...Continued
There are other art mediums that fall off
more to one side or the other. Television -- and I would expect the Web -- have a
problem: lots of demand without discrimination.
Mere choice in selection is not
pressure for discrimination.
On the other hand, you have situations of pressure for discrimination without demand that could be a definition of academicism, or Salon Art. This is the condition of museums and institutions of contemporary art today: they show the latest generation of postminimalist installation art which is made and displayed because there are a lot of people who have jobs connected with making it and displaying it. It is not made because somebody desperately wants to see it. People want to go to the museums because it is Saturday or Sunday. But be sympathetic with museums: they've got to put something up. With painting, the insurance rates are so high! But painting has a healthy market. It has a market that has a demand, and a pressure of discrimination that is intelligent and sensitive. It is a small market. But because it is readable and has a history, painting is in line for periodic resurgence in the moment that the society has new uses for it.
Lari Pittman's extremely eloquent statement about the new generation of artists in California who have a new attitude, a new use for painting, is going to be reflected in the art world-- and painting will have a nice episode again. As for media culture, it is a vast reality which we all have to deal with more extensively here.
