One of the works in the Michigan collection is made with instant coffee and oil-based ink on Mylar. Another consists of four found newspapers. Quite a lot of the work looks as though it might come apart before you get it home. I remember finding that sort of thing interesting when it was new. Looking through the collection, I find I still do.
Over the past year or so I’ve been helping a collector in Michigan find homes for work he’s bought over more than twenty-five years. He’s proud of what he put together and wants to place most of it. He’s given some works to museums and curators, and I’ve sold a fair few at prices that make it possible for people who might otherwise have passed to give them a proper look. The works in the November selection are US$500 each, plus any applicable taxes. If you’d like to see what’s available, email me and I’ll send you the PDF.
A lot of the collection came from galleries I remember thinking were about as cool as galleries could get in the early 2000s. You can feel it in the materials and in how little some of the work does to make itself easy to live with. I keep reading that we’re about to see more collections change hands as their owners get older, and that their children won’t want the art. Most of the collectors I work with are in their thirties and forties and are quite happy to spend an afternoon looking. I wonder how many of us would choose, given a free wall, the picture we spent our childhood eating breakfast under.
I’ve also taken on a broader role at Plaster as a contributing editor. Dear Greg carries on, alongside two new strands. I Don’t Know Much About Art takes up questions people sometimes feel they ought to have got past by now, including whether the artist can actually draw. Whatever Happened To…? began with selling out and has since taken me to the Cybertruck. There’ll be the occasional piece outside those columns too. The first was a review of Edmond Brooks-Beckman’s exhibition at Cob Gallery.
There’s also a sizeable archive of advice for artists and collectors on the Blackbird Rook Substack, from how to talk about your own work to what to ask before you buy someone else’s.
Browse the Blackbird Rook Substack.
Please subscribe and help yourself to the Collector’s Guide and Outside the Studio - a Professional Practice Guide for artists.