The Financial Times has run an edited version of Harald Falckenberg’s essay for Art Basel 44. The art market overview has gotten a strong response and is well worth reading whether you agree with Falckeberg or not. Here are just two excerpts worth pondering:
At the same time, the growth of now almost 100 biennials and triennials around the world saw the orientation and organisation of “critical art”, with its often counter-cultural impulses, increasingly defined by a network of international curators, so significant that they are accused of “curatism”: a group of impresarios who use artists as living arguments and evidence of their own ideas. […]
Personally I’m neither a believer nor a pessimist. I track the evolution of this society and its art. While others might think that evolution always leads to something better, to me there is no morality in the process. Just change. The end of art has repeatedly been announced. But there is no end: art is always open to new developments. Every serious collection has to face this challenge.
The art world we deserve? (Financial Times)