A far cry from the 'who cares?' syndrome.Have you ever wondered about the stuff that happens in the fine art trade, I mean, how it goes down? 'What did he/she do?' 'What did he/she have lined up?' 'Did he/she have to aim for that particular trend or niche?' There's also the stuff that doesn't happen. Ever hear the question, repeated-add-nausea, 'has your/his/her artwork sold anything'? Then get this. Nearly anyone asking that about an artist's work could be a buyer of it. However, due to the nature of their question, it could be said then that people are aware of their consumer power, yet they are thinking that they don't want to be the first one to purchase? Is that adult thinking, even if an acquisition could be a sweet deal (hello?!!) or gotten for an objectively market-inflected price? And, how can the artist and the (often intimidated or stranded) consumer be empowered in all of the hoo-ha? I sure had been wondering; this is my field.
Later I found that Alan Bamberger and the writers for www.artbusiness.com have shared hundreds of articles respectively for both fine art collectors and fine artists. Each and every article is written as straight as an arrow (complete with a sense of humor and true wit), and collectively cover all wide-ranging stages of the game. After reviewing one artist article and one collector article, I quickly bookmarked the site for more. What surprised me was that the material is free of topics unrelated to the fine arts, that get habitually blended into certain stages when shared widely. For makers and consumers who have artworks in their vicinity, and think 'OK, it's there, I can see it, now what?', you are to find lots o' insight. Imagine fewer and fewer people getting stuck in the smoke screen of a business that has its share of reputations.
Artists reading some of the following articles would make the whole world a better place: "Art in the New Economy"; "How Not to Succeed in the Art World"; "I Can't Sell Art Because I'm Not Dead and the Media Are Idiots" and "Why Should People Buy and Own Art?" to name a very few.
