The record-breaking auctioning of Francis
Bacon’s pathetic triptych had to stir yet another virtual tempest in a teacup,
that’s for sure. And I thought that had already passed, as so many others have.
But Jed Perl, who writes about art for the web site of The New Republic (and perhaps for the magazine, too – I haven’t
touched it in maybe 15 years), still wants to fight the windmills. He has a new
piece posted whose title cries out in large blue bold font: “The Super-Rich Are Ruining Art
for the Rest of Us.”
On the face of it, Perl’s j’accuse makes a lot of sense. This part, in particular, is a gem:
“Among the most revolting sports favored by the
super-rich is the devaluation of any reasonable sense of value. At Christie’s and Sotheby’s some of
the wealthiest members of society, the people who can’t believe in anything
until it’s been monetized, are trashing one of our last hopes for
transcendence.” Perl’s column, though,
badly needs some balance. As we all know, for all their bad taste and inability
to feel embarrassment, the newly superrich also create a significant proportion
of the jobs around the world. Come to think of it, it’s the computer networks
they have financed and put in place that allow megacorporations to integrate their
global operations – making possible all the outsourcing, and the low, low
prices at discount and fast fashion stores in the post-industrial world. So, in
a way, the whole global economy rests on their sometimes slender shoulders.
I also need to fault Perl for an
earlier slightly incoherent stab at Bacon. When news of the recent record-setting
sale broke out, The New Republic
posted a Perl piece from 2009 in which he alleged the artist’s “paintings” were
calculatedly vacuous. This seems to make sense, too – though it was perhaps
posted in a premeditated attempt to rouse controversy and invite clicks and
comments. But Perl’s old article was published under the following caption,
again in big bold blue letters: “$142 Million for a Francis Bacon Painting? Someone Overpaid.” This title seems to imply
that there is still some non-monetary hierarchy of values which can help us
determine the true worth of an object of “art.” This leaves me scratching my
head – in which age does Perl live, really?
By the way, The Guardian – which still bills itself as a champion of British and
global the non-rich (they still publish a regular section on “development” and
court anti-establishment viewpoints) – greeted Bacon’s triumph with an article
claiming “the
1969 work is worth every cent of the record-breaking $142m it fetched at
auction in New York.” This is what I call business-friendly journalistic acumen – and Perl
should perhaps cut his existential losses and hug the Zeitgeist, too.
Again and again,
I am reminded of that famous quote by Leonardo, who must have sensed it all
coming: “Art lives on constraint, and dies on freedom.” I am just not sure we can still relate to what he perhaps
meant to say.
