mediated

As one might expect, I read a fair amount of art blogs. Like most people today, I read them in a variety of formats over several devices. An interesting effect this has had on my perception is specific to viewing art. It struck me this weekend, as I stumbled upon an artist I had never encountered before, that the work looked really interesting and muscular on my small laptop screen, but once I got to work and looked it up on the big monitor the work became far less dynamic.

I'll be the first to say that ALL art suffers in reproduction. There is no substitute for seeing art in person, and that goes for high Renaissance as well as Abstract Expressionism. Documenting my work has been a source of tremendous pain and frustration my entire career, as the best work I make defies simple photography. I abandoned the medium of copper mostly because it was impossible to convey what it looked like in 3D, real-time. That turned out to be a good decision for a number of other reasons, but the frustration has remained.

In looking at art on the internet, I've developed a bit of sympathy for the galleries. I simply cannot imagine looking at dozens of artists' images and trying to discern what is "good" or at least in-line with that gallery's program/stable. Do I think the review process is flawed? Yep. But my sympathy/empathy remains.