When we were in Madrid we had coffee one morning with an artist from Toronto. She was there for an art fair, ArCo Madrid, and she was bemoaning the state of art today. To my ears she sounded more like a business woman than an artist. What artist thinks about the market? But the point she was making was one that stuck with me.
She produced large scale wall art that had something to do with therapy or healing and she had been all over the world with her art. She told us downtown Toronto was being rebuilt as luxury lofts, condos and apartments and everything was open plan with large glass windows and this trend is playing out everywhere. “There are no more walls,” she exclaimed. “People are not buying wall art because they don’t have any wall space.”
1 Comment
I have been spending a lot of time following street art because of a book I’m writing. People don’t ‘buy’ wall art. It’s free and that is intrinsic to its nature. The artists typically make money the way she is- by being paid as performers. It is performance art, not painting. At least that’s the way I’m seeing it.
And I’m sorry but there are plenty of walls out there. Toronto is the fastest growing city in north America so maybe it’s different…