Daniel’s Value and Ideas #73: The Interpretation of Freud
12 June 2015 • daniel barnes
A collection of Lucian Freud’s letters is to go on sale at Sotheby’s on 2nd July
Author: daniel barnes
I am a writer teacher and curator with an interest in contemporary British art and popular culture. In the past, I have written for Aesthetica, Winq and this is tomorrow, as well as having given lectures at universities and galleries nationwide, not to mention my stint as philosopher in residence on the Butcher's Apron Radio Show. These days, I divide my time between teaching English in an FE college and writing a book about Damien Hirst, as well as writing for FAD. My first book, The Value Industry, which explores the relationship between art and money, is available now from amazon.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #71: Punk Potter
29 May 2015 • daniel barnes
Grayson Perry was the first transvestite potter to win the Turner Prize, and will probably hold that illustrious title for some time to come.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #70: Girl Power and Prozac
22 May 2015 • daniel barnes
The big news of the week is that Camden’s super-cool Cob Gallery, headed up by Victoria Williams and Polly Stenham, has secured exclusive representation of Stella Vine. You can see some of Stella’s older works on Cobs Stand this weekend at Art15.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #69: Into the Forest
15 May 2015 • daniel barnes
The exhibition, Into the Forest, explores the idea that it is easy to invent a religion through taking a critical stance of the rise of capitalism at the expense of the natural world.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #68: She Screams for Britain Daddio!
8 May 2015 • daniel barnes
Let’s take a moment to congratulate Sarah Lucas on being one of the best artists alive.
PREVIEW: Simon Tarrant and Catrin Finch for WaterAid, London Canal Museum
4 May 2015 • daniel barnes
In an artworld seemingly swamped in commercial interests, it is refreshing to occasionally discover a genuine desire to help others
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #67: The Doors to the Future
1 May 2015 • daniel barnes
In 1992, before the YBA phenomenon fully exploded, Gary Hume took a drastic decision: he stopped making the paintings of mundane hospital doors that had gained him critical recognition and the patronage of Charles Saatchi. It should have been the end of the line for Hume, and perhaps it should have signalled a warning to his gallerist, but both survived to demonstrate that sometimes in art doing the right thing pays off.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #66: Experience Matters
24 April 2015 • daniel barnes
Tabish Khan wrote an insightful piece this week on how the prices of artworks are calculated. He identified two contributing factors: one, the artist’s price point at a given time, which is presumably a function of the strength of the artist’s brand; and two, the size of the artwork.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #65: The World Who Sold the Man
17 April 2015 • daniel barnes
The death of Kurt Cobain was one of the seminal moments of the 90s for all the wrong reasons.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #64: First Steps in the Artworld
10 April 2015 • daniel barnes
Ian ‘H’ Watkins (hereafter, ‘H’) from Steps Becomes an Artist
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #63: Copyright and Copy Wrong
7 April 2015 • daniel barnes
In January this year, a Belgian court found Luc Tuymans guilty of plagiarism for using a photograph as the source of a painting.
INTERVIEW ‘I’m aiming to be inescapable’: Daniel’s Top Ten Questions for Hayden Kays
1 April 2015 • daniel barnes
In anticipation of the opening of his new solo show, The Top Ten, I wanted to interview Hayden Kays about his values and ideas.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #62: Hayden Kays – More Postmodern than Postmodernism
27 March 2015 • daniel barnes
Hayden Kays’ art performs an immaculate fusion of Pop Art aesthetics with YBA sensibilities. His point of reference is the relationship between the present moment in mass culture and the ghosts of the past …
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #61: All That Glitters is Not Goal
20 March 2015 • daniel barnes
Sam Taylor-Johnson’s video of David Beckham sleeping is the perfect portrait: it captures a man in the most natural, compromising position of unconsciousness, where there is no scope for posing but only the unadulterated swell of humanity, warts and all…
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #60: Caught Up in the Century’s Anxiety
13 March 2015 • daniel barnes
In 2014, the global art market grossed €51billion, which is a 7% increase on 2013 and the highest total ever recorded. These are the findings of Dr Clare McAndrew, who every year compiles the TEFAF Art Market report before jetting off to the one of the artworld’s most prestigious art fairs in Maastricht.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #59: History is Not Art and Art is Not History
6 March 2015 • daniel barnes
In the run up to the general election, the Hayward Gallery is attempting to decode Britain’s present by having seven artists each curate a section that explores our cultural history.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #58: All Aboard Labour’s New Milliband Wagon
27 February 2015 • daniel barnes
This week Ed Milliband said that a future Labour government would place the arts and the creative industries at the heart of its mission. It sounded a lot like something we wanted to hear, but in reality it was a crass bit of electioneering. It misses the mark by quite some margin, but it does help us to glimpse what we need to do about the state of the arts.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #57: The Truth or Something Beautiful
19 February 2015 • daniel barnes
Jackson Pollock is currently the subject of a show at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, where one of his earliest pour paintings, Alchemy (1947), is the centrepiece. He will also be centre stage this summer when Tate Liverpool opens an exhibition of the relatively neglected Black Pouring paintings. This is one of those moments when an icon of art history reveals previously unseen depths.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #56: The Usual Suspects
13 February 2015 • daniel barnes
Auction week heralded the usual suspects: Richter, Hirst, Warhol, Fontanna, Boetti, Klein, Murillo, Twombly, Baselitz, Dubuffet, Basquaiat. Different works, but the same artists endlessly circulating the market.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #55: We Need to Talk about Damien
6 February 2015 • daniel barnes
Damien Hirst sold a lot of very expensive art between 2007 and 2008. So much that he became the world’s most expensive living artist, which gave him the acumen to do whatever he liked. Next week, the seminal Pill Cabinet Lullaby, Winter is going under the hammer at Christie’s, but it has a curious history as an unfulfilled promise that had momentous effects.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #54: Performing the Idea of Art
30 January 2015 • daniel barnes
Christian Marclay has just opened his first UK solo show since 2010’s The Clock. It looks like a major exhibition in a massive commercial gallery with nothing to sell, as if he has tricked White Cube into doing something for the love of art alone. Recent developments suggest a quietly burgeoning trend towards making a greater effort to conceal commercial interests behind a veneer of pure art in the form of performance.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #53: LOLing in a Material World
23 January 2015 • daniel barnes
Only three weeks ago, I joked that 2015 would see the advent of something I dubbed ‘Emoji expressionism’. It was a cruel quip about the absurdity of both new media art and artworld jargon, but little did I know that it was in fact a tongue-in-cheek prediction of things to come.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #52: The Lights That Never Go Out
16 January 2015 • daniel barnes
This year Selfridges presents Bright Old Things – a selection of fourteen men and women who refuse to let old age slow them down and using retirement as an opportunity to try something new. Each Bright Old Thing is given a window to show their wares and has to produce a product that can be sold in the concept store. They range from the actor who paints chips and the actress who designs furniture to the food writer who makes art and the product designer who broadcasts to the universe.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #51: The Balloon Monkey is Not What It Seems
9 January 2015 • daniel barnes
A spectre is haunting the artworld. In the foyer of Christie’s New York, at over twelve feet tall and made of painted steel, Jeff Koons’ Balloon Monkey (Orange) (2006-2013) presides over daily business.