John LeKay. How do you find
London in general and the art scene in
particular?
Kenny Schachter. I find London lovely,
a wonderful atmosphere, beautiful
architecturally, and great for kids. As
to art, I
have basically alienated
myself, or have withdrawn more
particularly from day to
day participation from the goings on of
the art world. Partly it is a loss of
passion I once had for ferreting out
talent, working with emerging artists,
and hitting the trenches visiting
spaces.
Economically, it makes no sense as a
business model to transport low costing
works to England with the high cost of
shipping; not to mention the lousy
status of the dollar vs pound. I must
admit it
felt liberating to start afresh, cutting
loose the artists I represented (for
only a few years in my New York Vito
Acconci designed space) and returning to my roots as being a less rooted roving
art curator and writer.
I will still do cutting edge shows
in my new space on Britannia St opening
in June with a large scale Vito Acconci
show (across from Gagosian's new
gallery), but I will mix it with design
and other ad hoc goings on. also, I am
now focusing on working with specific
works on secondary market, rather than
with the makers themselves.
JL. Do you think your lack of
involvement with gallery detracts from
the experience of visiting a Kenny
Schachter space?
KS. For nearly 15 years 6 or 7 days a
week I gallery sat, and I no longer have
it in me. I'm not Mother Teresa, though
I did almost give my life in East London
when I got mugged bringing a show here,
and sat the very next day albeit with a
security guard. I still give so much to
put on the shows I do, the recent
William Pope l. show being a great
example (and, uh Kembra Phaler, too),
and, the art fairs are like my Willy
Loman-esque, grass roots style arts
activity, which I still do largely on my
own. in fact, I'd rather do away with
the requisite for a fixed gallery and go
back to being a peripatetic wandering
Jew. That's I was always born to
be. there has been a lot of rhetoric bad
mouthing art fairs by the very dealer
that participate in them,
JL. How do you respond to this phenomenon?
KS. Moving to Europe and leaving my
constituency behind I decided early on
to blanket the international fairs as
the only way not to loose continuum with
my business activity, also, there's a
new one every other day so its not hard
get accepted to a few (ok, so the
Kazakhstan one didn't go as well as
planned). A recent article in New York’s
Village Voice on art fairs elicited
these responses from the world’s
trendiest gallery owners who, it should
be pointed out, all participate in
multiple fairs worldwide year in and
year out: "I'm never inspired there",
"depressing", disgusting", "Fairs are
sickening", “I can't stand them”
(Village Voice, Feeding Frenzy, by Jerry
Saltz January 28, 2005). Bullshit!
Art fairs are neither demon, nor
godsend, they just are and they are (so
pervasive) for some very compelling
reasons that have forever shifted the
landscape of shifting art. They are
ideal places to see a lot of diverse art
under one roof, and professionally, they
offer new paradigm to maximize profits
in the art business (a brave/foolish
remark in a world that hypocritically
shuns discourse on profit motive but has
a love affair with money). There are
certainly more fairs now than ever
before spanning the globe, the latest
outposts being China and Russia, not
including the 4 or 5 sub-fairs that
transpire simultaneously during just
about each and every incarnation.
Despite the art world’s famously
ambivalent relationship to the general
public and even disdain for some of its
own patrons, fairs have succeeded in
presenting a gateway for the general
public to enter into the world of art.
This is in contrast to the commercial
galleries where you are ignored, scanned
head to toe and pigeonholed, or just
plain put ill at ease and made to feel
self-conscious. Fairs are
accessible—though, growing ridiculously
expensive for entrance fees, until MOMA
(in New York) announced revised
admission fees upon reopening, and don’t
forget the heavy levy of Saatchi’s
County Hall too!
JL. What about the art
experience.
KS. They also offer a relatively
welcoming environment for people to
experience art. In the past these events
were geared more to the trade, and
veteran collectors; whereas now, with
extensive newspaper and media coverage
that brings these fairs before the
public eye, the collective curiosity is
typically piqued enough to lure many in
who would never contemplate passing by a
gallery. Art fairs are akin to
historical events like the Armory
exhibition of 1914 where there were
lines around the block and when art was
part of the social discourse. This is in
contrast to the general practice of
gallery business that goes to no effort
to cultivate new audiences other than
immediate collectors. Dealers that
participate in just about every damn
fair should shut the fuck up and stop
criticizing them all the time. art seems
more focused on money now than ever
before, even since the days when a
plate-hurling Schnabel was considered an
art star, any thoughts?
In the recent past people have paid
lip service to a kind of pluralism
prevalent in the art world, i.e. a
multiplicity of simultaneous strands of
art production, in contrast to simpler
times when movements were easier to
codify. Versus the 1960’s period of Pop
and Abstract Expressionism, in the 90’s
there was figurative painting, abstract
painting, political/social art,
conceptual and scatter art,
feminist/gender works, and on and on.
Nowadays, the universal school of art is
economics—economicsism, if you will;
and, the prince of this new bottom line
aesthetics is Richard Prince, among
others. At a Christies conference in
New York recently the subject was the
unfathomable twenty-five (yes, 25!)
upstart hedge funds that have developed
in the last year or so with art
underpinning the investments. Is this
the dawning of the Apocalypse, or a time
when art is not just art anymore but an
asset class? There is more than one
“financial” index tracking historical
trends in different categories of art
and with a click of the mouse you can
view a chart of Frank Stella’s painting
performance in relation to the past or .
the overall contemporary art market.
Make sure you bring that along prior to
raising your paddle at the next
Sotheby’s sale. The question is, how
thick will the new “artvestors”
collective skin be when another
recession hits. A recession they will
gasp, surely nothing can depress the
$3.5m Dumas market? In the early 90’s, a
time most participating in today’s
market now either forgot or were not
present for altogether, artists lost
sometimes more than 60% off the going
prices for their works not to mention
some artists that were dealt a fatal
blow to their markets from which they
never recovered. In art, despite the
charts, graphs, indexes, hedge funds,
etc., when there is a downturn—liquidity
doesn’t only contract, it can evaporate
overnight. What are you going to do when
your $8.25 million Damian Hirst is
worth only, say $4-5m. There’s a lot of
room for a correction in numbers like
that for an artist shy of his 40’s
birthday, but hey, give them what the
want and seemingly need. Did you hear
how much his last sculpture went for?
JL. What plans do you have for the
future?
KS. I am pursuing a new build
(apartments and commercial space) on
Hoxton square with Zaha Hadid, her first
in England despite working here for more
than 30 years, and, besides trafficking
in secondary market goods, considering a
car mag and art market newsletter. in
pursuit of the publication, I have asked
Hadid and prince to design actual cars
that we would try and produce concept
versions of and, regarding the market
activity: if you can't beat em....
