#237 22 february 2016 HOW DO WE ASSESS CONTEMPORARY ART? Mesk-ellil (2015) Hicham Berrada Courtesy of Kamel Mennour and Biennale de Lyon 2015 © Blaise Adilon #237 • 22 FEBRUARY 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS P. 3 P.10 HOW DO WE ASSESS CONTEMPORARY ART? TOP STORIES P.13 P.14 P.17 GALLE- MUSEUMS THOMAS BERNARD RIES P.18 P.21 P.22 FONDATION DATA HIPPOCRÈNE ARTISTS LÉON SPILLIAERT P.28 P.29 AUCTIONS FAIRS AND FESTIVALS 2 This document is for the exclusive use of Art Media Agency’s clients. Do not distribute. Subscribe for free. HOW DO WE ASSESS CONTEMPORARY ART? n a novel retracing the life of Van Gogh’s post- man Joseph Roulin (La vie de Jospeh Roulin), writer Pierre Michon raises a question that has probably crossed the minds of all art lo- vers: “Who decides what’s beautiful and, on Ithis basis, what’s expensive or worth nothing among humans?” The question of a work’s va- lue is continually raised, and may sometimes be accompanied by bafflement — a feeling to which even experts may be prone. So then: how is it that contemporary art is assessed? Who are the players who take part in this game of meaning, that sometimes resembles a game of fools? Eva- luating an artwork means placing a value upon it. An aesthetic value, implicitly, but values are a porous field where different horizons mix, in a monumental and plural edifice that we custo- marily call “culture”. So who is responsible for us scrutinising a Jeff Koons sculpture or Henri Dar- ger drawings? Museo Soumaya Carlos Slim's private museum Courtesy of Museo Soumaya #237 • 22 FEBRUARY 2016 Aotw • HOW DO WE ASSESS CONT. ART? As ingenious or inspiring as the works of the past may be, they belong to a world that is no longer ours. It is up to artists to continue to create new forms for our present time. In L’Atelier d’Alberto Giacometti, Jean Genet writes that an artwork is not aimed at future generations, but rather, “it is offered up to the countless people of the dead”. When an artist invents a new form, it is almost always a homage to the past that manifests the necessity to update the way we perceive and think about the world. For example, when Kader Attia explored the theme of repair at the last Biennale de Lyon, in Traditional Repair, Immaterial Injury (2015), we encountered a form that translates, into matter and signs, certain elements in our societies where the issue of repair is backed up by a nostalgic feeling of loss. Many observers agree to say that we are in the midst of a crisis, in other words, a period Biwat Flute Stopper Yuat River of mutation, deep and violent questioning of Papua New-Guinea our societies. A break with the past, especially when the past is close, is the object of grief — © Sotheby's Art Digital Studio a loss that must at all costs be compensated For American sociologist Howard Becker, the and repaired. The work of Kader Attia is in line art world is a "collective action" (Art Worlds, with this perspective and gives us, through 1982). Evaluation is based on several criteria — what can be perceived, keys for deepening our not merely formal ones — and can be divided understanding of our situation as Europeans into various temporalities at which different and Westerners. There is something necessary players intervene. And yet, the process is not so about this form and it speaks to “us” even when transparent in the eyes of the public in a broad we turn our backs on it. sense. Perhaps this is because the evaluation process is not as rigid as one might think, but The three stages of recognition based instead on a fragile balance, subject During a conference held at the Collège de to ongoing reconfigurations. It seems quite France, “Évaluer l'art contemporain”, Philippe obvious that the reality is somewhere between Dagen suggested distinguishing between two extremes: the relativism of taste-based three stages in the process under analysis. judgments that amounts to implying that a Before an artist becomes an artist, many players work’s value is strictly subjective, and the idea are deployed in a relatively long temporality, that the work innately carries objective value. beyond the very short time occupied by the In the end, who should we hold responsible? market. Between the illusion of a whim underlying a judgment and the illusion of a work’s objective value, what is there left for us to understand how we evaluate contemporary art? Aesthetic evaluation What criteria do we use to evaluate the art of our time? There is one crucial criterion in assessing a work, and that is the question of form and formal analysis. What we ask an artist to do is to invent new forms and new creative procedures. Since the imitation of what already exists lacks interest, invention — of new forms and new procedures — is a basic element by which to consider art history. Inventing a new form comes from feeling the necessity to express a new situation in a form that corresponds to it. This new situation is that of our contemporary era; it may be personal as well as collective, with both often joining up if Traditional Repair, Immaterial Injury (2015) they are not inextricably linked. This is also the Kader Attia reason why it is necessary to renew the forms by which our world expresses, considers and Courtesy of the artist, Biennale de Lyon, Nagel Draxler and represents itself. Lehmann Maupin Gallery 4 This document is for the exclusive use of Art Media Agency’s clients. Do not distribute. Subscribe for free. #237 • 22 FEBRUARY 2016 Aotw • HOW DO WE ASSESS CONT. ART? The first stage of the evaluation process is a the opposite can also be said to be true! critical one. Indeed, this is a selection process The process of recognition is thus two-way. that is set off — one that singles out, amongst Obviously, the Centre Pompidou could make all contemporary creations, those that deserve no claims of being a great modern-art museum to be shown. Works are firstly selected through without presenting the works of Jeff Koons, but the training of artists, in specialised schools. reciprocally, Jeff Koons is a major artist on the The profession is learned and transmitted while contemporary art scene in that he is part of this taking stock of its specificities. Of course, artistic museum’s collection. movements such as outsider art do not include this first stage, but this is not reason enough to Finally, the third stage of evaluation is played ignore them in the midst of all contemporary out at the time when art is received by the artistic creations. The work of an artist who media. At this stage, art is in the hands of graduates from art school is evaluated by his what Philippe Dagen calls a “collective social or her teachers but also by critics or gallerists operation” on which critical authority no longer or curators. This first stage of evaluation thus has any real influence. It is replaced by the ballet takes place under an authority recognised as of auction sales, the sparkling acquisitions of such by its institutional function. In this way, Walter Vanhaerents major collectors or else subject to the opinion this is a critical stage that consists in sorting of the public who do not necessarily take and selecting, detecting what may emerge © Karel Duerinckx aesthetics alone into account. Recently, debate as a new form. At this stage, the economic surrounding Anish Kapoor’s Dirty Corner in question is practically absent, or at least no Versailles clearly shows a shift in evaluation more than a than a thought at the back of the criteria, whereby ideologies contaminate the mind. Evaluation is expressed through support aesthetic experience at the risk of sometimes or reticence, but from the perspective of an overtaking it. authority figure. In contemporary art, it is not rare to see artists accompanying their work with Finally, a work’s monetary value is an evaluation discourse that also offers keys to its evaluation subject to great variability — as well as visibility. without clamping down the work’s meaning. The work’s objective quality and its formal After this first circle of critics has operated, it is description are swapped for a symbolic up to institutional networks to confirm this first exchange value; in other words, we give a work evaluation. This time, it is the gallerist-collector a meaning that applies for the time present and duo that takes over. that plays on the intersubjective mode. The symbolic chain is now at work. The second stage of evaluation consists in widening the public’s recognition. It is at this The issue of values and symbols point that an artist’s internationalisation comes The issue of a work’s symbolic value arises into play, through big international fairs such as during auction sales. Works become something Art Basel, the FIAC, Frieze, etc. but also public like brands, and to design them, we often institutions — the FRAC, kunsthallen, museums, Dirty Corner (2011) use metonymy. “It’s a Basquiat.” Descriptive art centres… — via their exhibition programming. Anish Kapoor evaluation gives way to prescriptive And while the museum legitimates the artist, © François Guillot evaluation. 5 This document is for the exclusive use of Art Media Agency’s clients. Do not distribute. Subscribe for free. #237 • 22 FEBRUARY 2016 Aotw • HOW DO WE ASSESS CONT. ART? This prescriptive power is exercised by great art collectors, and in their trail, great museums, both private and public.