3 Books about contemporary fine art world you must read

Whether you are an artist, art collector or an art lover you will learn a lot about making, buying and selling art.  Artists do not just become known and rich.  Artist are creations of the media and so is art.  You will save yourself great deal of time and money by reading these books.  All of them are relatively recent and equally good. 

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson is a book about the art market.  It is not a novel as the other two books in the list.  It is putting art into prospective of economic forces, free market and controlled market.

Boogie-Woogie by Danny Moynihan is a novel which was turned into a movie with the same title.  It paints the characters that play in the market.  It paints a picture of the market made of greed, pride and ambition.  If you are a curator or an artist you may change your mind about your future once you read the book.

Ponzi and Picasso by Rochelle Ohrstrom is the most recent addition to the list.  This book crosses the geographic and social borders.  It drops the names of contemporary artists that you must know to carry intelligent conversation with other art lovers.  It also brilliantly describes cotton ball lingo often used by art dealers to confuse and hypnotize collectors.

Why do I like movies about war and holocaust?

I guess the main reason is that they set a scale to the human suffering.  When you complain about your life not turning the way you want, you not being able to afford a new car model, or you not getting advancement you watch a movie like that. So what?
Nobody is crushing your bones or pushing you into a railroad car.  You have an opportunity to change a course of your life.  Sure with years every person accumulates a baggage of disappointments.  But you also had good times and you learned the lesson.  When I watch movies about war and holocaust I can see from a distance how well I live.
At the end what matters is how you feel now in the moment.  If you can change something then change it and stop talking about it.  Otherwise make a Peace with what you cannot change.  The important thing is you can change your perception.  That way you can even change your past!
YOU want to watch good movies about war and holocaust?  My two  personal favorites are The Pianist (2002) and Counterfeiters (2009)
Be happy and joyful this 2015.  Appreciate what you have and go after what you truly want!

Why most New Year resolutions fail or how can you treat your lower back pain

You know everything you need to know to be healthy and happy.  Why are you not?  Majority of people prefer to do what is easy instead of what is right for their body. One complaint that I routinely hear is about the lower back pain. Sure the advertisers may say “you should check it with your doctor”.  Check it if you want.  The majority of us already know the answer or had an examination done.  You need to check it with your lifestyle.

Why most diets fail?  Why most New Year resolutions fail? To have a long term effect you have to make a lifestyle adjustment. And the change must be easy and enjoyable. Otherwise you will fail again.  To get rid of your lower back pain you must constantly strengthen your abdominal muscles.  Because most of us are working in the office for 8 hours a day, we do not exercise them.  The back muscles have to compensate for that and they are overworked. You get a spasm.  We all have 24 hours per day and make choices how to invest time.  The best choice you can make is spend 1 hour a day walking and doing sit-ups.

That means you have to walk for 30-50 minutes every day to take care of lower abdominal. And you have to do 200-400 sit-ups per day every second day (10-15 min). You do not have to start with that.  Start with 50 and add 20 every week.  You do not need any particular machine, any fancy cloth, any special space or any membership in the athletic club (which will eat another 30 min of your time every day driving).  Those are good for manufacturers of the products and owners of the clubs.  You do not even need companion.  It’s better to have a date with yourself.

If you spend every day 1 hour walking and doing sit-ups I assure you your lower back will never be in pain again.  In addition it is a great way to do meditation – walking.  And if you become bored you can change a route.  In fact I change my rout every day.  Even a little change makes a difference.  And while walking I can plan my next day since I have a phone with me and a calendar,  I can think though my next day presentation,  I remember to call my parents of Sunday (and write a reminder in the phone).  Because the blood flow increases and oxygen stimulates my brain I have a great date with my destiny.  Try it.  It works.

The artist mean free

I was deciphering the phrase written in the article about artist Darja Bajagic:  She was sick for “being okay, as a woman, with these kinds of images even existing in the world, let alone propelling them in paintings and in the gallery system.”  I went on reading her interviews and looking at the images she images created.  I liked the fact that it is a woman who is researching and creating such art. Refreshing.

I am not a feminist.  I am not even a woman. I am the artist, poet, thinker.  Only I will decide when I want to change and how I want to change myself. 

I am also sick… just like Darja Bajagic of people (and artists) telling other artists what they should and should not do, think or should not think.  Everyone wants to play amateur psychologists to the artists and amateur interior designer to their friends. Your depression, anger, aggression, complexes, insecurities need to be medically treated - not shared with friends or forced on others.

Do not tell others to do what seems right for you.  Face it!  It does not work, did not work and will not work. Especially when men advise a woman and woman advises a man.  Men and women wired differently.  We act the way we were designed by nature.  Men have their needs and those needs must be satisfied. So do women.  You want to be a woman?  Great!  I want to be a man.  So let me be a man and I will let you be a woman.  

You want to be treated in a certain way I cannot deliver then seek the place where it will happen. And what if such place does not exist?   So much energy wasted by trying to fit the real world into a fantasy.  The world is not going to stand on its toes because you “can get mad”.  And neither will I.  Get over it…

The world is not a book.  The world is just is.  Thanks you Darja Bajagic 

Is it unfair or just unlucky?

The words you use to describe your experience are a big deal and so are the images you create in your head.  Describe something as unfair and you enjoy being a victim of circumstances. Describe it as an unlucky and you become a victim of random. You are still a victim but to a lesser degree. Describe it as your mistake and accept as responsibility.  Now you take a control of your destiny.  Rare times when there was nothing you could do to improve your experience.  Not only the experience matters but what have you remember of it.  It’s to your advantage to learn your lessons and take care of yourself in the future rather than starting “trying to protect others” political campaign. Desire to turn negative experience into a political campaign or even a law is contagious.  The media heating this desire every way it can.  It is media business.  But do you want to make it yours? Would you permit an experience to change a direction of your life? In most cases you are reacting the way your surrounding has programmed you and expecting you to react like a Pavlov dog. Most of us deep inside do not want to entertain the stupid but we do.  Step back, calm down, decide what is to your advantage?

You can turn your experience into art.  Great art!  There are artist who seek experiences to stimulate themselves.  Art of social criticism can be entertaining.  In the world where everything is trying to shock human senses it is not easy to catch someone’s attention. The only viewers that are always on guard are those self-appointed dignity-police members. They want to censor artists language and influence their thinking. They are organized and vocal. It takes a skill to get your point across for politically incorrect issues in a clear and uncontested manner.  In fact in the society of media tyranny it is just as difficult as in the society of censorship.

On being a professional artist

On the way to New York I was in the next seat to the famous Russian artist. The work is small.  We have a long flight of 9 hours from Moscow.  We talked about many things but one stood in my mind.  He said it simply:  the professional artist spends 20% of the time creating and 80% marketing.  Armature artists do just the opposite.

It is so much easier to seat in the studio and create.  But the world is already overloaded with art as well as other things.  Unless you can find a good against who will do it for you will likely to be where most of the artists end - in obscurity.  If you find a good agent you can consider yourself blessed.  Luck is not logical and cannot be explained.  It just is.  

It is also good idea to remember that may great things in life you created by very talented armatures.  You want the names?  Alexandr Pushkin the greatest Russian poet (Eugene Onegin) was a public servant. Vinicius de Moraes (the author of “The Girl from Ipanema”) was a professional diplomat.  If you are not familiar with that song you should listen to it as soon as you finish reading this sentence. Serge Gainsburg (french performer provocateur) spend years studding painting till finally he said “F$ck art, Make a fortune” and did just that.  He became a song writer and a performer.

We are living creates and we change it time.  People around us always try to imprison us into a category they are comfortable with.  But we do not have to accept the category they assign us.  Nor do we have to be someone, or be someone for very long!

What did I remember Art Basle 2014?

Why do you do what you do as an artist or a human?

The answer will take time to emerge.  Most people live on autopilot.  They neither try to make things better not worse.  They find a formula, and hibernate. 

Here is a simple test.  List a few answers such as

I want to be a celebrity

I want to be rich

I want to be respected

I want…

Now take any pair of them and decide which one is more important.  Give it a score of 1.  At the end of paring you will have a true motivation emerge?

When I ask artists why they do what they do I often hear a waterfall of the words.  There is nothing wrong to be financially motivated.  There is nothing wrong with having two answers: one for public one for you.  The important is to think it through.  It is also important to review answers every so often.  The world changes and so do we.  It is common for people to move to another creative field or start a new career.  It is fun to have more than one life.  It is fun to say “in my previous life as a poet…” 

When someone says “I do it because of the internal conflict” that sounds interesting to the psychologists.  It’s too broad, too loose and undefined.  Or when someone says I do it because it is my style and I always did that.  Not true.  You did not do it when you were a child.  So why do you what you do?

Knowledge is elitist and ignorance is democratic! December in Miami with Art Basel 2014

I just returned from Art Basel Miami 2014 where I spend 3 action packed days. What a blast!  I visited Art Basel, Miami Art, Miami Project, Art Scope, and Untitled.  It was great stimulation.

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What came to my mind as that three smells describe good life in Miami: smell of ocean, smell of sweat and smell of fine perfume. 

When it came to the art I kept thinking that many artists create objects like children create sounds.  

Children make sound so they can hear themselves, their diapason, volume etc.  They are just learning about themselves and their “creative” capability.  There is no other intention.  With artists there is one more – sell art!

On the other hand there are artists that not only have something to say, but also it is important what they say.  And in additions they can say it in a manner that is clear, elegant, shocking, seducing and/or understandable.

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.

One can stop clock but one can’t stop the time

This phrase came to my mind yesterday. It seems that is what America is about today. Yesterday in the Delta airplane from Bozeman to Atlanta the hostess announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, please do not ask for the full can. We do not have enough drinks”. Is it a small thing? It is not if you think of it as a paragon of the service industries in the USA. Who we blame? We blame the high salaries and the Labor Unions.


The automotive industries in the USA were near death two years ago. Who we blame? We blame the high salaries and the Labor Unions. What about the quality of the cars and management? Are they perfect?

The state of Wisconsin is going broke. Who do people in charge blame? They blame the high salaries and the Labor Unions.

And nobody wants to admit that Labor Unions run BMW and Mercedes. And those are the companies that did not ask for government bailout and remained profitable.

I could go on but it is not worth it. Conservative Americans seem to live in the past today. They seem to stop the clock so their views and beliefs are the thing of the glorious past. But the time goes on. And it seems that instead of leading they are playing a catch up game while trying to convince everyone that they are offering something new.

Samba da Praia - Samba of the sand beach by Vas Paris

I made a few drawing recently.  I have a lot of creative flow  these days and I can't keep up with it by painting.  So I decided to record it in a different way - the faster one.  This is may memory/fantacy/dream of the Rio de Janeiro.

On collecting the art

Collecting art requires intellectual independence.  And there is not a better way to express it.  It is unlike decorating the house, which is an expression of “good taste”, which a result of following commonly accepted conventions.  Decorators buy art in the furniture store where it is reduced to a commodity.  When people ask me where to start I say start from reading some websites such as artdaily.com or artmarketmonitor.com  Sure you may not have thousands of dollars to spend.  But those sites are free and they will give you an idea of how art market participants think.  

Happy new 2011 Art Lovers!

Happy new 2011 Art Lovers!