April, 2009

Originally posted on September, 16, 2007

“Contemporary art has become a gage of trendiness, if not necessarily good taste?” (see: Art or entertainment?.)

Read the rest of "Follow your heart: buy the painting you like"

Originally posted on August, 30, 2007

Chinese painting has been long an inspiration for me. My last article addressed the impact of neo-liberalism on today’s painters in China. I spoke of one end of the spectrum: the mass production which to me is abominable. In order to better understand neo-liberalism we need to look at the other end of the spectrum: China’s elite winners and shakers of contemporary painting.

I think that this recent example of their good fortune says it all (link). A few short years ago this painting with its strong political overtones was being strongly suppressed in China. Now they are being co-opted. If you cannot kill the message buy the messenger. Neo-liberalism does not take hostages. You are either with them or against them.

Read the rest of "Buy an artist: the other end of the painting spectrum"

Originally posted on August, 18, 2007

In case you missed it, a couple of years ago attention was drawn to one of China’s most unique export businesses, fine-art painting (see link and also link). Or, more accurately put, cheap art. I am sincerely happy that tens of thousands of poor Chinese painters have found employment. I am not happy that they are doing this for near starvation wages. One painter estimated that he earns 18 cents U.S. for a painting that may sell for several hundred dollars in Europe or in the U.S. How’s that for sweatshop labour?

Read the rest of "Sweatshop Challenge: assembly line fine-art painting"

Originally posted on July, 21, 2007

What do painting and sports have to do with each other you ask? Writers, or, at least people used to write about painting. Not much anymore. You can only beat dead horses for so long. Today, people do write tons about sports. Of course, there are plenty of problems in the sport world. There always has been. You have to ask the question: “How much the writers contribute to the proliferation of these problems?

Read the rest of "Excellence vs. Not Cheating"