by Jon Lackman | 26 March 2008 | Uncategorized
From New York Magazine:
“Our society now values a Warhol for three times as much money as a great Rembrandt,” [art dealer Larry Salander] thunders, referring to the latest auction reports. “That tells me that we’re fucked. It’s as if people would rather fuck than make love.” An aesthete with no formal art education (nor even a college degree), Salander built his art empire, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, on native artistic empathy and an intensity of will … To Salander, many contemporary art collectors are philistines. But if he could use his gallery to create a new market for old-master and Renaissance art, perhaps he could shift the paradigms of the international art trade … Salander eventually came to believe that the very survival of great art was at stake … He saw his project as spiritual, even messianic. “We’re a soulless society,” he says, returning to a theme that surfaced many times in our conversation. “When I’m talking about the soul to people, they look at me like I’m nuts. But there has been a longtime manipulation of people who want to make money to dumb down the American society and rob us of the curiosity of our souls.”
Alas, “It was an intriguing idea, but it left him in ruin.”
