M. A. D. Gallery Milano milan biennial of art 2017/18 Milan biennial of art 2017/18 Artists are vulnerable to a greater or lesser degree to the various vanity projects that exist largely thanks to www. I received an email saying that a gallery in Milan had spotted my work, and inviting me to exhibit there. The place looks very impressive, and the concept – to exhibit digital art and to have some criticism/promotion is attractive. The new 4K amoled HDR displays must make for some fantastic display media assuming a large enough file size to begin with. “Imagine an historical court from the XVII century, located in the beating heart of a multi-cultural, dynamic and lively city such as Milan” I imagined it and was quite up for it. First thought was the catch would be that they would want up front payments. I guess there is nothing per se wrong with that, but it’s a gamble. How much exposure would my work get / How many others would I be competing with / am I going to see any return on my investment / How can I verify sales? I emailed back and said I was interested Anyway the pdf I received was a bit of a shock.. Costs. The gallery requires a participation fee equal to 180,00 Euro for each piece exhibited on-screen. The fee is a mere membership quote, necessary to join M.A.D. Gallery Milano MODA ARTE E DESIGN: it will be used to cover all the organizational and operational expenses. Eventual bank and paypal commissions or additional extra-costs are not included in the fee, therefore they shall be covered by the artists. I wish them well, but not many among us would pay such a sum to take part. Guess I will never know what I have missed out on! Here’s an unframed proof that is for sale. No gallery commissions. No taxes. What a bargain!! http://bit.ly/2jvVv0U
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We have a forthcoming studio holders exhibition at the Hub in Mirfield, and I volunteered to design the poster for it. Design isn't one of my best abilities, and I'm a bit limited in my abilities with Photoshop, but I thought I'd just give it a go. Loosely, the idea was to display a sample of each artist's work on a TV set, as if in a store, as an alternative to standard TV fodder, and with studio director Mark Milnes controlling the output in a semi sinister manner with a remote. This does NOT reflect reality, but it was meant to be ambivalent and to perhaps create thoughts. We are swamped with imagery, and it's a bit of a struggle to be seen in artistic terms. Much of the imagery is excellent, and you have to shine to be seen. These are the contributers to the exhibition (Creative Arts Hub in Mirfield Mid November to Mid January with a bit of a gap for Xmas): Richard Yeomans Kay Dawson John Paul Richards Louise Elizabeth Juko Designs (also attached here, as I've photographed a piece of theirs) Kerry Penny Marina Poppa Murray Forrest Andrew Stone/Black Orchard Julia Borodina My design was rejected as being not easy to read, which is fair comment, and at least it gives me chance to include Marina Poppa whom I criminally left out... I started by visiting PC World at Birstall and aroused a bit of suspicion as I photographed television sets. Then I got Mark to pose with him in front of me. I drew round his outline with the Magnetic Lasso Tool, and painted him black. The TVs I stacked three or four images and then crudely overlapped them by cutting out sections with the Polygon Lasso Tool: Replacing the TV images was fairly straight forward, if a little time consuming. I dragged the image over the TV, adjusted it to fit using edit / transform / skew and then I made the art image appear semi-transparent using the opacity slider in the layer. The TV screen outline was then visible, and so it was just a case of selecting it as close as possible (Zoom in) using the Polygonal Lasso Tool. Then select inverse / cut gets rid of the extraneous stuff, restore the opacity to 100% and repeat repeat repeat ....
The text I considered secondary to the image, and so I wanted it to be readable but not intrusive. This arguably was the wrong call, and so I'm revising it later this evening. Meanwhile .. here is my original version: I have promised to produce a design for the flyer for the next Creative Arts Hub exhibition at Mirfield. This is going to be a challenge for me! Whatever skills I possess in art, they definitely don't extend to design. I have an image in mind of a bank of flat screen TVs with our artistic director Mark Milnes in silhouette operating a remote control. Each artist will be represented on a different TV. I must chase up some of the artists who have not yet given me their jpegs. Will probably pick the TV spots at random, and hope that by chance my own work DOES NOT take centre stage. It might work, but the idea is landscape and flyers are mostly portrait. Early eighties David Bowie videos come to mind. It'll be ambiguous because you will be guessing if he is turning the artworks on or off. I hope I'm up to it. If it looks crap they won't ask me again ...
The exhibition starts Mid November and lasts a couple of months. |
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