Art and Money

The other day, I went to Sotheby's auction house for their exhibit of postwar and contemporary art for their big fall auction.   What was there was a dazzling selection of all the big names in postwar art, with major paintings by Rothko, Pollock, Bacon, and anyone else you can think of whose work hangs on the walls of MOMA's galleries of postwar art.   As in all the "blue-chip" artists.  But the atmosphere is very different from a museum, because all the art is for sale.  Instead of art lovers and tourists, you see lots of very important looking people clutching their cellphones, or more likely, people who are busy catering to the needs of very rich people.  Instead of descriptions, you get price  estimates.  (Rothko, estimated value $30 million, and in fact sold for $75 million).  It is very disconcerting to see the extent to which the contemporary art world is wrapped up into the world of the one percent.  As I staggered out of the 500 or so works on sale, I happened on an exhibit of Pre-Columbian Art (also for sale).  Intriguing and beautiful and a welcome contrast.

A few days ago, Vera and I went to the Frick Museum to see a collection of drawings on loan from the Courtaud Institute (wonderful).  What resonates with me is that Frick himself was one of the original predatory capitalists, a union buster who was often called the most hated man in America.  He spent the last years of his life spending as much money as he could, buying the most expensive paintings he could find.  (Three Vermeers, a late Rembrandt self-portrait, etc.)  What is amusing is that these masterpieces are all hanging in the formal picture galleries, while the rooms for daily life have mostly pictures of English aristocracy, etc. to which he doubtless aspired to be one of.

Heiner Goebbels

Tonight we saw an interesting music theater work by the German composer/theatrical artist Heiner Goebbels.  It featured texts by T.S. Eliot (Prufrock..), Maurice Blanchot, Kafka, and Beckett (Worstward Ho).  Sung and acted by the Hilliard Ensemble (4 male vocalists), with some taped electronic accompaniment. It was a fully staged theatrical presentation, with elaborate sets.  It could have been called some kind of opera, though Goebbels refers to it as "concert tableaux".

In the set above, each of the singers was in a different window in the house, singing at the same time.
The piece at times was very still. The first 10 minutes are done it almost silence, as the singers enact some very ritualistic packing up of all the materials on the set.
While I can't say that I loved the piece, I was consistently intrigued by the music theater implications of what he was doing.  The chief problem was that the text was not often clearly understandable, which does make a difference, especially in the Beckett  (""Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.")