Art for the masses.

masses
Bluxx, thanks for an interesting topic. I would qualify it with the idea that use of the notion of "conformists" should take into account what the comformity is directed to, what standard or population? Kincaid undoubtedly conforms to the standards of the so-called popular sector (as in popular music and popular art). I am trying not to sound like a snob here, but I DO try to conform to some standards and some subpopulation of society (national and international). I paint for artists, not for the man in the street. I do hope, however, that the man-in-the-street will eventuallly ascend to the standards and tastes of my artist "reference group" so that I can paint for him as well. My painting may be good for nothing--I say this in conformity with the standards of humility some uphold--but I clearly derive great benefit from it, and hope that those who are prepared--artists and competent critics--will appreciate my accomplisment or at least appreciate my "failed" efforts.
So, when we refer to comformity we must ask, conformity to what?

Like JLNobody I must ask what is conformity? And I would add who are the masses you refer to.

The problem isn't that he is conforming -- he's conforming to making a buck. It's the self-professed "collector" conforming to what the shark art salesperson tells them and to a standard of taste that should have dissapeared with Currier and Ives. It's the same crowd with a yen to browse card shops and flip through charming country magazines. Kinkaid is no better than the typical TV art instructor. Not only is he poor at composition but his trees are badly painted and not natural. He took the effect of Gainsborough's "The Cottage Door," that charming old painting at the Huntington Library in California and began producing rubber stamped versions of it. The strong rumor that, although one should be wise that none of the painted over prints glued onto canvas are not touched up by him, he has "elves" producing paintings in a factory a la Mark Kostabi is likely not a rumor. Anyone who would spend thousands of dollars on a cheap poster lithograph mounted on cheap canvas in a cheap frame touched up by cheap help deserve what they get. The art laws of the U.S. do not protect them from being cheated. These manufactured pieces of "fine art" are just as perverse as the prolifiration of fakes.

right on Light Wizard; the real ironic thing is that Kincaid manages to make Kostabi intersting; That's how much distaste I have for such artistic fraud.
Content; Intent; huh -Kincaid?
If he is widely collected it's a great case for bringing back art education into public schools. the country, unfortunately is artistically illiterate...but I won't go there either.
I read a great essay today on Style and Voice (of artists)
What is this guy (Kincaid) saying? Anything of merit? and look at how smarmy he is saying nothing.
Sorry about my poor choice of words; I am but a painter who not always chooses the appropriate critical words.
I just finished a post...on the "favorite artist quote" section, in which I quoted John Sloan; I think that says it all.

we do have art for the masses, they're called prints; and with the great new availability of Giclee', even emerging talents can afford to mass produce a worthy image

And they, the prints, are in a Mall in every city and town in the US where the masses congregate to shop.

LightWizard has a good point as usual.

I just don't find Kincaides work to be passionate....perhaps others do. It's basically tied in with WHY do art. I paint because it is a release, it allows me to express my passions and my heart breaks. If you catch me painting a cottage or becoming the master of light--beat me up.

I don't like the idea of the "elves" working for him, I also believe this to be true, where does it end?

I often wonder what his art would be like if he didn't paint quaint cottages and snow filled streets.

He's from my town....there's a big Kincaid gallery going up soon---good for the economy of the small town, but i'm still bummed.

Although scientific studies have given giclees a good report as to longevity, the testing methods have no way to test these inks for color stability other than exposure to light. I suspect, like offset lithograph colors, that they will change with age. Kinkaid is actually using a method of taking a cheap poster print, stripping off the ink layer and adhering it to canvas (a method devised by none other than Robert Rauschenburg). I've gone over this before, but the fact remains that it is really not an original print when it is reproduced by a printing company. One can sign them until they are blue in the face but the product is worth no more than the cost of materials and the value of their signature. Kinkaid's signature isn't worth more than $15.00 (publishers pay about $5.00 per print plus some royalties based on quantity sold and the "collectibility" of the artist -- an amorphous marketing gimmick if there ever was one).

Kinkaid is passionate about making money like the creator of the pet rock. He is to fine art what the ukelele is to the symphony orchestra. There isn't a complete lack of skill -- he is, after all, a trained painter. He would have likely become an illustrator of greeting cards, lost in the obscurity of time and in actual fact his market will eventually wane and the phony "appraisals" by the publisher himself (Kinkaid) will be likely telling someone a bill with Jefferson on it is worth $10,000.00. If these people would be wise enough to have an accredited appraiser actually tell them what they were worth, it would be wise to have the paramedics nearby.

I believe the laws in the U.S. should be modified to require one to call these prints signed reproductions and like the warning on a pack of cigarettes, show a disclaimer that one should not buy for investment. There are laws on the books now due to abuse in the 80's but they have loopholes and salespeople who have a customer trapped in a corner with one of these images will say anything to make a sale. They're on commission.

.....Well....these 'conformists' dont seem to be pushing 'art'
at all......A Henry Moore sculpture in a city park is more
like art for the masses to me......

30 years ago I was living in Vancouver, BC. Money was scarce, but by chance, I found a cheap print that I fell in love with. It was a black and white photographic composite of children. Their faces haunted me. I had to have it. It cost $25.00, a lot of money for me back then. I bought it. The large print, still in the same frame, now hangs in my daughter's apartment in SF. Recently she told me that one of her friends told her it was worth a lot of money. (It's a composite of Aldo Luongo's early work.) I told her it was worth about $25.00 give or take 30 years and to just enjoy it. You're right LW. Buying art as an investment especially when it involves mainstream America is stupid. If you buy a Kinkade because you like it, fine. Put it on your wall and enjoy it. But don't think that your kids are going to inherit some art treasure when you're gone. Chances are they'll put it in a garage sale along with all the tupperware.

art
And what's wrong with tupperware?
Frankly, LW your stories about the art market, while undoubtedly true and useful, read a bit like a Steven King novel. But don't stop, please.

I worked for the largest print publisher in the late 80's and early 90's, so this is no Stephen King novel. The point is that people are paying way too much for these prints to begin with so while they should be buying them strictly for enjoyment, they are candidly being ripped off. A product markup from cost is typically four times from cost to retail. These prints, under the guise that they are fine art and have an intrinsic value, are marked up from six to twenty times. Kinkaids with the frame cost about $80.00 to produce -- they're sold in the $800.00 to $1200.00 range in the mall galleries.

Hey watch what you say about tupperware. Ive been on a Tware collecting binge (the little cooked egg thingies) I use em for my batches of egg tempera.

Wiz-One area I still disagree with you is the area of what things are worth. Been doing some thinking about it since our last discussions. Whatever the market favors , is what theyre worth. Andrew Wyeth multilith signed prints are selling for 2 to 3K at auction (which is the best indicator of the wholesale market) MAny artists whove signed multiliths or giclee or Iris prints are actual autographs attached to their works. Wyeth doesnt do any remarques on his prints but if he did, I imagine that would add a significant premium.

When you say "not involved with the printing" Im not sure I know of what youre speaking. You dont mean that the only valid prints are those that are hand pulled by the artist? In that case what about all the serigraphs in multicolor registration, or engravings and stone lithos where all the artist did was draw on the Solnhofen. or the pencil sketch transferred to a plate.

What about things like pottery where the pots were slip cast and only splash designed by the artist in a Picasso style, or Dale Chilhullys glass, where he has very little to do with his work past the drawing stages'

Are you mostly concerned about light fastness of the inks for prints? or are you concerned that limited edition prints have no appraisal value because they are not "hands on"?

As for Kinkaid- I wouldnt put down greeting card artists like that. He lacks technical skills
His colors are primitive
His light has a sense of being scripted
His perspective is poor
His draftsmanship is primitive
He brings no different point of view, his stuff is more like the prayer cards I used to get in the Catholic church as a kid.

Id love to see how he could handle a medium like watercolor.



GLAD TO SEE WERE BACK ON THE AIR. I noticed 2 e-mail messages today.

Thomas Kinkade is a cottage industry that seemingly has no end. While in a local mall the other day, I happened to spy appliques of his work on a new line of women's purses.

Kinkade's industry is indeed for the masses, but it is not art. How would you like to pay big bucks for one of his prints, just to see it reproduced on a relatively inexpensive purse?

Kinkade's work looks more like smudges than it does painting. This "painter of light," as he dubs himself, never has a strong focal point or composition. The "light" in his paintings supposedly reflects his strong Christian values.

Yes, this is the era for evangelists, and Mr. Kinkade supposes himself one of them while putting his images on everything from purses to coffee mugs to wall clocks.

One man's "art" may look like very cheap greed to another man.

:wink:

I would say that "art" involves practical skill...like an original hand-made artist- created lithograph, etching or whatever. If some one buys a reproduction print of a Wyeth, for example.....It's still just a copy, maybe with an autograph.

An Andy Warhol silk-screened hand-made assistant-produced print is less art to me than that which is produced directly by the artist; but still more "art" than a commercially produced print with an autograph added.

Art for the masses has changed...it is now in electronic media. Such as television,the world wide web. The latter hasn't reached its potential as yet.The approach of Sloan who was mentioned is one that the left often think is most successful -social realism- The group surrounding Jacques Villon of later Cubists had the social concerns very much on their collective heads. favorite media (as has been mentioned prints).Trotsky had concerns for an art program that would have broader appeal. He became friends with Andre Breton and approved of Surrealism. I could give citations such as freida Kahlo's autobiography and others {others) Christopher Grey: Cubist Aesthetic Theories}Jacque Villon had a group called the [Section d'OR] often called the Puteau group they met in Villon's home. Leger in his theories did some interesting murals ,polychromatic ceramics.has his own museum .He found that Non objective painting was too remote from the general public. He was also very interested in film. No one has mentioned film ,the one art form that has successfully been accepted by average folk. Most artist who have sought the direct participation of the masses have failed. Grand Opera tried. the Mexicans tried with the mural movement.Question how to proceed and succeed when so many have failed.?I think if you would socialize with the working class , I think there are people out there who hunger for ART.Industrialization has changed the public's taste forever.Supersonic jets, the shapes ,of vehicles aerodyanamics etc.Our perception of space,color,dimensions has changed by a number of historical events ,man's exploration of outer space, social conflicts have not been assuaged by Mondrian and his vision of a utopian architecture for a new world.Continued conflict and war is against Art for the Masses, if such an art is to be any good it wouldn't be simple propaganda. Does any one remember the Peace and Freedom party? They had the right idea everyone an artist. Art for everyone . Some of the Social Realists believed by the way in abstract art mixed with folk art as an answer. For all the theories of thinkers one artist that can be admired by all is Brancusi ;simple form , evoke the age of flight.:

conformity//schmormity. I guess we need art for the masses; it has it's place; so when will they put out the Kincaid Toilet Paper/ I'm absolutely dying to get mine...first edition!

Sodabred-May I say that you sound vaguely familiar , and very well informed. I hope you visit often with your insights. Good stuff
Colorific. I truly laughed my ass off thinking about Kinkaid toidy paper. The only problem is , I think it might chafe me tender bottom with all the inks and all.