Back in your court

We’ve now had time to read through the Judgment papers issued by High Court Judge John Fogarty in the case of Bambury vs Jensen. At 145 pages it must be one of the most expensive art texts written in this country! A number of readers have suggested that our initial post was somewhat unfair to defendant Andrew Jensen claiming Stephen Bambury as a clear winner. Despite our comment that the settlement was ‘a much reduced pay out based on the initial claim of around $700,000 about the much reduced pay out on the initial claim of around $700,000’ we also wrote up that ‘the High Court has found in favour of the artist’ so it’s probably a fair enough reaction. 

Here’s a little more detail about what happened. There were 41 items disputed by the artist (mostly around payments owing on paintings) of which 26 failed to convince Judge Fogarty for various reasons. Two other items were set aside because of the Limitations Act, a couple were granted leave to apply at another time and seven required payments being made to Bambury in the total amount of $139,200 plus some interest. Given the amount of money that must have been spent taking this action to the High Court there were probably no winners on the day. We’ll try to make a copy of the Judgment easily available on OTN if we can. It’s a fascinating insight (and a rare one) into the back office world of dealers and artists. 
Image: trajectory of a ping pong ball

Did we say small? We meant big

The exhibition spaces in the contemporary art museums of Tokyo are like their peers in the rest of the well-off world - grossly inflated. When was the last time you could use a simple ladder to hang something off the ceiling of an exhibition space? The result of this institutional love affair with volume is extreme pressure on artists to produce larger and larger works. Having seen a lot of art over the last few days, here's some of the strategies currently in use to make big work with smallish budgets.

1 Building large structures from cheap materials (bamboo, cardboard, plastic etc)

2  Arranging 100 or so small paintings in a grid pattern to take up a big wall

3  Presenting videos inside cheap structures like tents or cupboards

4  Installing large real world objects (the more unexpected the better) in front of paintings or videos. Start with a rowboat or a car and you'll probably get to a homemade working helicopter

5  Leaning large objects (the floor from a school room, for instance) against walls

6  Locating multiple screens in a long line (and they can be showing the same image, see repetition below) or as large scale panoramic projections

7  Isolating and spotlighting furniture (desks, tables, benches) to facilitate a visitor survey or some other bureaucratic task

8  Piling things or stacking things

9  Going for repetition. One plaster cat is dull, 1,000 not so much

Images: top to bottom, left to right. large structure - cheap material, piles, large real-world object, tv in a tent, survey and lots-a-paintings

Greedy artists make it tough for dealers to earn a buck

In the 1980s Wellington had a dealer gallery called 

-->331/3. The name was painted in blue right across the entire front of the bright yellow building. Why would you call a dealer gallery that? It was simply the rate of commission that art dealers took off artists in order to sell their work back then. Later it jumped to 40 percent and more recently 50 percent. What’s an artist to do? Run might be a good idea as a new threat looms on the horizon - German academic Magnus Resch. He's looked at data from 8,000 galleries based in Germany, London and the U.S and he is not impressed. In fact Resch discovered that 30 percent of the galleries weren’t making a profit at all. Change your business model says Magnus in his new book Management of art galleries, and change it fast. Apparently the problem is fourfold:
•  Rents are too high
•  Unique product is increasingly hard to find
•  Gallery staff are paid too little and..oh, oh…
•  Artists make too much money.

The solution, from this German anyway, is to raise the commission to a 70/30 split and we’ve got to tell you that 70 percent is not going to the artists. Impossible you say? You'd think so, but had you suggested to Gallery 331/3 that one day it would have to change its sign to a 50 they'd have laughed in your face.

Image: Adam Parker Smith’s 2013 painting I’m Looking for a Gallery Better Then This One

On your marks....get set.....

A big change for New Zealand’s representation at the next Venice Biennale. Creative NZ has released the rules around who can submit a proposal and how the process works. There's also a much clearer statement about the Venice context, expectations of the event and why NZ should participate. Many of the Proposal Guidelines have been cut and pasted from earlier documents but their clarity and detail is a huge improvement on previous years. The biggest shift?

International curators can now be part of the team
The biggest difference is eligibility. The set of eligibility clauses outlined in the 2015 Venice document have been dropped completely. This time round international curators will be considered along with curators who are New Zealand citizens or permanent residents of New Zealand.

Foreign artists a possibility?
Curiously, it also appears that with the eligibility requirements gone there is no longer any stated conditions that require the artist to be a New Zealander. Creative NZ has assured us this is not the case but, just for fun look at these two confusing 'and/or' phrases that appear to allow foreign artists in. Test your logic – if you can stop your head from spinning.

The panel will individually asses the proposals against the following criteria:
Artist(s)/Curator
1   The artist(s) and curator have significant exhibition records in New Zealand and/or internationally and they are considered by the sector to be at the ‘top of their game’. 

2  The artist(s) and/or curator have established profiles within the New Zealand contemporary arts sector and internationally. 

 
A non-NZ artist would be very contentious, of course, and seriously, where would you find a panel with the nerve to try it on?

The Commissioner rules
Yes, the Commissioner has been elevated and centralised. The word 'lead' is sprinkled about especially in the assertion that the Commissioner 'will have a leading role' in the selection process.

Invitation process formalised
The Wild West we’ll-just-pick-whoever-we-damn-well-feel-like approach that was used for Upritchard and Parekowhai has been ruled out. Now if the proposals submitted are not considered up to scratch, Creative NZ, on the advice of the Commissioner and the panel of course, can issue a specific invitation.

And one other new change:

One step processThe requirement for artist/ curator teams to submit an expression of interest first has been dropped. Projects that don't fit the criteria or are not suitable will be eliminated based on a short discussion with CNZ before the proposal stage saving artists and curators a lot of wasted time and energy. Once that is done a proposal form will be sent out.
 
(sound of starting pistol)

The life artistic

“Wake up. Make love. Go for a walk along the beach. Pick up materials to make installations later. Have a yerba mate (tea) and a coffee and breakfast of feijoas. Put a record on. Work on the installation.”
Artist Samin Son tells the Dominion Post his perfect day

Advice to artists

The Dutch economist P H Franses has been fossicking around on the edge of the art market establishing the sweet spot when artists hit the high point in their careers. OK, it’s market driven, but Franses discovered via examining 221 high flying 19th and 20th century artists that on average they hit their market peak at 62 percent of their lives. The prime age is 41.92 years.
 
So Scott Eady, Nicola Farquhar, Tahi Moore, James Robinson, Heather Straka and Daniel Von Sturmer, your moment is at hand. Use it wisely.

Hold onto those cleaning rags everyone, don’t throw out that gas axe and polish up the Rolleiflex. It turns out there’s gold in used artist equipment. Well some artists, Francis Bacon to be exact. A butter bean can bristling with eight of Bacon’s brushes is going up for auction at Christie's. 

The Bacon brushes will be fighting it out with other oddities including a bear skeleton, a large bell used in the Titanic movie A night to remember, a stuffed ostrich and a couple of chairs carved with buffalo heads. Christie's are estimating a hammer price of $47,000 for the brush-can combo although that’s peanuts compared to what it might achieve if it were an artwork. 

Jasper Johns himself owns his 1960 sculpture Painted bronze depicting 14 brushes in a Savarin coffee can so its market value probably won't be tested anytime soon. However, if it ever is, you can forget about tens of thousands, we'll be talking millions. Hmmm… maybe those cleaning rags are best left for cleaning after all.
Images: left, the Bacon bushes on the block and right Jasper Johns Painted bronze

Know all

 

One thing that came out Alistair Carruther’s chairing of Creative NZ was more transparency around funding. For instance it's now possible to compile the above chart showing the ongoing decline in funds for the visual arts. OK it’s not the best news in the world but at least now it can be seen and discussed. 

Meanwhile the new chair Dr. Richard Grant is somewhat more paternal informing us on Radio New Zealand, “You can only [succeed] internationally if you have a good base in New Zealand.” This, as he astutely points out, means that CNZ has “got a great amount of work to do in New Zealand to bring the creative sector up to speed.” Under his stewardship CNZ will be spending “sensibly so our artists develop.” After all, as Grant so patiently reminds us, “it is a very big and competitive world out there."

Warning to artists

“One of the primary tasks of the gallery is to separate the artist from the work.”

Brian O’Doherty in Studio and cube

advice to artists

Remember that signed and dated drawing you did the other day and then, damn it, someone showed up with the same great idea dated a couple of days earlier? Relax. That need not ever happen again. Next time you’ll simply reach for your Sharpie Liquid Pencil. The SLP allows you to draw and withdraw. Anything the Sharpie puts to paper has a rub-out grace period of three days. After that the ink is permanent. You can get one here.

Advice to artists: think young

The worldwide volume of auction sales of artists over the age of 64 in the first half of this year dropped by 70 per cent compared to the same period in 2008.
Source: Artprice.com