Goody Two Shoes

Why all of this prattle about value lately? During my blogging hiatus Dave Hickey wrote a column for Art In America (“Revision Number 5: Quality“. Feb’09, P.33) about the importance of being able to tell good art from bad and the merits of quality over quantity. Since we are coming out of a period of unquestionable quantity the article has stuck with me since first reading it. I am not going to rehash Hickey’s entire argument, this here’s a blog and my time with your attention is wastin’. I will say that it all hinges on defining value; what makes something good vs. bad, and why asking matters. Without making these sorts of evaluations then mediocrity is labeled good, and under that premise is destined for a museum retrospective; not good. Hickey says it better. “Weeds spring up when you don’t mow; so mow. Great art is diminished by the junk that surrounds it; so clean the stables.” The importance, and consequence, of defining whats really good seems obvious. So…

I really dislike Matisse. I think his shapes are clumsy and colors garish, and his sense of composition really doesn’t blow me away either. The cut-outs are particularly irksome, they ooze bourgeois from every pore. But Matisse is still a great artist, and crucially important to the history of art. A Fauve, an early Modernist, however you want to pigeonhole him Matisse had an influence on his contemporaries, and continues to influence scores of artists all over the world. He liberated color so that today’s 80’s quoting young artists can be free to place that neon yellow next to radioactive pink, regardless of how misguided a decision it might ultimately be. Matisse’s work holds up in relation to the objects that surround it. It has impacted a huge number of people for a large amount of time, while making a lasting impression, good or bad. History has been kind to him. (Or unkind depending on how you feel about art on tote-bags)

So Matisse is an important artist who made good works. They touch a variety of people, they have a lasting impact, and they are relevant to the history of objects that proceeded and accompanied them. It doesn’t much matter that i don’t care for them. But Matisse is a historical example and has been given the benefit of having time pass. Can we ask the same questions of contemporary art? I think so, or we can at least begin to. Hickey presents a list of questions near the end of his article that are fantastic, and can act as a jumping off point for all of us:

So, whenever i get the chance, i look at art and ask myself: how long will i remember this and how precisely? Then, more critically, how long will other people remember it? (This is social discourse.) Is this work better than the works that are similarly priced? Is it better than the blank white wall upon which it hangs? Is it better than everything and , if so, how long will i love it? How much do i think about it? How much would i miss it? How often does it surprise me? How many words can i write about it? How much would i pay for it? How much would i sell it for? What would i trade it for?  How many people agree with me? Who are they? How complex is the constellation of objects in which it resides? How deep is its historical resonance? How much does it mean, and how much does that matter?

Through all of this rambling i don’t know if I’ve gotten any closer to answering how we determine value, certainly not in any philosophic terms. But maybe that doesn’t matter so much when it comes to art, and perhaps good art, i mean really good, tells us when its good. All we need to do is slow down a little, look and watch, open up our tightly wound minds, gas up that Lawn-Boy, and ask a couple of questions.

Image: The Sorrows Of The King, Henri Matisse, 1952.