Art History Today

The Conservatives and the Arts- slight return

I posted recently on Bendor Grosvenor's article in the Art Newspaper. I heard back from Bendor- see below.

"I was amused to read your blog following my article (or rather, 'little lecture') in the Art Newspaper.

 

However, I would be grateful if you cold please correct it. At no point in the article did I write anything that would justify your assertion that "he means selling works of art to bolster museum operating funds rather than using deaccessioning to rebalance a collection to fit in with curatorial policy linked to issues of quality." I am surprised that you could reach that conclusion. I wrote "can we any longer avoid deaccessioning, if acquisition funds are now empty and museums have to fund acres of storage for third-rate pictures?", which clearly implies that I was talking about using any funds raised for further acquisitions. I do not and have never subscribed to the idea of selling pictures to support operating funds. And since I make no comment on the mechanism of deciding which pictures are third rate, I do not see how you can make an assumption on that either.

 

I regret to say that your unjustified misunderstanding of my comment then appears to colour the rest of your response. I at no point advocate attacking state institutions. In fact, you will find that much of the liberal Taskforce document you admire was written by me.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bendor"

 

In fairness to Bendor, I'm afraid that in my eagerness to bash the Tories, I took his comment about decommissioning completely out of context and cast him in the role of an attacker of state institutions, which he obviously isn't. I wouldn't want any curators who read this blog- I know some do- to think that Bendor is an advocate of selling pictures off through the decommissioning process. This is not what he was suggesting in his article- his above comments should also make that clear. Of course Bendor has every right to take me to task for misrepresenting his point of view- but he's been quite amicable about the whole thing. Thanks Bendor.

Of Renaissance Interiors and Stonehenge.

In a recent report, Past, Present and Future: The Public Value of the Humanities and Social Sciences, the head of the British Academy, Sir Adam Roberts, stresses the value of the arts not only in economic terms, but in relation to "public value."

Timed to coincide with last week's Universities Week, Sir Adam's booklet argues for recognition of the arts outside a two-cultures framework: art history, archeology, and the culture industries in general, contribute not only to the GDP of this country, but also are vital for the definition of self and society. To exemplify art history's contribution to public life, Sir Adam cites the phenomenally successful show At Home in Renaissance Italy at the V & A in London (2006-7), which brought the fine and decorative arts into productive and stimulating interaction with one another- it also had a huge impact on the public and the community. The Ghirlandaio reproduced here wasn't in the show of course, but it's one of my favourite images of renaissance domesticity.

To quote from the report:  

" A sample of the 70, 970 visitors to AHIRI, interviewed to gauge how they benefited from their visit, revealed that the exhibition had made a direct contribution to their "life-long learning", "deepened social identity", "strengthened social cohesion" and "stimulated creativity."

The report goes on to state, "The economic benefits of AHIRI were estimated at 2.85 million on the London economy and 1.33 million on the U.K. economy."

Sir Adam and other political/media heavyweights like Melvin Bragg are keen to move beyond the idea that the so-called STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) "are the keys to the success of universities, and to national economic recovery." Amongst these is David "Two- Brains" Willets.

Really? I'd never have guessed. Pity he spent most of the last two weeks attacking universities and proposed turning them into glorified secondary schools; not to mention the cuts to HEFC which will impact on university museums.

Sir Adam's report is extremely timely: a ringing endorsement of the arts and humanities in a society that needs them more than ever to combat the malaise of the banker mentality. Yet, this report is likely to be ignored by a government whose first cultural "initiative" is to axe funding for a visitors' centre at Stonehenge. Past, Present, and Future, as its title implies, is equally concerned with historical civilizations, and the role of archaeology in public life. As Jonathan Jones said last week in a critique of the ConDem coalition, archaeology is immensely popular and this Stonehenge-bashing is the final betrayal of a cherished and globally admired landmark.

As for renaissance interiors, I doubt if the V & A exhibition was troubled by the presence of any politicians of any persuasion. Politicians and bankers supported the arts in renaissance Italy, unlike the current crop of philistines.

Here's a PDF of Past, Present and Future: The Public Value of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Download BAPPF

Blog Pirates Ahoy!

Shiver me timbers matey!

I've just heard from fellow blogger Livius Drusus, over at The History Blog, that nefarious pirates are stealing posts off blogs and sticking them on this site. They don't even put a courtesy link, so watch out.

I seem to recall this happened to me a few years ago, but they were eventually scared off.

So hoist the jolly roger- all raiders, prepare to walk the plank!

The Rehabilitation of Basquiat?

    

I've always been unsure about Jean-Michel Basquiat, the subject of a current large retrospective at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel

When I stated introducing modern art into my teaching, Basquiat was one of the first artists I used because it seemed to me he illustrated the head-on collision between pop culture and the art of the past. I was intrigued by his use of such renaissance giants as Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dűrer, who certainly influenced him. According to another NY artist, Rick Prol, Basquiat had " a Leonardo book open" when he did the skeletal figure for what might be a statement about AIDS, 'Riding with Death'- Prol did the red background- and I can't help thinking of Dűrer's drawing of King Death riding on an anatomised nag when I look at this.

Although I wouldn't go as far as to place him up there with Picasso and Matisse, I do think his art deserves to be in more museums, which studiously avoided purchasing his works after his death. Basquiat's cultural significance was that he epitomised the excesses of the art boom and the move away from social inclusivity towards a more fractured and isolated experience. We're talking the decade of Ronald Reagan here: public sector cuts, increased militarism, corporate funding of art, and the emergence of the art pop star buoyed up by the cult of celebrity. Sound familiar?  

An art movement that had all of these qualities was Neo-Expressionism which had its origins in the New York art scene of the 1980s, including Julian Schnabel (b. 1951) who actually made a biopic of JMB in 1996, and is enjoying shows in Canada. The neo-expressionists were scavengers plundering from a variety of styles and sources including graffiti art, graphic design handbooks, magazines, and the literary and art historical canon. Interestingly, Schnabel felt drawn to the baroque and developed a style that fused saintly subjects with a gestural technique: his painting surfaces were encrusted with bits of crockery designed to give the look of a new painting aesthetic.

 


Yet, broken crockery aside, Schnabel's art was essentially derivative. In one of his paintings, Exile, Schnabel plays the quotation game himself by citing Caravaggio's Boy with Basket of Fruit presumably to draw parallels between the Italian artist's isolation and his own in downtown NY. In reality, Schnabel preferred crowds; his first show in 1979, masterminded by the go-getting Mary Boone- later to become Basquiat's agent-sold out before it had even opened; and by the mid 1980s, Schnabel's paintings were fetching such amounts as $65,000- 90,000. Basquiat first started producing paintings in a NY cellar for $19,000 a throw, and although he eventually became rich, within 5 years he was dead of a heroin overdose. Robert Hughes memorably dubbed him Jean-Michel Basket case.

 

Like Schnabel, Basquiat's success and fame earned him censure from critics who deplored how the hyped art market had taken over from the real purpose of art, to provoke intellectual and cultural debate, the fuel of the culture wars. Although Basquiat's art has points of interest, it is difficult to evaluate when it comes to the cultural issue. If culture wars in art appeared in response to the dominance of the art history canon which squeezed out issues like ethnicity, race, feminism and hybridity, then JMB does not really figure in those ranks.

 

Does his 'Skull' really represent the African diaspora in symbolic form, as some critics have maintained? His art may contain allusions to the black experience- Puerto Rican immigrants, street and graffiti art, jazz artists lik\e Charlie Parker and Miles Davis- but it could equally be argued that Basquiat's art merely functions as a kind of consumerist montage picking up images and experiences rather like the random channel-hopping of our own times.



There's a good discussion of this in Phoebe Hoban's Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art. Basquiat's art is 'post-modern' in its rich welter of background cultural noise; but this is culture wars for the post-literate, short attention span consumer "experiencing" cultural 'protest' via T.V. or the Internet. The Live Aid phenomenon; the art market meets MTV; Marshall McLuhan meets The Simpsons. Choose your own cultural frame of reference.  

 I don't expect this exhibition is going to rehabilitate Basquiat, canonise him, or move him out of art history's equivalent of the intensive care unit, but it's intriguing that someone thinks the artist is ripe for rehabilitation. Resurrection won't be easy though.  

 

James Beck Memorial Lectures.

Just a brief note about a couple of lectures coming up in honour of the late James Beck, scourge of the magnifici and indomitable champion against mis-attributions. Thanks to the good people from Artwatch for this. I won't be able to make either of these- I'd appreciate a short report from anybody who does attend.

James Beck Memorial Lecture (London)

   Wednesday June 23^rd 2010

   Professor Hellmut Wohl:  

"The Integrity of the Work of Art"

   Society of Antiquaries of London  

Burlington House

Piccadilly

London W1J 0BE 

Lecture: 6.30 pm ~ Reception (drinks) 7.30 – 8.30 

Admission by ticket (£5) only

   

James Beck Memorial Lecture

(New York)

   Friday October 22^nd 2010

   The awarding of the 2010 Frank Mason Prize  

   Professor Mark J. Zucker:  

"Metaphors of Painting and Sculpture in Italian Renaissance Literature"

   The Art Students League of New York  

215 West 57^th Street

New York, New York 10019

   Lecture: 6.30 pm ~ Reception (drinks) 7.30 – 8.45  

   Admission by ticket ($5) only  

 

“Painful cuts.” The conservatives and the arts.

(Nick Clegg's contribution to the arts- assuming the pose of Rodin's thinker. David Cameron doesn't' get the cultural reference and looks confused).

There's no doubt that with a conservative prime minister back in harness, even if he is propped up by some shoddy and disreputable coalition, hard times are ahead for the arts. Well before Cameron and his Etonian banker friends gained the reins of power, museum directors were already having to resort to desperate remedies like shipping renaissance masterpieces all over America in order to attract sponsorship or money. I've posted complaints about this before, but next to what I'm hearing from an certain art curator, this is nothing.

In a provocative article in the Art Newspaper, the Tory art writer, Dr Bendor Grosvenor talks about curbing wastage and inefficiency due to arcane practices like using 12 people to hang a picture- I must admit I've never seen that-, first class air travel for curators accompanying works of art- I've met museum directors who insist on that. All well and good, some valid points, but Grosvenor's sign-off sentiment about deaccessioning "third rate" works of art to make space in museums and raise money for them is questionable as a cure for financial ills. Should deaccessioning be used by museums to alleviate some of the financial pain that is going to increase as Cameron's plans for slashing public funds are rolled out? My answer to that is if we go down that road, then it would be a very sad day for museums in this country indeed. And how would you decide what is third rate and worthy of deaccessioning, Dr Grosvenor? Take the National Gallery for example. There are many paintings downstairs in an unofficial overflow section that could be termed "third-rate", but they're still significant. Something doesn't have to be high-quality or canonical, and therefore valuable financially, to be meaningful to a collection and its viewers. Despite what the magnifici say, the Madonna of the Pinks is a third-rate picture, but even I would draw the line at letting this be deaccessioned, assuming that it was de-attributed, hopefully in the next decade.

Another argument for deaccessioning apart from freeing up museum space is that it increases quality in a museum by weeding out the unfit or sickly work of art- the Darwinian principle applied to museums. However, Bendor Grosvenor doesn't seem to be talking about this aspect of deaccessioning; he means selling works of art to bolster museum operating funds rather than using deaccessioning to rebalance a collection to fit in with curatorial policy linked to issues of quality.

Dr Grosvenor has advised the Tory party in the past about the arts; as he says, he helped draft documents for an Arts Task Force and an arts manifesto for the conservatives. Reading through the former, to their credit, no mention of deaccessioning is found; instead it's remarkably liberal in its espousal of free museum entry and increasing subsidy of the arts. I haven't seen the manifesto, so I can't comment. Yet it's worrying that Grosvenor's article has more than a whiff of new right ideology about it: cry havoc, attack state institutions and let set the dogs of deregulation.

"Further steps will be taken to encourage private philanthropy, not to replace state funding but to force museums to look outward, through the use of matched funding, and erode the creatively stultifying mindset of state. Museums must re-engage with visitors, their supporters, and new audiences if they are to diversify their funding base."

There's been a debate going on during this decade about quality verses visitor experience in museums. One of the best examples of this is an essay by Philip Wright in The New Museology in which the author asks the same question as Dr Grosvenor, though mercifully without the ideological baggage. Wright argues that curators need to engage with educationalists by making transparent the processes by which art historians and curators choose to display art on their museum walls. It's a laudable aim, but I don't think it'll be realized. Curators create displays for other art historians, not the public. For instance, how many of the general public would have discerned that the Raphael exhibition of 2004 at the NG was meant to illustrate the arguments of a handful of scholars seeking to present their ideas in exhibition form- but that's another issue.  

I wonder what Dr Grosvenor has got in mind. Could it perhaps be something along the lines of the current Tory mantra? Consult the public; let them make decisions about how money is spent in the museum sector? We could have a representative of Joe Public on the National Gallery's board of trustees, helping to curb the seemingly wasteful amount of money spent on the running of the gallery.

Of course, we all know that Cameron's consultative exercise is designed to shift blame for the UK's large deficit to the public and away from the government. It strikes me that there's something of the same attitude prevalent in Dr Grosvenor's little lecture, only this time blamed is offloaded on to the museum profession. Sure, curators and museum professionals are not models of economic management, but they're not to blame for the systematic erosion of arts funding over the last few decades- blame that on philistine governments, and especially right-wing ideologues like Cameron who only care about art when it has political leverage.

Doubtless, Dr Grosvenor has a valuable contribution to make to the debate about arts funding, but could we drop the language of the new right first? We're going to get enough of that in the months to come as we return to a Thatcherite programme of savage and unjustifiable cuts. Sure, let's talk about the new museology, but please leave the new right for whimsical semi-retired Thatcherite philosophers like Roger Scruton.