LUCID DREAMING
by Beth Elaine Wilson

Autumn Umbrella, Gabriel Orozco, 1993

It was a packed opening—seemingly thousands of people wedged their way past the drink table into the already overcrowded gallery, to see and to be seen, regardless of the fact that it was increasingly difficult to see any of the paintings, let alone honestly appreciate them in all the hubbub. Everyone was draped elegantly in black, with every variety of fashionable footwear imaginable mingling on the industrial, ex-warehouse concrete floor. There seemed to be a buzz in the air, and it quickly became apparent that there would have to be some response in the press to the exhibition. (Note to self: Check next month’s Art in America and ArtForum for reviews.)

I am a part of this scene, yet apart from it—down for the day, I’d gone shopping in Chinatown to pick up some ultra-cheap staples not normally available in this part of the world anyway, so I arrived at the opening carrying a gigantic white plastic bag full of stuff, terribly inelegant, feeling not nearly soignée enough for the occasion. But I had an “in”: having written the press release for the show, I had unique access to the owner and staff of the gallery, and the artist (with whom I’d only spoken on the phone previously). For the most part, given the crush of people, I stayed distant from him, knowing I’d have a chance later at the dinner to speak with him at greater length. At one point near the end, when the crowd had thinned out a bit, there were four different people with digital camcorders taping him from various vantage points as he stood in front of the work, saying something, I’m not sure what, about the paintings. I had a hard time getting past the presence of all those camcorders. One of them seemed to be concentrating on taping the three others taping him. No doubt some of the footage was uploaded to the Internet by the next morning.

After the opening, a small dinner with the artist and a few friends; after dinner, a cab ride back downtown to an only-in-New-York after-party in a private space complete with loud techno-remixes of songs I’d danced to the first time they came around (the ‘80s really are back!), strobe lights, a bank of blue-screened televisions used for illumination, two bars, and a mile-long line to the bathroom. As the artist wasn’t drinking, I cadged a few drink tickets from him, and scotch in hand, surveyed the scene. The party consisted of the select who’d been given passes earlier at the gallery, weeding out the weak and unfit from the crowd. (None of the camcorder geeks seemed to have made the cut.) They were almost uniformly young and thin (and of course artsy), and decidedly all-American in their dedication to the pursuit of happiness. When the bloom of youth fades, I wondered, where would they all be?

There is nothing quite so tenuous as reputation in the art world. Careers are made predicated on one’s ability to make connections with those who’ve already made their careers with those who came before…and so on, and so on. Given the enormous possibilities available (just imagine the universe of creativity that lies latent out there), it seems that only a handful of artists ever make it, are ever really given a chance. Snap judgments are almost the rule, as critics and curators operate to winnow down the art and artists to form the fortunate elite of those who can actually make a living from their artwork alone. While much of this is due to the exigencies of economics—the capital floating around to be invested in the “useless” enterprise of art ultimately demands that its investment be protected; otherwise, any and all sort of useless thing could be called “art”, which would thereby devalue all of it. And of course all investments are at base about putting money into something that can be sold for a greater value later. (Duchamp’s readymades, the urinal, the bottle rack, the snow shovel, and so on, played directly on this idea. So desperate was the market to redeem their value that it created a hierarchy of worth for them—the “original” objects selected by Duchamp at the top, followed by those “remade” with his signature on them in the ‘50s and ‘60s, thus relegating the snow shovel at Ace Hardware today worth only the price on the tag.) It’s fascinating to see how originally subversive ideas become subverted themselves to become part of the system they once critiqued. Occasionally, the subversion manages to lay dormant for a time, returning to shock the public once again to good effect, if we’re lucky.

The energy, and persistence required for an artist to make the quantum leap to the big time are considerable, and often can make for a fairly unpleasant human being to know personally. In fact, it was very refreshing to find that the artist for this show (contrary to my initial suspicions, based on certain issues in the art) was actually quite sweet, unpretentious, and almost unassuming. A longtime friend of his told me at the after-party that when the artist first came to school in New York, he used to walk up and down the street with his paintings, because he was so anxious to have people see his work. A hint of that charming naiveté remains with him today, making me appreciate the new work even more.

I may be writing more on this artist for publication soon elsewhere, so I’d prefer not to identify him now. (Okay, so maybe I’m part of the value machine myself.) The major point for me is the stark contrast between the regional, homegrown art scene up here and the hard core New York art world. Of course there are elements I’d rather do without up here—instead of pretentiousness, we get the New Age, for instance, so instead of a sea of black at openings there is sometimes too much purple—but on the whole, you have the opportunity to have a much more direct relationship with the work here. The artists are real people, usually pretty approachable at the openings and elsewhere, and the very fact that exhibitions here don’t usually serve the function of absolutely defining the artist’s ego and/or reputation helps to keep them that way. Without the New York make-or-break pressure cooker, it’s easier to take some time to learn to appreciate some new work, to re-evaluate something you’ve seen before, or simply to enjoy the paintings installed this month at the local grocery store or bakery.

If you can’t get down to the City, or just don’t want to travel that far, there are opportunities now and then to catch a piece of that New York art world experience here in our own backyard. This month, the first-year graduate students at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (with which I was once professionally associated), will open an exhibition they have curated from the permanent collection there. While details were still sketchy at press time, I will guarantee that the artwork will represent some of the better examples of the recent contemporary scene, given the quality of the collection, and the curatorial premises will represent some of the more current thinking on the New York scene, given the slant of the program. The CCS Museum space is bigger and carries a stronger institutional air than almost any other art venue in the area, giving almost any exhibition there a palpably significant presence. If you haven’t experienced it firsthand, it’s worth the trip.

And if you go to the opening (since it’s in the mid-Hudson Valley), wearing black is strictly optional.

“Too Much Joy: Resisting the Pattern & Decoration Movement” / “…curious pictures…”/ “Space Matters,” a trio of exhibitions curated by first-year graduate students at the Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, runs February 17 through 24. (The opening is on the 17th, from 1–4 pm.) For more information, call 758-7598.