The (He)art of Things

Speaking with my younger friends, I get an overview of current office culture as it has morphed post-pandemic, and the job market in general.  It's a much more welcoming environment than when I first entered the day-gig world in the mid-70's, fresh out of full-time academia, working as many jobs as necessary to get through some graduate courses.  

My first actual job paid $92/week.  Or maybe that was the take-home... I know I used to forego bus-fare and walk to boost my spartan weekly budget.  There was a recession and employment was scarce.  In the end I'd offered myself for no pay to an art gallery where I craved to just 'sit'.  They accepted, and then kindly gave me a weekly check; I was in workplace heaven.  Besides greeting clients (who ranged from Andy Warhol to Edward Albee), one of my tasks was entering auction estimates into the catalogues.  Prices were listed on separate sheets in those days, and nothing but descriptions were on the pages, with occasional illustrations. Auctions were sort of a dealer's market-- a wholesale meeting place for trade.  But writing-in figures-- and studying results-- 'set' things in my head-- value attached to the invaluable. 

The other part of gallery administration was registering new work. Artists delivered paintings (usually by hand-- personally)... there was a face attached to work.  My job was also logging things in-- you measure, you describe-- you make a label for the back, and an index card for the files.  Sometimes we'd photograph something-- a visual record.  But when things were important, there was a photographer named George Roos.  He did all the work for Sotheby's and had a studio nearby.  With a 4x5 camera he'd make a special skilled color transparency that was as close to the original as possible.  One-- sometimes with 2 or 3 copies.  These would be mailed out to a collector or a museum and then returned.  It was a process; if the prospective buyer was interested, they'd come in for a viewing.  In very special cases a work was shipped on approval.  In this event a card was pulled, put into a different drawer, like a library.  We girls would do research and write up extra information on the cards-- provenance history, exhibitions, etc.  We'd contact institutions and try to procure old pertinent catalogues.  Scholarship was integral. 

Most of us in the art world had a common frame of reference.  We'd studied the masters and knew our contemporaries.  There was a limited number of galleries; at lunch I'd stop by other exhibitions; most 'shops' were on the upper east side in those days.  We knew one another and looked forward to shows with mutual anticipation.  Each place had its own POV... its traditions and its emerging 'stable'.  With every opening, we'd nervously anticipate the arrival of Hilton Kramer or Clement Greenberg.  Their opinions were everything; their critique could make or break an artist's sales.  Galleries depended on their favorable reviews and these were honest and rigorous in their approach. 

Art history studies included connoisseurship.  We went into the rooms of museums, into their basements and storage spaces and looked at things-- signatures, details.  Our final exams involved determining authenticity.  We also learned photography, as a tool.  This was archival photography-- the point being to capture the object as closely as possible to its physical reality.  Flaws, discolorations-- all of these things mattered.  If something was reframed, it had been documented in its original state. 

In this current world of altered states-- of digital tricks and ubiquitous images-- it seems almost absurd that the value of art has skyrocketed rather than leveled.  The sheer number of works produced-- the masses of artists on all levels, the reams of galleries... it's overwhelming.  My daily email receives an average of 50 announcements from art fairs, galleries, auction houses.  I browse and peruse endlessly, it seems.  Whereas the rarity of works seemed part of the pursuit in former days, universal visibility now seems the status quo.  Millions of views are logged on these platforms; auctions are publicized and people are paid vast sums to celebrate realized prices.  Images are spread like viruses-- the more views the better. Photography is enhanced and backlit... it's often hard to recognize the actual painting after seeing its more photogenic version online. Things are sized, staged, mocked up on virtual living room walls, as though they are 'worn' by some architectural model. Art itself is viewed as not just commodity but an asset class.  Buying has become a kind of competitive sport. Art criticism is sadly tainted by the fact that many publications are supported by paid advertising.  How can one pan the very source of income and support, look the gift-horse in its eye?  Reviews are tempered; taste-makers can be clique-ish and overfed. 

Presentation is everything; one must lust after these things like the latest Birkin bag... possession is for the highest bidder. It baffles me... how the brand of art becomes more expensive... as the images become cheapened and common.  The exclusivity, the rarity-- the intimacy of old collections-- has been violated.  Middlemen and advisers take huge cuts for simply moving merchandise around. Prices escalate; the art world parties on.  

This week I am working a few extra days at the gallery where I spend many Saturday afternoons.  While I have some kind of relationship with the objects here and their narratives, I find myself completely helpless when faced with the various publicity and social media protocols that are prioritized. I find the complications of the numerous inter-office platforms not just baffling but time-consuming. Notations and remarks are shared, conversations and internal information create a digital vine that has my hands tied and my brain on high anxiety.  Dings and bells on my laptop are perpetual interruptions... staff meetings and procedural updates are constant. One wonders how any work gets done... and yet it does

At home, in my non-air conditioned bohemian cave, I am lucky to have a full house of creativity.  A library of music, of books... a selection of instruments ready and waiting for me, and walls lined with the work of mostly artists I have known-- things I cherish and understand, things I have lusted after, logged in with joy, lingered over during my nightly walks up and down the hallway.  They are exclusive-- unique--  my roommates and family-- my intimates, these things.  They have no instagram presence, no online likes, no followers other than my actual houseguests who are fewer and fewer in number these days.  I am old; some of them are even older, yet they greet me with fresh energy; they inspire me.  They matter. Party on, art world. 

Mad Marchness

On my first day at Princeton, I was asked to sign a copy of the university honor code.  This is an agreement, made with complete solemnity, that (a) as a student I will not cheat or violate the school's ethical educational protocol, and (b) that I will report anyone who does.  So I submitted my document, crossed out the second part, and signed it.  Of course I was called in and questioned, and I explained my thinking-- that if everyone 'oathed' to be honest, how could there be anything to report?

The point being-- there is a sort of assumption that the code will inevitably be broken, but to acknowledge this seemed a denial of the version of academic innocence that presumably qualified us for entrance in the first place.  The Deans-that-were thought I was being rebellious and argumentative; on the contrary, I was being honest and clear.  In the end they allowed me to sign off on the first clause, and delete the second-- an exception, in good faith, because they could see I was clearly committed to an education process.  In retrospect, they had to allow me my innocent belief that the academic world was built on a solid ethical contract and that we were there to learn.  Why would I think otherwise?

Granted, my first week of class I was terrified that my fellow students would realize I was under qualified.  Sure, I was a good student-- mostly because I loved to read-- but I'd come from a public school; my parents had never attended college, and my Mom's reading list consisted of Ladies' magazines and local newspaper stories.  She was certainly not stupid, but she used to read the spines of my library books as though they were in another language.  My roommates were from Boarding Schools... they'd had sophisticated specialized classes and some had had tutors.  I was naive and thought this some British system of advanced one-on-one teaching.

I survived... actually graduated with highest honors and won some awards and scholarships.  Yes, my Mom put the Ivy League stickers on her car and 'wore' my alma mater with some pride.  Both parents never forgave my foregoing the Harvard Law scholarship and depriving them of bragging rights.  But my life was my own;  the career choices that horrified them suited me.  Most of all I am uber-grateful to Princeton not for the guaranteed access to a certain society, but for the opportunity of learning.  I am intellectually rich and gained a sense of context... this is the world, this was the world... I know how to ask questions and where to go for answers.  I have an appetite for information, for art-- to understand, to look, to listen, to have an opinion.  I paid very little, other than work-study assignments.  Is this not education?

For many years, maybe as a kind of payback, I've interviewed prospective freshmen for Princeton.  It is volunteer work and my students are nearly all from the outer boroughs, so I do not overlap with neighbors and acquaintances.  I've watched the boroughs become more and more gentrified over the past decades.  My students in the 90's had rarely been to Manhattan; now some of them are world travelers-- but most are low and middle class people, and many are recent immigrants.  Their parents have not been to college, and they all need financial aid.  Some of them work-- even full time, at places like Wendy's, after school and weekends.  One of them this year cared for a blind father.   They are eager and timid but all of them seem to have this faith in themselves-- this belief.  They are satisfied with their performance-- even proud.  It touches me-- their young ambition, their dreams.

Once in a while I am assigned a privileged student-- from a city private school who has been prepped for the interview-- who is well traveled and has an iPhone.  They often come in winter without a coat--- they are driven to the meeting and have a bit of swagger.  They reel off their accomplishments and social service hours with professionalism, their global sophistication and their intentions.  Often they are legacy children; many generations have attended before them and they are nearly certain they will be accepted. They have had lessons and gone to specialty camps.  One of them last year had his own sailboat and competed in some junior version of the America's cup.

I have grappled many times with the admissions committee-- how can you compare these prepped and college-ready kids to the boy I interviewed in January from Kashmir-- who had sat in a public library in Queens day after day trying to absorb the new language, looking at Chemistry texts with familiar formulae?  Or the homeless girl who apologized for not having a shower... who slept in an abandoned basement, borrowed pens from her teachers, wrote in discarded notebooks and was reading Murakami?  They assure me these children will get every equal opportunity, and our assessments are being studied so they can properly 'read' the potential of unusual students and 'weight' achievement accordingly.  I believe them.  I believe when they tell me they can spot a professionally written essay in the first sentence.  They are good at what they do.

My own son has a great brain-- the city prep schools fought over him... but as a teenager, he lost interest in school.  I tried-- and let him fail, while we watched much less gifted kids achieve comparable scores and competitive grades with many thousands of tutoring hours.  I will admit he made some decent pocket money writing papers for his classmates in middle school.  It was a kind of job and at least he was doing someone's homework, if not his own.  I never ratted-- but along these lines, I've noticed wealthy families feel they are delinquent if they do not spend large sums on outside SAT tutoring and college advising services.  None of these are indicated on the applications.  Is this fair?  Not really.  My son has complained to me recently that many of his most successful friends have start-ups funded by their affluent families.  I can only agree.  Is this fair?  Maybe.  This is life.  Really beautiful girls are more readily acknowledged...  tall men are generally better equipped for basketball teams.

We live in a world fueled by money.  Our presidents have cheated.  Our star athletes have cheated.  Art dealers and museum curators cheat and lie.  Singers lip-synch; recording artists use machines and auto-tune.  They put their names on music written by others-- they steal and adapt things written by lesser known artists.  Not so many are punished; success seems often to whitewash the spotlight.  I suppose what bothers us most about the recent college entrance scandals is the villainous parent scenario.  It scars the institution of the American family, not that it hasn't been exposed as an often dysfunctional body with a perfect face.  It shows both a level of personal sacrifice, and a complete disconnect with the 10 Commandments of parenting.

Am I surprised?  Maybe at the particular scheme, but not at the modus operandi or the intention.  In fact it goes far deeper than this, which seemed almost innocent compared to the scandalous manipulations of our political and religious leaders.   And we have known for years about NCAA schemes.  I used to be warned never to buy even a coffee for one of my interviewees in the event he or she is an athlete and this could be construed as bribery.  So this, I thought, is where they get the money they use to pay off.  On the brink of the basketball tournament, the amount of media attention paid to these two actresses is a little suspect.  Especially one who stood for a kind of American innocence.  If these were just non-celebrity wealthy people would the news give them this much time?  Another instance of inequitable receipts.

In the end, the parents seem less guilty to me than those who received the money and offered the schemes in the first place-- who prey on the insecurities and vicarious ambition of the monied.   As do the overpaid college advisors who claim to offer access to the front of the line, who enable and pad applications.  Whatever happened to the level playing field?  Failure as a learning tool?  As a reality check?  Every brilliant athlete loses games, fouls out.  In the end we can't stand in for our children or hire stuntmen to take their pain.  Surrogate parents only go so far, and surrogate students do no service whatsoever but for themselves.  We might do better addressing the students, without their family-crutches... without their tutors and coaches and advisors.  In their unadulterated innocence, as it exists today, if we can peel back the digital masks and uncover some human shine.