September 17, 2009, 07:49 AM ET

60 Galleries in 6 Hours

I asked my husband, Peter Plagens, a painter and writer, to sit down for an interview with me. Peter had been the staff art critic for Newsweek Magazine for fifteen years. Currently, he’s writing a book on the artist Bruce Nauman. He also continues to write articles about art for such publications as Newsweek and Art in America. Last Saturday he went to see a bunch of Chelsea galleries in New York.

What took you to the galleries on Saturday?

Duty. I have to do a periodic round of the galleries -- to see what’s going on.

You say you did 60 galleries? Wow!

Yes, although in some of them I beat a hasty retreat.

So you do this a lot?

Less than I should -- maybe once every couple of months.

You willing to give me an overview of what you saw?

Sure. Things are kind of bright and deliberately tacky and bouncy, as opposed to minimal, thought out, and reserved. It’s postmodernism in full flower -- where postmodernism is taken for granted. The overall feeling is like Granny’s attic done in bright colors.

Anything stand out as good?

At Matthew Marks [523 West 24th Street] there was a sculptor -- Vincent Fecteau -- whom I’d never seen before. He made sculptures. They were honest abstract sculpture, with inventive forms. He didn’t attempt to load them up with bells and whistles. The pieces were small in scale. They were separate works on pedestals -- simple plywood boxes.

What was the worst thing you saw?

Well, that’s hard to decide. Anyway, I don’t want to pick on individual artists. Let me just say a show of abstract paintings that were like photographs of outer space, with sunsets on the outer horizon. Sort of misty and pretty, like National Geographic -- cornball pretty.

What’s your take on the art world right now?

First of all, it’s market-driven. It’s not artist-idea driven. Everybody’s auditioning for the market. They’re trying to break in all at once, like competitors on American Idol. They’re trying to get to the quarterfinals. The result is that there are a lot of young artists who are either unprepared or shallow and are trying real hard to do anything to get themselves noticed. Artists are becoming like vaudeville actors. They seem to be flailing about. There’s everything from blinking lights, tornado-trailer installations, and spooky video rooms. There’s a lot of longwinded explanations -- either in the reception-desk propaganda or in (much worse) the art itself. Lots of art with some kind of social-political agenda. Weirdly, artists whose work looks nominally political don’t seem really to believe in it. Maybe they just do it because they know there’s a collector’s slot for “political” artists. I don’t know. Finally, there’s a lot of supposedly ironic adaptations of the worst-looking aspects of lowbrow popular culture. It seems like artists will do anything other than just plain put something in a neat arrangement on a wall so you can ponder an art object for what it looks like.

That sounds bad. Are you depressed by this situation?

No, I’m not depressed at all. It’s not my problem any more. I’m 68 years old. I’m a painter, and I have my own niche place in art. I don’t get exercised that art has all gone to hell in a hand basket.

But you’re saying it has.

Yeah, I think it’s pretty desperate and junky out there. But, on the bright side, there’s a lot of real energy -- a lot of shows, a lot of people going in and out of the galleries, lots of people wanting to see what’s happening. So at the end of the day, there may be something good in all of this. Anyway, things will eventually change. They always do.

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Comments

1. triple2 - September 18, 2009 at 03:22 pm

I'm so grateful to Peter Plagens for putting all this into words and for not being bitter or resentful about it. Really good.
Peggy Reavey, San Pedro, CA

2. triple2 - September 18, 2009 at 03:22 pm

I'm so grateful to Peter Plagens for putting all this into words and for not being bitter or resentful about it. Really good.
Peggy Reavey, San Pedro, CA

3. triple2 - September 18, 2009 at 03:22 pm

I'm so grateful to Peter Plagens for putting all this into words and for not being bitter or resentful about it. Really good.
Peggy Reavey, San Pedro, CA