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Exhibitionism

William Masters

    The two men sat waiting impatiently in the outer office of the Edgar Haddlestrom Gallery located in the South of Market District (SOMA) of San Francisco. Both men had a 2:00 p.m. appointment with Edgar Haddlestrom whose secretary double-booked appointments like airline ticket agents and doctor’s receptionists.
    Jacob Lindstrom, who had arrived at 1:45 p.m., came to rent enough canvasses to cover seventeen spaces in his newly completed 3700 square foot house.
    The city’s third newspaper, The San Francisco Span, had sent its art critic, Delworth Harrington III, (who had casually walked through the door at 2:10 p.m., and now coughed preposterously, to remind the receptionist that he waited) to write an updated catalogue for the gallery’s collection, currently in danger of liquidation due to recent changes in the tax codes making donations less beneficial. The City (desperate to find new sources of additional revenue since the 07/08 financial banking and real estate debacle), had imposed new municipal fees on the sale and rental of any art exhibited or rented from the gallery, moving its balance sheet into the red.
    Neither the gallery’s modest admission fee¹, its occasional sale of a new artist’s work, nor the outrageous fees it charged for the rental of the various pieces of art currently hanging on the walls of some of the city’s richest art patrons, produced sufficient profit to replace the reduction in the gallery’s income.
    Rising maintenance costs: an enhanced security array; a new filtration and temperature control system recently installed², had begun the erosion of Edgar’s retirement nest egg. For this reason Edgar eagerly walked through the waiting room door and smiled past the outstretched hand of Delworth to embrace Jacob.
    “Forgive me for keeping you waiting. One of our artists arrived and actually threatened to remove his paintings because he didn’t like the way we hung his work and accused me of over charging him for the cost of framing his pieces. Can you believe it?”
    “I can,” replied Jacob, immune to the false denial. “I am here because you promised I could choose from the permanent collection and the new artist section. Evidently, I should start immediately before your artists begin removing their pieces.”
    Instead of Edgar’s nose growing longer, his shoes tightened around his feet. As Jacob prepared to begin his tour of the collection, he removed a notebook and ballpoint pen from his jacket pocket.
    Edgar grabbed the pen. “Oh! Use this pencil instead.”
    Just like a piece on a board game, Jacob moved himself to the start position of the collection, at painting number one (below each painting was a number followed by the painting’s name, if any, and identification of the artist, as labeled for catalog purposes) and assumed a look of studious concentration as he began to evaluate each painting for potential use in his new house.
    “Too blue. Too red. Too big. Too small,” he said aloud as he wrote in his notebook, rejecting paintings numbered one through four. “Too complicated. Too abstract. Too primitive. Too messy,” he noted for paintings numbered five through eight. “Too many colors. Too dark. Too dull. Too many lines,” he noted for nine through twelve. Then, just after a “Too redundant.” notation for painting #13 (an eight by fourteen foot installation on white plasterboard with eleven blue moons, each behind the other, in a gradually diminishing horizon), he espied canvass No. 14, a 12x16 inch picture of a red wine bottle shaped vase, with a single white calla lily. The vase stood on a white doily, supported by a round mahogany end table. “Perfect.” he said to himself and wrote “hang behind easy chair next to French doors in library. The colors look perfect for the wall paper.”
    Continuing his classifications, he wrote, “Too thick,” of a 4x8 foot oil on Masonite. “Too Orange,” for a neon orange colored Popsicle, “It looks like something waiting to be used as a traffic signal,” he jotted in his notebook. And so it went as Jacob continued his inventory of the collection.
    Edgar retreated from Jacob’s presence and returned to Delworth in an effort to mitigate whatever damage to his ego the critic had sustained.
    “Please, follow me to the second floor and look at the collection beginning from the end.” Both men climbed the staircase to the second floor since a city inspector had temporarily closed the elevator for service during its unscheduled inspection.³
    Peeved, but consolable, Delworth, began to opine: “Look at that painting (number eight-one) pretending to be abstract expressionism; its flamboyant plasticity and high-spirited improvisation are nowhere to be found. The painter seems to have intentionally emptied his work of sensuous appeal: his surfaces are dull and scabrous, often antagonistic to light.”
    Delworth moved to painting number eighty. “Just look at this!” he shouted to Edgar, “It’s obvious that spontaneity for this painter was less a technique for mining the unconscious than a means of direct expression unhampered by intellect.” And so on and so forth continued Delworth, now alone since Edgar could no longer listen to another syllable of art critic-speak and had deserted Delworth for the sanctity of his office.
    After Jacob finished viewing the art on the first floor, he began to climb the staircase, passing Delworth on his way down.
    “If you’re a tax assessor with any common sense, you will give Edgar a break on these overpriced oil smears,” said Jacob looking Delworth in the eye.
    “I’ve never heard it said that you had any taste in painting, unless it was choosing a color for your bathroom,” said Delworth.
    As soon as Edgar returned to his office, he called the maintenance department to request the on duty person to raise the level of air conditioning in the exhibition areas due to a temporary surge of hot air.
    Edgar’s career as a gallery/museum magnate began accidentally in 1974, after he purchased the two story warehouse building on Folsom Street for speculation purposes. Following the advice of his mistress, an Academy of Art University dropout, Edgar intended to use the first floor of the building to display his recently deceased older brother’s private art collection of 37 paintings (mostly minor works by major masters) to potential buyers before he rehabbed and sold the building for a profit.
    Gloria, his mistress during his Entrepreneurial Period, (1968-1974), and at the beginning of her 2^nd year of law school at Golden Gate College, pointed out to Edgar that any paintings sold at an estate sale would invite significantly reduced bids, while the same paintings, well hung, lighted and displayed on walls in a building, would double the amounts bid for the paintings, especially the minor works by Picasso, Monet, Manet, etc. Although she had never graduated from the Academy, Gloria had not taken two classes (six units) in the merchandising of art for nothing.
    An announcement in each of the city’s three newspapers trumpeted the sale, exhibition date, time and address, including a catalogue of the paintings intended for sale. A charity exhibition, for the benefit of the Academy of Art University, was planned two days prior to the sale.
    To Edgar’s surprise, several art critics arrived for the charity exhibition. These critics expanded the surprise of their presence and wrote reviews of the collection. The reviews caused a minor sensation among art collectors, pseudo collectors, art speculators plus other museum and gallery owners and black market art dealers always eager to find new minor works by old masters to forge for future off shore sales.
    Delworth Harrington III, art critic for the San Francisco Span (the masthead of which featured pictures of the various bridges connecting the multiple Bay Area Communities (BAC), wrote glowingly of the little known minor art works by major masters on display.
    A partial list and rapturous appreciation (excluding the French names for purposes of space conservation) of the rediscovered paintings included Monet’s The Dandelions, obviously intended as a companion piece to his landscape, Wild Poppies (1873, oil on canvas); Weeds in the Monet Garden, surely meant as a humorous antidote to Irises in the Monet Garden (1900, oil on canvas) and finally and triumphantly, Woman Without A Corset, a stinging, self reappraisal of Monet’s Women With a Parasol, (oil on canvass, 1875) aka, study of a figure outdoors. Mr. Harrington’s article included further examples of paintings by Picasso, Manet and other artists represented in the exhibition.
    Art critics from the other two San Francisco newspapers, (the morning paper which chronicled the news of the day and the evening paper which examined the news more closely) acknowledged and welcomed the seldom seen paintings, but opined that their existence and future display would prove more significant for documentary purposes than as a valuable addition to the catalogue of the artist’s oeuvre.
    Nevertheless, after publication of the critics’ reviews, on the rainy day of the exhibition opening, more than 200 people stood in line, beneath a river of black silk umbrellas stretching a block and a half long, waiting impatiently to flow into the gallery.
    Making use of her legal education, (Gloria wasn’t a law student for nothing), she hung another sign: During current rehab and retrofit of building per city permits, all guests must sign a liability waiver. Document, available after payment of admission, must be signed before guests leave the foyer area to enter the exhibition space.
    Steady crowds continued throughout the day. Word of mouth spread the word regarding the heretofore unseen paintings and additional media coverage, especially by local universities, junior colleges, and overblown editorials and puff pieces by various art critics, perpetuated and sustained the paying crowds.
    A week later Gloria suggested to Edgar that after making such a big splash in the art world, he should keep the warehouse and turn it into a gallery/museum using his brother’s paintings as a core collection to maintain his museum status (for tax purposes) and add additional works by new artists for rental and sale (for profit).
    “But I don’t know anything about art,” said Edgar.
    “So what?” said Gloria. “More people know even less about art, than they know about anything else. Knowing less has never stopped anyone from having an opinion on a subject of which they are ignorant. Those consumers, who can afford to buy art, use it like furniture. To them the most important features of a painting are its size, color and shape needed to hang in a certain space as an accent color on the wall in some room of their house. These people don’t know any more about art than they do about the sofas or lamps or coffee tables they buy to furnish their houses. They bandy terms like Impressionist Period or Post Impressionist Period or Neo Impressionist, Neo Classicism, Renaissance, Surrealism, Post Modern, or Pre Columbian, just like they discuss styles of furniture like French Provincial, Early American, Shaker, Pennsylvania Dutch, Modern, Arts & Crafts, or even Chippendale.”
    The last named style provoked a tiny, lewd laugh from Gloria as she fondly remembered her recent encounter with a six foot, two inch hunk of Chippendale on a king sized mattress, fitted to a Scandinavian bed frame during a weekend of marathon sex at the Madonna Inn.
    “Most critics are worse,” Gloria continued, “sympathizing with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanor and a general want of understanding supported by a well anchored, cold-hearted arrogance which mutually attracts them to each other. The successful art critic writes clever, witty copy, (usually at the expense of the artist) but is detestable, while the other critics, (talking themselves into dithering incoherence), are merely grotesque.”
    Two weeks later (and five months prior to completion of her law degree), Gloria dropped out of the Golden Gate law school to elope with a rich, handsome Brazilian cattle rancher she had met at the gallery, (but not before taking a tiny Picasso sketch with her as a wedding present for her groom).
    Edgar recovered from the loss. Feeling the sexiness of risk, he waved good-bye to Gloria, but still followed her suggestion. He wrote Dear John letters to the art collectors who had made offers to buy the various originals on display explaining his decision to retain the various pieces. Instead of rehabbing and selling the warehouse for profit, he invited city inspectors to advise him what structural modifications he needed to make to the building for use as a museum and gallery⁴.
    Convinced that his ignorance of art no longer presented a barrier, Edgar commenced his Galleria Period (1974-1976) by hiring various art professors and graduate students to act as curator or assistant curator, advising him about future purchases of old and new paintings. Throughout the years of such employment, Edgar helped pay for the education of many art students while they completed their advance degrees and made possible the down payments for the houses of several art history professors.
    For over thirty years, during his Profitable Managerial Period⁵, (1977-2009), Edgar enjoyed a steady income until the financial debacle of 07/08 significantly reduced gallery admissions, and the rentals and sales of art.
    Insurance companies developed new guidelines that raised insurance premiums. Auctions of various masterpieces at inflated prices, by a single artist, served as documentation to raise the value of entire oeuvre. When the Japanese purchased Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral, Afternoon Effect for twelve million dollars, insurance premiums for all museums whose collections included more than five Monet paintings as part of their core collection, rose by 3.2%.
    In addition, companies specializing in insurance for museums and galleries hired a special cadre of art critics⁶ and sent them to make reappraisals of the art collections in various museums, secretly encouraging them to find a higher value for the collection than currently used (for documentary purposes) to supply the insurance companies with a basis for raising premiums.
    Edgar sat upright in his chair and reexamined his plan to save himself from the impending fiscalamity.⁷
    First, Edgar hired an IT professional, specializing in the coping of art, who used a high pixel density flat scanner to make copies of each painting, photo shopping the pieces together, whenever necessary, for use in a digital projector, aimed at a movie sized screen, that reproduced brilliant, high definition projections of the original paintings.⁸
    Second, in order to bankroll his plan, he intended to sell all the art work from the gallery’s collections to individual collectors, rather than to other galleries or museums. With only a few exceptions, Edgar could expect to sell the paintings, all of which had signed contracts with the living artists (always confidential), for permission to sell, (at various percentage splits) for higher prices to individual collectors rather than to other museums.
    Third, simultaneous with his announcement to sell the gallery’s complete inventory of artwork, Edgar would send a form letter to the gallery’s members:

    Dear (Member) Mr. Lindstrom,

    It is with great sadness that I announce the closure of the Edgar Haddelstrom Gallery. Unfortunately, due to tax code changes and the general economic downturn, the gallery is forced to sell its complete inventory of paintings including the permanent collection. Since you have rented pieces from me in the past [indicate here the names and number of pieces].Enclosed please find a price list for the paintings you now rent. Should you wish to purchase any of these paintings*, the gallery will subtract whatever rental fees you have already paid or, currently owe, from the purchase price. Please let me know within the next ten days if you wish to make any purchases before return of the paintings. All unsold paintings will be returned to the artists.

    Regretfully,
    Edgar Haddlestrom, III
    * Purchaser of any paintings does not retain any rights or receive any remuneration from reproductions of the originals as postcards, reprints as posters, slides or any other form of exhibitionism.

    Fourth, Edgar would examine and confirm the accuracy of Delworth Harrington’s catalogue and revise the information for each painting, adding it to the digitalized reproductions of each picture, like subtitles to foreign films.
    Fifth, Edgar had accepted an offer to sell his building to a retail giant that only recently, after years of futile efforts, had secured a location in downtown San Francisco for a new store.⁹
    Sixth, Edgar had already targeted several closed, former single screen movie theaters that had been put out of business by the rise of the ugly, but profitable, and ubiquitous film multiplexes, to use as exhibition venues for the digitalized copies and had already paid for estimates for the cost of rehabbing one of these former buildings with new seats, updated bathrooms, paint, etc. and the special technical equipment and screens on which Edgar would exhibit digitalized copies of the art.
    Why should patrons have to fight weekend crowds to see a painting? Why pay extra for the listening devices rented by museums to hear the history of each painting when such information could be included in the price of a ticket?
    While seeing the painting projected on a movie sized screen, the audience would listen to a prerecorded soundtrack including information formerly found only on listening devices rented by the museums. After the information appeared on the screen, a drop down box would appear underneath the picture with bibliographical information.
    For example, painting 13, an eight by fourteen foot installation on white plasterboard titled Moons over Miami: eleven blue moons, each behind the other, in a gradually diminishing horizon (painted by that has-been, song and dance, plane flying, but still beloved actor, Juan Zavolta) would read: slide no. 13, Moons Over Miami; 8 x 14 foot white plasterboard; 1996 by Juan Zavolta, etc.
    Not only could each patron sit comfortably, but could also purchase coffee, tea or bottled mineral water to wash down the moderately priced food also available from the snack bars installed at each location.
    Without the burden of inflated insurance premiums for original art, Edgar charged the lowest museum admission prices in the City.
    Wistfully, Edgar imagined a line of patrons purchasing copies of various paintings in poster form on sale in the lobby. Like music to his ears, Edgar imagined he could hear the snap of titanium credit cards on the counter and the sound of the Visa and MasterCard plastic passing through the card reader as the patron requested, “I’d like a number 13, please.”
    The composition of the collection at the Edgar Haddelstrom Gallery consisted of more Celebrity Art than might be found in a traditional gallery or museum. Years ago, while attending a succession of parties in Los Angeles for the opening of the Getty Museum, Edgar overheard some lubricated partygoer chatting about actor Gene Hackman’s oil paintings, painted by Mr. Hackman in his own backyard, on display in the Fitzgerald Gallery, located on the trendy section of Melrose Street in West Hollywood, known (among other things) for its good taste in exhibiting the work of contemporary artists.
    The gallery had also accepted for exhibition a black and white charcoal drawing by the infamous, convicted serial killer, known professionally as Noodles, currently serving a ten year sentence in the lock-me-tight, for the murders of a succession of stray dogs. (As a child, Noodles had been frightened by the painting of a group of dogs playing poker).
    Edgar adopted and expanded the Fitzgerald Gallery’s exhibition of Celebrity Art. After the successful display (and increased, fan based attendance to the gallery) of Juan Zavolta’s installation, Edgar hung other paintings by actors from various popular evening television programs.

    The opening of the first “digital museum/gallery” in San Francisco, at the old Metro Theater on Union Street (converted and rehabbed by the handsome Property Brothers of the famous T.V. show) drew a curious, but only moderately sized audience, plus critics from the newspapers. Foster Grant, the art critic for the morning paper, failed to see the value of such a venue. Gilbert Slider, art critic for the evening paper, complained this new kind of exhibition was a disguised arena for sales, rather than a temple of art.
    Both papers slammed the gallery as a “philistine attempt to mass market the world’s great art to the poor and ignorant.” and “How could the audience appreciate the real painting by viewing a digitalized reproduction on a giant movie screen?”
    “This was,” proclaimed Gilbert Slider “...an example of commerce overcoming art.”
    Foster Grant accused Edgar of “committing an esthetic crime” and wondered where the audience would come from. “Surely, regular museum goers and the cognoscenti of the art world would skip such a contemptuous, supermarket display of art.”
    Only Peter Selby¹⁰, the newly hired art critic for The San Francisco Span, gave the new gallery a positive review noting that for a single, modest admission fee, everyone, especially patrons of a certain age already accustomed to viewing films, T.V. programs, text messages and art on the screens of various electronic devices, would see only an improvement from the increased size of the reproduction, receive a free program and, on a prerecorded sound tract, hear the same kind of information found only on the listening devices for rent at museums.
    From Mr. Selby’s perspective, one need no longer suffer from typical overcrowded weekend traffic often impeding one’s view of the paintings, nor suffer crowd noise, once everyone was seated and the projection began.
    He felt especially pleased to view the paintings while ensconced in a comfortable, ergonomically designed chair in a temperature controlled auditorium.
    Mr. Selby invoked the memory of a former impressionist exhibition that had been disastrously, but profitably displayed at the Legion of Honor Museum. The special event had been stuffed into the cramped spaces of the multiple tiny rooms in the basement portion of museum.

    Too many paintings, hung punishingly close together, made it impossible to view a single painting without simultaneously seeing part of another. No amount of complaints from disgruntled patrons, frustrated with the overcrowded and overheated rooms, resulted in any improvement, despite repeated Fire Department written warnings to limit the maximum amount of occupants allowed in each room at one time.¹¹
    Despite the repeated complaints of the regular museum patrons and inflated ticket prices for the always popular impressionist exhibits, media hype for the special event resulted in blockbuster ticket sales, breaking all previous attendance records.¹²
    From the perspective of the younger, electronically savvy, the Haddlestrom Gallery proved a tremendous success. This younger audience had grown up viewing the world’s famous art collections on line (having taken virtual tours of the Louvre and the Prado), and failed to agree that the gallery diminished the appearance of art by its method of exhibitionism as digitalized reproductions projected on a giant movie screen. The same audience gratefully listened to the history of each painting from a prerecorded sound tract and took home a free program including the bibliographical information for each painting.
    The concept proved so successful, that Edgar opened a
    second gallery in San Jose, Ca, another in San Luis Obispo and finally opened a half dozen more galleries in midsized American cities like Omaha, Nebraska and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which provided abundant audiences. Such audiences generally ignored the critics who branded Edgar as a Philistine and warned the audience that it was missing the real thrill of seeing the actual paintings professionally hung in museums with the correct lighting¹³.
    Still, the profit margins remained small. Sales of reproductions of the paintings as posters boosted profits to a barely moderate level, but it wasn’t until Susan, Jacob’s current mistress and former Broadway gypsy¹⁴, suggested to him that he send his show on the road like Broadway musicals touring from city to city.
    “Listen, honey. Just pack up your apples, a supply of posters, and a small team. Send the team to small cities and little towns. Rent high school auditoriums at bargain rates or for a percentage of the take.”
    Jacob ran the concept past a Stanford MBA who produced a spreadsheet predicting costs and profits, based variable cost items (travel, hotel, rental of auditorium, size of audience, sale of posters etc.) and projections of audience size, predicted a significant increase in profitability over the current methods.¹⁵
    After the initial excitement, moderately successful start-up and continued success, Jacob purchased, and then retired to a modest 3 bed, 3 bath, 1869 square foot beachside residence on Maui. And thanks to Susan, his trustworthy partners and his integrity ridden accountants, not to mention the public’s voracious appetite for Celebrity Art, he got richer and richer and richer.

 

    ¹ The only gallery in San Francisco to charge such a fee because its core collection of minor works by old masters entitled it to claim museum status.
    ² To keep his insurance premiums from rising Edgar had to adopt the latest improvements in security and environmental control, referred to as the best management practices for his industry.
    ³ Recently an elevator in the 491 Post St. medical building malfunctioned, temporarily trapping someone inside. An emergency inspection uncovered serious deficiencies leading to an emergency inspection of all the elevators in the City.
    ⁴ City Building Inspectors (jokingly referred to as the “CBI” by fans of the T.V. show), initially advised Edgar that he would have to shut his doors to the public until he completed various structural modifications, but after modest amounts of money changed hands, Edgar received permits allowing him to keep the gallery’s first floor open during the rehab. Edgar had the same relationship with the Fire Dept. inspectors.
    ⁵ It took Edgar two years before he reached and maintained profitability.
    ⁶ Mostly minor critics, (always with PhDs in art History), whose opinions only infrequently found publication, accepted big bucks to supply the documentation needed by insurance companies to raise annual premiums for museums insured by the company.
    ⁷ Current slang used for fiscal calamity since the 07/08 financial debacle.
    ⁸ Simultaneously loading the images into the Iphoto application of a Mac for projection on smaller screens.
    ⁹ This giant discount retailer intended to demolish the gallery, replacing it with a three story parking garage and offer free parking to its customers while moving them and their merchandise via golf carts in the two block distance between the parking garage and the store.
    ¹⁰ Peter Selby replaced former San Francisco Span art critic, Delbert Harrington, III after his recent conflict of interest termination for acceptance of money from a certain insurance company for supplying it with reappraisals of museum art collections.
    ¹¹ Copies of the FOIA request made to the SF Fire department, containing complaints made by museum patrons re overcrowded rooms and inadequate ventilation, plus letters to the editors of all three SF newspapers re the same complaints, remain in the documentary story files of the San Francisco Span, open to public inspection (by appointment only).
    ¹² Rumors circulated, insisting that money had changed hands to secure the venue for the Legion of Honor similar to the intense politicking by cities vying for the Olympic Games. For years afterward, the Legion of Honor museum was known to a select group of artists as the Legion of Disgrace.
    ¹³ Seen as digitalized copies projected in a dark auditorium against a backlit white screen offered the paintings some protection from the negative effects of incandescent light (which dulls the colors) or from any sunlight sneaking in to ignite the blues.
    ¹⁴ Term used to describe dancers who made a career of dancing in Broadway musical chorus lines.
    ¹⁵ This new merchandising method worked particularly well for small towns in rural areas in which inhabitants had neither the time nor money to drive 50 or 60 miles to a city for the exhibition, but would sit in the auditorium of the local high school.

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