An introduction, an opportunity, and a point of cultural entry

The loft movement of the 1970s—an urban mentality where folks opted to live cheaply in large, raw, often formerly industrial spaces—led artists to inhabit the hinterland near the Delaware River called Old City. Independent (i.e. young money or no money) galleries arrived piecemeal throughout the decade, from veterans Larry Becker, Richard Rosenfeld and the Painted Bride, at their original Old City venues, to the seminal but short-lived Étage Gallery. As rent stayed cheap and space remained abundant, more galleries began to arrive, and some survive. With the creation of First Fridays in the mid 1990s, Old City truly, announced itself as a self-appointed cultural destination, considered by many to have signaled the arrival of a truly cutting-edge, truly vibrant art scene in this city. Except it wasn’t, exactly.  

Philadelphia’s contemporary art scene remains in many ways a provincial one. Our proximity to New York means both major collector and successful artists gravitate towards the money, which is there. The level of dialogue and commercial fluidity in Philadelphia will remain muted for as long as the appeal of the art world’s capital holds. Local cheerleaders predict a surge here as collectors and artists are priced out of New York City—indeed, it’s happening—but for now, Philadelphia is a second city for commercial contemporary art. I’m not in the business of predicting the future, but I’m keen to draw your attention to what promises to be an exceptional art event in Philadelphia this April.

HeartWorks, at its simplest, is a benefit auction for the Mazzoni Center in Center City— Philadelphia’s comprehensive LGBT health center, organization and a trailblazer in the complete physical and mental guidance of those with HIV and AIDS for more than 25 years. Area native Chris Veit credits the Mazzoni with saving his life––he’s hardly alone in feeling this––and he has spent the past two years hatching a plan to give thanks to the center. Veit left Media, PA, for the West Coast 20 years ago, and during that time he befriended and collaborated with an extraordinary array of gifted and internationally known artists. He asked these artists to donate works for an auction, they all agreed, and HeartWorks came to be.

From April 18th to the 26th, the Crane Arts will feature works by such global boldface names as Andrea Zittel, Jack Pierson, Ryan McGinley, and more than 40 other artists handpicked in Philadelphia, New York and California. This is an opportunity to see museum-quality work rarely accessible in Philadelphia, and, on the evening of the 26th, the center will host a gala and auction: an extraordinary opportunity to take works home.

For those making a donor-level commitment (either $500 or $1000) there is a VIP preview February 21, and a print from either artist Alex Da Corte or Jack Pierson. This is a real opportunity, and I’d like to elaborate.

A very compressed summary of American art’s evolution in the 20th Century will explain how we’ve arrived at the work of Pierson and Da Corte, and suggest a way of approaching and understanding HeartWorks. ‘Modernism’ evolved as a talking point and cultural buzzword in the early part of the century, when art theory and critics’ voices became as acknowledged as those of the artists themselves. With all this dialogue and attention, artists became self-conscious about their own work, and began to make art that declared its singular modernity: it was direct, muscular and ultimately conservative, like Jackson Pollock. Profound cultural changes in the decades after the Second World War––the ascent of television and suburbia, the struggle for civil rights, pacifism, modern commercial capitalism, the sexual revolution, etc.––led art to splinter and splay, and enter a territory dubbed ‘Post-Modernism.’ The purposeful, progress-based beefiness embodied by someone like Pollock was a relic in the age of wide-eyed discovery and endlessly deferential emotional intricacy.

The Post-Modern art landscape had become a vastly more complicated place. Pop Art, Minimal Art, Land Art and Performance Art were all equally important, each as differently modern as the others. Art was reinvented and renegotiated every day, and with this variety the modern art market was born; this is the same model that endures today. Contemporary artists flutter on the breeze of commercial and critical attention, and their popularity and production is buoyed by an aggressive and exaggerated culture of buying. It is a strange time to go to museums of modern art, for one’s experience there is informed and infected not just by aesthetic effects but by semiological awareness of the way media works in a completely commercial environment, and financial understanding, too.

In other words, art has come to mean more than visually appealing images. Art now participates emphatically in every part of today’s everyday world, from politics, to real estate, to entertainment. It is a dizzying place to be, and a strange time to be an art collector: hedge fund managers and multinational captains of industry are playing an active role in defining world economies, so by extension they are de facto players in what is considered art, too. Some, such as hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen, who will soon have spent $1 billion on art, have embraced this role like no other. It is a position that requires responsibility, and, like any highly capitalistic arrangement, has its vulnerabilities. It is a position which may lead to art being wounded in a recession, and indeed, money men have been forecasting the overall economy through the barometer of rising and falling auction prices for years, gauging enthusiasm when records break (cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder paid $135 million for a Gustav Klimt painting in 2006, a record high for any painting) and signaling alarm when work fails to reach its low estimate on the auction block. The art industry was hit disproportionately hard by the stock market crash in 1987, and took several humble years to recover and fully function again. It’s in fine shape now; I point these facts out only. As I’ve said, predicting the future is not my business.

I am in a position to tell you, however, about the merits of Jack Pierson and Alex Da Corte in an art age such as ours. Born twenty years apart, (Pierson in 1960 and Da Corte in 1980) the two show a textbook fluency with the Post-Modern approach. Their work, in sculpture, drawings, photography and writings, seeks to unravel the secrets of the human psyche in a manner that is, at heart, profoundly human. There is an optimism in their approach to art-making that is unencumbered by hip posturing and is ultimately positive. Their art speaks in affable tones, always listening and always willing to share. It doesn’t invite cynicism, which means it is worth trusting, easy to love, and wonderful to live with. This is not to say it is simple-minded, with a tone of hokey okey-doke cheerfulness. They face the fractured complexity of modern existence, of their own identities and our cultural purpose as a people, but they push ahead, refusing to be bogged down. Their presence in this exhibition and auction offers the viewer a means of enjoying art without reducing its meaning or its value, and offers a remarkable entry point to contemporary connoisseurship, be it through collecting or simply engaging with the art world. Enjoy the pictures, canvas your friends, and come to the event and see what role you wish to play or not play; find enjoyment in that which is truly beautiful and right to you.

For information about HeartWorks events, and the Patron event, visit www.inliquid.com/heartworks, or call (215) 563-0652, extension 222.

William Pym is a critic for artforum.com and various other publications, and the Director of the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in downtown Philadelphia, fleisherollman.com