How To Dispose of 5000 Works of Art: Herb and Dorothy 50 x 50

Robert Boyd

The collector's mania sneaks up on you. I'm in my super-cluttered bedroom looking around, and there are 51 visible artworks (and many more in portfolios on my bookshelves as well as artworks hanging in other rooms). They range from a painted postcard sent to me by Earl Staley and silkscreened limited edition beer-bottles with art by Ron Regé, Jr. and C.F. to paintings by Lane Hagood, Rachel Hecker and and Chris Cascio. I'm not saying this to brag--well, maybe a little--but to point out what all serious collectors come to realize--that they have a lot of stuff and will someday need to dispose of it.

We think of collectors as rich people, but despite the shocking auction prices we read about, the reality is that almost anyone can collect art. Small artwork, prints, art by non-"big name" artists can all be pretty affordable. If you can buy directly from an artist, that usually saves you some money. Sometimes you can trade for art--if you offer a service that artists need. (Hence the art collections of dentists.)

The Vogels are the gods of this approach to collecting. A quick recap of their story: Herbert Vogel was an amateur painter who worked for the post office. His wife Dorothy had a job at a public library. They loved art. They were really into pop art when they got married in 1962, but it was too expensive for them. So they started buying minimal art (not quite yet the new thing when they started). They made a deal with one another--they would live on Dorothy's salary and buy art with Herbert's income. And they did, for decades. In the end, they had a collection of over 4000 pieces of art, which they donated to the National Gallery. In 2008, a really entertaining film , Herb & Dorothy by Megumi Sasaki, was made about the couple. And that seems like it should have been the end of it. The problem is that Herb and Dorothy kept on collecting and kept on donating to the National Gallery, which finally said, enough! As big as the National Gallery is, it just couldn't absorb 5000+ pieces of art.

So they came up with a wonderful solution. They made a gift of art to 50 museums--one in each state--of 50 pieces of art. This is the 50x50 program. Thus 2500 pieces of art were distributed all over the country. And Megumi Sasaki filmed a sequel, Herb & Dorothy: 50x50.

The Blanton Museum at the University of Texas got the 50 pieces of art reserved for Texas. I saw them when the Blanton mounted an exhibit of the work, and one thing I noticed is that not every artist they collected has ended up in the canon. The Vogels had an amazing ability to pick "winners," but no one bats a thousand. (Interestingly, the Blanton also received James Michener's large collection of modernist art after his death. In the book American Art since 1900, Robert Kushner looks at Michener's collection in terms of a year by year "batting average"--significant works as a percentage of the whole. He calculates Michener's lifetime average at .319, which I'd say is pretty great. Is it crass that I'd like to know what the average is for the Vogels?)

That's one thing the new documentary examines--artists who haven't achieved any particular fame whose work was collected by the Vogels.


Charles Clough with the Vogels at the Metropolitan Museum (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

For example, the film looks at Charles Clough. He is an abstract painter who came out of the same Buffalo scene that spawned Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo (Clough was a co-founder of Hallwalls). The Vogels collected a large number of his pieces (127 are part of the 50x50 collection), and he is one of the artists whose work ended up in all 50 museums. But his career as an artist has been rocky. He admits to having hardly sold anything in the previous 10 years. He points to a map of the USA covered with thumbtacks. Each one represents an artwork in a museum. And two-thirds of them are a result of the 50x50 program.


Charles Clough painting (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

Another artist who never achieved fame was Martin Johnson. Johnson had some success in the late 70s and early 80s, but eventually moved to Richmond Virginia to run the family business, which represented plumbing supplies to buyers.


Martin Johnson and the family business (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

As it turned out, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond was one of the recipients of the Vogel collection, and they were amazed to learn that one of the artists whose work they received lived right there in Richmond.


Martin Johnson and his work (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

Artists whose moment of success happened decades ago are suddenly finding their work in museums all over America. For artists like Clough, it could mean a second chance at success.

The artist who most exemplifies the Vogel collection is Richard Tuttle. Herbert Vogel was quite close to Tuttle, and Tuttle is represented by 336 pieces in the 50x50 collection--enough for each museum in the program to get at least six Tuttles.


Richard Tuttle with the Vogels (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

As it turns out, he's not super happy about the 50x50 program. He would have preferred to see the collection stay in one piece, even if it meant storing most of it. But he's realistic and is shown visiting with curators in Maryland to discuss the best way to display his work from the collection.


Richard Tuttle at the Academy Art Museum in Maryland  (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

Of course, Tuttle is a pretty difficult artist to love. Most of his work in the collection consists of pieces of lined notebook paper with one or two small watercolor marks on it. This is pretty challenging work, especially in provincial museums in Montana or Alabama. How to show this work in these disparate places is the main subject of the movie. The filmmaker traveled to several of these far-flung museums, including small museums in Honolulu and Fargo, North Dakota. Stephen Jost, the director of the Honolulu Museum of Art, addresses this head on. He knows the work is difficult for many visitors, and the Honolulu Museum has worked very hard to help viewers engage with it. One scene shows children playing a game with the art--they have a guide to all the pieces with little image excerpts, and they are in a race to see who can find them all on the walls first. But Jost acknowledges that there are some viewers who are just plain hard to reach in general and especially with the art from the Vogel collection. These viewers are teenagers and young adults.


Sullen teens at the Honolulu Museum of Art (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

What some of the museums have done is make the Vogels the focus of the exhibits--telling their story. The Blanton had the first Vogel documentary running continuously. Some museums actually recreated parts of the Vogel's apartment, down to stuffed cats and turtles (the Vogels never had children--they had pet cats, fish, and turtles).


The Plains Art Museum (still from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

Places like the Plains Art Museum were thrilled to get the gift. Director Colleen Sheehy states her pride in being in the company of LA MOCA and the Albright-Knox Gallery, who also received Vogel gifts.  She used the Vogels themselves as the way to interest viewers in the work. She explained it this way: "The work might seem difficult, but they're so accessible." She actually commissioned a local artist, Kaylyn Gerenz, to create a stuffed animal version of one of their cats to be exhibited alongside the work in a small recreated corner of the Vogel's apartment.

One of the museums they donated the work to, the Las Vegas Art Museum, abruptly closed in February 2009, a victim of the recession which hit Las Vegas especially hard. Part of the conditions for accepting the gift were that if you closed, you had to give it to an approved museum in the same state. In this case, the work went to the Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery at UNLV. By focusing so much on several small, regional museums, Herb & Dorothy: 50x50 almost becomes a documentary about provincial museums. It's fascinating to see how they strive to stay relevant and stay afloat.

Herbert Vogel died during the filming of this documentary. The Vogels had already stopped collecting, and their apartment was emptying out.




Before and after (stills from Herb & Dorothy 50x50)

After you've given away your life's work, I guess passing on (at the ripe old age of 90) is not so bad. But I worry about Dorothy (now 78). Will an apartment with no art and no Herb be too lonely for her?

One more interesting thing about Herb & Dorothy: 50x50. It was partly financed by a Kickstarter campaign. They did a typical thing--gifts of a certain size would get you a download of the finished movie, and a little more would get you the DVD.  In short, they presold the movie. I was pretty sceptical when I heard about it, mainly because I didn't really believe there was anything else to say after the first movie. But I went ahead and donated enough to get the DVD, and I was very pleasantly surprised. By focusing on artists like Charlie Clough and Martin Johnson and museums like the Plains Museum and the Honolulu Museum, Sasaki created a completely new documentary around the Vogels. It's an informative, moving documentary.

How Do You Define a Collector?

"Someone once asked me, how do you define a collector? I've always said the way you define one is a collector is someone who keeps on buying art when the walls are full. Until then, you're doing interior decorating - on a high level, but you're doing decorating. When you keep on buying, that's when you're a collector." ["Oral history interview with André Emmerich, 1993 Jan. 18", interview with Mona Hadler from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art]

 André Emmerich was a gallerist in New York who specialized in Color Field painters.

From Boston to Brazil Links

by Robert Boyd


Reid Sutton and Brad Nagar's House

I like looking at other people's art collections. That's why the Rice Design Alliance Living With Art tour would be so perfect for me. Two days, eight houses, lots of art. But alas, by the time I heard about it, it was full up. One of the houses to be toured is Reid Sutton and Brad Nagar's home, which was featured in an article in the Houston Chronicle. The article is accompanied by a short slideshow of some of the houses. I can see Rachel Hecker and Aaron Parazette paintings in this photo from Sutton and Nagar's home.  See how many pieces of art you recognize. (By the way, if you are one of the lucky ones on the tour, we'd love to publish your annotated photos--or even just see them.) [RDA, The Houston Chronicle]


Jaca, painting from his exhibit at the Museu do Trabalho

Art spaces around the world 1: the Museu do Trabalho in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I stumbled across this space's Flickr page and it looks awesome. The Museu do Trabalho (literally, the "Museum of Work") was founded in 1982 to be a museum of labor. At first it was housed in the sheds below with the intention of moving into a refurbished factory. However, the factory never got refurbished so they stayed in the sheds. The space was too small for a full-on museum, so it has evolved over the years into an alternative art space. Which would not be all that exciting if the art weren't really interesting--which it is. Looks like I will have to save up for a Brazilian vacation... [Museu do Trabalho, Museo do Trabalho's Photostream]


The Museu do Trabalho


Lilian Maus, art shown at Museu do Trabalho


George Kuchar opening at Mulherin + Pollard [VernissageTV]

When underground comics met underground films. George Kuchar was a well known underground filmmaker (if you haven't seen his work, I recommend the documentary It Came From Kuchar, available on Netflix), but did you know he also dabbled in underground comics? He was friends in San Francisco with Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith, who both occasionally appeared in Kuchar's films. They returned the favor, occasionally running his comics in their great anthology Arcade. Some of his film work is being shown at the Whitney Biennial, but if you are in New York, you can see his comics work at Mulherin+Pollard through March 25. [VernissageTV]

Awright you artist maggots--drop down and give me 50! This is one of the weirdest stories I've seen in a while. In Boston, there is a building called Midway Studios, a mixed live/work building intended for use by artists. Then, weirdly enough, a small defense contractor, Ops-Core, moved into one of the office spaces. Weird, but not alarming. But then they rented the basement, which hitherto had been theater space used by the Actors Shakespeare Project, to turn it into a manufacturing plant for military headgear. (Between moving in and taking over the basement, Ops-Core had been purchased by Gentex, a large military contractor.) When the artists complained to their landlord that they didn't want to be living on top of a military products factory, they got a letter from David Rogers, former Ops-Core CEO and now a VP at Gentex. Among other things, it said:

The false sense of entitlement of many of our fellow residents astounds me. I have lived in the neighborhood for the past 18 years and am also very familiar with the expectations of some local artists. . .The majority (and some of the most outspoken)"posers" do not create anything whatsoever. They are merely self delluted [sic] bullshitters and drama queens who use art as an excuse to justify and rationalize their pathetic existence [sic] while mooching from others to sustain a living

A rancorous public meeting was held next, and the situation is still unresolved. [The Boston Phoenix (part 1 and 2) via Hyperallergic]

Filthy Lucre Links

by Robert Boyd

The rich are not like you and me. For one thing, they can use art as collateral for low-interest loans. A story in Bloomberg Businessweek details how a hedge fund manager, Michael Steinhardt, used Picassos and a Jackson Pollack he owns to secure a low-interest loan for a real-estate development.

A real estate developer would ordinarily finance this type of development through a two- to three-year renovation loan that would carry a variable interest rate based on a benchmark such as the London Interbank Offered Rate, also known as Libor. Banks usually charge a significant premium to Libor for such loans because of the risk that the development project will go awry, leaving the lender with a half-completed building as collateral, Stephen Brodie, the head of Herrick’s banking practice and an expert in both art and construction finance, said in an interview.

But fairly liquid collateral, like Picasso paintings, reduce the risk for the bank. And when their risk is reduced, their interest rates come down. Of course, this only works if you own valuable art in the first place. [Miles Weiss and Katya Kazakina, Bloomberg Businessweek via Art Market Monitor]

Rich guy's plan to save Greece. Dakis Joannou, the billionaire Greek art collector whose collection was the subject of a notorious vanity exhibit at the New Museum, actually has some good ideas about what his home country can do to dig out from its financial problems.

[Joannou,] the chairman of the Greek construction company J&P-Avax SA and founder of the 28-year-old Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art helped establish the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, transforming the Spanish city from backwater to arts boomtown.

“Culture is a big business that people are hungry for and we have huge assets,” Joannou, 71, says from his office in the shadow of the Olympic stadium. “But the government uses our assets to make political statements and to gain votes. It’s a matter of survival for them, and nobody wants to invest in culture or anything else in a climate of bankruptcy.”

Even so, Joannou says that the two main political parties, Pasok and New Democracy, are devoid of the necessary cultural drive, and that the government’s projected 12 percent rise to 16.5 million foreign tourists visiting Greece in 2011 compared with last year is a Pyrrhic indicator.

“The tourists who come to Greece go to the sunny islands, making any rise in visitor numbers pathetic in comparison to our assets,” he says. “Culture management must be creative, imaginative, exciting and that can’t be done here.”

Joannou says he thought Greece’s luck had turned when it won the right to host the 2004 Olympics, only to spend 9 billion euros on a project that ended in financial disaster, at the time lumbering the government with a deficit in excess of 4 percent of gross domestic product and beyond European Union limits.

“I went on a few of the government culture committees, but their inability to act frustrated me,” he says. “I no longer get involved. I gave up on them. I do my thing. It’s a shame.”

Joannou shakes his head. “We could have done here what we did in Bilbao,” he says. “Politicians didn’t want to listen.”

In a world where Hollywood spends hundreds of millions to produce movies like 300, The Lightning Thief, Clash of the Titans, and most recently, Immortals, Greek cultural and artistic tourism should be major industries. [A. Craig Copetas, Bloomberg Businessweek via Art Market Monitor]



Then there's the rest of us. Spinning off from Occupy Wall Street is Occupy Museums. Their manifesto begins:

The game is up: we see through the pyramid schemes of the temples of cultural elitism controlled by the 1%. No longer will we, the artists of the 99%, allow ourselves to be tricked into accepting a corrupt hierarchical system based on false scarcity and propaganda concerning absurd elevation of one individual genius over another human being for the monetary gain of the elitest of elite.

Now personally, I am glad that museums are elite institutions. I don't want "the people" to decide what goes into museums. The rest of the manifesto speaks to the conflicted nature of collectors and museums (see Dakis Joannou above), and that is an important issue. But let's say that conflict of interest somehow went away--would it necessarily benefit artists? Or would their situation be about the same as it is now? Hrag Vartanian has issues with this protest.

I think Occupy Wall Street hits on the bigger issue that impacts not only the art world but every other facet of society, namely access to money and power. Where were these protesters yesterday during the Sotheby’s art handlers protest? Since August 1, members of the 99% (i.e. art handlers) have been locked out by Sotheby’s, and they continue to need help standing up to the art market’s disregard of workers who make the system run.

Still, the manifesto is rousing. I especially liked this:

For the last few decades, voices of dissent have been silenced by a fearful survivalist atmosphere and the hush hush of BIG money. To really critique institutions, to raise one’s voice about the disgusting excessive parties and spectacularly out of touch auctions of the art world while the rest of the country suffers and tightens its belt was widely considered to be bitter, angry, uncool. Such a critic was a sore loser.

The action will take place today at 3 pm in New York City.
[Occupy Museums, Hyperallergic]

Critiquing disgusting excessive parties. Houston artist MM Hansen is apparently not afraid to seem bitter, angry or uncool as she amusingly dissects a charity/art event at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Words do not do this evening justice. It was a total photo op night. A friend emailed me to say she'd put me on a list for this evening's charitable event at the Galleria's Saks Fifth Avenue. I won't mention the charity, because the photos I took and the experience I had have nothing to do with the charity's good works. And perhaps that is exactly the point.

She peppers her account with photos and gentle, pithy descriptions that hide a barb underneath.

I saw two uncomfortable looking bare-chested Houston fireman meandering about, each carrying an expensive black handbag. Who put them up to that? Why weren't they signing a new 2012 calendar instead, if indeed, there is one this year. Or perhaps they weren't Houston firemen?

It's hard for me to read this (and see the accompanying photo) without  thinking how weird and condescending it is for a group of wealthy charity organizers to hire a couple of members of the working class to be eye-candy for the night. Hansen concludes:

I am not sure why folks go to so many of these events. Is it because their friends ask them to contribute to a worthy cause? And is it also because we have no plaza publicas in this country in which to parade in the evening and gossip? A bit of both?

Check out her blog for lots and lots of photos of this event. I've been to a few of these, and I always feel pretty uncomfortable at them. [Rockbridge Times]


If you want to fight for artists, fight for droit moral. Droit moral, or moral rights, covers a lot of area in art. One area is that if a work of art is resold, the artist of the work should benefit from this. Sometimes laws cover just the gain in value of the artwork, sometimes the total resale price. This kind of law is common in Europe, and exists in California--but is not widely enforced. Hence a class-action lawsuit that has just been filed against Sotheby's and Christie's.

The fact that California's Resale Royalty Act is "little known" (as the Wall Street Journal's Kelly Crow describes it in her article today) is no excuse for ignoring it. This law is anomalous in the U.S., but not in Europe. It is surely well known to Sotheby's and Christie's legal counsel.

The two auction houses have just been sued in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, by New York artist Chuck Close, California artist Laddie John Dill and the heirs of Robert Graham (and also, in Christie's case, the Sam Francis Foundation). They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorneys' fees, under the California law. 

Lee Rosenbaum thinks the law is poorly constructed because it takes 5% of any resale--even sales that are for less than the purchase price. I think it can be argued either way. If the royalty were just on the capital gains, one would want it to be much higher than 5%. But the accounting for this would be a nightmare and subject to all kinds of shenanigans. A royalty on any sale is easier to keep track of (and even then, not so easy--if it were, this lawsuit would be unnecessary). I'm pretty sure artists have no such royalty rights in Texas, where property rights trump all. [CultureGirl]



Where the rich will be tonight in Houston. The Texas Contemporary Art Fair opens tonight, with the VIP Preview Party starting at 7:30 pm (and the even more exclusive CAMH Preview Party at 6 pm). I'll probably go to the later party (for some reason, I have received five VIP passes from various sources, which either indicates that I am now a member of the elite or more likely that they were giving away passes to any bum with a blog). Expect photos of the fabulousness! (And if Occupy Houston were to show up in front of the Brown Convention Center tonight, well, that would be an interesting coincidence!) [Texas Contemporary Art Fair]

Friday Afternoon at the Houston Fine Art Fair

by Robert Boyd


Art lovers

This is my first art fair. I showed up after work Friday to check out the scene. I tried to take a brief look at each exhibitor, but even so, it took about an hour and a half to do the whole circuit. I'll have more to say about some of the art and galleries (I'm going back today), but here are a few observations and a couple of pieces I liked.

I've been to plenty of conventions--I used to go to Book Expo America and the American Library Association convention every year, and I've been to both the Offshore Oil Technology Conference and the San Diego Comic-Con several times. At a professional convention, you may be doing some business, but a lot of what you do is walk around, exchange business cards, and load up on freebies. But Comic-Con (and all other comics conventions) involve selling stuff--they are consumer conventions. Another type of consumer convention is a gun show. According to a billboard I saw outside the George R. Brown convention center, there is a gun show there every month. (I guess the Zetas have to restock frequently!) Art fairs are consumer expos, just like comic book conventions and gun shows.


ticket takers

The ticket booths were very mod looking, but the rest of the fair was a minimal operation. They didn't even put carpet down. Walking around for hours on concrete is no fun.



There were lots of couples looking at art. I've heard that collecting is a couple's activity, and it makes sense. You're buying a piece of art for a lot of money--it should be something that both of you love. But it's interesting that this is the case--the cliche is that husbands don't like to shop. But you couldn't tell it with the many couples--often holding hands (aw!)--that I saw there.


folks at opening night (photo by William White)

I was expecting people to be dressed to the nines or at least in identifiable designer clothes. My friend Bill White said it was a little like that at the opening party, but Friday afternoon was pretty casual.


woman at the Moody Gallery booth

Of course, the people working the booths looked pretty good. That is pretty typical of conventions of all sorts--hence the term "booth babe."


"booth babe" with Botero at Colton & Farb

Not only were there a lot of Latin American galleries (as I mentioned in an earlier post), but many of the U.S. based galleries exhibiting here, particularly those from Florida, specialized in Latin American art. This seemed like the major theme of the show. Additionally, there were a lot of prosperous-looking art lovers speaking Spanish at the show. Were they part of the local Hispanic elite, or were they folks who had traveled from Spanish-speaking countries just for the show?


crowd at YAM Gallery, a gallery from Mexico

The age of attendees skewed older than the general population, as you would expect. Art collecting is an expensive hobby, and the population gets richer as it gets older on average.


sharp-dressed older gent

Was art selling? I'll try to find out more today, but I saw at least one red dot on a large Omar Chacon painting at Margaret Thatcher.


Omar Chacon painting

Lest this become nothing more than a collection of photos of rich people and hipsters, I'm going to publish some photo of art that I liked.


Margaret Bowland, They Say It's Wonderful, oil on linen, 2009

This little black girl, posing in "whiteface," is a simultaneously beautiful and disturbing image. Margaret Bowland's statement will hardly mitigate the disturbing nature of the work--it includes the following, "As the painter, the observer of these young women, I am a predator, but it is the desire humans have had since the beginning of time—to hunt and consume their prey and dissolve within their spirits…scarily close to what we mean when we say we love." You can see this at the Babcock Galleries booth.

 
Lordan Bunch, Amiable Studies White, oil on ouija board

I liked these paintings by Lordon Bunch at Schroeder Romero & Shredder, but when I saw that they were painted on ouija boards, I had to laugh out loud.


piece by Sarah Frost (detail)

Sarah Frost has a whole wall full of old keyboard letters at the William Shearburn booth. The funny thing is that it makes no sense to photograph the whole thing--it becomes kind of a blurry pattern--and a detail gives you no idea of the effect it has. So I filmed it.


Sarah Frost installation

The Houston Fine Art Fair Opens Tonight

by Robert Boyd

Unfortunately, I won't be there tonight... I have a class. I might try to stop by Friday, but realistically, I don't think I will make it until Saturday. Like a sucker, I bought a four-day pass (opening party tonight and then three full days). Then, about a week later, Linda Darke gave me four free passes. I gave one to fellow Pan blogger Dean Liscum, so I'm hoping he will have something interesting and timely to say.

For previews, here's CultureMap's "ultimate" preview, and here are photos of the installation of the show from The Houston Press. I've never been to an art fair, so for that reason alone I'm quite eager to check it out. I want to see the art, of course, but I also want to check out the scene.

What seems especially interesting about the Houston Fine Art Fair is the number of Latin American galleries exhibiting. Out of 81 galleries exhibiting, nine seem to be from Latin America.


Gastón Ugalde, One dollar, Coca leaves collage, 2010

The above image comes from the website of Salar Galeria de Arte from La Paz, Bolivia. It's one of the South American galleries that look quite interesting. Another is Document-Art from Buenos Aires, which seems to specialize in artists' books.

The Houston Fine Art Fair may end up being a bacchanalia of commodity fetishism, plastic surgery and air kisses, but I suspect that it will be quite interesting to attend.

Links Links Links

by Robert Boyd

I failed to make the 200 top collectors list again! Every year ARTnews publishes a list of the 200 top art collectors in the world. I wonder if the Vogels ever made the list? There are four Houstonians on the list. Laura and John Arnold collect impressionist, post-war and contemporary art--John Arnold owns Centaurus Energy, a big energy speculating hedge fund. Fayez Sarofim and Louisa Stude Sarofim are listed separately (they are divorced). Fayez collects modern and contemporary art, old masters, 19th century American art, and most interesting, Coptic art (I've always loved old Coptic paintings). Louisa collects modern and contemporary art and works on paper. Notably missing--Lester Marks. As far as I can tell, Marks only made the list once--but he'll never let you forget it! (ARTnews)

Data gathering and visualization for art historians. If there was ever a field that seems like it would not particularly benefit from modern data visualization techniques, it's art history. But Jerry Saltz has initiated a project that will probably prove me wrong. He is gathering a list of all artists who have worked for other artists. His criteria are:

1. At least one of the names in each paring should have a modicum of recognition.
2. Please, only artists who worked for other artists, not artists who worked for galleries, dealers who worked for other dealers, or artists who worked at museums — or DIA.
3. The chart will be all post-war artists.

The "chart" he refers to is the data visualization. The simple visualization would be kind of a family tree or flow-chart construction. But you could add additional dimensions of data--obvious demographic ones (race, gender, sexual orientation) as well as stylistic ones (what particular style or school is the artist associated with). Carrying this back to pre-war artists would also be interesting. If you know of any artists who worked for other artists and fit Saltz's three criteria, add it in the comments section under Saltz's article. (New York Magazine)


George Stubbs, Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a Trainer, a Stable Lad, and a Jockey, oil painting, 1765

$35.9 million for the sporting life. I don't usually bother with auction results (they always seem kind of evil). But George Stubbs is one of my favorite artists--I wrote a paper about him back in college. Our family was surprisingly horsey growing up--my brother and sisters all rode, some of us competitively. That may be why I love Stubbs so much. Is Gimcrack worth $35.9 million? I can't say, but it is a truly wonderful painting. (Artdaily.org)


Art Lies is Dead, Long Live Pastelegram. In the wake of Art Lies, a new hybrid online/print magazine is starting up. It's called Pastelegram, and the editor, Ariel Evans, is a veteran of Art Lies. The online portion will be like a standard art magazine, while the biannual print edition will be full of artists projects. I expect it will make many future appearances amongst the links here at Pan. (Pastelegram)

Surprise, Coagula hates the Getty. And it hates it so amusingly. Sample quote: "The Norton Simon has a far superior permanent collection than the Getty. The Huntington has better gardens than the Getty. The L.A. County Arboretum is a better day in the park than the Getty. The Walt Disney Concert Hall is a better immersion in architectural possibilities than the Getty. The L.A. County Museum has better traveling exhibitions than the Getty." And this photo:

(photo by Mat Gleason)
had this caption: "[T]his beautiful vista only serves to underscore how isolated you and your date are from any food choices available to everyone down there."(Coagula)

The MFAH and Collectors

Robert Boyd



Betsabeé Romero, Guerreros en cautiverio (Captive Warriors), Carved tire with gold leaf, 2006

I went to the Museum of Fine Arts today and saw Cosmopolitan Routes: Houston Collects Latin American Art, a large show of Latin American art ranging from the beginning of the century to the present. It's filled with an amazing variety of pieces and is well-worth a visit. Now I have mentioned before how tricky it is to show the work of collectors. The problem is that when a museum shows work you own, it becomes more valuable because the museum bestows a stamp of legitimacy and quality on things it displays. That said, in this case there were quite a few collectors, so it avoided the problem that "single collector" shows have, which is a lack of curatorial authority. In this case, someone (I'm not sure who) went to all these collectors and assembled a show, picking the work that seemed just right for it.

The MFAH is, of course, a collecting museum. They acquire new pieces every year. Expanding their collection of Latin American art has been a mission of the MFAH since 2001. So I wonder if these pieces they showed will end up in the permanent collection one day? How does that work? Does the MFAH identify collectors who may gift them the work or will it to them? Or does the MFAH go even further and work with collectors on choosing the work. "Lou, Gail! [*airkiss*] We want to have a top-notch Dario Robleto in the collection, and one is coming up to auction. Would you bid on it, dear? And then will it to us?"

I'm not being facetious. I have absolutely no idea how this works, but at the same time, I do know that the MFAH has close relationships to Houston's big money collectors. It's the mechanics of how those relationships work which interests me. I'm sure it's a complex dance.



res, Chica Azul, from the "Conatus" series in collaboration with Constanza Piaggio, Chromogenic print, 2006

Collectors as Artists, part II

In Austin, they have just nominated folks for something called the Austin Visual Arts Award. So I was looking at the nominees (some of whom will no doubt be familiar to Pan readers). I read down the list of nominees in each category, starting with "Artist of the Year--2D" then "Artist of the Year--3D" to "Artist of the Year--Photography/Printmaking" (kind of arbitrary to distinguish this from 2D artist, don't you think?). Then there was "Artist of the Year--Early Career" and "Artist of the Year--New Media." So far, so good. Then there was this category: "Collectors Circle Award". At first I was thinking, "Oh no--an award for best collector?!" But it turns out that it is an artist award also. Whew! Dodged that bullet!

But wait--at the very bottom is the award for "Art Patron of the Year" which is being awarded (no nomination list for this one) to a collector, Michael Chesser. He is also a big supporter of the Blanton Museum and Arthouse, which is cool and worthy of praise. I'm not condemning the AVAA for giving this award--without "patrons," organizations like the AVAA would not exist. But when you start giving art collectors art awards, you create a weird equivalency between artist and collector. After all, they could have an award for "best art writer" or "most tireless volunteer." But they chose for their one non-artist award to award the "best patron."

Note on Leo & His Circle

Gallery owners are some of the key gatekeepers for art, and some have the ability (and good luck) to be tastemakers. This is a fact that drives artists crazy, and causes them to conceive elaborate strategies to avoid being gallery artists. Personally, I'm for whatever works to get art to people who want to see it. That necessarily includes galleries.

And the fact is that it's hard to successfully run a gallery (I would be surprised if they had a success rate significantly higher than restaurants). And few gallery owners succeed in bringing truly great artists before the public eye. But some do, and because some do, anyone interested in the history of art needs to know something about galleries and their owners and directors. (Just as, likewise, anyone interested in the history of culture has to be aware of the great editors and great A&R men and great movie producers and great impresarios.)



For that reason alone, Leo and His Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli by Annie Cohen-Solieil would be worth a look. That it is a really well-written, compelling biography is an unexpected bonus. Castelli was born Leo Krausz in 1907. His family was forced to adopt his mother's family name when Mussolini decreed that all Italians must have Italian names--a decree that was apparently aimed mainly at Trieste's Slovene population. But Castelli's father, a Hungarian Jew, was affected by this decree as well. The book deals with Castelli's complex family roots--as complex as the city of Trieste itself. Partly Italian and partly Austro-Hungarian, Italy got Trieste as settlement after the first World War. One result of Castelli's multinational upbringing is that he was himself multi-lingual. Combine that with an extremely suave personality, superb social skills, and a fantastic feel for art, and you have the perfect recipe for a successful New York art dealer.

The book discusses how Castelli got there. It wasn't instantaneous, to say the least. He and his wife collected art and then just before World War II, Castelli opened a gallery in Paris with a dealer named Rene Drouin. Talk about bad timing! This was the exception, though. Castelli was really a guy who mostly lived off his wife's family's money until he was 50. They helped him get jobs, set him up in business, while he spent his time as a socialite and art lover.

But as an art lover, he got deeply involved in art, especially in the art being done in New York after the war. He got involved in what was going on, helped people, acted as a host for parties, etc. Nothing that made him any money, but stuff that made him an important figure on the scene. He laid the groundwork for a gallery. And finally, in February 1957, he opened it up in his apartment. He was 50 years old! A true model for all late-bloomers.

He quickly signed on such artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, etc. He put his artists on a salary of sorts, so they could live between shows. This was risky behavior for a gallery owner, and some of the minimalist and post-minimalist artists Castelli scarcely paid off this on-going investment. He also franchised his gallery nationally and internationally with galleries he owned as well as with strategic partnerships. (I wish the mechanics of the latter had been better explicated in the book. If, for example, if there was a Roy Lichtenstein show at Janie C. Lee in Dallas, how did Castelli get paid?)

Castelli was famous for having a waiting list to be able to buy art from particular artists. How this waiting list worked was fairly arbitrary--Castelli wanted to make sure you were the right customer to be buying the art. He well understood that there was a brand value to certain collectors. What the book doesn't say is whether Castelli originated this practice, which has been used since (my friend Robert Weiss was on waiting lists for Robert Williams paintings--it was a strictly numerical list, and when a new Williams show opened, there was a lot of trading of spots among collectors. Weiss eventually acquired two Williams paintings before his tragic death in a car accident. He was the first serious art collector I ever knew).

In the 80s and 90s, young gallery owners who learned Castelli's techniques started to eclipse him. Some of his top artists jumped ship. Still, he had an extremely successful career, and it is reasonable to ask if the recent history of art would have been the same without him. (Cohen-Solal implies it would not have been.) Would Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg have been the giants they were if Castelli hadn't been there pushing their work? It's not a totally comfortable question to ask, but it's true that cultural gate-keepers like Castelli may have an effect on the art form with which they are are associated. The magnitude of that effect is impossible to quantify (because it is impossible to test the alternative outcome). But the effect is there.

My Comic Art Collection

I am a collector of comics art in addition to collecting contemporary fine art. Collecting comics art is a lot easier than collecting contemporary fine art for one simple reason--original comics artwork is a lot cheaper. Why? I don't really understand it, to be honest. It seems like in the past decade especially, there has been a growing acceptance of the importance of comics as an artistic medium in this country. This has affected a lot of things--the format of comics (they are much more likely to be published in book format as opposed to the more disposable comic book format), the acceptance of certain comics in the literary world. and obviously (and somewhat regrettably) the embrace of comics by Hollywood.


James Kochalka, Skull, acrylic on paper

But the art world lags behind. Comics art is not collected by museums (that I know of) and there are few art galleries that deal with it. The MFAH has a page where you can search their collection, which is mammoth. I put in the names "Herriman," "McCay," "Crumb," "Spiegelman," and "Chris Ware" and got bupkis. The CAMH had a show called "Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Comics in Contemporary Art" in 2003. It featured the following artists: Laylah Ali, Candida Alvarez, Polly Apfelbaum, Ida Applebroog, John Bankston, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dara Birnbaum, Roger Brown, Enrique Chagoya, Michael Ray Charles, George Condo, Cat Chow, Renee Cox, Henry Darger, Jason Dunda, Michael Galbincea, Kojo Griffin, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Keith Haring, Rachel Hecker, Arturo Herrera, Roy Lichtenstein, Liza Lou, Kara Maria, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Takashi Murakami, Elizabeth Murray, Yoshimoto Nara, Raymond Pettibon, Sigmar Polke, Robert Pruitt, Mel Ramos, David Sandlin, Peter Saul, Kenny Scharf, David Shrigley, Roger Shimomura, Andy Warhol, and Jennifer Zackin. In short, it had precisely zero comics artists. That is indicative of the lack of respect (if not outright condescension) comics art gets from art world institutions.


OK, enough griping. The point is, I think this is a cultural error. But this is how it is, and for me, one unexpectedly nice aspect of this is that comics art is relatively cheap, as I mentioned above. So I have bought a bunch of it over the past few years.




James Kochalka, Worms, acrylic on paper

There is a website called Comic Art Fans where collectors post their collections. Now most of these collections are pretty mainstream--not what I personally would consider artistically interesting artwork. But there are a lot of adventurous, sensitive collectors who post there. For instance, Suat Tong Ng's collection, or Dries Dewulf's (you can deduce from the names that the collectors come from various points on the globe). 



James Kochalka, Worms, acrylic on paper

I have put my own collection up there (there are still a couple of pieces I need to photograph, but this is most of the comics and comics-related art I have). Take a look. What's enjoyable about this site is that it becomes a database for the work you have collected, which means it becomes a database for everyone's work. I can easily find people who have similar interests as collectors as I do, and vice versa. So it is a small but perfectly focused social network. 


If I ever get my comics festival off the ground (unlikely given the resounding shrug of indifference the proposal has evoked in the readership of this blog), CAF will be a valuable resource. For example, if I were curating a show of Chester Gould Dick Tracy originals, focusing on his use of silhouette, I could look Gould up on CAF to see what collectors have examples and if there might be any I want to borrow for the exhibit.



Yirmi Pinkus, untitled, pen and ink and watercolor, 1998

William Powhida, The Brooklyn Rail, and 20X200

Robert Boyd

This should probably be three different posts, but they all kind of flow together. If you follow the goings on of the art world (and good for you if you don't), you may have heard of the controversy of a show at the New Museum in New York curated by Jeff Koons selecting from the personal art collection of Greek uber-collector Dakis Joannou--who just happens to be a trustee of the museum. Major conflict of interest. How? Remember what Don Thompson wrote in The $12 Million Dollar Stuffed Shark--museum shows brand art. Given two otherwise similar pieces by an artist, if one was included in a major museum show, it will on average be worth more. So this looks like a way for Joannou to increase the value of his collection.

Tyler Green wrote an excellent criticism of this practice. But it is unlikely to stop as long as contemporary art and big museums are seen as amusements for the rich. Why should the average person get too bothered? (More on this later.) The wittiest take-down was done as a drawing for the cover of the Brooklyn Rail by William Powhida.



William Powhida, cover of the Brooklynn Rail, November 2009

OK, that was really cool, but what is the Brooklyn Rail? It turns out that they are a monthly magazine (I've never seen a physical copy--is it more of a newspaper?) with distinctly contrarian views about art. In a recent editorial where they basically say ditto to a piece written by Roberta Smith for the New York Times (well worth reading, by the way), the editors of the art section of the Rail wrote the following:

As Ms. Smith made quite clear, New York museum curators “have a responsibility to their public and to history to be more ecumenical, to do things that seem to come from left field. They owe it to the public to present a balanced menu that involves painting as well as video and photography and sculpture. They need to think outside the hive-mind, both distancing themselves from their personal feelings to consider what’s being wrongly omitted and tapping into their own subjectivity to show us what they really love.”

We would go a step further and state unequivocally that many of these individuals have not only shirked their public responsibility, they have turned the museums into playgrounds for an elitist group of trustees and globetrotting art fair devotees, stocking their exhibitions primarily from “powerful galleries.” And if our position is not clear enough, it will become more so in the coming months through in-depth articles and well-researched drawings examining the actions of particular individuals, their public statements and their exhibition track record.  (editors, Brooklyn Rail,  March 2010)

Personally, I can't wait. Taking names and kicking ass makes for good reading. But part of the problem is that well-to-do collectors who are able to buy very expensive works of art end up having a lot of power within the art world. Now I don't find this particularly sinister. I think most of these people are really into art and want to be involved in some way. I can fully relate to this. I'm not an artist, but I like it and want to be involved. But people who have spent a lot of money on a thing (shares of a company, a house, a piece of blue-chip contemporary art) want it to retain its value. This is going to provide an incentive for some of them to do what Joannou has done.

So is there a solution? I have my doubts. Let's face it--artists and curators have been playing around with solutions with varying degrees of success for at least 40 years without really changing the system. The usual solution is to try to build an alternative space or scene. This works for a while, but it's hard to sustain. Money (and its lack) is always a problem. If you choose not to be commercial, you are reduced to begging for grants and donations. You can scrape by this way, but who is giving those donations? When you need to build a new roof for your space, the tip jar isn't going to cut it. You need a person or institution with deep pockets.

Here in Houston, if you talk to young artists or curators, these issues are always brought up. I always feel like the odd man out in such conversations. I'm older and have a knowledge of business and economics that most of the younger artists just don't have. So for me, the problem of sustaining a viable space or scene is fundamentally about cash flow, but for them it's about creating something within a hostile culture. (A gross simplification, of course.) But even so, Houston artists keep on doing, just as they have been for decades. You're a young curator like Keijiro Suzuki, and you whip together the Temporary Space, and for a time (hopefully a long time) it is a place where exciting art happens. But eventually, Suzuki (or someone) has to ask someone for money. If it is one person or one institution, that person or institution ends up having a lot of power over your space. (Note: I am not suggesting Suzuki is or ever will be a sell-out!)

But I think solutions come from getting more collectors involved. Instead of depending on the tastes and wishes on a small number of very rich people, disperse the art income to a large number of small collectors. That means more people buying less expensive art. I asked earlier, why should the average person care about the ethics of museums? If the population of "average persons" included a lot more small-scale art collectors, they might care--they might become an important constituency in these matters. I've written about one such scheme in the UK to encourage art collecting among non-rich folk. Another is 20x200. Jen Bekman is a gallery owner who came up with a way to connect to potential collectors who 1) are not rich, and 2) may not have access to lots of galleries.

Jen Bekman opened her pocket-sized gallery on the Lower East Side nearly 5 years ago with the mission of supporting emerging artists and collectors, and she's made a name for herself doing just that. 20x200 takes the mission one step further, making art available for everyone.
On a Sunday night back in January2007, Jen came up with a formula:
(limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone

As we see it, there are a lot of people out there who want to sell their art and a lot of people who'd like to buy it. They just have a hard time finding each other. The internet is the perfect place to bring those people together, and we're exactly the right people to make it happen. We're passionate about art and the internet at 20x200. We're really excited about creating a place where almost any art lover can be an art collector.

Cool idea. But how is it different from, say, Etsy? I like Etsy, but with art (like other artforms), you need gallery owners and curators and editors and other gatekeepers. This sounds very elitist, but without these people, you have a chaos of random art that would paralyze a lot of collectors (it would paralyze me, at least). Jen Bekman's 20x200 works for me because she is a good gatekeeper.So when I discovered her site (through Art Milk, another good gatekeeper), I went ahead and bought a print. (This was back in early March--I haven't gotten it yet.) Here's what I bought:




William Powhida, Why You Should Buy Art!, archival pigment print, 2010


Here's what Powhida (always verbose, if you haven't noticed) has to say about this piece.

When I was in Miami during Art Basel last December, I conducted an interview with New York Times journalist Damien Cave who repeatedly asked, "What's the alternative to the art market?" The question is not an easy one to answer.

Short of radical social and economic reform, which seems incredibly unlikely in our pro-Capitalist, market-trusting society, I struggled to articulate my thoughts surrounded by the spectacle of Basel. While I was down there, I also saw Jen Bekman's booth at PULSE and it reminded me that one of my answers to Mr. Cave should have immediately been "access." Access to contemporary art is often restricted by high prices, including my own, that put it out of reach of the majority of people who love art. 20x200 offers a way to make art and the experience of buying art accessible to the broader public than the limited pool of collectors who have the means to buy unique and often wildly expensive art objects. Art, in many ways, is a luxury commodity and the larger question remains, "what is enough?"

I believe that it's a matter of scale; prices leap from hundreds to hundreds of thousands based on branding and marketing. I hope that established artists who command hundreds of thousands of dollars for their art will consider what it means to sell to a very small collector class. Are they really reflecting their own creative expression or the tastes of the ruling class? I don't begrudge their wealth or values, but I do believe that art is made freely and for more than those who can afford to own it.
-William Powhida, Maker*
*Please see my bio for William Powhida the "Genius"

A Note on End Game

I went to the MFAH "loading dock" sale yesterday. This is a clearance sale that is open to members of stuff from the bookstore. I bought a few ultra-inexpensive books, including End Game.

This is the catalog for a show at MFAH from 2008. It was a show of YBAs (young British artists) from the "Chaney Family Collection." I recall seeing it at the time and not being super-impressed. I loved "A Little Death" by Sam Taylor-Wood (which I had already seen at CAMH) and I always like Rachel Whiteread. But the rest didn't hit me very hard.


Sam Taylor-Wood, A Little Death, video, 2002

So why am I writing about the catalog today? What I didn't think about when I saw the show in the museum was its provenance. This is from the collection of the Chaney family, who are the late Robert Chaney, his wife Jereann and their daughter Holland. Chaney had run a small oil E&P, and after it was bought, formed a venture capital firm, R. Chaney & Partners.

Museums obviously have relations with collectors, and always have. For contemporary art, this relationship is very important for a couple of reasons. First, museums may be reluctant to buy contemporary art because history has not rendered judgment. They may end up with a bunch of junk that had only transitory esteem. But if they work with collectors, they can allow the collector to take the risk. The other reason is that presently, contemporary art is outrageously expensive. Museums must work with wealthy collectors if they hope to acquire any of these works.

But these relationships are controversial, especially now. Here is what Tyler Green wrote in The Art Newspaper.

These shows are unethical, improper and raise questions about the museums’ adherence to guidelines the US government lays down for non-profit institutions. (It is important to note that I’m criticising only exhibitions of private collections, not exhibitions of works donated to museums by collectors.) I’m especially disappointed that the New Museum has planned such a poorly considered show and series. It has a unique history as a feminist-created, experiment-driven, alternative space. Its decision to exhibit private collections turns the museum from a kunsthalle into a vanity space.

There are two main problems with these exhibitions. First, and most importantly, they diminish the role of curators as independent scholars, historians and discerning, informed selectors in favour of the consumerist whims of the richest guy in the room.

Through scholarship and curatorial consideration, museums and their curators determine what work has value to a society, a value that is beyond the mere monetary. These kinds of shows do nothing but exhibit and pseudo-validate the spending habits and taste of influential collectors, indicating that someone’s access to an American Express Platinum Card is as meaningful as a curatorial staff’s expertise. Unfortunately, these exhibitions inadvertently reinforce the notion that art is trophy owned by the privileged few, rather than a means through which intellectuals engage communities and nations in a broader discourse.

I am not suggesting that wealthy individuals should not share their collections with the public. In many places, most notably in Miami, collectors have shown their art in spaces controlled by themselves or their family-controlled-and-funded foundations. This is an honourable thing. That is how private collectors should, if they choose, share their art with the public. If a museum director is asked to exhibit a private collection, that director should remind the collector that a museum is more than a trophy house, that the director has too much respect for the museum’s curators to tell them that they are superfluous, and they should point them toward the Miami model. (Tyler Green, The Art Newspaper, November 11, 2009)

This was in response to an exhibit at the New Museum from the collection of Dakis Joannou, a trustee of the museum. Part of the controversy has to do with the extreme cost of the work. The collectors sometimes buy and sometimes sell. I'm sure Robert Chaney, in his business, was all about getting a maximum return on his investments. Why should his art collection have been any different? I'm not suggesting that the Chaney Family Collection is an investment, but if they were to sell any of the pieces for whatever reason, they would want to sell them for a good price, especially considering what they paid for them. Ditto with Joannou and so many other collectors of blue-chip contemporary art. When you buy a piece, you may be thinking that you love it and will live with it forever--but things change. In the future, you might fall out of love with the piece, or need to raise money, or may have too much art in your collection--and decide to sell.

Given this, what's the best way to guarantee that one's collection retains its value? A museum show might be the ticket--it legitimizes art. And, as Don Thompson wrote, it "brands" the art.

It would be difficult to prove this is the case, but one can't help but wonder. In any case, I am not ascribing bad intentions to the Chaneys--but I am indeed suggesting that whatever other motivations they may have had, the collection-legitimizing aspect of a major museum show may have been in the back of their minds.