Marc Jones refers to him self as a “master of disaster.” His specialty is property damage. And the Miami Beach native, who grew up in the shadow of Art Basel’s convention center, has mastered the art of destruction.
But his latest work – which cost a record $9 million to clean up and is still not fully repaired – has been called an even greater disaster than he’s used to creating.
The piece, called “Concrete,” was meant to be a reflection on the destruction of Miami Beach’s Art Deco district by hurricanes. But county officials say it instead became a reflection of its creator: reckless, arrogant and irresponsible. The city and state have filed suit against Jones and the owners of Chateau LeMaire, where “Concrete” was unveiled April 5 for Art Basel Miami Beach 2013.
Marc Jones is a force to be reckoned with in the art world. He has been instrumental in creating some of the most successful contemporary art events in the market.
Jones joined Grey Art Gallery, NYU as an assistant curator shortly after finishing his MA at Hunter College. He then moved on to The New Museum in New York City where he became the program director for their satellite space in Miami Beach, FLA and was responsible for curating two biennials.
Towards the end of 2010 Jones opened up Spector Projects, a gallery space located in downtown Miami. Shortly after that he began working with Arte Americas International (AAI) who appointed him as Director of Art Programming and Operations. His first AAI exhibition was “Arte y Cultura” which was scheduled to open in January 2011 at the Bass Museum in Miami Beach, FLA but due to unforeseen circumstances it was postponed until September 2011.
The art of Marc Jones is always in motion, lending itself to a narrative arc that begins with the genesis of an idea and ends at its extinction. His paintings and sculptures are characterized by a constant state of development and change.
With each new series, Jones seeks to create a dialogue between what is old and what is new. His work often serves as a platform for social commentary, though he never offers solutions to the problem of which direction the world should take.
The artist describes his works as “faux-naive,” meaning that they are designed to look like the artistic output of children or people who live in rural parts of America.
“I want people to see my work without prejudice and maybe even think about their own childhoods,” he says.
Jones has a history working in New York City, but since 2000 has worked from an office in Brooklyn that overlooks the Manhattan skyline. He looks out on the city every day, dreaming up ideas and refining those ideas into finished products.
Marc Jones left the military in 2003 and spent two years in Iraq to become an artist. He learned the art of war so that he could create a better world.
Jones has been painting on the front lines of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for the past decade. He’s painted in Bosnia and Haiti as well. He was one of the first artists on the ground following Hurricane Katrina.
Jones has painted soldiers, civilians, generals, presidents, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, celebrities and more. His clients include news outlets like Time magazine, Sports Illustrated and The New York Times; corporations like Disney, Coca-Cola and Pepsi; plus pop culture icons like Michael Jackson, Jay Z and Keith Richards. In addition to his paintings being on display at galleries around the world, his photographs have appeared in magazines such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Newsweek and GQ. His art has been featured in movies such as “The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty” and “American Sniper.”
The scope of Marc Jones’ work is vast. It’s not just what he paints but where he paints it that makes him unique. Jones is a veteran artist who can handle himself in any environment or situation with ease — from a war zone to a presidential inauguration to an
Marc Jones, who is 42 and lives in Brooklyn, knows that his art is hard to understand. “To be honest,” he said one recent morning while drinking a beer in the back of a restaurant that doubles as a gallery for his work, “I don’t think it needs to be understood.”
But Mr. Jones is not some wide-eyed naïf. He is an art world professional who has been exhibiting his work for 20 years. He has known success, as well as failure. He is also an artist whose work has been shown at such prominent New York institutions as the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The fact that he is still able to make a living from making art might suggest that he has achieved a kind of insider status or even some degree of acceptance, but Mr. Jones disagrees. “If you look at my body of work over the past 15 years, my trajectory has always been very consistent,” he said. “It’s always been about confrontation with authority.”
Mr. Jones, who sometimes refers to himself as a conceptual artist and sometimes calls himself an artist-businessman, offers what he calls “a critique on how we are conditioned to view things.”
That critique can take many forms, including performance
I am Marc Jones, and I have a confession to make. I love art. It is all around us, in museums, galleries, people’s homes and on the streets. There is no way to escape it. But that is not the point. The real question is: why do people like art? And the answer is: because it makes them feel good.
The true purpose of art is to bring pleasure to those who appreciate good art and the artists who create it. Art matters because it brings joy to people who see it or interact with it in some way.
Although this may seem like a controversial statement, there are many people who would agree with me. Take Jeff Koons as an example of someone who believes art has value primarily as a commodity rather than as a work of art per se. Koons sees his mission as being primarily one of creating great works of art, but he also recognizes that his status as a successful artist allows him to sell his work for high prices, which he considers an important part of what he does. But he does not deny that seeing one of his pieces in person can have an emotional impact on the viewer; he just doesn’t think that emotional response is what makes his work worth paying for.
There are other artists
The art world is in a funk. The number of collectors and the value of their collections are down, according to a report by the European Fine Art Foundation. The value of sales at auction, which had been climbing for a decade, dropped by 8 percent last year, according to Artprice. In the U.S., auction sales were down from $12.6 billion in 2008 to $8.5 billion in 2013, according to Christie’s.
The market for contemporary art, which had been on a tear for years, has also come to a standstill, with no sales over $50 million at auction in 2014 and just three so far this year, according to Artinfo.com.
“The art market will be more stable next year,” predicts Eileen Harris Norton, founder and CEO of the International Art Advisory Group.”
This is not the first time that the art world has suffered such an identity crisis; it happened after World War I, which wiped out many of its movers and shakers and sent prices into a tailspin from which they didn’t recover for decades. That was when Walter Chrysler Jr., son of the founder of the car company and himself an artist (he made his living painting large murals for movie theaters), began buying up
