Let the market decide: quality art sells.

1. Art is blood/you shed it/it feeds you/it nourishes your soul. No artist gives a shit about criticism/you pass that stage around yr. ten at surviving in the art market. My work in literature gets rave reviews when I say my work  at readings.

Galleries are run by business people who have no idea about true art and they DO NOT dictate or control what is good art. They are often trendy and misrepresent the artist and commercialize even good art. They are most of the time struggling to pay over inflated rents on the gallery space. I will only buy art straight from the artist and will not pay the over inflated prices from the galleries. I am not sure who told you that art sells itself. Have you seen art sell itself? That sounds amazing! It doesn't happen, real art is not made to sell it is made for a much different reason. Might have to be an artist to understand!

I have sold paintings through Childhood's End gallery for the last fifteen years.  They sell because theyare done properly, the context is happy, and I do not knuckle under to leftist liberal anger.

I look at the garbage that comes from leftist liberals.  Talk about a complete lack of creativity and style!  If they didn't have a college subsidy, they wouldn't finish anything.  That subsidy ends abruptly when they lose their arts benefactors and scholarships.  They they use their paintings to wrap fish.

The paintings I create are happy, upbeat, cheerful, and encouraging.

The paintings I see from leftists are authoritarian, cold, bitter, poorly done, lack in artistry, and are basically as ugly as the talentless drubs that painted them.

I have to concur with Lester.  Professionals create good art and that is what people buy.

Grumbling leftists are such poor artists that nothing they do is worth hanging in your home.

I'm a professional artist and writer, and frankly, the things you say are both right and wrong.

First of all, those 'starving artist' art sales you see advertised on TV and that tour the country are complete bullshit. What is being sold is assembly line art. 8 or 10 people on a line and each one is trained to paint a particular part of a painting. Artists may be involved, but not in any way producing art.

I'm not sure how you decide liberal art is worthless, as most artists ARE liberals. Either way though, while it would be nice to believe that talent will out and people buy what they think is good, it just doesn't work that way. People buy what some critic TELLS them is good. Which doesn't necessarily mean creative or talented, and in fact, often means crap.

I'm an illustrator. I work for money. And yes, most art IS a business. So is writing. And in writing, the reader doesn't buy what's good either. In fact it's such a weak business these days, controlled by people who do NOT love reading, that a LOT of book that are genuinely good don't get published because the big companies want book which are either copies of other books that sold well or that they feel are guaranteed to make money. Same is true in the music business and the movie industry. And yes, before you ask I do have books published, art well published and a movie in post waiting for distribution. So I'm not entirely inexperienced here.

In commercial art, such as illustration, a lot, in terms of success. is dependent on who you know, what contacts you have, what links you make, who sees your work, and how professional you are in terms of giving the client what they want and giving it to them on time.

And I'm sure you do sell happy paintings. And good for you if you do. Putting anything positive in the world is an excellent thing. I genuinely mean that. But don't bitch at other people whose art is, perhaps darker or more depressing than yours. The proper job of an artist is to hold a mirror up to society to show them both the beautiful and the ugly, to say 'this is wrong', to make them think about those things, and feel for them.

This poster wants to bitch about the "left" and is using art as bait !

Anyone whose worked in the arts knows that it is all about good p.r. , as Warhol so brilliantly came forward and exposed . There is also a DVD called "Who Gets To Call It Art ?" , you should check out .

The business of art is diametrically opposed to the creative process , unless you are a formula artist ; that turns out the same thing over and over .

And , YES ; those "Going Out Of Business " art sales are of the old motel , palette knife , assembly line , horrors .

Art , is after all subjective . If you like a print and want to hang it in your house because it matches your divan and living room , reading chair , that's fine and the owner may consider it art . I agree with the Dadaists and like Marcel Duchamp's style of pointing at an object and announcing : "That's art " ( he actually called them ready made art ,) but he certainly made a found urinal famous , doing this .

So, sorry Lester and Southern ; I don't believe you've ever created anything including : "happy art" that magically sells itself , because people find it so uplifting . Your spewing is that of the age old dilettantes and I hope that gallery does find you and press charges . You have a terribly , negative , underlying message but it has nothing to do with art .

I'm happy you stirred things up enough , to see the intelligent responses of : ArmyBrat , Bonestructure and Fancystoller , though !
Thanks ! LOL !

Hey,Bruce,thanks for the vote of confidence,we had a private showing,a group shoe in Bushwick, it went well.  We felt good and networked. Private meaning invitation only/to the opening.  Family attended and we were back in the limelight with art.  This helped us get through these hard times.  I am sending e-mails out everyday to museums and galleries. We've always advertised except when we sold on the streets/which got old after five years trhough we made the required moola. Check out the website-www.fortgang.com.  Maybe you will be intricate in getting the work out there. Let us hear from you.

You just shot down your own arguement. If the "genuine unsalable" art is sold at a starving artist sale, it is not unsalable. Snob such as you are laughable.