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 CortezMuseums have traditionally been places that protect the art object. But in the last 40 years, a new type of museum has emerged - the Kunsthalle or alternative space which only presents temporary, contemporary shows. Yet art is not just about the future - it is about the future and the present, but it also can't forget the past.
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 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 Cortez