In between projects I like to deliver completed works, then clean and de-clutter the studio. It’s a good time to re-assess where I’m at and my direction from here.
Recently I watched the Andy Warhol Diaries documentary. I’ve read the book. I was more interested in footage of Warhol’s studio set up, including a handmade wall chart titled Andy Warhol Enterprises. Decades after he died, a book of the same title was published in 2010. I‘ve read that too.
However, there’s a profound difference between analysing retrospective success and being able to glimpse ideas in development, which often span years of experiments and refinement.
The handmade wall chart looked like an early diagram listing various strands of work including portraits, private commissions (Richard Weisman’s ten athlete portraits is a commission dream), exhibitions, modelling (with Zoli agency, who also represented the iconic Veruschka von Lehndorff), books with major publishing houses and his own publishing. Although he founded Interview Magazine in 1969, Warhol had already self-published several unbound portfolios, starting around mid the 1950s.
Warhol said, “Business art is the step that comes after art.”
Almost twenty years ago I walked away from a brief, awful stint in the traditional commercial gallery system to figure out my own business art. Which doesn’t mean I do it all alone. I take a collaborative approach and develop my own networks. Rather than connecting with one person, a sole representative who connects with others on my behalf.
These ideas aren’t new anymore and have been widely adopted, primarily via the ‘net. But the online world is changing rapidly. We need to review and adapt more frequently.
Mostly I work out ideas, strategy and how to adapt by writing or making a mind map, which makes it easier to connect the dots. As it becomes more complex, it’s easier to see with visual aids.
Over the last few years I’ve developed a lot of new work. I didn’t know if or how the various series related to each other. I printed out small reproductions, viewed them together, and it became obvious.
It seems like a good time to try the Warhol chart approach of a strategy diagram with visual cues.
I printed and pasted lettering, titled Hazel Dooney Enterprises, with subsections for each area of my existing art and business art, and those I’m developing. Along with photos of each.
Instead of a subheading for representation, I have Network.
I don’t mean ’80s-style ‘greed is good’ networking: simultaneously kissing ass and coldly assessing potential personal gain.
I mean it in the simplest way, heavily influenced by grassroots movements and the early internet: people connecting directly, not through intermediaries.
Over time, as we get to know each other, these connections can naturally evolve into authentic professional relationships and friendships. Or not. There’s no contract.
But it’s getting harder to make real connections online.
Social media platforms require a contract for participation and these days they’re over-run with bots; hackers; ads; undisclosed product placement; pump and dump schemes; weird filters that distort women’s facial features; photoshopped ‘reality’; and monetized parasocial relationships under the guise of community. Building a presence on these platforms is a business essential, for most. But the real business is the platform itself and the sale of our personal information.
Online attention is increasingly monitored and measured by tracking, follower count, sign-ups, regular fees, passive aggressive auto-emails with “sorry to see you go” the moment our attention wanes.
In many ways, these platforms are still a great way for artists – and everyone else – to connect with the audience for our work, and each other. The filming and editing tools they provide are wonderfully accessible. There are lots of people sharing supercool things they’re making and doing. But the systems are closed. Leaving means sacrificing most of the network developed there. Staying involves playing to the system, which changes to suit itself. And you can be exiled at whim. Sharing and collaborating is cool. But the cost doesn’t have to be so high. Or so annoying.
I have social media accounts and I’ll probably play to the algorithm more ‘cause that’s the deal. I want to keep in touch and that’s still where the party’s at. But the vibe is shifting.
We are so easily scrutinised that behaviour online has changed. Everyone is more conscious about who we publicly follow, what we write or even ‘like’.
Hanging out in person feels different. Especially after the isolation of the pandemic lockdowns.
It’s winter in Sydney. When the weather is warm, so the windows can be open for fresh air, I plan to hold ‘tiny salons’ of dinner for four at my studio. Although it is primarily for painting, I’ve set up the space so it’s also conducive to developing ideas and hosting small gatherings.
I miss connection without contracts, art friends, peers, conversing freely, doing strange things in the name of art, privacy, and – perhaps most of all – fun.
