ArtBase

The artbeast is a constantly changing critter. So if someone tries to sell you a cohesive definition of what contemporary art is, my advice is, "Don't buy it!"

It is anything and everything but cohesive and to make things a bit more complicated, it constantly tries to reinvent itself. Contemporary art world, in my obviously not-so-humble opinion, is a loose network of often contradictory goals and means that is held together by dollars and bubblegum. Dollars, of course, are paramount to holding together most of the world but really... any market that can comfortably contain Jeff Koons, James Turrell and Martha Rosler is a bit schizophrenic to say the least.

Before I get myself into serious trouble with art historians/theorists with my pronouncements (with absolutely no citations!)let me tell you what I am trying to do here. I compiled a basic list of artworld components (art fairs, festivals, commercial and alternative art spaces, publications and other resources.) Artists are deliberately excluded from these listings! I didn't want to turn this into Dima's favorite artists list. ooops... :) What I do hope for, is that after browsing through the links for a couple of weeks readers get a sense of different trends and ideas that populate the space known as "contemporary art."

I had to hop from site to site to site to collect these links. You, the reader, have the benefit of jumping from a single (albeit heavily edited) point. If you have some comments and/or additions along the way please do post them.

One of the goals for the website and the class is to point people to resources for artists (places to exhibit, grants, fellowships, residencies, etc) This is the stuff that is essential for artists. Especially when they are starting up! Here too I am hoping for some community sharing.

Finally if anyone spots any missssspelings, weird punctuation and/or grammatical errors do comment and I will fix the problem. Unfortunately, I am not the world's greatest editor, so I rely on others for help :)