myartspace post: how will the economy affect emerging artists?

I’ve been asked to occasionally guest post on the myartspace blog. My first piece is about how the slumping economy might affect emerging artists. Teaser:

… Picture this: around the time of the Clinton years and the dotcom boom (not to mention new taxes for imported art works in London), young artists (Young British Artists – YBA – to be more precise) like Damien Hirst began playing the system and becoming Sensations overnight. This helped start the trend where artists were being snagged right out of grad school – Matthew Barney being one example (his Yale and familial connections didn’t hurt). But such quick success stories weren’t always the way, and I think they may have had their day. At present, young artists seem to think that if you don’t “make it” by the time you’re 30, you’re screwed. In the “old days,” young ‘uns were told to come back when they were more refined, had time to hone their practice and skills and engagement with discourse. If you had a solo show by the time you were in your mid-forties, you were in good shape.

Perhaps we won’t go back to quite that system, but the kind of carefulness you’re seeing from galleries again – where they don’t necessarily want to risk a hot new or sensationalist artist for a quick buck, where they want to spend time on group shows or long-term investments to make sure they can meet their overheads – is the same attitude pretty much all commercial galleries had in the pre-YBA years. I think we may see a shift towards older artists again in the near future….

Read the whole article.