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the Industry: Christian Viveros-Faune

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This week, the Industry talks with Christian Viveros-Faune- ex-gallerist, critic and art fair organizer of VOLTA NY and NEXT. VOLTA NY will take place March 4th - March 7th, 2010 and NEXT will happen April 30th - May 3rd, 2010.

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Please describe your professional aspirations.

I suppose my ultimate aspiration is to be able to come up with a practice that fuses my curatorial efforts and my art criticism into pretty much a seamless package. As NEXT Curatorial Advisor alongside my pal Kavi Gupta and our associate Jessica Cochran, we’re really looking to put together the best possible international exhibition of emerging galleries the country has to offer. That means, at this point, rejiggering the art fair model significantly from a supermarket for art to something more approaching an exhibition, complete with a bona fide edge and independent curatorial commentary (witness CONVERGE, our contemporary curators? forum, which we started in 2009 and are expanding in 2010). I think NEXT has been very original and forward-looking in this respect, and we owe it to the fair and our exhibitors to continue pioneering in that direction.

Where and when did you initially find yourself interested in art as a career?

I was hooked the first time I entered an artist’s studio. I was a young literary type and was bowled over to find that folks routinely shaped materials and smudged dirty cloth to arrive at the kind of meaning I found in books. As for a career, it took a while and I made all the wrong moves. I suppose somehow some of things I did stuck, and so here I am.

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What is Art Chicago and NEXT?

Art Chicago is a major international art fair for largely established galleries. NEXT is the younger, hipper equivalent. We’re the jeans to their suit, the sports-car to their sedan, the kunsthalle to their Gehry museum.

What range of artists/art do you find there?

Most of the established, expensive art is with Art Chicago and their presentation is as it should be given the context, sober and polished in the best possible way. We’re scruffier by design, as what we’re often trying to register are new ideas shaped into newfangled expressions.

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What is your role in these exhibitions?

I am the Curatorial Advisor for NEXT. That means, essentially, that I engineer a significant amount of the design of the fair, year and year out, both in terms of its ideas as well as the artists and galleries we bring in. Both Kavi and I do a significant amount of work to bring in artists and galleries that we think collectors, the city and its institutions will respond to.

How do you envision the current art scene here in Chicago?

It is alive and kicking. Chicago has great institutions, super art schools, terrific collectors, fantastic galleries, a long history of having produced important artists and a hunger to top itself that I think it has only begun to satisfy. As far as NEXT and Art Chicago are concerned, what we’re after is making sure that we play a significant role in expanding and enriching the Chicago art scene, in all its manifestations, as much as possible.

VOLTA  New York 2009

What benefits can exhibiting at an event like NEXT give to an emerging artist?

Simple. It can expose him or her to tons of attention from collectors, museums, other galleries, peers and the public at large. The unassailable truth about art fairs is that they often pack months or even years of activity and contacts into a single four day event. For this reason, art fairs remain inevitable.

What can you say about the passion that drives artists to continue to produce fantastic work?

That energy and the parallel passion of the other players in the art world- curators, collectors, institutional folks, gallerists is what makes our very global Lilliput go round and round. Without that, everything simply grinds to a halt. Bracket the Charles Saatchis and Richard Princes of the world, and there are always better, faster ways to make a buck. Artistic passion and the innovation it engenders is the best antidote to what would otherwise be absolute stasis given the present economy.

VOLTA  New York 2009

Are there any victims in the art world (it can be pretty competitive)?

Sure there are victims, but there are many more successes. Anyone who manages to make a living from culture or even come close to it should count him or herself a success. No one needs art, after all. It is not like bread or chairs or aspirin. It has absolutely zero use value. I really think this is a time to consider silver linings across the board in art as in other things, so I?d rather talk about successes. The only victims I know of are folks who somehow miss this logic.

What cities and neighborhoods do you feel offer the best environments for an artist?

Well, that depends of the sort of artist we are talking about. The folks we entertain at NEXT probably thrive best in certain supercharged urban environments where rents are cheap, companionship is easy and bars are plentiful. Still, there are folks who are capable of working in their barns out in the country. I always figure the exceptions confirm the rule. As Charles Starkweather once said, it takes all kinds.

VOLTA  New York 2009

Does art need to be shown, or do you think it just has to be seen?

Art needs to be exhibited. It doesn’t do anyone much good, the artist especially, if it just sits in the studio. Also, a Rembrandt painting is not the same object at the Art Institute as it is in a bus station toilet, for a host of reasons too complicated to go into here. Exhibition and art have gone together like bread and butter since before Lorenzo de Medici commissioned his first Madonna.

Which artists make your favorite art?

I have very catholic tastes and that is in no way to evade the question. I suppose in my job I have to, but smart work appeals to me independent of content or medium. I suppose like a lot of people I especially enjoy art that shows me something I didn’t know before, something new. At this time, for example, when folks seemed poised for some kind of breakthrough socially, politically- and why not artistically? I find myself looking for work that gives me a glimpse into tomorrow. That is, I realize, a very tall order. I keep looking, though.

::images courtesy of NEXT Art Fair and VOLTA NY

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Posted: September 4th, 2009
at 10:19am by Koookiecrumbles

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Categories: contemporary,the industry

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