Roger,

After recently visiting the New Museum on Bowery street, I seriously think you need to visit yourself and see what's taking place inside. If you thought the Whitney Biennial was bad, the New Museum brings the contemporary art scene to a new low. More importantly, I really enjoyed Art's Prospect and reading your take on the New Museum would be a treat.
Just prepare yourself beforehand for the Che Guevara collages and endless whining about Abu Ghraib .

Apr 3, 2008 03:39 PM

Thanks for this piece. The art that can-be-gotten-away-with is still alive and thriving in that great center of contemporary culture, NYC. Why? Could it be that fine art has finally and completely become the "art market"? Alas and welladay. Kenneth Clark, we need the reruns.

Apr 4, 2008 06:59 AM

The entire premise of this article is a shocking juxtaposition with my own experiences in the last decade. Perhaps a lousy Jasper Johns may fetch an obscene record busting price, but more traditional art items and all antiquities have gone straight through the roof. Prices have doubled and doubled and doubled again for over a decade. Not only that, pricing seems to be immune to the recent disruption of the dollar's purchasing power as holders of foreign currencies find "deals" on anything priced in dollars from the American market. This has propped prices up, and there's no sign that pricing or demand are waning from my own experience.

No offense, but contrary to the picture painted above, my experience tells me the art market in most spectrums old and new has never been stronger than it is today. Perhaps it's wrong to extrapolate the tale of Salander's to the larger market?

Apr 5, 2008 11:31 PM

Morton is quite correct.

Salander-O'Reilly was a truly admirable gallery. However its downfall came from involving itself with the old master market, for which enterprise it hadn't the experience, capital or sufficient clients--then stealing from people to make up the difference. A simple case of poor business judgment and practice. A bad example to offer in support of [the tiresome] "decline of culture" argument.

It is natural, as it has always been on the art market, that the hottest moderns and contemporaries, meretricious or not, bring supercharged prices.

I think we must leave to posterity final judgment about Andy Warhol or any other recent artist.

Apr 6, 2008 06:27 AM

Hello Mr. Roger,

Besides forcing me to visit Amazon to not buy your book, your piece irritated me in other ways. You're self-righteous and you suffer from hindsight bias, a basic error of reasoning, which I think is inappropriate for a public writer. You're setting a bad example.

No one doubts that Warhol had a genius for self-promotion, or that he exploited his own work for filthy lucre. So what? We don't condemn Renaissance artists (for example) for being patronized by the nobility. As you're aware, capitalism was invented and made this way of financing Art obsolete. Warhol was just playing by the rules, like anyone else, using his talent and knowledge to earn a living. Is there some legitimate way of earning a living that is essentially dishonorable to you?

The influence of hindsight bias is pervasive and perfidious. Its effects on reasoning are plainly more pernicious than your old hobby-horse, which deplores (yet again) the commercialization of Art. Warhol used his talents as a draftsman and his insight into culture to produce works that struck a nerve worldwide. His works were shocking, provocative and so forth. Did (and do) they have an esthetic effect? There's no doubt about it. His work has both a clear thematic message (the philosophy you casually disparage) and a powerful esthetic effect. One can view them again and again and still derive pleasure from their simplicity of design and colors.

But how was Warhol to know that his work would spawn a billion-dollar art industry? How was he even to know that his work would spawn a living for himself? He put his talent and skills on the line and won because he satisfied a lot of people. Now you're deploring him for it? You're deploring him for being successful, then. Should only people like you have the right to be successful? Why don't you come back to Earth?

Apr 6, 2008 10:07 AM

Mr. Kimball's essay seems to reflect a misunderstanding of the art history involved.

"...he [Warhol] helped complete the assault—begun by Marcel Duchamp in the early years of the 20th century—on the traditional understanding of art as a distinctive, and distinctively valuable, realm of experience."

There was no such assault initiated by Duchamp. If anything, Duchamp saw art as requring an ever more rarified modes of connoisseurship, involving advanced esoteric speculations.

Duchamp rebelled most specifically against "retinal" image-making as embodied by, e.g., the post-impressionists.

Warhol (at least in his work as a visual artist) relied, to the contrary, upon quite conventional principles of design and decoration. He personally had traditional taste in art. Broadly speaking, he had more in common with Matisse than Duchamp.

I don't understand by the term "shamelss hucksterism" would be applied to his work. People liked it. They bought it. They're still buying it.

Warhol tried to push that process along wherever possible and he was willing to pander a little to do so. But so was M. Courbet when he painted porno for his patron Khalil-Bey.

It just goes with the territory of being a self-sustaining artist.

Apr 6, 2008 12:35 PM

Warhol is a third rate Art Director and first rate Marketing Man. In my opinion Warhol’s work is nothing more than Kitsch writ large.

I read Mr. Kimball’s The Rape of the Masters and found it clarifying and intellectual honest, a rare trait in today’s art world. As far as philosophy goes, one of the purposes of philosophy is to untangle antinomies and the errors of reason. An artist, especially Andy Warhol is in actuality anti-philosophical. IMO.

Professor Kimball’s assessment quite rightly places Warhol’s art as belonging in the attic or maybe the dumpster. That is; if the question is; whom am I going to believe, the vested art establishment or my lying eyes?

Go ahead ask me.

Apr 6, 2008 05:41 PM

Great, Conservatives have already lost the Black cause to the Liberals, thanks to arguments like these, we are going to offer them on a silver tray the entire country, America, her biggest lover and defender, Andy Warhol, and an entire artistic movement, universally known and recognized as POP ART. A unique American phenomenon in ART and human history. The essence of America and all that's good about her values. POP culture at its best. America, Joy, Beauty, Industry, Freedom and Capitalism in its best expression.

I thought the Right were the one who undestood best the benefits and the power of America's economic system.

One thing is sure, Andy Warhol didn't miss America's magic and uniqueness. He saw beauty in a bottle of Coca-Cola, a US Dollar bill, a soup can, .... Not only from a pure esthetic and formal point of view but also for all the things they represent and convey: The American Dream. Affordable and easily accessible symbols of that dream, accessible to any citizen of the world, symbols of Liberty, of Freedom and Revolution, made in America. A reminder of that same dream.

Besides, you can't ignore his superior taste. Watch his choices of colors. I could talk for hours about this topic. But my English isn't very good and I don't want to give away all my precious thoughts for free.

If Warhol was alive, maybe the world would be less openly so anti-American. Or anyway at least the American Left would be more shy about their 19th century Marxist views. So shockingly anti-American. Such bores...

America lost Ronald Reagan and Andy Warhol around the same years. The end of an era.

Real ART hides Universal Truths. Warhol's art is the epitome of America's essence and values. The essence of Capitalism. The cure (according to me) to all the problems of this fucked up world.

Now nobody ever said you can't also appreciate the Masters of past centuries. Museums are packed with them. That's where they belong. Accessible to all. Plus we are not always in the mood for Bach neither. People go thru different phases in their life but some things never change and are always univeral. POP ART is one of them.

Apr 7, 2008 06:22 AM

In response to the above post:

There is no “Black cause” unless you regard reparations as a “cause” and like Warhol, another famous huckster: Al Sharpton, would gladly impose on the “God Damn America”, i.e. a tax on the sins of their great-great grand fathers. By the way, many white men, died in a war that actually ended slavery.

Besides I’ve never bought into the race bating angle anyway, there is only one race; The Human Race. Many brilliant “Black” conservatives likely would disagree with your conclusion that the American dream consists of commercialism. The essence of Capitalism belongs in the realm of economics, not art.

To Warhol’s credit he did reflect perfectly his self-image err, maybe reflect is the wrong term; that of a cultural vampire, not only in the irresponsible and inhumane indifference he accepted in the weakness of those who tripped on by his studio but also the indifference to all but the most facile images he once peddled.

Real art reveals universal truth, (notwithstanding the solipsism most artists envelope in the expression of their art.)

Yes we all can appreciate the wonders of enterprise found at hand, whether a tomato can or a movie poster of a blonde but art world ought to celebrate and cultivate the highest aspirations of the American spirit, a spirit the world may once again envy one day.

Apr 7, 2008 09:00 AM

It seems to me that you've confused a type of art with ART... a common problem where people only have enough brain cells to hold one definition at a time.

I have successful friends that create traditional art, ones that create post-modern art, ones that create pop art and ones that create dada/OpArt etc. To hold that ANY single artist or style of ART somehow changed the entire Art World sounds, to me, like nonsense. You're comparisons are poor, your statements, while full of accusation seem quite low on proof/details or even a well structured argument.

Go take a class on Art. Who knows, you may actually learn something if you allow data to enter the mind, rather than just clinging to whatever opinion might spring fully formed from your brow, like Athena popping out of Zeus.

Artists like the Dadaists and Pop Artists laid a foundation which tore down the Fourth Wall... it took art from a one way sort of communication (The Artist ideas, aimed directly at your head) and turned it into something much more interactive. If you don't get that... maybe you should read more and write less.

Apr 7, 2008 02:11 PM

Mr Whalen: I'd like you to consider the following:

You say, "Warhol is a third rate Art Director and first rate Marketing Man." "Third rate" is hardly the term I'd choose to describe a man who changed the face of American art (love it or hate it) and made millions doing it. Maybe you'd like to clarify what you mean by this, because I don't find much clarity in calling Warhol "third rate" anything.

Then, more to to substance of your post, you say, "one of the purposes of philosophy is to untangle antinomies and the errors of reason." Here, you're trying to refute those who maintain that Warhol did make art, which will always have some philosophical element. But then, "untangling antinomies and the errors of reason" somehow doesn't seem like the purview of an artist. Art isn't about reasoning, it's about beauty. Isn't that true? Isn't the philosophy of the beautiful called "esthetics"? Doesn't Warhol have a lot to say (so to speak) about what's beautiful and what's not? Wouldn't this be called "esthetics" by a fair-minded observer, independently of whether he or she likes the work or not? Therefore, here I think you're confusing your personal taste with esthetics, which is the philosophy of the beautiful. You may not like Warhol, but that doesn't give you any basis at all for calling him a bunch of ridiculous names. For that, you'd have to do some philosophy yourself, like Warhol himself did. If you did that, maybe you'd start to see the beauty in his work. This would be a good thing for you. You'd grow and change. You'd really become a better person for it by not reflexively rejecting an artist like Warhol simply because he refused to follow the rest and created something new. He was certainly taking a big risk with this--it was his life and career that were on the line; he wasn't in some sterile debate, like we are. Before you begin to read up on esthetics, I suggest that you get a little respect for those, like Warhol, who risked everything to simply (of course, it's anything but simple) give people pleasure and earn a living by it. It's undeniable that Warhol achieved his goal: he still gives people a lot of pleasure, years after his death. I'm one of them.

Apr 7, 2008 04:54 PM

Warhol is to art what Snoopdog is to sympnony.

Apr 8, 2008 10:11 AM