Art Magazine

TUBES back issues 1 to 4

Fantastic painters TUBES back issues that feature abstract painters and figurative painters from Europe and the USA. Free online direct links to online magazines.

TUBES BACK ISSUES #1 to #4

We are delighted to provide direct links to the first four back issues of painters TUBES magazines – Click the link of each one to read free on line. They are now presented on Tubes new and fantastic Virtual Reality Platform. You can view the magazine on all devices and all operating systems, OSX , Android, Linux or Windows. Bookmark our website to come back whenever you like and from wherever you are.

TUBES issue #1 Tubes issue #1 featured an interview with Ian Norris in his studio in winter of 2015. Ian Norris a highly respected and renown Northern English artist. Tubes art magazine issue #1 Interview- in the studio with Ian Norris.Featured painter has an in depth discussion about his new paintings and the reasoning behind them. Plus- Review of the Exhibition The Northern School a reappraisal and the accompanying Book at Gateway Gallery, Hale, Cheshire. Exciting New move for the Contemporary Six Gallery in Central Manchester Art Education ”what about the kids” What age should Art be taught? Spike’ on Tretchikoff our resident culture critic tells the full story of this most amazing artist who has been ‘put-down’ by the art establishment in the UK but remains the best selling artist in the 20th century.Click here. link: http://online.mobissue.com/badm/fwvl/

TUBES issue #2 In this issue: “in the studio with John Smout,” A painter hidden from view Plus Dave Coulter and the exhibition of the man behind the most famous street in the world. Coronation Street of Granada Television Fame. Also “in the the studio with Chris Cyprus” A new private Gallery sweeps into Cheshire. Cheshire Art Gallery. Spike- the resident critic explains why “Weltgeist” may be important to a painter. Plus an amazing essay written by the late author and professor of Art at Lancaster University, Nigel Whiteley. The essay -Affirmative art in a Disafirmative Climate was written for the Heart 2 Art Exhibition mounted in Stockholm in 2002- Curated and designed by Denis Taylor Artist, Writer and Editor of painters TUBES magazine.
Link: http://online.mobissue.com/badm/yovv/

TUBES issue #3 Brilliant issue including a great interview with legendary gallery owner Dave Gunning. The Galley owner who re-discovered the great English painter William. Ralph Turner. The full story is told in this issue and the Sunday Telegraph magazine article is also reproduced. Plus- Harry Rutherford. His legacy moving again? Saul Hay, a new gallery opens in the City of Manchester (UK) is it another commercial gallery? Paintings by Steve Capper exhibiting at Gateway Gallery Hale. Plus Hugh Winterbottom new work. Link: http://online.mobissue.com/badm/wucv/

TUBES issue #4 Abstract from alpha to omega. Academic brilliant article by Denis Taylor. Twentieth Century movements.Cubism to Futurism to Dada. Artists discussed: Braque, Matisse, Delauney, Mondrian,Derain, Gris, Metzinger, Balla, Malevich, Kandinsky, Duchamp. Late twentieth century movements, American Abstract Expressionism to Figurative Expressionism. Artists discussed. Mark Tobey, Mark Rothko, William De Kooning, Clifford Still, Nicholas de Stael, Arshille Gorky, Barnet Newman, Yves Klein, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg. 21st Century artists include: John Walker, Kayla Mohammadi, Denis Taylor, Lisa Kreuziger plus several more artists. Link: http://online.mobissue.com/badm/ytgv/

where do you sell your paintings?

“You won’t believe this but, I was reading an art exhibition review which is pretty damming, not only to the exhibition in question, but also to the artist who made it. This isn’t an anti-post modernist twentieth century rant, nor is it an intellectual twenty first century tirade of what Art should be or indeed what it actually is.

Not at all, this review is more like those angry comments one sometimes reads after an essay about Contemporary Art in a left leaning national newspaper. You know, those rants directed at some arts columnist who infuriates everyone with his almost myopic intellectualism – the one that uses sentences filled with nine letter and twelve letter words that were lifted from a thesaurus the night before.

To be honest, at first I laughed and then I was taken aback at the ferocity of the attack and then I felt really pissed off….” (30 September – 19.07 sms from Spike to painters Tubes magazine Sweden article to follow).

…the newspaper reviewer started off with, “that he found the exhibition so boring… that he could hardly find anything [to write about]. So, what was this horrendous exhibition he was so incensed about? – Artists vomit ‘installed’ on the floor of a gallery perhaps? Or maybe a live performance of an artist asleep? Maybe digital prints of someone else iPhone selfies? Or even a person standing and staring into space for an hour or two naked in the middle of a gallery whistling out of tune? Nope… none of those, it was a visual art exhibition showing paintings hung on a wall. Paintings, the most ubiquitous of all art was what this supercilious art critic railed against. He announced that painting (as an art form) was dead if not buried. So what if the artist had mounted an on-line exhibition instead of a bricks and mortar gallery exhibition? Would he have had to encountered such negativity and venom against the artist and the work? I don’t think so. On-line etiquette is far too well enforced, as far as commenting (read criticising) art is concerned. If you do critic any art on line – well, you know what happens guys…you get a bad case of the International Troll Gang gunning for you, social media is vicious towards critics. It’s sort of reversed in real life.

Do you Sell on line?
Showing paintings on line, seems to be the main stream for the dissemination of an artists work. Even though real life exhibitions are still relevant for many artists, an on line presence is essential (if only for street cred). Perhaps this particular critic didn’t realise that the “painting is a dead art” conversation has faded away as fast as padded shoulders did in the middle 1980’s. There has been a major change in attitude to painting in the last decade or so. In part, this may be entirely due to the need for the high street galleries to survive the financial crisis, the one that started in earnest way back in 2008. High street galleries need to sell ‘stuff’ and earn a profit – And paintings sell much quicker than ‘cool’ installations that rely on high brow art academics to authenticate the cultural importance of something that most people wouldn’t actually install in their homes (even if they don’t say so publicly). And the institutions are happy to underscore the ‘Art’ as a thank you for the generous support (financial donation) made by the mega white cubed gallery brigade, whose artist is the latest exhibition in the museum. ”

“there’s something rotten in Denmark, me thinks.”

Yet, the installation art marketplace is tiny compared to what the two dimensional art market is and I think the galleries have woken up to that as a fact – so now painting is the ‘thing’ again. Today the sheer size of the visual art market (because of the internet and the web) has outgrown all that ‘arty farty stuff’ by leaps and bounds – certainly as far as turnover is concerned. So the www has become the place to set up your stall. Major funded on-line art galleries and some not so well funded independent artists, all have a go at selling direct to art collectors and art lovers. Many of these artists and the one man art galleries start-ups fail quickly- some have a sort of:- ‘in the third year we will make money plan’. Most, in reality, loose much more money than they bargained for and are wrapped up prematurely by the investors that backed the idea in the first place. It’s not a case of chasing huge profits for many galleries though, on the contrary, it’s survival we are talking about here. Many on-line galleries are simply losing too much money, year in and year out. Consumers are going direct to source these days, via instagram.

“there is no money in Art…
…a very wise man once said to me (back in1990). He may have been right but for the wrong reason. Should Art really be treated as a commodity and be sold as such? – ‘Stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap is not an effective strategy for art, unless of course your selling from a production line of ‘copy’ paintings, you know, technically good, but utterly soulless. The high street galleries are having some degree of success especially the well positioned bricks and mortar establishments. They really do use the web effectively. Many sell-out their latest exhibition on-line, even before they hold the opening night. A night which also serves a vital purpose for the prospective client to actually see the Artwork for real – then the deal is invariably clinched on the spot. Sounds good, but nothing has changed for the artist who hasn’t the right connections or a million+ followers on Instagram, he or she still don’t even get a foot through the door let alone a painting to sell.

But – and it’s a big but…
….will authentic original art win out in the end? Or will the major on-line galleries self appointed art selectors continue to advance those artists that fit the preferred ‘style’ of the month and advise their visitors of the artists who are the ‘ones to watch’ (read invest in) – thus employing the ‘stack em high sell em cheap (at first), then up the ‘anti’ later strategy – all with an ‘additional discount to buy’ of course, which the Artist who created the work in the first place has to ‘agree’ to accepting the higher percent they take off the top line. Will High street galleries continue to be flooded by the hopeful newbie or the forsaken mature painters ? To be honest they really don’t stand a chance of being let over the gallery threshold as a exhibited artist. High Street galleries have more than they can handle on the books already – so they tell me. And then of course we have the the on-line educators come experts (anyone can be an art expert if they say they are, all you need in a minor degree in sociology). They tell us – “How-to Sell Your Art On-Line” does this unquantified advise make any difference – or is that bull shit too? Only Time will tell. Real artists have to keep painting and have to wait and see with their eyes wide open to all the possibilities – or maybe and better still – perhaps artists should create their own ‘marketplace and stick two fingers up to the lot of them.

SPIKE is an independent art critic painters TUBES magazine and does not neccessarily represent the opinions of painters TUBES magazine – BUT WE DO LIKE HIM

©Spike2019

SUBSCRIBE TO TUBES

paying for space – is it worth it?

The on-line ‘competitions, to my mind, are simply a money gathering exercise, full stop.

‘Spike’ – resident critic of painters Tubes magazine takes a stab at the vanity galleries and the ‘pay to enter’ commercial competitions and art fairs.

“Vanity and pay for exhibition spaces or Galleries, are they worth it?”

So, what is an alternative to the favoured High Street galleries for the artists who cannot break the cycle of rejection, (however reluctant that may be, from a Galleries viewpoint). The so called ‘Vanity’ galleries have been around for decades and over the last two decades they have sprouted up everywhere, in one form or another. It is rarely they that are bothered or (overly) concerned about the quality of the artists work, the ones who wish to pay them for their space.

This type of gallery is in the business of renting ‘the space only,’ usually in a well located high street shop, for a profit. They use a branded banner on the outside and send out invitations of ‘applications,’ usually from commercially acquired mass emailing lists of artists, ones that are gleaned from, you guessed it, Social Media platforms. Some advertise directly on mass media or other social media with attractive wording that will entice the Artist to go one step further and start a conversation with their ‘curator’ (read Salesman). It’s only when you actually read the ‘deal’ that you discover that it will cost a ‘shit-load’ of your own money, that you begin to temper the ego and dreams of exhibiting in a gallery with that of your own financial reality.

Those who are brave and drown out the ‘money’ objection, one being screamed at them for all corners, convince themselves that they will ‘break even’ financially – if only given the chance to show their work, but usually they have either, miscalculated the cost, or are unaware of what it takes to ensure a reasonably successful ‘selling’ exhibition. Or they simply cannot get past the artistic ‘blue-sky’ thinking syndrome. Not so long a go I did a cost analysis of exhibiting in a ‘pay-for-space’ gallery. This was based on an out of City centre location, (in the UK) with reasonably accurate costs for space, marketing, transportation and so on. The final figure came out at a cost for a 5 to 6 day solo exhibition of around £3500 ($4,800). Major City centre space was nearer double that price, when I looked further into it. That’s a lot of painting to sell, based on the market average price for a half decent sized canvas for an unknown painter, at the lower (attractive) ‘stip-end’ market price level of around £350 each (circa $500), So is it worth it? Just for friends and family to rub ones ego and confirm you are a good artist?

How about selling on the web and creating a virtual reality exhibitions on your own website?

Sure, but I would suggest for that to be really successful, (i.e. selling on a regular basis for a consistent period of time) the artist will need a very good e-commerce enabled website (i.e. one that is not cheap to acquire and maintain) – And spend a great deal of time making strategic posts on social media – Or hire someone to do that specific task, and with a regular advertising budget. In this case I would suggest an annual budget for Marketing and PR of in excess £3000 per annum, for doing it all yourself, or £5000 to £8,000 annually, to hand this ‘job’ over to a professional full time SEO and art marketeer to do it for you. Who will no doubt, not give you any guarantee of a return for your money.

How about entering Art Competitions to gain recognition?

Why not, if you can live with the rejection element, nine out of ten times of entering the ones that, according to their pre-publicity, ‘give You the chance of lifetime’ to be internationally famous. Let’s be honest here, it’s a bit of lottery. The important thing to remember is, who does the judging – Usually there is an academic, a curator, another well known person who knows (not a lot) about art and the winner from the previous years competition. So the winning entries are somewhat vacuous in their preferences because of their own bias to one form of art or another. There again, if you actually ‘Win’ or come second or third, what does it bring you? – Well if it’s a National Competition’ then about 15 minutes of fame and a commission from the sponsors of the Competition, and loads of Facebook likes and messages of congratulations (ego gratification again). Plus, maybe 3 minutes on a You Tube video interview or a feature in your local newspaper. The rest of the smaller comp’s are really a bit like Vanity Galleries, except they don’t make as much money out of the ‘customer’. It can cost around £30 to enter three paintings to an ‘average’ competition – And if you are short listed you have to physically take your paintings to a central point – for ‘further judging’ and then schlep them back again (when rejected), which can cost you up to ‘whatever’- depending how far away you live form the nominated place of ‘drop-off’. The on-line ‘competitions, to my mind, are simply a money gathering exercise, full stop. And, again only in my opinion, are really not worth bothering with – unless they are free to enter of course.

Read ‘Spike’ in painters TUBES magazines back issues on line and now on TAG (Tubes artists Gallery) link: painterstubes.gallery