CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
1 WHAT IS FASHIONABLE ART? 15
2 THE ARTIST AS IMPRESARIO, THE ARTIST
AS BRAND: FROM BAUDELAIRE TO BARNEY 21
Pre-modernism 22
Dandies and the artist as the embodied work of art 25
The artist-hero 27
Artist as brand and go-between 28
The end of the critic, the rise of the agent-dealer 33
The artist as pure image: Matthew Barney 34
3 ‘LOOK AT ME I’M DIFFERENT!’: IDENTITY ART
AND THE EXPECTATIONS OF RACE 39
Transorientalism 43
Basquiat: Martyr of the exotic 45
Global curating 47
4 EXOTICISM AT THE BRINK: CONTEMPORARY
CHINESE AND ABORIGINAL ART 59
Aboriginal art and the dot 60
Contemporary Chinese art 66
5 LESS IS LESS: FORMLESSNESS 75
L’informe 77
Postmodern anti-aesthetics 78
The critical value of formlessness 81
6 COME FLY WITH ME: PARTICIPATORY ART,
INTERACTIVITY AND AUDIENCE INVOLVEMENT 91
Relational aesthetics 93
Critiques of relational aesthetics 98
Broadening out participatory practices: Community 103
New community arts? 107
7 VIDEO ART AND VIDEOPHILIA 113
Activism and self: The 1970s and its fashion legacy 115
The language of video, the found image and appropriation:
The fashion legacy of the 1980s 120
Installation and alternative spatial experiences:
The 1990s and their fashion legacy 122
Video and the return of narrative 124
The postmedium condition: Aesthetics and participation 125
8 MINIMALISM: DONALD JUDD OR IKEA? 129
Classic Minimalism and its early critiques 132
From Minimalism to anti-aesthetics 136
Contemporary Minimalism as IKEA art 142
Contemporary Minimalism as experience design 144
Not so fashionable? Feminizing Minimalism, formlessness
and embodied immediacy 146
9 INSIDE-OUT: OUTSIDER ARTISTS GO INSIDE 149
The fraud of Outsider Art 151
True nature, but packaged 155
Say nothing, say everything 158
Conclusion: Fashionable Art 163
Bibliography 166
Index 174
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1 Andy Warhol. 2
Figure 2.1 Portrait of Franz Liszt playing the piano. 24
Figure 2.2 Incroyable et Merveilleuse, Horace Vernet, born 1789 – died 1863. 25
Figure 2.3 Damien Hirst, For the Love of God. 32
Figure 2.4 Kanye West and Matthew Barney attend the ‘River of
Fundament’ world premiere at BAM Harvey Theater
on 12 February 2014 in New York City. 35
Figure 3.1 Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta by
Jean-Michel Basquiat is on display during a preview of
Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale in New York, 2 May 2014. 46
Figure 3.2 Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum, Louise
Bourgeois’ Maman Iberdrola Tower and River Nervion at Bilbao, Spain. 51
Figure 3.3 Shirin Neshat, NIDA, 2012, Ink on LE silver
gelatin print 60 × 45 inches (152.4 × 114.3 cm). 53
Figure 4.1 Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula, Tingari Men at Mitakutjirri,
2000, acrylic on linen. 63
Figure 4.2 Zhang Huan, Skin, 1997, Beijing, China. 69
Figure 4.3 Zhang Huan, Pilgrimage, Wind and Water, New York. Skin, 1997.
Figure 4.4 Zhang Huan, To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond,
Beijing, China, 1997. 70
Figure 5.1 Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 1987. 83
Figure 6.1 A general view of the Pringle of Scotland pop-up store:
Liam Gillick on 1 December 2011 in Miami, Florida. 97
Figure 6.2 Xxxora attends the private view for Damien Hirst and
Feliz Gonzalez-Torres’ Candy at Blain Southern on 15
October 2013 in London, England. 98
Figure 6.3 Martha Rosler, If You Lived Here … 1989. 105
Figure 6.4 Angelica Mesiti, The Begin Again (video still), 2011,
four video works site-specifically projected and live performance. 108
Figure 6.5 Tom Nicholson, After action for another library
(installation detail), 2004. Tom Nicholson Photograph: Christian Capurro. 111
Figure 7.1 Tracey Moffatt, Love (still), 2001. 121
Figure 7.2 Soda_Jerk, The Time That Remains, 2012, twochannel
projection on screens back-lit with fluorescents. 122
Figure 7.3 AES+F, The Feast of Trimalchio (still). © AES+F/ARS. 124
Figure 8.1 Richard Serra, Clara-Clara, 2008. 131
Figure 8.2 Eva Hesse (1936–70) works on a sculpture
composed of rubber-dipped string and rope in her studio,
New York City, New York, 1969. 135
Figure 8.3 Clay Ketter, Surface Habitat for Appliance, 1997.
Clay Ketter/Sonnabend Gallery, New York/Bildkonst
Upphovsrätt i Sverige. 142
Figure 9.1 José dos Santos, Installation detail, 2014. 151
Figure 9.2 Georg Baselitz’s exhibit at the Frac
Picardie in Amiens, France, in February 2004. 152
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Adam would like to thank Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney, his friend and collaborator Vicki Karaminas, his parents Andrew and Carolyn and his sons Marcel and Julian.
Jacqueline would like to thank Professor Colin Rhodes, Dean of Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, for his support in granting her time to pursue this research. She is most grateful to those who hosted her during some of the intense periods of writing, including Jane Polkinghorne and the Bammy Residency, Mariluz Marmentini and Philip Millner. To the artists who have granted us permission to publish their images here: thank you so much. And finally, thanks to John Paul, Zac, Jaspar and Bella, for loving support and inspiration, always.
Thanks from both of us to Bloomsbury Publishing for their interest, support and attention, to Hannah Crump for her diligence and to Anna Wright, our editor, for her unfailing sympathy.