Hello !!! Im a new resident in USA... and need to discuss with somebody who know well the organization of comtemporary art in USA ...??? :-)

Hello ! My name is Fantin, I live in Pasadena CA USA since 1 year... in my country I'm graduated of a master degree of art.

First I introduce me too you. My activity is very 'wide angle' ... but i mostly interrested by the social or political interaction and reactions generated by the meeting of the reality and the poetry ... in my creative process i work more like an Art Director a Designer or simply a poet more than a 'traditionale artist' for exemple I do not draw... I write.... I do not made myself a lot.. or a little but prefere to manage people who know better than me how to do certain things or parts of my work. Or I buy object, materials produced by the industry in supermarcket or whatever the store...

I quited my country because i didn't apreccied the politics of the cultural system organization of my country ... 85 or 90 percent under control by the government specialy for artist who make art like mine. I like the idea of the governement support the cultural research but in France, my country there is a mixt of situation who make the life really unconfortable for certains artists; it's the mixt of Utopies and ambitious political program with high level of regulation on social and economical plan of almost all market include comtemporary art-market .

for me the simple fact to know the governement control directly or undirectly almost all gates of my carrier was not an idea who satisfy me... so that's why today I choosen to live in USA.

L-A is enormous and very difficult to catch by a quick understanding.... I try in the same time I make my art ... to understand what is the life of a 'young american artist' who is not in a stricktly in a commercial thinking... who make research with a spirit of personal plastical & conceptual reflexion. How they build there carrier ? what's the importance of artist association in USA ?? who have the 'power' to make an artist in USA ??

But mostly I am wondering about what happens for them in the moment between they finish school to their first group show in a good contempary art museum for exemple .... sorry if my question look a little bit naive... but I write quickly and it's late, i'm tired and had not preview at all to write this text on this forum.

IF you think we can discuss about this subject I will aprecied a lot, and if you have any questions about the situation of the contemporary art in Europe, i will be very concerned to give you my knowledge ... but for being clear I'm not a painter of flower or farm of boat etc etc ... I know more and I'm more interrested by the situation of contemporary Art ... those automatic 'keywords' will help you probably to 'locate me' ... Intallation, MAMCO, ready-made, Bruce nauman, haim steinbach, ACE gallery, Sia Armagiani, Daniel Buren, Paolo ucello, art & language, Ed Rusha, Claude closky, art conceptuel, Marcel Broodthaers, Alan Kaprow, Stanley Brown etc etc I'm tired.. and this exercise is not funny ...

YOU who read me ! Have a nice week, and thank you to have open my message. By advance thank you if you decide to answer me Bye

Fantin Multi

Thank you for you answer sir Erik Mattila ... I need a little bit of time for read your texts and understand well after I will write a 'thread' for you, like you said in GoogleGroups language.

Sometimes I do not understand why the messages look not to be adressed to me but it's look like more a discuss betwenn you guys... I have to understand in first this particularity of Google groups system. (But yet i tryed to re-find the pages i seen with almost 6 trhread... and the engine of google groups didm't give the link... pff i do not understand at all)

But I repeat me perhaps, it's very pleasant and instructive for me to discuss and exchange questions & knowledge on each side...

Just for the annecdot, I recently order a GPS street pilot because i'm totally lost in LA ... and i need to visit almost 4 or 5 place per day sometimes.. just for observation ... galleries, museum, school architecture etc etc superstore etc so OK... I will answer you very soon as possible.

Just give a moment for works just a little bit on my reply.

Don't worry too much about your reply. Part of the fun of writing to these forums is not having to worry about what others think. If you are inclined to be swayed by the remarks of total strangers, then you probably won't enjoy this particular means of corresponding.

If you simply play the game, not letting what others say here affect you one way or the other, you'll have some great fun. So stick around and enjoy! Fresh blood is always 'redder than red!'

First of all here in the USA art schools are businesses and unless you have gone somewhere with high entrance criteria like Yale school of art or Cooper Union a degree is laughable and useless. In the Russian Academies students learn about anatomy, materials, mathematics, and chemistry.

If you seek validation outside of your own artmaking you will want to:

*Enter and get accepted to as many juried shows as possible. $35 to enter, $45-$100 to get slides made. $120 dollars later you have a new line on your resume!

*Become a faculty member at a university or college. People will be suspicious if you work a real job, work as a graphic designer, or even if you support yourself from your art. 'But where you get your money from? But what's your real job?' Ass sniffing is important in this country. Only by teaching and selling your work at a gallery on the side and gluing back your crowns with fixodent are you a REALtm artist.

*Exposure is important. Group shows at galleries who will be happy to take half of whatever you make, articles in American Artist as well as blurbs in the local papers are good. This is also good because it helps the American economy: $1,500 for frames. $300 for materials. $350 for promotional materials (you didn't think the gallery was going to pay for that, did you?)

As you can see, the art world forces people to become sleezeoids to operate in it. Please consider not walking this trail of tears and becoming something respectable, like a teacher or a nurse. There is genuine respect and affection in these areas.

Jane
http://www.geocities.com/teslathemothgod/

Anyone in our liberal day and democratic age, living in a simulacrum saturated with visual commodities, where one can typically absorb more 'art' in a single day than was created in the entire history of mankind prior the 20th century merely by visiting a magazine stand, anyone in that situation who pines to become something as quaint and ridiculous as an 'artiste'... well I don't think they understand quite what art is, or (to make the weaker claim) what it's become. I suppose it's possible to make a successful living creating high art, but only in the sense that it's possible to make a successful living buying lottery tickets.

I would now like to record for my subsequent amusement that, even though I took at least five minutes to choose carefully my cryptic words, I fully expect this post to be read completely wrong 10 different ways.

You can bank on it! I'll leave you to guess at how I 'read it.'

charles bukowski wrote about horse racing using it as a aymbol of the american dream, that, not only are the odds against you and the races often fixed and crooked but the race track takes 15% of the money from those that do when, right off the top, he said, 'tell the dreamer there's a 15% take on the dream and he'll only laugh and say 'is that all?''

funny you use the lottery as an example as i don't allow myself the frivolous luxury of gambling as i consider all the money i constantly invest in my painting needs and materials as the biggest (and longest shot) gamble of them all. although to put it in perspective, there is nothing i would rather be spending my time doing than standing before the easel and smearing my brush into some freshly mixed pile of pigment while considering the composition du jour.

enough, i have a new canvas to stretch. good painting to you all, especially you, DNALJM, you self tortured soul in that creative nightmare of your own choosing.

i guess we let the cream and the lucky rise to the top and the rest of us should shape reality to it's most pleasing form (an individual taste). Wanna buy a painting?

Why not put them in glass cases - it should't cost much, after all, this seems to be a discussion about people in Yankland, finding exceptional people there is like finding lakes in the desert, preserve them or make them attractions, you clearly can't use them.