Serendipity!   About one month apart comes news of two different – and successful – approaches by artists intent to reach their publics direct, bypassing any agent, gallery owner, or other middleman.
I discovered the first on a plane back from Vienna in an article in The Economist detailing a two-day auction of artist Damien Hirst’s newest works.  (The article appeared last month on the day Lehman Brothers collapsed.) The experimental sale of  pieces by the artist well-known for various works featuring a shark as icon, took place at Sotheby’s in London; it was preceded by “unprecedented public interest†in the week prior to the sale, with 21,000 visitors coming to view the sale preview in an eleven-day period.
The Hirst sale included at last one bidding war via telephone, and netted an amazing total of 178 million dollars.  ( Damien Hirst himself was not present at the first evening, understandably finding the occasion “too stressfulâ€. )
The second item is from today’s NY Times Magazine, titled Painting by Numbers.
Two art directors in the NY ad business, have web-based art enterprise which sells original works and began by selling to a targeted list of folks who were their internet contacts. The novelty here is that the artworks – minimal, ‘iconic’ in look - each carry realistic price-tags, mostly quite low; and the subject of each painting is a portrait of the thing the makers wish to buy with the proceeds of the sale. Examples of their works already sold: bottle of aspirin; plane ticket; hotel room for a night in Las Vegas; new bikini; good luck (this picture was free !).
Each of these enterprises appeals to a quite differentiated group of buyers ( big bucks /  modest bucks). Both appear to be successful.
What kind of lesson lurks here for composers — ?
“L’audace, toujours l’audace!†– Georges Danton
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