Art & Perception

As we age and journey through life, our faces slowly begin to accumulate what I might call the ‘etchings of time’. All of those wrinkles, folds, creases and crevices lend credence to experiences borne by the individual. Personally, depicting age and wrinkle lines on a face is challenging and it is with some measure of trepidation that I undertook to work on these, one of an indigenous person and the other of my grandmother.

Both were painted from photographs.
The indigenous person, I remember finding the photo on a travel website. I liked the grace, poise and the untold stories in the individuals face and decided to paint it…  I photographed my grandmother a couple of weeks back with the resolve that if I did manage to pull off a good one, maybe I will try and paint it.

See, some painting for a change and no questions…

Title: ‘Tangata whenua’; Size: 4 feet high X 3 feet wide; Medium: Oil on canvas

Title: ‘Sandhya Ragam’; Size: 2.5 feet high X 2 feet wide; Medium: Oil on canvas

A controversial sculpture by “book artist” and Cornell University Art Department head Buzz Spector. The C-shaped structure is made up of over 800 books, all of them authored by Cornell faculty, students or alumni. The piece was originally installed in downtown Manhattan (pictured above); recently, it was reconstructed here in Ithaca, New York. More information, pictures, and an installation video can be found here.

Any thoughts?

Here’s a curious tale for you: A week ago I was approached by someone interested in art collecting and in art blogging, and particularly in the interaction of the two. The C, as I shall call this beginning collector, put forward the interesting speculation that blogged artworks acquire “an aura of fame” that potentially makes them more salable. Whether that’s true or not, it probably doesn’t hurt the value of an artwork for it to be blogged.

It happens that A&P had come to the C’s attention, and as a way of getting hirs feet wet, the C is considering buying perhaps half a dozen prints of images that have appeared in my posts. My prints are cheap; I’m sure I wouldn’t be writing this post if your paintings, linoleums, quilts, etc. were the same! (But maybe they’ll be next.) The C had good timing, in that just a few days ago I met with a local gallery owner who was enthusiastic about showing my work in her gallery. If that works out, my prices will have to go up, at least for work being sold by the gallery. (Also, the C didn’t know it, but I currently give an unadvertised 20% discount on purchases after the first.)

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Art dealers are not shop keepers. As Edward Winkleman writes, “Saying a dealer is just a shopkeeper might make someone feel superior, but it hardly accurately describes the job.”

Why do I say dealers are artists? Well, try this: come up with a definition of what artist means today (a serious definition) that will encompass conceptual artists and installation artists and others working in non-traditional media, and I think you will find that it is hard to exclude dealers, at least the better ones, from the category of artist. Dealers can make art from objects that would not be considered art otherwise. Dealers create a program in the medium of art, the program itself is art.

‘Artist’ is generally considered to be an honorable title, for someone who does it well. Why then are the dealers not rushing to claim label? I notice a pretty conspicuous silence, in fact. What’s the deal?

Here is my guess: dealers don’t need to claim the title of artist, because they already have the substance, the power of artists. Calling themselves artists would create some awkwardness — it would put all those other artists in the dealer’s program into an almost assistant-like position, explicitly. Why agitate the artists more than necessary? Also, calling themselves artists would open the dealers up to a whole class of art criticism that is avoided by declining the title, ‘artist’.

If dealers are artists, it poses a challenging question to self-proclaimed artists: Why am I not also using art as a medium? If art dealing is an art form — and a pretty important one — then why are we letting the dealers have all the fun?

New Yorkers are works of art unto themselves.

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Each gallery has its own program — some cross between the work that it shows and a concept of what the gallery is supposed to be about. As Edward Winkleman explains on his blog, artists must know about and study these programs. The dealer in general takes a dim view of the artist who, with no clue of what the program is about, walks in the gallery door and asks the dealer to have a look at his or her work.

The reason is simple. The program is not really about the artists, even though it consists of the artists’ work. The program is about the dealer’s vision. “I am the program,” says Winkleman in the context of his own gallery. [NOTE, Edward was kind enough to point out that I get the context of his statement incorrect.] The gallery program represents the real and conceptual manifestation of the dealer’s aesthetic goals. If the artist has no idea of what those goals are, it tells the dealer that the artist does not take him or her seriously — a bad start to the artist-dealer relationship.

What this means, according to Winkleman, is that artists need to do a lot of research into the gallery scene they want to break into. This takes time, because a gallery does not present its entire program at once.

Where possible, the artist should engage the dealer in an informed dialog about the program. Yes, about the program, not about the artist’s own work. It is only after the artist has demonstrated a genuine interest in, and respect for, the program that it makes sense to broach the topic of having the dealer look at what the artist does. This initial dialog is a process that will take some time and should not be rushed. The key is, have the dealer get to know you and to hopefully to like you.

Should you bring your actual work into a gallery? Never, never, never, says Winkleman. When the time is right, initiate a discussion about your own work via email, attach digital files for images, or provide a link to a website. Don’t send slides unless the dealer asks for them.

Can the artist fool the dealer with a phony interest in the program? To try to do so shows a misunderstanding of the whole system, according to Winkleman; if the artist is a good fit for the gallery, there will be no need to fake an interest; the mutual admiration will be there.

In sum, the artist needs to devote a serious effort to landing in the right gallery. As Winklemans explains:

if you send your images cold, you end up in a heap of other artists, many just as good as you, and in that context (with equally good work available) the decision to work with this or that artist includes other considerations. If you have a dialog with the gallerist already, you have a leg up over the competition.

So there you have it, how to deal with dealers.

What all of this left me wondering is, how much are our views of art influenced by interaction with the people who made the art? Would the dealers be better off screening themselves from artists’ personalities, looking at those digital images with no names attached, before deciding which to consider for their programs?

If this is the way the system works, how do you feel about it, as an artist? Do you feel inspired to go out and study the programs? How do you feel about being part of a program? Is it better to be a dealer than an artist? Is the dealer a form of artist, after all?

Happy faces from all windows of a skyscraper merging with the blue sky as painted by a little girl visiting her grandparents in Manhattan in the 1970s.

The grandparents, living in an apartment complex of the garment district, introduced Nina to the culture of this big city.

The Jewish grandparents led a complicated life, balancing jobs with their struggle for social justice in this country, and to their granddaughter, they offered the unsullied joys of Manhattan.

Disasters happen, skyscrapers may topple. This painting celebrates the possibility of joy and innocence.