Art business

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The art business is summarized (often jokingly, derogatory or critical) the everyday life in the world of fine arts and its economic , social and cultural contexts, rituals and conventions . It is the social and institutional context in which contemporary art , its organization, communication and reception predominantly take place. The art business thus takes place between the poles of art production and reception or art consumption.

Microcosm of the art business

In the center of the art business stands the artist , in his struggle for his work, for his respective conceptions or ideals , for funding , important exhibitions, rank and recognition , sales.

Other important figures and forces in the art world are z. B.

  • the professor at the art academy, often an artist whose name stands for a certain art conception and direction and whose students often follow him in these conceptions or develop them further ( master students ) and are sponsored by him at the beginning of their career,
  • the cultural politician who exerts influence on the promotion of the arts and has to find a compromise between the different demands placed on cultural policy on the one hand and the reality of limited financial resources on the other,
  • the curator who curates art exhibitions on behalf of an institution , i.e. designs, organizes, manages and supervises and promotes individual artists; the profession is gaining increasing influence in the art world, the curator becomes a meta-artist, the exhibition becomes an individual collage of works of art and the positions of others,
  • the collector who hopes for enjoyment and personal prestige for himself through a particularly tasteful, clever or unusual selection of the collected works of art , then
  • the art and culture sponsor , whose commitment often makes it possible to carry out artistic projects, which he then expects to have a certain image or an improvement in the public image of his company,
  • the art magazine and art magazine , which, among other things, is very close to current art events and can quickly pick up trends or set and direct them to a limited extent,
  • the art book publisher , whose specialty is the publication of titles on the visual arts in the form of books, illustrated books, catalogs and brochures,
  • the art forums , which are dedicated to promoting the visual arts and literature through exhibitions, readings and conferences
  • Art organizations such as professional associations, societies, foundations or institutes that represent their interests in the field of art as well

Their interplay as a network that is opaque to the layman and their conflicts make up the art business as a whole: Young artists develop various new positions or trademarks , or take up successful or forgotten strategies or aesthetics in their work. Gallery owners or art critics become aware of them through tours of the academy, personal acquaintance or recommendation and promote them selectively according to their own aesthetic positioning. Curators exhibit them, promoting their own themes and perspectives on art and interacting with galleries. Galleries and collectors are dependent on the increase in the value of their works and, in turn, exert an influence on the artists' “offers” on the art market through their purchasing power . Established fashions or trends have to assert and define themselves.

Intangible art or art that wants to evade commercial exploitation as a tradable commodity in another way can currently only exist for the most part with public funding. Funding, in turn, is often determined by personal relationships between the artist and awarding bodies (critics therefore require, for example, anonymous applications for tenders). Interdependent or friendly artists, gallery owners, curators and collectors often form a kind of cartel . The danger here is that the actual contents and questions of aesthetics (cf. art theory ) can take a back seat or become a vehicle for struggles over the distribution of money and power .

Places of the art business are the features pages and the specialist press, cultural policy, the art academy , the white cube (e.g. vernissage in the art association ), the art fair , the museum . The subjects of discussion are the concept of art , the content and strategies of art, or the rank, performance and importance of individual artists, collectors, art critics or directors of institutions, sales achieved and other financial or political issues.

For its critics, the art business is characterized in part by vanity , envy , resentment and competitive thinking on the part of the various participants, but also in part by creativity and cooperation .

Immanent criticism

The slightly contemptuous talk of the art business also expresses disappointment or regret that the world of art , which is often associated with lofty expectations of the essence and virtues of the protagonists, is so influenced by such mundane things as competition, intrigue and corruption and nepotism is characterized.

Cultural politics and the art market with their respective demands on art are often held responsible for this, on the other hand there is also a common opinion that all of this has never been different and is almost in the nature of the thing or of people.

The art business is largely isolated from society , it is a matter for a wealthy elite , which it serves to gain distinction , its discussions are hermetic and self-centered.

Since the art business is very predictable if you have studied it for a while, it is possible to use it as an operating system for art (similar to the operating system of a computer) and to hack it in a similar way .

The Italian art critic Matthias Dusini accused the established art business of setting up taboos: "Social taboos have recently been broken not by angry artists, but by honest bankers and ambassadors".

Beyond the art business

Artistic subversive counter-strategies and attempts to escape from the art world can be found e.g. B. partially in Pop Art and Land Art , in the expanded concept of art of action art (e.g. Cornelia Sollfrank , Park Fiction or hyperart - frichter ) and in a conceptual art / art criticism critical of institutions (e.g. Daniel Buren , Andrea Fraser or annette hollywood ), as well as at producer galleries , in subculture and underground (art) , in digital art and art in public spaces . The first attempts to counteract the general art business or to withdraw from the art market were made by Schwitters (Merz) and later by the Fluxus artists. Nowadays (since 1970), performance can be an artistic way or an artistic means of withdrawing from the art world.

history

The first systematic analysis of the art business and its art can be seen in the artistic work Art and Everyday Life between 1981 and 1988 by the artist and author Hans-Peter Porzner . The decisive word operating system art comes from Thomas Wulffen . It was Porzner who, with his imaginary Museum of Modern Art in Munich and an abundance of art association and museum exhibitions between 1995 and 2000, made the art business aware of itself in the sense of a permanent reflection . This continued to cross the line between art and philosophy. In this respect, art business art is more than conceptual art . The first to recognize this at museum level were Peter Friese and Thomas Deecke , who in 1995 granted the Museum of Modern Art Munich the first real exhibition Goya in the New Museum Weserburg Bremen, which is now called the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art . As a result, there were also a number of exhibitions on the subject of the art world and institutional criticism in the Weserburg . In particular, the exhibition Originals curated by Thomas Deecke is real / false. Imitation, copy, quotation, appropriation, forgery in contemporary art in the Weserburg (1999). However, Hans-Peter Porzner, Thomas Wulffen, Peter Friese and Thomas Deecke weren't the only ones working on this topic. Andrea Fraser , Isabelle Graw , the exhibition organizer and theoretician Helmut Draxler and others should be mentioned here with equal intensity .

Significance for the perception of art

According to recent research findings, the environment in the form of the context effect plays a major role in the perception and evaluation of works of art . So were paintings unterschiedlichster styles for presentation in a classical museum context better assessed and an interesting classified as a presentation of the same work of art in a sterile laboratory context . While the exact results fluctuated with the art style , the overall assessment showed that the context effect played a more important role than the authenticity effect (i.e. the distinction between whether the work of art was presented in the original or as a copy). Against the background of these research results, the design of the presentation context makes the art business very important for the perception of the individual work of art.

literature

  • Anne-Marie Bonnet: Modern Art. Contemporary art. Challenge and opportunity. Deubner-Verlag, Cologne 2004, especially pp. 86–97.
  • Piroschka Dossi: Hype! Art and money. dtv premium 24612, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-423-24612-5 .
  • Michael Findlay: On the value of art. Prestel, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7913-4639-7 .
  • Adam Lindemann: Collecting contemporary art. Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-8365-2305-9 .
  • Hans-Lothar Merten: Nice appearance. Behind the Scenes of the Art Industry , Midas Verlag, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-907100-87-5
  • Christian Saehrendt , Steen T. Kittl : “I can do that too!” Instructions for use for modern art. DuMont Cologne, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8321-7759-1 .
  • Christian Saehrendt, Steen T. Kittl: That tells me something! Phrase book German-Art / Art-German, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-8321-9094-1 .
  • Karlheinz Schmid : dream career artist - on the way to becoming a superstar. Lindinger + Schmid Verlag, Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-929970-69-2 .
  • Sebastian Stahl: Value creation in contemporary art - To: Young German Art. Research report of the Institute for Macroeconomics of the University of Potsdam, 2009, ISBN 978-3-9812422-2-5 .
  • Kathrein Weinhold: Self-management in the art business . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89942-144-2 .
  • Thomas Wulfen (Ed.): Operating System Art - A Retrospective . (= Kunstforum International . Volume 125). January-February 1994; See also Thomas Wulffen: Role Change - Collected Texts. LIT-Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-6520-7 , chapter 'Operation'. See thwulffen.blogspot.com
  • Tasos Zembylas : art or non-art. About conditions and instances of aesthetic judgment. WUV University Press, Vienna 1997
  • Tasos Zembylas: Culture Management. Basics of an interdiscipline. VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004.
  • Tasos Zembylas, P. Tschmuck (Hrsg.): Kulturbetriebsforschung. Approaches and Perspectives. VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neo-avant-garde politeness? In: DerStandard .
  2. ↑ Hans-Peter Porzner: diamonds in the millstone gear . With texts by Christoph Blase and Hans-Peter Porzner. Exhibition catalog of the Mosel and Chekhov Gallery in Munich. Munich 1988, ISBN 3-925987-04-5 . Entry on: Archive book list of the Galerie Mosel und Chekhov Munich. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  3. ↑ Thomas Wulffen: Artist essay by Thomas Wulffen. The art of announcement - Hans-Peter Porzner and his art . "... What you design and use was also called the operating system art. The author of these lines coined the term ...". In: artist art magazine. Issue No. 85 November 2010 - January 2011, p. 48 f. Essay (excerpt) on the website of the art magazine artist. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  4. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Thomas Wulffen, Hans-Peter Porzner - Museum? Museum! In: Kunstforum International , Volume 202, 2010. Title: Fiktion der Kunst. Retrieved March 12, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kunstforum.de
  5. ↑ Hans-Peter Porzner: KUNST UND ALLTAG 1988/2001. An interpretation of the sentence "It is art and everyday life" according to the specification of "Art and everyday life 1" with regard to a first language for a "metaphysics of phenomenology" as a "first science" . With a text by Hans-Peter Porzner. Exhibition catalog of the Mosel and Chekhov Gallery in Munich. Munich 2001, ISBN 3-925987-23-1 . Entry on: Archive book list of the Galerie Mosel und Chekhov Munich. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  6. ↑ Goya exhibition . November 25, 1995 - January 29, 1996. Entry on the kunstaspekte.de website. Accessed March 10, 2016.
  7. ^ Porzner - Exhibitions until 1997. Osthaus Museum Hagen, (see material before the museum was renamed in 2009: Michael Fehr, KEOM 0.2 .) Accessed on March 12, 2016.
  8. ↑ Goya exhibition . 1995. Museum of Modern Art, Munich. On the website of kunstaspekte.de. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  9. ↑ Originals real / false. Imitation, copy, quotation, appropriation, forgery in contemporary art. Curator Thomas Deecke. Exhibition catalog with texts by: Mike Bidlo, Ernst Caramelle, Thomas Deecke, Peter Niemann, Sturtevant, Emmet Williams. August 25 - October 24, 1999. Entry on the website of the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  10. ^ Klaus von Beyme: Cultural Policy and National Identity. Footnote 69. Thomas Deecke: Against the entertainment business. Where is the foresight of cultural policy? In: FAZ, November 8, 1995, p. 37. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  11. ↑ Isabelle Graw: Beyond the Critique of Institutions. A lecture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In: Texts on Art. Issue No. 59 / September 2005. "Institutional Criticism" entry on the website of the art magazine Texte zur Kunst . Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  12. ↑ Susanne Grüner, Eva Specker, Helmut Leder: Effects of Context and Genuineness in the Experience of Art . In: Empirical Studies of the Arts . tape 37 , no. 2 , 2019, ISSN  0276-2374 , p. 138–152 , doi : 10.1177 / 0276237418822896 (English).