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At Art Basel in Miami Beach, Dealers Test Whether Art Market Can Take a More Political Turn by Alexander Forbes, Artsy

At Art Basel in Miami Beach, Dealers Test Whether Art Market Can Take a More Political Turn

Editorial de Alexander Forbes originalmente publicado no site Artsy em 1 de dezembro de 2016.

Art Basel in Miami Beach opened its 15th anniversary edition on Wednesday at the Miami Beach Convention Center. This year sees 269 galleries from 29 countries showing across the fair’s five sectors. And while political turmoil across the globe, the U.S. election, and Zika convened to dampen dealer expectations for the fair this year, initial results suggest that those with diversified programs and—most importantly—work of real resonance and quality are faring just fine.

“Art Basel has truly transformed our community,” said Art Basel in Miami Beach host committee chairman and auto magnate Norman Braman, inaugurating this year’s fair. Miami has been a hallmark example of the Art Basel brand’s ability to elevate a city far beyond expectations, in part inspiring the Swiss fair’s Art Basel Cities initiative, which begins in Buenos Aires next year. It will see Art Basel work with municipalities around the globe to increase cultural programing, in hopes of capturing the same essence that “helped spur the renaissance of Miami Beach,” according to Miami Beach mayor Philip Levine.

Over its 15 editions, Art Basel in Miami Beach has expanded from 160 galleries (half of which still participate) to nearly 300. It has seen the formation of over 20 additional satellite fairs that each now set up shop during the first week of December. It has seen the Miami art scene expand from just six galleries in 2002 to over 130 galleries in 2016. And it has seen a remarkable commitment to culture from its residents: Braman and others have rallied to create the ICA Miami, which will open its permanent location next year; Jorge Pérez announced on Wednesday that he would give an additional $15 million gift to the Pérez Art Museum Miami, which was relaunched in 2013, following his initial $40 million gift ($20 million of which was donated in artworks); and numerous other collectors have launched private institutions in Miami, including the Rubell Family Collection, which on Tuesday announced that it is building a new 100,000-square-foot space slated to open in December of 2018, more than doubling its current size.

What might have otherwise been a purely celebratory occasion for Art Basel in Miami Beach did, however, reflect the state of our times. The year 2016 has been cast as bruising by many, and this has not been lost on the art world—far from it. “We’ve faced health issues. We’ve faced unexpected political transitions that we’re in the middle of here [in the United States] but also further afield. One need only look at Brexit or the state of the Brazilian government or what’s going on in Korea to realize that this is a time of great change,” said Art Basel director Marc Spiegler.

And there has been no lack of debate regarding art’s role in such tumultuous times. In an essay earlier this week, Ben Davis smartly questioned whether or not the only resonance created by artistic forms of protest, at a time when an educational divide sits at the center of politics, is that of an echo chamber among progressives. But Spiegler disagrees: “I would argue that art is more relevant than ever. Artists have an important role to play.” He pointed to the fact that artists are able to react to and record changes in society much more quickly than can politicians and CEOs—and that we should expect to see a more politically engaged and more deeply probing form of art gain greater prominence in the coming years. There has been considerably less time for art to come to the surface in the few weeks since the American election than there was in the lead up to it. But Art Basel in Miami Beach plays host to a few early ruminations on that election’s results.

Gavin Brown is presenting a trio of works by Rirkrit Tiravanija created on November 9th. Titled untitled 2016 (the tyranny of common sense has reached its final stage, new york times, november 9, 2016), the works use the pages of said day’s paper as a backdrop for the titular message, which has been painted on in Tiravanija’s typical block lettering. “We planned for a completely different hang of the booth, but following the election we decided that what we had planned to show wasn’t necessarily appropriate to the mood,” said the gallery’s Thor Shannon. “I can’t imagine not addressing everything that’s happening right now. It would seem too cavalier or mercantile to do that.”

Just adjacent to Brown, Blum & Poe’s booth greets those entering the fair through Door B with another late addition, Sam Durant’s End White Supremacy (2008)—the words of the title scrawled out on a neon orange electric sign. The booth’s interior sees a further pair of works by Durant, one reading, “Landscape art is good only when it shows the oppressor hanging from a tree by his Motherf**ing (sic) neck.” Two booths away at Sprüth Magers, Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Cast of Characters) (2016) portrays a more pluralistic view of this year (“Fatuous Fools,” “Brutal Schemers,” “Jerks,” and “Haters” alongside “Lovers,” “Kind Souls,” “Doers,” and “Believers”), following her now-infamous cover for New York magazine’s election issue, for which she printed “Loser” over an image of Donald Trump.

While far from all of the artwork at Art Basel in Miami Beach this year—or even a majority—is directly political in orientation, shifting political and economic realities the world over weighed heavily with all of the dealers I spoke to on opening day. “In truth, I think all of us were somewhat uncertain between the political environment, the strength of the dollar, even Zika, quite honestly,” said Paula Cooper director Steven P. Henry. “There have been a lot of headwinds to the market recently.”

Henry reported a “moderated” pace in comparison to previous years at the fair, as well as fewer Europeans in attendance. However, the director went on to say that early results had nonetheless outstripped their dampened expectations going into Art Basel. A fresh painting by Cecily Brown, Frenchy (2016), sold quickly, as did works by Tauba Auerbach, Kelley Walker, and new addition to the program, Evan Holloway. As has been the case for the past year, Henry noted some benefits to the slower pace: “Rather than buying with their ears, people are looking. It’s better for the artists and it’s better for the collectors, really.”

Across the fair, no single market segment or genre of art appears to be especially harder hit by the overall softening that has been observed over the past 12 to 18 months. It’s just that fewer works in each category are going overall. Towards the upper end of the spectrum on day one in Miami was a remarkable 1964 canvas by Kenneth Noland, Mach II, which sold from Acquavella Galleries in the fair’s first hours in the region of its $1.25 million asking price. “It’s an A-plus example of his work, with really incredible provenance,” said Eleanor Acquavella of the piece, which had remained in the same private collection up until the gallery’s exhibition “Postwar New York: Capital of the Avant Garde” this past summer.

Acquavella said that dealers, like her family’s, have been experiencing the same supply constraints that have hobbled the secondary market over the past year. Sensing uncertainty in the market, collectors have shown significant reticence to offer up top-quality material. And like in the secondary market, when they have decided to sell, much of the material has been kept private. “That’s the bulk of our business,” she said, noting that fairs serve more as a form of advertising. “That’s why we really try to bring an array of things.” This time, that ranges from the Noland and a set of Andy Warhol “Dolly Partons” to paintings by rising Chinese abstract painter Wang Yan Cheng and Spanish painter and ceramist Miquel Barceló.

Other major sales on opening day included a work by Mark Bradford, which sold for $2 million from Hauser & Wirth; a Yoshimoto Nara wood panel painting, which Blum & Poe sold for $1.2 million; Bridget Riley’s Rose Gold 2 (2012) and Albert Oehlen’s Interior (1998), which sold for $1 million each at Max Hetzler’s stand; an Enrico Castellani canvas for €1 million from Tournabuoni Art; a new painting by Kerry James Marshall (Untitled (Curtain Girl), 2016) for $600,000; a pair of paintings by Lee Ufan for $750,000 apiece from Pace; Craig Kauffman’s Untitled Wall Relief (1967/2008) and DeWain Valentine’s Triple Disc Red with Blue Lip (1967), which each sold for $750,000 from Sprüth Magers; Carmen Herrera’s Untitled Estructura (Blue) (1966/2015) and Ave Maria (2011) for $450,000 each from Lisson; and Shimmer (1970) by Sam Gilliam, sold from David Kordansky Gallery for $400,000.

According to Cheim & Read’s Adam Sheffer, who also serves as ADAA’s president, dealers at Art Basel in Miami Beach this year might expect the tempo “to be more like some of the European regional fairs where you do a little bit each day.” Sheffer had already swapped out a number of sold works from his booth, including a $250,000 Jenny Holzer, a $350,000 Sean Scully, and a $30,000 Chantal Joffe. Ghada Amer’s Three Girls in Black and White (2016) had also sold for $150,000—as had an untitled Adam Fuss from this year, for $60,000.

Sheffer said that successfully dealing art at the present moment does require significantly more work than it has at previous stages in the art market. “There’s no question that sales are the most important part of being in an art fair. This is like the world’s most expensive parking space of all time and the meter is running. But at the same time, if you’re handed lemons, make lemonade,” he said. In some cases that means knowing when to put immediate worries about total sales volume aside and instead taking the time to have more extended conversations with those choosing to attend the fair despite Zika and political turmoil. “Collectors who have come here this year are the ones who have always made a life in art. And regardless of what’s going on or what they hear about on CNN or MSNBC or Fox, this is something that is inherent to their lives and they’re going to be here because of it.”

Perhaps, if Spiegler has his way, those collectors will this week be the ones who begin to help fund a more radical and politically engaged art world—precisely because of what they’re reading in the news. At least then we’ll know for sure if art can make a difference.

Nice Museum. Where’s the Art? by Tom Rachman, The New Yorker

Nice Museum. Where’s the Art?

Artigo de Tom Rachman originalmente publicado na revista The New Yorker em 13 de maio de 2016.

After all the artist’s struggles, all the critical quarrels, all the millions paid for grand works—after all that, how long will a museum visitor typically stand before a masterpiece? About twenty-eight seconds, according to a recent scholarly study. This average has held steady during the past fifteen years, though the behavior of museum visitors has changed. Today many aren’t there just to gaze; they’ve come for selfies.

The museum experience is shifting in our digital age, and it’s hard to say who is leading the vanguard: the visitors wanting something more than a stuffy salon, or the curators nervously anticipating public fancies. Anyway, the upshot is construction. Since 2007, museums have committed $8.9 billion to expansion, more than half of that in the United States, according to a survey by The Art Newspaper. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art alone, which reopens Saturday with almost three times its previous gallery space, raised three hundred and five million dollars for its growth. (Naturally, it’s promising a new smartphone app for visitors.) Among the other august establishments in various stages of redux are the Museum of Modern Art, in New York; the Royal Academy, in London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the most popular modern-art museum in the world, Tate Modern, in London.

The reasons for a museum to grow are many. Contemporary artworks—especially installations and performances—demand more varied spaces than those available in older museums. Also, it’s easier to obtain funding for a shimmering new structure than for an unglamorous renovation. Attracting art donations requires space—billionaire X must know that his Warhols, Bacons, and Hirsts will be out there for all to see. Finally, the hushed museum halls of yore evoke an era when the artists were mostly Western white men and the patrons were often the unscrupulously rich. (Some of this hasn’t changed.) The goal now is to welcome the widest possible audience for learning, socializing, and entertainment. That means event spaces, concert halls, film theatres, gathering places, and plenty of shopping. Among the most intriguing expansions is that of Tate Modern, whose towering addition on the Thames opens June 17th. Its ambition could hardly be loftier: to redefine the museum for the twenty-first century.

Tate Modern has a history as a culture-shifting museum. It gained broad acclaim upon its opening, in 2000, located in a shabby area on the wrong side of the river. The architects of Herzog & de Meuron converted a derelict former power station into a cavernous art space, establishing three floors for post-1900 works, plus the vast Turbine Hall for commissions of contemporary art, among them pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Olafur Eliasson, and Ai Weiwei. The surrounding neighborhood was revitalized, crowds poured in, and a rescued industrial building became an emblem, and a motor, of this heady moment of optimism in millennial Britain.

But when attendance hit five million a year, it was double what the facility had been designed for. During peak hours, the crowds remain formidable; tranquil scrutiny of art is not in the cards. Yet art was never the sole reason—perhaps not even the main reason—for the popularity of Tate Modern. Although its temporary exhibitions are often excellent, the works selected from the permanent collection can be disappointing and confusingly organized. Nevertheless, this hip converted power station became a must-see for tourists and a charming outing for locals in a bankruptingly expensive city. (As with other British national museums, the permanent collection is free to visit.) To accommodate their success, the Tate directors moved ahead with an extension. What Herzog & de Meuron came up with is an angular mid-rise building that appears as if pinched near the top and given a twist, then sliced across with long, horizontal windows and clad in brickwork that blends with the connected power station. The project adds sixty per cent more space and comes with plans to develop public squares around the museum.

Within, the renewed Tate Modern promises refreshed displays of its collection, focussing on how art has changed since the museum’s establishment, both in practice and in interpretation. There will be an emphasis on incorporating artists unjustly snubbed by the Western canon because they happened to live beyond the Paris-New York-London nexus, or who worked in previously unfashionable media, or whose renown was diminished by bigotry. The other main objective is a more participatory experience, including music, dance, and “live art.”

During a recent press briefing, Tate Modern’s director, Frances Morris, spoke of the institution’s shift “from being a museum that people come to and look at, spend time in, to a museum that opens its doors to collaboration, conversation, and participation.” This is already evident in a floor plan of the extension: a majority of the ten new levels won’t contain art at all. There’s a panoramic viewing floor at the top, a level for the restaurant, another for learning and events, and one for the bar and shop, leaving the art to three floors, in addition to repurposed oil tanks in the basement for performances and installations.

If there is a spiritual core to the expansion, it might be Tate Exchange, an experiment that enjoys a floor to itself, offering workshops, discussions, and yet-to-be-determined hubbub. Morris described it as “a drop-in space, as well as a curated space, so that any member of the public who wants a deeper engagement, or actually just wants to listen to a talk, or to do something physical, or to have a coffee with like-minded people, will be able to access this space.” Community groups are among those setting the agenda, including a children’s art studio, a local radio station, and an organization for those with Tourette’s syndrome.

The success of an expansion, or of any single exhibition, is often judged by visitor numbers, but there are other markers of success: the degree to which an exhibition illuminates and moves and changes its viewers, or the power a collection has to inspire local artists. Such outcomes provide no data. Therefore, attendance figures weigh on museum directors; their jobs may be at stake.

And perhaps crowd-pleasing should be the priority. Those who advocate a more traditional, contemplative museum sound outmoded, élitist, and narrow-minded—precisely the attitude that museums are running from. In Britain, the matter bumps into class consciousness, because many museums were founded in part to elevate the citizenry, regardless of station in life (that is, very mindfully indeed, with the particular goal of raising the lower orders). A museum leader like the Tate organization’s chief, Sir Nicholas Serota, would be condemned were he not punctilious about creating spaces where all are ostentatiously welcomed, encouraged to hang out, act up, chillax.

The critic Hal Foster, the author of “The Art-Architecture Complex,” among other works, has raised concerns about the ongoing museum boom. For one, all this giddiness about stylish new buildings can overshadow the art inside. “The logic seems to be to build a container and then leave it to artists to deal with it, but the result on the art side is likely to be a default form of installation work,” he writes, in a piece published last year in the London Review of Books. Foster also cites a tendency to patronize audiences. “Another reason for this embrace of performance events is that they are thought to activate the viewer, who is thereby assumed, wrongly, to be passive to begin with,” he writes. “Museums today can’t seem to leave us alone; they prompt and prod us as many of us do our children.”

In the academic paper that researched museum viewing times, the scholars Lisa F. Smith, Jeffrey K. Smith, and Pablo P. L. Tinio cite an analogy: viewing art as eating food. Some people “sample” (just a glance at the artwork); others “consume” (that twenty-eight second eyeful); a few “savor” (perusing for a minute or more). A selfie allows visitors to “consume” without troubling to engage, they observe. Yet the rewards of art derive from engagement, attention, effort. When museum directors speak of “interactivity” and “participatory spaces” and “the site-specific app,” it must sound hip in the boardroom. It can also sound like pandering: that art should be easier, more laid-back, more like online entertainment.

One justification is the democratization of culture, a buzzy concept born of the online revolution and reinforced by page clicks, attendance figures, and other data analytics. Who can dispute democracy, with its admirable pledge of equality and merit? But the metaphor of democracy is false regarding culture. This isn’t the citizenry selecting a leader to govern for a set term; it’s wherever crowds happen to converge, often prodded into position by a marketing team. Consider the movies gaining the most votes of late. Their elected representatives would include an awful lot of superheroes with abs of steel. Were those the best pictures?

Tate Modern should be commended for attending to the diverse art scenes flourishing around the globe today; for embracing thrilling works of experiential art; for reconsidering the history of modernist creativity to include the worthy but unfamiliar. Art should include the alien, the weirdly individual—it ought to confront us with strangers’ visions that are distinctly not our own (and are unlikely to be improved by inserting our faces for a selfie). Art isn’t always about participation and popularity and relating everything back to us. Museums shouldn’t be, either.

Tom Rachman is the author of “The Imperfectionists” and "The Rise & Fall of Great Powers.”

O novo papel dos museus por Marcelo Araujo, Folha de S. Paulo

O novo papel dos museus

Opinião de Marcelo Araujo originalmente publicada no jornal Folha de S. Paulo em 23 de novembro de 2016.

Um passo importante para se pensar os museus, nos âmbitos local e global, foi dado em novembro de 2015, quando a Unesco (Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, a Ciência e a Cultura) aprovou, a partir de uma proposta brasileira, o documento "Recomendação sobre a Proteção e a Promoção de Museus e Coleções, sua Diversidade e seu Papel na Sociedade".

Trata-se de uma conquista dos países que participam da conformação de diretrizes internacionais sobre os museus, além de passo importante para o aprimoramento dessas instituições frente aos novos desafios que assumem no mundo contemporâneo.

A recomendação reconhece o papel central dos museus como instituições fundamentais para a implementação de políticas culturais.

Também destaca a importância da qualificação dos profissionais que atuam nessas instituições, com foco no desenvolvimento das relações entre museus e público.

Num cenário em que cresce a participação social e econômica dos museus em suas comunidades, é necessário prepará-los para utilizar de maneira crítica as novas tecnologias.

Neste mês de novembro, a China sediou, na cidade de Shenzhen, o Fórum de Alto Nível sobre Museus, organizado pela Unesco, que reuniu especialistas de diversos países com o objetivo de refletir e contribuir com estratégias para implementar as orientações que constam da recomendação.

A repercussão gerada pela aprovação do documento tem mobilizado instituições culturais em todo o mundo, e o fórum se constituiu em um espaço qualificado para ampliar esse debate e pensar os museus no século 21.

Ao trazer essas questões para a nossa realidade, vemos que a estrutura jurídico-administrativa brasileira já incorpora importantes diretrizes incluídas no texto.

A Política Nacional de Museus, o Sistema Brasileiro de Museus e o Estatuto de Museus são evidências do grande avanço da área nos últimos dez anos.

O Instituto Brasileiro de Museus (Ibram), autarquia vinculada ao Ministério da Cultura, cumpre papel fundamental nesse processo, como órgão federal responsável pela operacionalização dessa estrutura e pela gestão direta de 29 instituições em nove Estados da Federação.

É tarefa do Ibram desenvolver mecanismos para que esse riquíssimo universo ganhe maior visibilidade e consistência.

Em breve iremos disponibilizar ao setor o Registro de Museus, ferramenta fundamental para o mapeamento da área e para o planejamento integrado de ações.

Os dados que conseguiremos com esse instrumento serão imprescindíveis para visualizarmos o impacto das atividades museológicas em suas múltiplas dimensões, incluindo a econômica.

Entendemos que as políticas públicas, em todos os níveis federativos, têm muito a contribuir para a implementação de ações que fortaleçam os aspectos pautados pela recomendação da Unesco.

Essa discussão que fazemos juntos aos museus brasileiros culminará, em junho de 2017, na realização do sétimo Fórum Nacional de Museus, em Porto Alegre.

O Ibram convida, desde já, os profissionais do setor, pesquisadores e toda a sociedade brasileira para refletirmos sobre o documento da Unesco e o caminho a ser trilhado pelos museus no Brasil.

MARCELO ARAUJO é presidente do Instituto Brasileiro de Museus (Ibram). Foi diretor da Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2002 a 2012) e secretário de Cultura do Estado de São Paulo (gestão Geraldo Alckmin)