Author: Michael Chappell

It’s surprising how much discussion my blogs have engendered about the object composition of the Los Angeles Antiques Show. As my partner Keith McCullar will gleefully point out, I am prone to error. In this case, given how many people have responded, my earlier estimation numbering my loyal readers at 10 or so was a mistake: I now believe I have at least 20.

The latest blast centers on a discussion of photography, a feature in the upcoming show, and specifically a consideration of photography as art. As long as art has existed as a conscious construct, critical debate has attended it. I think about the notion of paragone that waxed and waned throughout the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy, weighing whether painting or sculpture was the superior art form. Not until the astonishing mid 17th century speaking likenesses of Bernini, who, with his bel composto blended into his vivified sculpture the subtle gradations of color and narrative content, both formerly the sole province of painting, did the debate die out. Maybe it just grew tiresome.

More recently, Clement Greenberg in the 1950’s prominently sought to establish a notion of what was appropriate, and defining, for an art form. Greenberg argued that, with the advent of photography, figurative painting was rendered superfluous, as painting could never do, in capturing a likeness, what photography could. In fact, Greenberg thought painting was only effective as art if a painting’s sole purpose was to declare itself as an art object. Any figurative or narrative content in a painting, features that could be better performed by other means, depleted its import. Of course, Greenberg was trying to establish a critical framework the understanding and acceptance of the new and recondite abstract expressionism, and in particular, the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock. It is no surprise, then, to find that, for Greenberg, the quintessential art work was that of his buddy Pollock. On the flip side, however, photography seems to have got short shrift only as a useful technical process, and not art in the same way ab-ex painting was.

Someone who moved general and critical acceptance of photography ahead significantly was Sam Wagstaff, whose aesthetic sense, as well as social prominence and length of purse, resulted in greater visibility for photography initially as a collecting genre. Like it or not, collectiblity, and cash value, are elemental features in the movement toward a place within the canon. Sounds banal, but this is important, as cash value implies demand, and demand implies acceptance- even amongst critics. And, of course, acceptance and general assent of any item of material culture as an art form is what establishes its place within the art historical canon. Wagstaff is possibly best remembered as Robert Mapplethorpe’s first patron, and much of the envelop pushing subject matter of the photographer’s work was the result of Wagstaff’s encouragement. Certainly, the in your face subject matter, together with the prominence of its exhibition, made it impossible to ignore Mapplethorpe’s work, forcing thereby its critical acknowledgement.

Frankly, certainly post-Mapplethorpe and Wagstaff, it would be pretty difficult to argue that photography hasn’t made a place for itself in the canon. Bonni Benrubi Gallery from New York will be exhibiting photography at the Los Angeles Antiques Show.

Not completely free of ego, I find it therefore gratifying when someone responds to my blog entries, even if it is to take me to task. Such has been the case with my last entry about the Los Angeles Antiques Show. Specifically, several of my 10 or so readers felt that, with the disparate types of material available at the show- period furniture, folk art, and, this year, contemporary photography- show visitors will be confused and confounded, and unable to move toward a refinement of their own taste.

The use of the word ‘taste’ in this context intrigued me, to the extent that I re-read what’s arguably the definitive essay on the subject, written by Edmund Burke in 1756. As Burke has it, taste relies not only upon (aesthetic) pleasure, but also on good judgment, which he terms ‘sensibility.’ What all of this means is that, as we commonly use the term ‘taste’  merely to differentiate what we find aesthetically appealing from those things we don’t, this reflects an incomplete understanding, and consequently inaccurate, use of the term. From time to time, we get somebody in our galleries asking for a particular item whereupon, when we point out a piece of goods that is ostensibly just the thing they are after, it will be dismissed out of hand with the phrase ‘It’s just not to my taste.’ ‘Maybe you don’t have any’ is the rejoinder that Keith McCullar and I never use but invariably repeat mentally. We are, of course, merchants, and there is some notion floating about that the customer is always right. They seldom are, of course, but we try to be nice just the same. In spite of being a bit thin skinned, we do try to expose even the casual browser to items of a kind and quality they are not used to seeing, such that, in addition to providing some aesthetic pleasure, our gallery visitors might also find their time with us a bit edifying. And that’s the basis for the development of taste- even if a body does not, prima facie, find something appealing, at least it might be seen, intellectually, as having merit.

This is why the antiques show with a wide range of objects within a number of different disciplines can work so well for the occasional and even the serious collector. While anyone can go right up to an object that a body’s particular aesthetic criteria finds appealing, the time spent to enhance one’s intellectual understanding moves a person toward the development of taste. I would suggest that this intellectual understanding may be the most important aspect of taste, as it can be developed and expanded rationally, where aesthetics are often informed by factors outside an individual’s direct control. Often, what is aesthetically appealing is something with which a person is already familiar, the phenomenon Aristotle termed ‘mimesis’. Frankly, a lot of my interest in 18th century furniture is informed by my early life in my grandmother’s house, surrounded by her mostly 18th century things. Of course, I loved my grandmother, and much aesthetic experience is bound up with emotion. How sad it would be, though, if my own taste were limited, stunted as it were, by my early aesthetic experience. On the flipside, people have an equal tendency to reject items because of negative experience. So, it seems, an awareness, and a possible containment, of the emotion associated with aesthetic appeal, and a rational movement toward, or at least giving equal time to, intellectual understanding of an object or class of objects, moves a body toward the development of taste.

All this said, the tasteful collector, and the tasteful interior designer, is probably the most eclectic, with an appreciation for a number of different types of objects and a number of styles. Does that sound like a definitive statement? With that established, I guess if you don’t go to the LA Antiques Show, you have no taste. No- I’m wrong there… If you go to the show and don’t find anything to your taste, it might possibly be because you don’t have any.

The art and antiques fair season is truly on us, with our colleagues Reindeer Antiques having concluded the BADA Fair in London, Maastricht winding up, and ourselves preparing for the Los Angeles Antiques Show in late April. This will be our 6th LA Antiques Show- hard to believe!- and something we love to do. I’ve written about this before, so will only mention it in passing- the LA Antiques Show is one of the few vetted shows in this country, by which I mean every item is looked at and certified for authenticity by a panel of experts. Consequently, every purchase can be made with confidence. Further, dealers are invited to participate in the show based on their established (good, of course!) reputation. This sounds like shameless self-promotion, but, again to reprise something I’ve discussed over and over, for the occasional and the beginning collector who really wants to expand their knowledge base, and the interior designer whose hands are already full dealing with clients, the vetted show provides the perfect venue for seeing the best of the best, establishing thereby both a quality and pricing benchmark. Buy at a vetted show, and be assured of getting what you are paying for.

All that said, we do go to Los Angeles to sell, not just impart knowledge to browsers. And, frankly, our experiences at the show have been, in the main, very good. The occasional at-show sale is generally supplemented by follow-on business, as it is for most of our colleagues. In addition to the material that any given dealer has on offer, the collector and the interior designer often times likes a particular dealer’s look- the type of gear, how it’s deployed, and so forth. As well, relationships are everything, and we find, thankfully, that our clients tend to be repeat buyers. Again, that’s not self-promotion- our colleagues at the show all have exactly the same experience. And, of course, that is why the shows should be seen by dealers as collegial: not only do none of us have exactly the same material- even when our areas of specialization are similar- no one dealer has the same look as any other dealer.

We look forward to a good show in Los Angeles and all this in spite of the, shall we say, flux in the financial markets. I’ve said enough in past blog entries about, for example, the so-called sub prime mortgage market. Suffice to say, no one has yet telephoned us in a panic, offering their collection of 18th century furniture at a knock-down price in order to stave off foreclosure. Unfortunately, the antiques trade abroad has felt more of the impact of all these things than we have locally. The trade abroad has never really recovered from the fear of travel induced by 9/11, and now already tough trading conditions are exacerbated by the weakness of the dollar. In London, the reduced number of American buyers, the trade’s traditional mainstay, is now combined with the influx of oil-rich Russians, who, although occasionally making antiques purchases, find owning London real estate more to their liking and are driving property prices, and rents, through the roof. I wrote over a year ago about the fate of Mount Street, a traditional venue in London’s Mayfair, now taken up less by fine antiques dealers than with the likes of Louis Vuitton.

But, I understand our colleagues at Reindeer had good traffic at the BADA Show, and pressing the flesh is where it all has to start. Frankly, we love to do shows, talk to people, including other dealers who we never have a chance to see except at shows. And, we look forward to good attendance at the Los Angeles Antiques Show. It’s interesting, but the slow down in the residential housing market has, in some respects, had a positive impact on our business. With low interest rates and rapid appreciation, people at all levels were formerly obsessed with churning their homes, with the challenge to see how quickly a house could be built and decorated, and then be put back on the market for what seemed the certainty of a hefty payoff. Certainly, the cycle has slowed, and our clients, many of them, are obliged to stay put. What’s happened, though, is the homeowner who didn’t particularly care if he had a piece of furniture not to his taste in, for example, the entry hall- since, of course, he was going to sell the house in 6 weeks anyway- now he has to look at something he dislikes for the indefinite future. The result? Now we have shoppers- who are spending the time, and, critically more important, spending the money- to find the right piece. So- will the Los Angeles Antiques Show be remunerative? I’d bet on it.

It is the new year, the stock markets are in, shall we say, a state of flux, and housing starts are at a low ebb. With all this, we still find we are able to make the occasional sale. In fact, we delivered a nice piece of goods to a wonderful home in southern California just last weekend and had a chance to visit with the homeowner, an astonishing businesswoman with a sense of optimism tempered with a practicality acquired, no doubt, through the school of hard knocks. Even though she’s a veteran of the rough and tumble of business, she is certainly one of the kindest people I’ve met recently, and generous with her wisdom.

Her home is magnificent and in the three years since its acquisition, she’s done some great things to it, without altering its original design integrity. Actually, she’s almost entirely reversed the damage done by the previous owner, whose garish lack of taste resulted in an interior scheme she characterized as ‘early Christmas tree lights’. She, however, is a business woman through and through, whose homes, to date, have been merchandise she has bought and sold. She does, however, like the home she’s in presently, as well she should, and is happy to stay. Herein, then, is the valuable bit of market intelligence she has communicated to us- she is happy to stay in her home during the present real estate nadir, and, while not looking for the next project, she can focus, then, on the home’s perfection- patiently looking for and finding just the right pieces of furniture and artwork. She has slowed the pace down from what was formerly always moving to a frenzied completion, with an eye for immediate sale.

In the last several years- certainly from 2002 through 2005- a number of our interior design clients were working on projects at a pace that one would expect if they were trying to complete an interior design show house- which, in fact, they were, as many of their clients were expecting to cash in on a sale once the project looked remotely complete. No designer I’ve ever met enjoys working under such pressure to complete. Creativity can’t be rushed, and inspired design, informed by a collaboration between the designer and the client takes months, if not years, to accomplish. What, then, I think we will see from the present market slowdown will be an efflorescence of fine design, the kind of design that can only take place when the designer has the time to get to know the client, really understand the project, and also has the opportunity to fully utilize the resources that the marchands mercier make available.

We sold a late 18th century sideboard the last week of 2007. Actually, sideboards were a hot item for us this past year, including a small piece that was purchased by a Paris-based collector for his apartment in the Marais. Now that I think about it, last week’s sale was to a Parisian, too- this time an interior designer, working on a project in Los Angeles. 

Frankly, our business in 2007 is much improved over 2006. We sold plenty of good quality Georgian pieces that, as with the sideboards, no one seemed too interested in in 2006- or the last half of 2005, for that matter. But we also sold a goodly amount of mid century furniture in 2007 and had some favorable notice taken of the contemporary furniture line we’ve developed. 

While not suggesting that English sideboards are suddenly in vogue amongst the style-cognoscenti of France, and, though not planning on cornering the market for good quality Georgian sideboards any time soon, neither will I abandon this piece of basic dealer gear. Trying not to read too much into the sideboard phenomenon, the implications of the recent sales, and the happily now distant dearth of sales,  are worth considering.

Our core business remains quality 18th century English furniture and, as we  don’t wish to confuse our clients- both collector and interior designer- we would shrink from any abrupt change in what we do. We have worked hard to establish ourselves as a resource for our specific material. Our clients don’t buy from us all the time, but when they are ready, we want to be available to them with the quality stock in trade that they have come to expect.

With all that, we don’t want to be unresponsive to changes in clients’ demands, either. Where so much of our business is now driven by interior designers, it is imperative that we be seen as a resource for quality pieces, regardless of period. Although I have no wish to do the designer’s job for them, we also want to make certain that, within the environment of our own galleries, at least, we subtly suggest how these pieces fit together- how, for example, the Printz sideboard of the 1930’s visually articulates with the George II walnut chair back settee of the 1730’s.

This balancing act, frankly, is the dilemma, with the sideboard as the trope. How long can a shop like ours stay the same, and  how risky is it to make a change? That’s an open question, and don’t, my ten devoted readers, expect to find a simple answer here. What is abundantly clear, though, is that Style will cycle quickly, and with the internet as the communications vector, traditional English can, as we’ve seen lately, easily find its way into a French aesthetic.