Archives For Art

Robert Therrien thinks big. He is a very famous artist who happens to show at Gaggoisian, yet no one really knows much of him. He is quiet, does not play the art game and lets his work speak for itself. He actually got his ideas crawling under furniture and taking photographs.  This summer he gets  a solo museum show….

Wednesday, July 3–Sunday, October 27, 2013

 

Mr. Therrien’s breakthrough came in 1992, when he returned to photography and began shooting the spaces under an old wooden table. He was fascinated by the object’s underside and by the hidden engineering made visible in the photos. “It would be perfect just to have that as a sculpture,” he recalls thinking. He set out to make a table that was so big that viewers could get a good look at its details, as they would in one of his photographs. The Brobdingnag object he ended up fabricating, which was 10 feet tall, became the first in a series of household goods that he has scaled up to three and a half times their normal size.

via the NYTimes

Only James Turrell would have a museum in the middle nowhere high on a plateau in Argentina (and built by the wine billionaire Donald Hess). Here is a short tour.

 

 

 

 

‘I’ve used a lot of different photographic techniques in the past thirty years. I realize there isn’t just one way to take a photograph, there are a thousand different ways—and that’s what I’ve taught the students. They should not insist on their beautiful Leica, or their Hasselblad, or whatever they use. The technique must result from the idea that you have—and you may have to develop your own technology to bring
out the images. I’m not much interested in “straight” photography anymore. It has been practiced for more than 150 years, and most of it is too conventional. I’ve always wanted to go beyond the limits”.

via Thomas Ruff – Interview with Aperture – Summer 2013 – “Curiosity” – Aperture Foundation NY.

Amazon is actually moving into your territory in a big way and this is a very big wake up call for small galleries. It’s all about the user experience online now, its all about eyeballs on your art, its all about distribution networks.

If Amazon is getting into the game you know they spent millions studying it and they see an opportunity here. Should you jump in with Amazon? Hell no… This is a wait an see moment as Amazon is the Wall-mart of the Internet and their site is terrible at showcasing anything. They make it easy to buy. They are very bad at creating a good way to look or find art. ( see ArtSpace  and Artnet as they are the best at it and they only work with galleries – which is the way to go.  SaatchiOnline has an interesting site as well.

What this means from a business perspective is galleries will need to align themselves with one of these online giants or perish. You think I am wrong? I wish… I have vast experience in this online take over game. This same thing happened in the stock photo industry a few years ago (now decimated), The same thing happened in the music industry with Itunes  and now it’s happening to your industry. Why is this going to effect your bottom line? Because giant corporations don’t care about you. They just want a piece of the sale and if they don’t get a piece of your sale they could care less. It’s a numbers game to them. They will make up for it in volume.

If I owned a gallery I would sign up as a user with the big online Art Gallery sites and see which one fits and which one feels right. But the days of the single gallery online are over boys and girls. You have to be with an online group and where the eyeballs are and these big sites will be where people go whether you like it or not.

Think about it; If a small site like Artspace has 200,000 members that’s a boat load of art buying eyeballs. When Amazon gets into the game its going to change the game immediately.  Lots of food for thought in this NYTimes article but the main point is when the 800-pound gorilla gets into your house you better pay attention. They make Getty look like small potatoes and Getty destroyed the mom and pop stock industry and more importantly the price of images plummeted once they got into the game.

New York Times Article Here

Survey which found Online art buying soars as almost three-quarters of collectors go online here

Yes indeed Amazon Art Marketplace to sell art online again and once again changes the game in online art sales…

New York Times Article Here

Survey which found Online art buying soars as almost three-quarters of collectors go online here

Here is why:

A survey of more than 200 collectors by the international insurance company Hiscox, released in April, found that almost two-thirds had bought art online, without first seeing it in person, and that one-quarter of the collectors surveyed had spent $75,000 or more on works from online sellers or those they had seen only in JPEGs sent by galleries.

“We’ve seen that the price point people are willing to pay is rising,” said Catherine Levene, a co-founder and the chief executive of Artspace, which began selling art online in 2011. The company does not disclose overall sales figures but says that more than 200,000 people are now registered as members. Artworks pushing past the $100,000 mark have been showing up increasingly on the site, which charges a commission from galleries like 303 and Luhring Augustine in New York and Sadie Coles in London. Artspace has sold pieces like an engraved granite bench by Jenny Holzer for $125,000.

via The New York Times