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(09/21/06 4:02am)
PHILADELPHIA -- If there's an art to collecting art, Susan Guill just might be considered an old master.\nFor about 15 years, she has been attending the annual student exhibition at the esteemed Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Nearly every wall in her Bala Cynwyd home is adorned with the work of an academy student; she purchased five student paintings at this year's show alone.\nBut in recent years, the crowds have become larger, and the art gets snapped up even faster.\n"It has caught on so much in terms of the crowd it attracts that those of us who've been going for years get a little disgruntled," she said with a laugh, adding that the increased popularity is good because it means a bigger financial gain for the school and the students.\nThis year, the Pennsylvania Academy's 105th annual student show broke all previous sales records, raising $313,000 in its three-week run -- a 9 percent increase from the year before. About 350 works of art were sold, some priced as high as $15,000.\nAlthough most schools say they don't track sales or attendance trends, it is clear that the market for works by young artists, some who have not yet even graduated from school, is growing in many cities. Prices are often substantially lower than at commercial galleries, making fine art affordable for people unable to pay five or six figures for original works.\nAt the Pennsylvania Academy show this past spring, 12 of the 13 paintings or monotypes by graduate student Judith Thomas were bought almost instantly.\n"I spent most of my evening in shock," said Thomas, who did not expect to sell anything.\n"It was a very bizarre experience; I never anticipated that there would be such a frenzy -- seeing so many people clamoring at the door and positively determined to buy," she said. "I was exhausted when I got home, but it was a very positive and energizing experience."\nArtists like Thomas say that the experience forges valuable contacts with private collectors and commercial galleries and creates opportunities for feedback and fresh ideas. Collectors also say that they enjoy forming and developing relationships with young artists, and the bond deepens their enjoyment of the art itself.\n"I kind of joke that we have an art problem, and we need to go into a 12-step program," said Jamie O'Neill, who has been attending the annual Pennsylvania Academy show with his partner, David Rubin, for about five years. Their art collection, numbering about 100 pieces including paintings and prints, is largely by Pennsylvania Academy students.\nAt this year's annual student exhibition at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, students sold 528 pieces from the show for a total of about $145,000, up from 420 pieces and about $131,000 last year. The majority of the works were sold on opening night, when patrons pay up to $300 a ticket to get first dibs on what's up for sale, spokesman Tony Scotta said.\nThe Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore has also noticed the demand, and the school is looking at ways to ramp up its promotion of student exhibitions in response to increasing public inquiries about how to see and buy student work, spokeswoman Cheryl Knauer said.\nSome art school professors worry that early success could inappropriately influence students still defining their voice and their style to play it safe and commercial, so their works can easily sell.\n"The danger is where you have critics coming into (students') studios looking for new talent; that's when it can be very disruptive," said Carol Becker, dean of faculty for The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "You want students finding themselves, not trying to find what the market wants."\nColumbia University recently decided to exclude first-year graduate students in its open-studios event, when the public is invited to view student works in progress, to alleviate some of the pressure from those just entering the program.\n"The market is overheated, and everyone out there thinks it's a good time to buy artwork," said Sid Sachs, a teacher and exhibitions director at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. "People are thinking they're going to get their hands on the next Frank Stella, and it's not going to happen."\nThough collectors such as Guill, O'Neill and Rubin buy for the love of the art, not for a possible windfall. Fine art typically does increase in value -- although not at the margins enjoyed by investments like stocks and real estate.\nArt speculators, however, are increasingly becoming fixtures at the student shows.\n"I don't want to sound terrible, but it does appear the nature of the crowd has changed: men in pinstripe suits and Hermes ties, women in Chanel suits and high heels," Guill said.\n"I go there in my comfortable shoes and clothes," she said. "I don't understand how you can hold a plate of food and drink a glass of wine and buy art."\nThe Jack Tilton Gallery in New York City has successfully brought the work of art students to its commercial gallery. Gallery director Janine Cirincione told The New Yorker that a show this year called "School Days" featuring art by 19 graduate students from Hunter College, Columbia and Yale University was 70 percent sold before the opening. Prices ranged from $2,000 to $16,000.\nNeither dealer Jack Tilton nor Cirincione responded to telephone and e-mail requests for comment.\nDespite the potential of students being spoiled by success, some art teachers point out that demand for student art also has its benefits: The notoriously arduous task of establishing a foothold in the art world is not quite as daunting for emerging artists when collectors and dealers are more open-minded, said Lawrence Rinder, dean of California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
(09/07/06 3:42am)
PHILADELPHIA - Rocky Balboa -- or more specifically, a statue of the Hollywood palooka, boxing gloves raised in triumph -- is being restored to a spot outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the winner by a split decision in a bout between fine art and pop culture.\nDespite complaints that the statue is a piece of kitsch undeserving of display near Renoirs and Monets, the city Art Commission voted 6-2 Wednesday to move the 2,000-pound bronze out of storage and put it on a street-level pedestal near the museum steps.\nThe steps were the setting for one of the most famous scenes in Sylvester Stallone's 1976 movie "Rocky" and have been a big tourist attraction ever since, with visitors to Philadelphia imitating the Italian Stallion's sweat-suited dash to the top. (Of course, after bounding up the 72 steps and pumping their fists in the air like Rocky, the tourists often turn around and leave without setting foot in the museum.)\nThe 8-foot-6 Rocky is expected to be on his granite pedestal in time for a dedication ceremony Friday.\n"We're thrilled," said city Commerce Director Stephanie Naidoff. "What more wonderful a symbol of hard work and dedication is there than Rocky?"\nThe two commission members who voted against the move, artist Moe Brooker and University of the Arts president Miguel Angel Corzo, said the site was inappropriate.\n"It's not a work of art and ... it doesn't belong there," said Brooker, a professor at Moore College of Art and Design. Rocky's battle to the top "is a concept, it is an idea, and ideas don't need justification in terms of objects."\nCorzo suggested that he might resign from the commission over the vote, saying that placing the pugilist near the museum goes against the commission's desire to "raise the standards of the city."\nHe said the issue for him was not whether the statue was art, pointing out the debatable aesthetic value of some of the Philadelphia museum's works -- for example, a porcelain urinal by avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp. He questioned whether Rocky deserved to be neighbors with sculptures such as Rodin's "The Thinker," which sits nearby on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
(04/22/05 4:29am)
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. -- What's art, doc?\nAt the James A. Michener Art Museum, that question is answered with a new exhibit featuring more than 160 drawings, cels, paintings and related items from the golden era of Warner Bros. animation that made Bugs Bunny now officially a senior citizen and his fellow Looney Tuners into pop culture icons for generations of Americans.\n"These days, it seems pop stars are around for 60 days, not 60 years," said Stephen Schneider, the exhibit's curator. "What they did at Warner Bros. was so resonant, it managed to hold on to its pre-eminence in a way you rarely see."\n"That's All Folks! The Art of Warner Brothers Cartoons," on view at the Doylestown museum from Saturday through July 3, is an expanded version of a 1985 exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art.\nIt takes a comprehensive look at the history, artistry, humor and cultural commentary that breathed life into Bugs, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn and the rest of the gang with an emphasis on the "golden age" from 1938 to 1955, Schneider said.\nThe era was marked by a creative team that included Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Mel Blanc, Carl Stalling and Bob Clampett.\nThe minutes-long films took as much as a year to create and required thousands of hand-drawn "cels" of the characters and watercolor backgrounds. The cartoons were shot one frame at a time, with just the slightest change in position from one cel to the next, giving the impression of fluid movement.\nThe exhibit also shows the preliminary work that went into the films, including "model sheets" -- the templates that made characters consistent from cartoon to cartoon and artist to artist. The model sheet for Bugs Bunny, complete with dozens of facial expressions and poses, instructed animators: "Keep ruff on cheek high, it makes him younger."\nBut their artistic attributes are only part of the picture. The cartoons got their distinctive style from the richly zany musical scores and story lines that were frenetic in pace, irreverent in tone and imbued with sarcastic send-ups of movie stars and political figures.\n"It wasn't until the 1970s that people really started to appreciate the artistry that was involved in creating these, and how unique and innovative they were," said Marla DelSordo of the Michener Museum.\nIn Warner's infancy during the early 1930s, Walt Disney's lavishly animated fantasy worlds and storybook tales reigned supreme. But the upstart studio staffed with Disney expatriates soon began blazing new trails.\n"They looked to live-action feature films," Schneider said. "After all, Warner Bros. was the studio of Bogart, Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, all the rough and tumble stuff."\nThose noir stars made it into Warner cartoons, as well as Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Clark Gable and many other celebrities. Born in 1940, Bugs battled the Axis powers during World War II in many cartoons now rarely seen because of their insulting portrayals of Japanese and Germans.\nAbout two dozen Warner Bros. shorts, most featuring racial stereotypes or extreme violence, are rarely seen these days. A few examples in the exhibit may be disturbing to viewers, even those familiar with today's raunchy adult cartoons, such as "South Park."\nWorld War II-era sketches depict uniformed ducks with slanted eyes, thick round glasses and enormous teeth. Another drawing shows black stereotypes featured in "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs," created in 1948 as a parody to Disney's Snow White and banned by Warner Bros. from broadcast or distribution since the 1960s for its offensive content.\n"It's important that these examples are in here. They're uncomfortable to look at, but they are a part of the whole story," DelSordo said.\nThe exhibit also shows how such characters as Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd greatly changed in appearance over the years a move that today often prompts outcries of heresy from toonatics.\nWarner Bros. recently announced it was giving extreme makeovers to six classic Looney Tunes characters for a new show, starring Bugs, Daffy, Roadrunner, Taz and others as lean, mean, futuristic superheroes with little resemblance to their furry and feathery forebears.\nThe changes have been unpopular with purists, but the studio's innovative ideas are what kept its creations relevant for so many years, Schneider said.\n"The irreverence is what they have to hold onto, no matter how the characters change," he said.
(02/12/04 4:17am)
PHILADELPHIA -- An 8-year-old boy was shot in the face on a school playground Wednesday, and a crossing guard was wounded, caught apparently in the crossfire between two groups of men, police said.\nChildren were arriving for class and some were playing in the schoolyard when dozens of shots rang out about 8:30 a.m., police said. Youngsters ran screaming toward the building as teachers and parents frantically tried to pull them inside to safety.\nPolice searched for the gunmen and a gray Lincoln Continental.\nThe third-grader, Faheem Thomas-Childs, underwent brain surgery and was reported in extremely critical condition. The crossing guard, Debra Smith, 56, was treated for a wound to the right foot.\nThe victims were apparently caught in the crossfire as two men in a car and three men on the sidewalk shot at each other, police said.\nThe shooting occurred near the T.M. Peirce Elementary School in downtrodden North Philadelphia, a section of the city where drugs and crime are common.\n"We have innocent children just on their way to school getting shot in the head," a shaken Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson said outside the hospital. "We want to get these people off the street."\nThe school was locked down, though parents were permitted to pick up their children.\n"It makes me angry, sad, upset," said parent Mildred Smith as she arrived to pick up her child. "This is a terrible tragedy."\nThe school district offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.\nThe school made news in 1999, when the principal closed the library because its books were so old that some did not mention the 1969 moon landing or the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education segregation ruling.\nThousands of dollars in donations poured in from people across the country, including Grammy-nominated singer Jill Scott, who attended the school. The new library was reopened in 2001.
(10/03/03 5:04am)
PHILADELPHIA -- You can be an artist without starving.\nThat's essentially the message of a new Web site unveiled this week that aims to help painters, sculptors, designers and artists of all disciplines become more business savvy.\nThe site, www.paartistentrepreneur.com, features interviews with lawyers, accountants, bankers and gallery owners as well as links to job sites and advice on opening a studio to create and show your own work.\n"We want to make sure our artists aren't starving," said Marc Kramer, president of Kramer Communications, which developed the site.\nThe Web site, funded with a $50,000 grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, will have more interviews added as it develops. It is geared toward Pennsylvania but Kramer said the hope is that artists from elsewhere will discover it, too.\nOther sites, like the New York-based Emerge Project, also provide resources for young artists. But the Pennsylvania site's business focus is valuable because recent art school graduates often are short on financial resources, business expertise and marketing skills, said Matt Brown of the nonprofit Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.\n"A lot of artists tend to be really, really focused on their work and they get so focused on their product that they don't pay attention to marketing themselves," Brown said. "Artists who are successful have to learn how to be business people and we've found they're not getting that in art school."\nThere are 250,000 professionally trained artists in the Mid-Atlantic region that Brown's organization serves. So it makes good economic sense to seek out and foster arts businesses just like any other small business, he said.\n"Artists can really be major contributors on the local economic level, though they're really overlooked," he said.\nSteve Bujno, 38, an artist and entrepreneur who was interviewed for the site, said he had a lot to learn after graduating from college in 1987. He came up with a business plan, secured a bank loan and opened shop in 1991; today he has eight employees and a company that produces handmade stoneware pottery.\n"In art school you spend four years learning how to hone your creative eye, but not how to use that after you graduate," he said. "I couldn't even get a minor in business and I tried."\nHis advice to young artists: start out with an open view, visit trade shows and galleries to see what's out there, then find a niche within your craft that needs to be filled. And be prepared to work long hours, understand your market and believe in your work.\n"So many people just get disillusioned," Bujno said. "Had I known in 1991 how much work I had ahead of me, I probably would have hesitated. But I can't imagine myself doing anything else"