Revenge of the Bourgeoisie

Q: "Do you paint portraits or landscapes?"

A: Only when I'm fundraising.


Face it: most people have no interest at all in contemporary art. I cannot count the number of times I have been asked this question when introduced as an 'artist.' It used to mean misery for all of us, as I embarked upon a condensed, tortuous and unappreciated précis of twentieth century art history, until I finally learned to answer with, "I paint with oil on linen. They're big. Here's my website if you're interested."

Moreover, as a painter who attempts to expand the boundaries of self with work that does not belong to a recognizable genre, I endure a significant amount of contempt and dismissal within the contemporary art world itself. Spokespersons from Big-Ass Art Institutions would never admit it, but there is a not-so-subtle bias against painters when it comes to awarding grants, residencies, solo exhibitions and places in the Whitney Biennial; the unspoken but loudly implied subtext is, "God, another painting. That's so boring, so bourgeois, so Been Done Already, so over."

Of course, painting still gets shown; the problem is that it is often shown as a conceptual conceit, as an interestingly retroactive quirk, amongst the sea of progressively quirky Conceptual Installations. The bigger problem is that such painting is often really bad painting, shown for political and financial reasons, not for any integral qualities of form or execution. The plain fact is that the vast majority of contemporary art impresarios have no earthly idea what a good painting looks like, and couldn't care less.

But now that the market is crashing, galleries are closing left and right, and funding for non-profit institutions is drying up, these institutions are perfectly happy to try to re-capitalize on the backs of the lowly portrait painter:

Don't get me wrong, I love Smack Mellon as much as the next guy, but isn't it a little ironic for an organization that cleaves toward site specific installations, and has little interest in contemporary painting, to rely on painters for fundraising? Please, tell me I'm wrong.

I used to assume, naïvely, that the contemporary art world was a hierarchy like any other--a climbable meritocracy. You'd start out as a student, learning technique and getting to know your peers; you'd exhibit in group shows, apply for grants and residencies, and as your work got stronger you'd win some of them. Art dealers and curators, always on the lookout for new talent, would discover your work in registries, open studios and group shows. They'd remember it from panels. Eventually, if you did good work and paid your dues, you'd build yourself a modest career--not necessarily Fame, but regular shows, a dealer, an income.

Ha.

The truth is a lot darker. The real forces which determine the shape of the Art World hierarchy are simple: "I'm More Special Than You" and "Who's Got the Money." It is constructed of creative cul-de-sacs, mediocre minds, territorial spite and disingenuous protestations of 'fairness and equality.' This is why painting is despised, but never absent.

Because people like paintings. Ordinary, dull people go to look at them in galleries, and hang them in their homes. They get inordinately excited about the idea of having their portrait painted. They like beauty, and think that they have some idea of what it is.

This is well-nigh unendurable for people whose entire reason for being is to be Different and Superior. These people must seek out and produce the arcane, the cryptic and the self-righteous; they must speak and write in polysyllabic gibberish; they must, above all, look with contempt upon the bourgeoisie. At the same time, they must convince a handful of staggeringly wealthy people that they share this superiority of being and perception, in order that they may fund their lifestyles.

It wouldn't do for these patrons to spend billions on objects that a construction worker or a soccer mom might look upon freely, appreciate and enjoy; thus, the piles of inaesthetic goop, fortified by hermetic rhetoric and a total absence of standards. For if once you admit to the existence of Quality, what's to prevent hordes of outsiders from achieving it, and thus devaluing your investment in the Few?

So now that the sustaining patrons are much less wealthy, look for painting to come back into style. Or at least, look for affordable art auctions containing art that you, the Common Person, might actually like.