Saatchi showdown, head count and ... I feel so bad for artists.

Soooo, I promised I would submit Bloody Hands for art calls and contests... wait, I said for appropriate calls and contests. And I did.

There seem to be mostly shit contests out there, that make the artist pay for submission. Pay for what? For having an email client that receives a file? So very obviously somebody tries to make money via offering some stupid stipend or price that they make sound great. The truth is like "live in my grandmas basement for some weeks" (it's in Brooklyn so counts as NYC artist studio), and then we'll give you an art show (in the entry hall of the gym of PS 12345, which is technically also in NYC, and hey, PS1 of MOMA is a former public school, you never know). Yeah, really, I hate that when people make money off of other people's despair and hope. It's low. Fock that. Not in.

Unfortunately I just got an email from a hot and sexy artist friend to please vote for her, in exactly one of those contests. Oh man, I feel so bad for artists

Anyways. I did find a good, without-fee thing. Saatchi is a two sided sword, but I'm on the side "NikkiY likes Saatchi". In fact, I find the whole Saatchi career and effects pretty nifty.

Please vote for Bloody Hands, if you can every day. It would be really cool, if it could get into the first 128.  Click this link http://www.saatchionline.com/showdown/match/showdown/2/artist/175936/art/93089

So far I  got something like 3900 votes for me out of 4300. That means, that 4300 art interested people saw the pic. That in deed is more nifty. Wait I'll post a screenshot.

screenshot 12/26/10... Nice!

This is how it looks like and it's called "Lend me your hands"

It took me quite a while to figure out, how I could submit Bloody Hands best. I started off with creating a hand coloring station that invites viewers to color their hands.

I decided however that any such approach is actually wrong, because that would be an art object in itself - like a machine - and it would take away from the conceptual approach or better the actual social sculpture.

I had to reflect again, on what social sculpture is supposed to be. I was thinking about so many things that I could do with the general subject, how to depict it, art works that I could do, performances and events, and I have to say, all these things didn't nail it.

Bloody hands needs an actual headcount of as many people as possible who simply do it, make their hands red. That's how the social sculpture works, that's how it changes the world. I mean, any silly TV show changes the world, wikileaks does... what doesn't change the world?

For social sculplture that is different. The significant difference is that it's supposed to make the viewer an artist. That's crucial. If you do it, you think about it, reflect, create the aesthetic, it's doing and being. That's way different from other ways of changing.

So basically anything I do, needs to be as simple as possible. When I started concept stuff, there were only type writers. By now retro courier is way too pretteyy, def some cool optic, Beuysian almost.

Anyway, I tried some things and what it boils down to is, that the screen shot is it. No fancyness to that, but fully capable of transporting a whole lot. Authentic. I even left my creepy notes to self on the desktop and my vocab look up... I advertised for apple, and I really haven't seen many screen shots out there. It's growing on me. It's not bad at all.

wrong!! don't do

So right after that I had an invite to some art party at the Chelsea hotel - which used to be some sort of institution, and cool painters like Donald Baechler used to live there. And if it's not a myth the artists paid the rooms with paintings. Such thing caters to the romantic in me... and the potentially homeless.

Turns out that event was another line on the list of how to dishonor the artist. In the basement bar they had set up bar tables on which artists presented their work, selling it for dumping prices... and looking, ehhh, not so good. The situation was accompanied by not so bad rock'n roll music.

I stand whiskey, ahh, witness @ Chelsea hotel

I feel so bad for artists. And for some reason I'm still not pitying myself. I'm such a tough nut :). I would like to have a show in your grandma's closet and spill drinks all over her clothes with my kick ass bunch of friends. Cheers.

New video and photos - and Art Basel, Miami Beach rant

Here comes the next badge of work for Bloody Hands.

I am delighted to present 3 awesome creations to you.

Jo-Anne Speirs from Johannesburg, South Africa:

Jo-Anne Speirs, South Africa, 2010

I met Jo-Anne and her husband in Jamaica. Highly cool people. They are friends with my best west coast friends and hence in the music business.
Jo-Anne doesn't like punk rock! How is that possible or even doable? Haha, so funny, what an independent mind she is. I am impressed. I don't think we even talked about Bloody Hands, and she just sent the picture in. Nice wedding ring.

Those who send in work without being asked to do so are my heroes. She's the first African person to participate. I don't want to look at Bloody Hands from a corny network perspective and expanding the social sculpture around the world... but I just did. :) Oooh, I'm getting corny points.

Jo-Anne happens to be the photographer of one of the best portraits of myself, that I will hereby share with the world for the first time. It has quite the resemblance with a self-portrait I did myself in 2004 from the series "Private Apocalypse" titled "I don't lift up the seat".

 Well, I really don't.

Jo-Anne Speirs, Jamaica, 2010

Thanks Jo-Anne, you rock! Great morning after and I hope we get to do this again.

Now a completely different chapter: family affairs.
Nikki's Mom from Germany:

Nikki York's Mom, Germany, 2010

The difference between me and you is, that I am going "oh my God, Mom, did you hurt yourself?", and if my sister reads this, she might think that too. The answer is unknown. And in fact, I don't want to know it. It disgusts me to think about that my family could be injured, which I find psychologically interesting. That's TMI, talk to me about the weather. My Mom mentioned in the email she sent, that it didn't feel good. Args, I'm sorry. She also wrote, that it turned out like some sort of blood diamonds. There you go, diamonds it is.
In regards to social sculpture I deem some solid family participation crucial. Thanks so much, good job. So it's snowing in Germany?

It does snow where Zach Gold is coming from, here in New York.
He now also is one of my heroes, because he completely self-motivated sent in a great video. In my opinion this is quality art. Damn, I can't insert the video in here, you need to click the link to see it.

Zach Gold, New York, 2010

I wish I would have seen a video like this at the Art Basel, Miami Beach. I was glad I went... but then again, I'm not much in the mood for a rant as I promised.

Or I'll keep it short: My highlight was Tony Shafrazi's boot with Tony Shafrazi in there, wearing a lavender tie matching his lavender socks. I once had dinner with Tony Shafrazi, or let's say, I attended a dinner in Cologne after a gallery opening at gallery Jablonka that was also attended by him. I like him, I think he's really cool, and I like his selection of artists.

My second highlight was, that I accidentally ran into a pile of art in ignorance. Art Basel had offered an iPhone app that didn't quite work, so I was looking at my phone getting really annoyed with it. And I didn't see, that Ai Weiwei's gallery person had dumped a pile of sunflower seeds on the floor. I ran right into it, and it was like in Matrix: Two gallery security people came running towards me in slow motion. Their faces in agony they were shouting "nooooooo" trying to hold me back...

O.k. they stopped me, before I fell into the thing. What the hell though? The sunflower seeds were made of porcelain. I just read that it took 1600 artisans in China 2 years to produce all the seeds and that the actual show is in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall till May 11th. Yeah, so what the hell? In London they are walking all over the seeds and the artist intended the sensory experience. They should have let me fall. Spiesser!

I wonder, if Weiwei has directed the galleries to put the seeds into a pile like that - it gave me the wrong impression. I thought it was badly done arte povera, while it seemingly only was living room sized memorabilia to be sold. Like a sweaty shirt of Elvis or Madonnas bra. I totally missed the political and sociological point up until now - the real art piece is spread out over 1000 square meters.

Now I want to know: 2 Years = 100 weeks x 40 hours (let's assume they didn't do overtime) x 1600 workers = 6.400.000 hours work went into the seeds. So how much does a Chinese skilled artisan make an hour, if he doesn't get exploited by an artist?

Ah right, minimum wage in China is $150 a months. I call that competitive. So 24 months x $150 x 1600 workers = $5.760.000 plus material costs, plus transport costs (that stuff weighs over 150 metric tons), storage costs... Who has all these millions spare?

Ah, a half a ton of seeds costs 300.000 Euro. If all 300 portions sell - if they are for sale - that would be 90 Million Euros...

Ai Weiwei must be proud. He got 1600 people a job for 2 years, the Chinese government does not like him. If I wanted to do that here in NY I would need $48 Mio for minimum wage... I like Weiwei.

I did start ranting. I am a reliable institution.