Art Marketing Secrets

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Christo and Jeanne-Claude have wrapped things. They have wrapped magazines and storefronts, oil barrels and statues.”The Gates” was a dream that took 26 years to realize thanks to Michael Bloomberg, the mayor and a Christo and Jeanne-Claude fan.

We chose Kazuki Takizawa as our featured artist for this week because we appreciate the talent and energy in his work and the clear sense of commitment and direction to his art career – the feeling of a young artist already going places is palpable.

In this excellent post , Art Business blogger Barney Davey tackles that most interesting question we’ve all been wondering about: “Can I make it as a visual artist without having a Twitter and Facebook account? … And the answer is…. “Yes, but…”

Mao gets things done, originally uploaded by davekellam.

Anyone been using a hipster PDA to gather their creative ideas? Thought this was very cute!!

Here’s a call to action from Nietzsche: “We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand, we firstlings of a yet untried future – we require for a new end also a new means, namely, a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder, and merrier than any healthiness hitherto. He whose soul longs to experience the whole range of hitherto recognized values and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of this ideal “Mediterranean Sea” who, from the adventures of his most personal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror and discoverer of the ideal – as likewise how it is with the artist, the saint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the devotee, the prophet, and the godly Nonconformist of the old style: __ requires one thing above all for that purpose, great healthiness – such healthiness as one not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire, because one continually sacrifices it again, and must sacrifice it! __ And now, after having being long on the way in this fashion, we Argonauts of the Ideal, who are more courageous perhaps than prudent, and often enough shipwrecked and brought to grief, nevertheless, as said above, healthier than people would like to admit, dangerously healthy, always healthy again, __ it would seem, as if in recompense for it all, that we still have an undiscovered country before us, the boundaries of which no one has yet seen, a beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal known hitherto, a world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the questionable, the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well as our thirst for the possession thereof, have got out of hand __ alas! that nothing will any longer satisfy us!

I am greatly enjoying a book called “The Mission of Art” by Alex Grey, a New York based visionary artist. I especially enjoyed what he had to say about Art and the Soul.

I haven’t been in internet land for quite a while (as you have probably noticed but I came across this satirical story today which i quite enjoyed: Healing As Art: The Tale Of The Painting Doctors – Robin Good’s Latest News: There was once a small group of medical doctors (MDs) who wanted to create art. To accomplish this, they first decided to study art to find what it was made of…. With this success in hand, they once again turned to the canvas, applying large quantities of chemical inks, in all varieties, in their attempt to create art. But it still wasn’t art. It was just a lot of different colored inks on a canvas. Frustrated by the failure, another doctor in the group came up with the idea that since art obviously wasn’t produced by the colored ink, then it must somehow be found within the canvas…. Using medical imaging equipment and an elaborate system of fiber classification, they were able to catalog and name over two hundred types of microscopic fibers found in the canvas. With this knowledge, the doctors were certain they now understood art. They knew the fiber structure of the canvas and the chemical composition of the inks…. Armed with this new scientific knowledge of art, they gathered enormous samples of all the fibers, chemicals and inks now known and combined them in a giant mass of ink colors and canvas fibers…. The art laboratory was abandoned, left to fade into dust, forgotten by the scientists and doctors who once thought they could understand art by naming its chemical constituents…. She only knew that brilliant colors and a fresh canvas tugged at her creativity, opening a window of possibility through which she traced the dreams that once danced across the canvas in her mind.

The lead article this month (by Jack White) poses the intriguing question: Are you an Astronaut or an Astronomer? The idea behind the article is that there are two kinds of artists, Astronauts and Astronomers. “Astronauts actually believe that they can make it to the stars; Astronomers only dream of what it would be like.”… If you believe in yourself, not one person, insiitution, government or structure can stop you. Jack gives the following example: “Too many people are grounded, like an elephant tied to a stake…. There is one artist we know who won’t pull up the stake…. The truth of the matter is, most of the Astronomers are smarter, and many are better educated, than the Astronauts. Yet it is the Astronaut who walks in space – the same space the Astronomer gazes at during the darkest nights.”

Edward_ Winkleman has an excellent post on how to get your foot into the NY Art World…. No one is a better ally in your fight to get the recognition you deserve here than other artists. They’re undoubtedly the most qualified critics of your work, they understand completely what you’re going through, and if you share what you hear about opportunities with them, you should be able to expect the same in return…. These are curated generally, so your work may still be rejected, but they do indeed lead to group exhibitions and other opportunities. There are two primary registries you should apply for: the one at Artists Space and the one at White Columns. Please note that both of these spaces focus on emerging artists engaged in the “contemporary” dialog, so if you’re more of a traditionalist, you might not be accepted…all I’m saying here, is consider their mission before you submit…. And the Bronx Museum of the Arts’ “Artists in the Market Place” is a remarkable program that I’ve seen change everything for some of its alumni…. So organize an exhibition, write reviews, work for an art handler, work for a museum, hell…work for a gallery, teach, join an artists’ crit group, start an artist crit group, go to salons, go to lectures, go to openings.