What are the rules of etiquette for the art world?
It’s like that photograph of John Baldessari standing with his back to the palm tree with the word “WRONG” printed beneath it: any amateur photographer knows that it’s a mistake to snap a picture with a tree growing out of someone’s head, but then again, who cares? Why is that a rule anyway? Who makes these rules? Are there rules for art or even behavior in the art world? Why does one charming, attractive, talented, artist/dealer/critic/curator fail miserably, while one whose diseased dog’s tumor explodes on the backseat of his dealer’s brand new Prius triumphantly succeeds? This only underlines the fact that, no, there are really no rules.
But there are guidelines. The guidelines for behavior in the rarefied air of the art world ultimately relate to furthering the promotion and distribution of the work. Being able to be witty with collectors, museum patrons, reporters, and the public is pretty darn helpful—but then again, there’s that tumorous dog. Rather than write an exhaustive list for every situation, which is perhaps above my pay grade, I’ll concentrate on one situation in detail—though again, these are only guidelines and can be promptly ignored. This is an incomplete list of situational aesthetics.
Guidelines for Openings:
1. You must attend openings. When you’re Bruce Nauman, you can be a hermit in New Mexico. Until then however, you have to attend openings. Why? If you’re young, it’s important to find out how things work, to meet your colleagues, to find out what’s out there in the world, and ultimately, perhaps, to learn how to behave at openings. If you’re mid-career, you must go out to support the colleagues you met at the earlier stage of your respective careers. If you’re older, it’s important to support colleagues, still, but now also students, and/or other members of the younger generation who will see you as a mentor. Other slightly noble reasons: if you’re obsessed with art and you have to see things as soon as you’re able, and if you really, honestly, love art—talking about it, interacting with it, talking to people responsible for making, distributing, promoting, and critiquing it. If you love it, then it’s not work. Artists, critics, and curators stay vital when they’re interacting with their peers. If you’re young and you hate openings, there’s a noble history of outsider artists living in insane asylums and working as janitors who are discovered long after they’ve died. If you’re old and you hate openings, it’s likely your best years are behind you, and you think all art but the stuff you and your peers made is shit. I hope your few years of past relevance allow you to retire to your television.
2. You must greet and congratulate the dealer and the artist(s) at the opening. All other greetings are situational: a friendly nod if you catch somebody’s eyes is completely acceptable, as are a passing pat, an air kiss, or any preferred method of casual greeting in a crowded opening where you may know half the crowd.
3. The dealer is required to provide alcohol and non-alcohol to all the guests. This can be as simple as a tub of beer and bottled water. It can be fancy wines and freshly squeezed juices, cheese platters, and a bow-tied bartender. There ought to be alcohol for at least the first two hours of a three-hour opening. The last hour is usually best, but not if there’s no alcohol.
4. If the dealer and/or artist(s) ask you how you like the show during the opening, try to find something polite to say. If they insist on a real opinion, they’ve got whatever you have to say coming.
5. Be briefed on at least three recent things that you can be congratulatory about: recent exhibitions seen and enjoyed, exhibitions you would like to see and enjoy but have not been able to make yet for whatever reason, recent successes by colleagues.
6. If you’re an artist, critic, or curator, someone will inevitably ask you what you’re working on. It’s good to have either two projects that can be mentioned briefly, or one project that can be mentioned in more depth—though still kept within the bounds of appropriate party chatter. In different cities, artists, critics, and curators take different tacks on describing their workload. In Los Angeles, artists must always look like they are rested and fresh. In New York, the more haggard and hardworking you look the better. It’s always appropriate to be on your way to or to have just returned from international travel, e.g., “I just got back from being in this biennial in Prague, but I’ve only a couple of weeks to get on my feet before I have to have some meetings in London.”
7. Usually the rapid coming and going of people at an opening allows for quick conversational turnover, but if you get stuck in a bad conversation with someone and you’re outside, say, “I’m just going to pop in and look at the show.” If you’re inside, say, “I’m just going to pop out for some air/a cigarette.” If they’re still following you, go to the bathroom.
8. If you don’t know anyone at an opening, (unlikely after a few years going to openings but nevertheless), then it’s relatively easy to engage with people looking at the work or at the beer bucket. The more people you can attend the opening with, the easier it may be to weave yourself into the social web.
9. Try not to get too drunk on the cheap white wine/cheap beer at the opening: afterwards, at the bar or at dinner, it’s more acceptable. But you still have to be able to walk out of the bar at the end of the evening. Unless, of course, you don’t want to, in which case you can likely get away with being a drunk for many years as long as you don’t punch people too often.
10. The dinner after the opening can only be attended if you’re invited formally, beforehand, or by the dealer or artist during the opening—except if it’s a very wealthy gallery having a very large dinner where no one is sure who’s invited and who isn’t, and you know a few people there. Somebody always doesn’t show, and either way you’re welcome to stay at the bar or smoke outside while things mix up. N.B.: this only works at certain restaurants. In Los Angeles, the best place to crash is Dominic’s.
11. Whoever you sit next to at the dinner determines your rank in the pecking order, according to the gallery. If you sit next to the artist, it’s likely you’re wealthy, the artist’s best friend, or an important curator. If you sit behind the potted plant next to the artist’s third cousin, it’s likely you’re a critic. This can be accepted temporarily—as the dinner breaks up, there is great mobility in seating arrangements. (This is dependent on the size of the dinner and the choreography of the event.)
12. Business can always be discussed at openings and dinners, provided you observe the protocols. Artists can never directly invite dealers to visit their studios, unless a strong rapport has already been established. Artists can, however, talk about what they’re working on, and the excitement that others have for the work, e.g., “I just finished the installation about Hekabe with the really ornate collage. Hans Ulrich stopped by on his way through and said it looked like Vito Acconci on acid.” Curators can corner dealers for specific works. Critics can, and should, get whiskey for free.
If there was one underlying rule in art world etiquette, it would be this: you have to interest others in what you’re doing. This applies to everybody in the end. Whoever the others are, or how you attract them, is up for debate. Some are cloying and aggressive, others haughty and aloof. As always, doing great work is the best way to attract—though what constitutes great work is invariably also up for debate. The purchasing and appreciation of visual art is about propinquity to a visionary, closeness to generative genius, an ability to have in your home or museum the artist’s gesture made permanent in a displayable object. Van Gogh is likely to have stepped onto your Louis Quinze sofa with muddy workboots and pissed all over your sleeping grandmother; this does not make him a better or worse artist than the more genteel Gauguin. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, though he now enjoys catastrophic success above all his peers on every measurable level. This is perhaps not the model most young MFAs are shooting for. Lesson: misbehaving artists tend to do better postmortem. So it goes.
Was etiquette foregrounded in any memorable situation?
The weirdest situation I’ve heard of in this regard involved an artist getting a visit from some Whitney Museum curators, who were trolling for artists for the biennial. The curators read books covered with paper so that no one could see the titles. When the artist’s dealer asked how they’d heard of the artist, the reply was “We have our ways.” When they visited the artist, they said almost nothing. Their only question was where the artist had gone to school. The rest was a song-and-dance routine. Where these rules came from I can’t say, but they seem so rigid that somebody, somewhere had to make them up.
What customs or mannerisms are particular to the art world?
The customs specific to the art world are in regard to the cultural importance of the work itself. There is always the pretense that art is different than other cultural activities. Its various sectors have their own take, and push their own agendas. A curators’ and critics’ darling may have a hard time early on in the marketplace, but if they endure, their work will be worth invariably more than some pretty young gay painter—no matter how much the market may be skewed in the painter’s favor on the front end. Behaviorally, the assumption that guides all activities is that the art is different than pork bellies. Though some people have had very successful careers trying to erode this difference.
When does breach of etiquette play a role in embarrassing or awkward encounters?
This question is quite odd to me, because, as a critic, I’m usually considered the enemy. You can wine and dine me when appropriate, invite me on press junkets, offer me access to the artist, develop a friendship with me over years of interaction and sometime collaboration, and I’m still expected to be independent: potentially, to trash any show I see, either in print or in conversation. If they care or know enough, dealers and curators might try to cultivate a friendship, and this may mean that I will always look, but what opinion I come to is all my own. Critics, if they’re any good, are around and involved in the social interactions, friendships, conversations, and engagements that make the creation of art happen—but how they feel about a person is separate from how they feel about the work.
Some people have seen this independence as a breach of the social contract. Those who tirelessly advocate for artists hate a bastard who can offhandedly dismiss their efforts as derivative. This has lost me girlfriends and gained me quiet letters of affirmation from the like-minded. It has caused dealers to try to have me fired and gotten me thrown out of parties. I’m sure someone will knife me in an alleyway for a rough review one of these days. Social awkwardness is built into my role, as it comes into direct conflict with the roles of others: the advocacy of art through sales, patronage, or publicity.
How should people behave? What would be a maxim for appropriate conduct?
When I first got involved in the art world, before I had any real say or place in the conversation as a critic, people were nice to me—not because I had something to offer them but simply because I was a human being. It sounds almost too plain, but people should behave as if all these people were human beings, with efforts and problems and dreams, and even though some aesthetic effort may look trifling, that trifler still needs to be dealt with fairly and honestly.
Has there been a shift in etiquette as the financial climate has changed?
People are less strident now that there’s no money. Artists are more generous with their time and efforts, dealers less generous but with a higher propensity for flapdoodle. Artists no longer expect a full-page ad in Artforum, a lavish dinner, and a big production budget. No one has the money anymore to do it all. Before, artists always had to keep up the veneer of success, but now, working day jobs openly is more acceptable. Teaching jobs are sought after rather than complained about. Dealers no longer have to keep up with the Joneses by going to countless art fairs, and not applying to Art Basel doesn’t mean you’ll never get in again anymore. The parties have become much more fun, less about hiding or baring success and more about honest interaction—though there are fewer of them and the quality of the booze has dropped.
What constitutes bad manners?
The worst person I ever met in the art world, a backstabber, a social climber, a racist, a gold digger, a tireless opportunist regularly hiding behind the veil of PC niceties, a person who always treated her underlings like dogshit stuck to an expensive shoe, who licked her overlords’ assholes with relish as long as they had money, influence, or fame, is now an important curator at a prominent New York museum.
What constitutes bad manners is relative.