Christina Rees and Brandon Zech have an honest conversation about some realities they’re happy to get a break from.
“It’s terrific that we’re getting a vacation from these things.”
Related reading and listening:
Art Dirt: Is It Time for Texas Art to Get Hyperlocal?
Should Artists Have to Talk About Their Work?
Artists: Feel Free to Get Off of Instagram in 2019
What Sterling Ruby’s Got Here is a Failure to Communicate
Jonas Wood’s Straight White Fantasy
Glasstire and Negative Criticism in Texas
8 comments
This week’s Top 5 is a fun look at what you and people in general don’t like about the art world. I have to say I miss everything about it! I love the art world and it’s killing me. Artists have to make art. I don’t make things. I have a similar compulsion to look at art, especially art I haven’t seen before. Digital representations of art are not the same as seeing art in person. It’s power does not translate through a photo or video. I miss it! I can’t wait for it to come back!
Right on! All ring true — and no one misses FOMO.
Thanks for your insightful talk. As an artist I couldn’t agree more. But will it change for the better?
Great! Exactly how I am feeling. One of the best Thursday posts I can remember.
I completely agree with you on these five. As far as the proliferation of museum programming, museums are often caught in a vicious cycle of creating more and more programs in order to please constituents as well as appear viable when soliciting grant funding. Then the beast just gets bigger and bigger, making it more difficult to sustain for staff and supporters. I do hope one thing can change due to this shutdown…that we can attempt to focus and appreciate nuance and quality over grandiose statements and quantity. My concern is that we will eventually fall back into the same routines.
So much of the art that I see in galleries and non-profit spaces is hot garbage. Most of it. Having money isn’t correlated with having good taste or being knowledgeable about art but nothing gives a person more influence in the art world than money. There are lots of cool people who love art and who know a lot about art and it’s great meeting them and becoming friends with them out and about in the galleries etc. but generally speaking the art world is giant turd and I feel a bit lighter seeing it flushed away.
As art spaces open up again in a world where large gatherings are discouraged/regulated, is it possible that programming could actually *increase*? It might make sense to break an audience into many smaller pieces…
Thanks so much for doing this Top 5 things you don’t miss about the art world (and not making it a list of things you dread about your job). I completely agree with the entire list. When the pandemic first hit, I joked that I finally had time to catch up on my eleven thousand unread art-related emails and became progressively relieved when the Dallas Art Fair was postponed along with the events related to the Fair and Dallas Arts Month on a whole–my schedule and expectations on me and any FOMO were immediately eliminated. Now I think I’m building a better relationship with local galleries and artists and those outside of Dallas, of Texas, and even outside the US, as I have more time to participate in virtual Q&A’s and exhibition tours. Phone calls and emails with artists and gallerists have turned into impromptu video chats. Sometimes just a quick email reply to the galleries and artists acknowledging that someone received and reacted to the work they’re doing in the absence of in-person interaction is comforting during these trying times. I hope, coming out of this, that the “new normal” will include an ongoing recognition of the intense pressure that the content providers of the art world are under and that the self-reflection by the survivors of the this period will result in a better art world on a whole.