Dear Collector

In November 2015, for the exhibition Mankind / Machinekind at Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, Domenico Quaranta wrote an open letter to art collectors:

Dear Collector,

“I’m writing you a letter because what you do is very personal and what I have to say fits better to the form of a private conversation than an essay…

The first thing you have to realize is that there’s not such a thing as digital media art, or whichever label is used to describe it. There are just artists, responding at different levels to the topics of their time, and using at different levels the tools of their time… The second thing you will soon realize is that what you are looking for is not easy to find in the usual venues where you go to look for art. Even if, in recent years, a number of artists, curators, gallery owners, collectors and institutions had your same epiphany, in the art market and the mainstream contemporary art world this number is still pretty small. It’s one of the paradoxes of the weird time you are living in, my dear collector: in a world where politics, economics, social relationships and private life, and with them most cultural ecologies (think about books, music and cinema), have been changed dramatically by the advent of new means of communication; in this world the art world, that has always played the role of the cultural avant-garde, has become a sort of conservative, elitist niche. The art world, not art, which is often flourishing outside of the art world’s borders, in more experimental, borderline situations and, of course, online… [more here].”

Courtesy Domenico Quaranta and Krinzinger Projekte.