Walter King absolutearts.com Portfolio
The birth of a new grandchild, visiting relatives, the end of the first semester, some personal issues and the holidays have gotten between me and my studio discipline for about two months now. This hiatus has caused me to spend an abnormal amount of time thinking and re-thinking certain modern dilemmas as they concern the world of art… especially as I work on my blogs. This series is really pretty much off the cuff and stream of conscious for the most part with only a couple of returns to edit or add a thought or two. So if they seem more like rants than rational statements or seem to go a little gonzo on some issues please forgive. This is how I clear the cobwebs, take account of and rebuild my world view from time to time. (big deep breath) –So here we go…
I often ask myself how does it all really work and what if it didn‘t?
Does anyone in our pasteurized and homogenized society where our labor is imported and our culture exported even remember milk men who delivered? And in our weight conscious diet crazed age who even knows what the idea of the cream rising even means. When was the last time anyone drank anything but low fat 2% milk or the soy alternative? The value of art and the artists who make it is a curious subject. It is one that has baffled me often over the years. It is quite easy to say, as many of us have already said, ‘Art is in the eye of the beholder!’ In fact it is a bit too obvious and begs many questions. The first of which is why does some art become famous and cherished by generations and other art ignored and forgotten within the short lifetime of the artist? So many beholders eyeing the same popular images, or forgetting them, would suggest that maybe there is something more there than just subjectivism and personal opinion. Why one and not another?
Style, subject, certain archetypal colors or forms… does any of this really have any bearing on those great works, so called, that hang in our museums? Or is it simply the familiarity of a work over the long haul, a kind of traditional acceptance that this work must be great because it has been in our town square or the MET or the Louvre for a century or more? There have been many treatises and books written on the subject of great art ranging in explanation from mathematical harmonies, common cultural memory to spiritual archetypes and the music of the spheres. Suffice to say we, as a culture, value some works over others collectively. Does the cream truly rise as I was always taught in art school or is it all a cynical corporate/collector/gallery conspiracy that skews and directs the market as some suggest? Or does it matter at all? Some think its easier to dodge the question altogether suggesting that asking such questions will constipate us. Certainly trying to second guess the public has been known to cause creative blocks. On the other hand it has also driven artists to excellence.
Greatness is a value judgment and all value judgments are relative. While it does in fact depend on who is defining ‘greatness’ it also depends on how much power to persuade they have. The more social power or authority the more persuasive they become. But sometimes the work of art has its own power. And that is what causes the dilemma of greatness… how to decipher which art is truly great and which has simply been hyped.
How do they find us– tasty or slow?
While we probably all agree at one level or another that art carries essentially relative value, another question, and perhaps a more appropriate one is how do we come to know those works in the first place and how art has been and will be distributed in the future?
At one time an artist might petition some wealthy merchant, feudal lord, the King or the Church pitching their artistic skills and ideas. We have the letters by Leonardo doing just this saying that he is an architect and engineer of weaponry, battlements and war machines and– oh by the way, a gifted sculptor and master of fresco as well. Reading in context and between the lines it is easy to see that sculpture and painting in this sense were often used as propagandist tools for proclaiming the greatness of the client as much as for any other value.
Ateliers and studios were often established around master artists who more often than not did little more than make the rounds of aristocracy and churches, take orders and make the preliminary compositional studies for the work the studio journeymen and apprentices would ultimately produce… with perhaps the finishing marks by the hand of the master. A pricing system was even developed in which the works done completely by the master were the most expensive and sold cheaper as successively more and more of the work was accomplished by the studio. Eventually a journeyman might develop his own clientele by taking on projects from which the master couldn’t make enough money.
Later, as the middle class and mercantilism grew the middle men took over, for those who could afford them. These were not artists themselves although most likely somewhat educated the roll of art seller or broker extended the artists reach– for a percentage. Eventually these brokers became gallerists where even the public was often welcome once the range of the middle class expanded. And eventually the gallerists became more and more powerful to the point in which it was no longer the broker working for the artist but the artist working for the broker. Such is the case with most middlemen. Wal-mart is nothing if not a distribution system.
The internet is the most recent development in this age old process of getting the art from maker to viewer and eventually to the possessor(s). Do we really believe that the internet will save us from oppressively selective galleries who only choose what they know will easily sell? Is popular taste and the lowest possible common denominator our inevitable fate? If so we might as well all become pornographers because, as I understand it, porn is what really keeps the internet afloat. The basest of instincts being the most common and the most powerful.
What if galleries and the elite art world disappear altogether? Is it really possible? And would it be such a good thing in the end? I don’t really believe that the broker/collector complex wouldn’t re-form some kind of network, loose, informal and on the down low so to speak, colluding to guarantee that the works they collect won’t lose value over time? Will the auction houses disappear as well ? Will E-Bay take the place of Sotheby’s or Christies? From the recent spat of democratically elected online popularity art competitions like the one Saatchi hosts how many of those most popular works have actually sold? Are the people who vote really the people who buy art? Are those who are voting really a cross section of the general populace or are they primarily friends of the artists strong armed into voting for their friends work? And even if it is truly the ‘people’ or the general public will the collectors with the serious money bow to the tastes of and buy the art of the people? Don’t get me wrong. I’d like to see the arts become much more fair and open and altruistic. Or am I just being naïve to think someone won’t find a way to skew and tilt the system their way? Even though I try to keep the faith I must admit I can be skeptical at least and a quite cynical on my worst days. If I were to speculate on the future in any honest frame of mind I would have to say yes, the sharks will always circle. You‘ll have to pry the value they have invested in from their ‘cold dead fingers‘. But every good environmentalist knows that sharks are part of the food cycle necessary for all breeds to exist. Besides most revolutions end up simply with a different set of dictators. Down with the old boss… meet the new boss!
Just look at all the web sites vying for your money and potential advertising clients as we speak. Absolutearts is still very reasonable at a hundred dollars a year, or less depending on which level you have leveraged– even if most of the traffic one receives are window shoppers who never buy, other artists looking for inspiration and search spiders collecting our images so they too can use our creative content to sell more advertising for free. It is just so easy to justify this new system of middlemen, facilitators and expediters freely picking and living off the fruit of our labor. In fact one might argue that it is simply a natural phenomenon. Even if it doesn’t seem fair it is simply the way the world works.
If we are honest with ourselves we must acknowledge that for many of us everyone else is making money on our art but us. This includes the wonderful range of how to books… how to sell your art, how to get a gallery, how to build a portfolio, how to market your work, how to build a buzz… Like in the natural food chain we have become a natural resource free for the picking. But instead of being on top of the chain as we would like to think– we are truly at the bottom. We are not the eagle or the lion we are the grass that feeds the wildebeest that feeds the lion. We should at least get credit for being the raw material for such a huge multi-million/billion dollar a year industry. Maybe government should at least make us a protected species wouldn’t you think? Patent and copyright laws written by Congress who are given the responsibility for providing for creative development for the future good of the nation are provided for in the Constitution. Problem is even Congress is debating on whether or not it is more valuable to the nation to support publishers, movie makers, television networks, internet hosts and anyone else who might be considered content publishers to avoid paying copyright fees for re-use of imagery contracted for one time usage. Laws have been debated recently allowing those who publish the right to continue reissuing images originally contracted solely for print over and over again on CD’s, DVD’s, Calendars and on the net in other forms without the need to pay the originator… the creator… the content maker. In the old days a contract was a contract. Today the term ‘one time use’ doesn’t really mean one time use anymore than ‘Fixed’ interest rate really means it will remain fixed.
Does this system bother you? Yes? If so, then go on and set up your own site with your own domain name. Print postcards, brochures and catalogs of your work. Buy mailing lists to get the images out to the right clients. Rent ad space in Art in America and Art Forum and other art magazines to gain an audience? These things are not inexpensive. They take time and money both. There’s Google and the other search engines who must be paid to feature your work first on the page when your key words are typed? This is not so much a plug for absolutearts.com who do this for us (I do so love to collaborate with you guys) as it is a recognition that any website or listing you belong to must generate traffic for both parties if it is to work for either. If you do not belong to one or another you must generate your own traffic. When will you find the time to make art if you are constantly hustling your brand? I’m familiar with a number of artists who have a thriving business but aren’t making anything that knocks me out. It’s ok work. It looks good, polished, professional… but ordinary. And then what if your work still doesn’t sell? Will you soon feel you must protect your valuable investment by making art that will sell rather than the art your muse dictates? When does your ship come in?
Everyone in the arts is struggling with new media and technologies. Not just in terms of making art with computers. But with the entire business of distribution. Television will soon convert from an analog signal to digital. Why? Well one possibility is that it is a simple thing to monitor what one is watching since a digital system is essentially a two way system. The networks will get stats much like we do here on aa. Oh sure, sure, there are other valid reasons why we should do this I suppose. But being able to know what is selling directly rather than paying for the Nelson ratings will simplify the marketing strategies of every network. Polling is a notoriously fallible process. It all depends on who you sample and what questions you ask them. Much better if you get reliable data.
The music industry is also changing dramatically as the CD player goes the way of those previous dinosaurs like record players and tape players due to the influence of the internet and other new personal techno gadgets like I-pods and cell phones with MP-3 player capabilities (even my camcorder is an MP-3 player).
The music industry used to consist of a few big companies backing mostly corporate hyped artists and a few important artists based on radio play and a few other marketing polls to make their best guesses as to what music would sell enough to make a profit. It wasn’t that hard to pick from a few choices. Now there are so many independent artists putting up their own sites to sell their work that it boggles the mind. The age old problem doesn‘t really go away. In fact it may be even harder to find new music than it was when the choices were mostly chosen for us. Juke boxes with a limited number of records once replaced live bands in many establishments. Now the digital juke box in most bars or clubs are connected to the internet and charge a little more to go beyond the more popular standards on the play list. Party DJ’s have now been added to the mix. These taste makers build their little businesses around their personal research and musical tastes and are used by both the house and the audience to find new music for us. Seems most of us still have trouble making our own choices about what really touches us.
The personal computer makes it possible and affordable for individuals to record and reproduce their own labels supposedly freeing the musician songwriters from the onerous corporate relationships opening the doors for so many neglected artists. The bright side of this coin is that an artist can sell his work on the net one song at a time for about a buck which seems to be the going price. In the old days the recording company would get the big portion of that buck. Today, according to my friend Chris Boyle, he gets the majority of that amount while Myspace takes a small portion to pay for the use of credit cards or paypal or whatever payment system is preferred… Pretty much the same as absolute arts who take a bit more as there is a lot more involved with checking credit, shipping, overseeing the artists and clients than a simple online transaction in which the music is directly downloaded from a site to a personal device. But they still take less than galleries and in most cases less than most sites that provide the same service. So instead of getting a few pennies for each album sold an independent singer songwriter will get the majority of the sale price while the internet hosting site takes a very small portion for their service of providing a space and a payment system. Rather than making say 10 cents for every album with 12 songs an artist can make almost $9 to $10 or more for every 12 downloads one song at a time. That’s before expenses. There is no way of knowing how much any given artist is spending to get their music made and advertised so folks will be able to find it.
But I’ve already given it away. This is only a temporary stop gap. It is similar to when gas stations began to give you a slight discount for pumping your own gas. Now they have us all pumping our own gas and the price keeps climbing higher and higher. There are of course new companies filling the distribution void as artists act more and more as free agents. Will these buck a song distributor sites simply become the new mega corporations? Will they not eventually begin to press their leverage and argue that they are not making enough profit to sustain their investors as one by one they go public? Remember… they are not doing two jobs at once. They are not making art and then trying to do all the things necessary to promote it. They are now not even doing that much to promote the work. They are simply the go between. Their overhead is the lowest it has ever been because we do all the hard work. Anyone here remember when cable was commercial free? Cable TV began by selling us on the idea that there would be no advertising and wasn’t that worth a few bucks a month? Now after 1 or 2 in the morning and large parts of any given Sunday morning its hard to find a channel that isn’t all paid advertisement. And all the broadcast stations I can get for free are also on cable. Like lemmings we continue to pay for it.
The newest trend is giving away music on the web for either a donation or free in return for the PR for an upcoming tour. How will this affect us as visual artists in the end if the trend turns out to be viable and continues? Will all artists have to resort to this form of advertising? Can visual artists afford to give away free paintings in likewise fashion? Or will we find a way to print our work as cheaply as CD’s are produced to give away as advertising to those who might not otherwise buy an original. And how does this convince a more well endowed collector to buy a more expensive work if the general public are getting it for free– albeit a cheaper version?
Allowing a fan to download a medium to large file, for instance, to print on their own printer might be one solution to the give-away. Sites like Art.com are already experimenting with print on demand for a fee. Of course they get the lion‘s share of the price, more like the old record companies did. Although they do much less work with much less overhead. But then I suspect they are not getting near as much demand.
If one can find a way to make something from give always in an another form… .say by selling advertising on your site perhaps as the mega sites do. Or maybe selling space in the painting for some corporate logo. Stock car drivers whose cars are covered with their sponsors’ logos are an example of an industry where this is already the norm. Hollywood often negotiates scenes in films shot in say a McDonalds restaurant (I’m sure they pitched Wendy’s and Burger King as well but McDonald’s paid more.) I’m sure you’ve seen the street scene in which a Fed-X delivery truck (UPS and DHL was most likely pitched– you know– highest bidder wins) drove through the scene in a conspicuously obvious way. What painter will be the first to take commissions from Ameritech, Time-Warner, Verizon, VISA, MasterCard, BP or EXXON in exchange for their logos prominently displayed in the piece.? Maybe I could simply make collage like paintings with any number of logos intermingled and then approach the various corporations included to see who would sponsor me to exhibit and publish the work? It is the most direct approach don’t you think? In the old days a painter would seek the patronage of the King or some wealthy member of the aristocracy for whom they would paint portraits and battle scenes dictated by the patron. What is the equivalent today? The web, most magazines and newspapers, television –Hospitals, Colleges, Sports teams and their stadiums and events, and yes, even art exhibitions both large and small are underwritten by corporate sponsors today.
I don’t endorse any of the solutions above. I’m just pointing out what is happening. Suffice to say that everything is changing. Change can be scary as hell. But for the brave heart and inventive spirit a society in flux always looks for intercourse with new ideas. But be swift of foot as well because the changing paradigms tend to kick around during orgasm slashing and squashing what ever is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Walter King absolutearts.com Portfolio
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