Part 1: It Is 2022, and There Will Be No New Artists Please

Not a blue chip artist? Feel free to drop dead.

Keith Haring, painting Palladium backdrop Palladium night club, New York City. May 1985. Original photograph by ©Bernard Gotfryd. Sourced from the Library of Congress. Digitally manipulated by Allicette Torres

Hear ye! Hear ye! There are no new artists or innovative work that can be deemed bankable. The nostalgic re-reindexing of artists, excellent or mediocre, seems to be the reactionary method to maintain the cash flow in the art world during these Covid times. The corporate and blue chip art world easily kept their pernicious raison d’être and bulging pockets this past year with their myopic vision of art serving us the tried and true “artist retrospective.” What is most dismaying is that continuing on this trajectory cannibalizes the future for the past. By beating a dead horse with artists and themes, curators and gallerists by default limit their buyer pool to the wealthy or, even sadder, full-on corporate art hedge funds. The art and science of growing art appreciators, collectors, and thus buyers have all but been abandoned.

But what is so wrong with the artist retrospective?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with retrospective shows, and some of the best ones happened in 2021. For example, a standout was Alice Neel’s: People Come First at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. But here is the issue, retrospectives have become par for the course rather than part of a healthy art ecosystem. What has happened is instead of new artists…