Transcript: A lot of it’s going green. Yes, we are seeing, I am preparing the special issue now on ecological art. I did a story on this when I was an young reporter at ARTnews back in the early 90s and people were already planting seeds and the same things I was just talking about--cleaning the rivers--but now that shows all over the world. There is so much art being done in global warming, not only the paintings of icebergs, somebody in Antarctica who is taping the icebergs melting. I mean there is just so many different responses, there is so many groups collaborative of artist, environmental, science, tech people all working together on the ecology now. We are also doing another story on whether some of the art works that kinf of present themselves an environmental, or ecological are in fact using a lot of resources.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: Has business corrupted art?

Transcript: No.

Question: Where as it had the most influence?

Transcript: There are so many artists out there, all over the world that are making art really-- I know it sounds idealistic--really because they are artist and they just have to make things and they come through the art schools, where they do not go to art schools and may be they are influenced by a trend or a theory, may be they even want to make money from art, but they're making art, I have never really met that many people that make art, just to make money. There are so many other ways to make money. It is same with investing in the end, they hear about these people that want to make money from investing. You can make so much more money investing the traditional ways, than you can from investing in art that there is certain mythology about that, even though, yes, of course some people have made money from buying art.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Transcript: That is the big question. Nobody knows what the recession means for the art world yet. Every time there is an auction and the auction does not do well, it does seem up to now that there have been reasons. So, may be in some cases the estimates were too high, they were little over-optimistic and the buyers who were do their homework knew the estimates were too high. In other cases may be the paintings had been around the block of too many times and people would have seen too much, so it didn't sell. So up until now, there really hasn’t been that much of dip at least in terms of the auctions.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: Now that Thomas Krens is stepping down, what direction will the Guggenheim take?

Transcript: I am not sure what direction they are going to head, but I think that what we are going to see is that there has been really a very large influence of Thomas Krens on the museum world in general and that doesn’t answer your question, because by the time that comes out, frankly they could have to hired someone and it won’t really make any sense, but I will say that there were things that - for example branding, when he came from Yale School of Organization and Management and he was talking about branding and everyone said “Ah, this is completely inappropriate for the World Fine Arts Museums,” now they all talk about branding. For example, the start the legacy of this idea of architect is a little mix and in fact after this success of the Bilbao Guggenheim, there were plans for all kinds of other Guggenheims in Austria, Rio, in Mexico, in Taiwan, all of them attached to just architects and none of them happened.

Question: Why did that happen?

Transcript: Because all of these projects again are combinations of finance, diplomacy, politics, local governments they are very hard to get off the ground and in the end place like Bilbao where there is a provincial government which really had a lot of money that was a very special case. In some place like Rio where there is not that kind of money, because the standard of living in Brazil is very different than the strand of living in northern Spain, it’s much harder to get something like that off the ground.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: Is New York still a special place for art?

Transcript:  I think New Yorkers in general feel very close to art. I think a lot of people grew up going to the museums. I think there are so many artists here in people involved it the art world that even people who aren’t in the art world might know artists. The idea of having the art in your house, whether it is Jeff Koons or your friend next door who has taken beautiful photos is it very accepted concept. So, people expect to see art everywhere, there is interesting public art in New York that brings people and it makes them more aware of art. So, I think there is a very close relationship between New Yorkers and art. 

Question: If a New Yorker had one weekend to see art, where would you guide them?

Transcript: They have to go to the MET, but they cannot go to the MET on Saturday night and have a cocktail on the balcony and then go see a couple of shows. There is no one in there, it is one of the best kept secrets in New York actually. I would say they would have to go to Chelsea to see some of the cutting-edge work, but I think it would also depend on their taste, because if they are very interested in the funky cutting-edge, I would probably just send them to Williamsburg, Brooklyn or if they just love modern sculpture I would say will got in them to go Noguchi museum in Queens. If the love old masters, I would send them to the MET or the Hispanic Society. It depends what they want to see, there are so many options.

Question: What did you think of the Whitney Biennial this year?

Transcript: I did go to, I went to the Biennial during the opening and it was like Studio 54, you could not see anything. Everyone just crowding around and kissing people. I could not really see the Whitney, enough to judge it. I will tell you though that I went to the Armory, you know that there is a branch of Whitney the Armory and I took my 12 year-old nephew and he loved it. A lot of the work is very accessible for example at the armory. The armory had a lot off-beat works that may be they did have a kind of conceptual underpinning bee, they also worked as works that just resonated in this fabulous historic space, so I think that was actually very successful and accessible. What is fun about the armory too is that you do not know what is around the corner, that is what’s fun about the show like that. I would say actually that is the case of this Biennial where may be in certain other biennials the work was a little more familiar you are like “okay, I see it” this work of biennial may be a little more surprising that you did not really know exactly what was going be around the corner, so that is what fun about seeing that show.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: What does it take to lead a creative business?

Transcript: I think you have to have a big army of people that are out there looking at things, I think that is one thing in an art magazine, there are so many articles that we have people that really see all the photo shows, we have people that follow sculpture, we have people that followed 19th century French painting, we have been a number of people who would go in to China, all the time, we have people going to--that follow Korea,  I mean all over the world you have to have this idea that you are in a magazine like this that we are at the center and we have these people all over the place reporting back to us and then the other issue with the monthly magazine is that you do not want to just reproduce the news from the daily paper, the news that is going into the internet, you have to push it forward and present it in a new and interesting way.

Question: What is good leadership?

Transcript: I guess good leadership is inspiring people in making it fun.

Question: Has it been difficult to lead as a woman?

Transcript: Not in the art world, I think in the art world there is a lot of women in strong positions and in journalism too.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: What is art?

Transcript: I think the easiest definition is that it’s art if the artist says it’s art. For example, we're doing a section now on ecological art and part of--one of the articles is about artists who try to kind of heal the world by planting trees, cleaning rivers, planting seeds that leach toxins out of the soil. What makes it art? They say it’s art. I mean, you can debate it all you want; in the end it comes to that.

Question: What is beauty?

Transcript: What is beauty? That's--I mean—beauty, again, is totally subjective, I don’t know that there is a quite away to say what beauty is, you could say that beauty is what you do not consider ugly, I guess.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question:  How is technology changing art?

Transcript: Obviously, there’s artists that are working with technology constantly in ways that I don’t even understand, in terms of the works they are making, the way they transmit work, the way--the work that actually exists on the internet, the way it exists as an avatar, I mean all the ways, the same ways the technology is influencing culture in general, I would say.

Question: Are we going to see anything new come out of art?

Transcript:  I think there is always something new that comes out of art. Sometimes you see a painting that is new, and it blows your mind. It does not have to be technology to make it new. It can be a certain point of view, it can be - I mean there is an artist that shows the Pace Gallery named Tara Danovan who makes these amazing pieces out of styrofoam cups, and the way that she puts them together is mind-blowing. I guess that’s new. Who thought of making these clouds out of styrofoam cups? I mean what’s new and good is anything that blows your mind in the end.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Transcript:  I think the large question, the larger subject is that they’re using this art to assert the cultural identity in a different way. So perhaps, the Russian collector who has a lot of money who is deciding to buy Warhols is making a statement by putting Warhols in his house, because you walk in, and “that is a valuable picture, that’s an Andy Warhol” and in fact that is what affects the value of the pictures and we did a story once about Cezannes, Picassos. Say you have a painting by the same artist from the same year, more or less in the same condition. What makes one millions of dollars more than the other one? And the answer is that they are iconic, so, in another words you have Cezanne with apples--he is famous for apples--it actually cost more than the Cezanne with oranges. The collectors, okay, they want people to walk in the door and say “that’s a Cezanne, that is a fabulous sexy Picasso with his mistress.” These are the reason a lot of people are paying this much money is to get this kind of wow factor from the pictures. 

Question: Does nationality indicate a certain taste in art?

Transcript: I mean, I think the interesting trend in Latin America is that in fact up to say 10 years ago, the Brazilians were buying Brazilian art, the Mexicans were buying Mexican, the Argentines were buying Argentine and now what you are just beginning to see and its recent is this kind of Pan-Latin American interest where in fact there’s collectors that are buying Brazilian, Mexican, Argentine, Peruvian, whatever it is that is new in Latin America before. I think this is the same case with the Russian collectors. Maybe before the Russian collectors were buying Russian, the fact that they beginning to buy western, and that all this stuff is integrated into the same collection, is what the trend is.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: How can collectors distinguish between hype and value?

Transcript: The thing about value is that the value do you mean the value now or what value it might be in 5 years, because the value now is what somebody is willing to pay for this thing. There’s contemporary paintings that coming out of studios that are going for $2 million, I guess that is what they are valued, if there is 10 people that want to buy that picture, whether those pictures are going to be worth $2 million, in 5 years or $50,000 is a big question. 

Question: Is there too much pressure for the artist to produce for the market?

Transcript: I think that there is some pressure on some artist to produce for the market. There are so many artists out there doing so many different things, that some of them have their own markets totally separate from these galleries and these fairs, or some of them have their markets where they are selling their work to a certain group of collectors out of the gallery, the gallery doesn’t even go to fairs. There’s a million art markets out there. People act like there is one market, there’s not. 

Question: What are the differences in art markets?

Transcript: So, on the one hand you might have a person who is making art in their studio, who doesn’t even have a gallery. There are people in New York many, many artists don’t have galleries, and they have some people that are interested in their work, may be a few collectors and they are selling the work out of their studio. Then you’ve got the artists that have galleries, normally the gallery represents the artist that do a few shows, for the artist that they also do the business of promoting, they maintain an archive. So, if somebody wants a picture, you call the gallery and not the artist, for that they take their percentage which varies, so the gallery - the advantage of that, of course, is that if somebody comes to the gallery to see one thing then the dealer can pull out the other thing saying “well, if you like this, you love this,” and it expands the market. If curators come in who are doing, for example, a group show in landscape, the dealer can say “Oh, but have you seen this.” This is why the dealer getting their cut, presumably. There’s a whole tear of galleries that do not even go to the art fairs. I think what you are seeing though in terms of the larger market is in that what we are hearing is that a lot of collectors don’t want to buy the tier of $15,000 works, because they don’t think it’s worth anything unless it’s a hundred. So, it’s not really a case where the rising tide is lifting all the boats. Alright, so then you have the tier of the galleries that is doing various shows, so they might do Basel, Basel, Miami, the armory, they might do London. If they are working with artists and they want to bring work by artists to those fairs, certainly the artist might feel pressure to produce more work, whether it is a pictures. Maybe they are going to start to do print series just to get something out there, because the collectors want it.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question:  How accessible is art?

Transcript: I don’t know that is follows that just because there are more biennials and more fairs and more artists from around the world whose work is being sent to more places that the art itself is more accessible.

Question: How can art become more accessible?

Transcript: See, again it depends what you mean by accessible, because again there is some art that’s made based on a theory, or based on a understanding of certain issues, or based on the idea that if you have to read the wall label to really know the back story. There’s other art that’s made to communicate with the larger, general public or perhaps because of certain qualities that has, formal qualities in terms of the color, the shape, whatever. People get out of it, whatever they get out of it, the same way when you go to the opera even though you don’t understand the opera, you are get something out of the thing.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question:  What is the role of the art gallery today?

Transcript: I think the gallery has a very strong role today. So, especially certain galleries that have a lot of branches in various cities there is galleries that represent a very large roster of important artists. I really don’t know how to answer that. 

Question: Are galleries going to go international?

Transcript: You not seeing quiet that, there are cases where galleries are opening in other place. Egosian opened, for example, in Rome, but what you are seeing instead is that the galleries have increasingly international rosters of artists. Everyday we hear about another gallery that’s picking up another Chinese artist. All the major galleries have that. Now, the same thing is true with Latin American artist and I think that that’s one thing that you can also say about the globalization of art world is that there’s a lot of, maybe less with Chinese artists, but there are – and certainly in case the of Latin American artists, there is cases where they are not considered Latin American artists, they are international contemporary artists, which is a true sign of the globalization of the art world.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Transcript:  Well, I think the main thing is that the art world is increasingly international. There are artists who are working in centers that were previously considered outside the art world, places like Pakistan, India. They might have another house in London, or they might have another studio in Paris, but they are still living in these places, and we’re seeing now, I mean there is huge boom in China as everyone knows, there is going to be a boom in India people imagine. There is collectors communities surging in all these places, in Russia, the Middle East, China, India there’s interest not only in the art that is coming out of their own countries, but in western art.

Question: How are the roving international art fairs changing art criticism?

Transcript:  Well there are so many biennials now that no one can go to all of them, if you do, that’s your job, you go to the biennials. There has been some criticism that the biennials, which are kind of posited as this way to get the art, interact with the city, the local city, and the populous of the city. To me it’s questionable whether or not that happens and how much it happens. I still feel that a lot of them are basically curated in a way that is directed more at their colleagues who are going to the other biennials then to the populous of Istanbul or Havana or wherever it is that they are doing these shows. I feel they are speaking to each other in lot of occasions. It’s very hard to write a review of a show that has 200 artists in any case. This is case with Venice, this is the case with Documenta, which at least have general theme. You get to these biennials which also have themes, you really have to find a way that of point of views that not just a list. It’s very hard. 

Question: How are artists responding the global art network?

Transcript: Well, I think what you are seeing more is artists trying to respond to this global network of art fairs, because the other thing we’ve seen every year, there were more art fairs, every capital has to have an art fair, and there has been a lot of commentary on how artists are trying to produce for the fairs, which is actually different work. The work that they are going to produce for these biennials is they are going to find some fabulous historic location and make a site specific work for the location that’s going to exist and find that period of time. It might not even be for sale. Because there are such turnover at the fairs and because there are such a large percentage of business being done at the fairs by a lot of galleries, there are artists were feeling pressured to produce the kind of work that can be shown and sold in the fairs, which occur every five minutes.

Question: How do you compare European and American tastes and trends in art?

Transcript: I think historically in the last 40 years, I would say that certainly conceptual art has been much more widely accepted in Europe than in United States. There are certain artists, for example Joseph Kosuth who is a very major conceptual artist, who has a much bigger carrier in Europe than he has in United States. The same thing is true with Laurence Weiner who just had the show at the Whitney. He’s huge in Europe.

Question: What are the hot regions to watch?

Transcript: I think again everyone’s watching China. Everyone’s watching India. Certainly Russia and the Middle East, in terms of the markets, we’re watching too.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Transcript: Sometimes the role of the star-chitect can take away from the art. There have been certain institutions where the architecture was criticized for not giving a space where the art can really stand on its own. This dates back to the Guggenheim; Frank Lloyd Wright was criticized for that, and, in fact, in the Guggenheim there is some work that is very hard to show. Some work like sculpture—you’re gonna show some David Smith’s sculpture there that look fabulous. Paintings are very hard to show in Guggenheim. The other thing that happened was some of this starchitecture is that the cost--I mean there were some notorious case, there was the case with museum, the Calatrava museum in Milwaukee--where it cost more than was anticipated and the museum was perceived as not having left aside enough funds to do programming, to make exhibitions, to make acquisitions, that kind of thing, and we’ve seen that in number of institutions now, because, of course, it is so much more easy to get funding, to get donations from individuals, corporations, everyone for these fabulous additions, but nobody wants to pay to fix the roof.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: Are we going to see great art museums in China?

Transcript: Well, we have an article in last month’s ARTnews about museums in China, and there’s hundreds of them coming all over China, but they are not run the same the same way the western museums are run. The difference is that the people running western museums are coming out of a long history, a kind of established profession and they are kind of--in China the standards are difference, so maybe the way they choose exhibitions is different. Maybe the way they approach the idea that there should be climate control is difference. Maybe the way that somebody gets in to the position of director is different, because maybe it’s more political. Maybe there’s more government control of what’s going on in the exhibitions.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: What are the next big trends in art museums?

Transcript: Well, the way the museums are changing is that they’ve become large--museums are getting bigger and bigger all the time, part of this is… I mean, I think in a past museums… The primary mission remains the same, which is to conserve and show art. Now, however, there’s the idea that the museums is also a kind of, for lack of better word, an entertainment center. Some of the directors use that word more openly. Some of them don’t. Some of the use word branding more openly, some of them don’t, but all of them have to think about this branding and all of them have to think about their institutions not only as a place that people go to see art, but where people go to eat, where people go to shop, where people go to see music, hear music, see movies.

I mean, I would say the corporations historically have funded certain kinds of museums shows, and, with the reduction of government funding, museums did go to corporations more for funding of individual exhibitions. I think, however, the larger trend in museums which are these giant expansions by these big-name architects that become part of a whole mechanism of cultural tourism in cities is more question of governments, of local governments working with the museums which are often private institution in the case of the Guggenheim. So, I don’t know that the corporations, when I think of the larger museum expansions that are going on now, or, for example, in Abu Dhabi, I don’t know how much the corporation have to do with it. I see it’s more is that idea that the museum can bring people to a place, can generate a downtown that was previously neglected, that can really energize a city and this is what we’re seeing, that governments are seeing museums as mechanisms in this.

Question: Should governments be funding more museums?

Transcript: The government funds--that’s happening outside of United States to a large point. The museums that are really growing in the United States are private museums. All of these museums that are expanding from the Walker Art Center to the Minneapolis Museum, Detroit, all of these museums--even if there are on city land and are city museums, most of the money is not coming from the government, they still have to raise it. Then you take a case like Bilbao, which really had no way to build its own museum. They couldn’t have possibly made a collection of modernist art. So, they go to Guggenheim as suppose widely reported at that time, more than 10 years ago to get the expertise, the collection and the brand. So, this now in Abu Dhabi, for example, where they have a number of museums, brand-name museums by the number of brand-named architects and they are hoping that the whole thing as a spectacle together is what’s going to generate this cultural tourism. All of the money from that is coming from the government.

Question: What museums are most exciting right now?

Transcript: I think there’s all kinds of museums that are exciting to me right now. I think the MET, since I live in New York, remains a super exciting museum that is constantly doing fascinating shows that blow my mind even in themes ranging from archeology to French painting. I think there is smaller institutions that are very interesting like Museo del Barrio. I think we are going to see very interesting museum for African Art when it reopen on Fifth Avenue. I am trying to think inside New York. The Hispanic Society has recently become revitalized since it has been collaborating with DIA they did very interesting show recently Francis Alÿs.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Transcript: ARTnews is the news magazine of the art world. It has the larger circulation of any the art magazines, and the audience is composed of people who are in the art world, art world professionals, but it’s also people who are outside the art world who have a general interest in culture, and it’s written in way that it can be accessible to the people in the art world and to the general broad audience.

Question: How do you write about art?

Transcript: Well, the process a journalistic process. It’s the same as any kind of journal. Well, in ARTnews we have two kinds of writing. We have the feature well, which is the journalism, which is reporting, which are the profiles, the trend stories, the investigative reporting that might be on art restitution of works that were looted during the Holocaust or antiquities or something like that, and then we have the critical section, the reviews. The writing is slightly different, because in the review section you are talking about giving a value judgment of whether or not the show was good or bad.

Question: Do you view ARTnews as a tastemaker?

Transcript: Well, I think that the role of ARTnews is kind of painting a broader picture of all the people, the intuitions, the places that are shaping the world of art. So, I think it’s less maybe in terms of shaping taste as on reporting all the different things that are going on out there.

Question: Why is ARTnews still important?

Transcript: Because, I think that the writing is excellent. I think the writing is accessible. The way that we write about art isn’t based on theory. I mean it’s not kind of through the lens of post-modernism, post-structuralism, different theory. It’s, it’s—the writers certainly know about those things--but the writing itself is clear and accessible and it’s another case, even in the criticism, where we try and be as accessible to the insider as to the general audience.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: What did you think of the Whitney Biennial this year?

Transcript: I could not really see the Whitney, enough to judge it. I will tell you though that I went to the Armory, you know that there’s a branch of the Whitney in the Armory, and I took my 12 year-old nephew, and he loved it. A lot of the work is very accessible, for example, at the Armory. What's fun about the Armory too is that you don’t know what’s around the corner. That’s what fun about the show like that, and I would say actually that’s the case of this biennial where maybe in certain other biennials the work was a little more familiar, so you are like “okay, I see it, I see it,” This biennial was may be a little more surprising that you did not really know exactly what was going be around the corner, so that’s what’s fun about seeing those shows.

Question: How Do New Yorkers Approach Art?

Transcript: I think New Yorkers in general feel very close to art. I think a lot of people grew up going to the museums. I think there are so many artists here and people involved it the art world that even people who aren’t in the art world might know artists. The idea of having the art in your house, whether it’s a Jeff Koons or your friend next door who has taken beautiful photos, is a very accepted concept. So, people expect to see art everywhere. There is interesting public art in New York that brings people and it makes them more aware of art. So, I think there is a very close relationship between New Yorkers and art.

Recorded on: 1/14/08

Question: Now that Thomas Krens is stepping down, what direction will the Guggenheim take?

Transcript: I’m not sure what direction they are going to head, but I think that what we are going to see is that there has been really a very large influence of Thomas Krens on the museum world in general. I know that doesn’t answer your question, because by the time that comes out, frankly they could have to hired someone and it won’t really make any sense, but I’ll say that there were things that--for example, branding, when he came in from Yale School of Organization and Management and he was talking about branding and everyone said “Ah, this is completely inappropriate for the world of fine arts museums.” Now they all talk about branding. For example, the star--the legacy of this idea of the starchitect is a little mixed and, in fact, after this success of the Bilbao Guggenheim, there were plans for all kinds of other Guggenheim in Austria, Rio, in Mexico, in Taiwan all of them attached to starchitects, and none of them happened.

Question: Why did that happen?

Transcript: Because all of these projects again are combinations of finance, diplomacy, politics, local governments; they’re very hard to get off the ground and in the end a place like Bilbao where there is a provincial government which really had a lot of money. That was a very special case. In some place like Rio where there is not that kind of money, because the standard of living in Brazil is very different than the standard of living in northern Spain, it’s much harder to get something like that off the ground.

Recorded on: 1/14/08