artPark

The decade in review

From Jeff Koons to Damien Hirst. From art auction houses to Art Basel Miami Beach. From the new MoMA to collector’s vanity museums. From the fall of Thomas Krens to the rise of contemporary Chinese art... the last ten years were a fun filled, roller coaster ride of a decade for the visual arts.

For a little detail of the highlights, see ArtInfo's review of the decade. Here's their beginning:

Say what you will, purists: the story of the aughts was the art market. When it wasn't all we could talk about, we were talking about why it was all we could talk about. After the Russian and Asian markets took a dive in the late '90s and tech stocks plummeted, and in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, the art market sagged a bit, breaking the stride it had slipped into in the mid-'90s, when it began to recover from the last recession. But that was a short dip, and by 2003 it was moving into uncharted territory. Soon we were looking at tens of millions of dollars for works of contemporary art; new buyers from Russia, Asia, and Latin America; and the rise of our robber barons, the vaunted "hedge fund guys." In 2008, the crash of the global economy brought the art market back to earth, but that was quite a run.

Go here for the rest of the article.

And a happy new year to all.

Wordless Wednesday

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Keeping up with... RANDALL DAVID TIPTON

Maureen Doallas, a patron of Migration and a fellow blogger, has written a wonderful piece on one of my favorite artists, Randall David Tipton. I’ve reprinted the article below or you can read it here at Maureen’s blog, Writing Without Paper.

Landscape Become Image
By Maureen Doallas

Throughout my career the landscape has been my guiding orientation… My impulse comes from a simple belief in the restorative qualities of nature.
~ Randall David Tipton

His watercolors on yupo* and board were what first caught my eye. And I couldn't stop looking.

So I looked some more and found oils on canvas, paper, and board and felt a "WOW!" go through me.

I came across his work purely by chance, browsing the site of Laura and Rob Jones, owners of

Migration Gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia, about two hours south of my home in Arlington. Rob had written that Randall David Tipton "made us fall completely in love with watercolor, never before a favorite medium..." I opened my e-mail, sent Laura a note asking about a few pieces, and then found myself the owner of a small Randall David Tipton.

Randall did something only a very few artists I know do: He sat down and hand-wrote me a personal note, saying of "Winter Wetlands" (the watercolor now in my collection), "I want you to know this was my third attempt to get it right. . . I'm crazy about wetlands, especially when they're dormant in winter; so much color!"

Get it right Randall did. The location is along a backwater of Lacamas Lake, where Randall loves to walk. It's a gorgeous place, a place where an inspired hand setting paint to canvas or watercolor to board can leave you breathless.

Randall lives in Portland, Oregon. He paints at night. His style is all his own, sometimes veering toward complete abstraction, often improvisational, always reveling in expression. He paints with vivid color, with a fluid but disciplined hand that also lets you see the sharp line and the shadow. He invests every piece he creates with a deep and intuitive understanding of the landscape on which he draws for inspiration. "In the American tradition of Thoreau to Frederick Edwin Church to Arthur Dove and others," Randall writes in his Artist's Statement, "I include myself among those trying to expose the transcendental relationship we have with the natural world."

Educated in California and later in New Mexico where he took a Master class with the great Richard Diebenkorn, Randall has shown his work since 1981 in group exhibitions in Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Texas and has enjoyed numerous one-person shows in Oregon and Colorado. He is in the corporate and public collections of US West Telecommunications, Texas Instruments, Hewlett Packard, Newsweek, M.C. Editorial Inc., Eastern New Mexico University, and the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador, El Salvador.

This terrific painter knows where his "commitment" lies: "to something more authentic." "[T]hrough the process of painting, alert to possibility," he writes, "my belief in the redemptive essence of the landscape becomes an image."

I hope to publish an in-depth interview with Randall sometime in the New Year. Until then, go here and here; also here and here. Sit a while with the images on your screen. Hold the stillness. Be moved.

* Yupo is a type of plastic, originally created for the printing industry and used for signs. It's smooth, bright, and highly durable. To read more about it, click here.

It's not who you know

In the art world, you'll often hear that the key to success is not what you know, but who you know.  Well...

Last night, Laura and I spent the evening touring a few artists' studios at McGuffey Art Center's Holiday Art Show.  Quite honestly, our main goal was to catch up with some of our artist friends (mission accomplished).  But it had been a while since we had been through McGuffey, so we were excited to see some of the new artists who had recently moved in.

One surprise was to stumble upon Michael Clark's studio.  Laura and I have seen Michael's work before and we both like it a lot.  It was nice to finally meet the artist and get some insight to his art directly from him.

Funny though... Michael, being a polite and gregarious guy, was quick to introduce himself.  Laura and I reciprocated.  He then asked, a little tongue in check, "So, should I know you?  Are you guys movers and shakers around here?"  Not being ones to toot our own horn, Laura and I simply said, "We used to be." (tongue in cheek back at 'cha)

In hindsight, it would have been easy to introduce ourselves as owners of Migration and artPark, but it seemed unnecessary.  And, it probably would have changed the conversation.  We were there to see the art.

My point:  It's not always who you know.  In the arts, I believe it's what you know; or, more specifically, it's about the quality of the art -- not the name game.  And, Michael's art is terrific.  That's all that matters to me.

Fun in the Miami sun

As the annual American art orgy known as Art Basel Miami Beach kicked off last night, the lion share of news is not about the economy, the art, or the galleries. Instead, the big news item is how twelve US Marshals and police officers approached the booth of Swiss gallery Galerie Gmurzynska and promptly seized approximately $7 million worth of art by Yves Klein, Joan Miro, Edgar Degas and Fernand Leger. Read more here.

Imagine going through the preparation and expense of exhibiting at a gallery fair and suddenly having a majority of your available artwork confiscated. Tough way to start one of the biggest international fairs of the year.

Alas… all is not lost for Gmurzynska. Fortunately, the gallery is also exhibiting the work of action hero turned painter, Sylvester Stallone. Yes, you read that right. Sly, best known for his roll as Rocky, has been creating art and is now exhibiting at Art Basel Miami. Excuse me for clearing my throat –- tough to get that one out. His work has been selling for $40,000 and $50,000. Seriously?? Dare I say, is this yet another sign that the apocalypse is upon us? I guess others see it differently.

As one decidedly slanted broker states: "Collectors are doing their best to obtain Sylvester Stallone autographed art. The rarity of the art along with the driving force behind it will assure that the artwork will grow in value in the years to come. There is also the fact that Sylvester Stallone's artwork is actually very pleasant to look upon. His use of color, shapes, and designs is truly something to behold. Many collectors are eager to obtain paintings from Sylvester Stallone. Even more collectors are eager to obtain Sylvester Stallone autographed art of any type."

"Art of any type." That says it all to me.