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Tag Archives: art

Art is Not Elitist

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Jay Magidson in art

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art, auction, Elitist, emerging art, expensive art, goya, museum

In the last few decades, art has been perceived, and is to many, an elitist endeavor.  The artist does work for money after all.  With the rise in value for some paintings in the hundreds of millions, it is no wonder many collectors buy with the goal of increasing their wealth.  Museums need visitors, so they follow the trend as well, buying and displaying such works as Munch’s the Scream, purchased at auction for nearly $120 million.  The Mona Lisa, for example, brings about 6 million viewers to the Louvre every year.  Its value based on this alone puts it in the $100s of millions if not billions.  These are commodities, marketing icons.  One might ask one’s self, is that so bad, exposing millions to important works of art?

AUCTION-edvard munch

Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” sells for $119.9 million at Sotheby’s in 2012

Marketing Creates the Illusion of Value

The effect is not limited to museums.  Contemporary works sell for millions regularly at auction houses and galleries.  Many of these works are important, many of questionable long term worth.  The auction house and gallery have a vested interest in promoting and maintaining these upward prices.  The buyer expects increasing returns, critics and experts influence and perpetuate these expectations.  A very small range of works continue to rise to stratospheric levels while tens of thousands of artists languish in obscurity.  Fair?  Life isn’t fair, right.  Play the game or don’t cry about it passing you by.

Photo_of_Interchanged_by_Willem_de_Kooning

“Interchange” by Willem de Kooning sold to Kenneth C. Griffin for $300 million in 2015

What is Art For

But step back and remind yourself of the true purpose of art, its intrinsic value.  Art is created to communicate ideas, concepts and emotion.  When it succeeds it is good, when it touches your soul, it is great.  Is a $100 million work touching some one’s soul?  Sometimes, but often not.  The price has nothing to do with its connection to the viewer.  Its measure as a commodity makes it inaccessible, available only to those who can afford to be touched.  Do these wealthy few have a special or unique type of soul that money has given them?  Hardly.

Paul_Cézanne the card players

“The Card Players” by Cezanne sold to the State of Qatar for between $250 and $300 million in 2011

Can You Put a Price on Your Soul

Our value driven culture has pushed aside so many potential art enthusiasts, given them them the illusion that if they can’t afford it, they can’t appreciate it.  It has created an elitist view of art in general, that somehow the wealthiest have some kind of special ability or gift that you do not posses.

gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan

Working Gold Toilet by Maurizio Cattalan in the Gugenheim Museum bathroom in 2016 valued at $2 to $3 million

A King’s Ransom for a Painting

This is hardly a new concept.  Kings, noblemen and the religious institutions paid great artists to create works for their palaces and churches for centuries.  The 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries made art far more accessible to more people.  Prints, portfolios, illustrated books and drawings were “affordable” for many.  We are going backwards in a way, returning to the times of kings teaching us that art is out of reach because we can’t afford it.

Le_Massacre_des_Innocents_d'après_P.P._Rubens_-_Musées_royaux_des_beaux-arts_de_Belgique_(2)

“le Massacre des innocents” by Peter Paul Rubens sold at Sotheby’s London in 2002 for $76.7 million

But It’s all a Lie

Art is a uniquely human experience available to all.   You can go to many museums for free or a modest cost and be touched by great works.  You can visit galleries and artist studios to see unknown masterpieces.  You can even buy them if you choose.  But money is not the measure of art’s worth, your experience is.  Ignore the money circus and search for yourself, decide for yourself what is great art.  It takes education, experience and effort.  The rewards are manifold.  You feed that infinite spark inside you called the soul, you are richer for the experience, more human, more you.  Art is important to all of us.

Goya Grande Hazana con Muertos

Goya’s “Grande hanzaña con muertos” sold at auction for $500

Goethe said in his beautiful way:

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

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Inspiration’s Muse

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Jay Magidson in art, discovery, writing

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art, creativity, Inspiraton, Muse, Writing

Writing is a lonely sport.  The cursor blinks menacingly on the empty background, angry photons burning trails onto doubt-filled retinas.  What will appear is unknown, something between garbage and genius, or worse…nothing.  When all seems lost, inspiration flutters down like a timorous butterfly.  And like magic, writing begins, timid at first, then braver, growing into a furious boldness that seems uncontainable, unstoppable, but then finally peters out to a whisper.  It is a type of alchemy, lead into gold and ultimately – sweet torture.

53742-elsuec3b1odelarazonproducemounstros

“The Dream of Reason Creates Monsters” by Goya

Inspiration is Courageous

Where does inspiration come from, and with it – courage.  What is brave about banging on a keyboard?  Fear permeates the creative process, scratching roughshod into a reluctant spirit, stealing jewels from the claws of a sleeping dragon.  It is not the fear of a known physical force, injury, pain or death; it is far worse.  Physical wounds heal.  It is the fear of having nothing to say, of having an empty soul.  That is truly awful.

Empty_chair28x24

“The Empty Chair” by Eva Cellini

Creativity is a Job

I lost a dear friend recently.  She was an artist.  She inspired me to write, encouraged me when things seemed at their most difficult.  “Touch it every day.”  She would say.  “No one knows where creativity lives.  It is a job, and if you don’t show up, you cannot succeed.  You must set the table if you expect your guests to arrive.”  She was right, it is a job, the most difficult one possible.  To be honest all the time, to never accept compromise, cowardice or timidity, to stare into blinding infinity and pull something from nothing.  To never give up, knowing that there is no end to your journey.

red_leaf

“The Red Leaf” by Eva Cellini

The Muse is Selfish

The muses of creativity care nothing for our pain, discomfort or insecurities.  They kick at our heads when we are sleeping, driving or eating dinner with friends.  Like selfish children they demand our attention RIGHT NOW, not when it is convenient or expedient.  Ignore them and they will dart away like frightened deer.  Maybe they’ll come back in a day, a week, maybe never. Obey their cruel reason and be rewarded with something new, the blissful loss of time, but also with more insanity.  Because the muses are insane, exquisitely beautiful crazies.

The Muses

Science would have us believe we are bundles of chemical reactions, an accident of evolution that created consciousness.  All that we call beauty is just a hormonal reaction to certain frequencies of light and sound.  But that doesn’t explain Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Beethoven; where did they get their inspiration to bring such sublimity to the Earth.  Science stumbles at the gates of art and we have to look beyond the mundane explanations of logic, through the iron bars of rationality into the swirling mist of creativity – where the muses dance.

Cherished-Memories-of-Cornells-Lost-Muse54x34llg

“Memories of Cornell’s Lost Muse”by Ingrid Dee Magidson

Inspiration is the Paint, We Are The Canvas

Polyhymnia, sacred muse of poetry, and her eight sisters live beyond the limited mind.  They kiss our eyes when we sleep, pulling us into the soul-ripping abyss.  They temp us with words, shapes and colors, impossible ideas that would make others scoff or shrug.  Inspiration is their paint and we are their canvas.  One only needs to step aside, lower one’s head in humility and accept their gifts.  Gifts that must be passed on or fester like rotting fruit.

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The Philosophy of 600 Grit Sandpaper

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Jay Magidson in art, ideas, sandpaper

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art, ingrid magidson, sandpaper

The orbital sander buzzes, sawdust flying everywhere, making me wonder how my odd journey brought me to this moment. I’m a middle-aged bald guy with two teenagers, living in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, a former art gallery owner and art dealer, wearing a respirator and headphones sanding a lowly piece of poplar, not cherry or walnut or even maple – poplar, the weed of the tree kingdom – and loving every second of it.

_MG_2091My wife is a very successful artist. Her works have been exhibited in Aspen, Vail, New York, Houston, Geneva, Gstaad, Singapore, Mexico City, Toronto, Laguna Beach, San Francisco, Miami and many more fancy cities. Am I bragging about her? Of course, what kind of husband would I be if I didn’t. The thing is, her works are complex, really complex. They are essentially layers of antique objects, butterflies, doll furniture, clocks, toys, silverware, wasp nests, eggs, bones, shells, sand, beetles, and whatever else she thinks of, sandwiched between sheets of acrylic. I tell you all this, because I am the one who gets to make the boxes and frames that hold them all together. And I do mean “gets to,” because even though I can’t tell anyone, I secretly love it.

Since I was a kid, I loved to build things—and ahem—take things apart. I took lots of things apart, things you aren’t supposed to take apart. I grew up in a time when TVs were giant polished wooden boxes that took two strong men to lift, full of burning-hot tubes, leaky capacitors, heavy transformers, and scary warnings on the back that said, “Danger High Voltage, Do Not Open.” Yep, I opened the TV, took all the tubes out without any clue how they were supposed to go back. Dad loved that when he got home to sit on the couch in front of the TV. I took apart the clock radio, the mechanical curtain rods, the door locks, the iron, the car door, the coffee percolator, my bicycle, the lawn mower, the electrical outlets (zap!), and anything else with screws or bolts. Most of it I got back together before mom found out, except for some things that went over my head, like the TV.

Have you ever seen those books “How Things Work?” I never read those books. Instead I reverse engineered everything to learn how it worked, I guess I still do. I have a curiosity about mechanical objects, especially broken ones. I am sure everything can be fixed with enough patience and superglue. But I grew up and taking apart the toaster is not much of a profession. Instead, I joined my father in his gallery in New York, then went on my own,for over 30 years now, showing and selling fine art. Don’t get me wrong, I get a charge out of that too. I really love great art, fall in love, heart pounding passionate love with it. How do you mix these two opposites together? Lots of patience apparently.

Cherished-Memories-of-Cornells-Lost-Muse54x34llg

My wife wasn’t an artist when I met her. She worked for me at my art gallery in Aspen, where we fell in love at first sight. Yes it happens, and it happened to us. Her parents are artists and so it was logical for her to work in the arts, sell it if you can’t make it. She did this with me until her 39th birthday when she woke up one morning and said, “I have to create something or I’ll explode.” I didn’t want her to explode, so I cleared out the garage and told her to go for it. Next thing I know, she’s selling masterpieces and I’m sanding poplar.Now here’s the secret part (well not anymore, I guess), that juvenile-delinquent mechanical engineer was still living inside me. And he was anxious to start taking stuff apart again. Oh sure, I got to fix the vacuum cleaner once in a while, but that’s pretty pedestrian, pull out the dog hair and they call you a genius. My wife’s art is way, way more satisfying than that, like when she decided to put a music box in the middle of one of her pieces. Which has to work, you know, wind up and play. It’s buried inside a work of art, two feet away from the edge of the frame and has to be wound up! I grumbled out loud about the misery and tedium of making something so preposterous work, but inside, I rubbed my hands together in pure mad-scientist glee, carefully containing the sound of my insane laughter.

Tis-but-a-breif-moment28x23One of my favorite pieces, called “Cherished Memories of Cornell’s Lost Muse” has a whole set of doll furniture along the inside bottom edge of the frame. How do you get toothpick thin table legs to stay on a piece wood that has to be turned upside down, shipped, handled, and horror of horrors, possibly dropped? “This is madness!” I say out loud. But inside the crazy nerd declares, “No, this is Sparta!” and makes it work.

Cherished-Memories-of-Cornells-Lost-Muse54x34detail3So here I am enjoying my life so much, I feel guilty most of my waking hours. It’s called work isn’t it, drudgery, miserable, horrible 9 to 5 torture. So I fake it, complain that it’s hard or tedious. That’s what you say so no one knows how friggin awesome your job really is and tries to take it.

Oh, and 600 grit sandpaper makes wood way smoother than a baby’s butt, even if it is only poplar.

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