art sales scams

Amazingly, internet scammers have found a way to become even lower low-lifes, now targeting artists with sales. Just received this email:

Hi,

I’m Betty Hammond from California. I was going through your works and my eyes caught this particular piece,I want to purchase it as I am moving to a new apartment next month. Kindly let me know if you still have the piece available and also let me know it’s final price and more information about it. I will be waiting to read from you.

Regards,

Betty.

Luckily, when I googled “Betty Hammond California,” this post by this fellow artist and anti-scam blogger showed up, exposing the scam. Basically, they get your mailing address and send a check in an amount way over the sale price, then ask you to forward the balance to a fictitious shipper. When the check turns out to be fraudulent, your money and possibly your art are gone.

The sad part about this is that authentic collectors may contact artists via email, and they may have different language abilities, making screening out fraudsters trickier. A commenter at the above blog post recommended only accepting payments via Paypal as one method for avoiding this scam.

Sights

notes on things: from The Intelligence of Things, Parsons 2013 MFA curatorial statement

For a growing number of contemporary artists and thinkers, the ontology of objects has prompted new investigations and modes of making. Perhaps in reaction to the dominance of screens and images in our daily life, artistic practice has embraced the object-as-thing: estranged, powerful and physical…. …objects become ciphers for memory, desire and fantasy. Far from simple gestures, thethings in these works articulate their place as icons and bodily analogs, and as protagonists in interiors, architectural spaces and the scope of history.

The exhibition privileges the role of the displayed objects over any overarching curatorial concept. As a title The Intelligence of Things both emphasizes this approach and illuminates these artworks’ powerful effect and affect. That is to say that following Kant’s purposeful purposelessness, these artworks upend our notions of a thing’s effect or intent, and each one has a particular character, demeanor, and accent—whether fierce or foppish. …The exhibition and the works therein, rather, critically explore how things and human subjects together produce meaning in the world.

(Source: Art & Education)

Research

points of reference: work

Late nights at the studio are like a “second shift” that artists often work.

A cardio machine display of an interval workout, where high-intensity activity is interspersed with recovery periods.

An endless dilemma for working artists: How do you balance studio art and income-generation?

Are you a “second-shift” artist? Do you find your passion and then do it on nights and weekends on it for the rest of your life, as a recent Onion op-ed potently parodied?

Are you an “aerobic” artist? Do you break up your life into deadline-driven seasons? Like month-to-month tempo training, do you work in high-intensity intervals—at paces impossible to maintain longterm—interspersed with physical and financial recovery periods?

Are you both? Is the combination wise? Or combustible?

I’ve been a “second-shift” artist in the past. For some reason I find the idea of it slightly depressing, maybe because it implies a 9-to-5 type of job. (Also, a ridiculous phobia of clichés makes literally going to the studio to paint on Sundays especially painful.)

More recently, I’ve become an “aerobic” artist. I’ve found that residencies are fantastic for intense periods of production, but are only sustainable in modest bursts, say, 4–6 weeks at a time. Longer periods are too hard to maintain personally and financially. They take a toll on my relationships with my partner, family, and employers. Upon return from a residency, I usually have to focus on income generation to pay debts and regain financial stability. Then, working so much, I’m unable to pull a “second shift” as an artist. Indeed, in the past three weeks, I’ve worked some 11-, 12- and 16-hour days, partly out of loyalty to the institution or artist, partly just because it’s work. It was impossible to get enough sleep (so much so that I felt jetlagged days later)—much less ecke out time for in-depth studio experimentation.

I’m not complaining. Just observing the pros and cons of second shifts versus aerobic intervals. I’m very grateful for all the exhibition and residencies opportunities I’ve had. The goal, ultimately, is for me to convert more of the hours in my life towards making art, and right now, intervals seem more productive.

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The Ethics of Overtime

I’ve had lots of opportunities to think about this in the past few weeks. I think institutions and employers should pay their hourly workers overtime, though art institutions sometimes are loose with rules. But labor unions fought for this right. And what exactly should workers be paid overtime for? For working harder to stay focused after eight hours? For the lingering aches and pains that a long day of physical work compounds onto tomorrow’s tasks? To incentivize businesses to better structure the work and respect workers’ schedules? For the higher risks of injuries or accidents when workers are tired? (And how is that even ethical to value in monetary terms?)

—

New Skills: Get Excited and Make Things

As psychologist Edward Deci found:

People find the most enjoyment when they learning new things and get to use those skills today.

I started assisting a sculptor recently, and it’s been a lot of fun. In three days I learned how to make foam molds, cast concrete, and, most excitingly, assist with sand-casting metal sculptures.

In school, casting sculptures didn’t appeal to me at all. The dust. The plaster mold-making. The possibility of bacterial mold in the plaster molds (yuck!). But mostly, the indirectness and the cost of maintaining such a studio never made the process seem realistic for me.

But this artist is scrappy and experimental. Most of the foam and concrete needed is available at Home Depot. Working with more common materials, and more loosely, the process seem not as far-fetched, and not nearly as academic as plaster usually seems.

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Thinking Big: What Artists Make Happen

In recently assisting with the installation of another artist’s work, I thought about ambition. There was a lot of large-scale and site-specific work which had to be built on-site. It required a lot of problem-solving, flexibility, and those above-mentioned long hours. I came away from the experience very inspired. And though the show is a solo show—it is indeed one woman’s vision—it came to fruition with a lot of people’s help: artist’s assistants, art installers, interns, friends, fabricators, printers, and so on. I’ve never been to an old-fashioned house-raising, but I imagine that it felt something like that. That what artists make—what you see in the gallery come the opening reception—is a small part of what artists make happen—behind the scenes, in the studio, late nights installing in the gallery, or far away on site where the work first sparked as an idea.

Sights

see: Letha Wilson @ Art in General, NYC, through June 30

Letha Wilson, Ghost of a Tree, 2012. Digital print on vinyl, drywall, wood, wood column, 10 × 8 × 14 feet (image size 13 ¾ x 8 feet). Installation view at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE.

I work at Art in General as an installer, but I recommend Letha’s show because her work is not only interesting formally in marrying photography and sculptural materials, but beyond that, it helped me come to see her work as interventions, in the context of Land Art. Don’t miss the beautiful book on display too, which elegantly translates her gestures into the printed page. Allow yourself lots of time to look, breathe, and think.

Now through June 30, 2013
Letha Wilson: Landmarks and Monuments
Art in General
79 Walker Street (off Broadway and Canal), NYC

Impressions

nyc art itinerary: Museum of the Moving Image

M surprised me by suggesting a visit to the Museum of the Moving Image. Though it’s in Queens, I’d never made it there, so it found its way onto my 2013 NYC art itinerary.

M had heard that the exhibition design is particularly good, which turned out to be delightfully true. But let me start with the bigger picture.

First, the building itself is really cool: beautiful typographic and graphic storefront window treatment, intriguing angles, gleaming white surfaces, spacious, modern and LEED-certified. The gallery spaces were full of character, yet allowed the artifacts, photos, and videos proper presentation. For example, there was a GIF project in the foyer; sometimes foyer projects get the short shrift in presentation—like a flat-screen installed randomly in an imposing antechamber. Here, five projectors screened a massive three-part composition, plus a didactic text. It was seamless, huge, yet because of the pace of the animations, it was not overwhelming—I thought it was perfectly installed and curated. It set the tone for the ambition of the institution nicely.

Second, the exhibition design is super cool. Clearly they are not skimping on signage, wall graphics, dramatic paint treatments, etc. Typographically the Spectacle: The Music Video exhibition was stellar—the exhibition title was in neon (!) while a historical section used hundreds of square feet of printed vinyl to add loads of charm to older videos. (Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, did you know, was shot in 4 hours and edited in 5? No excuses!)

One challenge with media shows is audio-bleed—and the museum was managed it in a variety of ways. On the first level of the show, a lot of restraint was used, allowing the sound from large theater to spill over into the exhibition area, where all videos were on headsets (though the light-bleed on the projection was less than desirable). On the second level, parabolic speakers, as well as speakers set in long boxes, like pedestals mounted to the ceiling, directed the sound to specific areas.

Overall I was really impressed with how beautifully everything was staged—the lighting and spatial design was directed, soft, yet dramatic. There was stagecraft, such as a neat short-throw projector that used a mirror to cast a huge projection just a few feet from the lens. I also appreciated a captivating edit of Beyoncé’s Single Ladies video with its dozens if not hundreds of YouTube re-makes. By presenting a video mosaic, which scrolled to different sections and zoomed into individual videos, viewers got a sense of the global popularity. It brilliantly unified a ton of user-generated content, but it took directorial and editorial vision to get there. Money, time, and expertise went into all of these strategies. For installers like me, it is appreciated, while visitors value it by way of just seeing the content, vibrantly displayed.

There is a lot to see, beyond the temporary exhibitions. The permanent exhibition, with vintage film cameras, cathode ray tubes, mics, and even some Muybridges and a zoetrope, will be educational and fun next time I return, which I surely will.

Impressions

nyc art itinerary: Museum of the City of New York

It’s been over a month since I wrote a list of NYC art places I aim to visit in 2013. Today I ticked off my first of seven sites when I visited the Museum of the City of New York for the Designing Tomorrow exhibition on the 1939 World’s Fair.

The exhibition was a good overview for the World’s Fairs in the 1930s, spanning San Francisco, San Diego, Cleveland, Chicago, and of course, Queens. I came away with some interesting info:

Robert Moses’ initiative to convert the area that is now Flushing-Corona Meadows Park from marsh and dumping ground into a World’s Fair site and park was the largest reclamation project ever undertaken.
The Panorama, now housed at the Queens Museum of Art, is over 9,000 square feet, and is the result of the labor of 100 people working for three years.
ConEdison commissioned a diorama that showed the lights of NYC going on and off in a 12-minute cycle. It was three stories high and a block long.

But, overall, I was a little let down. The artifacts seemed outnumbered by tiled photos and didactic texts. I missed the awe, excitement, and interactivity that all these inert things were trying so hard to convey. Further, many photos were reproduced, either as part of the signage, or in digital slideshows. For example, rare color photos were projected on a standard-definition projector in a too-bright hallway, while photos of illuminated pavilions were shown on a monitor with annoyingly long crossfade transitions. While the graphic designers made chronologically consistent typographic choices, the photos were presented in 21st century means, and the precision and luminosity of the original prints or slides were lost. The exhibition also seemed soft on social history; I would have loved to hear more about how Depression-era audiences, NYC’s disparate communities or the US’ progressive movement engaged the Fairs.

The main things I enjoyed were:

1. Loads of examples of lovely typography—off-set printed on brochures, as well as hand-painted in proposal drawings.

2. Some of the original proposal drawings were truly stunning. This one, in particular, is fantastic in real life:

Micromegas proprosal drawing by Frank Paul.

Meta-Practice

Saltz, NYC galleries, and spaces for dialogue

Jerry Saltz makes some interesting observations in “Saltz on the Death of the Gallery Show” in NY Mag (3/31/13).

His main point is that

A great thing about galleries … is that they’re social spaces…. places where one can commune with the group mind.

But due art fairs, mega-collectors, and skyrocketing rents in Chelsea, galleries are

playing a diminished role in the life of art.

The problem is

When so much art is sold online or at art fairs, it’s great for the lucky artists who make money, but it leaves out everyone else who isn’t already a brand. This art exists only as commerce, not as conversation or discourse.

….Many artists are now in “abundant production,” seducing collectors on the prowl for stuff to fill their oversize atriums.

Baffinglingly, Saltz goes on to make these statements about NYC-centrism:

Art doesn’t have to be shown in New York to be validated. That requirement is long gone. Fine. But… a good Los Angeles dealer chided me for not going to art fairs, not seeing art in L.A. and London, and not keeping track of the activity online. He said I “risked being out of touch with the art world,” and he was right….

I brooded for months over this. Then … I started thinking about “the art world.” Something clicked and brightened my mood. There is no “the” art world anymore. There have always been many art worlds, overlapping, ebbing around and through one another.

This last realization seems a bit belated. Artists outside of NYC have had to cultivate their own art worlds for ages, not because of the recent overabundance of fairs, but because of long-standing NYC-centrism. NYC is home to major publications and art commerce, yet artists outside of NYC have found ways to persist—regardless of the facts that NYC critics focus on NYC shows (ahem!), and art fairs diminish Chelsea galleries’ audiences.

And, paradoxically, it seems as if Saltz is using the de-centralization of the art world to justify his own NYC-centrism. No one critic could see all the art in these different art worlds, but could certainly try harder to get out of his own city—and borough—more often.

He ends on an upbeat note:

When I go to galleries, I now mainly see artists and a handful of committed diligent critics, collectors, curators, and the like. In this quiet environment, it may be possible for us to take back the conversation. Or at least have conversations. While the ultrarich will do their deals from 40,000 feet, we who are down at ground level will be engaging with the actual art—maybe not in Chelsea, where the rents are getting too high, but somewhere. That’s fine with me.

That Saltz has been able to seek out dialogues in commercial galleries seems like a fluke, in my book. Most Chelsea galleries feel too-cool-for-school to strike up conversations.

Those spaces where dialogues happen, where art by artists’ artists is shown, are non-profit, alternative, and artist-run spaces. NYC has its share, but nothing like the vibrancy of SF Bay Area’s community, in my opinion.

I also sense that many NYC alternative spaces show a higher proportion of artists with commercial gallery representation (artists further along in the “emerging” spectrum) than those without. It would be fantastic to take a survey comparing the proportion of represented artists shown at Artist’s Space, White Columns, Sculpture Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, Smack Mellon, Momenta Art, Art in General, Apex Art and Flux Factory against those at Southern Exposure, Intersection for the Arts, The Luggage Store, The Lab, SF Camerawork, Pro Arts, and San Jose ICA. It would beg the question of what alternative art organizations are for, who they serve, what kind of dialogues they create, and with whom.

What if more commercial galleries fold in NYC, but an equal number of new non-profit and alternative spaces sprung up in their wake? What if they focused on truly emerging artists—not trying to compete with commercial spaces, but were real, imaginative, risk-taking alternatives? What if big-time critics visited and wrote about alternative spaces more often, not just when they mount shows by established artists or shut their doors? What if, essentially, NYC can learn a thing or two from other cities like San Francisco?

Art Competition Odds

art competition odds: Lower East Side Printshop’s Keyholder Residency

The Lower East Side Printshop’s 2013-2014 Keyholder Residency Program received over 260 applications for 4 recipients and once reserve.

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or about 1:65, or 1.5%.

See all Art Competition Odds.

R+D

On Be(com)ing an Artist, Citizen and Arts Community member, by Christine Wong Yap