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+ (presences of art)
îøi cautæ respectabilitatea; de partea oficianflilor noului rit – conservatori
de muzee, proprietari de galerii, intelectuali care scriu despre tot ce væd
øi artiøti. Muzeele de artæ contemporanæ øi galeriile la modæ sînt locurile
în care elita noii societæfli liberale se dedæ cultului noului viflel de aur: piafla
artei. Cu toate acestea, un atare spectacol nu-i decît efectul, consecinfla
a ceva esenflial, pe care un sociologism nætîng încearcæ sæ-l înfleleagæ ca
pe un joc al „distincfliei“ sociale a proaspeflilor îmbogæflifli. Or, dimensiunea
øi complexitatea fenomenului – relafliile sale cu curente foarte diferite ale
artei moderne, întrepætrunderile cu miøcærile politice øi ideologice dintre
cele douæ ræzboaie mondiale, raporturile cu cele mai importante grupuri
financiare – ne rezervæ numeroase surprize.
La scara lumii occidentale, cultura e o afacere de stat, a mass-mediilor øi
a unor puternice fundaflii capitaliste, lucru ce antreneazæ o nouæ alianflæ
între muzee, o nouæ generaflie de conservatori øi marii colecflionari, care
a transformat din temelii piafla artei; tofli aceøtia stabilesc împreunæ valoarea
artiøtilor øi stilurilor momentului, într-un fel de joc ce seamænæ mai mult
cu promovarea modei vestimentare decît cu înfruntarea unor øcoli estetice
rivale. În pofida sumelor enorme puse în joc, existæ o diferenflæ esenflialæ
între aceastæ speculaflie øi cea de pe pieflele financiare: investifliile gigantice
fæcute pentru cumpærarea operelor de artæ (øi deseori pentru punerea
lor în valoare 3 ) nu-i mai permit timpului sæ le facæ acestora dreptate.
Întîlnirea strategiilor financiare puse în funcflie de puternice galerii aliate cu
marii colecflionari øi cu directorii celor mai importante muzee, ca øi expansiunea
totalizantæ a nofliunii de culturæ în ansamblul socialului, al politicului,
economiei øi moralei exprimæ noile relaflii umane. 4 Gata cu luptele
îndîrjite, caraghioase sau fatale între grupuri de artiøti care apæræ o esteticæ
în care etica øi politica sînt amestecate. O micæ societate comandæ pe
piafla artelor øi oricine øtie cæ preflurile trebuie sæ creascæ neîncetat, pentru
a se putea asigura beneficii confortabile. 5 Tocmai de aceea, puneri în
scenæ mediatice nemaiîntîlnite caracterizeazæ toate vînzærile la licitaflie, ca
øi cum preflurile-record atinse de opere ar fi principala preocupare a celor
vizafli de marile medii de informare; dar, totodatæ, ca øi cum s-ar dori ancorarea
în conøtiinfla publicæ a moralitæflii acestor speculaflii øi legitimarea unor
valori financiare cifrabile prin argumente extrase din valori estetice, necuantificabile.
Dacæ valoarea esteticæ face dintr-un obiect plastic o operæ
inestimabilæ, nicio valoare monetaræ nu-i poate fi echivalentul. Dar dacæ
aøa stau lucrurile, trebuie sæ tragem toate concluziile øi sæ ne însuøim faptul
cæ numai banul determinæ valoarea oamenilor øi a lucrurilor. Voi reveni
mai jos la asta.
2. Itinerar liber prin labirintul artei moderne
Nimeni nu poate vedea vreun sens în viermuiala øi luxuria operelor de
artæ contemporanæ dacæ, într-un fel sau altul, nu-øi întoarce privirea asupra
modalitæflilor ce-au fæcut simultan din pictura modernæ – cea pe care
o anunflæ Manet, Van Gogh, Gauguin øi Cézanne øi care continuæ cu
Matisse, Kandinsky, reioniøtii, suprematiøtii, cubiøtii øi expresioniøtii – o explozie
aproape concomitentæ, ineditæ øi færæ precedent, de forme combinate,
de culori, de tehnici, de materiale øi, de asemenea, un cîmp de ruine al
oricærei axiologii estetice. Prezentul cu al sæu „totul e posibil“ nu a putut
apærea ca evidenflæ „naturalæ“, „ceva ce se înflelege de la sine“, pînæ la aproprierea
muzealæ a obiectelor celor mai derizorii øi mai groteøti ale vieflii
cotidiene (nonesteticul din ready-made øi cel al obiectelor zise „de artæ
laughing at it, hurry to invest in it. The synergy of fashion and speculation compose
a genre painting, with emblematic characters: from the public side, there
come general managers looking for the possibility of becoming a Maecenas,
showbiz stars snuffing for opportunities to revive their notoriety, toady journalists,
the suite of politicians “acquainted with the new” and the newly enriched
raiders or golden boys in search for respectability; on the side of the new rite
celebrants there come museum conservators, gallery owners, intellectuals writing
about everything they see and artists. Contemporary art museums and fashionable
galleries is where the elite of the new liberal society performs the cult of
the new golden calf: the art market. Nevertheless, such a spectacle is the effect
or the consequence of something essential, which the naïve sociologist tries to
understand as a play of social “distinction” of the newly enriched. Or, the dimension
and the complexity of the phenomenon – its relations with very different
streams in contemporary art, the interrelations with political and ideological
inter-war movements, its relations with the most important financial groups –
reserve us many surprises.
At the scale of the western world, culture is a state business, run by mass-media
and powerful capitalist foundations, which engages a new alliance among museums,
a new generation of conservators and collectors, which overturned the art
market; they all set the value of the artists and the styles of the day, in a play
resembling rather the promotion of fashion than the challenge of rival aesthetic
schools. In spite of the enormous sums at stake, there is an essential difference
between this type of speculation and that on the financial markets: the gigantic
investments made in artworks (and often in valuing them 3 ) does not allow the
time to make them justice anymore.
The encounter of financial strategies used by powerful galleries allied with big
collectors and the managers of the most important museums, as well as the
cumulative expansion of the notion of culture within the social, political, economic
and moral system express the new human relationships. 4 No more heavy,
funny or fatal fights between groups of artists defending an aesthetic in which
ethics and politics are mixed. A small society rules the art market and anyone
knows that prices have to increase continuously in order to provide substantial
benefits. 5 That’s why all auction sales are characterised by unseen media stagings,
as if the record prices reached by the artworks are the main concern of the
people targeted by the mass media; as if they wanted to anchor the morality of
such speculations into consciousnesses and to legitimate some countable financial
values by means of arguments extracted from aesthetic, not countable values.
If aesthetic value turns an art object into an inestimable work, no pecuniary
value can be equated with it. But, if this is how things work, we have to draw all
the conclusions and show that money alone set the value of people and things.
I shall return to this later.
2. Free Itinerary through the Labyrinth of Modern Art
One cannot make sense of the contemporary art effervescence and luxuriance if
one doesn’t consider, in one way or another, the manners which simultaneously
turned modern painting – announced by Manet, Van Gogh, Gaugain and Cézanne
and continuing with Matisse, Kandinsky, the reionists, the suprematists, the
cubists and the expressionists – into an explosion of techniques, materials and
also a wasteland for any aesthetic axiology. The present, with its “everything’s
possible” could not have emerged as a “natural” evidence, as “self-evident” until
the appropriation by the museums of the most risible and grotesque objects
of daily life (the non-aesthetic in the ready-made and in the so called “pop”
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