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Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry christmas to everybody!! I hope you'will get the canvas, brushes... performances and exhibitions that you asked to Santa. Personnaly i asked for a job at the Blue Coat gallery in Liverpool... Who knows?! lol

Paul McCarthy Santa Claus, Tokyo, Japan, 1996

Merry Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas!!!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Berlin, 5th of December 2006 Zoologischer Garten, calls attention to world media. Knut is born. Rejected by his mother at birth, this baby polar bear was the first polar bear cub to survive past infancy at the Berlin Zoo in over thirty years. Raised by zoo keepers, he became a major "touristic attraction".

Because Berlin loves Bears... You can find thousands of them, both in very official places and in some of the oddest corners of the city. Among many of them, reappropriated by artists, advertisers and therefore tourists, the black bear on Berlin's flag is the one that conclusively binds the animal with it's cultural identity.

Walk along Unter den Linden and try to define a taxonomy of the many "by-products" which shows the bear in countless funny situations... Mugs, T-shirts, pens, postcards... Bring something from Berlin? Bring a bear! So, what would be the ultimate tourist experience if not getting transformed into a bear?

And here comes the winner of the Turner Prize which, each year, awards a contemporary artist living or working in the U.K.:
In the framework of his performance called 'Sleeper' (double agent in the cold-war espionage context), Mark Wallinger dressed as a bear, walked on the huge ground floor space of the Neue National gallery for ten consecutive nights.
As written in the exhibition catalogue "The work develops the artist's interest in the idea of transmutation by exploring the mechanics that underpin Berlin's civic symbolism."
I think that Knut (who sleeps in a cage 15 minutes by walk away from the gallery), would tell you a lot about what it is to be a stranger adorning the local cultural attributes if he could talk.

The title also gives clue to the viewer to understand the artwork. Although divided for many years, the city is currently building an identity based upon both east and west cultures. Berlin shows to millions of tourists, its scars as a solid proof of it's notorious history (fragments of wall, differences in the architecture style of buildings on both sides...), but do not exhibits what is left to the city's consciousness as those things do not record on photographic film. I believe that the artwork comes here more than with everything else as a channel of communication, an interface that makes all this reflection... recordable.
The 'sleepers' were double agents forced to adopt plausible disguises, to adopt foreign customs in order to gain locals' trust.
I guess that this artwork will have a specific impact on those who lived and/or worked in a foreign country... Imagine what happened in people's mind when the wall felt down from this perspective; when you become a stranger in your own home... But people from Berlin would tell you this sad tale better than me.

In fact, and although sleeper's footage is currently exhibited at Tate Liverpool, this is not this artwork that the Turner Prize jury awarded. The winner project is called State Britain and recreates the peace campaigner Brian Haw's anti-war protest in Parliament Square. You probably saw it if you visited London and therefore Big-Ben, two steps away from Brian Haw's camp. Precise in every details, from the tea-making area to the numerous banners, flags, photographs and posters, Wallinger apparently hired 14 people for six months to source the materials and carefully weather and age them to a state of complete authenticity.

But at the end,... what makes all this so special? Look at the picture of the artwork below:

Can you see the black tape line drawn on the Tate gallery's floor, behind the artist? It appears that this line defines exactly the actual zone of exclusion drawn in May 23 2006 following the passing by parliament of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act that forbade unauthorised demonstrations within a kilometre of Parliament Square!

The artwork stands exactly on this line... How clever... Therefore, it becomes 'outlaw' but culturally approved by the government and therefore untouchable, which brings back to life the Brian Haw tools for protestation. Moreover, it attracts the attention of the media and demonstrates how art and language can be powerful!

Deliciously provoking! Please give an award to this guy!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The contemporary art market gives key roles to intermediaries such as opinion leaders, promoters, but also distributors. These are the ones who belong to the network of social relationships within which art is produced and its use determined. Such people are critics, consultants, art collectors, auction house experts, sales persons, journalists, museum professionals, art teachers and professors:

Right at the heart of the art market are the buyers of artworks. Completing the offer and intermediaries in the market scheme, they finally decide on the success of a trend or an artist. The English reference magazine ART REVIEW draws a map depicting the geographical distribution of power within the contemporary art world every year. The French Collector François Pinault was classified being the first most influential art player in the world in 2006 by the above mentioned magazine (in the Power 100 Issue) whereas the first artists appearing in the ranking are Bruce Nauman and Jeff Koons occupying only the 9th and 10th position.
Consultants enable actors in the art world, gallerists in particular, to gain access to information concerning the market. They also are the ones who may give access to the “grey” market where artworks are sold privately by one collector to another without passing through a dealer or an auction house.

In his book "Collecting contemporary", Adam Lindermann argues that museum staffs facilitate the emergence of an artist’s reputation and the evolution of trends: “There is no doubt that the Paul McCarthy (one of the 24 artists represented in the ArtReview classification mentioned above) retrospective organised by Lisa Phillips and Dan Cameron (belonging to the museum staff) a few years ago at the New Museum of contemporary art in new-York confirms that this seminal but long under appreciated artist was going to develop a real commercial market”.

Art critics no longer have the power to make or break the reputation of an artist. As an example, the exhibitions of Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons had bad reviews in the Art press but were still sold out. Nevertheless art critics continue to have a significance on the art world as they give information on hypes and trends.

By classifying, promoting and explaining art to novices or simply by their choice to display one artist rather than another these intermediaries maintain this social network alive and powerful.
In this context, Carole Duncan in Aesthetic of Power highlights that an artwork would only be recognised as ‘high art’ on the international scene if one of its network members treats it as art. Therefore, “In order to become visible in this world, an artist must make work that in some way addresses the highest community or some segment of it”. In other words, the message and its form have to match the expectancies of the intermediaries in terms of communication.
Moreover, Carole Duncan, argue that “The modern world of high art is an international art market centered in NY city and emanating out to rival centers in Paris, London, Milan, Tokyo and the other great centers of capitalism. Like any market, it is organised around the production and the use of commodities, in this case luxury objects produced by small manufacturers”. Underlining this, figures on the art market show that this market is dominated by players from Europe, Hong-Kong and the US being western in its cultural orientation and business practice. This hegemony of western culture in the art market might form an obstacle for members of other cultures to act on the market.

Also, it may be difficult for an artist to escape the hegemonic power that western culture has on the whole art world.

Now that you know your people, there is no reason for your masterpieces, to stay hided forever in the little wood house at the back of the garden !!! ;-))

Sunday, December 16, 2007

What to find in the "Artwork of the month" section? Something that I like... old or new... Well known or not... Something that I want to share... And this month, I would like to share with you my interest in Lisa Yuskavage paintings and an artwork in particular:


With True Blonde Draped (1999) she depicts a poignant portrait of a blond hair girl who seems crushed by something not directly painted on the canvas... But Lisa Yuskavage gives us clues about her situation:


Let’s first have a look on the background. The saturated red color, fills heavily every inches of the frame with sexual connotations.

Her ruffled hair and her naked body under the bedding indicates that the scene takes probably place after the sexual act. She significantly protects her crotch with both clasped hands. Beautiful, ...she is, she is an exact compromise between sexual icon (blond hair, pulpy with a huge breast) and ordinary (shadows on her face, blunt nose, unsteady breast). She is the victim of a voyeurism act that YOU, the viewer, perpetrate. Prisoner of the canvas, of the tainted surrounding air and prisoner of her own attributes... Her beauty is her burden, heavily symbolised by her breast. She is trapped!

This stereotype that shapes the cage of our True Drapped Blonde is central in Yuskavage paintings and I invite you to have a look on the flickr diaporama available on the right column of this blog to discover more of her amazing artworks.

Technically, Lisa's work is recognized as particularly impressive among connoisseurs: She apparently uses models to study lights and shadows; photos to frame the paintings, her work is so impressive technically (paint strokes, mastering of light effects...etc.) that specialised art press often compare her to Renaissance masters (No joking).

To replace her work in a more general art world background, she is often associated with artists such as John Currin (Google his name on Google image or click there to go on the BBC website or slate.com, you ll see the similarities by yourself), Luc Tuymans and Elizabeth Peyton in the 1990's, reaching superstar status after reinserting figuration in the art world.

Lisa Yuskavage is currently represented by David Zwirner, New York and greengrassi, London.

Call it kitsch, call it soft-porn, call it gorgeous, sexy, weird or embarrassing, appealing or repulsive, Lisa yuskavage paintings shake the art world... but what about you?

So...? Do you like it? Do not forget to vote on the right hand side column of this blog!!!!

;-)

Hello reader!!

Today was the last day to vote for the artwork of the month and you were 15 to vote... Not that bad if you consider that in one month of existence, this blog attracted 163 Visitors (48 unique visitors from 12 different countries) for a rate of 5.26 Visits / Day!
I believe it is a success! Thanks to all of you who gave me the motivation after this month-test to continue this way! I am open to any suggestion to make it better, so do not hesitate to leave your comments!
As I said, I will start now to advertise it and to use the classical blog-marketing techniques to share this blog with more visitors. I wish to hit the 1000 visitors by the 12nd August!
But now, let's talk a bit about the artwork of the month... The results for the Murakami's 'Hommage to Francis Bacon' were:
  • 50% Funky Soul Baby
  • 42% Groovy for sure
  • 7% Not the type of artwork I d hang on my living room wall
  • 0% Rather listening to Enya

I am glad you like it!!! Something tells me that we will have to come back to Murakami quite regularly regarding to his actuality!!!

Thanks again for all!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Is art cool?!?

December, end of the year, time for assessments. Everybody in the art world seems to agree that Doris Salcedo's crack in the Tate gallery and Damien Hirst's diamond skull are the artworks of the year.

I say fair enough... Did you see this crack? Did you see this skull? amazing aren't they?!!

The first is a work commissioned by the Tate gallery and is only viewable in Tate modern because it's part of it. This 548ft crack called Shibboleth is here to show how the foundations of the contemporary art world are fragile. Cracking the ground floor of the HUGE turbine hall of the Tate modern was particularly clever in this sense: Tate modern is one of the biggest touristic attractions in London, one of the coolest brand (15th on the coolbrands classification... Do not believe me? Check yourself: http://www.superbrands.uk.com/pdfs/CB%20-%20Press%20Release%20-%20Announcement%20-%20Final.pdf) and a centre of gravity for the contemporary art. Cracking its foundation suggests that the contemporary art culture was built upon colonialist values and cultural imposition. "Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built" in Salcedo's own words.

Although the media criticize on the one hand that visitors keep on asking to the staff "how did the artist do that?!" and keep on falling in the crack... (A dozen of accidents reported!); on the other hand, to quote Jonathan Jones from the Guardian Art blog "it is a fissure that doesn't really threaten anything or anyone".

Moreover, he says "Modern art has now become the universal culture of Britain's middle class, of all ages. Yet when a really provocative and powerful contemporary work appears - I'm talking about Damien Hirst's diamond skull - the middle class runs for cover, disturbed by the impossibility of reducing this disturbing object to a liberal platitude".

Photograph: Getty

And here comes our second Artwork: Damien Hirst's Diamond Skull. For me there is nothing controversial about it. I can imagine that it may shake the common mood but honestly, having a look back in the 90's on Tracey Emin's bed, it may suffer the comparison. Remember, she brought her own bed covered of alcohol, germs and traces of her sexual activity... In Saatchi's gallery. Ok! Ok! Nothing to do with the skull, but that rocked! didn't it?

My Bed by Tracey Emin, 1998. Photograph: courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube.

Here lies the problem. Contemporary art became popular, fashionable, cool (look at this whole blog: I do not think I m the first writing a blog about contemporary art, believing that my view got the spark that will lead me to a Worldwide Web rapid success!) And my generation acknowledged the existence of contemporary art with artists like Emin, Chapman brothers and a pope crushed by a rock came from space. In fact my first memorable artwork was the empty room presented for the Turner Prize by Martin Creed (Work No. 227: The lights going on and off 2000 (installation at Tate Britain)5 seconds on/5 seconds off, Edition 2/electrical time). In fact I found it controversial enough to bring it on the top of my hobby list... Can you imagine now why a skull and diamonds are not controversial to me? Is it controversial to you?

Courtesy Cabinet, London © GBE (Modern) New York Photo: Tate Photography


-John! come here! Take a picture of us in front of this... hmm... Nazi's cross model representing hell, crafted by the Chapman brothers!!!


Yep! Chapman's are cool too nowadays!


ART should be challenging and provocative... But please do not provoke us for free... We are bored anyway, it's all done! ;-))

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/12/hirst.html
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2007/10/salcedos-crack-.html
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/dorissalcedo/default.shtm

Sunday, December 9, 2007

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.
Marcel Duchamp

Friday, December 7, 2007

Hello reader! Look what I found on the Internet today: A press-release from the website of the Guy Hepner gallery... A good occasion to compare those two influential photographers. Unfortunately it is a bit late (till 31/11... and a bit far away as well...). One raised on the east coast, the other in California, but so many similarities...

Terry Richardson- iconic, established, extrovert. Exuberant and erotic at the same time, he has carved a niche as the heavyweight champion of off the wall, spur of the moment, raw talent photography of the past 10 years. His "snapshot aesthetic" is unmistakable, often shot with nothing more than a mundane compact camera. Richardson is an icon, his photos every bit as much. Tony Stamolis- Tony Stamolis's new portfolio is the work of a classic cad: raw and sexy, with a winking sense of humor. The Brooklyn photographer shoots friends, lovers and ad-hoc still lives with a prankster's eye. Never happier than when provoking the masses and challenging the generally accepted, his signature look is captivating, as funny as it is sexy, all the while remaining what it should be: great photography
Work is available from $2500, for all inquiries please email info@guyhepner.com


Do you think they are typical products of the U.S. culture? Have a look at the following text: It comes from a study of Hofstede, well-known in the world of cultural studies who is famous for his work on cultural dimensions and available on his excellent website: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_united_states.shtml.

"The high Individualism (IDV) ranking for the United States indicates a society with a more individualistic attitude and relatively loose bonds with others. The populace is more self-reliant and looks out for themselves and their close family members.

The next highest Hofstede Dimension is Masculinity (MAS) with a ranking of 62, compared with a world average of 50. This indicates the country experiences a higher degree of gender differentiation of roles. The male dominates a significant portion of the society and power structure. This situation generates a female population that becomes more assertive and competitive, with women shifting toward the male role model and away from their female role.

World averages shown above are: 55 - 43 - 50 - 64 - 45

The next lowest ranking Dimension for the United States is Power Distance (PDI) at 40, compared to the world Average of 55. This is indicative of a greater equality between societal levels, including government, organizations, and even within families. This orientation reinforces a cooperative interaction across power levels and creates a more stable cultural environment.

The last Geert Hofstede Dimension for the US is Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI), with a ranking of 46, compared to the world average of 64. A low ranking in the Uncertainty Avoidance Dimension is indicative of a society that has fewer rules and does not attempt to control all outcomes and results. It also has a greater level of tolerance for a variety of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs".

Now have a look on their portfolio displayed on the following websites and keep what you just read in mind:

http://www.terryrichardson.com/

http://www.tonystamolis.com/portfolio/01.html

Got it? ;-)

http://www.guyhepner.com/content/content.php?id=753

Friday, November 30, 2007

While reading the VLM Airlines on-board magazine on my trip back to France the other day, I came across the word 'Behemoth'. Not the kind of word you see everyday! Especially when it comes to give a pretty name to the contemporary art market. If you read ArtView regularly and especially this month, you will see that this term Behemoth is also used in the same way. Whatever, the important is to see the growing interest in Art as a financial investment. The word Behemoth and his recurrence in the Art press, signs the consensus in the contemporary art view."If you're new to the scene, procure an art adviser.
"Know your market; scour the art press, the galleries and the fairs; but most importantly, appreciate the work before making a transaction".Wooow What an advice!!!
Artnews argue that a huge change appeared in the 'art as a financial investment' landscape in the 80's ignited by the Young British Artists group(YBA), promoted by Mr. Saatchi...
I do not know if you are familiar with economy concepts. For this reason I will try to explain briefly and as clearly as possible what led investors to turn their wallets in the direction of Jeff Koons, Pollock et al.
Let’s start with a bit of history: After the war, the developed world had been investing in industry for '30 glorious years'. In fact so glorious that these industries were generating surpluses and were so enormous that further it became hard to see how further investments could improve earnings. The solution was rather in the need of downsizing. The investors then turned their attention to the Russia, Asia, Dot.com companies, but the money was made on the sale and resale of shares rather than from any notional future income these companies might earn. Then it was the house market helped by restrictions on Land use and the limitation for constructions in Britain... So why Art? ArtView says that an artwork is unique and so, a good store of value. Although internal movements pushed new generations of artists in front of the stage, sharing the big chair with old masters, the boom in the market came from the need to store the excess of capital generated by the same prosperous companies mentioned before.
What can lead the financial artworld to collapse? Art prices could rise so high that people would not be confident anymore in buying artworks, perceiving a too big difference between intrinsic value (linked with the quality of the artworks) and financial value (The price we are willing to pay to get a artwork). But another investment opportunity offering better appreciation could also arise.
In both scenario, prices would obviously fall... This is why having a regular look on the top end of the market is important. I planned to keep you in touch anyway!
Photos:
Andy warhol at the Hamburger Bahnhoff in Berlin.
Jake and Dino Chapman at the Frieze art fair. London.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Here is what you can find on the website mighty optical illusion, under the post: A "Psychological" Optical Illusion

"The influence of culture and environment can have an effect on our visual perception - believe it or not. This theory was first explored by Robert Laws, a Scottish missionary working in Africa during the late 1800's. Take a look at the picture below - what you see will largely depend on where you live in the world. After that you have examined the picture, scroll below for a more detailed explanation.
So What Did You See - What is above the woman's head? When scientists showed a similar sketch to people from East Africa, nearly all the participants in the experiment said she was balancing a box or metal can on her head. In a culture containing few angular visual cues, the family is seen sitting under a tree. Westerners, on the other hand, are accustomed to the corners and boxlike shapes of architecture. They are more likely to place the family indoors and to interpret the rectangle above the woman's head as a window through which shrubbery can be seen". (http://www.moillusions.com/2007/11/psychological-optical-illusion.html)

Do you still believe that your artwork is so powerful that you will soon be internationally famous?!? The conclusion is that the key does not lay in the visual clues... explanation:
Rules of visual grammar, from which differences of interpretation according to an individual’s experience may arise, are the process of analysing the elements of a picture.
Kress And Van Leeuwen T. argue that analytical processes involve two kinds of participants: One carrier (the whole: e.g. a landscape) and any number of possessive attributes (the parts: trees, sea, hills...)”. In the case of abstract art the carrier, the possessive attributes or both are not labelled and let the viewer decide on what the labels are and then leaves him/her to interpret the work of art. The meaning of the basic geometrical shapes are motivated by the properties of the shapes, or rather, from the values given to these properties in specific social and cultural contexts. This means that the interpretation of geometrical shapes can vary across a culture but also within cultures.
Colours can also have an effect on the perception of the viewer. These effects concern partially unconscious treatments, but also cognitive or symbolic associations. Colours can modify people’s perceptions on various levels being visual, auditive, tactile, kinesthesia, gustative, somesthesia. For example, the estimation of height and weight (e.g. most of washing machines are painted in white partly because it makes them appear lighter and recalls notions of ‘clean’ or ‘pure’). Colours are culturally and symbolically associated with concepts, sensations and environmental elements and have on influence on our emotions such as excitation, anxiety, affective values and preferences.
Contrary to the opinion that colours are only a matter of taste and therefore their perception depends on individuals, researches demonstrated the existence of a collective consciousness within large groups of individuals which show stable consumer preferences. Regarding the tribalisation phenomenon, colours can have new connotations:
Each ‘youth clan’ has its own trends and color codes with a famous example being the two main gangs of Los Angeles which chose colours as distinctive signs of affiliation (CRIPS in blue and BLOOD in red). Another example is given by the Indian culture, with the word “VANA” which means “caste” but also “colours”.
Shapes and colours are displayed in a given space within the physical limit of the artwork. The elements relate to each other and are presented in a way that a relationship is created between them, while their position conveys cultural specific information and values. Remember that you start a Japanese book from the end!
Look as well on advertisements in your London edition of glamour how ‘fantasy' elements (such as the woman lying on a cloud) are usually displayed on the top half, while 'realistic' elements are on the bottom half (Such as the extra light fresh yoghurt that will make you feel like the woman on the rainbow...or perhaps not).
The way to display elements in the limited space to comunicate is highly culturally linked!
Many thanks to Mareike for ALL... ALL... and to Mag to illustrate so perfectly the doubt that someone can feel when it comes to understanding abstract paintings lol (and for her to introduce me to Pollock ;-))

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Pope Art

Here is a part of an article found in the "ART NEWSPAPER", written by Anna Somers Cocks 8.11.07 Issue 185 [Full article available on : http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=6432]

Pope suggests Church should have closer relationship with contemporary art

The Vatican's first contemporary art commission under Benedict XVI goes to Claudio Parmiggiani

The telephone rings: "The Vatican City speaking," says the voice. "Boring joke," thinks Claudio Parmiggiani and puts down the receiver. The telephone has to ring another couple of times before he is persuaded that it really is the Vatican. Then he remembers a local priest who, some months previously, had asked in a general sort of way whether he would be prepared to make a work of art for the Church. [...]No subject is specified, but to Parmiggiani's surprise he sees a book on the table, Sculture d'Ombra, about his works made with smoke. "This is the kind of thing we hope you will create," they say. [...]

Afterwards the pope said to Parmiggiani, ‘I’m very happy to see this work; the Church has always had a close relationship with modern, but not contemporary art.’ He continued: ‘You must tell me one day how you paint with smoke,’ but Parmiggiani just smiled. That is a secret he keeps even from the pope. The retrospective of Claudio Parmiggiani, ‘Apocalypsis cum Figuris’, is at the Palazzo Fabroni, Pistoia, until 23 March 2008

It seems that the Vatican finally swallowed the pills sent by the contemporary art world... See these two artworks by Sarah Lucas (Up) and Maurizzio Cattelan (Down).

Now the question is why?... Does the brand new pope wants to give a lifting to the Vatican galleries, or is it a PR strategy? Sorry I hardly believe that the pope is interested the least in contemporary art... but the PR option does not sound bad.

Example: A brand new study shows that cookies are bad for health. 3 options:

  1. Continue to produce them! Although sick, people will still continue to buy them anyway (bad and not really fashionable in the communication sphere). It means here that the Vatican would stay on its position, denying the contemporary art world critique which would probably get worst and worst. When you talk to someone and that this person does not answer you tend to talk louder and louder, don't you?
  2. Continue to produce these cookies, but print warning on each packets about high fat... (bad but fashionable in a way...). For the artworld it almost means censorship! Not a good solution indeed as it would advertise the position of the provocateur. The Church would also appear old-fashion, facing 'Left field' edgy art... The Vatican does not need this, do they?
  3. Get rid of this recipe and develop a brand new one that will bring happiness in "your" body through the use of Omega B27 revolutionary 0% fat oil created in your own laboratory(Really hype and really good)... Hmmm, very trendy!!!!!

Although none of them are proactive strategies, these all give an answer to your customers. In the case of the Christian industry, it seems a bit late to be proactive as you saw previously. But who will shoot someone that commission Claudio Parmiggiani to produce its artworks? The Vatican chose the 3rd of our 3 options!

What a powerful message... How cool the Vatican is! But remember:

Matthew 5:39
39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Pictures:

First artwork by Sarah Lucas: Made entirely from Marlboro Light cigarettes and is titled "Christ You Know It Ain't Easy".

Second one, Maurizio Cattelan "La Nona Ora", sculpture of the pope John Paul II, crushed by a meteorite...

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Did you read the contemporary art news recently? Ever heard about Jeff Koons? Well Jeff Koons is responsible of the production of the most expensive piece by a living artist ever auctioned. How much? $23.6 million... A sculpture of a stainless steel heart hanging from a golden bow. The previous record for a living artist was Damien Hirst's "Lullaby Spring," which sold for $19.5 million last June at Sotheby's in London . Hirst's piece was a stainless steel cabinet containing 6,136 handcrafted and painted pills.

The Koons work was bought by the Gagosian Gallery, "Hanging Heart," nearly 9 feet tall and weighing more than 3,500 pounds, is from Koons' "Celebration" series, inspired by celebratory milestones such as birthdays and anniversaries.
Yes Koons rules... But why? "This is just ridiculous" I hear from my left... "I do not care from the right"... Fair enough, I will give a small explanation anyway:
Koons belongs to a generation of artists that (we thought...) knew their pick of popularity in the 80's. Such as Hirst mentioned above or Maurizio Cattelan he offered to the world a new medium of art: After the Canvas, the Sculpture, the performance the ready-made, the Installation... they used the Market!!!

The Challenge was, once this new medium discovered was to manipulate it and to exercise its full possibilities. Jeff Koons technique is based on highlighting 'banalities' (a name of one of his best series): Hoover enlightened by neon, giant balloon-dog or kitsch porcelain sculptures of Michael Jackson; Koons wants to understand why and how products of mass consumption are glorified.
To simplify it places him between Marcel Duchamp (the ready-made influence: well-known for the masterpiece fountain... an urinal which tells so much about the art market) and Andy Warhol (the pop culture and critique of the mass consumption); but Koons artworks are not ellitists and he would like to talk about things that everybody can recognise easily.
He was a pioneer and still is... was really controversial by being the first artist cultivating his image by employing image consultants... This guy married the ultra-kitsch porn star Ilona Staller!!!!
In conclusion hanging heart costs $23.6 million and this price is part of what the artwork meaning if you still follow. Got it? It talks about the ridiculous price that people can spend in 'banalities' and it speaks pretty loud don't you think so?

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Answering the question "What is art for?" is not easy... Here is an answer that you may find interesting. I find it quite complete and simple in the same time (which is not easy regarding to the huge amount of head twisting articles wrote on the subject...).

Art is the best tool we have when it comes to shattering our environments into an infinite number of imaginary tales, forms and space-times. For example, each human societies draft its own masterscript: Most of the time, we blindly play out its scenarios, which proscribe our behaviour, define our work and play and define our institutions and imaginary models: nine-to-five jobs, marriage, mortgage, retirement. The way art acts on these scenarios, or scraps of code, is to reorganise them, by treating them as if they were not givens; art is an alternative editing board, the post-production of the huge film we call "reality".

But before acting in this way, it is necessary to learn how to look and read between the lines; as such, art is also a reading aid. It provides the instruments and optical equipment that allow us to interpret the world. To take a simple example, it could be said that our relationship with reality is that like of a Cabbalist, trying to decipher sacred texts by inventing multiple meanings. I shall not list all of the art functions here; suffice it to say that an artist seems to me to be more useful socially than a financial trader. But what does seem clear is that art occupies a specific position in the city, and that this position is thus political. It incites its subjects to become active; to refuse the passive position the world of entertainment try to foist on them. Entertainment places us in front of images to be looked at; while social formatting provides us with frameworks in which we must live.
If artistic activities consists of putting these instruments and products back into play, then the observer's task is, as in tennis, to knock the ball back into the other court
. Nicolas Bourriaud

Translation from the French by Ian Monk
ArtNews Power 100 Issue 16 / November 2007

Thursday, November 15, 2007

I forget to mention something interesting... Do you know Kanye West? Probably yes...
Did you buy his last album?

Then you may probably know about it:

Yes Ma'am this is another Murakami painting!!! Undoubtly successful!!! ;-)))

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

For the first "Reflection on...", I would like to have a look on postmodernism and some of its contradictions... It is a tough subject but it is essential to understand the notion of postmodernism if you want to enter in a leading art gallery as a semi-conoisseur :-)) All those strange art pieces that seem to come directly from our toys box and that now costs $1000 when presented by Koons or Kelley!
I'll come back very very soon on those two artists in a next post to give you a clearer view on the main actors of the postmodernist scene. It will be more clear then! But first, a brief explanation of modernism:

The modernism...

Reviewing the advances of modern art history for example, it is easy to dress a parallel between the evolution of art and societal phenomena: The progress of science was accompanied by the development of electronic or multimedia art, bioart and optart.

The theorical concepts used by the major artists of the twentieth century can be found “in Marxist intellectual tradition, in Freudian Psychoanalysis, and in various forms of transaction between the two”. Therefore, marxism theorisation has been developed to analyse colonialism processes; Freudian advances in psychoanalysis have been reappropriated by feminists artists.
Finally, those two new trends have been put together in analysis of hegemony mechanisms.
Regarding the variety of societal influences and the speed of social changes influencing the art world, artists were seeking for a new definition of contemporary art that incorporated the diversity of new media, the progress in sciences and technologies. An intention of progression, experimentation... That is modernism!
This cultural orientation, shaped the modernist trend, that remained the major influence on the contemporary ‘high-art’ production issued from the hegemonic western world until the 1980’s. Harrison and Wood argue that the process of idea evolution in these days was based on typical western concerns such as the myth of originality or the fundamental oppositions that are nature/culture, male/female, capitalism/communism.
On the basis of such theorical background, the culture from which the artworld emerged and the process of idea developement is defined as typical “Western in its orientation, capitalist in its determining economic tendency, bourgeois in its class-character, white in its racial complexion, and masculine in its dominant gender” (Harrison and Wood 1992:1015).
The next step for the art world was to criticise this hegemonic power of western culture in the modernist art world and to introduce the post-modernist concepts.

The contemporary art world shaped by post-modernist ideologies:

Harrison and Wood (1992) recognise that post-modernism has been introduced by three major theorists: Daniel Bell (1978) as a first author argues that the hope of modernism “lays in a return to consensus based on the shared need for moral and economic order”. Following this definition, Post-modernism would then come as a disruptive approach to modernism.
Habermas’ (1984) as the second major postmodernism theorists is reported to argue (Harrison and Wood, 1992) that “a strong ressource of aesthetic resistance remains necessary as a counter to the increasing power and autonomy of economic and administrative systems”, and therefore explains that the power to resist hegemony on the artworld lays in the hands of those who produce the artworks.
Finally, Harrison and Wood, report Lyotard’s (1984) view on postmodernism as an opposition to Bell’s view in which he “equates the postmodern, with a continuing scepticism regarding a possible consensus [...] with a form of nostalgia for the experience of an unattainable wholeness of presence” (1992:1016). In his view, postmodernism should therefore “wage a war on totality”(1992:1016).

Each of these three views remain influencial in the ‘high art’ sphere and the debate on post-modernism becomes deeper and more subtle. Due to the limitations imposed by the focus of this blog, I will not explore the post-modernism discourse in depth. However, what might be interesting at this point would be to note that each of these authors present a different view on postmodernism, which might have its origin in the three different origins of the writers (U.S.A. for Bell and respectively France and Germany for Lyotard and Habermas). Their views have been shaped by a set of specific social, historical and political conditions associated with each of these three different countries. Although they are different, they remain ‘western views’ and this fact has to be taken into account when debating on the evolution of art history.

The post-modernist critique on art history that claims for the originality of an idea, must therefore also analyse in which position the critique has been written.

Pictures:

Mike Kelley - Craft Morphology Flow Chart

Jeff Koons- Balloon Dog

Read more...

  • Bell, D., ‘Modernism and Capitalism’, in Bell, 1978
  • Habermas, J (1984) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity
  • Harrison C. And Wood P. (1992) Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford
  • Lyotard, J-F (1984) The Postmodern Condition, Manchester: Manchester University Press

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Hello everybody!
I would like to dedicate the first "artwork of the month" to my most post-modernist friend that I did not see for a long time... It s a shame isn't it? Katia, I'd like to introduce you to Takeshi Murakami...Have a look:

Why artwork of the month? First because I know most of the potential first readers of this modest blog... and I know that a lot of them may like it as well. This artwork may ring a bell to a full generation of people born in the 80's, grew up showered by the animes, in fact the next generation of contemporary art collectors. Do you want to be part of it?...

Second argument the name of the artwork: Francis Bacon Study of Isabel Rawsthorne If you become a regular reader of this blog, you will soon see that I am a fan of Francis Bacon work... For memory, here is the original "Study of Isabel Rawsthorne" painted in 1966:

Takeshi Murakami, the artist, is born in 1962 in Tokyo (Japan) and is the head of an artistic tendency called "superflat" led with Hideaki Anno, Satoshi Kon. Murakami defines “Superflat” in broad terms, so the subject matter is very diverse. Often the works take a critical look at the consumerism and sexual fetishism that is prevalent in post-war Japanese culture. Murakami's work is POP, as it recalls clearly other artworks produced by Roy Lichtenstein or Andy Warhol a couple of decades ago. It is clearly a re-appropriation of the global culture idols such as Mickey Mouse who is suggested through a lot of his artworks for example (see Tantan Bo below). It is also surrealist... Look closer at this other artwork:

For anybody familiar with Yves Tanguy artworks, it may ring a bell... unspecified entities whose height cannot really be evaluated, the parallel with Yves Tanguy landscapes is easy to do...

Yves Tanguy - Indefinite Divisibility 1942

The artwork of the month reaches potentially a wide audience, recycling elements of the art and the "global contemporary culture" to reintroduce them from another angle... It points at social patterns culturally taken for granted and re-introduce them, allowing the questionment of a social environment in which the 1980's generation grew-up. And it seems to work: Murakami was ranked the 98th most powerful personality of the ArtReview 2006 Power 100, but climbed to the 89th position this year; probably due to his partnership for the design of the last Louis Vuitton collection or for the success of his "superflat" artists who all had solo exhibitions this year in France!

Tantan BO 2001

It addresses our generation (The future collectors...), the art world (post-modern concerns and homage to great artists...), it has every ingredients to make it a great success! And it already is!!!

Murakami: Already a hit... A future legend...

Monday, November 12, 2007

Growing gossip in Metz Metropolis, some of the city inhabitants witnessed Parisian tourists taking pictures of the protestant temple... Did this time-space compressor called TGV brought tourists from the French capital with him? Most of us thought the TGV was only selling tickets from Metz to Paris! Well it may be official now: Metz is in the center of the European Union.
It Might have been a hell gate for all of those who had to enter in the army (Do you remember that it was compulsory?), Metz is now a multi-awarded city of flowers, of history and now it is getting in trouble with contemporary art.
© CA2M / Shigeru Ban Architects Europe & Jean de Gastines / Artefactory

"The Centre Pompidou-Metz will present the collection of the Musée national d’art moderne, Europe’s largest, to new audiences and offer an original programme of exhibitions. It will increase the power of attraction of a region located at the crossroads of major North-South and East-West routes, leading in particular to Germany and Eastern Europe". (Press release: http://www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/upload/file/ext_pdf_file_en_29_CPM%20FC%20CP%20ENG%2016jan07.pdf)



© CA2M / Shigeru Ban Architects Europe & Jean de Gastines / Artefactory


Historically/Architecturally designed as a fortress, Metz is getting experience in developing massive military infrastructures of all kind and this last one is loaded by the Centre Beaubourg (Paris) war machine itself. But let's have a look onto the technical features:

  • The Magazine: A virtual capacity of 58,000 artworks that compose the biggest European contemporary art collection (Just for you to remember that France still get the first place on the podium concerning worldwide transactions weighted by countries with an astonishing 18,8% of the volume for the year 2006!!! (source artprice report http://img1.artprice.com/pdf/trends2006.pdf))
  • A Barrel made of cultural decentralisation initiated in 1997 by Jean-Jacques Aillagon who wanted to fight cultural prejudices or something like that...
  • Hammer: Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres head from the ministry of culture. Hmmm... Is this whole project only a strategy to knock over the dinosaur Jean-Marie Rausch at the head of the city since 1971!!!
  • The design: Shigeru Ban... The best is simply to have a look on the result... A world class architect! "profiled by Time Magazine in their projection of 21st century innovators in the field of architecture and design".

The Target? You... Paris, the French reputation for cultural matters (which is rather bad especially since François Pinault the most influential figure of the contemporary art world, abandoned in Paris a full bag of amazing projects for purchasing the Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal in Venice... Ok fair enough...) This is not Tate Modern, nor beaubourg but it does not have any pretension... I believe this Chinese hat will have a lot to say to the people of Metz. Let's hope that the audience will be responsive! Good Luck!

OPENING IN 2009

The bullets? well let' s dream:

Francis Bacon, Three Figures in a Room, 1964, oil on canvas, 198 x 441 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris.

Dream on.............

Sunday, November 11, 2007

"L'art c'est ce qui rends la vie plus interessante que l'art"(Art is what makes life more interesting than art)Robert Filiou, (1926-1987)

On the 5th August 1962, the star Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her bungalow in Hollywood. The day after, the face of the actress appears on millions of newspapers distributed all over the world, presenting the news as an international tragedy. At the same time in New York, another star, Andy Warhol gains fame in the international art world by using the artistic silk-screen technique to produce series of portraits, or impressions of newspaper cover pages on canvas.
Within the same year, Andy Warhol is going to ‘paint’ a Marilyn Diptych, presenting on each panel of a grid 25 impressions of one of the most famous pictures of Marilyn Monroe, taken from an advertisement for the movie ‘Niagara’.

With the repetition of the 50 pictures, each of them altered singularly by the process of silk-screen printing, the artist suggests the viewer the power of the mass media. The canvas depicts a society which faces the rise of advertisement and mass consumption so efficiently that the world will give it an iconic status. However, Warhol does not only comment on the stars iconic status as a glamour figure, but also on “the role of the star as a mass media commodity, as a product of the entertainment industry that could be indefinitely reproduced for mass consumption” (Schroeder 2005). Andy Warhol’s ‘Marilyn’still stands out from the crowd and remains one of the greatest criticisms of the 1960’s society. It entered popular culture better than any other texts produced at this time probably due to his intelligent choice of the communication channel used to transmit his message: a work of art.Similarly, Francis Bacon has been reported to justify why he used paintings rather than other communication channels to express his ideas on human condition by the following statement: “If you can say it, why paint it?”

Interested??? You will be glad to know that this amazing Marilyn Monroe Diptych painted in 1962 is currently hanged on TATE Liverpool walls, part of an amazing collection of contemporary artworks (Go to see Cindy Sherman or Sarah Lucas for me please...)http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/the-twentieth-century/figuration.shtm