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08/28/2008: "Art vs. Marketing – Making Hazel Dooney Cringe" by Barney Davey
Creativity is about expression. Artists of all sorts whether visual, literary, musical, theatre, film, dance and beyond seek to express themselves through their art. Clearly, art and expression are part and parcel of the same package in which both are inextricably tied.
To effectively express or exhibit creativity, there must be those desirous of being exposed to creativity, to art. In other words, art needs to be shared, to be both lionized and criticized. Art needs to be accepted, or rejected and ultimately recognized by the cognoscenti, if not the public, as worthy.
White on white With monumental art, quite often the expression is bold and radical. Kasmir Malevich’s groundbreaking efforts to establish feelings as supreme over objectivity in art are a case in point. The Russian painter, printmaker, decorative artist and writer’s 1918 piece Suprematist Composition: White on White epitomizes his suprematist concept that helped lay the groundwork for abstract art in the 20th Century.
Paint by numbers In the case of Andy Warhol, arguably his best art was expressed in the form of clever jokes on high art as with his minimalist Brillo box sculptures and paintings derived from paint-by-numbers kits.As with the examples here of Malevich’s early 20th Century avant-garde movement and Warhol’s mid-century Pop art, one finds art, regardless of scale, pitch, tenor or importance, requires an audience to complete the expression of the work. It begs the question: Where do audiences come from? How do artists and collectors and others interested in their work get connected? The inevitable answer is marketing.
On its broadest scale, marketing encompasses a multitude of activities including advertising, networking, shows, publicity and promotion with each aimed at achieving a singular goal. Most often, in the case of visual artists, the goal is to gain reputation and the resultant growing collector base, price increases and sales that follow. For the would-be virtuous artist, often the financial success brought by marketing is secondary to the satisfaction of knowing an eager audience has consumed their expression, their creativity, their art. For them, it is the equivalent of the roar of the crowd and smell of the greasepaint for stage actors.
Still, my marketer’s heart cannot help but interject a paraphrase of marine environmental artist Wyland’s quote here, “The old masters had to wait until they were dead to make money. I didn’t want to wait that long.” There are many in his employ and gallery who find virtue in his philosophy.
Not surprisingly, many artists shudder at the thought of marketing their art. They have a hard time seeing their art treated as some product to be bar coded and sold in pedestrian manner. Art, they think, should be above such mundane money-grubbing activity. It’s not hard to sympathize with those that feel this way. Doubtless, if one appreciates art, then one knows it takes a mix of passion, creativity and vision to bring forth worthwhile works. And, given the personal nature and relationship most artists have with their work, it’s no wonder some find the business of art a necessary evil. Art works after all are not widgets.
Survival Apparently, Hazel Dooney is an artist who feels this way. She is a young Australian artist who has been on fast track art career nearly her entire adult life. She is bodacious, courageous and outrageous, and no stranger to being controversial and daring with her sexually themed art. Her recent exhibit Porno at the Mars Gallery in Melbourne is a perfect example. It created quite a stir with both positive and negative reactions to the challenging raw nature of some of its imagery.
Last October, I offhandedly mentioned Hazel Dooney in a post on my Art Print Issues blog. It was titled Street Smart Stealth Marketing Pays Off. Author Joy Butler was the focus. The post detailed how she used creative and proactive marketing to promote her book, The Permission Seeker's Guide Through the Legal Jungle: Clearing Copyrights, Trademarks and Other Rights for Entertainment and Media Productions.
Butler had emailed me to ask if I wanted a free review copy and if I liked it would I add it to my Amazon Listmania list I created for visual artists. The answers were yes and yes. I found the book a great resource and think it ought to be on the bookshelf of every serious artist.
In my blog post about Butler, I made mention of a recent post by Clint Watson in his popular and educational Fine Art Views blog wherein he pointed out that for a couple of years Hazel Dooney had been offering free downloads of certain images. He admires her for her marketing acumen in doing so and I was merely punctuating his thoughts.
Dooney doesn’t just offer the prints to be freely downloaded. She also will sign them for anyone who mails her a copy with a stamped return envelope. A fair deal no doubt. And regardless of how Dooney may not wish to agree, it is good smart marketing on her part. Building collectors and dealers one at a time is the only process that provides consistent long term results for artists. Dooney’s actions are a proactive means of beginning the process with newbie and established collectors alike.
Given her penchant and seemingly intuitive knack for publicity and the exhibitionist nature of some of her work, I was surprised to find Dooney referenced my post about Butler in her prolific Self vs. Self blog in a May 12, 2008 post titled Missing the Message. In her post, she laments most publicity resulting from the free giveaway of her art was about the “marketing buzz.” It seems my post was the most representative of her angst about missing the message.
Here is a part of her post:
“The idea behind it [offering an art print as a download Ed.] was a genuine attempt to enable anyone to own a personalised, and original print. [I take issue with using the term original to describe an apparent reproduction. Ed.] The works themselves have been popular, judging from the number sent back to me to be signed. Yet I'm puzzled by the predominant discussion of the idea. Most comments have focused on the marketing 'buzz'. Mention of the prints is included in articles like Street Smart Stealth Marketing Pays Off: a skim through this piece uncovers almost every word and phrase that, when coupled with the idea of 'art', make me cringe: entertainment and media productions, franchising, trademarks, multiplied and amplified marketing, targeted audience, guerrilla tactics, and of course, the summation, stealth marketing.
I publicise my work and myself. Art is my career – my life! – but it is also a deep and complicated need to communicate, somehow, with an audience. So, of course, I want people to see it.
Art is elitist. It's inaccessible to a vast number of people, except in reproduction. Even then, it's just a photograph in a book or catalogue or a low res' file on the internet. My prints are an attempt to change that, to give something that is an artwork itself. It's modest but genuine and representative of a much bigger concept that is related to the importance of ideas and art – not advertising – in everyone's day-to-day life.”
Not being one known to shy away from publicity or recognition, my only regret in being mentioned in Dooney’s blog is she left off the last “l” in the hyperlink to my post. That means nearly none of her readers, except the most determined and Web savvy, were able to link to it.
I do agree with Dooney in the importance of projecting ideas and art into the daily life of average folks. It is laudable and worthy. Where I disagree is that no matter how she would like to dissect her activities such as blogging or offering free downloads from marketing, it simply is not possible. Despite her didactic intent; her actions and activities are part of the bigger concept. Like art and expression, her motivations are entwined. Despite her angst and denial; you can’t give art away for high-minded purposes and not accept it is also a marketing activity.
I understand she finds having her actions construed as marketing regrettable. She is not the first artist to have such an attitude. But, as initially mentioned here, creativity is about expression. Inarguably, Dooney’s art is about expression on multiple levels. That it is complex, complicated and controversial makes it more compelling. But, without an audience to play off the expression, would it be as satisfying to create? Would the drive to communicate without an audience burn as brightly? Without patronage could she fund her largesse to give away prints?
I don’t believe an audience or collector base can be grown organically, that is, without the aid of a marketing buzz, especially if an artist is serious about making a living from their art. So, for most it is more than an annoyance, it is part of the process of becoming known, of having their art owned and enjoyed.
There are those rare blessed artists anointed in such a way as to avoid having to pay dues and work as hard at marketing as at art to make a career, but they are rare. Perhaps Dooney is such an artist. But, for the vast majority of artists seeking to make a career from the effort of their creativity, the reality is they must market themselves to make it work. No pity needed. It doesn’t matter what one makes widgets or fine art, it all needs to find a source of distributing the work and marketing plays a key role in making that happen.
The interesting irony here is by publicly complaining in her blog about the missed message behind her giving away art is Hazel Dooney is benefiting with more publicity from it. When it comes to publicity, I subscribe to Brendan Behan’s view. He famously said, “There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.”
Barney Davey
www.artprintissues.com
