by Anne Gabriel
There are certain types of women in the art world that I like to call the Camel Crew. Their combining trait is being covered head to toe in dark beige. The color camel is much like the color navy in that it is supposed to invoke feelings of superiority in the one wearing it and by contrast—total ostracization in the one looking at it.
The art world, once a bastion of ripped shirts, paint splattered paints, and general personal disarray that was once both lauded and coveted by perhaps more conservative collectors—is now being run by cardboard—and I mean that in every sense.
Many of the women in camel head large galleries or institutions. Possibly these women in various camel shades believe that wearing a giant sized waffle cone with sleeves cloaks them in a form of respect needed in the higher echelons of society. They are not wrong. The problem is that these bland cream sauce women (while I fully acknowledge that cream sauce goes well with just about everything)—are in effect, tastemakers.
The Camel Crew have doused cream sauce on everything remotely interesting in the art world, thereby smothering it and turning it into a mushy pile of easy-digestible slop for retirees.
I shouldn’t say it is all their fault, for before them there was the equally forgettable Chets and Skips who believed that leaving the top button of their oxford shirts undone would have elder female collectors rip open their Chanel wallets while extolling the virtues of investing in emerging voices—and the elder females who made them correct in believing it.
No, my problem with these women is that now that they are in positions of power—they’re simply not just sustaining an art world commercialized by legions of bland white men, but are making it even worse– because they believe by doing so is the only way they will maintain or increase their power. And their power is so dull.
Photo: Gustavo Fring