end of an era?

(Draft only)

Has the financial crisis had an interesting spin-off that will be written about in art history assignments in years to come?

Currently running at the Tate Modern is "Pop Life: Art in a Material World" (until January 17). The timing and significance of this exhibition is the subject of the October "Newsweek" article entitled "Pop Goes the Market". Writer Christopher Werth discusses the impact of the financial crisis on the contemporary art market.

The art market remained bouyant at the beginning of the "decline of the material world" (my term, not a quote). Sothebys sold Damien Hirst works for a total of £111 million (around $US200 million) after the recession had hit. But the (over-inflated?) confidence in the art market bottomed out quickly, prices falling by 50% and expected to drop another 30 to 80% of pre-crash prices, and I suspect that with this fall we might also identify the end of the post-1950s art movement known as "Pop Art".

If Pop art began with Andy Warhol and his exploration of the mass media through his art, did it end with this world banking crash? Werth writes "But as the Great Recession takes its cultural toll - excess is out, thrift is in - art's flashiest, wealthiest practitioners (and their loyal customers) now appear as out of step with the "new norm" of financial restraint as bankers pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses on Wall Street." (Newsweek, October 19 2009, p.48). This set me thinking about art movements, how and why they come and go, and where we all sit in the big big picture.

Have we seen the swan-song of this flashy era, where gold and diamonds command huge prices as collectors fall for the marketing hype, or will Pop art continue, with the brand-marketing celebrity artists filtering themselves off into a sub-genre that will re-emerge when the financial rollercoaster eases onto smoother tracks?

Not being a particularly "material girl" myself I quite like the prospect of the market leaders becoming a mere, transient, sub-genre! But don't get me wrong; I have respect for these artists (as well as a fondness for a Hirst made entirely out of dead flies) and believe that they are a product of the society that we live in, reflecting in their work the social and economic times.

That, surely, is what art is about. The true histories are not written in books, but may be read by looking retrospectively at the collective art of any period. Knowing who commissioned work, how art was valued, and what messages and values are represented surely gives us a better insight into how society functioned at any one period of time than a history book in which the author may or may not disclose his own political bias.


Footnote: The expression "15 minutes of fame" was coined by Andy Warhol.