Art World - The Collectors

The collector's position within the art world is probably the most comfortable of all, since s/he is unlikely to act under any pressure from any part of the AW (Art World). He or she is the shaper and mover, the blessing and the curse for art in general. Despite having often a little or no artistic background or competency the collectors due to the sheer power of their social status and money make the AW what it is and what it is going to be.

Nowadays, the collectors are likely to treat their occupation as a professional sport and an (one of many) investment. They will engage actively in the dynamics of the AW- being, in fact, the stockholders of 'goods' on a highly risky market, where artists (artworks) are their portfolio and their actions (buying/selling - especially considerable amounts of works) influence directly the entire AW. Being the main clients of galleries and museums they are able to carve art accordingly to their taste channeling paths for a particular trend and discouraging the evolution of an another. Like in any sport (and investment) the good collectors display a well-built, competitive 'body' of the collection with the quality/quantity of works especially taken into account; they also take an active part in a public life of the AW and beyond it promoting and educating, curating and supporting the public institutions.

The good collector would comply with un-written code of ethics of the profession:

- to take the responsibility for the AW - especially the artists in his/her collection and those not yet included; take care for the healthy development of the AW as a whole

- to avoid abusing his/her status within the AW; this includes pressurizing artists, dealers or curators to comply or showing 'empty' interest in a work (without any serious intentions to buy)

- to support emerging artists and art colleges

- to avoid any pretense and deception games - the best art collectors are art lovers and investors; yet (since nobody is perfect) the ethically correct 'shoppers' will admit their predominantly commercial interest in art

- to foster the freedom of speech in art-related media and topics

Some famous art collectors:

• Bernard Arnault - French billionaire businessman and the richest man in France
• Alan Bond - Australian entrepreneur
  
• Eli Broad - Eli Broad Biography - Jewish American billionaire businessman and philanthropist
• Walter Chrysler - founder of the Chrysler Corporation
  
• David Geffen - Founder of Geffen Records, listed on Forbes Rich list
• Steve Martin - Famous comedian, actor, writer and art collector from the United States
• Charles Saatchi - Founder of the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi
• Sakip Sabanci - Billionaire Turkish businessman and famous philanthropist
• Kerry Stokes - Australian billionaire media magnate
  
• Steve Wynn - Las Vegas Casino and Resort Developer

Exuberant struggle for integrity - Burkhard Held

Flicking through the last issue of ARTFORUM I came across this not known to me German painter. Burkhard Held (b. 1953) lives and works in Berlin. He's been exhibiting persistently and widely for the last few decades.

His "Roter Berg" from 2008 - oil on canvas, conventional size, yet another application of the neo-expressionist language. Yet, it has the potential to catch the attention, not merely due to the exuberant, affirmative palette which looks confident comparing to many other propositions from the same trend. The portrayed scape conveys the impression of stability, self-assurance despite of the patchy construction and nervously wobbly marks - the imposed, inner discipline puts a form and an order on this would-be pictorial anarchy.

Held's work seems to explore the phenomena of a form and formlessness, integrity and a collapse, an existence and a hypothesis - and while some of his paintings appear to be deliberately suspended on the verge of 'melting down' (in a very fashionable today pictorial 'explosion' of shapes, spaces, meanings) there is a struggle to be appreciated - a fight for a structure and a sense; which both remain an endangered species in the contemporary art in general and in painting in particular.

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To see artist's page (in German) - Burkhard Held

Till February 21st, 2009 Michael Schultz Gallery in Berlin hosts the exhibition of the latest paintings of this artist.

Art Forum International is a well-edited monthly magazine featuring tens of oncoming and current art exhibitions and shows from around the world. Recommended to buy from time to time for the record-value, to visit online - ARTFORUM.

Modern Art by Louise Bourgeois

Art is a privilege, a blessing, a relief. (...) Privilege entitles you when you deserve nothing. Privilege is something you have and others don't.

Art was a privilege given to me and I pursue it even more than a privilege of having children. (...) It's a fantastic privilege to have access to the unconscious. I have to be worthy of this privilege and to exercise it. It was a privilege also to sublimate. A lot of people cannot sublimate. They have no access to their unconscious. There is something very special and very a painful in the access to your unconscious. But there is no escape from it and no escape from an access once it's given to you, once you are favoured with it, whether you want it or not...The life of an artist is basically a denial of sex...

(...) I'm not interested in art history (...) Art is not about art, art is about life and that sums it up (...)

Modern art(...) is about the hurt of not being able to express yourself properly, to express your intimate relations, your unconscious, to trust the world enough to express yourself directly in it. It is about trying to be sane in this situation, of being tentatively and temporarily sane by expressing yourself. All art comes from terrific failures and terrific needs that we have.

It is about the difficulty of being a self because one is neglected. Everywhere in the modern world there is neglect, the need to be recognized, which is not satisfied. Art is a way of recognizing oneself, which is why it will always be modern.

Louise Bourgeois in an interview with D. Kuspit; excerpts from her Destruction of the Father, Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews 1923-1997, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998

What can be said more? Perhaps, being a bit bold - that art is not a therapy alone. Art is not an introspection only. Art is about the Other, about the conscious, real, about the self-rejection of the sublime and about cherishing sex. Because sex means to cherish the Other. The Other can be and is your Sublime. No one sane could possibly claim - I'm the only source of my art, of the sublimity, of the privilege and - of the pain my unconscious implies and my art excavates...

The story of Bacon's studio...

Well, the story is simple, yet it remains, as for my current knowledge without a precedence in the contemporary art history. It goes like this:

At 7 Reece Mews in South Kensington, London; at the last floor in a shabby, industrial-looking building Francis Bacon has lived and worked for the last thirty years of his life (1961-1992). It was there, where all the best works of his were created - in solitude and in the 'ordered chaos", as he would call the towering pandemonium of his workshop.

John Edwards, the artist's old companion became a heir of the space (and its contents) and after its main occupant's sudden death, he has donated Bacon's studio to the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art in Dublin. For three long years art historians and conservators, supported by archeologists were documenting, removing and reconstructing every inch of the room and every bit of dirt in the new 'home'.

In May 2001 the studio was open to the public, drawing significant numbers of visitors - art students/researchers/admirers to the gallery. However, some bitter discussions and arguments has sustained for years over that 'transplantation' as London's art world - never truly giving any credit to Bacon's Irish roots (artist was born in Dublin, then moved to London in his teens) had to swallow a bitter pill indeed, after Edwards had decided against everyone's expectations (of leaving the treasure where it was). Irony adds a grotesque element to the whole story - the perpetrator of the mess, the painter himself had nothing to do with all that phenomenon germinating as happily and unstoppably as the mould has been in his beloved studio. He remained loyal to it despite numerous offers of much better (objectively speaking) locations, and never truly concerned what will happen to it after he's gone.

But, what is that phenomenon all about? Does it exist at all beyond the claustrophobic circle of Bacon's fans and London-Dublin microcosm of the local politics? What is the matter - after all?

A relatively tiny attic space, gray and dark, with no widows except of a skylight. Its contents - beyond any description (hence photos). Treated with awe, respect and a sort of a silenced admiration which one adopts facing a great artwork. Is Bacon's Studio an artwork on its own? There are many, who have never doubted it... If so - can a significant artwork be created without its creator's conscious will, sometimes - even against it; as Bacon would 'fight' his chaos from time to time, removing a part of the mess? What sort of the methodological and aesthetic tools one needs to approach 'an artwork' of this kind? Questions just keep flowing raising some controversial issues on the nature of art, its very core/sense/meaning...

I remember seeing it at Hugh Lane, with a long, elegant corridor of a very well-behaved art decorating the walls leading to it - the contrast was almost sublime, yet - all the project of that post-mortem 'repatriation' seemed pointless to me, even cruel for some reason. Great artist's spirit locked in a maze of his belongings was right there - mocking mercilessly all the 'gentile' surroundings, yet - paying an unfairly high price at the same time - the price of being the perfect stranger, the alien "Other"... Packed in a sterile cage of a gallery's room like a bizarre gift and a trophy for the visitors - that intensely private (Bacon would never let anyone to enter this space, except the closest friends), and - must say - profoundly moving and in a deep sense beautiful room seemed like the loneliest, the most misunderstood space within the art-world. An amusing 'freak-show' for some, a perfect epitome of the genius-artist's workshop for many...

What else can be said - would you ever consider a couple of your old socks, you've had used as wipes becoming a gallery/collection jewel?... would you ever give a thought, that your online 'studio' - your 'e-space' may look as madly creative, legendary and desired to 'possess' by dozens as 7 Reece Mews had been? Would you... this makes all the art-creating business even more interesting... Doesn't it - after all?...

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Both photos above of F. Bacon's studio by Perry Ogden; scanned by me from 7 Reece Mews; Francis Bacon's Studio, Thames and Hudson, London, 2001.

Copyright Issues

The issues to consider:

(as outlined by Georgia K. Harper, Manager, Intellectual Property Section for the University of Texas System Office of General Counsel):

1) What is the character of the use of my image/text/video?
2) What is the nature of the work to be used - educational/entertaining/'mature'?
3) How much of the work will you use?
4) What effect would this use have on the market?
And my own reflections:

- do you intent to present the image/work in a way it was meant (by its creator/s) to be presented/read?

- why do you use the image/work - is it because you want to illustrate/stress your educational point or due to the pure 'decoration' of your site?

- how clearly/fairly the credits to the authors are displayed?

- have you made an attempt to contact the owner/s, how long are you prepared to wait for the response?

- have you considered your own intellectual property to be shared, how would you inform your readers/viewers about it?

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Copyright may apply to a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms, or "works". Specifics vary by jurisdiction, but these can include poems, theses, plays, other literary works, movies, dances, musical compositions, audio recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, software, radio and television and broadcasts.

Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed. For example, the copyright to a Mickey Mouse cartoon restricts others from making copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works based on Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse, but doesn't prohibit the creation of other works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they're different enough to not be judged copies of Disney's. In many jurisdictions, copyright law makes exceptions to these restrictions when the work is copied for the purpose of commentary or other related uses (See Fair Use, Fair Dealing). Meanwhile, other laws may impose additional restrictions that copyright does not — such as trademarks and patents.

Copyright laws are standardized somewhat through international conventions such as the Berne Convention and Universal Copyright Convention. These multilateral treaties have been ratified by nearly all countries, and international organizations such as the European Union or World Trade Organization require their member states to comply with them.

Text in italics reprinted from (emphasis mine):

wikipedia

Intimate spaces of becoming - Douglas Kolk

Douglas Kolk, Nurse City, 2007, Collage on paper, 189.2 x 189.2cm

Douglas Kolk, Where You Went, 2007, Collage on paper, 188 x 210.8 cm

Douglas Kolk, Help me Nasal, 2005, Collage on paper, 97 x 81 cm

Douglas Kolk (b. 1963 Newark, New Jersey) lives and works in Boston. He seems to be preoccupied with the notions of identity and the contemporary experience of the visual/mental overload. His collaged drawings hover somewhere between the finished artworks, huge posters and the studies torn out of a sketchbook. Although their visual impact, highly individual language and emotional/conceptual intensity (touching the level of an intoxication) makes them the independent, strong artistic statements, the media used (paper on paper, some drawing, some painting) stress the fragility and the provisional nature of the subject.

Drawing influence and the original images from pop art, TV imaginary (commercials, cartoons), newspapers, popular stories/mythologies Kolk's fragmented, troubled yet intimate works appear as the 'organized anarchy' and a 'fructile chaos' - the space of possibilities and becoming. The confusion, the lost innocence and the verge of a collapse constitutes the expressive negativeness of the language, yet - with the relatively generous patches of the white space left and the general impression of indeterminacy the propositions seem to 'open up' towards the new/different (desired?) state, which they are pioneers to.

The artist work has been shown internationally at galleries and museums including the Kunsthalle Mannheim in Germany, and The Royal Academy in London. His work features in several prominent collections including The Falckenberg Collection and the Saatchi Gallery. He is represented by Arndt & Partner in Berlin and Zurich.

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David Altmejd - the purposeful audacity

David Altmejd (b. 1974 Montreal) is a Canadian artist - a sculptor/installation artist - who shares his work-place between Montreal and London. Since graduating with his MFA (2001), he has taken part in many high profile group shows at important spaces as impressive as Artists Space and Deitch Projects, both in New York City. In 2007, he was Canada's officially selected national artist for the Venice Biennale at the Canadian Pavilion, curated by Louise Déry. Altmejd is represented in New York City by Andrea Rosen Gallery and Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London.

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Altmejd's grandiosely-scaled sculptures and installations are like the Hitchcock's celluloid narrative and the High Baroque poems embodied: they're monstrous, formless, excessive, bizarre, creepy, impossible - they seem to be hanged on a very thin line of the common sense, the postmodern 'hybrid-werewolf' aesthetics and the boundaries of the laws of physics.

They have grown out of the artist's existential need to create 'huge, super-intense objects in this world' (Altmejd in one of the interviews) that would work as a shock therapy - I do exist! Using random, both fairly grotesque and quite 'common' materials, such as decapitated werewolf heads (for which he 'earned' the 'werewolf man' nickname), stained Calvin Klein underwear, faux hair, towers made of mirrors, plastic flowers, electronic and steel elements etc. he awakes the fairy-tales, mythology and horror-movies most atrocious, deadly 'aliens' and 'beasts' that would keep us awake in beds in childhood and sinisterly amused throughout our entire, adult life.

Altmejd's purposefully audacious propositions are bizarrely seductive and irrationally convincing; they possess the energy and dark charisma, which provokes mind-teasing dilemma like: why, generally speaking, do we find those beastly incarnations so alluring (just think about the evergreen pop-cults of Dracula, Alien - series or Hannibal's story), why do those monsters keep coming back through ages in different forms/concepts? Is it maybe that we need them to be more 'human', or - perhaps they do us a favour of symbolizing and abstracting those of our 'persona' that our conscious, sensible mind would have never admitted to be existing in the first place...?

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Polish Theatre gets the 'oohs'...

I just couldn't miss this great opportunity to dive in the memories of my family town - Krakow ('Cracow' as it is misspelled sometimes).

The annual, intensely energetic festival of theatrical performances - the "Divine Comedy" hosted by Krakow's stages has made the arts news in the Irish leading newspaper. In the recent edition of the "Irish Times" Peter Crawley reports from Poland in all the acclaiming terms, tinting the relation with a bit of jealously ('why something similar cannot be done here, in Ireland?' - one can read between the verses).

To emulate the success of the cultural event is equally difficult like - I guess, to gamble if a transplant will be accepted by the 'mother'-body or not. In Krakow, as far as I can remember, there were at least three major national theaters (independent companies) functioning all year long and few minor ones - all employing the set of full-time and excellently prepared professionals - actors, directors, stage design artists and so on. To be a respected theatre personality in Poland has meant to be more than the talented painter, even some of the writers didn't get the same devotion; some of the poets only (mainly Nobelists and other great-s) would equal or surpass the actors and directors on the Pantheon of the 'moral' and 'existential' guides. The most famous academies for the future 'theatre people' have got the magic aura around them; fine art centers only rarely could have matched them in the sky-high level of the artistry in their principles and the artworks produced.

Above that, Poland's social, political and cultural life has been always evolving around the drama-comedy sweet-sour swing - it's been full of a struggle, bloodshed, brain-washing, oddities and bizarre elements, hate and vanity - a bit like in Ireland, yet - in Poland there is ten times more hands to meet the challenge of becoming a professional playwright or a performer. Adding to it the long tradition and the comparatively recent excitement with the 'showing Europe who we are' (Poland joined the EU in 2005) - and you got a high-quality international festival, prepared and 'powered' mostly by the young generation and - what's important - getting the claps!

Well done Krakow. Looking forward to hear more good news.

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Read the original article here.

Saatchi's Art-World-View

It's a story that has been cherished in British artistic circles. Charles Saatchi in one of his rare interviews (The Art Newspaper) has been asked how he sees the contemporary Art World. He answered, in his usual way, with a teasing, sharp-edged tale about a game, he would like to play with his friend, an art critic...

The game goes like this: Considering, that you are stuck on a deserted island with a representative of one of these: the critics, dealers, collectors, curators and artists circle - who would be the least welcomed companion of yours? And the answer goes, respectively - from the least welcomed:

- The Dealers: Pompous, power-hungry and patronising, these doyens of good taste would seem to be better suited to manning the door of a night-club, approving who will be allowed through the velvet ropes.

- The Critics : The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life. (these) critics swooning with delight about an artist's work when its respectability has been confirmed by consensus and a top-drawer show - the same artist's work that 10 years earlier they ignored or ridiculed. They must live in dread of some mean sod bringing out their old cuttings. However - when a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime.

- The Curators: With very few exceptions, the big-name globetrotting international mega-event curators are too prone to curate clutching their PC guidebook in one hand and their Bluffers Notes on art theory in the other. (...) These dead-eyed, soulless, rent-a-curator exhibitions dominate the art landscape with their socio-political pretensions. The familiar grind of 70's conceptualist retreads, the dry as dust photo and text panels, the production line of banal and impenetrable installations, the hushed and darkened rooms with their interchangeable flickering videos are the hallmarks of a decade of numbing right-on curatordom.

- The Collectors: However suspect their motivation, however social-climbing their agenda, however vacuous their interest in decorating their walls, I am beguiled by the fact that rich folk everywhere now choose to collect contemporary art rather than racehorses, vintage cars, jewellery or yachts. Without them, the art world would be run by the State, in a utopian world of apparatchik-approved, Culture-Ministry-sanctioned art. So if I had to choose between Mr and Mrs Goldfarb's choice of art or some bureaucrat who would otherwise be producing VAT forms, I'll take the Goldfarbs.

- The Artists: If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me. So let's have no talk of temperamental, self-absorbed and petulant babies. Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all

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Guess, that affection is reciprocal. It's more than extremely difficult to find an authentic art passionate these days, who - with an intelligence, insight, devotion and talent takes care of the art as it is 'now', supporting the 'new' and 'emerging'; some of Saatchi's choices and moves made him 'persona non grata' in all the circles of the artistic world - from dealers to artists; yet - what is undeniable and impressive is the strength of his belief and love for good art, for which he will be known beyond his lifespan.

Visit Saatchi's Gallery web-page - one of the most welcoming, professionaly kept pages of this kind.

Elliot Hundley

Elliot Hundley lives and works in Los Angeles; right after finishing his MA in Fine Art in 2005 he had rocketed to a sort of a local celebrity (see the appraisal of the artist in the Herald Tribune). Yet, his talent has been noticed beyond the 'family' ground and he enjoyed few interesting projects/exhibitions in 2006 and 2007. Especially the one in Andrea Rosen's Gallery in New York has captured my attention due its unconventional, fresh appeal (visit the show here). In 2008/2009 program of the Saatchi Gallery in London Hundley's work has been placed into the "Upcoming exhibitions" and "Abstract America: New Painting from the US" section and one can see his works with this pleasant critical brief:

Mining the nostalgic and sentimental qualities of his eclectic materials, Elliott Hundley’s collages create condensed ‘dreamscapes’, entwining the personal and symbolic into friable mythologies. Hundley engages with the dramatic in the staged emotiveness of his structures and in the performative element of their intensive making process. (...)Using formalism as a platform for narrative structure, Hundley’s exquisitely delicate consternation transforms the act of looking into an adventure of exploration and discovery. (see the artist's page at Saatchi)

Well, fair for him. Looks like the recently lost in flesh and body Rauschenberg's spirit lives on (R. Rauschenberg has died in May, 2008;) and its rebelliously exuberant impact continues to inspire artists of the youngest generation (either consciously or via different mediate sources).

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