A Short Story About Isaac Emmer

by Stefan Agopian

It was sometime around the end of June, in 2014, when I got a call from a woman introducing herself as Roxana Gamart.  She had the voice of a fourteen-year-old and seemed to be quite emotional.  She told me that she had gotten my number from the publishing house Trei.  This was the only reason I didn't hang up, as I usually would in such a situation.  She explained that she wanted me to participate in a project that she was organising: Ten authors were to write a story using as inspiration a painting from a selection of works by ten young Romanian artists. If I wanted, I could be one of those ten writers. In that moment, I didn't want to do it. But once she told me of the tidy sum I'd be paid for a story, I thought it wouldn't hurt to agree, just in principle and without obligation. That's how I came to say, “Yes”, or more like, “Yeaah, maybe”.  About a week later I met with the people at Trei to sort out the contract details. I refused to take an advance and found it easy to choose my painting, without really knowing why, by Roman Tolici.  A man dressed in white, seen from behind, who was heading towards the darkness in front of him.  I thought of the shroud in which the Jews bury their dead. 

Roman Tolici Nobody 10, tempera and oil on canvas, 60 x 30 cm, 2011 

Chaim Efrima Collection

I then thought of Isaac Emmer and his story:

Beginning in the summer of 2011, I was leaving the house less and less often. In fact, I left the house twice a week: on Monday and on Thursday. Monday because that was when I had to submit my three weekly articles to my employers at the magazine, Academia Catavencu. And Thursday for the editorial meeting, in the same place.  The remaining five days were spent doing different things: over Tuesday and Wednesday I read three books, usually really stupid ones, for each of which I would write a fifteen -line review. On Friday I would recover from Thursday's drinking, which itself occurred in a bar on Academy Street with my editorial colleagues, while on Saturday and Sunday I wrote, without any enthusiasm, those three aforementioned articles. The newspaper office was in an apartment block facing the university, “on the horse's tail,” as Bucharest people say, meaning behind the equestrian statue of Mihai the Brave.

I'll quickly ignore Monday, nothing special happened: I handed in the articles and had a chat with the guys in the office.  Before heading home, I went by the bookstalls along the walls of the university. I knew most of the sellers and if I was in luck, I might pick up something worthwhile.

Thursdays were much more interesting, and not just because of the drinks with my colleagues, but for another reason: In the spring of 2005 I bought, without knowing exactly why, the debut book of Macedonski called Prima Verba, published first in 1872.  I gave a lot for it: five million lei. It was a rare item but its literary value was closer to zero. When writing an introduction to Macedonski's Collected Works in 1939, Tudor Vianu dismissed his first volume as insignificant.  Which made it even rarer an item. Rare, rare, but it was of no use to me. It was a curiosity and nothing more. This is how it came to me that I could collect the debut books of Romanian authors, and the Macedonski book could thereby take up an important place in my library. Done and dusted! That's what I'd do. I began to knock at the doors of antique book shops (I used to do this before, but without such a clear purpose) in search of debut works.  I reserved Thursdays, before the editorial meeting at Academia Catavencu, for this work.

The second Thursday of the month of October, 2011, fell on the 13^th.  Everything that brings others bad luck seems to bring me only good fortune. For whatever reason, that day was always a good one.  The same applied to black cats or empty buckets. Unfortunately, people tend not to walk down the street with empty buckets in their hands. Luckily, I find that black cats still cross your path, although you can't rely on meeting them on every single street.  It's the same with priests.  They are pretty rare.

For me, the very best day of all is a Thursday that falls on the 13^th.

Anyway, this Thursday in 2011 fell, as I mentioned, on the 13^th.  Outside, the grey sky drizzled rain and cast an equally grey light. In general, rain has a calming effect on me, but a cold drizzle that seems never-ending fills me with a happiness that is hard to put into words.  For years I haven't drank coffee in the morning, opting instead for a black tea. In the course of preparing my tea and drinking it, I smoked my eight morning cigarettes without thinking about anything in particular.  I was simply happy to be alive, happy that it was seventeen degrees outside and raining.  My wife Cristina was away in Sweden visiting a friend and the kids didn't stay with us too often these days. So I was on my own, if I don't count our three tomcats, whose tails were brushing my legs.  I gave them something to eat after which they retired quietly for their scheduled siesta.  I continued to drink my tea and reached my fifth cigarette of the morning.  I had yet to know that as a result of this passion for the debut books of Romanian authors, it would follow that by lunchtime I would come to know one Isaac Emmer, a person who would somehow come to change my life.  Not knowing any of this, things followed their natural course belonging to a Thursday. I finished up my tea and smoked my eighth cigarette of the morning. I then took a shower, I shaved and I think I trimmed my moustache. I dressed myself and then ate my yogurt (with an authentic taste and rich in the milks of cow, buffalo and sheep. Six percent fat.) with two slices of sesame seed bread, toasted. I didn't forget to either leave the cats fresh water, or put clean sand in their litter tray. I was feeling good, and for no particular reason.  Although I really had at least two reasons: the rain falling from the sky, and the day being the 13^th of the month.  I left the house at eleven on the dot.  Outside there was a pleasant drizzle and the light shone like tin. From where I live, in a ten-storey-block at the Cotroceni bridge, you can get to the university with either the 336 or the 601 bus.  The 601 is for the students living out in Grozavesti, and I usually take it as it comes along more often. I also never get asked to show my ticket by an inspector on that one. Between the teenage girls in their tiny t-shirts and the decent old pensioners, I have pretty good odds on that bus.

It being the 13^th, and therefore my lucky day, the bus arrived just as I got to the stop. And it was practically empty. I sat down beside a pretty girl in glasses who was taking a course in economics. Outside the light took on the colour of tarnished silver. At the hospital, a guy and girl got off the bus. He was tall and acned, and the little one had the air of a young girl, with her button nose.  Before getting off, they had been talking about Korsakov Syndrome, the psychiatric disorder suffered in alcoholic paralysis. Being an experienced drinker I knew all about that. At Eroilor Station, no one got off, but two old dears, around my age, got on. So as to not appear older than they were, they decided to stand in the middle of the bus. The girl in the glasses sitting by me got off at the Law Faculty Station.  At the Town Hall no one got on or off the bus. At the University it emptied completely but for the two old dears. Exactly seven minutes had passed since I entered the bus.  Still drizzling, still the same grey light.  I began my tour of the old bookshops with the one just to the left of the National Theatre, I went to the one in Sala Dalles, and crossed Magheru to get to the one called La Liberali. And, as usual, I found nothing of interest.  On Academy Street there were two shops next door to each other, both belonging to the Bucharest Bookshop Company, as yet not privatised.  In the second shop, I happened upon a debut book by A. Toma, Poems, printed and paid for by a group of friends at Cultura Nationala, Bucharest, 1926.  We are talking here about the same A. Toma who, in 1950, at the age of 75, was declared the equal of Eminescu and superior to Arghezi, Barbu and Blaga. The book cost 30 lei, and I bought it.  To balance things out, as social realism didn't sit so easily in my shoulder-bag, I also bought The Rose of the Winds, published in 1937 by the same house, Cultura Nationala.  Edited by Mircea Eliade; it is the only book that Ionescu had published while he was still alive.  To my surprise it only cost 12 lei – and at a time when no serious bookseller would accept less than a 100 lei for it – it was a bargain. I didn't think twice. In their own ways, A. Toma and Nae Ionescu had both been crooks. I was happy to have got my hands on them.

While I was waiting at the lights to cross 6th of March Street, now called Queen Elisabeta Boulevard, I thought of the words that Nae Ionescu used to conclude his preface to Mihail Sebastian's, For Two Thousand Years..: “Iosef Hechter, don't you feel how the cold and the darkness are closing around you?” I said, “to hell with Ionescu,” so beloved of the Criterionists at the office. I crossed the road and entered Anticariat 1, a shop in the colonnaded part of Academy Street.  Inside there was a light of cold blue neon and the pleasant smell of old books.  The undisturbed dust of many years.  I said hello to the shopkeeper and shared a few words with him. There was one other customer in the place, investigating the shelves of history books. I made my way over to the Romanian Interwar Literature and began my search.  As usual, I found nothing that took my interest. I was just about ready to give up when a small volume by the name of The Cloak of Nights took my eye, it was dated 1940 and signed by a certain Emanoil Ungher.  The name didn't ring a bell but on the title page the following was written: “17 Poems with cover and 17 drawings by S. Perahim.”  There was no publisher mentioned, just the printer, Tipographia Libro, Bucharest, which probably meant that the author had published a small print run of the book himself.  Books illustrated by Perahim between the two wars were rare and expensive, however. So I decided to buy it, even though I knew nothing about the author. When I went to pay (it cost 40 lei – about €9), I asked the guy at the counter if he knew anything about the author.  He shrugged and said that he had never heard of him. Just then, a voice from behind spoke to me:

- Do you mind if I take a look at that book?

I turned around to look at the person who spoke. It was the fellow who had been looking through the history section. In his hands were two books he was about to purchase.

- Not at all, I said, offering it to him.

He put his own books under his arm and took the book from me. He was a man of about 5'7, 5'8 with a tanned, thinly-lined face.  His hands too were tanned, those of a man who spent his time outdoors.     

He had blue eyes and short curly hair.  He wasn't wearing his glasses; it was obvious that he was using contact lenses. Jeans, a windcheater that was expensive-looking, and shoes with thick soles. Nothing on his head. He seemed to be around the same age as me, a little over sixty.  Looking at the book, he said:

- He was a Latin teacher at the Jewish high-school, 'Cultura.' This is the only book he published.

He spoke well but with the accent of someone who spent a long time abroad, that's how I guessed he was Jewish.  He continued:

- My father had him as a teacher in the 1930's and he took this book with him when he left the country. Maybe because the teacher had left a flattering dedication to him inside.  Some time in the 1950's, he inquired after Mr. Ungher with his old school pals who were still living in Romania. No one had heard a thing about the old teacher, and the local community had no record of his passing.

He handed me back the book.

I thanked him and put the book in my bag. I wished the men a good day and left the shop.  My watch said it was ten minutes to one, I had just enough time to get to the office. It was still spitting rain outside and people were dashing here and there. Just then the guy from inside the shop appeared on the footpath and looked towards me.  In the daylight his eyes were the light grey of cigarette ash. He approached and offered me his hand.

- Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. Isaac Emmer…

(Excerpt from Double Exposure - A Short Story About Isaac Emmer, by Stefan Agopian)

Translation from Romanian - Emmet Cooke

Evening In The Vertical World

Marc Verlan, Evening In The Vertical World, Oil on Canvas, 93,7 x 135 cm, 2007

Artist Status: beyond complicated and more

An interview with Anna Khodorkovskaya

Anna, you seem to alternate between two major themes in your work: the world of ads/marketing and the part of the economy artists are confronted with in their careers. How and where do does two themes meet in your life?

As someone’s living in today’s present, I am forced to interact with the world of marketing on daily basis. In other words, every minute of our life is being evaluated, bought, and sold back to us. Our lives and ultimately we are just commodities on different markets. For several years, I worked in graphic design and at some point stopped working having in mind this conclusion: “Don’t buy into the package”!
The exact same thing happens in the art world.

Following my decision to dedicate myself exclusively to art, I have along the way encountered the same problem: “the empty shell” presented as true “force”, wrapped up in its own fancy clothes. 

For the viewer, the artist is a magical, powerful, important being, someone who is revealing new meanings to the world. But in the art system, the artist is a weak link; he or she is a product, which might or might not become part of the “circle of power”. And most of the time, an artist’s career depends a lot on that. Therefore, the artist and her/his art, seen as only mare commodities on the art market, are two recurrent themes in my life.

Beside their purely artistic endeavor, the artist has to align him/herself to other “commodities” (other artists): he/she needs to update their CV’s, they need to participate into prestigious exhibitions, to win awards, send out applications, and do many other things that keep the artist at that specific level of corresponding commodities. These observations were the trigger for some of my projects, in which I tried to analyze these processes. Also, I wouldn’t want to call my art as being a critical one. For me, all these projects represent research and an analysis attempt; they are all questions that I raise to myself and to the world.

Some of your works are exhibited or performed online. Are there any differences in relating to these works as an artist than to the physicality of the works exhibited in a gallery?

In theory, all artworks that can be seen on internet could be physically exhibited in an art gallery as a photo-video documentation, as artefacts, video captures or video stills, installations, etc. There are plenty examples of such type of exhibitions in the history of performance and conceptual art. Nevertheless, the art contained by these works exists only on the internet space. They belong to the online world, the virtual media. Therefore, exhibiting these artworks within the space of a gallery has an educational dimension more than anything else.

The same thing, only in reversed, happens with the „the material artworks”. The world of painting, of graphics, or object, and so on, is alive; and internet serves exclusively as a platform for their representation. On the other hand, there are artworks that have the potential of being functional in both worlds. For instance, in the project ArtStreamShop we, the artists, work both with material artworks (and not only) and the real spectator of the performance, and at the same time there is an online version of this project, of which the main elements are the live streaming and the website. Also, another aspect I want to highlight is that the online projects lack any kind of pragmatic feature; they are not created with the purpose of being sold to the public, unlike the artworks exhibited in a gallery. Generally speaking, they don’t communicate in any way with the viewer in this direction. Sometimes the product itself is not present. Of course, there can always be a solution, an artist can print a screen shot and sign a limited edition of it. But, it is not the case with ArtStreamShop, it’s simply not at all part of the initial project.

In ‘CakeMakers’ and ‘Jedes Stück 1 Euro!’ you question the usual economy of art and position artists not only as the people who produce the works, but also the ones who sell them, eliminating the usual middleman. How does this affect an artist’s independence and, also, their livelihood?

An artist is so much more than just the creator of his or her artworks. Besides creating works of art, the artist is a whole other persona: manager, secretary, photographer, designer, curator, art critic, his own superstar and his own spectator. But all these roles are played behind the curtains; the viewer only sees the artworks on the gallery walls.

That’s why I feel comfortable with this theme “an artist’s own salesman” or the artist being his own sales manager, as a logical completion of all the other personas. In this project, the theme was that we (the artists) were buying and selling the artworks from and to each other, becoming also our own buyer, using “comic” prices, hence 1 Euro per piece. The price, in this situation, is just a symbol, what is fundamentally important for me is the performance, the happening, the way in which all the participants discover new questions that they need to consider. The rest of it, including money, is just mare instruments.

In ‘Art Stream Shop’ you host live presentations of artworks, during which people anywhere can watch and buy them. In what ways does the approach of the public towards the artworks change than in a regular gallery or museum setting? Do people engage more with the artworks this way, or are there certain geographical regions that have a higher interest in watching/buying than most?

Well, first of all, ArtStreamShop is a performance. It is a performance in which we ironize the artworks, the prices, the whole process of buying and selling artworks, “we make fun of ourselves”. People can physically assist the performance or they can watch everything online. The project started as a joke, a sort of trial to play out the role of the art dealer in a teleshopping system. After a while though, the project has become more and more interesting to me, as I started to see it as means for research of the various problems we confront during the process of creating art. For instance, most of the artists cannot watch at ease or with humour the prices of their own artworks. They are not ready to experiment and so they chose to avoid the “public fall of the price”, in front of their collectors and gallery owners. Most of the times, this kind of attitude is very much connected with the place where the artist lives and works. For sample, this project was better welcomed in Vienna than in Moscow, although our performance is well known in both locations. In 2015, I did the same performance in Cluj-Napoca and I have to say that there were some discomfort and reticence I could sense coming from the artists there, regarding this type of experiments. However, the artists who eventually participated into this performance, have always, since then, stayed close to my heart.

The same story happens with the galleries – only a few of them are willing to become scene for a performance that deals with art sales, avoiding the questions regarding taxes. And that happens because people want to be clear, because there is a blur concerning the message – is it a shop or an art gallery? Is it just a commodity to sell or is it art? Do you pay taxes for it? But in this case the artwork doesn’t belong to a certain category and that is what triggers the frictions. That’s why I always have to clarify things up: ArtStreamShop is a performance.

The most important aspect in the performance is the emotion experienced by me and my fellow artists. During the act, the audience doesn’t understand quite clearly what is going on: is it a joke? Can you really buy artworks? On one hand, we really do present a situation that invites you to buy artworks; on the other hand, everything else looks suspicious. But I often heard from the people who had decided to participate into my performance and buy the artworks that they had a very interesting experience. The piece they bought becomes special to them and their attitude regarding art changes. So, in a way, there’s been created a contact, a common ground, if you want, between the artists and the buying audience.

Did working as an art manager for several years change your perspective regarding your own artworks?

I’ve recently understood that there are people who think of me as an art manager, which is a mistake. Perhaps this happens because I integrate the logistics of my work into my art. If the secondary activity of an artist occupies a considerable amount of time, then it is not secondary at all, it needs to be acknowledged and studied. It becomes important, so I have to take it into account. This specific aspect is the key-subject in some of my works. The project might take the shape of an institution, but it is not mandatory to actually be one (do not buy into the package). For instance, my project Reality Raum Residenz remains an artistic project, even though many parts of it consisted in real residencies. And the situation is quite similar with ArtStreamShop. The reason behind my research on a certain format can be different. For example: everybody around me was sending out applications, trying to win different residencies. So, I started to apply as well, but, as most of the time happens, I wouldn’t get accepted anywhere. The whole thing grew more and more interesting to me – what kind of a beast is this, “artistic residency”? And so this is how I started Reality Raum Residenz, as an artistic experiment which lasted for 3 years.

Or it could work the other way round.

One of my last projects is Cheese Art Award, which takes place both in Moscow and online. The project itself has a long story; I had various reasons to create it, among them the Strabag Art Award I received in 2014. It somehow became necessary for me to understand the meaning of an art award.  To me, choosing a winner out of other worthy artists seemed somehow like a mystical process. And this vagueness triggers a deeper and more careful thinking.

In the same way, by visualizing and integrating my organizational activity into my art, the process and the logistics do not turn me into a manager. Obviously, in projects like these, there are a lot of problems and situations I need to deal with: working with other artists, design, communication, and so on.

But there are other aspects in the work of a real art manager which I don’t include in my artistic project because they are not of interest to me. When I start working on a new project, I focus on what I find to be interesting, on the idea, on the concept, on the process, and the technique. That’s why, being part of my artistic projects, art management influences my projects the same way as the other elements influence them.  But if I work on a piece on which I don’t use this tool, than I try not to think of this aspect at all.

How much are you interested in collage as an artistic and political propaganda? Mixing of mediums and images can create a deconstructed message?

Well, collage is indeed one of the most direct and natural ways of artistic expression when it comes to communicate messages towards society, no matter if we speak about coded messages or direct ones. There are so many types of collage – graphic collages, cinematographic or photographic montages, news collage... But I’m far from being didactic, both in life and in art. Although nowadays world demands us more and more aggressively to be articulated, I often find it difficult to formulate a rough opinion regarding different issues and even more difficult to clearly verbalize that opinion. 

Anna Khodorkovskaya, Pink Dyslexia, Acrylic on paper on canvas, 120 x 80 cm, 2012

If I want to say something loud and clear than I do it without illustrating that in my works. I like to create artworks that don’t contain toughness in them. To me, creating a work of art is more like a process of trial and error.

How much are you interested in economics in your works? How can an artist create a bridge between his/her artistic practice and the very empirical part of his/her life?

I don’t think this bridge requires a special construction. It is a natural process, because creating my artworks takes place at the same time with living my life. They co-exist and they are inseparably linked one to the other. Ideally speaking, the work of an artist should comprise also the materials, the work, the time spent on it, and the learning process which was required. But our world is not ideal. When I work on something that is not related to my art, I am trying to see that as an experience, not only as an exchange of time/work versus money. In life, everything is important. And in art, one can see the marks of your past and present time.
That is very interesting; it is a life journal, a coded autobiography. I can see this more in other’s artist’s work. When it comes to my my own art, the message reveals to me after a while.

From the series Confusion, Mixed media, approx. 46 x 22 50 cm, 2015

Specially, in „Art & Everything” series, you seem to have invested a lot of emotional part in it. How much is heart and how much is question in this?

These artworks are new, therefore it is difficult for me to discuss about them. To me, they probably translate into a deep reflection of today’s art and of art, in general. The emotional part is extremely important to me. To me it’s an experience almost impossible to translate into words, sensations, associations, memories, feelings... The emotional involvement of the audience is wonderful. I can never build a „professional” wall between my feelings and my works. I probably still try to understand the meaning of art. What the hell am I actually doing? And most likely, the more I struggle to get a clear comprehension of what I do, the more I miss it and turn it into some sort of living creature, impossible for me to grasp.

Are you interested in simple life? Does it have any concrete importance?

But what is the meaning of a simple life? It seems to me that my life is quite simple. I believe destinies are different, in the same way circumstances are different; on one hand, there is this frame, this convention we call the everyday life and, on the other hand, there is a lot of content, always different, that fills in and gives substance to it. But life itself is quite straight forward: whatever happens to us from birth to death.

And so, where do you get the ideas for your work? Do you imagine the project as a whole or is a series triggered by a certain artwork that you’ve worked on?  

I usually conceive the projects as a whole, as a concept, especially those “participative”, in which I integrate other people. More precisely, I think about a structure, a skeleton or let’s say a set of “rules”. In the process, the content is getting fuller, is growing. Sometimes I create these ideas together with my friends, in a way, I make use of a collective mind and often the result doesn’t match my initial concept. I find this gap between my initial concept and the final result very interesting. All these changes are nothing but a part of the creation process.
On the other hand, the process is reversed when I create my so-called „plastic” artworks. They are usually results of my experiments. I create one artwork, then another, then they might form a series or not. They might influence my future artworks, but this will be confirmed to me only after some years, when I’ll be reviewing my old albums.

—Anna Khodorkovskaya

© Mobius Gallery

Anna Khodorkovskaya participated in Moscow Biennale of Young Art, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art - Moscow, Kьnstlerhaus-Vienna, Austria or RLB Kunstbrьcke-Innsbruck, Galerie Rьdiger Urlass-Frankfurt am Main, CCA Sokol, Moscow, Museum of Moscow, Troutman St. Ridgewood-New York among others. She was awarded in 2014 with Strabag Art Award International.
She lives and works in Vienna.

Art confronting Human

Abstract Art is Art that confronts you. 

It is not an invitation to peruse a story in the usual way, but more likely a journey that requires a different kind of steps to be taken. It won’t allow you to write the end of a narrative which started some time ago, in the artist studio. Abstract Art challenges you. A sort of – I am here, right in front of you, I dare you to find a language!  

Anna Khodorkovskaya, Bruchstücke - exhibition view

Series of paintings, Acrylic o canvas, 2015

(bruchstücke, eng.– fragments, broken pieces, debris)

Two distinct entities – the Art and the Viewer – between which the only possible coherence is the one established in other terms than the common ones.

The chance of finding your way to this possible coherence is entirely up to your intellectual and esthetic luggage. It is also up to a certain kind of sensitivity, because most of people usually vibrate to meaning – that immediate significance regularly approved by everybody. The “1+1=2” kind of meaning.

The challenge in the case of Abstract Art is to reach that mathematical point where you are allowed to see a deeper sense and a more consistent beauty outside the frame of a content filled with meaning. 

Photo courtesy of Mobius Gallery

So, what is it that you buy?

"Unlike gold and diamonds, art has this other value, and that's what makes it fascinating. Everything else is trying to sell you something else. Art is trying to sell you yourself. That's what is different about it. Art is what makes life worth living"

(Seven Days In The Art World by Sarah Thornton - soon to be published in Romania)

Roman Tolici, There Is No Hope, 2014, oil on canvas, 242x150cm (private collection)

The Ultimate Drug

If you think about it, every single entity touched by Art becomes - to some extent - a creator. Which is a bit awkward to say - a creation produces creators.

So, first of all, it's the Artist - the one that triggers the whole insanity. The Artist creates a work of Art. If the Artist is represented by a gallery, than be sure that the gallery also creates its own identity defined by its agenda, the quality of its events, the represented artists and their works. The gallery builds up its own voice, its own features, and, ultimately, its own history - that has the potential to become the history of a generation, culturally speaking (see Peggy Guggenheim case). A gallery that is only commercial will never make history. A gallery, in the same way like an artist, needs to believe in something. It needs to have a vision.

The curator - creates a more ample story out of some selected works. A curator creates an exhibition, a scene where Art can be read in a certain keynote - the one established by the curator.

The Art critic creates a theoretical body for the visual (although far from being limited to visual) experience produced by Art.

Then here comes the collector. The collectors also create – and their creation is of course nothing else but their own collection. A collector is more than just the director of a scene populated by a sum of artworks he or she may have bought. A real collector has a deeper understanding of his or her times; a real collector is involved in the evolution of Art, they might even have an active and direct power over the destiny of the artists they collect. The collector is the one that actually gives the final stroke to an artwork, even if he or she might not be the final destination of that piece.   

Don Rubble, one of the bigger collectors of contemporary art, once said: "When you first start collecting, you're intensely competitive, but eventually you learn two things. First, if an artist is only going to make one good work, then there is no sense in fighting over it. Second, a collection is a personal vision. No one can steal your vision." (see "Seven Days in the Art World", by Sarah Thornton)

The art fairs also, like biennales, museums, art centers and galleries create markets, trends, tastes.

The Auction creates Legends and Stars. Of course, it's not always the case, but we have to admit that it does happen quite often.

The Jury will create winners and have their share in history changing.

Eventually, Art generates within a huge number of people the power to create something meaningful over their lifetime. Art gives us the power of a creator.  And that power is the ultimate drug. 

So the things we do for...what?

It's Art, baby! But really what is Art? And how do you know it's Art?

At the beginning, the value of an Artwork (and implicitly the value of an Artist) was given by the Artwork itself, a value justified by mastership and canons.
Then, a time came for the Artist to have the heaviest word on Art: Art is what I, the Artist, declare to be Art.
Now slowly, but surely, we migrate towards a new zone, where neither the Artwork, nor the Artist has anything to say regarding the value of Art. The decision is in the eyes of the viewer, no matter if he or she is an art collector, a member in the board of some important fair or contemporary art center, a judge who decides the name of the winner in the race for some life changing award, a simple visitor who peruses an exhibition, or a hopeless ignorant whose eyes stop on Art as if they stop on a stone down the road.
Thus, the value of a contemporary artwork may register significant fluctuations, from absolute zero to figures with multiple zeros, with multiple commas between them. Hence, the whole scandal!