Art bombed at home – and I loved it!

An artist sent me two works from her multiples series on Monday, out of the blue and just when I was feeling a bit down, like I was broadcasting into space. Hey, bloggers in other industries get sent shit all the time to review, so to entice and market different brands or products – like a popular movie blogger will received free passes to the preview of a new film. I was expecting and received invites to art receptions but it never, never occurred to me I would be sent actual work in the mail.

This is way cool, and I love it. I love what Nathalie sent and I love the idea of being sent work to review so much that I am going to review the shit of this. I want people to send me their shit and I will always review it on this blog. Now in the mean time, I need to get a mailing address…

Two multiples by Nathalie Quagliotto

What could be in this box? I remember I reviewed an exhibit she curated a little while ago … how did she know my address? It’s light and very well packed.

whaaaaa!? This is a real work, and very cool work. This looks like some sort of tug of war device for angry children, but that kind of describes relationships. This is a sentimental and sappy spoof toy on first blush, then a split second later it was very apparent it is a bleak assessment of the love and the human condition. The packaging and labelling are very corporate, and I also had a Orwellian sense of absurd horror that powers had decided this is what I (we) want, so were going to sell it to us. It’s also signed by the artist, which is some condolence to my invoked existential angst.
The artist in me wants to know how she did this – can you melt candy and re-form it? Isn’t making candy a mystery recipe and closely guarded industry secret?

And the second object is … a bunch of objects in a box. An all-yellow jigsaw puzzle! With a title such as “THE SAFETY YELLOW PUZZLE” my brain jumps to a perceived commentary of “relationships are hard work and it all ends up the same” and “you can both pretend to be happy by putting this together” ( No, I am not experiencing any trouble in my personal life and projecting onto this). I love the corporateness of the packaging, the suggested activity inherent with the materials she’s used and this yellow business. This work deserves more of my attention ….

I am going to use this puzzle the way it was intended to be used and form a relationship with it. I am going to introduce this conceptual Montreal art to the City of Hamilton.

After assembling the work* I took it up to the look out point on the escarpment at night. The lights are so beautiful, and the industry fuels the imagination. I think it was too soon though, and both the puzzle and I felt a tad awkward.

There is where the puzzle really started to shine. As the steel and coke factories churged and spewed, the puzzle quietly stole the show with a certain glow about it. I think it was letting its guard down, despite being so complex.

Time to enjoy’s the area’s nature and beauty, and what better way to do that than visit one of the many waterfalls complete with 500 other people. No one seemed to mind we were a mixed animate / inanimate couple. I though the blue really brought out the yellow, and the puzzle took this as a compliment.

Speaking of yellow, here is a portrait of me holding the puzzle in front of me wearing a yellow shirt looking at a man in the distance wearing a yellow shirt, with my son looking at me. Soon after this photo the puzzle went back into its box and we have not been out together since.

If I had been smarter during my career, I would of collected more smaller works and multiples from artists along the way. Quagliotto’s multiples are available on her website so check it out. Thanks for sending me some of your work, Nathalie!

I did try to spend some time with the “FUSED YELLOW LOLLIPOPS” but it was way too confusing (click on picture to see the full 360 panorama).

* I did not, in fact, open or construct the puzzle. Are you crazy!? I kept this work safe and instead photo-shopped my journey.

http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=e026f296-3c85-4934-b58f-d7e15907de2b&delayLoad=true&slideShowPlaying=false

Art Listings Professional savaged by the Google Panda

In a sane world without the internet that sentence would make no sense, but sadly it does. If you don’t know what a “Google Panda” is, then here’s a Google search on the term.

I’ve known for awhile and read all about it, including remedies and strategies. This g-beast of a algorythm seems to target people who are  dubious content scrapers, copying content from other sites and relying on rss feeds from elsewhere to bolster ad banner click throughs. Illegal or legimate, they tend to have very little value to a user’s search results as they have no original content to present that can’t be found at the original sites. Makes sense.

My art project that is ALP probably looks like that to a robot, because I engage in essentially the same practices. To a robot, I exist solely on social networks and use other’s people’s content – 10 thousand people sharing a status update, or a re-blog, or the same tweet are not especially valuable information to a search query but very valuable to the original poster. Makes sense.

However, if you are reading this, you probably see sites such as ALP are valuable and distinct, and I used to enjoy a very high search engine ranking for my “main” website artlistpro.com. I don’t even have an advertising, though i think wordpress does for itself. It’s akin to banishing from society all curators for not making the art themselves in an exhibit.

Anyways, now, traffic has slowed to a dribble on the index page and my ranking on google has rather dramatically dropped.

Here’s where it gets interesting though (i’m feeling a bit smug) – I am going to “weather” through this unfortunate mauling because I am not going to change the ways i am posting information because there is nothing wrong with it. I am not going to request a manual re-verification either, as I am very curious as to monitoring the traffic and seeing how long it will take, if at all, to recover.

Am I bad publisher for this prideful stance? I don’t think so, because the way I built ALP is to build relationships between communities and artists utilizing many social platforms. This includes Art PR Wire. Three years later, I am a having a blast with folks on tumblr, twitter, wordpress, facebook and posterous! It’s almost, like … I don’t believe it… it’s almost like I don’t need google.

At least, I don’t need to sweat it because it’s a project, so my purposes and hopefully yours is to learn as much as possible. Amazingly the total amount of subscribers is growing because my posts, and the selection and order and publicity results for the artists, are valued and appreciated. Thank you, all of you.

So I hope it does get corrected, but there are aspects I could do better and as my injury heals, I feel closer to some long planned revamp of the entire service. That’s a hint.

I’m not “mad” at google – it’s kind of like a bad review from an art critic. In this day and age though the artist has the ability to steal the critic’s audience.

Local business embroiled in scandal during West Hamilton Artists Tour

Greed. Drama. Collusion. Broken dreams. Tears. These were all present during what was supposed to otherwise be a pleasant afternoon of visiting artists in their home studios in and around Locke Street. We were shocked … Shocked! … at the avarice on display by residents of this quiet neighbourhood who saw opportunity with the throngs of thirsty art lovers and the predatory corporate behaviour that ensued.

WHAT has brought out good crowds but bad, monopolizing behaviour in local business people

We first came to this pop-up popcorn store with very reasonably priced servings and  enthusiastic branding. We bought two bags because the owner was so nice and we believed in the product. We also decided not to mention the large amounts of free refreshments in every studio stop along the way. We believe in the free market. Little did we know our purchasing power would set off a chain of tragic consequences.

exhibit one a small business owner with popcorn wares

Popcorn is great for art lovers on a hot sunny afternoon but makes one thirsty. Where would we find reasonably priced beverage refreshment units appropriate to our demographic and consumer behaviour? If only there was a lemonade stand close by, if only… oh wait, what’s this? A teaser advertisement! Let’s follow…

exhibit two guerilla marketing from the competition. what could it lead to?

So exciting. Could this be yet another new place I can shop in my free time? Will our thirst be quenched? Let’s follow the clues. At this point we noticed one of the popcorn attendants was rushing past us, as if to prepare others for our arrival, that we were paying out.

the anticipation builds on a quiet street in Hamilton West

Almost there…

big box lemonade stands have moved in

Wow! A lemonade stand three houses down! Right on…  this booth had what we needed, and a perfect complimentary business to someone enjoying popcorn. This operation seemed to have a gaggle of young proprietors with some serious parental-backed production value going on. This was big person business and the little ones were franchisees, we suspected. But these two stands should work well working together, right?

Sadly, no. The popcorn vendor came over, and in a gesture of goodwill offered the lemonade conglomerate some complimentary popcorn. Unfortunatly, after some a brief strategy meeting that involved whispering into each other’s ears the spokeperson for “Lemonade 25cent LLP” informed the well-meaning small business owner that she was, in fact, “the enemy” and they did not want the popcorn and to go away.

The popcornist ran back to her booth in tears and liquidated her assets immediately, apparently retiring from the street vendor business due to anti-competition behaviour of the other vendors.

we can’t we just get along?

Tears and broken dreams made us feel tragic about this – but we are only consumers, and stranger adults at that so best not to get involved. However, one of adults involved in the house overseeing the Lemonade 25cent LLP operations was savvy enough in public relations to get involved and led the contingent of lemoneers over to the popcornist for a group apology and discussion of business ethics. Though it ended well as a character building exercise, we hope this is not a foreshadowing of bad business behaviour – why would they act like this? Surely our society with our Beer Stores, Liquor Stores, Bell & Rogers, and other large, controlled monopolies would of taught the children about respect and being open to healthy competition.

Well, anyways, we saw some art too. Posted below.

http://www.gordonleverton.com/

http://www.gordonleverton.com/

http://www.torlukasikfoss.com/

http://www.torlukasikfoss.com/

http://www.torlukasikfoss.com/

Art crawl Hamilton May 2012

Holy people batman! Over 2400 people in my gallery since 7pm …. Art crawl is over for galleriests like me. We will be gallery sitting.

The secret of how to make money in the contemporary art industry

Becoming an artist is very much like being a prospector in the Yukon Gold Rush.

Tens of thousands and thousands of hopeful individuals rushing towards a dream of glittering wealth and fame. As we all know, the gold rush for the vast majority of hopefuls was a narrative of broken dreams and disappointment. With a generous helping of romanticism. Pretty much like the fantasies many people have of being a professional contemporary artist.

I get asked sometimes about how have I managed to make a living as an artist. Well, the answer is that that question is fundamentally erroneous. I don’t make a living as being an artist but I do make a living in the arts.

See, I realized a while ago that wealth was generated the gold rush not by digging for gold but by selling shovels.

So I learned web design after graduating from art school in 1996. In every single opportunity in every arts organization I have worked at has occurred because I knew how to make a website. The knowledge of marketing and how to build a website is my shovel, what I sell to artists. It has led to administration, marketing and writing.

I also get asked often about how do I make a living as web designer – everyone knows a bunch of friends who have designers who are having a hard time finding work. My answer is that I specialized in the arts because I’m an artist.

Neither area is particularly lucrative for most, especially when you solely focus on that area. Perhaps that’s because if you just focus on making art you’re boring and if you just focus on making web designs then you’re not a very good communicator. Both areas need something more.

Not the answer you were hoping for? Regardless, that’s how I make a living as an artist.

Heather Goodchild @ Hamilton Artists Inc

THE WARDENS

Heather Goodchild’s installation gives one a feeling of being in a cloister or some sort of a ritual labyrinth. She designed this exhibit specifically for the gallery space at the inc, and all by hand. That’s no small feat considering the varied materials – rubber, ceramics, weaving, sewing, silkscreen, sculpture, drawing, audio. Her work moves effortlessly between between these mediums to support her mythology based installation. It works so well the show, well, just works.

I won’t give away too many of the elements of the work because I was so pleased at being surprised a few times.

Some problems with the Canadian contemporary art market

Had a beer with a commercial, independent gallery owner last night. We talked about some of the realities of the local and national arts economy. We both based our opinions on the fact there are fantastic artists and curators in Canada. With our combined experience and bitterness, here is a brief list of some of the key points: