Monday, October 20, 2008

Space Between ? I dunno.


Love Acts


Rifles and Weenies


Bourbon Street Boogie



Space Between : DOCs Gallery New Orleans

DEREK CRACCO

Digital printmaker

Okay. I am an art dealer. I deal in art. In New Orleans we only have one art critic Doug MacCash. These are the shows that he constantly likes to review. He never reviews anyone on Magazine Street and rarely reviews anything that is not so contemporary as to make it a really hard sell for those of us who can not afford to just have questionable, cool but questionable see art on our gallery walls.

I am not a fan of Digital printmaking. I guess it’s because I feel that it is so conceptual that I am not really sure that the artist is a talented artist or is just a talented photo shopper. When I listen to the “justification” of Space Between yeah I get it, but it seems like a lot of bull shit. Blah- de- blah- blah -blah.

I also wonder if the art critic did not give the favorable push, would anyone buy this type of work. I guess I am asking would you put this up on a wall at your home. At your office? I am speaking more of the Space Between show than the digital prints that I have put up as pictures.

Perhaps I need to reconsider being in the art business, I have enough of a hard time selling realistic fine contemporary art, all done without the aid of a computer. Yet it would seem that Derek Cracco is well collected so I would assume that means people are buying his work.

I am feeling very discouraged right about now.









13 comments:

billy pilgrim said...

cheer up, the universe is unfolding as it should.

Leslie said...

I totally agree with you about digital prints.

Holy shit.

Anyway, where did all the people living in tents under the highway overpass go?

Woozie said...

His last name is MacCash? It's like a bad porno.

Do a portrait of him in a donkey show.

Raspootin said...

bp that does not make me feel any better than the Christians who say: Dont worry about it Jesus is coming soon. The times are nearing the end.

Leslie I think they packed them all up for Gustav and did not bring them back. I could be wrong, after all what do I know, when the art critic reviews a digital photography shows and calls it fine art.

Ya know Woozie that is not a bad idea. I could do that and ask him to review the conceptual art critic show.

Im liking that idea. Bad press is better than none @ all.

unokhan said...

am i wrong, or is this an extension of the IS PHOTOGRAPHY ART question which has been bouncing around since daguerre

Raspootin said...

unokhan:

Photography is art
Digital art is art by definition

Installtions (how ever odd) are art.

I am questioning digital art as FINE art. It just seems to me that using a computer to enhance a photo(hopefully taken by the artist) is not an art form rather a technical ability with using a program and therefore not fine art.

Basically it pisses me off that Doug MacCash does not give the time of day to really talented functional artists, the ones who can draw free hand, paint etc. without the help of a computer and yet reviews shows where the talent of the artist as well as the justification for said art is questionable.

Art is whatever a person defines as art, I can of course, subjectively say that there is such a thing as good art and bad art.

IMHO :)

yellowdoggranny said...

i like good ole oil on canvas type of art..or water colors..pencil drawings, or charcoal..
im an old fart, and I aproved this message

Raspootin said...

I must be an old fart too :)

unokhan said...

and then there's howard finster

L.P. said...

oooh i loved howard finster! umm - what was i going to say - oh yeah, having started to dive into that world of digital print i have to say i disagree with it not potentially being fine art. a painter can paint on a canvas and it might not qualify as fine art if it totally sucks or is paint by numbers. it comes down to the artist, the skill, the concepts and the originality doesn't it? Not all art is meant to be pretty as you know - some of it is meant to be thought provoking - forcing people to see themselves or the world from a new angle they may not have come to otherwise. The computer is simply a tool, really no different than a camera, a brush, a slab of marble, a pencil or a piece of metal waiting to be etched. How creatively the tool is used makes all the difference. I can tell you i've discovered that some of the building of art in photoshop can take as much effort and agonizing as grabbing a piece of charcoal and paper. My two cents. and i tried to keep it brief. :D

Raspootin said...

I hope he is praying real hard...

At least his stuff is cheap and fairly non pretentious...

Ah Fine NOT: even Folk art is a questionable term when it comes to his stuff.

However it is happy and people like happy stuff for a reasonable price. I doubt the economy is going to hurt his sales :)

Raspootin said...

Pardon moi, I was looking at "Lizzy's" work when I made the last comment.

His stuff is actually not so bad. In fact I kind of like some of it.

I had never heard of him so who figures...

I am not a snotty art dealer, I just like to deal in art that sells.

I met a white artist that was formally trained who painted "black folk art" I really thought that was a stretch to sell. I mean Folk art is by definition not really something that a white dude with phd in fine art does.

The ends do not alway justify the means, even though his art was good folk art... like I said I dunno

unokhan said...

as u know, picasso turned to african art n order to discover cubism, but your white phd sounds like an example of faux folk --which is now all over the place in galleries, exhibitions, and shows... one needs a certain eye to tell the faux from the 'outsider' and to tell the outsider from the was-an-outsider now imitating himself for sales, and it sort of fun, this discernment game, when the stakes are not too high.