LILY ALEXANDER: Based upon the historical examples we have discussed, which suggest that a successful art center must have a community of local as well as international artists, strong support from institutions such as museums, a base of collectors and financial support, as well as energetic dealers, sympathetic critics, and celebrated institutes for arts education, if London loses its supremacy as a European center for contemporary art, where do think this center might relocate? Do you think it could be Paris, as has been suggested in the news recently?
DR. VERONIQUE CHAGNON-BURKE: For me it's always interesting to think of London as the center of the art world because it has been the center of finance, and gentrification: a place where the oligarchs chose to settle. London has transformed itself as a city, but has it ever had enough time to nurture its people and its artists? I am not sure about this. What is it that makes London one of the major centers of the global art world? Is it the fact that until last fall the market was so strong there, especially when it came to auction transactions, or rather is it the way London supports its artists and nurtures artistic creation? Which one of the factors we have outlined before is the most important? That is the real question? I feel that to each epoch, one of these factors probably plays a more or less important role in defining the status of an art center.
I think Paris institutionally has always had, and still has even since the reopening of the Palais de Tokyo, a difficult relationship with contemporary art. It has lagged behind other European countries in this regard, and the state hasn't put in as much energy and money as they could have. They do have regional centers for contemporary art in each of the major regional towns throughout France. These organizations have a budget to buy contemporary art, but they do not exclusively buy art made by French artists. I think what they need is to build the commitment of the collectors. While there are signs of improvements, the French government should encourage the participation of private collectors and the private sector (one can think about the success of an institution such as the Fondation Cartier for contemporary art, or wonder what the new Fondation Louis Vuitton will bring to the table) to support contemporary art. Tax and fiscal deductions should be more substantial for people who buy contemporary art. This provides a serious incentive for people to collect and it has worked in the United States.
In this race to become a prominent art center, I think France's advantage is that they have a Minister of Culture with a sizable budget. It's also true that education is a top priority for the French government. So, although the money may not always be spent in the best way, the government knows that one of its primary responsibilities is to support education across the board. But this is not enough, and I think there is a certain desire among the young people, and the young artists, to find new creative ways to support contemporary art beyond what the government has traditionally done. At the moment they feel they have been left a little bit on the side. There has been a lot of discussion about how to remedy this. But especially in a harder economic time, it is a huge plus that France has this broad institutional basis that supports culture as something essential. Those are the positive aspects of Paris as a center for the arts. My problem with this scenario is that if funding first comes from public funds, how is it possible to prevent academism from dominating and to insure that a certain edginess can exist in what could easily be constructed as official art? Like London, Paris is a gentrified city. For instance, there is not a lot of space left for artists to find cheap studios. What London and Paris have in comparison to some cities in the US is that they are smaller geographical areas. So, to compensate for the lack of affordable space artists could settle outside of the city and have a large barn or loft studio. But again, then they are missing the artistic community that is so essential while building a career. Think about Monet leaving for Giverny or Pollock settling in Long Island. Their relationship to the artistic communities of Paris and New York changed as a result of these moves.
LA: What other city in Europe do you see as a possible candidate to replace London?
VCB: Well, there is also another kind of art center, an art center which is more geared to the emulation of an artistic community. Here I am thinking of Berlin. This is a place where there are many lofts and cheap places to live. This sort of place, like New York in the 1960s and 1970s, has a kind of downtown, underground tension and energy. Berlin has reinvented itself more than once, but I was thinking of what it was like when I was younger. Berlin in the 1980s was attractive in part because of that tension between East and West. After that there was a kind of excitement after the fall of the Berlin wall, and lately it has continued to be popular as an art capital in Europe, not only because it is a great city, but also because its relatively cheaper to live there than in other European capitals.
LA: Berlin is somewhat like Los Angeles in this regard?
VCB: Yes. Berlin is much cheaper than Paris for example. And it is less developed, and certainly less gentrified than London. Its geographical position is also of great advantage because with the enlargement of the European Community, Berlin is now at the center of the new Europe. This is bound to facilitate contact between east and west, and increase international exchange.
LA: But, as you mentioned, a base of collectors is necessary for the creation of an art center. One of the problems for Berlin, I believe, is that they don't have that collecting base?
VCB: Berlin has a couple of very specific collectors. But yes, one piece of the puzzle is missing there. It has the cheap rent, the edgy attitude, the capacity for great working spaces, some good galleries, and good art writers. Also, another advantage is that there is money for the arts. As in France and the UK, there is more public money for the arts than there is in this country. But again, it is missing the collectors. I do think it is all these factors which come together to make a thriving art scene, and thus a thriving art center. And I think if one component is missing, then it is going to be more difficult to sustain, because everything is so intertwined. The center has to be in a place where there is capital. One of the reasons artists want to break into the American system is that they can sell their work for more money. The collecting base in the US is much larger, and there is an historical embrace of the contemporary. This started at the end of WW II. The Americans came back victorious, and a new breed of collectors saw in Abstract Expressionism a modernity, energy, and set of values that they could relate to. They embraced this, and they bought it. There was a whole new collecting base among the growing middle-class, who had not suffered because of the war in the same way that the Europeans had. Suddenly they could spend a few hundred dollars on a small de Kooning or Pollock. And that collecting tradition continued with Pop Art. It is now really nicely ingrained.
So unfortunately, the center of capital is often the center for art. And I think that will determine where the next art center will be. But I also think that as we enter a recession, there won't be that same financial or institutional support anymore, so money may become again less relevant to the success of an art center. It may be that the art world will become more like Berlin, based upon a community of artists, and a few critics, and people trying to do alternative things.
LA: Such as exhibitions in alternative spaces or Performance art?
V: Yes, more performance, and more alternative centers. A good example would be to go back to New York City in the1970s and 1980s on the Lower East Side, with places like ABC No Rio (gallery). Communities of artists squatted and took over empty buildings where they would put together their own exhibitions. The recession may shift the relevance of each of the players necessary for a successful art center.
