🌸🍃🌼Welcome Spring🌼🍃🌸
mastodon pinterest threads twitter

Blog

Displaying: 1 - 80 of 80

New Data Poisoning Tool Enables Artists To Fight Back Against Image Generating AI

March 1st, 2024

New Data Poisoning Tool Enables Artists To Fight Back Against Image Generating AI

Artists now have a new digital tool they can use in the event their work is scraped without permission by an AI training set.

The tool, called Nightshade, enables artists to add invisible pixels to their art prior to being uploaded online. These data samples “poison” the massive image sets used to train AI image-generators such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, destabilizing their outputs in chaotic and unexpected ways as well as disabling “its ability to generate useful images”, reports MIT Technology Review.

For example, poisoned data samples can manipulate AI image-generating models into incorrectly believing that images of fantasy art are examples of pointillism, or images of Cubism are Japanese-style anime. The poisoned data is very difficult to remove, as it requires tech companies to painstakingly find and delete each corrupted sample.

We assert that Nightshade can provide a powerful tool for content owners to protect their intellectual property against model trainers that disregard or ignore copyright notices, do-not-scrape/crawl directives, and opt-out lists,” the researchers from the University of Chicago wrote in their report, led by professor Ben Zhao. “Movie studios, book publishers, game producers and individual artists can use systems like Nightshade to provide a strong disincentive against unauthorized data training.”

Nightshade could tip the balance of power back from AI companies towards artists and become a powerful deterrent against disrespecting artists’ copyright and intellectual property, Zhao told MIT Technology Review, which first reported on the research.

According to the research report, the researchers tested Nightshade on Stable Diffusion’s latest models and on an AI model they trained themselves from scratch. After they fed Stable Diffusion just 50 poisoned images of cars and then prompted it to create images of the vehicles, the usability of the output dropped to 20%. After 300 poisoned image samples, an attacker using the Nightshade tool can manipulate Stable Diffusion to generate images of cars to look like cows.

Prior to Nightshade, Zhao’s research team also received significant attention for Glaze, a tool which disrupts the ability for AI image generators to scrape images and mimic a specific artist’s personal style. The tool works in a similar manner to Nightshade through a subtle change in the pixels of images that results in the manipulation of machine-learning models.

Read All at: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/new-data-poisoning-tool-enables-artists-to-fight-back-against-image-generating-ai-companies-1234684663/

By Karen K. Ho / 10/2023 ArtNews

Database of 16,000 Artists Used to Train Midjourney AI, Including 6-Year-Old Child, Garners Criticism

January 3rd, 2024

Database of 16,000 Artists Used to Train Midjourney AI, Including 6-Year-Old Child, Garners Criticism

For many, a new year includes resolutions to do better and build better habits. For Midjourney, the start of 2024 meant having to deal with a circulating list of artists whose work the company used to train its generative artificial intelligence program.

During the New Year’s weekend, artists linked to a Google Sheet on the social media platforms X (formerly known as Twitter) and Bluesky, alleging that it showed how Midjourney developed a database of time periods, styles, genres, movements, mediums, techniques, and thousands of artists to train its AI text-to-image generator. Jon Lam, a senior storyboard artist at Riot Games, also posted several screenshots of Midjourney software developers discussing the creation of a database of artists to train its AI image generator to emulate.

Read the entire article at: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/midjourney-ai-artists-database-1234691955/

Why AI Is Critical to Deep Space Exploration

April 27th, 2023

Why AI Is Critical to Deep Space Exploration

A new take on AI as "Food For Thought" episode 2

-- In conclusion, is Just Another Tool

Astronomers have confirmed that Earth-like planets orbit nearby stars, but they’re too far away for humans to reach. That's where artificially-intelligent robots come in. On this episode of AI IRL, Bloomberg's Nate Lanxon and Jackie Davalos are joined by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who explains the ways in which AI can shed light on the universe’s great unknowns, help us explore new planets and discover new galaxies. (Source: Bloomberg)
April 26th, 2023, 8:30 PM EDT

The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI

April 13th, 2023

The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI

Op-ed: Planetary impacts, escalating financial costs, and labor exploitation all factor.

Dr. Sasha Luccioni is a Researcher and Climate Lead at Hugging Face, where she studies the ethical and societal impacts of AI models and datasets. She is also a director of Women in Machine Learning (WiML), a founding member of Climate Change AI (CCAI), and chair of the NeurIPS Code of Ethics committee. The opinions in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of Ars Technica.

Over the past few months, the field of artificial intelligence has seen rapid growth, with wave after wave of new models like Dall-E and GPT-4 emerging one after another. Every week brings the promise of new and exciting models, products, and tools. It’s easy to get swept up in the waves of hype, but these shiny capabilities come at a real cost to society and the planet.
Downsides include the environmental toll of mining rare minerals, the human costs of the labor-intensive process of data annotation, and the escalating financial investment required to train AI models as they incorporate more parameters.

Let’s look at the innovations that have fueled recent generations of these models—and raised their associated costs.

By: Sacha Luccione - Ars Technica 04/12/2023

Read entire article ➡️ https://rafaelsalazar.io/blogs/news/the-mounting-human-and-environmental-costs-of-generative-ai

Generative AI set to affect 300 million jobs across major economies

March 30th, 2023

Generative AI set to affect 300 million jobs across major economies

A Changing Labor Market ~

The latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence could lead to the automation of a quarter of the work done in the US and eurozone, according to research by Goldman Sachs.

The investment bank said on Monday that “generative” AI systems such as ChatGPT, which can create content that is indistinguishable from human output, could spark a productivity boom that would eventually raise annual global gross domestic product by 7 percent over a 10-year period.

But if the technology lived up to its promise, it would also bring “significant disruption” to the labor market, exposing the equivalent of 300 million full-time workers across big economies to automation, according to Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnani, the paper’s authors. Lawyers and administrative staff would be among those at greatest risk of becoming redundant.

They calculate that roughly two-thirds of jobs in the US and Europe are exposed to some degree of AI automation, based on data on the tasks typically performed in thousands of occupations.

Most people would see less than half of their workload automated and would probably continue in their jobs, with some of their time freed up for more productive activities.

In the US, this should apply to 63 percent of the workforce, they calculated. A further 30 percent working in physical or outdoor jobs would be unaffected, although their work might be susceptible to other forms of automation.

But about 7 percent of US workers are in jobs where at least half of their tasks could be done by generative AI and are vulnerable to replacement.

Goldman said its research pointed to a similar impact in Europe. At a global level, since manual jobs are a bigger share of employment in the developing world, it estimates about a fifth of work could be done by AI—or about 300 million full-time jobs across big economies.

The report will stoke debate over the potential of AI technologies both to revive the rich world’s flagging productivity growth and to create a new class of dispossessed white-collar workers, who risk suffering a similar fate to that of manufacturing workers in the 1980s.

Goldman’s estimates of the impact are more conservative than those of some academic studies, which included the effects of a wider range of related technologies.

A paper published last week by OpenAI, the creator of GPT-4, found that 80 percent of the US workforce could see at least 10 percent of their tasks performed by generative AI, based on analysis by human researchers and the company’s machine large language model (LLM).

Europol, the law enforcement agency, also warned this week that rapid advances in generative AI could aid online fraudsters and cyber criminals, so that “dark LLMs…  may become a key criminal business model of the future.”

Goldman said that if corporate investment in AI continued to grow at a similar pace to software investment in the 1990s, US investment alone could approach 1 percent of US GDP by 2030.

The Goldman estimates are based on an analysis of US and European data on the tasks typically performed in thousands of different occupations. The researchers assumed that AI would be capable of tasks such as completing tax returns for a small business; evaluating a complex insurance claim; or documenting the results of a crime scene investigation.

They did not envisage AI being adopted for more sensitive tasks such as making a court ruling, checking the status of a patient in critical care, or studying international tax laws.

Published by Ars Technica - March 28, 2023
DELPHINE STRAUSS, FINANCIAL TIMES - 3/28/2023, 9:30 am


The generative AI revolution has begun, how did we get here?

February 26th, 2023

The generative AI revolution has begun, how did we get here?

A new class of incredibly powerful AI models has made recent breakthroughs possible.
HAOMIAO HUANG - 1/30/2023

Progress in AI systems often feels cyclical. Every few years, computers can suddenly do something they’ve never been able to do before. “Behold!” the AI true believers proclaim, “the age of artificial general intelligence is at hand!” “Nonsense!” the skeptics say. “Remember self-driving cars?”

The truth usually lies somewhere in between.

We’re in another cycle, this time with generative AI. Media headlines are dominated by news about AI art, but there’s also unprecedented progress in many widely disparate fields. Everything from videos to biology, programming, writing, translation, and more is seeing AI progress at the same incredible pace.

Mastodon and the pros and cons of moving beyond Big Tech gatekeepers

December 30th, 2022

Mastodon and the pros and cons of moving beyond Big Tech gatekeepers

As Elon Musk's Category 5 tweetstorm continues, the once-obscure Mastodon social network has been gaining over 1,000 new refugees per hour, every hour, bringing its user count to about eight million.

Joining as a user is pretty easy. More than enough ex-Twitterers are happy finding a Mastodon instance via joinmastodon.org, getting a list of handles for their Twitter friends via Movetodon, and carrying on as before.

But what new converts may not realize is that Mastodon is just the most prominent node in a much broader movement to change the nature of the web.

With a core goal of decentralization, Mastodon and its kin are "federated," meaning you are welcome to put up a server as a home base for friends and colleagues (an "instance"), and users on all instances can communicate with users on yours. The most common metaphor is email, where yahoo.com, uchicago.edu, and condenast.com all host a local collection of users, but anybody can send messages to anybody else via standard messaging protocols. With cosmic ambitions, the new federation of freely communicating instances is called "the Fediverse."

I started using Mastodon in mid-2017 when I faintly heard the initial buzz. I found that the people who inhabited a world whose first major selling point was its decentralized network topology were geeky and counter-cultural. There were no #brands. Servers were (and are) operated by academic institutions, journalists, hobbyists, and activists in the LGBTQ+ community. The organizers of one instance, scholar.social, run an annual seminar series, where I have presented.

The decentralization aspect that was such a selling point for me was also a core design goal for Mastodon and the predecessors it built upon, such as GNU Social. In an interview with Time, lead developer Eugen Rochko said that he began the development of Mastodon in 2016 because Twitter was becoming too centralized and too important to discourse. "Maybe it should not be in the hands of a single corporation,” he said. His desire to build a new system “was generally related to a feeling of distrust of the top-down control that Twitter exercised."

As with many a web app, Mastodon is a duct-taping together of components and standards; hosting or interacting with a Mastodon instance requires some familiarity with all of these. Among them, and the headliner at the heart of The Fediverse, is the ActivityPub standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which specifies how actors on the network are defined and interact. Mastodon and ActivityPub evolved at about the same time, with Mastodon's first major release in early 2017 and ActivityPub finalized as a standard by the W3C in January 2018. Mastodon quickly adopted ActivityPub, and it has become such a focus of use that many forget that ActivityPub is usable in many contexts beyond reporting what users had for lunch. Like Mastodon, ActivityPub represents a rebellion against an increasingly centralized web. Christine Lemmer-Webber is the lead author of the 2018 ActivityPub standard, based on prior work led by Evan Prodromou on another service called pump.io. Lemmer-Webber tells Ars that, when developing the ActivityPub standard, "We were like the only standards group at the W3C that didn't have corporate involvement... None of the big players wanted to do it." She felt that ActivityPub was a success for the idea of decentralization even before its multi-million user bump over the last few months. "The assumptions that you might have, that only the big players can play, turned out to be false. And I think that that should be really inspiring to everybody," she said. "It's inspiring to me."

Standards setting

The idea of an open web where actors use common standards to communicate is as old as, well, the web. "The dreams of the 90s are alive in the Fediverse," Lemmer-Webber told me. In the late '00s, there were more than enough siloed, incompatible networking and sharing systems like Boxee, Flickr, Brightkite, Last.fm, Flux, Ma.gnolia, Windows Live, Foursquare, Facebook, and many others we loved, hated, forgot about, or wish we could forget about. Various independent efforts to standardize interoperation across silos generally coalesced into the Activity Streams v1 standard.

➡︎Read the complete article @ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/mastodon-highlights-pros-and-cons-of-moving-beyond-big-tech-gatekeepers/

How to write an image description for Social Media

December 24th, 2022

Please read complete article enclosed in the link.

Extremely informative writing for those of us who share our work on different Social media platforms.
Found on Mastodon post by
https://toot.cat/@StephanieZvan/109564832289331290

By: Alex Chen | Published in UX Collective

I wrote this how-to guide with the immensely helpful counsel and insights from Bex Leon and Robin Fanning, as well as through an online survey of Blind / low vision / visually impaired people.

What is an image description?
An image description is a written caption that describes the essential information in an image.
Image descriptions can define photos, graphics, gifs, and video — basically anything containing visual information. Providing descriptions for imagery and video are required as part of WCAG 2.1 (for digital ADA compliance).
It’s sometimes referred to as alt text since the alt attribute is a common place to store them.
While alt text and image descriptions are sometimes used synonymously, they’re not actually the same thing. Alt text refers to the text specifically added to the alt attribute, and is often short and brief. Image descriptions can be found in the alt text, caption, or body of the webpage and are often more detailed. For more about alt text and image descriptions, check out @higher_priestess on instagram.

Additionally, image descriptions are a gesture of care and an essential part of accessibility. Without them, content would be completely unavailable to Blind/low vision folks. By writing image descriptions, we show support of cross-disability solidarity and cross-movement solidarity.

How to write a good image description

Object-action-context
Something that I learned from talking to Bex is that there is a storytelling aspect to writing descriptions. It doesn’t necessarily make sense to go from left to right describe everything in an image because that might lose the central message or create a disorienting feeling. For that reason, I came up with a framework that I recommend called object-action-context.
The object is the main focus. The action describes what’s happening, usually what the object is doing. The context describes the surrounding environment.
I recommend this format because it keeps the description objective, concise, and descriptive.

It should be objective so that people using the description can form their own opinions about what the image means. It should be concise so that it doesn’t take too long for people to absorb all the content, especially if there are multiple images. And it should be descriptive enough that it describes all the essential aspects of the image.

Artists say AI image generators are copying their style to make thousands of new images and it's completely out of their control

October 22nd, 2022

AI Generators
I came across this disturbing article that will make the Art world evolve into infinite levels.
3-D machines have not replaced Sculptors.

Art molds to the different tools available to human beings thru time.

---Rage Against the Machine. Have you had enough of AI-generated art? Well, so have some artists. Business Insider took a deep dive into the case of artists who claim that their work is being copied by AI image generators. “I feel like something’s happening that I can’t control,” said artist Greg Rutkowski. He’s not alone. IGN reports that AT, a popular artist on Twitch, recently went viral after some on Twitter noted that a user named Musaishh had copied AT’s work, with plans to rework it using the platform Novel AI. According to IGN, “Musaishh has since deactivated their Twitter account after receiving backlash from social media users and artists alike.”

Greg Rutkowski is an artist with a distinctive style: He's known for creating fantasy scenes of dragons and epic battles that fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons have used.

He said it used to be "really rare to see a similar style to mine on the internet."

Yet if you search for his name on Twitter, you'll see plenty of images in his exact style — that he didn't make.

Rutkowski has become one of the most popular names in AI art, despite never having used the technology himself.

Everything You Wanted to Know About the Metaverse - But Were Too Afraid to Ask

February 22nd, 2022

Everything You Wanted to Know About the Metaverse - But Were Too Afraid to Ask

How do you navigate an immersive virtual world that’s still mostly conceptual yet manages to generate billions of visits and even more dollars? Buckle up, because the deeper you go, the weirder it gets.

One of the most buzzed-about destinations of 2022 is barely developed and widely misunderstood, starting with the fact that it isn’t, strictly speaking, real. And yet despite that existential disadvantage, the metaverse has managed to attract some of the world’s biggest brands, from Sotheby’s to the NFL, who’ve set up shop in the virtual universe to drop capsule collections, mint NFTs and auction off multimillion-dollar digital artworks. Along the way, the metaverse also became the hottest concert venue of pandemic-struck 2021, with A-list performances by Ariana Grande, Lil Nas X and Justin Bieber, all in avatar form.

Which is all fine, but what is it? The term itself, coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash, is already headed for middle age, while the technological capability to actually create a fully immersive, interconnected virtual world remains a dream locked inside the mind of a yet-to-be-imagined super-computer. Still, the headlines keep coming, from Ralph Lauren’s winter-themed virtual fashion retail village to the hyper-realistic “meta-human” avatars that are being generated by Epic Games’ Unreal Engine digital creation studio. For a universe that doesn’t yet exist, the metaverse is surprisingly, if intangibly, real.

By Josh Condon – 2/19/2022


🎧 on Spotify
https://anchor.fm/rafael-salazar70/episodes/Everything-You-Wanted-to-Know-About-the-MetaverseBut-Were-Too-Afraid-to-Ask-e1ekp3p

Read all at https://rafaelesalazar.wordpress.com/2022/02/19/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-metaverse-but-were-too-afraid-to-ask/#more-2401

Sothebys and artist Kevin McCoy sued over sale of early NFT

February 4th, 2022

The dispute revolves around the movement of a 2014 work, ‘Quantum’, from one blockchain to another and how that affects its ownership and fungibility

A Canadian company is suing Sotheby’s and artist Kevin McCoy over the sale of an early NFT (non-fungible token) for almost $1.5m.

The artwork, Quantum, was first minted in May of 2014 and is regarded by many, including the auction house, as the first-ever NFT. It sold for $1.47m in June 2021 for $1.47m during Sotheby’s “Natively Digital” auction. But in a complaint filed on 1 February in the distrcit court for southern New York, the plaintiff behind the Canadian company Free Holdings, of which this individual is the “sole member”, is claiming to be Quantam’s rightful owner and asserting that they had secured the rights to the work seven years after its creation after McCoy had let his ownership expire. The tech startup Nameless, which provided Sotheby’s with a condition report on the digital work prior to the auction, is also named as a defendant.

As the outlet Leger Insights explained, the quandary arose because Quantum was originally minted using NameCoin, a blockchain software modeled from Bitcoin’s code. Akin to the purchase of a domain name, NameCoins need to be renewed roughly every 250 days. After creating the work in 2014, McCoy did not renew Quantum in 2015, meaning that it could presumably be claimed by another individual. It sat un-renewed for six years until, in April of 2021, Axios ran an article with the headline “Exclusive: The first-ever NFT from 2014 is on sale for $7 million plus”, and roughly two weeks later an individual with the twitter handle @EarlyNFT registered as the owner of the dormant NFT.

According to court filings, “EarlyNFT is a pseudonym for Free Holding’s sole member.” This sole member then attempted to contact McCoy over the next month in a series of five tweets, which escalated in their hostility from “There’s a matter regarding your work ‘Quantum’ I’d like to discuss with you” on 6 April 2021 to, “Are you interested in participating in the sale of Quantum or not then?” paired with a Gif of Elmo shrugging, on 3 May 2021. McCoy did not respond to these tweets. According to the condition report listed on the auction lot, however, “this specific Namecoin entry was removed from the system after not being renewed, and was effectively burned from the chain”, meaning its ownership could not have been reregistered.

A still from Quantum (2014) by Kevin McCoy
© Kevin McCoy

Critic Nora N. Khan Is Curating NFTs with an Eye Toward a Diversity of Thought

January 17th, 2022

Nora N. Khan has emerged as one of the most important voices when it comes to all things related to art and technology. A Harvard grad with a degree in English and American Literature, she attended the most prestigious writing program in the country, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, before swerving into arts criticism, philosophy and curating. Her book Seeing, Naming, Knowing, published by the Brooklyn Rail in 2019, investigated the impact of predictive algorithms and machine vision on the arts. Later that year, she became the Shed’s first guest curator, bringing together artists to respond to and critique emerging technologies that, purposefully or not, replicate systems of oppression with the celebrated exhibition “Manual Override.”

The rise of NFTs has provoked a mix of reactions among those who deal regularly with art and technology. Some immediately embraced this new medium, while others distanced themselves from it. Khan decided that she wanted to wait a bit to watch it develop, and now, as Topical Cream‘s editor-in-residence, she’s made her first foray into the NFT space.

With the NFT platform Foundation to curate a sale, she organized “Experimental Models,” which Khan views as a way to highlight the work of female and gender non-conforming new media artists. The sale has the potential to shake up the NFT space, which has, admittedly, not shown an appetite for conceptually rich pieces. It also could add a diverse array of voices to an area of the art world that has largely tended to uphold white, male artists. With works by Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley, Rachel Rossin, Umber Majeed, and others, the sale is, in part, intended to bring artists who’ve rarely or never worked with NFTs into the fold.

To hear more, Khan spoke with ARTnews about her thoughts on NFTs and her slow research process.

By: SHANTI ESCALANTE-DE MATTEI
ArtNews

Artists say NFTs are helping thieves steal their work at a jaw-dropping rate

January 11th, 2022

Artists say NFTs are helping thieves steal their work at a jaw-dropping rate

By Kevin Collier – NBC News

Digital thieves had stolen from Aja Trier before.

Trier, a painter in San Antonio, often riffs on Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” adding dogs or dinosaurs to it, or reimagining it as a desert landscape or Mordor from “Lord of the Rings.” She sells versions on mugs and mouse pads and pillows, and over the years she’s caught and stopped people selling pirated versions of her work on Amazon and other online marketplaces.

But thanks to the explosion of the NFT art market, thieves have started stealing her work at a jaw-dropping rate. Last week, an unidentified user on OpenSea, the dominant marketplace for the burgeoning NFT art market, started putting tens of thousands of listings of her work, often duplicates, up for sale. Thirty-seven of them sold before she was able to convince the platform to take them down.

“They just kept taking and remaking them as NFTs,” Trier said. “It’s so flagrant. And if it happens to me, it can happen to anyone.”

Trier’s story has already become common in the burgeoning world of NFT art sales. RJ Palmer, a San Francisco artist who designs creatures and monsters both as commissioned digital works and for movies and video game companies, said issuing takedown requests to NFT platforms for his work became a daily routine before he eventually gave up.

“It got to be too many. It became this part of my day,” Palmer said, adding that he would constantly send emails trying to get NFTs taken down. “This is putting so much work on me. I just don’t want to deal with it.”

As the NFT art market takes off, systems to ensure a buyer is making a legitimate purchase of digital ownership have failed to keep up. Anonymous thieves now regularly steal whatever digital art they can find online and pass it off as their own to sell. While NFT proponents tout the technology as a way to revolutionize arts patronage, the rapidly growing digital marketplaces that enable those sales have so far done little to stop that piracy.

Thieves Steal Gallery Owners Multimillion Dollar NFT Collection All My Apes Gone

January 10th, 2022

“I have been hacked. All my apes gone. This just sold please help me,” wrote gallery owner Todd Kramer, of New York’s Ross + Kramer Gallery, in a since-deleted tweet posted on December 30.

A phishing scam had drained his Ethereum wallet of 15 NFTs valued at a total of $2.2 million, including four apes from the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” collection. The thief seemed to have sold off many of the pieces in Kramer’s collection, and Twitter users jeered at Kramer’s bad luck, pointing out that he had bet on an unregulated, decentralized system that would be unable to help him.

“Man If only there had been some kind of Regulating authority in place that could like Insure your investments against theft and fraud,” wrote one user with the handle @anarchy_shark.

But in the end, an authority did come through. With the help of the buyers and the NFT platform OpenSea, Kramer was able to get back several of his NFTs. Five hours after his original post, he wrote, in a tweet that has also since been deleted, “Update.. All Apes are frozen,,. Waiting for OpenSea team to get in,,,lessons learned. Use a hard wallet…”

BY Shanti Escalante-de Mattei


#BuyArtnotCandy #GiftThemArt

January 10th, 2022

#BuyArtnotCandy #GiftThemArt

A Fine Art America group of artists is leading the Change for Valentine's Day from Sharon Cummings idea to create an option for Giving to Your Loved ones #Art instead of Candy on February 14th!

All artists at FAA are welcome to Join in and participate with their "LOVE" inspired artworks to post using the #BuyArtnotCandy and #GiftThemArt hashtags on every Social Media of their preference to promote their artwork and give this Idea a Spin.

People Love to give presents on that day and what better way than a Long Lasting representation of their Love with an Art Collectible to Remind them of your Forever Love.

These artworks are available in all sorts of beautiful products for the most discerning Art Collectors in Wall Art - Home Decor - Accessories - Lifestyle - Apparel and much more.

Shop around the many Galleries we all have and Create a New Lasting Trend.

I invite you to visit mine at:

Website: RafaelSalazar.com
Twitter: @Rafael_SalazarS
Pinterest: RafaelSalazar
Instagram: Rafael_Salazars

2021 has been the year of the NFT. But what exactly is an NFT

January 1st, 2022

2021 has been the year of the NFT. But what exactly is an NFT

A year has gone by since NFTs entered mainstream culture. Earlier this week, we brought you an article on the NFT  highlights of 2021. For those who haven’t quite figured it out over the past 12 months, we’ve put together a refresher course in the basics.

What is an NFT?

An NFT, which stands for non-fungible token, is a unique unit of data employing technology that allows digital content—from videos to songs to images—to become logged and authenticated on cryptocurrency blockchains, primarily Ethereum. Once content is logged onto the blockchain, every transaction from transfers to sales is recorded on-chain, creating an easily accessible ledger of provenance and price history. The main impact of NFTs is making it easy to own and sell digital content. Previously, for example, digital artists could build up large followings on social media, attract freelance commercial work, and maybe sell prints and other merchandise with their designs, but they had trouble monetizing digital art directly, as consumers asked, Why should I buy what I can screenshot for free?

No NFT, no comment - how digital art dominated 2021

December 18th, 2021

No NFT, no comment - how digital art dominated 2021

By: Melanie Gerlis - Financial Times

In a year of tech innovation, buyers and sellers have had to grapple with new systems of value and ownership — or lose out

Surplus wealth, in-person activity and the three letters N, F and T have motored the lively art market through the challenges of 2021.

That the rich have got richer through the Covid-19 pandemic and accompanying stock market gains has been well documented. Now, added to the existing billionaires and millionaires, are newcomers from booming economies in Asia, millennial entrepreneurs and a dominant breed of fintech-savvy crypto investors, happy to ride the highs and lows of this volatile arena.

The impact on the art market was immediate. While 2020 was all about moving physical activity online, 2021 proved that such efforts increased the appetite for art and produced buyers hungry to keep spending once some in-person activity returned. Come the hybrid, bellwether November auctions in New York, more than $2bn of transactions were made in just one week, dominated by the $676m from just 35 lots from the divorced couple, Linda and Harry Macklowe.

Like it or not, though, the art market story of 2021 was sealed in March when Christie’s offered a digital work by the previously little-known graphic designer Mike Winkelmann, who goes by the name of Beeple. The work was a compilation of 5,000 fantasy digital images that had been shared online, including on Instagram under @beeple_crap. “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” was backed by a blockchain-secured, non-fungible token to confer unique ownership and had no price estimate — in essence because no one had a clue about its worth. The staggering verdict was $69.3m, paid by the crypto investor Vignesh Sundaresan, known as Metakovan, and it put Beeple in the same price league as David Hockney and Jeff Koons.

Suddenly we all had to grapple with the new-tech language — minting, dropping, slashing — and, perhaps more challengingly, try to understand alternative systems of value and ownership. Important issues such as copyright, tax and regulation remain in catch-up mode come the end of the year but those of us who thought this was a fleeting, working-from-home phenomenon have been proved wrong.

The auction houses were quick to co-opt the NFT phenomenon into their sales, while galleries ranging from the megawatt Pace to Unit London have launched their own NFT platforms. By the end of this year, Sotheby’s had its own metaverse, with a digital gallery in the virtual Voltaire Art District of Decentraland.

It seems baffling, but such moves proved their worth come the November auction of the Macklowe collection of physical, mostly 20th-century art. Here, the Tron cryptocurrency platform-founder Justin Sun, who had first bought NFT work priced at $1,500 by the digital artist Pak at Sotheby’s in April, swiftly upped his game. He picked up Alberto Giacometti’s “Le Nez” (1965) for $78.4m, the fifth-highest price paid at auction this year.

Overall, public auction figures for the three main houses, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, more than reversed their 2020 decline. Combined, they turned over $12bn in the year to December 8, up 76 per cent on 2020 and 20 per cent above the equivalent 2019 total, according to the analytics firm Pi-eX. While New York continued to take the bulk of the record-breaking sales, Hong Kong surged as a trading centre: Phillips says its sales here nearly doubled from 2020, having already gained 25 per cent during that year.

Elsewhere, art fairs began slowly to return, with restrained outings for events such as Art Basel in Hong Kong and Frieze in New York in the first half of the year. These were followed by an intense season of events from the postponed Art Basel in September to the same fair’s Miami outing in December. In London and Paris too, the in-person fairs buzzed with the renewed energy of professional networking and prompted sales across a range of channels, now better geared for remote access.

Frieze gave an injection of confidence when it announced the launch of a fair next year in Seoul, a city with an influx of galleries this year. But the spectre of the Covid-19 pandemic was never far away. For its Swiss fair, Art Basel set up a $1.6m relief fund for exhibitors; by the time of the Miami fair, the looming Omicron variant was a reminder of the fragility of these international events during the ongoing pandemic.

Gallery closures during the year indicate a strained industry. Stalwarts such as Gavin Brown and Metro Pictures in New York left the scene and, in Cologne, Delmes & Zander, a champion of under-represented artists, closed after more than 30 years. “Times have changed,” the gallery’s founders noted simply in their statement.

Artists began to take matters into their own hands, not only through social media and NFTs that can take them straight to buyers, but through alternative intermediaries, notably a growing art agency scene. At the same time, auction houses are encroaching on every area of the art business: galleries seem squeezed.

They have, however, benefited from the lower rents available as traditional retail moves more completely online. New gallery spaces ranging from short-term pop-ups to permanent fixtures have followed the money and galvanised trade in resorts such as the Hamptons, Palm Beach and Aspen. Events that focus on the gallery space, including this year’s inaugural London Gallery Weekend, are finding their footing in a more decentralised world.

What of the art?
The 20th century is still the biggest money-spinner and this year’s auction record came courtesy of the reliable Pablo Picasso, whose 1932 painting of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter sold for $103.4m at Christie’s in May. Hot on his heels was Jean-Michel Basquiat, an artist whose spot in the pantheon of art history is now cemented and whose popularity worldwide gives weight to the wider re-evaluation of street culture and artists of colour. Despite the appearance of a more diverse display of art at exhibitions and fairs, there is still plenty of work to be done to redress the imbalances.

There was speculation in works by a handful of contemporary artists as the auction houses redirected their offerings towards the newest of new art. The generally beleaguered Old Masters market yet managed to produce the third-highest auction price of the year in January when a c1480 portrait by Sandro Botticelli sold at Sotheby’s for $92.2m. And, in December, the Dutch government confirmed it was ready to buy Rembrandt’s “The Standard Bearer” (1636) for the nation, for €165m.

Such enthusiasm for traditional paintings may not run deep through 2022 but made a refreshing old-guard contrast to the metaverse. If the NFT craze during December’s Miami fair is anything to go by, however, next year we may hear of little else.

Banksys Love Is in the Air to Be Fractionalized into 10,000 NFTs

December 3rd, 2021

Banksys Love Is in the Air to Be Fractionalized into 10,000 NFTs

Banksy, Love is in the Air, 2005
COURTESY PARTICLE
“I always wanted to own art, even when I had absolutely no money—I wished I could have at least a tiny stake in the paintings that I liked.” So said Loïc Gouzer, the ex-head of contemporary art at Christie’s and a co-founder of Particle, a new NFT company that aims to fractionalize ownership of traditional artworks by converting them into sets of NFTs called Particles, thus allowing for potentially thousands of people to share ownership of certain works. After receiving $15 million in seed funding from a venture capital firm and announcing its presence as a company this past summer, that wish is now a reality.

Particle revealed on Wednesday that its first acquisition is Banksy’s Love Is in the Air (2005), which the Particle team acquired for $12.9 million at auction. The work has been segmented into 10,000 NFTs, each representing a unique section of the painting. An initial offering of Love Is in the Air will begin January 10 and run through January 14, allowing collectors a chance to purchase a Particle of the work for about $1,500. After the initial offering, the Particles will enter the secondary market across NFT platforms and there’s no telling how they might change in value.

The physical version of Love Is in the Air will be handed over to Particle Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the company that will maintain, preserve, and tour the work so that collectors can see the pieces they can rightfully claim to own. Royalties received in the resale of Particles (like all NFTs, Particles are attached to a smart contract that ensures a portion of the resale value is returned to the creator of the NFT) will be partially used to fund Particle Foundation. And the foundation will also retain 1 percent of Love Is in the Air Particles to act, as a press release explains, “as a protective shard and ensure no one person can envisage claiming possession of the physical painting.”

With the entanglements intrinsic to the fact that each Particle will fluctuate in value across a vast and changing collector base, it would be intensely complicated to ever attempt to sell the physical work. To make a comparison: For a company like Rally, which fractionalizes ownership of collectibles in a more traditional manner, the sale of an entire object or work is the only way for collectors to see a return on their investment. Currently, some 5,500 joint holders of a copy of the Declaration of Independence are voting on whether or not to sell the historical document. If they decide to sell together as a group, they’ll all get their investment returned, and potentially more.

Crypto wallets at the ready Sotheby's to accept live bidding in ethereum on two Banksy works

November 13th, 2021

Crypto wallets at the ready Sotheby

In its relentless effort to secure the title of most crypto-forward auction house, Sotheby's will next week accept live bids in the form of the cryptocurrency ethereum (ETH) for physical works of art.

For the time being the new gimmick will apply to two works, both by Banksy, which are being sold at Sotheby's inaugural The Now Evening Auction on 17 November in New York. Here Sotheby's chairman Oliver Barker will announce bids in increments of both ETH and USD; the winning bidders will have the option of paying the hammer price for each work in fiat currency or in the three cryptocurrencies accepted by Sotheby’s: ETH, Bitcoin (BTC), and USD Coin (USDC). The buyer's premium must still be paid in fiat currency.

Love is in the Air (2006) is a classic flower thrower Banksy canvas work and comes with an estimate of $4m to $6m. Meanwhile, Trolley Hunters (2006), a unique work depicting three prehistoric men in a savannah hunting for empty shopping trolleys, will make its auction debut. Described by the auction house with little trace of irony as "an indictment against the excesses of consumerist society", it is offered at $5m-$7m. The identity of their consignors remains anonymous, although both works were purchased in 2007 from Banksy's longtime London dealer Steve Lazarides. Both are verified by the artists's authentication body Pest Control.

Banksy recently made his auction record at Sotheby's, achieving £16m (£18.5m with fees) for the famously shredded Love is in the Bin, which sold to an Asian bidder at last month's contemporary evening sale in London.
"Banksy is an artist whose work is popular with young collectors, many of whom are also crypto conversant, so there is a natural overlap in audience that we want to tap into," says Alex Branczik, chairman for Modern and contemporary art. He adds: "His work appeals to the crypto community because of a shared sense of being part of a movement that is not of the mainstream, and that anti-establishment mindset creates a connection between the two".

Previously Sotheby's became the first auction house to accept ETH as a form of payment for a physical work of art, also by Bansky. It also recently announced the launch of Sotheby's Metaverse, an online platform designed for the selling, exhibition and discussion of NFTs.

"To take the bidding process even further by announcing [bids] in ETH only shows the ways in which cryptocurrency continues to become more a part of our business," Branczik says. "With each new sale that we offer with crypto, we see increasing numbers of new bidders from that world engage with us, and we hope this will encourage even more."

From a hidden Picasso nude to an unfinished Beethoven, AI uncovers lost art and new challenges

October 30th, 2021

From a hidden Picasso nude to an unfinished Beethoven, AI uncovers lost art and new challenges

By Chantal Da Silva
LONDON — For more than a century, she lay hidden beneath one of Pablo Picasso's most famous works.

But now the nude portrait of a crouching woman has been brought to life by an artificial intelligence-powered software trained to paint like the legendary artist.

Which Emerging Artists Are Most in Demand

October 20th, 2021

Which Emerging Artists Are Most in Demand

The London-based auction house Phillips has gained a reputation as the go-to venue to acquire works by emerging artists in high demand on the primary market. Each season, the New York day and evening sales at Phillips typically generate records for rising talent, and last week, that was certainly the case. At those sales, new benchmarks were set for 26 artists, including Cinga Samson, Avery Singer, Titus Kaphar, Julie Curtiss, and Kehinde Wiley. Together, thee sales brought in a collective $153 million with buyer’s premium across 324 lots, surpassing the $101 million hammer low estimate.

Phillips specialists have been vocal about tapping increased fervor among collectors for works by emerging and mid-career women artists and artists of color. Relative to their Western male peers, these artists have long been under-represented in the institutions around the world. “There was a lot of intentionality in going after under-represented artists,” Robert Manley, Phillips’s deputy chairman and worldwide co-head of 20th- and 21st-century art sales, told ARTnews last week.

But which artists are at the top of collectors’ lists? Below, a look at the works from Phillips’s New York sales that saw the most competition among bidders.

By ANGELICA VILLA

June 28, 2021 5:14pm

A Brief Timeline of 20th Century Visual Art Movements

October 17th, 2021

A comprehensive list of the most well-known visual art movements during the 20th century, spanning two world wars and several cultural revolutions.
Feb 19, 2020 • By Charlotte Davis

The 20th century saw a new era of visual artists who challenged the precedent art styles. Beauty and aesthetics gave way to abstraction, expression and symbolism. This metamorphosis formed numerous distinct and important art movements which presented a new type of aesthetic, some which overlap with or influenced the others. Below is a broad overview of the most influential visual art movements during the 20th century, excluding some of those shorter-lived or lesser known.

Fauvism (1905-1908)… Etc

Art Basel gets complicated Swiss authorities will not accept Astra Zeneca vaccine while US issues do not travel advisory

September 4th, 2021

Art Basel gets complicated Swiss authorities will not accept Astra Zeneca vaccine while US issues do not travel advisory

Non-EU visitors will have to apply for Swiss Covid-19 certificate before attending and, with certain vaccines not recognised, some will have to take tests onsite

UPDATE: 1 September, Art Basel clarified that anyone required to isolate will be able to remain in the same hotel to do so. The fair will also cover the cost of one PCR test at the start of the fair for non-EU exhibitors who have received the Astra Zeneca vaccine—they will not have to repeat the test if they test negative.

Art Basel visitors walked around mask-free in 2019. This year they will have to wear face coverings Courtesy of Art Basel
With the US issuing a "do not travel" advisory for Switzerland on Monday and the Swiss authorities laying down some tough requirements for entry into large-scale events, getting into Art Basel this month is going to be far from straightforward and is causing rising concern.

The fair (24-26 September, previews 21-23 September) is having to comply with prescriptive requirements set out by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health for large-scale conventions. But many of these instructions have only recently been communicated to exhibitors, with many visitors still likely to be in the dark.

In a nutshell, here is what you must do before you go:

Every visitor from a non-EU/EFTA country (eg. the US or UK) must email their proof of vaccination and a copy of their photo ID or passport to [email protected] by Monday 13 September at the latest.
This will then be converted into a Swiss Covid-19 certificate that visitors will be able to collect (in paper form) on site at the fair from from Friday 17 September onwards—look for the Covid-19 Certification Centre. You will need your original documents (proof of vaccination and photo ID) in order to collect it.
If you forget to apply for the certificate, it will be possible to register on site—but be warned, this will delay your entry into the fair.
Those travelling from EU countries or Switzerland must provide a valid Swiss or EU Covid-19 certificate and a form of ID.

Vaccine confusion
Another complication causing concern among galleries is that not all vaccines are recognized by Swiss authorities when it comes to entering large-scale events—although they are approved for entry into the country itself. Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are approved by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health for large-scale events.

But it was communicated by Art Basel last week that Astra Zeneca is not approved by the Swiss authorities for live events—a cause for concern for many UK-based exhibitors and visitors aged over 40 who had the vaccine. Visitors will have to take a test on arrival at the fair and repeat it every 48 hours. However, exhibitors will be able to take one PCR test (paid for by the fair) on arrival in Basel at a testing facility in the exhibitor lounge and, providing they get a negative result, they will not have to repeat the test for the duration of the fair.

For all non-exhibitors, PCR test will gain you access for 72 hours, a lateral flow test for 48 hours—the latter will be available at the fair at a cost of CHF37 (£30) each; results will be turned around within 15 minutes. Although Art Basel is recommending that you pre-book a testing slot, you will be able to turn up and get a test without a booking if necessary—but you will probably have to wait.

An added complication to this is that the Astra Zeneca vaccination is recognized by the EU, therefore those vaccinated in an EU country will be able to apply for their digital EU Covid-19 certificate and be able to enter the fair without a test. Those vaccinated with Astra Zeneca outside the EU will have to apply for the Swiss Covid-19 certificate as above.

Those with any other vaccine (for example Sinovac)—if they are non-EU or EFTA citizens—will need to be tested on site as these are not registered by Swiss authorities.

Be aware of risk of hotel quarantine
So what happens if you, as an exhibitor or visitor, catch Covid-19 at the fair? Art Basel says they must take a PCR test to confirm the result at the Covid-19 Certification Centre in Basel. If the PCR test is positive, the person then must isolate for ten days. Basel hotels have been asked to provide isolation rooms to cope with this eventuality and, according to an Art Basel spokesperson, anyone who tests positive will be able to quarantine in the same hotel as they are already staying. It is recommended that visitors to the fair take out extra travel insurance to cover the possible additional costs of quarantine which are likely to be hefty considering the steep price of Basel hotels, particularly if a gallery has to quarantine its entire team.

If you test positive, the Swiss local authorities will contact you directly to request a list of people you have been in contact with—which is likely quite a few—and inform them of any necessary next steps.

Finally, remember your face mask—Art Basel is requiring all visitors to wear one.

Please email [email protected] if you would like to share your thoughts on exhibiting at and visiting Art Basel and other art fairs this autumn.

Art Basel writes letter of reassurance as galleries suggest fair should be cancelled

September 4th, 2021

Art Basel writes letter of reassurance as galleries suggest fair should be cancelled

Fair says it is committed to going ahead but offers concessions to exhibitors, including rolling over booth fees to 2022 if they cannot enter the country and offering staff to man stands.

Art Basel has written a letter to exhibitors in an attempt to calm nerves in the run up to the Swiss fair later this month, telling galleries it is "committed to hosting the fair under the current conditions because we firmly believe that we can do so safely."

The missive was issued this evening in response to an open letter penned by a number of powerful US-based galleries outlining their concerns about participating in the fair after US authorities advised Americans on Monday not to travel to Switzerland. Some flights to Basel from the UK have also been cancelled.

Stringent and confusing entry restrictions for the fair—and particularly the fact the Astra Zeneca vaccine is not recognized by Swiss authorities for entry into large-scale events—have caused some concern, with the London-based (Astra Zeneca-jabbed) art advisor Emily Tsingou telling The Art Newspaper she is "appalled... we are there to work, not be judged. It will put a lot of people off."

One exhibitor, who did not wish to be named, told The Art Newspaper earlier this week that they thought the fair should have just run in June 2022. "There's a lot of anxiety. Many of my gallery colleagues have concerns about fairs in general this autumn, from both a health and financial perspective." They add: "It's a minefield. None of our clients are going [to Basel]. Galleries are stuck between a rock and a hard place—you don't want to pull out of Art Basel and lose your place, but then it's also about the health of your staff and what's responsible." They worry that some galleries "might not be able to survive the hit" if the event goes badly for them.

Stressful situation
Marc Spiegler, the global director of Art Basel, says in a letter sent to exhibitors this evening: "We write to you today to address concerns expressed by some galleries in response to two pieces of news announced earlier this week: the European Union’s recommendation to member states to increase restrictions on US travellers; and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) placement of Switzerland on its Tier 4 Covid-19 list with a recommendation to limit non-essential travel. We know this has caused concern among some galleries, especially those in the US, and wish to update you regarding several changes we are making in view of these issues."

Spiegler acknowledges the stressful situation and says Art Basel can "understand why some galleries are suggesting we should cancel the fair."

He adds, "to be frank up front, the current conditions are not what we had hoped for when we rescheduled the fair to September. At the same time, many other galleries and collectors have reached out to stress the importance of doing the show under the circumstances".

New rules for exhibitors
Art Basel has made the following concessions to try to reassure galleries:

If Switzerland introduces new restrictions barring owners and gallery staff from entering the country or making them subject to quarantine, a gallery can withdraw participation and its entire booth fee will be rolled over to Art Basel 2022. Should any gallerist or member of their staff feel uncomfortable attending the fair, leaving the gallery short-staffed, Art Basel will provide "qualified personnel" from its Satellite booths team to work on the stand.
Art Basel is also offering to convert stands to Satellite booths, for those wishing to send art but not staff. "As per the option announced for Art Basel Miami Beach, we would collaborate with you on any adaptations to your booth size while reducing your booth fee by 15% and recruiting qualified personnel to staff it entirely," the letter says.
Art Basel will be holding a "virtual forum" tomorrow, 3 September, at 3:30pm CEST/2:30pm BST/9:30am EDT/9:30 pm HKT to hear exhibitors' questions.

The letter also states that anyone entering the fairgrounds in any capacity, starting with the exhibitor move-in on Thursday, 16 September, and Friday, 17 September, "must show proof of being fully vaccinated, supply a recent negative test, or have proven antibodies to Covid-19 due to recent recovery." Anyone attending will have to wear a mask, both indoors and out.

On the increased travel restrictions imposed on US travelers entering the EU, Spiegler points out that Switzerland is not a member of the EU and: "Based upon our discussions with Swiss authorities and Switzerland's declared strategy of “normalizing” society as quickly as possible—rather than imposing further restrictions on vaccinated people—we fully anticipate that vaccinated Americans will be able to enter Switzerland for the show."

Regarding Switzerland being listed on the CDC’s Tier 4 list, Spiegler says "there is actually no change concerning re-entry into the United States for vaccinated travellers, whilst unvaccinated travellers are now supposed to quarantine at home." He adds that "the Covid-19 situation in Switzerland is once again stable, following a spike in new infections in August as travellers returned from summer holidays."

Gallery support
Some exhibitors are firmly in support of the fair going ahead. Franck Prazan, the owner of the Paris-based gallery Applicat-Prazan, says: "I have no doubt this year’s edition of ArtBasel might prove somewhat different from the previous editions. In my opinion, one should never forget that the art market is not only [reliant on] American or Chinese [buyers] and that the continental European clientele is amongst the most powerful in the world: Swiss, German, French, Italian, name them."

Prazan thinks many clients are "more than happy to resume and to meet at live events" and adds that "after all those years during which Art Basel had been a condition of our success, it is now up to us to support the market and I will personally bring there the utmost I am able to gather in this goal."




The Top 15 Most Expensive Artworks Sold at Auction in 2020

December 15th, 2020

The Top 15 Most Expensive Artworks Sold at Auction in 2020

This year was a turbulent one, and auction houses were not exempt from facing the changes wrought by it. Because of the pandemic, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips swiftly adapted their marquee evening auctions for a new era, ushering in live-streamed hybrid mega-sales that saw a host of masterpiece-level works reach staggering prices.

Signs of success at those sales was felt early on. Sotheby’s led the pack with a major evening sale in June; a Francis Bacon triptych was among its top lots. Two weeks after, in July, Christie’s staged its relay-style auction “ONE,” which brought major works by Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, and more to market—and saw big prizes realized for them.

While auction houses worked to mitigate any potential losses resulting from the pandemic, some top collectors struggled, too—in particular Ronald Perelman. The Revlon Inc. owner, who had ranked on ARTnews‘s Top 200 Collectors list for years, began parting ways with the bulk of his touted holdings. Works by Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Gerhard Richter, Alberto Giacometti, and more departed his collection for the auction block, where buyers exhibited interest. Together, Perelman is said to have sold off $350 million of art since the pandemic began.

Source: ArtNews by Angelica Villa

After Selling an AI Portrait for More Than 430,000 the Obvious Collective Has a New Trick Mashing Up Cave Art and Graffiti

December 9th, 2020

After Selling an AI Portrait for More Than 430,000 the Obvious Collective Has a New Trick Mashing Up Cave Art and Graffiti

Is this the future of art?

The French art collective Obvious is back with another project featuring artworks generated through artificial intelligence, this time training algorithms to blend prehistoric cave art with contemporary street art.

Obvious has teamed up with German graffiti artist Kai “Raws” Imhof to produce the new work, which is based on one of his painting and ancient art from the famed French cave art complex Lascaux Parietal Burner #1, comes from the technical term for art painted in caves, and burner, a word for an elaborate graffiti piece.

By involving Lascaux, Obvious is reaching across the full span of human history, connecting the world’s earliest artistic activity with advanced technology. Training the AI to create new works merging Raws’s style with the work of the ancients was a two-step process, starting with examples of the Lascaux cave paintings.

First, Obvious trained the AI using machine learning Generative Adversarial Networks to create new drawings of animals in the prehistoric style.

“We then trained a second type of algorithm to learn from the style present in Raws’s artworks, and to translate this style on the drawings initially created with artificial intelligence,” a representative for the collective said in an email.
The result, based on a Raws work called Chaos and a “new” Lascaux animal figure, is a blend of the two aesthetics.
Obvious made a name for itself in 2018 when Christie’s New York auctioned off its work, Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, the first AI-generated artwork at auction, for $432,500—more than 4,320 percent its high estimate of $10,000.

Source: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/obvious-cave-art-graffiti-mashup-1928105





What to do during a Pandemic with the whole Family?

November 15th, 2020

What to do during a Pandemic with the whole Family?

Soothe your mind and keep occupied while you get a mental workout.

Puzzles galore for the entire family to enjoy.

⭕️ https://rafaelsalazar.com/shop/puzzles

Our puzzles are made from premium 0.2" thick paper stock and include a semi-gloss coating on the top surface to make the image pop.
.
Puzzles are available in two different sizes,
Vertical 18” x 24” (500 pieces)
Horizontal 20” x 28” (1000 pieces)
and each puzzle includes a puzzle box with the artwork printed on the top for safe storage when you're not puzzling.
The puzzle pieces are unique shapes.
.
CARE INSTRUCTIONS:
Store the puzzle in the provided box at room temperature with low humidity.
SHIPS WITHIN 1 - 2 business days
.
#puzzles #jigsaw #jigsawpuzzle #rafaelsalazar #games #fun #family #familytime #autumn #trails #georgia #faa #faastyle #brainhealth #brain #artoftheday #puzzleaddict #puzzlesarefun

28 Amazing Art Exhibits Coming To New York City Between 2020 and 2021

November 1st, 2020

28 Amazing Art Exhibits Coming To New York City Between 2020 and 2021

Art moves people, challenges them, sparks creativity, and so much more. And we’re lucky enough to have some of the best museums in the world right here in NYC!
That’s why we’ve scoured museum websites to pull together all of the most exciting exhibits that will be here from 2020 to 2021. A few go beyond traditional art museums, but it’s all about blurring the lines, right?

Check them out here:

1. Cooper & Gorfer–Between These Folded Walls, Utopia, Fotografiska New York

For complete list of Events

Source: Secretnyc.co
By CLAIRE LEADEN • OCTOBER 29, 2020

With a Focus on New Works, Art Basel Goes Smaller in Hopes of Big Sales at New Online Edition

October 31st, 2020

With a Focus on New Works, Art Basel Goes Smaller in Hopes of Big Sales at New Online Edition

Having canceled all three of its in-person editions, Art Basel has plowed forward with online viewing rooms. The first in a series of two online viewing rooms titled “OVR:2020” was launched on Wednesday, with 100 galleries from 28 countries participating. This iteration is focused on works made in 2020. The fair is hosting emerging and established dealers for the series. It follows the cancellation of Art Basel’s marquee Swiss fair that was originally scheduled for June, then rescheduled for September, and finally canceled due to coronavirus restrictions. The fair will run from September 23 to September 26.

In the pandemic era, global art fairs have been forced to adapt their online programs rapidly. Now, Art Basel is responding to digital fatigue with a new format. This online edition provides vendors a platform to showcase smaller curated exhibitions. While its run is shorter than a typical week-long fair, and while less than half the usual number of galleries are taking part in the event, the experience is overall a more intimate one, thanks to a live chat feature that allows sales personnel to respond quickly to inquiries.

Source: By ANGELICA VILLA
September 23, 2020 5:38pm

Photo caption: Mickalene Thomas, detail of Jet Blue #4, 2020.
COURTESY LÉVY GORVY

What Drives Market Speculation After an Artists Untimely Death

October 31st, 2020

What Drives Market Speculation After an Artists Untimely Death

During the 1970s, a long-running legal case concerning Mark Rothko’s estate dominated news in the art world. After Rothko’s death by suicide in 1970, a fierce battle waged between his heirs, executors, and dealers at Marlborough Gallery. The abstract artist’s death at age 66 shocked the art world and created a sudden production gap in any future market for his work. The average U.S. life expectancy in 1970 had been around 70.81 years. Rothko, a wealthy, educated, urban man, might have been demographically expected to live a lot longer.
When he died, Rothko left a stellar critical reputation, a suddenly restricted supply of 798 artworks of tremendous value, and two children with claims on his estate. Unlike later artists who have died in an untimely fashion—such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, or more recently Noah Davis and Matthew Wong—Rothko’s death had all the necessary factors to set off a protracted dispute that would become a symbol of the darker side of the art market. Rothko’s executors were called “wrongful and indeed shocking” by the New York Court of Appeals after attempting to withhold work from the estate to their own benefit. They also attempted to restrict what Marlborough put on the market, stipulating that the gallery “could sell up to 35 paintings a year from each of two groups, pre-1947 and post-1947, for 12 years at the best price obtainable but not less than the appraised estate value.”

Source: Artsy.net

By Samuel McIlhagga
Oct 29, 2020 6:01pm

Photo caption: Noah Davis, 1975 (8), 2013. © The Estate of Noah Davis. Image courtesy of the Estate of Noah Davis and David Zwirner

Banksy loses trademark battle over his famous Flower Thrower image

September 20th, 2020

Banksy loses trademark battle over his famous Flower Thrower image

The street artist opened a pop-up shop in Croydon last year in a bid to protect his image rights, but was found to have “acted in bad faith”

Banksy has been stripped of the trademark of his famous Flower Thrower image after a panel of judges ruled he tried “to circumvent the law” by opening a pop-up shop in Croydon, south London last October in a bid to protect his intellectual property rights. The panel also said Banksy’s anonymity undermined his case.

The ruling, by the European Union Intellectual Property Office earlier this week, comes after a two-year legal battle with the card company Full Colour Black, which contested Banksy’s trademark rights to his own name and imagery. The legal dispute prompted Banksy to open the store, called Gross Domestic Product—“possibly the least poetic reason to ever hold an art show”, the Bristol street artist said at the time.

Following advice from his lawyer, Mark Stephens, Banksy filled the shop, which never actually opened, with items “created specifically to fulfill a particular trademark category under EU law”.

But Banksy and his legal team's reasoning backfired. As the judges put it: “By their own words they admit [it] was not genuine trade mark use in order to create or maintain a share of the market by commercializing goods, but only to circumvent the law.” Banksy had therefore “acted in bad faith”, the panel found.

Banksy first applied for an EU trademark of Flower Thrower in February 2014, 11 years after he first stenclled the image on a wall in Jerusalem in 2003. Three years later, in 2006, Flower Thrower appeared on the cover of Banksy’s book, Wall and Piece, in which the artist “positively extolls the virtue of disobedience to copyright and trade mark law”, the panel noted. As Banksy so succinctly put it: “copyright is for losers”. The artist also encouraged others to download his works for “amusement and activism”, but not for profit, according to webpages from 2010 and 2011 recovered by the panel.

Source: Anny Shaw

17th September 2020

Art Basel 2020 Miami Beach cancelled till 2021

September 20th, 2020

Art Basel 2020 Miami Beach cancelled till 2021

The next edition of Art Basel in Miami Beach will take place from December 2 to December 5, 2021, with preview days on December 1 and December 2, 2021.

Given the ongoing impact of the pandemic, which spans from South Florida to other parts of the country and the world, limitations and uncertainty about the staging of large-scale events, international travel restrictions and bans, as well as quarantine regulations within the United States and internationally, Art Basel has no other option but to cancel the 2020 edition of Art Basel in Miami Beach. Art Basel in Miami Beach was scheduled to take place from December 3 to December 6, 2020 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Gagosian Makes Big Sales in Online Artist Spotlight Series as Market Goes Digital

August 24th, 2020

Gagosian Makes Big Sales in Online Artist Spotlight Series as Market Goes Digital

The pandemic has forced the art market to move online—an area that prognosticators have long said had potential for dealers and auction houses. Total online sales reached an estimated $4.82 billion in the first half of 2020, up 4 percent from the same period last year, according to a Hiscox Online Art Trade Report released in July.

Juneteenth Day - Love Wins

June 19th, 2020

Juneteenth Day - Love Wins

Let's all pause for a moment to think about Us, as Americans... as Human Beings and Let Love Win.

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends“. Martin Luther King Jr.

George Floyd - He died for Us so We can be Free ~ Love Wins

#FreedomDay

The tools of Generative Art from Flash to Neural Networks.

January 9th, 2020

The tools of Generative Art from Flash to Neural Networks.

Like it or not, we are all computer nerds now. All aspects of our lives are driven by computation and algorithms: how we learn, work, play, even date. Given this situation, one could argue that generative art—work created at least in part with autonomous, automated systems—is the art that best reflects our time.

Generative art was initially rejected by the cultural establishment as the domain of computer scientists and mathematicians. Grace Hertlein says a colleague called her a “whore” and a “traitor” for her use of the computer as an art-making tool in the late 1960s.¹ In a 1970 New York Times review, critic John Canada compared a display of computer art he saw at a convention to “popular sideshows” and “circuses.”² But recent years have seen a spike in institutional interest in generative art, as evidenced by a number of museum shows.³ Perhaps this embrace is linked to the increased accessibility of technology, as computers and network connections have become commonplace in homes in the last two decades.

Are We doing Something for Earth?

April 21st, 2019

As I reflect on the state of our affairs these Easter – Passover times, I believe we need to join hands, educate and be more proactive about our Future and the Future of our Planet.

I invite Everyone to join and or visit Earthday.org to see what can we do, where can we help or contribute to this Great cause on behalf of our future generations.

Source: EarthDay.org

Shameful As U.S. Government Shutdown Forces Museums to Shutter, Artists Respond

January 3rd, 2019

By Andrew Russeth POSTED 01/02/19 2:07 pm

In Washington, D.C.’s museum world, 2019 is beginning with a whimper.

As the partial shutdown of the federal government enters its second full week, all Smithsonian museums and many other agencies in D.C. and beyond have shuttered for lack of funds, or are getting ready to close for an indefinite period. Among those closed on Wednesday were the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Air and Space Museum, and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.; the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. and New York; and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.

The National Gallery of Art, which is not part of the Smithsonian but receives significant government funding, was open, but if legislation is not passed to provide funding by midnight tonight, it will also close Thursday, according to a press representative. [Update, January 3: The NGA closed on Thursday.]

The shutdown began at midnight on December 22, but some cultural institutions were able to keep operating by cobbling together unspent funds that have now run out. (The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, by way of contrast, ceased operations immediately.)

The shutdown is the result of lawmakers leaving town for the holidays without passing a budget that President Trump said he would be willing to sign. The President has insisted on $5 billion being allocated for a wall along the U.S-Mexico border and said last month that he would be “proud to shut down the government” if his demands were not met. (Since then, he has blamed Democrats for the closure.)

While museums lie dormant and their workers go unpaid, clocks are ticking on the run of temporary exhibitions. At the Hirshhorn, a show of recent paintings by the Irish-American painter Sean Scully is set to end February 3. Asked on Wednesday about the federal paralysis, Scully said in an email via his gallery Cheim & Read, “The Hirshhorn is a government museum, so it necessarily follows that if there’s a government shutdown, the Hirshhorn will be shut. The bigger question is, why do we have the government we have? And what is it doing to the dignity of America?”

Copyright 2019, Art Media ARTNEWS, llc. 110 Greene Street, 2nd Fl., New York, N.Y. 10012. All rights reserved.

Complete article at:
http://www.artnews.com/2019/01/02/shameful-u-s-government-shutdown-forces-museums-shutter-artists-respond/

Love is in the Air

February 8th, 2018

Love is in the Air

Surround your Life with Love - Feel the Love in the Air with Love art on your walls or home decor.
Great gifts for the occasion available at RafaelSalazar.com
Wall Art - Accessories - Apparel - Mobile - Lifestyle

#ValentinesDay #Love #Friendship #Art

Apparel Collection by Rafael Salazar

June 18th, 2017

Apparel Collection by Rafael Salazar

For a Collection of Apparel, Rafael creates new stylish designs that fit the clothing line as Art to Wear – Fun – Modern – Young & and for the whole family. Whether athletic clothes to exercise into to all around apparel.
Available in different sizes and colors.

Available at Online Stores
https://RafaelSalazar.com

Is Art an Object of Passion or an Asset like any other

March 4th, 2017

As the global ultra-rich snap up trophy artworks and build collections scattered around many homes and storage facilities, art services are becoming an increasingly important part of wealth professionals� offering to help these collectors manage their financial lives.

A Thursday panel at Deloitte�s U.S. Art & Finance Conference at The Armory Show featured five art and finance professionals discussing the evolving relationship between art and financial services.

It launched with Philip Hoffman, founder, and CEO of The Fine Art Group, harking back 18 years to when he was planning the launch of his art investment fund, The Fine Art Fund. Hoffman recalled how at the time, �everyone said it was very crude� to approach art as an asset class, since �art was about passion.� Fast-forward 18 years and now everyone�s doing it, he said, ticking off the names of banks with art services departments.

Artsy Editorial
By Anna Louie Sussman

How to Protect your Work on Social Media

January 7th, 2017

How to Protect your Work on Social Media

I would like to share with You all this article I received written by Josh at RedBubble.com.
Because I think it is of extreme importance to all of Us artists who post and share our Artworks thru Social Media. Hope You enjoy and find useful.

"Key to Knowledge" by Artist Shizayats. Source: RedBubble.com - Blog

Happy New Year 2017

December 30th, 2016

Happy New Year 2017

I would like to wish the Family at Fine Art America a Happy New Year 2017.

May the New Year bring You and Yours Happiness, Health, and Success this coming 2017.

I am trying the New App at Shopify and want to invite You for a visit. RafaelSalazar.myshopify.com/ Click For More Information to view it.

Try it, perhaps it gives you ideas or you have some for me.
Either way, it is a great option to have... Could be very Succesful. Definitely, prepare Us for the future.

Bring Your Art to Life

December 19th, 2016

Bring Your Art to Life

The Digital Revolution is Here Now �
ACanvas � Digital Picture Frame is Digital Streaming for your Walls.

The Acanvas digital picture frame is a large-format digital picture frame which hangs on a wall and allows You to stream your Artwork images to the frame using a mobile app.

The owner of the picture frame pays a monthly subscription fee for unlimited access to the images. Think of Acanvas as �Netflix for Art�.

The Acanvas is controlled using a mobile app on an iPhone or an Android phone.

Interested in this Brand new Technology please visit me at RafaelSalazar.com

Art Gifts - Holiday Shopping Online Savings

November 27th, 2016

Art Gifts - Holiday Shopping Online Savings

Give the Gift of Art this Holiday Season - Visit RafaelSalazar.com Online Stores for all kinds of Great Discounts.
Visit the different shops where you can find the Special Savings i.e

20% OFF + Free Shipping on Everything

25% OFF iPhone and Samsung cases. 20% off everything else. Use GOGIFTGO

#CyberMonday Sale - All Tees Just $14*

Black Friday 30% OFF Sitewide for the Next 27hrs 22min 52sec CODE BFSAVINGS

#CyberMonday Exclusive 20% OFF Framed Prints CODE CYBER

Super Weekend Up to 65% OFF - 20% OFF Sitewide CODE BLACKFRISAVE

Rafael Salazar Blog on Wordpress

August 11th, 2016

Rafael Salazar Blog on Wordpress

Born in Cali, Colombia. South America in 1944.Barranquilla was where he first got introduced to the world of arts; assisting different schools including Bellas Artes with some of the most renowned Colombian artists during the La Cueva years.
Rafael Salazar ~
Artist and Sculptor
from Colombia, South America
He owned an Art Gallery in Sunny Isles Boulevard, where he taught young artists recently graduated from Gainesville University:

�The Art of finding the Inner Artist within you�.

An introspection of the artist�s own mental and emotional processes when defining which type of Art most sincerely reflects his or her artistic personality.

~ Rafael defies the assumption of his medium employing techniques to push his images toward abstraction.~

Nowadays, he is dedicated to painting producing a vast array of creations where his imagination has no boundaries.

Please visit his brand new blog with News about the Art Wold - Art Market News and Trends and New Collection by Rafael Salazar.

Website: http://RafaelSalazar.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rafael.salazar.9615566
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/rafaelsalazar/
Twitter: https://Twitter.com/Rafael_SalazarS

About.Me:https://about.me/rafael_salazars
Behance: https://www.behance.net/rafaelsalazar
Blogger: http://rafael-salazar.blogspot.com/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/1067843354897...4273/posts
Instagram: https://instagram.com/rafael_salazars/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rafael-s...84/953/320
StumbleUpon:http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/rafaelesalazar
Tumbler:http://rafael-salazar.tumblr.com/
Wordpress: https://rafaelesalazar.wordpress.com/


"Together We Grow Stronger"

Thank You

Permanent Resident at Fine Art America

August 7th, 2016

Permanent Resident at Fine Art America

Happy Camper! My Primary Domain RafaelSalazar.com now Resides Permanently at Fine Art America/Pixels.

This move has improved the 'Handle on my Artwork Inventory',

I highly recommend it to Everyone. "Consolidate and Concentrate" all your Energy in Producing Top of the Line Artworks to suit all Lifestyles - Art Lovers - Art Collectors - Interior Decorators - Interior Designers and the public in general.

Something for Everyone!!!

Hope you Enjoy the Visit and come by often, as I am always producing new Series of things that catch my attention or are Fun to Look at!

Appreciate your valued Following on Social Media. "Together We Grow Stronger"

Collection of 2016 Paintings by Rafael Salazar

June 25th, 2016

Collection of 2016 Paintings by Rafael Salazar

This is a preview of my new Collection of 2016 paintings that range from Abstracts, Geometrics, Portraits, 3D Sculpture, Into the Future to Abstract Flowers Series with a wild Twist.

As I like to Push the Envelope in my Art I would like to introduce these new Collections which I hope you will enjoy as much as I creating them.

Academics Say the Art Market Bubble Is About to Burst, Are They Right?

January 21st, 2016

Academics Say the Art Market Bubble Is About to Burst, Are They Right?

Is the art market bubble about to burst?
Photo: Spencer Platt via thefakefootball.com
A recent study published in the Journal of Empirical Finance from the University of Luxembourg predicts that the seemingly ever-growing art market bubble is about to burst.

Roman Kr�ussl, Thorsten Lehnert, and Nicolas Martelin from the Luxembourg School of Finance applied a new statistical method of detecting bubbles to over one million auction records from 1970 to 2014, focusing their research on the Impressionist and modern, post-war and contemporary, American, and Old Masters sectors of the market.

Source: ArtNet News

7 Art Shipping Nightmares and How Best to Avoid Them

December 29th, 2015

7 Art Shipping Nightmares and How Best to Avoid Them

Thanks to multi-billion-dollar November art auctions in New York and the ever-growing behemoth that is Art Basel in Miami Beach each December (with an estimated $3 billion worth of art on view), the tail end of the calendar year has become one of the busiest for the global art trade.

This frenzy of buying and selling between dealers, auction houses, and collectors, translates into an equally dizzying routine with regard to art shipping�be it from auction houses to private homes, to freeports in Switzerland and Singapore, from residential collections loaning works to prestigious museum shows, and from art fair booths to the homes of eager buyers abroad.

So what could go wrong? Plenty.

Source: ArtNet News - by Eileen Kinsella

What kind of Art sells best?

November 23rd, 2015

What kind of Art sells best?

Is It Important to Know What Kind of Art Sells Best?
By Barney Davey � Art Marketing News FAA

The Question Vexes Many Artists.

In some ways, it�s impossible to give an accurate answer to what kind of art sells best. It�s too broad. Are we talking original paintings, sculpture, mixed media, digital art or reproductions?

Picasso�s painting above holds the record for the most expensive painting sold at $106 million. That�s one way of looking at what kind of art sells best. No doubt it offers little insight into helping you decide on the type of art you make.

Florals and Landscapes Dominate?
Many of you know I worked nearly two decades for Decor magazine during its heyday as the most successful publication serving retail art galleries and picture frame shops. Over the years, Decor magazine frequently surveyed its readers to ask what sold best in their shops. Not surprisingly, landscapes and florals perennially topped the list. They go in any decor and are as non-controversial as you can get.

Somehow, florals didn�t make the cut on this HubPages article, Top Ten subjects for art that sells. Otherwise, I agree with the suggestions it offers. The question for you is, �What do you do with this information?� I can see how knowing this and researching the resources below can help you. However, I think they should only slightly modify and not completely affect your creative process.

Source: Art Marketing News by Barney Davey Fellow Artist from Fine Art America

Black Friday Gift of Art

November 21st, 2015

Black Friday Gift of Art

Gifts of Art for the Entire Family including your beloved Pets.
Check out our Gallery of Abstract � Conceptual � Geometric � Nature � Portraits � Photography � Pop Art & More.

Special Promotions and or Free Shipping � Shop Early Enjoy the Savings!
Limited Time Promotions
http://fineartamerica.com/weeklypromotion.html?promotionid=181246
http://fineartamerica.com/weeklypromotion.html?promotionid=181244
http://fineartamerica.com/weeklypromotion.html?promotionid=181242

Fom 1971 Why have there been no great women artists?

October 15th, 2015

Fom 1971 Why have there been no great women artists?

While the recent upsurge of feminist activity in this country has indeed been a liberating one, its force has been chiefly emotional�personal, psychological and subjective�centered, like the other radical movements to which it is related, on the present and its immediate needs, rather than on historical analysis of the basic intellectual issues which the feminist attack on the status quo automatically raises.1 Like any revolution, however, the feminist one ultimately must come to grips with the intellectual and ideological basis of the various intellectual or scholarly disciplines�history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc.�in the same way that it questions the ideologies of present social institutions.
If, as John Stuart Mill suggested, we tend to accept whatever is as natural, this is just as true in the realm of academic investigation as it is in our social arrangements. In the former, too, �natural� assumptions must be questioned and the mythic basis of much so-called �fact� brought to light. And it is here that the very position of woman as an acknowledged outsider, the maverick �she� instead of the presumably neutral �one��in reality the white-male-position-accepted-as-natural, or the hidden �he� as the subject of all scholarly predicates�is a decided advantage, rather than merely a hindrance of a subjective distortion.

Developing DNA as a Standard for Authenticating Art

October 13th, 2015

Developing DNA as a Standard for Authenticating Art

The artist Eric Fischl remembers the time a friend waved a catalog at him to alert him that one of his paintings was up for auction for six figures in London. In reality, the work was a fake, but so convincing, Mr. Fischl said, �I thought I was losing my mind.�

Brushes with forgery like that one two decades ago, and concerns about his legacy and estate, prompted Mr. Fischl to appear in London on Monday to vouch for a new authentication system that would let artists sign their works with specks of synthetic DNA.

The method is being developed at the Global Center for Innovation at the State University of New York at Albany. The school said it had received $2 million in funding from the ARIS Title Insurance Corporation, which specializes in art.

Intelligent Machines AI art is taking on the experts

September 19th, 2015

Intelligent Machines AI art is taking on the experts

In a world where machines can do many things as well as humans, one would like to hope there remain enclaves of human endeavour to which they simply cannot aspire.
Art, literature, poetry, music - surely a mere computer without world experience, moods, memories and downright human fallibility cannot create these.
Meet Aaron, a computer program that has been painting since the 1970s - big dramatic, colourful pieces that would not look out of place in a gallery.

Source: BBC News � By Jane Wakefield � Technology reporter

5 Famous Artists Who Once Faced Rejection

September 17th, 2015

5 Famous Artists Who Once Faced Rejection

There will always be a critic who dislikes an artist's work. But some artists throughout history have faced more than just one dissenting voice. These artists, now studied and revered, were once criticized, ridiculed and rejected. What unites them is their breaking of the mold: while their paintings span different genres and styles, they all reveal creativity and fearless innovation that helped to define watershed moments in the history of art.

Source: Madelaine D'Angelo @ Huffington Post

Read Full Article

5 reasons artists can not live without Pinterest

September 17th, 2015

5 reasons artists can not live without Pinterest

Pinterest has become an invaluable tool for concept artists and illustrators alike � we discover why from the pros who use it.

While the female-dominated social media platform Pinterest may have a reputation with whimsical home-decor ideas � it can also serve as an invaluable tool for concept artists and illustrators.

Read Full Article


Source: Creative Bloq � words by Alice Pattillo

The Dramatic Turn of Graffiti Art reaches new Heights with Artist Jose Parla

September 7th, 2015

The Dramatic Turn of Graffiti Art reaches new Heights with Artist Jose Parla

Artist Jos� Parl� reaches new heights

CBS News September 6, 2015

A former street artist, Jos� Parl�s works are anything but Off The Wall. In fact, they can now be seen in many a high-profile location, including one of the very highest of all. Rita Braver reports:

It is one of the most symbolic buildings in the nation: the new One World Trade Center, rising resolutely after the devastation of September 11, 2001.

The art of Jos� Parl�

And what was chosen to greet visitors as they enter? A mural � not about the attacks, but about moving forward. It�s a mural about resilience.

From the beginning, artist Jos� Parl� says he knew it had to be a powerful piece: �It�s a mural about strength and unity. And I see it more about people coming together, like the diversity in New York City. So it celebrates New York.�

Why Wall Art Matters Most In Interior Design

August 12th, 2015

Why Wall Art Matters Most In Interior Design

Too often in interior design, we see wall art treated as an afterthought. It�s what gets dealt with last, long after the final coat of paint has dried on the walls and all of the furniture has been artfully arranged, if it gets dealt with at all.

But, we�re here to argue that by relegating wall art to the side lines, you�re missing out on an amazing design opportunity. When chosen thoughtfully, the right wall art can provide for the entire room. Dare we say it, but we think wall art matters most in interior design.

However, if you�re a little nervous to give wall art such a prominent role in your design plans, don�t worry. Use this post as a guide on how to accurately choose pieces that will mesh with your existing space and you will have a harmonious interior. By Tara Mastroeni

Why Art is Good for Entrepreneurs

August 9th, 2015

Why Art is Good for Entrepreneurs

Artists are the ultimate entrepreneurs. That�s why a trip to a museum is so inspiring for founders.

BY SAMUEL BACHARACH
Co-founder, Bacharach Leadership Group (BLG)@samuelbacharach

Who is more entrepreneurial than an artist?

They have new ideas. They meet resistance. They have to mobilize support. Half the time they don�t even know if they are going to succeed, and very few of them actually make it to the galleries of our major museums.

Million-dollar sales boost art loan industry

August 4th, 2015

Million-dollar sales boost art loan industry

�Art lending business is booming�, according to the first comprehensive poll of the industry, conducted by the research firm Skate�s and due for publication on Tuesday, 4 August. The report calculates that art loans could account for more than $10bn in 2015, at least twice the 2011 level, and could grow to become a $100bn market.

Driving business is the growth of art sales at the top levels�where lenders feel confident that a work could retain most of its value over the longer term. Skate�s identifies the $1m-$5m and the over $20m ranges as �the most liquid art-market segments today�.

Bank Offers Art-Buying Classes for Heirs and Heiresses

July 31st, 2015

Bank Offers Art-Buying Classes for Heirs and Heiresses

You can lose a lot of money with the wrong art buy � especially if you�re young, naive, and really, really rich.

According to Bloomberg, Citigroup is hoping to prevent such losses by teaching the heirs of its wealthiest bank customers how to invest in art. �You don�t have the birthright to the next generation�s wealth,� Citi Private Bank Managing Director Money Kanagasabapathy explained. �We want to continue to have the relationship with the family.�

Digital Artwork becomes tradeable and scarce on the Bitcoin block chain

April 29th, 2015

Digital Artwork becomes tradeable and scarce on the Bitcoin block chain

Entrepreneur and artist Stephan Vogler wants to change the art world, and he is using Bitcoin to do just that in what�s considered by many to be the epicenter of contemporary art, Berlin, Germany.

Vogler�s novel block chain technology inspired license seeks to change how art is purchased and traded. By creating a system of rights to copyrighted works in digital form, Bitcoin can turn art from mere collector�s pieces to limited and tradable virtual goods.

Christies Buys Collectrium the Online Startup Collector Management Tool for 16 Million

February 11th, 2015

Christies Buys Collectrium the Online Startup Collector Management Tool for 16 Million

Christie�s has bought Collectrium, an online collection management tool for the art world. Sources close to the deal say the purchase price was $16 million, although this figure could not be confirmed at the time of publication as neither Christie�s nor Collectrium returned calls. Other former staff members say the sale figure was between $20 and $25 million but that cannot be confirmed. Equity documents for former staffers being paid out list $16 million.

The Men Behind the Cartoons at Charlie Hebdo

January 10th, 2015

The Men Behind the Cartoons at Charlie Hebdo

Editorial Note:

May We Always Remember What Artists Stand For ~ Freedom of Speech ~ Libert� d�expression

The four cartoonists killed in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French newspaper, represented a radical, crude and vital strain of that nation�s culture, according to those who knew them and followed their work.

The men � St�phane Charbonnier, Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut and Bernard Verlhac � were among 12 people killed in the attack Wednesday.The newspaper had been insistent on publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which are banned under some interpretations of Islamic law, and by Wednesday evening, French officials had suggested that the attack had been carried out by Islamic extremists.

5 Questions to Ask Before Buying Your First Piece of Art

December 2nd, 2014

5 Questions to Ask Before Buying Your First Piece of Art

Buying art can be a truly intimidating experience. How do you know what's good? How much should you pay? Is that gallerina giving you the stink eye? (Probably.) But you've outgrown those framed posters you kept for too long post-college and you're ready to anoint the blank walls of your new grown-up apartment with something truly special. What to do?
Source: Elle Magazine by Leiah Chernikoff - Editorial Chief Culture News

These Holidays Give the Gift of Art

December 1st, 2014

These Holidays Give the Gift of Art

These Holidays Give the Gift of #Art � Plenty Artful Stocking Stuffers to Brighten Up Your Days and Your Loved Ones!

Free Worldwide Shipping Available Today when you Shop ONLINE this Cyber Monday.

Find Art to Wear - Cozy up your Place or Office. Take your Life Up a Notch with Art.

Style your Dreams your Bath your Coffee your Workout... Everything You Do with ART

Could Museums Become Victims of the Booming Art Market?

November 19th, 2014

Could Museums Become Victims of the Booming Art Market?

The art market continued its upward climb last week with unprecedented results at the New York auctions. But when Jasper Johns's Flag (1983) makes a record $36 million at Sotheby's (see "Rothko Reels In $45 Million at Sotheby's $343.6 Million Contemporary Evening Sale") or Peter Doig's Pine House (Rooms for Rent) (1994) fetches $18 million (also a record), at Christie's (see "Epic Christie's $852.9 Million Blockbuster Contemporary Art Sale Is the Highest Ever"), it may not necessarily be good news for all. In a recent interview with German magazine Monopol, Allianz's art insurance chief Georg von Gumppenberg suggests that the ever-rising art market is putting a damper on the quality of art most museums are able to show.
�Why?� you may ask. The answer is: insurance costs.

 


Read More


 

A New Status Symbol for Billionaires. Art Museum

November 19th, 2014

A New Status Symbol for Billionaires. Art Museum

What does it take to become a world-class art collector? These days, you need to build not only a great collection, but a great museum to house it in. Over the past few years, a rash of art-loving billionaires have dedicated themselves, or their foundations, to the construction of spectacular new venues to show off their finest acquisitions.

The trend began in earnest in 2006, when the French billionaire Fran�ois Pinault, the primary shareholder of the luxury conglomerate now called Kering, converted an 18th-century Venetian palace, the Palazzo Grassi, into a showplace for contemporary art. The site has since added two other structures, Punta della Dogana and the Teatrino, both designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Meanwhile, Bernard Arnault, the richest man in France and the chairman of the luxury conglomerate LVMH, was busy developing his own idea for a museum, which finally arrived last month, in Paris, in the form of Frank Gehry�s glass-paneled Fondation Louis Vuitton.


Read More

Smart is the New Locked.The Copyright Office Prepares to Rule on the Future of Everything

November 16th, 2014

Smart is the New Locked.The Copyright Office Prepares to Rule on the Future of Everything

Software is no longer limited to computers, tablets, and phones. Everyday objects from sneakers to refrigerators contain software, which often allow our apparel and appliances to communicate with mobile devices, the internet, and each other. As all of our possessions become �smart,� they are also becoming subject to laws that were never intended to regulate our morning cup of coffee or trip to the gym.

Last week, the US Copyright Office received petitions from consumers, company owners, and educators who believe that their lives and livelihoods are suffering because of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DMCA). And for the first time, the majority of petitions asking for exemptions to the DMCA have nothing at all to do with the original intent of the antipiracy law. We have entered a world that legislators had not envisioned when they drafted the DMCA, and the Copyright Office has to decide how to apply an aging policy in a new century.

The Copyright Office Proposes Resale Royalties for Visual Artists

November 5th, 2014

The Copyright Office Proposes Resale Royalties for Visual Artists

Artists, such as musicians and authors, receive royalties each time their artistic works are used or sold. Hear a song on the radio and you know that its creator will receive a check for its use. That is not always true for visual artists. How often has the astute art patron bought an artist�s early work, which they later sell for many times the price? The artist may have a copyright in the work but not in the resale of the original. Well, that might be changing. The Copyright Office has just issued a comprehensive report, �Resale Royalties: An Updated Analysis,� which proposes legal changes to copyright laws that will allow visual artists to receive royalties every time their original work is resold.

The copyright Office proposes a change to copyright laws that will allow visual artists to receive royalties every time their original art is sold.

Download Our Artist Licensing Agreement. It iss Free. Art Law Journal

November 5th, 2014

Download Our Artist Licensing Agreement. It iss Free. Art Law Journal

By Steve Schlackman

It may be surprising to receive a free licensing agreement from an attorney but we think it is so important that we had to do it. Let�s start with a hypothetical scenario.

A Story About Latte Art

Janet recently opened a local coffee shop, called �The Grind,�. She then hires you as a photographer to shoot the new store and the unique Latte Art that has been drawing customers throughout the area. The photos will be used strictly for the Grind�s website. You complete the shoot, invoice Janet and are paid for the work. Six months pass. You are reading Wired magazine and see an article on a new coffee machine called �CoffeeArt�, which creates cool foam patterns automatically. On the product packaging, you see your unmistakable photographs from The Grind, with their telltale signature Latte Foam Art. You call Janet immediately.

Janet says, �Yeah, pretty cool right? That company was started by a friend of mine and I gave him those pictures for the product packaging.� You tell her she had no right to do that but she says that she bought the photos so they are hers to do with what she wants. You then contact CoffeeArt and tell them they are using your photos without permission and ask them to pay you for the use of the photos. CoffeeArt asks you to contact their attorney.

Six things You Must know about Copyrights in Street Art

November 5th, 2014

Six things You Must know about Copyrights in Street Art

Artist�s rights in their street art, whether commissioned or guerrilla, has been in the news with some frequency lately, largely due to suits against American Eagle and Terry Gilliam. The slippery nature of copyright law has left many wondering where to draw the line between taking a photograph with street art in the background and taking a photo that infringes on a copyright. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. As we have pointed out before, artwork used without permission may not be considered an infringement. Rather, unauthorized use exists on a spectrum with clear infringement on one end and fair use on the other.

Source: Megan Ralstin - Art Law Journal

Colombian art is having a moment

November 2nd, 2014

Colombian art is having a moment

A new generation of Colombian artists and curators are benefiting from international exposure as the country�s political crisis recedes; art galleries, foundations and collectors are growing in numbers while its national economy flourishes. Hans Ulrich Obrist called this change the �Colombian milagro [miracle]� during an Art Basel Miami Beach talk back in December 2013.

The annual art fair in Bogot�, Artbo (24-27 October), launched ten years ago by the Bogot� Chamber of Commerce, has played a crucial role in galvanising Colombia�s art scene.
The fair has gained momentum since Maria Paz Gaviria, an art historian and daughter of a former Colombian president, took over three years ago. Gallery applications for the fair increased by 30% this year, Gaviria says. But one key ingredient of the fair�s success, she explains, is that it has frozen its size while offering a platform for new international art galleries and emerging talents. Only 20% of the 65 galleries in its main section are from Colombia, and while they tend to showcase Latin American artists, the fair features galleries from 30 different cities. Artbo offers a balance between veterans like Galeria Luisa Strina from S�o Paulo, Leon Tovar from New York and Ruth Benzacar from Buenos Aires, and young art galleries like Revolver from Lima, Mor-Charpentier from Paris, and Diablo Rosso from Panama City...

Jorge P�rez, of the P�rez Art Museum, Miami (Pamm), attended the fair this year and told the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo that, �Colombia has the best young artists in the world today�.

Joni Mitchell on Therapy and the Creative Mind

October 10th, 2014

Joni Mitchell on Therapy and the Creative Mind

An artist needs a certain amount of turmoil and confusion.

Joni Mitchell - In her own words - Conversations with Malka Maron

It�s paradoxical that while �art holds out the promise of inner wholeness� for those who experience it, the relationship between creativity and mental illness is well-documented among those who make it, as is the anguish of artists who experience it. This, perhaps, renders the cultivation and preservation of mental health all the more urgently important for artists and those operating on a high frequency of creativity.

Eight-time Grammy recipient Joni Mitchell (b. November 7, 1943), undoubtedly one of the most original and influential musicians of the past century, as well as an enormously talented painter, speaks to the value of therapy and a commitment to mental health in Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words (public library) � that wonderful collection of wide-ranging conversations by musician, documentarian, and broadcast journalist Malka Marom, which also gave us Mitchell on freedom, creativity, and the dark side of success.

Why Bitcoin Is Good for the Art World by Gary T.Kerr from Art Print Issues

February 3rd, 2014

Why Bitcoin Is Good for the Art World by Gary T.Kerr from Art Print Issues

Thanks to our Fellow Artist Barney Davey and his fine Magazine http://artprintissues.com/ I stumbled upon this very important article about Bitcoin.

How it may affect the Art World, How can We Artists Benefit, etc.

Very important points that I decided to share with You on his behalf.

Hope you enjoy and find Lots of Benefits from it. After All the more Informed We are the More Successful We Can Become.

Regards,
Rafael Salazar

This Christmas Give Art - Invest in Art

December 25th, 2013

This Christmas Give Art - Invest in Art

Art is a Gift that lasts forever. It is an Investment if you happen to find works from an Emerging Artist.

❝ Buying emerging art is the equivalent of investing in frontier market equities. Rather than buying the global names that appear in the big auctions of the best galleries, you invest in the artistic equivalent of Mongolia or Cambodia: the young artists coming out of MA programmes.❞

David Stevenson - The Financial Times



Abstract Art by Rafael Salazar

October 9th, 2013

Abstract Art by Rafael Salazar

Collection of Abstract artwork by Colombian artist Rafael Salazar.
View these and other styles that make up his wide range of creativity.
Galleries and earlier works also available.

All rights reserved Copyright 2013

Geometric Art by Rafael Salazar

October 9th, 2013

Geometric Art by Rafael Salazar

Geometric art collection by Rafael Salazar ~ Colombian artist and sculptor

Art News and Collection of Works including Paintings and Commercial Art

Halloween Art to Wear by Rafael Salazar

October 6th, 2013

Halloween Art to Wear by Rafael Salazar

Art to Wear Available Ready to Wear at our Red Bubble Online Store

T-Shirts & Hoodies
We love our tees and hoodies so much we could talk about them all day, but that�d be a bit weird. So we�ll just say that we�re immensely proud of the quality of all our garments and the super futuristic technology that creates our unique t-shirts and hoodie prints. Our t-shirts are long lasting, individual and extremely useful for abiding by public decency laws.

Sweatshop-free American Apparel
Made and printed in the US of A
100% cotton (Heather Grey contains 10% Polyester)
Huge range of exciting colors
Printed using cutting edge direct to garment technologies
Four t-shirt styles for boys and girls�young and old
California fleece hoodie
Care Instructions/Washing Information
We advise you cold wash your garments and hang them out to dry. It�ll keep them super soft, looking their best and it�s even good for the environment.

Dimensions
Slim fit, order a size up if you�d like it less fitting. If you like your hoodies baggy, go two sizes up.

Rafael Salazar Blog

September 29th, 2013

Rafael Salazar Blog

Collection of Paintings ~ Abstract ~ Conceptual ~ Geometric ~ Figurative ~ Portraits ~ Art by Rafael Salazar ~ Colombian Artist