Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) [Paperback]

Strictly speaking this small text did not offer a very short introduction to contemporary art. What this small text does offer is - some - introduction to contemporary art - and - Julian Stallabrass' view on the economic and political nature of contemporary art, the necessary "evils" of its relationship to fashion and money, and current trends in the art world. The blurb on the inside cover of the text is more accurate: "What is contemporary about contemporary art? What effect do politics and big business have on art? And who really runs the art world? ...an exploration of the global art scene".

This is a well written and referenced work with biting but not bitter insights that struck this reader as more of a polemic investigation rather than an investigation into the nature of contemporary art. Once that agenda is understood, the reader is drawn to gaze through Stallabrass' intense eyeglass into the art world system as it stands presently, with contemporary art examined almost as a by-product of that system. The art biennale scene discussed in chapter two "New world order" benefits from the strongest scrutiny and offered this reader an observation that only one who tracks this global art scene could offer. This chapter highlights the idealistic desire to widen cultural horizons and the uncomfortable hypocrisy that can arise from that.

"What I have sketched out here is the idea that the much-trumpeted diversity of the globalized art world may conceal other, newer uniformities." (p49)

Stallabrass discusses contemporary art and makes some key observations about how artists address consumerism, mass production, and commodification in chapter three "Consuming culture".

"Yet generally in the 1990s consumerist spectacle - suitably spun for art-world-taste - prevailed over critical thinking about the interrelationship between production and consumption." (p69).

By the final chapter "Contradictions" one is left slightly wanting; but this is not a bad thing. This simply means there is more investigation required (and that this reader's appetite was whetted for more). Stallabrass reaches into some interesting conundrums for contemporary artists and their world but doesn't attempt to resolve them or predict the future.

"This situation is marked, however, by distinct tensions and contradictions. We have seen that art's uselessness - its main use - is being sullied by the particular needs of government and business. In a linked development, art's elitism is challenged by the attempt to widen its appeal: business values art for its exclusivity, while states are generally interested in the opposite, and wish to widen its ambit. Finally art's means of production, increasingly technological, have come into conflict with its archaic relations of production." (p126).

Stallabrass seems to think that contemporary art has been captured and diminished by state and capitalist globalist agendas and makes the case for artistic freedom.

"It is easy to see that the conditions for that freedom no longer exist in the art world: artists are snug in the market's lap; works are made to court the public; sufficient autonomy is maintained to identify art as art, but otherwise most styles and subject-matter are indulged in; success generally comes swiftly, or not at all." (p134/5)

What would extend this discussion would be to look into what makes this tense relationship between those with the money to fund art and those that create it today any different to the time of the Medici. Is it simply that the idealism and rhetoric in notions of globalisation (whether economic or artistic) really does not address the power relationships between those with the advantage and those without and what happens when that power imbalance is overlooked (and a colonising or homogenising effect occurs)? Is it that the wave of mass culture and production (in material and intangible) form is really going to put notions of exclusive and rarity to test in the art world, and if so, is that necessarily going to diminish or transform art (in Western terms)? If that is the case, is there reason to revisit ideas of the power (and freedom) to challenge (as art has in the past) and the value and potency of that?

Stallabrass' text highlights the cosiness (and attendant sacrifices of expression) and the dangers (tiredness and impotency) of too close an alignment with two of society's more powerful estates. This text is not exactly controversial in its criticism, but it is definitely thought-provoking in its insights and the issues its raises.

This is an excellent little book! Not much of an introduction as it assumes quite a lot of previous knowledge of the field; but an eye-opening Marxist analysis of the mechanics and machinations of the art world and of its myriad connections with the larger economic and political structures within which it thrives or dies.

For example the paragraph that should be carved on the lintels of all art schools doors: "...the overall nature of the arts economy is generally disavowed by its participants, particularly artists, who overlook or deny their orientation toward financial reward. Artists are singularly ill-informed about their prospects for success, are prone to taking risks, are poor but come from wealthy backgrounds... and tend to subsidize their art-making out of other earnings. These features... cause the art world to be permanently over-crowded, making the poverty of artists a structural feature."

Stallabrass discusses how the multi-cultural fashion in the arts serves (apart from a few third-world artists) the ideological campaign of the Neo-Liberal economy and the multi-national corporations. He touches on how academe creates one kind of artist while the market creates another. Both types are adapted to their niches in the economic structure and neither enjoys the freedom artists are generally assumed to gain in exchange for their frustration and poverty.

A fascinating and eye-opening read.

Some good things come in small packages but in this case the quantity reflects the quality. Readers would be well advised to look at Herbert Gans, Peter Swirski, Lawrence Levine, and Noel Carroll for illuminating books about contemporary art.