Royalties on Resold Paintings The Australian artist Hazel Dooney has published an interesting post about the royalties that artist should or shouldn't receive when their works are resold by collectors. She mentions a painting that she sold when she was just starting out for $300, which would be worth nearly $30,000 now.

Here's what she says about it..
"Droit de suite negates the significance of the collector in an artist's success. Every person who buys a work of art is supporting an artist at whatever point that artist happens to be in their career."
and
"Everyone who supports an artist by buying their work, especially in the early, 'risky' stages of a career, deseres all of whatever eventual profit there might (or might not) be". Hazel Dooney

I have to agree that we probably don't deserve to be compensated for the life of a painting. I wouldn't refuse royalties either :-P

To make it more interesting, I wonder if a collector can also be compensated for the losses they have suffered from investing in an artist's career? A lot of young flash in the pan artists that are currently selling for impressive prices would have to start saving now.
>> Being an Artist  ¶ 9:07 PM 6 comments

  Art Blogs of the Moment Almost every man and his dog now have a blog, so I thought I would share a few. A lot of them come and go, as that just seems to be the nature of blogs, but there's also a lot of blogs that just keep going.

This is not a "best of" list of art blogs, they're just a few blogs that I have been reading more recently. Feel free to leave your favorite blogs in the comments.

• ArtJournal Blogs - AJ Blogs Central is a network of arts blogs that cover things like music, visual arts, media, architecture, and culture.
• Art & Perception - Is now a community blog for artists to write and comment on all things art.
• Coxsoft Art News - International art news, gossip, and reviews from the UK.
• The Art Life - Australian art blog with news, musings, and reviews.
• Art Fag City - New York art news, exhibition reviews, and gossip.
• Art Forum Blog - Art news diary from the Art Forum magazine.
• The Intrepid Art Collector - Art news and gallery reviews by the author of a book by the same name as her blog.
• Self Vs. Self - Writings of a working artist in Australia (Hazel Dooney).
• Edward Winkleman - Discusses all things art, politics, and culture.
• Jafabrit's Art - US based Geordie artist talking about and showing her art.
• Drawn - Arts, illustration, and cartooning news and reviews.
• BoingBoing - Blog of interesting and often unnecessary things.
• We Make Money Not Art - Contemporary art news and reviews.

Like I said, there's plenty more art blogs out there that are worth checking out. Most blogs have links in their sidebar linking to more blogs, which is a great way to discover new blogs.
>> Art Blog News

  ¶ 9:50 PM 13 comments

  Buying and Selling Art Online ArtInfo has profiled five "Award-Worthy Web Galleries" that allow you to buy and sell work online. It's a very mixed bunch, aiming at very different buyers/sellers, but they all seem worthy enough to mention.

• PicassoMio gets the "Best of the Behemoths" award, which has more than 20,000 works by 2000 different artists worldwide.
• WeHeartPrints wins the "Labor of Love" award, as it's small, focused, and looked after by one person.
• MixedGreens is awarded the "Best of Both Worlds" prize as it is both a bricks & mortar gallery and a gallery selling works online (I'm sure all bricks & mortar art galleries will eventually move to selling work online too.. even if they only offer small works online by their exhibiting artists.)
• AltPhotos gets the "Three Cheers for Democracy" award, as it's 12,000+ members are allowed to interact, comment, and sell their photos online.
• Lumas wins the "Finest in Photos" award as it offers a great range of limited edition fine art photography.

There's a lot more quality sites out there doing similar things. Here's the full review over at ArtInfo.
>> Art Collecting, Art Websites

  ¶ 9:54 PM 1 comments

  Damien Hirst Out of Ideas The man that was once thought of as one of the most original thinkers in the arts is now being accused of not having any good ideas for the past 13 years. Arts writer Jonathan Jones once wrote glowingly about Damien Hirst, but now sees the artist as unimaginative and without ideas.

"In his day Hirst was, without question, the artist who most mattered in the entire world: the only artist whose images truly entered the culture's lifeblood after the death of Andy Warhol. Even when he started to go off, he was worth giving the benefit of the doubt. I could forgive him everything because he had imagination. Now that is gone it is hard to forgive him anything." Jonathan Jones

There's also an active discussion going on at the bottom of the article, with all the usual Hirst attacks (mostly deserved). I think the artist would be loving every inch of text written about him. My guess is that Damien Hirst has this quote (below) by Andy Warhol printed on a card in his wallet. Every time he sees a negative article published about him, he probably pulls the quote out and giggles to himself.

"Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches." Andy Warhol
>> Damien Hirst News  ¶ 11:50 PM 18 comments

  Saatchi's Online Gallery Top Ten Artists It looks like a lot of artists have created their own pages at the Saatchi Gallery website (more than 15,000), so along with the Guardian in the United Kingdom, ten of those artists have been selected to exhibit at the Guardian Newsroom.

The great thing about the internet is that you don't have to prove yourself before you get to exhibit your work. Anyone with an internet connection can exhibit online.

"The same democratic revolution that is transforming journalism promises to transform art. The 10 artists who have made it out of Your Gallery into the Newsroom are a hugely varied and debatable bunch, but what they have in common is that none of them have so far been picked up by the art world." Guardian

Here's the list of Ten Artists that were selected..

• Elena Bajo
• Joshua Hagler
• Lotta de Beus
• Paul Taylor
• Sarah Jeffries
• Amy Stein
• Robin Cracknell
• Anthea Bush
• Peter Root
• Claire Morgan

For artists that haven't added their profile, it's pretty easy.. and free. Even if you have your own website and think you don't need to be listed, you should. At the very least, you will have a new link pointing towards your website. Here's my artist's gallery.

One thing I really dislike about Saatchi's "Your Gallery" is that there's no order or categorization other than alphabetical. A to Z is fine if you have a couple hundred artists online, but with thousands it's chaos. It should at least be categorized by medium.
>> Art Competitions, Art Online, Saatchi  ¶ 11:11 PM 7 comments

  Banksy does Kate Moss The British graffiti artist Banksy has been getting a lot of media attention in recent months by painting elephants and tampering with Paris Hilton CDs. He pokes fun at fame and uses it to his advantage, which has been good for sales of his work.

A series of Kate Moss paintings in the style of Andy Warhol were sold at a Sotheby's art auction for a record £50,400. Another work that uses Leonardo's Mona Lisa sold for £57,600. They went for five times the auction estimates and more than doubled the previous high of Banksy.

Sotheby's said "It's quite sensational to go over five times the low estimate. I believe Kate Moss was happy about Banksy using her image in an iconic way" and "It's not often we sell works with spray paints but we'll be seeing a lot more of Banksy as he seems to be building up a global presence". BBC

Other notable artists to work with the model Kate Moss include Marc Quinn and Lucian Freud (Freud's Kate Moss painting went on to sell for more than $7 million at Christies).
>> Art Auctions, Lucian Freud, Famous Artists  ¶ 10:25 PM 9 comments

  Steve Wynn Elbows a Picasso The Las Vegas casino billionaire recently made international headlines after bumping into his painting by Pablo Picasso and putting a hole in it. How pointy must his elbows be to put a hole in the canvas?

He had recently agreed to sell the work for a record $139 million to fellow billionaire Steven Cohen. It would have become the highest price paid for a painting, but Wynn has chose to repair and keep his damaged Picasso painting.

Steve Wynn Damages Picasso Painting With His Elbow
"An aide to Steve Wynn announced that he will keep and restore the painting he accidentally damaged. Steve Wynn uses gestures with his hands while speaking and also has retinitis pigmentosa, so his peripheral vision is affected. There were other masterpieces in the room, one by Renoir ad another by Matisse, but they were not damaged." Art Daily
>> Art Collecting, Pablo Picasso News  ¶ 10:29 PM 4 comments

  Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib Paintings The painter of fat women has turned his focus to a more challenging subject recently. Fernando Botero is currently showing a series of works depicting the Abu Ghraib crimes at the Marlborough New York gallery. For those that can't make it, there's a small gallery of the works online here.

ArtInfo.com has also interviewed Fernando Botero and asked him a few questions about why he chose to paint the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

I stole a few quotes from the interview here..

• What happened in Abu Ghraib was a tremendous shock to the whole world. I believe that I have special responsibilities as an artist, and I wanted to say something about it. The artist has the ability to make invisible things visible.
• The fact that I’ve done painting with pleasant subject matter doesn’t make it impossible for me to do work on a subject that touched me very much. Fortunately, I’m a figurative artist, and I can speak directly.
• I will donate these (Abu Ghraib paintings) because I don’t feel like doing business based upon somebody else’s pain.
• Just loving some painters more than others is the first step to knowing who you are as an artist.

>> Famous Artists, Art Exhibitions, Controversies

  ¶ 7:14 PM 3 comments

  ArtReview Magazine's Power 100 The ArtReview magazine has released its annual list of one hundred powerful people. There has been quite a bit of movement on the list this year with a whole bunch of people moving up, down, on, and off the powerful 100.

Damien Hirst lost his number one position that he held last year, moving out the top ten to eleventh position this year. The French François Pinault is the most powerful person in the arts industry this year.

There's even a search engine on the list! Google came in 100th position on the list and this is apparently not a joke. Google's powerful, but should it really be on the list of one hundred powerful people? Why not put God on the list too?

I'm not doubting the power of Google (or God) in the arts industry, but I'm not sure what it's doing on this list. If it was seriously a part of the list, it should be number one as Google empowers and benefits millions of artists, gallery owners, collectors, art students, and consultants everyday!

Here's the Top 20 that I got from the Guardian here..

1: François Pinault, owner of Gucci and Christies, also owns around 2,000 pieces of contemporary art which he displays in his private gallery in a Venetian palace
2: Larry Gagosian, dealer, five galleries around the world
3: Sir Nicholas Serota, director, Tate Modern
4: Glenn D Lowry, director, Museum of Modern Art, New York
5: Samuel Keller, director of the Art Basel art fair
6: Eli Broad, Los Angeles-based collector and philanthropist
7: Charles Saatchi, collector and gallery owner
8: Matthew Slotover & Amanda Sharp, co-publishers of Frieze magazine and co-directors of Frieze art fair
9: Bruce Nauman, American artist
10: Jeff Koons, American artist
11: Damien Hirst, British artist
12: Brett Gorvy & Amy Cappellazzo, international co-heads of post-war and contemporary art at Christie's, New York
13: Robert Storr, American curator
14: Iwan Wirth, Swiss dealer, part of Zwirner & Wirth
15: Marian Goodman, New York-based gallerist
16: David Zwirner, New York gallerist
17: Gerhard Richter, German artist
18: Marc Glimcher, New York gallerist
19: Jay Jopling, owner, White Cube gallery, London
20: Mike Kelley, American artist

See the list from 2005 and 2004.
>> General Arts News  ¶ 2:14 AM 4 comments

  Free Hugs Something not very related to art, but something that noone can have too much of; FREE HUGS! The hugger is Juan Mann and the music is from the Sick Puppies.

  ¶ 12:03 AM 13 comments

  Pumpkin Art It's Friday the 13th, so why not carve a pumpkin?. A New York artist has published a pumpkin carving tutorial online.

They're definitely more interesting than the usual three holes and a slit for the mouth pumpkins. The artist has a gallery of pumpkin works online.

"Picking out the right pumpkin is very important. You need a pumpkin with a thick wall. To get this kind you will have to choose one that is very heavy for its size. Also avoid perfectly round pumpkins and opt for ones that have a protruding ridge that sticks out on one side. These shapes make nice faces as you could imagine how difficult it would be to carve a 3-D face onto a shallow flat surface." Ray Villafane

>> Art News, Strange News  ¶ 10:36 PM 5 comments

  Another Art Teacher in America Fired Relating to this ridiculous post yesterday, there's a New York art teacher that is currently fighting for his job after recommending that some of his more advanced students should take life drawing classes.

Pete Panse had been teaching art for 25 years before being suspended and potentially being fired, pending hearings of the case.

Brian Yoder has plenty more information on the case over at the Art Renewal website, but there hasn't been any updates since July.

What is similar to the Texas art teacher case, is that it was one parent that created all the problems. It seems to be the school administration (Middletown School District) that is taking all the irrational steps though, as the parent that complained has actually been defending Pete Panse.

"What initiated this whole case was one complaint, from a father who (presumably on religious/moral grounds) was opposed to his daughter being involved in any extracurricular class in which nude males were the subject. Of course it’s his right to make that decision for his own daughter, but we see no reason why such a choice to refrain from his daughter’s participating in such classes should preclude her teacher from even mentioning their existence. In fact, this particular father has recently been defending Mr. Panse against the attack by the school administration." Art Renewal
>> Art Controversy, American Art News  ¶ 8:12 PM 13 comments

  Texas Art Teacher Sacked Over Nudes I'm not sure if the nude incident is the whole reason behind the Texas teacher losing her job, but it's still interesting. Sydney McGee claims that she was fired after a complaint from a parent of a student, relating to a school field trip to the Dallas Museum of Art. He was concerned about his child seeing "an abstract nude", which was a 4BC Greek marble torso.

Part of the letter sent to McGee from the school said.. "During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations."

But the school board is saying that it is not the whole reason for her being fired..
"The school alludes to other complaints against Ms McGee, but says it cannot go into details because of confidentiality agreements. It has only suggested that the teacher wore flip-flops to work and did not plan the field trip sufficiently.
The teacher disputes all these claims. Ms McGee's lawyer, Rogge Dunn, told the Guardian: "If the museum trip had nothing to do with it, why did the principal give Ms McGee a dressing down about it the day after the trip and why did they put it in writing a couple of weeks later?" Guardian

Some parents just have too much free time on their hands. If they have issues with their child seeing a Greek marble statue in a museum, how do they deal with nightly news or MTV?

Update: Coxsoft found a picture of the offending statue here. I must warn viewers that this picture shows full frontal nudity, so if you're easily shocked, don't follow this link.
>> Art Controversies, America  ¶ 11:53 PM 19 comments

  Photoshop Artists Robert Genn published an interesting newsletter recently about artists creating art digitally, particularly with programs like Photoshop and Painter. A lot of other artists seemed to find it interesting also, as Robert received more than 700 replies from subscribers.

Robert says "Creative folks of all stripes find the making of digital art to be almost irresistible. Brilliant software--on a constant arc of improvement--permits ever more speedy and imaginative manipulation." and "While holding out the hand of democratization to all who would participate, like photography itself, it also runs counter to the role of art as commodity--digital is difficult to make rare."

He has also published some of the responses from artists, with many saying its fine, but just not as good as the real thing, while others found that Photoshop completely changed the way they work. Here's one example..
"We must realize that when a human being takes a brush and lays paint on a ground, that person joins a 35,000 year old tradition. I am no Luddite, but I know of a time when people thought that photography would spell the end of painting. It didn't and neither will Photoshop". The Painter's Keys

I have used Photoshop quite a bit and feel comfortable using it as a creative tool, but I could never imagine putting away the paintbrushes for a mouse. It's probably best used as one of several tools, rather thinking that you have to be either a digital artist or an anti technology artist. The two can be used side by side, just as pencils and photographs are used by painters.

Fellow Australian painter and illustrator Leith O'Malley says good things about his Wacom tool that he uses with Photoshop and Painter. Leith recently did a step by step post on his blog, where he goes through the various stages of creating a digital picture. It's almost like painting, but you don't have to wait for the paint to dry and you don't have to wash your hands when you are finished.
>> Painting, Digital Art  ¶ 10:26 PM 2 comments

  Art Collectors Artinfo.com has interesting little feature on their site where they profile art collectors. A recent profile was of the Los Angeles based art collector Stavros Merjos. He collects artists like Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Takashi Murakami, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, and a bunch of emerging artists.

I like what Stavros says about money, happiness, & art..
"They say money doesn’t buy happiness, but there is one way I’ve found that working hard and having wealth does change your life: Coming home to a house full of art truly is a way to enhance one’s happiness. I can be in a [terrible] mood, but if I walk around my house, the artwork cheers me up. I absolutely love living with museum-quality art." Artinfo

I guess it could have the opposite effect if you were collecting artists like Francis Bacon or Ken Currie.

I've heard of some artists that don't collect art because they would be tempted to change them, and others that have rooms filled with the art of others. I have found that I can't have the art of others in important places like the bedroom or the studio unless I want to steal something from the artist or the painting. They're both places that you drop your guard.. so if it's a bad painting it gets absorbed.. just as it does if it's a good painting.

I also dislike staying in a hotel if it has bad art in it. And I almost run through exhibitions that I don't like. Perhaps it's an over-reaction.. but it's something I can't control :-O
>> Art Collecting  ¶ 9:41 PM 15 comments

  2006 Turner Prize Exhibition An exhibition of the Turner Prize finalists for 2006 will be showing at the Tate gallery in Britain from the 3rd of October to the 14th of January.

The four artists include Tomma Abts, Phil Collins, Mark Titchner and Rebecca Warren. There's 40,000 pounds up for grabs between them, with the winner receiving 25,000 pounds. The winner will be announced on the 4th of December, 2006.

Over at the Tate Britain website they have a few pieces by each artist online.

• Tomma Abts - Is a painter! Yes, people still rub colored mud on canvas, even at the usually wacky Turner Prize. The works shown are sharply painted abstract works that are 48cm x 38cm in size, which is also an unusually intimate size for a painting in a contemporary art competition.
• Phil Collins - Is a photographer and video artist looking at things like the "discrepancy between reality and its representations".
• Mark Titchner - Is an installation artist that looks at the different beliefs and ideologies of society. It's an idea that an artist could have a lot of fun with.
• Rebecca Warren - Is an expressive sculptor that appropriates and pokes fun at her favorite artists. She is my personal choice to take out the Turner prize for 2006, but I think the judges might lean towards the work of Mark Titchner.

The Guardian has also done a special report on the Turner Prize.
>> Art Competitions

  ¶ 4:47 AM 3 comments

  Charles Saatchi Interview A reader pointed out that I missed an interesting interview with the British art collector Charles Saatchi last month. The Guardian newspaper popped into the house of Saatchi and his famous cooking partner Nigella Lawson to ask him a few questions about art and life.

And he says the reason he doesn't give too many interviews is because "I come over as shifty. One thing that makes my flesh crawl is reading about myself."

The full interview and report can be seen here. I just stole a few quotes from Saatchi and have added them below..

• Obviously, if you do what I do you are going to end up making people sometimes happy and sometimes unhappy. I cannot, nor would I want to, buy everything I see, so I have to make decisions about what I like. I like to keep my collecting fresh, and I think people have got the message.
• Like any religious convert I have discovered the internet terribly late. The more interested I got in the site, the more I thought it could be a useful outlet - showcase, whatever - for artists who don't have dealers. Let them deal directly with collectors. Scanning a website to see work by an artist halfway across the world is the lazy way to do it, but probably the only effective way.
• If you're not in the loop, if you didn't go to the right art school, if you don't know the right people who have the right dealers, it's very hard to break in.
• No, of course I'm not in it for the money. I make a lot of money from the stuff I sell, but then I pay incredibly high prices for the things I want. That's how I get what I like. The market is so insane.

See the online art community that Charles Saatchi is creating with his gallery website.
>> Art Collecting, Charles Saatchi News  ¶ 11:13 PM 0 comments