The Underbelly

Although artists may aspire to beauty, where there is money to be made, there will be people trying to make it. And where there are people trying to make money, there will be people trying to control the market.

Beauty it would seem has an underbelly.

After my latest trade, I corresponded with two different artists who talked about the underbelly of the art world. Regina Valluzzi (whose art can be seen here: http://www.nerdlypainter.com/) is both a research scientist and an artist. She made the following comments.

One thing I have noticed is that artists will protest vehemently about being sorted into categories that seem to describe accomplishment level, for example "amateur" "student" "emerging" "established" "acclaimed". Nevertheless, they (we?) do self-sort into levels.

According to Regina, the art world consists in levels of increasing perceived value. At the top are the untouchables: Rembrandt, Picasso, Van Gogh, etc. At the bottom are beginning artists. And there are several levels between.

And who controls entry from one level into the next?

This is where beauty’s underbelly begins to pop out. One might think that the answer would (or should) be beauty: an artist goes from one level to the next when he or she paints increasingly beautiful paintings. But alas, it would appear that the control rests, at least in some important instances, with the galleries.

Laura Zurowski, who has a very cool website called ‘The Lovelorn Poets’ (http://www.lovelornpoets.com/), put the point to me this way:

The art world is ripe for a dismantling just as the music industry was shaken by the likes of Napster, MySpace, and other mechanisms (like the now defunct Aimie Street) for musicians to share their work outside of the corporate controlled music/radio industry. The elite "gallery" structure, which positions itself as the arbiter of quality and value, has done nothing but make most individuals feel that art is beyond their reach both financially and intellectually.

According to Laura, the galleries have imposed a structure on the art world that artificially separates art from most individuals.

And Regina pointed to the influence of galleries as well:

I suspect that buzz and other social factors in the art world create a sort of resonance or "virtuous cycle" as somebody transitions between levels. For example, if gallery representation is the mark of a newly established no longer "emerging" artist, gallery exposure may quickly lead to critical attention and more gallery representation.

Beauty thus has an underbelly; and that underbelly apparently has an enabler: art galleries.

At some point I hope to pursue the issue of beauty's underbelly, since it presents so many fascinating questions. But for now, I am most concerned about a problem that it presents for my project.

If I am going to trade up to a Van Gogh, I am going to need to jump from one level of art to the next. But how can I do that, especially if artists and galleries are hyper sensitive to perceived status and won't trade between levels?

As Regina said:

There are a few established artists who will trade with emerging artists, but generally they want to select the work they'll receive...As you continue, purely tactical trading is likely to send you on an extremely tortuous route through each band, and I question whether pure tactics will bring you a net trade-up (case in point - BOO).

You need a strategy.

I think Regina is right: I need a strategy.

I don’t have one of those.

But I know whom to ask:

Universe:

I want a strategy that will allow me to move from one level of art to the next.
I want a strategy that will allow me to move from one level of art to the next.
I want a strategy that will allow me to move from one level of art to the next.