Thursday 25th November 2010An Object of Beauty - Steve Martin Examines the New York Art Scene
We are probably more familiar with Steve Martin as a comedian and actor, pursuing roles in films such as The Jerk, The Pink Panther remakes, The Man with Two Brains and Father of the Bride. What he is marginally less known for are his pursuits as a novelist.
Martin has just released
An Object of Beauty
, a new novel that attempts to capture the zeitgeist of the New York art world through a female protagonist named Lacey Yeager. During the course of the book, Yeager makes her way up from the basement of Sotheby's to running her own show in Chelsea, but not necessarily on the straight and narrow.
The book is told from the point of view of an art writer and admirer of Yeager, Daniel Chester French. The book talks of the rich and famous of the New York art scene and pitches in a mystery artist, named Pilot Mouse, who, it has been suggested, is based on British artist Banksy.
The intriguing book has done enough to create a stir in New York, suggesting that Martin knows more than an odd thing or two about the way the New York art world works. Not one for the jargon laden writings of the academic art world, Martin puts his views across with an ease and fluidity that suggests he really takes a great amount of pleasure in art, and the fun and games of the market.
Posted on November 25th 2010 on 10:47pm
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Wednesday 17th November 2010In Giacometti's Studio
In Giacometti's Studio
is a new book by the leading authority on the artist, Michael Peppiatt. The book has been published to coincide with an exhibtion at the Eykyn Maclean gallery in New York.
Eykyn Maclean was set up in 2006 by Christopher Eykyn and Nicholas Maclean, to exhibit musem quality 19th and 20th century art. The pair had previously been co-heads of the Impressionist and Modern art department at Christie's and so we well placed to take on such a venture.
In Giacometti's Studio: An Intimate Portrait will run until 18th December, and is the first public exhibition to be held at the gallery and the works on show are not for sale. Around 100 sculptures, paintings and drawings are on show thanks to a generous loan from the Giacometti family.
The exhibition, and the book, take a look at the tiny studio that Alberto Giacometti inhabited behind Montparnasse, in the last four decades of his life, churning our creations based on his views of mankind. The book charts the life of the studio from the time that Giacometti and his brother arrived in 1927, with their possessions in a wheelbarrow, until Giacometti's death in 1966.
The book both gives an in-depth look at Giacometti's life in those years within his hub of creativity, but also sheds light on the influences and experiences that shaped his artwork. Peppiatt came close to meeting Giacometti, through his relationship with Francis Bacon, but that meeting was never to be, with Giacometti dying not long before.
Regardless, Peppiatt got to know the people in Giacometti's world, and through those relationships he has managed to create a key book on the life of Alberto Giacometti.
Posted on November 17th 2010 on 05:50pm
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Tuesday 09th November 2010Things You Can Do To Make Your Artist or Photographer Website Successful OnlineSo you've got yourself a new website, you've uploaded all of your artworks or photographs and added in your content. That's phase one of having a successful website - having one that is full of great things for people to look at and read.
The following are our recommendations for giving your website the best start possible for when you are ready to launch:
1) Get Your Own Domain Name
Make sure your website is running on your own domain name, not a sub domain such as www.myartwebsite.gallereo.com. This is important for looking professional and putting out a good image, as well as being important for search engines understanding who you are.
2) Get Involved in Social Media
You might not be a big fan of Facebook or Twitter, but these sorts of platforms can make people aware of who you are and what you do. Create a page or an account about you as an artist or a photographer, and let people know when you have created some new works or have an exhibition coming up. You can then link these into your website so that people who are interested can find out more about you.
3) Search Engine Optimisation
Try and get to grips with search engine optimisation (SEO). The more you can do here, the more chance your website has of doing well. We have written some previous blog posts about SEO, including one on
researching your keywords, and also one about
on-site optimisation. We always recommend
Search Engine Optimization for Dummies
as a great book for anyone wanting a comprehensive, but straightforward take on things as well.
4) Set up Google Analytics
Make sure that you are able to track how much traffic is coming to your website and where they are coming from. Find out where in the world they are located and what keywords they are using to find your website. All of these things can help you to develop your site and your SEO campaign accordingly.
5) Google Webmaster Tools
Grab yourself an account on Googles webmaster tools and submit your website. This ensures that the Google search bots make the rounds to your website and start listing your pages in the search engines. You can also find information here about any problems that the search bots have with your site, such as if pages can't be crawled for any reason or your site has broken links.
6) Tell Anyone and Everyone
Possibly the easiest thing for you to do. You have a new website, so don't be shy about it; tell people. The more people you tell, the more people that will look at it and the more you might find people recommending you. The more people that know about your website, the better.
These are just a few things that you can do as your launch your website out into the big wide WWW. If you have any other suggestions, or things that worked well for you when you launched your website - let us know!
Posted on November 09th 2010 on 02:32pm
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Friday 05th November 2010An Interesting Decade for the Arts
As we approach the end of the first decade of the 2000's there are bound to be a great many reviews of what we have experienced in the past ten years and what has defined the new century. One of the most interesting instances of this to already come to light is a new book, published by Phaidon and complied by Eamonn McCabe, called
Decade
.
The book contains around 500 images over, 512 pages, and covers all of the expected events - 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, climate change, global economic crisis and the proliferation of social media as a dominant social force.
Aside from these subjects, however, the book also turns to less expected territory such as the state of the art market over the past 10 years. A legendary auction house figure and source of knowledge on the art market, Christopher Burge, contributes and essay titled "How the Art Market Survived," in which he reportedly describes the swelling and bursting of the art market bubble.
An article by
ARTINFO describes the book as cleverly using images representing the heights of the art market with the fatalities of the world wide financial collapse. An example given is the juxtaposition of an image of the Lehman Brothers meltdown, opposite a picture of a Jeff Koons
Ballon Dog installed at Versailles.
Other artists and artworks to make it into the book are Richard Serra's Torqued Spiral, the Berlin holocaust memorial, Martin Creed's Work. 227: The Lights Going On and Off at Tate Britain and Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project at Tate Modern.
Whether you're interested on Burge's take on the whole art market or whether you just want to find out what other events and happenings made it into Decade, the books seems like it is well worth it's cost, and definitely something to keep your coffee table company this winter.
Posted on November 05th 2010 on 08:31pm
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Thursday 21st October 2010Top Ten Photography Books - Practical and InspirationalWhenever I go on Amazon I'm always amazed at just how much time I can lose by clicking through the never ending threads of recommendations and books that people also bought if they bought the book that you're looking at. Don't get me wrong, these are happy minutes (or hours), but it can still be difficult to pin point the best books to buy, no matter what subject you are searching for.
Some of the most interesting books that I own, or have seen or been told about, come from the genre of photography books. No matter what you're interested in, there's always a great photography booked that can be linked up to it. There are also some truly astounding art photographers out there that produce, or have produced, great work that I'm sure even a hardback monograph can't do justice too.
Below I have complied a list of photography books, both of the variety that provide practical advice about photography, but also books that display the work of some of the great photographers and photography organisations from around the world.
This book comes highly rated to anyone who is interested in journalistic photography. The book takes a look at how photographs can be used to tell stories through a series of 60 classes by some of the greatest photographers of all time, who also, coincidentally were involved with Magnum. Each class brings together tales of the individual approaches that photographers have applied to the field of journalism. Amongst the photographers that feature in the book are Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Martin Parr, Inge Morath, Eugene Richards and Leonard Freed.
Light lines is a book that presents a more experimental approach to photography and really takes a deep look at the art of producing black and white photographs. Metzker is a highly celebrated American photographer who is not afraid to challenge the boundaries of photography and take those challenges to the viewer. This book offers a full retrospective presentation of Metzkers work, using 200 high quality reproductions to cover the various aspects of what has been an extremely prolific career.
Robert Frank's
The Americans is one of the most iconic photography books that you can buy. In 1955, Frank received a Guggenheim Fellowship to travel around the United States of America. He used that time to create a documentary record of American culture, producing what has become a universally credited book about the state of the US in the 1950's. A great book for anyone interested in American culture or documentary photographic practices.
Ansel Adams is often recognised as one of the great photographers, but this book is no catalogue of his works. This is an innovative book about the processes that Adams went through when developing his photographs. While not very useful for digital photographers, this is a solid book for the collection of any photographers who still hold true to the darkroom. The book takes a look at the factors of light, film type and exposures along with a detailed discussion on the Zone System. There is even an extensive chapter on the darkroom and its equipment for anyone who is just getting started.
The Moment it Clicks is a book for any budding digital photographers out there. Author Joe McNally is one of the worlds top digital photographers who has worked for some of the biggest magazines in the world. With everything from
National Geographic to
Sports Illustrated on his resume he is well positioned to write this book which has all of the elegance and presence of a coffee-table book, while also taking a teacher-like position over the more practical aspects of being a digital photographer.
The Family of Man was an exhibition held at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955; an exhibition that was put together by Edward Steichens. The exhibition can easily hailed as one of the most successful photography exhibitions of the latter part of the 20th century,
The Family of Man charted images of humankind from all around the world. Aimed to show how similar we all are by covering universal themes such as love and marriage, child-birth and death. The book can be ranked amongst the classics of the photography genre.
Written by Gerry Badger,
The Genius of Photography is a book that charts the key events and key images that bring home the magnificence of the development of photography. Primarily a narrative history of photography, the book delves into the social, economic, political, technical and artistic aspects of the development of photography, asking questions about what makes one photograph a work of art while another isn't and looking at what makes an image by Nan Goldin or Henri Cartier-Bresson special. The book charts the contributions of some of the most distinguished photographers to date making this an essential book for anyone with an interest in photography.
Written by one of Americas most respected writers, Susan Sontag, and first published in 1973, this book takes a solidly academic approach to discovering the true force of photographic imagery with a strong focus on discussions of experience and reality. Whether you deal in darkroom photography or digital photography, the six essays that make up this book are worth the read. We deal with images every day of our lives without really thinking about what we're looking at, or what we're really seeing. This book helps us to grab on and take a little more notice.
A personal favourite,
Beneath the Roses is a book containing the complete series of Gregory Crewdsons photographs made between 2003 and 2007. Crewdson is an extremely successful international photographer who also teaches at the Yale University School of Art. His photographs are particularly unique in their set up and the fact that he photographs anything but the 'moment'. His scenes are elaborately choreographed and built like a film set. Lighting, composition and developing the frame within which he will capture a scene are all part of the lengthy process that Crewdson goes through. This particular book also includes lighting charts, production photographs, sketches and architectural plans to help the viewer understand what it took for these photographs to come into being. A coffee-table volume for sure.
Nan Goldin is one of those photographers who managed to stir up a great deal of controversy around her work but battling with taboo subjects, while making very personal documents about her life and the life of those around here. This book charts a particular series of image by Goldin that take a look at the struggle for intimacy, understanding and relationship pressures of friends and lovers of Goldin. A review of the book in the New York Times, by Andy Grundberg, said. "Goldin, at the age of 33, has created an artistic masterwork that tells us not only about the attitudes of her generation, but also about the times in which we live."
If that isn't enough to get you started on a truly amazing photography book collection, I don't know what is! If you do know, please drop us your recommendations in the comments below.
Posted on October 21st 2010 on 06:12pm
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Tuesday 05th October 2010A Book No Artist Should Be WithoutAs an artist trying to make a name for yourself or trying to work out the best way to sell art online or through the gallery system, the road is littered with obstacles, uncertainties and lots and lots of questions. If you find yourself to be an artist and you are nodding your head right now, there is a book that you should definitely consider buying.
The Artists' Yearbook 2010/11
is an invaluable guide to just about everything an artist needs to get by, and get ahead in the art world. All 544 pages of the thing are published by Thames & Hudson every couple of years to stay up to date and as current as possible.
The book functions both as your mascot; to encourage you through the tough days, and also a comprehensive reference book of contacts, suppliers and need to know information. The current volume features some introductory essays by artist Boo Ritson and photographer Sam Taylor-Wood. There are also some informative essays on private galleries, public museums and the role that the internet plays in the arts today.
If that wasn't enough to get you to buy the book there is then the reference section listing art material suppliers, art bookshops, conservators, consultants, founders, framers, insurers, packers and shippers, photography specialists, printers and publishers and studio spaces.
Beyond that there is information on prizes, grants and awards as well as art fairs and festivals. There are also listings relating to funding and commissions, and art related publications.
The publication is aimed at UK artists, which is great if you are working in the UK, but wouldn't it be great to see a book like this for every artistic hub in the world! Maybe such books exist...if they do and you'd like to recommend them, please leave a comment for other readers.
You can purchase
The Artists' Yearbook 2010/11 from most good book retailers at an extremely reasonable price. It's probably the best art resource book you'll buy this decade.
Posted on October 05th 2010 on 01:40pm
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Wednesday 23rd June 2010Selling Art OnlineWant some extra advice or information about how to get the most out of selling art online and generally getting by as an artist? Here are a few books we've found that could help:
A book covering the ins and outs of trying to sell online.
Some good practical advice for artists. It has been noted that most of the spcific references to law, grants etc are American based, but that the general advice is fit for all.
Anabella Ruston has written a couple of quality books about the best ways to go about marketing and selling art. The book covers all from looking at pricing your work, terms and conditions of sale, as well as specifically covering website and internet sales.
This book looks at the experiences of dozens of practicing artists, alongside expert advice, to provide a guide to surviving day to dat life as a professional artist.
A book on how to present yourself and how to present your work in order to be financially successful as an artist.
Posted on June 23rd 2010 on 08:57pm
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