Notes from the IAM presentation

I am sitting in my hotel room in midtown Manhattan, exhausted and missing my family yet thoroughly exhilarated with the deep and meaningful conversations I had with people who are engaged in work that encourages and challenges me. And I look forward to seeing and working with them on some projects soon. (You know who you are.)

I have had several people ask if I could post the presentation I gave in the Great Hall at Cooper Union on Friday at the IAM Encounter 10 conference. (For information about IAM go here.) What follows are selected and edited notes that I presented. 

The question I have been asked to explore is this: Can museums and galleries serve as catalysts for cultural transformation? There are two very obvious and in some way quite natural responses to this. The first is, “yes, obviously.” Museums and galleries are the means of validation in the art world. The second is, “no, of course not.” The contemporary art world is superficial, corrupt, and nihilistic and thus not worth the energy to engage it. We should reject them and build our own art world, one that is “faith based,” and develop our own galleries and museums that will serve to sanction our own activities. 

I would like to avoid both responses because they are two sides of the same coin. They assume that museums and galleries should and can be institutions that sanction and confer value and that somehow such sanctioning and conferring of value is identified with cultural transformation. Museums and galleries, as institutions, are not about the task of cultural transformation. They are about the task of self-preservation. Does this mean we ignore them, quit paying attention to them, and working in and for them?

Absolutely not. 

Museums and galleries must be regarded as useful and helpful partners for those whose vocation and mission is cultural transformation in and through the contemporary art world.  But we must bend them to fit our own goals, not merely seek their approval. The Whitney Museum of American Art would like you to believe that as an artist you have made it if one of their curators includes you in their Biennial exhibition. I know and have worked with numerous artists who have participated in this exhibition and it is not the case. But, such an exhibition can be a useful means for an artist to develop his or her life project.

Or not.  But this “or not” is not what the Whitney wants you to consider.

Moreover, it is not clear to me that museums and galleries actually confer the value they claim.  Rather, they respond to value created and established elsewhere. Museums and galleries often claim to be risky institutions that “take chances,” but they are constructed primarily to minimize risk while the stories they tell of themselves and present to their constituency stress their "progressive" vision and "independent" voice. It is dangerous to rely on museums and galleries to verify our work, whether it is MoMA or the Midwestern university art museum/Gagosian or the local college town artist coop. Every gallery and museum is potentially a useful and beneficial partner or collaborator in your project. And every gallery and museum is a potential distraction.

But it will not do simply to invent alternative museums and galleries. The problem will remain because of the essential natures of the institutions and the misperceptions that these institutions confer value. It is not an option to abandon the contemporary art world and its complex network of museums and galleries. To quote from the poet Robert Frost, “the best way around is always through.” Cultural transformation through the contemporary art world necessarily requires that the contemporary art world be transformed. But it can only be transformed from the inside.  

Some of our religious traditions might encourage us to engage culture at its most cutting edge in order to be a witness.  But this requires that we show discernment.  At its most cutting edge, the contemporary art world is rife with problems, as is any human institution. Museums and galleries are not in the business of this kind of discernment.  But those of us that work in them, pay attention to them, should.

When I go to the Museum of Modern Art, to Art Basel in Miami, or the art fairs at the Armory or Volta and the Whitney Biennial, which are taking place this week, I often ask myself the following question of the people I see--the curators with their train of collectors, the gallery dealers, the critics, the collectors, the wannabe collectors, the bored thirty-somethings wanting some culture, and grad students:

What do they believe?  Do they believe in art?  What about art do they believe in?  What do they believe art does for them?

And it forces me to ask, What about art do I believe in?  What do I believe art does? And do my beliefs about art coincide with what the contemporary art world believes?  Galleries and museums, art fairs, and arts organizations are not neutral. They are the art world’s sacred spaces that enact belief. But what kind of belief do they enact?  

The contemporary art world believes in personalities, free-thinkers, creativity, and brands. The art world believes in irony, satire, and having a good time in and around art. It believes that society should just loosen up. The art world believes in the business of art, that you can be famous, or have a lucrative career in and through the art world. 

The art world does not believe that art makes us better people, that the making of art, the writing about art, is part of a larger life project of becoming better people. To be sure, they believe that "art is good for society" but that is not the same thing.

I believe what Tolstoy believes about art:  “To define art correctly it is necessary first of all to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure, and to consider it as one of the conditions of human life.”  Art exists to remind us that the world can be otherwise by making me otherwise.  Art is religion pursued by other means.  I also agree with the poet Rilke in his famous poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo," that it grabs you by the throat and tells you that you must change your life.

Museums and galleries host a banquet table with a limited number of seats.  But before I work to get a seat at that table, scrap and fight for that last invite, I must understand what is required of me to do so. Cultural engagement and transformation always carries with it a critique and ultimately dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs. If the art world does not believe that art makes me a better person, we therefore cannot seek merely to get the invite to dine at the table that museums and galleries have set because this mutes our capacity for transformation as we are forced to grant authority to those who have invited us, we curry their favor, we end up affirming their beliefs not ours, playing by their rules not ours and limiting our capacity for cultural transformation. But we often deceive ourselves into thinking that this is the only way to be a "witness" for the Kingdom. 

I am reminded of the story of Daniel and his friends at the court of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament book of Daniel. As his most prized exiles from Jerusalem, the King embarked upon the process of indoctrinating them for his purposes, training them in Babylonian language and culture. And he also invited them to dine at his table.  What interests me is that they did not reject the educational/indoctrination process.  What they rejected was his table. Perhaps they were concerned about violating their strict dietary laws, but there is something more to it, for they determined to only eat fruit and vegetables, which is not mandated by the Jewish dietary laws. Something more was at stake. We need to reflect seriously about how this can inform our work.

Perhaps we who are too quick to fit into culture’s most cutting edge, to engage the contemporary art world at its most fashionable, should fast from being “culturally relevant.” Perhaps that could be our Lenten discipline. Sadly we confuse what is fashionable with what has value.  But value is something that must be fought for, established, and worked for over a lifetime, over several lifetimes. 

It requires risk and courage. Failure is inevitable. Melville died thoroughly convinced that Moby-Dick was a failure. (For more on this, see my post "Great Culture?" which is my talk at the CIVA conference in St. Paul, Minnesota last summer.)  If we find ourselves with invitations to this table, by all means let’s attend. But let’s also understand that our attendance already grants it authority. And if it is our goal merely to get these invites, to get a seat at the table, we’ve already sold our souls.

Despite its problems, the contemporary art world also includes some people who believe that art must and can make you a better person. Belief is a fundamental part of human practice. It is necessary for religious practice. And it is also necessary for artistic practice. My work as a critic, curator, art historian, and educator is to show how art can make one a better person.

Perhaps you think I take art a little too seriously, that Tolstoy and Rilke and the whole "art as religion" and risk and failure thing is a bit much.

Then my comments and the work I do are not for you.

Is it possible for us to be “in” the contemporary art world but not “of” it?  I believe we can.  Here is a way that I am trying to do it with an artist with whom I've worked for over a decade.

Comments

[Keelan Kaiser]

Dan,

Thanks for part I, eagerly awaiting part II. One comment on your notes above, not sure that it is immediately relevant... Belief and religion in the art world...I found it very interesting the remarkable consistencies between the religious institution I am currently affiliated with and recently serving a visiting appointment at a premier US art institution. Both institutionalize a belief system, both contain "prophets" and their share of "priests." I experienced what I would call worship in both situations. In summary, I found the contemporary art academy and the evangelical academy strangely similar at 30,000 feet. For what it is worth.

[daniel a. siedell]

Keelan, I think you are right about the similarities in those institutions.

[matt whitney]

Thank you for sharing this. Its helpful to me having your experiences in these contemporary art circles put in this perspective. Your comments on learning the Babylonian language are good, as I begin the next step of my journey by submitting to the process of the MFA. Equally helpful was your lecture on Great Culture at CIVA last summer which you referenced. I remember when you spoke along the lines of "do you aspire to be so great in the art world as to have one of your works sit in the storage stacks of an art museum?" I hope I got the essence of that correct, because its really helped me rethink what "success" really is. So, thank you for your work.

[daniel a. siedell]

Hi Matt, Glad you appreciated my comments. Yes, you got the gist of it exactly right.

[Greg]

Thanks so much for your talk at Encounter 10. Your voice was honest and hopeful. It's easy to idealize or denigrate the arts world, and it was really great having someone who has had experience to talk about these institutions.

Also, it is very encouraging to hear about your work with Whale and Star. Thanks for taking risks!