Art is dead…………
Art is dead………… I should have been a carpenter, at least my father would have been happy.
Only joking.
Art is alive and well, sales are struggling but we are maybe in a meaner keener place, as artists. Bad art is dying, thank God, that Tubberware shit. You would sometimes see it in galleries or in art fairs or even in news papers and think ” sweet jesus on a popsicle stick” is Joe Public not a little more discerning than this.
But they were not, the boom was on and the the mob ruled. There was nearly a panic buy to get your hands on any art, our nouveau riche were buying for the sake of it and because they could.
This brought a lot of bad art into the market and a lot of chancers too.
It also made the career artist a tiny bit complacent, knowing that what ever you release from your studio will sell has only one effect on a painter and that is it will take the edge and your critical eye off you.
But for me , this is maybe a welcome clean up. Of my own work and thoughts and the whole market.
You may or may not agree with me but hey………… this is what an open forum is all about.
Laurence
Carlow Kilkenny Art Blog 
May 19, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Larry,
Your spot on – we all need to get our act together!
Graham Carew Fan
May 19, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Yes the frivolity and general merriment ends here
Enter serious Larry….dun de dun dun duuun!
May 22, 2009 at 2:51 pm
ahh Laurence you can’t make a juicy statment like that with out naming names, come on we want the gory details!!!!
May 22, 2009 at 8:49 pm
yea , name names , fuck the slander and libel laws and the fact that you’ll lose friends and have disgruntled “artists” throwin eggs at u in the street. Make a video of the egg-throwing, then delete all film footage , and display the deleted results (i.e. a blank screen) and get a grant from the arts council, rave reviews from aiden dunnne at al for the esotericism of your juxtaposed inverted antidisestablishmentarianist concept,and your arse licked by the local arts office, plus the veneration of all the “serious” artists who make a living from applying for grants,bursaries,and sucking up to afore-mentioned arts officials as an alternative to actually doing anything productive , and who believe that any “art” that anyone would actually want to buy is crass commercial sell-out … man
May 22, 2009 at 9:14 pm
I think this one has been batted back to you Laurence!
May 22, 2009 at 10:02 pm
who the hell does lauence o’toole think he is , callin us tupperware artists and chancers , from his ivory tower just cause he’s in the aristocracy of the art world ? i am outraged and offended at his pomposity and arrogance
February 24, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Let me say at the outset that I’m not an artist – so maybe I’m not supposed to comment here. I do have a degree in history of art and a Masters in Irish Art History so I naturally have an active interest in the subject. What I noticed while living in Dublin was a proliferation of ‘art’ being produced – ‘art to match the furniture’ I would term it. At the same time a lot of really good work was/is being produced by people who are serious about what they do. The art market rocketed during the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ years but there were also paintings (which is what I’m interested in) that I would have bought , had I been able to afford it. I am a great believer in the notion that out of bad times comes good art and it will be interesting to look back in ten or twenty years to see what has been produced in Ireland. I do realise that even in good times it’s difficult for people involved in any aspect of the arts to make a decent living or to attain enough financial security to enable them to concentrate on their work. The arts have always been underfunded in Ireland and really suffer at times like this.
April 5, 2010 at 6:40 pm
a carlow – kilkenny art blog? it seems a reasonable enough addition to the many and all which worpress and others are host to. Hows it going? i assume its a more close community than the title appears to imply, is it specific to painters/painting? i understand that of course provocation is the intent in stating that art is dead… DUH – DUH – DUH. i do not follow the path as it has been laid out. has art died only recently? is this also true outside of the two counties. you would be right that it does not matter much, only the question. will there be more to follow, where is this union going to take the art of its response. what is the art of its response. pomposity and arrogance asside, is it a matter of wait and see?