With a world in crisis and an art market spinning out of control, ace art-world consultants Chen & Lampert deliver a quiz full of hard choices for Art in America readers from far and wide.
You landed a desirable museum job as a contemporary art curator in the mid-2000s and quickly became a power broker on the scene. Back then you sashayed into openings, boogied at afterparties, waltzed through studio visits, and grooved with young artists. A couple decades later, you have two grade-schoolers, a mortgage, and limited energy to discover what is happening in Bushwick. Can you still do your job without going out raging every night? Take this quiz to find out if you are still plugged in or ready for hair plugs.
1. You try to reference a contemporary artist in a panel talk but instead blurt out:
a) Seth Price
b) Charlie Kirk
c) Luigi Mangione
2. A junior curator suggests a survey exhibition of artists born after 2000. You think:
a) Maybe my kid can be in it
b) Are you familiar with a similar show that I curated in a basement in Providence in 2002?
c) FML
3. You run into an artist you worked with 15 years ago who says, “You changed my life.” You think:
a) Who are you?
b) Yup, I sure did
c) Please, will you change mine?
4. Your babysitter cancels an hour before a must-see Dimes Square poetry reading. You:
a) Drink chamomile tea and read them Eileen Myles at bedtime
b) Bring your kids and post pics of them reading The Whitney Review
c) Watch on Instagram Live while hiding from the kids in your Zoom closet
5. To catch up on the latest art news and conversations, you:
a) Read Artforum
b) Read Spike
c) Read the 50 articles a week that Alex Greenberger writes for ARTnews
6. To keep up with the latest trends in cutting-edge music and performance you go to:
a) Issue Project Room
b) “Abasement” at Artists Space
c) The guy who bangs on a bucket with a stick on 14th Street
7. At a studio visit, the artist hands you a VR headset. You:
a) Immediately leave
b) Make a joke about entering the Matrix that only you laugh at
c) Use it to try and log into your Criterion account
8. You’ve been asked to join a curatorial advisory board for a Gen Z artist-run space. You:
a) Rally collectors to buy tables at the annual benefit
b) Get your nipples pierced and microdose ketamine GHB eye drops
c) Poke out your eyes with a hot iron stake
9. The young artist you are talking to has schmutz on their cheek. You:
a) Lick your finger and wipe it off
b) Cross their name off the biennial list
c) Quickly switch partners in your bisexual polycule
10. At an afterparty, a gallerist hands you a drink ticket. You:
a) Order a V8 with a prune juice sidecar
b) Pass it on to a poor young artist who is six drinks deep
c) Mace the gallerist for soliciting you without consent
SCORES
10–16: Continue to glom on to your 20-something-year-old assistant and their cool friends for as long as possible. Their fresh ideas will inspire you to new heights (or nadirs) of plagiarism. The real question is: Would anyone actually pay attention if you had an original idea?
17–23: Like so much contemporary art, you have nothing in particular to say. You’ve made it this far without anyone noticing there’s very little there there, so keep doing whatever it is you do for the next couple decades, and this indifference will pay off in some hard-to-imagine way.
24–30: You’ve seen and shown it all—and will continue to do so without pain and suffering. Art still excites you in a way that is admirable and, frankly, frightening. Your love of art and artists, old and young, will see you through until you are eventually pushed out by vengeful but indebted Gen Alphas.
