March 2004, 158 posts, 4598 lines
I wasn't sure if you were surveying about all solicitations or just art auctions. obviously there's a difference. thanks for your thanks. I hope my words prove helpful. Good luck with your projects!
B
Hi,
I'm a couple of weeks late, and I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I feel compelled to comment on how surprised I've been to encounter such hostility about Prisoner's Inventions. I loved it. It was one of the most interesting art projects I've come across in a long time, perhaps because it wasn't set up originally as an art project. I was delighted that Whitewalls was able to publish it so handsomely, and that it piqued the curiosity of so many folks in the general public and media, folks who usually don't give a damn about what most artists, whitewalls or temporary services are doing. I didn't find it clinical, but perhaps that is because I went to the event at Quimby's where TS explained the piece, demonstrated recreations of some of the inventions, after which some hilarious actor read excerpts. Furthermore, I understand and respect why Marc hasn't delved into Angelo's criminal record. I was curious too, for about ten seconds, before I realized that it doesn't really matter in this context. The project, the correspondence, is just about what prisoner's invent, how creative they are with extremely limited materials and the extent to which the life we take for granted is unavailable to people in prison. Seems pretty straightforward to me. And not exploitative at all. Not knowing Angelo's crime removes the potential for stereotype and stigma that could cloud the work.
Public funding problems? I can sure think of lots of other examples of horrendous waste of public funds than the paltry amount that Whitewalls receives. Please save your caps lock for tirades about Haliburton or city dump trucks. Or privatizing prisons and dismantling programs for rehabilitation. Although I suspect that very little public funds were actually used for this project, I think it is an excellent use of public funds.
Lastly, and again entering late into this conversation, self-awareness and consciousness do not mean the same thing. You are conscious, as evident in the email post. But if you were self-aware, at least in this context, you wouldn't have written what you did, using the tone you used.
Ah, Sunday nights!
regards, Barbara K.
As chair or committee member of numerous benefits that host art auction, let me add to Barbara's comments.
First, it is nice to hear some support for art auctions. They are the primary or secondary method of fund raising for many organizations and without them many things we consider essential would not be possible.
Still they are problematic. The people running the auctions are very conscious of this - perhaps more so than the artists. There is nothing worse than being unable to sell a piece from an established artist or one that you love. The reasons it happens are varied; the crowds not rich enough, the works difficult, it's a B piece, etc. But it doesn't matter - it's the benefit committee's worst nightmare.
Next, every organization would love to invite all contributing artists. It seems fair and they tend to be good party guests, but it's not possible. The cost per guest runs 75-200 dollars. And since seating is generally limited, you can add lost revenue to that. And then don't forget about the galleries. They are giving something away too. So do the math and you can see that that is a huge amount of money - as much or more than the event makes.
What I like to do instead is have patrons sponsor artists to the event. I bet we have 20 sponsored artists coming to the SCA benefit on Saturday. The way this works is you suggest to anyone buying a table that they sponsor an artist who is then seated at that table. The organization keeps a list of artists they want sponsored and helps with the matching. Not all organizations do this but I generally recommend it.
Finally, what I am concerned with is the increasing number of art auctions. Artists get tired of being asked to donate but also collectors get tired of being asked to buy. I mean how many mismatched Marcel Dzamas does one person need?! You may or may not appreciate that example, but the point should not be lost. Newer organizations considering art auctions need to realize that they are cannibalizing the pool of donating patrons as much as they are they are cannibalizing the pool of donating artists.
Curt
Curt and Barbara,
You bring up good points, thank you for the posts.
I do think the lavish nature of the benefit is a sad cultural phenomena. There was a summit on world hunger and the dinners cost $200 a plate.
My larger issue is the desire for financial disclosure. Mission statements, smission smatements, I want to know the salaries, the budgets, the expenses.
There are good charities and organizations that really need money, they are on the brink of collapse. There are fat cat organizations that constantly gain in wealth and use that money to fund their quest for more money. And when I hear about a benefit, I don't know which category the organization falls under.
The Salvation Army received the largest private donation in the history of charitable organizations. The guy is still out there ringing the bell. Quit it with the damn bell, and let another organization have that spot on the sidewalk. And now that SA has all that money, what do they do next? Have they set new goals as to how they can help more people? Create nicer facilities, provide free counseling to the people they help? Or does everything stay exactly the same for the people who need help? Have they looked at hungry and homeless demographics and made a commitment to changing those numbers, or did all the internal staff just get a raise, and the chairman a huge bonus?
I don't have the answer to that, but those are my questions. And I don't mean to pick on CAC, because they are very nice and friendly people, and they seem like a good group, but I would like to know the size of the Sara Lee contribution, and where that money will go. At what point, in their financial plan, do they lower the membership fees for artists (it's currently $50 a year), or is that a number that will never change, regardless of their finances?
Kathryn
OG's I had said goodbye to the topic, until...
BK: re: tolerance The total lack of introspection is mystifying. As artists and supporters of the arts we are very familiar with leniency in conduct. In fact, membership to the club is free as long as you go with the flow. The history is ridden with alcoholics, drug abusers, or both, spouse abusers, misogynists, frauds (pick your specialty), and ego-maniacs, to mention only a few vices. But if they can produce something that is considered important or worthwhile also, then we all let it slide. Been happening since before the Medici's.
I see this book of inventions as being fairly interesting in content. The capacity for creativity, necessity as the mother of invention; both are important tenets that go largely without thinking.
It is irresponsible in this case, however, to completely ignore the entire circumstance of its inception. Some are clearly able to do so. I would be so much more interested to read about inmates that spent their time getting a high school/bachelors degree, then went back into their communities and started art programs ( or got their lives on track in any way). Otherwise I can just see you all saying, "oh, look at what the little inmates do while they are locked down for huge chunks of their life, possibly for reasons no one would agree with if any one actually took the time to look a little deeper into this important subject". In this sense, it was not the prisoner that is being exploited, but instead it is "art" and the audience that is being taken. Maybe I can't call it exploitation since everyone is so willing and easily fooled. What you are enjoying, Ms. Koenen, when you are tickled by funny actors portraying people who are sleeping in a cement and steel box right now, is called escapism. Making the decision to not think about what is obviously the entire impetus of the Inventions book itself.
This seems very close to the twisted yet predictable excitement over an auction of Gacy's clown self-portrait, and I view the general interest in this book as being the same. Again, Gacy wasn't exploited here, but art was. If anyone read my review in Gravy of Henry Darger's show at Carl Hammer this will sound familiar.
I think there can be great value for all involved when working with people who are incarcerated. I have mentioned The Beat Within a half dozen times by now. Most people know or have a friend that did a stretch at one time or another. However, this situation requires a different protocol and not identifying that is a mistake.
re: use of funds Comparing the whitewalls budget to Haliburton is ridiculous. Just because it is not on the same scale doesn't mean it isn't the same issue. The point of bringing up the public nature of a not-for-profit was really just to illustrate the irony of this particular publication, detailing the activities of persons incarcerated and cared for by public money, being aided or encouraged or promoted (to any degree) by a group that is also afforded public capital/special permissions. That's all. Just made me laugh. I am not trying to impugn the character of those involved with the publication, WW has been around for longer than most people in OG, myself included, and respect is due.
re: my tone Is awareness based on who agrees with what you are saying? That could lead to mass unconsciousness.
If nothing else, I ask that you please understand that my views are not in opposition to the inmate, or the organizations involved in the publication (maybe a little bit), but to the complacency and mindlessness of the audience. Perhaps there is little depth in modern art because there is little depth in the viewing audience.
Oh Adam,
Angelo knew he was making material that would be displayed in a museum, and that would be printed in a book. By someone who prints books by artists. he may not think of this work as his primary art, but, if it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck... he knew he was writing text, he knew he was drawing pictures. It was not art-ified in error.
First, it takes a lot of guts to slander the wide bredth of audience for art, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say there isn't a fact or statistic, or even a philosophy in the world you could use to back that claim.
Also, you may find it interesting that many people find out about art, and many people come to art, and that....gasp...not just the art world views art. Some of the people who have bought the book have been defense lawyers, prisoners' rights advocates, basment tinkerers (sp?), people with relatives in jail (who have written they are going to try and sneak the book into jail...), and others who know much more about the ethics of working with the incarcerated than you. They aren't being hoodwinked out of a lack of depth. They may not even know it is art. But many do. They also know the topic. They also just plain like the drawings. (I know these things because, for some reason, people who buy books from ww insist on usually writing notes as well.)
But why is it exploitive of art to enjoy one project, because the maker happens to be in jail, and not when the enjoyment is based in the "personal vision" (whatever the hell that is) of the maker ?
A review of your emails shows you keep throwing around this term exploitive in a variety of manners, with little to know consistency, shifting the meaning and angle so as not to have to really explain what you are saying.
Boy, I hope at some point you guys get tired of arguing about that book. Let's talk about something new:
Have y'all seen the Coterie? The art criticism rag put together by Gregg Perkins, Lorelei Stewart, Sarah Conaway and Terence Hannum? The newspaper that has Michael Workman threatening lawsuits? It's the hottest slab of opinion since FGA.
Many kudos to Perkins, Stewart et al. For a first issue, it's pretty damn good. And it's dense. There's lots to read, lots of opinion. Not many images and no fashion ads, if you can believe it. Perhaps a bit too many top ten lists. I love lists and I appreciate some of these folks (Elms, Fischer, Nudd) dropping their faves on us, but I hope they don't make these lists a habit. They can be cheap and convenient filler. And even if you give full disclosure, I think it's uncool to mention your own projects in a top ten list. I know Marc once claimed in this forum that there are no rules, but when you mention your own project in a best-of list, you do not have any critical distance. But that's just me. I could (may, probably am) be wrong. And anyway, I'm just nitpicking. Overall, I think they did a great job.
I do hope they keep the mean and nasty. Oh the joys of negative criticism! Since Artforum, Frieze and Art in America have completely sanitized their reviews into either dreadfully boring descriptions or shameless boosterism, Coterie's embrace of "criticism" i.e. "The act of criticizing, especially adversely" (Source: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) is a refreshing change. Michelle Grabner thoughtfully picks apart Mark Manders, and Sarah Conaway, WOW, drops some bombs! It's delicious, like an awakening of Pedro's ghost. We need more of this stuff. Shame on you Artforum, et al. Hooray for Coterie. I look forward to issue 2.
Cheers, Scott
What's the story with bridge wanting to sue coterie?
Workman threatened Terence Hannum with a libel lawsuit when Terence was dropping off a stack of issues at 1R....I won't give anymore away. You'll have to read it.
At 10:19 AM 3/3/04 -0600, you wrote:
Scott and all others:
Not to worry that we'll be overwhelming Coterie readers with top-ten lists. It was just an easy, nice way to get a lot of people involved in the first issue. Too, there is something to looking backward when you first start a venture.
Thanks for bringing up the topic to the othergroup. For those of you haven't seen it, you can find it free at area galleries, museum bookstores and for now probably mostly at wicker park coffee shops, bars and stores.
One other thing, we're hoping to get people together saturday night at innjoy (on Division, near Oakley) later in the evening, after 10 for drinks (on you, not us), copies of the newspaper and a bit of celebration. Come and check it out.
Lorelei
>that has Michael Workman threatening lawsuits? It's the hottest slab of opinion since FGA.
That's hilarious. Just to nip this before the rumor mill gets running full speed: Conaway's piece read so close to libel, I decided to run it past a lawyer, for my edification. I'm not filing any lawsuits. Despite any misperceptions, I'm supportive of any new publication that anybody takes the time to the print culture in this city. I think there should be much, much more.
Kind Regards,
Michael Workman Editor-in-chief, Bridge 119 N Peoria, #3D Chicago, IL 60607 Ph: 312-421-2227 Fax: 312-421-2228 www.bridgemagazine.org
Ah, the rumor mills already started. I don't even want to write what I heard. Especially now that I know workman's suing everyone.
Curt
I didn't know coterie existed, but I agree that we can only benefit from having more discussions within our community. is this the same thing siebren has been working on the website for ages? anyway, I'm glad it's finaly out and will come out and drink to that. Somewhat related, I've been coming across a small journal alot called Perforations, which I think only operates out of Atlanta intermittantly, but some of the content is phenomenal, particularly consideing the microscopic resources of the venture. Robert Cheatham, the editor, i think is known by some for interviews with French philosophers Lyotard and Derrida, but there are also some other really informed and thoughtfull essays burried within... If Robert Cheatham sounds familiar to some of you it may be because of his work in the 1986? issue of ArtPapers on postmodernity, that was when they were still on newsprint and not yet watered down to what it is today. He is also quite an interesting artist, why more people haven't talked about him I have no idea. Anyway, it seems for my part, that there is alot to be learned from something like perforations, despite the fact they nearly went under due to a server crash. Ginger
--
Ginger Wolfe, Editor
p. 312 491 9553
e. editor at interreview.org
[http://www.interreview.org]
--
Scott pleads: "Boy, I hope at some point you guys get tired of arguing about that book."
Well, I'm tired of talking about it (I have worked to print other titles you know...) But I must admit I never tire of countering dilettantism that pretends to be criticism.
Which leads me to second Scott's "...Coterie... it's pretty damn good. And it's dense..."
Of course I wrote for it, so I don't know if I'm allowed to like it. But really Scott, "Perhaps a bit too many top ten lists. I love lists" Don't you constantly work on your own lists? Is the trick they are only good one at a time?
Yes, I'm somewhat guilty there, but I kept it out of the list proper. And just wanted Mindy to get credit for going above and beyond the call of duty. Also, didn't you once put Stan Shellaberger in a "top shows" list? Or am I mistaken?
Well, to counter it to so many others in print: negative or positive, the joy of ANY criticism at all.
Oh, and Michael, "Conaway's piece read so close to libel, I decided to run it past a lawyer, for my edification. I'm not filing any lawsuits. "
To think she even came close to libel shows your lack of time with any British tabloids. Libel: To publish false and malicious statements to have the result of bringing its subject into disrepute.
Now if instead of as printed she'd rewritten the beginning: "...IS far more interested in having his name in print than actually having something to say. A cursory reading of his writing for New City ALWAYS turns up factual errors that WOULD be corrected with a well-placed phone call, and in most cases he IS quoting verbatim from a gallery press release." then added: "... and he kidnaps small unsuspecting children in the dead of night." You probably would have had a stronger case.
And because I love quoting vaguely related Bob Nickas nuggets: "Objective journalism and petty retaliation are not entirely incompatible." a
I really like the idea of Coterie, and I understand the writers will change, but I noticed a certain attitude permeated a few of the articles. Pessimism towards society and the pomposity of authentic education lead me to believe there is a certain intellectual haughtiness the art scene needs less of. Showing disdain for the pervasiveness of media darlings, then following suit, albeit in a local publication, seems hypocritical and disingenuous; even more-so it negatively affects the rest of the article. Finally, publicly slamming individuals for wanting their name in print reduces the quality of any publication when the authors names are printed.
Chicago needs authentic criticism that isn t self-congratulatory or cynical.
I look forward to future issues with articles by the other writers, great job on the publication and I wish it well!
Anthony wrote: you constantly work on your own lists? Is the trick they are only good one at a time? Also, didn't you once put Stan Shellaberger in a "top shows" list? Or am I mistaken?
-------------- Fair enough on Anthony's first point. I do compile my own personal year-end list and do not begrudge others from doing the same. I was looking for something negative to say about Coterie to couch my boosterism (perhaps I should have said I have no idea what that Suburban piece was all about). I can't be all sweetness and light. Nothing if not critical, eh mate? And didn't I say "perhaps"? I wasn't opposed to all the lists, just maybe the amount. Ok, the lists were fine and fun. I apologize.
Point two: Sorry Anthony, you are mistaken on that one. Conaway listed Shellabarger on her top 10, not me. I did put Neff and Velez on my 2002 top ten, but for shows that occurred before the inception of Western Exhibitions, which started in December 2002. I might have blurred the line with that one, but I did give that precious "full disclosure" at the bottom of the column. But one might argue, ok, I might argue that those shows spurred the impetus of WX.
And c'mon Workman. That wasn't a rumor I was spreading. Did you not in fact threaten Terence with a lawsuit? A rumor is, to quote The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, "A piece of unverified information of uncertain origin usually spread by word of mouth." My information was verified, by the threatenee.
And by the way, Velez is quite tickled with all this lawsuit nonsense. Quoth Pedro: "I used to bash so many people, no one ever even tried to sue...I call it respect!" He also wishes for a Coterie website. Is there one in the works, Ms. Stewart?
Ms. Stewart replies, Coterie's editors are considering a possible web version but we have no concrete plans.
...It was enough just to get it in print. A web version might not be too hard to make. Maybe we'll use that format that Siebren was working on that someone mentioned earlier.
Cheers, LS
Hey everybody
I've been following the whole is-or-isnt-Chicago-great discussion, and with more interest, the prisoners inventions discussion, but couldn't think of anything to offer - not sure I've seen a substantive critique of the book yet, so I couldn't really think of a response.
In the current Artforum there's a letter from Rennie Young Miller, of the Quilters of Gee's Bend. It's a smart and informative response to Harlem Museum curator Thelma Golden's recent critique of the quilt show in Artforum's year-end review. I don't really know Golden's work, nor was her critique of the show given much space (prompting my interest in discussing the show on this list.) But quilter Rennie Miller's response rings true to me. It also made me think of the questions about Angelo's role in the Inventions book.
Rennie Miller writes about Golden-
There's also some good information per our earlier discussion about some of the details of the project, how since the exhibition they have formed a collective for purchase of materials, etc. Check it out.
From what I can see, I'm pretty interested in this and other projects Larry Rinder has done at the Whitney, projects that have been mostly bemoaned. As far as contemporary art museums go, I'd take these projects (the last biennial, gee's bend, Teresa Cha) over most I see. Perhaps if the New Whitney gets unsupportive we can woo Rinder Chicago-wards...
Kevin Hamilton UIUC
To add to Kevin's list of successful shows curated by Larry Rinder, I'd put the American Effect in my top ten list of 2003 shows. With the American Effect, Rinder proposed a totalizing paradigm (including fine art and visual culture) in a way which resisted binary logic and collapsed boundaries. At the same time, the objects in the show acknowledged our global and provincial times.
Also, one of the reasons I love Chicago is because of the art that I see here- like the Art Institute's Manet and the Sea, and the Mark Manders' shows at the Ren and AIC.
Finally, on the subject of top-ten lists, I always wonder top ten out of how many.
I finally got a copy of Coterie and have some suggestions.
This first problem though, is that there is nowhere to send them. There should be at least a published email of someone willing to be an official contact, or, better, something like a temporary hotmail account that all the involved people can access.
Sure, since nothing is anonymous, I could track down an individual contributor; for systemic things I could look up and then bulk mail all four founders and "editors". I'm far too lazy to do that, and what I want to say (like the email contact) is really a question for the publication, not any particular individual.
This is the other option. Most of the Coterie folk probably read othergroup. But . . . while I don't mind having a discussion in this relatively friendly, relatively public forum, I'd like to give Coterie the option of taking it private, lest anything I say be misinterpreted as bad publicity or pissing on the spark.
And what about the other readers? Not everyone knows about othergroup. I assume the paper is intended to be distributed beyond the circles of the contributors' personal contacts. Is the communication meant to be one-way?
Of corse, there's more, but later.
bulka
charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
questions, criticism, suggestions and submissions can be sent to coterie4art at yahoo.com. We didn't print it in the paper but I did tell Deanna Isaacs from the Reader when she interviewed me. She didn't print the email address.
On Sunday, March 7, 2004, at 02:37 PM, bulka wrote:
Lorelei Stewart Director, Gallery 400
University of Illinois at Chicago 1240 West Harrison Street (MC034) Chicago, IL 60607 312-996-6114 tel 312-355-3444 fax [http://gallery400.aa.uic.edu]
Thanks Lorelei, but
Dang. I was hoping this wouldn't happen, so I'd have an excuse to do it in public. That's what I get for trying to be polite or politic or whatever.
Who reads the yahoo address?
bulka
I liked Coterie. And I thought the party was neat.
The only comment I have about the magazine was that it says it's about Chicago, but then the top 10 lists weren't restricted to the Chicago area. So it that way there were a lot of eerie overlaps between the Artforum top 10 of 2003 lists.
It will also be interesting to see where the paper goes. As it's done quarterly, will they talk about shows from a couple months ago? What will the content be like?
I would also gently say that I encourage all art writing, and especially about Chicago. I know paper publishing is tough, but it's always key to remember that you can get a Website for $5 a month and avoid all printing and distribution costs. So if ever things fall apart, but they can still create content, they can always keep publishing and keep up the following for their work until they acquire additional funding or revenue. Websites can have good content, even when they are uploaded by an amateur non-web designer and have nothing in the way of web aesthetics.
But in the larger sense of art writing, I think writing about art exhibits, even though it is the main fodder of art magazines, is only a small part of the discussion about art and artists. Kudos to the untroubled artist, but for most of the artists I know, they struggle with economic hardships, made only more painful that it's a choice to be a second-rate employee because their art is a priority. Lots of artists have lost their funding and have had to rethink their survival as an artist. Many live troubled lives, make business plans, have mental health issues, are political activists, speak gossip, become disillusioned, drop out, sleep with fans, get screwed over by gallery owners, screw over gallery owners, decide not to have children, can't meet deadlines, drink too much, have no insurance, negotiate prices, have spouses and lovers that get jealous of the time spent making art, have moments of euphoria, get lovers they wouldn't get if they didn't have appeal of talent. There's just a whole story of the artist life that just doesn't get told. And the story of what happened during showtime gets told over and over.
The idea is to perform some analysis and criticism of the work, not to tell a story. And I think that pretty much everyone agrees there is not enough of this. As for the story of the artist's life, the image of the struggling artist has to be among the most annoying, rehashed, obese stereotypes in pop culture. Basquiat, those van Gogh movies, that Ed Harris movie, any tv show with an artist...this crap is all over the palce, it is not what needs to be proliferated and published. Everybody struggles with money, addiction, and realtionships. For the artworld to make any claim over these struggles would really confirm the stereotype that artists are all very pretentious and self-absorbed.
Speaking of which, what the hell is the point of talking about a private wedding in Coterie?
Mike Wolf
Hi everyone,
This is a non-sequiter, but: has anyone seen any good multiples lately? I'm starting a new website for selling multiples and editions, and I'm trying to assemble a large roster of top-notch work. Any input would be highly valued.
xoxo Gabe
I just opened a show with Micki Tschur's collection of (guadalupe)Madonna-vagina salt/pepper shakers, which folks seemed to like. Also, Chris Uphues did a goofy little comic book (sorta resembling the Little Prince) - but I'd imagine that you're looking more for works that wouldn't already be handled by the comic/zine realm. Anyway, it's viewable at www.kittyspit.net/dfp/exhibit.htm
Also, talk with Tony Wight at Bodybuilder. I believe he has put together two multiples exhibits, and could suggest names.
Erik b
group at othergroup.net wrote:
you wrote: Also, talk with Tony Wight at Bodybuilder. I believe he has put together two multiples exhibits, and could suggest names.
ummm, Gabe organized one of those shows.
Gabe -- check out: [http://booklyn.org/] [http://www.slopart.com/catalogsimulator.html]
And mega-dittos to Mike Wolf: enough with the whiny artist shit. Just quit making art if it's too hard. I did. It's very liberating.
Wapke Feenstra at Klein Art works
Isaac Julien at Renaissance Society
On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, Mike Wolf wrote:
But the question remains, "how to do so?" Way too much "critical analysis" is as dull as mashed potatoes without the gravy. Writers seem to vie for prizes for name dropping and analogical references, "the work is like {big name artist here}". I fail to see what that accomplishes except that the simile will become fact for a later writer, "and {critic name here} compares her work to {same previous big artist name here}."
Chattopadhyay's review of Lee Bontecou's work in Sculpture (March) is a case in point, presenting, interspersed with descriptions, a list of cross references to other artists and movements, invoking names like Johns, Rauschenberg, and even Picasso (and French philosophers). The essay is enlivened only with a single line from Bontecou's artist's statement.
This last (Bontecou's statement) is a lot more interesting, although also not informative in an analytical sense, opening with...
[http://www.ereleases.com/pr/2003] -bontecou.html
That is not the line quoted in the Chattopadhyay review. I think Artner (Tribune last week) and Smith (Reader two issues ago) were more honest: both resorted to interviews, a sure sign that the reviewers had no clue on how to approach Bontecou's work or what to say about it. And if we should ban artist 'life stories' then we should extend the ban to interviews.
That doesn't answer the question "how to do so?" Much more effective than the texts were the colored images of her work featured in the Trib.
I wonder if any OG people saw this show, and what the reaction is.
On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, Mike Wolf wrote:
Agreed. Yet to bring in from the artist's life whatever bears on the work to contextualize the work might help. After all, these critical essays are not about art; the best only use the art as a nominal subject.
BTW, Chattopadhyay review is on line at some horrendously long URL which will not fit in this email without breaking.. but here it is anyway:
[http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag04/march04/bontecou/bontecou.htm]
/jno
jno: "Way too much "critical analysis" is as dull as mashed potatoes without the gravy."
Watch what you say about mashed potatoes. Maybe your problem is not making them with a hint of broth, butter, and roasted garlic. Maybe even a hint of cayenne pepper. Then you don't need the gravy. You can also add some sweet potatoes to the deal. Then instead of cayenne and garlic, cinnamon and roasted pecans.
The point being potatoes, like many other things, don't need gravy. a
No here is a review worth reading...
(there is more)
/(name withheld)
Regarding the thrill of living in Chicago without gravy on your mashed potatoes, I'd recommend the University of Chicago's Critical Inquiry, Winter 2004 "The Future of Criticism- A Critical Inquiry Symposium"; and, if you like gravy, James Elkins' "What Happened to Art Criticism" distributed for Prickly Paradigm Press by the University of Chicago Press.
On Mon, 8 Mar 2004 Aeelms at aol.com wrote:
You people are _so_ contentious; but yr good cooks, though.
/jno
"Why did she decide to show this work at last, after so many years? One reason was that Bontecou,... came down with a rare blood disease... "I thought I was a goner. And then poor Val and Billy would have been left to deal with all this work."
Vogue Magazine, March 2004
It's funny, I was just reading this while Simon stands on his footstool and plays with the water in the sink. Then I checked my email and saw the post.
I have lived to see the day where Vogue was the voice of fine journalism.
On another note:
Openly discussing weakness is not whining, it is freedom. Keeping up appearances is anatomy of the zombie yuppie American.
Working as an artist is similar to working as an athlete. To constantly improve, you must push yourself until it becomes painful. And like athletes, we risk injury. For athletes it's a sprain, for us it's temporary insanity. But that's not a reason to quit. You work through it, you find your friends.
Then you get back in the ring and wrestle with the angels until they bless you.
K
I don't know if you consider this top-notch, but slopart.com is terrifically amusing.
On Monday, March 8, 2004, at 12:21 PM, Gabriel Fowler wrote:
Though I cannot pretend to know her true motives, one thought that the Lee Bontecou exhibit brings to my mind is the effect that doing the work ostensibly for oneself in virtual isolation (vs. with an eye to pleasing the art world) might have upon the work and similarly inform the nature of the criticism it receives, as Jno has pointed out.
Of course, Lee Bontecou did not come out of nowhere, exactly, having been very successful in the seventies and having taught in New York for the last thirty years; however, her choice to remove herself from the gallery system and therefore from the vissitudes of art market fashion, is intriguing in a time in which it seems that a lot of work is built precisely to ingratiate itself to the art world "machine". Although knowing the circumstances surrounding Lee B.'s production may indeed merely be "gravy", I can't help but believe that her self-inflicted isolation had a profound effect upon the work and that it would hardly be what it is had she not done this.
The critic is free to interpret the work however he/she desires. Whether or not they deserve to be published is something else. I guess I don't have a problem with the style so much as with the substance. It does get tiresome wending one's way through the endless name-dropping and opining when I'm often not sure why their opinion is more valid than mine.
I do find it fascinating when a critic is able to place an artist's work in some type of context, be it philosophical, post-structural, psycho-analytical or even personal, especially when it brings an interpretation to the work that perhaps even the artist is unaware of, but conveys through his/her work, nonetheless. Often this is how we are able to understand it within the context of ideas, of which art is a part. We can't always expect the artist to have the ultimate read on his or her own work. If so that would be boring indeed.
Katherine Drake Chial
On Mar 8, 2004, at 2:56 PM, jno wrote:
Despite the far fetched possibility of a devilish conspiracy perpetrated by mad members of a left leaning intelligentsia to bore to tears an unsuspecting public then steal its pants and quickly position themselves in the most advantageous place to gawk, jeer or otherwise hold as spectacle this publics unwitting misfortune, I would like to think that the criticism and analysis of art works is a rational and beneficial thing to culture and individual alike. I would also like to argue that criticism and analysis isn't typically found in art magazines, weekly or daily news offerings which to greater or lesser extent are confined to the development and the dispersion of blurbs, factoids and fluff. Blurbs, factoids and fluff are not inherently bad though. With enough distance and a large enough range of these materials assembled for study, incongruences can manifest that will suggest a larger frame for a given artists work or a specefic timeline. Thus making Alan Artner a useful contributer to Chicago's cultural development in about twenties years time. Or at least as useful as anyone else attempting to write meaningfully about art in a thousand words or less.
Now does Chicago have structures such as journals or publishing houses that engage in a critical or analytic dialogue in forms greater than 1000 words? Are they investigating works that are being seen and developed locally? Do these structures then offer their voice to a national or international audience with any effect? Is any of this nessasary or act as a replacement to the development of collectors who can offer stability and long term growth for artists both inside and outside of this city? All of this is up for debate. Also up for debate is the question of Coteries willingness to adopt a truly critical stance at the possible expense of distancing themselves from more casual art readers, scenesters and hangers-on. Its just a first issue, most of which is confined to factoid, blurb and fluff stuff, but to qoute Ms. Stewart from an earlier post, " It was just an easy, nice way to get a lot of people involved in the first issue. Too, there is something to looking backward when you first start a venture. " To her credit I think that this statement is honest and well composed. Until a second issue of Coterie is at hand, those of you looking for a critical look at good, great or sometimes marginalized works should visit InterReviews site. I should think that we will also continue to support Corterie as much as possible simply for the good that its potential offers us. To loose anything that requires less energy to support than it did to develop is just plain ignorant.
As for potatoes: Red Potatoes, boiled with the skin on then mashed with cream, corn, scallions a dollop or two of horseradish add salt and pepper to taste. Gravy is useless. (sorry Adam).
MT/DB
First
Anthony - I'm surprised we haven't heard from Mikos, but some of us got the Gravy joke.
Then, Kathryn wrote:
Out of context, yes, of course. But in the context of whining about the hardship of an artist's life, I have to agree with the other respondents (is it a coincidence that they are all men?). Life sucks; get over it. Or get a real job and it will still suck, but in a different way.
I am uncomfortable with the athletics/art analogy (though I use it talking to rubes). There are and have been people acknowledged as tremendous athletes or brilliant artists who have had all kinds of lives - assholes, saints, and a lot of regular folks. As for resources - everything from the gutter to silver spoons.
Who cares?
Unless it affects the performance. For an athlete it is all irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the time clock, the scorecard, the batting average.
Trying to continue the analogy - in art, even the most savage critique is a sparring match. A worthy opponent striving to get one to top performance. Or, at worst, straining the analogy, an elimination round, clearing the field for better players.
Until the artist makes it personal - exhibiting a diary or home-made sociology labeled as art. Then, commentary on a bad presentation is read as condemnation of a life or a lifestyle and we are all so polite that we shut up.
And art becomes cute, inoffensive knickknacks.
Potatoes and gravy, indeed. I miss the meat.
bulka
Now usually I'm the first to say Dave Hickey has the critical faculty of a parsnip. (To keep the metaphors in the root vegetable family.) But recently in an article my attention was brought to the following quote by him. It relates to the troubling arts/sports simile, and despite my distaste for a lot of his writing, and my suspicions of the notion of "civil society" I think this statement is pretty good.
see art as "an intermediate institution of civil society, like that of professional sports, within which issues of private desire and public virtue are negotiated and occasionally resolved. Because the art world is no more about art than the sports world is about sport. The sports world conducts an ongoing referendum on the manner in which we should cooperate and compete. The art world conducts an ongoing referendum on how things should look. And the way we should look at things--or would, if art were regarded as sports are, as a wasteful, privileged endeavor through which very serious issues are sorted out."
a
On Monday, March 8, 2004, at 11:32 PM, bulka wrote:
I didn't think Anthony was looking to trade barbs again already. Besides, the first step to quality mash is some milk or sour cream as you're mashing.
There are few exceptions to the gravy/mashed equation; with fish or steak. The other being a new one to me, but I've been trying to crack the code of Indian spices and recently made a version of mash with mint, coriander, mango powder, and chilli's. It offends almost all my Midwestern and Polish sensibilities concerning correct potato use, but it was mighty tasty. Keep in mind, gravy is usually made from the juices, the essence if you will, and may be too concentrated for certain palettes. That's as far as I am going Adam
Does anyone remember the restaurant "The Mashed Potato Club"? I confronted the chef about how they make the potatoes taste like that, and after many drinks, he relented. "We use a stick of butter for every 8 potatoes."
I recoiled in horror.
I took the little guy to Lee Bontecou today and we were just blown away. The old stuff is awesome, my son kept saying "mouth". You felt like sticking your head into the pieces just to know what it would feel like to get chewed by one of those things. But the arial things, the ones that look like abstracted dust particles, I was really overwhelmed. I got that feeling of disbelief I get when I see something amazing.
But seeing the show does answer the question of where Bontecou has been. She said she really couldn't put out a show every 2 years, and because she dropped out and had no timelines, she was totally free to work on her craft. She is a great artist, but also a master craftsman. She uses little wires to stitch it all together, and lots of the little spokes you see sticking out of things, have a damn near microscopic coil and then a soldered bulb that just adds this little, tiny, extra bit of detail. And it's awesome that she taught ceramics and then could suddenly add porcelain to her palette of materials she worked with.
This is a case where the artists' history is relevant, because the lesson for me is: this is where doing what you want, undisturbed, uncritiqued, focusing on your craft takes you. It's where it took her. It's the joy of spending time in your studio building shit that makes you happy.
The whole experience has also been extremely helpful in my own way of thinking about things. People can give me all the advice they want, but her outlook, her priorities as a mother, and the ultimate results of her life work is an answer. It's not the only answer, but it's one that could work.
And to go to Jno's quote, what does it mean to the critic, and the critic-reading audience, when the artist them self says they can't make heads or tails of the writing surrounding their work? For her work, I can honestly say that I don't need to read anything to better understand the work. I saw the work, I had strong feeling and a connection to the work that I don't feel the need to articulate. The only thing I need to do is go back there and look at it again. And based on her quote, I think she would be supportive of a viewer with that attitude. Criticism is fine, for some people, in some circumstances. But it's not the right answer for every viewer of every artist.
K
I'm opening a show of inkjet prints (not altered photos but works constructed on the computer) at Flatfilephotography on March 26th. Let me know if that interests you.
Claire Krantz
I've been following the Coterie discussions but haven't had much time to participate. A few comments about Coterie, the usefulness of criticism, and, for those who don't mind having sticky hands early in the morning, a bit on the concept of mutual masturbation and the circle jerk as it relates to arts publications. Sorry in advance for the epic length of this post.
Re: Top Ten Lists True, this kind of short-format criticism is much easier to write than long intensive reviews. It would have probably taken me 10 times longer to write a serious essay on one project as it did to write short blurbs about ten different things. I enjoyed that Terrence Hannum complains about "...'top ten' lists currently disguising themselves as criticism" - but still writes a top ten list anyway!! With no explication about his choices either! That was funny. For my own part, I made a point to list website URLs wherever possible with my top 10 in Coterie. Lorelei Stewart and Lisa Williamson did this too. The hope being that if what I wrote made anything on my list sound interesting, readers would have a way to learn more. This is a way to make even the shortest bits of critical writing potentially useful to people who aren't already in the know (or even those who are).
Re: private weddings in public publications, mutual masturbation, and circle jerks
Clearly there is a kind of unspoken phobia in Chicago among artists, exhibition spaces, and curators that you if organize something and it isn't written about or acknowledged in print, it will pass off into the dark cob-web filled forgotten corners of local history and no one will ever know it happened soon after it is over. Because Coterie is published by people who either exhibit their work, organize exhibits, or both, it seems to both suffer from this phobia, while also trying to conquer it. To me, that is kind of fun.
Various OG comments seem to be dancing around the issue of the insider nature of a fair amount of what is in Coterie. Certainly Mike's comments about a wedding reception being listed on a Top Ten list speak to this. Right now, with just one issue out - it strikes me that Coterie inhabits a space somewhere in between Chicago publications like FGA or Gravy, and what New Art Examiner was around the time of its demise, while sharing a bunch of the problems of all.
To me, FGA and Gravy were essentially local art 'zines with the expected qualities that come with this kind of informality: free distribution in local venues (but also with Web presence), sloppy (or if you want to be more generous: 'casual') writing style, indifference to the formalities of spell-checking and grammar, occasional uses of publishing as a transparent attempt to prop up friends' work or exercise petty grudges, simple straightforward design, etc.). None of these qualities kept me from reading these things, but I think they did tend to - for me - lessen their use value as critical or historical records, or even as vehicles for writings that might be persuasive enough to change my opinion on much of anything. The writings sometimes caused an emotional reaction, gave me something to think or talk about for a day or so, and then generally faded from memory and function. If anything I was a part of was reviewed in FGA or Gravy, I probably wouldn't bother to cite it on my CV because I don't think much of the writing would be of long-term use to anyone. If I didn't see a show that was written about in those publications, I probably had little use for the reviews. They were often minimally descriptive or informative.
For me, New Art Examiner, in its last few years, often read like a 'zine but with the design, print job, longer pieces of writing, and circulation numbers of the nationally (and perhaps internationally) distributed magazine that it was. Paraphrasing Sara Conway's criticisms of Workman's writings in New City, factual errors in writings about local work in NAE that could have easily been resolved with a phone call, were quite abundant. To me, the magazine often - one would hope not deliberately - looked like a transparent exchange of favors. It became common to see an article by one writer, and then that same writer's artwork reviewed (or otherwise mentioned) elsewhere in the same issue - sometimes written about by a person that was closely involved with the artist on some other project. Living in this town and knowing a lot of the players, this kind of thing became an annoying distraction when reading NAE. To me, it seriously compromised the integrity of the magazine - which I felt was dressed up to look like serious journalism or criticism, but often just came off looking like 'zine writing printed on better paper. Of course not everything printed in NAE had these problems, but the prevalence of the circle jerk insider writings, when mixed amongst more serious journalism and criticism, gave the mag a schizophrenic quality.
So with a circulation of 1,500, Coterie seems somewhere in the middle. The mutual masturbation sub-theme that I found annoying in NAE, is widely present in Coterie - again, perhaps not deliberately but it sure makes the thing look suspicious to those in the know. Examples of probably unknowing mutual-congratulating are all over Coterie. Michelle Grabner writes a review. Elsewhere, a review of a show at Suburban - which she co-runs - appears. Lorelei co-publishes Coterie and directs Gallery 400; elsewhere props are given to numerous things that happened at G400. Lisa Williamson, a contributing writer for Coterie, gives props to a show co-curated by Kristen VanDeventer. Elsewhere, a show co-curated by Lisa Williamson is among the items on Kristen VanDeventer's top ten list. Not to exclude myself, I have shown at Gallery 400 in the past and I listed a recent show at G400 on my top ten list. To me that didn't feel like a conflict of interest (I genuinely liked the show I listed) but to anyone who knew that I showed there, it could easily look like I was kissing ass. POST had a show at Gallery 400 at the time of Coterie's publication. I mentioned one of the projects from POST on my top ten (POST is co-organized by Lisa Williamson - who again, both wrote for Coterie and is praised for her work elsewhere in the same issue). And elsewhere Paul Nudd cites Prisoners' Inventions - a book I worked on, on his top 10. Anthony Elms also contributes writing for Coterie and is likewise honored by this mention of the PI book since he is the editor of White Walls - PI's publisher. I could bore the shit out of everyone and go on and on about examples of this kind of thing in Coterie. It's all over the place. Lorelei states in her intro that she directs G400 - but still this doesn't quite address this phenomena enough for me, as it occurs throughout the entire publication.
So - a couple thoughts about this. The obvious one is that it is quite clear that Coterie lacks the editorial standards of say... the New York Times - or even Frieze. Unless this has changed recently, people who write for Frieze cannot write about venues that they have worked with. Temporary Services once invited Carol Jackson to do a project in our old office space around the time that she wanted to write a review of one of our shows for Frieze. In order to stay on Frieze's good side and keep writing for them, she made the decision to pass on doing a project with us.
That Coterie is not the New York Times or Frieze is no big deal to me. What I think is missing however, is an open and honest discussion about all of these overlaps. Terrence uses the word "overlap" in his essay "Different Route" in Coterie and it seemed like he was gonna divulge the predicament we have, but he didn't quite go there. In a time when lots of people simultaneously make art, write, curate, and publish, these overlaps are inevitable. I don't think it is impossible to write a good instructive essay about someone you have worked with in some capacity, or to direct an exhibition space and then also publish something which may feature writing about something shown in that space. But I don't think simply saying "Full disclosure" is an adequate way of acknowledging that this situation exists or that this kind phenomena is prevalent. I feel a bit guilty that my own contributions to Coterie share some of these problems without also including this longer analysis, but of course, I was invited to write a top 10, not a diagnosis - and since it was the first issue, I had no idea what the rest of the issue would be like.
Certainly I didn't consult with any of the other writers in Coterie when I wrote my Top Ten of 2003 to see what they were gonna write. I just wrote about the things that stuck out in my memory. I assume that the other writers didn't conspire with each other either. But still, there is this printed result which often looks like a big local circle jerk. So then the question becomes, who is Coterie for? Is it mainly for the people who write about each other's work and those who know and love them? How much are the info and opinions in Coterie intended to be of interest or concern to a broader audience? If this is just to stimulate some local dialogue and debate, it seems like things are off to a good start; but if there is an interest in the potential for Coterie to have a broader reach - or perhaps reach audiences that care about art but are unfamiliar with the artists and venues described, I think it has a long way to go.
Marc
P.S. Please don't sue me.
Mike Wolf wrote:
Marc , your analysis is thoughtful and cogent. You guys don't know me from a hole in the ground and I'm sure my opinion counts for little here, (and perhaps I'm being obtuse.) However, the publication's very title suggests that it's mission is to do just exactly what he criticizes it for above. After all, Merriam - Webster cites the definition of coterie below as:
Entry Word: coterie Function: noun Synonyms: clique, cabal, camarilla, camp, circle, clan, in-group, mafia, mob, ring K
Katherine Chial wrote: "However, the publication's very title suggests that it's mission is to do just exactly what he criticizes it for above. After all, Merriam - Webster cites the definition of coterie below as: Times Entry Word: coterie Function: noun Synonyms: clique, cabal, camarilla, camp, circle, clan, in-group, mafia, mob, ring "
Katherin, You are absolutely correct that I failed acknowledge the very thing that probably should have been most obvious! My American Heritage dictionary defines Coterie as "A small, often select group of persons who associate with one another frequently."
I hope it was at somewhat implicit in my post (explicit in many other OG posts) that I think that to write and make art for just a small, often select group of persons who associate with one another frequently is too easy - or at least, that I find it personally unsatisfying and boring. Keeping things within a clique makes everything easier - less explanation and context is required. You can include in jokes and short hand ("The Ren" etc.) and many readers will know what you are talking about. But I think art and criticism can do more and be for more people. I realize that contributing a top ten list - where I didn't really have the space to both describe something too fully AND offer some insights about it - probably doesn't help too much in this regard. But I think, in spite of its name, that the idea of a select audience is probably inadequate to a lot of the other people who published and contributed to Coterie - and certainly to many of the artists whose work is written about. Who honestly wants their work to be relevant to just a small often select group of people?
Having more critical dialogue within a small select group is fine. The Chicago art world could definitely benefit from that. But making art and writing that can be meaningful to a larger and more diverse range of people is to me, a much more compelling (and harder) goal. Marc
I'd also add to what I just wrote that, while I have no major regrets, I think I would have taken a slightly different approach to my writing had I known the publication would have a circulation of 1,500. I never asked, but my assumption was that the print run would be much smaller. 1,500 readers is a pretty big coterie! I was thinking more in terms of a 250 person coterie.
Marc
On Wed, 10 Mar 2004, Marc Fischer wrote:
Some taken out of context above.. but I really appreciate Marc's (what he calls, 'verbose') overview. A post like that makes history, it will contextualize the discussion so that the future can make sense of our currrent efforts. And he rightdully addresses the 'in-group' issues inherent in art publications.
So, is there an 'editorial policy'? Or will the title 'Coterie' suffice to define it as something somewhat less than a clique?
/jno
On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Kathryn Born wrote:
Sans descriptions, sans isms, sans other artists, sans periods. I have the same reaction as Kathryn's Simon, "Mouth, Eye, Yes."
True in literature is the fact that a classic is recognized in its own time. And it doesn't matter much if anyone 'understands' it.
I cant tell an inning from a quarter, but part of what Elms quoted struck me, "The art world conducts an ongoing referendum on how things should look." I'll vote for that.
/jno
Yeah, nice goddamn post Marc! You can be so sharp and pointed, but still have a good balanced view of things. I bitch about art writing, but yours is very good. It's very spirited, you don't sugar-coat anything, but you're not trying to reduce anyone to tears, either.
And to the Coterie folks, I would say that although you are getting some tough feedback, you are lucky to get this much of it. I work at a company that makes an MP3 player, and moderate the forums there. At first I found all the knocks about our product heartwrenching, but 2 years later I have emerged with a better sense of EVERYTHING surrounding those users, their priorities, how they think, what they need from us. We live in an era of unprecedented instant feedback. People pay big bucks to get focus groups just for the honor of receiving this kind of beating.
It is, as the hip hops say, all good.
K
This is an article that came to me at work, but I think it's really fascinating.
By day, I'm very involved with the whole discussion about music and copyright, and spent months doing research on this issue. I have strong feelings that I won't get into, but I will say one thing for sure, my artist friends. ART IS NEXT. This is going to happen to us, for better or worse, in less than 10 years. Even for those of us who don't work digitally, this borrow/steal phenomena I believe will spread throughout the whole culture.
The was a post a while back about technology and commoditizing and dehumanizing art. None of that will happen, it's distopian. But this... no one saw this coming.
The Artists Formerly Known As Fans By Eliot Van Buskirk Senior editor (4/12/02)
Christina Aguilera and The Strokes are probably the least likely collaborators you could find in today's music world. Christina dishes out the shiny bubblegum pop, while the Strokes mine rock's past to create tunes that sound like they were recorded 20 years ago. But while Aguilera and The Strokes will probably never share a stage or a studio, you can hear them perform together, thanks to the heady mix of the Internet, computers, and clever pranksters with too much time on their hands. In fact, Christina and The Strokes play together perfectly, in total sync--she's singing "Genie in the Bottle" while they back her with "Hard to Explain"--on a bootleg remix by an entity who calls himself The Freelance Hellraiser. Just search for Aguilera Strokes on KaZaa or Google, and you'll see what I mean (or enter A Stroke of Genius, the absolutely perfect title). If the labels need further proof of who now holds the reins of the music industry, this should probably seal the deal: The Artists Formerly Known As Fans.
What is this six-stringed object? It's no accident that these remixes coincide with the fact that the Guitar Center, which sells more guitars, amps, drums, keyboards, and pro-audio equipment than any other retailer in the country, is seeing DJ turntables and multitracking software fly out the door. Meanwhile, the guitars gently weep, waiting for someone to pick them up and fill the store with wretched-to-everyone-within-earshot noodling. People are really getting into music. They're taking it apart, bending it around, scrambling it mercilessly, and outputting material, which, despite comprising other people's work, is thoroughly original. Here in San Francisco, there are fewer venues for live rock bands than ever, while every other person you walk past on the street seems to be DJ-ing or spinning at one club or another.
These downloadable bootleg remixes are a manifestation of that same development, taken online and to the extreme. People are pairing Eminem with AC/DC for weird results and coming up with clever titles such as "Smells Like Missy Elliott," which matches Nirvana with Ms. Elliott (who, incidentally, spells her name wrong--see the byline above).
Of course, the entire enterprise makes a mockery of sample clearance, copyright law, and the fleeting notion that artists have any measure of control over their own work. So what? The Internet is filled with data, and some of that information is music that can be manipulated by anyone with a computer and some imagination. I'm sure the record companies are going ballistic about this development but only because their blinkered view prevents them from seeing this trend for what it really is: a twisted form of tribute.....
(You can find the rest of the article on cnet.com) K
Kathryn Born wrote: "And to the Coterie folks, I would say that although you are getting some tough feedback, you are lucky to get this much of it. "
Perhaps I should have foregrounded all that I wrote by saying that I actually did enjoy reading Coterie and think it has a lot of great things going for it, and even that I'd probably like to write something for it again (assuming I haven't completely pissed off all of the publishers). Despite wanting to deal, head on, with some of the things I find nagging in art writing that are rarely addressed, there are many things about Coterie that I think are terrific - like the lack of advertising, the fact that it is free, the no-frills/all-content design, and that the publishers took it upon themselves to reach into their own pockets to print something energetic as an attempt to fill what they perceived as a void in certain types of critical writing. All this stuff is good good good. And I wouldn't have written about Coterie at such length if I wasn't interested and didn't care. And besides, they care enough about what they are doing to use spell-checker! Gotta admire that. Marc
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Marc Fischer wrote:
A silence speaks to that. :)
Spell check! Mary Schmich, 2/25 (after one Susan Mason):
Steward: Send me a plain text email version (somewhere there must have been a plain text version) and I'll have it archived by Monday (I hate to OCR under Fischer's (sp?) watchful eyes). Get a domain name registered, and you can transfer the page structure and contents.
It's an offer.
(I can already hear someone say, "but we have such big plans, it will be in mauve on a black background with a special font and have javascript mouseovers and will have frames and tables and be exactly 640 pixels wide so it looks like it just came off an offset press and anyone with a T-1 line will be able to access it if they use Explorer 8.842.14")
/jno (plain ASCII text, Steward)
jno wrote:
Marc Fischer wrote:
. . . (assuming I haven't completely pissed off all of the publishers).
A silence speaks to that. :)
As to silence. Earlier, I offered to make my suggestions privately to the principals of Coterie, rather than air my objections here. I used the address Lorelei offered us all (coterie4art at yahoo.com), and she assured me that "we all read the yahoo email."
Those six were the only words I've had in reply. Not exactly the dialogue I had in mind.
Coterie seems still to be the OG topic, and I have no ethical qualms about re-posting my own words. So, in the spirit of supportive critique of an effort and in the interest of continuing the discussion, this is my 3/7/04 note to coterie4art:
OK, we'll do it this way. I'll try to remember not to repeat in public anything intended as private. On the other hand, anything I say, here or in other contexts, is fair game for public re-posting, quotation, response, chastisement, ridicule or whatever seems appropriate to you at the moment.
Who reads this address? Is Lorelei secretly the brains of the outfit?
Some notes:
First, somebody does need to be in charge. Adam Mikos's Gravy and the CACA Newsletter were both officially unedited, and both quickly devolved into drivel. Not that is was easy to tell, but FGA was a little tighter (maybe just because there were fewer people involved), and it was a little better thing.
I'm sure someone made lots of choices - who to invite, the theme of lists, format and distribution . . ., but the paper doesn't have a clear voice, and some of the entries are barely intelligible, either due to excessive art-speak or to too short, cryptic references. A good editor could fix this.
Unless the writer is some sort of celebrity or noted authority, lists of favorites mean nothing. A list has to be able to stand alone, establishing a context and providing some meaningful content - an argument or significant observation or humor, or something. Liking or not liking is nothing.
CACANewsletter and FGA were, in different ways, conceived of as in-jokes. Maybe that's the case with Coterie, and I'm just not in. That's fair, but no way to build an audience.
The first number was impressive for the range of material covered, or at least mentioned. But, things seen only in reproduction or on a website, even with a URL provided (unless, of course, the site is the thing), trivialize the whole project. Might as well talk about that cool thing I heard about at the place whose name I can't remember. If seeing a photo of an artwork is the best thing to happen in a year, it sounds like a pretty sad year.
While it may have been a conscious effort to avoid "second city" categorization ("----- city"? Way too cute.), the number of references to out-of-town, out-of-country shows, especially whining that Chicago isn't on the tour, only reinforces the idea that there is nothing to see here. And, to foster a discussion, it's a good idea to have as a topic something most of the readership is likely to have seen. Again, maybe I am just not the target audience, but if I have to rack up the frequent flyer miles to follow the conversation, maybe the paper should be distributed at the airport.
I probably have things to way about individual pieces, but I'm not sure anyone wants to hear it.
bulka
Bulka wrote: "While it may have been a conscious effort to avoid "second city" categorization ("----- city"? Way too cute.), the number of references to out-of-town, out-of-country shows, especially whining that Chicago isn't on the tour, only reinforces the idea that there is nothing to see here."
When we focus primarily on Chicago s art scene, I find that the talk becomes dangerously close to being provincial. The in-jokes, re-circulating of artists and similar works become inane chatter to somebody on the outside. You do not have to be from another city to see this. Basically, people forget that Chicago is part of a larger global art community. I do agree that we should not ignore the local scene, but we should try to find a balance. I think it is great that Julia Friedman is hauling in international (sometimes local) artists. It helps to provide new perspectives in art making. However, if every gallery were to following her example it would have the reverse effect. The same can be said of art writing.
Balance is always important in every aspect of art and life. I think Coterie is trying to find that balance between being fun to read and providing serious dialogue. I am not saying the two can t exist together, but it is rare. In our thirst for art writing on a local level, we have gorged on the first new writing in a long time. The amount of othergroup postings have been great, but lets make sure we give Coterie some room to breathe. It is their first issue, and there is always a very large learning curve when exploring something new. Let s hope we don t have to wait to long for the next issue.
David
I think David is right. It's so easy to be a critic (especially of critic's) and hard to remember that it takes a lot to put something new out there. By the way I enjoyed the first issue and look forward to the next. And while I agree with a most of the criticism leveled at it; I admire the editors for undertaking the project.
When I posted my definition of "coterie" I was thinking at the time that there were portions of it that were attempting a Coagula-like art gossip rag. But Coterie seems to have a more serious purpose in mind as well. So like David I agree that it's a matter of balance and it will take time to get it right.
By the way, I'm curious as to how Othergroup got started? When, why and by whom?
K
On Mar 12, 2004, at 8:02 AM, David Roman wrote:
On Fri, 12 Mar 2004, Katherine Chial wrote:
I'll let Keri, or others, answer the 'why' question.
[http://othergroup.net/about.php] -- Organized by Keri Butler in 2000, used to meet physically for a few months; began operating as a listserv in August 2000 (hosted by Topica.com in CA); migrated to Othergroup.net in December 2002 when Topica started adding ads to the outgoing email (hosted by Cpoint.net in Chicago), migrated to a server in CA in December 2003 (hosted by Outflux.net); and moving to a server in Dallas TX tonight, Friday (we will off line for 10 minutes).
Administered by Keri Butler (subscription list, removals, blacklist) (yes we have blacklist refusal list), tech stuff by Jno Cook (or backup to admin). Keri also broadcasts FYI from the same domain.
But OtherGroup is not run or monitored by anyone, open subscription, easy unsubscribe, no spam forwarding, 4 year archive of posts. Currently about 80 members (with a silent group of 'lurkers'). And 40,000 files were looked by others from the Archive last year.
HTH /j
Re Bulka: a disparaging remark
Is this (below) considered drivel?
Quandary, beauty's role in photography at the end of the century, part 2.
Employed to record the horrors of war, memorialize death, make statements both social and political, chronicle the ever changing landscape, assist in scientific discovery, and sell a product, photography's short life has remained rich. In contributions of less than 200 years to the artworld, photography paved roads through the many disparate movements which graced the 19th and 20th century, finding niches to call its own along the way. Continually tested, photography's beginnings of simple glass plates and daguerreotypes, made swift its adaptations to the emerging technologies of computer manipulation programs and digital cameras.
In its 172 years of existence, photography has developed qualities to acerbate and delight simultaneously, making almost impossible the quandary of defining beauty within the medium. The complexity of this makes it difficult to discuss the innuendoes and confrontations of beauty's role as this century comes to an end. We must turn to modernity to decipher how and if beauty plays a role in photography, beginning no earlier than the first photograph by Niepce in 1827, advancing onward to the millennium.
The success of Niepce's first photograph in France in 1827 quickly led to his partner Daguerre's persistent experimentation in the medium. By the 1830's, Daguerre, after Niepce's death, announced the discovery of his daguerreotype in France, with news quickly spreading throughout Europe.
At the same time in England, William Henry Fox Talbot, with the help of Herschel, created the first paper image. This "light writing" was changed from the term photogenic drawing to photography with urging from Herschel.
Back in France, without near the same success as Daguerre, Hippolyte Bayard discovered the first direct paper process. Marketed in the US by Morse, a painter and inventor of the telegraph, photography's potential quickly spread.
In an emerging industrialized nation, Daguerre appeared mostly interested in the visual information his images could record. William Henry Fox Talbot, on the other hand, whose work might be compared to 17th century Dutch genre painting, was interested predominately in the art of the everyday; beauty captured in the most mundane of subjects. This, however, did not make Daguerre's images any less beautiful. On the contrary, his daguerreotypes, with their shimmering metal plated fronts and decorative casings, became individualized icons, looked upon with the same seriousness as Thoreau's Walden or Manet's Luncheon in the Grass.
By the mid 1850's many of photography's technical difficulties were beginning to work themselves out, leaving room for expansion. In 1851 Queen Victoria made public the stereograph and stereoscope, producing an overnight success worldwide. Used in many of the same ways television is today, this invention, wherein two identical images are positioned side by side and viewed through a binocular type device producing a 3-D effect, entertained and educated. While doing both, the stereograph made accessible the beauty of worlds formerly unknown. Visions of faraway lands and culture's previously only read about, this tool was multi-layered.
Back in the United States the daguerreotype, stereo-view card, and silver plate were used for a variety of purposes. Most intriguing was their treatment of postmortem photography from photography's beginnings throughout the 20th century. In the monograph Sleeping Beauty, Memorial Photography in America, this obsession of memorializing the dead is clearly illustrated through Dr. Stanley B. Burns research.
Almost all anonymously photographed; these immortal images have preserved those who died quietly and by violent death, famous villains and Americans of varying social classes alike. Each time I sift through the pages with their accompanying stories, I am continually surprised, horrified, and in constant question of my reactions. Why would anyone record these private and painful moments? Why am I fascinated and engrossed by each image and story? The answers to these questions are not simple, just like the images themselves.
Almost all of the early daguerreotypes were displayed with elaborate gold leaf and velvet cases, making the memorialization of the people found within them heightened. The stereo-view cards had quite a different feel to them, voyeuristic and inquisitive in nature. The much late silver plates were more documentary, seeming to record an event instead of capture the essence of the once living. Although at times all of these images are difficult to look at, the common thread that connects them and keeps the viewer coming back for another glimpse, appears less to do with the subject matter and more to do with the beauty surrounding the images themselves and the emotions that this beauty brings forth.
Some images graphically illustrate the pain associated with an individual's passing, whether for the deceased themselves or the one's left behind. Some are morbid; exhibiting corpses kept in the home for more that seven days. Eerie was others, at first glance mistaken as still among the living. In addition there are images which seem too fantastic to be real, an entire family killed and brought back to their bed to lay together once more.
Whatever the driving force, the beauty behind postmortem photography,
within this book's pages or in carefully archived private collections,
cannot be mistaken for anything less than beautiful. No matter how
painful, these photographs allowed the audience of the day the first
step in their grieving process while having an everlasting remembrance
of their beloved.
----------
I personally do not think so.
Yes. No wait, uh.....I mean, no.
Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam
(administrative directive:)
First:
- We moved the OG site to Texas some time Saturday (I was out, as is
always a good thing to do when people move).
The older server location site (in CA) has had a 5 minute dns timeout for the last two days, so chances are that none of your emails bounced. If any did, contact _your_ Internet Service Provider, not us.
The new location is a box sitting on a shelf somewhere in Dallas, is a lot faster, and doesnt run 4 simultaneous operating systems. Might help serve web files, and turn email around un _under_ a second.
Second:
- A couple of days ago I installed a Perl script to extract text (or
html) inclusions from multipart email. The text extractor is followed by
a base64 decoder, a p-q decoder, and a html-parser. Between these four
that ought to take care of just about anything you might send.
But who knows. If you intend to include things like doc (Word) files, images, rtf, encrypted email, enhanced text, Ascii-enriched, tfnet files, or other weird stuff it will be lost or mauled.
The Perl script(s) were added because I couln't keep up with the bomblets included by those of you who use 'enhanced' email composers from certain suppliers known as "M......." and "M..".
OK, to continue with this:
Most OG people use plain text 7-bit ASCII, but because AOL does not allow 7-bit email on later versions, I added conversions of multipart email a few months ago. The point was to reduce email to plain text.
We reduce email to plain text to (1) save space on your hard drive, (2) be ecological about use of the internet (3) keep you from having to look through quoted drivel and (4) to keep our archives to reasonable sizes. I certainly didnt want to use Topica's solution of just driving BR tags in at the end of every line - it made their archives totally unreadable.
HTH /jno
Thanks!
Katherine
On Mar 12, 2004, at 7:35 PM, jno wrote:
I wanted to respond to Katheryn's post from last Thursday (or so) and haven't had time 'til now. She posted an article about music pirating and remixing and so on, which is a topic that I have a lot of interest in (it's below). Also a good source for more on this topic is Craig Baldwin's documentary, "Sonic Outlaws," highly recomended. I bet you can get it at earwax or someting.
Katheryn,
First, thanks for posting this. I think there is a lot to talk about here.
If I understand you correctly, I think you are saying that our art production will someday come under the same kind of regulation and control as the work of pop-musicians.
I don't think that you can draw perfect paralells between intellectual property issues in the artworld and the music industry. The music industry has a lot more clout with law makers and does a ton of lobbying to affect radical policy change, seemingly at a whim. This industry has spent tons of resources proliferating propaganda to frighten people out of pirating music and even started a campaign adressing pirates directly with the argument that pirating takes money out of the pockets of the music industry workers. Which is just bulshit! A general disregard for workers and corporate pressure for giant profits are what takes money and benefits away from workers. It's all about maintaining control for the sake of maintaing profits.
I would like anyone with more specific knowledge of the situation to pipe in here, but it seems to me there is no such machine at work to protect the intellectual property of art makers. Unless lawmakers have a special place in their heart for art, there is no reason for them to pay any attention to these issues, there is little or no political pressure.
There are many people doing cultural production who advocate an anti-copyright stance, they encourage the pirating and reuse of their images and ideas, seeing it as a viable way to affect cultural currents and build a vital gift-economy. This doesn't put money in the pockets of artists, but it builds strong social networks and proliferates ideas that would otherwise never find a venue in commercial media. I think in the long run, if there is a strong commitment to this kind of ecconomy it can reduce the need for artists to open their wallets in doing their work, with more open sharing of resources and skills. (I don't think what I'm talking about is utopian, but dudes, I would like to stipulate that if you are going to dismiss what I am talking about as developing some kind of utopian line of thought please explain to me exactly what the problems with that are.)
While I suspect that this kind of remixing and reusing of ideas has been the fuel for creative work since the begining of consciousness, I think that to some extent this recent trend of remixing and reusing music in absurd ways is a direct reaction to the culture of control that prevades the pop-music industry. I think that both the culture of control and the reactionary piracy are sort adolescent and puerile, but one is very creepy and reductive and one is very entertaining and creative. I'm rooting for the entertainment!
I don't think art is next. but I am curious to see what happens to music. Seems like a lot of record stores are going out of business, I am not sure if it is really related to pirating or what.
Okay then, Mike
Katheryn wrote--
This is an article that came to me at work, but I think it's really fascinating.
By day, I'm very involved with the whole discussion about music and copyright, and spent months doing research on this issue. I have strong feelings that I won't get into, but I will say one thing for sure, my artist friends. ART IS NEXT. This is going to happen to us, for better or worse, in less than 10 years. Even for those of us who don't work digitally, this borrow/steal phenomena I believe will spread throughout the whole culture.
The was a post a while back about technology and commoditizing and dehumanizing art. None of that will happen, it's distopian. But this... no one saw this coming.
The Artists Formerly Known As Fans By Eliot Van Buskirk Senior editor (4/12/02)
Christina Aguilera and The Strokes are probably the least likely collaborators you could find in today's music world. Christina dishes out the shiny bubblegum pop, while the Strokes mine rock's past to create tunes that sound like they were recorded 20 years ago. But while Aguilera and The Strokes will probably never share a stage or a studio, you can hear them perform together, thanks to the heady mix of the Internet, computers, and clever pranksters with too much time on their hands. In fact, Christina and The Strokes play together perfectly, in total sync--she's singing "Genie in the Bottle" while they back her with "Hard to Explain"--on a bootleg remix by an entity who calls himself The Freelance Hellraiser. Just search for Aguilera Strokes on KaZaa or Google, and you'll see what I mean (or enter A Stroke of Genius, the absolutely perfect title). If the labels need further proof of who now holds the reins of the music industry, this should probably seal the deal: The Artists Formerly Known As Fans.
What is this six-stringed object? It's no accident that these remixes coincide with the fact that the Guitar Center, which sells more guitars, amps, drums, keyboards, and pro-audio equipment than any other retailer in the country, is seeing DJ turntables and multitracking software fly out the door. Meanwhile, the guitars gently weep, waiting for someone to pick them up and fill the store with wretched-to-everyone-within-earshot noodling. People are really getting into music. They're taking it apart, bending it around, scrambling it mercilessly, and outputting material, which, despite comprising other people's work, is thoroughly original. Here in San Francisco, there are fewer venues for live rock bands than ever, while every other person you walk past on the street seems to be DJ-ing or spinning at one club or another.
These downloadable bootleg remixes are a manifestation of that same development, taken online and to the extreme. People are pairing Eminem with AC/DC for weird results and coming up with clever titles such as "Smells Like Missy Elliott," which matches Nirvana with Ms. Elliott (who, incidentally, spells her name wrong--see the byline above).
Of course, the entire enterprise makes a mockery of sample clearance, copyright law, and the fleeting notion that artists have any measure of control over their own work. So what? The Internet is filled with data, and some of that information is music that can be manipulated by anyone with a computer and some imagination. I'm sure the record companies are going ballistic about this development but only because their blinkered view prevents them from seeing this trend for what it really is: a twisted form of tribute.....
(You can find the rest of the article on cnet.com) K
In regards to the recents posts about music piracy and art being next. I just read an excerpt from the book Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity, by Lawrence Lessig. The excerpt appeared in Wired - Issue 12.03 - March 2004
[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/lessig.html?tw=wn_tophead_6]
The first paragraph is:
If piracy means using the creative property of others without their
permission, then the history of the content industry is a history of
piracy. Every important sector of big media today - film, music, radio,
and cable TV - was born of a kind of piracy. The consistent story is how
each generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Each generation -
until now.
I found his supporting arguments to be a little off - thought I guess I should read the book before I judge. I do think that the more general premise is right on and applicable.
Mike,
It's more complicated than that. There are a few musical artists on the fan side of the copyright issue but in general they fall into two camps: the jam bands who want to see their concert tapes circulated because it leads to new music sales that exceed the lost revenue and bands that are not yet or no longer are popular who hope to gain some relevance through free distribution.
It can not be denied that for many years, the major labels imposed an oligopoly (similar to a monopoly but with several suppliers) and in doing so, restricted our access to new music, restricted many bands entry into record stores and onto the airwaves, and reaped gigantic and undeserved profits. For that they deserve what they get and get it they will.
But it also can not be denied that the likes of Napster and Kazaa are hurting the music distribution industry. Although that's Virgin and Coconuts, it is also Myopic, Reckless, Grammaphone and all the other independent stores that we love. One of my best friends owns Dustygroove and this is a conversation we have all the time. They will also bear the brunt of this punishment.
Furthermore it will hurt those same bands that it benefits. As music becomes more and more free the potential for bands to make a good living at it decreases. Now there's something to be said for the tour lifecycle with all its tight jeans, groupie girls, and MTV Video games, but at some point even rock stars need to settle down and *sell* records.
As it relates to art, it is one thing to say that you don't mind your work being appropriated but it is another to allow others to make money off your work or to change it in a way that you don't approve in order to make money off it. Would you be happy if an image you created was appropriated by Thomas Kincade who added custom sofa coloring and brush texturing and sold it to millions of tasteless housewives around the country? Of course this exercise requires us imagining that you actually make work, but still. Or what if the appropriator didn't make money off it? What if they used it to promote their cause - one you didn't agree with - or used it to promote their own careers (as DJ Dangermouse has undoubtedly although perhaps unwittingly done)?
As for the gift based economy, um, they don't work.
Curt
An exhibit (last summer?) at In These Times' offices was devoted to visual art (and music as well) that deals with copyright issues or that has come under fire for copyright violation (primarily artists who co-opted trademarked images such as cartoon characters). There was a good issue of the magazine devoted to copyright issues that came out for that well. Of course most lawsuits against artists (or cease and desist letters) are often about preventing any sort of critique - though this is disguised using blabber about trying to prevent "unfair competition". Some may recall recent articles in the Reader and other places about cartoonist King Velveeda's troubles with Kraft. He lost his case and had to stop using his monicker.
Artists have sued and been sued quite a bit - that has been going on probably longer than the more recent debates about sampling or piracy in music. Jeff Koons and Warhol have both been sued and lost in cases where they made works derived from the images of others without permission. I believe Richard Prince has been sued as well. And then there is the fascinating case of DeChirico making and selling forgeries of his own older paintings as a 'Fuck You' to people who didn't appreciate his later work.
As for "mash ups" - the kind of music Kathryn referenced, I admire any attempts to make the shittiest pop music enjoyable by mixing it up with better music to create hilarious juxtapositions and an interesting hybrid. Surely anyone who has ever heart Chuck D rapping over Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, John Oswald, or Negativeland's "Helter Stupid" album knows this is a blast. And let's not even start with the Stooges mixed up with Salt N' Peppa.
I do agree with Mike though that a lot of this kind of work can be fairly adolescent and for me, doesn't hold up so well on frequent repeat listens. I could listen to "No Fun" by the Stooges probably every other day for all eternity and still love it, but the novelty of the mash up of that song with Salt 'N Peppa has perhaps worn a bit thin. Steve Albini once said something that I think was quite conservative, but also had an element of truth. He complained that when people hear samples in music, what they like and respond to so positively about that music are the qualities that are found in the original material that was sampled. Those samples were often painstakingly created and produced from nothing and then grabbed - with all their richness intact, for say... a P Diddy song.
There was a fun interview a while back with film-maker Abel Ferrara who uses the music of Schoolly D in nearly all of his films (except perhaps "Driller Killer" which pre-dated Schoolly D). Anyway, Ferrara ripped into Jimmy Page for suing Schoolly D over sampling Led Zeppelin without giving them any money, but then Page freely collaborated with P. Diddy on that horrible Godzilla theme that endlessly repeated the main riff from "Kashmir". But then again, what does Jimmy Page know - those nutjobs wouldn't let Martin Scorsese use their music but instead they sell "Rock & Roll" to Cadillac?! WTF!
Marc
Another really great example is the Jamms (Justified Ancients of MuMu and later the KLF and later the Timelords) with their release "1987, Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (What the Fuck Is Going On?)" which shamelessly ripped the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and ABBA. The record was ordered recalled and remaingin copies were destroyed. This is the first time I can think of when the sampling issue came up this way. Right around the same time the Beasties Boys had a Beatles rip that was intended to go on Licensed to Ill but was pulled. WHPK used to have a cart with it.
These things led to Age of chance rather than sampling Prince just covering it. Which seems normal now, but Kiss had only been out a few months at the time. Followed by Laibach and Pussy Galore covering complete albums arguably unsuccessfully.
One little fact about that Cadillac commercial. Originally they wanted to use the Doors song "Break on Through" but one of the band member, which ever one objected to the Doors 21th Century reunion tour refused and so they turned to the remaining members of Led Zep who as it turns out are bigger whores.
Curt Alan Conklin H: 773.782.0659 C: 773.343.2348 F: 425.790.9739 calanc at yahoo.com curt at curtconklin.com 1942 N. Wolcott Ave. Chicago IL 60622
If you take everything lightly you can carry more stuff.
Sadly I still haven't managed to see "Sonic Outlaws" which Mike mentioned, but on a related note, I highly recommend the book "The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2" that Negativeland released concerning the debacles over their U2 record. (or mostly problems with U2's label as well as their own label SST). Unfortunately in some cases like this, the artist being sampled or otherwise messed around with has no big problem really, but their labels and handlers, who are often far more concerned with profits - especially once their legal fees to pursue all of this nonsense start piling up - won't relent despite the artists' wishes. Plus some people just don't have a sense of humor.
And then there are the inconsistent people like Metallica, who made it out of the underground thrash metal scene in large part thanks to rabid tape trading in the early 80's (since no one would play great songs like "Phantom Lord" and "Metal Militia" on the radio). Then when they started playing huge stadiums they freely let people tape them. They even released a full length video of live bootleg-quality footage shot entirely by their fans. And then of course, well... they became money grubbing assholes. Lest anyone think that this has nothing to do with art, I'm willing to bet the decline came around the same time that little prick Lars Ulrich started buying paintings by Basquiat, or started selling really good paintings by artists associated with COBRA.
Oh, and let's not forget Richard Carpenter who sued Todd Haynes' film "Superstar" about the Carpenters out of existence. You can find millionth generation bootlegs but that great film deserves to exist exactly as it is - with the original music.
Curt Conklin wrote: "Originally they wanted to use the Doors song "Break on Through" but one of the band member, which ever one objected to the Doors 21th Century reunion tour refused"
Was it Jim Morrison? :) Marc
At 07:24 PM 3/15/2004 -0600, you wrote:
If you read this book please note that they try real hard to characterize themselves as copyright martyrs. The real problem in their case was not copyright at all, the issues were really trade dress violations, which are significantly less sexy to discuss.
Richard Holland wrote: "If you read this book please note that they try real hard to characterize themselves as copyright martyrs. The real problem in their case was not copyright at all, the issues were really trade dress violations, which are significantly less sexy to discuss."
If by "trade dress violations" (I'm not sure I've ever heard this term) you
mean that they made the record look like it was by U2, with the hope of
duping U2 fans into buying it, well yes, I think that's true and I haven't
read the book in a while but I'm pretty sure they never quite admit to that.
I remember when the record came out (wish I'd bought it), a store wrote in
marker on the shrink wrap "new Negativeland record!" - knowing of course that
most people might be duped otherwise. (This was at the kind of store that
would be more likely to proudly sell Negativeland records than be caught dead
selling U2 records). But there were also copyright issues over the use of
Casy Casem's voice on that record as well right? And the book includes
articles from others on Copyright too so that is part of why I recommended it
- it has a lot of info about John Oswald and his banned Plunderphonics album
with the Michael Jackson collage on the cover.
Negativeland have definitely made some very dubious ethical decisions and perhaps been more than a little irresponsible. Falsely suggesting to the media that a kid killed his family after having an argument with his parents about their song "Christianity is Stupid" is certainly problematic! But the media frenzy that resulted (documented on "Helter Stupid") is really interesting and reveals aspects of how the news feeds on itself that are really compelling (and funny). I'm not quite gonna say the ends justified the means, but I think they have done some courageous (and at times stupid) things that have exposed interesting aspects of how copyright law impacts creativity.
Marc
Just a quick note to the Art is Next thread -
Hasn't anyone been following the whole Joy Garnett buzz on other lists (nettime, thingist, rhizome).
It's all they can talk about lately - Garnett made a painting that utilizes a photojournalistic image, and the photographer sued her.
I find the debate kind of boring myself, but maybe because from what I can see the painting isn't all that interesting.
If you're interested in all this stuff though you should check it out. Just google "Garnett" and "molotov"
Kevin hamilton
Forgive my rustiness on these issues, I actually argued about this with a couple members of the band via e-mail. The relevant section of the Lanham act below:
Sec. 1125. - False designations of origin, false descriptions, and dilution
forbidden
(a) Civil action
(1)
Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any
container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or
device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin,
false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading
representation of fact, which -
(A)
is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the
affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person,
or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods,
services, or commercial activities by another person, or
(B)
in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature,
characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another
person's goods, services, or commercial activities,
shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she
is or is likely to be damaged by such act.
(2)
As used in this subsection, the term ''any person'' includes any State,
instrumentality of a State or employee of a State or instrumentality of a
State acting in his or her official capacity. Any State, and any such
instrumentality, officer, or employee, shall be subject to the provisions
of this chapter in the same manner and to the same extent as any
nongovernmental entity.
(3)
In a civil action for trade dress infringement under this chapter for trade
dress not registered on the principal register, the person who asserts
trade dress protection has the burden of proving that the matter sought to
be protected is not functional.
So basically you can't sell soap in a box labeled Tide unless you happen to
own that trademark.
Casem Kasem never sued, he did send some letters saying "knock it off". He
would have a copyright complaint about the recordings. The law in action of
the situation was that, if he would have sued he would have given them the
publicity they were shooting for.
I think the book doesn't cast them as courageous, more like the kid on the
playground who pokes the larger kid to see how much aggravation it will
take before the big kid gets pissed and acts surprised when they get
punched out.
I like their spirit, I doubt their good judgement.
R
AND, then they went on to make a record to anger the soft drink companies
in an effort to get sued again, and the companies didn't care.
At 08:19 PM 3/15/2004 -0600, you wrote:
There is so much litigation in this regard it hardly seems worth debate.
You can't prepare derivative works from a copyrighted work without
permission of the original author.
At 07:55 PM 3/15/2004 -0600, you wrote:
Richard Holland wrote:
"Forgive my rustiness on these issues, I actually argued about this with a
couple members of the band via e-mail. The relevant section of the Lanham
act below:"
Thanks for sharing! Or course the sad thing about knowing precise legal
information like this is that it reminds you that so many things that might be
fun to do are illegal.
Kevin wrote:
"Garnett made a painting that utilizes a photojournalistic image, and the
photographer sued her.... I find the debate kind of boring myself, but maybe
because from what I can see the painting isn't all that interesting."
That's the other aspect of this. People get sued for making really boring
things in violation of various acts all the time. Although I'm glad the show
took place, most of the stuff in the In These Times offices was rather dull
(the CD that was made in conjunction with the show was a bit better).
Marc
So true, it makes it harder to justify my thoughts on file sharing.
Hey Curt,
Of course it is, thanks.
Market punishment, ew, gross. I thought law and religion were bad
enough.
Well even if I wasn't happy about it would sure be pretty cool. You
don't think very much of housewives then? Please, you can call me out
for being naive, but there is no reason to make broad attack on
housewives.
Excuse me, what does this mean? We're just having a conversation here,
nobody ever told me I had to make work to be on this list.
What if?
Well, if someone took an idea of mine and worked with it and
re-presented it in a way that suits them, this would just seem to me
like healthy cultural discourse. I am not saying that I would be happy
to see my work used by white supremacists or to dis the housewives of
north america or something. But I think artists should expect these
things to happen if s/he makes work and releases in a way that is
beyond h/er control. Whenever artists come up with captivating new
visual terminology advertisers always co-opt this to sell their
clients' products. This does not send me into a panic, this has been
happening forever. If radicals have learned anything it is that
anything can be reduced to a commodity. I am just going to continue to
insist that art can be way more interesting than commodity. Artists can
control their work, they can control how their work is presented and
what they ask of viewers and patrons. But at some point along the flow
it really is beyond the control of the artist.
I guess I am not really talking in terms of the law here, because, when
I say I am interested in intellectual property I guess I am just barely
interested in the legal aspects of it. I am more interested in how
intellectual property can become a space for play. Seriously, I know
I'm a dork, but I'm being totally honest.
In the scenario where someone takes my work and makes tons of money off
it I'd respond in one of two ways, depending on what they did, 1)I'd
say they missed the point and never had my work in the first place or
2) that they were really really creative to make money off my shit and
deserve every penny they got.
Dude, nobody ever said anything about a gift BASED economy. I was
talking about a strong gift economy. And I would argue that there is a
gift economy functioning right here in Chicago. Don't get me wrong,
money still does most of the talking, I mean really, it won't shut up.
But there are generosity-based transactions happening all over the
place, people negotiating trades, people helping out their friends and
doing diplomatic deeds--even in the commercial gallery system--it's a
big deal and this art world would be nothing without it! I even think
you've given a few pretty significant gifts Curt. Sorry, you're
implicated in this too.
Mike
On a baser note,
the Illegal Art show's video of a Boston Terrier loving a Pikachu has been
one of the more frequently viewed art objects in my life over the past year.
[http://www.illegal] -art.org/video/popups/puppy.html
Kevin
On 3/15/04 9:10 PM, "Marc Fischer"
Michael Wolf wrote:
"Market punishment, ew, gross. I thought law and religion were bad
enough."
They ARE bad enough, but I would seriously hate to imagine what Mel Gibson
might do if he catches any of those venders who I can guarantee sight
unseen are already selling DVD bootlegs of "The Passion of the Christ"
down at Swap-a-rama. Those people better worry. That could be market
punishment with plenty of law AND religion mixed in. OUCH!!
Marc
[Copyright thread]
Couple seasons ago I heard Steve Albini on NPR. In a surprisingly
nervous and inept voice he raised a prime point: those musicians who
make the highest percentage off their record sales tend to be the most
enthusiastic about the filesharing craze (namely: indie/DIY). Just check
out Alternative Tentacles linkpage, frinstance -- seventeen separate
webpages chock full of decent sounding mp3's. Albini also had a nice
summation of the frustration of the music industry: every time someone
hears a musician's music and no money is exchanged, then it is a wasted
and failed transaction, and money lost.
Personally, I've been warmed by the growth of net-labels -- labels for
music that only exists in a downloadable format.
Indexes:
[http://www.rowolo.de/labels/index.html]
[http://www.phlow.net/mp3] -labels.html
Also Comfort Stand is worth a peek:
[http://www.comfortstand.com]
I guess I prefer to view this as musicians gravitating to a position
"enjoyed" by gallery artists, who tend to sell little or nothing, and
most art ventures involve dropping a wad just for the opportunity. I
remember many of my college instructors in the late eighties getting a
bit excited (although flustered) with the fall of the art market,
anticipating that exciting things would happen. I think right now should
be an interesting time for musicians as well.
As far as copyright sanctions go, I say the Law is the Law. Break these
laws, enjoy doing it, but be ready for a fight when someone wants
revenge. And doing breaking laws out in the open is definitely an
invitation. Noncombattants should be more sly about their illegal
activities. Perhaps take more cues from drug scene ettiquettes.
Erik b
I may be misunderstanding the debate, but art was mashed long ago.
[http://www.AfterWalkerEvans.com/texts.html]
The link goes to an explanation of why the project was funny as a joke,
and still art.
A little more
In 1979 in Sherrie Levine rephotographed Walker Evans' photographs from
the exhibition catalog "First and Last." Her post-modern assertion that
one could rephotograph an image and create something new in the
process, critiques the modernist notion of originality (though it
creates an alternate postmodern originality in the process.) In
dialogue with the theorist Walter Benjamin, who explored the
relationship of reproduction to artistic authencity, the reproduction
becomes the authentic experience.
Yet for Benjamin, reproduction destroyed the physical sacredness of the
object, and made it useful to those who could not own such objects.
Levine, on the other hand, has made her object even more sacred as her
work is much harder to find that evans' originals -- it is almost never
reproduced, and exists only in museums and private collections. She
avoids publicity and reproduction of her own images ostensibly to avoid
"myth-making" yet this lack of information creates exactly what she is
attempting to avoid -- anonymity creates attention and a type of artist
ego, it doesn't efface this.
Adam, I'm not sure if Sherrie Levine is a good analogy in this thread --
although point taken. As far as I've seen and heard, most
sampling/mashing/stealing/lifting was not a critique of originality but of
mass ownership. In short, a much wider audience deciding that if something
is part of their culture (or rammed down their throats via media, at
least), then they own it. If the laws says otherwise, or if the creators
say otherwise, then they are moribund. My perception is that this has been
more of a behavioral movement than intellectual, with discussions of the
significance of originality/authenticity deferred or even neglected
(except when there is a forced confrontation in legal precedings).
erik
Adam Mikos wrote:
Don't forget to vote today!
On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, David Roman wrote:
Are we done with music?
Greetings, I found a website for Dogmatic, though it doesn't look like there's been any shows there for some time. Is there a list somewhere of the other gallery websites?
Your Humble Foreigner,
The Skweez
Mark Williams wrote:
I think we're close to done, Jno. And I did vote and I found the ballot
very confusing.
The only thing I'll add is that there really is a lot of research that
indicates that, as crazy as it sounds, file sharing does not hurt the
music industry. You do have to remember that the RIAA also controls the
other media content (and opinion) you see. Radiohead, largely, has file
sharing to thank for the level of success they have achieved. You
couldn't buy "Kid A" by 4 PM the day it went to market because an
advanced copy had been leaked to the Internet and everyone heard it was
a swell album before it hit the shelves. Times are hard, music sucks
nowadays, and to say that P-2-P is to blame is pure speculation.
Thank you all for all the posts on the subject. It's has been very
educational to see the Art-side of copyright issues.
I bring up a couple ways I think this may intersect with art. One is
that the Grey Album is a model worth looking at. What happens when
powers don't allow someone to sell the work, but it gets mass
distribution anyway. I had never heard of this band, and this shut down
was the best thing that ever happened to them. I also, if I had to
predict, think the tide of public opinion is going to change on this
issue. "Sampling" is going to win, and the Grey Album is the first shot
fired from the other side. I have a feeling in 5 years, you will be able
to put someone's photo in your work, and if their name is credited
(which I think it should be), then you're ok.
And this I will say from the techie point of view. File sharing, like it
or not, is here to stay. They are never going to be able to shut it
down, and relatively few people are going to get busted for it. It is a
technical reality, and I'd be happy to explain why offline.
Also, pertaining to art, is that digital art is exactly prone to being
shared. If I do art using Flash animation, it could be replicated and
distributed without loss of quality. So that's technically, why I said
"art is next".
Lastly, what I would like to see for art is some of the new searching
and databases to help people find art like people find music. The
algorithm I'm working on is to do the following equation:
I like artist A and B and L and the direction I would like to go in as a
viewer is C (which could be something like "local artists" or "more
abstract" or "doing an exhibit in a US museum, etc) and based on a huge
array or sources, art critics, people "voting" and other types of info,
we could start to get that info. It is tools like that that technology
can bring more people into the fold of culture. (Like Jno's database on
steroids).
Remember that when you see mainstream media, you are exposed to very few
things. When it's free, it's endless. Yes, I have sinned, and yes, I
have stolen. But musically, my life was dead, I didn't know what album
to get or who was good, and now I know. And I pass it onto others, and
they like what they hear in my car, and sometimes buy the album. And I
buy more albums because P2P is not comprehensive either.
Pax,
K
Kathryn writes: "there really is a lot of research that
indicates that, as crazy as it sounds, file sharing does not hurt the
music industry."
There is also a lot of research that indicates that global warming is not
occurring, that smoking doesn't *cause* cancer, and that birth control
increases the number of abortions.
The point is that if you look at enough sets of data, you can come up with a
statistical model that supports any view point. Stats are important but
must be viewed with skepticism coupled with common sense.
It used to be that there were obscure import releases, bootlegs, or 12 inch
remixes for which we would pay anything. We'd visit every independent store
in town searching for them. Once found we'd forgo train fare back if that's
what it took to get it out of the store legally. Now more than likely it is
available for free and almost immediately on Kazaa. Similarly, It used to
be that if your friends had record (or CD I suppose dating myself) you *had*
to have it too. Now if one friend has it none of your friends needs to have
it at all. Independent record stores are going out of business at a faster
rate than they even used to which was pretty damn fast.
Maybe we are done with this topic and I am beating a dead horse, but I am
willing to concede that major labels suck and need to be spanked down into
millions of little pieces. But the collateral damage will hurt all the
things we love about the music industry too.
Mark my words! Doom I tell you. Doom!
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, erik wrote:
Spaces: the poor man's Art Bus Depot
Org: the flatfile DB.
OK, Kathryn, we were about to put it on steroids a year ago, as you
suggest in another post, and in fact my kid said, "Oh, I love complex
MySQL database searches." We even got to setting up a DB, and ... but,
I'll get back to that later, Meanwhile:
Upcoming art events and openings listed at....
Reader Listings art openings, synopsis for the week...
A list of Exhibitor self described info at..
(Seven Three Split has "art gallery, air conditioned") :)
But also dont miss, for well evaluated listing, EC Brown's..
HTH /jno
also,
www.chicagogallerynews.com
B
--- erik
Hello, the site hasn't been updated in some time. The Dogmatic is alive and
kicking though. New work is opening on saturday just check out spaces.org.
MT/DB
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, Dogmatic gallery wrote:
Well, you have to be less dogmatic and hire a professional, rather than
some HS kid with a Kompozer package from Egghead bought at a discount.
()/j
JNO - "Well, you have to be less dogmatic and hire a professional, rather
than
some HS kid with a Kompozer package from Egghead bought at a discount."
Actually my site is built and maintained by Siebren Versteeg a former
industry professional. The site hasn't been updated because server space
which was free prior to August '03 suddenly started costing me a hundred
dollars for a twelve month cycle. I lacked the money at the time to pay
this. Siebren paid the fee without consulting me. The long story thats not
getting any shorter is that its taken months to work through this fiasco as
all of my money goes to
A. my survival daily (food, transit, utilities)
B.The Care and maintenance of one Gallery/ Dogmatic:type (beer, paint,
postcards, postage, construction materials etc)
This coupled with my resolve to maintain a regular show schedule and keep a
shitty day job that affords me the opportunity take time off at a moments
notice so that I can hang shows, keep gallery appointments and make studio
visits has meant that Mr. Versteeg has not been paid. But not from lack of
trying mind you. So my site has not been updated.
This a matter of my finances and not a situation resulting from Mr.
Versteeg's skills or my sites formal qualities. I don't believe their to be
any software issues lurking at its fringes either. So your assesment is less
than astute Mr. Cook, its ill informed. Furthermore it is not a concern of
yours so why meddle or judge? Finally despite this the gallery is not its
http construct it is a physical space with a physical address and a phone
number attached to that. In order to see artwork and make informed decisions
about it one must first of all visit it.
MT/DB
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, Dogmatic gallery wrote:
Well, highjack it, move it to Yahoo or some other freebee. You could
relocate it anywhere, but you need to deal with your Enom registrar and
DFHosting to get it done. Actually a new hosting site would do the
paperwork for you. I understand about the 'lack of money', since I am on a
similar budget. But OG might be the place to ask around. Not for money,
but for hosting suggestions.
The note about "some HS kid with a Kompozer package" was meant as a joke.
Yr stubborn, Mr Dog. What does it take for _you_ to ftp new files? I know:
the site is so embedded with JavaScript as to make it incomprehensible to
mere neanderthals like us, you need a 'homo sapiens versteegen'. I meddled
before, discussing image placement of the dog within the tables constructs
with Versteegen a few years ago, for it was obvious that a number of the
browsers would break it. I dont recall if that was resolved, since I didnt
want to meddle, just point it out.
noted :)
and the phone number was updated at the site.
()/jno
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, Kathryn Born wrote:
All the machinery to do this was solidly available on Windows machines
since the early 90's (and DOS since mid 80's). Some of my kids and friends
were even then (mid 90s) creating a fake industrial music band website
"Strap-On, the world's most industrial band" complete with sampled music.
But large scale sampling and collation is suddenly pervasive. Kot wrote
about the Gray album in the Trib last week, and by the end of the week a
student was playing a bootleg in the darkroom at Columbia. (Yes, he called
it "a bootleg") (Wasn't very good, either)
Katheryn wrote--
More like file stealing. Oh, wait, you said that already. And remind OG
of your investment in Open Source. I'm all about Copy-Left myself, and put
everything I write or produce out for public-credited theft under GNU.
I think the music people did not understand this. Perhaps music files are
incomprehensible 'units' to them. Maybe they havent seen or used any of
the 500 or so executables for manipulating sound. Maybe they have never
rewritten binary files.
Maybe 'art' is still paint on canvas. But that will end too. The 3-d
replication has been available for 20 years, industrially. If there were
money in it, we would quickly see paintings or sculptures scanned on the
sly with hand held devices, and replicated in total detail. If not now,
then later. And if there is money in it, lawyers will be there to protect
profits.
Mike wrote...
But K speaks of web stuff (and confesses). If you placed art on the web
yesterday, it will be gone (I mean 'copied') today. I'll confess: the
JavaScript 'stuff' on the index.html file of my webpage was stolen from
Klein Gallery, who obviously stole it from elsewhere. We rewrote it,
though, and reorganized it.
Explorer doesnt support the JavaScript properly anymore, though. Although
Netscape does. But that is just typical.
But thefts happens well before the digital age. And it is the idea theft
that you cannot protect or put a finger on. I had an idea stolen (and
implemented) at RSG, sourced from their file of proposals no less. And
another artist produced a clone of a slide-show I privately showed her,
although it had been echibited publically already. And lastly, the HMFA
stole an essay title some years ago, included as a slam-bang last line in
a draft publication proposal; they refused me, but had it used by someone
else.
There aint anything you can do about that, for generally you hear about it
second hand, and much too late. If you complain it just looks like sour
grapes. The best you can do is to publish your original work (like on the
web) and add a note, "a few months later so-and-so used this idea to their
own advantage after seeing it".
Frankly, I dont care.
Steal all you want. That is how it is offered in the first place.
()/jno
Last night I picked up a Black invitation at Standard; and saw the White
invitation from Suitable in the mail. Just a coincidence.
The mix is next?
/jno
Every now and then, to remind myself that there are many forums for
critical writing more passionate and spirited than art writing, I turn
to website discussion boards devoted to other subjects. As a rule,
critical insights in these circles tend to come one at a time by many
scribes rather than scattered throughout the course of one single piece
of writing. The cumulative result however, is usually a far more
comprehensive and nuanced collection of critical writing than one
typically reads in a single art review or essay.
So, to clarify with an example, allow me to share some of the critical
discussions I've been observing about the locomotion of zombies in the
remake of Dawn of the Dead as compared to the original. For those who
haven't seen the remake, it has quite a bit to recommend to it and you
should check it out. For those who haven't seen the original, why are
you still reading this? Run, don't walk, to your nearest video store.
Posts from the Running vs. Walking Zombie debate thread follow below.
Marc
Thanks Marc.
The remake of Dawn of the Dead is without a doubt the most enjoyable movie I've seen for quite sometime. I can't help but feel a sense of victorious pride in helping to displace the Jesus movie from the #1 spot in box office. As to the running/walking debate, I really appreciated the running zombies. But am happy to have a world of representation that features both runners and shufflers. The sound track makes some nice departures from the industrial metal that dominates other recent zobie/zombie-like movies like, 28 Days Later (yeah, I liked it), Resident Evil (zombie dogs!), Ghosts of Mars (Ice Cube is THE action star).
Alright, yeah, see the old one too!
mike
Mike Wolf wrote:
"I can't help but feel a sense of victorious pride in helping to displace the Jesus movie from the #1 spot in box office."
YES!!!
This makes me proud to no end. Between this and going to the anti-war rally the next day, I feel good. I have done my patriotic duty for this week. Now I can continue to make art without any guilt or shame. Sorry Jesus, you have been crucified.... at the box office!
Rank Title Weekend
1 Dawn of the Dead (2004) 27.3m
2 Passion of the Christ, The (2004) 19.1m
Too bad about Mel's total gross. (not included by me out of sadness for our country)
Marc
Marc,
First, let's not start the whole debate of whether or not the zombies killed
Christ. Secondly, interrupt me if I misinterpret, because if I understand what
you are advocating for, it is a legion of lurching--not running--
theory-laden (its' the reason they move so slow) undead critics roaming the earth?
Maybe I think of it this way because I think Dave Hickey, Rosalind Krauss,
and Robert Hughes would make great looking half-rotten corpses. And Hal Foster,
who looks healthy enough--and writes fairly lively--rest his soul, to hear him
lecture i think he's already amongst the undead.
I can see it now, fast-forward a couple years and we have the slowly
clamoring zombies descending upon marfa, or Dia:Beacon, maybe Bilbao, where some of
the last holdouts of humans are huddled together. The undead shuffling
contemplatively past the objects in search of human flesh, accidently falling for a
Duane Hanson or Charles Ray sculpture, gumming them much to the registrar's
horror. Maybe they even find affinity with some Cindy Sherman"s, Paul McCarthy's
and Mike Kelley's? But the true question is whether or not those phantom limb
Paul Thek sculptures come to life...
a
Aeelms at aol.com wrote:
"Maybe I think of it this way because I think.... Robert Hughes would make great
looking half-rotten corpses."
Hey, that guy almost became a fully rotten corpse after that near fatal car accident.
Let's not be too cruel. I'm guessing that Michael Fried would be a running zombie.
He's a pretty dynamic talker. Grant Kester has a really great animated lecturing
style. He'd be a running zombie too. His writing is lively too.
That depends on which movie is being remade. If the paradigm is "Re-Animator" or (I
think) "Return of the Living Dead" - then yes, the Paul Thek can come to life and
potentially move around. But if we are talking about "Dawn of the Dead" - nah, I don't
think it can do anything. But those Paul Thek meat pieces still have lots of life in
them already right? Those works may the least to worry about of all you mentioned.
Marc
No doubt. This country would be so much better if the smart people like us
could mandate taste. If I was Minister of Cultural Appreciation I'd ban Mel
Gibson movies in general. And Jesus, I'd get rid of him also. I'd make
lots of other really good decisions about what people should watch. Through
the editing of popular culture I'd channel intelligence, irony, and wit to
the people so that'd they'd all get smarter like us. Mike, I'd totally ask
you for recommendations.
Just thinking about it makes me feel patriotic.
Curt
Curt Conklin wrote: This country would be so much better if the smart people like us could mandate taste.
Is this meant to be ironic? If so, is there a smiley face with a sarcastic expression you can paste onto your messages to emphasize it? If not, wow. I mean, pretentiousness is nothing new in the art world, but to openly declare it is embarrassing to read. It goes along with Anthony Elm s referencing a quote in Coterie that laments the lack of the authentically educated art patrons.
Through the editing of popular culture I'd channel intelligence, irony, and wit to the people so that'd they'd all get smarter like us.
Really, is this meant to be taken seriously?
Michael Beyer
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Curt Conklin wrote:
And we could force adherence to the "Eight-fold Path to True Criticism"
To wit, and in contrast to mere 'reviews', true Criticism ...
/jno
Automeris:
" I mean, pretentiousness is nothing new in the art world, but to openly
declare it is embarrassing to read. It goes along with Anthony Elm s referencing
a quote in Coterie that laments the lack of the authentically educated art
patrons."
A. I'm pretty sure Curt wrote this with more than a larder full of sarcasm.
Unless Curt's attitude has taken a sudden turn south.
B. I did not reference any quote that lamented the lack of authentically
educated art patrons. The quote:
Backbiting, corrupt, meretricious, shallow, howlingly pretentious,
infantile, devoted to worship of wealth and celebrity that reduces everyone in it to
the mentality of a concierge or a subway pickpocket. The few authentically
educated, earnest people in the art world wake up contemplating suicide five
mornings every week.
...is directed at many of the mechanizations that make up the routines of the
art world, not some large group of zombies occupying that world. Any business
world eventually multiplies a series of after affects that can't be turned
back, and are not necessarily the result of anyone. If it laments anything, it
is the current structure of the art world.
It is worth noting first, that whoever this "few authentically educated,
earnest people" of the quote is not mentioned, and it is not implied that the
education need be of ivy league, trade, or school of hard knocks variety. It could
be anybody.
Second, it is worth noting the current of (I thought) obvious black, biting
humor the quote is written with.
Third, "...wake up contemplating suicide five mornings every week. See?
There are seven days in a week, even the depressed get a weekend.
And back to marc's zombies: The Re-Animator I don't think qualifies as a
zombie movie. Trying to reanimate the dead, or bring the dead back to life, is
different from the dead walking the earth in a state of undead. The bodies in the
Re-Animator had zombie-like tendencies, but I don't think they are zombies.
Also, a world that would allow zombies to run, that's no world I want to live
in.
a
Yeah, my mistake. Unless you read every previous message, and without knowing Curt Conklin, it s impossible to tell if a message is sarcasm or not. jno's "Eight-fold Path to True Criticism" clarified the matter though. However, number 2, is about the work , seems to contradict his other mocking statements. If not, then what should criticism be about?
A wrote: If it laments anything, it is the current structure of the art world.
So, not to distract from the lively discussion about zombies, what would you suggest is a better structure for the art world? Just about everyone I know would agree there is room for improvement, but I don t see anything happening. That s why I became interested in the othergroup and coterie; I was hoping to see some sort of transformation taking place, but instead I only read about the merits of zombie locomotion.
My opinion on zombies is that most alternative spaces around Chicago resemble the undead with their refusal to adhere to simple aesthetic principles for displaying artwork. The majority of booths in the stray show seem to be taking part in a contest to prove who is best at posturing as a struggling gallery space. The Stray Show, like Coterie are noble experiments but are barely able to stay standing by the handful of zombies who take the extra step/stride/pace to clean themselves up and offer a professional, interesting, imaginative and creative presentation.
I would also like to hear an explanation from someone why I repeatedly hear from people in the art scene, from top gallery owners down to undergraduate art students who run apartment galleries, that they are not interested in selling art, but rather supporting the artists. I always thought selling artwork would support the artist.
Michael Beyer
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
Selling art:
Not sure how anyone else feels, but I personally hate selling anything. I hate sales and haggling. Even when someone is asking to commission something from me, I feel like avoiding it. I don't make work with the hope of getting money for it, it's just not a motivational force. I do hope that folks will view it offline or online, remark upon it, share it with friends - that does keep me going. I also hate seeing pricetags on art - the prices are so high that it saps the impact from the art. It ruins its approachability.
Nothing against folks who can manage to earn something for their labors, but I can't sustain an interest in the topic during conversations.
Am I just exemplifying a pathology of artists (or certain artists)?
Erik
Michael Beyer wrote:
Erik, I understand your loathing for selling art.
However, I feel compelled to respond in the contrary.
Art is often overpriced, but that depends on your
market. If you are going for high-fluting collectors,
there's a whole rigamaloe of hoops that you need to
jump through. But that is not the only option for an
artist, and if you want to make a living from making
art, there are other options.
You have to decide on who your audience is. For some
folks, it is worth engaging in the commercial system
so that they can create things that do not have
conventional outlets, and still not have a day job.
whatever you decide to do will have commercial
ramifications.
I am of the opinion that there are options for artists
that bridge this disparity. But they involve a
certain amount of "selling out". If you're
interested, I'll digress.....
B
--- erik
On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, erik wrote:
I'll buy that -- er, I mean.. me too.
()/jno
Erik:
Yes, I would say that is a pathology of artists, one that I wish would go away. I don't think there is such a thing as a sell out. The whole idea is fostered by the notion of the artist as misunderstood genius. Van Gogh is the most popular archetype of the individual who is so ahead of his time that no collector can understand him, thus his work goes unsold until after his death. Now it s an entire sector of the market with outsider art galleries, where dealers swoop in to auction off estates. But then, I can t find fault with the dealers. They re only choosing to make a living, whereas I ve seen too many artists self-perpetuate the myth of the struggling artist. Not so recently I helped install a show where the artist had not sold enough artworks over the years that would make up for the number and cost of exhibitions she had received while being represented by the gallery. The artist decided to double the price on all artworks, her only reasoning being that it would make it
look more respectable. She had no interest in selling it, or whether or not the gallery would survive. The contemporary art market is the only business where the law of supply and demand works in reverse.
Michael Beyer
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Search - Find what you re looking for faster.
Someone sounds bitter. Go have a drink.
Erik
Michael Beyer wrote:
Whatever. If this is what you believe of these artists, than you are
mistaken.
MT/DB
"Someone sounds bitter. Go have a drink."
I recommend a Zombie....ummmmm...rum
If anyone is interested (and I'd need to dig it up) I have a decent law
review article on the development in commerce in the art world. I used to
require my students to read it (I always took a bit of sick pleasure in
giving my Sculpture 101 students a law review article on the first day of
class, it weeded out the meek). I'd be happy to e-mail it to anyone who
contacts me off this list. rholland at ponderance.org. Make your title line
something about ART ARTICLE, I get loads of e-mail much of which goes unread.
I taught a class of my own design: Law and Business Skills for Artists, and
one of the key lessons that I tried to impart is that every artist is a
small business owner whether they like it or not. I by raw materials, like
a construction contractor, utilize sub-contractors and fabricators, do
professional shipping and files business taxes. Art for the sake of art
needs to be at the heart of what we do, but pretending that commerce isn't
part of the deal is delusional talk that isn't true for anyone who intends
to survive.
Anyway, if anyone wants the article (and I can still find it) I'd happily
send it out.
Richard Holland
At 01:15 AM 3/24/2004 -0600, you wrote:
Michael,
Your statements are far too generalized/contradictory to have
any real impact to further your debate. Let's backtrack just
a little. The very nature of the word alternative is to
provide choices to the norm. For you to state that
alternative galleries should abide by the rules of what you
consider proper ways of displaying art is not only flawed,
but also an answer to your question. In my opinion your
question should who really is alternative?
To paraphrase your posting from yesterday, you also thought a
bunch of the alternative galleries in the Stray Show are
poseurs who act down and out and should should step up and
play in the real world. Let use a few examples of current
West Gate loopers who "stepped up" from "alternative" spaces;
Bodybuilder, 1R, and Bucker Rider. Let's compare those with
galleries out of a gallery district; Suburban, Suitable,
Pond, and Dogmatic (many more). Has the quality/imagination
of the shows gotten better for the West Loop galleries since
they stepped up? Are they much better now that have adapted
a familiar framework for the public? I would hope they are
selling more, but who knows. Do you think the galleries that
have shows outside of the district are less important because
they don't abide by typical conventions?
To state that the prime motivation of a gallery owner should
be selling work to help the artist is flawed as well. Yes,
it should be one of the jobs of the gallerists. However, the
dealer should also foster growth with artists and one's
gallery to keep moving forward, to constantly challange the
notions of how art is made and shown. From my
conversations/dealings with many artists, I have observed
that it is far worse to have no dialogue from a show than to
have not sold a piece of artwork. By dialogue, I mean public
press as well as private talks. That is what I think the
gallerist mean by supporting the artists. If
artists/gallerists wanted to make gobs of money, they should
be business folk.
One side note to your current posting. Sometimes it is best
for a gallery to show artwork that can not be sold.
Although, it may seem they are losing money (and probably are)
they will gain a solid reputation for helping to further the
art and artist. It is an investment for the future of the
gallery and the scene around them. This may not be they case
with your example, but a small point to make.
David
automeris: "So, not to distract from the lively discussion about zombies,
what would you suggest is a better structure for the art world? Just about
everyone I know would agree there is room for improvement, but I don t see anything
happening. That s why I became interested in the othergroup and coterie; I
was hoping to see some sort of transformation taking place, but instead I only
read about the merits of zombie locomotion.
I would also like to hear an explanation from someone why I repeatedly hear
from people in the art scene, from top gallery owners down to undergraduate art
students who run apartment galleries, that they are not interested in selling
art, but rather supporting the artists. I always thought selling artwork
would support the artist. "
1. To back up to this quote, but then add a touch to the recent posts: man
where to start. To disregard the Marxist in me, let's assume there is nothing
wrong with capitalism for the moment. So now we can say there is nothing wrong
with the system as we have it except balance and density.
In a perfect system we would have a wide range of influx for art, spaces that
sell, spaces that criticize, spaces that commission, spaces that report,
spaces that revisit. And all these arenas would be equally valid for putting forth
meaningful art.
I would generically say too much emphasis right now is looking to the
commercial model as the only model or place to look for new things. (and not to step
on toes, but I think alternative galleries are still galleries based on the
commercial gallery model even if they have forsworn sales. Not meant as
criticism.) This has lead to an increase in the importance of commercial art fairs and
the desperation for that little bit of square acreage in Artforum or Frieze.
Nothing really against these things, but there should be more to it.
Ignoring the romantic side of unsold art, there is still the fact that some
things are not conducive to sales--or very difficult to attain a good markup
with, and the concentration on the commercial realm has put this work in a bind.
( the gallery system tends to ignore performance, cheaply produced multiples,
ephemera, sound, feature-length video and many other hard to present forms.)
But I think you are wrong to look for change ala burning all the spaces,
hanging dealers next to bureaucrats and starting at year zero. I think new spaces
and gestures and density need to be added and as much as I hate to admit it,
sometimes constant bitching is enough, making grievances known until a
consensus of a new step can be reached.
All this said, the second artists aren't complaining about the art world I
believe we know the gates of hell are opening.
2. I'm of the school that if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it,
it didn't happen. If artworks aren't seen and debated they are meaningless. So
while apartment shows and the such may be imperfect, letting art works be
seen is a very important gesture. It creates some level of community and more
importantly, witnesses.
Support vs. Selling. I don't think anyone will argue that selling artwork
doesn't support the artist, but many artists want more than money, they want fame
and history books. This requires getting the artists written about, placed in
museums and organized into retrospectives. Selling doesn't necessarily do
that. But just putting the stuff up in a noncommercial environment doesn't do
that either.
Even backing away from the undercurrent of cynicism in the above paragraph,
three models of support for artists, just sticking to the gallery system, would
be the old Dwan and Castelli galleries, and currently Marian Goodman.
The woman who ran Dwan (cannot remember her name) supported many of the
minimalists and earth art artists, she paid for Michael Heizer's Double Negative.
She knew there was no money coming back in from that expenditure, but she also
knew that showing these artists, and trying to promote the vision, meant some
of the stuff wasn't going to have a commercial outlet. She supported these
types of activities again and again, hoping in the long run it would pay off. It
did.
Castelli stuck with the conceptual artists for a good ten or so years before
the stuff started selling. He paid to produce, display, and perhaps most
importantly, store those works. And he made sure the museum world saw them.
By many accounts Marian Goodman today spends hours most days talking to her
artists about life, what they are working on, and what they need. She also has
an army of assistants proactively getting the attention of museums and critics
for her artists. In the long run this will produce those elusive and dirty
sales, but also give the artists more than just a paycheck.
(Also works may sell for one price, then get resold at auction for greatly
inflated prices, and the artists never see a return on that market. If something
becomes famous in retrospect, often the artist can still be left in the cold.
We wouldn't have the romantic myth of the artist if so many of them hadn't
died poor. So the gallery sale is just one part of a financial structural
problem.)
And if we looked to the not-profit world, we could rack up support such as
the vote of confidence from peers, money and space for commissions beyond the
scope of the studio, travel funds and contacts, documentation, time to work,
etc., etc.
a
Just for the record, the laws of supply and demand operate just as smoothly
in the art market as they do in any other market. If they were operating
oppositely (as Michael Beyer suggested), given Chicago's shortage of
collectors (low demand) and surfeit of available work (high supply), all the
artists on this list (except mike wolfe who doesn't make any work) would be
stinking rich.
The apparent exceptions happen when the supply so exceeds demand that there
seems to be no market for the work at all. Certainly if there is no demand
for an artists work doubling the price (or offering it for free) will not
affect the number of pieces moved. I think realistically demand is a
function of aesthetic quality, exposure of the artist, and the community's
understanding of the work. Price may be a proxy for these things and
therefore a more expensive price may suggest greater interest, but people
won't be fooled for long.
curt
Hi All,
Someone on the list said that being an artist who wishes to be
commercially viable needs to think of themselves as a small business. (I
am paraphrasing). I really think this is true, I think there's a
difference between commercially viable art, and an artists' ability to
sell their own work, or find a curator or a representative that can.
One of the reason I'm "going for it" and trying to make a living as an
artist (someday), is partially because I have a strong background in
sales. I think I have the ability to sell my own art, even when it's not
as high quality as the next artist; just like I think the amount of
publicity I'm getting for the show I'm doing (if it all comes through),
may be based more on my ability to cold call and do PR, rather than a
show that deserves this degree of critical attention.
My point is that artists, or galleries that are trying to be profitable,
have not only all the obstacles of the art market, but all the sales and
business obstacles as well. Remember that 9 of 10 NON-ART businesses
don't last 5 years. And a similar number drop out the second 5 years.
And very few people call sell- anything. That's why sales reps make a
lot of money, because people who can sell are hard to find.
The thing I've seen is that many artists are trying to wear a
statistically improbable number of hats. What percent of the population
is artistically talented? Of that population, what percent has the drive
or desire to make commercially viable art, and not just do art as a
hobby? Of that number of people remaining, how many are going to be good
at sales and running an art-making business?
I think curators have similar obstacles, where the talent is the art
choices and the presentation, and their costs can be higher.
I'm just doing this post because it's easy to look at a lot of
conceptual issues, when there are some solid realities right in front of
us. And frankly, I see artists and curators making a lot of mistakes
when dealing with customers. If you want to sell art, at that moment, on
the floor, don't introvert or meld into the sadness and sellout feeling
we all experience. Just put aside your emotions, distance yourself from
your art, and be a salesman. Watch good non-art salespeople in action
and see how they operate. It's all the same thing, tomatoes, Kandinsky.
Your girl,
Kathryn
If the law of supply and demand was working according to the textbook definition, prices would be lower for ninety percent of the art available of living artists. I know several artists who are forced to rent storage spaces just to store their unsold art.
What I am trying to say is artists shouldn t be opposed to or ashamed of selling or haggling to make a sale. The biggest improvement art schools could make is to require a business class for art majors.
Aeelms wrote: Also works may sell for one price, then get resold at auction for greatly inflated prices, and the artists never see a return on that market. If something becomes famous in retrospect, often the artist can still be left in the cold. We wouldn't have the romantic myth of the artist if so many of them hadn't died poor. So the gallery sale is just one part of a financial structural problem.
So would you argue that artists deserve a cut from auction sales, as has been argued recently? I do think artists deserve a cut of at least a few percent, but I would be surprised if that ever happened. Otherwise, I don t think there is anything wrong with capitalism. That is to say, I haven t seen or read of a better alternative system that sounds practical enough to work. And the reason most big name gallerists can afford to spend hours with artists talking about life is because they have financial backing from a spouse, a former or second career, a trust, or a partner who is using it as an investment or tax break. The entire not-for profit world is wholly dependent on the for profit market.
I have to disagree with David Roman: I think anything can be sold. It may not fetch the price the artist is seeking or deserves, but anything can be sold. Yes, galleries should exhibit challenging artwork that will help make a name for them, but for artists to continually set themselves up for failure by refusing to make the sale is professional suicide. Curt Conklin is correct in stating the three things that affect demand are aesthetic quality, exposure of the artist, and the community's understanding of the work, but the best exposure is, in my opinion, a sale. A sale will also help explain the work to the community: it is worth something to someone.
MB
---------------------------------
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In 1971, Seth Siegelaub wrote an interesting (and
legally binding) contract which almost revolutionized
art sales. It is a revolutionary document, but did
not revolutionize art sales because it was not widely
adopted. Among other things, the contract stipulated
profit-sharing for resale of works, consultation with
artists for traveling shows, and rights of the artist
to free rental of the work from its owner for the
purposes of exhibition.
View the whole thing at:
[http://www.fuenfnullzwei.de/pieces/antworten/siegelaub.html]
Or, in a slightly more legible version in "Theories
and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of
Artists' Writings" (1996, Stiles and Selz)
Siegelaub was a unique dealer in that he sided with
the artists all the way, dealt in extremely
challenging (i.e.: "unsellable") work, and was
proactive in creating offering concrete solutions to
messy art/commerce problems.
I've got one ready to go, syllabus and all, business and law skills. I had
to fight like hell to have it offered at the University of Wisconsin
Madison when I was up there, I had a waiting list that could have filled 4
more sections, the students were enthusiastic and they couldn't find the
funding to offer it a second time. I think art schools are getting better
about teaching professional practices, but they are far from offering a
solid curriculum that gives new artists a basis from which to go forth into
the world with a realistic view of things.
Gabe wrote- In 1971, Seth Siegelaub wrote an interesting (and
legally binding) contract
This is an a amazing document. I wonder if its language is still adaptable
to current legal standards and practices. Thanks for the heads up.
MT/DB
"This is an a amazing document. I wonder if its language is still adaptable
to current legal standards and practices. Thanks for the heads up."
Yes, it is. Siegelaub was pretty intent on not making the document just a
provocation. It was crafted with legal experts after working with artists to find
what most concerned them. At that moment anyway. The only way it wouldn't be
adaptable is if artists' changed what they wanted, or a high court precedent
voided one of the definitions of ownership. I don't think any has.
The contract was distributed for free for quite sometime and posted on the
streets, etc. Several blue-chip artists supported it, as did a handful of
curators and dealers, but of course it didn't stand a chance of being taken up as an
industry standard. Not long after Siegelaub cut his ties to the artworld to
organize a global leftist library that lent books for free on mass
communication techniques, then he became a publisher of leftist political books, then a
rare textiles dealer. It would be interesting, since most downloading lawsuits
rely at least partially on intellectual ownership, if something like the
siegelaub contract could sneak in through the back door as a way to prevent piracy?
it could gain favor in various industries, then again it probably gives too
much control to the creator, rather than the publisher.
This is a neat idea and reminds me of a long conversation I had with Jason
Salavon over beers (um, lots of beers) last summer.
But I'll play the devils advocate and try to put some holes in it.
1) What's the definition of "art" as protected in this document? Paintings,
sure. But what about a piece of pottery? What about a piece of assembly
line pottery? What about a piece of assembly line art (like a print)?
Would anyone suggest that I owe Homer Laughlin (Ohio Ceramics factory of the
50s) a share of the revenue I received for selling a Fiesta Ware carafe on
EBay last week? What about a piece of important mid century furniture?
What about a piece of really beautifully designed AKEA furniture. When you
let the line get grey the model breaks down.
2) Its logistically untenable. Maybe Sotheby's knows where to mail the
Calder royalty checks, but what does the collecting public do about the
thousands of less well known artists whose whereabouts and personal history
are not documented? 20 years down the road, you can't expect someone not to
unload a piece because they don't know where to send the royalty check.
3) Economically speaking, this simply increases the cost of the protected
art up front by, a) limiting the purchasers upside (reducing his incentive
to take a risk) and increasing the cost of future transaction. There are a
whole bunch of implications of this that I will spare this list, but what it
really means is that less work will sell and for lower cash prices.
Wouldn't you rather have less cash now?
This type of contract might help Richard Serra at this phase in his career
but it sure as hell wouldn't help Gabe Fowler. If I may use Gabe as an
example (heck, its attention) the success of his 8.5x11 series had a lot to
do with the fact that it seemed like an underpriced time capsule. No
offense to anyone involved with the project but it was sold as a project
that was likely to increase in value. Don't get me wrong, it was also
great. And of course I only purchased mine on its artistic merit.
Curt
A couple arguments, to play the anti-devil's advocate:
Well, most people who design for corporations have a contract that stipulates
their rights, or lack thereof, to what they invent--or design--for the
company.
For example, having known some inventors, I know someone who invented items
for a large appliance company, their contract stipulated that anything created
wile on staff belonged to the company, not the designer. For one of his
successful inventions he was thanked with stock, while the company got the patent.
He didn't really complain the stock was worth some cash, but later on he went
on to teach college. A job he wouldn't have needed if he held the infinitely
more valuable patent.
It is worth noting many museums have stipulations in contracts that bind
curators in much the same way for their exhibition ideas, realized or not.
And there is much legal precedent that differentiates between art and
industrialized objects. So I don't think this such a quandary. Craft probably does
fall under art.
Well, since you know someone who owns dusty groove, surely you know records
are re-released all the time where the original performers have disappeared.
And surely you have seen the little tagline that usually reads on those items
something like: "We have made efforts to contact all artists and creators and
estates. If, despite our efforts, we have been unable to identify all copyrigh
ts, please contact..."
As a seller you would know to: a. put some of that profit in a savings
account, or b. be prepared to get smacked at some later date.
There is the artists' rights society after all, which tries to register works
much like the music industries database of songwriters. Plus we all know most
work does not increase in value, and I think the resale stipulation cover
profit made on increased value of the work, not on same to lesser values of
resale. Maybe I'm reading into the contract.
Pardon my thickheaded ways, but how does it increase the cost? We all know
what, something like 96 percent of art never increases in value. So obviously
most objects are not affected by many of the points of the contract. And public
art, which has its own rules, usually has a pretty defined contract to state a
variance from this model. You won't take a risk on a big name artist because
you may only profit 1 million on resale rather than 5 million? A future resale
will have to be 30 million instead of 20 million to cover the collector's
costs? Hardly. It would be like sales tax. We all know its there, and do the math
in our head before the purchase.
The contract seems logical, if we are going to agree to believe in
intellectual property, and in the "hand of the artist," which it seems this culture
wants to believe in, then the artist should have the legal rights both strains
imply. Most business worlds, except the art world, have contracts. These
contracts usually have a standard form that can be varied under negotiations of all
parties involved. This contract, or something similar, seems it would be a valua
ble tool to clear the murky areas of art sales. Anyone remember peter halley's
lawsuit from the early nineties?
And by all means, let's al make an example out of gabe.
a
Anthony, I enjoy this line of discussion, but fear it's going to put the
rest of the world to sleep. So dear readers, get ready for a nap or skip
this one.
Anything that increases the cost of ownership or decreases the resale value
of an object effectively increases its purchase price. For example, there
is a piece of work that I like for 100 bucks and I am willing to pay it.
But then I realize that I have to put work into owning it. That hassle has
a monetary value to me. Maybe its 1 penny, maybe its 20 bucks, either way
it's greater than zero. That may not matter when thinking about an single
piece, but on the aggregate it definitely matters.
Next, as unpopular a concept as it is, one of the reasons collectors take
risks with emerging artists is the hope of that elusive return. Not
necessarily because one wants to sell it and reap the economic profit but
because one wants to think that own something that is worth more than they
paid for it. If purchase contracts prohibited that return going to the
owner of the work, their incentive to take the risk would be diminished and
they would buy less emerging stuff.
There would be a secondary affect as well. The incentive for a collector to
sell increased valued work would go down, reducing the liquidity of the
market. Liquidity is essential to proper pricing and without it is doubtful
that art would go up in value as it does. This would hurt the artist
because a) he wasn't getting his royalty checks for the pieces that
collectors choose not to sell, b) the value of his new work would not
benefit from the increasing value of his work in the secondary market.
Craft vs Art
I accept your argument about industrial objects being owned by the
corporation and not protected by the contract, but I won't buy it for
crafts. Examples: I have a quilt that my grandmother knitted me and want to
sell it on ebay. Its craft and the market is paying handsomely right now.
Vs. I have a knitted quilt that I purchased at auction and was shown in the
quilts of Gee's Bends and want to sell it. Vs. I have a sculpture knitted by
Georgina Valverde that is in the shape of a quilt. Who's to decide which is
art and protected and which isn't?
I may be biased, but I also think I am fair. Let the collector own what he
buys and be done with it. Very few artists work actually goes up in value
and those that do are benefiting from the same sources that are driving up
the value of their secondary work. Instituting such a contract will
actually benefit very few artists but it will hurt (through hassle and
increased transaction costs) every collector purchase.
Contracts
I actually am a big advocate of contracts in the art world. I have seen too
many of my friends, (both artists and dealers) get burned without them.
They don't have to be filled with legalize or onerous to anyone. And they
can always be changed when circumstances merit. I'd love to see some
discussion here about it.
Curt Alan Conklin
H: 773.782.0659
C: 773.343.2348
F: 425.790.9739
calanc at yahoo.com
curt at curtconklin.com
1942 N. Wolcott Ave.
Chicago IL 60622
If you take everything lightly you can carry more stuff.
It has been awhile since I have given this any thought, but didn't
California manage to legislate some sort of resale percentage on art
auctions? I would suspect that if true, this would kill the auction market
OR make everyone terribly clever about incorporating in some other state so
the business was routed through Oregon or something like that.
I personally think these models of resale payments etc are a nice idea, but
utterly non-workable in the marketplace, and artists are the worst about
presenting a unified front.
If this discussion persists I'll have to get off my ass and brush up on
this topic.
...so everything smells of money!
At risk of mixing industrialized oranges with handmade apples: We all know
this when we buy a car right? We know there is upkeep, we can check what it
costs to repair, etc. We also know whether we need to buy a car, a yacht, or a
motorcycle, or a CTA card based on what we want, and how much extra cost we want
to assume. I think temporarily, ideas of this sort in the art world would
"increase purchase price" but once we realized it actually just makes clear what
we should all know ahead of time, over the long run it would probably level
prices. The collector shouldn't fool themselves that buying a neon light is the
same as an oil painting, or a chair of lard. And I have no problem with lemon ar
tists or lemon artworks being labeled lemons, paying the price, and having to
clean up their ways, just like automobile manufacturers. Companies fail, so
should artists. They just shouldn't be taken advantage of.
Maybe I should add I don't believe free markets ever exist, so that some
regulation is always a necessity. Evidence suggests a long trail of the errors of
the art market.
I guess I foresee the owners simply having to share the profit with the
artist, rather than give all the resale to the artists. And again, if we are going
to continue surrounding artworks with the aura of the artists' master touch, I
think that needs to be paid for, even in the secondary market.
Well, this is such a complex arena. There are dealers who horde or withhold,
artists who limit supply, or give things away, so many factors that affect the
situation it is hard to know how this would play out, or what level that
liquidity actually is, or needs be for stability.
I do know, as a related tangent, that I disagree with you and think quality
has about .01 percent to do with the cost of an artwork. Name brand has a much
greater pull on price. The asking price for Ruschas and Richters is through
the roof, but I haven't read anything anywhere that thinks their new works are
the best of their career. The price has nothing to do with the quality of the
individual works. If a good artist sudden turns out a bunch of turkeys, the
gallery still ups the price. And they often still sell, out of name more than qual
ity.
In general I think the art market has been inflationary on so many levels
(except the introductory level) for, oh, bout 30 years. If artists could receive
compensation for currently viewed masterpieces when they go to auction, maybe
the cost of their current work would drop to a more accurate level?
I hate to sound mean--nothing against your grandma--but I don't see any
comparison as a product between these items, only as a technique or physical
object. The world has already determined these arbitrary divisions, which in part
dictates legal precedent. William Morris stained glass sells for a lot more than
craft show stained glass. Original eames for more than copies, or production
line varieties. Sometimes I've seen outrageously priced art at thrift stores
for the simple reason it was well crafted: maybe we could cause this a zombie
artwork (no known heartbeat, but we can agree its moving). In this manner if in
later years something, or your grandma, gets reassessed as artwork or artist,
or valued name brand craft, the secondary market seems to have no qualms
about changing the price. Haven't you ever watched Antiques Roadshow?
Richard:
"It has been awhile since I have given this any thought, but didn't
California manage to legislate some sort of resale percentage on art
auctions? I would suspect that if true, this would kill the auction market
OR make everyone terribly clever about incorporating in some other state so
the business was routed through Oregon or something like that."
Any laws need to be enacted with consistency I would blame the
implementation, not the law. If a state enacted a 20 percent sales tax next to an easily
accessed state with no sales tax, obviously its gonna be a disaster. It has to be
federal, in accordance with local levels, or nothing I would think. To which:
I think the lack of united front is what makes them unworkable. This sadly is
true across the board look at Cortney Love's (would not be my first pick for
a figurehead) recent attempts to start a Union for musicians... (Heck,
Siegelaub, Rauchenberg, Andre, Reinhardt and others tried it in the art world back in
the sixties.)
That is the most absurd piece of documentation I have ever seen.
First of all, it would never hold up anywhere. There is no legal
precedent for that kind of ownership. It's the equivalent of an open
adoption.
And, always the practical one, I would NEVER sign a document like that,
no one with a brain in their head and two dimes in their pocket should
sign such an agreement. No matter how much I wanted the piece of art,
that document would kill the deal. You are absolutely, positively,
opening yourself up to a frivolous lawsuit. The whole thing would be
absurd, but you would still have to spend thousands on a lawyer.
The essence of collecting art is that for some collectors, it's like
betting on racehorses. You're not just buying art you like, you're
buying art that may be worth a lot more, like stocks. And if you pick
the right artist, it's a long shot, but you may win big. And it is that
very gambling that puts money in the hands of many artists.
And the artist totally benefits from their work going up in value.
Always with the personal example, the next series of fish I make will be
significantly more expensive than the previous collection. Not just
because the sculptures are better, but because I am more established as
a artist, and therefore I can charge more.
Did someone on the listserv mention they were a lawyer? What do you
think of that document? Doesn't a contract have to follow the laws of
the state about ownership?
Kathryn
Responding to Kathryn's comments.
Yeah! What she said.
Curt
I am enjoying this sales thread more than I expected, even though several
days ago I threw my chip in with annoyance that someone would decry a
zombie thread over a thread about money/sales.
But does anyone out there prefer a work/lifestyle model based upon the Open
Source community, as opposed to a model based on a successful merchant?
I am happy for my friends when they manage to sell art. But I am also happy
for them when they get bonuses at work, or gain some inheritance money. The
fact that they have sold doesn't enhance my perception of their work, or
their artistic progression. Sales are a confidence booster, and cover some
expenses, but I don't think they are a necessary piece of the artistic
practice. If Kathryn is going to go for it, and sustain herself on art
sales (based upon her talents as a saleswoman), then kudos! I think it is
great if it will cause her art practice to generate an interesting way of
living. And an interesting life, in my opinion, is the real reason to
become an artist. Extracting a career (in the sense of sustaining oneself
financially) is secondary. And there are many of folks out there who did
not emerge from school with naive misconceptions about their art career,
and not being engaged in sales is not a definition of failure.
One retraction -- someone did say that students of art should be required
to study business and marketing. I agree, especially because it would
enhance their ability to interface with the public.
Getting back to an earlier thread about filesharing threatening musicians'
ownership of their product, and how this pattern may threaten gallery
artists as the versimilitude of the digital medium improves. I do believe
it will threaten ownership of our products, and I kinda look forward to it.
We can either dread this, or embrace it and dive right in. Musicians
nowadays who realize that their packaged products may not pay their bills
anymore, can capitalize on the strength of disks and mp3's for
dissemination, and their performance skills for dough. Such musicians will
be more likely to inject their own music into the filesharing morass, or
offer up the mp3's off their own sites (or net labels). I would like to see
the Internet as the bedrock of visual artists' activity, and gallery
exhibitions as simply those periodic and exciting opportunities to traffick
in space and real-time circumstance.
And maybe this would just exaggerate the aura of physical objects and
warrant their salability. Hence, necessitating marketing and sales finesse,
etc...
Erik
Kathryn Born wrote:
OG's
I will go ahead and admit it right now...I have been known to watch
"The Apprentice" from week to week.
Having said that, a few weeks ago the "stunt/physical
challenge/business deal that the two groups had to do was...sell art.
Trump set them up with a handful (maybe four or five) of studio visits
and they then had to pick which artist to use for a solo show, in some
kinda swanky gallery's in Manhattan. Their goal was to sell the work
and make as much money as possible, and whichever group made the most
won ( and thusly did not have to "go to the boardroom" for another
firing).
It was intriguing for the reason that, here you have all these
bright-eyed, Masters holding, financial goons immediately breaking the
whole thing into dollars.
The cameras shadowed them from the studio visits, to hanging the work,
then through the opening. Even following them around while they were
trying to hustle the work. I smelled a few suspicious "sales' that
occurred, but over all it was great to see them aggressively pitch the
stuff with almost no interest or concern.
And, as always, it was funny to see how artists are portrayed/portray
themselves on TV.
re: fees
If actors can get residuals from syndication for years after the
original production, and graphic design houses get paid per individual
usages, why is a similar structure for artwork so far out of the
question?
Adam
re: fees
If actors can get residuals from syndication for years after the
original production, and graphic design houses get paid per individual
usages, why is a similar structure for artwork so far out of the
question?
Didn't you know that unlike everything else in the modern world which is
acknowledged as theoretical (in its scientific process of investigation,
meaning specific and not general or historical), business and capitalism are
concrete embodiments that are attached directly to god's colon. That
practicioners of said sciences are immobile in their assumptions and unmoved
by critical discourse that calls into question anything since Adam Smith, an
enlightenment relic(my inclusion). Mostly because it calls into question
their belief in the supply side of said arguments. Which have deterieted in
most nations significance since the seventies when green party beliefs began
to take hold and be made manifest through out economies in Europe and
otherwise. The gift economy and I Qoute, "The Mondragon Co-operative
Federation (MCF) is a community of economically highly successful
worker-owned, worker-controlled production and consumption co-operatives
centred around Mondragon, a town in the Basque region of northern Spain, and
now spreading throughout the Basque provinces and beyond. The MCF is an
experiment in participatory economic democracy rooted in a powerful
grassroots movement for Basque cultural revival and autonomy, but inclusive
of non-Basques ."
MT/DB
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, Kathryn Born wrote:
Actually you could do a complex search through Yahoo or Google and get
results, but you have to learn yet another shorthand logical language.
We were about to put ORG ( [http://chicagoart.ORG] ) "on steroids" a year ago,
but regained our sanity. Consider...
/jno
I watched that episode of The Apprentice and it was interesting because the team that won chose to sell art they personally liked, whereas the team the lost chose art that looked sellable. So, think twice if a dealer tells you your work isn't sellable.....there might be a hidden message, i.e. his/her opinion that is guiding the decision. It is a basic sales principle-- you have to like and respect what you are selling in order to be successful, and by successful I mean not a creep who preys on the innocence of children and the trust of senior citizens.
I think Siegelaub's contract could work but I agree that it would increase the cost of an artwork and decrease the likelihood of future auction sales, since the collector / investor would have to seek a larger profit margin to make up for the percent he/she has to pay back to the artist, thus choosing to sell only when the market is on a definite upswing. Investors would take less risk buying unproven, young artists, and stick to the blue chips.
Relating this to the discussion about file sharing, the RIAA began because of James Petrillo here in Chicago. He was combating the loss of jobs musicians were facing with recorded or canned music. His response was a legal one, which has since led to the battle surrounding file sharing. I don't think his actions really prevented musicians from losing their jobs, since live musicians in restaurants, bars and nightclubs are far less common than what they used to be 75 years ago, but it did help those artists who were successful enough to record music to earn more money and, more importantly, retain some control over their music. Hence musicians who retire as millionaires from one hit wonders.
I think Siegelaub's contract would work better if you got rid of all the exhibition and display controls. The work of art should be looked at as intellectual property, akin to a musical score or a book that has been copyrighted. The musician and the writer can't control where and when their works are read and how they are used, but they can control or at least influence how they are published and resold. It would minimize the burden on the collector, too, since most collectors hate lending stuff for exhibitions as it leaves an empty space on their wall for months while the work is in a show. I can t blame them either ..imagine buying a desk designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and for two months every year you had to rent another desk because yours was being shipped to an exhibition.
And, the contract would work only if a majority of exhibiting artists began using it and didn't back to pressure. Otherwise, collectors and galleries would shrug off the artist's demand as eccentric and over burdensome. And the idea of getting a majority of any group of artists to agree to anything would be a feat in and of itself.
MB
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Response to adam's post
I saw the apprentice episode too, and although the "goons" did break it into
dollars, the clear message of the show was that if you aren't passionate
about the art no amount of business or financial savvy will allow you to
succeed. Damn, it was a great show. I was so happy when little miss excuses
got axed.
Because art is an object that one individual buys and takes home - graphic
art, songs, and tv shows continue to exist after they are consumed. Find a
gallery that will lease art and we can start talking about it, but with the
current model, if I buy it, its mine.
Mine mine mine.
Curt
I would also add to Curt's that actors work for corporations and
institutions and there is already a contract in place.
It would be a cultural change, is my big point. The easy transaction
between artist and buyer would suddenly be a contractual agreement. As a
rule, no one should sign any contract without their lawyer looking at
it. So the additional step of a legal review would have to take place.
It's also setting a tone that the artist and buyer stay attached to each
other indefinitely. Which is weird. I mean, if you were to have a one
night stand with someone, and then they whipped out an agreement stating
that based on certain circumstances in the future, you may have to find
them (even if years have passed), track them down, and inform them of
certain facts or pay them money, etc.
You get the idea.
Lastly, if you had a lot of art in your home, and your house burned
down, it would be this huge extra burden to figure out who you had a
contract with, and contact each artist. It's all very messy and
complicated.
I'm just arguing about the real logistics of changing the nature of the
sale and turning an oftentimes cash transaction into a legal, binding
contract.
Conceptually, sure, it's an interesting idea, and all's fair and worth
discussion.
K
Mine mine mine."
Curt
"It's also setting a tone that the artist and buyer stay attached to each
other indefinitely. Which is weird. I mean, if you were to have a one
night stand with someone, and then they whipped out an agreement stating
that based on certain circumstances in the future, you may have to find
them (even if years have passed), track them down, and inform them of
certain facts or pay them money, etc. "
This isn't weird, legally you are bound to someone for a one night stand.
paternity suits, trials for passing along infectious diseases, michael jackson's
and kobe bryant's current trials. etc.
I still say, agreeing with adam for once, that if we don't have any troubles
with royalties for musicians and actors on the intellectual and performance
copyrights, artist should get them as well. and auction is the most likely, and
reasonable, place.
a
"...but with the current model, if I buy it, its mine. Mine mine mine."
what model is that? You seem to be confessing to an exponential failure on the part of a collector base that I don't uniformly agree with. My feeling was that the collectors I've come into contact with believe as I do that living with work is important. The notion that the life of an artwork is essentially over once they have been purchased is utterly false. It all depends, I think, on how you clarify 'once an artwork has been consumed'. Consumption of artwork is not so straigh forward. Forget about the privelege of living with such works but not only through simulated means i.e. books, catalogues, journals (all objects) but more overtly through the loan process of such works.
I think your trying to say that the quantity of songs/graphic design etc. subverts a sort of temporal comdity. But the consumption of an artwork certainly can and does transend place.
Yours,
Ginger
Anthony,
Again, there is a huge difference between published media and visual art
objects.
Once I buy a CD, its mine to play and play and play. I don't have to worry
about any relationship with the musician. When I've decided I'm done with
it, I can take it to Reckless Records and be treated like dirt by some 19
year old punk for having bad taste in music. It's my CD to sell.
However, if that CD is out of print and I'm offered more than I paid for it,
I don't legally owe the musician anything. Of course I can't use it for the
backing on a TV commercial but this underscores the point that there are
some royalty free ways to benefit from the increased value of art and some
that must compensate the artist.
You suggest that we don't have a problem with royalties on music. If you
expected me to pay royalties on the resale of CDs or Books, I and most other
people would have a real problem with it.
Curt
Ginger,
The "mine mine mine" thing was me just being silly. But does the life of
your car die when you sell it to someone else? Of course not, it becomes an
essential part of the new owner's life. The exception is when you sell it to
someone to whom you are close. Now it and its new owner may still be part
of your life, but it's a coincidence.
Art is the same way. I have relationships with many of the artists whose
work I own, and often that's the best part. But it is not mandatory. Lets
not over-romanticize.
Curt
The rights of reproduction belong to the artist forever, but the object
itself belongs to the purchaser.
The purchaser can hang it, destroy it, sell it, or bury it.
I'm pretty sure this is the way the law is structured. And (Anthony) it
does parallel the music industry.
Curt wrote:
I agree with Curt regarding the financial side of this contract. Comparing
royalty rights to the purchase of an original or limited edition piece of
art isn't a great comparison. A more appropriate comparison would be
comparing royalty rights to an open edition image - which I thought that
artists do have.
In addition just because a musician writes or records a hit, it doesn't mean
that the value of the rest of their work will go up. It is their royalty
rights that allow them to profit from the increased sales of one of their
creations. Just because an actor is in an episode of Seinfeld that plays
over and over doesn't mean that they are going to get paid more for other
gigs or even get other gigs.
On the other hand, if the secondary market value of an artist's work rises -
typically that will have an effect on the price of new work and the artist
will indirectly benefit from those profits that their collectors make. A
contract like this would inhibit the rise in value of work because it would
inhibit the incentive to sell. This in turn would impact the price that can
be asked for new work. An artist typically has an interest, though
indirect, in the secondary market value of their work. An artist who
anticipates or hopes that their their work will rise significanlty in value
should be holding on to pieces so they can sell them at a later time.
Also - how many artists would actually benefit from the financial side of
this arangement. And how concerned are we about those few artists who would
benfit? Should I be concerned if Damien Hirst, for example, gets 15% of
what his work sells for at auction.
Of all the things we can discuss that are negativly impacting an artists
ability to make a living - this one effects very few. Why not discuss why
there aren't a lot of contemporary collectors in cities like Chicago? What
can be done to educate young people about collecting or viewing art?
In terms of intellectual property rights, aren't visual artists work
protected to the same extent as a musician or writer?
Jeff
Well here's another thought. Say your art achieves some overnight
success, and you have 15 minutes of fame on the auction circuit. The
artist, getting a cut, makes a bundle on his/her new found fame.
Then, 20 years later, their work is seen as a flash in the pan, and has
little value. The buyer takes a huge hit, not being able to sell the
piece to anyone.
Would the artist then have to share in that financial loss, and give
money back to the buyer?
K
On Mar 26, 2004, at 11:28 AM, Curt Conklin wrote:
Can the purchaser change it? add to it? Call it their own and resell it?
Just wondering.
Ha! Funny.
By the way, how many indie-rockers does it take to screw in a light
bulb?....
You mean you don't know!?
K
"But does the life of your car die when you sell it to someone else?"
Well, I don't really see the legitimacy in analyzing the sale of an artwork in comparison to that of a car, nor do I think its a conversation which is appropriate.
I'm not suggesting, as you have, that the work work should create a personal relationship between a collector and an artist (although that shows a deal of loyalty and compassion) but rather that it can/should/ofetn does transcend place and have exposure outside the premise of a collectors home in the experiences of others not persoanly related to A. the artst or B. the collector.
Ginger wrote: "You seem to be confessing to an exponential failure on the part of a collector base that I don't uniformly agree with. My feeling was that the collectors I've come into contact with believe as I do that living with work is important."
Once you buy something, it IS yours, and there is nothing wrong with that. You can even live with it while it is yours. Sure, buying a work and putting it in storage never to be seen again until auction time, in other words not living with it is a terrible thing, but I ve never heard of any collectors who do that. In fact, I have only read of dealers who buy art and quickly flip it for a profit, never having lived with the artwork.
I don't think collectors would want to pay fees for hanging a work on the wall and paying for it every time they look at it. Art can't be compared to actors or musicians who are paid every time their work is played publicly for profit. Nor should it be compared to a one night stand.....although that model would fit performance-based works so long as no one purchases the rights to the piece.
I also disagree that you need a lawyer every time you read a contract. The reason there is an overabundance and dependence on lawyers is because most people are under the assumption legalese is difficult to understand. Most contracts can be simplified and done without a lawyer. There have been do-it-yourself kits for wills, divorces, and other unfortunate but common circumstances for years, and its getting more frequent with the internet and downloadable forms.
Contracts between artists and collectors would be a cultural change, but it is long overdue, and it would be best accomplished without some sort of labor union or controlling interest like the RIAA who might usurp control from the relationship between the artist and collector. With a simple contract that is used widely the practice could quickly become routine. I would argue the contract should stipulate that an artist would receive 2 or 3 percent of the gross resale price that exceeds the original price the artwork was sold for. Anything more than 3 percent would greatly affect the average return of art, which is around 5 to 9 percent. By subtracting the original price the collector would not get shafted if the work is sold for less than what he paid, and by taking the percent from the gross resale price the artist s fee could be divided between auctioneer, dealer, or whoever might be the middle man in the transaction and the collector. The contract could have a
providence-ownership list attached; each new transaction would be added along with the selling price listed, and transactions could only take place if each new owner agrees to follow the contract, less a sale be voided.
Sounds pretty simple to me, but then I m not a lawyer or a collector.
MB
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OG's
YES!! Because nobody has heard of you, your argument means less to the
greater community. I'm not being rude, but that is common sense. The
only ones who could pull off some type of change would be someone of
that profile. Does Hirst deserve less than you do? Any kind of
change to the status quo would eventually Trickle Down to people like
you and me. Egads, did I just promote Reaganomics?!?!?!?
Back when art was governed by "schools", was there a framework like the
Actors Guild, RIAA, for implementing a "repeating sales" clause? I'm
sure the language would have been different, maybe such a thing
actually did exist.
Something similar does already take place when you consider museum and
gallery "loans". Pieces are loaned to one place or another for a
price, sorry "fee", then returned. There is a pile of legal
documentation that accompanies it. This is one step removed from the
artists hands, but could that be remedied? Maybe when you are just
starting out this is out of the question. Once there is a reputation,
try dealing on a loan basis with some while selling outright to others.
A little more Picasso, a little less Mondrian. ( sorry if that is too
Euro-centric).
Having worked for a couple private collections I can say that artwork
changes hands much more frequently than you might guess. Anyone read
Feigen's Crypt book? If we could put together some kind of system,
there would be a lot of money made.
One snag to the idea is that most artists are so relieved to get rid of
some of their stuff that they might not want it back!
Also once you get to a certain level a piece of art that you have
bought isn't really yours to do with what you will. There a few legal
debates brewing concerning proper stewardship of art that has become
something like humanity's treasures, and if you really could burn one
of these without being taken to court or even having the rest of your
collection seized. Like DCFS for aesthetics.
I apologize if this email has gone too many directions, but I am on
Spring Break right now, and I felt like going wild for a second. I am
also wearing a wet T-shirt while I type this.
Adam
Response to K's joke
he he
Curt
MB Writes: "I would argue the contract should stipulate that an artist would
receive 2 or 3 percent of the gross resale price that exceeds the original
price the artwork was sold for."
Well, that's kind of absurd unless you are also suggesting that the artist
agrees to compensate the collector the same percentage if the work is sold
for less than purchase price at auction.
You can't ask someone to share upside without agreeing to share risk unless
you are willing to lower price - which gets back to my first point. These
contracts increase the purchase price in a non cash way. So to sell a piece
of the same value, the cash price will have to come down.
Again underscoring what many here have said:
These contracts will benefit the 1 in 1000 artists whose work appreciates
significantly and will hurt the other 999 artists who have to reduce the
price of their work to sell it with the contract.
Curt
I love to receive a check for my artwork, but I feel like I do my best
work when it is a gift for somebody...
This is what a exhibit notice looks like when you write it while
sobbing.
Ha ha ha. I really do feel much better now.
And while I'm on the mush mobile, I do want to say that although I have
not gotten the warmest responses to my calls for artist support
networks, this group really has been a type of support. In a
non-existant way, it's been someone to talk to when I'm working at
night, and I thank you all for that.
I hope you can make it, and please introduce yourself to me if you come
to the show.
[http://chicagoart.org/wiki/index.cgi?The_One_Line_Collective]
Always and nothing more,
Kathryn
On Fri, 26 Mar 2004, Kathryn Born wrote:
Hey, we'll all show, and wear name tags.
Dudes?
/jno
I will do my darndest to be there.
At 01:25 AM 3/27/2004 -0600, you wrote:
What should the nametags say.
I think it would be better if they were someone else's name and a false title.
At 01:25 AM 3/27/2004 -0600, you wrote:
early spring
Lilac buds open:
/jno
Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise.
Poor Richard Sayeth
early spring
Lilac buds open:
Or if people impersonated each other.
Happy spring.
K
On Mon, 29 Mar 2004, Kathryn Born wrote:
I wanna be Michael.
/jno
How man michael's are there, and who exactly is 'jno'?
MB
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"It's more complicated than that."
"But it also can not be denied that the likes of Napster and Kazaa are
hurting the music distribution industry. Although that's Virgin and
Coconuts, it is also Myopic, Reckless, Grammaphone and all the other
independent stores that we love. One of my best friends owns
Dustygroove
and this is a conversation we have all the time. They will also bear
the
brunt of this punishment."
"Would you be happy if an image you created was appropriated by
Thomas Kincade who added custom sofa coloring and brush texturing and
sold
it to millions of tasteless housewives around the country?"
"Of course this exercise requires us imagining that you actually make
work, but still."
"Or what if the appropriator didn't make money off it? What if they
used it to
promote their cause - one you didn't agree with - or used it to promote
their own careers (as DJ Dangermouse has undoubtedly although perhaps
unwittingly done)? "
"As for the gift based economy, um, they don't work."
"In 1936 Walker Evans photographed the Burroughs, a family of
sharecroppers in Depression era Alabama. In 1979 in Sherrie Levine
rephotographed Walker Evans' photographs from the exhibition catalog
"First and Last." In 2001 Michael Mandiberg scanned these same
photographs, and created AfterWalkerEvans.com and
AfterSherrieLevine.com to facilitate their dissemination as a comment
on how we come to know information in this burgeoning digital age."
"By distributing the images online with certificates of authenticity,
the images are accessible by anyone. Unlike the work of the late Felix
Gonzalez-Torres known for his spills of candy and stacks of paper
from which the viewer can take a piece of, though the sculpture stays
complete because the owner possesses the certificate of authenticity,
the right to reproduce the certificates here are used to insure that
each satellite image be considered with equal authenticity, not the
opposite. This is an explicit strategy to create a physical object with
cultural value, but little or no economic value. "
"Don't forget to vote today!
"between this right world and this wrong world, I refuse to choose"
- Camus
"Greetings, I found a website for Dogmatic, though it doesn't look like
there's been any shows there for some time. Is there a list somewhere of
the other gallery websites?"
"Hello, the site hasn't been updated in some time.
"The site hasn't been updated because server space which was free
prior to August '03 suddenly started costing me a hundred dollars
for a twelve month cycle.
"I don't believe there to be any software issues lurking at its
fringes either. So your assesment is less than astute Mr. Cook,
its ill informed.
"Furthermore it is not a concern of yours so why meddle or judge?
"Finally, this the gallery is not its http construct, it is
a physical space with a physical address and a phone number
attached to that.
"One is that the Grey Album is a model worth looking at. What
happens when powers don't allow someone to sell the work, but it
gets mass distribution anyway. I had never heard of this band..
"File sharing, like it or not, is here to stay.
"this borrow/steal phenomena I believe will spread throughout the
whole culture.
"If I do art using Flash animation, it could be replicated and
distributed without loss of quality. So that's technically, why I
said "art is next".
"I don't think art is next.
"Zombies need to move slowly so one can easily shoot them in the head.
Plus, they look a lot funnier falling down from a casual gait. Who wants
to see zombies falling over with momentum?"
"why all the concern about rigor mortis? it's not like the original dead
films are paragons of scientific veracity. we are talking about a movie
where zombies can continue to move around after being shot in the
stomach 14 times. is that any more believable than a zombie that is
capable of running?"
"As unrealistic as it may be, if one were to believe it could / would
happen, I wholeheartedly believe the flesh eaters would move show.
Should we believe that some of these lazy-living, no-good, sit on your
ass, waiting for a handout motherfuckers would all of a sudden spring to
life with the nimbleness of a track and field star ONCE THEY ARE
DEAD????? Please!
To me, it is more realistic to believe that the dead would move slow
as their bodies start to decay, thus adding much more realism to the
movie, and scaring the shit out of me. I mean, corpses lying in a coffin
are stiff as hell. Ever see one get up and dance a jig? They'd be more
apt to slow waltz."
"i have to admit, you make some excellent points. people are generally
lazy shits (myself included), why would death turn us into sprinters?
but you've switched gears to a psychologically-based argument, which
might just be cheating. let's say the living dead only sprint every once
in a while, when food is in sight? or maybe just a half-trot? would that
appease you?"
"that said, the saying that Ken Foree's voodoo priest granddad back in
Trinidad told him was "When there's no more room in hell, the dead shall
walk the Earth."
not "run the earth," -- "walk the earth.""
"just 'cuz they say that in the original doesn't mean it's gospel. and
not to mention, lots of those zombies in the original do some crawling
after they lose the use of their legs, yet I didn't hear anything about
the dead crawling the earth. "the dead will walk the earth" is meant to
be interpreted metaphorically as describing the state of (un)being --
the zombie."
"Let's not be flippant, please. This is a zombie thread, treat it with
due respect. I have a lot of sympathy with Arz's pleas for slow-moving
zombies. The more shambling the better, as it's the sheer weight of
numbers that makes them threatening. But then you have to remember that
in Day of the Dead they'd got faster. Still shuffling, but they got
pretty animated when they got up close
I think the appeal of the zombie movies is the simplicity of the
premise. You're only expected to swallow one outlandish concept. They
don't howl at the moon, they can't turn into bats, they're generally a
bit crap"
"I'm not sold. Without wishing to sound like a ponce I liked the
satirical aspects of Dawn of the Dead as well as the zombie action. Like
how the slow zombies in the mall staring vacantly at stuff look
identical to the people in my city centre on a Saturday morning, moving
slowly and staring vacantly at stuff. I hope that poke at consumerist
society isn't lost in this remake. "
"But the true question is whether or not those phantom limb Paul Thek sculptures come
to life..."
"This country would be so much better if the smart
people like us could mandate taste.
- (1) is longer
- (2) is about the work
- (3) is serious sounding
- (4) finds a period or movement for the artist
- (5) makes note of the names of many other artists
- (6) describes the work in psychoanalytical terms
- (7) is written in a style between Milton and the Onion
- (8) offers clues to the theories of dead French philosophers
"Not sure how anyone else feels, but I personally hate selling
anything. I hate sales and haggling. Even when someone is asking
to commission something from me, I feel like avoiding it. etc ...
"First prize, steak knives."
"1) What's the definition of "art" as protected in this document? Paintings,
sure. But what about a piece of pottery? What about a piece of assembly
line pottery? What about a piece of assembly line art (like a print)?
Would anyone suggest that I owe Homer Laughlin (Ohio Ceramics factory of the
50s) a share of the revenue I received for selling a Fiesta Ware carafe on
EBay last week? "
"2) Its logistically untenable. Maybe Sotheby's knows where to mail the
Calder royalty checks, but what does the collecting public do about the
thousands of less well known artists whose whereabouts and personal history
are not documented? "
"3) Economically speaking, this simply increases the cost of the protected
art up front by, a) limiting the purchasers upside (reducing his incentive
to take a risk) and increasing the cost of future transaction. There are a
whole bunch of implications of this that I will spare this list, but what it
really means is that less work will sell and for lower cash prices.
Wouldn't you rather have less cash now? "
"Anything that increases the cost of ownership or decreases the resale value
of an object effectively increases its purchase price. For example, there
is a piece of work that I like for 100 bucks and I am willing to pay it.
But then I realize that I have to put work into owning it. "
"Next, as unpopular a concept as it is, one of the reasons collectors take
risks with emerging artists is the hope of that elusive return. Not
necessarily because one wants to sell it and reap the economic profit but
because one wants to think that own something that is worth more than they
paid for it. "
"The incentive for a collector to
sell increased valued work would go down, reducing the liquidity of the
market. Liquidity is essential to proper pricing and without it is doubtful
that art would go up in value as it does. "
"Examples: I have a quilt that my grandmother knitted me and want to
sell it on ebay. Its craft and the market is paying handsomely right now.
Vs. I have a knitted quilt that I purchased at auction and was shown in the
quilts of Gee's Bends and want to sell it. Vs. I have a sculpture knitted by
Georgina Valverde that is in the shape of a quilt. Who's to decide which is
art and protected and which isn't?"
"I may be biased, but I also think I am fair. "
Hey, we all do. I think.
"I personally think these models of resale payments etc are a nice idea, but
utterly non-workable in the marketplace, and artists are the worst about
presenting a unified front."
"Lastly, what I would like to see for art is some of the new
searching and databases to help people find art like people find
music.
"... and based on a huge array or sources, art critics, people
voting and other types of info...
- (1) who really wants this information? If you need the gallery
director's name for Dogmatic, type "dog" at ORG and you get a URL.
- (2) a matter of scale: there are 120 galleries, 350 exhibiting artists,
and 1000 spectators in Chicago. Those are the regulars.
"If actors can get residuals from syndication for years after the original
production, and graphic design houses get paid per individual usages, why is
a similar structure for artwork so far out of the question?"
"Because art is an object that one individual buys and takes home -
graphic art, songs, and tv shows continue to exist after they are
consumed. Find a gallery that will lease art and we can start talking
about it, but with the current model, if I buy it, its mine.
"Because art is an object that one individual buys and takes home - graphic
art, songs, and tv shows continue to exist after they are consumed. Find a
gallery that will lease art and we can start talking about it, but with the
current model, if I buy it, its mine."
"When I've decided I'm done with
it, I can take it to Reckless Records and be treated like dirt by some
19
year old punk for having bad taste in music."
"Also - how many artists would actually benefit from the financial side
of
this arangement. And how concerned are we about those few artists who
would
benfit? Should I be concerned if Damien Hirst, for example, gets 15% of
what his work sells for at auction."
-Steve
"This is what a exhibit notice looks like when you write it while
sobbing. Ha ha ha. I really do feel much better now.
-2000 March 10
-2001 April 11
-2002 April 11
-2003 March 28
-2004 March 25
-2000 March 10
-2001 April 11
-2002 April 11
-2003 March 28
-2004 March 25
"Or if people impersonated each other.