Today we lighten up, just in time for the holiday. Your art-related jokes, puns and anecdotes are requested. I'll start.
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Three artists walk into a bar
. Rachel Whiteread makes a cast of it and shows it at the Tate Modern
. Thomas Kinkaid stays for three days and drinks himself to death
. Marina Abramovic sits there for two-and-a-half months and doesn't say a word
What’s the difference between an artist and a trash collector?
The artist takes out her own trash. The trash collector makes $50,000 a year with sick days and benefits and a retirement income at the end of 30 years.
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How many artists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
.Twenty five thousand
. 12 to debate the merits of incandescent versus complact fluorescent
. 2 to get the ladder
. 1 to actually change the lightbulb
. 8 to turn it into a performance in a Bushwick pop-up
. 30 to attend the performance
. 15 to Tweet about it
. 3 to blog about it
. Jerry Saltz to post about it in Facebook
. 24, 928 to respond to Jerry.
6 comments:
TC chuckles!
Did you hear about the artist who won the lottery?
They made art until they ran out of money.
How do you make a small fortune in the art market?
Start with a large fortune.
-told to me by Allan Stone.
Had to laugh at the one about the lightbulb changing. I work at a big art school where there are a zillion conflicting schools of thought about what art is all about. The discussions and debates are all good- up to a point. But often they go past that point and end up draining away the energy needed for making and directly experiencing art.
At some point we have to return to our studios and mentally "go to where the silence is." Art at the end of the day has to be something you experience more than an idea you toy with.
Artists should be serious, but it's always good to stand back and laugh about the strangeness of what it is we all do.
Here’s my favorite artist joke:
My medium-sized artworks retail at $4,200. People say to me, “Golly that seems like a lot. You must be making some real money.” Yup. Here’s how it breaks down:
Retail, $4,200, less 50% commission (2,100), less “discount” (210), less my frame/supply costs (400), less transport to gallery (50). That’s a balance to me of $1440.00.
Now, let’s assume that I sell one a month. That’s an annual gross of $17,280. Divided by 52 weeks, 40 hours a week, that comes out to $8.31 per hour. If I am fortunate enough to sell a dozen paintings a year, I will earn $1.06 more than Federal minimum wage. And, this does not include any of the associated overhead of doing business.
Allen: Don't leave out the cost of doing business: the cost of stretchers, canvas, paint; your studio overhead (rent, utilities); your personal overhead (health unsurance, co-pays, and whatever else you do to stay healthy enough to work); museum entry; computer use, programs, maintenance, and tutorials; related work travel, and tax prep. That's got to be at least $10,000 a year. Now you're down to $7280.
If you give yourself a (conceptual) vacation, you're working 50 weeks at 40 hours a week or 2000 weeks. Divided by the even more paltry sum of $7280, you are now making $3.64 an hour.
Welcome to Bangladesh, my friend.
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