Monkdogz Artblog

I’ve always found something spooky about most of Franics Bacon’s works…….

At the fairs and galleries, the common message at the moment is that people are buying a little but at much lower prices. Everyone is looking for “value for money” for that extra “deal”. What constitutes value for money seems to vary according to the buyer, but what seems to be a constant is that people are buying for the longer term.

The Wall Street Journal writes about collectors who are looking for local artists. That means artists from your own country, or in the US, from your state or region. This often means mid-career artists who may have been recognized by local curators and museums, but have not yet caught the eye of New York or London galleries and museums. This seems to be backed up by the auctions houses with Brett Gorvy of Christie’s international co-head of postwar and contemporary art, says that the company had decided to shift Chinese pieces to sales in Hong Kong. “There’s been a reluctance in the U.S. and Europe for these works but the appetite is still strong in Hong Kong and Taiwan.”

Marty Eisenberg who likes to collect young emerging artists said in the recently quoted Artinfo article that it is possible to collect for under $5000, although he warned that young artists were the most over-priced.

Prints, drawings and smaller pieces have always been good buys and the usual stock suggestion by gallerist to young and new collectors.   This strategy worked well for Herb & Dorothy Vogel. 

This obviously suggests that power may be being decentralized away from the traditional centers of art of London & New York. However there’s also the suggestion by many in the secondary markets that prices are reverting back to those of the 1990s and thus Warhols may be “value for money” as long as you’re buying for the long haul.

What ever you do, buy something you like.

As an art appreciator and a gallerist, I have looked at many thousands of art images in just this last year alone.   I prefer to talk to the artist and understand the background, the context, the rationale, the motivation, the perception the vision and desire of the artist and their work.

Artists are there at the inception of the initial idea of their work.  They’re there as it takes shape.  They spend hours with the work as it develop and grows.  Many spend hundreds of hours in the preparation, creation and finish of their art.  They have time to develop a relationship with the work.

And yet some artists want viewers to feel something straight away, just by looking at the work.  They’re asking you to experience “love at first sight” when looking at their art and you know how tough and rare that is between two people.  It’s why I struggle with “untitled” pieces of work.  When I meet someone for the first time, I may stick your hand out and say something like “Hi! I’m Marina.  Nice to meet you” and perhaps talk about who I was, what I do and what I was doing there.  You have to give the viewer something to latch on to, not just stare at them…..which would be considered rather rude by most cultures, don’t you think?

That’s why I often ask our artists to send photos and images of “work in progress”.  I like to see how the work progresses, how it develops, the difficulties and the divine inspiration that appear.  I want to know what the artist is or was thinking when they were creating, why they wanted to create and what they were trying to achieve.  It helps me to develop a relationship with the art.

If  I have no information, I can only make assumptions and relate to the visual impact within my own context and experiences.  I could easily get the totally wrong end of the stick or be barking up a tree in a different orchard in another country.  Art in this instance is not communication, this is the artist moving their mouth with no sound coming out and  me not able to read lips….a rather frustrating experience.

And so it is with art.  There will always be the exception, where what you see is what you get….a little like a genuine smile which is probably universal and needs no explanation, but even that could be an evil smile or a devious smile or a sarcastic smile and be misinterpreted.  Therefore I think the title is very important as are press releases, artists’ statements’ , biographies and descriptions.

So next time you’re displaying art or sending images, please just think about this viewer’s view regardless of what you decide to do in the end.  Thanks for reading!

ArtInfo has an excellent article with interviews of several collectors of young and emerging artists. It’s worth a read in it’s entirety but the best quote is from of Marty and Rebecca Eisenberg (of Bed Bath & Beyond fame) at the Frieze Art Fair in London:

“Buy artists early and never look back. I want to be part of the growth of the work. I don’t want to hop on board later.”

What we need are more savvy collectors like the Eisenbergs.

I came across three interesting video segments about the art world from May 2008, July 2008 and August 2009 created by the Senior Media Producer at Fox Business News Nadine Witkin.

The first titled “Winning Bid” is a segment about Christies Auction House and is very upbeat about the art market. The second “Authenticating a Work” is talks through authenticating an unusual piece of work by Richard Anuszkiewiez which turns out to be a piece he made when he was still a student. The third in the series is “How to invest in the Art Market” which was produced in August 2009 and describes the volatility of the current market and how to invest during these troubled times.

These three videos are great snapshots of key times in the last two years. It’s created by an insider; Nadine’s father was modernist sculptor Isaac Witkin (1936-2006) a former assistant to Henry Moore and student of Sir Anthony Caro, who emigrated to the United States to forge a successful career of his own. Nadine is executor of her father’s estate and has helped place his work in collections throughout the country. This personal connection and her business resume that includes NBC, CNN, CBS and her current role with Fox Business News, gives her an ideal vantage point to produce this series.

I’m looking forward to many more!

We went to see “The American Imagist” today at the Nassau County Museum of Art. This is the first stop of a touring exhibition that originated at the National Museum of American Illustration in Rhode Island curated by Judy Goffman Cutler in conjunction with the American Illustrators Gallery and which will travel across the United States and to Europe until 2012.

It is a show of 40 paintings and studies by Norman Rockwell and all 322 covers of the Saturday Evening Post that Rockwell painted over 47 years.

I had always associated Norman Rockwell I thought erroneously as a Christmas and greeting card artist; however the great career of this artist actually started, with a commission for four Christmas cards when he was 16.

His career as a freelance illustrator started with Boys’ Life which was the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America. Although Rockwell did paint for many titles, his relationship with the Saturday Evening Post, the most prestigious publication in the nation at the time, which started at age 22 in 1916, is considered the most popularly significant in his career. Throughout his career Rockwell created over 4000 works of art which unfortunately did not survived to a large extent due to a fire in his house and studio.

I stood in front of his large paintings and marveled at the sheer skill and artistry on these large canvases; the voluminous details of the scene sets and more than anything else the palpable mood of the moment underlined by the emotional epics etched on the faces of the people and animals rooted me in front of each canvas for ages. The 3D effect on many of the paintings made me itch to touch the canvas, but I had to make do with close scrutiny to realize that the images were indeed flat canvases.

The resultant iconic images that have become part of the brick and mortar of the fabric of life in the United States of America are worthy of their popular place. Despite some negative criticism that Rockwell received complaining that his paintings depicted idealized and sentimental views of America and labeled him derogatorily as an illustrator, his images and name are still recognized worldwide today. In the early 1960’s Rockwell left the magazine and switched allegiance by going to the Look magazine. His pictures became more political and depicted civil rights issues, poverty and space exploration, resulting in greater respect as an artist.

Take the opportunity when it presents itself to see this rare artist and have fun if you get to see the 1948 “April Fools – Girl with Shopkeeper” cover with nearly 60 errors/tricks on the one cover page.

You may wonder what bass fishing has to do with art. Well nothing at all actually! It was just that this morning, the TV was on while I was tidying the room and I saw a program on US bass fishing. The sport has professional competitions where the first place prize money is $500,000 or even $1million. Bass fishing! Plus these pros get corporate sponsorship.

I recently wrote about ArtPrize in Grand Rapids Michigan which this year provided the largest prize money in an art competition of $250,000 with the next 9 places combined also adding up to a further $199,000. How can the art world be trumped by bass fishing?

There must be a lesson here somewhere?!

I was recently honored to be invited by barebrush to curate the upcoming November and December calendars. So I went down 5th Avenue to the historic Salmagundi Club near Washington Square. It’s a wonderful old building with fabulous facilities and a tremendous history going back 138 years.

I sat down to view over 800 images from over 60 artists and I was really impressed with the overall quality of work. There were numerous styles of drawings, paintings, photographs, mixed media work and sculptures. I was a little daunted by the sheer number of images, but Ilene Skeen set them up in a very effective format allowing me to easily view and review the works.

I always admire artists who take on the challenge of figurative nudes. It is a subject that really highlights the technical skills of the artist and also provides an ideal platform to showcase the ability of the artist to define emotional content. I found myself drawn towards several male and older subjects probably because of the definition and texture of their skin. However because I don’t want to spoil the anticipation, I shall not say anymore!

The November calendar will be available to members during the last week of October and on November 1st for everybody else. I hope you enjoy my selection.

Adrian Searle, the chief art critic for the Guardian’s quotes of the week at London’s Freize Art Fair were:

“I encourage young artists to go to fairs……..because it’s like toilet training………you need to know where your sh*t goes.”

“Your $5000 is the new $50,000.”

Just so you know Searle also contributes to the Frieze Art magazine

I love lists. Whether they are my “todo” lists or top 10 or top100s, I find myself drawn to them. So it was with great anticipation that I opened this year’s Art Review “Power 100”.

The rankings were based on the following criteria:

• Having an influence on the kind of art that’s being produced today
• Having influence on a global rather than a local scale
• Having actually done something during the past 12 months
• Having some influence over the market for art

The suggested that these are more relevant factors than financial results such as auction results, sales, market worth etc. as “the fact that art can survive without wheelbarrows of cash is probably going to be the most enduring right now”.

The overall consensus of the anonymous panel of judges was that museums rather than commercial galleries were in a better position to show new and challenging work at the moment. A very sad statement of fact.

They also felt than there was no one individual who could be said to be shaping the face of the artworld right now, resulting in quite some disagreement on the top 10 people and in particular the number 1 slot. In the end the number one position was given to Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Swiss curator who works as a co-director of exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery in London and works as a freelance curator around the world as well. He pushed out Damien Hirst who was number 1 last year but dropped to 48th place this year.

Analyzing the list the following facts emerged.

30 new individuals entered the list this year (of which 9 were re-entries from years prior to 2008). That means that nearly one third of those who were in the Power 100 last year were deemed to be no longer that important/effective/powerful this year. What an upheaval!

Happily artists make up the largest contingent in the list with 21 individuals, but they are closely followed by 19 each of gallerists and museum personnel. There are also 15 each of curators and collectors. The remainder are a mix of critics, auctioneers, art fair, art administration, web masters and rather sadly, Glenn Beck the TV host squeaking in at 100.

The average movement up and down the list was 10 places. The largest movements up the list were seen by the curators followed by the artists. The collectors saw the most movement down the list flowed by the artists again. The significant movement up and down the list by artists shows the volatility of who’s in favor one year and who’s out the next in the art market.

Having said all this, as we don’t know who the players in this list making were this year or last, we don’t know whether we are comparing apples with apples or decisions made by a significantly different group of people. However for what it’s worth, it’s been a fun trawl through the world of art.

If you want to know who’s who and where on the list, the summary is here.  For a more indepth look at the players with a brief on each of them all you have to do is register for free with Art Review on line and you can have a look for yourself starting on page 74 on the November 2009 issue.