On art and democracy

Ian Jack has a wonderful commentary in today's online Guardian: Art's new democrats are due a lesson in the economics of taste - With no world shortage in Damien Hirsts, the credit crunch may be about to visit Britart's pioneers. Half tongue in cheek, half acerbic critique, it explores the significance of the upcoming Damien Hirst auction of 287 works at Sotheby's London, about which I blogged a while back: On the rules of the game. Hirst's 'vision' is supposedly 'democratic' in that, by having this auction, his work can be available to anyone who can pay the price versus only being available if you can get on the waiting list at a snooty gallery. That is, of course, if you can spend on average $200,000+. Here is Jack on Hirst's "weak-tea version of going to the barricades":

Then there is Damien Hirst. He and Sotheby's care very much about democracy. In the catalogue to the Hirst auction at the London saleroom later this month, the artist points out the cruel oppression of the regime we're up against. "Well, the art world's totally not democratic," he says in an interview with writer Gordon Burn. "You know, you walk in the gallery, you get put on the waiting list by an intimidating woman or something and they just want to know who you are ... They can be snobby and they can look down on you. It's very difficult to get a price."


To the tumbrels, then, with these tyrant Camillas! Then into the formaldehyde! An end to the torture! Hirst's solution is to sell a large collection of his work directly to his customers, who merely have to raise their saleroom paddles often enough to get what they want. ...He talks of it, apparently seriously, as a brave and radical act: "I think it takes a bit of courage, or madness, to get to the point where you just cut out the galleries and take a whole load of box-fresh pieces straight to market, no strings, highest bidder wins. Bang!"

Do read the rest of Jack's opinion piece including for a wealth of factoids including: "There are 287 lots in total, each dated 2008, which gives some idea of Hirst's production line." This is 'art' thumbing its nose at itself and injecting cynicism as perhaps its defining feature. All of which is underscored by the ironic and almost desperate appearance at the end of the Jack piece of a Google ad by one of the two galleries that 'represent' Hirst but that have been invited to bid on his pieces the same as everyone else:

Ads by Google
Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst is represented by Gagosian Gallery
http://www.gagosian.com/

Yeah, right.

It is almost palpable that, having let Gagosian and White Cube play the great game of art-market hyping and taste-creation that has made him one of the wealthiest 'artists' in history, Hirst is just as happy to throw to the wolves those he almost certainly sees as wolves themselves. Now that he has tens and tens of millions of pounds in his bank account (perhaps hundreds), does Hirst care that flooding the market with 287 works all at once could create a major deflation in his own prices? I suspect not. Towards the very end of the Jack article appears the following nugget: "'In the [Sotheby's] catalogue, Gordon Burn points out that the risk of disaster is very small. Hirst replies, "Yeah, but you know, everything goes for a lot of money until it doesn't.'" Does Hirst care that, having set up an 'art' assembly line that relies on a team of elves to produce most of his art, some of those elves will be likely lose their jobs if the market feels the market is now saturated with the factorys' products? I wonder.

The Jack piece is a wonderful occasion to reflect on the confluence of the craven, the superficial, the ruthless, the cynical, the lemminglike, the poseristic, the fraudulent and everything else wonderful about the 'high-end' global contemporary art world.