ART, WHATEVER IT TAKES

Since the early pandemic in 2020, Rome Art Program has conducted a series of interviews, “Art, Whatever It Takes.”
Artists, Art Critics, and Art Historians living in Italy, the U.S., and U.K., share their insights during these powerful times.

Interview with Alex J. Bacon

Alex Bacon is an art historian, curator, and publisher based in New York City.  Recently he was a Curatorial Associate at the Princeton University Art Museum, where he was involved with the University’s public art program and organized exhibitions at the Museum’s offsite space, Art@Bainbridge.  He is cofounder of Circle Books, an imprint dedicated to research-based publications on the arts.

RAP: What is your definition of “art” today?

Alex J. Bacon: The isolation brought about by the pandemic reasserts the necessity for an artwork to be seen. As requiring a viewer to complete it. We took this element for granted, but the past year has shown us that the ability to access and experience art must be safeguarded.

RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?

Alex: Art itself went into a period of quarantine this past year. Our forced separation from it, in the sense of exhibitions, reinforced the value of work that is meaningfully connected to lived experience and not just tied to the vicissitudes of current events. Rather than a seasonally changing art, we need work that, while rooted in the moment, speaks to larger concerns, both personal and political.

RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?

Alex: Art was important to me as a child because, in my encounters in museums, it offered a space of reflection and escape from life’s challenges. Seeking this element of contemplation, from a young age I started to collect reproductions of ancient Greek and Roman statuary. Over time I was drawn to write about art, so as to understand it on a deeper level, which led me to become an art historian.

RAP: What role does art play today? What are the “great figures” who have recently changed it? Do you feel close to any of these figures?

Alex: For many quarantine was a restless, even anxiety provoking space, not immediately conducive to self-reflection and growth. In this confusing and challenging moment the role of the artwork as an object of contemplation and reflection became important again through its potential to focus and reorient the viewer, and thus help ground us in these difficult times. It is unclear if any “great figures” have emerged from this period. Instead of the public displays that would determine such individuals, the emphasis has been on the personal and the private, on broader shifts rather than the shining achievements of a few.

RAP: Are there still traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?

Alex: The art system has not strayed too far from the emergence in the Dutch Golden Age of a mercantile structure based around artists, collectors, institutions, and the middlemen like dealers, curators, and critics who facilitate the production, circulation, and reception of artworks.

What exploded in 20th century was the increasing importance of these interlocutors, and also the gray space between what demarcated an artist, from a dealer, from a curator, say. In the past year this has only accelerated, especially with respect to the digital aspects of the art world and market.

RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?

Alex: It is hard for an artist to retain their identity in this world of rapidly proliferating ways to produce and circulate “content,” which competes with the traditional art object for attention. It will be up to artists to reassert the role of the physical artwork and its unique possibilities. As an art historian, the challenge is how to circulate ideas in a digital world. We must learn how to straddle both physical and virtual realms. Yet, I continue to be optimistic about the role of the book. It becomes more special and precious as it becomes less ubiquitous.

RAP: Art as a mirror of man, in this moment of emergency seems to be shattered …what do these fragments reflect now?… Shadow or light of the moment?

Alex: The task of making art has always revealed the challenges involved in reflecting on reality, the human body, and experience. Today that has only become more clear.

RAP: Understanding, interpreting, and then possibly judging the work of art; which is the right path when we are in front of a piece of art?

Alex: Ideally the work of art is a conduit for experience and reflection. In this sense, while we might judge or interpret the individual work of art, this seems less important than trying to connect with it and open ourselves to being inspired by it.

RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?

Alex: The role of art education has not fundamentally changed, but has perhaps become more necessary and significant. It should be a space where artists learn not only how to make art, but also how to evaluate it. An art education should allow for the individual artist to establish criteria by which to assess their work.

RAP: Art too has undergone a complex process of globalization; can having an authentic and genuine style be an advantage or a drag for an artist?

Alex: The context of globalization poses the question to the artist of whether to speak to a local audience, or a global one. Of course there is no single narrative or subject that communicates universally. The main issue lies less with the artists, and more with the global institutions of art that have established essentially Western criteria for the evaluation of art. What remains to be seen is whether we have the capability to try to understand and assimilate narratives that are unfamiliar or foreign.

RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?

Alex: Art galleries and museums are attempting to come to terms with the broader societal “reckonings” of recent years. So far it remains to be seen how this will evolve beyond the current tokenizing and fetishizing of marginalized and minority experience as style or trope and how this will affect the more traditional role of the museum as a space that promotes a certain interpretation of heritage and history. The gallery produces such meaning in the present. Will these efforts persist, or prove to be a temporary trend?

RAP: “Figuration” vs “Abstraction”. Which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?

Alex: I don’t yet know if the challenges of this moment will direct artists more to abstraction, as they take on the increased fragmentation of the body, or if it will lead to knew forms of figuration, where artists attempt to assimilate newly redefined bodies and experiences. Likely it will inspire both approaches, which have equal merits in the face of our moment.

RAP: Today we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice based on your experience do you feel you can give to young artists?

Alex: This is a very confusing time for young artists trying to find their place. Their biggest challenge is to sift through endless possibilities. Now that all restrictions and criteria have nominally been lifted, and the past presents itself as an endless stream of ideas to mine and repurpose, the task is how to chart one’s own course.

RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?

Alex: Art has never been able to enact change on its own. At best it has been in service of certain political programs. However, art retains the possibility to be accessed and used for personal change by individuals. This remains our best chance for art to inspire action, one viewer at a time.

www.alex-bacon.com