Big is Beautiful

And who said that you cannot make a living out of being an artist? And more importantly a painter? All you need is one good painting of a super-sized model and there you are, you made it. Or rather, Lucian Freud has made it. He has become the most expensive living artist at auction with his "Big Sue" painting. The painting, a large naked woman on a couch, called "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" was sold for $33.6m or £17.2m at Christies last week.

The buyer? None other than Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Apparently he also bought Francis Bacon’s Triptych, 1976, which sold at Sotheby’s New York this week for $86.3m.



With an estimated fortune of £11.7Bn (The Sunday Times's Rich List) Mr Abramovich could definitely afford these paintings. If anyone reading this blog knows him, please tell him to pop by. I would be happy with much less for a couple of my paintings

Art In Schools

Just came across this advert of Americans for the Arts over at the ArtInterview online magazine and decided to post it here. Not that I am being paid for it but it hit me that in Malta we have the same situation. Do we have enough Art in our schools? Do we give too much importance to schooling but not enough to personal development through Arts? Does anybody know of any national program to encourage the use of artistic expression in our kids?

We have a tendency to look at art, in all its forms, as a past time; Artists are hobbyists. But it shouldn't be so. Art could also be a profession and/or a vehicle to learn other things. Why not use paints to learn chemistry and chemical reactions? Why not use film and theatre to learn languages? Why not use installations to learn about technology? The list could go on.

I know that there are schools or maybe teachers that do these things, but this is not enough. What we lack is a national drive to put artistic expression at the forefront of our educational system. Children would surely gain from such a drive.

An Artist's Alter Ego to be laid to rest.

In 1972 artist Brian O’Doherty adopted the name Patrick Ireland

Thirty-six years ago, the Irish-born, New York-based conceptual artist assumed the pseudonym Patrick Ireland in response to the events of Bloody Sunday in which 13 protesters were killed by British soldiers in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. O’Doherty vowed not to sign his works with his real name until “such time as the British military presence is removed from Northern Ireland and all citizens are granted their civil rights”.

Now, on 20th May Patrick Ireland will be laid to rest at a ceremony at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma). Always believing that he would die as Patrick Ireland, O'Doherty says that he is performing this burial "as a small flag of hope for other bitter conflicts that they too are not insoluble”.

More on Banksy

Parisa, from Current, which happens to be quite an interesting site, sent me this feature on Banksy which I found interesting and decided to post it here.

Over at Currnet I also found a link for this video on the Cans Festival which i am also posting here.

Banksy @ The Cans Festival

I have always been fascinated by street art. Not that i ever did any graffiti or that i am planning to start now, but i really admire some graffiti artists especially Banksy. These last few days Banksy organised The Cans Festival - A Street Party of Stencil Art. Unfortunately I did not manage to attend since i am only a few thousand km away from London.

I find Banksy's work simply superb. Richard Dorment, in his article about The Cans Festival has this to say.....

So I was cynical when I heard about The Cans Festival, a street party of stencil art organised by Banksy in a disused tunnel near Waterloo station. About half the works in it were by the great man himself, but he had also invited dozens of graffiti artists from around to world to exhibit alongside him. Trekking down there on Saturday morning to be met by the sight of 500 happy fans queuing at the entrance deepened my gloom.

But Banksy is not to be dismissed lightly. If nothing else, the work of the other graffiti artists made Banksy look like the Michelangelo of the medium. Even more unexpectedly, several of his three-dimensional installations could have held their own in any show in the land. Next stop the Turner Prize.

Some of Banksy's work...

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/horizontal_1.htm

http://www.banksy.co.uk/indoors/ele01.html