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End of an era
Drawing from the past, Brian Duffy sketches new horizons
By Michael Swanger
Brian Duffy can draw from memory his first week as editorial cartoonist for the Des Moines Register as if it were yesterday. It was August 1983 at the Iowa State Fair, and he was assigned to sketch caricatures of fairgoers — sort of a trial-by-fire initiation to Iowa culture for the Chicago native who had also lived in New York, Connecticut and Milwaukee.
“It was extremely hot and everybody said, ‘Boy, you have big shoes to fill,’ [referring to his predecessor Frank Miller who had died that February]. It was like 110 degrees, and it felt like I was a turkey in an oven because it was a lot warmer by time I got done. I was struck by how Iowans took their cartoonists to heart,” Duffy says.
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After the Flood: UIMA’s Artworks get ‘temporary housing’
Davenport’s Figge to host exhibition of UI’s artistic legacy
By Emily Grosvenor
First, the University of Iowa Museum of Art’s (UIMA) director resigned last April, and then the flood in June left the UIMA without a home. Then, Iowa politicians began floating the idea of selling the museum’s most prized painting, Jackson Pollock’s 1943 painting Mural, igniting a national backlash that distracted the museum’s staff from the hard work of moving on from the flood.
“These have been a very difficult eight months,” says Kathleen Edwards, curator of European and American art at the UIMA. “But we’ve got a very committed core staff that has never given up, and we’re pushing forward.”
Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956)
Mural, 1943
Oil on canvas
8' 1 1/4" x 19' 10" (2.47 x 6.05 m)
Gift of Peggy Guggenheim 1959.6
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Handmade Haven
Iowa Artisans Gallery going strong
after 25 years
By Katie Mills Giorgio
The winter wind may still be blowing outside the doors of 207 East Washington Street in downtown Iowa City. But inside Iowa Artisans Gallery is a different flurry of activity.
Art is being moved and remerchandised for display. Some spots are better than others, and “we want to be fair to all our artists,” says Astrid Bennett, Iowa Artisans Gallery’s Marketing Director.
That can be quite a feat when you consider the gallery currently represents more than 200 artists. Visitors (often hailing from all over the country and world thanks for busy University of Iowa programs) will find a variety of gift items, from clay, glass, and metal to wood, fiber, jewelry and select 2D work.
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On being a non-profit in difficult economic times
ICON’s Bill Teeple gives one perspective
By Cathy Wilkie
The arts community recently breathed a collective sigh of relief when the $50 million earmarked for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survived a Senate/House showdown. But down in the trenches, just how have these difficult economic times affected the arts sector?
Some for-profit arts businesses are seeing dwindling sales or traffic, and some are cutting staff or programming to save money. Nonprofits, however, don’t have that luxury. If they cut programming, they run the risk of not being as palatable to grant-givers once the storm is over. If they cut an already bare-bones staff, they can’t operate.
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The Price of Art
By Michael Betancourt
Because most artists will keep making things even when they aren’t getting paid, have an audience or even can afford to make art, it may seem that the “laws of supply and demand” should apply to how we value art. That they don’t thus seems very strange because it is fairly obvious that there will always be a lot of artists around making art, and that the supply should always be relatively high.
However, we don’t value art like this: the value of art is thought to be separate from economics, even though during the past decade-long art boom the prices for art by the most prominent artists, trained at the most prestigious schools and selling through the highest-priced galleries continued to increase seemingly without end — until the bust finally arrived at the end of last year. Certainly during the boom years there was a lot of art that was sold for too much money, just as during the bust years there will be art sold for too little money. The value of the work nevertheless remains somehow a different matter than money.
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BLIND CRITIC
Olson-Larsen Galleries
Four Solo Exhibitions
Artists: David Ottenstein, John Beckelman, Karen Chesterman, Stuart Klipper
Opening Reception February 6, 2009
Olson-Larsen Galleries – 203 Fifth St. – West Des Moines, IA 50265
Gallery Statement:
Olson-Larsen Galleries represent the finest of original artwork by Iowa and regional artists. The gallery maintains a diverse inventory that includes work in virtually all art mediums. The gallery also offers a variety of services including consulting, presentations and proposals for both corporate and individual clients, museum-quality framing and commissioned works of art.
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Ode To Maynard Reese
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