Art for sale

I have never given much thought to art galleries. I don't mean the galleries in museums. I mean galleries that sell art, the places you find in some of the trendy parts of town that have a lot of space and expensive items on the wall. I've never seen myself as an art connoisseur or as someone who would buy expensive art from a gallery. But I'm learning new things all the time.

On a recent Sunday walk with my wife, we stopped at a local gallery. Hanging in the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery in Vancouver (1070 Homer Street), the work of two photographers caught our eye. One was the work of Dianne Bos. She travels the world and takes long exposure shots with a simple pinhole camera. The other was the photography of David Burdeny. He also travels the world and likes those long exposure shots. Both of their images evoke dreamlike qualities. Burdeny's web site explains it best: "...David purposefully photographs in poor light and near darkness. He uses unusually long exposures to see that which our eyes can not. Moving beyond the literal, his images have been described as ominous, haunting, beautiful and meditative." And they were.

The work of Bos and Burdeny is not simple photography. It's art. Theirs are images that engage you, draw you in, makes you think differently about your life or about the subject.

I realized that day that I would never have been struck in the same way had the works been on a web site or in a magazine. I've suddenly gained a new appreciation for the role of the art gallery: it's the intermediary between artist and public. When things go well, a mutually rewarding relationship is formed between gallery and artist. A gallery needs to sell items to stay in business. The owner must have a clear idea of what he or she will display. Not all artists are working simply for the act of creating, some wish to find a market for their work and cultivate an audience. The owner must meet and get to know them and select the ones best suited for the gallery. My wife said, "The gallery acts like an athlete's agent." She's right -- a kind of Jerry Maguire for artists. I hadn't quite seen it that way before. The artist needs someone who will market the work, who will test the market, negotiate the best price, motivate him or her to do better. A good relationship with a gallery gives the artist peace of mind to create while the gallery does the marketing work .

The laws of economics are also at play. A little-known artist will not command a high price; one whose reputation is known and who is in high demand will command a high price. This is good for the gallery, good for the artist and also, I believe, good for the public, as more people become aware of the works.

I will probably never walk by a gallery without thinking about the relationships on display there.

Links:

1. Dianne Bos
2. David Burdeny
3. Jennifer Kostuik Gallery
4. Pinhole camera
5. Jerry Maguire

A story about people who never stop trying

If you have ever tried to master a creative skill, whether it be woodworking or photography, writing or painting, usually you know fairly soon in the process if you're comfortable with it. Most of us find that it takes some time before we become proficient at a creative endeavour.

Now what about creative geniuses? Do they take a long time to develop their skills or are they born with them?

The popular image we have is that geniuses show their unique talents quite early in life. In the field of science, for example, Albert Einstein conducted his thought experiments and wrote his Theory of Relativity as a very young man. In music, we remember child prodigies like Mozart. In the visual arts, Picasso did some of his best work in his twenties.

But history also offers examples of artistic "geniuses" whose talents emerged much later in life after a long and sometimes painful gestation period. Two such people were Mark Twain and the French painter, Paul Cézanne.

In a delightful article in the New Yorker recently, Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink and The Tipping Point), writes about these late bloomers and compares the mental make-up of people with precocious talents to those who struggle for a long time before they become successful.

It's a moving story about the special relationship between late bloomers and whose who encourage them to keep trying.

See "Late Bloomers -- Why do we equate genius with precocity?"

Notes:

1. More about Malcolm Gladwell in this profile, "The Gladwell Effect."

2. Gladwell's web site is here.

3. If you'd like to learn more about Paul Cézanne, see the WebMuseum Paris page.

4. The photo showing a close-up of brush strokes is courtesy of Asifth Akbar.

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