Art is subjective as it should be but art is also validated by museum and gallery recognition as well as by secondary market resale and although Keene’s secondary market resale is obviously still soft, he has had recognition within the contemporary art world for decades. IMO the guy deserves more than this board has given him but given the basic bent/interest/direction of this board I can’t say I’m surprised, just disappointed. On the other hand I wonder how many (if any) would agree with me that Warhol was the most important artist of the 20th c…
Steve seems to be a very dedicated artist the same way Van Gogh was (and no,I'm not calling him crazy-but driven). Someone asked Stephen King how he managed to write so many novels & short stories, basically he said-'You think I've got a choice ?'. PS-Any reputable auction house that rude shouldn't be in business (and how the hell do they know what you're going to find next week ?). PSS-Sothebys,Christies & The New Yorker (re: my cartoons !) just send or email a very polite 'sorry,we're not currently interested' message.For someone in 'customer service' that behavior's irrational.
Agree to all! BTW IMO their behavior wasn’t irrational as much as it was egotistical which IMO is worse.
Agree to that-incredibly unprofessional.& irrational re future business.Who the heck insults a potential future client ?
Artists like this have been around for ages. Morris Katz comes to mind. Some make it pretty big, like George Rodrigue. Then there is Pricasso.... Pricasso.com | Australian Paint Artist Who knows what will stand the test of time.
Thanks for posting @Drew - not only do I appreciate the art & artist, I appreciate being reminded of that Pavement album, which will probably play on repeat all day - alternating with Slanted & Enchanted. I was lucky to take 2 weeks in the late 90s with three NYC friends, load into a huge old LTD & travel the entire east coast meeting, visiting, & buying outsider art - NYC to Virginia, the Carolinas, Athens/Atlanta, Florida, over to Alabama where our pal & LTD provider Stuto introduced us to his friend Marcia (of Marcia Weber Art Objects, an Outsider Gallery in Wetumpka, AL ), back to Georgia (Savannah/Cumberland Island and then back home to NYC. We actually met & spent time with these artists which was a whole other wonderful thing. Many are now deceased - Jimmie Lee Sudduth (who used the range of red hued clay found on his property - proudly stating exactly how many red variations he mixed & used as literal paint, he blew me away, just an Angel in human form, one image of his white dog painted repeatedly, ‘Toto’ - he admitted he’d owned some 20-odd Toto-pups over the years), Mose Tolliver (Marcia warned us to get to his place early am because he’d be drunk - & unfriendly! - by noon. Google his ‘Watermelon Girl’ subject for a treat), Lonnie Holley, Charlie Lucas…. Most painters but found object, metal/welding, sand sculpture, wire sculpture (like a big ball of random wires…but as it slowly turned, faces, symbols, etc appeared) I could go on, and I do, and have lol but this intense outsider education/immersion, frequently lead by the actual artists themselves made a huge impact personally. Not every piece and/or artist was exactly my taste, but every single one shared a singular phenomenal vibe : Peace. They seemed super evolved and childlike at once - innocent. Occasionally drunk, frequently high, one was released from jail & rolled up in a cab as we perused art in every tree, shrub, against their house, stacked on a porch - Beauty in every bit of earth across acres. I urge anyone vaguely interested to start with Marcia’s website as there are many artists. I am going to be quiet y’all pardon me. @reader We visited Finster’s property, so great. And your Haring story reminded me I have a big graphic shopping bag from his Pop Shop, do you remember that bit of 1980s NYC? Yay, finis!
I wasn't going to say anything since I don't know art and only like what appeals to me. This does not. But then, I don't like some very famous art pieces that others adore.
Brad, I never knew of this fella. Live and learn. There are so many dirty jokes to be made, but I would get tossed off this forum.
IMO both Picasso and Warhol will always hold. I was born into the art world-dealers of 20th c masters. I know of no one as obsessed with making art as Steve Keene but I do not think he’ll hold the test of time although I think Finster will.
I would have loved going on a trip like that! One of my major regrets was not being married by Finster. Really blew it on that one but my husband decided he was freaked by the whole concept so we ended up waiting another year and did a court marriage. So sorry I didn’t insist on Finster. Pop Shop-I still have magnets and sponges LOL. I was working in Soho on Spring in the 70s and continued hanging out there until everyone moved to Chelsea.
I don’t like a lot of very famous art either. Wish I had a Rothko or a Pollock…to sell… Art is so damn personal and there is no right or wrong.
LOL hate both of these. I don’t consider either obsessed-just commercially cranking out what sells. Pricasso found a gimmick that worked to validate his exhibitionism. IMO neither can be compared to Keene although both are absolutely commercially successful.
Just love this. BTW Filipe Archuleta (RIP) made me do shots of tequila with him at 10 in the morning before he’d sell me a beer bottlecap snake in 1980 in Tesuque NM. I’ll never sell it!
I don't see folk artists the same way I see some of these other guys. Folk artists have a drive to create by any means necessary, regardless of commercial viability. Most of these fringe artists are using a gimmick to drive a niche market. A few make it big. Pollack was not commercially successful until he started slinging paint.
Great discussion about art and the ultimate longevity of it in the marketplace. A factor with Keene's paintings is by the time he lays his brush down for the last time, there will likely be half a million of his paintings out there (over 300K to date) . . . that's a lot of paintings folks. The supply/demand ratio is such that prices really can't go crazy, at least wouldn't think so ? What he's doing by creating some 10,000 works a year and selling so low . . . currently doing 'Buy it Now' on Ebay - two 24" x 24" paintings @ $60. - 20 lots sell in about 12 hours generally (I notice they're popping up a month later in the secondary market, priced up some 300-400%). SK has created collectors that will own 10, 50, or even more works of his. Subject matter is so diverse... pretty wide open and refreshing in a sometimes pretentious art world.
In a mostly pretentious art world, but you were too polite to say. (I worked in several art galeries btw)
Beyond pretentious. I grew up in it. If you all want a peak into the apex of that world watch The Price of Everything. Stefan Edlis is gone now but was a major USA contemporary collector who I knew. It’s a terrific docu. As the interviewer is dying over the Warhol Liz Taylor, Stefan goes “It’s a copy-we no longer have the real one”.
The only Pollacks that I like are the early symbolist ones which he and Frankenthaler were doing at the same time when they were hanging out together. The only period of either of them that floats my boat.
I grew up in a much kinder art world, here in the southeast of the Netherlands. Some of my relatives were/are artists and performers, as were many of my parents' friends. No pretense there, although we did know of it elsewhere. I also worked in art galeries, both here and abroad. That is how I got to meet that pretentious art world. Hot air.
