I. Memory.

“What is that hanging on the wall?”

“Perhaps, in those catalogs you read, the most
upward investment.”

Genius, like a penchant for fame: Pastiche
glues ground to its surface, the stratagem.

Foreground, then, for pastiche.
                                 (“I only quote what I have learned,” he said.)

Chimera: a hollowing
out of the past.  [And timely.]

Whatever it does, it is for the artist
to be remembered. What is the index?

                                 (“If the audience is what frames us, will art in the end have
                                 been a job, catering to expectations?” he said.)

The market swallows this brand of pastiche, and remembers
the object – materialized, stylized, appraised –
on the wall: contemplation.

But for legitimacy, you have discourse, a white box
within the mechanism: a concrete illusion
of substance …

        [“The art market is illiquid compared to equities, having a lower turnover rate,
        thereby contributing to the opaque nature of art prices, which can be vulnerable
        in some sectors due to subjective pricing and faddish trends. Art works normally
        produce no income streams, they are unregulated and difficult to compare.” 1]

… or maybe nothing. Memory?
Currency adds. Business subtracts.

                                 (“All creation takes for an audience a constructed
                                 space, bounded by the current market.  Float
                                 the frame, offer up to the market
                                 a new familiarity: shattered plates, wood,
                                 oil and bondo,” he said.)

I don’t remember this, and no one told me. (The moment passed, dematerialized.)
“Not precisely,” he said.


I. History.

There is value in oil
and grandiloquence.  Reverse time

or reveal time: Pastiche demands
a diversified investment. [Genius never relents.]

Give it a jump, shuffle the targets.

                                 (“Rational articulation cannot be
                                 all inclusive,” he said, “I understand the past
                                 according to the reality of the past
                                 constructed in my head.”)                                                                 Unconsciously

or consciously, like the grease
that oils a market, pastiche can only speculate
within a third-person frame.
Which is to say

the posture of success is the success
of posture is a frame
which – in the scheme of things –
is monumental ...

[the return of PAINTING] unmentionable
                                                                  [“…was interpreted as ‘a sign of general regression’ and as ‘the product
                                                                   of a consciousness that fails to perceive the historical determination
                                                                   of its own condition.’” 2]
[aesthetic withdrawal]

… to a point.

    [“In addition, transaction costs, due to agents, often essential for securing the best deal, can be as much
     as 25% and may wipe out profits in the short term. One should also budget for negative income: storage
     and insurance. This can be recouped by renting out to museums, corporations and galleries.” 3]

If the quotation is inherently meaningful to the context
of its own creation [and time], the absence of context
[and time] is not meaningless.

“It is convenient,” he said.


I. Discourse.

Pastiche is understood
to be expressively
indecipherable.
                                 (“Oil and antlers on wood,” he said, “Ayatollah.”)

But what is creation but the perceptible
process of an object that produces
itself in perception.

What perceives, shapes
in our minds
through a discourse …
              [5 : a mode of organizing knowledge, ideas, or experience that is rooted in language
              and its concrete contexts (as history or institutions) « critical discourse » 4]

… of value.

Art work can be purchased, but discourse
is more complicated.

FLASH

in the brain pan: you think
you are creating

                                                      [“…productive tension between the exigency of truth to materials and the exigency of truth to reality …” 5]

what the market will bear.

Which is to say “value”
              [7 : something (as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable  « sought
              material values instead of human values — W. H. Jones ». 6]

or what the discourse will bare.

                                 (The market sips from a cold glass of opticality, like a connoisseur,
                                 gauging its vintage, considering a future return.)
   
“Tension,” he said, “is selective.”


I. Market.

Pastiche tempts confusion.
In itself, this is sardonic
confusion
as opposed to subversive
confusion.

    [“Taxation benefit: For those seeking capital gains rather than income. This is of best
    advantage in a corporate environment because art can be written-off
    over time as an expense.” 7]

We are confused. Pastiche

is both purchased and undone
by the market. So the glory
and reversal of the canvass increases.

Now, what shall we purchase: Memory,
History, Discourse, Quotations,

                                 (“I should reference a savior with breasts, a way of life,
                                  and dishes,” he said, “broken dishes.”)

or the New?
             [2 b : being other than the former or old  « a steady flow of new money » 8]

“And if subversion were only the gap
       between things created
       and things written? One
       and the same abyss
       would then separate man
       from man and book
       from book.” 9

Or from creation: creation.

    [“Social status, Corporate Identity and Brand Management: Through self
    differentiation, this function has served acquirers for thousands of years ...” 10]

“Capiche,” he said.


II. End notes

    1 Tracy Frost, “Motivations to invest in art …” Art2Bank: The Art of Patronage and Investment, 21 January 2008,     <http://art2bank.com/art_investment_market/motivations/motivations-to-invest-in-art.php>

    2 Jason Gaiger, “Post-conceptual painting: Gerhard Richter’s extended leave-taking,” Themes in Contemporary Art,
    Ed. Gill Perry and Paul Wood, New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press, 2004, 92.

    3 Frost.

    4 “Discourse,” Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, Ver. 3.0, 2003.

    5 Gaiger, 90.

    6 “Value,” Merriam-Webster.
   
    7 Frost.

    8 “New,” Merriam-Webster.

    9 Edmond Jabès, The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion, 1982, Trans. Rosmarie Waldrop, Stanford,
    Stanford Univ. Press, 1996, 26. (Much of the phrasing in the present poem has been superficially modeled
    on the language devices of Jabès and Waldrop. This direct quotation, however, has been reformatted.)

    10 Frost.

02/25/2009

Posted on 02/25/2009
Copyright © 2024 Jim Benz