Zilkens' News Blog

Zilkens' News Blog 43 2023

In his 515th issue, Stefan Kobel reports on Paris+ - the shift of art markets from London to Paris and so much other stuff that I want to be a bit more brief.

Karlheinz Schmid has made it true - with the 788th issue of Informationsdienst Kunst, publication has ceased. A real pity, because, even if some critics didn't like it, it was well researched and provided information for everyone involved in the art world. Not that I don't have nothing to do - but if there is someone in his editorial team who is interested in creative brainstorming - please do - email will do. And to Karlheinz Schmid, once again, a heartfelt thank you.

Sociology of art - that is, the social study of, about and from art in its effects and interactions on art - is a small plant for an elite that uses just such a language. In Germany, "Artis Observatio" - General Journal for the Sociology of Art and the Sociology of the Arts - edited by Christian Steuerwald and Nina Tessa Zahner has been published since last year. The more one reads about the subject, the more one feels as if one has arrived in the linguistic space of the late 1960s - albeit wonderfully modernised by the constant confusion of being and doing, as it suits the gender righteous at universities. In France, a controversial sociologist named Nathalie Heinich from Marseille, if you follow the Wikipedia entry, teaches and writes about paradigms and paradox in no less complex sentences. She states, "This mixture of duties and prohibitions creates an atmosphere of censorship and self-censorship reminiscent of the less than joyous times of Stalinism." This does not sound friendly and is not necessarily to be taken as praise for all concerned. It all appeared in an interview in Les Journal des Arts this week. And because it describes so clearly and complexly the developments of the last years, we publish it here (unauthorised) following our good wishes for the week.

Yours sincerely, Stephan Zilkens and the team of Zilkens Fine Art Insurance Broker GmbH in Solothurn and Cologne.

INTERVIEW

Nathalie Heinich: "an atmosphere of censorship and self-censorship".

By Jean-Christophe Castelain - Le Journal des Arts

16 October 2023 - 1043 words

The sociologist comments on current practices in contemporary art, highlighting its paradoxes and excesses.

Some people talk about the standardisation of works at art fairs. Have you noticed this?

When a practice is embraced by a large number of players, as is the case with contemporary art, there is bound to be a tendency towards uniformity, because the objective possibilities for renewal and innovation are not infinite - especially when, as is currently the case, there is a trend towards concentration of fairs and galleries. Or, to be more precise, a twofold contradictory process is taking place, to which I drew attention at the end of Paradigm of Contemporary Art. Structures d'une révolution artistique (Gallimard, 2014). On the one hand, a multiplicity of artists are trying to exist by proposing mini-innovations, but perceptible only to specialists, who can compare their productions with those of their immediate predecessors; and, on the other hand, the very closed-in, very self-referential nature of this contemporary art world produces, for an outsider's eye, a striking impression of uniformity, repetition, of "But we've seen this before". Hence the difficulty of giving a one-sided answer to the question of whether things are changing: for the insiders, they are constantly changing, while for the outsiders, the non-specialists, they are constantly repeating themselves.

Aren't you struck by the high rate of eclipse of "promising young artists" launched at fairs and galleries, who are never heard of again a few years later?

Yes, it's a very striking phenomenon, and one that can be easily explained if we take into account the strategic role of art intermediaries, breaking away from the illusion of a face-to-face relationship between artists and their works, on the one hand, and viewers and collectors, on the other. Indeed, museum curators and exhibition commissioners, gallery owners and art critics are not passive mediators between the production and reception of artworks: they too have their own professional interests, and in particular, like artists, the need to be recognised by their peers as original, capable of spotting innovative artists who will make a name for themselves. The 'contemporary art paradigm', as I have called it, operates on the basis of singularity, not just for artists, but for all the links in the chain of recognition. Now, if you want to be the first to 'out' an artist, what better way than to look at the younger artists, those who haven't yet been spotted? But once they have been spotted, these "promising young artists" are no longer of interest to their promoters, who must continue to distinguish themselves from their peers by discovering new hopefuls. There is therefore a great risk that an artist will no longer attract the attention of curators, gallery owners and critics once he or she has had his or her moment of glory. Hence the accelerated obsolescence of young careers, with many artists left on the sidelines after having been acclaimed. The contemporary art world can be ruthless...

You have just published Le Wokisme serait-il un totalitarisme (Albin Michel, 2023). To what extent has contemporary art incorporated Wokism?

The imperatives of inclusivity and diversity that are characteristic of the 'woke' movement are evident in the growing number of exhibitions devoted to women and people of colour, and if possible to women of colour. The cultural world is no exception to this typically North American communitarian vision, which seeks to reduce individuals to a supposed community of belonging, to the detriment of their personal qualities and their own merit. This obligation to give visibility to certain people not because of their talent but because of characteristics for which they are not responsible (gender, skin colour, sexual orientation, etc.) is accompanied by prohibitions on certain words (" negro ") and certain representations, in the name of the fight against cultural appropriation, which claims to prohibit the use of resources from other cultures - which is a crass misunderstanding of the very process of creation, made up of cross-fertilisation, inspiration and borrowing. This mixture of obligations and prohibitions engenders an atmosphere of censorship and self-censorship that can only be reminiscent of the not-so-happy days of Stalinism. And the fear of being labelled 'reactionary' prevents us from raising our heads and protesting against this new obscurantism, imposed in the name of progressive values such as the fight against discrimination. Universities are being invaded by this new zeitgeist, as are the media, the world of politics, the world of business... And the world of art is not immune either, alas.

How can we explain the apparent paradox between contemporary art, some of whose works are intended to be transgressive and anti-capitalist, and their recuperation by the market and/or the luxury goods industry?

As soon as works are intended to meet a demand - whether that demand is from buyers on the private market, or from specialists in the institutional sphere - it's hard for them to escape being recuperated, however transgressive they may be and, paradoxically, all the more so if they are transgressive. This is what I called the 'permissive paradox' in Le Triple Jeu de l'art contemporain (Édition de minuit, 1998): if contemporary art is defined by its capacity to transcend boundaries (whatever they may be), its recognition by specialists can only lead to the widening of the accepted boundaries between art and non-art, and hence to the integration of transgression, and hence to the implicit obligation placed on artists to go ever further in transgression if they want to stay in the game - a triple game between transgression by the works, reaction by audiences and integration by institutions and the market. The logic of distinction does the rest: when you have a lot of money to spend and a desire to stand out from the crowd, you turn to products that are out of the ordinary, which you then help to enhance on the market. Whatever the motivations of the artists, however 'anti-system' they may be.

Buying contemporary art has become a lifestyle for many wealthy collectors. How long will this last?

As long as it takes them to find new categories of objects or practices capable of defining a lifestyle, doubly and contradictorily characterised by the desire for distinction and the desire to belong to a group, in other words the very mechanism of fashion.