Very simple question -- would you sell your art to someone so they could decorate their home or office with your work?
Should art be used as decoration?
Very simple question -- would you sell your art to someone so they could decorate their home or office with your work?
Should art be used as decoration?
Is this a trick question?
What is art? Can art serve any other functional purpose? At that point is it still art? How else can you use art? Is photography art?
Yes, this is indeed a trick question!
If a bunch of little Left leaning Red and Green Muppet's from the planet Koozebane contacted you requesting subscriptions to your magazine, expressly to be used as special toilet paper by their esteemed leader Kermit the Great, would you take their bank details?
My photography hangs in many homes and offices, sometimes with the assistance of decorators, and sometimes over the objections of same!
I would think anyone that hopes to sell their prints would be glad to have yet another outlet for doing so, particularly in the current state of the economy. Where I think you are going with this (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is the difference between having say, a good gallery promoting ones work to specific individuals who might appreciate the artists style or technique (perhaps a collector of photography who doesn't necessarily have a space on the wall he or she is trying to fill) vs. an interior decorator who is more apt to be looking for something to specifically fill a space on a wall in a certain style of frame and of a certain size without necessarily having a particular artist in mind. Am I on the right track with that?
Well, a sale is a sale and photographers have to eat. I wouldn't refuse to sell through a decorator, but in doing so, I would have to be prepared for some of my work to be re-framed and re-matted in ways I wouldn't care to imagine and placed in spaces that might not be lit in ways I would prefer. That's not to say there aren't some decorators somewhere who would get it right, but I haven't met any yet. I would also have to be satisfied to live with the disconnect of the decorator not being able to discuss my work or who I am with the potential buyer. In other words, my work is not going to be promoted as my art so much as an accessory that might look good over that end table in that corner there. And, the decorators customer might not really care anyway. This is why a lot of Ansel Adams calendars and similar reproductions get cut up and dry mounted and framed. There is a restaurant near my place of work who had a decorator come in to do their thing and this is exactly what happened. There are 6 of Adams calendar pages framed as a group on one wall and two of the 6 are the same image! The restaurant is packed at lunchtime every day and nobody else seems to notice.
Yeah, I'll "prostitute" my work and help others do the same. Decorating homes and offices is where the money is. This is a silly question.
Greg Lockrey
Wealth is a state of mind.
Money is just a tool.
Happiness is pedaling +25mph on a smooth road.
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