Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
There is a particular kind of hushed, reverential silence unique to the modern mega-gallery. It is the sound of money contemplating itself. This summer, that sound will form the backdrop to a series of exhibitions across Europe celebrating the work of artists once considered dangerous: Louise Bourgeois, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman. We are told this is a sign of their enduring relevance, a testament to a new generation waking up to the battles – for reproductive rights, against patriarchy – that these women artists waged decades ago. It is a comforting narrative. It is also, for the most part, nonsense.
The truth is less a story of political resurgence and more one of successful acquisition. The current flurry of shows is not a symptom of a re-energised feminist zeitgeist. It is the apotheosis of a long, slow process of cultural embalming. The revolution has not been re-televised; it has been curated, catalogued, insured for a seven-figure sum, and hung neatly on a climate-controlled wall. What we are witnessing is not the second coming of radical art, but its final, triumphant absorption into the very machinery it sought to dismantle. These artists have not been rediscovered; they have been domesticated.
The irony is thick enough to choke on. The work of Kruger, in particular, serves as the most potent example. Her signature style – bold, Futura-font text slapped over appropriated black-and-white images – was a form of aesthetic guerilla warfare. It was designed to mimic and subvert the language of advertising, to stop you in your tracks on a city street and deliver a jolt of ideological caffeine. A piece like her 1989 poster for the Women’s March, bearing the slogan ‘Your body is a battleground’, was a genuine weapon. Now, one sees her work in the cavernous, antiseptic halls of galleries like the Guggenheim Bilbao or London’s Sprüth Magers. The context is not the chaotic public square, but the silent, transactional space of high culture. The battleground has become a boutique.
This transition from agitprop to blue-chip asset is the great, unspoken success story of the contemporary British art market. London, more than any other city, excels at this particular alchemy. It has perfected the art of taking rebellion and turning it into a heritage industry. We are masters of it. Think of the punk movement: once a visceral, snarling rejection of the establishment, now the subject of museum retrospectives and the aesthetic inspiration for thousand-pound fashion items on Dover Street. The work of these pioneering female artists is simply the latest, most sophisticated product to pass through this system.
From Battleground to Boutique
The journey from a radical margin to a commercial centre is a well-trodden path. It is the artistic equivalent of an indie band, once noisy and thrilling in some grotty Camden pub, eventually having their defining anthem used to sell family cars. The notes are the same, but the soul has been excised. The work’s power was always contingent on its context, on its opposition to the mainstream. When the mainstream embraces it, what is left? The aesthetic shell remains, but the political ghost has departed the machine.
Perhaps I’m being too cynical, but the very environment of the modern gallery is designed to perform this neutering. Take Hauser & Wirth’s outpost in rural Somerset, a place of immense, calculated charm. It is a beautiful, serene campus where one can view challenging contemporary art before enjoying a quinoa salad at the attached farm-to-table restaurant. It is a wonderful day out. It is also the most effective possible instrument for defanging art that was meant to be confrontational. To encounter a Cindy Sherman photograph, with its unsettling deconstruction of female identity, in such a placid, moneyed environment is to have its teeth pulled before your very eyes. The work is no longer an intervention; it’s an amenity. An Instagram opportunity.
I confess, I once bought a tote bag from a gallery shop featuring a piece of protest art. The irony was not lost on me, even as I handed over my credit card. It sits in a cupboard, a monument to my own complicity. The object serves as a perfect metaphor: the message has become merchandise. This is the endgame for the artists now being celebrated. Their work has become unimpeachably good business. It carries the frisson of historical importance and political righteousness, which makes wealthy collectors feel both savvy and virtuous. It is a stable, appreciating asset with impeccable liberal credentials. It is, in short, the perfect luxury good for our anxious times.
One could, of course, argue that this is a positive development. Surely, the argument goes, this level of exposure is a victory? It introduces a new, younger audience to these crucial feminist ideas, an audience that might have missed them otherwise. This is the gallery’s official line, a plausible and well-meaning defence.
But it wilfully ignores what is lost in translation. The new audience is not engaging with the work on its original terms. They are receiving a filtered, legitimised version, stripped of its abrasive power. They are taught that this is ‘important art’ to be admired in a hushed room, not a tool to be picked up and used in a real-world fight. The experience becomes one of passive appreciation, not active provocation. It is the difference between reading a historical account of a riot and actually being in one.
The Gilt-Edged Cage
The economic logic is relentless. The art world, like any market, abhors a vacuum and loves a reliable narrative. The story of ‘pioneering women artists finally getting their due’ is a fantastic narrative. It’s bankable. It allows major institutions like The Courtauld or the Tate to mount shows that are critically praised, popular with the public, and attractive to corporate sponsors. It presents a veneer of progress whilst reinforcing the status quo of the market. The system isn’t being challenged; it’s being fed.
What this process ensures is the creation of a new, fiercely guarded canon. Bourgeois, Kruger, Sherman – they are now the enshrined saints of a particular kind of late 20th-century art. Their elevation inevitably casts a shadow, pushing other, perhaps more challenging or less marketable, female artists further into the margins. The market requires a simple, digestible story with a few key protagonists. It has found them. They are now locked in a gilt-edged cage, their work destined to circulate endlessly amongst the same global circuit of museums, galleries, and auction houses. Their legacy is secure. Their radicalism is not.
Perhaps this is the final, cruel joke that an artist like Kruger, a master of irony, might appreciate. Her career has proven her own point about the all-consuming power of capital. Her critiques of consumerism and power have become luxury consumer goods themselves, trophies for the very people whose power structures she was critiquing. It is a paradox of such exquisite perfection that it is, in its own way, a masterpiece. The battle for the body may well be ongoing, but the battle for the art has been lost. The establishment always wins. It doesn’t crush dissent; it buys it. And it hangs it in a very nice frame.
