Enormous Charm

Enormous Charm
Oil and Alkyds on Wood - 60x50 cm. 2013 by Simon Monk

10 Years of DC Art News!

It has survived three name changes, several hacking attempts, and three physical moves.

It has been the subject of praise, disdain, envy, threats, compliments, and happiness (for me anyway).

It has outlasted multiple fellow art bloggers who no longer blog and now shares cyberspace with multiple new ones who often do a much better job at it than I do.

It is now approaching three million visits.

Today is the 10th anniversary of Daily Campello Art News!

Read my first post here.

The art fairs and the unethical artist

I started to sell other artists' works while I was an art student at the University of Washington in beautiful Seattle. As I've noted many times, while I was there, I sold my own works at the Pike Place Market, helped to start a Student Art Gallery, and helped to connect buyers with some of my fellow artists. Then in 1996, my then wife and I opened the Fraser Gallery in Washington, DC and subsequently a second Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, Maryland. I left the Fraser Galleries in 2006 and the same year Alida Anderson Art Projects, LLC was created in Philadelphia, and in 2009 moved to the DC region, where it remains.

In all those years I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of artists, and I can count in one hand the number of artists whom I would call unethical due to their behavior in a business gallery relationship. I thank my lucky stars for that, but I also think that a vast majority of artists, for whatever artistic genetic reason, are good people.

But we are humans, and in any "industry" there are also bad apples, and my own 2-3 bad experiences with artists, plus the dozens of anecdotal stories from other dealers all add up to the fact that just as there are some unethical galleries, there are some unethical artists.

The art fairs' paradigm gives these artsy deviants a powerful new way to use their lack of decent ethics.

As I noted yesterday, for your average, independently owned, commercial fine arts gallery, signing up to go to an art fair not only opens up the gallery to a whole new set of predators in the art fair scene, but also requires a significant financial environment, which, if not returned by sales at the fair, often causes a gallery to close its physical space.

Most good, ethical and decent art galleries are more often than not run by the skin of the dealers' teeths, often financed at times by Mr. Visa and Mr. Mastercard, and nearly always a labor of love on the part of the owners.

You drop $10,000 to $15,000 bucks on an art fair, and come home with little or no sales, and an empty bank account... that often means that it's lights out for the gallery. I've seen and heard this happen multiple times in the decade that I've been doing art fairs.

As I've also noted before, there is a curious after effect to art fairs; I call it the "wake effect."

A ship leaves a wake on the ocean as it moves through the water; that wake can sometimes be hundreds of miles long and discernible for days.

I define an art fair's "wake" as events that happen days, weeks, and even years after an art fair has taken place.  These events can be sales, exhibition offers, curatorial interest, press, etc. The "record" for this is currently held by DMV area artist Judith Peck, who was recently approached by someone who saw her work at a Miami art fair four years ago and recently got in touch with Peck. As a result of that fair four years ago, Peck made a sale and was also included in a forthcoming art exhibition in Puerto Rico.

That's a heck of a long-assed wake!

The wake effect is important and nearly always present after a fair closes. It is part of a gallery's business prayer plan to survive the economic investments in attending an art fair.

In the Google age, the art of buying a piece of artwork has been Googlified and in any art fair one sees a huge number of people taking photographs of the art being exhibited (a tiny minority of these photographers ask permission first... cough, cough...) and then (here comes the "new" part) they take a close up of the wall text card with the name, price, media and title of the piece.

Potential collectors, art students, art teachers, other gallerists, and nearly every fair visitor from the People's Republic of China does this - it happens in every art fair.

Within minutes, a potential buyer can then Google the artist, even the piece, discover related works, other dealers representing the artist, etc. Minutes later, direct contact with the artist often begins, closely followed by emails to other dealers and/or the artist requesting price quotes and availability.

Some of this is very smart, as there are unethical art dealers who inflate artists' prices at art fairs in order to then offer huge discounts to potential buyers. An ethical buyer armed with good information is an informed buyer, and ethical art dealers have nothing to fear when dealing with them.

Approaching an artist directly undercuts the gallery's investment in the art fair and in promoting the artist's work. However, one can make the case that some novice buyers do not understand this relationship and thus their "direct" approach to the artist, rather than working with the gallery where they saw the artist's work, can be somewhat excused and attributed to a simple lack of understanding... cough, cough.

Experienced collectors who know and understand the commercial fragility of most art galleries, and how the artist-gallery relationship generally works, and yet bypass a gallery and go directly to the artist, should know better, but what can I say?

I know that this happens because I am nearly always one of the artists being exhibited at the fairs, not only by AAP, but also by multiple other art galleries in multiple art fairs. And I get emails from people who tell me that they "saw my work at the such and such art fair and love it" and want to know "what else I've got?" or what's "the best deal" that they can get on this or that piece.

I also know this because I've had our represented artists pass the emails back to us; this is what an ethical artist must do.

Our contract sets an arbitrary time limit on how long a commission exists after an art fair for a direct sale made by the artist as a result of someone seeing their work at the fair. It is all on an honor system, and I am happy to report that as far as I know, no one has ever screwed us out of a single shekel in "wake effect" sales.

I also know this because I work with multiple other galleries, some of which represent the same artists whom I work with, and they too understand the "wake" effect and let us know that someone has been requesting price quotes on an artist that we share.

Enter the unethical artist.

By know I am sure that you know where I am going... The unethical part comes when an artist is approached directly by someone, during or after an art fair, and associates the query with "seeing the art at such and such art fair..." and the artist does not pass the contact to the gallery and makes an independent and direct sale and excludes the gallery from its fair commission (pun intended).

Or the artist is suddenly approached directly by someone, during or after an art fair, and that someone is from the city/area where the fair is being/was held. And the artist does not pass the contact to the gallery and makes an independent and direct sale and excludes the gallery from its fair commission (pun intended again).

Real life example: A gallery exhibits artist Jane Doe in an art fair in Santa Fe. It is the first time that this artist has been exhibited not only in Santa Fe, but also the first time that Jane, who lives in Poland, has exhibited in the USA.  Suddenly Jane begins to get direct queries from people who live in New Mexico.

Hai Capito?

The unethical art fair

In the past I've often discussed and given examples of two unfortunate entities of the visual arts world: the unethical art dealer/gallerist and the unethical artist.

In the decade since I've been doing DC Art News I've given plenty of examples of both, usually culled from not only my own experience, but also from the experiences of fellow artists and art dealers.

There are other members of the unethical side of the art world, as there are in any profession: writers, critics, even collectors, but the explosion of the art fair scene has given birth to a whole new set of deviants from decency and moral ethic behavior.

Enter the unethical art fair.

This is an offshoot of the unethical dealer, as many art fairs' origins are the result of an art dealer or gallerist making the decision to organize one. Many good established art fairs, such as Pulse and the Affordable Art Fairs, for example, are good, ethical fairs owned by the same person: a British gallery owner with a savvy business drive. Seattle gallery owners practically invented the hotel art fair, and Aqua has the well-earned reputation as being the "world's best hotel art fair."

The explosion of "satellite art fairs" in cities such as Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) week, or Basel during Art Basel Week, coupled with the realization that many galleries now sell the majority of their art at fairs and not at gallery shows, plus the rising costs of rent in many markets, have yielded the unfortunate fact that many art dealers close their physical spaces and focus their attention on art fairs worldwide.

This December during ABMB week, there will be 26 or so art fairs throughout the Greater Miami area (plus countless other art events, openings, parties, etc.).

Most of those fairs are ethical fairs, hoping to come to the world's biggest visual arts dance. Most of participants in them will lose money, as participating in an art fair is a financially terrifying process to most galleries.

Booth prices at established fairs range from $7,000 or so up to upwards of $100,000 dollars. Hotel fairs are a little less, but then again, in my opinion there remains really one worthwhile hotel fair at ABMB: Aqua. The others still struggle to both establish a presence and to attract collectors. Aqua was purchased last year from the Seattle gallerists who created it, and because it is now owned by the same outfit that does Art Miami (in my opinion the best American art fair there is), CONTEXT, Art Wynwood, etc., it will probably expand its reputation as the best hotel art fair in the world.

The unethical art fair's model exploits the galleries' desire to be in Miami, or London, or Basel during the dance. It also exploits their inexperience with art fairs, lack of information on what is a "good fair" and a "bad fair" as we'll as embellished stories of the halcyon days of art fairs, when anything and everything that a gallery hung on a wall... sold.

It is also the result of the still somewhat fierce competition for acceptance into some of the key art fairs.

While I suspect that this brutal economy, coupled with a return to more traditional art collecting focus on the part of major collectors, and large financial art fair disasters for some galleries, have decreased the competition for acceptance into top notch art fairs such as Art Miami, Pulse, NADA, etc., they are still highly competitive and still more galleries apply than are accepted. It is the most basic rule of supply and demand. There are more galleries wanting to do these top art fairs than there are spaces available in them.

A whole "lower" tier of art fairs exist to cater to the newer galleries and the "rejects" from the "top of the food chain" art fairs. Some, like Scope, used to be top tier themselves, but Scope seems to be caught in a downward spiral caused, I suspect, by a combination of a once heavy-handed curatorial hand, plus a desperate desire to continue to achieve economic goals associated with healthier economic art times.

Others are fairs that last a year or two and disappear from the scene. Some get such bad reputations that they cease to exist, only to be reincarnated under different names, seeking to entice a whole new crew of inexperienced victims.

There is one easy two-part metric to gauge an art fair. The first part is to find out how long have they been around. That is not to say that a "new" fair is risky at all times. In fact, two of the newer Miami art fairs (CONTEXT and The Miami Project), immediately established solid reputations for both fairs on their first year.

But a new fair has more to deal with in order to achieve success, which nearly always means attracting collectors' (and their purses') attention. No matter how much critical attention a fair gets, if the dealers consistently lose money, chances are that they won't come back to that fair. Don't get me wrong! Critical attention is important, and a key part of gathering the crucial seminal collector interest, but if you are a small, independent galley that just dropped $10,000 for a booth, plus another $5,000 for flights, hotel, car rental, art shipping and food, and you sell nothing, chances are that you're not coming back to that fair or to Miami, ever.

Part two of the metric is to see how many dealers return each year to the same fair. If a significant number of galleries return to the same fair each year, that usually means that they did OK at that fair. Fairs which have whole new rosters of art dealers each year, and little to none returning galleries, are fairs where the dealers are not selling artwork.

Point of order: every art fair, no matter how good, always has a number of dealers that do very well, some that break even and many who lose money; every fair.

None of the above discussions really clarify the "unethical fair"... Yet.

But in my opinion, the following facts all contribute to make an art fair unethical and to be avoided at all costs (pun intended):

- A fair that is organized by the same outfit every year or so with a different name because of legal or other issues associated with its previous name(s).

- A fair that caters and seeks and accepts any and all applicants - including the known predatory online dealers that exploit artists by offering them (at significant costs) exhibition at the fair. Most art fair organizers know who the predatory dealers are (artists and ethical dealers "out" them). If, in spite of this knowledge they still sell the predators a booth, then they are themselves contributing to the exploitation of the artists.

- A fair which starts as a "galleries only" fair and then (as not enough gallery applications are received) opens the process to individual artists, so that in the end dealers and galleries are mixed with individual artists. With the notable exception of (e)merge, which was designed from the start to couple art dealers with unrepresented artists, the mixture of individual artists and art galleries at the same fair seldom succeeds. This is generally due to the spectacular lack of business acumen and selling experience that most artists have (not all), and the disastrous "discounting" orgies that happen on Sundays when artists realize that the fair is almost over and they haven't sold squat.

For the last several years, around October, I get emails from (usually) DMV artists who are thinking of doing an art fair in Miami and have been approached by an outfit which is organizing a fair in Miami. In almost every case I try to talk them out of it. Instead I advise them to visit Miami during the fairs, see a lot of them, and talk to people. I try to talk them out of the significant personal financial risk of doing an art fair on the fly.

In almost every case, the artist does it anyway. Later, in Miami, they often swing by whatever fair I am in... Their long, sad faces adding more evidence to my empirical data gathering on this subject.

Next: Enter the unethical artist and the art fairs.

Airborne

Airborne today and heading to the Left Coast, where I will be part of a panel at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum at The University of Oregon.

I hope the Ducks don't discover that I'm a Husky until after the panel!

Google, Google, Google.... Sigh

"Users of Google's services could soon see their profile name, profile photo or comments appear in online advertising."

Read all about it here.

Art’s Insidious New Cliché: Neo-Mannerism

Scads of artists are trying to be junior postmodernists. A phalanx of work has appeared that might be called "Modest Abstraction" or "MFA See, MFA Do." It's everywhere, and it all looks the same. In sculpture there's Anarchy Lite. Those post-minimalist formal arrangements of clunky stuff, sticks, planks, bent metal, wood boxes, fabric, old furniture, concrete things, and whatnot leaned, stacked, stuck, piled, or dispersed around a clean white gallery. There's usually a subtext about wastefulness, sustainability, politics, urbanism, or art history. That history is almost always straight out of sixties and seventies Artforum magazines or the syllabi of academic teachers who've scared their students into being pleasingly meek, imitative, and ordinary.

 Read excellent piece by Jerry Saltz here.

Congrats to Hemphill!

Congratulations to Hemphill, who this year celebrates its 20th anniversary - in gallery years this is like being 100!

You can't even imagine the hard work involved in achieving and surviving as a respected art gallery in this town for 20 years.

20 more!

Games goverments play...

I went to the DO NOT CALL registry website today to renew my home number, and got this message:

Due to the Government shutdown, we are unable to offer this website service at this time. We will resume normal operations when the government is funded.

Debido al cierre del gobierno no podemos ofrecer este servicio telefónico en este momento. Nosotros reanudaremos el funcionamiento normal cuando el gobierno este fianciado.

To start with, this is quite an interesting Spanish translation of the English language statement. It appears to discuss some sort of telephone service... but I have no idea what the last word means... clearly someone typing the statement juxtuposed two letters and came up with a new word... cough, cough...

From the Google uses, I think "fianciado" is a Portuguese word, although most Google references are now just simply people referencing the DO NOT CALL registry and making fun of a vindictive government that shuts down websites that run (or at least should run) on automatic.

This is what the Spanish statement actually says:

Due to the closing of the government [missing comma] we can't offer this telephonic service at this moment. We will renew normal functioning when the government is "fianciado"

Cough, cough...

Less than a month left!

There’s less than a month left to apply for a VMFA Visual Arts Fellowship!

VMFA is offering awards to:

• Professional artists: $8,000
• Graduate students in the visual arts or art history: $6,000
• Undergraduate students in the visual arts (including college-bound high school seniors): $4,000

No application fee!  Applications due Friday, November 8, 2013.

For a PDF flyer, the application form, and all instructions on how to apply, visit this website: www.VMFA.museum/Fellowships.

Why can't WMATA put original regional art on SmartTrip Cards?

Was the question that NotionsCapital.com's Mike Licht asked me...

Read all about it here... Cough, cough...

Washington Redskin Potatoes

My wife Alida Anderson has a great solution to the Washington Redskins name controversy: Just change the mascot to a red potato and then call them the Washington Redskin Potatoes... Cough, cough... New helmet designs coming!...

Update: Upgrade number one to the brilliant idea above: What she actually said last night was to continue to call them the Washington Redskins, but to change the helmet design so that instead of the current one, it is now a ferocious-looking red skin potato!

Update 2: She also thought of another great name option: The Washington Federals! 

Sold at (e)merge... sold at AAFNYC... Miami next

The (e)merge art fair was a resounding success last week... we sold multiple works by Elissa Farrow-Savos, multiple works by Judith Peck, a work by Ric Garcia and multiple works by yours truly; see this nice review.

In NYC, the Affordable Art Fair was just as good, and all three artists (Anne Marchand, Jodi Waslh and Tim Vermeulen) had multiple sales each.

In addition to about 20 of my drawings, I sold two major video pieces, including the below work:

Young Photographer Worshiping at the Altar of Contemporary Photography
Watercolor, charcoal and gesso with embedded electronics
8x20 inches, matted and framed to 20x28 inches
In a Private Collection in Potomac, MD

What's next for us? CONTEXT Art Fair in Miami! 

When agenda takes over...

He said Bradbury once walked out of a class at the University of California at Los Angeles when students insisted the work was about censorship.

Read more about Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and what it wasn't about here...

Wanna get some art grants?

Generating income from art in the form of either cash or cash equivalents is always challenging, especially for artists with unconventional ideas or for those who create art that may not be commercially viable. The good news is that the art world is one place where anyone who shows talent and promise, marketable or otherwise, can get help in a variety of ways including cash grants, residencies, employment or internships, allowances, free or low-cost studio space, art supplies, exhibition space, and so on. Receiving these types of assistance is not easy; application processes can be rigorous and competition is often intense. So in the interest of giving you a bit of an edge in situations where you're contending for a bequest, here's a brief tutorial on procedural matters.

Read more here...

Next Week: MCA Open Studios

On the afternoons of October 19th and 20th tour 20+ working art studios, in and around the Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, U Street and Shaw neighborhoods, better known as Mid City.  Visitors can enjoy DC’s glorious fall weather by hopping from one studio to another within vibrant Mid City and witness an expansive offering of art and culture by some of the city’s most talented and creative artists.  This bi-annual event, now in its 10th year, offers visitors a rare portal into the artists’ creative habitat and an opportunity for the public to participate in the District’s dynamic and diverse arts community.  The participating artists represent a great diversity of work, including drawings, sculptures, paintings, prints, photographs and mixed media.

Where we shop, where we eat and have fun -- all of it makes our community home.  Mid City Artists (MCA) Open Studios are an integral part of the distinctive character of the District and Mid City.  MCA offers studio visitors the exclusive opportunity to buy contemporary art direct from the artist studio.  While visiting the studios each artist offers refreshments as well as a good conversation about his or her art work.  Each studio is unique and locations range from retail spaces, old carriage houses, spare bedrooms, apartments to basements.  We hope you choose to spend your fall weekend with Mid City Artists.  We encourage you to make a day of it, stop by a several studios before and after brunch, and then hit a few more before grabbing an early evening cocktail on 14th Street.

MCA is a distinct and talented group of more than 35 professional artists who have come together to promote their work and to create an artists’ community in the central part of the nation’s capital.  Mid City is a hub of real estate development with soaring property values, new condos, trendy shops and restaurants.  There are more than 1,200 condos and apartments and 100,000 square feet of retail currently being built or recently completed.  Concurrently, at least 25 bars and restaurants have opened along 14th Street, adding more than 2,000 seats to the city’s dining scene.  MCA continues to contribute to this growth by infusing the neighborhood with authenticity, creativity and economic activity.

Numerous business sponsors support MCA by exhibiting member works throughout the year and during the Open Studios weekend. For example, Axis Salon will be exhibiting member artist Colin Winterbottom this fall and Doris-Mae, a curatorial project of Thomas Drymon, has a painting and installation up through October 20th. MCA is a driving force in keeping art and creative expression alive within Mid City.

Open Studios Participating Artists:  Sondra Arkin, Scott G. Brooks, Jane Cave, Michael Crossett, Gary Fisher, Charlie Gaynor, Charlie Jones, Sally Kauffman, Miguel Perez Lem, Lucinda Friendly Murphy, Betto Ortiz, Mark Parascandola, Dave Peterson, Brian Petro, George H. Smith-Shomari, John Talkington, Michael Torra, Robert Wiener, Colin Winterbottom. Others by appointment.

Almost final report...

Exhausted and home from the (e)merge art fair in DC, where today we sold several more Elissa Farrow Savos sculptures as well as several more of my drawings and also work by Ric Garcia... And in NYC the Affordable Art Fair crew is heading home, also exhausted but happy after a good fair in NY.

More later...

Art fair(s) report...

The NYC crew at the Affordable Art Fair continues to report good sales... Multiple sales for Anne Marchand, multiple sales for Jodi Walsh and multiple sales for Tim Vermeulen... That is great news!

The DC crew at (e)merge is also kicking it... Today we sold four sculptures by Elissa Farrow-Savos (including sales to a very well-known collector) and six of my pieces, including two major and very large embedded video pieces.

Five weird and wonderful works at the (e)merge art fair

Check Maura Judkis' take in the WaPo here.

Day One at the Fairs...

Last night was the opening nights for both the Affordable Art Fair in New York and the (e)merge art fair here in DC.

The NYC crew reported several sales - yay! And the DC crew saw sales of two Elissa Farrow-Savos sculptures and two Judith Peck paintings.

Come see us - in NYC at booth A-14 and here in DC in rooms 215-216.

Judith Peck, Lenny Campello and Mera Rubell at (e)merge 2013