The New MoMA: a
roundtable moderated by Aaron Yassin with Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, Deven
Golden, Susan Jennings and Christian Viveros-Faune
page
3
View of the new
David and Peggy Rockefeller Gallery Building from Fifty-fourth Street,
Courtesy Museum of Modern Art © 2004 Timothy Hursley
Aaron Yassin:
In a similar way that MoMA will become the institutional center for
contemporary art, West Chelsea has become the commercial art center.
Although it is convenient to be able to see so much in one place do
you think it encourages real competition, growth and dialogue or instead
does it create a situation where galleries follow the latest trend and
too many shows start to look alike?
Christian Viveros-Faune:
Yes, Chelsea has become the world's most important art mall. That it
is ground zero for the international art market is a fact so obvious
few folks bother with the observation any longer. It is undoubtedly
good for collectors in the sense that it makes shopping, and comparison-shopping
at that, much easier. As a dealer, and particularly as one that just
opened a space in the neighborhood, there is no sense in my making light
of convenience. Chelsea works and it works because collectors can take
things in at a glance, on a single trip or pair of trips a month. I
do think the neighborhood does engender a certain sameness: many of
the spaces look the same (many, in fact, were designed by the same architect
or at least in imitation of that architect's minimal-looking design)
and there is a tendency for shows to take on a homogenous look, if not
to actually mimic themselves along the neighborhood as certain trends
ripple across the art world. At the end of last decade, there was an
expansion in the number and kind of exhibition spaces in New York and
they made the city an even more vibrant and interesting place to see
art. Unfortunately, today what we see is a contraction of those energies.
Partly, this is due to the old ineluctable outsider/insider process.
Outsiders, if successful, don't stay outsiders. Still, there are at
the very least a dozen fantastic galleries outside of the precincts
of Chelsea. Most of those are in Brooklyn, where the artists live and
work.
Susan Jennings:
I don't think it is true that Chelsea galleries show work that is all
alike. Who thinks this? Of course there are artists in New York City,
some might say bitter holdouts working in anachronistic styles that
are irrelevant to today's conversation, who might feel shut out of Chelsea
and claim that all of the shows look alike. Is this who we are addressing
with this question? Throughout art history there have always been currents
of common thoughts and styles. This is a normal process, the ebb and
flow of dialogue and influence. It is the artists themselves who are
elaborating on common themes, as they always have from decade to decade.
This does not have to do with the proximity of galleries. Indeed right
now in Chelsea there is a far wider range of art than one would have
found in Paris in 1910 or Uptown in the late 50's. Of course, forces
other than proximity, such as collector demand can be driving decisions
that galleries make about what is exhibited and, sadly, the work that
some artists put out. It goes without saying that it is the responsibility
of good artists and good dealers to avoid this trap.
On another note,
like the mega-museum issue, there is a Chelsea gallery size issue that
I think effects our impression of what is there to be seen. Many galleries
in Chelsea suffer from the same size-creepage problem as McDonald's
french fries, Starbuck's coffee and American clothing, cars and people.
Though "small" seems to be a word in exile there actually
are some small and smallish galleries right in Chelsea that show good
challenging contemporary work: Derek Eller Gallery, Oliver Kamm Gallery,
Feature, Inc., Michael Steinberg Fine Art, Mitchell Algus, LFL Gallery.
But galleries like Paula Cooper, Metro Pictures, Barbara Gladstone,
Gagosian, and Mary Boone all have the problem of filling their spaces
with varying degrees of success. Mary Boone just showed 3 small Hilary
Harkness paintings in her monolithic space. I don't think it worked
but I admire the guts to challenge the scale of the space. I think there
are a variety of spaces in Chelsea showing a range of work, but the
large ones really stick in our minds, maybe because the shows frequently
seem to be about bigness more than anything else. It is just not enough
to leave a gallery with the thought, "That sure was BIG!"
But then again, Douglas Gordon's elephant at Gagosian made me happy
for weeks.
Luckily, Chelsea
is not the only neighborhood with galleries. There's Williamsburg! There
are excellent small and medium-sized galleries over there and like Chelsea,
visiting these galleries can be a superb way to have dialogue with other
artists and art lovers. Both places provide community and ample opportunity
for conversation. This is a great argument for the concentration of
galleries.
Deven Golden:
Well, first of all, I'm not sure if you mean to say "the"
institutional center for contemporary art, and if you do, I don't agree.
The contemporary art world is, at this time, international. The new
MoMA will still be just another stop on the culture train, albeit a
pretty spectacular one. In the same way, West Chelsea is just the most
recent manifestation of the cultural marketplace. Fifteen years ago
it was SoHo, fifty years ago it was 57th Street, eighty years ago it
was the Left Bank in Paris. In fact, one main difference between today
and those previous times is the fact that while the gallerists in West
Chelsea may represent the single largest concentration of contemporary
galleries, there are many other large, viable contemporary gallery centers
around the world, for example in Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Cologne,
and Berlin. Moreover, the so called problem of "the latest trend"
or, put another way, the problem of sameness is not, I would think,
about geography as much as it is about the paucity of idiosyncratic
collectors and the strength of market forces. Fortunately, I think we'll
all agree, much good art always seems to find a way to be seen.
Rocio Aranda-Alvarado:
I believe it was Jerry Saltz who recently described the New York art
world as a giant blob (I hope that's right!), a large thing which can't
really be controlled and in which things are beginning to look very
much the same. I find that occasionally I spend three hours in Chelsea
and don't see anything truly inspirational. Williamsburg, however, is
a different story, as is Newark. I believe sometimes that the more interesting
things happen in the (perceived) periphery. There are some extremely
motivated and wonderful young artists doing great work and organizing
themselves in significant ways in these places that get less attention.
Aaron Yassin:
Artists started moving to Soho in the 1960's and the galleries followed
them there. This was less the case with Chelsea as it has always been
primarily a commercial center. As a result collectors have a significant
influence on this market. We all agree that there are interesting things
happening in other neighborhoods often closer to where artists live.
How do you see the future of what is shown in Chelsea compared to what
is shown in other neighborhoods?
Susan Jennings:
Oh, that's funny that it was Jerry Saltz who said that everything in
Chelsea looks the same. Well, I think this statement is probably being
taken out of context or else I just plain disagree. In Chelsea you can
see artworks as varied as those by Ricci Albenda and Luc Tuymans, Olafur
Eliason and Lydia Dona, Carroll Dunham and Walton Ford, Devendra Banhart
and Leo Villareal, Scott Grodesky and Kara Walker, George Condo and
Anselm Kiefer, Paul Ramirez Jonas and Peggy Preheim, Do-Ho Suh and Eric
Hanson, Justine Kurland and Yuri Masnyj, Maurizio Catalan and Lucky
DeBellevue, Elizabeth Peyton and David Shaw - Really a wide variety.
I have often heard
people say that they spent an entire day looking at art (say in Chelsea)
and saw nothing they liked. When you consider that in any given 10-year
period of art history there are only a handful of artists of significance,
I say, "Well what do you expect? Great, inspirational art is not
something that happens easily. Did you really think you would find some
in just one day or even one month of gallery visiting?" When I
do come across something that shakes me up, it makes me very happy.
It doesn't happen all that often. I think that is just how it is.
And yes, there is
good work all over the greater metropolitan area in artists' studios
and in small artist-run spaces in outlying places, but there is also
a lot of uninspiring art in these places. I am amazed when I go to open
studios, say in Brooklyn, by the sheer number of artists paying rent
for studios. The ratio of interesting to not is very low. Hopefully,
the truly good work does eventually make it into Chelsea and the Museums.
I agree that shows in Williamsburg can often be very good. ATM Gallery
in the East Village has great shows, too. Many times these shows are
curated by artists, either the gallerists are artists themselves or
artist guest-curate. I think artists often do a good job of discovering
the next good art. That is why I try to go to these places and then
tell people at White Columns, for example, about what I see that is
outstanding. It is also why it is so important for curators, critics
and dealers, not to mention artists, to go to Williamsburg, Jersey City,
Bushwick, wherever the artists are. Gone are the days of finding all
of your artist friends at Food in Soho after a day in your studio around
the block. Jerry Saltz, actually, is great about not being a lazy Isle-of-Manhattan
art looker.
Rocio Aranda-Alvarado:
I think that because there are still small galleries showing strong
work by emerging artists in Chelsea and because some of the best from
Williamsburg and other places are moving there, it will continue to
be a vibrant place to see art. There is no doubt that the bigger spaces
get more attention but smaller galleries and non-profits like White
Box also make contributions. I forgot to mention that I think Harlem
is an important area that is developing also…it's not so inconceivable
that the west side of Harlem could become something akin to Chelsea.
With a significant museum in its midst as well as important non-profit
spaces like Triple Candie, Harlem is clearly a contender.
Deven Golden:
We seem to have gone from discussing the new MoMA to speculating on
how real estate prices are going to affect how and where we view art,
and I'm not sure where we're going with this. Galleries, like the artists,
go where they can afford to go, only unlike artists, their calculation
for deciding that has a lot more to do with available foot traffic (although
if you can't get the gallerist to come by your studio because you're
in Sheepshead Bay, that's not an unrelated consideration). However if,
in ten years, neither the galleries nor the artists can afford to be
in Manhattan anywhere, then they'll have to move somewhere else and
the collectors and curators will follow them. But who knows, perhaps
in 20 years, when 90 percent of all artworks are digital, and most adults
have been going on-line for all of their information for 30 odd years,
people will just download new art and view it on their huge living-room
wall screens, and brick and mortar galleries will be a thing of the
past, just like people thought it would be in 1997.
To
join round two of this discussion, send your comments to aaronyassin@artcritical.com
Rocio Aranda-Alvarado is Curator of the Jersey City Museum
Deven Golden
is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY
Susan Jennings
is an artist living and working in New York and Alford, MA. She is represented
by Michael Steinberg Fine Art in New York and g-module in Paris.
Christian Viveros-Faune
is the co-owner of Roebling Hall galleries. A
recovering art critic, he still publishes the odd article and catalog
essay
when called upon.
Aaron Yassin is and artist and writer based in Jersey City. His work
can be seen at www.aaronyassin.com
