Not very many people have been as up front as Marcus Price who wrote to ask:
Who are the “we” in theartlife?
We plan on answering that question in the not too distant future, say in January, or maybe later.
In other news, The Art Life has spawned an illegitimate child born from the Comments pop up. We thought that no good would come of the Comments at all, it being an arena of fear and loathing – and the occasional amusing joke – and that our reputation would be sullied by intemperate oafs. But if nothing else good ever happens, at least we can say that the Open Source Art School was our child. The conversation – lengthy and detailed – attached itself to the comments of the NAS v COFA Part II post and outlined a desire by some readers to create their own online art school where you can get a degree just by logging on. We see now that what we should be offering Art Life Bachelor and Master’s degrees and maybe even a PhD or DCA. It’s the way of the future! Ben Denham wrote to us about the impetus for the creation of the blog:
The idea is that it will be the starting point for the development of an open source art school. At the moment it looks like posts will discuss the form an OSAS might take as well as being open to the submission of curriculum. Anyone who has an interest in this idea will be given the right to post on this blog, (they just have to send me an email). At this stage the blog is a starting point with a view to these ideas migrating to a space that will allow a slightly more sophisticated ordering and presentation of information.
We are, as ever, always looking for new links to artist’s web sites. James and Eleanor Avery have a web site that looks like the artists have been able to combine art with camping supplies, or perhaps even camping itself, with international travel. It is a development that we encourage. We mentioned Abby Chambers’ web site in passing last week but thought we should mention it again because she does paintings of bears that can kill you. Speaking of death, we have added Joachim Froese’s site because he does photos of… Well, the images speak for themselves but its disturbing to see a poor mouse getting crucified at this time of year, even if he is dying for our sins.
Red Krayola, rockin’ it conceptual style.
If you’d like to give The Art Life a Christmas present, what we’d really like is our own band. Most legitimate art groups have a band that’s attached to it somehow – kind of like The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol or perhaps Group Irwin and Laibach, better yet, Art & Language and Red Krayola. Speaking of whom, a documentary is being made about the history of Red Krayola and the band’s current label Drag City is asking for people with band memorabilia, live footage, tapes or posters to get in touch. [We thought of course of our older readers, sitting in their warehouses with time on their hands, who could perhaps rummage through a few boxes…] As to our Christmas wish, we’d prefer a band, but we’d settle for a really good DJ.
Which finally brings us to a related topic – some readers have also asked what our special end of year Solid Gold Guarantee will be for 2005. Last year we decided to visit every single gallery listed in Art Almanac for December. At the end of the month we’d achieved our goal but we were exhausted and in trouble with the good people at Art Gallery Guide Australia. We have decided on a much more modest, but still exciting Solid Gold Guarantee for this year. It will be revealed next week in our final post for 2005…
