tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4753948402075174201.post2775941442489462864..comments2023-11-26T06:02:47.413-05:00Comments on The Jade Sphinx: What Do Artists Owe Us As Human Beings?James Abbotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16542728058203964856noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4753948402075174201.post-16446213555893014152012-01-27T02:30:40.333-05:002012-01-27T02:30:40.333-05:00What can’t a crocodile-leathered wallet or never-c...What can’t a crocodile-leathered wallet or never-caught-dead-wearing-a-Prada clutch not do for an artist (dead, alive, scoundrel or saint)? Trendy well-to-doers influence artistic popularity and the value of art, period. Historical relevance or an artist’s technical merit has very little to do with it. The artist and his or her life, characteristics, morals and actions can be completely inconsequential. Those minor details can or may be alternatively used per specification. <br /><br />A good scandal, especially the self-destructive binge variety (Britney, Lindsay, Kim, et al) can do wonders for perceived value. Artists and their wares are no different. Death too can help artists and not just in the sense that we may be lucky enough to forget having seen some awful work. The Invisible Hand loves a rapidly diminishing supply and rising demands. So does Christie’s and Sotheby’s.<br /><br />I couldn’t resist a comic situational: Let us suppose that Bruce Wayne has just acquired a real genius of LSD dot painting from the Tate or Guggenheim. We have to suppose too that we don’t know about his evening Pipistrellian activities. We’ll also suppose that Lex Luthor over in Metropolis needs to show B-man his comeuppance because Lex is, after all, the most important man in the DC universe, an all-knowing, sophisticated gentile. Do we think Lex will purchase a neoteric realist allegorical still life from a little known independent atelier or something that involves a huge formaldehyde tank that only Superman can deliver?<br /><br />What of the artist who hires out “his work” in rural Japan to marketers, graphic designers and manufacturers or the artist who mass produces it in a Factory while snorting mounds of cocaine? How do we feel about the artist who creates work solely for the curator-professors, they who know more about sabbatical paperwork than the niche art they supposedly specialize?<br /><br />We should be wary of the daunting amount self-gratifying sentimentalism residing about not just in the art world but everywhere that will, if not tempered by a studious mind, happily allows wholesale ignorance to go about its merry business.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4753948402075174201.post-18354241052917838352012-01-13T08:44:25.244-05:002012-01-13T08:44:25.244-05:00...one other thing, I went to Throckmorton Gallery......one other thing, I went to Throckmorton Gallery last night for the Lucien Clergue opening. On their web page there is a link to a video of Clergue talking about photography and artists. Check out what he has to say about Picasso - it addresses the question you are asking.<br /><br />http://throckmorton-nyc.com/lylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17401171102303737273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4753948402075174201.post-7019639268935410782012-01-13T08:40:35.242-05:002012-01-13T08:40:35.242-05:00In some sense, the work is a connection to the per...In some sense, the work is a connection to the person, living or dead. And, we are having a conversation with that person (as Emin implied in a previous blog entry). So it comes down to, would you like to hang out with that person? If you know nothing about them, or the past is too far removed, or just don't care, than the conversation is only with the work and it is evaluated as such. If on the other hand, you would cross to the other side of the street if you saw (or smelled?) them, then why have the conversation at all. For me, it is curious that I would give more latitude to a dead artist than a contemporary and I am not sure why that is, but yes, there are current artists that are considered great that I just don't bother with - and that is I guess the key. It is not that I dismiss their talent or their work, I just don't bother with keeping up with what they are doing. And maybe I look at the work of the past great artists, not so much that I am ignorant of their failings, but because they are part of a 'liberal education' and don't what to fall into, '...what, you nothing of Wagner?' trap. End of rant.lylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17401171102303737273noreply@blogger.com