Tradeshow Changes

With the March 3-5 weekend upon us, it is a good time to talk about tradeshows. This year, the 28th annual ArtExpo will be held at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. ArtExpo remains the largest and most prestigious art tradeshow in the U.S. and arguably the world. It is actually a tradeshow and a consumer show with the first two days, Thursday and Friday, open to the trade only.

Tradeshows have been a mainstay in the arsenal of marketers seeking to get art prints to market. They have been and stay among the most viable means for artists and art publishers to gain awareness and sales. Since tradeshows are a dynamic that continually morphs with changes affect artists and publishers, marketers must be able to keep pace with the changes as they occur.
Barney Davey on 02.28.06 @ 08:58 PM EST [more..]

A National Gallery, a Dutchman called Rembrandt and HIGHLIGHTS...

A few years ago I rushed out of a room in Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
Gesticulating to my family, there are three Rembrandts - hanging side by side inside that room!!
Come, come, come.
"Who is Rembradt?", one said.
I believe it was in order to joke about my enthusiasm.


At an exhibition at the National Gallery in Denmark - in Danish it's called Statens Museum for Kunst - there is an exhibition titled "Rembrandt? The Master and his Workshop".
It takes place 4 February - 14 May 2006.

At this exhibition there are 100 Rembrandts!
There are 19 paintings and then prints and drawings by Rembrandt.
As I entered into the dark room with one spotlight on each Rembradt my enthusiasm was transformed into thankfulness and humility.
Thankfulness and humility due to the fact that I was blessed to experience this.
Contributions and loans from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, the Mauritshuis in the Hague, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and more made this unique event possible.
An experience of a lifetime.
The bare presence of 100 Rembrandts in one museum was far from the only highlight.
Asbjorn Lonvig on 02.27.06 @ 03:59 AM EST [more..]

THE BED VIGNETTES

…for intellectual creation too springs from the physical, is of one nature with it and only like a gentler, more ecstatic and more everlasting repetition of physical delight… In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love revive, filling it with sublimity and exaltation. And those who come together in the night and are entwined in rocking delight do an earnest work and gather sweetnesses, gather depth and strength for the song of some coming poet, who will arise to speak of ecstasies beyond telling.

from “Letters to A Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke


Scene I


The camera pans in on the feet of three women, walking briskly. #1- leather sneakers, #2 - flat leather shoes, #3 - heels.

Small text at bottom of screen:

August 2001, New York City – fourteen days before September 11th. East Village, Avenue C, a weekday night – 2 am.

Only the feet and the sidewalk are seen. Their steps wobble, they’re obviously tipsy. (Sharp car horn blast.) They walk close to each other, laughing gregariously. (Noise of someone loudly trying to hail a cab, people laughing.)

Girl 1, in a loud voice with German accent: “Just one drink, ladies!” (A cigarette butt drops; a leather sneaker stomps it out.)

Girl 2, smooth rich low voice: “Just one drink… Come on, kid.”

Girl 3, sarcastic sigh: “I can’t believe we’re doing this again. (Laughing) OK. Just one drink.”

Veronica Caminos on 02.24.06 @ 11:54 AM EST [more..]

Balancing Act, An Artistic Journey

In a short story by Genet the audience gasps as it watches the tightrope walker balance high up on a rope. Anticipation stirs the adrenaline as the expectation grows on the viewer that a fall could be imminent.

Artists are tightrope walkers too, performing the most precarious balancing acts between reality and fantasy.

A solution is needed for many problems artist's face in regard to integrity of their art and the need to have money. It is a subject dear to my heart.

So we all must balance our lives in order to have what we desire and not fall. Working in order to make money is psychologically draining if it involves things that are not really of interest to us. We become bored and that is tiring, so we turn, like Walter Mitty, to imagining our dreams come true.

That was the case when I worked for a NYC chain of Department stores. Luckily I had my own office so I could close the door and sketch as I talked on the phone. My best friend Joe, who was Gay, would come in at the end of the day and collect my drawings, frame them and put them on a wall in his apartment.


Hyacinthe Baron on 02.22.06 @ 04:38 AM EST [more..]

Art is Inspiration

I'm sitting here in my den looking out the window. What I'm seeing is inspiring me to write what you're reading.

The scene is wondrous. Snow is hugging the ground, dancing on tree limbs and floating elegantly through the air on a downward slope. It's a winter inspiration of white.

Isn't nature great? Whether it's winter, spring, summer or fall, it speaks to us. Certainly, nature is one of the things that motivates artists to create great works. Yet, I think it's also what inspires collectors.

Wester's Dictionary defines inspiration as, "a sudden urge to write poems, compose music, etc. A sudden good idea."




Michael Corbin on 02.20.06 @ 04:40 AM EST [more..]

IN THE STUDIO

Guido is a client from my past. Over the years, he’s bought a few pieces of mine, and when I got an e-mail from him asking me to make a family tombstone using as its subject the Madonna of Monte Nero, I was thrilled. I don’t mind reworking images from the past, because it opens my mind to other ways of perception, and allows me to spend enough time with them to observe things I wouldn’t have otherwise. The original was a painting, with some elements gilded, done in a Byzantine style, and for the cemetery, Guido asked me to make a bas relief. With stone, there are some things you simply can’t do, and others that you could, but decide not to for the purpose of controlling the total end result. You don’t want to clutter the surface with too much detail, because at the distance from which you view a tombstone, effects are best transmitted if there’s an impression created that’s harmonious and complete. Not excessive. Of course, these are subjective judgments that all of us artists must make; sometimes we do well, and other times not so well. Of course, we never admit the latter! Everything is exactly as we planned it to be. Or is it?
Andrew Wielawski on 02.17.06 @ 11:50 AM EST [more..]

Caught Between the Censor and the Fatwah?

For once I had prepared a blog long in advance but I just couldn’t make myself send the syrupy, uncontroversial read, when freedom of expression and creativity is being threatened. So here goes a new one, off the tip of my fingers.

For the past four years I lived in an Islamic country where freedom of expression was limited, in an environment that stifled creativity in whatever form it sought to manifest itself and measures were taken to make things close to impossible [be it in the business world or in the arts, or in any other field to be truthful]. For four years - while hanging on to my own beliefs and getting on silently with my own life and work - I respected the laws and the ways of the land and went out of my way to find the common ground upon which to build something that could exist within the system and might be meaningful to all. I had an abundance of ‘subversive’ ideas but I kept silent, not out of fear but out of respect and good sense – out of the realisation that such ideas need not necessarily take form if I want more important work to see the light of day. Not once did I try to impose ideas or methodologies I believed to be superior or more efficient, and we all worked within the framework that was available and made the most of it. In the process, I made many friends and gained insight into a new culture – a positive balance, even if not much else was given me in return.
Jose Freitas Cruz on 02.15.06 @ 09:00 AM EST [more..]

KUNST MACHT FREI: Flechtner’s Neon

(Kunst Macht Frei- Mike’s conceptual image and word play twists the Nazi slogan“Arbeit Macht Frei” [work makes free)

In 1979 I was an undergrad student at the Columbus College of Art and Design. One night while painting late in the old Cadillac studios I heard two voices from behind me. One said “what do you think? I told you he could paint” The other said “I think he’s one of us.” When I turned around I saw Roger Bisbing and Michael Flechtner, both sculpture majors from the studios one floor down. I knew who they were but it was the first time I’d officially met either of them. They were at the time about the most interesting two artists in the fine arts department. The reason I hadn’t met them yet was because I was in the Illustration department and hadn’t had any classes with either of them. I think I said something like “It’s nice that you 3 dimensional people can accept a flatlander like me.” That began a long friendship with Flechtner. He even once fixed my car in return for a bottle of Courvoisier.


Walter King on 02.13.06 @ 08:03 AM EST [more..]

On that day we were looking for fennel...

Piero appeared early in the morning with fresh sardines, so "I will make Pasta con le sarde!" I blurted out. My cousin Silvia was very happy because she had been to my mother house in Sicily and loved the dish. "all we need is fennel" she said. "surely we can find fennel in the fields around here". And so we went Silvia, my daughter Francesca and I, in search of fennel. The countryside around Pisa ( San Martino Ulmiano) is really not fennel country but we were hoping to come across a bush or two in some back garden, a few pots here and there hidden among the geraniums and artichokes. We were looking for wild fennel, the kind that grows everywere in Spring in the south of Italy. That's the kind needed to make pasta with sardines, an ancient dish which includes, apart with sardines and wild fennel, also currants, pine nuts, saffron, onion and anchovies. A dish where oriental spices marry with the flavours of the Mediterranean. And so we went, looking for fennel. We found in the place portrayed below and the owner, a nice old lady, told us we could get as much as we wanted and also told us the story of her life, which I don't remember but I know that she was happy to tell and we were happy to listen. Tuscany is not fennel country and that fennel was a bit tough and stringy, but the morning was lovely and we gathered wild flowers on the way back. Rita Monaco Artist Portfolio

Rita Monaco on 02.10.06 @ 08:25 AM EST [link]

THEORYLAND

an epic poem about academia by Bruce Deitrick Price
(Author's comment: "So-called Theory has been big in our English Departments for 25 years. The more I understood it, the more annoyed I was. These feelings swirled around with my memories of T. S. Eliot's best poems. And over two very intense weeks, THEORYLAND was born....It's one of the oldest stories there is: a young man wants desperately to be a big shot. I find this poem both funny and sad. I hope you'll enjoy both aspects.")


THEORYLAND
"The center is not the center." J. Derrida

CANTO I: AMBITION

Clarity is the cruelest mode,
patients aetherized on the table must be code.
How then do I hide my hermeneutic rear
as I fashion a career?
How do I swell a progress, start a fad or two?
Advise the Dean, like me an eager goose?
Ambitious too, so he hates to be of use....

In the rooms the critics come and go
sneering at the status quo.
On the dry grass, in a dry wind,
students throw a frisbee, joking.
The janitor laughs, smoking.
I suspect they see,
speaking ontologically,
to the other side of me.

So how do I weasel words to shapes all new
and make them mean what I say they do?
In short, how can I be profuse
but adequately abstruse?
How can I roll this campus into a ball
and have it all?
How can I be, as I promenade
about the quad,
a god!?

I hear the mermaids singing
but I do not think they sing for me:


Bruce Price on 02.08.06 @ 08:26 AM EST [more..]

NAM JUNE PAIK

NAM JUNE PAIK

I attended the funeral of my dear friend Nam June Paik yesterday. The funeral took place at the Frank Campbell Funeral Chapel on 81st Street and Madison Avenue, New York City.

In attendance was the complete A List of the Art world. Yoko Ono, Merce Cunningham, Jean Claude and Christo, Besty Broun director of the Smithsonian, John H. Hanhardt, curator of the Guggenheim, and Bill Viola.

There were faces in the crowd of people I hadnt seen in some 30 years. German museum director Wulf Herzogenrath told me that he purchased the Paik Abe Synthesizerfor his museum. That was the very first piece of electronic equipment my hands ever touched. Suffice to say, Herr Herzogenrath was delighted to learn as the medium was at its shear infancy.

Paik influenced the entire world, taking steps that were not here before. He called me "A crazy man" because I took stills of moving images which he was not doing and saw the digital world just above the mountain. As most of you know, Paik was kind enough to write the Introduction to my book, "Laurence GARTEL: A Cybernetic Romance, published by Gibbs Smith, Utah, 1989. I will forever be indebted to him for his wonderful words, and kind thoughts.

In true Fluxus style, Paik's nephew Ken Paik Hakuta told everyone to cut off their neck ties in homage to Paik. Yoko Ono placed it on Paik's body resting gently. It was indeed outrageous and Paik's final performance.

I have the whole Funeral and "After Party" at the Mark Hotel documented in both stills and digital clips. I plan on posting this on my website as soon as possible for all the world to see.

May the vision of great artists live on.

Laurence GARTEL
Digital Media Artist
Laurence Gartel on 02.07.06 @ 02:53 PM EST [link]

MORE IS BETTER

Whoever said, "less is more" would have a heart attack after sweeping
through my home.

Paintings and art are everywhere. Every nook and cranny makes some sort of
artistic statement. Art even lives in my bathrooms, where I'm very careful
not to let humidity build up. I don't know. I just can't help it. I must
have art. I crave new acquisitions. Money (and politics) is the only thing
that stands between my purchase of the Museum of Modern Art. Otherwise,
that big box would be mine!
Michael Corbin on 02.06.06 @ 01:02 PM EST [more..]

Search Engine Strategies for Success: 2006

by John Wooton, Author and Creator, The SEO Journal Blog and Asbjorn Lonvig.


Readers of my latest Art News Artblog have asked me to write about how I got a relatively good presence on the internet.
Yesterday's statistics:
150,000 hits on Google.com and 100,000 hits on Yahoo.com on the search term "lonvig"
and 64,708 hits and 1,176,552,123 bytes transferred per day on my web site www.lonvig.dk


Asbjorn Lonvig on 02.03.06 @ 03:59 AM EST [more..]

The Creation of an Idea

I have been painting for 22 years and in that time I have come across many different ways to create a piece of art. In art school we drew from the model almost every day until our fingers hurt. I was always covered in chalk and personally I didn’t like to look like a bum all of the time. Our teachers would describe to us the beauty of sitting in front of a subject to understand it’s qualities while we searched out for the contours and prayed that we would get better at drawing. Looking back at my time in the academy, I realize now that we were just trying to master the skills involved, with a sense of competition that really had nothing to do with art at all. We rarely talked about ideas, it was mostly about how the art would look as a finished product, something to present, something to sell. We talked a lot about styles and design, but I was not asked about inspiration, and it is of this that I will talk today.
Matthew Bates on 02.01.06 @ 08:12 AM EST [more..]