February 23, 2005

Yep. The dog sure is happy to see me. Evan and I and Daniella got some Korean barbeque and bickered a little ( I actually enjoyed the bickering, it was like a familial sort of bickering that I don't get as often as I should, living all alone dans la belle province)

I was supposed to exit the train at Guildwood but for some reason it didn't stop long enough for me to put on my shoes and get my coat off the rack, then the two concierge's yelled at me for being a slow-poke and I watched my dad get out of the car in the parking lot and look confused, as the train picked up speed and headed into downtown TO.

We called him later from Evans and he said he arrived and pulled into his spot and the train had stopped and by the time he had killed the engine and stepped out of his car it was moving again, so I guess the engineer had a bit of a lead foot.

Toronto, it just moves to quickly for its own good.

I am doing research on leadership and on-line arts audiances.

heady stuff. phewf.

One article from the vancouver sun 2000 is about a site that was called Artstar.com

"Artstar.com, the Internets's first art mega-site, had 2.2 million hits in the first four weeks following its launch in October... here visitors can research information on art take virtual tours of famous galleries and museums, buy art and antiques, arrange to have a painting restored or an heirloom appraised, take part in a lecture series, buy a rare art book, or even learn to appraise, restore or preserve works of art for themselves, all at the same location."

Okay not only is that a run-on sentence, but artstar.com sounds like the Bad Boys (arcane toronto reference) furniture warehouse of culture.

Funnily enough the first major collection auctioned at artstar.com was 12,000 coca-cola artifacts.

I just erased a pseudo-academic sentence where I lined up some theoretical ducks and then shot them all down. You know high/low art, cultural artifacts in a post capitalist economy, the revenge of kitsch, learning from las vegas that whole thing.... blah blah. Oh look, the sentence is back again, how did that happen?

So what are the good people at Artstar doing now? Well, go check it out.

oh well. ars longa, vita brevis.

February 16, 2005

I went to see a valentines day vernissage at the VAV gallery last night.

The show was curated by one of the Artx teachers at Con U. and I guess the students were instructed to make work about love or hearts or something.

The idea of doing a show around an icon accessible as a heart is certainly something to draw the audiance, and the number of works in the show also promised to bring the crowds, unfortunatly both those premises were the shows undoing as well because over forty peices of work that feature physical representations of hearts ended up looking like the aisles of a dollerama in February.

That being said, there were two peices that I really really liked. One, the performance peice was a moving tribute to someone who has been involved in the concordia arts community for a long time so in that case context had as much to do with pieces reception as did the work itself.

The first peice is the one pictured here, called "Come into my heart." One person looking at the sculptrure was overheard to say, "I don't know whether to be disgusted or get an erection."

I am genuinely tempted to pretend that this piece is easy to categorize and that it represents nothing more than a typical meaningless nihilistic post-modern artwork that engages with the female form.

I mean really, it's like Brittany Spears and girl power, all we're really seeing is further evidence that a womans only power lies in her ability to show some T &A to good advantage.

Except that I think there is more going on here than that. I am struck by the incredible fragility of the form, the act of intimacy it is forcing on the audiance, and the way it is asking everyone to consider the private life of the artist.

Take a look at the tiny line of her underwear that it isn't even on right, it's folded just a little. It is imperfect and more importantly it is completely personal, private and erotic.

All that however, is eclipsed by the insane exhibitionism and the incredible naivity/irony of the title. But maybe exhibitionism is the other half of love maybe when one is in love they are to a certain extent, putting themselves on display for their loved one and making themselves vulnerable.

Or maybe not maybe the artist is sick of the attention paid to the idea of being in love maybe she is really just saying to the audiance here's what I think of all your hearts and your affection.

This is good stuff, this many questions and not so many answers all wrapped in a what is actually quite a beautiful peice of sculpture, an excellent casting that reminds me of George segals work without the tortured humanity aspect.

the next peice that I liked was the visual arts buildings favorite security guard Rocko doing a performance of flamenco and salsa dancing with his partner Marie -Josee (I think).

February 14, 2005

The Deviant Edge is itself a bit of a deviant book. I'll admit I don't generally pick up and read marketing theory books, so I can't speak from any position of authority, but this book has a non-normative quality of media criticism, or cultural studies to it, despite all the odd business-speak phraseology and Over-Capitallization of Key Concepts.

Oh just in case you think I am reading this without any of that ever present "irony". I am not, I just don't have the time for all that sarcasm, and mostly I think it is pretty funny and amazing that at this point even deviance is fair game for our market economy.

If you want some cranky "intellectual" mining of all post-structural and cultural misappropriations go here.

Here is a nice paragraph that sums up some ideas that have been floating around in my head w/r/t technological new media activism.

"It's relatively easy to trace the path of the devox (devox = deviant voice. Hello bmw [big marketing word]) in areas like technology, where an apparently endless stream of innovations keeps making our lives simultaneously simpler and more complex. People lead different lives than they did fifteen or twenty years ago, thanks to a string of technodeviants from Alan Kay, the "father" of portabe computation, to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Linus Torvalds, and others. No sooner has a deviant idea appeared in the mind of some cyberfringist (ewww..... shudder, hate the writing hate it hate it) than it's making millions or even billions for some Social Convention digital capitalist.

This is of course, not rocket science and one could just as easily replace the idea of deviance with the idea of genius. However, I appreciate the idea of deviance replacing the cult of the lone genius, because a deviant isn't neccesarily smarter or better then everyone else, they are just a whole lot stranger/obsessively interested in one thing.

I will keep thinking/writing about this book as I read it. This morning, the subject matter and the treatment (business writing blechhh) makes me a little sad because essentially these are guys( the authors I mean) whos job it is to go and follow freaks around trying to capitalize on their freakiness.

February 10, 2005

...is a book I just got from the library for my arts marketing research paper on Komar and Melamid.

Interesting to note this was not an art theory book but in fact came directly from the marketing section.

So it dovetails most perfectly with some essay that I wrote in grade 10 about how the pepsi campaign was pushing the brand of the " individual" and "the rebel" on passive mindless pepsi-swilling consumers.

So anyways, I am really excited but also a little afraid to read this book, because I am about 100% certain this is the kind of thing that will both tap into my new found passion for marketing and also my deep seated hatred of the idea of the market itself and what it means for everyone out there with a wallet and a need to fill it.

Partly I need to believe that there are some phenomenon, (ie; the ellen show, arcade fires inexplicable mainstream popularity) that are not quantifiable as a business practice and in fact represent the human capacity to rise above the notions of exchange and demand, and to love things that are not necesarily exactly what they themselves are, or think they want.

Also maybe there's a bit of that geek-chique thing going on here. Where it is important that people who are considered outside the norm protect their outsider status tooth and claw.

****************
oy vey 11:30pm have to make a phone call- will finish tomorrow morning over coffee - good night to all my midnight readers...
****************

Just before I go though; here is really how I feel about this book.

Destroyer sums it all up

"Beggers might ride you
you heard it said and it's true
that for somone so beautifully scarred
it must be hard to stay away
from a life in public relations
but try girl you gotta try
you got to stay critical or die
you got to stay critical or die..."

- from Starhawk: a seduction, Beggers might ride

February 6, 2005

Mike handed me this postcard at breakfast the other day it was for LIFT, a quarterly publication that highlights the work of young creative montrealers.

I just downloaded their media kit, here is their identity statement. (not my caps)

"LIFT IS A FREE BILINGUAL BOOK OF INSPIRATION BLENDING ART, BUSINESS AND HEALTH FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL-MINDED, ARTISTICALLY INCLINED INDIVIDUALS LIVING EVERYWHERE."

I think anyone interested in a an excellently crafted media kit should take alook at this, so I put it on theflink. You can get it here it's a PDF:

LIFTS Press-kit

the website is here:

http://www.liftbook.com/home.htm

You can download a sample pdf of the actual magazine and it is really impressive. The amazing thing is that the magazine is also free. A 64 page colour quarterly publication highlighting the lives of creative montrealers, for absolutely nothing.

I met Tania C the art direct and senior manager when we worked at XX together, she was doing publicity for Htmlles and she was really excited about LIFT, and then she left to get a better job and I haven't seen her since.

She and her group have put together an excellent package thus far. I can't wait to get my hands on the magazine to see what kind of quality there is in the content. I know Tania is one of the best designers I know and everything thus far looks amazing, my only criticism about montreal magazines is that there is often an issue where the quality of the magazines aesthetic far exceeds that of the content. I don't know why this is, but personally I blame Vice magazine.

Okay but reservations aside, it looks like something I am really going to want to get involved or at least contribute to in some small fashion by subscribing. It is rare that I feel like a magazine actually represents what I, and my friends are trying to do with our lives.

January 17, 2005

Yesterday I went to see Arts Birthday. I was really impressed with the event held at Studio XX. The atmosphere was very convivial attendance was super, probably at least 100 people came and went, which is large for a small venue such as the studio, and the event was not overbilled.

January 14, 2005

Last night I missed my friend Justins opening at Galerie Clark to be at my arts marketing class. I went to a party after the opening and my class though, and thought I would give some of my reflections on that particular part of the arts scene.

Also, Zeke left me an awesome resource in his comment on my first Arts Marketing entry for which I definitely owe him a beer and probably I should write an entry about his gallery and his methodology vis a vis publicity and marketing.

Lets do the beer zeke and than I'll write the entry - deal?

Oh, the resource is; The Artful Manager I haven't actually read any of the posts yet. But I will on Sunday.

So at the party last night I spent some time elaborating humorously on my miscomprehension of the word servuction to include seduction, then I drank some beer and talked loudly with some people who work in the montreal young painter/visual arts mileau.

Then I spied in the living room my friend and also elder brother of my very best friend Jacob Wren.

I like talking to Jacob because we have a common history and we are both somewhat socially awkward (okay maybe I shouldn't speak for him - he's quiet. I however, am socially awkward).

While talking I mentioned that I needed money and was a whizz at on-line arts marketing (okay look, its partly true) and he said he might need a website update or two and gave me his card. This to me, is a great sign that business school is paying off, I would never have had the guts to do that at this time last year.

Then we talked about various stresses he as an experimental theatre producer has gone through in his career and about amateurity. The fundamental stress being that he has been doing theatre for at least 15 years, yet despite his credentitals, is still often referred to as an amateur. I haven't been to see one of his plays in a good 7 years or more so I wouldn't know, but the last one I saw didn't strike me as amateur, difficult maybe, but not the work of someone who isn't so immersed in a culture as to achieve some sort of credibility.

My other arts interaction was a negative one. Because I realized as Maclean left that I hadn't spoken to him, which is bad, because Maclean is a painter who bought one of my prints at an auction last year, and I think the golden rule of patronship is that if someone buys your work and you see them you have to say hi to them, and make some conversation. the stupid thing is I really like Maclean, and it wouldn't have killed me to talk to him I just got an attack of the shys.

So my final thought on the whole servuction thing as it plays out in non-formal settings is that if artists and art fans on the whole weren't so socially inept it would probably be a lot easeier to market the arts.

Okay on re-reading that. What I meant to say is, ff I weren't so socially inept I would probably be better at marketing the arts.

January 12, 2005

The cat is sitting in a suitcase full of old photos belonging to my mother. The suitcase is black, the cat is white I should have known when I put the suitcase on the floor that the cat would sit in it, she only likes to sit where her fur is shown to the best advantage.

She is obviously not accustomed to life in the wild or she would know that the best idea is actually to camoflouge.

I had thought of doing an entry on Roadsworth. The graffiti artist who has been arrrested for adding climbing vines and barbed wire to crosswalks, but so many other people have already referenced him on their blogs it feels like I would not be adding anything new.

So then I thought of writing about the most recent arts event I attended, but that would be The Hawksley Workman concert just before christmas. Which I have already written about.

coffee break.