***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 10:01:51 -0500
   [From]: Juan JosŽ D’az Infante <jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Lady D was a prostitute


Hi all


Art to get attention is a resource used for artists that their mothers gave
them little care (or no breast feeding) when they were children. The
newspapers lend themselves to it very easily. In order to come out in the
newspapers all you have to do is drive your car in the middle of a public
fountain. And that is not art. Newspapers and media are not interested in
quality, quality does not sell, media is looking for noise and is very much
about itself ( Art has become very much about itself also). The very simple
answer to solve the majority of power struggles we are talking about is for
the artist to do his own marketing. Let's assume that the learning  of an
additional subject like this could take an additional year of studying.

Public funding of the arts is like welfare, in Mexico it hurt the Movie
Industry for years, not to mention the almost dissapearance of quality
photography. In late 70's early 80's, the darkest chapter of photography,
you could not be invited to an exhibition if you were considered a
"burguois". When the government gives the funds, they also decide who they
give it to.

Mexico has many politicians-artists that use the public funding towards
themselves. Artist bureaucrats fill our art scene.

Far better to study some marketing than many more years knocking doors and
talking to really handicapped people. I taught a course at the Centro
Nacional de las Artes specifically called "Marketing and the arts" targeted
for students of Dance, Theater, Cinema, Painting, Photography.

Practical Marketing thought changes drastically how you work and your
general structure of thinking.It changes how you relate to people and your
reference frame towards success. The world today is a marketing puzzle and
you are measured as how smart you are in business only and not in how smart
you are in other fields. This is a perceived value concept and unfortunately
we are all dependant on it. A movie is a good movie if it made a lot of
money, a painter is a good painter if it sells. Reversed Democracy. An
artist has to sell first in order to be a good artist not the inverse.

A couple of students of painting and I decided to take the principles taught
to the field and decided to show their paintings in decoration show in
Monterrey. We sold that weekend 4000 dollars worth of paintings. I got fired
almost immediately, the students had surpassed in a weekend the salary of
the "principal" with less knowledge about art.

Juan