What has happened to contemporary Art

Author: Tim Bobker

Back in art college where life was all about dreaming and imagining, I would spend most of my day making pots on the potters wheel and sitting endlessly in front of my homemade op art pictures made from hard board and miles and miles of electricians tape.

What inspired me was mostly the visual aspect of the arts - the skill, complexity, idealism and mind altering visual arts. Some would say this is rather narrow minded just focusing on the "what you see" part of fine arts, but in my opinion this is the most important.

We take Damien Hirst the first artist in my lifetime for me that showed me contemporary art. Ok, "anyone can do that": cut a cow in half, suspend a shark in some strange liquid, cast your head in blood. But at least he was original.

People would ague about the idea aspects of contemporary art, "its not whether you can do it or not, its the idea!". That is true and so long as it does make you think or shout "WOW" it is at the very least involving the viewer in the piece: isn't that what art is all about?

So anyway, we then come to the Frieze art fair. Known world wide, full of status, full of money! I followed the masses up and down the long never ending rows of art galleries looking at each space as I passed not really becoming inspired or excited. In fact, I was actually bored to begin with. I had to really search for the good stuff.

Yes, I could name a handful of really new, original art works that stood out. But for such a place I would have expected more.

Then it came to me. Yes MONEY!. Contemporary art is no more "ART" than your 20 pound note. It seems to have turned into a kind of arts bank. Buying and selling art. What is the best investment. Probably this is no new concept and has been around for hundreds of years, but I cant stand it.

If your paying £20,000 pounds for a painting what are you paying for? Investment, pleasure, status,boredom?

About the Author:

Artists, potter, marketeer and designer who finds the art world fascinating, complicated and mind boggling(at times).
www.theglobalarts.com
www.theartsblogs.com
www.findcraft.co.uk

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - What has happened to contemporary Art

How to Experience Abstract Art

Author: jburchfield

A lot of people don't appreciate abstract paintings. They assume that all paintings are supposed to look like something, similar to a photograph, and that anything that doesn't is "weird." Sometimes they will see an abstract painting that just looks like a bunch of random colors and think "wow... it looks like a 5 year old painted that!" These people have fallen into the "all art has to be realistic" trap.

For people who aren't too familiar with the different types of art, having that mindset is not too uncommon. However, there are some things you should think about that can help increase your appreciation of abstract art, including:

It doesn't have to look like "something" - All paintings are not necessarily supposed to look like photographs. This is important, which is why it's first on the list.

Observe the physical nature of the painting - How are the textures? Is the paint thick or thin? Is it so thick that you can see it raised off the canvas? What are the colors like? Do they blend well together or do they clash?

How does it make you feel? - Don't spend too much time thinking about what it's supposed to be, instead concentrate on how it makes you feel. Does it make you feel happy? Sad? Relaxed? To give you an example, I once saw an abstract painting that was very large (8 foot by 8 foot canvas) that I could tell was painted with very fast, heavy, angry strokes. There was a lot of red and black in the painting which I found to be very powerful-feeling colors. I could tell the artist was experiencing anger while he was painting it. When I read the information card about the painting, it said the artist painted it one evening after he came home and found his apartment had been robbed. He was very angry, and it translated into his painting. The emotions to painting conveyed to me were exactly how the artist was feeling when he painted it.

You don't have to like everything - It's perfectly ok to dislike an abstract painting the same as you may dislike any other painting.

Hopefully with these tips, you will begin to see abstract art in a new way.

About the Author:

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - How to Experience Abstract Art

The World's Best Art Consultancy

Author: Art Exchange

The World's Best Art Consultancy

art-exchange.com unveils Release III of its art tool for designers

The Future Art Consultancy


Locating and placing artwork in a design project is arguably the most difficult part of the project. While some designers take on this task themselves, many enlist the assistance of an art consultant. One limitation of this approach is the consultant’s limited universe of artists. Most art consultants end up with a few “go-to” favorites.

Imagine an art consultancy able to directly access 10,000 artists, with technology capabilities aggregating art choices in a portfolio for emailing or high-resolution printing for presentations. Add the ability to correspond with clients via e-postcard including selected images. And finish with the ability to access framing options online thus enabling the designer to actually show the customer how the pieces will look framed.


Does It Work?

Can a website help you find art? Art-Exchange (www.art-exchange.com) is not a new website, not a new service, not a new company. It does, however, take a new approach to providing art to designers. And it has a new site design that Art-Exchange claims will make the service even more powerful and easier to use.

I spoke with Richard Gipe, President and CEO of Art-Exchange, to find out why he thinks his company’s service is so special. I asked him, “If you had to communicate Art-Exchange’s value to designers in a single sentence, what would you say?”

Here’s what he said: “If you want to access as much art as we have on Art-Exchange, you would have to go to 20,000 galleries, and you would have to deal with so many different sellers that the logistics would be overwhelming.” That sounds pretty good. But does the site work?


About Art-Exchange

Art-Exchange is a business service provider that specializes in solutions for the design trade. They can offer solutions to designers as an art consultancy, or they can provide solutions to art consultants to help them be more effective and efficient.

For the past five years Art-Exchange has been actively contacting artists to list their works on the exchange. Today there are approximately 100,000 different works of art created by over 10,000 different artists. Imagine searching 100,000 records to locate the perfect art solution. Nearly 60% of all the works are originals, and the remaining 40% is a variety of editions. All of these works are organized in a database, and a search engine locates works using any or all of the following criteria:

• Artist’s name
• Title
• Subject matter
• Style
• Medium
• Size
• Colors
• Price
• Orientation

Suppose you need oversized original works and price is an issue. Maybe you want only works with lighthouses. Or perhaps you need large public works. That’s how specific the search engine can be. And with the new design, if you enter several criteria and the search engine can’t find a work that matches all your criteria exactly, it will refer you to the works that match your criteria most closely, so that you don’t have to start over. As one of the new site’s designers said, “We don’t ever want to show nobody anything.”


Normally, designers hire an art consultant or visit multiple galleries or view print books to find the perfect art solution. That’s the old way of finding art. Now designers can look in one place and view tens of thousands of originals alone. This is the new way of finding art. Art-Exchange let’s designers search for all the art they need in one place. That alone has the potential to save time, but the website has some other very powerful features that give designers even more flexibility and power.


Powerful Features

One very important new feature is the Designer Portal. Art-Exchange has four different portals that members can use to enter the site. There’s one for retail clients, one for community partners, and another for artists and other sellers. But the Designer Portal is available only to designers. Once you enter the portal, you can search for the art you want, view images of the art, and immediately see designers’ wholesale pricing.

Here’s another great new feature: Portfolios. How do you keep track of the works that fit your client’s needs? You keep a portfolio. Designers can set up portfolios for individual clients, different locations, or just for future reference. It’s easy to save works to custom-made portfolios. And it’s easy to show the portfolio to clients—from anywhere in the world.

Another terrific feature is the Exhibitions section. Exhibitions include the works of around 200 artists and are compiled topically. Prior exhibitions, which are still accessible, include Realism, Landscape, Watercolor, and Impressionism. In order to have fresh ideas readily available for clients, designers need to be reviewing art all the time, and these exhibitions can help. It takes only fifteen minutes to view an entire exhibition.

Another feature that can help designers and clients work together—especially when clients have trouble describing their interests—is the Postcard feature. Clients can go to the website to browse for themselves. They can view an exhibition, browse by artist, or do a search. When they find something they like, they can send images to their designer using electronic postcards.

Soon, Art-Exchange will even offer the ability to create Custom Frames online so that clients can view the artwork in different frames and choose the one they like best.

Full-Service Art Consultancy

Art-Exchange goes far beyond just the website, however. They also provide full-service art consultancy. They have a full staff of qualified art consultants who can do as much or as little as a designer wants them to. Anything a typical art consultancy does, Art-Exchange will do. If a designer works with an art consultant already and wants to maintain that relationship, Art-Exchange will even work with his or her current art consultant.


How to Access the Features and Benefits of Art-Exchange

Go to www.art-exchange.com and visit the Designer Portal. Log in as a designer and learn about how the service works. You can easily search for art, access their full-service art consultancy, or guide your favorite art consultant to Art-Exchange. A subscription is free. Art-Exchange is paid by the sellers on completed transactions; so they only get paid if they’re helping designers find the right art, for the right job, at the right price.

When asked what he would most want to communicate to designers about the company and the service it provides, Gipe said, “I want the members of ASID who place art to try the art consultancy service at Art-Exchange, and if they’ll give us 10% of their trust, we’ll earn the other 90%.” If you’re a designer or an art consultant, it’s worth trying. Does it work? Is it really whole new way of finding art? Yeah, that’s what it is. And for designers, the world of art will never be the same.

About the Author:

Go to www.art-exchange.com and visit the Designer Portal. Log in as a designer and learn about how the service works. You can easily search for art, access their full-service art consultancy, or guide your favorite art consultant to Art-Exchange. A subscription is free. Art-Exchange is paid by the sellers on completed transactions; so they only get paid if they’re helping designers find the right art, for the right job, at the right price.

When asked what he would most want to communicate to designers about the company and the service it provides, Gipe said, “I want the members of ASID who place art to try the art consultancy service at Art-Exchange, and if they’ll give us 10% of their trust, we’ll earn the other 90%.” If you’re a designer or an art consultant, it’s worth trying. Does it work? Is it really whole new way of finding art? Yeah, that’s what it is. And for designers, the world of art will never be the same.



www.art-exchange.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - The World's Best Art Consultancy

Leonardo da Vinci Hand of the Genius Exhibit Inspires JW Marriott Hotel Buckhead Atlanta’s Newest Hotel Package

ATLANTA — Visit the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia and see the Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius exhibit. Inspired by the exhibit, the JW Marriott Hotel Buckhead Atlanta has created a new Atlanta vacation package for guests looking to combine culture with comfort in one luxurious weekend.

The Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius Package includes:

North Atlanta accommodations for one weekend night
Breakfast for two
Complimentary hotel parking
Two High Museum of Art tickets
10 percent High Museum gift shop discount
Rates from $189 per room, per night
Valid through February 21, 2010

The da Vinci exhibition is the first presentation ever to explore the rich and fascinating world of da Vinci as a sculptor. Anchored by 23 rare da Vinci drawings – the most ever to be displayed in the southeast – this exhibition will also include two sculptures newly attributed to da Vinci. The exhibit, which is only 5.3 miles from the hotel, will be on display from October 6, 2009 to February 21, 2010.

Be sure that promotional code E0N appears in the Corporate/Promotional code box when making your online reservation, or call 1-800-228-9290 in the US and ask for promotional code E0N. For more information, package terms and conditions, visit http://marriott.com/hotels/hotel-deals/atljw. – JW Marriott Hotel Buckhead Atlanta

Source : http://www.ethioplanet.com/vybes/2009/11/06/leonardo-da-vinci-hand-of-the-genius-exhibit-inspires-jw-marriott-hotel-buckhead-atlanta%E2%80%99s-newest-hotel-package/

The dancing ornament

I made this new art a few days ago. I think it's an ornament. But I also think that it's an abstrack. (I'm confused now!). I took a few hours to make this. First, I just draw lines with pencil. I still don't know what will I draw. Then, I wanted to color it with black and white. But I know that I've used black and white a lot almost in all my art. So, I decided to use primary colors, red, yellow and blue, to color my art. I want to make something new and fresh...

I don't think it's a good one. But I think it's pretty good for the one who's still learning art like me.

So, what do you think?

Mastering the Art of Sports Photography With your Digital Camera

Author: Amy

For sports enthusiasts, there’s nothing more exciting than sports people playing their favourite game. The sight of the field, rink or golf course initiates the thrill and anticipation. This, combined with digital photography, can provide some amazing photographic opportunities. However it’s not a matter of point the camera at the person diving for the ball or puck and snapping away. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

In digital photography sports can be quite challenging. The sports people do not present an easy task of being photographed because of the amount of high movement. However, you can indeed achieve great sports digital photography. Most excellent sports digital photography requires good planning and execution.

here are some exclusive tips for gaining fantastic sports shots in your digital photography.

First things first; know your digital camera. I recommend taking note and practicing first all the settings that sports photography needed. You may find yourself going for the faster shutter speed, increased ISO and burst mode. Let’s take a look at all these things on your digital camera and see how they can be applied to give you sensational sports photos.

High shutter speeds:

As with all moving objects, in order to capture the “frozen in time” look in digital photography a fast shutter speed is required. The faster the movement the fast the shutter speed will need to be. In digital photography the general consensus is that the shutter speed needs to be faster than that of the subject. For example if you have a sliding puck across ice and there is a someone about to take a dive for it then its necessary to quickly mentally assess how fast that person might be traveling at. If they are traveling at approximately 50 kilometers (approx 32 miles) per hour then you may find a very fast shutter speed is needed for this digital photo.

A very fast shutter speed in digital photography may be anything from 500th of a second or higher. For high speed movement you may want to consider an even faster shutter speed of 1000th of a second or something in that range.

Keep in mind that in digital photography a fast shutter speed works to reduce some of the light which is why a higher ISO is often necessary. (I’ll talk about that in a minute.) Usually a if a ball, such as a baseball going at around 145 kilometers an hour (90.09 miles per hour) a shutter speed of around 1/4000 will get you that “suspended ball in mid air” type of photo. For physical movement, such as someone leaping to catch a football, a shutter speed of 1/500 or over is a good place to start.

Now this is all very well if your scene if well lit. But what if you are taking your digital photography shots indoors at night and the light is not quite enough to provide enough light? In most instances, an indoor stadium at night time will be well lit, but that doesn’t always ensure good digital photos. In sports photography we need to understand that we can only control the artistic value and input of our digital photo and the control of the camera. We can’t control the lighting on the scene being such a public event. In digital photography sports photos we must realize that it’s going to be a challenge to begin with. So here are something’s you can in your digital sports photography to increase the amount of light.

If you have a light tool on your digital camera such as a histogram you can get a good idea of what the light levels are like on your sensor. With this handy tool you can adjust the ISO at the time of your pictures taking.

Increase your ISO: A high ISO in digital photography simply means the sensitivity to light that your digital camera has. In a nutshell the more ISO you have increased the image to, the less light the sensor needs. In sports photography an ISO of 400 or higher can work really well. The downside to this is that it does increase noise. To combat this you can use noise reduction software in the post editing process such as Noise Ninja or increase the LAB mode in the post editing process. Don’t be afraid to try a few shots at 400, 800 and even as high as 1600.

Burst mode:

In most sports digital photography this will be one of the settings you will turn to. Burst mode is also known as ‘continuous shooting’. This ‘continuous’ shooting mode allows you to get a sequence of shoots in succession. You can increase your chances of getting that ideal “split second perfect shot” that you might not be able to get by pre-emption or in normal shooting. This also works so beautifully if your digital camera has a painfully long lag time. I’ve used this so many times to get around the high lag my Sony Cyber shot has got. Some cameras have 3 frames per second and some go up to 12 frames per second. You simply select this mode and hold your finger on the shutter button and it will fire off as many shots in 1 second as it can.

Okay so I’ve been talking about your digital camera and the setting’s used for ideal sports digital photography, so what about any external equipment? If you have been thinking about this you’re spot on. You can take as much time with your settings but there’s not much point if you can’t get close to the action. There’s no point having a picture with perfect lighting and perfect action if the players are like dots on a sheet of paper. You need a good telephoto lens if you can’t get close up. A telephoto lens brings you closer because of its long distance capability. It will get you closer to the action but will need a faster shutter speed.

Many fantastic sports digital photos are taken with an emphasis on a very fast shutter speed, an f stop of around the 2.8 mark to blur the background and focus in on the subject. You may find that if your sportsperson is visually separated from the background and you take the digital photograph with a telephoto lens you’ll have a more shallow depth of field which can give you a more powerful feeling in your digital photo. You can get away with a good optical zoom lens, but you’ll get far better digital sports shots with a proper telephoto.

So what about the artistic side of sports photography with your digital camera? Plenty!

emption and Emotion is the key to good art.

When taking sports photography you probably won’t find a more public display of human emotion. The emotions of a sports person range from intense anticipation to extreme disappointment or extreme exhilaration. Pre-empting when these emotions take place is they key to getting artistic and impressive sports photos. This comes with practicing your digital photography.

SO much pressure is placed on our athletes, expecting them to perform so we can enjoy the show and the investors can enjoy their returns. This is another reason why I say to get a telephoto lens so you can capture the emotions on their faces and their body language. It makes for superb photography. For ideas on ice hockey, have a look at some ice hockey images that are great study tools.

Don’t just look at these digital photos, you must study them. Take on the attitude that studying sports photography will improve your digital sports photos ten fold. You will have a style to emulate and copy to start with then eventually, when you become confident, you’ll start to adopt your own style.

Happy shooting,

Amy Renfrey

To study digital sports photography check these sites out: http://www.espn.com/ and http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ and http://cbs.sportsline.com/


About the Author:

Amy Renfrey is the author of two major successful ebooks “Digital Photography Success” and “Advanced Digital Photography”. She is a photographer and also teaches digital photography. She’s photographed many things from famous musicians to portraits of babies. Amy also teaches photography online to her students which can be found at www.DigitalPhotographySuccess.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Mastering the Art of Sports Photography With your Digital Camera

New Art!!!

Hi! I watched Death Note 2 few days ago. And now I’m inspired to make a new art after I watched Death Note. Death Note is a very good movie and I like it. And you know where does my inspiration come?

So, it is the movie poster of death Note 2…And I think it’s a good poster. Great design! But, my inspiration came from the film. So, if you have watched Death Note, you must know Kira II or Misa. She was a celebrity, right? I saw she has a private room in a TV studio or something like that. Here it is the picture…

And I think it’s a good poster. Great design! But, my inspiration came from the film. So, if you have watched Death Note, you must know Kira II or Misa. She was a celebrity, right? I saw she has a private room in a TV studio or something like that. Here it is the picture…

And it’s inspired me to make a room just like that… I like the room. It was small, but neat and nice. It was simple but cozy. So, I made this…

And these are “my new room” from the other side and side…

Okay maybe it’s not good but now I’m still learning. I use Google Sketchup to make this. I’m not an architect, but I wanna be an architect. I’m still 16 and maybe I don’t know anything about architecture but it’s just an art. So, enjoy it….