All kinds of contemporary art exhibitions are becoming more and more incomprehensible. ð ð ð
It is full of textual introductions to various technical terms, some strangely shaped "installations", "images" that seem to have no narrative line at all, as well as expensive ticket prices and the heat of long queues from time to time...
After watching a contemporary art exhibition, I often feel confused, and only the "sense of atmosphere" photos in the mobile phone photo album prove that I have been here.
The "contemporary artists" behind the work are even more mysterious, and their imagination wanders at two extremes: no need to go to work at all? Is it champagne drinking, busy attending various high-level exhibition openings, or can't find a job, have a stable income, and have to rely on family support?
Click to answer these questions
All of the above are the real lives of contemporary artists.
The latest introduction of the post-romantic French comic "Illustrated Encyclopedia" series has not spared this topic that has aroused countless discussions, and this "Illustrated Encyclopedia: Contemporary Artists" is specially used to help all readers understand the trendy profession of "contemporary artists".
To understand them is to understand contemporary art.
After reading this little book, you will find that the contemporary art industry is a highly involuted industry with only increasing competition, and the workplace environment of contemporary artists is no less stressful than other jobs.
A series of small encyclopedias that are both professional and artistic, taking you to understand the rules of the contemporary art industry in the 21st century
The "Illustrated Encyclopedia" series is a set of high-quality encyclopedia series curated by the French Publishing Group dedicated to popularizing knowledge in a relaxed and interesting way, covering a wide range of fields such as science, technology, society, nature, culture, history and so on.
For each theme of the series, the French editorial team uses strong network resources to invite an expert in the field for each theme, and for each text author, a cartoonist who is good at creating the subject matter is specially equipped, and the two work together to repeatedly try to polish, and finally present readers with professional and formal works.
There are many books on art history, as well as many on the masterpieces and biographies of artists. The most unique thing about this "Illustrated Encyclopedia: Contemporary Artists" is to focus on the niche and often misunderstood group of "contemporary artists", and to take readers to experience the workplace rules of the contemporary art industry with the most direct vision through living people in the industry.
There are many cruel "unspoken rules" that textbooks will never talk about:
If you want to succeed, it is no longer enough to paint, you must learn to blend into a circle, make friends with curators, art critics, collectors, gallerists, and sell yourself to them, in order to have a chance to move upwards. Social skills are almost more important than creative skills.
Cultural and artistic policies vary from country to country, with some artists being supported and others deliberately ignored and cruelly labeled "obsolete".
Works that are collected by private collectors, galleries, and art museums have different meanings, and the value added to the works is also different, and the "chain of contempt" at the first level is very clear...
To understand the contemporary art industry in the 21st century, it is necessary to understand these rules that are not usually mentioned, but that are taken for granted by the experts.
Knowing them, you will understand where many unintelligible "contemporary art" come from and why they are so popular. Contemporary artists also need to go through countless thracks and compromises if they want to succeed in the industry. Only a very few lucky ones can succeed.
Meticulous sociological observation of the art circle, through the career path of 3 contemporary artists, makes you also become a contemporary art taster
The screenwriter for Encyclopædia: Contemporary Artists is the director of the Centre for the Study of Arts and Languages of the French National Academy of Sciences, winner of the Montion Prize for Contribution to Literature at the Institut de France, and a globally renowned sociologist of art, Natalie Heinrich. The painter is the famous Belgian cartoonist Ferumon.
Nathalie Heinich
Born in Marseille, France in 1955.
Ph.D. from the École Supérieure des Sociales, Sociologist, Director of the Centre for Arts and Language Studies at the French National Academy of Sciences.
His main research areas include the sociology of art — especially the history of the status of artists (plastic arts, literature, film) and contemporary art, the crisis of women's identity, the history of sociology and epistemology. Her vision is to make sociology understandable and describable. She co-founded the magazine "Sociology of Art", and is also a judge of the Economic sociology teacher qualification examination, teaching courses such as the sociology of art, French culture and literature, and history in many European universities. He is a frequent guest in the media and participates in discussions on topics related to contemporary art and cultural strategies. He is the author of "The Glory of Van Gogh", "From Painter to Artist", "The Triple Game of Contemporary Art", "Art in Sociology" and other books. Her works have been translated into 15 Chinese for publication. She has been awarded the "Women Writers' Award" by the French Women Journalists Association, the Montion Literary Contribution Award from the Académie de France, and the Chevalier de la Légion des Hautes de France.
As the title suggests, the comic hopes to describe the challenges, operating mechanisms, and current problems of contemporary art through the perspective of a "contemporary artist."
Heinrich fictionalizes a story with three protagonists: Anatole, Jules, and Edmund. They are all graduates of the same academy of fine arts.
Anatole was a painter who insisted on painting and was always said to be old-school.
Jules mainly creates installation art that people don't understand, and has gained some fame in France in the past few years.
Edmund, on the other hand, is more integrated with different media, creating both video installations and performance works.
They represent three very representative and very different typical ways of becoming an artist in the Western world in the early 21st century.
Nine years later, some of the three lived a glamorous life every day, participating in top international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale and Art Basel, and could easily rent a yacht for a party.
And some people are still distressed that the work can not find a sales channel, there is no fame to speak of.
They are all graduates of the same school, what kind of personal choices and industry rules have caused the growing gap between them?
Why is painting so popular in the contemporary art world, where the "installation art" with little future and little understanding is so popular? Why is visiting an art exhibition more and more like visiting a technology exhibition? What is the difference between a work being collected by a private collector, a gallery, or an art museum? What exactly is the source of income for contemporary artists?
In the story, Heinrich takes three artists as examples and explains to the reader how the contemporary art industry works.
These most frequently asked questions about contemporary art will be answered after watching the three contemporary artists' 9 years of professional careers.
Immersive visual experience, distinctive character shapes, vivid restoration of today's Western contemporary art circle
Cartoonist Ferumon, who specializes in animation, has created vivid and distinctive images for the three contemporary artists.
Benoît Feroumont
Born in Belgium in 1969. Cartoonist and animator. He studied illustration and comics at the Ecole Supérieure de Saint-Luc in Belgium, and then studied animation at the National Comples School of Visual Arts in Belgium.
He has won the Grand Prix of the Brussels International Animated Film Festival and was nominated for the Gold Medal short film of the Cannes Film Festival for the animated short film "The Buzz". The animated feature film he co-produced, Mad Date Mirador, was nominated for the César Award for Best French Animated Film and the Academy Award for Best Animated Film.
He also co-produced the animated feature film Adventures of the Heroes of Gaul - Temple of the Gods. In 1997 he was given the opportunity to serialize a column in the prestigious Belgian weekly comic strip Spiru, and in 2009 he began serializing the comic strip King in Spielüh, which was eventually published in a single volume, which became his comic masterpiece and won him the Best Comic Series award at the Belgian Literary Awards.
The bearded painter Anatole has always adhered to the art of painting that has been abandoned by the contemporary art circle, with a slim future, a poor life to support his wife, and wearing the down-and-out blue striped undershirt from beginning to end.
With a delicate blonde haircut and a mustache, Jules is the "academic" darling of the art academy, always wearing the same style and only color change of shirt strappy pants, although he eats and wears, but also because of too much rules to limit the potential for development.
The most varied styling is Edmund, who has successfully entered the international market, with his open hairstyles, various shapes of frames, colorful suits, mixed with fish in social occasions, played hot with the middleman, and soared in just a few years, but he knows that the fame of the contemporary art circle is in danger...
Ferrumon expresses rich facial expressions and lively body movements in deceptively simple lines, combined with fresh and bright colors, successfully creating an immersive atmosphere.
Even the cover is filled with small Easter eggs related to contemporary art. There is no doubt that these works written into art history may also be the kind of works that you can't understand:
Click to open these "Easter eggs"!
Duchamp's urinal, which opened the precedent of using ready-made products directly as works of art:
Keith Haring's "Looks Simple" thick-lined street graffiti:
You must have seen the (many imitations) Jeff Koons balloon dog somewhere:
Joseph Kosuth's "unremarkable" chair:
Sociological research on the contemporary art industry, through the cartoonist's picture, immediately became vivid and easy to understand. Even a zero-based reader who has never learned about contemporary art, who does not know any contemporary artist, can easily understand this industry and practitioners with a sense of distance.
Click to own Contemporary Artist
32 open hardcover encyclopedias can be easily read flat, and corn paper brings a soft reading experience.
The editor-in-chief of the series also thoughtfully encloses the foreword to introduce the background of the contemporary art debate. Heinrich, the editor of the book, added an extended reading article at the end of the article, providing readers who want to study contemporary art a little closer to a valuable list of books.
The next time you walk into a contemporary art exhibition, you'll be much more confident! This encyclopedia: Contemporary Artists is an excellent guide for everyone to learn about contemporary art and meet contemporary artists. Contemporary art should not have a threshold, after reading it, you can also become a taster of contemporary art!