The Visual Art Implications of Viral Versus Retail, as Seen in Frank Rich's Op-Ed Piece Hillary's St. Patrick's Day Massacre

The crux of Frank Rich's article Hillary’s St. Patrick’s Day Massacre lies here:

But this event may be a watershed for two other reasons that have implications beyond Mrs. Clinton’s character and candidacy, spilling over into the 2008 campaign as a whole. It reveals both the continued salience of that supposedly receding issue, the Iraq war, and the accelerating power of viral politics, as exemplified by YouTube, to override the retail politics still venerated by the Beltway establishment.

In bits and pieces, we're leaving the retail era behind, in which corporations and institutions set the rules, control the game and reap the profits. Segment by societal segment, we're entering the era of the viral, the interconnected society in which structures arise and disappear spontaneously, rules exist by consensus and technological fiat, and profits are meted out to those who best understand this and who most immediately and thoroughly serve society through it.

We're watching another career politician go down in flames through the apparently complete inability to understand this change, which is spreading like wildfire. With a little luck and a few more idealistic public servants, perhaps the previous eight years will prove to be the final season for Gov-Mart.

Corporations are feeling it, too. The power of the interconnected masses was predicted in books like The Cluetrain Manifesto, and the power continues to grow.

At this point in time, fine art is entirely institution-driven. Individual artists make whatever art they want, of course. But ultimately, if they're not independently wealthy, they must allow themselves, to some extent, to be co-opted by some sort of institution -- a museum, gallery or government -- to make an impact. The implication is that retail still holds the upper hand in the visual arts.

The effect this has on the art itself isn't hard to see. Pieces unnecessarily grand fill massive walls and acres of floor space. Repetition, as opposed to serializing -- the manufacturing of one's artwork through hundreds of similar iterations -- continues unabated, and I daresay it's often highly influenced by retail's hold on the arts. Contemporary art ownership is not only practically unknown among the middle class; contemporary art's arbiters show little interest in helping it become a matter of relevant interest to the middle class, a fact I see as an upper-class elite's maintenance of its power over a market -- a decidedly retail power.

The institutions aren't likely to disappear or be replaced, and perhaps that's as it should be, because they still perform important roles. If it weren't for them, in fact, much of art history would be lost to warehouses, mansions and decay. But the way in which these institutions are used by art makers, art administrators and art consumers is bound to change. Ultimately the structures of these institutions are fated to evolve to more perfectly reflect the needs and interests of the interconnected society. The flattening effect we're seeing in government, as the more effective office-holders accept the new authority and begin to work with it, while resisters are relegated to the golf course, will travel outward to the elite establishments that catalog, arrange, preserve and display our accomplishments.

The place of fine art in society ten years from now could be quite different from its place today.

How might that affect the art itself?

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