifully only published this one time, as far as I can see. The photos are way too cute often, but it's the inconsistency behind who made the list that bugs me. Take their stated rationale for not including Jay Jopling's ex, artist Sam Taylor-Wood, and her new squeeze: "[B]oth halves must play a significant role in the art establishment. In other words, artist Sam Taylor-Wood and White Cube dealer Jay Jopling were an art-world power couple; Taylor-Wood and 21-year-old actor Aaron Johnson are not." And yet, other couples who did make the list include partners who are fashion designers, musicians, and a host of spouses whose only real power is their ability to end up in the same photo-op as their partner at openings.

#1: The most useless art world list: The monthy review of Artforum's advertisements by GalleristNY 
To anyone who reads this each month, let me just say, "Pick up a copy of the original, you lazy freaks."  To the people who produce this list, you might make more progress sending Knight a bottle of scotch next time you submit your resume. Just a thought.