Comments on Mixed Meters: Our culture overvalues the wrong things.

Feedin the cat Walking the Blog like that

2009-05-23T10:08:06.927-07:00

Feedin the cat Walking the Blog
like that

I like Hockneys early work, his Pear Blossom Highw...

2009-05-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

I like Hockneys early work, his Pear Blossom Highway poloroids and a few artist sketch books I saw at the County. Who was engaged in contemporary landscape painting at the time? The way he singled out lawn sprinklers as subject matter? throw him a bone.

About bones; a girl friend of mine supplies him with his canvas boards. When his beloved dauchshounds died, he stopped work and my friend nearly lost her home to foreclosure. Hockney is prolific. More of him for you to dislike. (that was meant with affection but I refuse to put in a smiley face)

The painting is 144" X 72." That's only $761.96 p...

2009-05-16T01:02:00.000-07:00

The painting is 144" X 72." That's only $761.96 per square inch. Of course it's worth all that.

Whoever is spending $8 mil for that painting isn't...

2009-05-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

Whoever is spending $8 mil for that painting isn't supporting Hockney (although I believe there is now a law which entitles the artist to a portion of the money - I don't know details). And the one purchase doesn't qualify the buyer as a "patron of the arts" either. Only as a consumer of the arts.

I did a little calculation: The percentage of a $3.7 Billion income represented by a $7.9 million purchase would be the same as a person earning $50,000 buying a painting for $112. A friend of mine described that percentage as "Walking Around Money".

Betty, on the other hand, was clearly a patron of the arts. She knew what she liked and what she didn't like, she enjoyed being around creative musicians and performers and sought out new things for the very fact of their very newness.

Her tastes in art and music didn't mesh with mine very often. She did many good things with her money. I hope ten people spring up here in Los Angeles vying for the title of "the new Betty Freeman".

Better a patron supporting too much art than too l...

2009-05-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Better a patron supporting too much art than too little. she also attempted to help some artists who should have done better but didn't Dane Rudhyar being one. who else supported Harry Partch? it sure wasn't the music community, which continue to put into place faux mircotonalist to ward away the very thing his work stands for.
I admit i just don't understand Hockney's work, nor have i spent enough time with it. In general visual art work is over valued, music , dance less so

Yup. Freeman is the person that John Adams called...

2009-05-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

Yup. Freeman is the person that John Adams called the "American Medici." When money talks in assessing the value of art as well as in assessing the value of music, people tend to listen. It has always been that way, ever since the Renaissance.

I used to be impressed by "patrons of the arts," but the more I learn about them (after a lot of study), the more I understand that many of them did what they did and do what they do simply to impress and to feel like they have the kind of power that is really reserved for people who actually do the stuff themselves.

Maybe my tune would change if someone very rich took a serious financial interest in my work--but I'm not holding my breath.

I have been scratching my head over Hockney for a long time. The "branding" aspect of his work makes a good deal of sense.