The Works and Lectures of Christo & Jeanne-Claude

This post is from an article I wrote earlier this Fall, with the link to the now published version in .pdf. For better or for worse, the published article chops and edits the original to an almost unrecognizable mass. Here, for your consideration, are the original and published article: Number: 73 Arts journal - Scroll to last column. 

***

I’ve never seen Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s work – the large environmental works that immediately spring to mind that is – in person. The only piece I would have had the remote possibility of seeing was in New York, February 2005. It lasted 16 days.

Surrounded Islands, (Project for Biscayne Bay,
 Greater Miami) 1983, Photo: Wolfgang Volz

I entered college a year later, 2006, taking on the typical electives of a freshman. Art History was one of those. The textbook, thick in format and incredibly burdensome in both weight and inadequate information, spent much of its time on my dorm floor. But, on the cover was an image that has since rested in my mind: three islands, of the total eleven, stretching vertically into the horizon – all three surrounded by pink fabric floating on the water’s surface. I would later learn that this was a picture of Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay taken by Wolfgang Volz, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s exclusive photographer for all their projects. Or, would I have just opened the book to the verso page. However, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, like the image, would become artists I always returned to in order to find pure beauty in the art world (an idea I misappropriate from John Baldessari).

The first picture I came to, knowing it was of the two artists with their work, was at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C.; a picture of the couple standing joyously in front of their saffron Gates of Central Park, the 2005 work that had taken them 26 years to complete. In their embrace, I remember Jeanne-Claude’s fiery red hair being strikingly similar to the deep-saffron color of the Gates fabric behind them. The photograph had a profound effect on me. Before me I saw not just two artists, but two lovers whose love gave the world a beauty never before realized. It’s not to say that art is love, but art definitely came from that rapturous passion. In those wintry sixteen days that the Gates stood in Central Park, approximately four million new visitors and $250 million in revenue for New York passed forth from the twenty-three miles of fabric. And, after passing seventy-four years on Earth and millions coming to love and admire her work with Christo, Jeanne-Claude passed away in November 2009.

Christo & Jeanne-Claude in Central Park
Gates project, 2005, photo: Wolfgang Volz

With that, to many the Gates would appear to be the last project the artists worked on together, the passion now lost, but their history and planned works from the past would say otherwise. For starters, as Christo was quick to point out, “Jeanne-Claude always started by saying that we were born on the same day, the same month, and the same year of June 13, 1935 … but from different mothers.” She in Casablanca, as her father was a lieutenant in the French military, and he in Bulgaria where he would escape in his teens and never return. The two fell in love – disapprovingly from Jeanne-Claude’s parents – in 1958 while Christo was commissioned to paint three varied-style portraits of her mother in Paris, and although Jeanne-Claude said she fell in love with him as an artist, “he was actually a hell of a lover.” It was in this union, and the works that followed from Christo’s early wrappings to their environmental works, that their legacy and their freedom in love, art, and life began and persisted, even beyond death.

This legacy, a very small, yet grand, part of it, was present in both the exhibit at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art (LRMA) in Laurel, and the evening lectures from Christo at LRMA and the University of Southern Mississippi’s Bennett Auditorium – September 4^th and 5^th, respectively. The exhibit, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Prints and Objects – on display until October 6^th, shared an exciting display of ninety lesser-known and less visible works and objects from Christo’s emergent years in Paris and New York up to 2007 – many as preparatory studies, models, and research for both realized and unrealized projects (of which there are 37). The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, itself a tucked away treasure of Mississippi with exceptional works from Homer, Corot, the Hudson River School, and a generous offering of Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, was thankfully able to be a part of this travelling exhibition and bring Christo back to Mississippi (fabric for 1991’s Running Fence was produced in Columbus) for these lectures – a practice in which he receives no honorarium.

Over the River (Project for the Arkansas River), 1992-2012. 
Life-sized test for aesthetic and technical considerations

The lectures at the LRMA and USM’s auditorium were centered on his on-going projects at present – Over the River (Project for the Arkansas River) and The Mastaba (Project for Abu Dhabi), respectively conceived in 1992 and 1977. Traipsing back and forth between past works and current projects, relating past processions of political wrangling with the similar, present turmoil of Over the River was not only informative in the most minute details, but also amusing coming from his grand gestures and thick, Eastern-European accent. It was easy to relate to past artists and gallerists – Ray Johnson, Claes Oldenburg, Leo Castelli - who met Christo in the 60s when he spoke no English, and with Jeanne-Claude had just immigrated to New York, saw him committed to his art and were warmed by his friendly gestures and mannerisms. The format of both lectures included extensive question portions, with Christo standing on stage for another hour to thoroughly answer questions both thought-provoking and redundant. Still, it was always just Christo standing there – starting with a remark about Jeanne-Claude, and often saying that she could answer questions so much more assertively. Christo, the poet of the two, was without his Calliope, and one could see this took an even greater toll than any bureaucratic difficulties did. 

One of the most popular and repetitive questions for Christo, asked an amusing three times in various ways during the Wednesday lecture, has always been, “How do you fund your projects?”. It’s an easily answered question rehearsed over time: He completes the studies and other preparatory collages in his studio; museums, gallerists, collectors, and consultants come to look at the work; they like the work; they pay him money; they take the work. As has been directed many times, Christo and Jeanne-Claude do not take donations, grants, corporate sponsorship, or any outside financial backing for their projects – which after costs of materials, labor, fighting bureaucratic red tape, engineering research, and leasing or land payments can amount into the millions of dollars. The most expensive project to date is The Umbrellas, Joint Project for Japan and USA, 1991. This bold act of freedom and of courage to produce expensive, ephemeral works which occupy large areas of land – on different continents at times – and fighting over decades to have them realized, is the essence of Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s shared spirit.

As Christo remarked in both lectures, it is irrational to produce art and is useless, it adds nothing, but it is something he and his wife must do. However, it was in his comment, “I never give advice to younger artists, art is not a profession,” where his insight into what art could mean to artists – going beyond the idea of Art for Art’s sake and any Fluxus notion – that Christo actually gave advice to artists. It was reminiscent of a rule John Baldessari always gives to artists, Baldessari saying, “You have to be possessed, which is something you can’t will.” By not teaching, by not advising, by just doing and creating until death, Christo perhaps gave the most poignant lesson for artists to adhere to.

Wrapped Reichstag, 1994

It is of course contrarian to posit such an idea as a rule for artists, because it is without those teachers and the academia of artists that Christo and many others would not garner so much recognition for their work and have the possibility of invitation to lecture. But, it is also that contrarian that never saw himself a member of the popular movements of Fluxus or the Nouveaux Réalistes, who instinctively did not fit into the propaganda of Soviet-controlled Bulgaria, and who, in such an unassuming, almost diminutive stature, never once compromised his work at the discretion of others. It is that legacy of total freedom and of absolute courage in the presence of parliamentary leaders who opposed his wrapping of their Reichstag that is perhaps the greatest education and example for young artists.

It was in the sixties that art became known for being expensive and elite, specifically with the 1961 sale of Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer for $2.8 million. Almost immediately a reaction came in the succeeding years by way of conceptual and environmental art -- to not be under control of the gallery system and the art world-at-large. In the 80s and 90s, it returned to the market as many galleries and artists were considered blue chip and the art markets of Japan and USA boomed. Today, while there continues to be blue chip galleries, and art is increasingly considered a commodity and liquid asset, a fissure among artists has appeared in order to distance themselves from the markets and heavy criticism levied on the pretense of art and artists as just a market index. It is possibly this inherent freedom and artistic autonomy that Christo and Jeanne-Claude embodied so fervently that will be the lasting inspiration and legacy of their work that will be impressed upon younger artists and their decisions in constructing their own life’s work. 

Are All Memes Created Equal?: An Argument for the Edificablah of Memes as Art (Part 1)

Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile, but I figured that using that as a starting sentence -- and statement of fact -- it may get picked up by Cory Arcangel's blog-searching algorithm for his personal re-blogging blog Sorry I Haven't Posted. Arcangel, a Brooklyn artist known mostly for his web art, created SiHP as an archive of darkly humorous apologetic internet failures. However, here, it serves as a prime, initial example of the meme -- in its most specific, OED definition -- as a piece of art or New Media Art. 

this is img. 1

The Meme, an idea now most associated with awkward penguins, Maru et al., le bfs and le gfs, specific, high-volume tumblrs, and the now dated demotivational poster, finds its modern origination from the notorious evolutionary biologist, Ethology theorist, and author Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene (1976).  Dawkins' original idea for the meme (img. 1) was the dissemination and evolution of ideas as that copying genetic recombination and replication, the more powerful the gene (the idea) the more replicated and transported it would be in successive generations. These days we read that as the more connecting and relevant, often comical, the meme is, the more popular and viral the meme may be. Much like art reflecting its present, the meme reflects our present(s), and the clearer that reflection may be, the more we are likely to connect with it and popularize it. Also, for the sake of academia, the meme shares the same ancestral inception that much poured-over and exhausted art history does: ancient Greece, through the philosophical term mimēma, or simply mimesis -- the act of imitation or copying. Which, not coincidentally, is one of the most poignant art historical narratives at present. 

Wade Guyton, Portikus Show

Most recently, one of the bigger names -- approaching blue chip status -- in the art world is Wade Guyton, much due to the 2007 MoMA exhibition What is Painting? Contemporary Art from the Collection. Guyton, born in Indiana and a University of Tennessee grad, watched his father paint when he could, mesmerized not only by the romance of painting and art, but the labor involved. That labor influenced Guyton the most, pushing him in search of the least labor intensive production of art possible.Today, Guyton's paintings are made not with the brush, scalpel, or even squeegee, but an Epsom UltraChrome or Stylus Pro Ink-Jet printer, printed on canvas or panel, causing the printer to make stochastic drips and other errors when printing. This is due to its inability to print efficiently on coarse surfaces, bringing to the equation a system of aleatorics, a popular theme in recent art history.

John Yau, the formidable critic at Hyperallergic and arts editor of the The Brooklyn Rail, recently wrote the following in a review of Wade Guyton: OS -  the mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum (until January 13th): 
  

              At the same time, his incredibly productive lack of creativity fits right into the by now familiar and even petrified art historical narrative that claims that de-skilling, appropriation, and post-Duchampian/post-studio practice are the only games in town, that everything else is a failure not worth considering.*

Yau, writing about the possible reasons why Guyton has become a favorite and fits into the narratives of popular museums and art-history, again brings up the theory of de-skilling in art (read: the modes of production becoming less complex, streamlined and closer to mechanization). He relates Guyton as the natural successor, in terms of producing art and appropriating images, to Andy Warhol who often quipped that he wished he was a machine, completely androgynous. The meme, as a simple format of appropriated starting image or text and predetermined relations of thought -- as well as its complete redundancy and serial production -- is the most mechanized, streamlined piece of visual arts the internet has thus provided. 

Wolfgang Tillmans, Tukan,
2010, digital C-print

It is de-skilling and the ascendancy of ink-jet printing that lend initial validation to the meme. This ascendancy, a recent featured article in Artforum's 50th Anniversary issue between Editor-in-chief Michelle Kuo and German artist Wolfgang Tillmans (Sept, 2012), is only the most telling example that new media is ensconcing itself deep into the folds of art history and should (1) not just be more talked about and fleshed out, but (2) should be considered a legitimate field of study for more visual arts programs around the country. It is this semi-validation that ink-jet painting has gained ground, and by that gain gives leverage to the idea of memes as art. 

In 1939, Walter Benjamin wrote "comfort isolates." The comfort of convenience, but also the comfort in conformity, is what draws us to a meme -- the convenience of the idea comes to us as we are most comfortable, at the computer, and in that isolation we find we relate and laugh at the same ideas a person in Brasil has. But, Benjamin continues, "on the other hand, it brings those enjoying it closer to mechanization." The finality of this idea follows: 

The invention of the match around the middle of the nineteenth century brought forth a number of innovations which have one thing in
common: one abrupt movement of the hand triggers a process of
many steps. This development is taking place in many areas. One case
in point is the telephone, where the lifting of a receiver has taken the
place of the steady movement that used to be required to crank the
older models. Of the countless movements of switching, inserting,
pressing, and the like, the “snapping” of the photographer has had the
greatest consequences. A touch of the finger now sufficed to fix an
event for an unlimited period of time. The camera gave the moment a
posthumous shock, as it were. Haptic experiences of this kind were
joined by optic ones, such as are supplied by the advertising pages of a
newspaper or the traffic of a big city. (1939)**

The touch of the finger, with just a few, quick clicks, now suffices to affix virtual images in the minds of millions around the world, depending on its level of communication and popularity -- the goal of any piece of art.  

A mechanized meme

* - John Yau in Hyperallergic

** - Walter Benjamin, "On some Motifs in Baudelaire." Benjamin made these comments vis-à-vis film in a manner also relevant to Warhol. (Foster, October, 2010) 

Guernica, today

Pablo Picasso "Guernica" courtesy of Museo Reina Sofia

            
                                                                 This night, now seventy-five years passed, the majority of people in the U.S. were learning from FM waves coming out of Paris, of a catastrophic bombing in the Basque mountains of Spain. Guernica, in Basque Guernika, had fallen victim to a practice run of Hitler's Luftwaffen - a tactic which would later be called the Blitzkrieg, all under Franco's consent. The painting above, Picasso's masterpiece, would be inspired by what he read in Le Journal the following morning. It would also be his first major statement in politics. The painting, afterwards, would become synonymous with war and its horrors, as well as influence international policy over the last century. 

             I've never quite understood my fascination with Guernica, even when finally confronting it last summer. Pleased to have finally seen it, even more so to hear one of my best friends - who considers himself distant from art - engrossed with the painting, I still couldn't understand why there was such a connection between it and myself. I don't have any ties to Spain, with the exception of a few friends who don't live anywhere near Basque country, and I've always felt Picasso's other works revel too much in his ego. That may be why I enjoy this political piece from him more (and I will always consider it my favorite painting), but when travelling through Bilbao by myself one day I started to reflect more on who the Basque people were, who these Euskadi were who still fight for their independence and identity today.

            Thinking about this idea of identity in relation to Picasso's masterpiece while walking back home tonight, after only buying a jar of the cheapest spaghetti sauce I could find for dinner, I immediately came upon some similarities between the Spaniard and his work. While he may have always retained his youthful prankster self, telling us that when he paints a horse he paints only a horse - leaving many to appropriate different symbols and spin urban myths - it's evident that he started to come into wisdom, instead of just smart ideas, after this painting for the upcoming world fair. With this wisdom, he added to the world something that supersedes diplomacy or propaganda, something with real life that screams at us through that wailing woman's up-turned head, her dagger tongue threateningly pleading us from committing future stupidity in relevance to the past at her costs. In that sense, it almost becomes religious. But to deter away from making art, and this post, religious or overly political, I wanted to highlight what is happening today: What are the modern day Guernicas, and how are these artists' identities portrayed through their art?

Ai Weiwei "Sunflower Seeds" at Mary Boone

          This may be typical of me as-of-late, but I have to start with China. Also, when I think of China, I can't get away from immediately thinking of Ai Weiwei, immediately followed by Cai Guo-Qiang. Call me ignorant to less popular Chinese artists, but there's a reason these two artists spring to mind so quickly: their art is truly revolutionary. I'm fascinated by the generation of Chinese who came of age during the Cultural Revolution, whose previous main idea of art was the mass-produced Mao standard portrait. Both Ai and Cai tie together historical influence in their work, the former for one instance appropriating the legendary Jingdezhen porcelain factory for his Turbine Hall installation Sunflower Seeds  - representing the dispensable worker in a field of millions, and Cai using firecrackers and gunpowder to literally ignite ideas that incorporate different epochal ideas, but with an eye to modernity. These two artists represent contemporary China to its fullest. 

Rendering of "Wreath" from Cai Guo-Qiang's Black Ceremony

          They also represent China's vast potential for working outside its borders. Even under house arrest from the Chinese government, Ai is again working with the architects Herzog & de Meuron to create the 12th summer pavilion for Serpentine Gallery - once again incorporating his fascination with communication. The team is aiming to coalesce, or bring together, the past eleven pavilions into one idea by digging down to each of the original foundations of the past works and forming something new while also revealing what is usually hidden in Kensington Gardens: the groundwater. Each artist wants to unearth what has been covered over by governments and institutions. The same is with Cai who, in his own medium, elaborately traced the connections of East and Middle East for his exhibition Saraab earlier this year in Qatar - highlighting the relations and unions between the different regions, specifically with the first piece you encountered into the museum. Homecoming, which, in its 62 granite parts, mirrored the Arabic epitaphs on headstones in Cai's hometown, and lined the visitor's path through the atrium. Cai's connections to the Arabic world segue nicely into the next idea I had nearing the end of my walk. Iran.

Nazgol Ansarinia

            For many Americans, the media-generated ideas of Iran and China go hand-in-hand, although we're a bit more keen on working with the Chinese. One thing I love about Art is that it is capable of transcending political notions and/or which countries we trade with or create embargoes on (although select laws preventing art from entering or leaving the States is another thing). One of the best galleries in Paris that I came across during my last visit was Da Prato gallery in the 3rd arr. I came upon it purely by accident, hoping to come into an Art Brut gallery I had been directed to instead; however, much like many French things, it was closed until later. The work by Nazgol Ansarinia, for me, stems directly from the Green Revolution in 2009, connecting conflicting local news reports under a lattice of different systems and concepts, her work nearly captures the chaos of that summer following the elections. Why nearly? Because while most of Ansarinia's work focuses on the beauty of the mundane, and the numbness of every day life - especially under autocratic rule - these works enliven the thoughts past that concept. This is not everyday work, but a country on the verge of war. And so, the war is taken the streets, with Icy and Sot leading this movement in Iran.

           It's very difficult to find out about art in Middle Eastern countries if you're not actually there. Qatar, UAE, and Dubai are appealing more and more to Western conforms, but it's difficult to actually find the artists who work there. Now, think about finding the street artists who live there. Fortunately, the Internet has made this a bit more easy. Icy and Sot first entered my vocabulary when I noticed something akin to Banksy, but with its own proper identity.

Icy and Sot, Big Can, Tabriz

          Now, it's important to say that many artists from the Middle East don't specifically reflect typical Islamic traditions.When I first brought this up to Daniela at her gallery, she immediately turned it down saying most of the Middle Eastern artists tend to lean more to western traditions, now, or are forming their own ideas. I didn't see this any place more than during my trip to Turkey, and the identity of the youth in the Middle East is changing rapidly, and I agree with an American tourist my last night there, "It's not Europe, and it's not Asia." Icy and Sot embody this idea well. They're not Banksy, but they're not your typical idea of Iran, either. Every artist needs their own distinguished hand, and Icy and Sot have found this not by so much criticizing the government in Iran we so much think about, but by giving a voice to the youth culture that's there and recognizes itself as different yet modern. The two brothers from Tabriz, Iran, make work that varies between the light-hearted and humorous skating culture, to the more serious, conceptually-rigorous work that comments on child abuse and child neglect during either war or political strife.

         When flipping through the TIMES 100 last month, hoping to find Ai Weiwei's name, I saw Ali Khameini instead. At first put off that my only choice wasn't there, I was interested to see this small section among the list. In the supporting article, I was most interested in the connections between the Iran of today and the similarities to that of China during Mao. Are the notoriety and generation of ideas of Ai Weiwei and Cai Guo-Qiang a signal for what's to come from Iran in the future, or is it already here? Has the idea of government become similar to a guarding veil, where art and ideas pass through it with ease due to the Internet? And if it is, is this conglomeration if ideas speeding towards an assimilation of identity and culture where we all feed from the same sources, or does it reach a precipice and by human nature demand us to turn back on ourselves? 

         I think, in self-preservation, we'll turn back on ourselves, but with such powerful collective thoughts be able to recognize those past threats continually pointing daggers at us. 

A city of art and history, or history and its art?

                     A friend showed me this picture the other day, taken during a walk around Angers. To say I was thrilled would have been an understatement. I had not yet seen any good street art for the past three months of my stay, and to see this yarn bomb sprout up - as well as being such a brash display of it in the city park, I immediately had to go check it out for myself.

                   The bike ride was faster than normally, happy I'd finally see some new yarn since seeing Olek's in Chelsea during January. Unfortunately, the fears I expressed to my friend, and the reason for my haste, had already been realized. The park was its normal, finely-manicured self - no urban, Liberace lion to be found. The ride back, with wind in my face and mounting thoughts about the governing French culture in my head, was a bit more difficult. I questioned my thoughts and wondered if my friend had only just now uploaded photos taken awhile back, allowing the lion its proper lifespan of short-lived street art. No, she had taken the picture within only the past three hours. 

                   Unsurprisingly, I wasn't mad. To get mad about the removal of street art, ephemerality being one component of its core, would be pointless - even more so to write about it. However, it did solidify some thoughts I had about Paris, and the idea of culture in France, since my stay here. Paris, and always France with it, has been living in the past when it comes to art.

                   To be sure, this isn't a terrible thing at all - it's what we love and come to Paris for, and there's still much to learn between Rousseau and Redon. Even more, artists like JR, Invader, and Xavier Veilhan (artists who could be considered pioneers of the much-blogged about New Aesthetic), churn out great art for the world to consume.

                  But, that's just it - it's the world consuming France, with mostly China being the primary recipient (Chateau Latour, the fabled Bordeaux vinyard, even left the historic en primeur system of selling wine futures, in order to more easily cater to the growing Chinese middle-class - effectively cutting out the middle man). This is true for many cultural sectors of post-developed nations, their artists and other cultural products being primarily admired and bought by members of the BRIC bloc. A talk with Liam Porisse at the opening of his joint show with his brother Julien at BLAST gallery on Rue Matignon - one of the only forward-thinking galleries on the historical art street, proves this point. Having studios in both Sao Paulo and Paris, M. Porisse quickly added in the conversation that so much more money is being used to buy, and more importantly promote, new,emerging art in Brasil. Also, as it stands, Singapore is poised to overtake France in amount of art bought this year, with China leading all countries since 2008.

                 This should come as no surprise. With exigeant austerity measures all over Europe and down grades landing on many western counties, it's difficult for anyone under such pressures to promote their cultural institutions. Still, it is the mindset of many in these nations that is the bane for their present day depreciation.

                 The quick removal of the yarn-covered lion draws many parallels to French denunciation of artists in the past, à la Salon des Réfuses, or the ridicule of Millet - now one of France's most revered painters. This is nothing new, but it begs me to wonder if this city, Angers, holds up to its proclamation of being one of Art and History, or just History and its Art. Much of France, like Paris, has succumbed to only promoting and commercializing the idea of its romantic past, as best given example by the magasin-lined rues of Montmartre  and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The once movable feast has been remade into a high-priced buffet, catering its past delicacies to foreigners. This continues into almost all of the western world, not singular unto France.

                  For solutions, it is my belief that these catered visitors are just as receptive to the New, if only a risk was taken to promote it. Foreigners, while in their home nations, especially those of the BRIC nations, consume massive amounts of new culture; they are already predisposed to appreciating it. It is the mindset in these countries to want something new, and to better their lives and their standard of living. Secondly, it is imperative that these struggling economies look outside their borders for emerging talent. Nationalism is a pride to be taken seriously, but isolationism can not be tolerated in today's climate - this is especially true for the cultural institutions of economically repressed nations. Antonio Manfredi looked outside the borders of Italy for funding and aid, but only to Germany. To send a real signal to his indifferent Italian superiors, the Italian could look to more distant and striking venues - he said his staff were ready to vacate, regardless. Many galleries have already taken these risks in promoting not just themselves in new areas of the world, but also work from new areas to their home nations. This has been met with great success, and I believe there is hope on the horizon. 

               Just within these past two weeks, the Palais de Tokyo has reopened in Paris after ten months of renovation, with the full $26 million in costs being supplied by the government through the Ministry of Culture. With opening festivities that might have made Jerry Saltz hop back across the pond, the Palais is a great sign for contemporary art in France. That is, if only the rest of France really knew about it. My French roommate - thankfully an artist - supported my belief that only those French who participated in the arts really knew about it. Sadly, the number of such has been slowly dwindling as given evidence from the Christie's closure of its Paris school in 2007. 

               The Palais is on the right path, though, and has been since its founding 2002. So, director M. de Loisy's success won't rely on how nimbly he navigates the line of introducing new, sometimes provocative art under political gaze, but how he exposes and draws attention to the museum outside its typical audience - the already interested art world. As the Minister of Culture, M. Frédéric Mitterand, hinted at during the museum's opening of it [the Palais] needing outside sponsorship to meet its annual budget of €13m - half funded by the government, there's really no better place to look for such support than those countries so interested in the culture already there. Qatar might be interested, unless they already feels biased towards their investments in the City of London.

               Still, France has the capability of returning to the stature it once had as the heart of the 19th century. However, to do this it will need help from those outside the Eurozone - much like it did with that great Lost Generation of expats who called Paris home - to again become that fierce lion of the art world. 

Photo courtesy of Diane Megan

                   

cartewheel

The French call a map une carte, which could easily be inferred from the job title of cartographer. 

Like a map, the aim of Cartewheel is to chart and report on changes in the art world. Where do places intersect and separate, or how is it all interrelated? Nicolas Bourriaud propelled this movement with his idea of Altermodern at the 2009 Tate Triennial. However, these ideas are all reactive in their approach, much like charting a map is. It's a belief that through present technology, it no longer has to be this way. 

It's time for more proactive and anticipatory thinking. With the idea of tying together myriad sources and ideas ranging from art history to present-day geopolitics, and incorporating blossoming ideas such as New Aesthetics, we can better anticipate what the Art World of tomorrow might be like, and more importantly - make it more conducive to artists. 

There has been a continuous democratic failure in the art world, and with it art history, since before the times of Vasari or Winckelmann. However, much like a cartographer, we have the ability to define the world in its most true terms - centered around the artist and those of creativity, and away from dated practices of just the elite patronizing the arts and the ever-increasing, present day belief of art as a liquid asset.