Let’s forget for a moment that art objects are bought and sold. They seem to be a form of communication. Now communication has two perspectives. What did the artist intend, what is is trying to say to other people? The other side is what do they hear or see based on the expectations they have in the context of their culture and personal lives? If I were an artist I’d be concerned about what the others see or hear because it relates to what I am communicating. On the other hand, if a “consumer” of art is serious he will try to see things from the artist’s point of view. Otherwise, how will the “consumer” ever gain insights he doesn’t already have?

So the whole thing is a process.

Now believe it or not: I have come to this from my thinking about economics. There is a school of economics concerned about these things (“Austrian” economics).

What you must also bear in mind is that the open market in which contemporary art is being bought and sold is one of the most highly specialized hyper-specific subcategories of the economy at large. Although the viewer may not like the art and should take more time to consider it, from an economic point of view, economists and artists are still very much alike in their intellectual separation from the majority of the population.

I will share this interview published in Modern Painters, Nov 2009, between Michael Gabellini and artist Roni Horn:
“[Gabellini] … What do you expect of the viewer ..? / [Horn:] “I don’t have a list of expectations for the viewer.” (p. 78)

In the case of art, everyone has seen pictures or statues they consider beautiful or ugly. So everyone knows what art is. But as the Marcel Duchamp entry suggests you must know something about what the artist is trying to do or communicate. This may not be obvious.

But there is still a bottom line with art that doesn’t exist in the case of economics. A person may simply not like the art. But perhaps he should wait to figure out what the artist means by what he does — or something like that.

Regan and Letcher’s work, albeit self-identified as ‘unfinished’ could hardly qualify as testing the boundaries of what art is and is not. They collaborated together to make an immersive installation out of hundreds, if not thousands of digital prints meticulously arranged throughout the space. This practice fits very squarely into any functional definition of art (and even fits into the well-established prescribed subcategories of drawing and installation).

The conceptually challenging piece about Famous Accountants most recent show is their lack of focus on sales (or even the possibility of sales — did anyone see a price list?)

Kevin is right in saying, “Chelsea is full of finished work already.” Chelsea constructs an entirely mediated context to make the viewer think the work is a valuable commodity in the marketplace (i.e., one small painting hangs on an enormous white wall in a space that costs $20,000 a month).

The whole point of FA is that they are not interested in that mediation; they present the work as a sketchbook, to quote myself, “experimental, provisional, and ephemeral.” Letcher and Regan might actually represent a functional position of artists at this current art historical and economic moment because of their self-sufficiency; they both have professional careers, and maintain an exciting art practice in addition to that. This frees them up to take risks like their most recent show, 23.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readymades_of_Marcel_Duchamp

This is really along the lines that anything can be art. Well, then what’s the point of using the word “art”? What does it distinguish? I realize the boundaries are broad and ever changing. But I don’t mind if an artist freezes his work in time by finishing it. If fact, I’d rather he did that before showing it.