Seven Days in the Art World
This was an OK book. I read it mostly because I am part of the ownership group for EntryThingy, and I want to be surrounded by art, art history, and the business of art so I can better understand our customers and users.
Two recurring themes that stuck out to me:
- There are levels to this game.
- There is a profound lack of introspection in art.
§1. There Are Levels to This Game
A winning streak is hard to forget, especially if it takes place over years. My basketball team was one of the best for our age group in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. We dominated. It was perhaps my favorite time as an athlete, even though I was so young it should hardly count.
We would win the game at tipoff. Once tipped to my teammate, we had a couple of plays to generate points within seconds of the game starting. While the other teams wished to “ease in” and start playing, we just punched them in the face right away.
As soon as we scored, we ran a full-court press. Trapping, everywhere. On the slight chance you were able to get the ball past half-court, we would double-team you, trap you, and force you into chucking the ball up.
If fate were to have it, sometimes you could score. Then what would we do? Get the ball out of the net and rush it up court as fast as we could, generating more points and starting the “48 minutes of hell” all over again.
The first loss we took was against a local state team in Cumberland, Rhode Island. We had beaten them plenty of times before. We knew their players, and we could steamroll them. The one player we knew to watch out for was named Tyler.
No matter what we did, he lit us up. Double-team? Scored. Triple-team? Scored. We tried different matchups, different defenses; we threw all we had at him. And he still lit. Us. Up.
It reminded me that no matter how good our team was, there was always a level higher than us. We would play above our age group a few times, but at the end of the day, we were nothing. We were a local team. Despite our team success, none of our players would go on to play at a Division 1 or Division 2 school. What we didn’t understand at the time, and what I can say now, is that there are levels to this game. Tyler now plays for the New York Knicks. Last year, he averaged 2.0 points in 7.2 minutes.
Even when you are in the NBA, there are levels to this.
And art is no different.
This book did a great job exploring the top of the art world. The biggest galleries, the most famous current artists, the art dealers who shuttle millions of dollars of paintings to billionaires. But here’s the thing: that’s not our world. And frankly, it’s not the world we want to be in. Those "big boys" are way less fun.
Our world is the world of independent artists, community art centers, and regional galleries. This book's focus on Art Basel is a great lens for understanding the stratosphere, but I keep finding myself itching to go back to my email to ask our users to sit in on their sessions, lest I forget that most of our shows’ prize money is backed by one comma, and not two.
We don't want to be a "lite" tool for the mega-galleries. We want to be the best-in-class, dominant tool for our level. And our "48 minutes of hell" will start this month, when we release our new version of the platform.
§2. Lack of Introspection
A prevailing question in this book, one that punctured a through-line through every interview and every observation, was: “What is art?”
Of course, this Rorschach test is more useful for understanding the person who received this query than it is for conducting a thorough philosophical investigation into the nature of art. And boy, were there a ton of answers.
But truthfully, most people involved in the art world didn’t really care! Most of them would brush aside the question, giving a cursory or curt answer, and then go back to doing what they were doing. They didn’t spend much time introspecting on what they were up to or why they were doing art.
Many times, the artists would not understand their art until after it was done. They rarely went into something thinking about what it is and why that is the case. It was far more common for them to try explaining it, and only then garble together a couple of what could be considered sentences, and produce a barely coherent answer. And some artists would even reject the opportunity to explain themselves. Maybe it was because they were “anti-establishment” (ha!), or perhaps it was due to them not really knowing what they were doing.
Hitting the limelight can be scary for so many artists. Once you reach a certain level, there become more “rules” you have to adhere to. You have to enter in this way. You will get an invitation to this party, and it would be uncouth not to go. This sort of thing, you would be surprised, was a social handicap to many artists. Most would listen, happy to go along with the fame and magazines. When you are in this whirlwind, should you be taking the time to introspect?
As most artists and people in this world were busy creating, it was the writer, and sometimes the ignorant reader, who would take time away from the canvas to ask: “What is art?”
If our users (artists and gallery directors) are fundamentally doers , they need a tool built for doing.
We have heard users talk about how they need an “EntryThingy specialist” because the tool is so hard to use. That is unacceptable.
Our job isn't to make our users introspect; our job is to facilitate action , not administration. An artist shouldn't have to be a data-entry clerk to submit to a show. A gallery director shouldn't need to be an IT manager to run one. We want to build a tool that you don't dread using.