Rhiannon Roberts in Conversation with Art Historian, Author & Curator, Anna Moszynska
Anna Moszynska is an internationally-acclaimed contemporary art historian, lecturer, author, and curator. In 1988, she was asked to head up a specialist Contemporary Art course in the education department of Sotheby’s. It saw such success that what started as a one-week pilot scheme later became the first MA degree to be validated at Sotheby’s Institute by the University of Manchester in 1995. Having published books including Sculpture Now, Antony Gormley Drawing, and Abstract Art alongside a wide range of anthology essays and solo exhibition catalogues, her passion and enthusiasm for art is perhaps outmatched only by her boundless knowledge of its history.
Eager to get her take on current happenings, MADE IN BED’s 2021-22 Editor in Chief Rhiannon Roberts recently sat down with the author to discuss how the art world is pulling up its socks, her favourite pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale, and how Yves Klein’s “zones” walked so Damien Hirst’s The Currency could run.
Anna Moszynska.
Rhiannon Roberts: To start, what are your thoughts on the academic theory that is embedded into the teaching of contemporary art and its accompanying dialogue?
Anna Moszynska: All art comes out of its time and context. I'm a great believer in connecting art to its moment, whether that's right now or thirty years ago. There are always these conditioning environments, if you like, from which art emerges. Artists are not living in a vacuum, they connect with the world and they always have done. In terms of ideas, yes, we are all affected, whether we know it or not, by the philosophies and theories that are circulating at any given time. In terms of [Sotheby’s Institute of Art’s MA in Contemporary Art], I think the course has probably adopted a more theoretical approach than when I started because the course evolved out of a slightly different concept of thinking about how art could be taught. At that stage, it tended to be more object-led and put greater emphasis on combining theoretical approaches with practical, vocational activities. But theory was always part of the course. It's never been divorced from it.
RR: Have you noticed a distinct change in the course throughout the years as a Consultant Lecturer?
AM: Certainly there's far more art around, and obviously the Internet has intervened. Since I first started teaching contemporary art at Sotheby’s Institute, the most extraordinary things have happened. Now, every two minutes, people upload more images to the Internet than existed across the board 150 years ago, so, obviously, the course has had to adapt and change. Also, there’s the major factor of globalisation. You could argue that the current era of that started with the fall of the Berlin Wall in ’89, but since that time, we've been dealing with a completely different kind of art world, including, of course, the rise of new markets. There's also been an enormous amount of revisionism, such as the attention that's finally being given to groups previously excluded from the canon. When I wrote my first book Abstract Art, published in 1990, I was very keen to include as many women as possible. Although I was very aware of the huge input of women during the Russian Revolution for example, and how significant their contributions were, we didn't have the range of information and visual exposure we have today concerning artists like Hilma af Klint. For all sorts of reasons, she'd been sidelined. When I revised the book in 2020, I took account of her contribution, but that's just the icing on the cake. So much work has been made by women which was insufficiently recognised at the time. That's where the art world is pulling up its socks. Frieze Masters has done a fantastic job with Spotlight in showing some of these forgotten figures, and also, of course, the museums and commercial galleries have been doing major work in accounting for lost names. But this is just one aspect. Another is the enormous catch-up that we've had to do in terms of the contributions of Caribbean, black American and African artists who, again, had been left out of so many of the narratives.
RR: And the incredible abstract Australian artists that are arguably even more forgotten about–Sally Gabori…
AM: Yes, of course! And Emily Kame Kngwarreye and her posthumous institutional recognition. Incredible contributions. I'm really pleased that all this has opened up. Of course, the greater inclusiveness in terms of the global compass makes the whole field of contemporary art more challenging to study. Also, if you think about the way in which time is always moving forward, at what point do you say, well, maybe the parameters of the art that is studied needs to take account of the temporal shift? We made a change already whilst I was still involved with the course by bringing forward the start date from 1945 to 1960, where [the Sotheby’s Institute MA in Contemporary Art] began, and dropped the ‘Post-War ’part of the moniker.
RR: The course now begins in 1968. Do you think that around 1968 is still the right place to start when talking about contemporary art?
AM: To be honest, from my perspective, I'd say 1960. I'm a stickler! Without understanding what happened in the ‘60s, one is really a little at sea. I think you have to know about conceptual art because it's such a major driver in the work that's being produced today. But having said that, of course, there are other people who feel that it's all nonsense and that you just need to look at the last few years as contemporary, and everything else is ‘old hat.’ Again, with the Internet and the technological changes that we're involved with every day, it seems as though the past doesn't count. I think it's very dangerous to lose track of that, though. We do need to know our roots. I think that's true of contemporary art. We get more from it if we also have that hinterland, that background.
Yves Klein’s sale of a Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility to Dino Buzzati. Series no.1, zone no.5, 26 January 1962. Photo © Harry Shunk and Janos Kender J.Paul Getty Trust. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. (2014.R.20) © Succession Yves Klein c/o ADAGP, Paris.
Installation view, Damien Hirst, The Currency (2022), Newport Street Gallery, London. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2022.
RR: This influx of new information and technology, whereafter things need to be readjusted and reconsidered, leads me to wonder, what are your thoughts on NFTs?
AM: In a way, I’m very opposed to them because I'm coming at it from an ecological perspective. I think the level of carbon footprint is untenable now. One of the major issues in our current moment is the climate crisis. What we're looking at today is so completely different from even thirty-five years ago when I began teaching. The idea that you just hop on a flight and go anywhere to see art! The fact is that there are now around 270 biennials across the world, but when I started there was just a handful. It’s got to the point where the world has gone mad in terms of flights! The art world is affected because the dealers are expected to turn up to art fairs, which are not included in the number of biennials, and art critics are meant to run around and see as much as they can. So coming back to NFTs, I think it's inconceivable that we can carry on down this route of mega technology burnout at the cost of making them. I think Damien Hirst’s recent The Currency (2022) pretty much sums it up when he put 10,000 NFTS up for sale corresponding to 10,000 small spot paintings. The purchaser had to choose between keeping the NFT or swapping it for the physical artwork. The physical versions of the non-exchanged NFTs were then burnt–that was the deal. This touches on so many issues. In terms of art, it picks up on Yves Klein’s sale of Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility (1959-62) where, in an elaborate ritual, the purchaser could complete the transaction by burning the receipt given by the artist for the sale of an empty zone of space. In exchange, Klein released half of the gold he gained from the sale into the river Seine. A similar kind of idea, but in Klein's time, this was about a very different strategy. Of course it picked up on the commercial aspect of art, but it was also connected to his Rosicrucian-inspired thinking about gold. Hirst explained his use of the NFTs as follows: “I'm completing the transformation of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the physical versions. The value of art, digital or physical, which is hard to define at the best of times, will not be lost. It will be transferred to the NFT as soon as they are burnt.” The result is thus left to the vagaries of the NFT market!
RR: Since Covid, do you think auction houses continue to play the same role?
AM: I think it changed some time ago when the auction house started selling work straight from the artist’s studio in 2015. As of just last year, a primary market sales channel was launched at Sotheby’s–a move that would have been unheard of in years gone by. In terms of post-Covid, in one way, what Covid did was expand interest in art through buying and selling on the internet. I think it extended the potential range of people to include those who might be put off by live auctions. Things are perhaps less exclusive, less elitist now. Certainly, for the smaller auction houses, I think the opportunity people had during Covid to flick through online images also led them to think, ‘I'm spending more time at home, what do I want to look at on my walls?’ Venturing into the realms of the virtual experience hasn't been bad for that side of the market.
Photo courtesy of Julian Cassady for Sotheby’s.
RR: Do you think that the art world is generally becoming more of a globalised, decentralised industry?
AM: I'd like to think so. The number of art spaces that are opening up in Africa, for example, has indicated this. I think it'll take longer with the auction houses there, but in terms of the art spaces, foundations, and museums, it's remarkable how much has happened very recently. I think that's all for the good. If you can continue to build up a collector base in more countries outside the Euro-American axis, then that’s brilliant for the local culture and for extending interest in art.
RR: As we continue to venture back into physical spaces, what do you think makes a great curator?
AM: Curating really works when you don't notice it. I think when the art is there but you're distracted by poor lighting or by not being guided through correctly, it can really spoil your experience. Signage, the amount of information that's given either on the wall or in the hand, these are all issues that also affect the audience’s experience of the work. But there's so much that goes into curating in advance of all of that. It’s a demanding job. You have to liaise with the living artist, the artist’s gallery, the museum or space wherever it might be, and then transport–all those issues of moving stuff around. It can be onerous. When I curated A Space for Drawing with Antony Gormley at MACRO in Rome, I was lucky to be working with a very well-equipped studio with very good infrastructure. I also coordinated a couple of exhibitions by London-based artists at the Serpentine Gallery a long time ago. It can be easier doing something on a more local scale because transport and issues of movement are extremely demanding at the moment.
Installation view: Antony Gormley, Drawing Space, MACRO, Rome, Italy, 2010–11. Photograph by Davide Franceschini, Rome.
Installation view: Antony Gormley, Drawing Space, MACRO, Rome, Italy, 2010–11. Photograph by Davide Franceschini, Rome.
Installation view: Antony Gormley, Drawing Space, MACRO, Rome, Italy, 2010–11. Photograph by Davide Franceschini, Rome.
RR: What did you think about the most recent Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani?
AM: I was very pleased to see how beautifully curated it was and I wondered if having the extra year helped from that perspective. Because if you think about it, the turnover, the speed at which after a biennial curator is appointed, they have to select and mount the exhibition can be quite constraining. And the colour of the walls, that's something I've noticed in terms of curating. It's so important, isn't it, to create the right background for the work itself?
RR: I’ll always remember the Paula Rego room, with those inky blue walls, the only darkened room in Giardini. I thought that was tremendously effective.
AM: Yes exactly. It also comes back to the importance of the museum-like approach to the mounting of that international show as a whole. I thought it was great.
Installation view: Paula Rego at the Central Pavilion, Giardini, Venice, 2022. La Biennale di Venezia.
RR: Was there a National Pavilion that stood out to you?
AM: I really got a lot out of Francis Alÿs’ Belgium pavilion, The Nature of the Game. The way in which he used the screens to tackle his fascination with children’s play. It was so direct, filming children in a rubber tyre rolling down a hill. And also, with the two rooms on the side, there was a fantastic symmetry. His ideas in the very small paintings placed there were played out in the films in the central space. The two supported each other beautifully and reflected the dynamic and symbiotic sense of his oeuvre, which I think is very important. The other pavilion I really liked was the French pavilion with Zineb Sedira, Les rêves n’ont pas de titre (Dreams have no titles). She went to so much trouble and worked so hard to put together a really interesting exhibition.
RR: Did you go to Documenta 15?
AM: I read about it and participated in some of the virtual tours. I think that it was driven by good, important motives, but at the end of the day, you've still got to have something to attract attention to the issues raised. When an exhibition falls short on the visuals, it leaves a big gap. Dealing with multiple collectives, there's so much room for things to be contested, to not come together. There is a space for the collective and it's incredibly important that we don't forget that. It moves away from the insidious celebration of a single artist, the ‘one-off genius’ notion which I think still permeates the more popular perception of what the artist is. I think it's really important to get away from that. There are some fantastic collectives that have been working throughout recent history, but to set something up on that sort of scale was a particularly ambitious enterprise.
RR: Are there any exhibitions of recent memory that stood out to you?
AM: There are two that immediately come to mind. The first is William Kentridge at the Royal Academy of Arts, which I think was an incredible exhibition. We've seen many Kentridge shows before, but I think what came across here was the sheer range of his content. What he is addressing is important but how he brings it across is significant in terms of the lightness of touch. The fact that he can entertain that some of the work is very funny, and, at the same time, that he tells his narrative from many different angles shows how thoughtful his approach is. His solo exhibition, Oh To Believe in Another World, at the Goodman Gallery on Cork Street was also hugely rewarding, again, because it touched most inventively on game-changing historical issues, here the Russian Revolution. This showed a further dimension to what Kentridge has been addressing in terms of South Africa and revealed the legacy of 20th-century European history playing out within a wonderfully enhanced sense of the theatrical. This was also a feature of his Black Box/Chambre Noire at the RA–a work dealing with the German occupation of Africa and colonialism. Especially remarkable was the way in which projection was used because although the technology is advanced, many of the base materials are handmade. I love this bringing together of craft with a highly sophisticated use of movement and sound. The other exhibition to mention is Marlene Dumas’ open-end at Palazzo Grassi in Venice–another beautifully curated show that also covered so much ground. It showed Dumas’ major significance in terms of contemporary painting and in her choice of subject matter–provocative and timely! Also a South African (by birth), like Kentridge.
RR: To wrap up, if you could give one piece of advice to budding art world professionals that have just graduated from university, what would it be?
AM: Get out there! You have to get away from looking at a screen. It's really important to network, to get yourself into the system somehow. In other words, circulate. Go to as many art exhibitions as possible and talk to people. Just get weaving!
Thank you to Anna Moszynska on behalf of MADE IN BED.
Anna’s current books in print can be found at Thames & Hudson, here.
Rhiannon Roberts
2021-22 Editor in Chief, MADE IN BED