- 10
- Jun
- 08
- The Ultra-Affordable Introduction
- Tags: art, commercialism, Fragments, haydn shaughnessy, interview, irish
Post by . Filed under Aesthetics.
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It is astonishing that the province of art collecting remains largely offline and disconnected from the broad and deep networking afforded by the Internet. Despite the revolutionary changes to many commercial ventures gain from going online, purchasing art from galleries remains largely a game of rolodexes and jetsetters. Haydn Shaughnessy’s Fragments project looks to change that game dramatically with a wide selection of ultra-affordable introductions to the world of art collection.
Fragments has already amassed 17 pieces from 7 artists, each an affordably priced limited edition print taken from a larger work. Far from cheap posters for dorm walls, where Fragments distinguishes itself is with a large stable of recognized names in the world of contemporary art. The project is a very real, high quality online gateway for the masses to participate in art collecting.
We continue our interview with Shaughnessy about his gallery’s endeavor.
Dream Not Of Today: The distinction of the series as affordable suggests perhaps that you may feel fine art is too inaccessible? Do you think contemporary art is currently only enjoyed by the wealthy?
Haydn Shaughnessy: I think the art market and art world is a surprisingly conservative place and artists generally have to be careful to comply with the codes of that world, make the right art-historical references, position themselves vis-a-vis each other’s work. Art on the other hand has an incredibly important role and artists are the one group who have not sold out en masse to commercialism (though you can be forgiven for thinking otherwise). I think the important point is to create dialogue around their work and their personalities, dreams and intentions because it is one of the few azrenas left where people are acting intelligently about their politics and morality. it’s a way back into the humanity behind those polotical and moral concerns. Only one way of course but a way.
That should not cost much money, though there has to be a cash price. We all have to live. But most important as I said earlier is engage in some way, even if that is by visiting a framer and asking what would look good, or by hanging a few on a wall or by joining the facebook page and asking an artist how he or she creates work or go further with it – debate their ideas. Ask why we scoot around joining these groups and reach out to hundreds of people, automating our creativity. Why do we seek to express ourselves in this way?
My own view of these works is also that they exist on the border of the brand and art. They are an expression by artists that they want to connect with an audience, which in brand terminology would be a market, but they are not producing branded goods that will or can becomes luxuries or ostentatious objects. They are simple acts of creativity which alsoseems to be what many of us crave.
I want to develop that area further, pushing a moment of creative expression in to the space occupied by brands and would welcome a dialogue with anyone on that.
HS: Well you’ll see that each work is a fragment of a whole – follow the links on site and you can compare. None of their art is off the scale financially anyway but Fragments is ultra-affordable. They are actually creating the work especially for this project – it is totally exclusive to us and to the buyers – and it is an effort and a cost to the artist – they have to create it and they pay for the printing. I’m finding they are wildly enthusiastic to be involved even though they are busy. There is a queue to be there and that is in part because they see a conceptual value in it – they actually get to refocus on their work and hopefully give a visual insight to a wide audience. And it is in part because their dream is to have people hold their work in their hands and this is a way to do that.
HS: We are going to launch an open call in mid to late June to select for later in the year and early next year, in part because we also want to explore design in all its forms (so we can get closer to the brand-art borderline), photogrpahy and art on paper. We see conceptual value in exploring those three disciplines. For now the works are from artists I know or who have been introduced to the project by other artists. They are, and the upcoming ones will underline this, artists who are strong conceptually, and make use of media technologies in their work. Chris is the only html artist I know of and has been blogging those images daily now for 6 years and of course he is the one person to create beauty and conceptual complexity out of the script that makes the web chunky and visually dismal. Nathaniel is exceptionally gifted at producing beauty from a desktop scanner and so on. These are people who take the technology that is lying around them and in front of all of us and create beauty and energy from it. We know we can’t confine the project to that range of work but it is where we started and it continues to be of interest to us.
HS: We haven’t gone for a creative commons license on the works because in reality the copyright rests with the artist – personally I wouldn’t mind it but most artists are barely earning a living and some not and that’s a difficult place to begin such discussions.
HS: Success for us will be measured by how many people come through for the major works and how many become repeat customers. Thousands would be great and we are certainly aiming for hundreds.
HS: We ship anywhere in the world and the price is $8 for the first three, and around $11 for 4+.
