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Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

independent.co.uk

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Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#151

Post by Baeocystin »

sageabilly wrote: post #30

One of the longstanding examples of this that immediately sprung to mind is Dale Chihuly ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Chihuly ), the renown glass sculptor. Except Chihuly has not physically produced ANY of the glass sculptures attributed to him since 1979: "...he continued to blow glass until he dislocated his right shoulder in a 1979 bodysurfing accident. No longer able to hold the glass blowing pipe, he hir…

Speaking just as a hobbyist glassblower (I'm not talking about pipes, but rather furnace glass, of the type Chihuly works with):

It is important to point out that glassblowing is a team-focused effort from the very beginning. Although it is possible to work solo, it makes everything many times harder, and on top of that, makes many standard moves impossible to perform. Even the simplest transfer of a cup form to a punty is best done with at least one assistant, and for wraps and handles, having someone able to take a dip and prep the pull while you work on the main piece is a practical necessity. The Corning Museum of Glass has excellent videos of master gaffers at work that show just what a team effort any form is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oahrrN8ZHwE

Great fun to watch if you're even slightly interested in glassblowing.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#152

Post by w4tson »

gcb0 wrote: post #94
MrLeap wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once most movies have digital reconstructions of dead actors, identity will lose meaning and I think we'll start seeing new works by picasso.

this won't happen with paintings because paintings are not art. They are artificially rare investments. The (financial) powers that makes a painter relevant will ensure new works, even if what you suggest happens, will never carry any value as it implies dissolving the value of previous works. Its the same mechanism that makes only dead painters world famous.

Damien Hirst has dozens of technicians and they crank out paintings for him.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#153

Post by sushid »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #106
pythonaut_16 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get a bigger cut because they bore the most risk and were willing to support a venture that otherwise wouldn't have had the resources to happen. Their exact cut is generally a balance between the risk, reward, and ability of the venture to happen without them.

A musician might be risking their entire livelihood; an investor risking a percentage point on their portfolio's annual profit. Bonus points if the wealth was inherited and is managed for them. Your claim just isn't true as a generality. Risking the largest absolute financial input is not equivalent to having the highest risk unless you exclude all human value, and consider a dollar to be of equal value to all people…

I mean it's also the fact that there are plenty more musicians willing to "risk their entire livelihood" that bring their price down.

Bigger musicians will fetch high prices and in some cases, take on the financial "risk" (almost none since they're a superstar) themselves.

Also, its not like a single bad song is going to ruin a career. Clearly you haven't heard an album from the front to the back if you think that.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#154

Post by fb03 »

I believe that art comes from ideas, and sometimes you do need a helping hand to help them come out. Credit should still be given accordingly.

Example: Grab an album by Steve Vai (you should check him out if you don't know his music, btw)... somewhere in the album booklet you're gonna see a mention of the band members that helped him perform the music that he wrote.

What we are seeing here imho is the mixed case between hip hop (where every collab and participation is featured, to oblivion) and ghost writing in songwriting and fiction (where no one ever appears or gets credit). It's a good thing some 'ghost artists' are coming out and revealing this stuff.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#155

Post by acomjean »

sageabilly wrote: post #127
acomjean wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some art is just too big for a single artist. A lot of renisance artists had many apprentices helping out, so this goes back a ways. Chihuly has litigated and been litigated against by his helpers. His “ paintings” aren’t done by him either. It’s almost like he is a brand. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.seattlepi.com/entertainment...

Wow, that article led me to the artist Bob Kuster ( http://bellemeadhotglass.com/gallery/glass-chandeliers/ ), "who's making chandeliers so closely related to Chihuly's that Chihuly frowned when he saw them in black-and-white, photocopied reproduction and asked, 'Are those mine?'" That opens up another interesting thought process of which is more art, the chandeliers created by Chihuly's hired glassblowers directed b…

Good find. Very “Chihuly” like glass (I saw the Chihuly exhibit around the grounds of the Brooklyn botanical gardens). Too close in my humble opinion: you can be inspired by someone but you have to bring something new to it.

The market seems to like the price of this imatation art however..

I have no answers to the question you pose but they are interesting to think about.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#156

Post by pasbesoin »

sageabilly wrote: post #128
pasbesoin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny this comes up. I've recently become friends with someone who worked for Chihuly, doing precisely this. They have commented on how the "technicians" put a lot of effort and research into turning Chihuly's designs into a piece of glass. They aren't just "cranking it out"; they're figuring out how the pieces can be made, in the first place. This is without getting into personalties, beyond this rhetorical tease of…

Exactly! So if all Chihuly does is take a crayon to a piece of paper and say "Make this thing!", but your friend and others like your friend do the heavy lifting to bring the idea to life, is Chihuly that great of an artist after all?

Well, I don't know whether I'd go that far. And we haven't talked about it extensively -- just for a few minutes.

With Chihuly, as well, the accident really did limit his own physical capabilities.

A lot of people enjoy the work. I saw one of the first "garden" shows, years ago at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, and it was amazing.

But, people should keep in mind that it's a team effort. And the PR might do a bit more to highlight that, as well.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#157

Post by sunstone »

This has been going on for a long time. If I'm not mistaken when Michelangelo did the Sistine Chapel he would outline the major forms but he had a lot of assistants to fill in the details. So he conceived the design, drew that design on the ceiling (and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff) but the entire work did not "come from the hand of the artist"

To my mind it's about the idea and conception of the work. And when the technician improves the design or idea then that's when it moves into being a collaboration.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#158

Post by pythonaut_16 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #106
pythonaut_16 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get a bigger cut because they bore the most risk and were willing to support a venture that otherwise wouldn't have had the resources to happen. Their exact cut is generally a balance between the risk, reward, and ability of the venture to happen without them.

A musician might be risking their entire livelihood; an investor risking a percentage point on their portfolio's annual profit. Bonus points if the wealth was inherited and is managed for them. Your claim just isn't true as a generality. Risking the largest absolute financial input is not equivalent to having the highest risk unless you exclude all human value, and consider a dollar to be of equal value to all people…

I'm not talking about personal risk, I'm talking about risk of loss in absolute value, i.e. the investor is risking more capital so they claim a bigger share of the reward.

If the musician was able to provide enough capital/resources on their own by risking their entire livelihood they'd have no need for an investor and could take the entire profits of the venture for themselves.

I'm not making a moral judgement here, I'm just saying that it's a fairly straight forward logic as to why people who "only contributed financing get a bigger cut". The OP is wrong to claim they get a bigger cut because they're already rich, they get a bigger cut because they're risking more capital in the venture. It is secondary that them being rich means they have more capital available to take risks.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#159

Post by throwaway37585 »

knuththetruth wrote: post #98
jdietrich wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a capitalist system, the economic value of anything is whatever the market is willing to bear. That economic value is largely uncorrelated with any particular assessment of intrinsic value. Like many businesses, the art business is primarily driven by marketing. The act of painting is largely orthogonal to the act of persuading an oligarch that your painting is valuable.

>The act of painting is largely orthogonal to the act of persuading an oligarch that your painting is valuable. Which is more an indictment of the Capitalist system than anything else.

How is that an "indictment" of "the capitalist system"?
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