Posts Tagged ‘books’
Commercial art books make money
Whereas most art books are designed for niche markets and are, as I've said before, generally under priced, there are exceptions. Limited editions of sumptuously produced monographs of the work of artists who have international stature cater to collectors who will pay handsomely for them. But what happens when mass-market art uses the same [...]
Margaret Atwood’s Payback
If Margaret Atwood had written Payback in order to pay off a debt like Charles Dickens is said to have been motivated to write A Christmas Carol, perhaps it would have turned out be a better book. Perhaps if she'd had another year to write it: originally her Massey lecture was scheduled for 2009 but was brought forward when a conflict emerged [...]
What is a book?
I just received the conference papers for Open Engagement, a conference/art event that happened last fall. Having not been able to attend, I'm grateful that the organizer, Jen Delos Reyes, thought to send me a copy. It's interesting to see all the various projects for sure, but what really captured my attention was the presentation. It came [...]
Coming from a good place – the book you walk into – Toronto collage party
I was fortunate enough to be able to participate for a few hours this past week in a collage party at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto (March 9 - 12, 2008). The primary thing about this collage party is that it comes from a good place, a giving, non-judgmental place. There’s the generosity of the gallery, which [...]
Why Are Artists Poor? 2
Hans Abbing’s book Why Are Artists Poor? should be assigned reading for every art student because it talks about the place of art and the artist in society in practical ways, from the viewpoint of the economist, somewhat objective, from ten stories up as Abbing puts it. Abbing, who is both a visual artist and an economist, gives us a view we in [...]
NY Art Book Fair
The value of participating in a book fair isn’t easily translated into economic terms. Book sales are generally limited. That said, it is remarkable how people tend to find exactly the book they need to find. More than once somebody stopped at our table at the NY Art Book Fair, Sept 28-30th, 2007, and latched onto exactly the book that dealt [...]
Vera Frenkel in Museums After Modernism
Many artists and people working in other, non-museum, or alternate-type organizations are suspicious of museums with their business-like hierarchies, authoritative institutional character, big budgets, fundraising galas, etc. And in fact, we don’t share much in common with them. We don’t collect art and therefor neither carry the [...]
