Art-critic bashing isn't a new blood sport, so it should come as no surprise that it continues to draw blood. At Art Basel's debut outing in Hong Kong, there's a session on the relevance of art critics and their influence on the art market. By the time the speakers pussyfoot around the issue of art criticism - as opposed to art reportage and creating art knowledge - it's time to wind up, leaving one curiously dissatisfied. What's a hack, irrespective of the hat he wears, to make of this art fair then? And is a reasonable evaluation even possible, unless he's familiar with contexts of Chinese, Korean, European, American, Brazilian, et cetera, art in all mediums (glass, steel, wool, paper, found objects and so on), not to speak of periods and movements, in some detail? In which case he'd likely have been snapped up by an auction house on so handsome a package, he'd be a fool to decline. Nothing illustrates this better than the presence on this particular panel of two art market advisors and analysts and two journalists, both from the venerable Financial Times - its art editor, and an art market correspondent - so go figure. I don't envy them having to tot up the pluses and minuses of the fair either, something columnists are happily immune to.
Art Basel's largely contemporary format has brought together the amazingly good with the gimmicky, the ludicrous, the luscious and the predictable; there is, as someone in the audience points out, "high art" and "low art". But one person's - or artist's, or gallery's, or country's -high art could be another's low art, or vice versa, and who's to be the arbiter of cultural or economic aesthetics? I'm having a difficult time assimilating so much art, but I have to say that the cliche continues to thrive almost as a caricature.
Somewhere among the ringing footfalls and stilletoed heels are the collectors, but are they the ones responsible for the hype in the market, or is it the organisers who come whispering seductions to the participants: Share your big ticket sales with us and we'll alert the media to your good fortune. Surely that's proof, if indeed proof was required, that reportage is market-led, and damn any pretensions of scholarship.
What Art Basel Hong Kong does offer is tremendous skill in carrying off a major event without ill-will, or mishaps, or negativity. The venue - the Hong Kong Convention Centre - is enviable, the organisation impressive, and the viewer interested: the happenstance absence of art but presence of advisors responsible for this interesting pass?
An informal straw poll survey indicates that irrespective of gender, age, nationality or exposure, a handful of artists have impressed more than most. The comments are almost curatorial in their appreciation, and I find myself rooting for what promises to become the next chestnut. Meanwhile, Damien Hirst's bugs, beasties and butterflies at White Cube grab attention. Anish Kapoor continues to fascinate with his steel discs and fragmented reflections. And then, there's the massive fairytale castle made up entirely of fetishised S&M gear. What's one to make of it? It has several layers of meaning for a reviewer, it might invite the attention of the markets editor for its value - potential, perceived or realised - it might draw the ire of the activist for being rather more aesthetic than its subject warrants, and as a lowly columnist in that pecking order, I'm glad I don't have to make any sense beyond noting its presence. Would that, I wonder, impact, or impair, its market?
Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated
