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Who Will Be the Boy Bands of Tommy Mottola's Art Empire?

By Allese Baker on

The rise and fall of the mass-produced hit — be it movie, song, or movie star — is a phenomenon unique to the last century. Nowhere has this cycle been more palpable over the past two decades than in the music industry, which, as detailed by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired, in his book The Long Tail, “perfected the process of manufacturing blockbusters. The resounding commercial success of teen pop — from Britney Spears to the Backstreet Boys — showed that the business had its finger firmly on the pulse of American youth culture … their marketing departments could now predict and create demand with scientific precision.”

Then came the burst of dot-com bubble, rise of Napster, and peer-to-peer file trading networks. The fool-proof plan for creating a music mega-star began to splinter. Music moguls poured millions into lawsuits but the tide of music culture had long since turned, leaving executives disillusioned and bitter with the industry they knew so well. One by one they paid their respects (however vehemently) and either adapted or deserted.

Last week, Tommy Mottola, former head of Sony Music Entertainment who signed and developed artists like Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Destiny’s Child, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, the Dixie Chicks, and Mark Anthony, announced he had officially set his sights on a new industry: art. Over the fourth of July holiday, he opened a gallery in East Hampton that boasted of a hodgepodge of blue-chip works by artists like Warhol, Picasso, de Kooning, Alex Katz, Leger, and Rauschenberg. Mottola told the Wall Street Journal that “there’s never been a serious gallery out here in the Hamptons … I thought, with my knowledge and experience, I’d like to try my hand at it.” … Read More

Art

What American Street Artists Can Learn from Egyptian Graffiti

By Allese Baker on

Graffiti has long been a way of asserting power, splashing and spraying imagery of cultural resistance over the structures and buildings of the ruling elite. And so it is no surprise that, as the uprisings in Middle East countries like Egypt have gradually become the white noise of the Western news cycle and public protests have become far harder to stage, graffiti has exploded into the streets.

Where in the United States, graffiti art has become something of a fetish among collectors, curators, and celebrities alike, in the Middle East, it is a political tool, a far cry from the subject of a blockbuster retrospective, like Jeffrey Deitch’s Art in the Streets. Additionally, as the popularity of graffiti and its begrudged brother, street art, has grown in the US, its identity has become increasingly fragmented. Battles over street artists vs. graffiti artists (i.e. art school kids who create intricate wheatpastes in their studios vs. those who spray paint with bottles in illicit dark spaces) pervade the genre, as well as questions like: Is exhibiting with celebrity curators like Deitch selling out? Is working with major fashion brands like Louis Vuitton selling out? Is working with real-estate moguls like Tony Goldman — aka king of gentrification in New York’s Soho and Miami’s South Beach, the same Tony Goldman that partially subsidizes the graffiti-happy New York gallery The Hole, which also curates the Houston wall, one of the most legendary graf-spots in New York — selling out? If so, then a substantial number of American graffiti artists, are, well, sold. … Read More

Art

The Most Staggering Sales at Art Basel 2011

By Allese Baker on

Art Basel, the most legendary, prestigious art fair in the world — which this year featured $1.8 billion in art — closed with a spectacular bang Sunday. Galleries boasted of epic sales, Gagosian selling $45 million worth of art within the first 45 minutes of the fair, and works by artists like Mark Rothko, Maurizio Cattelan, Anish Kapoor, and Bridget Riley fetching well over $2 million. Bloomberg declared that the art the market was officially back to, if not above, “peak of the boom” 2007-2008 levels and Forbes called the fair a feeding frenzy, reporting that billionaires and celebrities were sweeping up artworks at world-record prices. If the soaring sales at Basel serve as any sort of economic barometer, it’s clear that the disparity between the rich and the poor is graver than ever. The following list chronicles ten of the most mind-boggling sales at Basel this year. … Read More

Art

Illustrated Journals: 8 Artists Who Made the Personal Public

By Allese Baker on

Attention was showered on the illustrated journal this week, a generally lesser-discussed artistic genre, when the Victoria and Albert Museum in London announced the winners of its annual illustration awards. Olivier Kugler took top prize for his pictorial account of his journey across Iran, Un Thé en Iran. The 30-page journal was described by judges as a “stunning work” which was “hard to fault.” “This is where drawing can top photography and copy,” said judge and contemporary artist Rob Ryan. … Read More

Art

Before 'The Clock': Christian Marclay's Other Movies

By Allese Baker on

As we touched upon in our roundup of Venice Biennale artists you should know, Christian Marclay achieved art world stardom over the past year for The Clock. The 24-hour film montages clips from movies, each featuring a timepiece, to clock the cycle of an entire day, minute by minute. Described by critics as “utterly transfixing,” “magnificent,” “relentless and compelling,” and perhaps most intensely, “the most staggering, complex thing made by any artist so far this century” (emphasis mine), The Clock explores how representations of time in movies shape our own conception of it: What is seven o’clock supposed to look like (Marclay shows cocktails, the end of the workday, getting dressed for dinner, stricken commanders preparing for an alien invasion)? What happens — or as Marclay’s film insinuates — is supposed to happen at 3am? 7am? 1pm? How do representations of time in movies influence the activities we perform, ways we present ourselves, conventions we abide by? Surveying nearly a century of movies, The Clock seems to suggest that films inform the routines and customs of our own lives as much, if not more than, we inform the narrative of time in film. How meta we have become.

Exploring the influence of a certain object through movies is a central trope in Marclay’s work. The Clock sits aloft a long line of films that each explore the socio-cultural identity of a much represented but rather banal device. What Marclay has done to hourglasses, alarm clocks, and watches, he has also done to guns, guitars, and telephones, among many others. In the wake of Marclay’s über-prestigious win at the 54th Venice Biennale last week (he received a Golden Lion for Best Artist), it’s worth ticking through some of his earlier works. … Read More

Art

A Scattered Smattering of Venice Biennale Artists You Should Know

By Allese Baker on

The 54th Venice Biennale opened to the public this week after its VIP preview, which seamed with press, celebrities, and oligarchs amidst the upper echelons of the art world. Eighty-nine countries are represented in the 2011 Biennale, 12 more than in 2009, including several nations that have never before participated, like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and tiny Andorra. While artwork at the prestigious international art fair is still being digested (the Biennale is on view until November 27), the recent awards (Golden Lions for Christian Marclay and Christoph Schlingensief) coupled with last week’s avalanche of reviews from critics around the world have provided a preliminary glimpse of the mark the 54th Biennale will leave. Read on for eclectic survey of a few interesting artists thus far. … Read More