“Non-essential” Art
Art after quarantine
“The quality and diversity of talent working in our creative industries has been central to its rapid growth and world-leading success. There is also a major, justified concern that Brexit on the one hand and the devaluing of creative education by government on the other will severely impact the sector’s ability to thrive” — Alan Bishop, Chief Executive of the Creative Industries Federation
The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the art world, which has responded by staging numerous online sales and art experiences. The Courtauld Gallery in London reported its virtual tours having a 723% spike in visitors and Christie’s auction house even created free educational offerings around the notion of “Art as Therapy”, streaming webinars, short films, and presenting collecting guides on its website. Whilst better than nothing, seeing pictures as images on a telephone or computer screen at home doesn’t even come close to the visceral excitement of seeing them as physical objects. In January 1942, when the National Gallery’s pictures were secretly buried in countryside drops, a letter to the Times, called for an experiment: “Because London’s face is scarred and bruised these days, we need more than ever to see beautiful things … would the Trustees of the National Gallery consider whether it were not wise and well to risk one picture for exhibition each week?” The National decided to bring to London a painting attributed to Rembrandt, which was given to the gallery a few weeks earlier and thus was never presented to the public. The excitement of the public was palpable, as thousands of people came to see the single painting. It was decided that the experiment would continue, and an Old Master a month was shown, with laypeople asked what they wanted to see. During this period of unprecedented peacetime lockdown, museums have been unable to provide the role they’re so keen to provide — a communal space for reflection and human contact. Whilst digital is clearly an extremely valuable tool and means of communication, for those art lovers who do not have a carefully curated blue-chip collection (that being the majority of us), months of being holed up at home has felt tantamount to a cultural exile.
Around the world lockdown is now lifting and galleries and museums, both national and private, will begin to reopen; the possibility of returning to galleries brings with it the sheer excitement of seeing pictures and sculptures as physical objects once more — to be able to view them up close, to interact with and walk around them, to look at them in different lights and at different times of the day. There are those artists (Mark Rothko (1903-1970) immediately springs to mind — an artist who strongly believed in the importance of the personal experience of individuals to his paintings) who simply do not translate online, and have to be physically experienced in person to be truly appreciated. Of course, the sad reality of the situation is that only the concept of art itself is poised to make it through the pandemic fully intact (people will always make art regardless of the economic situation) and while large museums are tallying up the losses they expect to suffer, many smaller museums and institutions will likely have to shutter their doors for good. Across the entirety art world spectrum, from the artists that make and produce art, to the galleries and museums that show it, to the fairs that present it, all must come to terms with the fact that post-pandemic the art world will have changed forever. Places that do not have robust incomes — like the $3.6 billion endowment the Metropolitan Museum of Art receives — are at risk. The Americans for the Arts surveyed more than 11,000 organizations to see how they were coping during lockdown; more than two-thirds predicted the crisis will have a “severe” or “extremely severe” effect on their business.
A visitor at the National Gallery which reopened this week after the Coronavirus lockdown
Jean-Michel Basquiat “Untitled (Head)” (1982) sold on 6 July at Sotheby’s online for $13.1m (£10.6m)
In terms of national galleries and institutions there will, of course, be some considerable changes. London’s National Gallery, which reopened on Wednesday, will no longer allow visitors to wander around aimlessly (or make a B line for the real treasures — Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks (1507) or Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus (1647-1651) for eg — whilst bypassing all the gloomy post-war, tax avoidance donations), and there will instead be three routes that visitors can take around the collection; though gallery director Gabriele Finaldi insists “You can take all three … and you will be allowed to linger” (but “pick route B”). Whereas Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi in Florence, in a somewhat less optimistic outlook, has said that they will have to halve the number of people in the gallery at any given time, which won’t make the labyrinthine queues of tourists (provided they still show up) any easier to deal with. Further, the Covid-19 pandemic will make it far more complex, and expensive, for galleries to put on ambitious exhibitions — and a good many museums have been looking at rationalising their programmes and running exhibitions for longer. As a result of the increasing complexity, fewer institutions will be able to stage blockbuster shows and there will be far few exhibitions annually than there have been in the past. Also audiences will change, becoming — for the foreseeable future at least — predominantly more local; in turn, galleries will have to adjust, giving far greater consideration to the connection between the exhibition programme and visitor base.
In this respect, museums, which have typically remained silent on the big political questions, will have to address questions of how they can play a role in making society more tolerant and inclusive. During the period of closure, and in the context of the worldwide protests brought on by police actions that led to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the National Gallery released a statement to express its “solidarity with those who reject racism, inequality and violence”. There’s an increasing amount of pressure on museums to take a stand, and to diversify both their audiences and workforce. Artist Howardena Pindell (b. 1943) — who was one of the first black curators at MoMA — has noted that “boards of art museums, publishers of art magazines and books and owners of galleries rarely hire people of colour in policy-making positions … [so that] the task of cultural interpretation … is usually related ‘to people of European descent,’ as if their perspective was universal.” This is problematic as so many European critics’ background knowledge is inadequate to the task of discussing work by artists of colour.
Most galleries and museums agree that up until this point there have been insufficient resources given to addressing questions of institutional racism within the art world. White-led institutions need to think about how they can properly address the big societal questions about education, social injustice, the environment and sexual equality, and gain ground in those areas in which they have traditionally lagged behind. London for eg has an extremely diverse population and galleries need a broader outreach. This might involve ways of better contextualizing historically rooted collections so as to address questions of inclusion and of different histories; looking at pictures and considering whether there is a need to highlight anything that might be relevant to the circumstances in which we now live. Things in the past which perhaps might have been of incidental interest have come to the fore, and galleries need to be sensitive to that, for eg labelling portraits so as to say that the sitter was an anti-abolitionist, or that their wealth was based on plantations in the West Indies which had slave labour. This shouldn’t necessarily mean removing pictures from walls, but rather re-contextualizing collections, being outspoken about issues of race and opening a dialogue. “We owe it to Americans to reflect them because we owe it to accurate history,” says Kim Sajet, director of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. “I’m not interested in only having a museum for some people.”
The center panel of Francis Bacon’s “Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus” which sold on July 6 at Sotheby’s online for $84.6 million
Since the pandemic closed galleries and museums, the art world’s manifesto-like call to arms has been that society needs the arts “now more than ever”, and that art and creativity have an important part to play in the post-Covid recovery of society. Understandably that entails an emphasis on getting back to normal business as soon as possible. In recent decades the commercialisation of public culture in the Anglo-American landscape has now exposed many national collections to all the vagaries of the free market, whereby the value of art is determined primarily by its price as a commodity. The model that operates in a number of national museums is that they’re required to raise a substantial amount of their funding, which is dependent on commercial activities, which for the most part consist of event hire, catering, shops and exhibition ticketing income. In terms of museums that have been closed for the duration of lockdown, those revenue streams have essentially dried up, leaving only less lucrative e-commerce — which has seen only a small incremental rise — and philanthropic collector patronage (both the virus and antidote for art’s survival since the days of the Medici’s). Galleries depend very heavily on tourists (at the National Gallery for eg almost 70 per cent of visitors are tourists) and it’s clearly going to take some considerable time before they start to return at previous volumes; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently announced projected losses of $100m–$150m.
The Sotheby's Institute of Art noted that, unlike many museums in Europe, which started from royal collections or are backed by government financing, commercial business is what usually keeps American museums afloat. “Galleries, some small museums, and a significant number of alternative spaces will not survive this period, which is a terrible loss,” Martinez Celaya told Business Insider. “The pandemic also has had a chilling effect on collectors, but it is too early to tell whether these changes are permanent or not.” It’s possible that in the UK the art sector will face further challenges as whilst a number of European governments, the Germans, Italians and French in particular, have announced emergency funding packages for their respective culture sectors (Germany has notably and laudably stepped into the breach with culture minister Monika Grütters promising federal government support for artists and cultural venues), the Conservative government have thus far been accused of paying little more than lip service to the challenges facing the sector. The practice of deaccessioning objects in a museum’s collection is categorically forbidden in UK and European state museums absent specific authorisation (for example, following a recommendation of the Spoliation Advisory Panel), yet their public funding may also be suddenly at risk.
As is the case across the board, the art world, like all industries, will have no other choice but to adapt and evolve. Artsy CEO Mike Steib suggests the art world should refine its online strategies to try and reach younger consumers, who are digital natives and tech-savvy. “There is a new generation of buyers emerging. Over the next 10 years, trillions of dollars in wealth in the US is going to be inherited by a largely millennial and digital-native audience,” he told Business insider. “People used to walk around Soho, go from gallery to gallery; used to get on a jet and go art fair to art fair,” Steib continued. “But they’re passing money down to a new generation who has never bought anything that way. Their expectation has been: you see something you love online, you click a button, then you own it.” Christie’s newfound focus on its online channels has resulted in its adopting new, creative ways to reach consumers; for eg it launched a fundraising experiment, “Andy Warhol: Better Days”, an online-only sale — supporting the Andy Warhol Foundation’s recent emergency relief fund for artists — that resulted in the auction house selling its first piece of artwork through Instagram. Despite a rise in online sales, art must truly be experienced in real life, and not virtually; if consumers are familiar with an artist, and their work, it’s relatively easy to buy online, but if they’ve never physically experienced or seen it, the process might be a little more challenging. As a result of this, art dealers are typically reporting a 70% drop in sales, and up to a third of galleries are expected to fold, with smaller ones particularly vulnerable.
The way the art world has been able to quickly transition online is important for the overall health of the market, and the digital existence and experience of art has proliferated at a rapid speed under lock-down. In the long term, however, it’s extremely unlikely that an increasing online presence will come to overtake the physical art world — just because you can put a work online doesn’t mean you should. The current glut of virtual art-viewing experiences are largely a result of panicked marketing and promotion. People will still want to have an in-person experience, and in addition, the art world is known for its convivial travelling circus of auctions, fairs, biennials and exhibitions, and all the accompanying parties and dinners; the buzz of physical social interaction simply cannot be replicated online. “We know there will always be a basic human desire to stand before a work of art in-person,” Jennifer Zatorski, president of Christie's America, told Business Insider. “However, the whole art sector is working on ways to accommodate both the physical and the virtual in the future — Christie’s included — so that people can engage with art in a more bespoke and one-to-one way, or in an entirely virtual way if that is what they prefer and what is best for the health and safety of the larger community.” With an increasing online presence the art world will undoubtedly become more accessible; it’s much easier to create a website and social media campaign than it is to set up a bricks and mortar gallery. This might result in undermining the galleries’ gatekeeper status, and in doing so, creating a more level playing field. “The big gallery doesn’t have an advantage in this space except that maybe it has bigger artists,” Marc Payot, president of Hauser & Wirth told the Art Newspaper, adding that a recent online-only sale of drawings by Rashid Johnson sold out almost immediately.
Jeff Koons’s sculpture “Balloon Venus Lespugue” which sold via David Zwirner’s online viewing room for $8m
Right now people are buying more art; the wealthy in particular are investing as blue-chip art is considered an alternative asset class — safer to invest in than stocks — that has further enriched them through capital appreciation, opportunistic trading, tax optimisation and the collateralisation of loans. This may sound vulgar, but the trickle-down effect of the ultra-rich inventing tax write-offs is responsible for the financial stability of the majority of artists, galleries and institutions; and their donations and loans make art history accessible to anyone. Many of the 0.01% are also selling art work, perhaps to raise cash or invest in new interests, and as a result, rare or otherwise hard to find works are back on the market; for eg on 6 July at Sotheby’s first virtual “super sale”, Francis Bacon’s (1990-92) Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus which was estimated at $60-80m, sold for $84.6 million, with fees, after a 10-minute contest. A new high for an artwork sold online was also posted twice over the course of the night. Firstly, Joan Mitchell’s (1925-92) Garden Party sold to an online bidder at $6.7m (£5.4m), only to be surpassed by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Head) that made $13.1m (£10.6m) and set an auction record for a work on paper by the artist. It was a strong result, amid active bidding in New York, Hong Kong, and London, for an experiment in conducting a live auction virtually. Meanwhile, David Zwirner says it found a private buyer for the 2013-19 Jeff Koons sculpture, Balloon Venus Lespugue (Red) — the Paleolithic goddess seemingly encased in a shiny fat suit — for $8m via the gallery’s online viewing room. Art gallery director Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, known for the popular Instagram art meme account Jerry Gogosian has said that for the wealthy, buying a $50,000 painting is like buying a head of lettuce. “It's like us going out for sushi one night or something,” she said, adding that the art world of the future might see more competition, as smaller galleries close and bigger museums absorb their artists.
This doesn’t mean the art world is safe from economic blow back, and it’s too early to predict the full impact of the crisis and how it will affect the market in the long term. Back in 1991, the auction market shrank by a staggering 62% due to the Japanese asset crisis, and with it the market for multimillion-dollar works by Renoir and Van Gogh (though impressionist art was so outrageously overpriced in the ‘90s there was, arguably, a bubble in the market). Over the past 30 years, thanks to neoliberal economic policies and globalisation, the wealthiest 0.1% of the world’s population has become far wealthier. The French economist Thomas Piketty in his landmark study, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, calculated that from 1987 to 2013 the planet’s richest thousandth saw their share of global capital more than triple, with an average annual growth rate of 6% above inflation. The art market bounced back faster than the S&P 500 during both the 2008 recession and in the 2015 and 2016 market sell-offs. This latest pandemic-triggered economic crisis is of a scale unseen since the Great Depression and there’s no guarantee that today’s hyper-financialised art market will be as resilient; of course, its dependent on the wealthy, and they still remain largely untouched by the crisis.
The creative industries contribute some £112 billion a year to the UK economy in gross added value, greater than automotive, aerospace, life sciences and oil and gas sectors combined, yet government arts funding has fallen 35% over the last decade. There has been an entrenched stigma associated with creativity in the UK for so long that for a great many of the population it isn’t even considered a “real” profession (the results of a 1,000-person survey published in Singapore’s Sunday Times showed that 71% of locals thought artist as an occupation the topmost “non-essential” job during a pandemic). Between Covid-19 and Brexit, there are sure to be calls for funding and educational cuts to the arts, meaning, more so than ever, creative enterprises — which make up one in eight of all enterprises in the UK — will have to rely on individuals turning their passions into businesses with very little support. More than that, the museum sector, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, traditionally underpins an important creative ecology of set-makers, lighting producers and designer-makers, who are sure to have their livelihoods severely impacted. So as to avoid all out disaster, politicians need to give a clear account of the importance of culture and collections to the public sphere, and in turn, why they should be supported by public funds. In the words of Gong Yan, director of the Power Station of Art in Shanghai: “Art is by no means a vaccine, but it gives people hope.”