I was speaking with Josh Fanning (ad man at this magazine) today about the insularity of Adelaide’s artistic community. Josh basically made the point that (and I’m badly paraphrasing here), “We need to get the yuppies coming along to art shows, because they’re the ones with the money to actually buy the art.”
Insularity. It’s what seems to fuck up most artistic communities in the end. Artists promote their shows to other artists, and everybody ends up having a grand old time getting pissed on cheap goon, and everybody slaps everybody else on the back saying, “My gawd, Maureen, you’re so talented”, but nobody ends up selling anything, or buying anything, because nobody has any cash. It all turns into one big circle jerk. Writers start publishing companies to publish other writers (their friends), and market those books to other writers (who are also their friends); young visual artists with cash open galleries and promote the work of other visual artists (their friends) to other visual artists (who are also their friends). The problem with the whole situation is that it’s fundamentally, obviously, not self-sustaining. At some point or other, in order to make a living, you have to pander to those who can support your practice monetarily. You can’t pay rent with compliments (I will note, before I go any further, that sexual favours don’t count).
The problematic fact is that the people with the cash to spend on art (and, to some extent, literature) are often, well, real douchebags. These are people who, you have to remember, have probably made their small fortunes exploiting those beneath them, and who are blowing their cash on art simply because they want to show their friends and colleagues exactly how superior and truly sophisticated they truly are. These are the people who beat you up in high school and now have a Masters in Business Administration. These are the people who will never venture into your friend’s totally awesome gallery, because the downlighting sucks, its on the wrong side of town, and the wine on offer isn’t baco noir. If yuppies still exist, well, yeah, they’re yuppies. They’re also your real-world target audience.
If people you actually like are attending your openings, I’m tempted to think you’re doing it all wrong. You want your audience to be dominated by precisely the kind of Armani-clad arsewipes you thought you were running away from by enrolling in art school.