Went to some galleries yesterday. Saw some shows I really liked and of course some that were merely baffling. Luhring Augustine had a nice show of artist-designed chess boards — something that’s been done for centuries and all too often the pieces end up being the artist’s signature style in miniature. These are that, but wackier and a bit larger than what I expected. Both Maira Kalman and Tracy Emin have done embroidered text pieces (in separate galleries) — and to my mind they are both pretty hilarious and moving.
But the biggest surprise was at the blue chip Andrea Rosen and Gagosian galleries. They both have wonderful big sprawling museum-type shows (Mike Kelly and a collection of art + text) but have added a new element to the Chelsea gallery scene — black guards.
The majority of visitors to all these galleries are white, so the fact that the guards are mostly black is significant. Usually a gallery has an attractive young woman (in a black dress) manning the entrance desk and maybe a young intern or art student in another room, often reading a book or typing aimlessly at a keyboard and ignoring visitors. Either of these can be expected to answer knowledgably questions about the current show — sometimes dismissively and sometimes charmingly, depending. These new guards are different — they are in suits and ties, they wander to and fro and have no activities to keep them occupied other than watching the visitors while pretending to not watch the visitors. My guess is that they don’t know or care too much about the shows — that they know this is the type of stuff upscale white folks swoon over, and it’s worth a lot of money, but it sure seems of dubious worth on the surface. Try selling this Mike Kelly log somewhere else? Not likely. To be honest I felt like a stupid white man some of the time in this context. Not altogether pleasant. But powerful.
OK, on the face of it, this is a totally unfounded and racist assumption — and to be truly honest there are still racist assumptions and traps I fall into. I really can't justifty this assumption except by saying that the guards didn't LOOK like they were very interested in the artwork, and not because of what their heritage is, which would be silly.
The presence of these uniformed bodies slowly gliding here and there cannot be separated from the experience of the shows. I would go so far as to say their presence is a big part of these shows, like it or not. Not a part of the shows anticipated by the artists, I suspect, but in some ways more powerful and resonant than the work on display. Whoops.
It makes the galleries seem like a cross between an uptown museum and Tiffany’s. We’re used to museum guards protecting stuff from inquisitive children and thieves — but none of the stuff on exhibit in museums is for sale. In Tiffany’s we accept the guards because everyone knows that gold and diamonds are like currency — their value is apparent to anyone, anywhere, anytime — unlike the primitive scribbles and smears of contemporary art. Tiffany’s is also not expected to be a forum for ideas — which museums present themselves as. Galleries seek to partake of a portion of that aura and luster while still being basically a shop. The museum helps bestow credence and worth on the items in these shops — and one hand washes the other. But now we've got a situation that is neither one nor the other.
My suspicion is that the decision to have these guards as part of these shows was accidental. As both of these shows are sprawling and filled with many many very valuable items, some displayed behind dividing walls and within easy reach, the insurance companies who cover the galleries must have said, “we cannot insure you for these works unless you have guards, as well as your usual security cameras. No, sorry, art students and interns will not do, you must hire the guards from a registered security agency.” And this is the result, an unwitting collaboration between the artists and the insurance companies that creates a strange unsettling feeling in the visitor that a lot of art strives for but rarely achieves.
