It’s the time of year for vows of changed behavior in the year to come. Take these art-related resolutions with me — they should be easier to keep than losing 30 pounds or quitting smoking.
Explore something new: Museum curators of American art, not to mention dealers like me, tend to confine ourselves to our area of specialization. The prospect of reading a book or visiting an exhibition on something outside our bailiwick can seem like time lost that ought to be spent improving our knowledge of our subject. It is important, however, to indulge in that sheer enjoyment that brought us to art in the first place.
I vow to see at least one show and read at least one book in 2018 on a field of art I’ll never deal in. It can be liberating to visit, say, an exhibition of Islamic art and just enjoy its beauty instead of walking through a show of American art and mentally placing a price on each piece, i.e. “That Hassam, $350,000 once; now probably $275,000. And that John Falter! Could have bought it for $20,000 or less, twelve years ago; now worth at least $100,000.”
Shut the market out, and just look. Delve a little into something new.
See it now: I missed the Florine Stettheimer exhibition at the Jewish Museum this past summer. I intended to get to it, but I kept postponing a visit, making the usual excuses – I don’t have the time today to devote enough attention to it, the museum’s too far uptown to combine with today’s trip to 57th Street, and so on. In 2018, I’m going to see exhibitions within a month of their openings.
(The Cathedrals of Broadway, Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Once more into the breach: This final resolution is really a combination of the previous two. Art and antiques shows offer the chance to view unfamiliar areas of art history, and they require much more alacrity in visiting than gallery or museum exhibitions. Faced with yet another fair, all of us — dealers, curators, and collectors alike — can plead art fair fatigue. But those fairs are a real (and efficient) education into what’s happening. Next month, I’m going to attend the Outsider Art Fair, a show I’ve never attended. Find a show you’ve never gone to, and pay it a visit. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Meanwhile, go easy on the New Year’s Eve libations. I look forward to serving you in 2018.
