Daniel’s Value and Ideas #50: Explaining Artworld Jargon
1 January 2015 • daniel barnes
In order to combat this, contemporary art has developed jargon that purports to explain every nuance of the artworld, but it often only deepens the mystery.
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 #49: Mesh, Colour, Marble and London: A Year in Art
23 December 2014 • daniel barnes
A Year of art in review
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #48: Weapons of Mass Consumption
19 December 2014 • daniel barnes
Poju Zabludowicz, along with his wife Anita, runs the Zabludowicz Foundation, which supports young artists. By all accounts, they are gregarious, educated, good-hearted people who passionately support the arts because they are able to, so one wonders why they have become the subject of a boycott.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #47: Franco, My Dear, I Don’t Give a Damn
12 December 2014 • daniel barnes
James Franco is everywhere, doing everything, all the time. He is an actor, writer, musician, English Literature student, teacher, director and world war agitator. Now, like everyone else in Hollywood, he is an artist, but one who exposes the heartbreaking sycophancy and emptiness of the artworld.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #46: Video Killed the Turner Prize
5 December 2014 • daniel barnes
Ever since video killed the radio star, it has acted with impunity. Its latest crime has been to gorge on the Turner Prize.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #45: Those Who Suffer Difference
28 November 2014 • daniel barnes
Ever since Tracey Emin said that it is impossible for a woman to have children and be a great artist, female artists have received attention in the male-dominated artworld.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #44: Stealing Beauty
21 November 2014 • daniel barnes
The Winter Pride Art Awards celebrated its second year last Saturday with a ceremony at Tobacco Dock. It was a glittering event, with wild entertainment, fine food and fine art, not to mention plenty of cocktails. Behind the glamorous veneer of an awards ceremony to celebrate young, emerging artists, Winter Pride has a serious and urgent mission which is so often overlooked in the wider artworld
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #43: More Snoop Dogg than Snoop Doig
14 November 2014 • daniel barnes
It all started when Snoop was staying at the Palazzo Versace hotel, where a Versace cushion was the inspiration for a painting that would later sell on eBay for $10,200.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #42: The Birth of Value Out of the Spirit of Experts
6 November 2014 • daniel barnes
Sotheby’s has been sued over the misattribution of a painting which experts now say is a genuine Caravaggio
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #41: A Polke in the Eye
30 October 2014 • daniel barnes
The career of Sigmar Polke is the restless search for the optimum means of expressing the truth of the… Read More
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #40: For Richter or Poorer
24 October 2014 • daniel barnes
In November 2011, Jerry Saltz announced on his Facebook page that he would pay anyone $155 to make him a fake Richter, Ryman, Flavin, Fontana, Duchamp, Hirst, Guyton, or Agnes Martin.
Daniel’s Frieze Diary: Day 6: Saturday 18th October 2014
19 October 2014 • daniel barnes
You do an awfully good impression of yourself. That’s the first line of Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park, and… Read More
Daniel’s Frieze Diary: Day 5: Friday 17th October 2014
18 October 2014 • daniel barnes
There were a couple of works I had to revisit today. Nina Cannel’s Forgetfulness, a length of underground electric… Read More
Daniel’s Frieze Diary: Day 4: Thursday 16th October 2014
17 October 2014 • daniel barnes
The Focus section, dedicated to smaller galleries, is remarkable this year.
FEATURE: Daniel’s @FriezeLondon Diary: Day 3: Wednesday 15th October 2014
16 October 2014 • daniel barnes
totally Hauser & Wirth it
FEATURE: Daniel’s @FriezeLondon Diary: Day 2 Tuesday 14th October 2014
15 October 2014 • daniel barnes
My overriding impression of Day One is that Frieze is more serious this year
Daniel’s @FriezeLondon Diary: Day 1: Monday 13th October 2014
14 October 2014 • daniel barnes
As Frieze approaches, there is an uncomfortable mixture of dread and delight: you dread the long days and late nights, the hangovers and the art-blindness; but you also delight in the long days of earth-shattering importance and late nights of intoxicating thrill, the parties where everyone thinks you’re simply fabulous and the unbelievable proliferation of art.
REVIEW: Damien Hirst: Schizophrenogenesis
14 October 2014 • daniel barnes
As the invitations were sent out and the press previews published, you could almost feel the collective wince: Damien is going on about death, pharmaceuticals and spirituality again, manufacturing confections for the sole benefit of the market, which have high prices and low intellectual content. But
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #38: Tracey is What You Want
10 October 2014 • daniel barnes
Standing before Tracey Emin’s tiny new paintings in the vast galleries of White Cube Bermondsey, the entire reason for art’s existence unfurls: every line is a snatch of emotion, every drip a careful meditation, equal parts memory and fantasy, brought from artist to audience in an act of pure communication.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #37: The Value of Anything and Nothing At All
2 October 2014 • daniel barnes
A few years ago, I wrote that Creed’s Turner Prize winning Work No. 227 The lights going on and off (2001) was the first great artwork of the twenty-first century.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #36: The Starry Heavens Above, The Moral Law Within
29 September 2014 • daniel barnes
Anselm Kiefer wants to turn Switzerland into a maritime nation.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #35: Don’t Break My Art, My Achy Breaky Art
22 September 2014 • daniel barnes
Miley Cyrus says her goal in life is ‘to not die a pop pop dumb dumb’.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #34: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Frieze
12 September 2014 • daniel barnes
As autumn descends on London, the artworld is gearing up for the great tragic-comic circus of consumption and gossip that is Frieze Art Fair.
Daniel’s Value and Ideas #33: All that Glitters is Not Gold
5 September 2014 • daniel barnes
In a town whose faded seaside glamour is both complimented and disturbed by a swath of public art, it is only at low tide that the feverish digging can commence.