PART TWO
Fine Art: Alive and Kicking

Following the puzzlingly successful Christie’s New York sale of postwar and contemporary art on November 13th, where Rothko’s “Untitled: Red, Blue, Orange” fetched a hefty $34.2 million alone, I was trying to reconcile the strained economic climate of the local art community in Los Angeles with the heavy hitters in New York. Although the last several years have been an economic nightmare for most Americans, at what point does the idea of a recession become bigger than the recession itself? What effect is the economic downturn having on the L.A. art scene, and is the success of the Christie’s auction a sign of recovery, or more of the same price inflation of modern art that we were seeing before the recession? I also thought about the old adage that creativity and poverty go together like peanut butter and jelly—well, maybe not in those exact words. To put it bluntly, is the recession good for art?

To my relief, Yossi has been holding up well through the recession, thanks to a comissioned sculpture of Donald Douglas at the Santa Monica Airport, along with the sale of several other works. Yossi frequently works in bronze, and has found collectors eager to invest in the material as its value appreciates in relation to ailing securities and real estate markets.

Despite his own good fortunes, Yossi can count many colleagues who are not nearly so lucky: “[Of] American artists, 5% actually make a living from their work, so 95% depend on a 2nd or 3rd job to survive.” Rampant lay offs have eliminated countless such day jobs. Without supplemental incomes, Yossi explains, many artists are “really in a bind; they can’t think with a clear mind to make art.” And just in case anyone harbored a romantic vision of the struggling artist, Yossi quickly dispels it, “A good artist wouldn’t care about how much they make or not, but a starving artist cannot make art. It’s not true that starving artists make good art, staving artists starve.”

While he remains optimistic about the resiliency of artists, and the work they are creating during this turbulent time, he thinks we as a society lack “a system that can catch [unemployed artists] so they are not hurt, so you can put them back in the system [where they can] produce work and flourish.” In his view, the art scene in Mexico is thriving despite the crisis because of a public initiative to help artists find work and keep them afloat, and he wishes the government here could offer artists comparable stability.

As a studio director, Yossi’s own fortunes are largely dependent upon the finances of over 30 other artists. On paper, the recession has meant a significant drop in revenue from last year’s total sales of over $40,000 between all the studio artists. “Pretty much everything went on hold,” and in an attempt to attract buyers in the sluggish market, Yossi has seen artists try and use “prettier shapes and colors,” as well as work smaller: “With galleries, all of a sudden now, things that are 10 inch by 10 inch…have more buyers interested than the bigger pieces.”

Despite the economic squeeze, Yossi believes true artists will remain steadfast, continuing to work whatever the hurdles. “They will spend their last $5 dollars on materials before breakfast.” Suzanne Erickson (see her work in this Issue of FORTH), an artist working just a couple of doors down from Yossi, feels lucky she has other skills to fall back on while waiting for business to pick up. “My residual checks from commercials have really come in handy,” she laughs. While only the true believers may splurge on Suzanne’s more stunning but outré work, adjusting scale or color to sweeten the pill is not an option she’ll consider. Indeed, she sees the recession as an opportunity for emerging artists like herself, “You’re in a good place if you are under $10,000, because I’ve met a few collectors who are still buying that, but they are not buying the $50-100,000 range.” Suzanne takes to heart the advice of her old professor, who told her: “Just do whatever you need to do to keep it going. Take another job for a while, just produce work, make work, store it, keep it, don’t say the art world sucks.”

For Suzanne, this has meant commercials for pharmaceuticals, which she somehow always books—I tell her it must be because she looks equal parts healthy and trustworthy—and a new business she started painting people’s walls. “To me, it was like a degrading thing, to paint a nursery, but I felt like, OK, I’m going to make it an installation, this baby is going to sleep great! And I charged well for it, and it is a beautiful space. I’m quite proud of it. And as long as I’m doing my art, this is fine.” Suzanne feels lucky to have found a commercial niche because of how avant-garde her work is, “For my clients, you know celebrity-type people, to buy a sculpture seems a little crazy, but to pay for a mural seems practical.”