NOV 22 — The 3rd international art market or Artexpo Malaysia is on this week in Kuala Lumpur. This will be a good opportunity for anyone interested in the sport of collecting artworks. The organiser has also got the National Art Gallery Malaysia in as co-organiser.
Artexpo promises art objects "Old and new, East and West. Whatever forms, whatever styles, whatever media. Paintings, sculptures, prints, assemblages, installations, new media (digital art). Astonishing artworks from all over the world — Asia, Europe — Eastern and Western, the United States, Central America. A true united nations of art people from all over the world every November since 2007."
This art marketing event like all trading networks has an anthropological history. Man has always had this compulsive motivation to succeed or to win and will turn any human activity into a sport or a game (sometimes ruthlessly bloody). They argue that it could be both productive and also an amusement — a great pastime in the dark caves (perhaps in Mulu, Sarawak).
Over the thousands of years of human evolution this act of gamesmanship has become an art — the art of winning by cunning practices without actually cheating. Just think of the recent so called world financial crisis and see how some of the multi-national players got away with it and were rewarded as well. Some say it was not greed that got us there but envy.
I think it’s a bit of both. These big gathering of art merchandisers, artistic personalities, art gallery operators, art critics and academics, collectors, auctioneers, fund managers, publishers and national art institutions, are all here to make money and also to jockey for positions. Every party has a vested interest to sell and hopes to claim to be the top seller with the best artists and art pieces at the end of the five-day contest.
What about the artists and their artworks? Are they the innocent party to this sale jamboree? Not quite. The artists now have also got the taste of money and the glamour and relay on their affiliation ratified by the intricate (non-transparent) marketing system established by galleries. This year, the expo organisers did not accept individual artists wanting to sell their own works as they did in the last two years. Every artist has to go through an art dealer.
Many artists become part of a "stable of artists" of a particular owner/collector/speculator. Artists in this situation are often at the losing end of the gamble. And if you are an artist and not part of this scheme, you are an outsider and not approved by the self-appointed gatekeepers of artistic taste. But this does not mean that your art is not serious and with aesthetic qualities, it may be just a matter of waiting for the next game to start.
What is an artwork? It’s been known for many years now that anything can be called art. In the eyes of the art marketers and the auction houses the definition of an art piece is anything that can bring in money deserves to be treated as a work of art.
In our conspicuous consumption society (like any other), I hope you’ll have a good time hunting down the objects of your desire at the artexpo (with the cheap credit) this week and exceed all your friends in the accumulation of artifacts. Enjoy and have fun.
Exhibition date & venue:
Nov 19 to 23
Matrade Exhibition & Convention Centre (MECC),
Menara Matrade, Jalan Khidmat Usha, off Jalan Duta, 50480 Kuala Lumpur.
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