Who are the most marketing-driven artists alive & in history

LW, I have a question for you. Have you ever been on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills? They have those art galleries selling limited editions of high profile artists, and I've often wondered if they were fake or copies. What do you think?

Here's an article a friend sent to me today that fits into this topic. Pros at the Con November 2, 2003
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

I gave a Valentine's Day party in 1981 and Janet Cooke came.

On a dance floor filled with red and white balloons, I introduced myself and complimented her on her amazing story about Jimmy, an 8-year-old heroin addict in the D.C. projects.

Flashing her dazzling smile, the pretty 26-year-old
Washington Post reporter thanked me and shimmied away. That spring, she won a Pulitzer. Two days later, Ben Bradlee had to return it - a moment, he told me recently, that was the most painful of his career.

Jimmy didn't exist and Janet was a grifter, a woman who pretended to be a Sorbonne graduate and a tennis ace.

Fifteen years later, my friend Michael Kelly, then the editor of The New Republic, told me about a very angry letter he had fired off to someone who had criticized one of his young writers, Stephen Glass. I was worried that Mike's language in the letter had been too belligerent, even as I admired his Gael force loyalty.

After Mike left the magazine in 1997 - a departure sparked by fights with the owner, Marty Peretz - his successor, Chuck Lane, discovered that Glass had fabricated many of his quirky stories.

The new movie "Shattered Glass" recounts the absorbing tale of how a pathological and smarmy young man fooled the brainy journalists at the publication referred to in the film as "the in-flight magazine of Air Force One." (Though Ryan Lizza, a political reporter for The New Republic, jokes that with the current administration, Sports
Illustrated is the in-flight magazine of Air Force One.)

"The reason that con artists get away with elaborate deception is that most people refuse to live in a world in which cynicism is the rule," says Leon Wieseltier, the magazine's literary editor, who never suspected Glass. "We're mentally prepared for honest mistakes. And everybody lies. But most people lie because they're afraid, not because they get pleasure out of deceiving or because they have contempt for people and standards of probity."

It's hard to protect yourself from the big lie.

The seriously creepy Jayson Blair is riding his con to fame and bucks. He has now replaced Elizabeth Smart as the carnival "get" who shouldn't be got. Katie Couric is planning an NBC special and a "Today" show interview with the New York
Times fabulist to help him peddle his book, which has the most risibly tacky title in publishing history - "Burning Down My Master's House."

I have now watched two "Law and Order" episodes based on Blair. Murders were thrown in, because an information scam is not good enough for Dick Wolf's franchise.

An information scam is good enough for George Bush's franchise, though. It's clearly easier and safer - especially in the era of instant, interlocking data and technology - to go with the truth than a ruse, but the Bush team went with a ruse to get us into what Rummy belatedly calls "the long, hard slog" of Iraq.

Now we're in the postwar war, and President Bush is still manipulating reality. He wants to obscure the intensity and nature of the opposition, choosing to lump anyone who resists the American occupation in the category of terrorist.

He has also tried to play down the fatalities and the large number of wounded. He has not been attending memorial services or funerals of the soldiers killed in Iraq, according to The Washington Post. And the Pentagon reinforced a ban on news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings at Dover.

This sort of airbrushing is tasteless, because it
diminishes our war heroes instead of honoring them. And pointless, since news outlets are running the names of the dead every day and starting to focus more on the heart-rending stories of the maimed.

Political calculations have now trumped the proclamations of virtue and symbolism that this White House would normally embrace.

It's bad enough to try to hide critical information when you can get away with it. It's really insulting to try to hide it when you can't get away with it.

Those who go for the big con, who audaciously paint false pictures, think everyone else is stupid. They want to promote themselves based on the gullibility of others.

For Cooke, Glass and Blair, their editors were the marks. But at least that unholy trio only soiled newsprint. For the Bush crowd, the American people were the marks.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/opinion/02DOWD.html ex=1068776426&ei=1&en=715569af2857e498

A lengthy comment inspired by the Kinkade-bashing. This will be an excruciatingly "on-the-other-hand" sort of post.

I knew Tom (back when he was still Tom and not Thom/Thomas) from his art school days. He was a friend and next-door neighbor, and I watched his career unfold. Because we now move in different strata, I haven't seen him in years, since he invited my wife and me to his 40th birthday bash. Still I think I can offer an untypical perspective...

I must confess that's Tom's stuff is mass-produced demographic-targeted couch art. I am constantly astounded by his appearance in a new, as-yet-unexploited arena--night lights, jigsaw puzzles, factory co-produced art.

All the same, Tom got where he was not only by self-promotion, but also by working his ass off. I recall when, in order to fill his first two-man show, he painted day and night for two months straight. He was constantly working, then beating the bushes, then working again, ceaselessly. I think he deserves some points for honest sweat and labor.

Up until the last time I saw him, Tom painted constantly, both in the studio and outdoors. I don't think all his works are /were painted by others. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if it's come to that lately. A life as public as his means lots of time spent schmoozing. That cuts into easel time.

Then, too, Tom has had this thing for years about creating a "multi-level" factory in which the more expensive the product, the closer to "original" it becomes. This led to his weird practice of dabbing "touches" on certain high-end prints, while the "touches" on lesser prints are applied by personally-trained touchers.

Tom can paint. I have an original landscape he painted back in the 80s which I like a lot. On the other hand, his skills are mid-level at best (he never could paint a person very well). Also, he spent his early years cribbing approaches from painters he admired--Stobart, G. Harvey, Coleman. Even his best work never broke free of their influence.

During the Western art boom, when Tom cranked out small canvases of landscapes with teepees, he upped his output by abandoning plein-air painting and working exclusively from scrap. This allowed him to paint round the clock. By this method his approaches hardened into schtick. Eventually (his cottage period) the schtick took over completely.

On the other hand, Tom is a fascinating paradox to me because for all his ballyhoo and egotism (of which there is a lot), he's also a decent guy. He is generous, outgoing, fun, even while being pompous and self-involved.

In my opinion, the key is that Tom believes wholeheartedly in his own hype. He is pursuing a great vision with unstinting zeal. The vision gives him the energy, enthusiasm, and perseverance to ignore opposition and negative opinions. The fact that this vision is a schlock vision, a corporate-art empire that will put a Kinkade "in every house in the nation," simply isn't relevant to his inner drive to succeed.

I'm unwilling to get into the "what is true art?" aspect of Tom's strange career. In the final analysis, most art is commercial. Only the type of client and the method of distribution differs. If thousands of people feel Kinkade's stuff speaks to them, for them his work has merit. We can sit on the sidelines and belittle them, but I wonder.

If each of us were making Tom's kind of money doing our own work, and someone came along and labeled it schlock, how many of us would agree and give up what we were doing?

In closing I can only say that Tom, like 99% of people, is neither all bad nor all good, but a maddening mixture of both. In Gag Helfrunt's words, "He's just this guy, you know?"

glad to have you here eeg
(can
i call you eeg?)\
Its good to have your input because we were , me especially, ganging up on kinkade, but mostly from a brutalized critique nature. One thing led to another and somewhere in here, he became the ANtichrist. I dont know where that happened but you know... Im sure theres a little of the "how the hell can a minor talent like that make it so big/"
Working ones ass off helps.
Im curious, did he envision the process by which he invaded the sofa sized art world? or did he have a really savvy handler?
I mean when he started out, did he meet with anybody whod listen , or hang his works at every diner , or did he go for shows at all?

At the low brow end of the spectrum...when you discuss market saturation don't overlook the empire created by illustrator Mary Engelbreit. Some of her work has a great deal of charm... it just doesn't translate on a soap dispenser or dishtowel! But you know what? I'd rather sip my tea out of her mug, than Kincaid's!

eegah....thank you for your primary insights....
Kincade says," I'm a believer".... His representations of an idealized world that has never and will never exist in reality seems to strike a chord in a general spiritual impoverishment.....

shepaints , Holy cow, you just hit on it. We who paint, wonder about what others see in his work because we dont need a spiritual yardstick. Today, at a job site, i did a 10 minute sketch of a dumpster with some summertime junk laying in and next to it.
My spiritual needs are fullfilled by a childlike sense of amazement at most anything.

AN< IM NEVER GONNA GROW UP. SO THERE.

Yes, looking at the ground, for example, outside our work backdoor is enough to amaze for considerable time...

Yes, don't you dare grow up, Farmerman. Who
was it that said that as an adult you have to learn to be a child again when you paint? One of the famous artists....

..I was in a home decorating store this afternoon and saw a genuine 100% polyester velvet-lookalike olive-green bedspread manufactured by Kinkade.....Can it possibly be the same guy?

omigod, a bedspread?????

I am not sure it is the same guy since the
box was just marked Kinkade without any
reference to the painter.....

art
I also remember seeing on TV an advertisement for Kinkaid furniture. Could it be?

Well I feel rather hypocritical dissing
Kinkade since I have just completed a 4' painting of flowers!!! I decided to go for the money. Now
I just have to flog it!

art
Oh, go for it, Shepaints. I think it's alright to dance with the devils so long as we prefer dancing with angels.
By the way, I just heard a wonderfully sharp quote from the author,Margaret Atwood (I'm changingit from writer to painter).

"To want to meet the painter because you like his/her work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate."

Kinkaid sells. "Thomas" or "Kinkaid" is usually the first or second most searched for word under "Art" on E-bay, the internet.



What's wrong with painting flowers? Kinkaid's err is not his subject, it is his repetative churning out, the lack of observation, the lack of skill, and the lack of thought involved. He is not challenging himself, and he is not interested in his work as artwork, only in catering to the market. This makes him a capitalist/decorator more than an artist (although "artist" is not a concrete term.)

If you want proof that flowers can be inventive, challenging, and full of depth, just look up Jan van Huysum. his work, unlike many contemporary artists, looks even better in person than it does in print.
To quote my painting teacher on the matter, there is "Absolute physicality of each petal, and drama in each leaf."

art
Portal, I would add to your extensive list of Kinkaid's shortcomings, his appealing to infantile fantasies of a heavenly existence (e.g., cottages by brooks). His work does absolutely nothing to challenge the viewer to expand his aesthetic powers or to evoke those he has. He promotes regression. He sells property in fantasy land.

Jan van Huysum
Jan van Huysum:

http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/h/huysum/

Well however much we might disdain K's work, I
somehow doubt that any of us could come up with
a like formula to crack the code in order to achieve such ubiquity in the market place. He certainly has his finger on the pulse of what sells. Ask 10 people who their favourite art movement and they will say the Impressionists.........I am sure this fact hasn't escaped the painter of light.....

No, Portal there is nothing wrong with painting flowers, except that they are such a cliche, it's so difficult to do anything fresh and new with them....Still my hopes are, that in the dead of winter, in the grey frozen north, an image of a corner of a garden at the end of the summer might appeal to someone. Well, its a moneygrab and I admit it!!!

Wonderful quote JL......Among the ducks who look like artists to the bone that I would like to meet are Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates and Salmon Rushdie!!!

B3....truly superb wonderful paintings of flowers
which I would really love to own in your link....but nothing new.....done already by the Dutch masters centuries ago.....

By the way JL.....a real estate agent in fantasy land is the best
description I have seen to date!!!!!