From cbs4.com, some interesting words from artist, Spencer Tunick.
“This is an every day person we are looking for that wants to be in a piece of nude artwork and never do it again. This is like a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a very special work and not to be considered something pornographic or evil. This is an everyday person doing something very social and artistic,” said Tunick.
At the Sagamore, Tunick took only 4 shots and each will be exhibited during Art Basel in December. The trellises of the terraces were flanked by flesh.
“I have to make good work or I fail in front of everyone. So that is the biggest challenge,” said Tunick.
That sums up what Tunick is doing better than any thing else that I’ve seen. One thing that I know is that awareness about Tunick’s work is growing rapidly at this point. I am still curious about the number of people that are interested in posing. I have looked at some of Tunick’s other work, by the way, and I realize that these “installations” are not the only thing that he does. But, at least part of the point of these high profile shoots is, the sheer number of people involved.
What I am wondering is this; Is the fact that so many people want to “be in a piece of nude artwork”, and have “a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a very special work”, a reflection of present-day society? Or, have people always had a desire to do this kind of thing and never before had the opportunity? I don’t think it’s a silly question. Either way you answer, you have to tip your hat to Tunick. If it’s a reflection of some urge in society, he is the one that recognized that fact and figured out how to document it.
So then, Is Tunick anything more than a documentarian? That’s the part that is in the eye of the beholder. You have to look at the work and decide that for yourself.
What Tunick has accomplished here is this; he has made the point that if you are uncomfortable with the subject, the human form, then you are on the other side of the fence of all of these people who, not only want to see the work but also, want to be a part of it. The sheer number of people is the device that makes you look, that makes the work difficult to be ignored and, if Tunick is truly successful, part of an artistic statement.
This next quote is from a Telegraph article entitled, “Oasis, Jamiroquai to follow Radiohead”.
Radiohead refuse to reveal how many fans have pre-ordered their seventh album, In Rainbows, but figures from HitWise show the move pushed the site up from number 43 to the top slot for music websites in the UK.
This always happens in the music business; somebody has success or the perception of success and everybody else copies the strategy. The acts mentioned in the piece, Oasis, Jamiroquai, Madness, the Charlatans (the Charlatans actually beat Radiohead to the punch) are all well known acts without major label affiliation.
A lot of questions arise.
Will it become the norm; will music now be a free commodity?
Obviously, you can make the argument that, with file sharing, music has been a free commodity for a while. But, this is different, this possibly brings it above ground. I think that once major acts start jumping on the bandwagon; it’s going to be tough to reverse the course.
One thing to look for is if other big acts start to buy out their contracts from the major labels. That may actually happen. The logic behind a known act giving away the music is that they will make more money from ticket sales and merchandise. The recorded music is a loss leader.
Also, all of the music we are talking about is new music. It isn’t part of the lexicon. So, giving it away is partly an effort to make it familiar. If the music is familiar to consumers it becomes more valuable for use in licensing for advertising and films.
What happens to the labels?
It’s tough to say how it all shakes out. You may see a situation where the labels become more of an all around marketing firm. Some kind of entity that is more involved in the sale of tickets and merchandise than the actual sale of music.
One thing that has been happening behind the scenes for several years is that the labels have been buying up publishing rights to existing catalogues.
Also, the labels do control most of the existing music that is already familiar to the consumer. There really isn’t any reason that they would let that music become free. As I said though, music that is familiar is the music that has licensing value. At some point, the music that is being released for free, the current music, replaces the existing music in terms of familiarity.
Is this the leveling of the playing field?
Not quite. The fact is that the reason this “free music” is news is because it’s coming from well known acts. It is in their best interest to put out a high quality product even if it’s for free. If it’s a piece of crap, that isn’t going to help sell tickets and shirts. It still costs money to record music in a quality manner. That is a fact and it will always be that way no matter what the cost of recording software is. The microphones used to record Radiohead’s new record probably cost more than your house. These kinds of acts are not going to skimp on the quality of recording and an unknown act will have to compete with that. In that way it becomes tougher for an indie to compete because they are coming out of the gate knowing that they won’t recoup recording costs through record sales. No leveling of the playing field there.
That being said, marketing is the expensive part of the equation. Radiohead is a brand name, and through the years a lot of dough has been spent to make the brand familiar. How do you take a new brand name and market it effectively without the aid of record sales as a way to recoup the expense? That truly is the multi-million dollar question.
That is the area where all of the log-tail theorizing is up in the cyberspace blue sky. If you are a music act that is going to appeal to a niche market, it becomes tougher to make a living without a product to sell. You can make some food money if you have a relatively small audience that will come and support your live show; buy a ticket and maybe a shirt. But, that is only going to work if they are localized. If you have a couple of hundred people that will support your live shows in a local area, you can pull it off. If you have 10,000 die-hard, rabid fans but, they are spread globally, it’s not going to be practical to go to them.
In the end, the future of music is more localized, not globalized. The niche market, indie artist will be left relying on the local market and that will have an impact on the development of their particular body of work. In essence, that artist will most likely compromise that body of work in an effort to play to the available audience. Or possibly, we enter into a new age of patronage where the artist relies on acts of charity from a worldwide group of benevolent fans. That may work well for some types of music. Some genres, classical and jazz for instance, have been, for effective purposes, in this boat for some time. Maybe, that is part of a natural progression. Wagner and Tchaikovsky were rebels. So were Charlie Parker and Roland Kirk. It may be that the future of rock and roll, and for that matter, hip-hop and country has no place for rebels; only organ grinder’s monkeys need apply.
Related posts
Tags: Radiohead, Spencer Tunick
Recent Comments