Chandeliers And Golden Pedastals Amongst Other Posh Things
By Sabrina Roman / Issue 1 / November 14, 2024
I was even more curious about this quotation after stepping through the doors of Sir John Soane's Museum, where Viktor is continuing to renovate her metaphorical Aladdin's cave, one suncatcher, pedestal, and dress bustle at a time. Would those who similarly queued for the better half of an hour have found similar satisfaction if they were to come across these entities beyond the bubble they've been encased in, particularly as their ordinariness seemed otherwise contrary to the very codes they invoked? At the end of the day, I came to a realisation that rich things are comparable to exotic animals, and the gallery institution itself is a zoo — a place for observers to safely appreciate and satiate a curiosity that we've come close to taming through various fleeting cultural fads.
This includes the quiet luxury phenomenon that swept through the design space and resurrected echelons, chief amongst them being Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, a late member of those amongst America's richest families and proclaimed by the NYT as emerging "as the ghost influencer of the season [...] as stealth wealth evolves into an embrace of more functional minimalism in the face of global chaos" (Friedman, V, 2023).
It turns out that there are a lot of bourgeois whatnots in an industry that by itself brought in 65 billion dollars (as of 2023), although you don't need me to point that out. The various exposés put forward enough razzle-dazzle for themselves, including one that breathlessly recounts the discovery of Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Girl" on the occasion of a familiar house call to an individual property in Camden, Maine, as told by Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, who went on to put the treasure under the hammer for $1.41 million. Its proprietor later voiced that "the home was filled with wonderful pieces, but it was in the attic, among stacks of art, that we found this remarkable portrait."
Not to be outdone is the story of Cimabue's aureate panel that was found innocently hanging above the stove inside an elderly French woman's kitchen. No doubt she never could have imagined that said artwork would go on to beat the drums of a bidding battle before the Louvre emerged victorious in an ostentatious display of opulence, particularly as it purportedly spent €24.2 million to snap it up and hang it alongside the Maestà — yet another priceless masterstroke that encourages us to consider when much becomes too much, and far is too far in our pursuit of it, before we inevitably succumb to a crevice of irredeemable lust and gluttony without recognising the differences between gold and copper, silver and steel. Otherwise, as put by Cal Thomas, "If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it."
Inevitably the art landscape followed suit, as perfunctorily demonstrated by a particularly enlightening article I discovered after a long round of googling and an eventual recommendation to read CULTURED's "Is the quiet luxury trend sweeping the art world?" thought piece. In it, writer Carson Griffith argues that "collectors used to project wealth and power by snapping up immediately recognizable work by brand-name artists (think Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Christopher Wool). In the quiet luxury paradigm, they are more interested in projecting sophistication and confidence in their own taste by acquiring work by emerging and mid-career artists."
"The appeal," Carson goes on to add, "is less about what the art says to others than how you feel looking at it. Take for example the work of American sculptor Roni Horn, the subject of a current exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in Zurich. The artist's solid cast glass volumes invite literal and figurative reflection, and her drawings suggest the kind of daily meditation practice often championed by high achievers. Then there is Scottish artist Callum Innes, who creates his ethereal paintings, recently on view at Frith Street Gallery in London, by building up layers of paint onto the canvas and then washing them off with turpentine. Or Canadian, New York-based artist Anna Weyant, whose soft, muted paintings filter Dutch Golden Age portraits and still lifes through a contemporary feminist lens." (Griffith, C, 2023)
There are also glaring idiosyncrasies within Lina Iris Viktor's practice in comparison to that of Louisa Gagliardi and Elizabeth Englander. To put it bluntly, the former artist's works seem to be deliberately conceived so they can survive whatever tumultuous, existential blender they are put through, whether philosophical or tangible. Whilst those realised by the latter pair of originators, thanks to their contemplation of technology's progression and divinity or individual nostalgias, appear to be intent on living through those same cataclysmic events before emerging in their marred, blemished glory.
It goes without saying, their corporeal choices certainly gamble on the dichotomy of conservation and disintegration; the first prefers to create from an amalgamation of digital and actual elements, whilst Elizabeth Englander favours scrapped objects, sometimes scavenged off pavements. Need any more proof? Look no further than the phrase, "One man's trash is another man's treasure" — just don't forget to add the word "artist" at some point before the full stop.