Are art trends moving towards painting again?
With some of the biggest blockbuster exhibitions in recent months focused on painted art work, Alex Hopkins discusses whether painting is where we are headed in 2012...
Fluctuating markets are the one constant in today’s world and no area of contemporary life seems to be safe – not even the notoriously flashy art scene. This year the organisers behind the annual Frieze Art Fair in London announced that they are planning a 2012 fair focussing on the old masters and art before 2000. Does this mean that the glossy bling that has dominated the market for years is going to end up as dead as one of Damien Hirst’s sharks?
While Frieze have said that their old masters fair will initiate a dialogue between past work and future creative endeavours, it also comes at a time when there has been a rekindled appetite for painting in the art world. The market for modern art seems to be shrinking, leading critics and industry insiders to suggest that people have simply had enough of the new stuff.
We only have to look at London’s major galleries to see the evidence. The National Gallery’s Leonardo exhibition has attracted visitors in their droves, even to the point that the £16 tickets are now being sold for up to £400 on eBay and Viagogo. Likewise, Gerhard Richter wowed Londoners with his show at Tate Modern, whilst the ICA had a major Pablo Bronstein exhibition running until January. Then, of course, we have had the recent Tintoretto fest at the Venice Biennale, not to mention the omnipresent frescoes seen at The Turner Prize in recent years. There’s no question about it: the current demand for painting is unprecedented.
Yet is this really as surprising as it seems and what does the increased popularity of this kind of work suggest? Maybe the key is in its evocation of nostalgia for a simpler, less materialistic past. Given that so much contemporary, novelty art is now owned by the hedge fund managers responsible for our current economic woes this would be unsurprising.
Perhaps what we are really seeing is a backlash against all of the shallow gaudy light-box exhibitions or incomprehensible blank canvasses that sell for millions to Russian oligarchs. Painting conjures up the spectre of a more romantic and comforting era – something the public desperately wants a part of as record numbers of people struggle to find employment.
Putting it bluntly, the general public are saying that they have had enough of art being used purely for property speculation. They want to reclaim what is theirs. Look at the success of The Art Fund. This initiative gives ordinary people an opportunity to donate money and thereby take art out of the hands of the capitalist movers and shakers and give it back to everyone to enjoy. In return investors from all walks of life can be given free access to over 200 of our top museums and galleries. It’s an ethical, win-win situation.
Like Frieze’s plans this is a reaction to what the public really want – an opportunity to hark back to the past and secure something more meaningful, and spiritual, than the merely fiscal investment in art that those with the money have craved. The moment has come for the art world to reassess its priorities. It’s not that modern art is dead, but rather that it’s time to put it back in context by illuminating its relationship with the past and, more importantly, changing the ways that we can access it. The positive shift is going to be towards curatorial development and a systematic campaign to help our museum’s acquire and share more art. Judging by the queues snaking around The National Gallery in November this kind of re-assessment is both welcome and long overdue.
