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Interview with Les Slesnick - 03/18/12
about the Joint Council on Accreditation of Art Fair Artists
http://jcaafa.weebly.com/ |
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other art show
juror interviews and jury reviews |
| The Premise on which this Initiate is Based |
| Les: That it's much easier, and much more
productive, and a lot less libelous, to prove an artist is honest and
above board than it is to prove an artist is dishonest and below board.
And that by recognizing the honest ones, we increase their sales and
hopefully eliminate some of the dishonest ones along the way. This is a
win-win for everybody: the artist, the art fair (and art fair director),
and the communities we serve. The premise is quite simple. The mechanisms by which
we engage the premise are what's challenging. |
| The first meeting was in Charlotte late last year and it received an
overwhelmingly positive response from the artists. The second meeting was
held in Ft Myers in early January. That meeting was also overwhelmingly
positively received. Both of those meetings were in contrast to the Winter
Park meeting where the artists that attended were quiet and non responsive
or resistant. |
| Larry: You come across as an advocate
for art shows and not artists because you’re proposing that the artists do
the art shows job. |
| Les: The most enthusiastic positive
response I’ve gotten out of an art show is exactly that. At last, we don’t
have to do the job of policing because the artists are going to do that
themselves as sort of a peer review. But that really never entered my mind
until an art show came back with that response. It was very well received
on those grounds that we (the art shows) don’t have to spend so much time
checking out artists, looking up web sites, asking questions, and
contacting people. That the artists themselves are going to do it. |
| I thought about that response and wondered if
that was the way it should be. So that’s when I came up with the term peer
review. This whole organization is peer review and no one in the
organization will be art show connected; it will be all artists. In
actuality, I think the way the artists are looking at it is quite wrong.
I’m advocating to both artists and art fairs. |
| I’ve learned a lot since I started doing
this. I’m not a psychologist but there is an elite group of artists out
there who in their elitism claim that they are not elite. I don’t know
what that is in psychology terms. |
| Larry: Denial or maybe just that
artists need to have large egos to do what they do. |
| The Future of Art Shows |
| Les: Everyone agrees that art fairs
are a dime a dozen. The top tier shows, or the shows that want to succeed
in the future, will have to define themselves very quickly and separate
themselves from the rest. What I hope happens is that the people who want
to buy art will save their money and spend it at a show where we have
artists who do all the work themselves. That would be my goal. |
| Buy/Sell and Enforcing Rules |
| Les: This was a complete shock.
There’s thinking among at least one art fair director that this is the way
the industry may be going. Why not have a little import or buy/sell in the
mix if that’s what the people want. Let’s give the people what they want,
that there’s nothing wrong with it. |
| Larry: It all comes down to the show
prospectus and whether or not the shows enforce their own rules. |
| Les: Buy sell is only a concern to the
artists and art fairs. Buy/sell is not a concern to the buying public at
all, except only in a very rare instance. I’ve concluded that there are
two types of art buying public. 99.9% of the public are people who like
art but are people who aren’t sophisticated enough to know the difference
between the value of the guy in the booth doing it and the guy in the
booth simply importing it. The other 0.1% of the art buying population are
the people who love art but are sophisticated enough to understand and
appreciate the value of the artist using his own hands to create what they
sell. |
| I put up a plaque in an artist’s booth and
sat on a chair across for the booth the better part of two days. Hardly
anybody looked at the plaque. Even if it was pointed out by the artist
there was minimal interest. Another artist who had a plaque in his booth
related the same result to me. Nobody cared. Rarely did the public care
whether the artist was accredited or made the work with his own hands.
That to me should be very frightening to artists in this industry. Because
what’s become clear to me through this very informal study is that the
vast majority of people spending money at art festivals don’t care where
it came from. They could care less where it came from as long as they like
it and have the money to pay for it. |
| So it’s not that the situation is worse than
I thought but it’s quite different. One: the vast majority of people who
go to art festivals to buy art do not care whether the person in the booth
made the work. And two: the most frightening thing I learned is that the
some of the thinking may be is that there may be nothing wrong with
putting a little buy/sell here and there, as long as it’s good quality,
because that’s what the public wants. |
| Larry: I don’t think that’s valid. I
think it’s that they don’t stop to think about it. But if you were to
interview people at an art show, I think most would expect that everything
they’re looking at is hand made. I think that there needs to be a survey
of art fair attendees on whether or not they think the artist in the booth
makes their own work. This would be easier for pay admission shows where,
at all the entrances; people could be given a single yes or no question to
answer. That would be the best way to get some hard statistical evidence
from the public on what they’re expecting to see at the shows. |
| Accreditation |
| Larry: In getting back to your
original concept, instead of accrediting artists, why not accredit the
jurors and show directors. If there had been a discussion on the best way
to combat buy sell, I would have suggested educating jurors as a way to
start. Create a DVD that helps jurors spot buy sell. The DVD can even help
show directors define mediums by having multiple artists in each medium
interviewed in their studio and end with example pictures from commercial
web sites of buy/sell commonly found at art shows. |
| Les: That’s a wonderful suggestion.
Instead of people criticizing what I have thought of already, my hope was
that I would hear some of what you said Larry. What I can’t figure out is
why, when some artists don’t agree with you they can’t counter with
another idea that might indeed be better. |
| Larry: Is this only about weeding out
buy sell or is it more? There is mention of materials that artists use on
the web site. |
| Les: The basic premise is honesty,
which would clearly include buy/sell. Accreditation, at this time, is not
addressing ancillary issues, but may in the future should the initiative
continue. A by-product of the recognition, though, is hopefully an
increase in sales, and there has been evidence of that. At this time, the
evidence is scant, but it is there. I have an email in hand from an artist
who credits additional sales at Coconut Grove directly to being
accredited. |
| Larry: So my feeling about
accreditation is that it’s much easier accrediting a few hundred people
(jurors and show directors) than 15,000 to 20,000 people. |
| Les: My goal was never to get it all
accredited. My goal was to keep it quite small. |
| Larry: But what’s the point of that if
shows start using it as criteria for acceptance? |
| Les: They never will. |
| Larry: But that’s everybody’s fear,
which is why there’s so much negativity. Artists feel that they don't need
more hoops to jump through, or to be forced to spend more money to apply
to shows. My thinking is that this is something artists are already paying
for with their jury fees? |
| Les: I agree with what you said about
artists jumping through hoops. From the very beginning, the program has
been written to make this as “hoopless” as possible for artists. Some
artists can be really narrow in their views and not interested in the
overall health of the industry. I realize that they have to do what’s
right for themselves, but until you take care of the health of the art
fair industry, you can’t take care of the health of the individual artist.
At least it got people thinking. I did accomplish something, though I may
not have the best solution for the issue. I’m reminded of a Wall Street
Journal article about the demise of Eastman Kodak that said, and I
paraphrase, unless you reinvent yourself, you are doomed to failure. |
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The project is currently in a period of assessment and
re-assessment. Other than
clarifications and corrections to existing material on
the website,
no additional artists will be added at this time. Comments and suggestions
will be reviewed and considered as they are received. All constructive
suggestions and ideas, whether or not in agreement with this initiative,
will be considered and acknowledged; rude and accusatory responses will be
discarded. Changes and modifications to the online material will be made
as necessary. Information and feedback obtained over the next few weeks,
or months, will help determine the course to be taken. Les Slesnick |
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