International Paneling/December 2022
Image by Horster
The Holiday Headaches have Begun!
by Leo Kuelbs
Berlin
The leaf peeping has ended, the clocks have been set back and the first snow has fallen. In the USA, the mid-term elections pretty much resulted in status quo with the exception of a possible showing of massive fatigue on the further fringes of the right. One cannot escape a feeling of impending doom as we enter the winter season, though there are also many reasons for cautious optimism. Towards that end, let’s do a rundown of what’s been on our pre-winter radars:
War in Ukraine: Even if you are sympathetic to the Russians’ grievances towards the West, how does a Russian “victory” even work? I mean, occupation has been tried a zillion times and it never seems to be a great long-term option for “victory.” Also, if you blow up the infrastructure in order to make the general population suffer through the winter months, how is that a reasonable military strategy? Plus, who is going to police Kiev if Russia wins? The military seems pretty burned out to me. I am not understanding the end game here. One can foresee some pretty stupid things ahead judging by what’s gone on so far. The Ukrainian people also do not seem ready to surrender any time soon. This is really looking like a huge, costly, murderous fiasco, in my opinion.
Lucky them for landing above places where the decomposed remains of past civilizations rot deep underfoot.
This, of course, begets a whole bunch of other concerns regarding energy use and supply. Is the goal of countries providing energy resources to become overlords with the ability to extort? It looks a little bit like that. Lucky them for landing above places where the decomposed remains of past civilizations rot deep underfoot. There’s too much to talk about here and no real innocent parties on the supply side. But this topic is always in the background of our lives and will be for quite a while.
And this ties into inflation. And price gouging. Ugh. The polarization of wealth…Yikes, it’s a thread that we will leave un-pulled for now. Let’s move onto lighter topics like….
Football in the USA: It’s violent, ridiculous and sometimes very entertaining. I was watching a player get hit in the head some weeks back and they showed his hands frozen from the trauma to his nervous system. It was gruesome. One wonders how it can keep going on. Then, a couple weeks back I watched a wonderful, almost poetic match from my couch in Germany (Vikings victory over the Bills) and I was so excited. Like a kid. It brought back many good memories. On the flip side, my wife was very bored. And the Vikings got crushed the following week. Why am I still watching…?
World Cup in Qatar: Is anybody excited about this World Cup? It feels like the last Olympics in China. I care about the players, but the organizations setting these things up are really gross. It’s so obviously, painfully, about money and the price of international “prestige.” The prestige that is sold doesn’t necessarily equate to actual global respect. Except from perhaps a few like-minded ultra-rich oligarch-types. How about the people who built the air-conditioned open-air stadium and their plights? Crazy. No empathy in this mix. Let’s just forget it all and watch some international soccer action. The pre-holiday schedule is also a gross global marketing grab. And lately, problems seem to arise right after these global sporting events. We will see how it all goes. But I will not actually “see” much of it. Also, when is the Women’s World Cup? From my American perspective, it’s of more interest. The USA Men’s soccer team is kind of a drag compared to the gals. And least the USA gals got parody when it comes to payment. Now that’s a victory.
One thing that unites these different “brands” of football is a template, a form which doesn’t change very much. The positions, goals, the game-time patter and terminology—it evolves ever so slowly, if at all. And this is comforting. Until it isn’t. That “comfort” and “connection” is sold to us, a little bit like some churches sell you contact to your creator. I sometimes find myself feeling a little bit dead inside and wondering just how desperate I have become to be part of this global commercialized community. In the end, even the moments of excitement can be a little depressing as we realize our acceptance of the yoke.
And on that note, it’s time for me to get about planning our Berlin-based Thanksgiving feast. We’ve lost a few more people in these past weeks, and this particular year, I am grateful for all of the new and old friends that we get to spend some time with this holiday season. I definitely will not be taking any of the good times and people for granted this time around.
Shorty of the Month: “The Sun’s Shadow,” by Mike McGuirk with Alex Hamadey
Intro by Leo Kuelbs
This mini masterpiece comes from the 2017 show Digital Fairy Tales: Album Two, and uses an old Germanic fairy tale as its basis. Brooklyn-based, Mike McGuirk, traveled to the Joshua Tree area in California along with a stellar cast and crew, to put together a technology vs people fable that is interesting as a story, a contemporary reflection on the fable, as well as a v ery nice looking object. With Alex Hamadey soundtrack on top, it is an underappreciated treasure and it’s our little holiday gift to you right now!
Image by Juliane Pieper
Next Stop: December’s Poetry Place
by Geoff Herbach
St Peter, MN
The Old Show, Not Well-Reviewed
Woke to find tiny rabbits scattered over the kitchen
floor. Some breathed, but labored. Others, fur
slick with blood and the saliva of the dog (Joan
of Bark), lay so still. They had to be dead.
In the open cabinet, next to the dry goods,
where our youngest, when home from college,
had stashed a box of Lucky Charms, I found
the mother bunny, guts exposed, stored
for later by the dog with a bone.
Joan is Joan, like my daughter
with her cereal, hazy
memories of a safer
time when blankets
piled on Saturday
mornings and
treats were
in play to
mark
we’d made
it through
another week.
But Joan need not hunt and my girl
has her bedroom, her laptop, in a different
house filled with friends and foes. Still they store
their treasures here and make their messes.
And I will sweep up the baby bunnies,
swab the cabinet clean of guts.
I will take the stale marshmallows
and toasted oats (the Celtic icons)
to trash, half box left, no mouths left
to feed. And I will not consider
these rabbits and leprechauns later.
Because, in my age, my loved ones’
crimes and wastes, once cause for kitchen
table meetings, lesson scenes, are reminders
we were all something together, some old
network show, not available for streaming,
wisps of sweet theme song, situation,
bland comedy, credits rolling,
stop.
Artist in Focus: Multi-Media Wonderwoman, Deborah Wargon
by Dirk Lehr
Berlin
The Australian artist Deborah Wargon works with the technique of paper cutting. Her "paper cut-outs" oscillate between drawing and object, object and abstraction. They balance where pictures become things, ornaments become objects and drawings become sculptures. We met the artist for a chat in her Berlin studio.
I've always drawn, that was my profession up until now. My visitor told me that in Denmark it is a custom to cut paper into stars to hang on the Christmas tree.
How did you come to work with scissors and paper instead of, say, brush and canvas?
That was actually more of a coincidence. I had a visitor from Copenhagen in 2010, that was at Christmas time. At that time I had a lot of paper lying around at home. I've always drawn, that was my profession up until now. My visitor told me that in Denmark it is a custom to cut paper into stars to hang on the Christmas tree. So we started folding and cutting the paper for their Christmas tree in Copenhagen. I got so into the subject of cutting that I started to look into it more closely. I experimented with this a bit and noticed that cut black cardboard came across like a drawing. By attaching the works to their subsurface with needles of the kind used by taxidermists, shadows were cast on a wall, for example. The cut edges reminded me of lines from pencil drawings and the resulting sculptural aspect interested me so much that I started to pursue this technique further.
The paper cutting is reminiscent of the type of activity, such as embroidery or sewing, of times when working from home defined the classic role model of women. Does the gender issue play a role, do you play or flirt with it as a female artist?
No, the gender issue doesn't play a role for me. It's more the question of craftsmanship that I'm confronted with, but mostly in Central Europe. A very elite hierarchy is established here between art and craft. The latter is often dismissed here as a folkloric activity. In Asia, for example, there is no such differentiation. There, working with ceramics or paper is considered high art, art and craft are not contradictory there. My work grows out of manual work. Craft is immanent in art, every painter, sculptor or photo artist must master his craft. I am of the opinion that the question of art should not be judged according to technical aspects, but according to completely different standards. I was just at the Venice Biennale. There you saw a lot of female artists working with a wide variety of materials. That was wonderful, it was rightly not questioned whether or what about it is art.
Hints are often hidden in the silhouettes, such as facial features, human extremities or gender-related characteristics. Are your works a kind of Rorschach test?
My early work is very symmetrical, that's true. Because of this, I was approached about Rorschach. When I started I didn't know what or who Rorschach was. I had to research that first. Symmetry does something to people that interested me. I then started manipulating this symmetry by breaking it at certain points.
You also compose music for plays. Is that reflected in your silhouettes?
I think so. Not immediately, but definitely subtle. For example, the thought of time. When you go to a classical concert, the perception of time changes. The tempo changes, it is no longer our tempo as we know it from outside. How melodies change and move also plays a role. That also applies to my work.
Does surrealism play a role for you?
I like a lot of surrealist artists. Surrealism definitely plays a role for me. This can be seen very clearly in some of my work. Surrealism is also a mental matter, which is currently reflected in my portraits.
How did the portraits come about? For the first time you explicitly show human images and zoom in on faces.
I had a lot of terms and slogans running around in my head, such as No!, Yes!, where is home?, where do I go now?, where is heaven? I then started drawing these and later cutting them out and integrating them into heads, precisely where they arise and take place. I then continued to develop the game with the heads.
Do you tell stories with the portraits?
No. It's not about stories in the sense of a statement, it's about sensations, thoughts, feelings. I don't sit down and know from the start what the work will look like in the end. That only develops during the creative process. The abstract-gestural painter does not have an exact result in mind either, he has an impulse that guides him. How the work becomes develops during the action, while doing.
Image by Tom D. Rotenberg
A Bitter Crypto Winter
by Mark Bailey
Minneapolis
Winter has arrived in Minneapolis. There's snow on the ground and bitterly cold wind gusting through the city. Complaining about the season is very popular, but I like the winter. It's the perfect time to get lost in writing, which is what I've doing.
Last spring, crypto markets crashed when Terra Luna went belly up. Now crypto has crashed again, this time due to malfeasance at FTX, a major exchange. I feel largely ambivalent about this. FTX didn't ruin me, but 15 percent of my holdings were in Solana, which was wrapped up in the meltdown, so I took a hit.
The scale of this latest debacle is staggering. FTX transferred billions in customer funds to a partner company called Alameda, where some of the money simply vanished. According to a Reuters report, this was made possible in part by an accounting backdoor through which $1-2 billion disappeared. Sam Bankman-Fried, the head of FTX, was apparently able to use this backdoor, engineered into bespoke accounting software, to move funds and alter records without the knowledge of regulators or the company's internal compliance officers.
Also interesting is the fact that Bankman-Fried was the second largest campaign donor to US Democrats behind George Soros. And until very recently, the World Economic Forum listed FTX as a strategic partner.
Also interesting is the fact that Bankman-Fried was the second largest campaign donor to US Democrats behind George Soros. And until very recently, the World Economic Forum listed FTX as a strategic partner. These things suggest that the meltdown may have a political dimension, or at least political ramifications.
Whatever is really going on, I get the sense that Bankman-Fried is more of a dupe than a criminal mastermind. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the whole fiasco was a hit job by competing financial interests. Nor would I be surprised if it came out that the missing funds were merely bad bets made in clumsy attempts to manipulate markets. Maybe the truth of the matter will come out eventually. Maybe it never will.
Regardless, I'm only half paying attention. And I barely noticed Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, though everyone on Twitter seems to be talking about it. In truth, my mind is entirely elsewhere. I'm twenty thousand words into my next science fiction novel and exploring a new love interest. In my downtime, I'm brainstorming about a future NFT project on long calls with an Australian client.
Tech world dramas like FTX and the Twitter takeover feel far less compelling than these personal endeavors. This may simply be a matter of relative influence. I have zero influence over the tech world, whereas everything in the stories I write results from my own conscious choices. So I focus attention on creativity while the dramas fade into background noise. Or I try to, anyway.
Is Digital Art the Main Use Case for Crypto?
by Adrian Pocobelli
Berlin
As Rome burns in cryptoland, many people are reevaluating the fundamental function of cryptocurrency and whether we actually need it in our lives. And it’s a fair question—what does it actually do that we can’t already do in the so-called real world? We can do money transfers around the world using PayPal, which is arguably crypto’s main use case. Money transfer is perhaps easier using crypto (as long as both parties have digital wallets), but it’s not like it won’t occur without it.
Interestingly though, digital art actually needs crypto in order to be bought and sold in a credible way. There is no other way to transact in digital art outside of crypto with anywhere near the same security or record of provenance. Crypto, in the form of NFTs, fully-solved a decades-old problem of how to buy and sell digital art in online international marketplaces while retaining fundamental aspects, such as scarcity.
Interestingly though, digital art actually needs crypto in order to be bought and sold in a credible way.
Which leaves me wondering, is digital art crypto’s actual main use case? Loans, money transfers, interest bearing instruments…finance—these all exist in the real world outside of crypto. Perhaps crypto makes these things more convenient, and is perhaps even more democratic, but again, crypto is not required on order to get a loan, for example. And this goes for memberships, as well, which is also a common use case for crypto, e.g. with 5000 tokens of a certain crypto, you might get access to secret Discord groups. This feature, called token gating, is convenient, but these kinds of membership products were already commonly used previous to crypto (i.e. email and password) so crypto is not inherently required, although again, it has its conveniences. And to be fair, if I was to start a community today, I would be tempted to create a crypto, as it’s actually a pretty fun idea (maybe the key is to not assign it any financial value).
And interestingly enough, a year into a brutal bear market, it seems the buying, selling and collecting of digital art is the main pastime of many crypto users on Twitter. All of the other projects—music, metaverse, even gaming—have fallen to the wayside, while the buying, selling and collecting of digital art NFTs continues with robust activity, and, as mentioned earlier, truly requires crypto to exist. Without crypto, for all intents and purposes, digital art marketplaces disappear, and with that, the buying, selling and collecting of digital art. It’s hard to think of a greater argument for the necessity of crypto than that, which makes me think it might be the main use case.
The Way We Wine: The Grocery Store Dilemma
by Alberto Salvi
Mannheim
How many times have you stood mesmerized, in a trance, looking at the wine shelf at a supermarket…waiting for an epiphany?
Choosing a wine has never been more difficult, tons of parameters are now displacing us way further than a red, white or rosé. There’s a huge number of varietals, produced in an increasing number of countries, with disparate techniques of cultivation, vinification and aging, leading the consumer confused and spoiled for choice.
This discomfort can be easily overcome with the right survival tools.
First, trivially, watch the price range: a good wine cannot be bought for less than 6-7€. This leads to an important corollary, to avoid wines from prestigious varietals for a price that is too much convenient. Spending 15€ for a Barolo is never a good idea.
Touch the bottle, feel the glass, its quality and shape. Look for a hollow bottom, quality wines involve sediments (especially red wines and natural wines) and they need a place to be stored. Opt for a long bottle neck, and when it comes to a red wine that is bold and rich in tannins, demand a cork cap, as it promotes oxygenation.
Special attention shall be certainly paid to the label. Here is where all the information about the story of the wine is narrated. The varietal, the vintage, but most importantly choose a wine where the bottling take place with the site of production, often behind the words "bottled at origin."
Country denominations can guide especially the less experienced ensuring them on a safe path. There’s plenty of them, like DOC or DOCG for Italy (“Denominazione di Origine Controllata” and “… e Garantita”, relatively meaning “Controlled Designation of Origin” and “…Guaranteed”), or AOP for France (“Appelation d’Origine Protégée”, meaning “Protected Designation of Origin”).
When it comes to Germany instead, there’s no official national naming for ensuring quality and compliance with norms. Search for the wording Weingut (Vineyard), that can produce Qualitätswein, literally quality wine, or Prädikatswein, the top tier of German wines. Sometimes it’s useful to rely on associations like the VDP that operates on the territory for classifying wines from the basics Gütswein to the exclusives Grosse Lage®. The label is usually on the neck, a German eagle depicted on the bottle capsule.
When you had enough with school’s subjects, just let yourself be guided by the emotions.
Choose a local wine, mix with the people and their customs. Be one of them, and listen to what they have to communicate to the rest of world.
A label can be a piece of art at times, the wine description a love poem. Feeling what the winemakers want you to get, either through a slow and gentle road, or straight in the face without compromise.
A good wine has a unique story and feeling that you can embrace with your eyes, your sense of smell and your mouth, because most importantly, a good wine just tastes good.
This month’s holiday recommendations:
Le Volte dell’Ornellaia, Toscana IGT
Vintage: 2020
Area: Toscana, Italy
Varietals: Merlot 50%, Sangiovese 30%, Cabernet Sauvignon 20%
Vinification: 12 months in oak barrels
Alcohol content: 13.5%
Price: 20€
Morgeot-Clos Pitois Premier Cru, Domaine Roger Belland
Vintage: 2016
Area: Chassagne-Montrachet, Burgundy, France
Varietal: Chardonnay
Vinification: 12 months in oak barrels
Alcohol content: 13.5%
Price: 60€
Les Plates Pierres, Maurice Grumier
Champagne Millésime
Vintage: 2012
Area: Venteuil, France
Varietals: Chardonnay 60%, Pinot Noir 40%
Alchool content: 12.5%
Price: 45€
Image by ANINA
There’s More than one Poetry Place.
by John Compton
Somewhere in Kentucky
they lined you up without a face
snow slams into the window.
the world bleeds albino
& her pink eyes curl like violets.
gray clouds bloat
like a calf in the carcass’s uterus.
cold admires the stillness.
--
Follow these simple steps and one of these may be yours…!
How-to Department: Become a Successful Artist— Today
by Dirk Lehr
Early December the who's who of the art scene will meet again in Miami Beach for the Art Basel art fair of the same name. Most of the world's most influential galleries show works by more than 4,000 artists there. Anyone who has made it up to that point has already reached the top. This number alone shows how many artists are fighting for attention. The reality is sobering for most of them. Countless ones receive little or no attention. Even fewer of them can make a living from their work.
What makes a successful artist? What does he have to bring with him to become relevant? What to gain a foothold in the market? When we talk about a successful artist here, we don't just mean economic success. There is also talk of visibility, attention and relevance, even if this is often the prerequisite for economic success, which is no less important for artists. After all, being an artist is a profession that society should take seriously as such and not just any job or higher calling. Artists also have to pay rent, finance production costs and travel expenses. Artists also want to go on vacation and buy so-called nice things.
Here are ten things an artist should consider if they want to be successful and relevant:
1. Networking
What sounds simple is, however, the be-all and end-all. Most things in the art world are based on who knows whom? Every gallerist, every curator knows it: Artists overwhelm them with catalogs or e-mails with portfolios. Nobody has the time to look at this flood of publications. As a rule, they end up in a pile that is eventually disposed of or disappears in the trash of the e-mail inbox. Personal contact is what counts and is fruitful in the long term. It's kind of like the love affair that begins in the office. Through consistent personal contact, you get to know each other and eventually appreciate each other. It is the basis for sympathy and commitment, from which the willingness often arises for one to do something for the other. So at some point you end up in a group exhibition and later maybe get a solo exhibition. This also applies to artists among themselves. Many artists organize exhibitions or are asked to curate them. This gives you visibility, which is the basic requirement for excelling in the art world.
2. Create your artistic DNA
There are many artists who are very good at their craft. That alone is not enough. Art is about recognisability and distinguishability. You can't reinvent the wheel. In painting or sculpture, for example, a lot has already been said and the framework for new aspects is correspondingly narrow. However, artists always succeed in implementing their own artistic DNA and thereby placing a footprint, a relevant commentary in art history. Neo Rauch, Glenn Brown or Katharina Fritsch, for example, have developed their own artistic DNA and thus created unique selling points. This makes them interesting and relevant for the art world.
3. Be a business person
Even if nobody wants to hear it: Artists are entrepreneurs, they produce commodities and deal with galleries, shipping companies, suppliers and landlords. You have to calculate production and travel costs and sales prices and yes, artists have to file tax returns too. Economic awareness, negotiation skills and organizational skills are rarely a disadvantage, even for an artist. An artist should be aware that the state regards him as an entrepreneur and in this respect no distinction is made to other trades. An artist is well advised to keep this in mind and acquire a minimum of economic and legal knowledge.
4. Treat your gallery right
The cooperation between gallery and artist should be trusting. It is the gallery that creates publicity for the artist and conveys his works to buyers, curators and the media. The gallery is an important partner for the artist, if not the most important. Just as the artist can expect the gallery to properly account for sales, the gallery owner can expect the artist to be loyal. Again and again it happens that artists sell from the studio without discussing this with the gallery or even involving them in this. Gallerists even report that artists invite visitors to their studios during openings in order to sell them works at lower prices outside the gallery. Why should a gallery owner make all the investments in exhibitions, fairs and publications when the artist ends up placing a competitive market in his studio? Don't do that! Word gets around like that!
5. Be nice to people
Artists are part of the „art operating system“ and the social fabric. As in other areas, friendliness and affection pays off in the art world. Works of art are not at the top of most people's must have wish lists. They mainly compete with luxury goods. How often do you hear that someone is considering buying art, but in the end is pushed aside by the long-awaited watch or handbag. Such a priority structure can certainly be shifted with kindness. I myself was able to observe that friendliness tip the scales for a purchase decision in favor of a work of art. It is also due to human psychology that someone does something for you because they are friendly and approachable, even if they otherwise struggle with the artistic position.
6. Be picky
Sometimes it's better not to be represented by any gallery than by the wrong one. An artist has to ask himself what and where he wants to go. Does he want to be relevant in an art historical context at some point, make a comment on it? Or is it just about doing one exhibition after the other? Is it about quality or quantity? Is he artistic and art historical and seriousness? If you put yourself in the wrong context, you run the risk of going under in one of the parallel markets that exist in the art world. Not only the number of artists is immense, but also that of the galleries. A large number of these serve a parallel market, concerned more with decoration than with content and context, which they then also exhibit at certain art fairs. For an artist, this can become a problem and end their career before it even begins. For example, anyone who gets involved in such a gallery out of desperation or false hope should know that they run the risk of being considered permanently burned out for the serious art world. Sometimes not having a gallery is better than the wrong one.
7. Believe in yourself
If you look too much to the right and left or try to follow trends, you will hardly be able to create a substantial oeuvre. Many careers start suddenly and steeply, but end just as abruptly. The cycles in which artists rise to stardom and then fade away again seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Anyone who is always eyeing the current stars and wondering why he and not me is putting the brakes on himself and allowing himself to be dazzled by the appearance of short-term success. Confidence in oneself and one's work is the key to sustainability, which in the long run is a quality feature of an artist's career and ultimately healthier for it than the short-lived hype.
When in doubt, a gallerist, curator or journalist would rather work with a reliable artist than with someone you don't know whether you'll let down or not.
8. Be reliable
Being an artist is a job. You deal with contractors who plan with you and invest in you. You deal with people who dedicate their time to you. Reliability is essential to be taken seriously and to advance in the art business. Reliability makes the job easier for those who believe in you. Reliability is an expression of respect shown to someone. Reliability is a value-creating factor because it makes working together easier. When in doubt, a gallerist, curator or journalist would rather work with a reliable artist than with someone you don't know whether you'll let down or not.
9. Don't just bet on one horse
A committed gallery is a good partner. In the international art market, such a representation alone is often not enough to promote and consolidate one's own presence. Personal and financial structures, especially in small and medium-sized galleries, are limited. Artists should therefore not sit back and rely solely on a gallery. You should bet on several horses. Ideally, there are several galleries at the same time in different places. Personal commitment is also essential today in order not to get lost in the crowd. Maintaining contact with curators, the media and collectors, for example, or organizing and curating your own exhibitions often pays off.
10. Be lucky
The art business has nothing to do with justice. There are great artists who never get the attention they deserve. Fame and high prices do not necessarily have anything to do with quality. There are factors that cannot be calculated or planned. There is no mathematical formula that can be used to program a career. As is so often the case, an artist depends on coincidences or the combination of fortunate circumstances. You can try to provoke or influence them. In the end, however, it is luck that has to be in the right place at the right time. Fortunately, it is also the luck factor and the associated unpredictability that provides the art world with the necessary excitement and imagination.
3 Questions with…Musician and all-around Good Guy, Mark Fernyhough
Every once-in-a-while, we here at International Paneling like to look through our verdant archives and pull up something from back in the day (2021) that warms our jaded hearts. When we read through the last article about becoming a successful artist, who pops to mind but Mark Fernyhough…! This is probably the best 3 Questions with…when it comes to production values, and we wish Mark a speedy recovery from our ice-cave headquarters, here in Berlin. Mark…??