There are a few art sites on my regular reading list. The following is a list of those that I visit most often (besides NeotericArt).

Mark Kostabi’s column on Art net.
Though, he hasn’t added anything here since 2005, he gives a lot of advice and insight into the art world.

The Mark Kostabi show
OK, I risk being perceived as a Mark Kostabi fanboy, but this is entertaining.

The Kalm Report
OK, I don’t read this, but James Kalm covers the New York art scene like no one else. Watching his reports is almost like being there.

James Kalm Rough Cuts
Like the above, but shorter and not as polished.

No. 9 An Artist’s Journey
Tony Fitzpatrick’s writing sometimes outshines his artwork.

Edward_ Winkleman
Interesting insight into the art world by an Art Dealer

Joanne Mattera Art Blog
…especially the Marketing Mondays posts

Facebook
Of course, I like to keep up with what my colleagues, friends, etc. are doing.

Art Letter
Paul Klein’s boosterism of Chicago art and artists is inspiring.

There are others that I visit on a less-regular basis for various reasons and the list fluctuates throughout the year, but this is the core of the online art world that I am perusing at the moment.

What are your favorites?

Because you have to achieve, or earn, a presence in the Art World, there is also risk for failure. On the other hand, there is no failure in the DIY World, because there is nothing to achieve. This gives the illusion of success, unless of course your vision of success is a blue ribbon at the neighborhood art-walk exhibit.

A while back, a friend and I were discussing music that had been overplayed over the years and had determined that some of it should be locked up in a vault; to be released at a later date when it might be fresh again. We both agreed that the Beatles should be vaulted.

Well, the same is true of the art world. There are aspects of it that, due to ubiquitous, do not have any impact anymore or have lost their importance. It’s not necessarily that they are bad. It’s just that they have been played out to the point of being a cliché. By placing them in a vault, we can make room for something new and make them appear to be fresh when we’re ready to release them from the art world time capsule again.

I’m listing what I’d like to put in the vault for future rediscovery. This is by no means an exhaustive list and does not reflect a hatred toward anything, just that these subjects have lost some of their importance due to overexposure.

Andy Warhol — He set the art world on its ear when he hit the scene, but his repeating images and colorized black and white prints became old 30 years ago. His stuff has appeared on every kind of object you can think of and mimicked by graphic designers for so long that his work is as about as interesting as a section of sidewalk. Time to put him in the vault and by the way, he can take the Velvet Underground with him.

Keith Harring — A one-trick pony to begin with, his Barrel of Monkeys-looking figures have adorned marketing material for fund raising events for the last 25 years. To the vault with ye!

Jackson Pollack — Often imitated by lazy designers, splatter paint is used to break up the monotony of long hallways, and bolts of fabric. It’s no longer exciting to view one of his paintings. I can get more out of observing the sparkles when I grind my fists into my eyeballs. By the way Jack, there is no smoking in the vault.

Jerry Saltz — On the one hand he brings to attention many of the ills of the art world, which is good. On the other hand, he embraces many of the goofy stunts that pass for conceptual art. I believe he does this to be around young artists. By doing so, they keep him young. He’s a vampire! Throw him in the vault so he can’t suck the life out of any more recent grad students!

Video installations that have a TV set on the floor of a gallery — I don’t want to bend over and look at a loop of nonsensical imagery coming from a monitor on the floor. Make a film and have a proper screening in a theater, for crying out loud! Take your blabbing heads and pretty girls with paper maché animal heads dancing through the forest and stuff them in the vault. Besides, CRTs are so last century.

Well, anyway that’s a start. What are your contributions for The Vault?

WTF is a periodic rant about an ill of the art world, one of humankind’s most screwed-up endeavors.

I recently found myself in a discussion about painting and specifically why good interesting work that can stand on its own rarely gets the attention that Neo-Conceptual work, even when poorly executed, receives.

Since academics have taken over art, the purpose of it is to teach a so-called lesson to the viewer. An artist is presumed to have special insight into humanity that ordinary people don’t have. By pointing out social ills, perhaps the viewer can become a better person or at least feel smarter.

To garner more success in today’s art world a painter would be better off to create an installation. Here’s an idea: an artist can hang some work on the wall and also have one of those elotes carts in the center of the gallery. The artist can write some nonsense that he or she is demonstrating the differences between the upper middle class and the struggle that is created when a minority is brought in to prop the middle class up by doing the menial and hard work that allows us our freedom. As a special treat, the cart would actually serve free corn, melon, churros, etc. This would be a way to help bridge the gap between us. Of course, the artist should use a lot of sociological buzzwords like “commodification”, “sociological construct” and maybe throw in “transgression”. Or, perhaps it can be labeled a demonstration of the dehumanization of people in the urban environment and their efforts to enjoy life. Overall, I think the key is to have a somewhat preachy or self-righteous tone to the multi-paragraph statement.

The free food helps, too. The popularity of the heavily-armed ice cream truck at this years NEXT show at Art Chicago was the free Haggen Daz and not the juxtaposition of the artillery and the ice cream truck. Of course it’s through this participation with the work that the viewer learns. It has nothing to do with feeding one’s face with free food, even if the viewer goes back for thirds. It’s a shame that the art world seems to eat this dreck up.

There is some good Neo-Conceptual art out there but most of it seems trite and any visual tools are secondary and only have to help illustrate the artist’s point. Whether it’s good or bad or even of the artist’s hand, it doesn’t matter.

Twenty years ago today, a devastating fire ripped through the Huron–Orleans Building in Chicago. Once a billiard table factory, the structure was home to a large amount of galleries at the time and arguably the center of the River North gallery district. It was actually three buildings. One small structure, that I assume contained the original Brunswick offices and two imposing brick structures that took up the rest of the city block bounded by Orleans, Huron, Sedgwick and Superior. Unfortunately, the huge brick complex had a timber core that burned for hours. Today, one would hardly know that it ever existed. The million-dollar townhouses that replaced it seem to have been there forever.

For many, The Fire marked the end of the glory days of the 80s art scene. Galleries were destroyed. Whole bodies of work, literally went up in smoke. In the following months, The Chicago Artists’ Coalition’s Art News chronicled the battles between artists and galleries and insurers. It was ugly.

For some, the end had already begun a year and a half earlier on Black Friday, as the stock market crash of ’87 sent the art world in a skid. The non-profits that were largely in the basement of the Huron-Orleans Building had already moved and was establishing a new, edgier scene in the West Town area.

At the time of the fire, I was working on my first public art project for the city at Navy Pier and remember the huge plume of smoke to the West. Being new to the art world, I wasn’t sure what long term effect, if any, The Fire would have. Looking back there have been some exciting things since; the aforementioned West Town district, The Cold House Group, World Tatoo, Wicker Park and others have always given me hope that there is something good happening here. To me the art scene never fully recovered. Although, perhaps, to a young artist just out of school, what was happening around the Huron–Orleans Building just seemed bigger than it was.

Do you have any memories of The Fire? Were you affected by it? Do you feel too much weight is given to its importance?

Photo credit: Erik Richmond