New gallery allows New Yorkers to "buy" street art

New York City is home to some of the world's most unique and impressive street art. Housed on the sides of buildings and in the subway, street art infiltrates the lives of city-dwellers publicly and for free.

However, a new gallery in NYC called Wall(m)-art aims to make these public works privately owned.

For a mere $150, anyone over the age of 18 can browse the online collection and purchase his/her own work or have a customized work made. Instead of taking the work home, the buyer of the art will be rewarded with a beautiful frame, a personalized plaque and a proof of ownership title.

The legality of the operation is fuzzy, but the self-described "gallery and auction house" has already sold a few pieces in Brooklyn.

Whether or not the artists or building owners are awarded a cut of the profit is unclear. However, the website does make careful efforts to explain that once the purchase has been made, no refunds will be offered. Wall(m)-art also states that while they cannot offer any refunds, they are "off the hook" regardless of what happens to the paintings or laws after the purchase is made.

Although this particular "gallery" hints at some sketchy behavior, the idea of buying or selling street art raises questions about art in the public domain that are worth considering.

Auctioning and framing graffiti in New York works off the claim that street art is, indeed, art and not just vandalism.  However, are there any rights of ownership to a work that is inherently breaking the rules through its existence? Does the art belong to the artist, the building owner, the passerby patrons, or does the art belong to a third-party who makes a stake and auctions the piece out?

Creating works to exist in the public domain implies a sense of communal ownership, but this means that the artists often goes unpaid and unrecognized for their efforts. Yet, with Wall(m)-art's tricky fine print and murky business practices, New York may have to consider new legislation outlining ownership of art commissioned illegally in the public domain.

Sources: PSFK, Wall(m)-Art
All images from Wall(m)-Art website.

Good Dirt Halloween Party

Good Dirt, Athens’ local pottery studio and gallery will be hosting its annual Halloween bash tomorrow, October 30, from 6 to 9 p.m. You’ll be able to see new work by Jeff Williams, Mike Klapthor and Sarah Visser. In addition to the exhibition, there will be magic tricks, tasty refreshments and you can even bring your instrument for or just listen to a live acoustic music jam. Don’t miss out—it sounds like a great time!

Earlier that same day, as Clarke County schools are out, Good Dirt will be hosting a special kids’ workshop from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The kids will be able to make Thanksgiving-themed projects. Make sure to call and register your kids.

Good Dirt has various classes year-round, from basic pottery wheel classes to glass fusing. Good Dirt also hosts birthday parties and can even bring workshops to your event. The studio and gallery are both located on the corner of Thomas and Dougherty Streets, north of the Classic Center. Call 706.355.3161 or email info.gooddirt@gmail.com for more information.

The Pop-Up Gallery Trend

“It depresses me when people spend their day writing funding applications. They won’t do anything unless they have a big budget, so they’re always waiting for money. It’s much more interesting to just get on with things.”-Katie Guggenheim, an aspiring artist and self-propelled gallery organizer

You might have noticed that I have been placing special focus in my blog posts recently on how the art world is faring in the contemporary economic tempest. Museums and galleries have gone through fundamental changes, displaying pieces from their permanent collections before seeking out traveling exhibitions or paying good money to borrow important works to bump up attendance. The art world is not only working with, but in some ways benefiting from the steady decline in funding. An article in the Art Newspaper features a new surge in art galleries and impromptu shows going on in poor London neighborhoods, abandoned warehouses and even prime real-estate property that can’t rent or sell otherwise. This pattern vaguely resembles cyclical gentrification patterns: art galleries take up spaces in cheap, abandoned warehouses in poor neighborhoods and establish a cool factor in said neighborhoods; then, young middle-class people start moving in because of cheap real estate and a new vibrant cultural and artistic presence. The current situation is a bit different, however, because these art galleries are not necessarily moving into cheaper, poorer neighborhoods; they are establishing themselves in rich neighborhoods where the real estate is priced too high to sell at the moment. Gallery organizers pay a small price to rent the spaces or nothing at all. Some aspiring art dealers, like James Tregaskes, are even using their empty apartments as galleries. I always pay special attention to the comment section in articles, and this one had particularly interesting takes on the subject. Dr. Krishna Kumari Challe, from Hyderabad, India, writes that the new monetary accessibility of art spaces could also revolutionize foreign art, in particular Indian art, in the West: “This sounds very interesting. Because artists from third world countries should be millionaires & billionaires to organize shows in the West. Only well established artists can have shows there now. Upcoming & new artists can only dream about the shows there. So the exposure of art works of these artists in the West is almost nil! Now they too can have shows at least in London.” These free and cheap galleries have the potential to revolutionize contemporary art by giving more artists with humble pecuniary backgrounds the potential to exhibit. Moreover, the low gallery rent is allowing artists to place less emphasis on drawing in a large audience in hopes of paying off gallery costs. Essentially, this means that with less focus fund raising, artists will place more emphasis on developping a more sincere result. How exciting is that?

Saatchi Says

The notoriously media-shy and cantankerous art collector Charles Saatchi has finally let himself be captured by ravenous journalists in an interview not limited to a series of grunts and insults. This time, Saatchi cooperates and answers an array of questions concerning his attitude toward contemporary art, collectors, critics and artists. Part of the interview focuses on the release of his book, “My Name is Charles Saatchi and I Am an Artoholic (Everything You Need To Know About Art, Ads, Life, God And Other Mysteries And Weren't Afraid To Ask)” which came out on September 8. The interview follows a similar format to the book: a straightforward question-and-answer layout, ranging from personal questions (which he usually refuses to answer) to art-related questions. There are not many reviews yet, perhaps because of the esoteric nature of the book or because the book came out only yesterday and critics are still mulling over their opinions of it. The Independent briefly comments on Saatchi’s little book: 

“Brutally frank”, says the blurb, but a recurring note is defensiveness, and the sore spot is "vulgarity". “The snobbery of those who think an interest in art is the province of gentle souls of rarefied sensibility never fails to entertain. Lord forbid that anyone in 'trade' should enter the hallowed portals of the aesthete. I liked working in advertising, but don't believe my taste in art, such as it is, was entirely formed by TV commercials!”

The Independent also remarks that Saatchi seems bitter in the interviews, but his critiques of the art world seem reasonable. In all, the book is short, but for what it lacks in length, it seems to make up in grandiloquence and spunk.

The guardian interviews Charles Saatchi

The Independent takes a look at Saatchi’s book