Leading artists reveal the fabricators they entrust with their creations

https://www.ft.com/content/d84c8502-d413-4a26-a59c-494af11978b5

by bookofjoe • 10 months ago

45 37 10 months ago

bookofjoe• 10 months ago

chews• 10 months ago

Damien Hirst does not paint his dots, Jeff Koons has a team of fabricators. Modern art is just money laundering with some sort of output.

maxbond• 10 months ago

The vast majority of artists don't have those kinds of resources. That's a lot like saying, "programming is just making infrastructure for surveillance." That's where the money is, a lot of programmers are working in adtech, but most programmers aren't. Similarly the people at your local art festival don't have wealthy patrons or a staff.

nick__m• 10 months ago

Are they prompt engineers or Artists?

RossBencina• 10 months ago

I think the money laundering thing is orthogonal.

Koons is the prototypical example of delegation (to carefully selected artisans), but many less notable contemporary artists delegate realisation to fabricators (I have seen this first hand only in sculpture.) I think the fact that this is now acceptable has something to do with the decoupling of visual art-as-concept from art-as-object that has occurred over the past 150 years. The rise of CAD also makes it easier to design a work and delegate fabrication. Of course Music and Theatre have been delegating realisation pretty-much forever.

rebuilder2• 10 months ago

I don’t know that I agree that it’s only now become acceptable. Successful artists have long employed others to aid in their work - see e.g. Leonardo and his studio assistants who helped paint probably large parts of some of the paintings attributed to him.

procinct• 10 months ago

I see the idea that art is a form of money laundering a lot online but I’m not sure I understand the mechanism of how that works. Can you explain it?

defrost• 10 months ago

Hirst | Koonz is more of a pyramid scheme of confidence tricksters, limited supply, envy, FOMO and other factors - the ego of those with money to burn and wanting to make a statement has play here.

Money laundering itself in the art market is duller, by design, it trades on lesser regulation and inspection of the funds bought to sales and auctions and often uses decoupling mechanisms, illegal funds -> art -> inflated values -> legitimate money via loans backed by art as collateral, etc.

Searching a bit I found two articles that seem okay on quick skim reading:

* https://alessa.com/blog/art-money-laundering-explained/

* https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/articles/2024/march/11/t...

gostsamo• 10 months ago

Art has a subjective value. If you want to legitimise large amount of money, buy a piece of art for little money, sell it to a friend for lots of money, legalize profit.

aspenmayer• 10 months ago

The documentary Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020) explains the concept and process better than I could hope to do myself, so to do your question justice, I would advise you to seek it out and to watch it. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) is adjacent to the topics raised and is also worth a watch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_You_Look:_A_True_Story_Ab...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop

Freeport facilities are part and parcel to enabling these complex businesses arrangements, and they are mentioned in an aside in the documentary Made You Look; the Geneva Freeport being one of, of not the, world’s oldest and most important such facility is called out specifically if I remember correctly, or maybe one in Antwerp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-trade_zone

Aunche• 10 months ago

It is relatively straightforward to money launder through $1 million or so private sales (e.g. random "Qi Baishi" paintings). The pieces are low profile enough to not attract attention, but expensive enough for overhead to be low. The highly publicized auctions the internet declares as "money laundering" are the least likely to be actual money laundering.

rebuilder2• 10 months ago

Would it be more legitimate if the artists didn’t employ anyone else in the process?

gorgoiler• 10 months ago

The most surprising example of this, for me, was finding out that Damien Hirst’s pharmaceuticals were all hand made and hand painted.

Actual pills would rot too quickly — which makes sense as they are digestible, and therefore in the same category as food, ish — so he had a team of assistants making caplets, tablets, lozenges, pills etc. in a studio out of resin and plastic.

https://d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net/?height=1600&quality=50...

One of those things that seems so obvious now, but at the time I had assumed he was just displaying existing medicines in ironic packaging.

pixelready• 10 months ago

A fun corollary to this is the various “food” products that exist only for the camera to consume. Most of the ice cream you’ve seen in movies is actually mashed potatoes since ice cream won’t survive under the hot lights of a movie set. Most of the milk you’ve seen in pictures of cereal is actually glue, etc…

Daub• 10 months ago

I have worked in the capacity of an artists technical assistance. I am an artist myself but am also good with fabrication. Working for someone who knows what they want and can clearly express it can be rewarding. Less rewarding is working for someone who doesn't. One young artist i worked for asked me to cut a sheet of board to a set of dimensions she was to supply. She got these dimensions wrong at least four times. Worst still was that she seemed to think her ineptitude was charming... laughing at my increasing desperation. I could fill a book with such stories.

ChrisMarshallNY• 10 months ago

It's [not really] surprising how well this dovetails with software development:

I have worked in the capacity of a [Production Software Developer]. I am an [architect] myself but am also good with [writing shipping software]. Working for someone who knows what they want and can clearly express it can be rewarding. Less rewarding is working for someone who doesn't. One young [founder] i worked for asked me to [develop an app] to a set of [requirements] she was to supply. She got these [requirements] wrong at least four times. Worst still was that she seemed to think her ineptitude was charming... laughing at my increasing desperation. I could fill a book with such stories.

I suspect many folks on this site can relate.

kingstnap• 10 months ago

Only 4 revisions to requirements sounds like a really concrete app idea.

bombcar• 10 months ago

There’s the tree swing joke image that covers this.

whilenot-dev2• 10 months ago

So since "it’s about networks and relationships", here are the referenced someone elses...

Studios:

- AB Fine Art Foundry LDN: https://www.abfineart.com/

- Factum Arte: https://www.factum-arte.com/

- Cerámica Suro: https://gazemag.com.mx/ceramica-suro/

- Stephens Tapestry Studio: https://stephenstapestrystudio.com/

Individuals:

- Billy Teasdale: https://glasgowinternational.org/artists/billy-teasdale/

- Natalie Bradwell: https://bradwellblacksmiths.com/

- Nick Brandon: https://www.inthebandstudio.com/about

I once visited one of these studios, Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen[0], and these were just the nicest people and were producing works for big names like Urs Fischer, Paul McCarthy etc.

During my studies I was fortunate to help out fellow students (and visiting artists) myself, even wrote a master thesis for one. I remember the worst work to take on was such kind, where the artist tried something on their own, then that didn't work, so you just receive this mixed pile and "just need to make it work" - that's quite a learning experience. I still hold artists that are interested in the craft process and seek help early in high regard.

I was always fascinated how these studios/individuals are given titles like "fabricators", "inventors", "scientists" or "technicians", but just not "artists". There's a huge legacy when it comes the title "artist" and the funny bit is that, yes, even you can just start calling yourself one. On the other hand, a software engineer has no problem to hire another software engineer, whatever the work might end up to be.

[0] https://www.kunstgiesserei.ch/

wodenokoto• 10 months ago

During my studies I was fortunate to help out fellow students (and visiting artists) myself, even wrote a master thesis for one.

Shouldn't they write their own master thesis?

whilenot-dev2• 10 months ago

Circumstances differ and a master thesis in fine arts is not held to high standards scientifically anyway.

EDIT: I wouldn't do it again though.

gadders• 10 months ago

It still feels like cheating.

petesergeant2• 10 months ago

It’s clearly a gradient. Nobody would dispute Ai Wei Wei was the artist behind Sunflower Seeds and presumably he handled less than 1% of the creation.

daralthus• 10 months ago

I would

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 10 months ago

After reading this, I don’t feel bad about using AI to generate art anymore.

metalman• 10 months ago

goes all the way back w3 have Leonardos note books, some of them anyway, with his work inventing flying machines alongside note to get money for his house keeper, and the trials of running the various workshops producing lesser works to fund, what was a considerable operation. I have built stuff for artists, and have had scammers try and download the whole creative and making of art pieces, with some "artists" finnaly bieng forced to leave when it beacame clear that they did nothing but sell other peoples work. Also have had my designs ripped off, and then mass produced in China.......stopped, and forever, going to "shows"....now never make nice stuff....fuck that...just practical stuff that is essentialy generic

level87• 10 months ago

I used to work as a designer at an art fabricators in the UK that produced alot of the top artists work, turner prize winners, etc. I can no longer look at a sculpture and not see design decisions, like, how will this fit through a door, how will we package it, etc. sort of ruined the magic for me.

notindexed• 10 months ago

For one of my works, a 50 x 3.5m insitu concrete sculpture, i had about 10 subcontractors. Architects, concrete specialists, engineers, construction firm, gardeners and so on

You often lack the resources/skill thus you subcontract. Nothing wrong nor surprising with that.

Artworks are often 100% prototypes so it's already challenging finding subcontractors that understand the work and are willing to take the risk of producing the work.

proee• 10 months ago

Sounds awesome. Can you share more information on your art piece?

quickthrowman• 10 months ago

I’m very curious about the details, I work in (non-art) construction.

-Did you sketch something out and then have an architect and engineer create architectural and structural plans? Plus landscape plans for the plants, I’m guessing.

-Did you have the architect lead the project? By this I mean have them ultimately handle payments and hiring the GC and so on.

-Contract terms, since this was not your typical job, were the contractors OK providing a fixed price or did you work out a T&M or cost plus type of arrangement?

-If it was fixed price, how much did the contract go up due to change orders?

If you have photos of the sculpture, I’d be interested to see it too, no worries if you don’t want to share due to it revealing who you are.

lofaszvanitt• 10 months ago

This is how art will look like once everyone loses creativity.

RiverCrochet3• 10 months ago

A "true" artist can create a very captivating work with limited tools, such as pen and notebook paper. The number of people that can do that have always been rare.

bgwalter• 10 months ago

“With today’s tools — including AI — it’s no longer necessary for artists to learn a craft. What matters is the content, the idea. It doesn’t matter what tools you use if you achieve it.”

This article is an "AI" advertisement. Take the worst "artists" who no one has ever heard about and who produce physical slop and thereby excuse "AI" usage and theft.

Not all artists are like that.

RiverCrochet3• 10 months ago

"With today’s tools — including AI — it’s no longer necessary for artists to learn a craft. What matters is the content, the idea. It doesn’t matter what tools you use if you achieve it.”

The word "art" etymologically derives from older words meaning "skill" or "craft." Doing stuff that doesn't require skill or craft is not art by definition, even if it looks like it.

You're not an artist if you do this. But it's okay. Artists throughout history have always lived with the rest of the world being apathetic to art and confusing making copies of things with the artistic process. This age is no different, except copies can be made easier and faster.

That being said, it sounds like we're really close to me being able to type in a description of something and receive an AI-generated sculpture of it, hopefully with a 3D preview. Awesome, but we're also seeing some really disturbing authoritarian trends lately, and we're likely going to see a lot of ideas get labelled as harmful and blocked from being used by AI tools. So I don't see this leading to any type of utopia for anyone other than the owners of these technologies.

schwartzworld• 10 months ago

If the art is wholly ai, I agree with you, you are no artist. Similarly, if you outsourced 100% of the creative act to hired help, I would say the same.

But most people can’t do everything. How would you view art where the artist relies on AI for the pieces they can’t do? If I play guitar but an ai wrote the drum part, is that art? What if I write the book but ai made the illustrations?

RiverCrochet3• 10 months ago

How would you view art where the artist relies on AI for the pieces they can’t do?

If, for example:

- an artist creates an image,

- 40% of the image is the work of the artist,

- 60% of the image is from an AI

then:

- the image is 40% a work of art.

- the art resides in the 40% of the work that the artist did.

- the majority of the image (51%) is not art.

Drumming presents an interesting perspective because we've had mechanical/synthesized drum sounds in pop and other music for a few decades now. But you can still tell when tracks have a lazy drum programmer that programmed one 16-step pattern in a drum machine (or worse used a stock pattern) and kept it repeating through the whole song. That is less art than the intricate DnB or breakcore tracks with lots of changes and interaction with other layers of the song.

Leading artists reveal the fabricators they entrust with their creations

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