Thanks to Netflix’s ‘instant watching’ I am slowly working my way through the documentary ‘William Eggleston in the Real World.’ I often do that with Netflix movies, watch bits and pieces of them. Getting the chance to watch a full length documentary about a contemporary artist is a treat; even though I don’t ‘get’ Eggleston; no matter how I look at him.
Amanda Doenitz recently had an article – comparing the value of an Eggleston photo to that of one by Levitt – in Art on Paper. She examined the issue of the great price discrepancy in prints of their work. Her conclusion is that the whole thing has ‘little to do with the quality of the art and most everything to do with limiting editions and creating demand.’
Well, I quite agree that it has little to do with the quality of the art, but I do think it goes way beyond editioning or not editioning, right to the marketability of the artist. What makes a marketable artist seems to be extremely amorphous. In the November 12, 2007 issue of The New Yorker, Calvin Tompkins writes an enormously interesting article about “Jeffrey Deitch and the exuberance of the art market.” He postulates that now hedge-fund collectors drive the art market, and that the market is an industry.
So, I think I better continue staying ‘in my corner’ and do my work the way I enjoy doing it, without worrying about others. That does not mean that I don’t find looking at art stimulating and interesting, it just means that trying to dissect the appeal of some contemporary art and artist is way beyond my ability, and I profit most from new work I see by letting it stimulate me. Grousing about work I do not ‘get’ is counter productive.
