Artwrite Issue 44 « Artwrite

Pulling a coloured spray can away from his dripping canvas of a semi-naked Wonder Woman, Brisbane born artist Anthony Lister peers into the camera and announces that ‘he is not trying to change the world or save it; he’s just reacting against the world trying to change him’. Lister, who is known for his diversity – Roy Lichenstein / Ralph Steadman-inspired amalgamations of Superheroes – has ultimately conjured a different perspective on the real life crisis that binds superheroes and reality’s pin-pushing ideas together (Crawford, 2010 p.210). For Lister, Jesus “may as well be Superman, God is better understood as the force, and the Devil is more easily recognized within the actions of our politicians and global corporate entities”.

Beginning as an urban artist in the backdrop of Brisbane and Sydney’s inner city suburban streets, Lister incorporated and pioneered styles and trends much anticipated from international booming artists at the time like Banksy, Neckface and Blek Le Rat into a movement, which placed Brisbane on the map in stencil art. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at the Queensland College of Fine Arts in 2001 and then moved, in 2003, to New York under the mentorship of Max Gimblett (McGregor 2010 p.31).

Finishing his mentorship with Gimblett, Lister moved his style into a botched and visceral depiction of television, pop culture, comic book imagery and cartoons. For Lister, “Television is everywhere, Australians are raised by Americans on TV. TV has become the contemporary mode of meditation, to replace the fire place”. This allows Lister to paint the ‘parodies of modern life’. He continues, “What I read, what I see, what I do, who I know and what I eat for lunch, it’s all relevant for me. I guess I am in a perpetual state of accepting the obvious as a valid source of inspiration”.

Lister’s work, like Alan Moore’s celebrated Watchmen or Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight, began to reveal unsuspecting facets of re-examined and glorified characters of comics and televised super heroes (Farr 2007). His depictions of heroes like Batman or Captain America aren’t depictions of heroes fighting crimes and saving the world from stereotypical evil masterminds, rather they are fallen, often tied up or ‘just plain downtrodden and vaguely abstracted, much like our childhood memories’.

However Lister is an artist that ‘one could say is in an unique position’, in the sense that he is both accepted in the underground art community as well as the mainstream (Sherwin 2008). More importantly, he incorporates his family’s values into his work. In an interview with MyArtspace in 2008, Lister remarked that his most innovative experiences with art are with his children and their works on paper.

Lister has presented solo exhibitions in London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Melbourne, New York, and has work represented at the National Gallery of Australia Canberra. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York with his family (McGregor 2010 p.32).

Sources:

Interview with Anthony Lister. MyArtspace Feb 05, 2007
Crawford, Ashley “Anthony Lister” in Australian Art Collector Magazine (Issue 51 Jan-March 2010)
McGregor, Ken & Zimmer, Jenny Anthony Lister: Macmillian Mini Art Series Number Thirteen Macmillian Art & Publishing, Victoria (2010)
Farr, Kristen “Anthony Lister: Cracker Got Snapped By The Pops” (Jul 17, 2007) in “Art Review” at KQED Arts. A.C.T. San Francisco, CA 4 Aug 2010.
Sherwin, Brian “Art Space Talk: Anthony Lister” (Jul 28 2008) on MyArtspace>Blog Palo Alto, CA, 1 Sept 2010.

Tags: abstract, Alan Moore, Anthony Lister, Banksy, Blak Le Rat, botched, Brooklyn, children doodles, comic books, comics, Devil, fine arts, force is strong, Frank Miller, Gimblett, graffiti, graphic novels, Jesus, Lister, London, Max Gimblett, meditation, Miller, modern life, Moore, MyArtspace, Neckface, New York, Pagliacci, paint, parody, Queensland, spray, Superman, television, The Dark Knight, visceral, Watchmen, Wonder Woman
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

Julian Meagher: Small Heroes

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Aimee Sharpe

The Offering, 2010

Sydney based artist, Julian Meagher, creates a visual dialogue between Japanese and Australian culture, oriental craft and the representation of tattoos on the human form. Meagher’s work blurs the line between subject and specimen as his dismembered figures create a paralleled relationship between Oriental art and the body as a platform of identity within popular culture. Like bodies in a sanitized operating theatre, the tattooed figures become suspended on the canvas, as they are removed from their previous context and detached from their original meaning.

In Meagher’s paintings, the body shifts from being the host of art; to the actual art itself, as the imprint of a tattoo ornaments the body and what is being displayed. Through Meagher’s clean and meticulous technique, he complements the intricate detail of both the human form and his subjects’ tattoos as they are documented through a somewhat detached clinical observation. I had the opportunity to talk with Julian about his practice and in particular, his most recent series titled ‘Small Heroes’ that was exhibited at Chalk Horse Gallery in Sydney, from the 2^nd-18^th of September 2010.

Aimee Sharpe: In the recent series ‘Small Heroes’ your work has moved away from more abstract and clinical representations presented within your earlier career, to themes that draw upon Japanese and Oriental culture. What is it about the cultures that appeal to you and your art practice?

Julian Meagher: The main reason why I draw a lot on Japanese influences are the quality and type of designs present there. A lot of my work involves paintings of paintings so to speak, especially tattoos, and it is the original design that makes me want to make a work of art about it. Some of the tattoos I use to make works from are from mates who have got them over in Japan. My girlfriend is also Chinese, and I guess the last few visits to Shanghai have also exposed me to new imagery to draw upon.

AS: Works such as ‘You Can Get It Any Old How II’ and ‘Teik as Ming Vase I’ show an interesting comparison between oriental craft and tattooing within contemporary culture. The tattoos appear painted and glazed onto the body, giving it a unique and decorative quality that similarly resembles the porcelain body of a Chinese Ming Vase. Do you think that the imprinting nature of tattoos is a similar form of aesthetics to Oriental ornamentation?

JM: I paint both essentially, because I am interested in building surfaces with oil paint. I like the narrative held within these surfaces, both in the history of the object’s surface and also by extending the life of the original image.

AS: The process of tattooing usually signifies a complex expression that deals with meaning, intent and aesthetic value. Is your work concerned with more of an aesthetic appreciation, or are you interested in the individual history behind the tattoo and its bearer?

JM: I do like all these things that tattoos represent, and my work does play around with meaning, time and symbols held within a tattoo. I like the fact that that a tattoo uses the skin as a canvas, and then I can give it a second life by transposing it back onto canvas using traditional materials. I am more interested in the aesthetics of the ink in skin rather than the bearer’s history; I want the tattoo to speak for itself and tell it’s own story.

AS: In works such as ‘The Offering’ we see a somewhat humorous contrast of Australian culture to that of the traditional Japanese Mikoka ritual. What inspired you to create this ceremonial image?

JM: ‘The Offering’ actually came about because I wanted to re-create the image of a group of men carrying a shrine into the ocean. I made the shrine myself from things lying around the studio, as kind of a piss-take on how male Australian identity lacks a lot of religious influences. I got a bunch of friends and family down early one morning to the beach for the event.

AS: Why did you choose to portray a heralding of the slab scenario as a representation of Australian culture? How do you feel that linked in comparison to the Japanese Mikoka ceremony?

JM: I’m not really trying to overtly comment too much on Australian culture in these works, I actually think a lot more about the image itself in terms of a painting rather than it’s meaning. The meaning comes more as a result of the process of making the work, rather than the other way round. Obviously I do draw on the symbolism of beer and other rituals, but in terms of actual meaning I am happy for the narrative of the work to remain open to different interpretations other than my own.

AS: Unlike works such as ‘The Offering’ where the distinction between Japanese and Australian culture is obvious, much of your paintings within the series depict various dismembered bodies that are adorned with oriental inspired tattoos. Do you think that the tattoo can signify a cross-cultural ritual between the two isolated cultures?

JM: I like how every culture has a long tradition of tattooing and making marks on skin either as story telling or symbiology. I also like how the culture itself influences these markings, so the same process is undertaken with different methods and meaning depending on where and when it was done. I dismember the tattoo from its host to allow it to tell its own narrative in my work, where the focus is on the marking in the skin rather than its owner.

You Can Get It Any Old How II, 2010

Teik as Ming Vase I, 2010

AS: One of the main things that distinguishes your work from other artists is that the viewer doesn’t necessarily need to have background knowledge on art in order to be able to appreciate your work. The combination of subject matter, style and technique allows for such a wider range of audiences that are not just limited to that within the artworld. Would you agree?

JM: I’ve never really thought about that, I suppose it is accessible on different levels. Though most representational art is I think to some level. I’m not too fussed with directing my work to a specific audience, it is more something I do for myself in some respect, I just need to make work that keeps me getting out of bed each day and that inspires me to keep painting.

AS: Coming from a clinical background, do you think that the precision required within medicine has influenced your technique within painting and also how you observe your subjects?

JM: Yeah. Definitely when it comes to patience, and the discipline needed to finish something. Having done other jobs always give someone better perspective on the next one. I feel so lucky now to be able to come to the studio each day, no matter how long I spend there it never quite feels like work.

AS: What made you choose art as a career over that of medicine? Was there a defining moment for you, or was it more of a progressive shift?

JM: No defining moment I’m afraid. I’ve always wanted to make art, it just took me a long time to make that leap and back myself that I could actually do it. I stopped medicine half way through to go to art school in Italy, but ended up going back to finish uni. Getting a bit older, and looking after people who were sick, also made me realise that I would have massive regrets not being a painter. Not to be to philosophical, but I think everyone wants to leave their mark somehow on the world in which ever way they think they could do best.

AS: Do you believe the binary between Artist and Doctor created an ultimatum for you in career choice? Or have you ever considered them to not be mutually exclusive, and to pursue art whilst also being a Medical practitioner?

JM: Definitely an ultimatum. I don’t think you can do either properly part time. It is too hard to jump between the different headspace required for each one. I think being a doctor has influenced my work in a good and probably unique way, but after 5 years of being lucky enough to go to the studio each day, not much is going to change that now.

Tags: Aimee El Sharpe, Chalk Horse, Julian Meagher, Small Heroes
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

Where the bloody hell are ya?

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

An interview with expat Jo Higgins about becoming an ‘art writer’ and living abroad

Nick Shoebridge

Art is everywhere. It’s in the galleries, in the streets, in our homes and on the web. Paris, London, Berlin, New York, Sydney – they all have unique art environments. These cities are in constant creative conversation with one another. Exchanging, adopting and adapting each other’s art. Museum websites, international art magazines, social network sites all create a wide network of artistic knowledge and appreciation. Geographical restraints are an insignificant excuse when art is considered in our hi-tech, hi-speed world.

But surely there’s more to art than a computer screen? The most rewarding artistic experiences occur in the physical. For the Sydney art world this could seem a challenge – sometimes the closest we get to major centres of art is on a website or in a textbook. There is a yearning for the real thing. Jo Higgins understands and has experienced this feeling of artistic isolation. From the harsh Australian outback Jo’s passionate investment in art has taken her from drawing rainbows on walls to reviewing exhibitions in the galleries of London.

N.S: What is your earliest creative memory?

J.H: My earliest ‘art’ memory is when I was about five, pointing the finger of blame at my younger brother when my mum demanded to know who had drawn the rather large rainbow on our bedroom wall. Problem was, after drawing the rainbow I wrote ‘by Jo’ underneath, so the jig was up.

N.S: You studied Art Theory at COFA, when did you decide you wanted a life in the art world?

J.H: I always loved art at school – I think because it was one of the few classes that didn’t involve extensive homework! But when I left high school I never considered a career in the arts, despite doing especially well in art in the HSC. I took a gap year and while I was overseas I went to the Tate Britain, the Hermitage in St Petersburg and everywhere in between. It was just the most brilliant experience. Seeing the paintings I’d studied in textbooks – Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe at Musee D’Orsay in Paris, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avignon at MoMA in New York – come to life. It’s a hideous cliché but it was standing in front of these works, feeling this sense of awe and experiencing their incredible vibrancy, that made me study at COFA.

N.S: While working in Sydney you wore many hats, all related to the arts, what were some of those hats?

J.O: I often joke that I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none!

While I was at university I worked part-time in various areas at the Lawson-Menzies Auction House. I learnt how to handle art works, take phone bids, look for silver markings and handle referral[s].

Later I worked as a part-time gallery assistant for Sullivan+Strumpf Fine Art in Paddington.

And the rest of the time I was that that strange title, ‘art writer’. I was the online editor for State of the Arts for nearly two years, writing reviews, features and interviews on all aspects of Australian arts.

Then I freelanced. I wrote for Australian Art Collector and Artlink. I also did some work for the Australia Council, researching funding recipients and writing for their internal and external publications. Then I had a short stint lecturing at NIDA, directing students as part of their design course about trends in contemporary art making – researching, the communication, learning how to use Powerpoint!

Then there was my time at the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online. I started working as a content miner in 2006. After about six months I was unofficially promoted to Content Copy Editor and was then asked to apply for the position of Editor. I was in this role for 12 months, during which time we launched the site. I’m really proud of the work and time spent on the DAAO. It was such a great team and I’m eternally thankful for the opportunities. I think Australian art history can be perceived as quite unfashionable, particularly by Australian art students. But the amount I learnt and the incredible stories we came across gave me the hugest appreciation for Australian art.

Then I left to move to London.

My career in Sydney was certainly diverse but I think the more you learn about the mechanics of the art world, the better you are placed to work in it and write about it.

N.S: What was your motivation to move abroad?

J.O: I’d always said if I did further study I would do it to be overseas ,both for the challenge, and the opportunity to get up close to some world-class art collections. After a lot of looking around, I ended up doing a MA in Contemporary Art at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. I wanted a course that had an art theory component but also a practical, professional element. Right from the first day they told us it was all very well to be able to write 4000 brilliant words but if you couldn’t get up and talk confidently about a work of art in front of a group of people with only 10 minutes preparation, then you’re really not employable in the arts. It was a pretty frank piece of advice but the course was great. Only in Europe can you have a five-day school trip to the Venice Biennale or an assignment that requires you to visit Chris Ofili’s Turner Prize winning painting at Tate Modern or have the chance to hear Yinka Shonibare talk about his practice. In that respect, moving to London was a no brainer.

N.S: What makes you want to stay in London, and what makes you want to come home?

J.O: It sounds so obvious but really, it’s about the availability and access to world-class exhibitions and to conquer the challenge of succeeding professionally here. That, and the chance to do so much travel. As for what makes me want to come home? Family. Friends. Bondi. Sunshine.

N.S: What is the most challenging aspect of being an ‘art writer[’,] etc?

J.O: There’s a lot that’s quite challenging about being an art writer, the most obvious being that in reality, you’re probably never going to be able to do it full-time unless you work as a staff writer on a magazine or newspaper. I call myself an art writer – that’s what I write on those stupid landing cards whenever I fly anywhere – but in reality I could use a number of labels. I find ‘freelance’ covers a lot of sins too. You write about art because you love it, or because you feel you have something to say. You certainly don’t do it for the money and so rejection can be quite a personal thing sometimes and you have to not lose faith in your ability or lose sight of why you wanted to write in the first place.

N.S: What’s the most rewarding?

J.O: It would be disingenuous to say that seeing your name in print isn’t a little bit of a thrill but it’s about so much more than that. One of my most favourite memories was talking to quite a well-known artist about the photographer Darren Sylvester. This guy said to me, ‘You know, I never really liked Darren’s work, I never really got it. But then I read this really interesting article about his work and it completely changed my opinion.’ I asked him about the article and it turned out that it was an article that I had written! He was mortified but it was an incredible moment for me because a) I realised it wasn’t just my Mum who read everything I wrote and b) I realised that I had the ability to write in a manner that allowed people a different way of thinking about something. You can’t put a price on that kind of discovery and to this day I’m motivated by the thought that someone might read something I’ve written, someone who might not like art, might not ‘get it’ and be curious enough, or open-minded enough to think, ‘I want to see that for myself.’

Jo’s experiences as an art writer is a common story for many of her peers. Many Australian art writers are in overseas art capitals where they find unique opportunities and challenges. Challenges that cannot be as easily accessed at home. Cities like London cater to the enthusiasm of people like Jo Higgins. Her time in Sydney fed her love for art and writing. It was only in London that allowed her easy and flexible access to the highest standards of art in the world. There she will continue living and working with no intention to return home, not for all the sunshine in Bondi.
www.johiggins.com

Tags: Artlink, COFA, DAAO, interview, Jo Higgins, Nick Shoebridge
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

What Rubbish!

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Nick Shoebridge

Trash. Every day we throw it out. We don’t need it or care for it. Think, what did you throw out today? We bury it, bag it, burn it. We don’t think twice about it. Rubbish. It’s useless. But where does it all go? Swept up in the early hours of the morning. Trucked, dumped and added to mountains of trash in unknown places. The minute the junk hits the bottom of the bin it’s forgotten. But, some rubbish has a different end. That destination is in the art of Jane Gillings.

Gillings sees rubbish differently. It’s collected and hoarded. Shaped and moulded. Coloured and connected. She gives junk a new meaning, a new life. Some people collect stamps, toys or footy cards. Gillings collects junk. Obsessively. She finds it impossible not to make use of her found materials. Only rarely rejecting the dirtiest pieces with no use. How does she find her art? She doesn’t rummage around rubbish tips or lurk around the suburbs on bin night. Thrift stores, markets and second hand stores supply her with mountains of materials for her to reconstruct and recreate into art. Toys, Tupperware and tubes are all sorted and organised based on colour and size in her studio. There, she starts to create. ‘If the material can be restored in some way even in the somewhat questionable form of ‘art’, then I have done my work.’ She simply starts to create forms and shapes from our junk. There is no initial vision for her sculptures. As she creates, meaning is created.

Figure 1 Youth Experience (detail) discarded plastics, cable ties 58 x 43 x 40

But what are her works? Do they just turn garbage into something pretty? Look at ‘Youthful Experience’. A colourful network of toys and plastics create the most amusingly difficult game. Or perhaps it depicts the chaotic life and adventures enjoyed by children. Think about a moment you had an amazing idea or burst of inspiration. What would that look like? Gillings’ ‘Release’ could be what those moments look like, in a sculptural way. Then there is the ‘Fleeting Thought’ series. These small and colourful sculptures are like 3D scribbles of brief and fleeting ideas. The shapes and forms of the sculptures, as well as the titles, help create meaning. The exhibition name Come Closer (Now Go Away) is a direction of how to interact with the art. You see the work. You go closer; see what it’s made of. Then you’re forced to step back, or ‘go away’, and use your imagination. Imagination is the key to understanding Gillings’ art.

By using your thrown away odds and ends Gillings is exploring ideas of the human psyche and memory, in a fun and quirky way. So, think about what you threw away today? Pens, poppers, pencils and other paraphernalia. Junk. It’s gross. But next time, give it a second look. Just a fleeting thought; it could be art.

Jane Gillings – Come Closer (Now Go Away)

24 August – 11 September

NG Art Gallery

Upper Level, 3 Little Queen Street

Chippendale, Sydney

Tags: Come Closer (Now Go Away), Jane Gillings, Junk, NG Art Gallery, rubbish
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

Finding loneliness in the multitude.

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Kelly Brockhoff

In his k eynote address to the Melbourne Art Fair, internationally renowned American curator and art critic Robert Storr looked at the burgeoning number of biennales and art fairs and their impact. Where once there were only two biennales – Venice and Sao Paulo – there are now well over one hundred. Where once there were only a handful of art fairs, now there are dozens. And where once there were international styles, now there are global markets. Although not as controversial as his address at the MCA in July 2008, which ended with a fiery exchange with art critic and curator Okwui Enwezor, Robert Storr, famed art curator, critic, academic and painter did not fail to please. Storr asked the big questions on the value of the biennale; how it engages the audience and the participation of art dealers, curators, collectors and institutions. Storr, with his quiet manner told it as it is while he assessed the new playing field for art.

Storr supported the biennale as a useful form, one not to be thrown away, but one which requires constant revision and careful supervision. The model that is a locally curated art event, exhibiting an array on international artists with funding supplied by government and philanthropic corporations is in complete contrast to the invitational commercial event of an art fair. Yet with the proliferation of both art fairs and biennales today, it is not unreasonable for people to become befuddled and confuse the two separate entities. For those that are on the ‘inside’ of the art world, the blurring could reside in the fact that art fairs, such as the one in Melbourne recently, function as a non-profit event with invitational participation. The art fair model creates a more prescriptive style of show such as the themed Melbourne Art Fair, where commercial galleries only gain entry if they meet the criteria set by the Art Fair board. As a commercial model the collectors are motivated to attend the fair to discover the next emerging artist and to track the art market. Many galleries that attend the fair exhibit shows that have been previously sold, which then become an exercise in public relations for them. Art fairs, Storr suggested, are defined as a gathering of art selectors who believe in and advance the cause of the artists they choose. Lorenzo Rudolf, the Fair Director of ShContemporary (Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair) in an interview with Artfacts, upheld this view by making the clear distinction that art fairs should foremost support the primary art market with the criterion of market ability and what will sell. Randi Linnegar, Co-Director of the King Street Galleries, supported this opinion with the following comment: ‘An art fair is a commercial event whereby commercial galleries gather in one exhibition area that allows each gallery exhibition space to showcase their artists. The purpose is to bring potential purchasers (now and for the future) of art into a single venue where they can view a very large selection of available works in various mediums by numerous artists; and have price details readily available.’

Storr stated a clear definition of the difference between the role of the two events and their relationship to the audience. Both models – biennales and art fairs – are good occasions to consider what crowds are, how they function and their engagement with the exhibits. The function of art fairs and the dealers, he stated, was to persuade the audience to posses the object of art, whereas the function of a curator of a biennale is to understand how the object or art will possess the viewer. In reviewing the role of biennales today Storr proposed: ‘much of the criticism of biennales stem from the fact that they are partly confused with art fairs’, possibly as a result of the apparent penetration of increased commercial interest. It was with this statement that he controversially suggested, ‘dealers should ease up a little’ on their influence with the curators and allow them the space and time to make their own decisions on the representative artists. A cutting remark directly pointed at the tight knit art community that powers these events with the required finance and resources. It is this dilemma of the relationship between those committed to the activity of art and those that have this power, that have to be constantly worked out. The commonality is that they both share an interest and commitment to art. Although it could be argued that the more information a curator has regarding an artist the more institutionally “reliable” they tend to be considered. Artists running independent initiatives outside the official artistic channels tend to get overlooked or not seen at all.

Storr made the comment that he thought there was a problem with too many curators doing too many biennales, and not enough curators doing one or two. In 2008 Christov-Bakargiev’s, curator for the 2008 Sydney Biennale, response to a question posed by a journalist was that in her view, biennales are more for the artists and curators than they are for the audiences. This may have been true in the past, with biennales being more “insider” affairs, mostly visited by serious critics, artists, curators and a few dealers, but since the 1990s they have developed a wider and more popular audience. One can only hope that they continue to prosper, to hold and expand their audience, become tools of education yet still engage the individual viewer as they have done in the recent Sydney Biennale.

In Storr’s opinion, the proliferation of biennales does not seem to be the problem but he identified an increased concern regarding the diversity of work exhibited, stating, ‘you don’t have to make representation a statistical phenomena’ with art from every corner of the globe. This was an interesting point from the curator of the 2007 Venice Biennale who greatly expanded the official selection with over 100 international artists represented. With the growing number of artists who show at international biennales and the influence of larger galleries, there is the notion that contemporary art could become a homogenised commodity. This said, the alter argument is that the biennale becomes more exhausting but also richer for this proliferation.

Storr’s view on this global prospect of biennales is that ‘globalisation’ is a phenomenon of markets, not a phenomenon of art. Unlike Coca Cola, which adapts itself to a markets’ preference, Storr references Gerardo Mosquera’s observation of Coca Cola’s formula adapting to the local market. This is why California and Mexico have very sweet Coca Cola whereas in Chicago it tastes like Australian Pepsi. Art should be different in different places and different in contrast to different things. He added, ‘art should be the occasion to think about what is not the same, not dependable, not predictable, but something that you can engage (with) and develop an interest (in)’.

Storr asked, ‘Can sense be made of art and can ideas really be exchanged amidst this proliferation or have we entered into a period when scanning has replaced seeing, keeping track has replaced paying attention, and information has replaced meaning?’ He framed this idea of proliferation within a period of worldwide excess and that now is a good time to take stock and reassess the possibilities available to all facets of the art world. He asserted that art needs ‘the crowd’ as they mirror the artists’ work; for without the crowd to look upon and engage, would the art be art and not just the artists’ work. Therefore the crowd, as it passes through this smorgasbord of art fairs and biennales, is important. To do the crowd justice and provide an experience that is engaging, challenging and provoking, benefits the artist within the curatorial display. Taking the crowd and creating a circumstance where they have to engage with the art, where they are immediately and personally implicated, removes them from the crowd and creates an individual and personal experience. Storr cites Baudelaire and speaks of ‘finding the loneliness in the multitude’ and the challenge for the Curator to create, for the individual, a room with a work of art more so than in a room with a crowd.

The inevitable negative critique of the biennale event is now almost expected for armor clad Biennale curatorial teams. In fact the journalist Andrew Frost in speaking with David Elliott leading up to the Sydney Biennale this year, asked him if he was bracing himself for a bad review. David responded with the comment that he was looking forward to it because, in his opinion, it was sure sign of curatorial success. The biennale as an exhibition model, continues to roll on expanding and morphing into the monster that it is quickly becoming, closely monitored by its ever-present critics snapping at its heels vigilant in their assessment of its position of value in the art world.

Robert Storr is Dean of the Yale School of Art. He was Artistic Director of the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, and Curator and Senior Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, from 1990 to 2002.  Presented by the Monash Museum of Art and the Melbourne Art Foundation at Fitzroy Town Hall, Aug 2010

Tags: Art Fairs, Australian art, Biennale, Melbourne Art Fair, Museum of Contemporary Art, Okwui Enwezor, Robert Storr, Sydney Biennale
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

To Keep Your Balance You Must Keep Moving

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Elliot Shields

Somewhere between the bronzed and barefooted casual activism of a dreadlocked Combi captain and the bitter disenchantment of a red-in-the-face political rally goer lies a crusade every bit worthy of the common mans attention. In The Balance, currently on at Sydney’s MCA, has skilfully evaded the cringe inducing hang-ups of angry and naive environmentally conscious art in favour of rationality, to which it owes its success.

Part discussion forum, part art exhibition, In The Balance: Art For A Changing World references the increasingly indelicate push and pull between our environment and us. Whilst this is obviously an important relationship, it is also ripe fodder for an entire subculture of idealism. These idealists use and reuse the clichéd semiotics of ‘STOP NUCLEAR POWER’ banners, ambiguous “statistics” handed to you within a threefold pamphlet or perhaps a completely facile chain email. No elaboration is required on the measured level of care generally shown towards these kinds of crusades.

Equally measured yet entirely positive has been the MCA’s approach, bringing together the interesting and the relevant in order to kick start the care levels. With work from over 30 artists and artist groups on display, the entrance gallery immediately provides the exhibitions symbolic counterpoints. David Stephenson’s immaculate type C prints of industrial landscapes, and the intellectually engaging Environmental Audit realised by Lucas Ihlein.

Stephenson’s photographs are stunning. Large and luscious, his technical proficiency is undeniable as the cold lifeless structures that fill his New Monuments series leave us reconsidering our effect on the land. A series of photographs of dams from around America, the large concrete dams are as much a barrier between our gaze and the river they contain, as they are concrete monoliths. Sitting between walls of earth as if products of some futuristic archaeological dig, they are an effective reminder that the costs of these physical changes imposed upon our environment are certainly not as temporary as the cost of their construction.

Adjunct to this room of photographs, intended assumably as the starting point of the exhibition is Lucas Ilhein’s Environmental Audit. Explicitly titled, Ihlein’s work is a quantitative audit of the exhibition’s environmental impact, completed as part of a seminar, complete with large blackboards that span all four walls. Using information about the power consumption and environmental efficiency of each work on show, as well as the gallery itself, Ihlein asks the audience whether the effect of the exhibition will outweigh its costs. Does the exhibition with its high aspirations of sustainability politics still have a voice when the audience has been made aware of the power consumption of every light bulb, or every plasma screen? It’s an irony often raised by critics or by the audience, but rarely by the artist, yet Ihlein has highlighted it’s importance most successfully. The works further success comes from its online presence as a blog regularly updated by Ihlein which documents the ongoing tribulations of keeping the work current. As parts of the exhibition change and environmental impacts are discovered, he informs the reader (both via the blackboard and the blog) thus offering an online forum for comments and discussion in which he himself participates.

It is an interesting work and one of the exhibitions greatest assets, enabling the exhibition to be self aware without the disguise and compromise that may be seen if carried out by the museum itself. Ihlein is also able to point out potential flaws in other works and offer a place to discuss them, as he has done in an assessment of Lauren Berkowitz’s Bags.

Bags, originally exhibited in 1994, consists of two large walls created out of white plastic grocery bags. The bags were donated by the public and by the gallery staff, which would generally be read as a comment on the number of plastic bags in existence and how they are almost all completely non-degradable plastic. That being said, it is bizarre that it was actually quite a struggle for Berkowitz to source the number of bags that she required for the work. Instantly, the integrity of the work is degraded as it implies a condition of society that perhaps does not exist anymore. Disregarding the crude pun, If there were such a large plethora of bags floating around, worthy of commentary, then the work should have been quite easy to construct. This pitfall is still quite short however, as to even consider it means the work has had some degree of success.

Particularly now, as Australia finds itself in a pronounced state of political unrest, an artwork capable of making an audience actually think about something as specific as the politics of sustainability has to be considered quite powerful. If Berkowitz’s Bags is but a whimsical tip of the iceberg (a metaphor soon to be out of date), sitting in relative solitude observing Susan Norrie and David Mackenzie’s spectacularly depressing footage of the Sidoarjo mud flow and its victims offers us the cold, dark and deep reality.

The mud flow, which began in 2006, dispels thousands of cubic metres of mud a day, and has so far displaced 50,000 people from their homes with marginal support from the company responsible or the Indonesian government. A bleak reality appears on the two screens before you, and after a wry grin at Diego Bonetto’s request to befriend Sydney’s weeds, or a straight out laugh at the operation of Amy Franceschini and the Futurefarmers Sunshine Still, entering to a woman in hysterical tears over the loss of her home is a sobering experience. Coming face to face with that kind of reality in the setting of the exhibition becomes ceremonious. Inescapable due to it its size and far more poetic than a newspaper article or bulletin on your home television, you’re forced to perceive it as a virtual reality, something which is moving and breathing but far removed from Berkowitz’s biomorphic bags, completely emotive. As dark as the room is, it does nothing if not encourage the audience to view the exhibition in a brand new light, inaccessible to Ilhein’s audit but having a far greater affect on our environment, and how we perceive it.

‘In The Balance: Art For A Changing World’ Is on now at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Exhibition Closes 31 October 2010

Tags: David Mackenzie, David Stephenson, Environmentalism, In The Balance, Lauren Berkowitz, Lucas Ihlein, MCA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Susan Norrie, Sydney
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

Peacocks Display in Auburn, New South Wales

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Rebecca Craig

In 1999 the New South Wales State Government announced “strategic initiatives” to increase support of the arts in Western Sydney, an area historically negatively stereotyped as ‘culturally barren’. Previously the majority of State Government support for arts infrastructure and funding of arts specific projects was distributed to the major regional centres of Newcastle and Wollongong. This new initiative extended that support to Blacktown, Campbelltown, Casula, Penrith and Parramatta. The program was aimed toward promoting place, identity, pride and participation in Western Sydney through ‘redressing historical imbalances between the west and ‘the rest,’’ (Chesterman and Schwager, ‘Arts Development in Western Sydney’, 1990). In effect the State Government recognized the shift of ‘cultural consumption’ away from Sydney’s CBD toward the west, and the development of cultural precincts in these areas was determined to be supportive of Western Sydney as a growing economic and cultural centre.

The State Government’s 2006 Progress Report on Arts in Western Sydney, proclaimed the successes of the infrastructure program through the support of larger sites and projects in the development of Blacktown Arts Centre, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Casula which have emerged as serious players in Sydney’s art scene. While these institutions have enjoyed rising reputations, competing with the CBD art scene, the boundaries of NSW Government Arts Strategy support to these major areas has overlooked some significant areas of Western Sydney where support for arts programs would be very much appreciated.

Auburn is one of New South Wales’ most culturally diverse areas, with at least half of its population born overseas. Over 200 identified subcultures are represented in Auburn and the main cultural backgrounds represented are: Chinese, Vietnamese, Turkish, Lebanese, South Korean, Afghan, Indian, Philippine, Sri Lankan and New Zealander. Auburn has a history of welcoming refugees beginning with those who came after World War Two. Initial arrivals of Anglo-European migrants in the 1960s was followed by an increase of Asian migrants, particularly Chinese, and in the last twenty years Auburn has fostered emerging African and Middle Eastern communities. In 2004, Auburn was a self-declared ‘Refugee Welcoming Zone’. Despite its burgeoning cultural diversity, Auburn has been left off the NSW State Government’s list of ‘cultural consumption’ zones.

Auburn is challenging their omission by consciously deciding not to compete with the big galleries; instead it is developing its own creative support networks. But with the State Government’s increased expectation on local governments to support their own arts infrastructure, and because Auburn is Sydney’s second most disadvantaged Local Government area, arts development has become a long-term project. With the timely assistance of the Federal Government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan grants, Auburn’s eight-year plan for a community integrated art program was fast-tracked by seven years.

Brooke Endycott, Auburn City Council’s Community Development Officer, says that allocation of State funding to larger and established art centres contributed to Auburn artists’ exclusion from the art spaces nearest to them in Parramatta and Bankstown. New artists found it difficult to access non-local arts infrastructures which, while very encouraging of Western Sydney locals, was supportive of more established artists.

Auburn has also been overlooked by the Australia Council Partnerships, which has seen significant funding of local arts infrastructure in partnership with Western Sydney City Councils including Campbelltown and Bankstown. While these Creative Community Partnership Initiatives have aimed to increase opportunities available for people to become engaged in their local art communities, according to Endycott, Auburn artists have continued to find it increasingly difficult to become involved in these opportunities for the same reasons of artist development.

Peacock Gallery located in Auburn’s Botanical Gardens has begun to change this by focusing on local artists, offering opportunities to develop and exhibit their work. Opened in October 2009, it is the first arts specific facility in Auburn and provides both practical and professional development opportunities for artists.

The Gallery’s residency program focuses on supporting Auburn’s artists. When an artist is accepted for the Residency Program they have full use of the spaces, equipment and resources at Peacock Gallery for a four-week period that culminates in an exhibition of their work. The council supports the month-long exhibition assisting the artists with promotional material, marketing and curation of their show. The City Council also provides regular professional development opportunities for artists including group work facilitation skills programs – preparing artists for employment. The Gallery takes no commission from the sale of any works and has links to CBD galleries such as Mori Gallery where some of Peacock’s artists have gone on to exhibit.

Endycott says that the main ambition of Peacock Gallery is to provide links into employment for Auburn artists. It is through the Gallery’s connections with Mori, Blacktown Arts Centre, Parramatta Artists Studio and others that artists exhibiting at Peacock can take the next steps in their career. The Gallery aims to foster relationships between artists and larger, commercial galleries, thereby creating employment pathways.

Auburn’s Chinese Calligraphy Group was recently in residency and produced an exhibition to coincide with the Chinese Moon Festival, aptly titling it ‘harMOONy Celebration’. The Moon Festival is one of the most important festivals in the Chinese calendar, celebrating the end of the harvest and emphasizing family unity. The calligraphy group used this opportunity to reconnect with their fellow Auburn Chinese community and extend the hand of friendship to all cultural backgrounds in Auburn.

Engaging with material and object, surface and texture, the Calligraphy group express their heritage in both traditional and progressive manners. Particularly interesting was the calligraphic lamp. Showing a thoughtful connection between concept and content, the lampshade is decorated with Chinese characters and traditional calligraphic motifs from nature. The shade becomes a new and innovative source for the traditional rice paper of Chinese calligraphy, reminiscent of the paper lanterns used in Moon Festival decoration. The shade provides a continuum for traditional meaning as well as a vehicle for the introduction of contemporary themes to the work. The Auburn artists have brought to this harMOONy Celebration a new way to practice their histories, shaped by their experiences of Auburn’s diversity.

At the exhibition opening there were calligraphy demonstrations and guests were delighted to listen to Erhu (a Chinese stringed instrument akin to a violin) and Gu-Zheng (Chinese Harp) performances by local artists. Lion Dancers awoke the spirits, summoning luck and fortune to the gallery before guests were welcomed to view the works. The energy of the gallery coupled with the excitement of the artists to see their work displayed on the walls of Peacock Gallery was priceless. A group of local artists were empowered with the opportunity to culturally express themselves, connecting and extending on their personal history and context. The harMOONy Celebration hosted free community programs, including calligraphy workshops – allowing the wider community to become involved and connected with their fellow creative Auburners. These monthly exhibition openings transcend the individual artist or group and become whole community integrating events. Endycott says that Peacock Gallery “not only showcases cultures but actually connects communities which wouldn’t otherwise get to connect.” The social benefits of Peacock Gallery are evident in the harMOONy Celebration – by exhibiting the works in parallel with a significant cultural event the Gallery builds harmony and understanding amongst Auburn’s diverse community.

Not yet one year old, Peacock Gallery’s success is the result of its focus on opportunity, inclusivity and popularity. Exhibitions such as harMOONy Celebration and the residency and exhibition programs assist in the continuation of cultural traditions and activities not just amongst the perceived owners of those traditions, but by all cultural distinctions in Auburn. With the exhibition coinciding with an annual cultural event, Peacock Gallery manages to increase local knowledge of Auburn’s diversity and allows participation of the community in cultural events. Endycott notes that the Gallery has been well received by the broader community as seen in its attraction of at least 150 visitors per week, whose diversity ranges from picnicking families to tour groups and tai chi participants.

But the real success of Peacock Gallery and the commitment of the City Council to support art in Auburn became clear in the provision of further funding for a second gallery space. The atrium adjacent to the gallery will soon be renovated to provide extended floor-space for exhibitions. The demand of local artists applying for residency and exhibition programs and the increasing visitor interest proves the success of the contribution which art makes to daily life in Auburn.

Peacock Gallery demonstrates the value of arts in breaking down social barriers despite being overshadowed by neighboring art centres in Blacktown and Parramatta. The Gallery connects Auburn’s cultures, recognizing that the essence of Auburn is its diverse community. The support of artists through professional development programs and links to bigger galleries allows artists to gain the valuable skills they require for future exhibitions and in employment as an artist. Peacock acts as a protector of cultural integrity by investing in the continuation of artistic tradition through the broadcast of knowledge, fostering understanding and inclusion whilst maintaining diversity of cultures. A marker of cultural value and offering, Peacock Gallery proves Auburn is an area of “cultural consumption”.

Tags: Art Gallery Auburn, Auburn, Auburn Artist, Auburn Botanical Gardens, Auburn Chinese Calligraphy Group, Auburn City Council, Brooke Endycott., Calligraphy, HarMOONy Celebration, New South Wales, Peacock Gallery, Western Sydney, Western Sydney Art Gallery
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

Make a joke out of art? We’ll make a joke out of you!

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Katrina Dunn-Jones

DVD Release 13th October 2010.

‘Everything you are about to see is true, especially the bit where we all lie’ says Banksy of his debut film, Exit through the Gift Shop. (Sundance, 2010)

In this film, Banksy makes a joke out of the art world, just as the art world has made a joke of art. Underneath the jest, however, is a serious and important message.

Exit is the story of the industry’s subjugation of art. It is a cautionary tale about art, culture and capitalism. The villain of this tale is the ‘Culture Industry’; a factory, of sorts, that takes art and the avant garde, strips it of its subversive content, and churns out ‘pastiche’, the mere image of the avant garde. As this image is disseminated through the many structures of the Culture Industry (film) art is steadily replaced with the image (the brand) and after a certain period of time, we, the public/consumer, can scarcely tell the difference between the imitation and the real thing. Banksy, through this film, revolts against the Culture Industry, by graffiting the medium that originally subjugated it. He makes apparent the power that industry images have over people; undermines the authority of the medium and the industry’s players; and reveals how art has been transformed into pastiche, ripe for consumption. In doing so he reveals the way we, the audience, have been manipulated by the Culture Industry and urged into consumerist passivity. The moral, don’t believe what you see and hear, don’t believe the hype, think for yourself!

Exit uses the Culture Industry’s ubiquitous images in order to undermine its perceived power. From the first moment, Banksy uses Street Art’s techniques of subversion to highlight the way images operate in culture. Exit opens, as almost all films do, with the logo of its production company, Paranoid Pictures. Paranoid Pictures, however, is not a production company; it is a Banksy stencil (available for purchase at Guy Hepner Gallery). Banksy has appropriated the Paramount Pictures logo; retaining the iconic snow capped mountain, replacing the halo of stars with bullet holes. It is only when the bullets begin to tear through the image that we become aware of the difference; the distinction between the two is not noticed at first glance. In that moment of revelation, the power of the Culture Industry’s images becomes apparent. We, the audience, suddenly realise how readily we accept—rather than question–the images depicted on screen. This opening sets the tone for the remainder of the film; encouraging the audience to question rather than accept what the film ‘tells’ them.

The power of the Culture Industry lies in its perceived authority and thus holds the power to define the avant garde and strip it of any subversive power. Exit constitutes Banksy’s attempt to resist documentation, which is ‘the worst thing that can happen to an avant garde’. He turns the camera away from himself (to the disappointment of the audience) and onto the documentarian, Thierry Guetta; an eccentric Frenchman who accidently ‘falls into the biggest countercultural movement since punk’. He is obsessed with filming the world around and for this reason resolves to make a documentary about Street Art –with little thought of what it would mean to document an art that is by nature, fleeting, and reliant on the invisibility of the artist. Guetta is shown to be a clumsy half-wit who does not understand the art he is documenting. This is made apparent by his attempt to describe Banksy:

He was incredible, he was cool, he was…, he was…eh, he was, human, he was…, he was…, he was…eh, he is…, he is, you know, he is really like, eh, what he represent, you know. I think he is really like, eh, I think he is really like eh…I really liked him!

This point is furthered by Guetta’s ‘documentary’, Life Remote Control:

An hour and a half of unwatchable, nightmare, trailers. [It is] essentially like someone with a short attention span with a remote control, flicking through a cable box of nine hundred channels…everything about it was, well, ‘shit’. (Banksy)

Banksy concludes:

It was at that point that I realised maybe Thierry wasn’t actually a filmmaker and was maybe just someone with mental problems who happened to have camera…So I though maybe I should have a go, I mean I don’t know how to make a film, but that didn’t seem to stop Thierry, so…

Through the example of Guetta, Banksy shows how the Culture Industry makes a joke out of art and how those that document and define a movement are generally ‘half wits’ who do not understand the art they are documenting, nor the implications of the very act of documenting. This destruction of art, by the industry, is contrasted with Banksy, an artist who creates art that speaks for itself. Though this film, Banksy undermines the industry and the ‘information’ it espouses, in so doing, he re-empowers Street Art and breaks the spell the Culture Industry has cast.

Banksy shows the art world to be a sham, through the character of Guetta, who, through the tools of marketing and advertising, is transformed overnight from ‘humble shopkeeper’ to ‘art-world sensation’. In the beginning of the film, Guetta is introduced to audience as: ‘the owner of a vintage clothing store in the city’s most bohemian shopping district; he made a good living selling wears to L.A.’s more fashion conscious citizens’. Guetta explains:

at that time I used to buy old adidas and old things, things you couldn’t find here…and when the sewing was different, I call it ‘designer’, and I put the price up, I say ‘four hundred dollars’. So from fifty dollars I could sometimes make, five thousand dollars.

Guetta and his store are metaphor for the art world, which routinely picks up a trash, calls it art and hikes up the prices. Guetta takes this same approach when he reinvents himself as ‘Mr Brainwash’ – artist extraordinaire. With his Warhol-esque factory Guetta recycles virtually every avant garde since POP, producing hundreds of meaningless pastiches. Irrespective of the quality of his work, Guetta’s debut show Life is Beautiful was, in industry terms, a great success: ‘the ultimate validation was measured in dollars and cents, by the end of his opening week Thierry would sell over a million dollars of art’. Guetta’s ‘success’, as we are shown in the film, was entirely the result of the Culture Industry’s publicity machines — after hearing about the show in publications such as LA Weekly, over two thousand people lined up at the gallery door on the day of the opening. The public are shown to be completely ignorant of the influence of publicity and are unaware that their interpretation of the work is merely a recycled press release; where Banksy notes that Guetta’s art ’looks like every one else’s’, a visitor describes Guetta’s works as ‘a mixture of street art and POP, together, really interesting stuff, very modern, no one has really done it the way he’s done it’. This film shows how the Culture Industry makes consumers out of us all. The customers of Guetta’s store—‘typical arty types’—are shown to be no different to the philistines who praise the work of Mr Brainwash. If the Culture Industry were a puppet show, in this film, Banksy reveals the strings. He shows how we, the public, after of decades manipulation, can no longer distinguish between art and pastiche. In doing so Banksy subverts the Culture Industry, clueing us up to ‘the culture of mass deception’.

Banksy turns the tables on the Culture Industry to make the following point: don’t believe the hype, don’t believe what they tell you, don’t even believe what I tell you, look at what you see and think for yourself!

___________

Bibliography:

Adorno, T. W. & Max Horkheimer. ‘The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’. The Dialectic of Enlightenment. 1947. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002.

ACMI: The Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Droney, Damien. ‘The Business of “Getting Up”: Street Art and Marketing in Los Angeles’. Visual Anthropology. 23: 2, March, 2010.

Huyssen, Andreas. ‘Back to the Future’. In the Spirit of Fluxus. Minneapolis: Walker Art Centre, 1993.

Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991.

Tags: Banksy, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Katrina Dunn-Jones, street art
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

Charles “Sa-art-chi”

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

By Melanie Brycki

Everybody wants to know the secrets to success, though the answers are unlikely to come from the lips of Charles Saatchi. Perhaps one of the most powerful collectors in the art world today, his recently published books My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic (2009) and Question (2010), offer little insight into the workings of this entrepreneurial collector‘s mind. Famous for his reclusive nature, Saatchi overcame his aversion for interviews to provide responses to questions put to him by members of the public, art critics, and leading journalists on the topics; ‘art, ads, life, god and othermysteries’. His witty and clever responses are to be expected, given the careful selection process of the questions featured.

Whilst there is a clear focus on art in the first publication, the second leaves the reader with a sense of disappointment about the depth of inquiries. There are pages and pages of nonsensical questions; ‘Football or cricket?’, ’Bus or tube?’, ‘Madonna or Beyonce?’. It is hard to imagine exactly who would be interested in Saatchi’s opinions on such things. These conversational style questions make the reader feel more as though they are getting to know Saatchi on a first date, rather than reading a hard-hitting interview with him. Perhaps this petty banter has been included to distract the reader from gaps surrounding the more important topics of conversation, or even to hide some of the less than satisfactory answers provided by Saatchi; such as his thoughts on the point of art as simply being a means ‘to stop our eyeballs going into meltdown from all the rubbish TV and films’ (Saatchi 2009, p.69). I wonder what this year’s winners of the Emmy and Academy Awards would have to say about that.

Saatchi’s influence on artists and the art market has been a cause for controversy since he started his collection over 40 years ago, and he takes the time to address certain aspects of these issues in the publications. Many objections have been raised to his collecting habits; in particular, his penchant for buying and selling in bulk as well as purchasing works at inflated prices. When asked if concerned about his impact on the market, Saatchi claims he ‘doesn’t mind paying three or four times the market value’ for a work he really wants (Saatchi 2009, p.22). Whilst this kind of turnover can have a significant affect on the market, ultimately the value of any item can only be determined by what somebody is prepared to pay for it. Whilst one can make estimates on the market value of particular works, the true measure is in the proof of the purchase price. Impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir has also expressed his theory that there is ‘only one indication for telling the value of paintings, and that is in the sale room’ (Watson 1992, p.xxiv).

If Saatchi’s inflated purchase prices can be passed off as being a routine part of the market, surely his ‘bulk buying’ strategies cannot be ignored. Many have articulated the opinion that if anyone was to collect as much art as Saatchi does they are bound to acquire some good works along the way. Does Saatchi indeed have an “eye” for art or does he just monopolise the market? According to him, there is no skill in collecting. He doesn’t take pride in the purchase of great art, claiming it is the artists who should be proud as they are the one’s with the drive and the ideas (Saatchi 2009, p.116). Peter Watson, author of From Manet to Manhattan: The rise of the Modern Art Market, sees Saatchi’s place in the art world as unresolved and not fully understood. His haphazard and somewhat arbitrary choices in both collecting and trade have resulted in some perplexed and frustrated artists. British Pop Artist Peter Blake is not afraid to speak up about his distaste for the way Saatchi conducts himself, even instructing his dealer not to sell to the collector. In 1998, Blake told an interviewer, ‘I disapprove of his policy of blanket-buying of one artist’s work, which I think creates a false market’. Sandro Chia is another artist who has voiced his criticism of Saatchi, fuelled by the ‘purging’ of six of Chia’s paintings in 1985. In an interview titled ‘Making Money, Making Art’, where artists were asked to comment on the ‘hyper-inflated art market’, Chia muses ‘the economy itself has become the work of art, acquiring all the qualities a work of art should have: pitilessness, ruthlessness, cynicism, grandiosity, communicativeness, abstraction’ (Chia 1990, p.138). The media has claimed that Saatchi’s dispersals had destroyed Chia’s career. However, the artist says that whilst the incident made him ‘a little famous’, it did not ruin him (Chia 1990 p.138).

In discussing the art market, Saatchi makes some interesting comments on its nature. He highlights the idea that what people buy and sell is by definition ‘the market’, raising questions as to whether or not his actions can indeed distort the art market or are simply part of its nature. As art critic Robert Hughes pointed out in his 1991 book, Nothing if Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists, ‘there is no historical precedent for the price structure of art in the 20th century’. Given this, it is safe to say art is indeed a speculative market, one that is influenced by and responsive to political, economic and social trends and events across the world and across time. However, it has only been in the last 50 years that art has been viewed as an avenue for making money, a phenomenon that ‘began as a trickle, turned into a stream and finally became a great roaring flood’ (Hughes 2009). Hughes drives this point home, sighting the two-year period from 2008 to 2009 in which Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses sold $12.5billion worth of art.

Interestingly, with all this exchange of art and money, it is often the dealers and collectors trading the works who benefit whilst the artists themselves gain far smaller returns. In the 2009 documentary The Mona Lisa Curse, we witness the artist’s aggravation first hand. After the collector Robert Scull auctioned off some of Robert Rauschenberg’s work in 1973 for sky-high prices, he was confronted by the artist; ’I’ve been working my ass off for you to make that profit!’ Unfazed by Rauschenberg’s attack, Scull claimed that any new works made by Rauschenberg would consequently earn the artist more money, claiming artist and collector work for each other. This famous 1973 auction was a turning point in the art world, where emphasis shifted from aesthetics to money, and it has been said that this single event, more than any other, kicked off the art market as we know it today (Kaplan 2010).

Though he is clearly entrenched in the speculative bubble that is the art market Saatchi doesn’t always speak highly of it. In My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic, he details a game he used to play with the late critic David Sylvester where the two would discuss which artist, curator, dealer, collector or critic they would least like to be stranded on a desert island with. An entire page is dedicated to the discussion of each category. He suggests many dealers would be ‘better suited to manning the door of a night-club’, given their ability to alienate potential buyers, and criticizes curators for their inadequacies in putting together anything more than a ‘Groundhog Day’ show with the help of their ‘Bluffer’s notes on art theory’. The work of a good art critic is ‘sublime’, although Saatchi suspects some critics could have been just as fulfilled writing about travel or gardening instead of art. His stance on artists is, by contrast, short and sweet, ‘I love them all’ (Saatchi 2009, p.61-67). Throughout the books, he consistently praises artists and tells the reader how being an artist is the ‘toughest’ and ‘cruelest’ job out there. Perhaps not all would agree with his sentiment. Not surprisingly, Collectors, like Saatchi himself, are described as ’much less pretentious than most other inhabitants of the art world’. (2009, p.125)

Saatchi insists, ‘nobody would want to see a film about me, including me’ (2010, p.94). Nonetheless his two books appear to be deliberate teasers to court attention so that readers are left wanting more. Whilst he acknowledges his oversized ego, Saatchi claims he is generally quite modest; deep down he is just like the rest of us, finding inner peace (as many do) on the lavatory. On July 1st 2010, Saatchi announced his plans to donate to the British nation more than 200 works from his collection (£25 million worth). Upon Saatchi’s retirement, his Chelsea gallery will essentially be nationalised and renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art, London. Whilst this act of philanthropy is no doubt beneficial to the arts sector, there remains concern as to who will own the works on behalf of the nation and details about how the gallery will operate are yet to be decided. (Brown, 2010). One thing is for sure; after Saatchi is gone his legacy will remain.

Always an advertising man, is Saatchi.

References

Brown, M. ‘Charles Saatchi donates 200 works to the nation‘, The Guardian UK, Thursday 1st July, 2010

Hatton, R. & Walker, J. Supercollector: A critique of Charles Saatchi, Institute of Artology, London, 2005 (3rd edition)

Hughes, R. Nothing if Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists, Collins-Harvill, London, 1991

Hughes, R. The Mona Lisa Curse, director Mandy Chang, executive producer Nick Kent, Oxford Film and TV, 2009

Kaplan, F. ‘ Showing a Couple’s Eye for Art (and Money), New York Times, April 9th, 2010

Saatchi, C. My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic, Phaidon Press, London & New York, 2009

Saatchi, C. Question, Phaidon Press, London & New York, 2010

Watson, P. From Manet to Manhattan: The Rise of the Modern Art Market, Random House Inc. New York, 1992

Wei, L. ‘Making Art, Making Money: 13 Artists Comment’, Art in America, vol.78 July 1990

Tags: Art Market, Charles Saatchi, Melanie Brycki, Museum of Contemporary Art London, My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic, Question
Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off

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