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If you follow art-world gossip, you’re probably aware that their is an ethical conversation happening in regards to the insularity and small-town-mindedness of the global art world. The drama is being played out by various agents of the press, and stars the New Museum and billionaire art-aggregator Dakis Joannou. The drama is rather complicated and unfolds in many directions, such as e-flux’s brilliantly immediate response announcement:
“In response to a series of articles concerning museum ethics that appeared last week in the New York Times, The Art Newspaper, Time, New York Magazine, Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, and blogs such as Art Fag City, Modern Art Notes, and JamesWagner.com, we would like to bring to your attention several helpful resources on this subject and let you know about a conference taking place at the Seton Hall University today.”

New Directions in Museum Ethics: A Conference of Graduate Student Research
November 14, 2009, 8:30 am-4:30pm
Seton Hall University
Science and Technology Building
Science Center Atrium & Room 101
South Orange, New Jersey

http://www.museumethics.org/

The International Council of Museums: Code of Ethics for Museums

American Association of Museums: Code of Ethics for Museums

The most acutely emotional, synoptic version of this currency is by Mr. Jerry Saltz’ article, Money, Insularity, and a Huge Controversy for the New Museum, in New York Magazine, where he outlines said dynamics as follows:
“In this case, the circle looks something like this: Joannou, a New Museum trustee, is friendly with Lisa Phillips, the museum’s director. Her curator, Massimiliano Gioni, has worked previously with Joannou, and he oversaw the current three-floor Urs Fischer show. Urs Fischer has curated shows for Joannou; Joannou also owns a good deal of Fischer’s work. Fischer’s art dealer is Gavin Brown, who also represents Elizabeth Peyton, Jeremy Deller, and Steven Shearer, all four of whom have had solo shows at the New Museum since it re-opened less than two years ago. I like that the art world isn’t regulated. I have seen Joannou’s collection and it is incredible. Still, when you add in Koons as the curator here the whole thing just breaks down. If only the museum would have either curated the collection itself or gotten someone else to do it …”

[The amazingness of New York Magazine's web intelligence is on display below (i.e. link appeared magically during copy/paste).]
Read more: Saltz: Money, Insularity, and a Huge Controversy for the New Museum — Vulture http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/11/saltz_money_insularity_and_a_h.html#ixzz0WqtM08Pt

However, my personal favorite relational-appendage to the situation is the following drawing, made by William Powhida, for the cover of the Brooklyn Rail [click image for link to hi-res version]:

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Hidden within the body of this information, about an organization, lies an artist and new ideas about art.

I apologize for neglecting to mention this before, but e-flux is one of the largest resources for contemporary art on the internet. So, if you like to feel as though you are taking part in the world by knowing what is going on with your favorite human activity, subscribe to their email alerts here.

About e-flux [straight from their 'About' page on their site]

Established in January 1999 in New York, e-flux is an international network which reaches more than 50,000 visual art professionals on a daily basis through its website, e-mail list and special projects. Its news digest – e-flux announcements – distributes information on some of the world’s most important contemporary art exhibitions, publications and symposia.

The daily digest is put together in cooperation with nearly a thousand leading international museums, art centers, foundations, galleries, biennials and art journals. Our focused and selective approach to the information we choose to distribute has been rewarded by an exceptionally high degree of attention and responsiveness from our readers.

Additionally e-flux is read by 45,000+ visual arts professionals: 47% in Europe, 42% in North America, and 11% Other (South America, Australia, Japan, etc.) 18% writers/critics, 16% galleries, 16% curators, 15% museum affiliated, 12% artists, 10% consultants, 8% collectors, 5% general.

And if these statistics aren’t convincing enough, download the following pdf essay, Daniel Birnbaum’s Temporal Spasms.

What becomes beautifully poetic about this network is the realization that e-flux is the collaborative instigation of this man: Anton Vidokle [pictured on the far right, in the image below].

Vidokle’s resume is quite staggering, if you take the time to find the pieces and place them together [and this doesn't even account for the work that I'm sure he produces, or contributes to, without taking credit]. The most admirable aspect of Vidolke’s ‘art work’ is his relative freedom from the network of institutions that is generally believed to legitimize the individual artistic practices. Vidokle, through e-flux, produces, disseminates, and critically interrogates the ideas that animate his practice and simultaneously involve everyone else’s. He can also display the evidence of this process publicly and bring together friends and collaborators to discuss and refine them. And you must also take note that Vidokle doesn’t deny the institutional systems that authorize our artistic ideas, but instead engages with them selectively, in order to confront their roles as producers in the 21st Century.

He also, charmingly enough, contributed to the inertia of education as exhibition [or art], with the project UNITEDNATIONSPLAZA in Berlin [2006-7]. Clearly, the man holds a special spot in my heart and is a valuable resource [whom will be referenced again] in the ongoing post +ART SCHOOL [CONTD.]. I look forward to meeting him, one day, and asking him to discuss the importance of [character] distinction within the field of production… namely that of art.

So, please go to their site and invest more of the collective attention that makes e-flux a behemoth of influence. Click on the following image to be carried there…

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Tobey: Can you please tell us what you think of solitude? And not just a general, every-person sort of solitude, but the more slightly romantic solitude, the artist’s solitude.

Tobey: Well, that’s rather simple, really: You’re not alone. You’re not alone, so why pretend like you are? Solitude, seems [to me] to be humanity’s great creative act of the twentieth century. I imagine that it was ‘created’ as a therapuetic device for the overwhelming understanding of bodily depth, that is the shear number of human beings populating this planet at one given point in time. In addition to the overwhelming number of individuals, some times acting as a whole, comes the overwhelming emotional burden of realizing the rate at which they come and leave existence.

Tobey: So, we invented solitude out of a fear of togetherness?

Tobey: Yes, I believe we did. The speed at which we had to make this collective confrontation was too overwhelming. Thus, we had to retard the process until it seemed as though we could get a bearing on it. Until, we realized that the world is actually ending. That the world ends when each of us closes our eyes for the final time and the individualized world we made out of togetherness, disappears.

Tobey: Are we coming close to being able to be together?

Tobey: I believe we are. Although, it simultaneously gets more difficult, more confusing, as we get closer to clarity.

Tobey: Do you have any advice for those who are getting, as you say, ‘simultaneously confused with clarity?’

Tobey: Yes. There is an ancient ritual of repeating multiple breaths, at a very quick rate, while concurrently making vocal noise on each expulsion of breath. These repetitive expressions of breath can make tonal shifts both up or down in scale, or they may even hold the same note for a small period of time. When it comes to confronting emotions that are triggered by ‘external’ stimulus that we could never really control, this ritual is a proven method of calming the nerves.

Tobey: You mean laughing?

Tobey: Yes.

Tobey: Couldn’t you just have said laughing?

Tobey: Yes.

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