#2801: Young replies to Morris on art and market

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: David x Young <Frelgo@interport.net>

You are mountain-molehilling here. Of course it is a market consideration and
nothing else.  I was very close to Charlie Parker and went to Haiti after he
died in search of the roots of his music--- and found it. The energy is the
same, the 'style' different ,perhaps ---but that is a packaging-market
consideration. The situation then ---1962-- was that Dewitt Peters and Selden
Rodman had made a big market for the Haitian primitives-- the genuine ones like
Hyppolite which they were often able to purchase for just a few tubes of oil
color and some brushes and board to paint on--- and took these works and --with
Peters holding the fort in Haiti  and Rodman waxing artspeak via his books in
the USA --such as RENAISSANCE IN HAITI--and dramatically promoted them to huge
profit. (Rodman was far less successful with CONVERSATIONS WITH ARTISTS where he
attempted to  abolish the great 'Abstract Expressionists'). They created the
impasse of the then market and led to those thousands of imitations you used to
be able to get on the waterfront streets for next to nothing-- perhaps can still
do today. Rosemarie was not 'naïf' but quite skilled--- yet hungered for
exposure to more of the European masters which were not then available to be of
influence. She and a few others simply went on their own with what they had to
work with sans any asskissing to the Centre D'Art  autonomy.

I suppose one can wax heavy philosophical harangues about the freedoms  and
universalities of art but really, it's quite a simple and practical matter as
it  usually is in the matter of the exploitation of art for profit rather than,
say, a mere living wage  (which is what those waterfront copies are all about).

David X Young