YEAH -- BUT IS IT ART?

YEAH, BUT, IS IT ART?


The real challenge in owning and running an art gallery is deciding what "art" you will carry and display. After all, if I am going to sell this work -- actually get people to give me money for it (money that I then split with the work's creator . . . but that's a whole different discussion best left for another time) -- I had better think it really is good art and, more than that, that it has value. It often means making difficult decisions about not just what I like but what I think is "good". Telling an artist, or worse, someone who thinks (s)he is, that the particular piece they worked so hard to create is plain dreck can be pretty unpleasant. Harder still, even worse, is telling someone you know and like that their entire body of creative work just isn't good enough (sometimes just plain stinks). But, it is my Gallery and I am the one who is selling the work, so I better believe it is good.

I do have some simple rules that I stick to in the gallery. First, I only sell original art work. That means that we don't have copies or prints -- even if you fancy it up and call it Giclee, we just don't carry that in the Gallery. Simple enough. Should be the end of the discussion. But many people, including some "artists" and friends and a whole lot of people who apparently know a great deal about the art business, feel the need to argue and scold and take me to task because (and I don't know how come this isn't so terribly obvious to me) "limited edition" prints and Giclees are where the real money is. I may be an idiot, but I am a happy one. I happen to believe, and am quite happy in this belief, that the real artist made just the one original piece and that's what you and I and everyone else who buys and owns art (and everyone should own art) should own. Sounds more confusing than it it. Original art carries the artist's emotions and vibrations and the bit of the artist's soul. Copies might carry some of the emotion and vibration of the machine that produced it, but who cares?

My second rule is that the art we carry has to be evocative. More than just a pretty picture (I know this is Cape Cod but please spare me from paintings of more pretty beach scenes or, worse, deep blue hydrangeas) the art must resonate and cause you to have a emotional response to it. Very good art may whisper or sing out, but it has to make to feel something and react in some way. And that's the simplest way to acquire a piece of art, too. If a piece of art causes you to have an emotional response of some sort, and you like having that response and want to have it again and again, then you should own that piece of art. Go think about that for a while. I am willing to bet that most people could be the judge of good art if they allowed themselves to be intuitive about it. No masters degree in fine arts, no amount of university or museum credentials, no art connoisseurship can get you to like a piece of art that you don't respond to emotionally. That's how you should acquire your own art collection. Please, please don't tell me you bought something or like a piece because it's the right size and matches the color of your sofa!

So, the first rule -- original work only -- that's pretty easy to follow, even if all the art gallery experts think that is a dumb business decision. The second rule -- the art has to be evocative -- is a whole lot harder and much more subjective. And how do you tell someone, even a very technically talented artisan, that the "art" they have created doesn't do anything for me. What if I'm just having an "off" day or the work is so far above my understanding that I am not in touch with my own emotions about it. I started off by saying that this is the real challenge of the gallery world and so it is.

I think that making the decision about which pieces of "art" will be evocative and appealing to others is the magic and mystery of what I try to do. My guess is that I'll probably spend a lot of time exploring this theme in future blogs; it might just be the answer and insight into a number of facets our lives.