Chatting with #class Co-Curator Jennifer Dalton about Ethics
View of the chalkboards that covered the walls of the Winkleman Gallery during the #class exhibition. Visitors were welcome to write or draw on the boards. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Dalton)
Last week, the #class exhibition at the Winkleman Gallery closed after a month of functioning as New York’s laboratory for art world gripes, think tank for new ideas, and classroom full of possibilities. Co-curated by Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, the show welcomed a long list of guests to present events, actions, discussions, lectures, and everything in between, for an audience that was both real and virtual (all the events were video streamed live on Ustream, which was also embedded on the exhibition blog).
It felt like half the city’s art world took part in this mediated meeting of the minds. I even contributed a small project that welcomed people to submit ballots filled out with information about who in the art world owes them money (I received dozens of submissions).
After #class started, what already felt like a sprawling project began to feel all-consuming, as you could participate in person or online. Simultaneous conversations on Facebook, Twitter, and some art blogs endlessly chattered about the events and the perceived successes and failures of #class. Yet as the exhibition progressed, I really found myself more and more interested in what Dalton had to say about the project and its evolving accomplishments. Unlike Powhida, Dalton is much more reserved and not as quick to express opinions or challenge people publicly over ideas. She is an accomplished conceptual artist and her work feels coolly objective and measured in its response to the world. I wanted to understand what the significance of #class was for her and asked her to speak to me over email. She agreed.
This online conversation took place throughout the last two weeks of #class and represents some of her evolving ideas about the exhibition.
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Hrag Vartanian: What role do you think ethics should and/or does play in the art world? If any.
Jennifer Dalton: I think ethics should play a role in every area of human activity; the art world is not separate in any meaningful way. I think we should always try to do what is right, honest, helpful and productive, and strive to act in a way that we wish everyone else would act. It is not always achievable, but that’s the goal.
Co-curators William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton as depicted in An Xiao's "Photoglam" series that was taken during the opening night of #class. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
HV: Is that your goal? Either way, do you think it helps you succeed or holds you back?
JD: Yes, it’s my goal. Sometimes I think it helps me succeed and sometimes I think it holds me back. I think it has helped me more than it has hurt me, both because I am willing to work really hard and because I do my best not to make anyone else’s life more difficult. People don’t like to work with you when you make their life difficult. Ed Winkleman’s an exception, bless him.
HV: Now, how does #class fit into the recent debate about ethics in the art world? It seems as though it emerged from a real sense that the art world may have partly lost its way and was starting to have trouble distinguishing what was right and wrong.
JD: In part, the #class project definitely evolved from a feeling that the art world is not governed by a normal sense of right and wrong. Some of our particular bones to pick were that artists cannot count on getting paid for sales by their galleries (many of which are run by people who have no business running a business), that the finances of contemporary museums seem to be forcing them toward inane blockbusters and/or exhibitions of ethically challenged conception, that the most “important” art events have become absurd parodies of spectacles, and that what used to be multiple avenues of artistic “success” have winnowed down into the single definition of conspicuous validation by the art market.
Further inspiration behind #class was also a queasiness that William and I identified in ourselves about participating, even honestly and in good faith, in this strange marketplace. It’s uncomfortable to sell work (or attempt to sell work!) that is priced at nearly your own yearly income. It means that no one in your own circumstances can afford to buy your work, which feels alienating. We don’t know if there is a better way to support art and artists so, among many other things, #class is about trying to figure that out.
