Today we heard about the art practices of sculptor, Dion Hitches, and the ways in which he manages the business side of his gallery entries.Selling art is just as important as making it, and you need to plan your business well. While explaining this to us, he also explained the differences between private art commisions, and public art projects. I soon began to pick my favorite.
Basically, a private art commission is when somone makes a private order for a particular artist, to get a piece of art specially made for them. When you are responding to a commission, you must always make sure that you are getting a good deal on their deposit, prefferably 50% of the cost. This is aspecially important incase there is a problem getting the full ammount payed to you later on.
The difference between private commisions and public projects, is that a public art project details entering your pieces of art into a gallery space to be shown and sold. There are no deposits made on the artworks because nobody has chosen to buy them yet. Basically, it is as if you are putting your items into a very expensive shop, for sale. A private commission is much more immidiate when it comes to making a sale because the person buying has ordered you to make it in advance, practically guaranteeing a sale. In public art spaces, it may take up to 10 years to make a sale, as your art floats from gallery to gallery. As Dion Hitches told us, his piece "manatepatupiahere" only sold after 7 years of being in many, many galleries.
Another key difference between public and private projects, is that private projects tend not no be anything special. Usually when an artist is comissioned to make something they are merely extending their actual art practice, or in other words, regenerating old designs to fit into the needs of the consumer. When an artist is making a work to place in a gallery space, it is generally a fresh, new idea. They will still need to think about what type of art will suit particular kinds of galleries, however it will still be something new and eye catching so that their art will be accepted into the gallerys show. There is no need to worry about acceptance within private commissions because the consumer has already chosen you, the artist, and paid for half of your art piece. This might often mean that you are spending a lot more money at a gallery, than when doing a commisioned work because commisioned works do not always require time making small mock ups, or wasting materials on failed trials. You already know roughly what you are going to make. When working for a gallery space, there can be a lot more time and money involved - mock ups, mistakes, trial and error. You could often put a lot of money into a project, and because there are no deposits being made, it may NEVER sell. You are initially taking risk, and in the end, you could possibly earn nothing.
The narratives within these two types of art practices can be very different. While a gallery work can be a lot more personal to yourself, having your own ideas put into it, A commissioned work can be much more personal to the person you are making it for, fitting it into the consumers own ideals. The people involved in the development of narrartive within a gallery, is yourself. What are your own ideas used to drive the making of your art? How will you chose to portray this? In a private errand, the ideas come from the consumer, and you are the one who will be portraying these ideas. Developing these concepts comes from talking to the consumer, and finding out what they need the artwork for (where it is placed?), and what it will mean to them once it is made.
Also in terms of differences, I found as Grant explained to us in his own ideas on "art", he does not think that something is art, unless it has been publicly displayed. In cases such as this, it could be partly true, because there are only a limited ammount of eyes who will see the piece. It is not shown in the town square, or an uptown gallery, and often it will be overlooked as art because it will be sculpting the landscape of the garden, or enhancing the walls in your home. The art will begin to cross over into the realms of decor. When Hitches sold his first artworks, he noticed that people were not buying his art as art. They were buying them to match their drapes. Even when the art begins to move from gallery, to home, this can definatly occur. Sometimes, we do not always care about the preciousness of an original gallery artwork.
So, I then began to ask myself. Is a regenerated commision made for a home, really so different to a fresh painting, newly thought up for a gallery? They both contain meaningful ideals, and sometimes they may even look similar. Why should I care? It still matches my drapes.
No comments:
Post a Comment