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We all agree. I’ve written about the pomposity of the art world as evidenced by the Miami Basel Art Fair. The progenitors of Bad at Sports have been talking about the proliferation of shitty drawing for months, and Sharkforum’s Wesley Kimler has been a one-man torch accosting the crap that is fetching record sums in New York City. Add Jed Perl’s fine New Republic missive (available online through the Sharkforum website) and it is beginning to look like a movement.
Maybe I’ve been too nice, encouraging you to go see art that expands your horizons, discussing what turns me on in a work of art, and how there are things I find emotionally, intellectually and aesthetically stimulating. Obviously there are many who are not getting the message.
 There’s an awful lot of very bad art that people are paying obscene amounts of money for. No one in the right mind could possibly conclude that a 3 year old painting by Lisa Yuskavage is worth One Million Dollars. Here. Try this. Compare the Yuskavage to Chicagoan Mary Lou Zelazny, whose similar sized painting will cost you under $10,000. Of course Zelazny’s painting is better, and it is 100 times cheaper. (Feel free to substitute your locale for mine.)
 Look at drekmaster John Currin, the whipping boy and proselytizer of tasteless horribly executed sleaze. Half a million bucks for for a three foot tall bad painting titled The Kennedys. The biggest insult is reserved for the person who bought it, who could have purchased a dozen far  superior paintings by Chicago’s Jim Lutes and had change left over.
One of my favorite local dealers has two incisive adages. 1. “Money doesn’t care who owns it.” And 2. “Money doesn’t buy taste.” Pretty right on, obvious, true, and unfortunately pathetic and getting worse.
The artworld at large is getting shallower by the day. Even some Chicago dealers - a very few - are following suit. Dammit people. Let’s stand for something. Let’s stand for quality. Let’s give serious thought to what a genuine art experience is about.
I’ve spoken about the meaning and joy of art for years. Art should be stimulating. It is simply a visceral, gut, emotional experience (informed by education and experience). It is NOT about making money, or about obscene prices. It is about being challenged personally and the ensuing personal growth. It is about finding an image that resonates with one’s heart. Heck, it can have lots of purposes, but each and every one flow from the singular relationship of one person - the viewer / owner - to the work of art - back and forth.
It doesn’t have a single solitary thing to do with how much it costs, who you impress with your purchase or anything to do with what you expect to be able to resell it for later.
If you purchase a painting with the notion of making a profit on it, you are buying something with someone’s else’s taste in mind. How in the world is that going to generate any growth in you? It doesn’t even take “you” into consideration. It is all about them. How very stupid.
Why take a work of art, even if it is as insipid as a Currin or a Yuskavage and strip it of its dignity and assign it all the aesthetic meaning of a stock certificate?
Ridiculous, insulting, self-effacing, meaningless, shallow and so very foolish Whose taste do these buffoons buy with? Do they follow their own aesthetic lead in making an acquisition, which is by far the best way to proceed? Or do they hire an art consultant who has no way of knowing what this person’s tastes or aesthetic stature is (without spending years getting to know them.) Or perhaps seek counsel from a museum curator, who certainly wouldn’t have a hidden agenda (cough, cough). I repeat. How are these theoretically more educated individuals, who know less about you than your dog, going to assist you in having an aesthetic experience that generates personal growth for you? You got it! They aren’t.
They’d enable you to have an ever so pleasant art collection that may even show a profit, that a few equally shallow friends are going to be impressed by, and you aren’t going to learn anything of meaning - nothing to enhance your life. What a missed opportunity.
Art can do so much good. For the individual. For the community. For the artist. In the past 12 months or so I have purchased 21 works of art by Chicago Artists. I have probably spent around $25,000 to $30,000 on these pieces. I have a kick ass collection. I have art that means something to us. We love the relationship the works have to one another, the satisfaction we get from helping artists in our city and the pleasure we get directly from the art itself.
I don’t think it’s the artists who are guilty. It’s society and it’s foolish people with more money than smarts that see art as some kind of game. How demeaning.
In Chicago, I hope we are capable of more. I hope we can lead and not follow this tomfoolery. Do we have enough substance to look for art of quality? Art that has meaning? Art that is well-made? Art that contains art - not artifice?
Look at the stupidity that goes on in New York. Look at the stupid people paying 6 and 7 digits for crap that has an intrinsic value of less that 1/10 of what they are paying. Look at the stupid people making a mockery of themselves. And then look at how much superior art costs in Chicago. This is a time for people here to lead with the brains and their pocketbooks. Shop at home where there is a direct relationship between quality and price - not a hyperbolic one. Acquire art here where it makes a difference to the local economy and finally shop here were you can positively make a constructive difference to someone else’s life - the artist.
 That said, there are some good shows to see this weekend and a fair number of them are at venues I bet you haven’t been to yet.
Taking Brian Dettmer’s art and inserting it in a new context is fun. Known for dissecting books the specificity of his subject matter is perfectly appropriate for the International Museum of Surgical Science. Paired with James Cleary, these guys are having a good time, and we get new meaning from art we are likely familiar with while we learn. No, this is not about money. It’s about stimulation and education.
The Smart Museum just opened an informative, didactic exhibit on the southside titled Cosmophilia (love of ornament): Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen. We should not be so small as to generalize and attribute stereotypical attributions to an entire culture. It is imperative to see with our eyes open and to form our own opinions. No more should we pay blind allegiance to a curator than to a political attitude. See some good art and form your own opinion.
Talk about exploring cultures. As a white male, I’m fascinated by a Black female whose art references Eastern scriptures, Sanskrit and western text. Rhonda Wheatley’s art at the Northeastern Illinois University is shown with Isaac Duncan’s sculptures. They are both lyrical, yet balance one another with their contrasting gestures and divergent strengths.
I appreciate the perspective of the Loyola University Museum of Art. LUMA Adds a spiritual quality to our art experience. Opening tomorrow is a show of 58 etchings created by Georges Rouault titled Miserere et Guerre that was created in 1927 but not published until 1947 by Ambroise Vollard. And again, nothing is for sale. This is about art and spirituality. Not commerce.
More good art not for sale( edit: the art is for sale)
- a show of thick, luxurious, gooey paintings by Darrell Roberts at the Hyde Park Art Center which just opened. These are abstractions of Chicago. Yes, these are good paintings. Go see them. Experience them for yourself. Give them a chance. Don’t listen to a curator. Don’t listen to me. Listen to yourself. Try it.
 Matt McDermott is one of those odd fellows (like me) who believes in Chicago and believes in Chicago Artists. He has created the Chicago City Arts Gallery, that meanders around the city presenting big shows of a broad array of Chicago artists, giving folks exposure who don’t see it often enough, not because they aren’t wonderful, but because they most often do not fit into the more prosaic venues we tend to be familiar with. This show includes Daniel De Los Monteros, Dolan Geiman, Chris Kemp, Erik Kopidlansky, Marc McGowan, Francisco Rosado, Rachel Wolf-Dodder, and Kathleen Vojta and is worth seeing more than once.
 Let’s wrap this up with an acknowledgment of what a fine gallery Uncle Freddy has who will be showing the amazing, spectacular work of Brian O’Dell a week from now in Highland, Indiana. Aberrant to a fault, this is creative, stimulating and otherworldly, which of course means it sheds a lot of light on us.
All right. Enough of me!
But thanks,
Paul Klein
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