Sunday, December 20, 2009

Mera Rubell in my Studio (Last Part)

Part I here and Part II here and Part III here.

As I noted yesterday, the studio visit was done, and Mera Rubell and her entourage was about to leave (I think I was the last studio visited), when she turned around just outside the door and asked "So what do you think of the Washington art scene?"

If you are a reader of this blog you already know the answer that that immense question, and I began to answer her. I told her how DC area artists were very lucky in many aspects and that (in the opinion of a world traveler and frequent flyer with an interest in art scenes) this region had one of the most vibrant and best art scenes anywhere in the world. I also told her about how diverse the artwork and artists were, and I told her about Art-o-Matic as a magnet for gathering artistic energy. I told her about the wealth of exhibiting opportunities that abound in our region. I told her about the many artists' groups that deliver support and community and advice to local artists. I told her about the strong sense of artistic energy that soaks into everything around the nation's capital.

She asked me about the local museums and I began to peel the scab from the other side of the coin, the negative side of the DC art scene; the side that outsiders see; the side that many focus on; the side that symbiots feed upon.

I then submitted my opinion, based on my observations and discussions with artists and dealers over the years, about the lack of attention that local museum curators give to our area's artists.

I suggested that it was easier for a local museum curator to take a cab to Dulles to catch a flight to Berlin to go see the work of an emerging artist than to catch a cab to Georgetown to do the same. I offered that this was perhaps because our museums saw themselves as "national" or "international" museums rather than a city museum and thus ignored their own back garden.

I also offered that the new Katzen Arts Center was a refreshing change from that and that it was the only local museum to have a connection to the local art scene. Several entourage voices agreed with me and explained to Mera about Jack Rasmussen's (Katzen Director and Curator) deep DC area roots.

She asked me about the Washington Post and about specific writers there. "This is an informed person beyond one's wildest guess," I thought to myself as I unloaded with all cannons on the local newspaper.

I described for her how the Post has decimated its visual arts coverage in the last few years. She asks me informed questions about specific writers. I realize that this is a woman who already knows more about many of the inside parts of the DC art scene than most of the writers tasked with writing about it.

I give her my opinions and back it with specific events: the critic who once wrote about a print without realizing that it was a copy of a well-known Picasso painting - I give it as an example of that critic's suspicious art history background; or the writer whose snarky writing has improved over the years, but still betrays the writer's scant training in writing about art. I talk about the writer who got caught discussing a show that he'd never been to; I mention the ones that got fired because of ethical issues. I mention the art critic who covers New York galleries but seldom DC galleries.

DC is a small town and everyone knows about all that happens here. And you reap what you sow and right now some pens filled with apathy and ennui and snarkyness are reaping the caustic results of my opinions. I'm back in the groove on a different, if favorite subject of mine, and I've got the ears of one of the world's most influential art persons.

I'm talking too fast, but I know that she's absorbing it all. She asks me about a specific critic and wants to know what I think of the critic's writing. I give her an honest answer, which comes out somewhat more positive than I would have expected.

"Is that writer the best one to write about what goes on in DC and about DC artists?" comes the question, at least I hear it that way.

"No," I answer very quickly.

I predict her next question when she asks, "then who?"

I give her a name, and I am pleased that several voices in her entourage, agree with me immediately.

"Then why isn't that writer covering this event?" she asks of them, not me.

Someone explains about the writer recusing from covering the event because of a relationship with one of the artists. "That's stupid," she opines, "the critic could have just recused from covering that artist." [Update: Since then I have been told that this wasn't the case and that the critic in question didn't recuse himself].

I keep to myself how in DC it is a certain impossibility for writers and critics not to have some sort of relationship with some of the artists they cover.

Someone adds that the writer in question is the only one who really has a finger on the pulse of DC area artists.

She soaks it all in, but I suspect that she may be asking questions to which she already knows the answer.

They leave and I'm on Cloud 9 and I play the Beatles' White Album with a smile on my face.

This electric person is going to do wonders for DC artists and erase decades of neglect from our press and from our museums... Helter Skelter baby!

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting all this, it's like reading an exciting short story!
    Congratulations!!!

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  2. Anonymous10:03 AM

    Lenny,you are a bit of a cheerleader for a dying art area... Maybe a bit naive for a grownup.
    I still wonder how 300 requests for a studio visit that were "randomly" narrowed down to 36 still ended up with the standard top 10. I guess the area could look pretty lame if the selection process wasn't a bit "fudged". But I think the DC scene suffers for some of the following reasons:
    1) Capitalistic survival; Since no one buys contemporary art in this area (which seems to be the case) because they go to New York for the good stuff, then no gallery can survive here. It's akin to selling bikinis to eskimos. You'd have to be crazy to open a commercial gallery here.
    2)No support for the arts (as in journal coverage, or when local arts organization support is viewed as unpopular) then contemporary art becomes marginalized. Then there is reduced interest in the local art scene. Then the above scenario kicks in.
    3) This is off the wall; but I blame in on the "political incorrectness" of buying and supporting contemporary or "edgier" art. This is a political city. The obvious event was the Mapplethorp show. But how about when Robert Bork was being considered for the supreme court position,his library loans and video store rentals were viewed as indicators of his political leanings. Can you imagine if he had a collection of contemporary art? Whew! So. it is safer to ignore contemporary art. He was conservative. Think if a liberal was collecting contemporary art. Like Kerry. He'd be accused of pandering to the wealthy art crowd. And think of how much art is political in nature, making it uncollectable. This city is just way too conservative. The sad thing is that even the conservative art is floundering. I guess the closest we got to a collector was Hechinger. That is pretty safe stuff; tools.
    4) I still can't totally figure this out, but I know that this area is not the right place to live if you want a vibrant art community. Maybe it is the geography of the area. Too sprawling, and too thin. No industry. No Soho. or Chelsea. The galleries "screwed" themselves by not consolidating into on area. There are virtually no neighborhood art scenes. Local govt usually will support art by providing art grants for arts development, but not for DC!

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  3. DCartist2010:

    Thanks for your note; you make some excellent points about the DC art scene, and yes, perhaps I am a bit of a cheerleader amidst a sea of brooding, doom-and-gloom folks.

    But having traveled in lived in many other US cities, most recently Philadelphia, where the art scene is soooo different from DC and yet shares so many of the same things that you mention, as well as San Diego, Seattle, SF, we can always focus on the negative things - after all they must be isolated and dealt with, but we also need to push the positive events.

    That Rubell can blow into town and accomplish in 36 hours more than any of us could do is an eye-popping notion, which can be - if it rolls on - begin to tear away at some of the issues you mention.

    Personally I think, with nods to your comments about how crazy it would be to start a gallery here, that our art scene is better than many places. The harsh reality is that it could be so much better if we just had some way to "expose it" to the second highest concentration of wealth in the world, which happens to live within a 25 mile radius of the White House.

    It's made more complex because most of that wealth and household with disposable income do not buy art; not here and not in NY, simply, in my opinion, because they lack the formation and background to buy art in the same way that they buy expensive cars and expensive bikes and so on.

    It's a complex soup of different ingredients, some of which you hit on, but not as bad as we sometimes make it.

    Thanks for your words and opinion...

    Naive Lenny

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