Galleries Shift Shape to Survive

Art galleries, like museums, are in a state of flux, determined to find ways to survive and remain relevant in an increasingly hostile environment shaped by rising rents; development; absurd auction prices and a dearth of old-school collectors — ones who think for themselves.

The few that can are shape-shifting and scaling up, becoming more like museums, mounting shows with outside curators and even opening their own bookstores. Many galleries stage not only art performances — by now routine — but also panel discussions and conversations with the artists whose work they sell. As might be expected, these can blur the line between public service and promotion.

The word hybrid, referring to a museum-inclined commercial art gallery, was heard more than once in Los Angeles at the opening of the imposing arts complex that is Hauser Wirth & Schimmel. Its four buildings surround a large, street-accessible courtyard (with a 150-seat restaurant planned for September) that most museums would envy. (Amenities is another word you’ll hear.) Perhaps most telling, the gallery has a full-time staff member in charge of educational programs.

In the opposite direction, smaller galleries, especially in New York, are dispersing beyond established art neighborhoods like Chelsea, Bushwick and the Upper and Lower East Side, to far-flung locations, exploiting New York’s extensive subway system.

Meditation, Creativity and Awareness

Freedom is pure observation without direction,
without fear of punishment and reward.

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experience and the experiencer.

He will discover that this division is an illusion.

Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time.

This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.

Henri Matisse

The leader of the Fauvist movement around 1900, Matisse pursued the expressiveness of colour throughout his career. His subjects were largely domestic or figurative, and a distinct Mediterranean verve presides in the treatment. (born Dec. 31, 1869, Le Cateau, Picardy, France—died Nov. 3, 1954, Nice), artist often regarded as the most important French painter of the 20th century.

Imagination and Contemplation and Certainty

Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own.”
-- Robert Collier

"I never truly know what the painting will look like or how it will turn out.  I can have an idea and a hope, but the only thing I am certain of, is that I must paint it." This is an example of contemplation of your art.

Does an artist know that a painting will be a masterpiece before he even puts the brush to canvas, or is he only sure that he must make that first stroke? And who decides that a painting is a masterpiece anyway?

Perhaps there are appropriate times to act from certainty, like there are appropriate times to act from love, pride or courage...and then there are those times when it is best to have these feelings and definitely not act from them. The key is learning to tell the difference.

Pablo Picasso

"Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen". Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (b. 1881, d. 1973) is probably the most important figure in 20th Century art. Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes once said that "To say that Pablo Picasso dominated Western art in the 20th century is, by now, the merest commonplace. Before his 50th birthday, the little Spaniard from Malaga had become the very prototype of the modern artist as public figure. No painter before him had had a mass audience in his own lifetime."

He was born October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain and by the time he died in France in April of 1973, had created a staggering 22.000 works of art in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, ceramics, mosaics, stage design and graphic arts. As critic Hughes notes, "There was scarcely a 20th century movement that he didn't inspire, contribute to or--in the case of Cubism, which, in one of art history's great collaborations, he co-invented with Georges Braque--beget." Quite simply, as well as being a force of culture, Picasso was also a force of nature.
 

Three keys to more abundant living: caring about others, daring for others, sharing with others.” Those are the words of writer, William Arthur Ward.

EXPRESSIVE ART

It’s all about the creative process in the artistic expression helping the individual resolve issues. And along the way she/he can manage – and develop – specific behaviors, feelings, and thoughts. Oh, and a bit of stress relief, self-esteem, and self-awareness work is accomplished, as well.

And the cool thing is, you don’t have to have any measure of artistic talent to derive benefit from creative Expression.