Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 10:20 AM EDT

I would say this remark is asinine. The only "must" artists need be concerned about is that they must be true to their vision, their compulsion, their art. If that manages to "attract an audience with little or no interest in contemporary art," beautiful. If it repels that audience, fuck it. It's dismaying that this remark is attributed to an artist. This is art we're talking about, not a broadway musical.

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 10:31 AM EDT

I've always thought those commercials they have for traveling Broadway shows are hilarious - especially when they go for actual testimonials where people say things like "I loved the costumes"

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 10:35 AM EDT

And I love the idea of providing  circus entertainment by force of sheer personality.

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 2:17 PM EDT

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 2:44 PM EDT

It might have more currency with some people.

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 3:01 PM EDT

And don't forget  Anne Miller territory too. 

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 3:25 PM EDT

We are the Champions

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 3:48 PM EDT

Oh Hamburgers!

You have to understand the way I am,
Mein Herr.
A tiger is a tiger, not a lamb.
Mein Herr.
You'll never turn the vinegar to jam,
Mein Herr.
So I do...
What I do...
When I'm through...
Then I'm through...
And I'm through...
Toodle-oo!

Tuesday, 2 October 2007 - 4:41 PM EDT

Dave Hickey said this a couple of years ago at a conference in Philadelphia - excerpted from a PDF you can download here:

Economies of scale are not the same as the economies of size,however,and I would suggest to you that small is okay.Small is always okay.In a puritan republic like this one,where there is small interest in the visible arts,it’s perfectly rational. It’s like,are we going to expand the Frick? You know,Jesus,guys! I would suggest further that the instinct to expand is one of the ways in which the people who run institutions unconsciously mimic the moral habits of their business supporters.In corporate culture,economies of scale and size are really equivalent,but this does not necessarily translate into institutional culture. A little-bitty good thing is really okay.Intensity trumps volume in the realm of art,and a little-bitty good thing that privileges those citizens who would otherwise have no access to the objects and accoutrements of visible culture is not a bad thing.It is something to be proud of,and it is cherished wherever it exists—in the Frick,in the Menil, and in any number of other institutions.You don’t have to get bigger;you are supposed to get better.If art were as popular as you people presume that it should be,there would be no need for public art institutions.The commercial sector would intervene and make money out of that popularity. So,let me ask you this—if most people in America don’t like art,and museums keep changing until they discover something that most people like,will that be art?

Wednesday, 3 October 2007 - 12:56 PM EDT

Hi LM,

That's an excellent question/qualification. I think Hickey's remark posted by J answers it as well or better than me...nonetheless, there is this unavoidable practice in the art world where galleries and museums do mimick structures and postures that exist in the rest of the world, like using jazz hands and rhinestones to attract potential audiences to your "brand."

And there are degrees of this. I think most of us are savvy to those occasions when the jazz hands are applied too heavily and I've seen plenty of talk over the years on simpleposie questioning this sort of art-as-entertainment mode of presentation.

It's a necessary evil, to some degree, because art centers and museums can no longer rely on the sort of government largesse they used to so a more contrived shuffle (to attract foundations, corporate sponsors, rich folks with money to burn, etc) is applied. A little song, a little dance, a littler seltzer in your pants.

The question becomes how much of this can you do before you intrinsically change what you're about. Because once you do that, you're fucked for good and your essential reason for being has vanished.

Wednesday, 3 October 2007 - 2:36 PM EDT

The question becomes how much of this can you do before you intrinsically change what you're about. Because once you do that, you're fucked for good and your essential reason for being has vanished!

Wednesday, 3 October 2007 - 6:14 PM EDT

I'm interested in the funny way Vezzoli is "quoted" by VOCA at the end of a Nuit Blanche warp up or summation, whatever. Long ago Walter Benjamin referred to the public as an absent minded examiner. If you were to institutionalize  this characterization of  a mass audience or conversely invoke the imperative of what exactly artists must provide for it, you might come to the conclusion art is chronically playing to people who like a lot of other things a lot better at it's own expense. It gets into weird territory - even weirder than Ethel and Liza ...and it starts to beg questions of the sort Megan is asking in her questionnaire below about art and art fans and who cares about art and who is entrusted with the care of art etc....

Thursday, 4 October 2007 - 7:05 PM EDT

Not everyone will agree, and that's fine.