Massive Links! Tough Turkey Edition

by Art Fag City on November 26, 2008 · 4 comments Events

baselborg.jpg
The Basel Borg

  • There are a number of reasons to listen to the Bad at Sports podcast with Edward Winkleman and most of them have to do with the practical advice Winkleman offers to artists and his thoughts on the business.  Those who don’t have the time to read his blog daily will find themselves more or less up to date simply by taking an hour to listen to the interview.   The post earns our highest recommendation.
  • Today’s antidote to the art business comes from video artist Phil Collins.  In an interview with Sarah Thornton he discusses  the Turner Prize, and the art world in general.

I found art school to liberating, but the commercial art world…is there anywhere you could possibly feel smaller?  It’s the only pace where you give away free booze and no one turns up”

I can’t bear it when someone says, “I have to make art or else,” he said, “That is a very priviledged thing to say”.  Collins said he didn’t feel much rilvry about the [Turner] prize.  “I have no interest in pushing to the front of the queue.  I would rather somebody else got off the train first”.   He stared into a well-used cut-glass ashtray and then looked up.  “Anyway, I’d rather not recognize the terms of the game.  Award-winning art?  The category doesn’t apply.  You might find a great work of art in someone falling over in a supemarket.  That might be the most extraordinary visual encounter of your day.”

This quote comes from the Thornton book I apparently can’t stop talking about, Seven Days in the Art World.

  • Davey Hickey ponders the future of the art world over at Vanity fair in preparation for Art Basel Miami.  We’ll be discussing this piece at greater length after the holidays, but for now a choice quote.  Did I mention Art Fag City will be covering the fairs again in Miami this year?  Because we will.

So think of the art world as a beach and money as the surf. Waves roll in but they always suck back out, leaving a few masterpieces, taking some beach with them. When a really gnarly monster rolls in, the best we can hope is that it will leave some beach behind and a few treasures in the sand, along with the wreckage and the bodies”¹because the wave will suck away. And when it does, as it is doing right now, the whales will either hold or dump. If they hold, art will remain a stable-valued, low-liquid commodity. If the whales dump at cut-rate prices, the art world will undergo its first catastrophic value re-adjustment in 40 years. It won’t be pretty, but it will be exciting to watch.

{ 4 comments }

scott November 26, 2008 at 5:36 pm

The image at the top of his post reminds of a scene from Jacques Tati’s “Playtime”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj6l5kEzPhw

scott November 26, 2008 at 12:36 pm

The image at the top of his post reminds of a scene from Jacques Tati’s “Playtime”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj6l5kEzPhw

Judy Rey Wasserman November 27, 2008 at 6:55 pm

I agree with Phil Collins: the cateagory of “award Winning does not really apply to art.

If it did, we artists weould be aiming at the awards won by van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, Turner, etc. What awards?

Usually great artists have an uphill climb, and perhaps battle as their work is new, even revolutionary. Generally the people who bestow awards are a bit conservative — this is not always true, but usually.

The best award for an artist or art would be a Nobel Prize for Peace. That is the one truly worth winning as it would mean that in a very positive way, the artist has inspired, even helped to change the world for the better.

Judy Rey Wasserman

Judy Rey Wasserman November 27, 2008 at 1:55 pm

I agree with Phil Collins: the cateagory of “award Winning does not really apply to art.

If it did, we artists weould be aiming at the awards won by van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, Turner, etc. What awards?

Usually great artists have an uphill climb, and perhaps battle as their work is new, even revolutionary. Generally the people who bestow awards are a bit conservative — this is not always true, but usually.

The best award for an artist or art would be a Nobel Prize for Peace. That is the one truly worth winning as it would mean that in a very positive way, the artist has inspired, even helped to change the world for the better.

Judy Rey Wasserman

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