Pricing Masterpieces

I actually have many things that I note, thinking that I will write about them. This month it came down to two items related to art that I chose. I had a cousin get in touch with me on Facebook. It has been over 10 years (its approaching 10 years since I moved back from the west coast) since I have seen her as she lives in a different state. The news is that she is now going to art school and is sculpting.

Well I checked out her sculpture portfolio and the comments gave me a couple of things to comment on. I have been over educated in art some would say, but I have a couple of things to say about critiquing work of and by students. "Wow!" and "Beautiful", one word replies to art were never sufficient in a critique that I have lead. If you can't help the artist by what you say, don't show your limitations also. Stroking an ego does not really help an artist. Tell them what takes your breath away or what makes the art beautiful so that they consider the comment and let it help them.

I once was setting up an exhibit and there was a young man and woman looking at the work. The young woman actually looked at all the pieces and then told me that,"I wish I could take pictures like that because every time you took a photo you captured a story at that right instant." The young man who had been trying to talk to her and have her attention piped in, "Yeah they're cool." Hmmh, I wonder which statement helps me as an artist.

The other thing that bugged me in the comments on my cousin's artworks were I found where she mentioned that all the images were of student work. Who puts it into the minds of students that if they produce work while in school it is not as valuable as after they have their degree. I was exhibiting my artwork even during my undergraduate days, true what I exhibited was not created for assignments but that really shouldn't even matter. As long as professor's don't create the work for a student it should not matter that someone who was a student made the work. What should matter is the quality of the work.

No one ever tells a professor that the work they create while they are teaching is teacher work. Professors are expected to produce up to a high standard or they are not given tenure. It's the same for students if they don't produce up to a high enough standard they do not get their degree. If an artist creates a masterpiece while they are a student it will not be remembered in a hundred years that it was student work. The term "student work" is usually used to devalue artwork by those who have financial considerations at mind unless it is someone applying for a professorship who is trying to show off his students' work.

The other thing I wished to comment on was Shepard Fairey who is having to protect himself from a photojournalist on the right to use an image of Barack Obama for the "HOPE" poster created for the Barack Obama presidential campaign. The photojournalist has the Associated Press waging the war for him that he created the image. Shouldn't Barack's parents weigh in and tell the AP photographer that, no, they created Barack Obama originally so unless he altered Barack Obama he owes them money, the money he earned. It is funny that Fairey was defending himself at his exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh for having used someone else's image. A videotape of Fairey at that museum in itself should have been brought as evidence in the case, if there ever was an artist that defined "fair use" law it was Andy Warhol.

Don't get me wrong I am for defending intellectual property of photographers but the photographer was just snapping the shutter at a press conference but he did not screenprint with very deliberate coloration and add the word "HOPE" to his black and white image that ran at less than a quarter page in size. The intellectual property that is being offended is Fairey's by a frivolous lawsuit that will put him in debt for the rest of his life even if he wins. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis should have used American lawyers to fight John Heartfield's right to create his montages from other people's images. They could have put him out of business sooner.

If you see me critiquing your work, listen because I will say what makes my opinion of it as a viewer. Remember I am not going to stroke your ego but I will try to help you.