Before it’s open to the public, Kidrobot’s Baroness gives you a behind the scenes tour of the pop-up vinyl hotbed hitting Dallas, Texas.
Be there for the Grand Opening party with artist, Huck Gee, music, refreshments and exclusive toys, Thursday, July 30, 2009!
On top of the world.
SPRAY PAINT STENCIL ON 300gms SOMERSET PAPER
SIZE: 18"X 30"
EDITION SIZE: 35
SIGNED: YES
NUMBERED:YES
COA:YES
''LOVE PAINTING''
SPRAY PAINT STENCIL ON 300gms SOMERSET PAPER
SIZE: 16"X 20"
EDITION SIZE: 30
SIGNED: YES
NUMBERED:YES
COA:YES
SPRAY PAINT AND STENCIL ON STRETCHED BOX CANVAS
SIZE: 20"X24"
EDITION SIZE: 3
SIGNED: YES
NUMBERED:YES
COA:YES
PRICE: £200
Six color screen print on square hand torn textured archival art paper. Signed and numbered by the artist, with thumb print on back. Edition of 100. Limit 1 per person. 50 available. These prints will also be available at Mr. Brainwash's London solo show this year.
If you purchase each print in the set, you will be given the same number from each edition.
Size: 15in. x15in.
Price: $250 each
Available Wednesday July 29th, 12pm PST
Buy them HERE.
I was asked by the folks over at Pangeaseed.com to create an art print to
help raise awareness about shark finning in Japan. If you are unaware of
what shark finning is, it is the extremely brutal act of cutting off the fins
of a shark and then throwing the still alive finless shark back into the
ocean,bleeding and unable to swim as it slowly dies. They use the shark
fins to make shark fin soup... the fin has no taste but is used to add
texture to the soup. Shark fin soup is one of those things wealthy humans
eat and serve at their parties and restaurants to show everyone how
important and wealthy they are. And it's working, we are all quite
impressed that people are willing to inhumanely butcher other living
creatures alive to appease their own narcissistic egos. Another proud
moment in human history.
Within the last few decades, the shark populations are being decimated to
the point of extinction due to shark finning. Sharks have existed on the
planet for over 400 million years and survived the 5 mass extinctions on
the planet... so in the course of the last 20 years, we humans are doing
something mother nature and the universe couldn't do in 400 million years.
Some people think sharks should be wiped out and believe in the biggest
fallacy there is about sharks: that they are aggressive maneaters who
prey on human beings. Sharks have killed people, that is true.. however
sharks kill an average of 5 people a year, whereas tigers and elephants
kill 100 people a year. Yet would anyone justify chopping off the legs
of tigers and elephants to the point of extinction because they are a
menace to humanity...? Car accidents kill around 35,000 people a year.
Sharks are no threat no us, at all. In fact it's quite the opposite. We
need sharks to maintain the stability of the food chain in the oceans.
They feed on all the species that eat plankton. Plankton converts carbon
dioxide into the oxygen we breathe. If there are no sharks, the species
that feed on plankton will devour far more of the plankton which
we need for the air we breathe.
The folks over at Pangea Seed in Japan, where shark finning is quite
rampant, were inspired to do something and help raise awareness after
viewing the beautifully shot documentary "Sharkwater" by Rob Stewart.
It's available via netflix or your local video store and you can view the
trailer and find more information here:
http://www.sharkwater.com/
When I was asked to do a print for this event, I wanted to convey the
idea of harmony and balance. It made me think about the ancient chinese
yin yang symbol. These two quotes on the yin yang sum up what I was
hoping to convey:
" Yin and Yang is used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing
forces are are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world."
" Yinyang as a process of harmonization ensuring a constant dynamic
balance of all things."
The poster is 18"x24" and 8 colors (the shark blend is metallic and has
a gloss varnish overlay). They are signed and numbered out of 125 but
only 60 will be up for sale on my site. The type on the poster says
"No Fin" in the upper left and "No Future" in the bottom right. The print
will be $40 and all proceeds from the sale will be going to Pangea Seed
to help save sharks. To find out more information about Pangea Seed
and read a short interview they did with me go to:
Four color screen print of Mr. Brainwash's iconic Tomato Spray. Hand torn into squares on textured archival art paper. Each print individually hand finished with spray paint, and unique. Signed and numbered, with thumb print on the back. Edition of 100. Limit 1 per person. 50 available. This print will also be available at Mr. Brainwash's London solo show this year.
Size: 15in. x15in.
Price: $150
Available Wednesday July 29th, 12pm PST
Buy it HERE
YES HE CHANGED THE DAY
For those who like Polsky’s market analysis, listen to his recent three-part audio interview with ArtTactic’s Podcast here, here and here, and check out his forthcoming book, I Sold Andy Warhol (too soon), out in September from Other Press.
NINE WAYS TO LOSE MONEY IN THE ART MARKET
by Richard Polsky via Artnet
With collectors being more selective than ever, it stands to reason that anyone left in the game is watching his or her cash more carefully than ever. While no one is certain how to make money in this environment, I guarantee the following examples are nine sure-fire ways to lose money.
1. Buy a mediocre painting instead of a great print. Or for that matter buy a mediocre painting rather than a great drawing. Too often collectors get caught up in art’s snob appeal. The objective is always to buy the best within your budget, regardless of medium. As wonderful a draughtsman as Jasper Johns is, not all of his drawings are up to snuff. It’s much better, from an investment standpoint, to buy one of his great prints, such as Ale Cans. There’s no doubt that it will appreciate at a faster rate than one of Johns’ murky ink-on-vellum drawings.
Read on for the rest.
2. Let the auction houses talk down your reserve. From the auction house’s perspective, it’s all about convincing consignors to accept the lowest reserve possible. If, for instance, you put a painting up for auction and agree to a presale estimate of $600,000-$800,000, and a reserve of $600,000, you can expect a call a few days before the sale that will go something like this: “Look, we think your picture will do well, but given the economy, let’s be on the safe side and lower the reserve to $500,000.”
Don’t do it. If your painting passes at $600,000, the auction house will field offers for it after the sale. Chances are the bidding stalled at $550,000, which means a potential after-sale buyer is likely to offer $500,000 (or less). If your reserve is already down to $500,000, you’ll probably be offered $400,000 (or less). The bottom line is that if you have a good painting, someone will pay up. If not, you shouldn’t have put it up for auction in the first place.
3. Accept a mere 10 percent discount from a gallery. For the purchase of works by contemporary art gods such as Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly and a handful of others, a buyer would be lucky to receive a 10 percent discount on any purchase from their galleries. But superstars aside, accepting a standard 10 percent off on even a successful mid-career artist is a mistake.
Galleries generally work on a 50-50 split with artists they represent. This means you should be able to get at least 20 percent off with a little negotiating. Right now, not only are galleries hurting, but so are their artists, who got used to flush times. From a dealer’s perspective, few things are worse than having an artist bug him or her for money. If for no other reason than that, galleries are likely to accept your 20 percent discount request. Try it.
4. Buy with your ears rather than your eyes. Here’s a great way to be taken to the cleaners. I’ll never forget the time the Los Angeles painter Chuck Arnoldi told me how he was at a party when Eli Broad, the country’s richest collector, came over to say hello and ended their discussion by saying, “See you at your studio.”
The merely rich collector Douglas Cramer overheard this snippet of conversation and immediately approached Arnoldi requesting to do the same. In this case, Arnoldi was merciful enough to tell Cramer that “nothing was afoot with his career,” after which Cramer promptly canceled his studio visit. You get the idea.
5. Buy an atypical work. Another sucker bet. There always seems to be one artwork in any given show where the subject matter veers off into the ozone. If you’re buying a Wayne Thiebaud, you obviously want to buy “sugar.” Even though Thiebaud is a first-rate portrait painter, the art market could care less.
No matter how tempting one of his figurative paintings may be, or how attractive its price, treat it like drugs and just say “no.” You may even decide that you genuinely like the painting regardless of market forces. But if you acquire it, when the time comes to sell, you will come to despise your “inspired” purchase when you see how difficult it is to unload at any price.
6. Buy a work from a blue-chip gallery without being properly introduced. I once dealt with a wannabe collector named Paul S. who always bragged to me about his buying trips to New York. He waxed poetic about how “Ileana” (Sonnabend) rolled out the red carpet for him and how fortunate he was to buy a Peter Halley from her.
The only problem was that it was a weak painting that had already been rejected by Sonnabend’s better customers. The point of the story is that if you want to play with the big boys (Gagosian, PaceWildenstein, Marks, etc.), you had better be damn sure that one of their top collectors recommends you. Otherwise, you’ll receive the “Paul S.” treatment.
7. Buy a work by an artist who’s “in play.” If you decide that you want to buy a Richard Prince “Nurse” painting, you might as well put your money into California boutique wine futures and watch them go down — at least you can drink the wine. Richard Prince “Nurses,” originally offered at Gladstone in the mid-2000s, for around $85,000 to members of the “club,” climbed to over $8 million in 2007 (they’ve since dropped back to under $3 million).
Regardless, the speculator gang that ran up his prices at auction are like an elite fraternity house that you can’t join because you aren’t cool enough (in this case substitute “rich enough”) — so don’t even bother trying. Now that Prince has run his course, the next artist “in play” appears to be Peter Doig. Ditto for staying away from his work and market. Better to be an independent thinker and put your money into an artist who’s poised for slow and steady growth — like Fred Tomaselli, Philip Taaffe or Christopher Brown.
8. Buy a work right after an artist has died. One of the biggest myths in the art market is that an artist’s work shoots up in value right after his or her death. Wrong (with the exception of Warhol). Most actually go down in value. The reason is that his market usually becomes flooded, thanks to family members struggling to pay estate taxes and dealers and collectors looking to cash in. Better to wait a year or two and let the dust settle, even if you end up having to pay a bit more.
9. Buy works of unusually large scale. The late Los Angeles dealer Paul Kanter once told me, “Never buy a painting that you can’t lift.” He was right. There’s nothing harder to resell than a painting that’s larger than eight feet in any dimension. Even seven feet is cutting it close. Oversize paintings become white elephants in the marketplace.
Only a small pool of potential buyers have the wall space to handle these often ego-driven paintings. If you have a substantial wall that cries out for a massive work that makes a statement, you’re better off buying two smaller works to fill the void.
RICHARD POLSKY is the author of the forthcoming, I Sold Andy Warhol (too soon), out in September from Other Press.
Chadam Voice-Over Exclusive from io9 on Vimeo.
What are your thoughts on the dominance of the internet on the music industry generally these days?
It’s taken a lot of the romance out of the experiences of music.
This is what we're trying to manipulate to the advantage of the fan/listener and the artist as well, to find ways to have beautiful experiences that have a longer lasting impact.
Sometimes things you have complete easy access to, like a reality show, or an online purchase at the click of a mouse, can become forgetable and invisible.
A trip to a record store to get the album you've been waiting months for on the other hand, can be cherished for a lifetime.
We are trying to find those bridges between the tangible worlds and the cyber/digital worlds.
As an artist who has embraced vinyl, what do you think about download culture?
A quick look at sales figures for albums will show anyone with a brain that there's no doubt the world has collectively decided that there is nothing wrong with taking music for free and feeling no moral conundrum about it.
Oh well, that's the individuals personal battle to think about really. People say, "Bad for the artist, great for the fan," but that's not necessarily true I don't think.
Download culture isn't a very romantic experience for the fan regarding art, it cheapens it and makes it fast forwardable, and disposable, and a lot of times ignorable.
That's a shame for a lot of art and music that isn't getting the chance that it would if people just left the needle on the record till the end of the side or what have you.
I'm not telling people not to listen to MP3s, we sell them for all of our records and I wouldn't say to them don't share with their friends or whatever, but if you're asking me my opinion on what I prefer, or what I think is the best way to enjoy music, I would take a tangible, moving piece of machinery to listen to, as it expands the imagination. The physical attachment and the experience is more reverential to the art form.
How did you come up with the initial idea for the Vault?
We had been working for years on trying to find a more interesting solution to the modern fan's desire to enjoy and participate in music.
Many of the cutting edge conventional modes didn't seem that interesting to me.
So it took us a minute to get the structure of something we thought was involving to both the fans and the artists.
We have no expectations of how many people will want to get involved and subscribe, it's all new and experimental especially combining the vinyl records and digital content together.
What kind of additional content will fans get for their money and how is it produced?
They will get tapes filmed by the groups themselves. That sometimes is an expense, sometimes very cheap for the artists to make.
They will also get vaulted footage from the past that no one has seen or ever posted on YouTube before.
The White Stripes alone have incredible amounts of footage and recordings of shows from the last decade.
At times bands like [side project] The Dead Weather will spontaneously perform online and fans will be notified by Twitter to make an exciting and off the cuff experience.
We are trying to not make things always available at the click of a mouse, but for experiences to be brought to their attention in strange ways.
How involved personally will you be with this project?
Very involved. I'm not a big fan of a lot of these toys actually, but I never like to tell people who want to share the music I create how they can get it.
It doesn't matter to me if they want an MP3 or an 8 track tape.
It's the artists duty to work with the listener as much as possible, we are in the art form together.
Do you think it is fair to your audience who may not have as much disposable cash to charge for the possibility of presale tickets to concerts?
We'd rather have a pool of die hard fans getting those instead of scalpers for one thing, but fairness is up to the consumer.
We can only offer what we think they might want, and if they don't, we'll soon be made aware and move on to the next thing.
It's all for them, the Vault is charging for a plethora of ideas and experiences.
Some members are getting into shows before anyone else now just by lottery, some might get rare records randomly sent to them via mail order (or handed to them by me even!)
Some are getting records that they will resell on eBay if they want to.
It's their record and their community too so some will cherish all of these experience and records and some will think it's not worth it.
Outside this project, what your plans for the next 12 months?
I'm a part of a lot of records being made this year, many are singles released on vinyl and MP3s on iTunes. Also some things I can't tell you about.
But right now I'm heavy into The Dead Weather and producing records when I'm not touring with them.
Today Burlesque will putting their Scratch & Dent Mystery Tubes up for sale on their online store at 2:00pm central time.
They have hundreds of slightly damaged, but otherwise gorgeous art prints and gig posters designed by Aaron Horkey, Todd Bratrud, Wes Winship, Steven O’Malley, Mike Davis, and more. So much great stuff here that they’re selling at a super duper discounted rate! What will you get in your tube? There’s only one way to find out!
They will choose the posters at random.
No requests.
No returns.
No exchanges.
No complaints!
2 S+D POSTERS OF THEIR CHOOSING:
$25 + $5 shipping in the US / $10 international
4 S+D POSTERS OF THEIR CHOOSING:
$40 + $5 shipping in the US / $10 international
