The one (and probably only) good thing about having an hour plus commute to work and back on public transportation is that I have plenty of time to read. While many of my fellow passengers are staring off into space, listening to their iPods, I have been busy solving murders in 19th-century England. (My sister recently recommended three different authors who write novels along these lines, and I’m steadily making my way through all of them. I’m starting to realize she might be a sucker for historical fiction…)
I’m currently reading something completely different: The Genius by Jesse Kellerman. My background in art history makes me particularly interested in fiction that deals with art, artists, the art market, etc. (Other good novels working with these topics include Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and Dara Horn’s The World to Come.) The Genius is a mystery of sorts (one of my favorite genres, obviously) set in the world of art dealing. Our protagonist, Ethan Muller, is a gallery owner who comes across drawings by an artist, Victor Cracke, who is not only unknown but apparently missing. During the course of his search for the artist, and the uncovering of the artist’s seemingly murky past, Ethan gives us a glimpse into the world of New York commercial art galleries.
Early on in the novel, Ethan makes a point about galleries that is actually similar to one I made in an art history paper my senior year at Duke. Ethan notes, “Without [art dealers] there would be no Modernism, no Minimalism, no movements at all. All the contemporary legends would be painting houses or teaching adult education classes. Museum collections would grind to a halt after the Renaissance; sculptors would still be carving pagan gods; video would be the province of pornography; graffiti a petty crime rather than the premise behind a multimillion-dollar industry. Art, in short, would cease to thrive. And this is because – in a post-Church, post-patronage era – dealers refine and pipeline the fuel that drives art’s engine, that has always driven it and always will: money (28).” Basically, art galleries are at the center of the art market. Galleries provide museums with a good indication of what the public wants to see or is interested in. In addition, it is mostly up to galleries to “discover” new artists, get the public interested, thus inspirinig museums to collect the artists’ works as well. While I’m sure the process is much more intricately detaile than this, and I certainly don’t claim to know everything there is to know about the relationship between galleries and museums, this is at least how I have witnessed it working during my time working at a commercial art gallery.
Ethan also develops a rather cynical view of the art market during the course of the novel. However cynical it may be, it does strike me as rather accurate. The truth is that selling art, while it has its positive moments, can be intensely depressing. Your job is essentially to convince a filthy rich person to buy a painting/sculpture/photograph/drawing/other art object by an artist who is most likely struggling just to get by, living in a lower socioeconomic situation than the buyer. The buyer and the artist can have radically different views of the art – one seeing it as an investment, as something that will make him/her appear cultured, and, in the worst cases, as a decorative object that will compliment his/her living room decor; while the other side typically has a more personal relationship with the art, thinking of it as a creation, a child, an expression of the self. (Of course this is not how all collectors view art, but it does happen.) As an art dealer, you have to reconcile the two conflicting sides, realizing that if you don’t sell the painting to the person who thinks it will look great with their couch, in the end you are hurting both yourself (the gallery) and the artist, even if you are trying to preserve the integrity of the work. Essentially, you have to sell when there is a sale to be made, no matter how “undeserving” the buyer may seem. (By the way, someone really did buy a painting from the gallery I worked at because they thought it would look good with their couch. Painful.)
On the other hand, sometimes the dealer has to turn shit into gold, a la Piero Manzoni, selling a show that ends up being underwhelming, convincing the buyer that it is, essentially, a good investment because of the created brand name of the artist.
And this is the other point that Ethan is making in the above quote: the dealer is a creative force along the same lines as the artist. While he seems to be boasting about the importance of the dealer, there is also a sense in his statements that it is not necessarily a good thing that the dealer has taken on this creative role. Ethan’s own desire to create a market for Victor Crackes has resulted in his own ability to deny both the artist as human and the artist as creator. Simply put, “A piece of art becomes a piece of art – and an artist becomes an artist – when I [the art dealer] make you take out your checkbook (29).” This is hardly a new idea and certainly not one that artists are unfamiliar with; just take a look at the readymades (yay, Duchamp!) or the aforementioned Piero Manzoni. It doesn’t matter what the artist creates, as along as the dealer can create a market for it.
The Genius is a really well-written book that also tells an insightful story, even if you aren’t as interested in art or the art market as this blogger. As indicated by the title of this novel, Kellerman is really toying with the issue of what it means to have genius or what it means in our society to be considered a genius (a discussion also at the center of Smith’s On Beauty.) Is this designation based solely on one part of a life? Can an artistic genius do whatever else he wants in his personal life, no matter how antisocial? Are such eccentricities perhaps even necessary to be considered a genius? As the book jacket questions, “Is Cracke a genius? A murderer? Both? Is there a difference?” Not to wander too far off topic, I finished watching Spike Lee’s Malcolm X this morning. There is a part near the end where Mr. X’s hotel room has been bugged, and two men are listening to his phone conversation with his wife. One says to the other, “Compared to King, this guy’s a saint.” And yet Martin Luther King, Jr. is the civil rights leader we learn the most about in school. Is King any less of a role model because of his extracurricular activities? Should we admire him any less since his philandering is in direct contrast to society’s morals? Was Clinton any less of a great president because of Monica Lewinsky? Obviously this is not how we approach the idea of a great “man.” Does the personal remain personal? How many people have to be affected by your deeds in order for it to tarnish your reputation as great or genius?
Ok, I may have gone off topic. But I believe these questions are integral to the understanding of Kellerman’s novel. One would assume there is a difference between murderer and genius, but can we divide a person into two entities like that? Can we declare one part genius and one part murderer or do they inform each other? Should a murderer be considered a genius in any realm? Well? What do you think??
Anyhow, I highly recommend The Genius, even though I haven’t finished it! But don’t take my word for it…
