(Photo: Ellen Page Wilson. Image Copyright Rudolf Stingel and Courtesy of the Artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.)Sometimes I don't know what the hell Jerry Saltz is thinking.
In a recent New York Magazine article (here), he discusses Rudolf Stingel's recently closed showing of three small canvases in the cavernous Paula Cooper Gallery, one per wall.
He says:
"I wouldn’t want any of these paintings individually, but together they charge the gallery with thoughts about what it takes to create shows in the wake of orgiastic abundance. Stingel’s installation is a requiem for the white cube and a fond farewell to the last fifteen years."
What the fuck did any of that have to do with anything relevant to Stingel's work?
I saw it, walked out rather fast, and needed to catch my breathe outside. Fond farewell my ass.
It was a blatant spit in the face of state of the artworld, or the artdream as the world slips away from it. I don't even know how brave it was.
I forgot to check if they sold individually or as a group, or if they sold at all. It could've been Paula Cooper cutting a lot of overhead.
There's gonna be a lot of pages to fill when to next big wave of gallery closures happens during the summer art-lull. Critics will find all manner of bullshit to fill up what should be show reviews.
They'll be scrambling to keep their jobs too.
Get to work, Jerry.
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I think it's also interesting to note the fact that while there is a strong history of critics giving a critique of the way museum shows are curated, and not an opinion of the work in the show, gallery reviews are almost without exception a critique of the work in the gallery. Perhaps as galleries become fewer, with an ever expanding pool of artist to choose from, they will begin to be "museamified". I would predict that galleries will become less "art stores" and really become mini-museums for contemporary artists, just to keep people coming through the door, even if they're not buyers.
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