Recently, I watched two videos by visual artists that promoted nudity more than art. One video recorded a nude woman painting on the street in downtown London. The other was a video of a male artist who uses his penis as his paint brush. I can’t imagine what the chemicals are doing to his penis?
I have nothing against nudity in art. I KNOW living nude models are the most effective way to develop the skill of draftsmanship. The nude model is the best form from which to learn how to draw. In fact I was a nude model for art groups.
Therefore, when I judged the videos mentioned above it was not about nudity. Rather, I felt offended and tricked into watching something that was not really about art. The question is to what extent must artists go to market their art?
As you can see from the photo above I have also used gimmicks with the hope of attracting viewers to my website.
Last year I thought it would be quite clever to do a weekly post on FB with photos of how to view art. These posts received quite a few likes for three or four weeks, but then no one liked them so I discontinued them. This one I called “lie on your side in the grass and look at the painting propped up in front of you”.
This was a post saying “sit on the railing, dangle your feet and view the painting below”.
“Take you painting to the beach and listen to the waves.”
Since posting a series on how to view art was not popular, I tried posts on how not to view art.
This shows viewing a painting from the shower. Gee, it’s kind of like painting nude!
I close by saying marketing online means doing clever things that show personalities. Maybe gimmicks are necessary. What do you think?