The End of the Art World

This book is clearly Robert Morgan's opinion. He has some ideas I didn't necessarily agree with. He feels that up through Modernism artists knew what it meant to be an artist and what that entails. He feels few artists in the early 90s lived up to this (Jeff Koons). He feels artists work is becoming more self-centered, and that art is becoming "quick, kitschy, a rip off of popular culture. Not any more engaging than a billboard ad." According to Morgan, Art has lost it's way. There is no longer a deep impression left. He feels curators and critics are clueless to finding and presenting important art. Morgan tends to predict where art is going (after Post Modernism) and many of his predictions are accurate. In his book he admits his concern for Art, he feels Art will begin to exist on the same plane as other forms of visual culture; like sitcoms, websites, digital photography, and special effects. This has happened and he's prediction and concern has come true. Morgan brings up many good points addressing beauty and the role of an Art Dealer and a Critic. These two hand in hand help to ensure the status of Art (whether the art is good or not). Art Journals and Galleries have so much control on this market as well. All these play a huge role the business, and they all have a certain amount of control. This control can be used to direct Art for the good.... or it can help to change the definition of Art. Artists are controlled by the Art Market to a certain extent. It can control what the Artist produces. From this market that is controlled by individuals other than artists, viewers and consumers can be tricked into thinking mediocre art is worthwhile only because it's presented in an elegant way. Morgan fells that the "body, head, and heart must play a part in both the making and the perceiving of art. He doesn't reject conceptual art, he just wants the parameters of art to be expanded. Morgan addresses the Art World and how it use to exist as a community of support, with Artists being central. The Art World now he feels is made up of publicity and marketing. Comparing the creative mode of making art versus the publicity and marketing. It's important to remember that creativity and imagination should take prominence over the other factors that make a piece of Art successful.

Would that it were so - that artists today understood, or at least vaguely approached, the metaphysical impetus that spurred artists through the centuries, up to and including the first modernists such as Kandinsky, Malevich, Klee, and Brancusi. Only a rare few artists today remain on track and seem to know what being an artist entails -- Martin, Steir, Colomar, Laib, Marden.... The vast majority are occupying themselves in meaningless egomania. Art is focused on, at best, a quick, zippy, kitschy riff on popular culture, no more or less engaging that a mildly clever advertizing billboard. Robert C. Morgan is on target in his diagnosis that art has lost its way, that it no longer even knows enough to seek to strike a deep and lasting internal cord, and that the establishment of curators and critics generally are clueless to find and present weighty art.

"To deal with serious art requires a certain preparation of the mind, a relaxed synthesis whereby the mind comes into contact with the body, where there is a rejuvenation of seeing, and where thought is required to pull the act of seeing into the sensorium of feeling..." - R.C.M.It could hardly be better stated that body, head and heart must be up to the game of both making and perceiving art. Like Jed Perl's "Eyewitness", this book asks for a more personal art and art world, where the invisible threads of theoreticians no longer bind imagination, where art is done for kicks.A sticky discussion of meta-critics (almost, but not quite, art philosophers) ends with the hope that criticism can help the quality of art by intervening between art and market/fashion manipulation. Morgan's guess for the future of art is more kitsch, but hopefully revealing rather than reinforcing market culture.