Art Addict

One for the Home Team

This post is not about art. Well, it isn't about the kind of art I usually write about. This post is about a movie being released this week that my brother, Palmer, produced. This is a blatant plug. Sorry.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE...

The United States of Leland
Starring Don Cheadle, Ryan Gosling, Kevin Spacey, Chris Klein, Jena Malone, Lena Olin, and Michelle Williams
Opening in New York, LA, Chicago, and Washington DC on April 2 and nationwide on April 9

Palmer's company, Thousand Words, has produced five movies to date... Saturn, Requiem for a Dream, Waking Life, The United States of Leland, and The Clearing (coming to theaters in July, 2004). I'm really proud of the guy. He works with a great team of people (Jonah Smith, Jesse Johnston, Najeeb Rassie, and Stephanie Lewis) who work hard to put great movies out there so please support my home team and see this film. And take a few friends with you while you're at it. Thanks!

For a listing of cities and theaters, check out the continuation...

Bits of News

I'm late to the game, but I must point everyone to Tyler Green's article in today's Wall Street Journal on the Whitney Biennial. After you have read the article, bounce back to MAN to see some of the comments people have sent to Tyler about the article. My comment: Hip-hip-hooray! Let's get that art (and the artists) out there! (I recognize that by just agreeing with Tyler on this doesn't really add much to the conversation, but I TRULY love his ideas and pray that someone powerful over at the Whitney loves them, too.)

Across the pond in the UK Telegraph, there is a nice article on the art buying habits of young British collectors. They are buying more art these days with the help of art fairs like the Affordable Art Fair. I'm a big fan of AAF for all of the reasons listed in the article and hope that its influence on new US collectors will be similar to its influence on new British collectors. (Thanks for the tip Caryn!)

More on Mistakes

A few posts ago my friend Erin wrote about Mera Rubell mentioning that the greatest mistakes in her art collection were the works of art she DIDN'T buy. She will always remember those and has a hard time recalling the art she is sorry she did buy.

That comment resonated with me and I agree with Mera. I still curse the day I didn't purchase more work by Keith Tyson while standing in his studio in London years ago. And what drug was affecting my ability to think clearly when I passed on purchasing the entire "Sugar Children Series" (including jars containing the sugar he used to make each portrait) by Vik Muniz in 1996?

However, for someone facing their first purchase of original contemporary art, discussions of missed opportunities may be a little premature. Great art should stay great as time goes by, but trying to hit the mark right out of the gate is nearly impossible and a waste of time. You, the budding collector, need to pull the trigger and buy. Buy anything that strikes your fancy. Don't worry about whether it will be worth anything in the future or even whether or not you will like it in five years. Chances are it won't be worth anything and you won't like it. Your taste will change as you continue to learn. But, you have to start somewhere.

I started young. I was 14 when I purchased my first "work of art" with months worth of babysitting money kept in a shoebox in my closet. This is what I saved up to buy:

This is a small 3-D construction by James Rizzi. I think it cost me a little over $100. It is an editioned piece - this one is number 2 out of 350. Is it worth more now? Probably not. Do I still like it? Not particularily except for sentimental reasons. But, this is where I started and I haven't stopped collecting since. I may look back at this and subsequent purchases and cringe, but no more than when I look back at other aspects of my tastes from that time. This is a photo of me taken the same year I purchased my first artwork:

My mother let me pick out those eyeglasses all on my own and the barrettes holding back my hair probably matched perfectly the design on my sweater. Do I cringe when looking at this photo? You betcha. But that was me. I have to love it, just as I have to love my very first purchase of art. We live and learn. But you aren't living or learning with art until you take that first step and claim your taste. Buy now. Years later you, too, will have something to look back on and laugh.

Read These Blogs

I am a new blogger. I am still learning. A lot. I want to acknowledge two bloggers who have welcomed me with open arms to the art blogging community and have taught me everything I know thus far. Thanking them and encouraging others to check out their blogs is way overdue.

Caryn Coleman of art.blogging.la
and
Tyler Green of MAN

I read these two blogs every day. You should be reading them daily, too. Why? Because they know their stuff. And, because they've been sharing their thoughts and opinions for years so you've got a lot of catching up to do. Collectors, gallerists, museum curators and administrators, and anyone else connected to or interested in the art world should read their blogs daily. It's just that simple.

I also have to acknowledge the woman who convinced me - finally - to create a blog. Thank you Elise!

Neil Farber

Opening this weekend (Saturday from 4-6) is a show of Neil Farber drawings at the Richard Heller Gallery.

If you are able, get to this show early as the drawings will surely sell out. (Caryn of art.blogging.la has discovered that many of the drawings have sold before the show even opens! Rumor has it that one of these early buyers is LA MoCA.) The drawings are priced between $600-$900 depending on size. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Richard Heller sold out of Neil's drawings at the Armory Show in the first few hours.

A fun fact for those of you that are new to Neil's work is that he is related to Marcel Dzama. This from Richard Heller:

Neil is Marcel's uncle and he is 28 yrs. old. 1 year younger than Marcel.

Neil was born in the ridiculously small town of Fosston, Saskatchewan, the brunt of many jokes. Neil didn't like Fosston and moved to live with the Dzama family of Winnipeg when he was very young. Marcel and Neil grew up as brothers and are best friends and frequent collaborators.

I wrote about Marcel and his success in an earlier post. How long before Neil's drawings are selling for $1,200?

My friend Randy Gladman wrote about Neil Farber a few years ago for NY Arts. It is a nice overview of his earlier work.

Neil Farber @ Richard Heller Gallery
Bergamot Station - 2525 Michigan Avenue, B-5a in Santa Monica, CA
March 27 - May 1

Mistakes...You'll Make a Few

So, I am what you call a guest writer...and a nervous one to be honest. This blog thing is gettin big man, and I'm not so good with an audience. What I really came here (metaphorically) to talk about other than my blog fright is the beautiful necessity of mistakes. It can be the process of mistakes that not only make the person, but the collection. Now I'm not talking about George Jr. type mistakes (yikes!), I mean the sort that relate to a collection through the process of buying things that someday you might wish you had not or conversely those that you wish you had.

I recently taught for the first time a class for people wanting to learn more about collecting--hardly the expert I tried to offer some tips I have learned from collecting a little on my own, working at Mixed Greens and with really dedicated collectors like Paige. One of the questions my students were very concerned about was what if they make a mistake? What if they buy something that after a few years they don't love or what if their tastes or themes within their collections change? My answer: fear of this kind would only keep their thinking about art and it's place in their life in a very narrow channel. Our tastes do change and our interests can grow but the initial pieces of a collection will always have a significant place in a collection--if at the least emotionally. It is also the assessment of this process of change in a collection and what caused it that is beneficial AND interesting. Most importantly, it is likely that they would not regret their purchases at all, but love them!

Paige asked me to guest write an entry after she was unable to attend a lecture at the Armory that we had both planned to go to--about beginning a collection. It was the first in a series of lectures developed by ARCO and two of the people on the panel were Don and Mera Rubell. All the panelists I thought were incredible (I love hearing people talk about their collections and what motivates them), but it was Mera Rubell who said a couple of things that made the hairs on my arms stand up. When speaking to the topic of mistakes she said their mistakes had been the pieces they didn't buy. POW! I think these missed opportunities can sometimes haunt you and that is inspiring in it's own weird way...that art can do that. I love it.

Studio Visit - Vik Muniz

One of my favorite things to do is to visit an artist in their studio. Learning about art at a gallery is like studying Italy in a classroom in Yonkers - you don't quite get the complete picture until you go there in person. Accept, without reservation, any and all studio visits you are offered. This is the best way for new collectors (as well as seasoned collectors) to immerse themselves in the passion of collecting art. I swear you will be hooked after getting a glimpse into their world.

Today I had the great pleasure of visiting Vik Muniz in his studio in Brooklyn. I am lucky to call Vik a friend and have collected his photographs for many years. I even made a documentary film on the guy to introduce this amazing individual to as many people as possible. The documenatry is called Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiousity Cabinet of Vik Muniz and aired this year on PBS in their Independent Lens Series. Here are some photos of Vik introducing us to his most recent work:

This is Vik.

This is Vik standing in front of his self portrait Too Sad. Vik made this self portrait out of small colorful toys. It was shown recently at the Armory at the Rena Bransten Gallery.

Vik is sharing details of his Diva Series - portraits of Hollywood icons he made out of diamonds. This work is of Elizabeth Taylor and was shown at the Armory at the Brent Sikkemma Gallery. The lovely lady standing next to Vik is my friend Kelly Stoetzel.

Vik, always the card, has this dartboard hanging in his studio.

The Armory Show - Take 2

A few of my favorites...

I-CAN-SEE, 2003 by Brian Dewan shown in Pierogi's booth. The man sitting in the picture, the artist himself, was running the filmstrip machine which was timed to a recording that sounded like it came right out of the 60's discussing history and art history. The images flashing on the screen were drawings by the artist. There was a constant crowd surrounding this booth and while I was standing there I overheard a girl saying to her friend that she felt like she should be taking notes for the pop quiz that was sure to come at the end of the slide show. Joe Amrhein, the gallery owner, told me that the installation was for sale for $22,000 which includes the classroom and 10 film strips made by the artist. The artist may drop in on your installation every once in a while to run the film strip machine. This may not be a purchase for the new collector, but a great experience none-the-less.

This is a still from a video by a Stockholm artist named Lars Arrhenius. The video piece is titled The Street, 2004 and was being shown on a Mac laptop computer at Galleri Magnus Karlsson. The video consisted of the scene pictured above moving and changing as the clock on the upper right progressed rapidly through 24 hours. Each figure on the screen moved to a sound recording of nightly and daily noises... snoring, alarm clocks, street noises, babies crying, etc. In 20 minutes you get to experience an entire day with these figures. I was moved by this piece, finding joy in the celebratory movements of the figures giving birth, dancing at the disco, brushing their teeth, shuffling off to work; and, yet, at the same time noticing my dread that what is presented as human activity has an uncanny resemblance to an ant farm where all of our actions are at once predictable and monotonous. The video piece is meant to be projected in large format, an entire room perhaps, and costs $12,000.

I have been a long-standing fan of Marcel Dzama's drawings. This one was being shown at the David Zwirner Gallery and sells for $1,200. I began collecting Marcel Dzama drawings four years ago (purchasing the drawings for between $80 - $200) from the Richard Heller Gallery. Now may not be the best time to be collecting Dzama drawings as the prices have climbed steadily over the last four years, but they remain some of my favorite works and I was happy to see that all of his drawings had sold at the fair.

So, where can you, the budding collector, get in on great deals? I have to say that Richard Heller continues to show great up and coming artists and his booth at the Armory was the place to be for great deals. Run, don't walk, to his gallery (located in Santa Monica, California) and scoop up any and all of the work you can get your hands on.

Overheard at the Armory

One over-perfumed, over-Prada'ed collector speaking in a very loud voice to her cloned friend:

"They just told me that this painting has at least one reserve on it but that doesn't mean shit. It's mine if I want it."

"So true. That painting is yours with one threat."

Gotta love The Armory.

New to The Armory Show?

For the New Collector... The Armory is a great place to see a lot of art in one place. If you go, take notes and a digital camera. Train your eye, notice trends, find work that you hate, ask a lot of questions, discover your taste, listen-in on galleries and collectors talking about the art. But, don't buy! The Armory is not necessarily the best place to buy work if you are just starting a collection mainly because most things tend to be really pricey. (The booths at the fair cost the galleries a lot of money so they tend to bring their more expensive work.) If you get caught up in the whirlwind (and pressure) to buy at the fair, here are a few galleries I recommend you head for: Bellwether, Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery, Clementine Gallery, Derek Eller Gallery, Richard Heller Gallery, LFL Gallery, The Modern Institute, Pierogi, and Roebling Hall. I know these galleries well and have bought work at all of them in the past few years. Nice people (except maybe at art fairs), and great art. They all show well priced artists - both emerging and emerged. If the art on the booth wall seems too pricey, make sure to ask to see work by their other artists. Most galleries have hidden away in the booth lower priced or unframed works in flat files or portfolios. Another great place to pick up affordable work is at one of the numerous museum booths (The New Museum, The Aldrich Museum, etc.). They have limited editions made especially for the museum by some great artists priced between $100 - $3,000. My favorite is Roxy Paine's Fecund, 2001 at the Aldrich. Have fun!

For more tips... Tyler Green (of ArtsJournal.com) wrote a very funny bit on Art Fair Tips. Please check out his Thursday March 11, 2004 entry.