Presentation and the Preciousness of Art at Blum & Poe
October 19, 2011
I still remember my first visit to Blum & Poe. After reading 7 Days in the Art World, I was really excited to visit the gallery, since the space and the gallerists are mentioned so often in the book. It was actually quite fascinating how the same few names kept popping up chapter after chapter. Clearly these guys were important.
From the outside, the building doesn’t look like much. Just another warehouse lining La Cienega Boulevard. Block letters designate the building as “Blum & Poe”, but precisely what business Mr. Blum and Mr. Poe are in is certainly impossible to figure out from the exterior.
The first thing that I noticed during my visit was the door. Guests enter through a huge white door which looked to be marble with a glass cover and a stainless steel handle. The door opened smoothly, almost gliding open, and I felt like I had just walked inside a vault. What treasures are held inside?
Upon entering, you are greeted by familiar Institutional White walls and a narrow hallway that leads to the gallery itself. The space is actually set up much more like a museum than a typical gallery. There is a lobby, several exhibition spaces, and even a second floor. There was also one room which appeared to be some sort of library, book store, or research center, but unfortunately it was closed. The exhibition spaces are pretty impressive. My first visit was during a Florian Maier-Aichen show in which one room featured three large scale photographs. Although the pictures were quite demanding of the space, I still couldn’t help but notice how big the room was and how tall the walls were. If the gallery was a vault, then whatever was inside was certainly valuable. And when standing there in such a large room where only three objects are up on display, almost forced into pondering their meaning. Or their value.
After wandering around the gallery for a while, I stumbled upon a locked door which apparently lead to the main office. It was locked. But through a window in the door I could see what was probably the most precious artifact in the whole building: Oval Buddha, a solid gold statue by world renowned artist Takashi Murakami. It was like the Holy Grail of the art world, and my experience of it was restricted by a locked door. I guess not being a member of the art world elite means I am not worthy of being in the same room. I left disappointed.
My next visit to the gallery was during a Culver City Art Walk. This time the gallery was packed. It was easily the most crowded gallery of the night, which got me thinking about what people go to art walks to see. Is what this gallery presenting really much worthwhile than all the others down the street?
I made my way through the narrow hallway crowded with hipsters drinking Tecate, which seemed to be the drink of the night. On view that day were sculptures by Matt Johnson. Most of the work was not very captivating. Intersecting ceiling tiles and a small dirt pyramid were passed by without much contemplation. The Buddha statue did get my attention. Hiroshima Buddha is a bomb-damaged traditional bronze sculpture. A symbol of peace torn apart by a weapon of war.
But the best was saved for last. At the end of the gallery in a dark room stood Star in a Jar. In the middle of the room was a pedestal. On top of the pedestal was a jar. In the jar was a glowing light bulb. The fact that it was emitting light was pretty fascinating considering that it wasn’t plugged in to anything. It was like magic: inside a vault, lay a simple jar. Inside the jar lay the universe.
Johnson has an eye for creating visually intriguing installations. He was successfully able to present his sculpture in a way that made it seem like the most important and mysterious object in the world. He called this bulb a star, and with that adds the symbolism of the cosmos: light, truth, birth, life, etc. Things as valuable as that should certainly be stored in the most prestigious of vaults. But is it a bit pretentious to assign all this worth to what is at the end of the day, a piece of glass inside another piece of glass? Does placing it on a pedestal physically mean we should place it on a pedestal figuratively? The creation of meaning is after all what every art piece sets out to accomplish. Johnson’s piece pulls at our strings, makes us look, and gets us thinking. But what makes an art piece valuable? There is no doubt in my mind that the monetary value of the sculpture was rather high. Is it even possible to measure the “artistic” value of a work of art? I liked Star in a Jar. It was well executed and adequately presented. But when I left the gallery what stayed with me was not the piece itself, but thoughts of how something can be deemed important simply by presenting it as important. Johnson, Blum and Poe are very skilled at that.
Throughout my years in school, the elitism of the art world was among the most discussed topics. Blum and Poe are definitely part of this elite. Now, I don’t have anything against them or the way they run their business. I’m quite fond of a lot of work that they show. I just question the value placed on the cultural objects they display, and how their presentation correlates with that value. If people come to this art temple to pray to a gold plated or nuclear Buddha, then they should just remember to peel away the presumptuousness added by the institution and look at the work for what it is.
