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.