Great New York Times story on art flipping

[comicsnyc22]

It's just such an inconvenient piece. If I were an Emin fan, I'd rather look at it in a museum than have to maintain that disaster. I know you're not supposed to buy based on what looks good on your wall, but 'My Bed' is a pretty extreme case of "keep that thing out of my house (or climate controlled storage facility, if you prefer)."

 

Seriously though, if I were going to blow 7 figures on YBA art, I'd have to go Hirst. His market is saturated right now, but IMO he'll be the only one with more than a single sentence in the art history books of 2114.

 

 

I think Hirst is a solid example of someone with some staying power. I invested pretty heavily in street art in the early aughts. I also happen to be a huge fan, too so it wasn't so bad of a deal, but I'm hopeful the interest continues.

 

One guy I'll never get is Koons. Just doesn't do it for me. I do love some of Israel's stuff, but as the Times piece stated, it went way too high way too quickly for me.

[suspense39]

I think the thing to understand here is that art has it's own history, like comics has it's own history; and to judge what is good or relevant without an understanding of either of their perspective histories is naive. It's fine to not like something, but to completely dismiss something without knowledge of when and why it was produced isn't really making any point. Also the conception that contemporary art is made for money and part of a secret plan to extort money from stupid people is a tired story.....I think this might have been one of the first pieces emin sold, and I'm sure she was quite surprised when satchi bought it, it was not made to dupe the public, but as an expression in a certain context. Most of the knocks on art seem to be directed at the prices( which is easy to get wrapped up in) and I think that has more to do with certain speculators bidding art up for their own gain than the art or the artist.....for the most part. I always try and remove the price tag from my mind when viewing art.

[delekkerste]

I think the thing to understand here is that art has it's own history, like comics has it's own history; and to judge what is good or relevant without an understanding of either of their perspective histories is naive. It's fine to not like something, but to completely dismiss something with knowledge of when and why it was produced isn't really making any point. Also the conception that contemporary art is made for money and part of a secret plan to extort money from stupid people is a tired story.....I think this might have been one of the first pieces emin sold, and I'm sure she was quite surprised when satchi bought it, it was not made to dupe the public, but as an expression in a certain context. Most of the knocks on art seem to be directed at the prices( which is easy to get wrapped up in) and I think that has more to do with certain speculators bidding art up for their own gain than the art or the artist.....for the most part. I always try and remove the price tag from my mind when viewing art.

 

Very well said.

[Overthetopinc]

Everything has history. I read about this piece and the artist the other week when it sold and its no more relevant to me then the lady who painted with her *spoon* in public last month. I am sure she has a history too. But I am not so naive as to assume just because some big wig bought the stained bed and because it sold for so much money it holds some historic significance

thanks,

Matthew

[Doc Joe]

I think the thing to understand here is that art has it's own history, like comics has it's own history; and to judge what is good or relevant without an understanding of either of their perspective histories is naive. It's fine to not like something, but to completely dismiss something without knowledge of when and why it was produced isn't really making any point. Also the conception that contemporary art is made for money and part of a secret plan to extort money from stupid people is a tired story.....I think this might have been one of the first pieces emin sold, and I'm sure she was quite surprised when satchi bought it, it was not made to dupe the public, but as an expression in a certain context. Most of the knocks on art seem to be directed at the prices( which is easy to get wrapped up in) and I think that has more to do with certain speculators bidding art up for their own gain than the art or the artist.....for the most part. I always try and remove the price tag from my mind when viewing art.

 

100%

 

I try to remove the price tag too...but my wife picks it up, looks at it, screams, replaces it on the piece and gentle leads me away from the scene

[suspense39]

Everything has history. I read about this piece and the artist the other week when it sold and its no more relevant to me then the lady who painted with her *spoon* in public last month. I am sure she has a history too. But I am not so naive as to assume just because some big wig bought the stained bed and because it sold for so much money it holds some historic significance

thanks,

Matthew

 

it is not because it sold for so much money it has historic significance,quite the opposite, someone thought it was historically significant and then paid x amount of dollars. Please don't think i am calling you naive, i am calling the viewing of art (or anything) without context and knowledge of it's history naive.

[delekkerste]

Everything has history. I read about this piece and the artist the other week when it sold and its no more relevant to me then the lady who painted with her *spoon* in public last month. I am sure she has a history too. But I am not so naive as to assume just because some big wig bought the stained bed and because it sold for so much money it holds some historic significance

thanks,

Matthew

 

Just curious what you think of Pollock, Rothko, Bacon, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Johns, Richter, etc.? I know they're not the cup of tea of many who collect comic art, but at this point it's pretty much indisputable that history will judge these artists to be among the most important and influential artists of the post-war era.

[suspense39]

Ha! call me a sheep! i love them all ( but not ALL their work) and I totally agree with their status.....I would add one artist who is probably my personal favorite.....and slightly ( not by much) under the radar, Cy Twombly. i'm sure a lot of people here will think its a bunch of scribbly !

[delekkerste]

Ha! call me a sheep! i love them all ( but not ALL their work) and I totally agree with their status.....I would add one artist who is probably my personal favorite.....and slightly ( not by much) under the radar, Cy Twombly. i'm sure a lot of people here will think its a bunch of scribbly !

 

Twombly is great...I considered adding him to that list but then I thought, if I had Twombly, do I have to add de Kooning as well? Thought the list was representative enough of the post-war greats as-is so I left it as such.

[Overthetopinc]

I do realize some of those artists work is historically significant the way history has chosen to bronze them but if I hold nothing back here I must say they are of no interest to me. Pollock was a drunk and a wife beater who ended up killing someone because of his mucked up life so to be honest what do I care what his subconscious has to say. I mean I think I am a pretty straight forward kind of person. So when I say if on ebay there was a piece done by one of those artists you mentioned signed by Joe Blow next to a piece of art that I collect or is reminiscent of what I collect that brings a rush of emotions and thoughts and I love looking at because it talks to me then you can tell which one I will be bidding on. I have never been a follower and just because tons of people feel a certain way about an artist if his work does not bring out a fun and enjoyable time for me looking at it then the way I see it the artist has to be like an Abraham Lincoln or Frank Hamer so I feel as wow this guys life and being was so incredible and this is what he choose to share with the world on their artfront. And history is never ending so maybe the same way you always said that comic art will die with the end of publishing or whatever that was about maybe Jack Kirby will be looked in the same regard as a pollock or Warhol. mess he certainly has my vote. ( And I know that sounds like a shot at you Gene,but it is just there so you dont go into a whole thing of why comic art is insignificant) *Please dont take it personal*Sorry if it is a bed with stains on it I am going to call it a bed with stains. Of course I know many a people would argue the greatness of those artists you mentioned to me but I am not going to feel like I am somehow inferior to them because I can not look at a painting with 4 color blocks on it and gush in my pants. I do however realize that their are people as passionate about their work as I am of what I like but you did ask me for my thoughts and not theirs

thanks,

Matthew

[Overthetopinc]

also Jeff Koons is great! Have you ever seen those sculptures he does that look like pool toys made of rubber that are metal. That is outstanding. Certainly much more fun then a blank canvas.

[suspense39]

Ha! call me a sheep! i love them all ( but not ALL their work) and I totally agree with their status.....I would add one artist who is probably my personal favorite.....and slightly ( not by much) under the radar, Cy Twombly. i'm sure a lot of people here will think its a bunch of scribbly !

 

Twombly is great...I considered adding him to that list but then I thought, if I had Twombly, do I have to add de Kooning as well? Thought the list was representative enough of the post-war greats as-is so I left it as such.

 

Yeah i guess the list could go on and on, Those artists were positioned in most likely one of the most fruitful and innovative periods of american art, and I would think it will never be matched again.

[delekkerste]

also Jeff Koons is great! Have you ever seen those sculptures he does that look like pool toys made of rubber that are metal. That is outstanding. Certainly much more fun then a blank canvas.

 

I have mixed feelings about Koons - for example, I like his balloon dogs but don't really care about a bunch of vacuum cleaners encased in plastic or basketballs floating in water.

 

As for my earlier comments, let me clarify just so no one has any misunderstanding (this was originally a response to a PM I received taking me to task about what I said earlier):

 

Let me clarify my statements a bit. It's like you said yourself - the story contained within Action #1 of Superman is art. Just like the movie "Casablanca" is art. Art made for commercial purposes, to be sure, but still art I agree. The physical Action #1 comic book itself or an old 1940s reel-to-reel print of Casablanca, though? That's just a collectible, IMO, a physical manifestation of art that is experiential (e.g., reading the comic book, viewing the film). It's a subtle, but important, distinction.

 

So no, I don't consider the Action #1 physical comic book to be art, though that has nothing to do about the medium of comics as a whole, which I wholeheartedly agree is art (well, some of it anyway). As for Superman the character...I respect the character and his influence, but I'm just not passionate about him the way I am about other comic book titles and characters. Action #1 was simply never my Holy Grail of comic books and I feel that it's a lot of peoples' simply because of its rarity, importance and status as opposed to people actually being so passionate about the character, art and story contained within. I mean, how many people think Action #1 features the best art and/or story ever told in comics? It's really the 1885 Karl Benz prototype of automobiles and is far from the peak expression of the medium, IMO.

[Overthetopinc]

Hey Gene,

I agree not all Koons stuff is that great. But have you ever seen this hulk piece he did? Keep in mind this is made of metal not plastic!!

thanks,

Matthew

[vodou]

Chiming in (but probably regret it already).

 

I think it boils down to some "get" non-representational (or in the case of Emin's bed, non-traditional sculpture) and some don't. Pointless to put any work into explaining or converting. The mind opens or doesn't when it does, there's no convincing it to. Art photography, for all the leaps forward from Ansel Adams, is still frowned upon by so many, even gallery art collectors. Comic art fans will only shell out for Irving Klaw vintage prints because Dave Stevens made Bettie cool. And Stanton roomed with Ditko helping with some fetish art. Which interestingly enough brings us to context.

 

Looking at art beyond simple representation (the picture tells you what to see) to interactive art where the viewer is a participant (whether the piece is representational or not) to pure experiential where the shared substance of the artist is the context is probably the final iteration of art. At least for now? Art is always changing. This is where art as form has been heading broadly since the invention of cheap mass production photography, where portraiture and landscape is no longer generally confined to copying what's in front of you in life, in nature. Or trying to subtlely pretty up a rather ugly royal.

 

Just think. The b@lls of Malevich to just paint a canvas black. And call it..Art. And that nearly 100 years ago. When cheap mass production photography was already 40 years old. I'm thinking most in this room still think that's a scam too. Takes a long time to turn the ship of public opinion, eh?

 

Getting back to context. That's all comic OA people get is context. If you love X-Men, big surprise you're after X-Men art, either Kirby, Heck, Cockrum, Byrne, some others or Jim Lee...all depending on the decade you were reading the comics as a kid. All context. Anybody here give a cr@p about French comic characters? Umm. No. Cuz none of us grew up with them. No context. (All broad strokes of course, I know there are tons of minor exceptions to the above sweeping generalizations! But let's not lose the gist in pettiness please.) So modern art, non-representational, experiential, whatever...it's all shades of gray on the context meter. Emin's bed is a monster dose of context. You either get that (and care) or you don't. Otherwise it's just a stained bed that can be picked up every May at any college for pennies or a clean replacement! Maybe comic OA fans should think about how un-different we are from them (the YBA collectors) after all? Or not. Last thing I'm trying to do is do any "convincing". And the YBA collectors...who has any pocket change left for X-Men art after dropping millions on a stained bed, right? And if you didn't read X-Men as a kid anyway...ha.

[Eric Seffinga]

Hey Gene,

I agree not all Koons stuff is that great. But have you ever seen this hulk piece he did? Keep in mind this is made of metal not plastic!!

thanks,

Matthew

 

You mean one of the many pieces he has copied from a real toy and had his factory recreate for him, right?

 

There are at least a few documentaries out there about him and his factory of workers that do the actual pieces for him. It is interesting stuff, though I'd never buy into any of it. I like my personal creatives to be more than just "idea" men & women at the end of the day. And if I was to buy a factory mdade piece, I'd be more into Murakami, because he doesn't swipe his ideas.

 

http://hyperallergic.com/64304/why-not-to-work-for-jeff-koons/

 

[Overthetopinc]

You either get that (and care) or you don't.

 

There you go!! I was waiting for that. The famous my brain is bigger then yours rationale. I have been collecting sculptures for years. Comic and non comic related. And that is still a bed soaked in disgusting imagery. If you want to be interactive with it and jump in and go to sleep be my guest but dont come in here with your Superiority bulls**t because you somehow see an angel in it and all I see is cheap furniture. If that dirty bed is genius to you then this should be gospel

 

 

thanks,

Matthew

[suspense39]

HA HA, i've seen some great european comic art, stuff i think i would love to have....but once i start trying to research i get nowhere.....I still appreciate it but never seem to be able to pull the trigger on a purchase. I think comics are a very valid and important artform, but not all of it is art......my recent collecting and interest shift has been trying to make sense of it's place as an artform, and not just saying all of what i like is art.

[Bronty]

I don't think he meant it that way Matthew.

 

If I can put words in his mouth then what I think he believes is some viewers see what's in front of them and some consider context (like fine art's own history as was said in another post).

 

Ie either you see a bed, or you see a bed in the context of what's gone on in art history; there's little in between.

 

I've been a just see the bed guy for a long time but I am starting to understand that considering history is the very same thing that guys who just collect the pictures do - because fundamentally we ARENT just collecting the pictures we are collecting the pictures by people whose work we understand as desire as a result of being aware of all that comic history context.

 

At the end of the day Id never, even with funds permitting, consider buying something like this for even a fraction of a second but is that because looking at is an exercise in the ridiculous and probably because I don't have enough sense of art history to like it. If I did know more about art history I might still hate it, as I do, but it would be an opinion formed with more background understanding.

 

Let me give you an example from comics. Would anyone without an understanding of comics looking at, say, the cover to destroyer duck #1 think the work was by the greatest artist in comics? If you just look at the DD1 cover with zero context you'd laugh yourself silly that this awkward drawing if a cigar smoking duck was by the greatest artist of a 75 year old medium. The thought if you allow yourself to step into those shoes - is utterly ridiculous. And yet that cover is by the Picasso (or pick your poison) of comics

[suspense39]

also Jeff Koons is great! Have you ever seen those sculptures he does that look like pool toys made of rubber that are metal. That is outstanding. Certainly much more fun then a blank canvas.

 

I have mixed feelings about Koons - for example, I like his balloon dogs but don't really care about a bunch of vacuum cleaners encased in plastic or basketballs floating in water.

 

As for my earlier comments, let me clarify just so no one has any misunderstanding (this was originally a response to a PM I received taking me to task about what I said earlier):

 

Let me clarify my statements a bit. It's like you said yourself - the story contained within Action #1 of Superman is art. Just like the movie "Casablanca" is art. Art made for commercial purposes, to be sure, but still art I agree. The physical Action #1 comic book itself or an old 1940s reel-to-reel print of Casablanca, though? That's just a collectible, IMO, a physical manifestation of art that is experiential (e.g., reading the comic book, viewing the film). It's a subtle, but important, distinction.

 

So no, I don't consider the Action #1 physical comic book to be art, though that has nothing to do about the medium of comics as a whole, which I wholeheartedly agree is art (well, some of it anyway). As for Superman the character...I respect the character and his influence, but I'm just not passionate about him the way I am about other comic book titles and characters. Action #1 was simply never my Holy Grail of comic books and I feel that it's a lot of peoples' simply because of its rarity, importance and status as opposed to people actually being so passionate about the character, art and story contained within. I mean, how many people think Action #1 features the best art and/or story ever told in comics? It's really the 1885 Karl Benz prototype of automobiles and is far from the peak expression of the medium, IMO.

 

the basketballs and vacuum cleaners are an extension of Duchamps urinal, or manifested from that idea, i don't particularly like them much either but they are probably his most pivotal works.....an extension of the idea of the "readymade". From there his art evolved into what he does now which is a combination of "readymade" and "consumer critique" and as he says, just making things that people like! there is no doubt that among artists today his attention to the minutest of details is unparalleled. The finishes on the balloon dogs and inflatables are sublime.