Many art professional are aware that the art arena as a whole is shifting but none of them are sure where it is going to land. We are in an unnerving moment where those invested financially are trying to work out both where the new investment is going to go, where the existing investment is going to remain and where the best survival rates are likely to fall. These are the considerations of curators, gallery owners and existing big names. They are not the considerations of artists.
An artist in their life is part creator and part exhibitor. There is a personal balancing act between the privacy of the studio and the limelight. That means that each art piece has both a personal and public personality and it is a discussion few have as to whether these should be in balance or not. While public art is very much not designed to have a private side, paintings often only have a private side until they blossom at some later date, while some blossom in their time and fade to the very private gallery archive.
Each and every art piece has a relationship to colour, shape, performance, line and thought. Much of art in the last fifty years has concentrated almost exclusively upon one of these to the detriment of the others. And in the privacy of the studio concentrating on colour or line, shape or material, is what an artist does as they learn but the finest art we have, and we recognise as such, is always all or more of these individual characteristics.
Much of contemporary artwork has lost thinking, lost line, lost understanding of colour, only played with shape and concentrated upon the new material being used. And it does this because the artist is either being driven to concentrate upon, or wants to concentrate upon, where the most money will be made. They will even shape their own lives to fit into a socially acceptable strata of society to help their career.
The NAE, like most others, have no idea where the art arena is going. We know it is ultimately not up the artists of the world; where the decisions should reside. The vested interests of governments and investors are too strong but we will be interested to see if balance makes an appearance and if skill becomes once again, something the people want to enjoy. We are not holding our breath that this will happen but we are going to watch. After all the visual experience of the people becomes the culture of the country and that has never had a single characteristic but has always been our most precious investment.
