Saturday, June 18, 2011

Higher or Lower?


What is the difference between high end art and low end art? And who can tell them apart? What makes one better then the other when a lot of them look like they came from the same artist? 



One of these artist is from Criaglist and one of these is from a gallery in Germany. Can you tell which is which? I bet you would guess the wrong one. 

Is one artist better then the other? Why? Is it because one has more of an art background? Maybe one has gone to art school, maybe one knows the history of art and has been to more galleries and museums? Well so what? What if even after all that, they still stuck? I have met plenty of shity artist who think they are hot shit but are really just shit. They think they know what they are doing, or they fallow other artist and have no original voice of there own, and by they fact that they are not creating work for the same reason the original artist is. The work has no soul and makes no sense. 

So who is better? The person who makes honest work from the heart, or the person who tries to figure out what it going to sell and make them look good and makes work around that? Some people would say, well it doesn't mater as long as it looks good. Well who is to say one looks better then another? And if art was only have looks many contemporary artist would have never sold.

What about people who make art that looks like it belongs above someones couch? It is boring but beautiful? Pretty but meaningless? Is it better to have meaning and be not as aesthetically pleasing? Or be beautiful and meaningless? I have herd that both are ok. But where do you draw the line? And how can you tell when one instance it is ok and another time it is not? Do only teachers, scholars and old cranky buyers, collectors and gallery owners get to choose? And even between them there is not a clean cut line. 


Is this metaphor or junk? Beauty or trash? Is it in the eye of the beholder or some self proclaimed expert? And if it is up to the institution why should i trust there opinion? What if they are wrong, what if their perceptive is warped due to all the crap that why allow into the gallery. By admitting that one is crap they are saying that all the other stuff that they called art, is now crap and that they were wrong. I doubt that would happen. 


This is a piece done with house paint. Each panel has drizzles of paint in a stick like pattern. It is very 'designee', in other words, Target art. But there is a concrete concept, the paint that was obtained was from old paint cans that the artist collected. They speak about how much paint we waist. Now is it good or bad? If it is concept oriented should it have been MORE conceptual? And if so why? People are more drawn to these types of works. So why makes it some thing it doesn't have to be. If you are making art so that people will buy it, then why not make art that people will buy? Are you then a slave to the buyer instead of the gallery? Are you not always a slave to something? 


What is the difference between high end art and low end art? And how can you tell which is which?

Monday, June 13, 2011

Getting Ready For Show

Next month I will be showing at The Center On Halsted. A LBGT center, they do lost of stuff but they also have a small gallery space. I went to my friends show and met the curator, we talked and wanted to show my work. So now we are working out all the kinks and I am lining up the goods. I have all the work picked out, all that is left is to do some touch ups, frame 17 pieces, and put hangers in the 15 paintings....not too much....
Each painting will be flanked by my magazine pieces that I posted in the past. Here are some of the paintings that I will be showing.










Saturday, June 4, 2011

mural

so these are images from a mural i am working on submitting. 

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Is This Art?

Is this art? I ask my self this question all the time. Most people would say it looks like trash, and I would agree. But people in the academia would say other whys, it is in a gallery so that says something right? I can hear them saying something like "well the artist thought about this, took time to construct this set and instal it so they have a idea behind it and are not just talking shit" I beg to differ, I think because it is in a gallery it is thusly shit. What I mean by that is, people often call something great and art when it is in a gallery. But this does not really mean it is true, so you could bull shit your way to a gallery and then just make this shit and call it art. It will pass as art and not many will question you because you are an "artist" and are finding new ways to "express your self." When I think a lot of artist take advantage of that and make shit art on purpose to make fun of the art world, and the sad thing is people don't see it as a joke they or they like that it is making fun of the art world and then praise it. Ruining the whole point. I am not a scholar or a teacher and I am not an expert in the field of art, but I have a honest and clear perspective of what is really going on here. I am even an artist and so I rely on this fucked up system. That is the worst part.










Thomas Hirschhorn




Bela Kolarova