I think what happened in the last 10 or 15 years in the art market is that all the players - and that includes artists, dealers, art advisors, everyone - basically became dealers. We've had old-school collectors morph into speculators, flipping works. We've seen auction houses buying works directly from artists or from sleazy middlemen. The last step before the crash was the artists themselves supplying the auction houses. Dealing themselves, you know? The art world is as unregulated as any financial market there is.
Diego CortezThe church was always very adept at incorporating all the different artistic disciplines. What we call the church is actually an assemblage of different artistic forms, whether in its Biblical literature, or sculpture, painting, music.
Diego CortezI would say that most serious artists have a pretty complete idea of what they're going to do before they do it.
Diego CortezOur recent pop-music icons, even the most radical ones, like Björk or Caetano Veloso, often have to present themselves as happy and make positive work because they have such a large young fan base to whom they feel responsible. They can't be too negative. Now, criticism is basically a negative act. As you know, critics are neither pop stars nor popular. They are the gripers. But someone has to speak up and say no to this and yes to that.
Diego CortezI've always hated the word spirituality, but now I accept the word, and I think it's a useful term. It just means so many things. And actually, most of the things it does connote are beautiful things.
Diego CortezI've always been leery of comical artists because I think oftentimes they're hiding the fact that they're not that talented. For example, with Martin Kippenberger, I always thought he was a kind of poor man's Sigmar Polke - also a humorist - but Kippenberger used humor to get away with things he couldn't master.
Diego Cortez