In my penultimate conversation with sociologist Hannah Wohl (author of Bound by Creativity) she talks about: the cynicism of sociologists, particularly when theorizing about art (and in relation to the sculptor St. Clair Cemin in particular); the emergence of the artist Ginny Casey, through her show at Half Gallery; how she describes her own contemporary art sensibility (like most of us: with difficulty), including her appreciation of Wong Ping’s show at the New Museum, and in turn demonstrates the challenges of talking, and writing about art, even for a sociologist who’s written a book about contemporary art; and she begins recounting her experience ‘playing’ a gallery assistant at an art fair (as an unpaid volunteer) for the purpose of her sociological research).

In The Conversation’s latest Virtual Café (which took place on 9/24/21, on Zoom), special guest Rose Bricetti and participants talked about: how memes break down institutional critique; the Instagram account Jerry Gogosian, which was revealed to be run by Hilde (former guest of the podcast); The Dirtbag Left, defined, as well as their use of memes; how the image and meaning of Pepe the frog has changed over time, depending on who appropriates it and how the media covers those appropriations; Rose’s art-making process, which has been influenced both by memes and her prior work as a museum designer at a natural history museum; her consumption of Tik Tok vs. her consumption of Instagram, and how the two compare content-wise; and how the leisurely and the political are so intertwined in memes that they’re inseparable.

In part 4 of my conversations with sociologist Hannah Wohl (author of Bound by Creativity), we discuss:

Competing claims to expertise between artists and gallerists; the fiduciary responsibilities that some art advisors take on, which involves a very pointed analysis of artists’ pedigrees when choosing work for their clients; how art advisors and collectors operate in such a way that perpetuates systems of value based on status signals; how Hannah tries to strike a good balance as an ethnographer, in between being an objective, invisible researcher on one hand, vs. it being too much about the ethnographer’s ego on the other hand (and that balanced approach also applies to her take on the art world); and Antonio Murado, a painter who has produced highly-paid commissions for corporate banks, and in the process grappled with issues around selling out and compromising his work, or, in Hannah’s research terms, he was willing to trod on his creative vision and in the process potentially relegate his work to a lower status level, based on the perception of doing the commissions.