On the Road to Tusheti 2009 ?

On the Road to Tusheti, originally uploaded by grijsz.

On the Road to Tusheti, originally uploaded by grijsz.

On the Road to Tusheti, originally uploaded by grijsz.

On the Road to Tusheti, originally uploaded by grijsz.

On the Road to Tusheti, originally uploaded by grijsz.

On the Road to Tusheti, originally uploaded by grijsz.

On the Road to Tusheti, originally uploaded by grijsz.

I'll be probably the whole Summer 2009 in Tusheti. As our Reunion 2008 because of the August war did not take place, I suggest we go instead this year to the Mountains, to relax, to get power, to discuss, eat, drink, to paint, to write, to make movies. On the right side is a poll you can vote, if you are interested, chat with me or send me an Email to kaukasus+tusheti@gmail.com Best regards, Hans

Brand vs Style, here the interesting questions by Mark Stone

Mark from HenriMag asked these interesting questions, please feel free to read and answer in case you get interested. The interview with me based on these questions you find here:

http://henrimag.com/blog1/?p=654

I wanted to examine the hard public part of an artists work and career and how those parts of our lives might be perceived - how one might play into the other. I think that 21st Century media environments may have changed our understandings and expectations concerning a career in art. There has been a real shift in how we perceive artists and their work especially since Warhol.

 

It seems to me that there are two things guiding market perceptions of artists' work - styles and brands. I believe Warhol was the first to create a true brand in the same sense as corporations create brands – and by that I mean an accessible product that can be reproduced, marketed and sold - something tied to a recognizable "name" or celebrity. This is inherently different from an artist's traditional development of a style. Style used to come through in the making of art or better through the living of art. Style is intimately connected to the artist and is looked at as a unique embodiment of the artistic impulse. "Style" develops through practice, whereas "brand" is a more conceptual approach to art making, brands sort of arrive familiarly full-blown.

 

What do you see as the difference between an artist's style or an artist's brand? Is there such a difference any longer? Does an artist have to develop a style or brand or can one appropriate a style or brand? Do you find that "media" feeds these distinctions in how an artist's work is perceived?

 

Behind the idea of known style or a known brand are concepts of fame or recognition. For instance the current crop of Postmodern artists that are in the news seem to "put on" or "wear" a type of art fame that is easily defined and already known making it easier to connect with their brands or styles -

Jeff Koons as a businessman (well-appointed designer suits and ad-man sound bites), Damien Hirst as a Rockstar (looking and sounding more like Bono every day), and Murakami as a tech geek (like George Lucas and his Skywalker lab.) All three have assumed media images of artists designed to be familiar and stable, based on a prototypical business formula. This concept of fame which is directed at selling art or the artist or creating a brand focus is different even than Warhol's artist persona - he remained a sort of show, outside of the mainstream, a caricature or an avatar of a downtown art-type. The main difference is that he remained an artist that played at being a businessman, while today's artists are more like businessmen who make art.

 

What do you see as being the functions of fame in the art world today and how does this relate to brand making or style making? How has this changed the practices in the studio and in the public eye? What part does creativity play in the development of both fame and business and what part should it play in developing art? What sort of fame do you see artists trying to obtain? How does the attainment of recognition affect the understanding and acceptance of certain artists? How much does this public recognition factor play into the creation and presentation of the work itself?

 

Finally does the idea of style or brand or the creation of a style or brand inform your work - do you see yourself creating a brand or forming a style or both? Is fame and recognition a consideration of that development and if so how?

Short questions-short answers on art, part 1

Why is it good, that the Art Market crashes ?

Because its good that our values get some adjustments !

Explanation by Hans:

How can it be responsible to sell/buy some shit painting for lets say 200.000 EUR ?

An artist doing that without any regrets, is no artist for me, because he states that he probably thinks, that his painted shit could be worth that big money !?

How megalomaniac can an pseudo artist be, accepting any such sum for his poop ?

Prices for average art works should not exeed more than lets say 20.000 EUR, every cent above this should go for charity, to hungry people, to kids, schools, to teachers, it should be invested in our society.

Imagine, that my wife is educating and raising 25 little young Georgian boys and Girls at the first form, thus beginners in the age of 5-6 years old. It's one of the most responsible jobs in our society, to raise these kids with a true and good new education (we see today how many states failed to do that the right way)

Formally she teaches 4 hours a day by 5 days a week by 4 weeks a month. That makes 80 hours of the hardest work you can imagine. (try it for one day in front of 25 little personalities)

You know, how much she gets paid for this job ?

200 Lari per month, thats approximately 70 EUR, per month ! Not per day, like you earn probably our dear average reader.

We do not count here, that she needs a minimum of 2 hours per day at home to prepare her lessons carefully (can you imagine what happens, if you come without  a good plan in front of 25 kids ?)what amounts to another 40 hours per month (I know she spends more time on that)

So, there is a huge gap. Not only a gap, its  a crying injustice ! Here a crap shit work, that costs 200.000, there a teacher, who does the most important work for our future, who needs to work 1000 months at school for that sum, if he earns 200. Thats 83 years of work at school, can you imagine ? She studied 6 years at University for this work !

So let happen the crash of this kind of stupid art market and never recover again, but lets send more artists in our schools to teach !

For that the artists learn, what real work is...

Any comment ?

What kind of work will be bought in 2018 ?

Happy Christmas, dear Art Club Members and Art Club Caucasus Readers ! I wish you some nice days with your family and friends, enjoy your time, relax from the "quite difficult" but still very good 2008.

Here is a question to you to think about, if you are in the mood for that:

What kind of art will be bought in 10 years from now ? Will it still be paintings, prints and drawings, or something else ?

Will it be digital media, video ? Will it be just an USB Stick with a work ?

Think, that the future collectors generation now growing up, look often to painting as some kitschy old fashioned thing, almost ridiculous and stoffy.

Will there be huge flat screens in houses, (on the places where now the huge paintings are), where are our works digitally displayed ?

Will it even be so, that collectors buy a whole blog like this, lets say for 250.000 USD ? But who should get the money then ? We share it proportional to the amounts of posts each of us did ;-))

But how to buy a blog ??

It's very easy, 1st we take the money, 2nd with 2 clicks we make the buyer the Admin of this blog ;-)

Will it be, that collectors rent artists for a certain contract/project ?

Will big media companies like Google pay groups of artists, just to play arround and develop new visual concepts ?

We must invent the future by thinking it. We must prepare to the changing world around us and influence the changes itself.

Best regards, Hans

From Drop Box

How can we attract more visitors ? The Art Club Caucasus ?

a question to Lado, Nino, Ralph our Art Club Caucasus members, friends, supporters and other frequent visitors of this blog:

How can our art and this blog get more attention ?

I resume:

- this blog runs almost 1 year now

- it is focused on art experience, mainly via images of art related to the Caucasus Region

- the focus changed recently slightly to Contemporary Art worldwide

- the main contributers are Lado and myself

- Comment activity is very low

Here are some questions, we could think about and discuss:

What are we doing wrong, when we are only received by approximately 30 readers a day ?

How could there be more quality in this blog ? 

How could we improve the relevance of this blog to Artists, Art Critics, Intelligentsia, interested open accidentally crossing visitors ?

Are our posts relevant, interesting, mind provoking ?

What do we want from this blog and Art blogs in General ?

Who are and where are our potential readers ? How we can attract them ?

How can this blog contribute to make our art better known ? 
How can this blog contribute to todays main art issues ?

How can this blog contribute to improve art sales ?

Some of my loose ideas for a possible solution:

a) I assume, that only a minority  of artists (but growing)  worldwide is reading art blogs yet.

b) We could make more works fitted for Youtube, and link back to this blog, like Art in SlideShows, short or longer art videos. Thus try to put our works in the mainspots of the internet, like we try already to do in Flickr. 

c) For sure, there should be more written texts on Contemporary Art questions, but could we do this ourselves, or should we ask friends and folks to write a guest comment on these topics.

Who could be asked ?

d) Should this blog become a little bit more provocative and crazy in a good sense ? And how ?

e) Could adhoc Mini-Net-Work-Projects improve the quality, like f.e. drawing a mother with child in Budapest, in Tbilisi, in New York in Tel Aviv and have the works in 24 or 48 hours online ?

f) What kind of tasks and subjects these Net-Work-Projects could have ?

g) Should we update the Art Club Members more frequently by Email or would this be annoying ?

h) What would YOU like to have and read and see in this blog ?

Best regards, Hans

Art Blogs and Discussions

I have quite a couple of Art Blogs in my Newsreader, but there are only a few art blogs around (as far as I know them) who pick up the really sharp issues. Maybe you heard about Edward Winkleman's blog http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/?

Edward picks up (and creates sometimes) amazing difficult art issues and the commentators doing their point to discuss the mostly wicked questions. As a non English Native speaker it is very hard to take part in the merciless discussions, where every word is to weigh.

If you like to read hot late night art discussions, then this blog is definitely a place for you. In the recent two posts it goes about taboos, responsibility and courage and the results. There is not made a real connection between the cases of Sooreh Hera and a Czech Arts Collective called Ztohoven, except that they are posted after each other, but the parallels are to me too obvious.

A good addition is the original Guardian blog post on Ztohoven "How art declared war on the media", together with the comments section, here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2008/01/how_art_declared_war_on_the_me.html

So are there still taboos for contemporary art or not ? Was it art at all ? Can/Should art be free of real world reactions and consequences ? But, first read the above posts and discussions.