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Art in Crisis

A few days ago I read an article in the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung about “Art in Crisis”; and that journal reviewed the influence crisis is having in the art market. And just there, in the word market is where I stopped, as I thought it was a sacrilege to join the words market and art; art is a religion, not a market. This article made me think of some statements done by a very renowned artist of our times, with which he tried to justify (without a need!) the payments received for a commission that many thought disproportionate. He defended himself from criticisms about the high price paid saying that the whole process followed until the achievement of the work, among other things, had set him apart from the “market” for many months. Market-Art, Art-Market. Money and recognition. Oh well!

Precisely in this communion, sometimes dammed, is where I see the danger for the artist, maybe looking first for recognition, falling in the hands of the market and losing its freedom, “selling his soul to de the devil” and entering under its commands in exchange of money and the Greater recognition. The saddest thing of this process, if it ever happens, is that in order to reach that negotiation state between art and market, the artist, though good or very good, as he is also human, has that ego that accompanies us as a shadow and it is sometimes so strong that it takes the place of the person. The shadow is always black and it will drag the artist to its darkness, who once deprived from his freedom, his art will be reduced to a mere show of his wisdom; he may be a master, but an amputated master because he will lack the energy to one day realize the Work of Art.

Jorge Rando, Hamburg, July 2009