Q&A with VV art critic Christian Viveros-Faune, part III

A MAN Q&A with Village Voice art critic Christian Viveros-Faune, continued from part one and from part two...

MAN: You're a managing director of a commercial art fair, Volta, and an organizer of another commercial art fair, Chicago's Next fair. At the same time you're a writer, a journalist, you're the art critic for the Village Voice. Why isn't that the most basic kind of conflict of interest?

Christian Viveros-Faune: I think essentially, because, I believe you can wear a lot of hats in the art world, and one needs to because, among other things, critics can't survive on the money that they make from writing. Very few critics can. And, not only that, but I'm interested in curating, and I firmly believe that there is no interest in the art world without a conflict of interest.

Now, that may seem counterintuitive, and it is, but I would argue that the art world is counterintuitive in the extreme. In what other industry, for example, does one of the major magazines that chronicles both the creative and the business end of the art world establish an art fair of the same name. Obviously, I'm talking about Frieze.

And that's nothing. Examine, for second, the practice of writing catalog essays. You know and I know that there is no such thing as a negative catalog essay and the reason for that is obvious: one way critics make money is by writing promotional copy for galleries and, hopefully, artists they like or love. And then there's the business of curators and critics slinging their asses around to universities and institutions for speaking engagements.

Shall I go on? I mean, again, what I'm arguing for here is honesty all the way around. Like every other business (or form of writing or discipline for that matter) this is not a pristine business, no matter what the NY Times rules of engagement say. It is full of peaks and valleys. I'm honest about my climbing those peaks and going down into those valleys. Maybe that makes me stupid, I don't know. What I do know is it doesn't affect my ethics when I write. I'd rather not write about the market, because weirdly enough, it doesn't interest me much.

Can I curate an exhibition as an art fair for a company that will pay me money for it? You're damned right I can. Do I see a conflict there? No I don't, I see potential for a conflict, which is not the same thing. It's the same dilemma I have every day when I decide not take candy from a baby. One it's easier than it looks, and two it's just not done, it's unethical and uncivil. Decent, cool people don't do it, and that's that.

MAN: Did the Voice ask you about that, ask you to address that in some way?

Viveros-Faune: I told my editor, so he knows, and of course I hope the paper is not going to care much. They should take it under advisement with regards to the pitches I submit, that would be natural.

MAN: Have you considered what it says about you, about the Voice, about the state of the art world when someone holding one of the three major critical positions in New York City has hands in two different pots, both trying to be a journalist, to be a critic, while operating in the commercial side as well?

Viveros-Faune: Honestly, I thought it basically came with the territory. It's either that [conflict] or teaching. We're not nuns here. I actually really prefer to sort of stay in the active end of the art world. I'm not a guy with degrees, and I like teaching, but have never really been interested in that end of things, in joining the academy. I like people who make things, rather than study them long after the impulse to make them is gone. I do firmly believe that there is a way to stay critically focused and active in the actual sort of 'doing' end of things, and that is what I'm trying to do.

And, of course, I'm not the first person to do it, nor is it the first time that I've done this, meaning functioned with a similar conflict. For a while when I was writing for New York Press - actually, nearly the entire time I was writing for NYP -- I was running my own gallery. [Viveros-Faune was a partner in Roebling Hall.] Eventually I left the Press because my gallery became successful and I realized I couldn't review people who were my peers, which at the time was really sort of the stuff I was interested in writing about. Now my critical tack is different, I am more concerned in work with legs beyond the next half decade, and that is the work I prefer to write about. And again, I don't write about the market. Also, in case anyone has missed this detail: I no longer sell art work to anyone, which in my mind takes me out of the area of real conflict, period.