Using Andy Warhol’s quote, “Good business is the best art”, as the tag line for one of its last exhibits of the decade, The Tate Modern’s Pop Art: Art in a Modern World, examines a growing phenomenon in the art world that seems to have culminated over that last ten years.  Thanks to artists like Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, and Damien Hirst, not to mention dealers like Charles Saatchi, good business does indeed seem to be the best art – at least judging by the new breed of millionaire artists.  If anything, business-savvy artists and art dealers of the twenty-first century have taken Warhol’s axiom a giant step further: Good business may be the best art, but self-creation is the best business.

What is it about the 00’s that has led to artists and their dealers creating themselves as marketable brands?   Let’s begin with the premise that art is a reflection of our society and make a quick overview of the last ten years.

Backtrack to December 31, 1999 and the Y2K bug – the cryptically sinister name given to the apocalyptic computer bug of doom that loomed ominously at the end of our millennium countdown.   Nothing happened and we breathed a collective sigh of relief and then came the onslaught of 9/11 followed by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose horror has been compounded by the Orwellian overtones of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.  Add to this a global economic recession, not to mention natural disasters like the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and global warming.  Oh, and did I mention the disintegrating line between private and public; and being detained and tortured without reason?

Bali, Madrid, London, and, most recently, the Northwestern flight from Amsterdam to Detroit…  none of this necessarily shocks us anymore.  What was once unthinkable has become thinkable.  9/11 has torpedoed our consciousness into the uncomfortable realization that an act of terror could happen anywhere.  Welcome to the decade of vulnerability.

Far from leading us to cower in some safe corner, however, our vulnerability has led us straight into the realm of self-creation.  Huxley’s Brave New World has become Create Your Own World.  Compounding this are self-creation facilitators like YouTube, Facebook, the RMB video game (or the Nintendo DS dating game Love Plus that is responsible for at least one inter-marriage between plain Joe real man and virtual hot babe).  And what about the unthinkable reality that someone like Sarah Palin stood (stands?) a chance of becoming President of the United States (just read about it in Going Rogue) while the father of her grandchild gets ready to strip for Playgirl?  Just consider one of the biggest movies in the last month of this last decade – Avatar – the motherload of alternate-egos and alternate realities.  Hmmm… let’s see… live my uneventful life in a wheelchair or close my eyes and become the revered leader of a people?

Is it any wonder, then, that the best-known artists and art dealers of today are branded celebrities who openly promote themselves and their art?   Piero Manzoni may have shocked a few people with his 1961 series of Merde d’artista, but today’s superstar artists are past that.  Shocking audiences just to shock them is passé.  Shocking audiences to create your “brand” is in.  Artists now put their brand on restaurants and haute-couture fashion labels while dealers and collectors open their own museums.  Andy Warhol may have been what Robert Rosenblum called the court painter of the 70’s, but we, and our artists/art dealers, have become the court painters of ourselves.

Jude Norris' Red Spirit Buffalo 2009 - from the Ekwa Series (Courtesy of the Artist)

Art should speak for itself and good art does.  So the question is this?  How much more does art say if you know a little bit about the artist?  For artists like Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol, their persona became part of the art.  The same thing could be said about contemporary artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin who have consciously cultivated and incorporated their personalities into the marketing of their art.

Understanding art by analyzing the artist becomes even more relevant when the artist is affiliated with a group or country that has certain historical, cultural, philosophical or political traditions.  A painting of the bible with a placard placed next to it that reads “Joe Doe, of white supremacist descent” will immediately illicit a different response from the same painting whose accompanying placard reads “Joe Doe, of African-American descent”.   Chances are, however, that two artists coming from such disparate points of departure would never treat a subject in the same way.  Art is never objective, not in its creation nor in its interpretation.

This is certainly true of the art of Jude Norris.  Of Cree, Anishinabe, Russian, Scottish, Gypsy, Métis descent, Norris culturally identifies with her Indigenous ancestry, a connection which she describes as stemming from her “inward, psychic” need to reconnect with her First Nations roots.  In her personal essay, The Story of the Ekwa (pronounced eh-gwah) Buffalo, Norris writes:  “Obviously, cultural relationships also come into play, as the antlers, being used as they are by the Indigenous artists, cannot help but bring up traditional connection between First Nations people and the animals they [the antlers] belong to.”

For Norris, artist and art are inseparable.  As such, Norris’ Ekwa buffalo are imbued with personal relevance and history – they are as much a visual diary that speak of her individual search and passage back to her roots as they are a majestic animal that connects to the Aboriginal people as a whole.  In Norris’ words:

“Shortly after all this buffalo re-connection, contact, and creation happened, I also re-connected with my own Plains Cree Nation and Territory. We are, of coarse, intrinsically and anciently connected with the buffalo. I see this period and these events as in part the Buffalo Nation calling me home. Before this, I had once gone to see an Elder in Toronto, to ask about why I felt such intense emotion towards these animals, and everything that had happened to them – as if it were real to me. He explained to me that  all things that happen exist always, outside of time as we know it, and this is why I could feel these things as if they were now, even though they happened in the past.”

In Plains Cree, Ekwa means ‘let’s go’ or ‘right now’, a befitting title for a series of  individual buffalo in movement.  It is as if each of her buffalo has been freeze-framed while in motion.  Executed in digital print, the deceptive simplicity of Norris’ buffalo bear a strange, almost surreal connection to cave art.  The fact that they have been digitally rendered catapults them into the twenty-first century without negating their primordial energy.  There is something deeply spiritual about Norris’ buffalo that transcends the derogatory categorization “Indian art” that sometimes enters the mainstream mind when confronted with a First Nations artist’s depiction of a “nature” image such as buffalo.   Norris’ buffalo defy the confines of cultural and/or religious affiliation and enter the universal sphere of what we all aspire to be – brave, independent, communal, free, and eternal.

Jude Norris' Winter Buffalo 2009 - from the Ekwa Series (Courtesy of the Artist)

The buffalo is not new to the art of Norris.  Her 1999 Red Buffalo Skydive, a 3 minute single channel piece created by rotoscoping (drawing over) the frames of buffalo video footage, shows a moving buffalo while Norris’ voice recounts a rather odd story about a paraplegic and his post-accident skydiving adventures.

An interesting juxtaposition comes into play as you watch the piece and listen to the story – the buffalo keeps moving back and forth without going anywhere much in the same way the paraplegic in the story is attempting to find freedom of movement without much success (he attempts to skydive, but breaks his legs, he tries again without success…).  What the… was admittedly my initial reaction but then image and story suddenly unite into a parallel reality as the paraplegic finally finds a way to realize his quest for freedom and movement through a tenacity similar to the buffalo.  It is at this breaking point of revelation that a new understanding of what you are seeing and listening to comes into play – Norris’ image and story-telling connect to all of us.

The buffalo’s journey is as much the paraplegic’s journey which is as much our journey in our quest to live a meaningful, spiritual, healed life – a quest that is as old as the buffalo itself.

Jude Norris’ new website is up – www.tatakwan.com

Enter the word copyright.  It works like this:  While you may own the physical work, the actual image on the work is the property of its creator.  The fact that you have bought the work of art doesn’t give you the rights to that image any more than buying a book gives you the right to photocopy it in its entirety.  In the strictest sense of the law, this means that you cannot reproduce the image without the consent of the artist.

In the real world, however, and in the world where images and information are a mouse-click away, this seems an outdated and close-minded concept that better serves to stifle creativity than protect it.  How is creativity fostered if not through exchange and re-interpretation?   Think Andy Warhol, the biggest appropriator of all.  Campbell never went after Warhol, although one has to wonder whether this has to do with the fact that Warhol elevated Campbell’s soup to an adulated commodity.  Chances are Campbell would have had an adverse reaction if Warhol had placed their famous soup can on top of a corpse with the message – Processed Food is Killing America.

Mannie Garcia's Photo next to Shepard Fairey's Poster

Did Warhol ever get sued?  Yes.  The photographer of the original Jackie O’  pictures sued Warhol for using his original photograph of Jackie in the Jackie 16, 1964;  Patricia Caulfield sued Warhol for using her photographs as the source of his flower prints.  Exceptions to litigation, along with Campbell, were Marilyn Monroe and “Mickey Mouse” amongst others; they obviously saw value in further promoting their images as icons.  In the world of commodity, there is nothing like free advertising.

In his defense against the American Press Association, Shepard Fairey (creator of the famous Obama posters) – defended himself against the AP wire-service by citing the fair use stipulation which allows the appropriation of an image provided it is altered from the original.  He did not take the original photograph and pretend it was his.  Instead, he altered it and in so doing this, made it his.  Add to this, that any money he made on the poster went right back into the Obama campaign.  What’s more, Mannie Garcia, the photographer of the Obama photograph, was never involved in the lawsuit.  As far as Garcia is concerned, fair use applies.  One site I read quotes Garcia as saying: “I know artists like to look at things; they see things and they make stuff.”

In my own experience, I have yet to come across an artist who hasn’t said, “Sure you can use my images just so long as you credit me and do not use them for profit”.  This, in spite of the fact that some of them still use the copyright “(c)”  mark , something I’m not quite sure I understand the necessity of.  After all, in the strictest, most absurd sense of the copyright law, if a photographer takes a picture of a building, are they not appropriating an image that is not only private property, but also the product of an architect’s design?  Similarly, if a visual artist paints the interior of the MOMA, are they not appropriating private property, an architect’s design, and the images of other artists?  What about ideas?  A writer hears someone tell of an interesting experience and then the writer writes a book based on that someone’s account of their experience?  Is the experience copyrighted?

More apropos to today’s reality, I think, is the Creative Commons approach (there will be more on this later) which allows for exchange and appropriation so long as it is not for commercial use.

The questions of copyright are complex and something where I am just beginning to get to know (note the certain confusion in the use of the copyright license denotations on this site).   But do think again before you snap a picture of your art work.  Yours, yes, but the rights of which belong to the artist.

Cave, 2000 by Gavin Turk (source: Artnet)

Inspired by Andy Warhol’s comment, “Good business is the best art”, the Tate Modern’s current exhibition, Pop Life: Art in the Material World, inspired me to look at two of Britain’s YBA’s (young British Artists).  The two artists are Gavin Turk and the oftentimes controversial Tracey Emin.  Both artists, as with most of the other artists in the group, have one thing in common:  Their artistic persona is as important, if not more important, than their art.  They are the brand, much in the same way Warhol was the brand.  Their art is the product of their branded persona – think “fifteen minutes” of fame enjoyed over and over again.

Gavin Turk [who actually spends a good deal of time thinking about his work] got his first fifteen minutes of fame when the Royal College of Art refused to give him his MA in 1991.  The reason?  His final work, entitled Cave [one of the versions seen above], consisted of a white-washed studio space.  Hung on one of the walls was a blue heritage plaque, the same kind of plaque found on heritage buildings and monuments of famous dead people.  Inscribed on the plaque were the words: Burough of Kensington/GAVIN TURK/Sculptor/Worked Here 1989-1991. The plaque and words gave a sort of ironic finality to a career that hadn’t yet begun. Gavin Turk, sculptor, was too young to be considered “heritage”, too unknown to be considered “famous”, and too alive to be considered “dead”, yet none of these “blue heritage plaque prerequisites” deterred him from commemorating himself.  As such, the plaque becomes the ultimate self-promotion – I declare myself to be, therefore I am.  Now add a little bit of hype brought about by a stuffy, narrow minded college’s refusal to grant a poor young artist his degree and voila!  Turk’s first fifteen minutes of fame which have since been followed by more fifteen minutes.

More than anything, however, Turk’s Cave put the finger on what Warhol already knew – we are a brand-obsessed society that cares more about the name than it does the art.  Artists, such as Turk, Emin, and most notably Hirst [to name some of the British ones], understand this.  It is what Turk calls the “cult of the signature”.

What is especially interesting about these artists is that they spend as much time “branding” themselves as they do “de-branding” their art.  Again, think of Warhol and his soup cans.  It’s like a weird circle that feeds on itself: Turk creates garbage bags and carton boxes that, were it not for the fact that they are in a museum or gallery, would look like a garbage bag or carton box; paradoxically, the garbage bags and carton boxes would still look like garbage bags and carton boxes [in spite of their museum/gallery setting] if it weren’t for the fact that Turk is the artist. In other words, the brand – Gavin Turk – is what gives the art its relevance and explains why the art is in a museum/gallery setting.

My Bed by Tracy Emin (source: Saatchi Gallery)

Foul-mouthed slut – not the brand most people would embrace, yet Tracey Emin has appropriated the “bad girl” image as her very own.  My bed, which is exactly that – Emin’s bed – would be just another bed if it weren’t for the undeniable persona of its creator.  Emin spent four days in this bed contemplating suicide.  While she contemplated, she drank, smoked, and had lots of sex – at least if you are to judge by the empty vodka bottles, the cigarette buts, and the condoms.  The way she tells it, and retells it, and then retells it again – she had one hell of an awful childhood and so she drinks too much, swears too much, and sleeps around.  It’s visual Oprah where everything is revealed, and then revealed again.

Warhol wasn’t wrong when he said “good business is the best art”.  Nor is there anything wrong with self-promotion.  After all, artists do have to sell their work, something art galleries and art dealers have been doing forever and controversy, for better or for worse, is the best ad campaign one can hope for.  Art is not objective, it is subjective.  As such, it is the physical embodiment of its creater and there is nothing wrong with that.  Where it goes wrong and where the art collector has to be careful is when the brand takes over the art.  I am great and I have something to express should never be confused with I am great simply because I tell you I am.