Art Cologne 2023

Ok, that was the nice picture. Next: rant incoming. Warnings:

1. it’s long
2. I tend not to do these online, but perhaps I’ve been inspired after reading a few of Ludicity’s blog posts on the IT world. It seems it’s good to let it rip sometimes, even if I don’t have their online anonymity. So here’s fair warning: stop reading if you’re not into diversity and can’t handle me ranting about what amounts to gatekeeping and institutional/systematic racism.

but :

if I don’t do it, perhaps nobody will?!?

I have no skin in the games the art world plays, I’m just an observer and spare-time artist/illustrator, and I’m white. So for once I can use my privileged position to say what others may want to say, but perhaps can’t if they want to build a career in art after observing what I saw. Here we go!

Who’s it for?

What the heck, people? Have you looked the world and its people recently, and in particular twenty-first Europe? And have you thought about how it’s represented in and through art? If yes, can you explain to me why the visitors, art gallery folks, and the artists on display for ninety percent (and I am being effing generous!) look like a replica of a 500 shades of white paint catalogue? I know I’m one of those printer paper people myself (shade: library white) but blimey! I’m not sure when I’ve recently seen this large a collection of flour fleas in real life, considering I don’t attend anything Flemish nationalist. I think I can count the amount of Black folks I saw there on one hand. Two if I am being generous again. 

I know skin colour of attendees isn’t everything, but the art on display was not particularly diverse either. I know I’m spoiled: I lived close to New York City for a good while, and “they do diversity differently there”. I visited the 2022 Biennale from the Whitney and I was floored by what I saw. Really hard stuff that made me think about the planet, about the fragile moments of peace, the many moments of war and inequality, the anxieties of migrants in a foreign country, the joys of being alive, the strangeness of being alive in a weird universe,… The art itself was sometimes cute, sometimes humourous, some of it I didn’t get until I read the info, but all of it creative enough and technically accomplished that even if I had come up with myself, I couldn’t have executed it that way. 

What I saw in Cologne left me underwhelmed, by and large. Yes, there was cute, and well-executed, and technically accomplished art. But I am not sure what much of it was supposed to tell me that I haven’t already seen or heard. Nicely executed blocks of oil there, sure. Oooh, nice tesselations. Hm, ok, neat colour combo that I’d like in my dining room. Oh hang on…. I’m in the pre-contemporary section. I like the OLD stuff?? Yeah, I’m a dinosaur. Ok, this explains why a lot of these things are the size of a postcard, framed, and cost and arm and a leg (of an original Louis XIV furniture set at least), because they’re collectors’ items for an artist whose first choice stuff is in the museums/private collections already and not really for sale anymore. So we’re fortunate somebody has gone through their workshop and rescued their scrapbooks, first drafts and thumbnails for every idea they every put to paper with a crayon, stick of charcoal or dry brush. I didn’t quite see anything on the back of an envelope but I swear it’s only a matter of time before somebody comes up with the luminous idea that we need to spend more money on a nicely framed set of postage stamp-sized doodles on the back of an envelop by a famous dead white guy so somebody with more money than sense can say during that expensive dinner that costs more than the GDP of the ten poorest countries on earth combined, after one too many libations with an expensive chateau migraine they didn’t let  properly breathe, that they own an original by [fill out your favourite dead white male artist].

The art is nice and cute (I liked those cows on that postcard, but they were too expensive for the size tbh, and the big blue oval thing wouldn’t fit on the wall even if I had €62,000 going spare. It was a steal at that price, I must admit) but clearly I’m not where the action, where the NOW is at.

I go upstairs to the contemporary section. Aha! This is where it should be happening! Except, I can assure you that it isn’t. I know this is the oldest art fair in the world. And I know that for many old things, it is difficult to change. But babies! Europe has had Black people present here since just about forever: check out the Romans, and have you got any idea how diverse we were in the Middle Ages? So no need to worry that you’re doing something new, you’re just going back to your roots with diversity if you just open up a bit more to a wider spectrum of pixels on the skin colour cards, mkay? I’m pretty sure there are more artists of non-white, non-European background that produce top work than were on show. Don’t tell me it’s because buyers don’t want them. I’m sure you haven’t tried hard enough. It’s about time for a change: show them something new, tell them it’s all the rage up in NYC or LA, and watch them want it. I’m sure it works something like that: make them want it, sell it, sell more. White artists needn’t worry: the table is not only big enough, it’s expandable and we can create extra space for more folks to fit around and get a piece of the extra pies that are coming out of the oven. (How many metaphors shall I mix in here?)

But seriously: Where are the artists among the refugees that came from Syria? Why are they not represented? If we need to stay with Europe-based artists, I’m sure refugees from Africa do interesting art I’d like to see…. About three galleries came from Seoul (or were one location of multiple), but one of them did not show Korean artists – to the point that I double checked I was actually at the right location. Aren’t there exciting Korean artists to bring to the European buyers? My word, there are! I saw them 20 years ago when I studied there for a year, and the country hasn’t magically or mysteriously stopped producing them. Just throw a rock over your shoulder and you’ll hit one, or somebody who knows one. Try it! (Use a small rock, maybe, not encouraging you to injure people). Look, I’ve got you a little list to get you started: art galleries in Seoul. There was a big Ai Weiwei stand right outside entry to the actual fair, but not much from China IIRC. Hm… interesting. I know there are interesting Chinese contemporary artists out there doing amazing stuff that earns them the label of dissident, but maybe galleries don’t want to court controversy with politics? Even if they want to avoid art that is overtly political, there is just a freshness to showing artists from other continents, as I found out on the few occasions I did find it. Proper “frisson running up the spine” moments.

It seems Australian Aboriginal Art has arived: that was the one type that was clearly present in a few galleries, and not only from Oz. It was a breath of fresh air to look at. Two other great moments that stood out were the Shanghai/Hongkong based gallery Pearl Lam, where I immediately spotted a different vibe. Not because of Chinese work, but because they brought artists of African origin. One of them a young lady born well after me who paints with such a vibrant pallet, I wish I had half her wisdom in understanding colour (Check out Deborah Segun), and it exuded a hopefulness that brings a different story we sorely need today. Another was the sole African gallery I found (Whatiftheworld, Capetown), where again there just was a different vibe – even if the artist that drew me in was white (I couldn’t figure it out based on the name), the work just was different, and the whole booth had a different vibe courtesy of the use of metal surfaces. 

There may have been more galleries with non-Western, non-white art, but I feel that at this point in the 21st century at a fair that doesn’t bill it self as Western Art specific I shouldn’t go looking for it like an exoplanet astronomer looking for water in a nearby solar system: with special detection software and purpose-built instruments to alert me to the smallest morsel of possibility of a trace element that something, somewhere near me might be of non-European origin. I am not sure what art is supposed to do for other people, but for me, it is not about being pretty. It’s about making a connection with people, about telling a story even if it’s a still image or abstract “thing”, about inviting thought and contemplation, about forcing you to sit with something. That can be a contemplation of beauty and wonder, and it can be comfort and fun, but I would love to see more of the diversity of humanity representing the myriad of stories we can tell and share, and the many different forms these same basic stories of longing, belonging, loss, and love can take. If it all looks like it came straight from the whites page of the paint catalogue (yes, it’s different from the previous one I linked), we’re missing out on the whole bloody rainbow.

I remember distinctly my friend whispering to me at Maryland Sheep and Wool in 2015 “Yes, it’s really nice, but where are all the Black people?” Queue 2019 with the big reveal in the yarn and knitting world that gasp it was racist AF and now, in 2023 there are a lot of improvements, with a lot more space for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other people of colour taking part as dyers, designers, vendors, and consumers. They are part of the conversation, and the knitting world I know is better, more fun, and more exciting because of it, and there is still room for more.

Art world, I’m waiting for you. When is your wake up call?