In light of the current global recession and its impact on the art world, a reader expresses the view that making, buying, and owning art are as vital to human happiness as gasoline is to an automobile.

The reader asks Matt whether he agrees.

Matt responds:

The economic manifestation of the art world, I believe, reflects the reality of the human existence when it comes to money.  I’ve been watching with great interest the ramifications of this meltdown around the world.

Friends of mine in Spain have called me and told me about a huge art show they went to where literally nothing was sold.  From Ireland I receive reports of very little sales in places where usually they sell out the show.  Christie’s announced that at their big auction they achieved less than 50% of their minimum reserve.

There was also a man on one of the financial cable networks who dealt in diamonds and fine art, and he differentiated his clients by the criterion of those who spend a million dollars or less; and those who spend three-million dollars or more.  His business is booming, because the people who spend three-million or more are buying all kinds of things, since the prices are so low.

I don’t think that art is exempt from what’s going on in the financial markets.  The old saying in business is:  A high tide lifts all boats, and a low tide lowers all boats.

Art is part of the economic scene because of its very existence, even though to us personally as artists, our work feels more like one of our children than an economic commodity.  We believe our art is sacrosanct, our most precious item, because it is; it’s part of ourselves.  But I don’t think we could expect the rest of the world to exempt us from the reality of why people spend what they spend, and do what they do.

That, to me, is the puzzle of being human.  Many people have said the world doesn’t need another art piece.  If I believed that, I’d be lost in the woods somewhere, wondering where the hell I am and where I’m going.

I am obsessed with making art and doing something to calm my tortured addiction; to do something to explore the inside of my jumbled-up, crazy head.  If people buy it, great.  If they don’t, too bad.  There’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

But I—absolutely, positively, as long as I can find some scraps of paper blowing around the streets and a piece of coal that hasn’t been burned—I will make some kind of statement on it and scream at everyone around me:  “Look at me; I’m an artist!”  I’ll probably be in tattered clothes, roaming the streets, looking for something to make art on.  And if people won’t buy it, then that’s just tough shit. 

Matt