Tokyo's Mori Digital Art Museum

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This entry is augmented by several video clips; please allow extra time for it to fully load.

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An old-fashioned digital print of Tokyo's Mori Digital Art Museum

When I was a Junior in high school (1962) I took a typing class which, as it has turned out, was one of the smarter educational encounters I've ever undertaken. We used to enjoy creating pictures with the various numbers, letters, and keyboard symbols available by using the variable density of each character. Of course, that recollection stretches well past any contemporary definition of digital art. However, as early as 1976, I painted what may be the first digital self-portrait using just such computer-generated characters and a rudimentary application of impressionist color principals. As computers have developed more and more power for less and less cost, digital art has developed along side them from photo editing to digital "paintings" printed out on paper or canvas, framed, and hung on a wall in a traditional manner. Running parallel with this evolution has been an expansion of the very definition of art itself, to include virtually all visual forms of creativity.



Perhaps the most important of these has been various imaginative uses of colored lights. I mean, where would art be without the key element of light? It simply wouldn't exist. Going back in history (my own) I can recall disk jockeys with expensive light arrays which eventually came to be keyed into the music they played. Again, computers came along and geometrically enhanced the possibilities. I mention all this in case you happen to be in Tokyo sometime in the future. If so, don't miss the EPSON teamLab Borderless Mori Digital Art Museum. But in doing, don't expect to see old-fashioned, framed, digital art from the past(top). It's not that kind of museum.



As you can see in the videos above, this type of art is all about light, music, color, lasers, sound, even the movement of air. Thus most of the images I'm using demand video presentations to be truly seen and appreciated. It's a whole new and different art requiring a whole different type of image to even write about. Produced in collaboration with local urban landscape developer Mori Building Co. Ltd., the amazing light displays are housed in their very own building, spread out over two floors in a huge space in Tokyo’s Odaiba district. TeamLab, the Japanese art collective behind the world’s first truly digital art museum, has developed a borderless, boundary-breaking future. There are no frames to mark the limits of the art and the real world. The viewer becomes part of the art itself.

teamLab, Universe of Water Particles on a Rock where People Gather (2018)

 

It’s taken time, but today, the art world is slowly turning its back on analogue and going digital. Nowhere is that clearer than within the huge, 10,000 sq. meter space, of the Mori Building Digital Art Museum. The museum is divided into five zones and utilizes 520 computers and 470 projectors. TeamLab have transformed a traditional museum space into something futuristic, groundbreaking and challenging. For the teamLab collective, their digital art exists on a separate plane, liberated from the constraints of material substance. In their newly defined museum, they hope to transfer the feelings and thoughts that visitors would have gotten from a physical artwork through their own bodies, relationships and experiences. When an artist can put thoughts and feelings directly into people's experiences, artworks too can move freely, form connections and relationships with people, while embracing the same concept of time as the human body. Such art can transcend boundaries, influence and sometimes intermingle with each other. In this way, all the boundaries between artist, people and artworks, dissolve and the world of teamLab Borderless is created.



Visitors walking freely around the museum are expected to lose themselves in an alternate, art- based, borderless world, immersing themselves in each experience. In Borderless World, visitors are invited to understand and recognize the world through their bodies, moving freely and forming connections and relationships with others. TeamLab Borderless is a group of artworks that form one borderless world. Artworks move out of the rooms freely, form connections and relationships with people, communicate with other works, influence and sometimes intermingle with each other, and have the same concept of time as the human body.



In Athletics Forest (above), for example, teamLab have manufactured a “creative physical space” which trains spatial recognition ability by promoting the growth of the hippocampus of the brain. It is based on the concept of understanding the world through the body and thinking of the world three-dimensionally. In a complex, physically challenging, three-dimensional space, the body becomes immersed in an interactive world. The interactive aspect continues in Future Park, an educational project based on the concept of "collaborative creativity, co-creation". It is an amusement park where you can enjoy the world creatively and freely with others.

teamLab, The Way of the Sea in the Crystal World - Colors of Life (2018)

 

Is teamLab’s museum is an example of the art world becoming more digital in general? Even the collective can't answer that. But, they explain that digital technology allows artistic expression to be released from the material world and for ideas and experiences to change and flow more freely. In art installations with the viewers on one side and interactive artworks on the other, the artworks themselves undergo changes caused by the presence and behavior of the viewers. This has the effect of blurring the boundary lines between the two sides. When the viewers actually become part of the artworks themselves the relationship between the artwork and the individual then becomes a relationship between the artwork and the group. Another viewer, present within that space five minutes before, or the particular behavior exhibited by the person next to you, suddenly becomes an element of great importance.



The digital domain can expand art and change how we view the capacities of art in our world, which can actually help us to create new relationships between people. TeamLab wants visitors to understand how digital technology can expand the conception of art as well as liberate art from a value system based only on physical materials. The museum encourages people to rethink the relationship between humans and nature as well as their relationship with the world. Traditional art museums have tended to treat the existence of viewers as a nuisance. At an exhibition with no other viewers, for example, you are likely to think of yourself as extremely lucky. Yet teamLab encourages people to think of the presence of other viewers as a positive factor. The importance of this shift in thinking stretches even beyond the art world. In modern cities, the presence of other people around us, as well as their unpredictable and uncontrollable behavior, is often seen as an inconvenience to be endured. This is because the presence of each person and those in their vicinity do not have a visible effect on the city. If entire cities were to be wrapped in the type of digital art conceived by teamLab, people would begin to see the presence of other residents in a more positive light.



Described as Tokyo’s most "Instagrammable" spot, the museum is unlike any other experience in Japan. The Mori Building Digital Art Museum is quickly becoming one of the country’s most popular destinations. However, there are a few tips which may help in enjoying the museum. Wear white or light-colored clothing and flat-heeled shoes. Touch everything, enjoying the museum as would a child. Don't rush, and by all means buy your tickets online if you harbor any hope of seeing the museum at a given date and time--or at all.

Mori digital art-museum design room.

 

Hugo Heyrman

Lady of the Desert, ca. 1995, Hugo Heyrman

Copyright, Jim Lane

Computer Self-portrait, 1976, Jim Lane,
the first computer-generated self-portrait.

If you want to be rich and famous in art (or in other areas, for that matter) one of the best ways is to be the first (or one of the first) do do something. Theoretically that's true though in practice, it's sometimes more problematical. The attention paid to such individuals varies in direct proportion to how important their "first" might be. For instance, I claim to be the first artist to paint a self-portrait based upon a computer printout. I'm neither rich nor famous so my "first" must not have been very important, (or I need to hire a publicist). Thomas Kinkade was the first to paint really sappy, nostalgic, highly-sentimental, good-ole-days landscapes for backward-looking conservative Republicans not concerned with wasting energy by keeping a light burning from every window in the house. That was important--he became rich and famous--the self-proclaimed "Painter of Light." Of course, every landscape painter paints light so his fame may have more to do with PR than paint.

 

Dr. Hugo Heyrman

That's also probably the case with the Belgian painter, Hugo Heyrman. If anyone deserves fame and fortune it's an artist not only adept at painting, but film-making, video, sculpture, Internet art, and synesthesia (a word he coined himself for pulling together all of the above). It would seem to have a lot more meaning than the dubious distinction, "Painter of Light." Heyrman is a "new media" researcher, and as for his first and foremost "first," he is credited with having created the first digital art around 1995. That sounds, at first, to be rather recent, but keep in mind, before that, when I was playing around with computer images around 1976, they were still using typewriter punctuation and symbols to create pictures. Heyrman got into pixels. He even created a sculpture, Lady of the Desert, around  1995 using pixels, then built (or had built) the real thing using painted concrete blocks, erected out in the Mojave Desert (as the title suggests) some 120 miles north of Las Vegas. It's interesting especially in that it demonstrates just how far digital art has come in less than twenty years.

 

RealityXL--2008, Hugo Heyrman

Belgiëlei, (detail) police force at horse,
1975, The Monograph cover of Joannes
Kesenne's book on Heyrman.

Heyrman was born in 1942. If you want to be a famous artist, a healthy degree of intelligence is a formidable asset. Heyrman's is undoubtedly in the "genius" range. Though he's studied everything from painting to nuclear physics, his PhD is in art sciences, magna cum laude from the Universidad de La Laguna, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands). His thesis was on computer art and the transition to digital imaging. During the 1960s, Dr. Heyrman was a "happening" artist (conceptual and performance art). During the 70s, he turned to video art dealing with ecological themes. Later, Heyrman returned to his painting roots, then began to mix the two (synesthesia) while in the 1990s he pioneered digital art, trading his brushes for a mouse. Yet, he still paints, his canvases melding the "zooming" qualities of digital art with his earlier concerns with urban life and the modern-day body language governing it.

 

Snowing, 2008, Dr. Hugo Heyrman

Unlike so many artists now and in the past, Heyrman starts with the idea or theme--the message. Then he draws from his vast toolbox of technical skills in virtually every communicative medium, that which would work best in conveying his message. His work is the very definition of Postmodern--drawing from the past, mixing media generously, making a point, contributing to contemporary discussion without hogging the conversation or overwhelming the viewer. He never clobbers the viewer with shock schlock. His work is subtle (almost to a fault), sometimes lighthearted, yet thought-provoking, without rudely soaring miles over the heads of his intended audience. Whether painting, sculpting, "videoing" or digitizing, Heyrman's work is not wall art. It's not very decorative, usually not even pretty or attractive. One might call him an art scientist--a researcher bent on exploring the interrelationships of thoughts, media, and technology. Oh, and he's even become rich and famous as a result (both being relative terms).

Why--City Life & Body Language, 2007, Dr. Hugo Heyrman

 

1990s Art

The 1990s--the birth of GIF art, though the X-Men,
created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, date from the 1960s.

It seems hard to believe now, but the art of the 1990s goes back as much as 27 years ago. My, how time flies when you're having fun...or, as Kermit the Frog once said "Time's fun when you're having flies" Speaking of time, Kermit is now old enough for Social Security (62). For me, the 1990s were memorable in that it was the decade which brought us the home computer. We got our first one in 1995 (below). It was a Packard Bell Legend 814CD with a 100MHz Pentium Processor, 8MB, of memory, a 1.2GB 4x NEC CD-ROM Drive, and two Floppy Drives (5.25 disk and the "new" 3.5 disk). Notice, it did not contain a modem. Though the Internet had been around since 1969, dial-up access in the 1990s was both slow and expensive (CompuServe was five cents per minute). I think we paid about $700 for the computer, monitor, and accompanying software (about $1,100 today).

It was not very artist friendly.

Despite a whole bucket of bugs and numerous limitations, digital art began to take hold as the decade progressed. Computers grew friendlier and more powerful by leaps and bounds. Apple prodded Microsoft to forego MS-DOS in favor of Windows, which progressed from 3.1 to Windows 95, Windows 98, and finally, in 2000, Windows ME (Millennial Edition). Some of those operating systems are still in use today. With each new permutation came radical improvements in the capabilities for producing digital art, either from photos or from the "scratch" of the artist's imagination.

Fractal Art--beautiful, but the computer does all the work.

As might be expected, older artists turned technophobic while Millennials embraced the digital revolution. Nerds ruled, and their favored art was fractal, based upon mathematic algorithms ideal for even the relative low-power processors of the day (above). Among the artist who embraced fractal art were Desmond Paul Henry, Hamid Naderi Yeganeh and musician Bruno Degazio. Fractal art is not simply computerized art, lacking in rules, unpredictable, nor something that any person with access to a computer can do well. Instead, fractal art is expressive, creative, and requires input, effort, and intelligence.

Bob Ross, the mighty painter of friendly little trees retired in 1994 after a TV run of seven years.

The Bob Ross Dress

It would be false to relegate an entire decade of art to that which accompanied the advent of low-cost computers and their software. Although painting was starting to decline as a viable form of creative communication, its multi-media challengers, TV, motion pictures, and in its nascent form, digital art, were waiting in the wings. TV had its Bob Ross and Ben Alexander, both of whom retired in 1994. CGI-technology, made its debut in films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Independence Day, and Titanic. Disney con-tributed the first totally computer animated feature length film, Toy Story in 1995. This they followed with such forgettable epics as Hercules, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and finally Fantasia 2000 (all of which lost money).

Plus dozens of sequels, prequels, and horror films
enough to fill (and sink) the Titanic.

I'm confident there must have been some, but in perusing hundreds of traditional paintings on canvas from the 1990s I didn't recognize a single one as being memorable. That means that few, if any, such work has left a lasting impression on the world of art. In a Postmodern world paintings on canvas are so, for lack of a better term, "modern." That's not to say that artists from other decades didn't continue to produce. They did, but their art had changed little, if at all, from that which the produced decades before which made them famous. So, inasmuch as my own work would seem to be as memorable as any other produced in the 1990s, I'm including Tantalizing (below) dating from 1998 as being representative of the painters art from that era.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Tantalizing, 1998, Jim Lane

The typical American family
of the 1990s.









































 

Video Game Art

No, it's not a Jackson Pollock original, but a montage combining just a small
fraction of today's video gaming characters. How many can you recognize?

Very few generations have been privileged to see their world of art change as much as ours. Actually, in contemplating the changes that have occurred just in my own lifetime, I'm more accurately talking about two or three generations. But, be that as it may, the point is that, since I was born...since the end of World War II in 1945, we've gone from Jackson Pollock to Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, not to mention some guy calling himself Driedzone. Take a quick look at the image above. At first glance, one might mistake it for a "drip-dried" Pollock, but actually it's a digitally composed montage of a representative sample of the animated gaming characters alive and well, and entertaining children of all ages today.

 

How did get from Pac-man and Space Invaders to Superman Returns?

Few would argue that there has been a tremendous evolution in all the media and art forms of today during the past seventy years since the end of WW II. They, alone, are quite remarkable. But when we start talking about gaming art, and the broader category of digital art under which it falls, the changes have been so relatively rapid and extensive as to constitute not evolution but revolution. Back about 1980, I bought one of the first home video games. It was called Pong, made by Magnavox. It plugged into the back of any TV set. So far as I know, it still works. As for it's gaming artwork...well, a WW II radar screen had more going for it in that regard. As the name suggests, it was electronic ping pong. Shortly thereafter computer games all migrated to the crude conventions of home computers or the stand-alone video game consoles of shopping mall arcades. The "art" of Pac-Man and Space Invaders (above), such as it was, rose barely beyond that of cave painting.

The art of Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell (top) and Driedzone (bottom)

Gaming art has a deep and long
fascination with the nude and erotic.

During the 1990s, as computing power doubled and redoubled in accordance with Moore's Law (Intel founder, Gordon Moore, that is), much to some parents' surprise, the world did not end. The earth kept revolving and the world of digital graphics did likewise. The revolution grew more flabbergasting with every new generation of Intel chips and each new version of Windows. Gaming split into dozens of different compartments from the erotic to the horrific (above), to the sophomoric, the juvenile, even to include the pre-school Speak and Spell. In each case gaming artists rose to the occasion, restrained only by the limits of available memory and processing speed. Today, gaming art reflects the fact that both of those concerns are of little concern. Game designers innovate, while gaming artists illustrate, each inspiring the other in a revolving spiral of digital creativity that theoretically knows no bounds. Virtual reality is now, or soon will be a...virtual reality.

Superman Returns (top) to find Gotham City can also soar skyward.

Despite the technical differences and the totally different tools involved, gaming art has a surprising amount in common with all other art content areas. We find awe inspiring urban art (above) and poignant, even dismal wilderness art (below). Both serve to underline the fact that gaming art has been gradually changing our concepts of beauty.

Art from the games Lost (top) and Resident Evil (bottom).

It would be rather passé to note that virtually every type of art from the past has a digital equivalent today as seen in the White Tiger (below) and the automotive art (below that). What is far more remarkable is that just about every possible era and content area from the past also has a gaming equivalent today. Keep in mind, all the images in this post come not from online digital art galleries but from actual video games. They may appear here as "stills," but believe me, there is nothing static about them. They are all blockbusting animated entities. Even my own contribution (bottom) was created using the simulation video games, Sims 3. I seldom actually play the game, but I do enjoy it's features allowing the creation of 3-D architectural environments which permit me to, not only design and landscape the exterior but to also furnish and decorate the interior, then take a virtual video "camera" inside each house and look around. It feels almost like living there.

From the video game, The White Tiger.

From the video game, Split Second

Copyright, Jim Lane

Cantilevered Beach House, Jim Lane,
Created using the video simulation game, Sims 3.

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Animation created using Maschina software:

 

                                                               The sleigh must be computer driven.
                                                                  Merry Christmas





















 

Art Basel, Miami Beach

Basel, Miami Beach crown jewel in what Miami Beach has dubbed "Art Week," which is something of a rare understatement in an even full of hyperbole (it's closer to two weeks).

Several years ago (2010 to be exact) my wife and I spent Christmas with my brother, who had a condo in Miami Beach. He commented that I should have come down a few weeks earlier; I could have taken in Art Basel. I hate to admit it, but I had to show my ignorance by asking, "What's Art Basel?" To hear him tell it, Art Basel was what we might call "the mother of all art shows." Having spent way too many weekends exhibiting at local art shows I wasn't much interested in another one, be it the mother, the father, or the bratty son of all art shows. I suppose I should have been more interested, and vaguely realized later that I should have taken his advice. Despite the fact my little brother was prone to exaggeration at times, in this case the more apt definition would have been the sister of all art shows. There are actually three annual Basel shows, Miami Beach, Hong Kong, and the oldest "sister," Basel, Switzerland. Each is held at different times of the year. The 2017 version of Basel, Miami Beach closed about three weeks ago.

 

Other major world art centers sometimes have one-shot
"pop-up" Basel shows.

To more precisely describe Art Basel, Miami Beach, it's a four-day-long trade show in which lots of art and money changes hands while the partying in the background goes on almost 24-7. You don't have to be a millionaire art collector to drop in (though it helps). Actually a single-day ticket is sixty bucks--modest enough for most art appreciators but high enough to keep out those who have to ask, "What's Art Basel?" To get a little more cynical, it's a convention of art galleries owners from all over the world who pay big bucks to set up their white-walled booths (below) and showcase the latest work of their artists (especially their new artists). Beyond that, it's a not-very-subtle exercise in one-up-man-ship. It's also a textbook example of how selling art is one of the most peculiar (and risky) businesses in the world.

Tickets for the 2015 Basel, Hong Kong sold out
before the show even opened.

This year (and in most years) the 500,000-square-foot exhibition space at the Miami Beach Convention Center was divided into nine sectors: Galleries, Nova, Positions, Edition, Kabinett, Survey, Public, Film, and Magazines. These sectors allow visitors to navigate the fair and to experience different aspects of contemporary art. Inasmuch as that's a lot of material to cover, start by checking out the video below.


Galleries--This year, over 200 of the world's leading international Modern and contemporary art galleries displayed work by over 4,000 artists, including paintings, sculptures, installations, photography, film, video, and digital art. Visitors could find works ranging from editioned pieces by young artists, to museum-caliber masterpieces.

Installation view of Olafur Eliasson's work at Neugerriemschneider.

Nova--Designed for galleries to present one, two or three artists showing works created within the past three years. The Nova sector features strong juxtapositions and never-before-seen pieces fresh from the artist's studio.



Liu Shiryuan, Leo Xu Projects

Positions--This sector allows curators, critics, and collectors to discover ambitious new talents from across the globe by providing a platform for a single artist to present one major project.

​Edition--Leading publishers of editioned works, prints and multiples exhibit the results of their collaboration with renowned artists, providing visitors with the opportunity to see significant and rare publications.


Kabinett--In a separately delineated space within their booths, galleries present a curated exhibition by an artist of their choice. The diverse curatorial concepts for Kabinett include thematic group exhibitions, art history showcases, and solo shows for rising stars.



WYNWOOD WALLS
Artists from all over the world took part in this
year's Art Basel program at the Wynwood Arts District.
With the theme of “humanKIND” as inspiration.

​Survey--Survey presents precise art historical projects. These may include solo presentations by an individual artist, juxtapositions and thematic exhibits from artists representing a range of cultures, generations and artistic approaches.

Public--As part of Art Basel's show in Miami Beach, large-scale sculptures and installations by emerging international artists are installed in Collins Park. Public is curated by Philipp Kaiser, independent curator and critic. The sector is produced in collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art and supported by MGM Resorts Art & Culture.



Art that moves, literally and figuratively.

Film--Organized in association with David Gryn, Director of Data Editions and London's Artprojx, this sector presents a dynamic program of cinematic art. Outdoor screenings take place at SoundScape Park, where works are shown on the 7,000-square-foot projection wall of the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center. In addition, New York-based film curator Marian Masone selects a feature-length film for a special screening at the Colony Theatre.

​Magazines--Art publications from around the world display their magazines in single-magazine stands or the collective booth. Editors and publishers often attend the show and many magazines contribute presentations to Conversations, our series of lectures and discussions by prominent members of the art world.

In a city known internationally as a party town, Miami Beach pulls out all the stops when Art Week arrives.

I mentioned "bratty sons" earlier. Besides attracting thousands of curious art-lovers to the city, Art Basel also draws in heaps of music fans as a number of special electronic events pop up in celebration of the showcase. There’s a ton to do and not much time to do it. There's even a printed guide to the best Art Basel parties to lead visitors through Miami’s nightlife while the exhibits are in town. The "brats" take the form of a robust roster of satellite fairs, such as Miami Art Week and Design Miami, which kick off with a host of carefully curated exhibitions and dramatic installations across Miami Beach and the surrounding area. There's a deluge of museum-worthy displays featuring the latest in furnishings and lighting, to appreciate alongside oceanfront vistas. There's literally art for every taste and budget.


Soft Baked Potato, 1970, Claus Oldenburg. Pop Art exhibit at the Marguiles Collection.

One of this year's best satellite shows took Basel visitors through an art history lesson. The exhibit featured works by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, and more. “Pop Art ”& allowed viewers to learn from the rarely-seen works of several Pop legends, with pieces pulled from the private collection of Martin Z. Margulies. Other peripheral exhibits in and around Miami Beach included displays by the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), while Design Miami ran alongside Art Basel and Miami Art Week, Design Miami brought together collectors, designers, curators and critics for a display of the latest in high-end furniture, lighting and art.



ICA's new gallery is next door to the Miami Beach
Convention Center.

Miami has an unlimited amount of talent waiting to be discovered. There’s an element of vibrant energy that connects young artists, pulling them together to consider the area as a place to live. Art Basel, founded in Basel Switzerland in 1970, is well-known for its various art galleries which carry some of the most prestigious local and international art to be found. Art Basel’s directors selected Miami for their American debut as they acknowledged the potential the city has, whether they move to utilize facilities in Midtown Miami, Brickell, or Miami Beach.

Snarkitecture (a polymer film) covers a Netjet aircraft bombardier "Signature Series Global 5000" another Art Basel corporate sideshow. The company designer was especially interested in exploring the phenomenon of an ombre sky—that moment at dawn or dusk, when the sky creates a perfect gradient transition from light to dark.

Art Basel brought 82,000 to Miami in 2017, underlining the fact that the Miami art colony continues to flourish, attracting tourists to the city. Art Basel can not only attract individuals from all around the world for an event-filled week of art. No art show can demand that they stay. Yet it can surely cause them to consider such a move. There’s something about the area that gives each new arrival the desire and inspiration to taste of the Miami lifestyle. Art Basel, Miami Beach, returns December 6-9, 2018, to the Miami Beach Convention Center, 1900 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida.

I know this one has been extra long but
the painting says it all.

 

The Hierarchy of Art Lovers

Copyright, Jim Lane      

The Art Lovers' Pyramid (yes, that's me in front).

Where would the world be without art? Well, sadly, about where it is now. It would be a little drabber, less exciting, less colorful, probably a good deal uglier, but aside from these highly superficial elements, likely not much different. Art is a luxury; always has been, probably always will be, at least to some degree. Having said that, let me add that while art itself may be unimportant in the overall scheme of things, its influence is not. Artists color our world. Art depicts our culture. Art fosters art lovers. And it is the art lover who is important, far more than the art itself. Art is a thing. It can be bought and sold, argued over, created, destroyed, criticized, loved, even hated, but it's also a highly replaceable commodity. All this action and interaction having to do with this art "thing" happens because of people. The art itself? It just sits (or hangs) there.

 

The art education "cloud"

Although the art itself may, or may not (depending on who you talk to), have its own hierarchy, one thing of which I'm certain, art lovers certainly do. In discussing this whole hierarchy with myself, I'm in a quandary as to whether to start at the top of the "pyramid" or at the bottom. Hmm... Okay, I'll start at the top--the artist, right? Nope. At the top of the pyramid is the art educator. Whether teaching kindergarten art lovers not to eat the crayons or discussing with post-graduate art lovers the lingering influence of Dada in this Postmodern era, the art educator deserves our greatest, most enduring honor and respect (and not because I am one). I mean, were it not for art educators, all artist would be self-taught. And, while there are those who might applaud such a reality, were that the case, the history of art would be far more circular than it is linear. That is, as an art professor I once knew put it: "The same damned thing over and over again; rather than one damned thing after another."

 

The artist--thinking and creating

Art educators aside, there would be no art without artists. Artists create art, but more importantly artists think art. As the electronic age and computers gradually inject themselves into the processes of creating art, this fact becomes more and more relevant and obvious. Yesterday I discussed DAZ, a piece of creative software some might deem revolutionary in its impact while others might denigrate as little more than playing with digital paper dolls. In all likelihood, its somewhere in between the two. Be that as it may, if it's done little else, the Postmodern era has changed the definition, not of art itself (the era of Modern Art did that), but that of the "artist." In the past, the first thought popping into most people's mind when they hear the word "artist" is "skilled." That's a poor synonym, but prevalent, nonetheless. The word "creative" is better, but still, the two words are married in most people's minds, with the first often seen as more dominant. Yet, as DAZ demonstrates, the link is not inextricable. Jeff Koons can create ceramic sculptures without being a ceramicist. He simply hires one.

 

Art and Wealth..feeding upon one another.

The third level down from the top of the art lovers' pyramid is that of the buyer. Money talks and art money speaks as loudly as any other kind. What it says is not always wise; sometimes it even lies. It is easily influenced by hype and just as easily it influences tripe. The validity of its influence depends solely upon which level of the art lovers' hierarchy from which it derives (in general, the higher, the better). And once more, the art educator can be of extreme importance. Far more than teaching skills, the art educator teaches attitudes and values regarding art. It could be argued, that the art educator's influence decreases as the ratio of artists to non-artists in his or her classroom decreases. That is, the art educator has a far greater impact on non-artists than upon would-be artists (who can often be quite obstinate). The fact is, artists seldom buy art. Non-artists very often do (in one form or another).

 

Art expert, Maike Vogt-Luerssen. Is it really a Leonardo? 

Just beneath the art buyers, and very nearly on a par with them, are the art experts. Whether directly or indirectly, they tell the art buyers what they should buy. In effect they are somewhat like the art educators (minus the classroom) and usually serve to reinforce, augment, and facilitate their less well-paid counterparts. These include writers like myself, museum curators, gallery owners, artists' agents, ad men and women, art historians, restorers, preservationists, authenticators, art detectives, even those who round up art counterfeiters. Without them, the sophisticated, laid-back, ultra-cool world of art and artists would descend into chaos.

 

The art "appreciators"

Descending the pyramid, we find the art "appreciators." These are the people from all levels of society, education, and sophistication who simply like art. They are the ones who visit and support museums; who read what people like me write; who ingest and digest art whenever and wherever they can. Usually, they don't buy much art (or any at all). Usually their minds are fairly broad and open. They can, however, be highly opinionated. But in speaking their minds, they do so from a background of having experienced art personally, rather than just through hearsay. They are seldom very influential but very often they should be. Perhaps more than any other art lovers, they are the ones most capable of cutting through the crap to the creative sap that is the core element of fine art.

 

Rocky Balboa...wasn't he the
heavyweight champ back in '76?

The next level down I call the "pseudo art lovers." They go to art museums: "I think it was back in 1978." They are familiar with Picasso, but confuse Monet and Manet. They adore Rodin.  "...you know, the guy who did the 'kissers'." They think of Modern Art, for the most part, as a "rip-off," and though they may claim to like Matisse, they only buy posters of Leroy Neiman...because he does sports stuff. The closest they've been to an art museum in recent years was the time they were web surfing and accidentally pulled up the MoMA website while look for information on breast feeding. Art galleries? Only if there's wine and cheese involved.

 

Redneck art.

And finally, at the very bedrock bottom of the art lovers' pyramid is...well...everyone else. They've never been to an art museum. Art galleries? You mean those stores where they sell paintings and stuff? Their favorite artist... "uhh...that guy who drew covers for The Saturday Evening Post. Uhh... Rockwell...Norman...yeah, Norman Rock-well. I always did like him." The wife adds. "I really like that 'painter of light' guy... I forget his name." That's not to say they have no art in their homes...there's a framed photo of a '57 Chevy convertible from Motor Lust magazine, and a beautiful fall landscape reproduction in the living room they picked up for just five bucks (including the frame) at a garage sale down the street (it matched the couch). The only artist they know personally is the guy who runs the tattoo parlor down the street. They do, however, sometimes buy art. "See...look here, on my back, an eagle riding on a Sherman tank...ain't it a beaut?!"