Walter Robinson, founder-editor of Artnet Magazine, appears on the Kostabi Show’s Name That Painting quiz. Courtesy of thekostabishow.com

Since the dramatic closure of Knoedler & Company last year, we have all had to get used to the unsettling fact that the art world boasts few institutions “too big to fail.”  Now we learn that Artnet magazine is no more: news and criticism are bereft of a spirited and singular outlet.

Knoedler and Artnet have in common that they were ancients in their respective fields – albeit that the venerable trading house dated back to the early 19th Century whereas the pioneer online art magazine was a relatively tender sixteen.  But like canine years, cyber years need multiplication to tally with a sense of longevity.  Artnet was the oldest web-exclusive art magazine.

It is with no sense of triumph but merely sadness and trepidation that artcritical must now ponder the probability that it is the oldest survivor in that category.  Although launched as David Cohen’s personal website in 2001, artcritical.com dates its foundation as a fully-fledged journal, with contributing editors and officers, and an array of contributors, to 2003 when it underwent its first redesign.  We will brag about our anniversary when it arrives.  Now the business at hand is to thank Walter Robinson for his stalwart journalism and publishing enterprise, and mourn his creation.

In announcing its closure to the world, Artnet cited the fact that in sixteen years the magazine failed to break even financially.  But that fails to register as the reason for its demise.  The magazine was always the cherry on the Artnet cake in which an array of services – auction records, auctions, gallery and artist homepage hosting, etc. – was the sponge and cream.  It seems rather more likely that a change in leadership for the publicly listed German company has produced a night of long knives of fiscal and managerial adjustments.  Again, Artnet’s exit from magazine publishing recalls Knoedler’s closure by an exasperated lawsuit-embroiled parent, the Armand Hammer Foundation, a Pontius Pilate-like gesture, more Murdoch and News of the World than Lehman Brothers.

For those of us who visited the shows or read the reviews of these art world fixtures their closures might each seem gratuitous.  But who were we?  Mere visitors.

The Whitney Biennial, arguably, is an academy of the moment.  But New York hosts two venerable, national visual arts institutions that boast the word academy in their title: The National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Their annual exhibitions don’t garner the press and attention of the Whitney, or even the raucous, spirited Brucennial for that matter, but the academies have a singular advantage over most institutions and festivals: selection processes (for invitationals and membership alike) rest in the hands of living artists.

Works by Rebecca Smith on view at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2012

The National Academy has dropped the confusing “design” from its day-to-day name—to its 19th-century founders, design meant disegno in the renaissance sense, but today most people think of teapots.  And it has been experiencing a veritable renaissance itself since the start of the 2011-12 season when its stunning program of renovations was unveiled.  Suddenly, the old warhorse looked sprightly.

Tomorrow (May 17) Arts and Letters, as it is colloquially called, will open its none-too-catchy titled “Exhibition of Work by Newly Elected Members and Recipients of Honors and Awards”.  It follows on the heels of the annual invitational that opened the same spring week as the Whitney.  Make no mistake, however: this is a show of artists more likely to persist in the consciousness of connoisseurs than many in the flashy, headline grabbing, portentous museum surveys that eclipse such an event.  In place of themes that professional curators come up with are individuals of quality selected by revered peers.  The award selection committee at the American Academy consisted of Lois Dodd, Wolf Kahn, Alex Katz, Malcolm Morley, Thomas Nozkowski, Judy Pfaff, Dorothea Rockburne, Peter Saul, and its chair, Joel Shapiro.

Among cash prizes of $10,000 each, to be distributed at a ceremonial at which Chuck Close will deliver the keynote address, are the Jimmy Ernst Award for a lifetime achievement, picked up by sculptor of zany furnishings and decorations Forrest Myers; the Merit Medal for Painting, awarded to Joyce Pensato; other awards to John Newman and Rebecca Smith;  prizes earmarked for young artists going to Nathlie Provosty, Elisa Soliven and Nicole Wittenberg.  The exhibition also includes artists in the invitational from whom works were purchased on behalf of American museums, among them Cora Cohen,  Suzanne McClelland and Ann Pibal. New artist and architecture members inducted this year (the academy also elects writers and musicians) include Lynda Benglis, Elizabeth Diller, Kenneth Frampton, Robert Gober and Kara Walker.

It is a matter of some pride to me personally to note artists on these lists who have also featured in the pages of this magazine, received attention at The Review Panel, or were subjects of shows that I helped organize.  I will also mention having written for the catalog of Wittenberg’s debut New York solo show opening at Freight & Volume Gallery in Chelsea next week.  Critics don’t go out of their way to cultivate academic tastes, but it is validating to find commonality with an academy as august as this one.

American Academy of Arts and Letters, 633 West 155 Street at Broadway, New York City, 212-368-5900, open Thursday to Sunday, 1 to 4 pm (closed Memorial Day)

Nicole Wittenberg, from May 24 at Freight & Volume Gallery, 530 West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, 212-691-7700

Nicole Wittenberg

A work by Andrea Zittel (AZ Aggregated Stacks #7, 2012) on view at Andrea Rosen Gallery at Frieze Art Fair New York, May 2012. Photo: artcritical

I guess it is time to eat some words.  In a welcome extended to Frieze Art Fair New York that was measured to the point of being somewhat surly, in which as it happens a culinary comparison figured, our editorial promised that “artcritical will do its duty and report on what it finds.”  Well, what was found is, simply put, the best art fair this writer has visited in America.

At least, that is, in terms of creature comforts.  The general level of art on show was respectable, in relation to other fairs, but not significantly or demonstrably higher than such rivals as the Armory Show or Art Basel Miami. And, by and large, this was not a fair of seriously high-end, blue-chip offerings.  Instead there was a focus on younger artists, with an emphasis on collectible objects – with a predominance of painting and domestically scaled sculpture and not much by way of installation or video.  Frieze seems to attract a classier, savvier average exhibitor perhaps on account of the very fact that it settled on a leaner roster of participants than its humungous, sprawling rivals; under one roof, it was in more than one sense contained.

And beautifully managed. The snaking tent is a triumph of design, affording a blessing rare enough alas in museums and almost unheard-of in North American fairs: natural, diffuse, overhead light.  (This was perhaps a tad over-augmented the Sunday of my last visit with harsh artificial light to compensate for an overcast start to the day.)  The curved layout  avoids the oppressions of the grid so that as the viewer moves through the space there is a sense of progress, of arriving at a new bend in the curve.  Spaces are neat but individualized and sight lines nicely varied.  According to David Nolan of David Nolan Gallery, the organizers managed to “get rid of the politics” that is the art fair norm.  The management told him “not one gallery complained about placement.”  There is ample space between sections, booths are big, the floor is strictly a uniform, gray wood paneling – rather than the oppressive concrete, cheap carpeting and pretentious cacophony of individual booth flooring solutions that mar the fair going experience at convention centers and armories.

And because they had struck out with their own temporary structure at Randall’s Island, Frieze didn’t have to work with the catering contracts and intransigent unions of these venues.  This meant invitations to top-notch eateries like The Fat Radish and the late Leo Castelli’s watering hole, Saint Ambrœus, and it meant relaxed, friendly staff.  The perceived remoteness of the location and the steep entrance fee of $40 meant an absence of crowds.  Exhibitors I spoke to do not regret the selected volume of attendees as it meant a more committed (read “likely to spend”) kind of viewer had a better time of it.  According to Frieze exhibitor Alexander Gray, of Alexander Gray Associates, who has never exhibited at the rival Armory Show but has had challenging experiences shepherding collectors around the piers, “Art is an aspirational market; if the surroundings fail to inspire and engage, then some people are not going to bother.”

Other dealers I spoke with were candid about sales.  A mid-level class of collector was identified who might have “blown their wad” for the year at the March fairs.  Sales were “decent but not great” according to another trusted source.  As word gets out of the superior visitor experience (for collectors and professionals if not the average enthusiast) that might change in 2013.  But there is no question, whoever comes out top in sales figures, that the British invaders have raised the bar in the fair going experience.

Frieze continues Monday, May 7 through 6pm, with reduced tickets from 1pm (last entry at 5pm)

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Serban Savu, Small Talk after Lunch, 2012, oil on canvas, 40 1/2 x 51 3/16 inches. Courtesy of David Nolan Gallery. On view at the Frieze Art Fair, Randall Island, New York May 4 to 7,

When New Yorkers have to turn on the heat on May Day something is awry.  And when the editor of artcritical thinks it has to be time to take March’s Armory Week special off the front cover and then realizes it is best to leave it up another week as yet more fairs are about to hit, something surely is also awry.  Global warming.  Globalization.  Festivalism.

A few years ago, Prêt à Manger, a classy British (despite its name) chain of sandwich bars, launched in New York.  Prêt had a place in my heart as an ex-Londoner thanks to fond memories of bouncy bread and assertive coffee, but something caught in my throat when I saw their advertising campaign.  Basically, they told New Yorkers that fresh baked bagels were on their way.  Talk about coals to Newcastle.

Now we are to get Frieze.  Frieze magazine, launched in 1991 and spinning their name from the YBAs’ Freeze exhibition a few years prior, quickly grew from the house journal of ‘90s neo-conceptualism to a leading chronicle of contemporary art.  In 2003 its publishers, Matthew Slotover and and Amanda Sharp, launched the fair in London that was to the existing trade events what Prêt was for Wimpy.  It put London on the circuit for jet setters that breeze from Basel to Miami to Maastricht to wherever.  But weren’t they all in New York two months ago anyway?

Adrian Piper, The Mythic Being, 1973, video. Courtesy of Elizabeth Dee. On view at Frieze

And, as New Yorker magazine’s Peter Schjeldahl observes, New York, with its conveniently clustered art neighborhoods, is a year-round fair anyway.  I have always preferred to think of the commercial galleries as one big kunsthalle where you use the street to navigate from one room to the next, where the invisible hand of the market is the curator and the invisible customers the board of trustees.  (If only there was a cafeteria: cue Prêt à Manger.)  Chelsea always makes the Whitney and the contemporary galleries at the Modern seem like too little, too late.

Nothing is more bizarre that seeing the likes of Gagosian and Zwirner cramping themselves into booths at the piers and the Park Avenue Armory every March.  They have palatial headquarters a taxi ride away but must submit to the degrading democracy of the art fair floor.  The joys of camping in their own back yard.  Now we have to go to Randall’s Island to see them do the same thing again, two months later.

artcritical will do its duty and report on what it finds.  And yet, the act of writing the word “duty” begs a whole set of questions.  There are hundreds of shows in New York each month that warrant yet elude our attention.  Carefully selected shows, elegantly hung in well lit, calm, civilized, conveniently located expensively rented art galleries.  And these are the tip of an iceberg of artistic creativity.  We could also set about reporting on what we find in the thousands of studios in Bushwick, Long Island City, Harlem, Newark, whether in open studio weekends or via private appointment.  Media frenzy and an art world lemming tendency bullies us into attending fairs, and attending to them, but we should pause on the ferry for a moment and contemplate the fact that fairs are just another arbitrary platform for the spectacle of art.  Collectors, critics, and other publics are theoretically at liberty to pick their paradigm: museum, gallery, studio, art school, park railing, fair. As surely as the medium is the message, so too the environment is the experience.

Frieze Art Fair, Randall’s Island Park, May 4 to 7, 2012. friezenewyork.com

Cynthia Hartling, Split, c.2011. Oil on linen, 37 x 31 inches. Courtesy of the Artist. The work is on view in the Bushwick for Open Studios, June 4th to 5th, at Centotto Annex,1 Grattan Street, Studio #225 (hours: 11am.-7pm.) and Centotto, 250 Moore Street, #108 (hours: 3-7pm.)

For the third time in its five years history, the annual Bushwick Open Studios festival will be hit this weekend with a recurring mass transit nightmare, a shuttered L-train.  The L line on the MTA subway system is the lifeline from Bushwick to civilized points west, whether Williamsburg, Manhattan or – to adopt a Brooklyncentric, Saul Steinberg-style geography – the rest of the USA and the world. No L and Bushwick really is the bush—although artistically the neighborhood is increasingly self-sufficient.

And it isn’t just Bushwick’s artists and musicians who view their ‘hood as the new epicenter. Bushwick Open Studios is a major cultural event with statistics that speak for themselves.  The festival comprises over 380 shows in over 180 locations, all within a three square mile area, and many of these events are large studio complexes with dozens of presenting artists in each venue.  Based on prior years’ attendance, the organizers of the event, Arts in Bushwick, expect a turnout of over 10,000

The Metropolitan Transit Authority explains that it has little alternative to closing the L for summer weekends.  Because the 100 years old L is a two-track line the whole system has to close for the removal of its old signals system.  They can’t work at night for visibility issues, as a span of the line is above ground, nor in winter for the same reasons.  Working during the week is ruled out.

But the signals system between New York’s mass transit authority and its cultural organizations also needs to be upgraded.  A call is sent out to political leaders around a year ahead to ask of weekends when major events are planned; the appeal needs to be broader and the timing realistic.  So too should alternatives if the subway is shuttered: three shuttle buses and a spell on the J is not feasible.  (click here for Arts in Bushwick’s alternative alternatives.)

The mentality that subways only exist to take people from the outer boroughs to Manhattan to work is an anachronism: Manhattanites also need to get to Brooklyn – to see art.

Ai Wei Wei, Study of Perspective - Tiananmen Square, 1995-2003.Gelatin silver print, 15-5/16 x 23-1/4. © 2011 Ai Weiwei

More than a couple of Chinese art-world colleagues warned me off writing about the plight of Ai Wei Wei, even in an American publication. At first I listened, but then felt pressure to speak out in defense of him because his fate sends a message to Chinese artists—indeed, all artists—who are courageous enough to stand up to a repressive government. Ai Wei Wei, who spent a number of years in America and, most likely, saw there the diversity of social expression and political activity while living in New York’s Lower East Side, is now detained incommunicado somewhere in China’s prison system. Although I have heard he is being charged for economic crimes, the truth is that he has had the audacity to challenge the Communist elite, who don’t take lightly his willingness to expose their faults.

Ai Wei Wei’s career has taken off in the West during the last five years; his recent installation of handmade and –painted seeds was a great success at the Tate Modern in London. The artist has used his good fortune to tell the truth to those in power, but things have not gone well for him, to say the least: recently, he was beaten up by thugs while speaking in a provincial Chinese city and had to be operated on in Germany. Now no one knows his fate, which operates as a warning to those attempting any criticism of a single-party system that has refused to reveal its oppressive excesses, which include the ten-year madness of the Cultural Revolution. As an artist friend here said, “We will not be hearing from him for a long time.” The artistic community is of course upset, but little if any dissent is issuing from Beijing; people are afraid that they too will be picked up simply for telling the truth.

Huang Yong Ping, Leviathanation, 2011. Installation of fiberglass, stuffed animals, train,47 x 210 x 34 m. Courtesy Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing.

I have spent a fair amount of time in China—five visits, three of which have been longer than two months—and I can say that the personal freedom of the intelligentsia is equivalent on some level to that of its Western counterpart. But there is no indication of an equal political expressiveness here, where artistic work tends toward the allegorical, in the hope that social criticism will be understood as generally human, as opposed to specifically Chinese. That works up to a point, after which the critique sadly fails, in part because the forced circumstances that engendered the art are precisely those enabled by a one-party system. In a gallery show that is now up, the (Paris-based) artist exile Huang Yong Ping is showing Leviathanation, a huge work incorporating an official railroad car with the equally outsize head of a fish. The word Leviathan can mean a sea monster in bibllcal use, but it also denotes an autocratic state. For me at least, the message is clear; however, its interpretation is never referred to in so exact a sense in Beijing. It amazes me that so transparent a visual statement is not reacted to simply because it involves a metaphor—in fact, a fish’s head. But then the hard left has never been known for the greatness of its imagination—or for its kindness toward the imaginative.

Much of contemporary art pursues the ideal of democritization, which is a complex reality in the realm of culture. It is also true that democracy is sorely needed here in China—on the more primary level of individual political expression. The art world remains worried; one curator I know would like to act but feels that she would potentially undermine her own freedom in light of the Communists’ vindictiveness. It is a sad and indeed a tired story; but it is one that is being challenged by brave individuals. I learned about Ai Wei Wei’s troubles through word of mouth and from contacts in the West. I hear that there is an attempt to put out a million-signature petition demanding his freedom. But China has not known political freedom for generations, if at all.  Facebook cannot be accessed. Very few artists have brought up the situation in my presence. Self-censorship is the worst kind of repression because it is instigated from within—usually in reaction to an external force. It would be easy to judge those who do not bring up the subject of Ai Wei Wei, but as I see it, the situation is tragic for the intellectuals here in Beijing. If they talk up, they are bound themselves to go to jail. If they remain quiet, they allow a great wrong to go unchallenged. Either choice is a kind of death.

As a result, a true opposition can be developed only outside China, where there are precedents for political action. The million-signature petition must carry forward, as well as other forms of social pressure. One hopes even for artistic protest, although whether individual outrage will ever reach those responsible for current machinations here is, frankly, to be doubted. The one comment I have heard more than once in Beijing about Ai Wei Wei has to do with his status as an artist. Why indeed is the government beating down an artist? He is a single voice, many understand. But above and beyond his existence as an artist of interest and note is his allegiance to maintaining public integrity—something that the Chinese government very much fears. His suffering, which will be considerable, is a lesson to us all—even in American democracy, increasingly a state controlled by huge corporations. The lessons are hard learned, but not beyond hope. Every time someone signs in favor of Ai Wei Wei’s freedom, he is signing in favor of his own deliverance. Now, all over the world, we need a language that will do justice to the experience of psychic and actual imprisonment. If an artist alone can challenge the Chinese Leviathan, then it is up to us in the West to support him. In fact, his defense surely becomes our own.

A banner at Tate Modern, London calls for the release of Ai Weiwei, April 2011. Ai's work, Sunflower Seeds, 2010, remains on view in the museum's Turbine Hall through May 2.

The April 3 detention of internationally celebrated artist Ai Weiwei by the Chinese Government is a matter of increasing concern and indignation in the global art community.  artcritical applauds the leadership of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and other institutions working for his release and urges readers both to sign their online petition and to join protests, called by others for Sunday April 17 at 1pm at embassies and consulates of the People’s Republic around the world.

The petition is accompanied by a statement we fully endorse: “We members of the international arts community express our concern for Ai’s freedom and disappointment in China’s reluctance to live up to its promise to nurture creativity and independent thought, the keys to ‘soft power’ and cultural influence.’’

It is especially galling to see the artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympics arrested amongst hundreds of lawyers, activists and ordinary citizens in a crackdown clearly intended to stifle any spread of Jasmine revolution to China.  The charge of “economic crimes” cuts no muster, for Ai’s woes with the authorities are longstanding and political.  They are said to date back to the artist’s courageous stance on the Sichuan earthquake and its aftermath, and have already included the extraordinary spectacle of the government-ordered demolition of his landmark Shanghai studio.

While these actions are appalling, they also powerfully vindicate the idea that art and artists can actually matter in the minds of governments and the hearts of protesters.  China needs to get the message that persecuting its most high-profile artist directly undermines its Olympic glory.

The author of an authorized biography of art dealer Edith Halpert, The Girl with the Gallery (2006), Pollock covered the arts at Bloomberg News since 2005, and had hitherto reported on the art world for the New York Sun and for The Art Newspaper.  In August 2009 she launched what fast became a highly authoritative blog, Art Market Views.

Lindsay Pollock, Editor of Art in America, from a 2007 photograph taken from her Facebook page

Pollock replaces Marcia Vetrocq after a brief tenure; Vetrocq, formerly a senior editor at the publication, in turn succeeded the redoubtable Elizabeth C. (Betsy) Baker, a protégé of veteran Art News editor Thomas B. Hess .  Baker steered Art in America for 34 years until she was let go in 2008 shortly after Peter Brant resumed direction of Brant Publications after acquiring the 50% share of his co-owner and ex-wife, Sandra Brant.  At the same time Ingrid Sischy also departed from Interview magazine, the Andy Warhol creation and Art in America’s sister publication.   With Peter Brant’s reentry as publisher, Fabien Baron and Glenn O’Brien were entrusted with “editorial direction” above the heads of the named editors of both titles, a shake-up role that proved short-lived.

Under Baker, Art in America secured a place for itself as a thorough, scholarly yet accessible journal devoted, despite its name, to art of broad geographical and historical scope.  That said, back-of-the-book reviews gave emphasis to contemporary art in New York City.  Art world news and market reporting were succinctly confined to opening and closing pages of the publication.  Despite changes signaled by a new design, editorially much remained the same under Vetrocq with the exception of the introduction of more interviews and a named column for celebrated critic Dave Hickey.

David Cohen, publisher and editor of artcritical.com, comments on Lindsay Pollock’s appointment:

I have been a huge fan of Lindsay Pollock since serving alongside her at the New York Sun.  She is an exceptional reporter.  On the other hand, her appointment is a surprise. Had she been given the top spot at, say, The Art Newspaper I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.  But this signals a determination to change the nature of Art in America by its publishers.

Of the big three art magazines in the US, Art in America, Artforum and ArtNews, Art in America is positioned in the middle in editorial tone and market share alike.  It contrasted with Artforum, which recently also appointed a young editor in Michelle Kuo,  in its broader spectrum of coverage, being less obsessed than Artforum with ideas of what is hip or avantgarde; and it takes less interest than Art News in the “trade” aspects of art dealing and collecting.

Pollock’s appointment is bound to unsettle that status quo, or at least, in view of her qualifications, indicates a desire to do so by Brant Publications.  If Lindsay has aesthetic or creative interests in art they have been well hidden, so far in her young career, behind overriding concerns with personalities, prices and art world politics.  As such it is impossible not to fear a Gradgrindian future for Art in America.

The cover of Art in America magazine in November 2008

still from a 2010 film by PBS Art21 showing work in progress on Julie Mehretu's Goldman Sachs Mural

How paradoxical is the role of public art in Manhattan. I admire the Roy Lichtenstein mural at 787 Seventh Avenue, which marvelously summarizes his pop motifs. In a fast moving cab late at night the big Frank Stella in the lobby at 599 Lexington Avenue looks just perfect. And I remember fondly Richard Serra’s now dismantled St. Johns Rotary, which redeemed an otherwise wasted space at the entrance to the Holland tunnel. But on the whole, for an art filled city, New York does not successfully display much contemporary public art. Partly the problem is that most art made today, even the largest pieces, is not well suited for public settings.

The history of modernist public commissions is not encouraging. In the 1930s, Matisse’s dream commission, the sit-specific painting for Albert Barnes’s Foundation, was not a success. And because Diego Rivera included a portrait of Lenin in his Rockefeller Center fresco, John D. Rockefeller destroyed that picture. Tony Smith’s Tau at Hunter College (at Lexington and 68th Street) is in an impossible site, dominating the spectators but set on a busy intersection which makes it impossible to step back and see it properly.  Barbara Kruger’s recent installation on the ground floor of Lever House demonstrates that nowadays our grand art-supporting capitalists are happy to exhibit leftists. But that does not make it a successful work of art.

Inspired by Calvin Tomkins’ characteristically lucid essay in the March 29 New Yorker, I went to the Goldman Sachs building at 200 West Street to see Julie Mehretu’s “Mural.” Her exhibition at the Guggenheim, “Grey Area” (May 14-October 6) provides a fascinating vision of Berlin. And so what could she make, I wondered, of this commission? The building itself has no signage. No doubt security must be a real concern. You can see into the mural only with difficulty through the heavy windows. And when you enter the building, the friendly guards allow no photographs. Since they will not permit you to go through the turnstile, you can only view “Mural” at an oblique angle.  The employees can go to work without passing by her painting. (You, however, can see it on youtube.) Were “Mural” exhibited in a Chelsea gallery, it would be judged as art. No doubt it can be interpreted as an abstract image of how businesses like Goldman Sachs connect our world. My concern here, however, is not at all with Mehretu’s work of art itself, but with its status as a public work of art.

On their website, Goldman Sachs quote what they identify as “a Chinese proverb”: “Women hold up half the sky.” Leftists of my generation will associate that phrase with Mao Zedong who also, we should remember, said that the revolution is not a dinner party. Here, then, we get to the awkward politics. When Mehretu accepted the project, several years ago, she could not have anticipated the present furor, which has made her patron so widely hated. Everyone associated with the art world knows that our galleries, museums and, yes, our academic institutions (I speak as a tenured professor) are sometimes financed in ways that make us uncomfortable. When Mehretu is quoted as saying about Goldman Sachs, “I don’t see it as an evil institution, but as part of the larger system that we all participate in. We’re all a part of it,” she correctly describes everyone’s situation. But there is more to this story.

A generation ago, the unhappy sage of Tilted Arc revealed the vast gap between the art world and the larger public. Serra, who is a great artist, was not in that work a great public artist. How could he be when the public hated his sculpture? Once, wandering late at night, I came across it and unreflectively thought: what a monstrosity.  Not at that moment an art critic, I had become just a member of his public. Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial is in my opinion, and many people would I think agree, the most successful recent public work of art. When Jerry Saltz condescendingly (and misleadingly) calls it “essentially a Serra with names on it,” he inadvertently identifies one real problem. In a democratic culture, a public artist must please or, at least, woo the public. Most of the art world defended Tilted Arc, an understandable act of loyalty to Serra, which showed a curious obliviousness to the legitimate desires of ordinary citizens to have public art that they enjoy.

Although the lobby of Goldman Sachs is not, of course, a public space, anyone can look in. In a curious way, the site of “Mural,” which is visible (but not clearly) from the street, but inaccessible close up, stands for the status of Goldman Sachs itself, an extremely powerful, very private corporation whose policies dramatically affect our economic lives. The trouble is not that it’s been commissioned by a business whose ethics are questionable. And it would be absurd to criticize Mehretu for accepting a well-paid commission. But it is essential for an artist to control the reception of her work, and this she failed to do. The whole project feels, I fear, like a set-up at her expense. By inviting a young, high profile biracial lesbian, as she is prominently identified on the web, to do an expensive permanent work for their lobby, Goldman Sachs sought to buy good publicity. But since “Mural” doesn’t function effectively as a public work of art, they failed. And that failure reflects also, I think, on Mehretu. A guerrilla artist like Banksy would have done a better job at showing how capitalism functions. But Goldman Sachs is unlikely to invite him in. Maybe they should look to Jeff Koons the next time they offer such a commission.

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