Britishartists

Young Artists Get Shot at Success, Galleries Fight to Survive

Filed under: Art

Any successful entrepreneur can tell you that tough markets are fertile ground for future success. If you can carve your piece of the world out now, an upturn later will reward you handsomely.

This sentiment must be on the mind of young British artists – such as Merlin Carpenter. London's contemporary art galleries are starting to show affordable works by newer artists. Far from investing in the future or giving the hopeful a fighting chance, this tactic is seen as a way to develop a near-term revenue stream that will help galleries survive the current financial crisis. Retrospectively, this stopgap measure could be seen as pure genius for the art galleries that discover the next Richard Prince or (blech) Damien Hirst.

Claims of forward thinking, however, will have to remain in the future. For now, dealers and galleries in London are struggling. Allsopp Contemporary shut down an exhibition space, and Yvon Lambert pulled out of London.

The market is searching to find – and exploit – some young blood, and buyers are pressing for discounts. The winners may just be the artists. Those discovered through desperation will define the market in the future.

Source

Tags: art, art galleries, art gallery, ArtGalleries, ArtGallery, artist, artists, british art, british artists, BritishArt, BritishArtists, damien hirst, DamienHirst, england, financial crises, financial crisis, financial crunch, FinancialCrises, FinancialCrisis, FinancialCrunch, galleries, gallery, london, recession, richard prince, RichardPrince, united kingdom, UnitedKingdom

Scouting For Art

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

If you are looking for a place to find the next Damien Hirst or Cecily Brown you might want to check out Scouting for Art, a new website that sources its portfolio from young and talented artists, including recent English Art School graduates, showcasing them on its website. The site features an ever-changing selection of up and coming artists, with prices ranging from £50 to £2,000. The site features award winning artists, who have had recent sell-out exhibitions, including Ina Dorthea Thuresson, who designed the projections used at Madonna's Hard Candy tour. The company is based in South West London and was set up by Charlie Wheatley, a former art student from Camberwell School of Art and graduate of University of Northumbria.

The piece above is from Tahnee Lonsdale who graduated from Byam Shaw School of Art in 2007 and has already been showing work in a number of galleries around London. She creates large paintings in her studio in West London that depict strange stories backdropped against surreal landscapes. The piece above"Hitchcock" measures 48" x 48" and sells for £1235.

Source

Tags: art, british art, british artists, BritishArt, BritishArtists, entertainment-awards, tahnee lonsdale, TahneeLonsdale

The Classicist: The Great Damien Hirst Debate

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art, The Classicist, Wealth

On the eve of a major auction of his work at Sotheby's in London, Damien Hirst's manager says the controversial Brit artist has become a billionaire - while one of the world's foremost art critics says he's little more than a no-talent huckster. Hirst's business manager Frank Dunphy says he is now the "biggest dollar earner in the history of art" with a net worth of $1 billion, which would make him one of the richest men in the UK, the London Times reports.

Dunphy says that in addition to his art, Hirst has invested heavily in real estate, and now has so many properties he's lost track of the exact number, which he estimates at between 30 and 40. These include a $5 million country house in Gloucester and a couple of Georgian houses in London's chic Mayfair district. If accurate, the $1 billion figure means Hirst's wealth has been vastly underestimated to date. The London Sunday Times 2008 Rich List calculated his fortune at only $350 million.

The Sotheby's sale today is expected to bring in at least $120 million. And like Picasso, Hirst says his signature alone is now worth a lot of money. "Someone in a gallery in New York told me the other day that my signature is worth $350," he tells the London Evening Standard. "It's actually something they can define. That means if I sign a check in a restaurant and it's for $250 the check is actually worth more than the bill comes to. On that level, yeah, maybe I am in the same position as Picasso. If you believe all that shit."

One person who emphatically does not believe "all that shit" is world-renowned art critic Robert Hughes. He has labeled Hirst's work "absurd" and "tacky commodities" in a new art world documentary airing in the UK later this month, the London Telegraph reports. Hughes singled out Hirst's famed shark in formaldehyde, entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, for particular criticism, calling it "the world's most overrated marine organism."

As we reported earlier this month, Hirst himself has said he's sick of some of the work he's become rich and famous for and plans to pursue other artistic avenues. In any case, Hirst has at least garnered the admiration of Vanity Fair which ranks him at No. 31 on their new list of the world's most powerful and influential people, putting him ahead of moguls like Sumner Redstone.

Tags: Billionaire, British artists, BritishArtists, Damien Hirst, DamienHirst, London, Picasso, Robert Hughes, RobertHughes, Sothebys, Vanity Fair, VanityFair