THEN AND NOW
561
respectable galleries and museums and are taken very seriously by the art
public, art critics, collectors, and maybe most damagingly of all, by them–
selves. The young artist who feels that every move he makes is being watched
by critics and collectors , by his peers and the public, not unnaturally may
come to have a vested interest in maintaining his success . One painter I
know-one who survived his youthful success and is now working better than
ever-said to me one day, rather plaintively, "It was like growing up in
public ." There is value in long years of obscurity, if one doesn't go insane or
become suicidal, in that, simply because nobody is looking , the habit of
fooling around and trying things out gets ingrained. This seems to be true for
painters and sculptors (with some exceptions) in a way that it isn 't for poets ,
composers, mathematicians, or chess masters .
It's hard enough to take risks if you feel you have something to lose. And
it's that much harder
if
you have something to lose at about the same time
you 've begun to shave. I don't think it occurred to serious young artists of my
generation
(I
am fifty-three years old now) that money and fame would be
there at the very outset of our careers . At least I myself never thought it . It
simpiy wasn ' t a part of the reality of my twenties, thirties , or early forties .
There are , ofcourse, other differences between then and now . There is an
increasing emphasis on the tying of art and the marketplace to social causes,
politics , certain groups or blocs of people. To my mind art is a democratic
situation; anyone can look at it or make it , and everyone should have his or
her chance to be seen, if the work has anything to it. That's just it. Quality
must reI11ain the paramount concern .The quality of the art and the quality of
the viewer.
BARBARA ROSE
The main differences are basically in the area of: (a) the loss of a
sense of community or united purpose among artists ; (b) the splintering of
the art public into contending factions; (c) the decline of criticism as part of
a general mass revolt against authority and "elitism" ; and (d) the increasing
commercialization of art discourse, exemplified in the change in editorial
policies of art magazines like
Art News, Art in Amen·ca,
and
Art/arum,
which are seeking a public larger than the specialized audience of working
professionals. Originally these magazines were subsidized; now they are
trying to operate in the black. Critics are still miserably underpaid, and the
bulk of the writing is done by graduate students on a stipend from home . The
resulting decline of critical writing is unmistakeable. Art writing is also being
affected by late capitalist mergers , by means of which Harry N. Abrams has
been absorbed by the
Los Angeles Times-Mi"or
and Praeger Publishers has
