Monkdogz Artblog

What is there to add to what Marina hasn’t already said about the beautiful documentary “Herb & Dorothy“?

I went last night to see the film presentation by producer and director Megumi Sasaki at MY Arts Prospect gallery in Chelsea and was thrilled to listen to Megumi, Japanese film maker, originally from Tokyo and established in NYC since the eighties, explaining how she had been moved by the couple and had chosen to make this film about their obsessive and compulsive passion.

Where a lot of other film makers had approached the couple in the past, none of them succeeded in raising enough funds to get the project even started. Even Megumi who started by filming on her own with her digital camera ended up having to find $500,000 to complete her project which turned into a major research and lasted for years.

It took quite some time for the couple to trust the director and let her enter their intimacy, whether in their small upper east side apartment or during a studio visit where the cameras had to be turned off when it was time to talk about pricing.

Megumi did a wonderful job in capturing the spirit of those exceptional collectors. She is currently working on her next project, a documentary about the museums that will host the 50×50 Vogels collection.

Megumi Sasaki is currently looking for help for her upcoming film and you can contact her at megumi@finelinemedia.net should you have any ideas or offers that could lead to giving her a hand in her great next project !

I personally can’t wait to see it, so we wish Megumi the best of luck in all her creative endeavors !

If you are lucky enough to be in New York this thursday evening, consider going to Chelsea to a unique talk on the making of the documentary film “Herb & Dorothy 50×50″ by the director Megumi Sasaki at Miyako Yoshinaga Art Prospects on 27th Street.  An RSVP is recommended to te@myartprospects.com .

Back in August of 2009 I wrote a post on Dorothy & Herb Vogel and the amazingly large and significant collection that they had amassed, titled “Affordable Collections“.  They are a really interesting couple with an amazing story that you have to become familiar with if you are at all interested in art and collecting.  Here is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about this wonderful couple.

If you can’t make the evening it’s worth trying to see the documentary.  A short trailer is available from their website. 

If you don’t know the story:

HERB & DOROTHY tells the extraordinary story of Herbert Vogel, a postal clerk, and Dorothy Vogel, a librarian, who managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history with very modest means. In the early 1960s, when very little attention was paid to Minimalist and Conceptual Art, Herb and Dorothy Vogel quietly began purchasing the works of unknown artists. Devoting all of Herb’s salary to purchase art they liked, and living on Dorothy’s paycheck alone, they continued collecting artworks guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Within these limitations, they proved themselves curatorial visionaries; most of those they supported and befriended went on to become world-renowned artists including Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert Mangold, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi, and Lawrence Weiner.

After thirty years of meticulous collecting and buying, the Vogels managed to accumulate over 2,000 pieces, filling every corner of their tiny one bedroom apartment. “Not even a toothpick could be squeezed into the apartment,” recalls Dorothy. In 1992, the Vogels decided to move their entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The vast majority of their collection was given as a gift to the institution. Many of the works they acquired appreciated so significantly over the years that their collection today is worth millions of dollars. Still, the Vogels never sold a single piece. Today Herb and Dorothy still live in the same apartment in New York with 19 turtles, lots of fish, and one cat. They’ve refilled it with piles of new art they’ve acquired.

HERB & DOROTHY is directed by first time filmmaker Megumi Sasaki. The film received the Golden Starfish Award for the Best Documentary Film and Audience Award from the 2008 Hamptons International Film Festival. It has also received Audience Awards from the 2008 SILVERDOCS Film Festival and the 2009 Philadelphia Cinefest. Palm Springs International Film Festival named HERB & DOROTHY one of their “Best of Fest” films in 2009.

You’ve all probably heard the story that’s been flying for the last month or so about the incestuous exhibition being planned by the New Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan of collector Dakis Joannou’s (who also happens to be one of the museum’s trustees) private art collection to be curated by his good friend Jeff Koons, who’s work is also collected by the said collector. There’s a lot more to this incestuous inner circle which if you’re interested in you can read in the various links I’ve attached to the bottom of this post.

I wasn’t particularly interested in this turn of events as it was just more of the same usual “stuff” that goes on in the art world. What surprised me was the degree of moral outrage that it’s spawned.

The art world is probably one of the last unregulated industries left. Consequently, although there are many good individuals and businesses within the industry operate with integrity there is also a fair share of those who don’t. In truth, does regulation help that much anyway? Just look at the worlds of finance and pharmaceuticals; although proponents of regulation I am sure would point out how much worse it would be without any regulations.

Having said all that the art world has it’s share of forgers, chandelier bidding, insider trading, cronyism, nepotism, price fixing, cartels, money laundering. You name a nefarious activity and the art world probably has it and maybe more than in other industries. If you hark back to the early days of this blog, Bob wrote about the Intelligence Squared US debate on the proposition “The art market is less ethical than the stock market” which was held in February of this year in the very midst of the financial crash. Those for the motion won the day with 55% of the votes.

So everyone knows that it happens. So why suddenly is the New Museum being singled out for public outcry? Is someone harboring a grudge against Lisa Phillips the Director, Jeff Koons or Dakis Joannou?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a very healthy thing to air and discuss working practices in our industry and a little bit of self regulations is “a very good thing” as our once incarcerated Martha Stewart likes to say.  However I am much more interested in the motivation forthis sudden soul searching and self-scrutiny in the mirror.

Do you have any insider information? Who hates whom?…Who wants to do whom in?…..I’d buy you a cup of coffee and a donut for the down and dirty……meet me behind the dumpster on 27th street……….

Associated articles:

ArtInfo
New York Times
New York Times Art Beats
New York Magazine

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.

On Monday, August 31^st Charles Saatchi’s book will be released by Phaidon.  It is titled “My Name is Charles Saatchi and I Am an Artoholic” (Everything  you need to know about art, ads, life, God and other mysteries – and weren’t afraid to ask……)

Amazon describes the book thus:

Art collector, gallery owner and founder of a global advertising agency, Charles Saatchi is famously publicity-shy, a reluctant interviewee who never attends his own gallery openings, let alone anyone else’s. This book brings together his unflinching responses to questions he has been set over the last few years by leading journalists and critics as well as members of the public. Whether the questions are related to art, advertising, money or his personal life, Saatchi answers them all with disarming and sometimes brutal frankness, creating an enlightening and entertaining first-hand account of the most influential art collector of our time.

A sample of the questions and answers appear in the Guardian.  Some answers I disagree with such as “Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art.”  The problem is, that the art that survives is usually what the major art collectors pick and donate to museums.  

However other answers, I think are really well thought out and spot-on.  “I buy art that I like. I buy it to show it off in exhibitions. Then, if I feel like it, I sell it and buy more art.”  “Much more important is to back living artists (that saving old masters for the nation).”

Many of his answers are very glib but from an interview in The Times that I posted back in March, I’ve come to realize he is a man who doesn’t really care what other people think, he does what he wants to do, what he thinks is the right thing to do.  I may not always agree with him, but I think he’s an intriguing individual that I’d like sit and chat to one day soon.

Herbert Vogel (born 1922), spent most of his working life as a New York postal clerk, and Dorothy Vogel (born 1935), was a reference librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.  Together they created one of the world best collections of contemporary art.  

The couple has collected over 4000 pieces of art in a one-bedroom, rent controlled apartment.  Soon after getting married in 1962, they decided to buy art, relying on Dorothy’s salary to live on and spending all of Herb’s salary on art.  

Interestingly they buy art based on intuition, art they want to live with, rather than to build a collection.  In a documentary film released earlier this year titled “Herb and Dorothy” by filmmaker Megumi Sasaki, they are pictured saying “I like this”, “Its beautiful”, “I think this is important”.  Richard Tuttle interviewed in the film theorizes: “something goes from the eye to the soul, without going through the brain.” 

They bought work from artists who were at the start of their careers, supporting and encouraging them, collecting their work aggressively for many years.  Many of these artists went onto critical acclaim and success, including Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle and Robert Barry.  Many of the artists that they collected became life long friends to the extent that many of the pieces in their collection were gifts from the artists for the Vogel’s birthdays, anniversaries and other occasions.  They also bartered, notably with Christo and Jeanne-Claude; babysitting their cat for one summer in exchange for a preparatory work from the Valley Curtain project.  

Much of their collection are works on paper, drawings and preparatory work, not only due to financial and space constraints, but because of their strong interest in the process of creating art.  Both Herb and Dorothy had been aspiring artists before making a decision to concentrate on collecting art and so have an insider’s perspective. 

In 1992, the National Gallery of Art in Washington agreed to the stewardship for much of the Vogel collection.  However the Vogel’s have continued to collect nearly doubling their collection in the last 15 years.  Consequently, they initiated The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States project which donated 50 pieces of work each to 50 museums in the United States; one in each state with the support of the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Instituted of Museum and Library Services.

What an inspiration they are for anybody thinking of starting a new collection or improving their existing one.  The moral is: “Buy art with your heart”.

The 3^rd Telling Evening at M.Y. Prospects was led by Alfred Steiner, a NY artist who also with a law background, advices on various legal issues in the art world and in particular about intellectual property.

The question he asked was the title of this piece, but he very quickly determined that if it was obsolete, then people would not continue to make judgments about the value of art.

So most of the evening was spent discussing what factors are used to determine quality and whether they are valid or not.

He started with a little contemporary art history suggesting that the moment verisimilitude was no longer of primary goal of painting, artistic merit became harder to qualify.  He particularly stressed the impact of photography, read-mades, assemblages, appropriation and radical conceptualism citing Edgar Degas, Chuck Close, Liz Paton, Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Levine Weiner and Tom Friedman.  

Steiner then suggested that artistic merit could be divided up into two parts; extrinsic and intrinsic criteria.  The first being characteristics such as institutional acceptance and market value and the latter, being characteristics such as inimitability.

He then continued to list some of the particular attributes which could affect the judgment of quality of artwork.  

·                    Scarcity such as the value of the Mona Lisa.  

·                    Social status leading to entry into an admired social strata such as Murakami’s Louis Vuitton bags.   

·                    Institutional acceptance such as by Moma and the Met.  

·                    The extent of influence on latter artists such as Jeff Koons on Jonathan Monk.

·                    The extent of distribution in terms of geography and volume such as Thomas Kinkade.  

·                    Rankings by institutions such as Artfacts.net. 

·                    The degree of commitment such as On Kawara’s date project which started in the mid 1960s and continues to this day.  

·                    Limited audience such as Liam Gillick’s press releases.

·                    Cult of personality such as Levine Werner who’s work can be replicated by anyone, but can still sell conceptual work for more than 6 figures.

·                    Innovation.

Innovation was explored further.  The value of innovations versus an artist’s consistency or signature style.  Innovation versus popularization explained as the fact that the term innovation can be attributed to the first artist to popularize a concept rather than the very first person to actually use it or create it; giving as an examples, Picasso’s face of the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon which bore amazing resemblance to ancient African masks, and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty earthworks vs the pre-historic Great Serpent Mound in Ohio.

This led to the discussion of whether works be judged based on the criteria of artistic merit at the time the works were created or by contemporary criteria.  

All of this led to some very lively discussion amongst the group and I feel it’s a subject which is rarely tackled and should be debated in more open forums.  It was intriguing that the topic finally came around to who determined artistic merit and the general consensus was that similarly from the time of the Pharaohs’, through the Renaissance to today, it is the wealthy who control and impact the whole art community including the galleries who’s aim it is to sell to these individuals and the museum who lust after their collections which ultimately determine or at least significantly affect the popular artistic merit judgments.

It was a very interesting evening with fascinating participants.  The subject surely deserves a revisit by many of us.  We could of continued the evening further with associated topics of the value of art theory in the contemporary art marktets.  It really stimulated good dialog.  Many thanks again to Miyako Yoshinaga of M.Y. Art Prospects for a very enjoyable evening. 

Every two years, the Venice Biennale in Italy and Art Basel in Switzerland overlap. There are fundamental differences between the two but in many ways they are symbiotic.

Fundamentally, the Venice Biennale, called by many the “Olympics” of the art world, is an exhibition purportedly of the best artists from the participating countries; 77 this year. It is billed as an art exhibition and little is said to dissuade people of the notion that it is unsullied by commercial considerations. Curated this year by an academic, Daniel Birnbaum, a darling of the art world, it continues to aim for an esoteric status. Many artists are encouraged to prepare work especially created for the Biennale. It allows room for of experimental works and often installations which may not have commercial sale values but could be significant in the development of art….or on the other hand not!

However the circus that the Biennale has become in recent years, results in major ‘horse-trading’ occurring around the periphery of the official exhibitions. Dealers, curators, collectors, museums and philanthropists all congregate well before the official opening of the exhibition and through out much of the first week to buy and sell many of the works that are on display; often in private meetings and parties, resulting in complete exhibitions being sold out before they are even seen by the general public.

On the other hand Art Basel is acknowledged by many as the premier modern and contemporary art fair in the world. 300 dealers and galleries from around the world bring works for sale of over 2500 international artists. Last year the organizers recorded over 60,000 attendees over the 5 day fair. Previous years have seen undignified scrums by well-heeled patrons, rushing to get the best deals first. The economic downturn put an end to that sort of behavior last June but everyone will be anxiously waiting to see what sort of behavior will be exhibited this year.

It is acknowledged that being invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale can significantly boost an artist’s career and pricing. Many buyers who visit Basel will be doing so after having spent several days in Venice. Will they be in a buying mood this year, will pricing be further depressed, or will there be signs of recovery. Will the significant excitement generated by the Biennale spill over into Basel? We can only wait with bated breath!

Alexandra Peers in the New York Magazine starts by saying the new mantra about town may be “Don’t trust anyone under 50”.  Sotheby’s and Christie’s have only 6 artists under 50 in their auctions this week.  Phillips de Pury isn’t much better with a show fronting Baldessari, Judd and Guston. 

So what’s the deal….all those dealers, gallerists, curators and collectors who swore by Murakami, Hurst, Koons, Cecily Brown, Dana Schutz, Zhang Xiaogang and Fang Lijun? Do they think these artists now smell?  Do they have something stuck between their teeth?  What a fickle market?  What about all that “stand by your (wo)man thing?

I can only shake my head and wonder.  

Thank-you to Rembrandt for highlighting this interesting and rare interview of an influential man in the art world.  If you want to find out what Charles Saatchi is yawning about, it’s a good read from The Times in the UK.