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Continuing on from what Eleanor was talking about in her Patronage post. What i kept thinking while i watched it was how, with Matt always positioned in the center of the group, he was like the nucleus of a human rejoicing. Whatever he tapped into with his first solo dancing videos that caused them to spread through the internet so broadly, had also allowed him to travel around the world and bring that gift to people everywhere. And seemingly everywhere he goes, people understand and join in. This isn’t the same view of the underlying connection of all humanity that’s engendered by the Olympics or World Cup, where the solidarity between people is created through a focus on a single episode, or struggle. In those cases the spectacle is the nucleus, and what draws people to it is in part the knowledge that so many others are being drawn to it. The human connections in this Matt video are much less grand, but they’re also more flexible and personal. It’s just people having fun, for no particular reason for a small amount of time. This formula seems to work just as broadly as the epic conflict between the world’s most highly skilled atheletes for creating connections across cultural boundaries. I’m not sure what my point was, but there you go.

My sister sent me this video yesterday. Maybe this is a modern form of patronage. Rather than commissioning a work solely for oneself, funding is provided for a project to happen and the final results are available to all. This isn’t a new idea; think of orgainzations like Creative Time and Public Art Fund, who solicit donations and funding from a wide variety of sources, and then help fund artists projects for a wider public to experience. The only difference is that this is a single corporate sponsor. The creator of this video, Matt Harding, has made three of these videos now. The first was all by himself, just a thing for his friends and family to laugh at. But somehow, in that mystery that every ad executive craves for, the video went viral and within a month his server was crashing from all the traffic (YouTube wasn’t around yet) and millions of viewers had seen his goofy dance. Then he got a proposal from Stride. They didn’t want to be involved, all they wanted to do was sponsor Matt to do another video. So they did, two videos really. It is obvious that this is not a commercial for Stride Gum. With the sponsor recognized only after all the credits have rolled, it is pretty inconspicuous. Stride could make a commercial in the exact same way, but that might kill whatever it is that made these videos so appealing. Maybe because it would lose its sponteneity, or the viewer lose the direct connection between the creator and the product, or maybe just because ads turn people off, it’s safe to say an overt Stride Gum commercial wouldn’t get 5 million views in just a couple months. What’s so great about these videos is that, from the start, they were fueled by the desire to make something, by art. I have to say though, whatever Stride was looking for to happen, it worked on me. Though I don’t buy gum, I have a good feeling about Stride. Anyways, I thought this was a good followup to yesterday’s post, figuring out how people do what they do.

I remember a time in high school when I all of a sudden realized that there are some artists who actually make a living at being artists. Funny: it was sortof a shock. I am always interested to see how other artists and creative people of all varieties make thier lives work. I like listening to interviews, seeing where they live and work, and hearing about their lives in general. It seems like they must have a secret. Not with the internet around! aha. On my Desk: where artists, illustrators, designers, & creative folk share the stuff on their desks (or studios) WHEREWEDOWHATWEDO: “is a community-built visual database of the spaces in which we spend our days, nights or both doing whatever it is we do. While it may not be the freshest idea in the attic, we thought it would be a fun project to work on during down time. As well as we wanted to give this interesting and slightly voyeuristic concept a place all its own. ” Lastly, I just found out about a project that our friend Helena Keefe has done, called “Living Proof“: a collection of stories about the various ways in which artists make a living. I heart stories.

I’m just going to reblog here. Guest poster Jeremy Leslie on Its Nice That has a series this week on the question of “What is a Magazine?” I love this question. So here are the posts:

1, 2, 3, 4

Thought I would put it here, cause who knows? It could help. We are looking for a space in the area of the Oakland Art Murmer to show (TPG7, Subscriber’s Choice Artist) Maggie Leininger’s work for a one night show September 5th, 2008. Anybody, Anybody? thank you

Please use this space to share your thoughts on the work, ideas it brings up, anything you want to talk about.

Video Art and its History

video art via wikipedia. a good brief history videoart.net a great source to view any artist working with film or video as a medium VideoArtWorld.tv is trying to set standards for how video art can be viewed, purchased, and distributed, while trying to increase the visibility of video art and its artists on a whole. History of video art: A show entitled “California Video” examines the history and survival of the medium in California

Dance or Theatre as Art

sharp elbow– home to the works of Tori Sparks. Read her interview in Trace Magazine, when she was named one of “seven of todays best modern dancers”. Catherine Sullivan: Sullivan was trained in both visual and performing arts, and the works she creates are truly hybrid, freely crossing boundaries and mixing disciplines. She has explored different theatrical and performative conventions, from the popular stage play and musical to the historical drama, from postmodern dance to Fluxus performance.

Aaron is inspired by

Bas Jan Ader : conceptual artist from the early 70’s, little known in his time but widely recognized as an influential figure in video, conceptual and performance art. Harrell Fletcher: Harrell Fletcher has worked collaboratively and individually on a variety of socially engaged, interdisciplinary projects for over a decade. CINE: CiNE was founded in 2003 to examine the conditions of spectacle and spectatorship across a wide range of media.

Other Artist utilizing Simple Gestures in Conceptual Art

David Horovitz: He takes pictures of sunsets, he’ll go on a walk with you, he’ll do different things if you give him different amounts of money. He writes a lot of instructions. Miranda July: Enjoying a wide swath of fame and recognition lately, July keeps on keeping on, making loads of work, publishing books, and showing all over the world.

I don’t know the man who addresses me in Aaron Cedolia’s “A message for you.” Only that his name is Javier, and he has dark hair and a nice smile. He looks up from his book, which he quietly reads in a public park somewhere in New York, to speak four simple sentences to me. “Hello Victoria. I love you. I miss you. I wish you were here,” he says, so earnestly that I believe him. You don’t know the other people in the videos, either. Still they say your names, look into the camera like it’s your eyes, and present an identical message. In fifty-two separate videos, people we know only by first name – Youngmi, Samantha, Melissa, Javier -speak to us. Their names and personalities imbue the uniform script with individuality, introducing nuance and spark into the repeated phrase. Two teenage girls in an acting class smile for the camera like a school picture; a doorman hurries through the words from behind his desk, punctuating the last phrase with his hand; a man in a green tee-shirt conjures surprisingly sincere emotion. The messages’ differences remind us that even amidst apparent sameness, we are all unique. Cedolia is a New-York based video artist whose background is in acting. His solo work and his projects with peoplmovr, an artist collaborative he formed with Geoffrey Scott, reflect his desire to reach people within their everyday situations, outside the traditional theater venue. “A message for you” can be understood as “social practice,” also known as “relational aesthetics,” a genre of art that takes social relations as both its subject and form. Recontextualized within the realm of aesthetics, social relationships become representations of themselves, playful reflections that leave room for possibility in a way “real” social interactions often don’t. Prominent practitioners of social practice include Harrell Fletcher, whom Cedolia cites as an influence. One of Fletcher’s best known projects is the participatory Web site, “Learning to Love You More.” The site, conceived and created by Fletcher and video artist and writer Miranda July, posts simple instructions: take a flash photograph beneath your bed, write your life story in a day, draw a constellation from someone’s freckles. The site’s users post their assignments online, creating a personal and startling virtual gallery. Like Cedolia’s work for The Present Group, Fletcher and July’s project disperses identical instructions among a diverse population and revels in the range, subjectivity, and intimacy of the responses. “A message for you” explores the possibility of cultivating intimacy within the city’s anonymity. Filmed in New York City, the phrases’ repetition mirror the numerous interactions among strangers involved in the work’s production and reception. The artist first introduced himself to people he had only seen, never spoken to, and explained his work. “New Yorkers give you about five seconds to ask them something before they move on so I had to be brief,” he recalled. He told them he was working on a video about New York residents; he told them the sentences he wanted them to say. Participants then addressed strangers with words normally used for loved ones. Eventually Present Group subscribers watch the videos, surprised to hear someone they’ve never seen or met say their name with such familiarity. With each interaction, the relationship between intimacy and anonymity is reconfigured, and the alienation of urban life is temporarily disrupted. The seemingly faceless crowd is composed of individuals with whom sincere and unique connections are always possible. Even today, even in the city, in a building lobby or bland cubicle. Even between two people who have never met. This, as much as the spoken words, is “A message for you”s real message. . . Victoria Gannon is an Oakland-based freelance writer who recently earned her masters degree in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. She enjoys writing about art, cultural and personal geographies, and the frequent intersections between the two. She recently collaborated with Oakland filmmaker and fellow CCA alum Michael Goodier on “Love Lafayette.” The 11-minute film is based on her essay about the East Bay suburb in which she grew up. Gannon’s master’s thesis investigated informal day laborer hiring sites within the context of their surrounding landscapes. victoriagannon@gmail.com

Aaron Cedolia was interviewed via Skype on May 20th, 2008 by Oliver Wise and Eleanor Hanson Wise of The Present Group.

Listen: (~27:00) [display_podcast]

“A Message For You” is an edition of 52 DVDs by artist Aaron Cedolia. The work consists of individual videos, one for each subscriber, in which a stranger says the words “I love you, I miss you, I wish you were here. ……. Aaron Cedolia is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He is interested in video and live performance, repetition, gestures in everyday movement, and using technology to find simple forms of sincere expression.

Just learned about a group called These Birds Walk. They are a small publisher out of Oakland(!) whose goal is ‘to provide affordable art books that quietly exist somewhere between a discarded pamphlet on the street and a high end coffee table book’. It’s a little bit hard to tell what the deal is from their website, but they do offer subscriptions to four photography books distributed throughout the year. I am not sure if you can only buy them in the four book sets or if you can subscribe and start your subscription at any time. The first year resulted in a series entitled ‘The Kin Series'(link no longer works 10/09). They are just starting on their second series. It is neat to find similar ideas all burgeoning around the same time. It seems like their subscription series started right around the same time as ours.

Today was spent editting together the artist interview DVD for TPG6. For the first time seeing the whole project come together I was struck by how lucky we are to do this. TPG really is a conduit between artists and art lovers, and our job is to maintain it. It’s so fun to watch what comes through.

This was a question from an audience member at our talk at the Headlands. The idea was that many art collectors cherish the uniqueness of the objects they possess, and although some TPG editions consist of unique pieces, this is not a requirement for TPG projects. The moderator, Natasha Boas, fielded the question by noting the importance of the artist multiple in art history, as a way for artists to make money and spread their work among influencial collectors. As we represented the “least traditional” art model in the discussion, here are a couple less traditional ways to look at the question. We view each artist’s project as the art piece, so the fact that each subscriber will not always receive a unique object is not necessarily our greatest concern. It is part of our agreement with the artists that the project will not be reproduced, so each art piece represents a connection between a specific artist, a specific group of subscribers, and a specific place in time. Or to look at it another way, during the talk, Julio Ceasar Morales, co-director of the Queen’s Nails Annex, mentioned how his goal was that the art community would support the artist space as much, if not more, than the individual artists they represented. In both our projects, the framework for experiencing and creating art is as important as its individual parts. The framework is an artist’s work too. No one would ever argue that the social space and community Julio has created is less ‘special’ than the physical objects for sale. In fact, a convincing case could be made to the contrary; that it is more visceral, engaging, rewarding, and possesses a greater capacity for change.

Voting closed Friday and we had a clear winner. Maggie Leininger is an artist based out of Oak Park, IL who is interested in exploring visual relationships between microscopic structures and social systems by decontructing/recontructing patterns through weaving. Her piece will be released at the end of the summer 2008.

Just found this: a good compilation of grants and residencies put out by CalArts. Check it out here.Â

Here’s a list of some of the places (other than ours, of course) that we’ve found that are working towards breaking down some of the barriers towards entering the art market. Some of these have been mentioned on this blog previously. here and here. Most of them were mentioned in our talk, “Uncharted Waters: Understanding the Emerging Art Market.” Working towards a more affordable entry to Collecting Art: 20×200: A Jen Bekman project out of New York. She’s trying to “create a place for collectors and artists to meet”. Once a week they publish two archival editions, one photograph and one print reproduction of a work on paper. Tiny Showcase: Each week they pick a new piece of tiny artwork and turn the works on paper into a limited-run archival print production. It has quickly become really popular and they often sell out within hours of posting the new works. Artocracy: Artocracy is a digital marketplace for original art. They have an interesting model, in that you can order framed artwork or a print directly from them OR you can purchase a digital print (as a PDF!) to print out yourself. . Utilizing the Subscription-based model of distributing work: Wholpin: A DVD magazine of rare and unseen short films, docs, instructional videos, foreign sitcoms, and other cinema hybrids 4 issues for $50 Fine Art Magazines are opening up project spaces for artists within their periodicals. They allow artists the opportunity to create “site specific” art using the medium of the magazine for the artwork. Arkitip and Esopus are two examples of this. THE THING is a quarterly periodical in the form of an object. Each year, four artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers are invited to create an everyday object that somehow incorporates text. For $160 you receive four objects within the year. . Putting the surplus in the market to good use: Fine art adoption network‘s goal is to engage art enthusiasts who never thought of themselves as art collectors, and to introduce them to the experience and pleasures of owning and caring for contemporary art. Adam Simon (founder FAAN) said “The system that we have for disseminating contemporary art, known as the art market, doesn’t manage to get a lot of art into a lot of homes.”

Asked by Marianna Stark of the Stark Guide The way that I answered this question was 1. do your research: the information is out there and 2. make friends But I think I can be a little more thorough here. I think what Eleanor Harwood added was important and a good place to start: have a good package. Make sure you have a complete package, including images, a cv, and an artist statement. I think, though, that it is also becoming more and more important these days to have a website. This site can be fairly simple. You can even use blogs, such as wordpress, livejournal, or blogger, which are very easy to use and have lots of free templates you can start off with. You can create categories or pages that will separate your different bodies of work. A website is a useful tool for the person viewing your work, in that everything is in one place, you aren’t clogging up email with lots of images, and one can view your growth over the years. Also, it helps increase your visibility as galleries can link to your site from theirs, allowing people to gain a better idea of who you are. Also, going into the idea of making friends, it (a website) is also a good networking tool. You can trade links with people you like and you can keep in close contact with other artists who you respect. Making friends in the real world can be very difficult for some of us. It is very easy to say, “go make friends,” but that is sortof hard to actually accomplish sometimes. But online, it isn’t quite as hard. I am realizing more and more that the artworld is built on connections between people. Davin Youngs, TPG artist #5, is a great example of this. He tries to update his livejournal with a new photo daily. He keeps up with friends and other artists by monitoring their RSS feeds and commenting on work he particularly likes. And he has found through this network some online projects that have well suited him. He is part of The Ones We Love, Fjordphoto.org, and Anything. And now for doing your research: The opportunities are out there, you just have to find ones that suit your work. It takes a good amount of time and energy to do this, but art as a career is just that. Find galleries that work with artists like you and approach them, see if they have an open submission policy. We do. Eleanor Harwood does. SoEx does. Lastly, I thought it could be helpful if I shared the places that we’ve found that list open calls. The only ones that charges money for submitting an opportunity art NYFA and Art Week. Most of them are free to view: Arts Opportunities Monthly and The Art List both charge fees. I haven’t found a great resource for artists in the Bay Area; it seems as though there’s a hole since the shut down of Artist Resource. Many people look down on open calls, but it is a good way for artists to start establishing those all-important connections and getting their work out there. NYFA Rhizome A Singular Creation Art Deadlines List Arts Opportunities Monthly ($20 a year- sent via email monthly) Art Source Art Week Chicago Artist Resource Fecal Face (under forums: Calls for Artists) Del.icio.us (with tags: /call_and_events, tag/opportunities) Fjord (under “member news”) Klog! Arts Opportunities TheArtList ($15 a year to view) PortlandArt (mostly has Oregon-only listings, but occaional national listings as well) Zurco

Yesterday evening we had the honor of joining a panel of some really great people. It was a great experience for us, not only in the opportunity to spread the word about The Present Group, but also to discuss with a diverse audience what it is to be in the art market today and how that could be and does seem to be evolving or changing. We were asked some great questions, and because it is sometimes hard for me to answer them on the spot, Oliver and I are hoping to address some of these questions over the course of the next few weeks on the blog. Thank you to everyone who came out and joined us! Happy Monday.

Got two postcards in the mail from Brian. Also, a note about his front page story in Deadwood, Edition #193 Though the card is a bit beaten up, the one on the left is announcing a show entitled, “Old Enough to Know Better” April 1 – May 3 Stevenson Union Gallery Southern Oregon University 1250 Siskiyou Blvd Ashland, Oregon 97520 On the right, a show entitled, “It Happened in Lawrence, Kansas” 3-D Prints! May 4th – May 31st The Bourgeois Pig 6 East 9th St. Lawrence, KS He’s offering Limited Edition Folios Containing 1 Colophon, 4 Random Prints, 1 Pair of 3D Glasses, and a Stick of Gum for $130

Voting for TPG7 commences now! We’re exploring the idea of a more inclusive art world and harnasing the power of collective decisions. Check it out here. We’ve got five great candidates. And even if you can’t vote, this is an opportunity to familiarize yourself with 5 new artists and their work.