“I think the strength of the market and perhaps even the number of institutions showing contemporary art can lead to the impression that art’s role as a commodity to be bought and sold … has surpassed its ability to tackle difficult political and social concerns,” says Anne Ellegood, a curator at the Hirshhorn. “But I don’t think this is actually true when you look at artistic production. Many artists—and curators and institutions—may even say they feel a certain responsibility to address social issues and put them forward for contemplation and discussion.”

For the dealer Elizabeth Dee, this sense of commitment to furthering political discourse has become part of her business model. The decision to sign such artists as Meckseper, Adrian Piper and others, Dee says, “was a calculated risk on my part, but at a certain point, the work I was most interested in and excited about was speaking to critical issues—issues of politics, of the economy, of the problem of … the relationship of the marketplace to artistic practice.” Moreover, she adds, representing someone like Piper—long celebrated in the political-art community for her witty, fearless examinations of race and gender—is “a real coup.”

Piper, who has shown in New York with such dealers as John Weber and Paula Cooper, had a much-touted debut at Dee’s Chelsea gallery this past spring, her first solo show in the city since a 1999 retrospective at the New Museum. Entitled “Everything,” the exhibition displayed a mix of drawings, video, altered photographs and objects, plus a sculptural installation, all playing on themes of loss and on forms of personal, social and political violence. “We have a couple of major acquisitions that are coming to close,” Dee says of Piper’s work, adding that once those sales become public, they will “really change the nature of her position in the marketplace.”

Success has the potential to breed success—for the gallery, for the artist and for others who might pursue a similar path. “It encourages me,” Dee says. “I want to take more risks now and show work that might be outside the comfort levels of most people.”

So it seems that even in today’s thoroughly, some would say overly, professionalized art world, one can create art with a strong political content and still make a living. The lesson for young artists and dealers alike may be that to survive, accommodations are necessary. This was recognized some years ago by Haacke. “As to selling the works, let’s not forget that we are not living in an ideal society. One has to make adjustments to the world as it is. In order to reach a public, one has to enter the institutions where this discourse takes place,” he told an interviewer in 1984, adding, with a pragmatism that the younger generation hoping to enjoy his longevity might want to emulate: “If I had not made adjustments, by now I would be consumed by bitterness, and nothing would have been achieved.

"Party Lines" originally appeared in the July 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's July 2008 Table of Contents.