a personal profit.
I’ve spent the last few months delving into issues revolving around the contemporary art scene.
Granted, the terms money and art have a longstanding and incestuous love-hate relationship. While galleries play an important role as filters, determining what will ascend into the mainstream, many artists operate outside and find ways to show their work. And, money is not always the motivation behind the art.
Read on.
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Tags: art, auction, contemporary art, gallery, money, New York City, profit
all cracked up.
Whether or not you agree with Contemporary Art, it is undeniable that there’s always going to be another shock. And, no, the one at London’s Tate Modern wasn’t seismic despite its appearance.
(Doris Salcedo Shibboleth 2007 Photo: Tate)
Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is a subterranean chasm that spans Turbine Hall. Concrete walls are ruptured by steel meshing, creating a tension. The Columbian artist dramatically shifts viewer’s perception, questioning the interaction between sculpture and space – and ultimately the ideological foundations of modernity. A ’shibboleth’ is essentially a linguistic password, one that includes and excludes various groups or classes of people. The physical fracture that opens the museum’s floor, also evokes a severance with modernity that is built upon tenuous grounds.
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Tags: contemporary art, crack, Doris Salcedo, London, modernity, Shibboleth, Tate modern, Turbine Hall
owning the man…or not?
Just imagine this. You’re doing your job. You create something. Someone else DIRECTLY copies off of you. A couple hundred thousand dollars (or maybe even a million or so) later you don’t even see a penny of the profit.
That’s the basic gist behind the Richard Price/Jim Krantz controversy that the NY Times, among others, reported a few days ago. It has been fairly publicized so I won’t go into details, but basically Krantz, a commercial photographer, was at the Guggenheim in New York where Prince’s retrospective is ongoing. He sees his Marlboro Man image reproduced. Prince’s reputation has skyrocketed to such an extent that in 2005 one of the Marlboro images went for 1.2 million dollars.
An ad or a work of art? You decide.
Yes, Krantz is a commercial photographer and basically sells away his rights to the images. That’s the deal. Yet still, isn’t it similar to transcribing Moby Dick word for word and then publishing it under another name? I know that Melville’s motives were a bit different from someone producing stock footage/writing, but fundamentally, we all know that’s wrong.
Prince is also notorious for his “take” on a Garry Gross photo shoot with a young Brooke Shields. Culture Grrl tells this tale.
I do not write this to denounce Prince and his “artistic vision,” however I’m not so sure that I agree with his methods. This is a sensitive matter. When I first took photography nine years ago in high school, this is one of the first issues that came up in discussion. Beyond actually photographing another work, we spoke about making the kisses of Eisenstaedt and Doisneau. It’s about the intention. They both claimed to have captured the decisive moment, yet this remains uncertain.
I also think of Walker Evans and his photograph of a torn movie poster. Evans was a sign man from rusted road signs to indirect social and cultural signifiers. Despite often reproducing an already produced image, Evans used his photography as a social commentary. Reframing the image, he defined his own point of view.
The same can be said for Prince, although his images are direct replicas. They are as if he printed a duplicate from the original negative. Where’s the satisfaction in making a color copy? Perhaps in the bank.
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Tags: art, copy, Jim Krantz, Marlboro Man, method, photography, Richard Prince
Folksong
Folksong
Video sent by gretchenworsley
A small preface – The video ends quite abruptly. There’s about 15 minutes of black at the end. The final credits didn’t quite work out.
I will be uploading the new version early next week. I’d love your feedback.
This is some of my first footage. I wanted to show it because I think that the icelandic artist, Ragnar Kjartansson, has a very unique take on the ‘landscape portrait.’ He played/posed from 11-5 for 10 consecutive days. Instead of the classic, “nature mort,” the French translation of “still life,” (which actually translates to “dead life/nature”), he portrays a living painting, a “tableau vivant.”
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Tags: art, Chelsea, guitar, Iceland, Ragnar Kjartansson, tableau vivant
Another Night in the Studio
Another Night in the Studio
Video sent by gretchenworsley
This is a glimpse inside the studio of emerging artist, Elisabeth Py. A typical piece takes about a few weeks for Elisabeth to finish. This is just another night at work.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget all that one project entails.
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Tags: art, cement, Elisabeth Py, enamel, painting, studio
Hi Art!
Hi Art!
Video sent by gretchenworsley
This is a multimedia show that I created about Hi Art!, a studio for children that encourages artistic growth.
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saturday night live.
Earlier this week I wrote about Banksy, the graffiti artist from Britain. I had dinner tonight with Iris Arnaud, a French graphic designer. Arnaud juxtaposes personal images with graffiti to reflect her vision of the world.
These are printouts of the final arrangements that will be printed on plexiglass as part of an exposition that opens on December 15th. Her work is striking and complex, as she combines vintage imagery and text with modern photographs and techniques. Gainsbourg lyrics and cryptic messages evoke Arnaud’s late mother, “Lola,” the inspiration for her current work.
Her art is part of the mixed-media show at Studio/Gallery 173 curated by Thibault Sandret, a French pop artist. Sandret named the show, Don’t Call It Street Art! to emphasize the legitimacy of art, regardless of its medium, once institutionalized.
This exhibition not only plays with ideas of curation, but also with concepts of art and the act of making art. On the opening night the artist COL will execute live graffiti on model, Kat Love.
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Tags: art, COL, Don't Call It Street Art!, graffiti, Iris Arnaud, Kat Love
ride ‘em cowboy.
Saw this at the Goff+Rosenthal Gallery in Chelsea as I was walking home tonight. The black piece spun slowly. They reminded my of the gaudy costumes that the Mummers wear in the New Year’s Parade every year in Philadelphia.
Kristian Kozul is a Czech artist, playing with ideas of glitz in the American west.
Filed under: Art-sy News, Random thought | 1 Comment
Tags: art, Chelsea, gallery, Goff+Rosenthal, Kristian Kozul
mmm, ocean.
Call it the delirium of being sick for the past week. Call it the assignments (between school and work) that are piling up. Call it the dark and dismalness outside. Or, call it the fact that I’m from Pennsylvania and I’m a sucker for palm trees.
In any case, Art Miami officially started today (kind of), and I cannot help but envy each person (perhaps even living creature) who is down there for the 3/4-day extravaganza (depending on how important you are).
Not only does it make my life harder that I constantly daydream about having money and affording a ticket and an overpriced hotel room, but also anybody who’s anybody in art is there, and I want in.
I got a phone call the other day from a friend within this jet-setting, quirky world of art. She was tossing around the idea of going for the weekend and wanted my opinion. Technically, it’s called Art Basel Miami Beach, and is the American component of Switzerland’s Art Basel, which has been on-going for the past 38 years.
Basically if you’re someone in the art world you’re there. But then again, why wouldn’t you be? Art, sun, and palm trees – what more could you want?
UPDATE: More Art Basel Miami – here’s the NY Times T Magazine blog, “The Moment” that features various postings from art in the sunshine state. I’m very envious.
Filed under: Art-sy News, Random thought | 2 Comments
Tags: art, art basel miami beach, gallery, NY times, palm trees, the moment
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