Sunday, April 29, 2012

Shifting Units in New York City

by Robert Boyd

Frieze Art Fair
Frieze Art Fair New York will be held in this snake-shaped temporary building on Randall Island

This quote in the Financial Times about the Frieze art fair in New York next weekend made me laugh.
“There is just too much being offered in a short period,” [art adviser Lisa] Schiff says. “The calendar is jam-packed: there are the auctions, then Frieze New York, then Hong Kong, then Art Basel, then the London sales. I know the collector base for art is growing, that the market is bullish, but there must be a limit to how much inventory can be absorbed in two months.” ["Breath of fresh air – or ill wind?" by Georgina Adam, The Financial Times, April 28, 2012]
Because you know what art that hasn't been sold is? Inventory. Merchandise. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you silly artists with your "talent" and "expression," your "truth" and "beauty," your powerless "institutional critique" and "dematerialisation"! It's all about shifting units, making pape.

And by a bizarre coincidence, I will be there to watch this spectacle of the society of the spectacle in person. I have long planned to visit NYC for a few days in early May--a little birthday present for myself. See some friends. Visit some museums. Stroll on the High Line Park. So I called up a friend to say I would be in town, and he asked, "Oh, are you coming up for Frieze?" Huh. I had no idea.

So yes, of course I'm going. And I'll report it here.


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