My favorite art critic is Jerry Saltz of New York Magazine. (His wife Roberta Smith from the New York Times is likely my second favorite).
Mr. Saltz has an insightful article on the state of contemporary art in the current issue. Read it here.
Art Market Watch from ArtNet.com also explores the situation in detailed article here. The article notes that Sotheby’s had to borrow $250 million from Bank of America to cover their outstanding auction guarantees of $306 million.
Read the transcript of an interview on Air America with Christo and Jeanne-Claude about their work, including the in process “Over the River” that may happen in Colorado.
Note: This was the original text I submitted for the ‘Dialogues’ article.
Ceramic artists featured in Ceramics Monthly and American Craft are on display in Pagosa Springs. Jeff Pender, from Charlotte, NC is one of the artists sparking conversation in “Dialogues” an exhibit at Shy Rabbit Contemporary Arts.
Pender’s elegant stoneware pieces are like mystical talismans from some ancient culture. A very involved finishing process gives the sculptural work an aged feel. They are spiritual portals. Vessels of ancestry. Life-force forms.
“I seek the bridge between what was and what will be, between stories told and one yet to be written, between past and future,” Pender writes in his artist statement.
“Ancestors Portal” is a bone white spirit figure suspended in a horseshoe shaped orb. “Floating Spirit” is a terra cotta spirit figure with burnished gold elements suspended in a bone white orb. According to Ceramics Monthly, Pender “maintains a rigorous working method that begins with drawing.”
The drawings become, or are combined, into three-dimensional sculptures. Finishes include terra sigillata (or earth seal), an ancient technique. Terra sigillata is a slip (liquid clay) containing very fine particles that can be rubbed to a luster after firing. The terra sigillata is applied to dry, unfired stoneware. Other unfired surface treatments give Pender’s work a rustlike or bonelike surface. The forms are honed and scrubbed and then burnished before firing. They are finished with wood stain and paste wax.
There is a magical quality to Pender’s work. A sense of discovery is infused into each sculpture. The idea of some fabricated, ritualistic ancient god or goddess figure is hinted at in a very contemporary and elegant aesthetic.
Pender’s sculptures converse with Carrianne Hendrickson’s hand built figurative ceramic sculptures. On the surface, Hendrickson’s forms appear to be innocent, but with an altogether human dark side. The Buffalo, NY based artist created the three “Pillowhead” works exclusively for this exhibit.
Hendrickson’s “The Offering” and “Bird Woman” are ritualistic and ancient in their own way. “The Offering” features an antlered female figure holding a basket of colorful fruit and vegetables. At her feet the spilled fruit and vegetables are all white. On her left chest is a hollowed out square. “Bird Woman” is female figure with four breasts, wearing a crown of red feathers and a long beak almost like a Venetian mask.
Hendrickson and Pender are exhibited in the same gallery with paintings by Christopher St. John of Taos, NM and Marcie Paper from Western Massachusetts. “Petting Zoo” and “Sick Neighbor,” both by St. John, not only dialogue with the dark human underbelly of Hendrickson’s sculptures, they also converse with earlier exhibits and artists shown at Shy Rabbit. “Petting Zoo” echoes the charcoal drawings and lithographs of Michael Barnes. There is mystery and dilemma in the work, humor, the mundane and mindless. “Sick Neighbor” could have been part of “Mind’s Material” in 2006 and strongly recalls the large heads with gaping mouths by Doug Pedersen.
Another artist that literally harkens back to an earlier Shy Rabbit exhibit is Marcie Paper who was part of “Forms, Figures, Symbols” also in 2006 under her former name Marcie Lenke. There is a graphic quality to her painting and collage pieces, one that is simple and organic, almost like fabric. The color pallets of Paper and St. John are complementary and the shapes and forms are conversant with the ovals, circles and figures on the ceramic sculptures of Pender and Hendrickson.
The conversation and dialogue never ends at Shy Rabbit. Michael and Denise Coffee are constantly revising and remaking their contemporary art center, defining and redefining a way to show art and pay the bills. Workshops in ceramics and printmaking offered by Michael Coffee are the bread and butter of this social enterprise. Two print making students Debra Blair of Farmington, NM and Marti Bledsoe of Pagosa and Marble Falls, TX are showing their own dialogue and collaboration in the back gallery. The result is two artists stretching and creating some strong results.
The icing on the cake is the opportunity to bring artists from outside the area to show work that may be unfamiliar and uncomfortable to local audiences. An exhibit at Shy Rabbit is like visiting the home of Michael and Denise Coffee and hanging out with their art collection. They exhibit work that Michael Coffee says, “speaks to us as artists and longtime collectors.”
The tête-à-tête will continue.
Pagosa Springs art show urges talk of intangibles
“Bird Woman” by Carrianne Hendrickson is a ceramic sculpture featured in “Dialogues.”Ceramic artists stand out in the new show at the Shy Rabbit Gallery in Pagosa Springs. Jeff Pender, from Charlotte, N.C., is one of the artists sparking conversation in an exhibit titled “Dialogues.”
His elegant stoneware pieces are like mystical talismans from some ancient culture.
“I seek the bridge between what was and what will be, between stories told and one yet to be written, between past and future,” Pender wrote in his artist statement.
“Ancestors Portal” is a bone-white spirit figure suspended in a horseshoe-shaped orb.
“Floating Spirit” is a terra cotta spirit figure with burnished gold elements in a white orb.
Pender begins with drawing. He then combines the drawings into three-dimensional sculptures.
Finishes include terra sigillata (or earth seal), a slip (liquid clay) containing fine particles that can be rubbed to a luster after firing.
Other unfired surface treatments give Pender’s work a rust-like or bonelike surface. The forms are honed, scrubbed and burnished before firing, then finished with wood stain and paste wax.
There is a magical quality to Pender’s work: Some fabricated, ritualistic, ancient god figure in a contemporary and elegant aesthetic.
Pender’s sculptures appear with Carrianne Hendrickson’s hand-built, figurative, ceramic sculptures.
Hendrickson’s forms appear innocent, but have a dark side. The Buffalo, N.Y.-based artist created three “Pillowhead” works for this exhibit.
Hendriskson’s “The Offering” and “Bird Woman” are ritualistic and ancient, as well. “The Offering” features an antlered female figure holding a basket of colored fruit and vegetables. At her feet, the spilled fruit and vegetables are all white.
“Bird Woman” is a female figure with four breasts, wearing a crown of red feathers and a long beak like a Venetian mask.
Hendrickson and Pender are exhibited with paintings by Christopher St. John from Taos, N.M., and Marcie Paper from Brooklyn, N.Y.
“Petting Zoo” and “Sick Neighbor,” both oils by St. John, complement the dark underbelly of Hendrickson’s sculptures.
Marcie Paper showed at the Shy Rabbit in 2006 under her former name Marcie Lenke. There is a graphic quality to her painting and collage pieces, one that is simple and organic, almost like fabric.
The color pallets of Paper and St. John are complementary and the shapes and forms are conversant with the ovals, circles and figures on the ceramic sculptures of Pender and Hendrickson.
“Sick Neighbor,” an oil on panel by Christopher St. John, is on display at Shy Rabbit Contemporary Arts.
Shy Rabbit owners Denise and Michael Coffee are constantly revising their contemporary art center.
Workshops in ceramics and printmaking offered by Michael Coffee are the bread and butter of this social enterprise.
Two print-making students, Debra Blair of Farmington and Marti Bledsoe of Pagosa Springs and Marble Falls, Texas, are showing their collaboration in the back gallery.
artsjournalist@mac.com
Leanne Goebel is a writer who specializes in the arts.
var image_count = 2 var image_type = “normal” function show_img(img_num){ for (i=0;i 1 && image_type != “mug” && image_type != “big”){ for (i = 0; i <= image_count-1; i++){ document.getElementById(“image_container”+i).style.margin=”2px”; document.getElementById(“capcred”+i).style.display=”none”; document.getElementById(“capcred”+i).style.visibility=”hidden”; document['image'+i].style.height=”50px”; } //show_img(0); document["image0"].style.opacity = “0.5″; }
“Dialogues,” 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, or by appointment through Nov. 15, Shy Rabbit Contemporary Arts, 333 Bastille Drive, Pagosa Springs, 731-2766.
//alert(document.getElementById(“infobox_container0″).offsetHeight); for(i = 0; i 300){ document.getElementById(“infobox_container”+i).style.height=”300px”; document.getElementById(“infobox_container”+i).style.overflow=”auto”; } }
“I know very little about contemporary art but have £1,000 to invest. Any advice?” When Charles Saatchi was asked this in an interview in ‘The Independent’, he responded: “Premium bonds. Art is no investment unless you get very, very lucky, and can beat the professionals at their game. Buy something you really like that will give you a thousand pounds’ worth of pleasure over the years. And take your time looking for something special, because looking is half the fun.”
Another great article from The Guardian by Sarah Thornton. Read it here.
Some highlights:
“There remains a strong feeling in the art world that good art is made by people with more profound goals or intellectual ambitions than simply making money. As the former YBA Gavin Turk told me: ‘If artists are primarily motivated by profit, they may not be artists any more. They could just be producers of something.” Turk, 41, started out at the heart of the British art scene, one of the many YBAs represented by Jay Jopling’s White Cube gallery.’ “
Good news for painters–painting is still not dead:
“The medium that typifies the current bull market for art is painting. It hangs efficiently on the wall; it doesn’t consume floor space; it is easy to store. Sensual canvases in happy colours, using glitzy materials or fetishistic techniques are a good bet. Where does this leave the many contemporary artists who don’t paint – who work in mixed media, or with other artists, or with materials that decay?”
Artist Isaac Julien when asked to comment on the recent Damien Hirst auction was uncynical about the commodification and success of the auction overall. But his comments about specific Hirst works was more insightful:
“About the individual Hirst works that went on the block, Julien is more circumspect. ‘Warhol’s use of repetition had real intellectual meaning. Nowadays, I wonder if seriality is not just a way of printing money.’”
And there is still a gender gap.
“At the bottom end, walk into any degree show and you will invariably find that the boys have pitched their asking prices higher than the girls.”
Thornton is the author of the upcoming book Seven Days in the Art World. A review of that book can be read at The Art Newspaper, where she is a contributor.
Press Release received from the ever delightful Daniele Robson, communications manager for MCA/Denver.
Denver, October 27, 2008 – Marking a hugely successful first year in the new building, MCA
DENVER welcomed its 50,000th visitor on Friday October 24. The Museum set this
unprecedented goal of first year attendance seeking to welcome 50,000 visitors from Denver
and around the world by October 28, 2009, the one-year anniversary of the opening of the new
facility at 1485 Delgany.
To celebrate these successes and the first anniversary, MCA DENVER welcomes everyone with a KeyBank Family Free Day on Saturday November 1, 2008, from 10AM-6PM, sponsored by KeyBank.
Currently on View
Omer Fast
July 22, 2008 – January 4, 2009
New Media Gallery
Adam Helms
August 12, 2008 – January 18, 2009
Paperworks Gallery
Jane Hammond
August 19, 2008 – February 8, 2009
Photography Gallery
Terry Maker
September 16, 2008 – January 18, 2009
Project Gallery
Jonas Burgert
October 7, 2008 – March 1, 2009
Promenade Space
Damien Hirst
October 7, 2008 – August 30, 2009
Large Works Gallery
Christian Science Monitor to end print edition and publish solely online. Read about it here in the NY Times.
Time, Inc. to cut 600 jobs.
Gannett to cut 10% of workforce.
American Express publishing to cut 22 jobs.
For publishers, new circumstances demand new business models.
Newspapers’ circulation declines faster in past six months.
It’s a happy time to be a writer and working in print media! Something new is coming! It may be the end of the world as we know it, but the next thing will be even better. Hang on for the ride and keep on reading and writing!
Read Blake Gopnik’s take on Over the River, currently on display at The Phillips Collection in Washington DC. Click here for a link to the Washington Post.
A roundup of the news reports and financial results from Frieze, FIAC, the Sotheby’s and Christies London Art auctions and even Sioux Falls, SD. If there is any doubt that the contemporary art market is in limbo, then just check out these headlines that have crossed my desk in the past few days. Most recent are listed first. Click on the headline for a link to the full article.
Is your glass half full or half empty? If half empty, then skip the reading part. Maybe skip the whole post! Though there are a few positive takes in the mix.
Financier puts record setting Degas on auction block, Bloomberg
Baroque or simply broke? Money Woes hit art market, the Associated Press
Arts sales boom may be over, but profits go on amid financial crisis, Telegraph
At contemporary art sales, market stumbles on, International Herald Tribune
Shocked Collectors Seek Bargains as Frieze Buying Stampede Ebbs, Bloomberg
And now, for the good news, The Guardian
Art prices may plummet, report says; Works snapped up at FIAC, Bloomberg
London free art fair offers antidote to market hype, ArtInfo
Lean times for artists, Sioux Falls Argus Leader
Financial crisis: Contemporary art market hit, The Telegraph UK
Aboriginal art sale in Sydney misses target; paintings spurned, Bloomberg
Sotheby’s auction house the latest victim of financial crisis, The Telegraph UK
Prices plunge as financial woe hits art market, GMA News
Will the art bubble burst?, CNN
Art as an alternative ‘passion’ investment, Asia One Business
The contemporary art market–mad as a rubber crutch, Art Knows blog by Tom Flynn
The end is nigh (and other press hysterics), The Art Market Monitor
Christie’s sale misses target as crisis quells demand, Bloomberg
Christie’s art sale falls well short of estimates, Reuters
Still plenty of gain…sales are steady at fairs and at auction, The Financial Times of London
$10.8 m Warhol painting keeps ahead of the contemporary art pack, The Age, Sydney
Tara Donovan, Untitled (Styrofoam Cups), 2003, Styrofoam cups and hot glue. Dimensions variable, Installation view, Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, 2005. Photo credit: Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York.
Art critic Will Gompertz had an epiphany at Louise Bourgeois exhibit at Tate Modern. He shares it in a Guardian article here.
Bloomberg is reporting that Sotheby’s and Christies both have guaranteed lots in this weeks London auctions. The big question is whether they will have buyers. Read the article here.
“There’s an awful lot riding on these sales in London and next month in New York,” said the London dealer Alan Hobart. “If they’re successful, confidence in the art market will be maintained. If not, people will pull out very quickly.”
William Metcalf’s Infinity Series was on display at Charlotte Jackson in July. Using fabric to bridge the world between painting and sculpture, these objects explore the basic elements of space and the play of light against and within that space.
William MetcalfThe paintings hang flat against the wall, but are like shadow boxes, a thin veil separating one painting from another. Metcalf calls them paintings and says they represent a turning point in his career. The translucency of polyester allows for a variety of effects in the space between the fabric and the wall, allowing the viewer to include this interior space as part of the painting. In this work, Metcalf takes this idea a giant step further.
The most surprising thing is the way he uses three-dimensional form to flatten space. The effects of each work vary depending upon where the viewer is standing.
Through the Flower is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Maureen Burdock, one of two winners of the “New Mexico Feminists Under Forty” juried competition. This exhibit was juried by Judy Chicago and organized by Through the Flower and featured the work of fourteen young feminist artists working in New Mexico.
Maureen Burdock will be exhibiting drawings and paintings from parts one and two of her five-part graphic novel series “The F Word Art: Five Feminist Fables for the 21st Century.” Each books tells the story of a super-heroine who fights oppression in her native country. The stores are based on contemporary women’s issues around the world, and they are told in English and in the language native to that place.
The first book, “Marta and the Missing”, tells the story of a woman who puts an end to the femicide in Juarez, Mexico. It is written in English and Spanish (translation by Gabriel de Pablo). The portraits in “Marta and the Missing” are of real women who were raped and murdered in Juarez.
The second book, “Mona and the Little Smile”, is about a little girl in the US who heroically and humorously deals with childhood sexual abuse. Though the issues in this book are serious, humor is an important ingredient to make the drawings and paintings communicate not just the problems, but also the intelligence and goodness of human nature that make transmutation possible.
Please join Through the Flower on October 18, 2008 at 2 pm for the opening of this exhibition and a gallery talk with the artist, Maureen Burdock.
Susannah E. Rodee
Executive Director
Through the Flower
107 Becker Avenue
Belen, NM 87002
Phone: 505.864.4080 Fax: 505.864.4088
Media Credit: Courtesy of Albuquerque MuseumThe second installment of Biennial Southwest at The Albuquerque Museum, features 83 works from artists in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Artists competed for cash awards totaling $10,500 in a variety of categories. Dr. Stephanie Hanor, Senior Curator and Curatorial Department Head for the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego is the juror for this year’s exhibition. She selected the work from 1,394 entries.
The exhibit is up through November 30, 2008
Other upcoming events include artist talks and demonstrations:
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2
JULIA BARELLO
ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
Barello’s interest in examining the body both culturally and metaphorically led her to experiment with medical imaging films as her primary material. She is currently Professor of Art at New Mexico State University and maintains an active career as an artist in both jewelry and mainstream contemporary art. Her works are exhibited both nationally and internationally including the Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Cranbrook Art Museum, and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs de Montreal, among others.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23
CATHERINE WINKLER RAYROUD
WORK ON PAPER
Rayroud is an accomplished papercutting artist and ceramist. Born of Swiss and British nationality, the art of papercutting was instilled in her as a child in her native Switzerland. Her works have been presented in many solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Switzerland, and Korea. She moved to Houston in 2000.
WOODBLOCK PRINTING – MARY SWEET
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 1• 10:00 am -12:00 pm & 1:00-3:00 pm
Observe as Sweet demonstrates her Japanese style prints using a reductive method.
A painter most of her life, she began creating woodblock prints in 1993. Sweet graduated from
Standard University with a M.A. in art and moved to Tijeras, New Mexico in 1970. Since then, she has exhibited both her paintings and prints widely in both national and international venues. Sweet has been featured in a number of art publications including Who’s Who in American Art and Who’s Who in America.
This demonstration is part of Art Beyond Sight Awareness Day at The Albuquerque Museum, an international effort to make the visual arts accessible to those with sight loss.
Monica Goldsmith
Jason Willaford and Ted Larsen
Gail Peter Borden
Rebecca Rothfus and Jason Willaford
“Reaction to Space” is a compilation of 5 artists and their parallel interpretations, questioning how line and mass interact, how manmade and natural structures in the exterior or interior view play against and within space. “Reaction to Space” will be on exhibit in Gallery One and Four through mid-November.
News Release from CCA:
First-Of-Its-Kind Study Reveals Higher Student Achievement at Colorado High Schools That Offer More Arts
School leaders say time is the biggest barrier to providing more in-depth arts education to hone in-demand work force skills such as imagination, creativity and innovation.
A first-of-its-kind study by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) and the Colorado Council on the Arts (CCA) reveals that public high schools offering more arts education have higher academic achievement, regardless of student ethnicity or socioeconomic status.
New survey data released today associate arts education with higher scores on the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) in reading, writing and science – and lower dropout rates.
“The benefits of arts education are clear,” said Elaine Mariner, CCA executive director. “Students’ involvement in the arts has a positive impact on their overall achievement and helps keep them in school.”
Colorado is one of only three states to conduct a similar comprehensive study of arts education in public schools. In all three states, schools that scored high on the survey’s arts index had lower dropout rates.
“For many students, the arts can be the crucial connection that motivates them to learn and gives them the confidence to tackle what can be challenging subjects, such as math or science,” said Mariner.
The findings also show that most of Colorado’s public schools – with elementary schools in the lead – choose to offer some formal arts education to a majority of students, regardless of geographic location or socioeconomic makeup of the student population: 93 percent of elementary schools (grades K-5); 86 percent of middle schools (grades 6-8); and 83 percent of high schools (grades 9-12).
Yet the survey data suggest that an estimated 29,000 Colorado public school children attend schools that do not offer any formal arts education.
On average, elementary students study two hours of formal arts education a week from mostly experienced, certified teachers. But similar data are not available for middle or high school students because they have more discretion over selecting their arts courses and because class schedules vary widely, making it harder to interpret results.
The study shows just over half of all Colorado high schools make the arts a graduation requirement and they factor students’ performance in the arts into grade point averages and class rank. High schools with an arts credit graduation requirement offer more arts courses than those without a graduation requirement.
“These results will benchmark progress in years to come,” said Commissioner of Education Dwight Jones. “Providing a strong arts education is as integral to learning as teaching reading, writing or math. We must do significantly more to provide a complete education that includes the arts. At a time when employers are demanding a more creative and imaginative work force, 53 percent of Colorado’s high school students are not taking any arts courses. That’s worrisome.”
Time is a factor
Offering the arts is a choice for many public schools in Colorado. While the state does not mandate that every student take arts education, it does require that school districts offer the arts. State standards specify what students should know and be able to do in music and the visual and performing arts.
School leaders said their biggest challenge is finding the time to offer the arts. Almost three-fourths agreed that the amount of time needed for math, reading, writing and other subjects is their biggest barrier to offering the arts in their schools. Other factors include whether the arts are a priority for parents and whether schools can find qualified arts teachers. They also reported decreased funding in the past five years for music, theater, visual arts and dance.
Next steps
Work is under way to increase arts education in Colorado’s public schools and to better position the arts as a resource for teaching math, science, reading, writing and other subjects.
A team led by Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien and Commissioner Jones has begun to identify early steps for strengthening arts education in Colorado schools. The group, which met in July 2008 at the National Endowment for the Arts’ Education Leaders Institute, recommends:
· Ensuring the Colorado Model Content Standards and Assessments for all content areas incorporate creative learning practices
· Increasing professional development for principals and teachers who want to incorporate arts more broadly into core subject areas
· Launching a series of “creative conversations” with local and state policymakers to discuss how schools can better meet the work force’s demand for creative, innovative and imaginative thinkers
· Sharing best practices of successful schools that have made the arts and creative learning major strategies for student success
For the complete report about arts education in Colorado’s public schools, visit www.coloarts.org.
About the research process
Last spring, CDE and CCA invited more than 1,700 public schools to participate in the statewide arts education study. One-fourth of these schools – serving more than 200,000 children – completed the survey.
Because each school approaches arts education differently, researchers rated schools on a dozen factors – or an “arts index.” The index reflects the different ways Colorado’s public schools offer arts education.
Schools were evaluated against more than a dozen factors such as whether they taught the arts during the school day; whether arts classes are graded; how many arts subjects schools offer and across which grade levels; the number of students enrolled in arts education; schools’ use of arts specialists for arts courses; and at the high school level, whether arts achievement is included in grade point averages.
The comprehensive study was conducted by Cypress Research Group (www.cypress-research.com) and funded by the Colorado Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Colorado Department of Education, the University of Northern Colorado Center for Integrated Arts Education, Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, Think360 Arts Complete Education, National Endowment for the Arts, and Arts for Colorado.
About the Colorado Council on the Arts
Colorado Council on the Arts, a division of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, invests in communities across the state to ensure that the cultural, educational and economic benefits of the arts are enjoyed by millions of Colorado youth, citizens and visitors every day. (www.coloarts.org)
A long must read from John Perreault’s diary about his recent experiences in Denver.
Click here.
Perreault is part of an exhibit that opened this past weekend at The LAB of art and ideas at Belmar. In Plain Sight: Street Works and Performances 1968-1971. Check out the BLAB for photos from the opening.
Perreault is a poet, art critic and artist.
He writes in this blog post:
“I should note that Street Works were originally in part a response to Earth Works, which some of us considered elitist. It would take and still does take a considerable amount of cash to visit Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Smithson was a friend and verbal sparring partner, so I couldn’t help answering his own sarcasm with some of my own. I certainly didn’t have the money to visit Utah.”
He also points out his own perspective and definition of what makes an artist:
“At a time when commerce rules the arts, we need to be reminded that one can make art without a MFA and with little or no cash-outlay — hors de commerce, as it were. One creates ones own venue; the arts do not have to be controlled by money interests. In Artopia, the definition of an artist is not ‘an art-school graduate who makes his (yes, still usually his) living by selling art products.’ An artist is someone who makes us see.”
What Perreault calls elitism, I define as another level or form of art making. Yes, anyone can make art and use their creativity to make us see. When an artist or writer is in the studio and working alone with only their inspiration and their thoughts, that is pure and ephemeral and all about just creating because we have to. On the other hand, we have to live and it takes money in our society to do that. And most people want to earn a living by doing what they love.
Perreault says artist’s should look to poets for an example.
“Was William Carlos Williams (Robert Smithson’s baby doctor!) any less of a poet because he made his living by practicing medicine? Or T. S. Eliot less a poet because he was a banker? Was Hart Crane less a poet because he once worked in a bookstore? Am I any less an artist because I am a poet who has made his living as an art critic? Are there not clerical and factory-worker artists? Was Marcel Duchamp less an artist because he was in some ways Brancusi’s New York art dealer? “
Sure, and how many actors have waited tables and how many artists teach?
Can one earn a living doing what they love without selling out the marketplace? And how exactly are the arts not controlled by a money interest? Perhaps if we return to an aboriginal society model where art was a part of everyday life–from the water jugs, to the baskets to the cooking pots, all decorated and designed for aesthetic pleasure as well as function. It seems the options are to create a factory and have others help you make your art (Warhol, Hirst, Koons, Thomas Kinkade, Dale Chihuly, most well known Navajo jewelery artists); get a job and make art on the side, the two always battling for your attention (teachers like , radio announcers like Ron Fundingsland, doctors, poets who become art critics); or do the hard work of going into the studio, or sitting at your writing desk, day after day after day and working working working, creating, drawing, painting, making art and then working equally hard to enter juried exhibits, create websites, contact galleries, find dealers and release your work into the world where it may or may not be displayed as you like.
My favorite story is from the Donald Judd symposium I attended in May. Judd was hypercritical about his art and the way he wanted it displayed. He believed that displaying the art was just as important as the creation of the art and therefore he started the Chinati foundation where he installed his work and the work of his peers in the way he felt it deserved to be displayed. At the symposium, a participant told the story of visiting a collectors home and finding a Judd aluminum box and on top of the sculpture (or specific object as Judd defined his work) was a Deborah Butterfield horse. Sacrilegious.
So, either you have enough money already to just do whatever the hell you want or you are left to create a lifetime of work and hope someone discovers it upon your death (Van Gogh).
Market is a reality that we cannot ignore. The challenge is to create work that is true to the artists aesthetic and purpose and not just pandering to a market.
September 26-December 27, 2007
Erika Wanenmacher
The Boy’s Room (detail)Wanenmacher has been widely exhibited throughout the US. Her two most recent one-person exhibitions were featured in New York at the Claire Oliver Gallery and in New Mexico at Linda Durham Contemporary Art. Another notable exhibition, “Grimoire” was featured at SITE Santa Fe in 2001, curated by Louis Grachos. A 20-year survey of Wanemacher works was shown at the Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe in 1996. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, Museum of Albuquerque and the Fisher Landau Center, New York.
Erika Wanenmacher is represented by Linda Durham Contemporary Art, Santa Fe.
The anxiety continues to build. What will happen at the Frieze art fair? How will the fall auctions go? Does the economic impact on Main Street affect the gallery district? Is art a good investment? And does it really matter?
Sarah Thornton writes a great piece in the UK Telegraph here.
My favorite comment comes in response to the upcoming auction of art collected by Richard and Kathy Fuld, he the former CEO of Lehman Brothers.
Even if their consignment’s top lot, a 1951 de Kooning drawing, doesn’t achieve its low estimate of $3 million when it goes on the block in November, it will always be worth something – which is more than you can say about a share in Lehman Brothers.
Constance de Jong
Press Release from Charlotte Jackson:
“Shift” is the title that Constance DeJong has chosen for her upcoming exhibit at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe. Shifting planes of sheet metal have long been an essential feature of her art, forming the basis of its austere beauty.
This time, the installation will itself shift between two distinct bodies of new work. One room will contain two massive, monolithic wall sculptures of blackened copper that take on the character of brooding expressionist paintings. In the adjacent room, virtually the same sculptural forms shift from absorbent black to the dazzling silver of light-reflecting aluminum and stainless steel. In each room, the large works will be accompanied by a series of smaller framed pieces that explore the further possibilities of their respective materials and format.
De Jong’s black pieces are composed of sheets of burnt and burnished copper. The painterly effect of their blackened surfaces results from a poured chemistry, which darkens into crusty velvet as it interacts with the copper and retains a waterfall’s downward drift, lending weight to these moody compositions. Using a mathematical proportion, DeJong has divided the basic rectangle of the monolithic form into three interchangeable sections. She then tapered and tilted the planes, angling them like Egyptian pylons and allowing hints of unstained copper to glow along their wedge-shaped edges. Flares of coppery light also seep through the atmospheric black patina, suggesting an inner fire and recalling the somber romantic paintings of Robert Motherwell, Marc Rothko, and Barnett Newman. DeJong has used similarly treated copper plates to produce her smaller accompanying works. She refers to these too as “paintings,” only shifting their scale upward by a factor of ten to achieve her monumental statements.
If the black pieces address painting issues, the silvery metal works in the adjacent room enter into a dialogue with drawing. Indeed, these large steel and aluminum forms are simply the naked understructure that De Jong builds and ordinarily covers with copper sheets. In a sense, they are like an underlying sketch or cartoon. But she has chosen instead to work the surface of this huge understructure, lightly grazing it with a grinder, so that light glints across the feathered texture and radiates outwards. The tiny ranged hairlines left by the grinder are like a draftsman’s hatch-marks, scattering the light. In the smaller works in this room, DeJong recreates the effects of exquisite graphite drawings. In an intricate interplay of silver and white, she employs metal plates and sheets of translucent or clear mylar to make subtle surface planes that cast softly graded shadows. Delicate wire screens reproduce a kind of cross-hatching.
Complementary in their approach to light and dark, DeJong’s two bodies of work shift between alternative states of the soul: If the black artworks, with their coppery sparks of internal fire, contain the dark and inward brooding of the earthbound mind, then the silvery ghost forms of the second room’s burnished metal can imply an altered state, a hovering ephemeral spirit released into transcendent light.
Charlotte Jackson Fine Art
200 W. Marcy St., Suite 101
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.989.8688
Credit Crunch Crushes Art Auction
BBC
Pop Goes the Bubble in Chinese & Indian Art
Businessweek
Masriadi Breaks Post-Lehman Stupor at Hong Kong Art Auction
Bloomberg
Sotheby’s Chinese, Indian Art Sale Bombs in Wake of Wall Street Crisis
Businessweek
Sotheby’s Shares Fall Amid Concern About Art Market
Bloomberg
Opening Friday, October 10!
Above: Damien Hirst, Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain, 2007 (detail), glass, steel, bullock, arrows, crossbow bolts and formaldehyde solution, 126 3/4 x 61 1/4 x 61 1/4 inches. Courtesy of the Goss-Michael Foundation.MCA DENVER presents Damien Hirst’s signature works, including Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain, 2007 from his Natural History series presenting animals preserved in formaldehyde and displayed in large glass vitrines. His butterfly paintings offer a sense of beauty, vulnerability and tragedy. A medicine cabinet sculpture connects animals and humans to science as pharmaceuticals are created using a combination of synthetic and organic materials. Hirst’s work addresses various themes, largely in response to his personal experience and background. Religion and mortality are reflected through his Pop sensibility which is direct, yet tongue-in-cheek. Often evoking outrage, intrigue and awe, Hirst challenges established societal attitudes through new explorations of classical themes in art to offer new perspectives on questions of life and death. He is regarded among the most successful living artists working today and is recognized as the preeminent YBA (Young British Artist.)
Damien Hirst was born in Bristol, United Kingdom in 1965. He lives and works in London and Devon, UK. He received a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London, UK. In 1995, he was the recipient of the prestigious Turner Prize. The list of exhibitions and collections featuring works by Damien Hirst is illustrious. Landmark exhibitions include Young British Artists (1992) at Saatchi Gallery, London; Sensation (1995) at the Royal Academy, London and a solo exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, New York in 2000. In an unprecedented step, Hirst recently offered his work directly atau ction, bypassing the gallery and museum circuit.
Sponsored by Scott Miller & Tim Gill, Alan Becker, Ellen Bruss & Mark Falcone, Mary Caulkins & Karl Kister, Nöel & Tom Congdon, Philae & Peter Dominick, Joanne & Ronnie Katz, Carol Keller, Pat Reynolds & Peter Kirsch and Emily Sinclair & Jay Kenney.
:Anagram: by Matt MageeFrom Eight Modern Gallery:
New York artist Matt Magee creates graphic systems of language based on an internal, undefined lexicon of shapes and colors. His art is inspired by his Texas childhood, much of which was spent accompanying his geologist father to sites of Native American ruins and pictographs throughout the American Southwest. The first thing Magee and his father would do after returning from a journey was organize all the rocks, arrowheads and other artifacts they had collected on the driveway of their home. That impulse is reflected in Magee’s work, which often uses rows of similar but distinct images. “I want those shapes in my paintings to be out of the subconscious, out of somewhere deep,” Magee says. “They reference some arcane language I’ve always tried to create that is a mixture of all my interests. My impulse, rather than abstract painting, is to line up all those experiences into codified forms.”
Even Magee’s process is based on systems of writing: he starts in the upper left-hand corner of a canvas and works his way across and down. His exhibition title, Thought Forms, references a 1905 book by Annie Besant and Charles Ledbetter, which theorized that every color represents an emotional state and that art – such as Tantric art from India – can serve as a meditative template. This idea resonates with Magee, who conceives his art as a reflexive surface that both gives to and takes from the viewer.
If you go to the exhibit:
Matt Magee:Thought Forms
October 3 – November 15
Artist’s Reception:
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Friday, October 3
Contact:
Eight Modern
231 Delgado Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505 995 0231
The Philanthropy News Digest reports on an article from the Washington Post.
With Wall Street in turmoil and many large companies facing mergers, bankruptcy, or other hurdles, those in the arts community are increasingly nervous about how mounting economic woes will affect corporate donations, the Washington Post reports.
Charitable giving to arts groups — 13 percent of total corporate giving in 2006, according to the Giving USA Foundation — has always been the low-hanging fruit for companies looking to cut costs. Moreover, when companies merge, the generosity of the combined entity rarely equals the sum of its once independent parts. A spokesperson for Bank of America, which has agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch, said the future of Merrill’s philanthropy has yet to be decided, although in the past Bank of America has honored the existing philanthropic commitments of companies it has acquired. Similarly, future giving by Lehman Brothers, which declared bankruptcy earlier this week, is also uncertain, as what happens to its philanthropic foundation, like everything else about the company, is now a matter for the courts.
Nobody can predict what this will mean, but my hunch is that it will not be good for arts funding.
