101–108 of 108 posts
quick question: does anyone know of a service that serves free (as in »free beer«) art (paintings, photography, illustrations etc.) to download in high resolution so you can print them yourself?
Second, read Don Thompson's The Twelve Million Dollar Stuffed Shark.* He's an economist who took a deep dive into the very dysfunctional world of expensive art. What he leaves you with is a better understanding of the situation: screw investment. Saatchi buys art because he loves art. Yes, he's built a fortune on it, but he also has the largest collection of undisplayed art, and it's estimated the average value of any piece in his collection may be no more than the world-wide average. But he plays his role well, and his role, an ad man, integrates very well with the scene.
If you want art, buy it. But I recommend buying local. Art is the ultimate buy-local situation. My brother is an artist. That's as local as it gets. And his is the best art I own.
I'm starting to realize a little of Saatchi's situation: if you want to show, really show, those favorite pieces, then you have to give them a lot of wall space. Which means a lot of stuff, good stuff, ends up in crates. You realize you're willing to sell it just because it breaks your heart for it to not be shown. But you'll be damned before you let it hang on a wall where it wouldn't be appreciated at all.
If you don't know many artists (if it wasn't for my brother's inside access, I would know none), I think this Amazon Fine Art thing is a fine place to start. Check the under $200 category. There's some really great pieces in there.
The other things are craigslist and gallery mailing lists. Sign up. You'll learn if your city tends to do openings on Wednesdays, Thursdays, etc. The whole scene tends to get into sync. Meet some artists. If you have something particular, a desk, a portrait, I don't know many artists who are unwilling to work on commission. Guaranteed money is hard to come by in the art world.
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*http://www.amazon.com/The-Million-Stuffed-Shark-Contemporary...
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Have you seen http://www.art.com or http://www.art.co.uk ? They have a photography section, including "collections" from National Geographic
Honestly? Yes, I'd seen them, but I passed them by quickly for the same reason I ignore other "perfect" domains like "www.books.com" or "www.photography.com". I will take another look.
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If you come across e-ink prices for TV-sized formats (e.g., 30-60" diagonals), let me know. At the right price, I think there are a lot of interesting things that could be done.
This. Even black and white panels would be quite useful.
Or a wall-mounted household calendar, understandable at a glance. Or black and white business metrics.
http://www.amazon.com/Adirondacks/dp/B00EBQ4B0Y/ref=sr_1_1?s...
Quick tangential question - What's the best way to shop for nature photography prints? Most of these sorts of dedicated art stores seem to exclude nature photography.
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Prints are cheap. These are not signed, "signed on plate" means the engraving plate was signed but that does not mean the print was supervised by the artist so they are semi mass produced. But even signed prints by moderately well known artists are cheap as they are very unfashionable.
>even signed prints by moderately well known artists are cheap as they are very unfashionable. Sounds like it's a good time to buy them then?
I've worked for a string of online art retailers and publishers over the the last decade, and I'm a bit baffled by this move by Amazon. I just don't think it's a very good way to browse for art. That said, if you know specifically what you want, it's a pretty good way to connect with galleries.
My guess is "soon" we'll have a 500 dpi full color e-ink kindle to admire rentable art. And perhaps a giant e-ink kindle to hang on the wall for exactly that purpose. One of my long term "in my infinite spare time" projects has been to build a nice small (well, what passes for small now...) HDTV size digital picture frame and rotate artwork on it. I figure if I can keep the capital cost under a couple hundred bucks (…
For me at least, the moment you display "art" on screens, its significance is diluted. When it's not "permanent" it feels like decoration or worse, a screensaver.
Having said this, some of those in the art establishment have the same point of view about a recent project I was involved in which brought art from the UK's public collections onto 22,000 billboards across the country. Whatever gets art in front of people can only be a good thing.