A banana taped to a wall. Maurizio Cattelan’s installation sold at Sotheby’s for more than six million dollars on November 20 in New York. When we talk about contemporary Art, everyone sees what it’s about, whether it’s this banana or Duchamps’ urinal which in 1917 was the first “conceptual” work. Defining it is another kettle of fish, and yet another to consider it as a system. Let us welcome the reissue of Aude de Kerros’ book (by Eyrolles, in an expanded version, pocket format) thanks to which the conceptual art that has invaded the planet is deciphered and demystified.
The global expansion of contemporary art finds its origins in the cultural struggle between the United States and the USSR. This promoted a realistic art of propaganda after the war. The United States decides to encourage a counterbalance with a counter-art: this will be conceptual art. Art in rupture, without reference to the past, not participating in any identity (denying them, even), it seems capable of spreading throughout the earth. “Three forms of wealth, explains Aude de Kerros, experience global circulation and fluidity: raw materials, finance and art… the latter playing a unique role in globalization. » Furthermore, Western visual artists tend to be protesters: subsidizing them, honoring them with prestigious prizes, allows them to be pocketed, while maintaining, for the sake of form and their dignity, the apparently critical political discourse. Beneath their demanding exterior, visual artists are the servants of the system.
The rule of three thirds
How to impose an uprooted art? With biennials and international fairs where an unspoken rule applies, that of three thirds: one third local galleries, one third Anglo-Saxon galleries, one third galleries from various countries. This rule also applies to international galleries in their choice of artists (one third local; one third Anglo-Saxon; one third of various origins), and to contemporary art museums which want to be labeled “international “. These quotas shape globalization in New York style.
In these fairs and biennials, only conceptual art should appear. Painting in the classic sense of the word (whatever movement it belongs to) is banned. She doesn’t exist. Contemporary Art is exclusive. However, everything is not uniform and China, which weighs heavily in contemporary art, leaves some space open for its more traditional arts. Likewise, Russia. These countries experienced tragic and particular moments – one the Cultural Revolution, the other the total stateization of art – which makes their approach different. The dreamed of globalization comes up against, here and there, identities and stories that resist.
A Ponzi scheme?
Besides the fact that conceptual art is a negation of art – the work has no value as a created and shaped thing, only the concept explained by a speech counts – it is above all a financial product. And what a product! “The odds production line, now well established, writes Aude de Kerros, makes contemporary art a financial product whose profitability is estimated at 8%”. Juicy, the system is similar to a Ponzi pyramid in which it is necessary “permanently bring new collectors into the market”. The work is no longer an object of contemplation but an investment, where a part of money laundering can enter thanks to the opacity of this market and incessant changes of hands.
This financial system has experienced some bumps but appears stable. We buy, we resell with a big profit and, in the event of a hard blow, like a financial bubble bursting, the participants agree to preserve the system while waiting for things to calm down. Essential cogs, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are “at the center of the global market”. They feature record sales which drive up the ratings. A sale can become a happening as was the case in October 2021 when a work by Banksy self-destructed in the middle of a Sotheby’s sale… earning the visual artist a new price record: 21.8 million euros!
Glimmers of hope
Should we despair in the face of this steamroller which has made the planet ugly by spreading its globalist message? No, Aude de Kerros tells us. Taste is tired of a contemporary art that has become too uniformly kitsch, reduced to creating “currency and societal discourse in a closed network”. What’s more, the internet gives art despised by galleries a showcase that did not exist before. Pot of earth versus pot of iron, certainly. But this enterprise of aesthetic and spiritual nothingness that is Contemporary Art, entirely devoted to the powers of money, carries within itself the seeds of its future disappearance.
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