The Art of Web 2.0 (or Hackers and Painters revisited)

Sloped off to the Tate Modern this weekend for a special exhibition there - anyway, the queue was too long to get tickets (I am very impatient) so I just went round the Mod Art section, as I hadn't been for a few years anyway.

Modern art is fascinating, partly because it is so eclectic, and partly because (like new technology) it is continually throwing up new innovations and derivatives (most of which don’t work out, but it is all part of the creative process in my opinion).

There was one piece there that really amused me, a large rectangle of canvas painted plain grey, with the sort of exposition of what it all symbolised placed next to it that would make even a Soho PR blush – and another one in all black down the hall with a similar paean to its immortality. In fact, the puff text pieces are often more breathtaking than the pictures. Not a bit like all the Web 2.0 derivative companies striving to be different of course....

For some strange reason (must be that I have just finished reading Paul Graham's Hackers & Painters) I started to think of the relationship between "Web 2.0" and Mod Art.

Firstly, and in tongue in cheek mode, it struck me that Mod Art and Web 2.0 have some structural similarities:

(i) Given that it is extremely difficult to tell the gold from the cr*p in the early days, yet much money rides on being adjudged to be gold label, there is a huge amount of Hype. Modern art also (like New Tech) sometimes appears to take itself so seriously (in public anyway), which gives a certain amusement factor .
(ii) It is vitally important to distinguish the New Thing from all the old fogey stuff that has Gone Before. New Jargon is indispensable, better if one can have a New Movement , even better a New Manifesto - or a New Web
(iii) And of course, the New Stuff needs vigorous punting from its in-crowd ingénues (tame critics and analysts) and support from its Patrons (who are of course purely motivated by the beauty of the creations)


Secondly, and more seriously, the impact of Web 2.0 and Broadband on Modern Art

There was a fascinating little exhibition by the Guerilla Girls, who are female (mainly US) artists protesting about the extreme under-representation of women (and other non white male) artists in most art exhibitions / textbooks / galleries. Some of the their posters are very clever as well as making the point about White Guys cleaning up the Art market. In essence, they show (via sharp humour) that the Fine Art market is a closed shop, controlled by the interests of a cabal of arts promoters and arts patrons.

One piece really hits home, a set of 10 Commandments for Museums regarding Art market ethics (or not), you can see it way down the page here in the section called Guerilla Girls code of Ethics. Some Examples:

Rule III - Thou shalt not give more than 3 retrospectives to an artist whose Dealer is the Brother of the Head Curator

Rule VI - If thou art an Art Collector sitting on the Acquisitions or Exhibitions Committee though shalt use thine influence to increase the value of thy portfolio no more than once a year.

You get the picture anyway....... in essence the Mod Art market seems to be structured like the Music and Video industries (ie a lot of power in a small cabal of traditional Aggregators) but is clearly a bit behind the Music and Video market in term of being impacted by the 'Net, and thus has yet to feel the sort of impacts music and video have already.

If the lessons from these other media are transferable, there is probably a lot more talent out there than is sanctioned by the existing Aggregators, so the potential to unleash user generated content and dive into “Long Tail” rather than the “Hits” is probably huge.

Not only that, but I suspect that the market for good art is considerably greater if it is de-mystified (think of the explosion in wine drinking for example) and Web 2.0 based systems are great for that sort of thing.

Add broadband, high resolution screens, powerful computers, good printers etc - implies to me that art can be displayed online much better now than it could be even a few years ago.

Will this create a major threat for the existing aggregators? For these Aggregators (the Critics and Collectors), the value of their advice – and the collections - depends hugely on who controls the definition of what is Great Art, and being able to ensure its relative scarcity. Where would we be if everyone went home and started slapping grey paint on big pieces of canvas, after all? Or even make your own Jackson Pollock (this is fun, give it a go)

But already though the Web world is starting to impinge. For example ArtFaceOff is a social media based approach that makes people compare 2 pieces of art that the artists upload.

While there are many artists online, what has not yet occurred (as far as I know) is the evolution of social media based approaches such as MySpace or Flickr dedicated to Art per se. Perhaps the online medium is suboptimal and thus seeing art in galleries will remain a necessity, but if it isn’t, things could get interesting here as it has with with music and video.

Coincidentally, today TechCrunch UK is featuring Artists Online on its Money Mondays session.

So, who will be the Guerilla Girls for Web 2.0 and punctiliously puncture pompous puff-pieces