The arts, without art

Last week, a Claude Monet painting was sold for over 80 million at an auction by Christie8217;s in London. An anonymous buyer parted with this unexpectedly large sum of money for Le bassin aux nympheas, one in a series of four 8220;Water Lily8221; paintings by Monet. Christie8217;s made 285 million that night in art sales; the highest ever amount for a European auction. Despite the current economic recession that is affecting every income bracket, art is selling at record prices. However, in spite of the fact that the sale itself made every newspaper and television ticker tape across the world, art itself remains criminally underrepresented in the modern press.

A glance at some of the media8217;s leaders in news and culture reveals that art only makes news when it is actually a matter of finance. The New York Times has an Arts section that consists of Books, Movies, Music, Television, and Theatre, and a Style section that contains the scintillating subgroups Dining 038; Wine, Fashion 038; Style, Home 038; Garden, and, of course, the all-important Wedding 038; Celebrations. Most of our homegrown newspapers report on more of the same: movie and popular music reviews, the occasional play, and the endless, mind-numbing coverage of celebrities and fashion 8212; the latter of which only ascends to the position of modern art once in a blue moon, such as when the late Yves Saint Laurent revealed his ironic 8220;Mondrian8221; dress in the mid-8217;60s.

Even The New Yorker, that grand arbiter of taste, has no regular art column, and when it does publish articles on art, they are invariably on current exhibitions and recent books about dead geniuses, and rarely about new talent and new perspectives in art.

Why has art coverage become, for lack of a better phrase, a dying art? Even ballet and the opera 8212; arguably less contemporary, certainly less controversial 8212; get more exposure. Modern art continues to flourish in galleries, auctions, and museums, and yet most of us are clueless about anything beyond Andy Warhol a wonder who, unfortunately, spawned a million shallow imitators that took the 8220;Art8221; out of 8220;Pop Art8221;. These days, new art only makes it to the morning paper if it involves either a 8220;satirical8221; depiction of someone famous preferably nude or something intended purely to shock and offend, instead of inspire, charm, and impassion the public.