Art between Politics and Glamour


What’s happened? There has been an incredible shift in the attention the media pay to visual art in this country and it’s directed more often than not towards a few artists and institutions. You can hardly open a newspaper or magazine without a profile about an artist’s lifestyle, designs or fashion jumping out. There’s been a complete shift in audience attention too. Queues have formed outside the old Tate and the huge Tate Modern is already full. Is art easier to understand now? Have people become more sophisticated? Or is this about something else? Avoiding the simple insistence that anything written on the subject is better than nothing, it would be good to look at where this change comes from—at the way artists, media and the main institutions bend towards each other like flowers to the sun. This month ends at a historical moment. Attitudes towards the way work is displayed at Tate Modern are indicative of this change…




Sacha Craddock