JUST KIDS

Patti Smith

Just Kids

While reading this book I was thinking about how much Patti Smith's music has meant to me. Not only the music but her attitude, hey, after seeing the cover of the Album "Easter" I did not shave my underarms for a long time... not that it was much needed, young as I was, but it was a symbol of the strong Female and I being a teenage feminist (who thought that meant "I can carry my own suitcase") took this seriously.

Many years later I was lucky enough to see Patti Smith play for a smaller audience at the American Patrons of Tate Artist's dinner in New York. Enthusiastic as I was, I was the only standing ovationer, and since it would have been too embarrassing to sit down again, I stood there for quite a long time, thinking should one not stand when it's a dinner? But deep inside I felt that they all wished they could stand too... Right? Well it was that good to me.

Patti Smith is bearing it all here, I admire her honesty! The book is personal, touching and inspiring.

Reading about her and Robert Mapplethorpe's meeting, love affair and their life-long friendship makes you think of how a chance meeting can be life transforming.  

They struggled together, surviving on small jobs, even hustling (Robert) and at the same time brought out the best artistic traits in each other through an endless amount of support.

They knew they wanted to be artists, there was no way they would not be, but how and with what followed a long set of trials from drawing to writing, acting, and spoken word. To become one Rock Star and one revolutionary Photographer.

"We were Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the World."

Patti Smith

The road travelled is described here from Patti's childhood to their first meeting and ends with Robert dying of AIDS in 1989.

"There were days, rainy days, when the streets of Brooklyn were worthy of a photograph, every window the lens of a Leica, the view grainy and immobile. We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until exhausted, we fell into bed. We lay in each other's arms, still awkward but happy, exchanging breathless kisses into sleep."

Patti Smith

...  last letter:

Dear Robert,

Often as I lie awake I wonder if you are also lying awake. Are you in pain or feeling alone?

You drew me from the darkest period of my young life, sharing with me the sacred mystery of what it is to be an artist. I learned to see through you and never compose a line or draw a curve that does not come from the knowledge I derived in our precious time together. Your work, coming from a fluid source, can be traced to the naked song of your youth. You spoke then of holding hands with God. Remember, through everything, you have always held that hand, grip it hard Robert, and don't let go.

The other afternoon, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, I drifted off, too. But before I did, it occurred to me looking around at all of your things and your work and going through years of work in my mind, that of all your work, you are still your most beautiful. The most beautiful work of all.

Patti

I presume that I don't need to invite you to read this beautiful love story, you will just have to!

With Love

Kristin

...it's incredibly sexy trying to base an economy on Poetry!

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Gallerists But Were Afraid to Ask

Andrea Bellini

This is a quick and enjoyable book about Galleries opened after 1980, where Andrea Bellini questions 51 Gallerists about their likes, dislikes, struggles and successes. 

The Galleries are from all over the world, from Bejing to Mexico city. Not only city galleries are represented here but Galleries that has chosen to open in small towns as well, like the Tucci Russo Studio Per L'Arte Contemporanea at the foot of the mountains in Torre Pellice (one hour away from Turin).

The questions are quite simple and the answers can be quite similar, but it is fun to hear how they opened  up their Galleries and how they run it, a lot of them says by intuition!

I especially enjoyed reading that none of them regret opening their galleries, even though it can be rough at times.

With my "secret" little wish of opening my own Gallery one day I was reading the answers like a sponge.

"Contemporary art is a sort of mental gymnastic"

   -Daniele Balice (Balichertling, Paris)

"The "Job" comes in many forms, many species - like flowers or insects."

   -Gavin Brown (Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York)

"Sehen, verstehen, lieben (see, know, desire)" 

  -Helga de Alvear (Galeria Helga de Alvear, Madrid)

"I am very influenced by my vivid intuition in general, so it has led to many smaller and greater successes and mistakes."

  -Jean-Claude Freymond-Guth (Freymond-Guth & Co Fine Arts, Zurich)

"We tend to be interested in art that arrives slowly and lasts for a long time."

  -Lisa Panting and Malin Ståhl (Hollybush Gardens, London)

"The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths"

  -Bruce Nauman (referred to by Georg Kargl, Galerie Georg Kargl, Vienna)

"As a gallerist, you are not only selling contemporary art, you are selling an opinion."

  -Johann Koenig (Joann Koenig, Berlin)

"- we're talking about Art and Poetry, and it's incredibly sexy trying to base an economy on Poetry."

  -Franco Noero (Galleria Franco Noero, Turin)

"Art really is for everyone"

  -Nicole Timonier (Evergreene, Geneva)

With Weekend Love

Kristin

The private lives of the impresionists

While driving around in France I finally had a chance to read "The Private Lives of the impressionists" that was recommended by an Art Business teacher last year at NYU. What convenient timing, had I read it before I would have not had the same feeling for the place Monet grew up and the places that he always went back to paint like Le Havre, Petit Dalles, Eritrat and Honfleur. I did miss out on Giverny though, that is on my must list in the future (that is where he later painted his famous Water lilies). But the book concentrated on the earlier years of hardships of some of the most celebrated painters today. Pointing out Manet as the leader but Monet and his painting:

Impression, Sunrise 1873

as the cause for the title "Impressionists". Since the critics with their early ridicule gladly pointed them out as impressionists after seeing this title, but the title works wonders in the long run. The group that it originally was linked to and the we get to know better through this book is; Monet, Manet. Pissaro, Degas, Renoir, Caillebotte, Sisley, Cezanne, Berthe Morisott and Mary Cassatt. Later the definition has been opened up to include many other artists that worked at the same time like Gauguin, Boudin, Courbet and Delacroix.

We can thank the Art Dealer Paul Durand-Ruel for the survival of these artists as Renoir said to his son:

"Durand-Ruel was a missionary. It is lucky for us that his religion was painting..."

Or as Monet told Joseph Durand-Ruel (his son) on Durand-Ruel's deathbed:

"I can never forget everything my friends and I owe your dear father"

A "Father" he was. Durand-Ruel discovered them, supported them almost to his ruin many times but never lost his belief and continued to exhibit them. As the way the book begins it ends, with him taking the impressionists paintings to New York where they finally are embraced.

And as Manet said to his friend Proust:

"Oh, I know about justice being done one day, It means you begin to live only after you're dead. I know all about that kind of justice."

Continue to live with us they certainly do, and grateful we are that they never gave up.

With Love

Kristin

The Architecture of Happiness

Balancing Barn, Suffolk

Mole Architects

Alain de Botton

LIVING ARCHITECTURE

Some friends of ours came for the weekend from Germany and brought the latest issue of Der Spiegel where there were an article about the latest project by Alain de Botton. I got so excited when I viewed it, somehow it had not reached my ear that the great novelist turned philosopher now has turned his energy into creating exciting holiday homes.

I have followed his writings since his adorable novels like "The Romantic Movement" and "Kiss and Tell". He later went on to write more philosophical books, but always with a strange twist like "How Proust can change your life" or "The Art of Travel". After he gave out the book "The Architecture of Happiness" he wondered why he was not more involved in Architecture since he loved it so much.

Therefore he began with the project "Living Architecture" which is a not-for-profit organisation that engages leading Architects to build houses around UK for then to rent it out for holidays.

A discovery seldom comes alone... so yesterday I ventured to the Design museum and guess what was there? The model for the Balancing Barn. That made me even more excited and inspired me to share this with you.

The Dune House, Suffolk

Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects

The book that instigated the project

" I love architecture and I believe that good quality buildings can make a serious improvement to life. But most people’s experience of modern architecture is civic and not residential...". (Alain de Botton)

I am now thrilled to see which architects and what new houses Living Architecture will bring forth to us in the future!

With Love

Kristin

Two Brothers from a time Past!

Elin Høyland

The Brothers

While my fellow Norwegians are out there waving their flags, eating pølse and lompe (hot dog with a potato lefse) and ice cream. Shouting Hurrah, Hurrah! or singing "Ja vi er så glad i dette landet" (Yes, we love this Country). I am sitting quietly in London writing about the little event at the Norwegian Embassy yesterday. Yes, it is our constitution day today, and I guess I should be wearing a Bunad (our national custom), but to make my jeans valid I am doing a post about two good old traditional men from Vågå in the middle of rural Norway to compensate.

Two brothers, living and working on a farm, never to want to venture anywhere else. Well, Mathias once worked in Oslo for two months and Harald actually spent a night at a Hotel in Lillehammer... the worst night in his life, he would say.

I think anyone who grew up in the Countryside of Norway can relate to the brothers, they are the ultimate characters of a time past.

Actually, when I come to think of it, in 9th grade at my school, I remember a boy who had been to Sweden once, never ventured to Oslo (1 hour away) and had to take days off to work at the farm. So we might still find them out there. But not without a TV I would think? they did hire one in the 60's but found it took up too much time. They read the newspaper, listened to the radio and were avid bird watchers.

Elin Høyland's book launch yesterday at the Embassy had to unfortunately happen with the brothers only in memory. Harald died of an asthma attack while shoveling snow in -20 degrees and Mathias died a few years later in 2007, at an old peoples home.

But with this book, they will always be remembered.

Towels for top and bottom

Elin Høyland

"The Brothers" is printed by the English publishing company Dewi Lewis Publishing, with words by Gerry Badger. The book has already been written about in the Guardian... Wonder, where I will see it next.

With Love 

Kristin

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark

The curious Economics of Contemporary Art

Don Thompson

This book is well read, well travelled, torned, scribbled in and lived with from New York to London.

With that, it doesn't mean that it will take as long for you to read it as it did for me.... 

During my "lifetime" with this book I did have the feeling at certain times that "through this book I will learn it all!" All about the intricate business of ART. I probably do not need to read another book about Art Business after this one.... just view and view Art....

But, as with everything, as soon as you skim the surface you know there is an ocean below.

Here comes some of the highlights from the "Shark in the water" book... as my two year old says when he sees it, since his favorite song to dance to is "Shark in the Water" by V.V. Brown (just had to write that...)

Ok... here we go with some of the hits:

"Modern Art is merely the means by which we terrorize ourselves"

              -Tracy Emin

"Never understand how insecure buyers are about contemporary art, and how much they always need reassurance"

               - Howard Rutkowski (Bonhams auctioners)

"You are nobody in contemporary art until you have been branded"

"What the rich seem to want to acquire is what economists call positional goods; things that prove to the rest of the world that they really are rich"

"I had reservations about making art a business, but I got over it."

              -Mary Boone, New York Dealer

"Artists who do not find mainstream gallery representation within a year or two of graduation are unlikely ever to achieve high prices or see their work appear at fairs or auctions or in art magazines."

"It takes a certain amount of nerve to act as though one knows what is good or, more important, what will be deemed good in the future. It's an article of faith in the art world that some people have an eye for it and some people don't; the disagreement arises over which do or don't"

            -Nick Paumgarten 

"In 1991, Saatchi funded and Hirst created 'The physical impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'.... "I like the idea of a thing to describe a feeling. A shark is frightening, bigger than you are, in an environment unknown to you. It looks alive when it's dead and dead when it's alive"

"Hirst titles are an integral part of marketing his work"

"There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. There's a squad of conservators out there to look after anything an artist decides is art.

            - Charles Saatchi

"Art is sexy! Art is money-sexy! Art is money-sexy-social-climbing-fantastic!"

              -Thomas Hoving, Former Dir. at the Met

I could go on and on but the weekend is coming up... and there are actually plenty of new books on my desk hungry for attention.

Yes to ART in the SPRING

With Weekend Love

Kristin

I am an Artoholic

MY NAME IS CHARLES SAATCHI

AND I AM AN ARTOHOLIC

One of the first things I will do when I arrive in London is to go to the Saatchi Gallery. 

The Saatchi Gallery inside the Duke of Yorks HQ, on King´s Road is one of the largest Contemporary art spaces in the world with 70,000 square foot. Until then, I will have to be satisfied by the owners book. In "My name is Charles Saatchi and I am an artoholic" Charles Saatchi has posted questions he has been asked but never wanted to answer before now. With this he hopes that he has given the media what it wants and to please just leave him alone...!

It's a raw, funny, informative and provocative picture of an Art Collector that comes clear after finishing the book. Charles Saatchi, so called the "Super-collector" also managed to snag and collect the fabulous Cooking Goddess Nigella Lawson.

A perfect gift for someone who is usually too busy to read, but love art? It is a quick read and at times quite entertaining.

I will give you some hints here:

" There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artists dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. There´s a squad of conservators out there to look after anything an artist decides is art."

"Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all."

"...once you have bought something that doesn´t fit in your home, and has to be stored in an art depot, you're officially an art collector"

I nearly have to yell at him for this one:

What´s Nigella's cooking really like?

"I´m sure it´s fantastic, but a bit wasted on me. I like toast with Dairylea, followed by Weetabix for supper. It drives her to distraction, frankly, particularly as she gets the blame for my new fat look. But the children love her cooking, and our friends seem to look forward to it."

& This is where I am:

"The more you like art, the more art you like...

the rest is his journey:

....So I find it easy to buy lots of it, and seeing art as an investment would take away all the fun"

With Love 

Kristin

Cesnola, the Cultural Criminal

Limestone head of a bearded man

Cypriotic, Archaic, early 6th Century B.C.

Said to be from Golgoi

THE CESNOLA COLLECTION

From early bronze age to the end of antiquity

Cyprotic Art

Should I have started my "Live-in" Sessions at the Met chronologically, the Cesnola collection would be the right place to begin. With that I mean, one of the first official collections that the Metropolitan began with.

Luigi Palma di Cesnola 1832-1904

Cesnola was a self-proclaimed General when he was sent as an American consul to the Cyprotic Islands. An opportunist that had been arrested during the war among the States for trying to create mutiny by attempting to lure the regiments troops away to fight under him. 

At first he hated being in Cypros, but then he met the English consul and found out that there was an abundance of ancient relics of Greek, Egyptian, Persian and Arabian heritage buried there. Cesnola quickly turned himself into an archeologist and dealer, and later he was looking for a home for his loot.

A home it found, the New York Historical society had made their intentions clear to establish a museum and art Gallery for the public in Central Park in the 1860's.

By 1872 the Museum opened and in 1873 the collection of Cesnola and also the Blodgett paintings (174 European paintings, only 64 is still in the Metropolitans collection, the rest seen as fakes and copies) opened to the general public. But the building as we know it in Central Park did not "finish" before 1902, since then there has been many extensions and changes. Maybe the reason why the building can be a puzzle to go through sometimes.
With this collection, Cesnola also managed to wiggle himself in to become the first Director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1879 until his death in 1904.

The Cesnola Collection is now considered the most important and comprehensive of Cypriotic Art.

Terracotta flask

Cypriot, Cypro-Geometric III

Black on Red I

Ca. 850-750 B.C.

 Terracotta Jug

Cypriot, Cypro-Archaic II

ca. 600- 480 B.C.

Terracotta trick vase

Cypriot, Cypro-Archaic I

ca. 750-600 B.C.

Said to be from Episkopi

I just had to show you these two vases with female "attributes" Incredible? It feels wonderful to have a quick little giggle while you watch such a serious collection.

Marble anthropoid sarcophagus

Graeco-Phoenician, Classical,

last quarter of the 5th Century B.C.

Simple and few human features, but you still can see it is supposed to be a female sarcophagus with the long locks.

Limestone Herakles

Cypriot, Archaic, ca 530-520 B.C.

Herakles was important to the Cypriotic people, he was the only Greek hero that was accepted by the Gods.

Roman Jewelry

Gold and amethyst earrings and ring

1st century A.D.

This last picture comes out a bit dark so it is hard to see the gorgeous purple amethyst. But, hopefully you can imagine it?

I am reading the book "Rogue Gallery" by Michael Gross right now, a book describing the History of the Metropolitan. Not always to the Metropolitan´s liking. The book is not sold in their shop...

"Cesnola is remembered, if all, as a cultural criminal who looted and pillaged and stole not just objects but an irreplaceable opportunity to learn about the past. On Cyprus, his is considered a rapist who thought his victims lesser beings who didn't appreciate their own culture..." (page 64)

Pretty rough telling about the first Director of our beloved Metropolitan. 

"Behind almost every painting is a fortune

and behind that a sin or a crime"

With this I will leave you to continue reading in "Rouges Gallery" More updates to follow:)

With Love

Kristin

Seven days in the......

ART WORLD

By Sarah Thornton

Must not be confused with 7 days in a week. But, rather an intensive period of at least 3 years of research and interviews. Culminating in 7 days described from these 3 years.

During these days Sarah Thornton partakes in an evening at "The Auction" held at the Christies's. A day at the "Crit" a collective student/teacher critique seminar at the California Institute of the Arts. "The Fair", describing a day of frenzy at the Art Basel. A day of the Turner Prize award "The Prize". "The Magazine" a day at the prestigious Art magazine Artforum. A "Studio Visit" with Takashi Murakami and finally a day in Venice at "The Biennale".

I laughed and I learned at the same time, while reading this thoroughly entertaining book about the industry. I thought she dared to be honest and at the same time respectful to the about 250 people she interviewed. 

Loving the way she had a chance to write this book with such first hand knowledge from some of the most powerful people and events.

Sarah Thornton

Recommending it to all my Art Lover Friends

With Love

Kristin

Warhol and the art World!

Richard Polsky: I sold Andy Warhol (too soon)

I started reading this book thinking, should I just feel sorry for this guy? Richard Polsky is telling his sad story of selling out his green Warhol "Fright Wig" painting.

The reason: To keep his wife!!!

"A woman who never met a shop she didn´t like"

Well, he did not get to keep either. He sold the painting for $320,000 at an Auction. A few years later another "Fright Wig" painting ended up selling for 1.2 million pounds and his wife went out the door with a few bags from Chanel. Ouch, that hurts!

It is not a flattering picture of the art industry Mr. Polsky is portraying. He says:

I used to say the art business was like high school with money.

But I was wrong. It was more like grade school with money.

I feel a little tired of the Warhol hysteria to be quite honest. In 2006 the 32 soup can pictures were in theory worth around $375 million (owned by MoMa). The first time it was shown to the public, the gallery next door put 32 cans in their window and wrote "Free" on it. Controversy aside, I see his importance in art history, but still all that money? Is it not a little too sickening?

Mr. Polsky describes how collectors work on keeping the prices high for what they collect also how hard it is for a new collector to be allowed, to buy a piece of art by a famous artist, there could be a "waiting list". A new collector might have to buy an inferior piece before it will be allowed to buy from the cream. This is not considering Art auctions of course, where you just bid yourself to the top. He also describes the hardship of being an art dealer and a gallery in the age of Auction house domination.

I enjoyed his honesty. But, I do not want to be one of those that he writes about.

And you don´t want to be any of these:

Acronyms for annoying individuals in the art business:

B.W.O.T. - Big waste of time- used to describe a client who´s basically a cheapskate - common in the business.

S.C.A.D. - Sexually confused art dealer - self- explanatory- Very common in the business.

O.F.U. - Zero follow - up- a dealer who puts a deal in play and then fails to follow through on the details - exceedingly common in the business.

Strange fruit

Kara Walker

I have been a silent fan of Kara Walker´s art for a long time. She has a way of fighting the racial issues and showing it´s violence by making it beautiful. The horror in the silhouettes usually done by paper cuts makes you cringe, but at the same time you want to continue to take it in and feel it.

Tuesday, I just finished the page turner and bestseller book "The Help" By Kathryn Stockett.

Teary eyed I sat in a cafe close to the Chelsea Galleries, having to finish it before my book club last night. The book is centered around 2 black maids in the 6o´s Mississippi and a young white woman writing a book describing their life as "The Help". You have the full set of characters that you love and the once you despise, even with the predictable characters, it is a great read. You find the maids get away with small victories of insults done to the once that deserve it, catapulting in a "chocolate cake". But you also find grateful stories told about the employers as well. I ended up falling in love with Miss Skeeter the character who writes the book. Anyone who has ever felt like an outsider will be able to identify with her and applaud through her dares.

I know it might be a bit of a stretch to run over to the James Cohan Gallery after having finished the book, to see their "Banner of Persuasion" and stare at the tapestry "A warm summer evening in 1863" (as seen above), but, that is what I did. Kara Walker's picture goes a hundred years further back and shows the civil war but in the 1960´s lynching was still going on and the fight for equality is forever a struggle. I just also recently watched the devastating movie "Precious" although describing the 80´s still representing the now to me.

To stretch it even further, just a couple of years ago I was trying to sell a crack house in Harlem, not knowing it was a crack house before I arrived but knowing the gentrification that I as a real estate agent was part of, I entered one of the old brownstones and I still have images in my head I will never be able to stop from coming back. Kids growing up in the middle of a molded, wet, extremely dirty, extremely messy unlivable place. The dolls and the destroyed teddy bears next to the "fixer" station.

So, there I am in front of the Kara Walker banner ($140K for the one who can afford it) thinking about the beautiful but haunting song "Strange fruit" that Billie Holiday used to sing.

One of the first anti-racist songs ever written, about the extremity of lynching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

Mengele Zoo

This is THE book that inspired me to do this blog! "Mengele Zoo" by Gert Nygaardshaug an extremely captivating ECO novel! I think it has been translated to English but impossible to find. Bring this book out to the public! Nils Gaup´s film version will probably help with that. Since it was written before 9/11 I think Nygaardshaug was in a position to write about terrorists in a more heroic way than anybody would dare to do now. We follow Mino a butterfly catcher from a small tropical forest village in South America, a boy horrified by the destruction that powerful people do to the nature for their own selfish reasons. Starting out with the rage of having his family killed he sets out to revenge anybody who dares to destroy the rainforest. First Mino survives as a Magician and then he turns into an Environmental fighting terrorist. A handsome Che Guevara type. The interesting thing is that during the whole book you intensely want him to succeed with his attacks. I am closer to a pacifist than a warrior and usually not very found of crime novels but I think this "intensity" that is being described here is what we need (without the deaths..:) to save this wonderful planet. The rain forrest should be first priority!