How to learn to be an art financial trader while taking the plane...

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.

Do you see what I see?!? (Cultural differences in the artwork's perception)

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 ;-))

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...

The story of Koons and the incredible market

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?

http://www.jeffkoons.com/index_flash.html

Reflection on... What is art for?

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

Kanye west and Murakami...

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!!! ;-)))

Reflection on... the postmodernism

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

Artwork of the month 11/2007

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...

Why the Centre Pompidou is setting up in Metz?

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.............

Quotation of the month - November 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)

If you can say it... Why paint it?

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