Murray Frum, a prominent Canadian collector

Frum sums up his collecting and through it, I think, his life. “Invention separates art from craft,” he writes. “A new juxtaposition, a modulation of form, a creation using associations of contradictory materials—these are things that excite and fascinate me. I am not gifted as a creator, so collecting is the closest I can come to making works of art.”

Art by women and other absurd by women

A few days ago I had a conversation with the woman acquaintance of mine. Enthusiastically she reported that she attended a conference on women business networking. That really touched a string in me. Why is that women business networking is good but men networking is bad? Why is that gay, black minority business networking is good? But that was not all. She reported that one the speaker propagandists overjoyed to the fact that when her mother from Ireland came to the USA she could get a job only as a child attendant, housekeeper, secretary or a waiter. And now it was different… Was it really?- I replied. If you stop the motivational rush and look at the reality… the same places still employ unskilled immigrants. Then she shared with me a call from the same propagandist inviting women to help and to hire more women. That was an exercise of the freedom of speech but surely an absurd one. Should it be just as absurd to hire a female just because of the gender as not to hire the same for the same reason? Should both of them be illegal?


And now coming to “art by women”… Buying art just because the artist is woman is the same absurd as buying the art because the artist is gay, male, disabled, etc. I understand political correctness as self-censorship strategy to avoid hurt feeling of others. Sure you are free to spend money the way you fit.

Virtual reality is becomming dengerous

It is interesting to know that humanity was always interested in virtual world: legends, myths, tails and paintings. Art had its own way of serving this demand by portraying gods, angels in the past. In early 20th century art discovered an abstract world, as well as surrealism to free human imagination and expression of human experience. Since then the virtual world grew and gained new ground in computer virtual reality. That is where from an extension it became a limitation.

The fundamental difference is that games and social games are highjacking human experiences instead of expanding. Games became addictive and mechanical. They became playgrounds for a few and limits for many. Yes I am against computer games that offer fighting and concurring particularly in virtual reality. By breaking a link with reality and replacing it with virtual reality we limit humanity within us. When action game becomes addictive it becomes a drug equal to any mind altering substance. The virtual reality (as it is used in art, literature, music) allows us to become creators, while games and social games turn us into addicts, zombies and consumers. 

Now virtual games became dangerous. Virtual flirt is one of them. As recent “scandal” with democratic congressman (I do not write the name as it is not important for this article) sending a photo of himself to someone he never knew before over the social network communication. Virtual flirt can destroy a career as well as a physical affair in the USA. Europeans may look at such behavior with a sense of humor. But puritan at heart Americans view such conduct as a moral decay. In fact online flirt is more dangerous than in person.

One can wonder why computer games are not tested for addictive properties? Well because the entire idea of such game is no longer in the “winning the game” but in keeping a player engaged for as long as possible. Social aspect of such game is also changed. The idea is no longer in socializing but rather in peer pressure of engaging in the game. Parents are worried that a child does not pay a particular game he will loose friends. And they are missing the point that such games do not promote friendship. One can not loose something that one does not have.

New paintings for the restaurant.

The new Okinawa space was decorated with three of my paintings.

Good thing to say

"Good contemporary art confronts the problems, the issues of today," Kaldor says. "And really good ones point towards the future, give some clues and give some direction. That's why, for me, contemporary art is the most relevant. But art is never in isolation. Even great masters like Titian or Tintoretto or whoever you want to name built on previous ones. So it is a continuum. So I hate defining art by periods."
-Kaldor

40+ year old girl playing an interior designer game

I was having a conversation with a director of the art gallery. She seems to be a bit frustrated with the last visitor which I met face to face at the door. The director was a bit frustrated that often the visitors are looking for art to match their sofas. In my old country people were buying carpets to cover the walls. In United States people are buying large “abstract art” for the same reason. Canvases are large, meaningless, and often colorless to match drapery and furniture from “restoration hardware”.


That is what you sell when your clients are the well-to-do women that are acting out their childhood fantasy of being an interior designer.

There is a big difference between fine art and interior design. Just like there is a difference between fine jewelry and daily ware jewelry, fine dining and “eating out”. Fine things exist for themselves. They are true luxury.

Can you convert a 40+ year old girl playing an interior designer game into a collector of the art? I think not. Her fantasy is not in being an art collector, human anthropologist or a historically significant figure that is destined to write a legacy. Her fantasy is a glamorous interior designer that she wanted to be or she dreamed to be one day. She is decorating her nest. She does not care about sophisticated technique of the artist etc. She is matching colors. She wants it to be big.

Man eating nurse

“Customers buy with ears” and “Devil is in details” came to me in a new light recently.  I read a title “Man-eating nurse” but I read it as “Man eating nurse”.  Big difference!   I find the same level of detail in some painting.  If meaning can be misread – it will be.  Only in a language of symbols it is even more likely.  As a human society we can’t agree on the meaning of the words which changes depending on the context.  The same symbol that makes someone happy will make someone mad.  What can you do?  Talk and talk a lot.  Do no say my art says it all.  It says different things to different people.