Today the New York Times ran a piece on the uncertain fate of the art establishment, and refreshingly, on one of the many good things that can result from a bust economy-
namely a return of some integrity, some actual originality and sincerity in the production and consumption of Art.
I feel I am not the only person to be weighed on by this malaise, this feeling of ambiguity and lack of comprehension as to where my own Art fits in my life, what I am supposed to do with it. Have others been reluctant to say "I am an Artist"? (the response always "where have you shown, what have you sold, for how much?)
In my life, this statement has seemed somehow off the mark. There has been a disconnect between what I have made, and why, and the definition of Art that this (almost past) paradigm has lent us.
So what will we do? What will we make, if Mr. Hirst's diamond encrusted skull is wrapped and crated, and there is suddenly a dearth of patrons, galleries, people to impress, people to pay us. What if we just aren't going to make money off our art? we just aren't going to be written up in magazines?
I can feel something starting to dislodge in my throat...could it be that once more poverty follows prosperity, that the bust follows the boom, that the world once more asks to be truly seen, reinterpreted? re-described? re-created?


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/arts/design/15cott.html?pagewanted=1