" ART   FOR 

    BANKS "

The realm of "External referents" including popular opinion, modes of acceptance and success, and participation in the international art whirled/culture-mart -

seems to me a kind of one-nut, wannabe approach to art, despite the fact that when this kind of success or acceptance happens to an artist its impossible to eschew. YOU EITHER GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO "SELL OUT" OR YOU DONT.

  This is one of the primary reasons I think of

                        AS22O as

    "HEAVEN...for people who HAVENT"

                  (had the chance)  

In 2004 I read the most amazing article about the Basel art fair, published by the REUTERS news service! Which, although it is THE very oldest news gathering organization on the planet, HAS OF LATE DECLARED A VERY CLEAR PREFERENCE FOR REPORTING NEWS OF WORLD FINANCES,  WHY ELSE WOULD THEY LAVISH SUCH ENERGY ON THE ANNUAL ART FAIR IN BASEL SWITZERLAND?

WELL, as it turns out you see, in the whirled at large post Y2K,  the wealth of the world: THE GOLDEN BRICKS AND MORTAR THAT EXIST TO REPRESENT THE PLANETARY ECONOMY, has , in the twenty first century, come to be MOST RELIABLY invested in WORKS OF ART!   Better than long term bonds!

                 BETTER THAN BLOCKS OF GOLD!

The most hilarious part of this very deadly serious financial perspective is that many American museum curators were quoted as saying that the prices of art works (like a GIGANTIC JEFF KOONS PUPPY MADE  ENTIRELY OF FRESH FLOWERS) had reached such astronomical levels (one million dollars for the very easily wilted puppy in question) that

"MUSEUMS COULD NO LONGER EVEN AFFORD TO AQUIRE THE WORKS OF LIVING ARTISTS! "

(Of course they were referring to living artists like JEFF KOONS not about you or me or anyone or anything attached to AS22O, however golden and expensive, NOT EVEN A GOLDEN CALF IN THE FORM OF A THREE PECKERED BILLY GOAT!)

If you are following my logic,  there must surely be a kind of catastrophic glitch in western civilization, IF A WORK OF ART FUNCTIONS AS AN INVESTMENT BETTER THAN IT FUNCTIONS AS AN EXPRESSION OF ESTHETIC PERCEPTION: Not to mention some very wrong turn in the thousands of years of pan-cultural human endeavor, aimed at raising the sacred Image and its attendant humane aspects, above the random and profane manifestation of irrational suspicion and belief.   

Reuters chose to focus this point upon the fact that AT THE 2004 BASEL FAIR  A BAR OF SOAP, MADE FROM THE LIPOSUCTIONED FAT OF THE PRESIDENT OF ITALY, WAS VERY RAPIDLY SOLD FOR ALMOST 20 THOUSAND DOLLARS. Despite the fact that the aspects of its sacred manifestation had to be attributed to its ontogeny and some droll word play to which it claimed its entitlement!

AND... WHILE I CAN AT LEAST UNDERSTAND THAT THE 20 THOUSAND DOLLAR CAKE OF SOAP WILL LAST A HELL OF ALOT LONGER (GIVEN PROPER CURATORIAL CARE) THAN THE MILLION DOLLAR JEFF COONS FLOWER SCULPTURE.... I am perplexed that

works of art are finding their way into BANK VAULTS for their own protection, as opposed to into museums where their magical fiduciary aura can be sucked away by the hungry eyes and minds of humanity.

One of the most influencial of my old friends from art school, now directs one of New York's oldest and largest Galleries. (The kind of gallery that guards the estates of abstract expressionists titans) In the stories he tells me via e mail, I am constantly finding myself confronted with the very real aspect of our mutual history and perennial reverences to a specific kind of "esthetic concerns"; but, at the same time, his accounts often contain a very bizarre kind of tabloid, name dropping absurdity in the form of what I'm forced to call

                an absolute value mentality.

He refers to both high end art objects as well as alternative music phenomena that, AS ART,  "STANDS UP" presumably, under extended scrutiny. As the result of having some mysterious and enduring value.

Yet in other states of mind he is often  glancing askance at the tired entourage of the still living Abstract expressionists and earliest pop artists as being "ENTROPIC".

His own art is very small  and quite minimal, and at his most recent exhibition in new York city, he reported very happily that an "important"

figure in the global culture mart HAD BOUGHT ONE OF HIS PIECES and that it made him feel like he had "DONE SOMETHING RIGHT", which disturbed me considerably, and seemed about as wrong as the soap and the flower puppy being considered stable investments.

On another occasion he was reminiscing about graduate school and a particularly worldly and irascible teacher who had taken a special interest in him. Back in those days ,my friend was making gigantic paintings which his teacher took to calling "ART FOR BANKS" ,because the space required to exhibit them could only be found in the cavernous bank lobbies in great cosmopolitan cities.

I loved the fact that his teacher could encompass both the absurdity of my friends ambitions and the serious intention of his art in one remark. But later, after I had read the Reuters article for the fifth time, ART FOR BANKS took on an entirely different, LITERAL MEANING.

Although I have never had any trouble accepting money from the national endowment or the local arts council AS PRIZES, or laurel leaves, I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO SATISFACTORILY NEGOTIATE THE SALE OF A SINGLE PIECE OF MY ART. I spent twenty five years scribbling on black gallery walls specifically to avoid the notion of buying and selling art objects. Which, I realize now, was just as absurd as hoping to please a large audience or to have ones art work celebrated by such critical acclaim that it became the VIRTUAL COIN OF THE REALM like the puppy made of flowers.

To return to the ACTUAL context of these remarks- this particular exhibition (AS22O 2006), which I could as easily have called LIVE COLLAGE as INSTALLATIONS ON PAPER, I am perusing 30 years of my work, most often preserved on photographic paper, as well as many documents, letters and bits of paper flotsam which I HAVE ATTRIBUTED SIGNIFICANCE TO and I am making of them an array of displays, and totemic, floor to ceiling configurations of writing, photography and drawing with the intention of pleasing no one, but merely to further externalize my belief in the VALUE-LESS-NESS of beauty or significance.

But in a world where the super rich and the global investment conglomerates are placing their faith in the INTRINSIC VALUE of OFFICIAL WORKS OF ART, I might just as well  be dropping a 20 thousand dollar bar of soap in a shower hall full of white collar criminals and art thieves.

                                            OH BUGGER!

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