DOWNTICK: PIDDLING PAINTING DEALER
I Bought Andy Warhol (Harry Abrams, 2003) is a slim new volume by California private art dealer and art market chronicler Richard Polsky, a frequent contributor to artnet.com. The premise of the book is to weave the search for the Holy Grail, i.e. the hunt for the perfect Warhol painting, into a memoir of life as an art dealer. However, the problem is that Polsky is a not very interesting, small time dealer in pursuit of a not very interesting, minor Warhol. In fact, for those actively trading pictures for a livelihood, the whole affair of Polsky's book/life is rather depressing. This is a person who spends his time eking out a living by operating a dinky gallery in a town, San Francisco, with a negligible market for contemporary art, and then struggling to makes ends meet as a private dealer-and often times not managing at that. This is not to maintain that's its not a noble cause to struggle to survive doing something that one is passionate about; rather, it is simply that this story never really measures up as a story.
Nevertheless, there are some interesting factual tidbits and observations and a few engaging anecdotes. Is there enough here to constitute an engrossing autobiography? No. However, that little fact certainly has done nothing to diminish the flood of memoirs these days from everyone and their grandmother, and grandmother's grandmother. The gratifying segments include Warhol's auction record during his lifetime: $385,000 in 1986 for 200 One Dollar Bills. Another perceptive thought was that Warhol's is the most democratic of all markets for artists as his paintings are the most widely collected and traded works of art in the world, and name the greatest recognized among the general public save for Picasso's. There are some humorous stories spun regarding a food fight that culminated in a soiled Rucha painting, and an $800,000 check gone missing from an absent minded gallerist. Lastly, in the worthwhile reminiscences department, is an encounter with the imperious Vincent Freemont, the exclusive sales agent for the Warhol estate. The tale involved a demonic spinning chair episode as Freemont twirled Polsky around at the warehouse where the estate's Warhols are stored so as to shield him from seeing the extent of the cache of paintings still existing which fact is as guarded as a state secret.
Back to the grim nature of the tome is an unentertaining, gratuitous chapter about two wealthy art patrons that invited Polsky to lunch. When the $300 bill showed up, they ambushed the destitute dealer with a set of dice supplied by the waiter to be thrown to determine who would get stuck with the check. Besides Polsky, dear readers, it was ultimately we that were stuck with the bill. Recommended reading are two books referenced in I Bought Andy Warhol :Duveen (S.N. Behrman, Glenn Lowry, Introduction, Little Bookroom, 2003 Paperback) ,an autobiography of perhaps the greatest dealer who ever dealt, that brazenly borrowed millions in the early 1900's as a young man (probably hundreds of millions in today's dollars) to speculate in art. And, Bob Colacello's Holly Terror (HarperCollins, 1990) a day to day account of Warhol's factory life and madcap social goings-on in the 1970's, utterly elucidating if you can get past Colacello's claiming responsibility for a good portion of Warhol's output and social connections. Example: "As I recall, I took mine (a photograph of a room service set-up with a new camera) seconds before Andy took his."
UPTICK: SHoP SHOP
SHoP is an appropriate name for the architectural firm ShoP Sharples Holden Pasquarelli, a team composed of two husband and wife couples and a twin brother of one of the husband's. SHoP is apropos inasmuch as the word connotes a cottage entrepreneurial enterprise, in this case with a very innovative approach to the staid world of building buildings. Sharples Holden Pasquarelli have won design awards from the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, which entails a commission to build an academic building (upcoming); a feasibility study from Columbia University resulted in a commission to build a School of the Arts building; and, a First Place/Commissioned Young Architect's Award Competition from The Museum of Modern Art, which resulted in a 12,000 square foot dunescape for summer relaxation at PS 1 Museum in Queens, NY. SHoP built the first infrastructural element to be installed into the vicinity of the former World Trade Center site since the tragic events of September 11th. The bridge reconnected the residents of Battery Park City and the various businesses of the World Financial Center to the rest of Lower Manhattan.
The printed matter supplied by SHoP immediately sets them apart as is apparent in their profile, which employs a flow chart to depict the organization of the firm. Aside from obvious backgrounds of the principals (lots of degrees from Columbia University), the schematic chart illustrates experience in the worlds of finance, marketing, structural engineering, and art history. The key here is finance and marketing which becomes palpable in the project known as "The Porter House" referencing a choice cut of meat for a residential structure in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Rather than continuing to passively design OPP's (Other People's Projects) the SHoP group brought a property site on the market to the attention of a former client that is also a developer so they could actively take a stake in the enterprise. What resulted was a renovation and conversion of a six story warehouse to a condominium with a new four story structure plopped on top and cantilevering over the lower neighboring buildings to the south. Hence, the financing and marketing expertise came into play as Sharples Holden Pasquarelli found the building, helped cement the financing, designed the job; and, in addition, put together a snazzy book to market the whole shebang. The prices of the units were raised several times before they ultimately sold out-all prior to the completion of construction. Not bad for a firm established in 1996 with a group comprised of academics from Columbia (a few still teaching there, among other top-flight institutions).
Many architects pay lip service to new systems of practice that employ digital expertise in the way of three dimensional computer form generation. Stephen Holl claims that despite his firm's mastery over new design technologies, all his work emanates from traditional water colors by the hand, as good design should-an oxymoron if ever there was. Not only does SHoP look beyond past architectural practice to the realms of automotive and aeronautical engineering, they do so with a view towards using the computer to often reduce construction budgets. The façade of The Porter House used a custom fabricated metal panel system that originated on a desk top and ended up as a kit of custom parts accompanied by a set of instructions akin to Lego or a model airplane kit. A Duchampian Readymade building to go for the streets of New York City or anywhere for that matter. A building that functions as an actual Camera Obscura for a park in Greenport, New York was the fist structure not only designed but entirely assembled with laser-cut aluminum and steel components using digital files directly extracted from the computer model. Rarely do you find an artistic undertaking with such an acute business sense and forward thinking technological stance. Sign me up as a client.
Monday, October 20, 2003
Saturday, June 21, 2003
CELEBRITY/ARTIST/KING OF THE UNIVERSE (INSIDE ENTERTAINMENT Magazine, Spring 2003)
Today, celebrities are collecting art more than ever, and the latest art that they seem to be collecting has shifted from old and modern masters to more and more contemporary stuff. Artists are collecting celebrities as well, but the big trend of the moment is that celebrities want to be artists and artists want to be celebrities.
Celebrities who collect art…
Elton John is a voracious collector of art, as he has accumulated most things in his life from clothes to cars. John’s collection includes many historic pioneers of photography that set about establishing camera work as a legitimate art form on par with painting and sculpture, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Man Ray, Imogen Cunningham, Alfred Stieglitz and others, which were shown together recently in a traveling museum show originating at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in 2000. Though photography is the principal focus of his collection (nearly 3000 pieces), it goes way beyond photos in scope and includes all varieties of contemporary art up to work produced by the latest hot young thing. It was another all consuming collector of contemporary that turned Elton on to art produced by younger practitioners and that was Gianni Versace, who escorted the singer to museums, galleries and churches the world over. At present, painters such as Julian Schnabel, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Philip Taaffe, Damien Hirst, Lisa Ruyter and it-girl, Cecily Brown, who paints sexually charged expressionist canvases, have augmented John’s photo collection.
Actress Julianne Moore recently moved into a widely publicized New York City apartment designed by Oliver Freundlich (the brother of her boyfriend, writer/director Bart). Julianne was so into her large-scale contemporary photo collection that the living space had to be created around the oversized individual pieces in her collection that includes work by Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca di Corcia, Thomas Struth, Gregory Crewdson, and David Armstrong. It was the Struth, a German artist in his late forties, the subject of a recent retrospective at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, who’s work was responsible for necessitating the special treatment of having a giant wall constructed in the apartment. This may be the result of present photographers’ efforts to establish the equality of their work with super-sized paintings and sculptures, and other new art forms.
Leonardo DiCaprio first began looking at art in the mid-nineties. Under the guidance of art adviser Patrick Callery Leo bought a portrait of rapper Biggie Smalls prophetically depicted amidst tombstones in a cemetery by rock and celebrity photographer Michael Lavine and a couple of minor Jean-Michel Basquiats. Leo also bought the work of Christian Schumann, a young painter educated at the Art Institute of San Francisco in the style of cartoons mixed with elements of academic realism. Schumann’s paintings reflect an MTV sensibility of jump-cut edits and wildly colorful pop imagery lifted from record album covers, incorporating a soup of other elements like text and geometric abstraction.
Other celebrities who collect with a passion include the sublimely beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow, who collects similarly demure art my modern masters such as Richard Diebenkorn, and Agnes Martin and equally subtle monochromatic paintings by the younger artist Robert Reynolds. Cameron Diaz is into the previously mentioned overtly sexual paintings by Cecily Brown (no surprise there), Courtney Love has purchased paintings by knowing naïve painter and installation artist Karen Kilimnik and Matt Dillon has purchased a Luc Tuymans, among many more contemporary pieces. Tom Ford helped sponsor artist Ann Hamiliton's contribution to the 2001 Venice Biennial, and has collaborated with and collected Vanessa Beecroft’s sexually explicit (frontal nudity, anyway) photos. Even the rapping set is getting into it with Damon Dash, Jay-Z’s partner in Roc-a-fella Records and Roc-a-wear, recently purchasing art by Graham Gillmore, Donald Baechler, (UK Turner Prize winner) Keith Tyson and more. Dash is even contemplating opening a gallery.
A young artist who has managed to be collected by many celebrities is Eric White, a painter of realistic but distorted images in the vein of surrealism. White has exhibited in Los Angeles’ La Luz de Jesus, a store/gallery that has attracted the likes of David and Patricia Arquette, and by extension Courtney Cox who later commissioned White to paint David, Kidada Jones (one of Quincy’s daughters), Viggo Mortensen, and Leonardo DiCaprio. White’s work was brought to Leo’s attention by his father George, a self-described hippie and a former cartoon distributor, which helps account for the love of cartoons in his art. Now Leo owns more than a half dozen of White’s canvases bought from a few thousand dollars to nearly $15,000. Maybe Leo’s attraction to art with cartoons also has to do with the fact he is still very young, collects toys and avidly plays video games. Art with such imagery is a way to continue to hang on to being a kid or a red flag signifying immaturity.
Donald Baechler is a 46-year-old artist who incorporates an outsider art sensibility with regard to his paintings, drawings and sculptures. He is a master of capturing a childlike innocence in composing a painting that many try to copy but none as successfully. Picasso said anyone can learn to paint but it takes a lifetime to learn to paint like a child. What is not outsider about the work is the audience Baechler actively cultivates to patronize his art including Elton John, Bono, Claudia Schiffer, Owen Wilson, Valentino, Versace, Johnny Depp, Dennis Hopper, Ellen Barkin, Stephanie Seymour, Lauren Hutton, Yoko Ono, a close friend and supporter of the artist, and by extension Sean Lennon and Bijou Phillips (who both have Baechler’s of their own). Consequently, Baechler has proved to be as successful an artist as he is a star bleeper.
In addition to these artists who are collected and who collect celebrities, there are some artists who would rather be those actors, musicians, and directors themselves. In this category are artists such as Julian Schnabel who is directing his third movie (on surfing, a love of the portly auteur), Damien Hirst, the anarchistic artist as debauched punk rocker, Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, and David Salle, guilty of directing a horrible movie apiece, and Brit art star Tracey Emin, guilty of being herself.
Artist Keith Edmier is not a celebrity… yet, but he certainly came up with a fanciful notion on how to at least get him closer to one, thisclose in fact. Thanks are due to the Art Production Fund which made this fantasy a reality, and a farfetched one at that, and the Los Angeles County Museum for exhibiting this masterful mating of celebrity and art(ist). As set forth in the press release that accompanied this exhibit in November of 2002 to February 2003, Edmier “grew up in the 1970’s, when Farrah Fawcett’s star began to rise and she became the central female icon of his childhood as well as the rest of the world’s.” This bit of prose could be translated to: Edmier, born in 1967, had the famed framed poster of a bathing suit clad Farrah in his boyhood room and had to wait till his art school education could be utilized to concoct a scenario outrageous enough to accomplish their coupling, artistic and otherwise, for that is what really happened, really, as reported in noted art magazine The National Enquirer, along with other more credible journals.
There are also celebrities who go from collecting to making art including Steve Martin, who, after establishing himself as a “wild and crazy guy” on Saturday Night Live, cavorting manically as if suffering from an epileptic seizure, went on to build a collection of Impressionists like George Seurat, and modern masters such as Picasso, Edward Hopper, David Hockney, and Francis Bacon. Martin even put on an exhibition of his art collection at the Bellagio (the esteemed gallery at the hotel and casino). On the path to transitioning from slapstick comic to esthete, Martin wrote the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a “comedy” about a hypothetical meeting between Picasso and Einstein. It appeared that as Martin grew more comfortable with the mantle of seasoned art collector, his tastes have grown more contemporary, with acquisitions by dirty comic book artist R. Crumb, fellow comedian/artist Martin Mull, and most recently a watercolor by Tim Gardner, who paints academically realistic pictures of fraternity pals drunk beyond the point of no return. Maybe now Martin feels confident and comfortable enough in his collecting shoes to return to a sensibility that matches his crude, collegiate comedic roots.
David Bowie has metamorphosed from anything goes androgyny into art impresario. Bowie’s tastes have switched from collecting the likes of Rubens, Tintoretto, Balthus and traditional UK expressionists such as Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer, to Damien Hirst, and -lo and behold- to becoming an artistic innovator (or rather, imitator) himself. Being the budding dabbler and entrepreneur, Bowie employed the famous Do-It-Yourself mentality of the Brits to begin producing his own art (see www.bowieart.com) The paintings Bowie began to exhibit in galleries in addition to his website looked like primitive African renderings or bad Basquiats. At present on the website there are 6 x 8 inch portraits for US$3,500, and a single sculpture of an African chess piece. Bowie had the piece remade large from a sidewalk purchase in Mombassa, Africa in a “shiny expensive looking material, directly influenced by Jeff Koons”. Now that’s touching considering the local artisan who probably barely survives from having to actually carve and sell the chess sets himself. What makes matters even more exploitative in Bowie’s act of appropriation is his final description of the process: “It was a way of sealing forever my experiences and the present events in my life.” If ever there was a lovelier testament to the transformative and transcending nature of art.
Another celebrity experimenting with art, unbeknownst to even his closest friends, is Christopher Walken who has been making drawings and the like for over 20 years but has until this time showed them, or even spoken about them to no one. Doesn’t that conjure images of a creepy, mad scientist bent over a steaming cauldron creating alchemy? Apparently all that is about to change, as Walken is on the verge of taking off his smock and making these mystery pictures from the mystery man himself available for public viewing.
And now, ladies and gentleman, Madonna has thrown her hat into the art-making arena. Indeed, the road traveled by Madge has mirrored that of other celebrities, i.e. buying newer and newer art and then making the realization that hey, I could do that! Billed as one of the year’s “most anticipated exhibits”, X-STaTIC PRo=CeSS (it wasn’t easy to pass the brilliant concoction through spell-check), a collaboration just transpired at New York’s Jeffrey Deitch Gallery between Madonna and photographer Steven Klein. Klein’s intention was to work with Madonna as a “performance artist… creating a situation where she could respond directly to the camera without constraint.” What was the Sex book about, snippets from her prudish family album? “The project is not about photography of celebrity, but about the person and the passions beneath the surface. Klein sees Madonna as a messenger, asking people to wake up and confront the dehumanizing forces in the contemporary world.” Honey can you get the door, a messenger is here, and she, uh, looks like Madonna. She says she is here to jolt you from your complacency and get you to take some actions against the world’s injustice. “Rather than the packaged glamour that one might expect from the collaboration of a pop star and a top fashion photographer, the work is raw and menacing. The spirit is apocalyptic” Not to sound too disbelieving, but a photograph of Madonna folded into a position where she could engage in an untold sexual act with herself brings to mind many visions none of which I am afraid is all too menacing or apocalyptic, even when projected onto a wall. According to the gallery, that’s “religious passion and sexual charge” for you.
After Warhol made a career out of making icons out of celebrities, artists now would rather be those actors and musicians (and directors, too) themselves rather than paint them and, who would have ever thought that in the search for more meaning in their lives, actors and musicians now want to be artists. The grass is always greener.
Celebrities who collect art…
Elton John is a voracious collector of art, as he has accumulated most things in his life from clothes to cars. John’s collection includes many historic pioneers of photography that set about establishing camera work as a legitimate art form on par with painting and sculpture, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Man Ray, Imogen Cunningham, Alfred Stieglitz and others, which were shown together recently in a traveling museum show originating at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in 2000. Though photography is the principal focus of his collection (nearly 3000 pieces), it goes way beyond photos in scope and includes all varieties of contemporary art up to work produced by the latest hot young thing. It was another all consuming collector of contemporary that turned Elton on to art produced by younger practitioners and that was Gianni Versace, who escorted the singer to museums, galleries and churches the world over. At present, painters such as Julian Schnabel, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Philip Taaffe, Damien Hirst, Lisa Ruyter and it-girl, Cecily Brown, who paints sexually charged expressionist canvases, have augmented John’s photo collection.
Actress Julianne Moore recently moved into a widely publicized New York City apartment designed by Oliver Freundlich (the brother of her boyfriend, writer/director Bart). Julianne was so into her large-scale contemporary photo collection that the living space had to be created around the oversized individual pieces in her collection that includes work by Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca di Corcia, Thomas Struth, Gregory Crewdson, and David Armstrong. It was the Struth, a German artist in his late forties, the subject of a recent retrospective at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, who’s work was responsible for necessitating the special treatment of having a giant wall constructed in the apartment. This may be the result of present photographers’ efforts to establish the equality of their work with super-sized paintings and sculptures, and other new art forms.
Leonardo DiCaprio first began looking at art in the mid-nineties. Under the guidance of art adviser Patrick Callery Leo bought a portrait of rapper Biggie Smalls prophetically depicted amidst tombstones in a cemetery by rock and celebrity photographer Michael Lavine and a couple of minor Jean-Michel Basquiats. Leo also bought the work of Christian Schumann, a young painter educated at the Art Institute of San Francisco in the style of cartoons mixed with elements of academic realism. Schumann’s paintings reflect an MTV sensibility of jump-cut edits and wildly colorful pop imagery lifted from record album covers, incorporating a soup of other elements like text and geometric abstraction.
Other celebrities who collect with a passion include the sublimely beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow, who collects similarly demure art my modern masters such as Richard Diebenkorn, and Agnes Martin and equally subtle monochromatic paintings by the younger artist Robert Reynolds. Cameron Diaz is into the previously mentioned overtly sexual paintings by Cecily Brown (no surprise there), Courtney Love has purchased paintings by knowing naïve painter and installation artist Karen Kilimnik and Matt Dillon has purchased a Luc Tuymans, among many more contemporary pieces. Tom Ford helped sponsor artist Ann Hamiliton's contribution to the 2001 Venice Biennial, and has collaborated with and collected Vanessa Beecroft’s sexually explicit (frontal nudity, anyway) photos. Even the rapping set is getting into it with Damon Dash, Jay-Z’s partner in Roc-a-fella Records and Roc-a-wear, recently purchasing art by Graham Gillmore, Donald Baechler, (UK Turner Prize winner) Keith Tyson and more. Dash is even contemplating opening a gallery.
A young artist who has managed to be collected by many celebrities is Eric White, a painter of realistic but distorted images in the vein of surrealism. White has exhibited in Los Angeles’ La Luz de Jesus, a store/gallery that has attracted the likes of David and Patricia Arquette, and by extension Courtney Cox who later commissioned White to paint David, Kidada Jones (one of Quincy’s daughters), Viggo Mortensen, and Leonardo DiCaprio. White’s work was brought to Leo’s attention by his father George, a self-described hippie and a former cartoon distributor, which helps account for the love of cartoons in his art. Now Leo owns more than a half dozen of White’s canvases bought from a few thousand dollars to nearly $15,000. Maybe Leo’s attraction to art with cartoons also has to do with the fact he is still very young, collects toys and avidly plays video games. Art with such imagery is a way to continue to hang on to being a kid or a red flag signifying immaturity.
Donald Baechler is a 46-year-old artist who incorporates an outsider art sensibility with regard to his paintings, drawings and sculptures. He is a master of capturing a childlike innocence in composing a painting that many try to copy but none as successfully. Picasso said anyone can learn to paint but it takes a lifetime to learn to paint like a child. What is not outsider about the work is the audience Baechler actively cultivates to patronize his art including Elton John, Bono, Claudia Schiffer, Owen Wilson, Valentino, Versace, Johnny Depp, Dennis Hopper, Ellen Barkin, Stephanie Seymour, Lauren Hutton, Yoko Ono, a close friend and supporter of the artist, and by extension Sean Lennon and Bijou Phillips (who both have Baechler’s of their own). Consequently, Baechler has proved to be as successful an artist as he is a star bleeper.
In addition to these artists who are collected and who collect celebrities, there are some artists who would rather be those actors, musicians, and directors themselves. In this category are artists such as Julian Schnabel who is directing his third movie (on surfing, a love of the portly auteur), Damien Hirst, the anarchistic artist as debauched punk rocker, Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, and David Salle, guilty of directing a horrible movie apiece, and Brit art star Tracey Emin, guilty of being herself.
Artist Keith Edmier is not a celebrity… yet, but he certainly came up with a fanciful notion on how to at least get him closer to one, thisclose in fact. Thanks are due to the Art Production Fund which made this fantasy a reality, and a farfetched one at that, and the Los Angeles County Museum for exhibiting this masterful mating of celebrity and art(ist). As set forth in the press release that accompanied this exhibit in November of 2002 to February 2003, Edmier “grew up in the 1970’s, when Farrah Fawcett’s star began to rise and she became the central female icon of his childhood as well as the rest of the world’s.” This bit of prose could be translated to: Edmier, born in 1967, had the famed framed poster of a bathing suit clad Farrah in his boyhood room and had to wait till his art school education could be utilized to concoct a scenario outrageous enough to accomplish their coupling, artistic and otherwise, for that is what really happened, really, as reported in noted art magazine The National Enquirer, along with other more credible journals.
There are also celebrities who go from collecting to making art including Steve Martin, who, after establishing himself as a “wild and crazy guy” on Saturday Night Live, cavorting manically as if suffering from an epileptic seizure, went on to build a collection of Impressionists like George Seurat, and modern masters such as Picasso, Edward Hopper, David Hockney, and Francis Bacon. Martin even put on an exhibition of his art collection at the Bellagio (the esteemed gallery at the hotel and casino). On the path to transitioning from slapstick comic to esthete, Martin wrote the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a “comedy” about a hypothetical meeting between Picasso and Einstein. It appeared that as Martin grew more comfortable with the mantle of seasoned art collector, his tastes have grown more contemporary, with acquisitions by dirty comic book artist R. Crumb, fellow comedian/artist Martin Mull, and most recently a watercolor by Tim Gardner, who paints academically realistic pictures of fraternity pals drunk beyond the point of no return. Maybe now Martin feels confident and comfortable enough in his collecting shoes to return to a sensibility that matches his crude, collegiate comedic roots.
David Bowie has metamorphosed from anything goes androgyny into art impresario. Bowie’s tastes have switched from collecting the likes of Rubens, Tintoretto, Balthus and traditional UK expressionists such as Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer, to Damien Hirst, and -lo and behold- to becoming an artistic innovator (or rather, imitator) himself. Being the budding dabbler and entrepreneur, Bowie employed the famous Do-It-Yourself mentality of the Brits to begin producing his own art (see www.bowieart.com) The paintings Bowie began to exhibit in galleries in addition to his website looked like primitive African renderings or bad Basquiats. At present on the website there are 6 x 8 inch portraits for US$3,500, and a single sculpture of an African chess piece. Bowie had the piece remade large from a sidewalk purchase in Mombassa, Africa in a “shiny expensive looking material, directly influenced by Jeff Koons”. Now that’s touching considering the local artisan who probably barely survives from having to actually carve and sell the chess sets himself. What makes matters even more exploitative in Bowie’s act of appropriation is his final description of the process: “It was a way of sealing forever my experiences and the present events in my life.” If ever there was a lovelier testament to the transformative and transcending nature of art.
Another celebrity experimenting with art, unbeknownst to even his closest friends, is Christopher Walken who has been making drawings and the like for over 20 years but has until this time showed them, or even spoken about them to no one. Doesn’t that conjure images of a creepy, mad scientist bent over a steaming cauldron creating alchemy? Apparently all that is about to change, as Walken is on the verge of taking off his smock and making these mystery pictures from the mystery man himself available for public viewing.
And now, ladies and gentleman, Madonna has thrown her hat into the art-making arena. Indeed, the road traveled by Madge has mirrored that of other celebrities, i.e. buying newer and newer art and then making the realization that hey, I could do that! Billed as one of the year’s “most anticipated exhibits”, X-STaTIC PRo=CeSS (it wasn’t easy to pass the brilliant concoction through spell-check), a collaboration just transpired at New York’s Jeffrey Deitch Gallery between Madonna and photographer Steven Klein. Klein’s intention was to work with Madonna as a “performance artist… creating a situation where she could respond directly to the camera without constraint.” What was the Sex book about, snippets from her prudish family album? “The project is not about photography of celebrity, but about the person and the passions beneath the surface. Klein sees Madonna as a messenger, asking people to wake up and confront the dehumanizing forces in the contemporary world.” Honey can you get the door, a messenger is here, and she, uh, looks like Madonna. She says she is here to jolt you from your complacency and get you to take some actions against the world’s injustice. “Rather than the packaged glamour that one might expect from the collaboration of a pop star and a top fashion photographer, the work is raw and menacing. The spirit is apocalyptic” Not to sound too disbelieving, but a photograph of Madonna folded into a position where she could engage in an untold sexual act with herself brings to mind many visions none of which I am afraid is all too menacing or apocalyptic, even when projected onto a wall. According to the gallery, that’s “religious passion and sexual charge” for you.
After Warhol made a career out of making icons out of celebrities, artists now would rather be those actors and musicians (and directors, too) themselves rather than paint them and, who would have ever thought that in the search for more meaning in their lives, actors and musicians now want to be artists. The grass is always greener.
Saturday, May 3, 2003
THE THREE AT JEFFREY DEITCH (ARTinvestor Magazine, Spring 2003)
UPTICK: THE THREE
Why bother? Many artists toil away day after day in the solitude of their studios not with the intent of creating transcendent objects and to be immortalized by posterity as if in amber, but rather to get some good press and become another famous art star. Social climbing, globetrotting, magazine spreads, drug addled celebrity parties, Gap adverts, music video directing gigs-ah, that's what its about, isn't it? Tracy, Damien, Cecily, Maurizio, need I say more? The Three is an artist's group formed over 10 years ago to perpetrate, uh, perpetuate a neo-dada action by creating art-as-media, who's only creative act is selling signed, stamped certificates (in the time-worn conceptualist manner) of press coverage of the group. The Three are professional fashion models, models that are basically famous for being born attractive, and well, famous, who dress in austere Calvin Kleinesque minimalist attire of monochromatic white or black t-shirts, jackets and jeans. Is it a radical post-consumer art gesture or another con a la Enron?
As a comment on the tribe of artists and critics in the 00's (prescient in the early 90's before the thrust of the rise of mainstream media attention paid to fine artists) a nerve has definitely been tweaked in the referencing of media obsession. There is already Frida and Diego cologne, rock star curators and critics who fill their columns with self- canonization rather than explications of the art and artists they are paid to critique. Why not hang the articles on the walls and sell them as art for hundreds, and thousands, especially in light of the laughable crumbs magazine critics are paid anyway (trust me on that). Make celebrities of us all. Besides, painting, sculpture, and video are all so trite and conventional. Nowadays, artists employ press agents like studio assistants, its part and parcel of the big picture. Bypass the rank, manual-labor imbued (even fabricated work has to be made by someone), piddling middle-man that is art itself, and get right to the crux of it-the publicity. And in fact, selling promotion is exactly what The Three did in their last show at the Percy Miller Gallery in London in January 2002, briskly for $500 a pop. The Three will attempt to repeat that success for assuredly more money than the last go-round in an outing at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in May/June 2003 in New York City.
DOWNTICK: THE THREE
The venerable raconteur and art journalist about town for London's Art Newspaper Adrian Dannatt is the inventor of the conceptual hoax that is The Three. Articles have made light of this fact and outted Dannatt as the culprit behind the trio, such as critic Barry Schwabsky in Artforum, but more often than not The Three has been analyzed as a stand alone entity, most notably Anthony Haden-Guest's treatment in the now defunct Talk Magazine. Though fooling nonplussed Haden-Guest shouldn't be viewed as a barometer of persuasiveness. But this is beside the point. We are well passed the age of equating the hand of the artist, or the minds of 3 artists with conferring legitimacy on a work of art. The rule of thumb to judge this enterprise should be solely: is it good art? The answer is yes and no. In a society and world of art where media saturation is equated with profundity and success, column inches can be seen as the equivalent of penis size. In this regard, Dannatt's The Three is squarely on point as self-parody and indictment of our present wayward ways. Yet, there is a degree of pat conceit and sanctimoniousness in swearing off the act of creating art product and then selling articles with "stamped, dated, and signed certificates" the value of which is akin to a decoder ring buried in the bottom of a children's cereal box.
The rhetoric that "we do not create anything ourselves other than interest" rings hollow when The Three offers up the Model T-like novelty of a signed, stamped and dated certificate. Why bother! Could it be that the ill-paid art journalist within wants it both ways-to send up the art world and to be conferred with the money and status (and dare I say fame) so woefully denied one on the short end of the art stick? Doesn't critic-artist(s) stink like actor-politician (Streisand, Penn, Baldwin)? Also, the idea of the collective emanating from fashion may have been a conceptual innovation in the early 90's supermodel heyday, but to revive this by picking 3 new models is a tad formulaic and insipid. Dannatt stated: "I styled them in simple black or white t-shirts and jeans which many years later became the Gap look." Cassandra has peeled away more layers of our foolhardy hypocrisy and become a trend-spotter in the process. Fashion and models signify morphing cultural allusions today without the same import as they once might have enjoyed. Though the idea of The Three popping up from beyond the insular art establishment resonates with the fact that art schools are unessential to endow ability, despite the commercial galleries' bear hugs to graduates of the most favored institutions. Would it not have made more sense to pluck the three from obscurity in the reality TV show vein to make it more pertinent to our time? In the end, this alleged media-about-media is indistinguishable from art-about-art, a wink, wink insiders game. But, to paraphrase The Three, there is no bad press, it all makes for good art (to sell); so no matter, it's all stock in trade.
Why bother? Many artists toil away day after day in the solitude of their studios not with the intent of creating transcendent objects and to be immortalized by posterity as if in amber, but rather to get some good press and become another famous art star. Social climbing, globetrotting, magazine spreads, drug addled celebrity parties, Gap adverts, music video directing gigs-ah, that's what its about, isn't it? Tracy, Damien, Cecily, Maurizio, need I say more? The Three is an artist's group formed over 10 years ago to perpetrate, uh, perpetuate a neo-dada action by creating art-as-media, who's only creative act is selling signed, stamped certificates (in the time-worn conceptualist manner) of press coverage of the group. The Three are professional fashion models, models that are basically famous for being born attractive, and well, famous, who dress in austere Calvin Kleinesque minimalist attire of monochromatic white or black t-shirts, jackets and jeans. Is it a radical post-consumer art gesture or another con a la Enron?
As a comment on the tribe of artists and critics in the 00's (prescient in the early 90's before the thrust of the rise of mainstream media attention paid to fine artists) a nerve has definitely been tweaked in the referencing of media obsession. There is already Frida and Diego cologne, rock star curators and critics who fill their columns with self- canonization rather than explications of the art and artists they are paid to critique. Why not hang the articles on the walls and sell them as art for hundreds, and thousands, especially in light of the laughable crumbs magazine critics are paid anyway (trust me on that). Make celebrities of us all. Besides, painting, sculpture, and video are all so trite and conventional. Nowadays, artists employ press agents like studio assistants, its part and parcel of the big picture. Bypass the rank, manual-labor imbued (even fabricated work has to be made by someone), piddling middle-man that is art itself, and get right to the crux of it-the publicity. And in fact, selling promotion is exactly what The Three did in their last show at the Percy Miller Gallery in London in January 2002, briskly for $500 a pop. The Three will attempt to repeat that success for assuredly more money than the last go-round in an outing at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in May/June 2003 in New York City.
DOWNTICK: THE THREE
The venerable raconteur and art journalist about town for London's Art Newspaper Adrian Dannatt is the inventor of the conceptual hoax that is The Three. Articles have made light of this fact and outted Dannatt as the culprit behind the trio, such as critic Barry Schwabsky in Artforum, but more often than not The Three has been analyzed as a stand alone entity, most notably Anthony Haden-Guest's treatment in the now defunct Talk Magazine. Though fooling nonplussed Haden-Guest shouldn't be viewed as a barometer of persuasiveness. But this is beside the point. We are well passed the age of equating the hand of the artist, or the minds of 3 artists with conferring legitimacy on a work of art. The rule of thumb to judge this enterprise should be solely: is it good art? The answer is yes and no. In a society and world of art where media saturation is equated with profundity and success, column inches can be seen as the equivalent of penis size. In this regard, Dannatt's The Three is squarely on point as self-parody and indictment of our present wayward ways. Yet, there is a degree of pat conceit and sanctimoniousness in swearing off the act of creating art product and then selling articles with "stamped, dated, and signed certificates" the value of which is akin to a decoder ring buried in the bottom of a children's cereal box.
The rhetoric that "we do not create anything ourselves other than interest" rings hollow when The Three offers up the Model T-like novelty of a signed, stamped and dated certificate. Why bother! Could it be that the ill-paid art journalist within wants it both ways-to send up the art world and to be conferred with the money and status (and dare I say fame) so woefully denied one on the short end of the art stick? Doesn't critic-artist(s) stink like actor-politician (Streisand, Penn, Baldwin)? Also, the idea of the collective emanating from fashion may have been a conceptual innovation in the early 90's supermodel heyday, but to revive this by picking 3 new models is a tad formulaic and insipid. Dannatt stated: "I styled them in simple black or white t-shirts and jeans which many years later became the Gap look." Cassandra has peeled away more layers of our foolhardy hypocrisy and become a trend-spotter in the process. Fashion and models signify morphing cultural allusions today without the same import as they once might have enjoyed. Though the idea of The Three popping up from beyond the insular art establishment resonates with the fact that art schools are unessential to endow ability, despite the commercial galleries' bear hugs to graduates of the most favored institutions. Would it not have made more sense to pluck the three from obscurity in the reality TV show vein to make it more pertinent to our time? In the end, this alleged media-about-media is indistinguishable from art-about-art, a wink, wink insiders game. But, to paraphrase The Three, there is no bad press, it all makes for good art (to sell); so no matter, it's all stock in trade.
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
ART REPORT (ART& AUCTION Magazine, April 2003)
Does your portfolio have the right balance of mutual funds, real estate investment trusts (REIT's) and art funds? It should, says Michael Moses at NYU’s Stern School of Business, who with professor Jainping Mei created the Mei/Moses Fine Art Index (www.meimosesfineartindex.org). Although outwardly characterizing art as an investment vehicle is a no-no in the art world, it is only a matter of time before such art-based funds become commonplace according to Moses. Along with publishing papers with titles such as "Art as an Investment and the Underperformance of Masterpieces" and "Art, Wars and Recessions," the maverick academics have created a series of indexes tracking key categories of art (American, Impressionism and Old Masters) against the Treasuries and the S&P 500.
Previously, they found that fine art trailed the S&P 500 over the long haul, though barely. That is not the case any longer. Their latest, yet-to-be-published study shows that the art market has outperformed the stock market for the last 40 years, and dramatically outpaced it over the last five years, when art brought an average 12.9 percent return, and stock, zilch. Plus, the duo concludes, collecting art offers more by way of glamour than piling up stocks and bonds. In the words of Moses (Mike, that is), "Art may serve to humanize the barbarians, but the barbarians will never admit to its investment value since that would negate its non-barbarian status." Translation: art for art’s sake is a surprisingly good investment.
As if touting art works as an investment wasn’t seditious enough; the findings of Mei/Moses are even more eye-popping and contradictory to previous beliefs. Namely, that masterpieces under-perform the market, as opposed to typical art dealer advice to buy the very best (i.e. most expensive) artworks a client can afford. Mei/Moses determined that it was not clear that the highest quality art has the highest financial returns. Another finding of note is that the art market does not correlate to the stock market (but probably does mirror the real estate market to an extent) and is not as volatile as previously thought—thus the key benefit of art can be for purposes of diversification.
Strangely enough, Moses comes to this economically reductive way of analyzing art through the traditional transcendental notion that art can change a person’s outlook of the world, and that certain images stay with the viewer for life. But, before you log on to the Art Index to gauge the future performance of your budding art portfolio, Mei/Moses are not quite ready to prophesize the next (inevitable?) downturn, not yet, anyway!
An interesting historical note on the art and investment front was the case of the British Railways Pension Fund which undertook an unorthodox foray into the art market in the mid-1970’s. In an effort to combat high inflation, a faltering London Stock Market, weak property levels and a high dollar, the Railways Pension Fund invested in art and other collectibles seeking portfolio diversification, long-term captial appreciation, and profits. To consider such a scenario today for what is essentially a public trust seems unthinkable. Yet the fund which invested in Old Masters, Impressionist, Chinese, and European art (and antiquities) did remarkably well over the course of a twenty year period. The initial cash outlay of 40 million pounds reached 168 million by the end of the project in the late 90’s, which equaled an 11.3% cash rate of return or 4.0% per year above the movement of the Retail Price Index. Strangely, in 1999 after the successful run of the Railway Pension Fund’s experience with art, it was determined to invest in other vehicles such as equities rather than re-invest in art. Looking back a couple of years later from hindsight, British Railways would be wise to dip back into the art market and get back on track!
Previously, they found that fine art trailed the S&P 500 over the long haul, though barely. That is not the case any longer. Their latest, yet-to-be-published study shows that the art market has outperformed the stock market for the last 40 years, and dramatically outpaced it over the last five years, when art brought an average 12.9 percent return, and stock, zilch. Plus, the duo concludes, collecting art offers more by way of glamour than piling up stocks and bonds. In the words of Moses (Mike, that is), "Art may serve to humanize the barbarians, but the barbarians will never admit to its investment value since that would negate its non-barbarian status." Translation: art for art’s sake is a surprisingly good investment.
As if touting art works as an investment wasn’t seditious enough; the findings of Mei/Moses are even more eye-popping and contradictory to previous beliefs. Namely, that masterpieces under-perform the market, as opposed to typical art dealer advice to buy the very best (i.e. most expensive) artworks a client can afford. Mei/Moses determined that it was not clear that the highest quality art has the highest financial returns. Another finding of note is that the art market does not correlate to the stock market (but probably does mirror the real estate market to an extent) and is not as volatile as previously thought—thus the key benefit of art can be for purposes of diversification.
Strangely enough, Moses comes to this economically reductive way of analyzing art through the traditional transcendental notion that art can change a person’s outlook of the world, and that certain images stay with the viewer for life. But, before you log on to the Art Index to gauge the future performance of your budding art portfolio, Mei/Moses are not quite ready to prophesize the next (inevitable?) downturn, not yet, anyway!
An interesting historical note on the art and investment front was the case of the British Railways Pension Fund which undertook an unorthodox foray into the art market in the mid-1970’s. In an effort to combat high inflation, a faltering London Stock Market, weak property levels and a high dollar, the Railways Pension Fund invested in art and other collectibles seeking portfolio diversification, long-term captial appreciation, and profits. To consider such a scenario today for what is essentially a public trust seems unthinkable. Yet the fund which invested in Old Masters, Impressionist, Chinese, and European art (and antiquities) did remarkably well over the course of a twenty year period. The initial cash outlay of 40 million pounds reached 168 million by the end of the project in the late 90’s, which equaled an 11.3% cash rate of return or 4.0% per year above the movement of the Retail Price Index. Strangely, in 1999 after the successful run of the Railway Pension Fund’s experience with art, it was determined to invest in other vehicles such as equities rather than re-invest in art. Looking back a couple of years later from hindsight, British Railways would be wise to dip back into the art market and get back on track!
Monday, March 31, 2003
INTERVIEW (conTEMPorary MISSION STATEMENT) - ICON MAGAZINE, Lisbon, Portugal, 2003
Why initiate the conTEMPorary exhibition space, which runs counter to your past transient curatorial credentials?
The last thing I ever envisioned was opening a gallery. It was the last thing I ever wanted to do. However, I felt compelled to create a conceptual counterpart to the numbing monotony of exhibition venues. Building a space is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for most, however more often than not the same designs by the same designers are all too familiar. The most glaring example in Chelsea is Luhring Augustine and Andrea Rosen galleries that shared an architect who is largely responsible for the sterile environment that pervades the district and simply built a wall to divide the uniform space into two. The conscious surrendering of the opportunity for making two distinctive galleries is remarkable.
With the rise of modern art, galleries changed from a salon setting to stark white walls in an effort to achieve neutrality and perhaps confer legitimacy to the nascent world of new art. The model prior to the white cube was the interior of a wealthy patron's living room. However, gallery interiors became weighted down and loaded with a whole new set of preexisting meanings that were anything but neutral. The aim of conTEMPorary was to stand the conventional notion of displaying art on its head and to create a fluid, morphing space in which to exhibit art. The idea was to radicalize the interior to open a dialogue about how venues can function now and in the future.
What is the idea behind mixing fashion, architecture, music and dance along with more conventional content of art spaces such as painting, sculpture, and video?
With regard to the program, the intent was also to move away from the convention of exclusively representing a small stable of artists and guarding the exposure of those few as though they were protected species. Without a fixed group of artists to represent, the programming of the gallery can remain as nimble and changeable as the gallery walls (which adjust according to showing requirements). Lip- service is always being paid to broadening the spectrum of what is shown within contemporary art galleries, though we live in a world strictly defined by niche specialization. Rarely do venues or audiences hazard beyond parameters having to do with content, though much is said about cross-pollinating with other art forms in the contemporary art world. It is the mission of conTEMPorary to work with architects, fashion designers, dance groups, musicians and others to experiment in an eclectic showing space. In the process, new audiences are exposed to art forms they would not ordinarily witness. Artists will benefit as well as gallery-goers from interacting with unexpected pairings in the arts
Why did you choose to work with Vito Acconci in the role of architect rather than artist?
I have always admired the work of Vito Acconci due to his utilitarian, non-conformist, chameleon manner in his approach to art and architecture. I use the word chameleon to describe the ever changing body of work pursued by Acconci from early body based photo and video pieces to installation, sculpture, outdoor art and presently architecture. In fact, at present, Acconci has eschewed art production altogether largely due to the exclusionary limited reach of the fine art world. Acconci has never paid heed to the art market, a driving force that obsesses so many artists today, and has always sought to address challenging conceptual issues usually at the expense of materialistic needs. When a renegade comes upon a field from outside the entrenched establishment he/she is usually met with scorn, as is the case with Acconci and his decade old studio, and similarly, such is the response I have met while curating, making art, writing, and dealing. The art world, like the architecture world, closes ranks and tries to erect barriers to those whose only intent is to create unique approaches. With his art background and deviant approach to architecture, Acconci was the ideal person sympathetic to the concerns of an unorthodox gallery. ConTEMPorary was Acconci's first private commission and first built interior.
What is your general approach to curating in the past and at present?
For me curating is an art form similar in nature to painting, sculpture, video, and installation. It is a form of installation comprised of pairing disparate artists, while giving room for the individual participants and artworks to exist independently of the group. For me the key is to bring artists and artworks to the fore that would not otherwise gain a foothold into the system, and to establish complimentary relations between different works. Also, an abiding interest is to bring to light work bypassed, forgotten or underrated by general consensus. Some artists approach their art making process oblivious to new art being made, while others find it exhilarating to actively support the art of their time. I am inextricably drawn to exhibit and promote artists as part and parcel of my own art doings.
What role do art fairs, such as the upcoming Armory in which you will participate, play in your efforts?
Art fairs in general are strictly commercial matters and the Armory is no different. I find them generally disheartening and practically depressing as a means to see and purchase art. For me, fairs are not to view art but to view collectors! As a small purposefully marginal enterprise, I am not exposed to the usual group of collectors that lend support to galleries on a regular basis. As a result, I have no recourse but to participate in order to expose the artists I work with at any given time and the gallery itself. In an attempt to differentiate myself from the pack of purely commercially minded participants, Vito Acconci will design my booth in an attempt to undermine the normative quality of such affairs.
The last thing I ever envisioned was opening a gallery. It was the last thing I ever wanted to do. However, I felt compelled to create a conceptual counterpart to the numbing monotony of exhibition venues. Building a space is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity for most, however more often than not the same designs by the same designers are all too familiar. The most glaring example in Chelsea is Luhring Augustine and Andrea Rosen galleries that shared an architect who is largely responsible for the sterile environment that pervades the district and simply built a wall to divide the uniform space into two. The conscious surrendering of the opportunity for making two distinctive galleries is remarkable.
With the rise of modern art, galleries changed from a salon setting to stark white walls in an effort to achieve neutrality and perhaps confer legitimacy to the nascent world of new art. The model prior to the white cube was the interior of a wealthy patron's living room. However, gallery interiors became weighted down and loaded with a whole new set of preexisting meanings that were anything but neutral. The aim of conTEMPorary was to stand the conventional notion of displaying art on its head and to create a fluid, morphing space in which to exhibit art. The idea was to radicalize the interior to open a dialogue about how venues can function now and in the future.
What is the idea behind mixing fashion, architecture, music and dance along with more conventional content of art spaces such as painting, sculpture, and video?
With regard to the program, the intent was also to move away from the convention of exclusively representing a small stable of artists and guarding the exposure of those few as though they were protected species. Without a fixed group of artists to represent, the programming of the gallery can remain as nimble and changeable as the gallery walls (which adjust according to showing requirements). Lip- service is always being paid to broadening the spectrum of what is shown within contemporary art galleries, though we live in a world strictly defined by niche specialization. Rarely do venues or audiences hazard beyond parameters having to do with content, though much is said about cross-pollinating with other art forms in the contemporary art world. It is the mission of conTEMPorary to work with architects, fashion designers, dance groups, musicians and others to experiment in an eclectic showing space. In the process, new audiences are exposed to art forms they would not ordinarily witness. Artists will benefit as well as gallery-goers from interacting with unexpected pairings in the arts
Why did you choose to work with Vito Acconci in the role of architect rather than artist?
I have always admired the work of Vito Acconci due to his utilitarian, non-conformist, chameleon manner in his approach to art and architecture. I use the word chameleon to describe the ever changing body of work pursued by Acconci from early body based photo and video pieces to installation, sculpture, outdoor art and presently architecture. In fact, at present, Acconci has eschewed art production altogether largely due to the exclusionary limited reach of the fine art world. Acconci has never paid heed to the art market, a driving force that obsesses so many artists today, and has always sought to address challenging conceptual issues usually at the expense of materialistic needs. When a renegade comes upon a field from outside the entrenched establishment he/she is usually met with scorn, as is the case with Acconci and his decade old studio, and similarly, such is the response I have met while curating, making art, writing, and dealing. The art world, like the architecture world, closes ranks and tries to erect barriers to those whose only intent is to create unique approaches. With his art background and deviant approach to architecture, Acconci was the ideal person sympathetic to the concerns of an unorthodox gallery. ConTEMPorary was Acconci's first private commission and first built interior.
What is your general approach to curating in the past and at present?
For me curating is an art form similar in nature to painting, sculpture, video, and installation. It is a form of installation comprised of pairing disparate artists, while giving room for the individual participants and artworks to exist independently of the group. For me the key is to bring artists and artworks to the fore that would not otherwise gain a foothold into the system, and to establish complimentary relations between different works. Also, an abiding interest is to bring to light work bypassed, forgotten or underrated by general consensus. Some artists approach their art making process oblivious to new art being made, while others find it exhilarating to actively support the art of their time. I am inextricably drawn to exhibit and promote artists as part and parcel of my own art doings.
What role do art fairs, such as the upcoming Armory in which you will participate, play in your efforts?
Art fairs in general are strictly commercial matters and the Armory is no different. I find them generally disheartening and practically depressing as a means to see and purchase art. For me, fairs are not to view art but to view collectors! As a small purposefully marginal enterprise, I am not exposed to the usual group of collectors that lend support to galleries on a regular basis. As a result, I have no recourse but to participate in order to expose the artists I work with at any given time and the gallery itself. In an attempt to differentiate myself from the pack of purely commercially minded participants, Vito Acconci will design my booth in an attempt to undermine the normative quality of such affairs.
Thursday, January 23, 2003
The Relationship between Making Art and Curating:
Monkey in the Middle
Making art and curating are clearly distinct practices within the rubric of fine art, however there are undeniably areas where they coincide. Concededly, both are very subjective in nature so I do not profess to possess universal truths in this regard! Various stages in the development of a group exhibition are akin to the creative process when devising a body of artwork: namely, naming a show; and in addition, fashioning associative printed matter, i.e. invitation imagery, posters, advertisements, etc. In a sense, in the instances when I produce a picture to introduce and promote an exhibit I consider it part and parcel of my art and on occasion display it as a stand-alone piece (or series). However, the separation is unambiguous and a strong effort must be made to keep such distance evident. Curating by definition entails an art form in and of itself, which at its core necessitates a sensitivity and sensibility for relating to the art of others-the process of selecting artists and art and the finesse in displaying the pieces in relation to each other and the space. It is problematic if making art and curating are seen as one and the same as this would evince an usurping of the autonomy of the individual art and artists in the name of the supposed omnipotent impresario. Not that I haven't felt a proprietary sense of authorship in the organic structure that takes shape when an exhibit goes from conception to fruition. Conversely, the conundrum is the tendency of the professional artworld to look askance at a curator who conceives their practice too artfully: many are loath to acknowledge that one may combine activities and still be taken seriously in both (or, for that matter, in either).
Making art and curating are clearly distinct practices within the rubric of fine art, however there are undeniably areas where they coincide. Concededly, both are very subjective in nature so I do not profess to possess universal truths in this regard! Various stages in the development of a group exhibition are akin to the creative process when devising a body of artwork: namely, naming a show; and in addition, fashioning associative printed matter, i.e. invitation imagery, posters, advertisements, etc. In a sense, in the instances when I produce a picture to introduce and promote an exhibit I consider it part and parcel of my art and on occasion display it as a stand-alone piece (or series). However, the separation is unambiguous and a strong effort must be made to keep such distance evident. Curating by definition entails an art form in and of itself, which at its core necessitates a sensitivity and sensibility for relating to the art of others-the process of selecting artists and art and the finesse in displaying the pieces in relation to each other and the space. It is problematic if making art and curating are seen as one and the same as this would evince an usurping of the autonomy of the individual art and artists in the name of the supposed omnipotent impresario. Not that I haven't felt a proprietary sense of authorship in the organic structure that takes shape when an exhibit goes from conception to fruition. Conversely, the conundrum is the tendency of the professional artworld to look askance at a curator who conceives their practice too artfully: many are loath to acknowledge that one may combine activities and still be taken seriously in both (or, for that matter, in either).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)