Name Games

I don't know if everyone has as much fun with naming as I do but coming up with names for my paintings and blog posts is something I take a measure of pleasure from. Every couple who's had children has probably wrestled with the problem of coming to agreement regarding the names we choose with our spouses. We may not have a say in our own names, but we certainly want a voice in what our kids will be called growing up. It's one of the privileges of parenthood, isn't it?

We name our pets and sometimes even name our vehicles. Authors name their stories and books, businesses wrestle with naming new products and owners of race horses must get a thrill out of naming their hoped-for future champions. Maybe we ourselves didn't have a say in it but the places we live all have names, both the cities as well as the roads. Stars and combinations of stars have been named, and even our diseases have names.

Yesterday my September Artforum arrived in the mail and as I was paging through the first hundred pages of advertisements for galleries and shows (this edition has near 400 pages again) I was struck by how fascinating or intriguing many of the shows' titles were. Here's a sliver from that list of advertised shows. You can read it like a poem, or you read it as a series of "idea prompts" for a set of essays.

Eighteen Stations
Fly Away
In the Wake
Bare Shouldered Beauty
A Century of Nudes
Line into Color, Color into Line
Jumping Over My Shadow
through patches of corn, wheat and mud
Extensions Made To Trouble Transformation
Facility of Decline
Woman Power
Blockchain Future States
Small Brass Raffle Drum
Some Terrible Problems
Headspace
This Brutal World
On the Other Side of Tomorrow
Really Good
The Guests All Crowded Into the Dining Room
Sanctuary
The Toast is Burning
Three Cats
Waiting for the Barbarians
After Pasteur
Any Fallow Field
serious candy revisited
Remains to Be Seen
Cathedral of the Pines
Silence of the Music
25 years of collaboration
Gathering Clouds
Honor and Disgrace
New Geometries

I find it interesting how the magazine has become so massive, a reflection of the bloated dollar values for serious work in the art market today. The ads feature galleries from New York, Berlin and Hong Kong to Madrid, London and Istanbul. The art scene is a truly international affair.

Locally, I've enjoyed the variety of names our artists come up with for their events and projects. Here's a another list.

From the Basement
Rust & Flow
Fragments/Memory
Getting Real
Busy Being Born
Underwater Dreaming Bunnies
Saturated Life
Land of Wonder
Collection of Chaos
and
Life & Art Entangled

This isn't the first time I thought about names as a blog theme. In July 2009 I made a list of names I'd attached to many of my paintings.

What have you named lately? Do you like coming up with names, or is it simply a necessary evil? For the record half of our geese are named, but the other half are not. It's a tradition here. We prefer not to name the geese designated for devouring.

Meantime life goes on. It's the name of the game.

ARTFORUM Then and Now

As an art student in the early 1970's my favorite magazine was ARTFORUM. The publication resonated with what it meant to be a fine artist, as opposed to the commercial variety. It became a source for ideas about art as well as a catalyst for stimulating emerging artist. And to be hallowed in its pages was no doubt tantamount to full-fledged certification of one's seriousness.

I still have in my possession the May 1974 edition of ARTFORUM. It features a Rene Magritte image on the cover, a detail from The False Mirror. The mag is 82 pages in length and packed with all the revered names. Ads from galleries highlight Frank Stella, Wesselman, Claes Oldenburg, Gorky, Pollock, Miro, Braque, Hockney, Johns, Rauschenberg, etc. And the article features highlight the best of the best.

I kept this particular issue because of a lengthy article titled The Authoritarian Personality In Modern Art. Beginning on page 40 it was filled with revelatory quotes by artists on all manner of topics related to art. Sections include "Art as Cosmic Recoil from Time" and "The Indifference of Art to the World." The artists quoted include Dali, Warhol, Leger, Malevich and many others.

Fast forward to 2011.

With a bit of Father's Day kindness from my son I received a Barnes & Noble Gift Card with which I purchased the The Witmark Demos, Dylan Bootleg Series #9. To mop up the rest of my allotted cash I purchased the Summer edition of ARTFORUM International. Still the lightning rod for what is happening in the global art scene, there are some interesting differences between then and now.

The first thing you will notice is the mass and weight. This magazine weighs in at over three pounds, compared to a measly 3/4s of a pound in 1974. 440 glossy pages of color and content, compared to 82 tells you a lot about the art world today. It's the color of money.

Art is big business today. Despite the grinding poverty that engulfs much of the world, there is clearly more wealth today than any time in human history. The rich have bigger homes and more homes than they know what to do with. And there is a limit to how many boats, cabins, and toys one can possess. So what to do with all this excess? The art galleries and art scene have become a thriving commercial enterprise.

It's hard to believe that Picasso at one time burned some of his paintings simply to keep warm during a cold Paris winter. Even Picasso, one of the three most significant artists of the 20th century, once lived an impoverished life seeking nothing more than enough money for meals, art supplies and a roof over his head.

So ARTFORUM exists to tell us about what is happening in the art scene today. The quantity of happening things is impressive, almost overwhelming.

Look at the ads. Hundreds of ads sprawling over hundreds of pages, the ads themselves works of art. It's a fascinating read, and one worth returning to time and again. If you're into the arts.

Something else strikes me as I consider all this commercial activity. I'm curious what the Dadaists and early Surrealists would think about all this streaming cashflow. Dali was ostracized by his contemporaries because he alone of his contemporaries favored a capitalist culture over socialist idealism.

Another change has taken place since the magazine's 1962 founding. The Internet. And like all publications, an online residence is essential for survival. Artforum.com is rich with content and timely information, including a directory of current exhibitions around the world.

If you own a gallery and are seeking to establish yourself as important, you can choose to advertise in the magazine as in the old days, or advertise online. Here's a an overview of their traffic. It's a pretty good snapshot of who's paying attention to the art scene today.

58% male; 42% female
60% earn $50,000+; 35% earn $100,000+
73% between 25 and 44; 50% between 25 and 34
89% have completed college; 60% have done postgraduate work

81% regularly attend exhibitions and performances
74% attend the latest films
63% travel frequently
55% make art

81% plan to take a vacation
74% eat out regularly
52% will purchase art
51% intend to purchase furniture
48% anticipate making a financial investment
36% will likely visit a spa
34% plan to purchase a computer

1 out of 2 visitors comes several times a week if not every day
70% consider the site essential
84% describe the site as smart
90% are likely to recommend artforum.com to a friend

If you'd rather buy art supplies than the magazine, bookmark this site and keep your finger on the pulse of the art scene today.