Hmm! Wow! Oops! Whoa! Brilliant (I’m British)!

As the year 2008 comes to a close it’s useful for us to look back, reflect on successes, learn from mistakes and generally measure our progress. One such area for us to examine is our art251 website and blog. Hmm…

According to Alexa, an objective measure of many things webby, www.art251.com is now in the world’s top 2 percent of websites as measured for pages viewed and number of unique users, more commonly known as “reach”. Wow!

But, just to show that, as the old maxim goes, “anyone can use statistics to prove anything…”, we’ll dig a little deeper into this number. Most estimates put the total number of unique websites at around 200 million. Alexa actually ranked us 5,129,870th, as of the end of 2008, So, this puts our “2%” in a rather different light. Oops!

That said, Alexa gave us some more numbers to crunch – our ranking is up a staggering 1,692,565 places as compared with our spot 3 months before. Whoa!

So, thank you art lovers, clients of art251 and art blog readers. Thank you for making art251 number 5,129,870. Brilliant! We look forward to rising up the web rankings a little more in 2009, and, of course, spreading our love of art around the suburbs and placing a few more beautiful works into your hands, homes and businesses.

Water Lilies. Claude Monet. Musee de l’Orangerie, Paris.

Today’s story offers an example of why Kim and I decided to open an art gallery. We’ve had the doors open at art251 for only around 4 months. We’re art newbies, relatively speaking. We’ve had no lengthy sales trends yet that would help us decide if or when to open during the holiday period. So, on December 26 we opened shop not knowing if anyone at all would visit our space.

A family of six, covering three generations, spent around an hour with us today, December 26. Yes, they bought some art, and some artpaks from our beautiful blue art-o-mat machine. But that’s not why I write. The family browsed and soaked in the art, they asked questions about artists and artistic processes, they were deliberate and thoughtful. On leaving, one of the group told me that beforehand they had decided to make visiting art251 a holiday event! Yes, they visited an art gallery; not the mall, not the electronics store. They had planned this out. They came to enjoy the art and to share some of their art purchases with one another.

I couldn’t imagine a better gift for us: knowing that some (a growing number) people truly appreciate art and bringing art to others, and that art can and does have an significant influence (usually positive). We are greatly encouraged.

This reinforces our mission for art251, and especially so, during these times of crisis whether cultural, moral or financial. Art can provide enjoyment; the beautiful form of a monumental sculpture or the well-composed lines and colors of a fine painting can be very pleasing. A Wii (and many other electronic gizmos) bring pleasure too. But art can and does go further. Art can bring solace, it can excite, it can evoke intense memories, it can inspire, it can soothe, it can provide respite, it can make us question, it can help us uncover new realities, it can calm our souls and enliven our spirits. So, I’d encourage you to put down that Wii (you’re probably over-borrowing it from your kids anyway), go and discover some great (local) art, and reconnect yourself to the inner spark that is so often buried by the daily grind or replaced by the TV remote.

I need to get out more often. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day operation of the gallery. Sometimes I forget that there is lots of good art beyond the borders of art251. Luckily, our friend, TCU art student and aspiring art gallery owner Logan Smith sent us a timely reminder about a new show in Ft.Worth.

“Warhol and the Shared Subject“, opened on December 19 at the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts gallery, part of The Art Galleries at TCU. I like Warhol’s work, though I’m still not comfortable with the notion of business-driven mass-production in art or as art (I’ll postpone discussion on this for another time).

So, back to the show. This proved to be a good opportunity to see some of the many precursors (in this case Polaroid prints) to Warhol’s works and examine these in the context of art by a handful of Warhol’s successors. Gavin Morrison, curator of the Fort Worth Contemporary Arts gallery, planned the show as a way to bring Warhol’s portraits into the present and examine cultural factors as they effect identity and our understanding of portraiture. So, using the Polaroids as a reference point he presents them alongside the finished portrait and selected works in a variety of mediums by contemporary artists Tony Scherman, CS Leigh, Rineke Dijkstra and Douglas Gordon. Each of these artists uses Warhol imagery or Warhol’s worldview as a basis for their own work.

The Warhol Polaroids on display are from a recent gift to The Art Galleries at TCU from the Warhol Foundation’s Legacy Program. The entire gift included close to 200 Polaroid prints of celebrities and others whose 15 minutes of fame has yet to unfold. Many of these prints eventually led to the instantly recognizable portraits for which Warhol is now synonymous.

The exhibition runs from December 20, 2008 to February 1, 2009. You can read a more detailed review of the show at Artdaily or more about Warhol in general.

Image: Warhol. Untitled (Patsy Nasher). Courtesy of The Art Galleries at TCU and the Warhol Foundation.

Art Basel | Miami Beach 2008, the annual pilgrimage for buyers, sellers and lovers of contemporary art is now history. But the blogsphere continues to buzz with all manner of reviews and highlights, and lots of great images of the art.

So, if you’d like to visit the show from the comfort of your own internet tube I present below three of the best blogs for the serious ABMB art fair watcher.

Joanne Mattera does an outstanding job of reviewing the event and its many sideshows, complete with lots of gorgeous photos of, what seems like, all the art on exhibit!

Kimberly Brooks has a great sampling of images with no commentary.

Matthew Langley covers select highlights of the event.

ABMB. The official site of the art fair for boring reference purposes only.

I couldn’t resist posting this great photograph of Herb and Dorothy Vogel. They were caught reading the exclusive list of patrons to the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C. You may recall, over a period of 40 years they built the leading collection of contemporary conceptual and minimalist art, and all on the salary of a postal clerk and librarian. Over the last 10 years or so they’ve been donating their collection of over 4,000 works to museums in all 50 States, including the National Gallery.

So, it’s very fitting that their names are also chiseled in the marble at the National Gallery. Read more of their story in my previous article, here.

The still is courtesy of “HERB & DOROTHY, an Arthouse Films release 2009″.

I’m missing Art Basel | Miami this year. Last year’s event and surrounding shows displayed so much contemporary (and some modern) art, from so many artists and galleries that my head was buzzing for days afterward. This year I have our art251 gallery to co-run, so I’ve been visiting Art Basel virtually – reading the press releases, following the exhibitors and tuning in to the podcasts and vids, using the great tubes of the internet.

The best story by far to emerge this year from Art Basel | Miami is the continuing odyssey of Herb and Dorothy Vogel, their passion for contemporary art and their outstanding collection. On December 5, the documentary “Herb and Dorothy” was screened at Art Basel’s Art Loves Film night. And so their real-life art fairytale goes something like this…

Over the last 40-plus years they have amassed a cutting-edge, world-class collection of contemporary art. In all they have collected around 4,000 works. Over time they have crammed art into every spare inch of space inside their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. In 1992 they gave around 2,000 important pieces – paintings, drawings and sculptures – to the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C. Then, in April of this year the National Gallery announced that an additional 2,500 of Vogels’ artworks would go to museums across the country: fifty works for fifty States. The National Gallery simply didn’t have enough space to house the Vogel’s immense collection.

So, why is this story so compelling?

Well, it’s compelling because they are just like you and me. They are not super-rich, they have no condo in Aspen, nor do they moor a yacht in Monte Carlo. They’re not hedge fund managers. They didn’t make a fortune before the dot.com bubble burst.

Herb Vogel, 86, is a retired postal clerk and Dorothy Vogel, 76, a retired librarian. They started collecting art in the 1960s and continue to this day. Their plan was simple and guided by two rules: the art had to be affordable, and small enough to fit in their apartment. Early on they decided to use Herb’s income for buying art, and Dorothy’s to paying living expenses. Though now retired they still follow the plan. They collect art because they love art and finding new art. In Dorothy’s words,

“We didn’t buy this art to make money… We did it to enjoy the art. And you know, it gives you a nice feeling to actually own it, and have it about you. … We started buying art for ourselves, in the 1960s, and from the beginning we chose carefully.”

More telling is Dorothy’s view of the art world, and the New York art scene:

“We never really got close to other people who collect… Most collectors have a lot of money, and they don’t go about their collecting in quite the same way. My husband had wanted to be an artist, and I learned from him. We were living vicariously through the work of every artist we bought. At some point, we realized that collecting this art was a sort of creative act. It became our art, in more ways than one. … I enjoyed the search, I guess. The looking and the finding. When you go to a store, and you’re searching for your size, don’t you get satisfaction when you find it?”

And Herb adds the final words:

“The art itself.”

So, within their modest means and limitations they have proved to be visionaries; many of the artists they supported early on have since become world-renowned. And, they have taken their rightful place among the great art collectors of the world, such as Getty and Rockefeller, and Broad and Saatchi. The Vogels used their limitations to their advantage – helping them focus, rather than being a hinderance. Above all, they used their eyes to find and collect great art, not their ears.

We often get asked this question by both customers and artists. Well, we find artists in a couple of ways: we discover them, and they discover us.

Before we opened art251, Kim and I spend about 4 months looking for artists. We visited galleries, artist studios and art shows. We read art magazines. We looked at artists’ websites. We listened to friends. We used the great tubes of the internet, we used the Google.

So, here’s a quick summary of the process.

1. Search for local artists in local galleries, local artist directories and event / listings services.
2. Search online, search online, and search online.
3. Collect detailed information (no snooping in artist’s trash) about all artists and their art.
4. Categorize by media type.
5. Group in order of priority (based on our top secret art251 formula).
6. Invite first, then next, group of artists.
7. Go back to #1, and repeat.

Our searching lead us to around 400-500 local artists. We were, and continue to be, amazed at the breadth and depth of local artistic talent.

Recently, and now that the art251 doors have opened, artists have begun to find us. They find us through friends and other artists. They find us via other galleries. They find us through the vastness of cyberspace and, of course, the Google

So, if you’re an artist, especially an emerging one and have yet to expose your work to the world, or the neighborhood for that matter, here’s what to do. Follow our artist submission guidelines, and then take the next step towards finding us and letting others discover you and your art.

Phew! My feet have lived through a long and eventful weekend. We kicked off proceedings with the Opening Reception for our Contemporary Elements Show on December 4. Then we followed up the next night with our late closing for the annual Holly Days event here in Keller Town Center. I’m delighted to report that around 200 people visited art251 over the last 2 days.

Aahh! Receptions and shows are great fodder for the eyes and soul. But, my feet ache. So while traffic has slowed, today, I’m taking advantage — putting my feet up and collecting my thoughts for some serious blogging. Then it’s back to straightening our displays, moving more artwork around, re-orienting all the lights, and so on. Next on the agenda is our exciting annual Winter Sale (more on that next).

Oops! And, I had been under the false impression that a galley owner could just sit back and admire the art!  (Not my feet pictured here, nor do we have these for sale).

After frantic planning and preparations were ready to open our first show today. The Opening Reception for Contemporary Elements is December 4, 6-9pm. We’ll be serving wine, Italian soda and light fare. The show is free and open to all.

The Contemporary Elements show features fabulous new works by Scott Young, glass maker; Bobbie Nix, jewelry artist; and James Johnson, metalsmith. Our artists will be on hand to discuss their work and answer your questions. The show will run from Thursday, December 4 to Saturday, January 3, 2009.

For more details check out the show page.

The confusion between the terms “modern art ” and “contemporary art” is understandable. So, don’t let a snooty art snob put you down because you don’t know the difference. Read on and you’ll never have to fear that look of disdain again. (By the way, I’ll be answering, “What is an art snob” in my ongoing series of 251 Art Questions, but you’ll have to wait until #45).

In normal, non-art oriented conversation the two words are often used synonymously. For instance, “she has a modern style” can mean “her style is contemporary”. Now, in the world of art, “modern” and “contemporary” really do have different meanings. Generally, Modern art differs from Contemporary art in 3 main ways. First, there is a difference in time period. Second, there is a difference in style. Third, there is a difference in general focus.

Most art scholars agree that Modern art began around 1880 with pioneering artists like Manet and Van Gogh. They broke away from the previous constraints of formal realism and headed towards a more subjective representation of modern-life subjects. These artists were primarily focused on finding their unique styles, such as cubism and surrealism, that reflected inner and/or outer worlds, rather than depict life as they visually perceived it or, more often than not, as church and societal authorities demanded. It’s not coincidental that the instigators of Modern art came of age as a then new technology known as “photography” was starting to gain a foothold, usurping the traditional artists’ claim on the depiction of reality. Art historians would also agree that Modern art is more of an inward looking endeavor, where artists were more concerned with exploring purity within a specific medium and comparing its steady evolution through history.

Generally, many take Contemporary art to mean any art created by a still living artist. However, most art historians agree on a narrower definition that Contemporary art arrived around 1960, ushering in the post-Modern era with a broad melding of styles and merging of media. Technology also began to make an important impact on the tools used to create and distribute art, and this continues today. Further, Contemporary art has been characterized by its wide use, beyond decoration and narrowness of medium, to include design, conceptual, social, political, graffiti and multi-cultural works. Generally, Contemporary art is more socially conscious than art from any previous period. Just look at works over the last 25 years with artists increasingly reflecting on ideas of war, feminism, genocide, globalization, and bioethics.

Coming next, art251 Q5/251: How do I recognize great art?