The center of the art world?
November 2nd, 2009
Glenn Ligon
The New York art world is a shell of its former self. And I think that’s because New York is such a hard city to live in, that it is really difficult to imagine advising a young artist to move here. And I think, in a way, that has been good for the art world because it has decentered New York. New York is no longer the center of the art world. I think the NY art world is Berlin.
— Glenn Ligon, Interview Magazine, October 2009
Posted in: Guest Blog, New York City, Reblog
3 Responses to “The center of the art world?”
U know it’s one thing to remain a smug provincial and trash the ny art world as a sour grapes event, it’s quite another to start noticing that in terms of the painting tradition, that we are in a holding pattern such that some might start developing a decline theory. Like music at the end of the 20th C., we have had an enormous bouquet of stars like Dylan/James Brown/Supremes/Hendrix/Beatles/Stones/Zeppelin etc., who exhausted the possibilities. It almost seems like in 2-D we have too many artists still getting over the 20th C., as if in every work they have to pay allegiance to Pop, Minimalism, Photo realism, etc., such that works start to look derivative. The conversation will pick up again, eventually, but right now Jeff Koons seems like eating ice cream, sweet but no nutrition.
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