On Saturday Roberta Smith published an article in the New York Times about the damage done to some of the Chelsea art galleries in the wake of hurricane Sandy. Smith wrote about the galleries she had visited the Saturday before the storm and how much she enjoyed some of the art she saw there as well as the energy of the Saturday gallery art scene. She then went on to talk about her experience of walking through Chelsea on Wednesday and Thursday after Sandy and the dismay she felt at seeing the damage to the gallery spaces and hearing from the gallerist about the art that had been destroyed and perhaps lost forever. I was curious about my blank response to her heart-felt article. As I read the article, I wondered to myself why someone would be upset by the loss of any of the artwork in Chelsea. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy going to Chelsea. I have seen many thought provoking and powerful exhibit there, but I don’t feel that the physical loss of any of these works would be tragic and make me feel particularly sad. I thought this was a bit disturbing on some level since creating and looking at art has been a central focus and passion in my life, so I took some time to reflect on how I value art.
As I thought about my response to Smith’s article I tried to
think of art works whose destruction or loss affected me and then try to
understand what was important to me about those pieces. One very powerful and disturbing
experience for me was the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in March
2001 by the Taliban.
Taller Buddha in 1963 and in 2008 after
destruction
I didn’t know about these Buddhas prior
to their destruction, but once I saw the images of the figures and then the big
empty space left from their absences I felt such a deep and overwhelming sense
of loss. This was only 6-months after
September 11, so it would seem that I would have greater tragedies on my mind,
but in truth, the violent attack on these Buddhas seemed just as important. I
remember reading articles written by people complaining that any one could possibly be
upset about a bunch of stone statues when so many lives had been lost and the
world was going through a crisis and yet, I was one of those people.
So even though I didn’t know about the specifics of why the
Buddhas were made or how they functioned in the community, I knew by looking at them that they were sacred objects with a purpose and meaning that transcended the
material world. The enormous figures acted as totems, idols or gods and this is what I respond to and probably why the Taliban chose
to destroy those Buddhas. The
Taliban was trying to cripple a culture and one way to do
this is to tear down their spiritual center. In a similar vein, this is why
they targeted the Twin Towers. If
they wanted to kill a large number of people there were certainly numerous
other ways they could have accomplished this, but the Twin Towers was a symbol of
capitalism, commerce and in essence our spiritual center as a culture, so its
destruction was a way to destroy our spirit.
So, this may seem like a big leap, but I am connect this all back to the Chelsea art world. Since the spiritual center of our culture is capitalism, a lot of art and the art
market itself are borne out of that paradigm. The art is about money and lives in the intellect rather than the spirit and that is why it doesn’t hold a
lot of power for me on a deep and visceral level. When I go to Chelsea, I enjoy understanding
what the work means and how it functions, but in most cases, it stays
on the level of an intellectual challenge Clearly, I don’t live in a time or
place that lends itself to a spiritually- based art and I don’t think it is useful for
me to be nostalgic for something I never had, but I also don’t think I will stop
looking for ways to bring that kind of transcendence into my art or stop searching for it in art around me. I know it won't look like what it looked like in 6th century Bamiyan, but I am curious to see the many ways it can manifest in 21st century New York.
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