Is The VIP Art Fair Unfair?

// January 25th, 2011 // View Comments // b-scene

B-Uncut is all about innovation in Art and, of course, the Internet. So we love the idea of selling Art online. You would think then, that we would be big fans of The VIP Art Fair? Well, yes and no…

Art is one of those industries that provides debate after debate about where it can go forward and what is acceptable or not. Whether it is denying new forms of Art their right to be classed alongside established genres, or debating what level of mass consumption is right – Art produces as many arguments as it does pieces.

The VIP Art Fair is no different. The concept is brilliant – selling and demonstrating Art online are the next logical steps in spreading Art Worldwide. It isn’t the first online Art innovation. Ideas like our very own B-Uncut and The Future Generation Art Prize have shown themselves to be great ways spreading Arts global reach and giving artists the chance to start earning a name for themselves.

After making a name for themselves, an artist will hopefully be in the position where they can make some money – artists have bills just like anyone else. What can be better then, than something like The VIP Art Fair? It’s a chance for artists to sell their works to collectors that have the money and inclination to pay well for the pieces they like.

There are a number of problems with the concept though – both in terms of its implementation and whether it is the right thing to do. If you were about to spend sums potentially in to the millions for a piece of Art, would you want to buy it from somewhere that doesn’t give you option of seeing it up close and personally? It is far less personal than an auction type situation and is almost like buying ‘blind’. I feel trepidation spending more than £50 on eBay, so I would struggle to part with such huge sums on Art, with just a few pictures as a reference point.

Everyone is different though. I do believe that there is a market for spending big on online Art, particularly with the younger generation of Internet users. With The VIP Art Fair taking in a dream list of top galleries and artists work, they will have no trouble selling the pieces. In fact, the work of featured artists like Jackson Pollock, Louise Bourgeois, Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst practically sells itself.

The only problem I have is with the fact buyers are ‘invite only’. Sure, I’m a little short of £1 million for a Jackson Pollock piece, but the fact remains, if you only allow a certain crowd of Art buyers to take part, you are making Art elitist. Elitism is not something Art needs thrown at it, being that it is already battling against this public perception already. I don’t think it is doing a particularly good job of battling either.

Closing off the potential for everyone to enjoy and purchase top Art works is creating a ‘closed shop’ vibe around the Modern Art World. I can’t afford to buy top Art, but I would like to think that I could if I had the money. I think it is unfair to prevent potential buyers that right, that is why I think things like The Future Generation Art Prize are a much better and more meaningful step for Art as a whole.

So, it’s sadly a case of: The VIP Art Fair – almost very good, but not quite…

What do you think? Let us know…

Smile, you’ve just been Friezed!

// October 23rd, 2009 // View Comments // b-scene

“Don’t blame it on the sunshine, don’t blame it on the moonlight”, blame it on the recession! This year’s Frieze Art Fair wasn’t as rock n’ roll as it used to be.

Frieze has unfortunately become institutionalized, and dare I say, business-oriented. Galleries are clearly taking it easy on the craziness of contemporary art, and are being more mundane. Everyone at Frieze seemed to be there “to see, and to be seen” at the vanity Frieze fair. From the uber-hip woman to the “I intentionally look gross but I’m worth your salary in socks” bohemian bourgeois, the entire super rich ecosystem was there, and ready to spend their cash after discount of course.

But if you could drag your eyes from the fall-winter 2009-2010 YSL collection, then there was plenty to see. Although the fair’s works have lost their vitality, they remain “pleasant”, in a nothing too crazy, just contemporary, art popping from everywhere, kinda way.

It felt like every inch of wall, ceiling and floor had something to whisper to you. Not sure if it was a simple and straight to the point “buy me” or a sweet “I am here to please you.” Some pieces are average, others standard, very few are interesting, but most of the pieces are disappointing. Even the new edgy collection section called Frame, displaying the work of younger galleries with more solo focused exhibitions didn’t rock my world.

Marathoning around the 150 galleries and the zillions of works felt like chasing the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, and we felt a little dizzy looking at pieces constantly going from “wow” to “ughh”.

The White Cube Gallery had the old crooners out on display including Gilbert and George, and Hirst. Artists from older generations such as Ida Applebroog for instance, had a great success selling all her works proving just how important it was to focus on older, and “safer values”. The same thing applies to Wim Peeters of Office Baroque Gallery, who showed a 1965 work from Owen Land.

So what?

Cliché works and it works pretty well at Frieze; with Louise Bourgeois’ sculpture “The Couple”, going under the hammer for $3.5 million, and John Baldessari’s Beethoven’s Trumpet (with Ear) Opus 133 was sold for $400,000. Rumor has it that Eva Presenhuber sold its Ugo Rondinone work “A Day Like This Made of Nothing and Nothing Else” for €270,000. Looks like some galleries made some dough at least.

John Davis’ installation was probably one of the most intriguing and interesting pieces; the life-size models had something that screamed power and humiliation: brilliant work. We also heart K8 Hardy’s Photographs of slightly pathetic but somehow edgy lonely women, and loved Yang Shaobin’s moving life-size model of a freakishly flashing miner man.

But the most random and fun thing we came across in the Frame section, was an installation called the “Club Nutz of Milwakee”, a mini night-club where you got a free drink if you had the guts to stand up and crack up a joke in front of an audience.

Now that the bonus culture is back in, we’ll be waiting for the next Frieze to shoot some bigger, riskier art at us.