Art & Money

Some time ago I made a comic about art grants.
This also inspired me to make another comic about the difficult relationship between art and money:

Happy Dace Day

The exhibition of Dace Sietina's work in comic gallery Lambiek ended (see my previous

post about her), so I could finally take the two drawings I purchased home!

(damn that reflecting glass!)

Detail of the rabbit figures at school

But there was more good Dace-news:
Griffioen Grafiek turned one of her drawings into a gorgeous print and gave me one!

Dace Sietina 'Ode to Basquiat'

The print is really big (50x70 cm) and the quality is excellent, so close to the original!
And because it was impossible to print the fluorescent colours that Dace used in her work,
she hand-drew all the fluoriscent orange parts! A truly one-of-a-kind-print!
There are only 35 made and you can buy one, numbered and signed, for €100.

Check out the rest of Griffioen Grafiek's catalogue as well if you like comic art; They sell some

amazing prints of Chris Ware, Joost Swarte, Robert Crumb and Charles Burns a.o.

(and an old print of me and Barbara Stok as well! Scroll down to 1998, it's just €25!)

Dace Sietina

Usually I just show my own stuff here, but this time I want to introduce you to the art of
Dace Sietina. I discovered her work when I was a judge in the Benelux Comic Contest,
the comic she sent in was my personal favorite (unfortunately the other judges didn't agree).
So I was excited when I heard she had an exhibition at gallery/comicstore Lambiek.

I have a feeling that people will either hate her work or absolutely love it, and personally I fall in
the 2nd category. ;-) It's weird and fresh, sometimes even gets close to being ugly but still manages
to stay interesting and entertaining. Er... sorry, I'm not an art critic!
Anyway, I loved it and for the first time in my life I felt like buying something, BUT...

The big one was her latest, most expensive and personal favorite work, inspired by Basquiat.
It was my personal favorite as well, but unfortunately Arthur Griffioen beat me to buying it! :-(
But the good news is that Arthur runs the artprint company Griffioen Grafiek and plans to turn
the drawing into an exclusive print! (And he promised me one, yeah! :-D )
The smaller drawing at the left is based upon the sign that hangs from the Lambiek store.

But that didn't stop me from buying; I bought this one with the 'rabbit' figures! Dace poses next to it.
And then I also bought the smaller drawing at the far right from the first pic. Seriously, this is the first
time ever that I bought art! But as you can see I'm already getting inspired by Dace's work!

So go visit her exhibtion in Amsterdam, it's still there for 1,5 months!
(but if you want to buy something you better hurry up! Prices vary between €50 and €500)
And this is Dace Sietina's website.
Oh and did you know that Griffioen Grafiek made a print of my work too, many, many years ago?
Somehow it's still not sold out, and they're just €25 a piece (and they're huuuuge!)
(see here at the year 1998)

Happy happy joy joy!

I'm extremely happy. Can you tell?

I applied for an art grant from 'het Fonds BKVB' (art foundation) and today I
recieved a letter that my application was approved!
Along with the letter of approval there was a sheet of stickers with the logo of the
foundation, to show the world who 'sponsors' me. So I turned them into a necklace.

I got the grant for a (drawn) travel diary about my next big trip to Hong Kong,
Taiwan and Japan. I'm really thrilled that they approved my plan. I've been
wearing that big smile on my face all day long.

Blah blah art blah blah...

I picked up this flyer at an exhibition of a German photographer.
I reread it 20 times and then I understood that, yes, it WAS correct english
and it DID make sense. Sort of.

I hate art speak....

Snippendaal

On my way to the station I passed this house made from cheap nylon bags.

I have to admit I wasn't that impressed because I once saw a big art exhibition
in Hong Kong completely dedicated to them.
But it was fun to suddenly run into an art project, and this turned out to be a
fun project as well: The house is actually a 'hotel' where guests can stay one
night under the condition that they somehow contribute to the installation.

I loved the idea of a mini garden in a bag. But the sign puzzled me.
'Snippendaaltuin' might look dutch but is completely gibberish.

It turned out that this was the contribution of two guests from New York,
who were hoping that 'snippendaaltuin' was correct dutch for herb garden.
Alas no, that's 'kruidentuin', but if I had a snippendaaltuin I'd stick with the
name!
Here's the site of DUS architects, who set this up.