Old posts from last year can be accessed at the audiences link right at the bottom of the page.
To get an idea of how this could work, make sure you go back and look at all the old posts as lots of good information is to be found.
Your first task is to join LVAF and make sure you get invited to all the openings in Leeds. Go to http://www.lvaf.org.uk/view.aspx?id=3
Also have a good look at http://blog.art21.org/ in particular browse old posts for interesting stuff. This is the blog of someone really making connections in the art world.
A
ReplyDeleteAfter the artist’s successful first show, even though burnt out with the effort, he was ordered to keep painting in the same style by his gallery, so having no invention left he spent his time creating exact facsimiles of his previous work. When they saw the new paintings, the gallery owners were delighted with the results and within weeks further shows were put on to great acclaim. This created a deep dilemma for the artist. Copies replaced his hard won imagery; imitation became originality and as time went on his memory of the originals faded and his ability to create in response to reality lost.
After several years of major exhibitions and the launch of a new monograph, his old talent for recreating the complexity of the world in paint started to reveal itself again.
The conflict was terrible, many paintings were completely destroyed, others became lost in a schizophrenic divide between facsimile and authenticity but some were eventually resolved.
His next show was a complete failure. Critics wrote that his work had lost touch with his audience, that the language he was now using was inchoate or outdated. The gallery staff argued with him to return to his previous style. However when he tried to explain how he had spent many years simply creating hollow facsimiles, the critics exclaimed that that was why the work had been so successful. A gallery owner told him how his followers had realised that his previous work chimed with their own lives and that instead of envying the creativity and expressive power of the artist, they bought his work, so that when they felt exhausted and their energy wired, they could look at this work on their walls and feel at one with the world. Their own shallowness celebrated as a condition of Modernity and the artist’s paintings a hymn to this condition.
The critic argued that for the artist authenticity had been an addiction. He needed a cure and he prescribed a total immersion tank. The artist never took the cure, but resolved his dilemma by developing a new strategy. He would employ poor young artists at the start of their careers to create exact copies of all the work he had done so far, including the paintings in the disastrous recent exhibition. By doing this he could free himself to undertake his initial direction without worrying about his gallery, audience or the critics. Finally he set out his will, asking for all his unsold studio work to be destroyed and any mention of an alternative style expunged from the records. He never saw any of his new work from that day forward. Every now and again he would receive a new monograph on his work or the details of a major exhibition, usually accompanied by an article detailing his retreat from the world and his hermit-like devotion to art.
Every day until his death he now performed a new ritual. After a small breakfast he would walk to the studio, stand in front of a huge blank canvas, mix paint, load brushes, walk up to and away from the large vibrating surface, over and over again, leaving a trail of footprints in the dusty paint droppings, until it became too dark to paint, and then he would retire to his study and read.
Eventually on his death, all the contents of his studio were burnt and a memorial exhibition held at a great gallery in New York. Much debate was had concerning the destroyed work, many critics considering this his greatest achievement.
An interesting 'myth'.
ReplyDeleteMichael Ormerod:
http://spirit-in-the-mass.blogspot.com/
Hi Garry- just to let yoy know that my blog is up and running at- http://amck-dpg-blog.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeletehttp://robyn-emma.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeletehi Garry, this is mine (robyn lawrences)
Hello Gary
ReplyDeleteMy blogs are
www.subversivephilosophy.blogspot.com - [contextual work, research and professional practice development]
and
www.belle-trix.blogspot.com - [personal art practice]
Isabel Skinner :]
Hi Garry,
ReplyDeleteThis is my blog - http://bethsgadd.blogspot.com/
Beth Gadd
blog over at http://sjhumble.tumblr.com
ReplyDeleteHi Garry,
ReplyDeleteMy blog address is http://bobbywest.tumblr.com
Hi Gary,
ReplyDeletemy blog is http://hollymulveen.blogspot.com/
Thanks,
Holly Mulveen
Hello Garry,
ReplyDeleteMy blog address is http://sa-fineartleeds.blogspot.com/
Sameena Azam