Tuesday, 1 December 2015

COMMERCIALISM IN CONTEMPORARY ART


COMMERCIALISM IN CONTEMPORARY ART

Commercialism in art is not a new concept and can be seen in toulouse lautrec's work from the turn of the last century . But it was taken to new hights by pop artists such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist whose interest in their commercialised society, led to the worlds of art and finance to being inseparable."Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art," Warhol wrote

“The signal drama in new art lately involves a struggle not for esteem and influence—the wonted dreams of artists—but for commercial viability. If you like a certain artist now, it’s hard not to be caught up in rooting for him or her to sell. Simply no other way to gauge, affirm, and discuss quality is in working order.”1

Todays contemporary art heavy weights such as Damien Hirst , Takashi Murakami and Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons actively “brand” themselves.

Damien Hirst is a British artist who has made a name for himself by creating art that is “purposely provocative and disturbing”. He has accumulated riches due to his unique ideology about art, which consists of shocking the public. Through his successful marketing strategies he has made a name for himself that will not soon be forgotten.
For Jeff Koons, his marketing is all about being a “controversial figure” who has a great instinct for “self-promotion”.Koons does not hide his desire to market himself or his work, he candidly says that he wants to increase his “market share” by placing work in many galleries. He openly says that his target market is “really rich collectors”.
Murakami's astute awareness of the role of branding, marketing and communications in our society and how to manipulate those systems to his advantage. With work that is aesthetically appealing to a mass market of consumers, Murakami is able to get his stylistic prowess seen on the international markets for fashion, television and music.

Just as the artists themselves have reacted to commercialisation of society, so to has the art world.
Record sales , even during the GFC, at Auction houses , such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s ,have been the result of art being the last unregulated market .
Sotheby’s one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewelry, real estate, and collectibles is the world’s fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation. Sotherby's is on of the world's largest art business with global sales in excess of five billion dollars annually. Sotherby's was also where Damien Hurst sold his one-artist auction, Beautiful Inside my Head Forever , for a record breaking $198 million.
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house, currently the world's largest and its three and a half billion first half sales represented the highest total for a company and art market history.

Galleries also have reacted to commercialisation and gave rise of the commercial art gallery and the rise of the art fair. Commercial art galleries are galleries which are mainly engaged in retailing visual arts and crafts objects. The ACLC classification of art museums excludes commercial art galleries and sites that provide exhibition spaces for developing artists. They tend to have a stable of artists which cover a variety of styles to maximise their sales. In australian galleries such as Roslyn oxley9 and SOHO Galleries have strong characteristics of commercialism in their approach to selecting artists.

Art fairs are gatherings of dealers, galleries, curators and collectors and have been hugely popularized over the past decade. Art Basel art fair began in Switzerland in 1970 and has continued through today.
For the most part, galleries buy booth space at art fairs and show a selection of artists from their roster. Commercial exhibition or an art fair that shows the work of artists or art dealers where participants generally have to pay a fee. In 1968 Art fairs in Europe became quite the fashion with the advent of the Cologne Art Fair which was sponsored by the Cologne Art Dealers Association. Because of the high admission standards of the Cologne fair a rival fair was organized in Düsseldorf which enabled less regarded galleries opportunity to meet with an international public. The fairs took place during the fall months. This rivalry continued for a few years which provided the Basel Art Fair the opportunity to interject the Basel fair in early summer. These fairs became extremely important to galleries, dealers and publishers as they provided the possibility of worldwide distribution. Düsseldorf and Cologne merged their efforts. Basel soon became the most important art fair.

Art in a sense has become entertainment, attracting record breaking crowds to events such as Documenta. Documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta is not a selling exhibition. It coincides with three other major art world events: the Venice Biennale, Art Basel and Skulptur Projekte Munster.
The australian Beuro of Statistics reports that approximately 3.6 million people have visited an art gallery in the past 12 months.

The turn of the 21st century has seen the death of criticism, as prices rise to new heights. Rigor, commitment, narrative and judgment have become dirty, antiquarian, and authoritarian words. Art criticism has almost disappeared from newspaper columns.

The term 'commercial art' is derogatory , Koons , Hurst and Murakami prefer to call themselves fine artist and businessman , more concern with the making of profit at the expense of artistic or other value.
No longer does an artist aspire to for influence and to change people’s hearts and minds, but they now yearn for commercial viability. Traditionally however artists are often chastised when they reach this level of economic success because they have “sold out”.

“In the world we live in today, money is a big issue. It's as big as love, maybe even bigger." Damien Hirst

















1 http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/05/what-is-the-frieze-for.html




Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) , 1963 , 267.4 x 417.1 cm , silkscreen ink and silver spray paint


Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s.Warhol's works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.
The artwork depicts a body sprawled across a car's mangled interior and has only been seen once in public in the past 26 years.
The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$105 million for a 1963 canvas titled "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)". A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market".




Balloon Dog (Orange), 1994-2000, mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating, 121 x 143 x 45 in. (307.3 x 363.2 x 114.3 cm),


Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist
Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising.
in a similar mode as Andy Warhol's Factory (notable because all of his work is produced using a method known as Art fabrication). Today, he has a 1,500 m2 (16,000 sq ft) factory near the old Hudson rail yards in Chelsea, working with 90 to 120 regular assistants
The Orange version was sold in 2013 for a record price for a living sculptor.
On November 12, 2013, Koons’s Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York for $58.4 million,becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction.






For the Love of God , 2007 , platinum, diamond, human teeth
About the artist
Damien Steven Hirst (born 7 June 1965) is an English artist
In September 2008, he took an unprecedented move for a living artist by selling a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby's by auction and by-passing his long-standing galleries.The auction exceeded all predictions, raising £111 million ($198 million), breaking the record for a one-artist auction. Hirst's wealth was valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, hence Damien Hirst is Britain’s wealthiest artist.
He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists (or YBAs)
Hirst has always needed assistants , and now the volume of work produced necessitates a "factory"(warhol) setup. The artist owns a large compound in Baja, Mexico, which serves as a part-time residence and art studio. The studio employs several artists who carry out Hirst's projects
For the Love of God is a kind of memento mori for the days of art-market hysteria that preceded the current global recession.
The asking price for For the Love of God was £50,000,000 Approximately £15,000,000 worth of diamonds were used







my lonesome cowboy , 1998 , 288 x 117 x 90 cm , Fiberglass, acrylic, steel
left . Hiropon right : my lonesome cowboy


Takashi Murakami (born in Tokyo on February 1 1962) is a Japanese artist.
In 1996, Murakami launched the Hiropon Factory, his production workshop inherits the atelier system which has long existed in Japanese painting, printmaking and sculpture, and is common to anime and manga enterprises.
Murakami uses motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture
Hiropon, a life-sized satirical sculpture of an anime character with gigantic lactating breasts, sold for $427,500 at Christie's auction house in May, 2002.
"My Lonesome Cowboy" (1998), an anime-inspired sculpture of a masturbating boy, sold for $13.5 million at Sotheby's.




Bibliography

Internet
Books
  • Kaprow .A , 2003 , Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, University of California Press
  • American Bible Society, 1981 , Good News Bible , American Bible Society
  • Prince .D , 1992 , Foundations of Faith , Derek Prince Ministries
Video
  • Ways of seeing , video , John Berger , BBC , 1972
  • Post Modernism and the church , video ,Exploration films, 2013
  • Antony Gormley: The Body in & as Space , video , Chicago Humanities Festival , 2010
  • Damien Hirst - The First Look presented by Channel 4 , video , blast film productions,2012
  • Jeff Koons Beyond Heaven Documentary, video , Ovation TV , 2011
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