An artist responds to job loss...

An artist deals with personal financial crisis

Letter to the Bank #43

Dear Bullrider,

One of the most enduring issues I have with my attempts to communicate with you is the palpable fact that I am already morally compromised and all efforts to stand on my high horse and denunciate the appalling behavior of the bankers, the financiers, mortgage brokers blah blah blah are already undermined by my own efforts to capitalize on the crisis by refinancing again and again. The whole Tiger Woods debacle brings similar thoughts to mind. How can I or anyone point our cruel fingers without pointing also at ourselves. All this reminds me of the wonderful joke where Jesus, coming across a crowd hurling stones at a prostitute in the village square, denounces them with: Throw Ye the first stone who has not sinned! Whereupon his mum/mom emerges from the crowd with a huge boulder which she proceeds to toss at the poor girl so embarrassing her/his (you know who's) son.

It would be interesting to shine the same kind of intense light on those who do the finger pointing as they shine on those they all too often revel in exposing. This is why I do not spend too much time naming names. It is the idea of Trust, of doing good, that I grapple with, the awfulness and abundance of Greed, of unscrupulousness out there, that I wrestle with, both in the World at large and within, down in my liver, or wherever it is that those sort of tendencies reside.

Yours sincerely,

K W

PS-A case in point-People still are stoned to death in some countries, for real, hard as this is to believe, and we sit at our writing desk complaining about mere greed, moaning about mortgage payments, and about not having enough time to do our art.

The Debt of Art Consolidation

As I wrestle with my own profoundly naive comprehension of this whole new grubby world of finance that has opened up before us all (like a beautiful, luxurious, exotic man-eating plant), I am constantly confronted by my ability to shoot myself in the foot, bite the hand that feeds me, cut off my own nose to spite your face.... I do think of myself as having good humor and even being a somewhat gentle soul so my problem is this: How to fend off the uglier side of feelings I have such as mistrust, suspicion and even bitter fury toward those who so easily and so calmly take advantage of the already disadvantaged. My mistrust is such that I am not sure I can see honest intent for what it is anymore.  That could become dangerously debilitating. Thus it is that I find myself skewered on the pitchfork of populist anger. I am the mobster stuffed in a plastic bag and left on the corner of a rundown street. My solution? I can speak only for myself. I want to feel good about the choices I make. If I make money I want to do so ethically. Now how naive is that? I want to make money for Art's sake!Too many make Art for money's sake. There was a fine article the other day that addressed just this issue: Tweaking the Big-Money Art World on its Own Turf. The artist William Powhida finds himself caught in that place I too am in-criticizing the whole world of branded artists and buyers and auction houses and then, though mildy, profiting from it. But don't worry! More angry art with bankers having rotten eggs thrown at them to come!!

Curdle Whale-Art Klecter 2

Letter to the Bank #42

Dear Mr. Bullrider (I believe that is the current bank manager’s name),
Last time I communicated with your fair institution I believe I was a little belligerent. I’m not apologizing, just letting you know that you needn’t steel yourself. This letter is different. This letter is a thoughtful letter.

I’m in a hole. Well I’m always in a hole but this time it’s different. There are piles of potatoes in the corner next to a homemade distillery, and a sharply dressed rabbit holding a gold fob watch is observing me. Go figure! It’s as if he is timing me, seeing how long I can stand it down here, how long before I head up for some fresh air. Well, as far as I’m concerned I am in it for the long haul, not by choice but of necessity. He’s going to have a long wait. I actually like it down here in the deep soil of our world, the rich, warm (surprisingly warm!) loam of life. It is dark but that is nothing a light bulb or two (the new spirally kind for sustainability) won’t fix. Would you do me the kindness of dropping down an electric extension? Honestly that would be more helpful than credit offers or money at this point. It’s just impractical for me to heave myself out of here right now. Besides I have a potentially lucrative bet on with the rabbit.

I can hear the traffic but it is muted. I can even hear the collective stomp of commuters heading for work, much like the distant sound of Burundi drummers. When you step outside the whole thing for a while, relax and sink into the sofa of the disenfranchised, drop through the bottom and observe from very deep down it helps the mind focus. The stars at night, framed by the manhole (dug by yours truly) are simply beautiful.

So all I ask for is some light at the bottom end of this tunnel I’m in.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

PS-It is a bit sadder during the daytime. From where I sit I can see a foreclosed home.

Curdle Whale-Art Klecter

Light on his Feet, *on his Shoes

Letter to the Bank #41

Dear Mr. Bullrider,

What, for goodness sake, is going on? What is all this business about helping homeowners (all of a sudden) by reducing the principle on their mortgages? It sounds too good to be true which, naturally, it is. You canny beast you! You’ve done it again! You've found yet another way to make a profit out of other people's pain! This time it is gift wrapped. I read the following in the NYT today:

Steven and Marisela Alva say they do not know who helped them with their mortgage. All they know is that they feel blessed.
Last December, the couple got a letter saying that a firm had purchased the mortgage on their home in Pico Rivera, Calif., from Chase Home Finance for less than its original value. “We want to share this discount with you,” the letter said.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Mr. Alva, a 62-year-old janitor and father of three. “I kept thinking to myself, ‘Something is wrong, something is wrong. This sounds too good.’ ”

Now let me get this straight—you persuade homeowners to refinance, they do indeed end up having lower mortgages, and the government and, eventually the taxpayer, will end up paying the bill—right? This is all part of your belated realization that people do not like you very much. You are finally beginning to notice the rage out there. But, with a stroke of your pen you can calm the storm and reap a healthy profit. You win winners in your win win garb win yet again!

I read an amazing thing: Even as the CEO of Goldblock Box, or is it Goldbody Shine, sneered at the idea of going on the talk shows to polish up their image, he also offered, I can hardly believe this, an apology! Finally the Remorseful Banker Incarnate! This just in: His name is Blankfein, and the bank he works for is Goldman Sachs. My search for a remorseful banker has finally yielded results and as such I must name names. I admit to generally refraining from mentioning either those of of banks or bankers. I’m no populist, no wielder of pitchforks or clubs. I’m just trying to get my mind around all of this. I’m just trying to find the human being behind the profit motive, the heart behind the gold fob watch. It ain’t easy!

To quote: “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret....We apologize.”

My only problem with this apology is I cannot find the regret...anywhere! What is there to regret? they are reaping larger profits than ever before and certainly NEVER give money away. If they appear to do so it is only a mirage, smoke and mirrors. They fund large Art exhibits for the price of attaching their name to it. Banking, selling mortgages, getting rich, chasing money for money’s sake, seeking power...may all be very sexy but it doesn’t smack of taste or profundity, or altruism in any way and so these are the things they must have, attempt to buy and can never truly own.

The saddest part of all this is that the anger aimed at these fat cats (in forty letters to you I haven’t used this expression until now!) will always be muted by our need for them to fund, aid and abet our habits, our all to addictive habits like obsessive consumerism and the insistent wish to vote for a government not entirely in the pockets of the banks and corporations. I'd love to think, for once, the banks are actually reaching out to those who have lost their shirts during this whole mess. Sadly I don't believe it is so.

I feel like a spelunker caught in a massive ball of steel wire at the bottom of an old mine shaft.

Yours sincerely though clearly lost,

Kristian Witherkay

Letter to the Bank #40

Dear BB,

This is how I will be referring to you from now on. Addressing you as BM could be somehow misconstrued as an insult and the last thing I wish to do is drive you away. You are so much more than my financial advisor or bank manager, more than just a suit. You are my guru, my therapist, my inspiration, my life. You are occasionally dim but you are always full of optimism. Nothing gets you down not even a lousy economy. You are the shade in my light and it is to you, chief executive officer of the Mine’s Eye Bank, that I turn whenever my world stops doing so for however brief a moment. Seeing as your bank exists only in the realms of my imagination it is one I can certainly relate to if not trust. Only you can fully appreciate the fact that my letters do not simply address matters of personal finance but take on the ever more important issue of a lack thereof. I take on the trenchant concerns of one who lacks what might be termed any real personal finances to speak of. Considering everything I earn, and all that I serve as guardian to—be it my art books or the seeds of my loins—in the end belong to the Brotherhood of Bouncy Bankers.

You own me and I, unfortunately, owe you.

Despite this painful, though by no means recent, revelation my letters will remain, as always, packed with wit and satirical asides. In my efforts to get to you I find myself tripping over syntax and sentence construction assaying to employ every trick in my toolbox. Getting to you is what this is all about and this is why:
As a family man approaching his post middle years shouldn’t I be bounding out of bed of a morning full of vim and vigor, shouldn’t I be singing a little ditty as I brush my crooked teeth? Instead I ache. I roll over rubbing my stiff neck. I gulp down a glass of stale water to assuage my parched throat. Why is it parched? Because I do not have the time to get to a water fountain, a cooler or even the Red Bar (and the Red Bar requires money). My body aches because I do not find the time to do the stretches recommended by my physical therapist to help me with my back that is chronically uncomfortable which causes disrupted sleep and thus a tendency to flop somewhat inertly out of bed of a morning. No time. No money. I’m a visionary trapped in a dualistic universe. This also causes chronic pain, low level, perpetual discomfort.

On an entirely different note why is it that those who fail to make a ton of money are considered the greatest criminals of all? If you rob a convenience store you go down for a good five to ten I’ll bet. A white collar criminal, on the other hand, caught bilking the average Josephine of her meager income by persuading her to make financial decisions she is not equipped to handle, usually waltzes away with all blame placed squarely on the little old lady’s stooped little shoulders. She should have known better. As to the matter of bonuses—I’ll do the decent thing and skip lightly away leaving that whisper in your ear. I know eventually you will do the right thing. But my admiration for yoy knows no bounds. Despite these issues that continue to undermine your good name you remain undaunted. Your good cheer, your bounce is ever an inspiration.

Most sincerely,

K. W.

Frank Rich Op Ed Nov 7th 2009

"Americans don’t hate rich people, but they do despise those who behave as if the rules don’t apply to them."

For more read his brilliant column in the New York Times most Sundays.

Letter to the Bank #39

Dear BM,

You know…I kind of wanted the big banks to fail. I did. I admit it. I am not saying this is a responsible “want” but it is true. In fact I REALLY wanted the banks, the banks that were too big to fail…to fail. I still do! Now that they haven’t it certainly is no better for the majority of us and they are not exactly loosening their assets, their belts (despite their obesity) nor are they reaching out a hand to help the little guys, the small businesses, the families on the brink of foreclosure. They have no interests at heart but their own. They also have NO IDEA how they are generally perceived by the public-at-large. They are so indifferent I am not sure if we should call it obtuseness or absolute, cold-hearted indifference. So yes! Let the big banks fail. Naturally the little banks like the one you manage (it IS little isn’t it?) are an exception. They are exempt from this particular batch of vitreole. In fact I just read that seven more little banks just failed. I'm so sorry. If there is anything I can do let me know. Maybe now you will write to me. I wonder how they feel about Goldman Sachs just now.

I probably shouldn’t blame the banks. They are only bricks and mortar after all. It is those individuals who specialize in holding up the banks on a daily basis by working their financial wizardry…they’re the ones we should hold culpable. Remember when I say banks I mean hedge funds, private equity firms, the whole shebang.

Once again I’ve spoken my piece and I still feel there is a whole lot more to say and until I have said it all I can never, ever feel satisfied. I can never relax. My temperature is rising. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to hear news of more and more people spontaneously combusting rare phenomena though it is.

Your most disgruntled client,

K. Witherkay

Ps-You are not real and I am not getting real. Let us both get real. I will help you by imagining you into existence, imagining how you could be. You can help me by preventing me from hurting myself. Take away the sharp knives, the financial instruments, the credit I, like so many, find so easy to abuse.

The Arts and the Economic Crisis, A Symposium

Overview - Lewis Center for the Arts

It is difficult to find funding for the arts in the best of times, when the economy is comparatively robust; in a time of recession, it is even more difficult. The aim of this symposium is to explore the current state of the arts in our country and to consider how most effectively to manage our increasingly limited resources. As the role of the university in the arts becomes more and more significant, we think it appropriate that a university provide the forum for this discussion. Our hope is that we will come away from this occasion with a clearer sense of the "ecology of the arts," a sense based on the perspectives and insights of artists, artistic directors, arts administrators and arts advocates. We are confident that the better we understand the problems, some of them inextricably tangled up with the nation's economic and political systems, the better we will be able to find ways to solve them.  Paul Muldoon                                 Chair, Lewis Center for the Arts

Auction Houses Love Branding

Nicholas Forest writes about art and finance in his art market blog and here tells another tale of Art Market Branding. How much better to sell through an Auction House with the name Sotheby's than Bonhams and Goodman.

For more on this read The Twelve Million Dollar Stuffed Shark, The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

Letter to the Bank #38

Dear Bank Manager,

I find myself thinking more and more about how you might look. When you read my letters do you look like this?

I'm kidding. You are my personal bank manager with, as I so often say, though mostly to myself (like a mantra), my personal best interests at heart. If I say it enough I know I can make it so (like Captain Picard). I just know it.

Yours continuing under the delusion that you really do exist,

Kristian Witherkay

Art and Finance, do they go hand in hand?

As I settle down all too comfortably to read The Twelve Million Dollar Stuffed Shark, The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art, it quickly becomes apparent that the answer is a resounding Yes! This is a book for all Art World skeptics and artists of the outer salon, le Salon Des Refusés, which, though it originally took place in 1863 (and can be read about in Wikipedia, naturally, if you want to know more) is alive and well in 2009.

Did you you know for example that if you are painting in an outer suburb, a small town, a village, you are essentially off the map! It is time you moved to NEW YORK, or LONDON, or ...BEIJING. You can do that or change your name to Jeff Koons or Damien Hurst. This is called rebranding. Hopefully I spelt both their names wrong. You might run into copyright issues if you call yourself by exactly the same names, but then again this could be construed as a creative act and it would fit nicely into the whole debate of collage, and sampling, and recontextualizing, almost like taking a kitschy toy and having it built (by Italian artisans) on a grand scale. THEN what you do is open an auction house and call it Sothebie's or Cristy’s. Use my spelling because who can afford the boringly inevitable lawsuits that would ensue if you were to be so foolish as to call yourselves say: Sotheby's or Christie's. Anyway the point being once you have become a brand you can do ANYthing and call it ART! Its GREAT! That’s what I do! Trouble is nobody appears to be aware of my brand! I have not been successful in selling my brand to the broader public. That is a battle for another day. I am planning my method of attack, because it is a vicious game. Perhaps I’ll break a painting on the walls of the Academy in some public act of defiance/stupidity and by so making it public gain...notoriety, or, at the very least, a little publicity.

Read any book on Contemporary Art these days and a vast percentage of the wordage is taken up with issues of branding, selling, finding the right buyers, snubbing the right people, withholding the right number of artworks so as to not saturate the market or, conversely, saturating the market and making that very act ones brand. So it goes. Very little seems to concern itself with issues of quality, or intelligence, depth, ...spirituality, or ... philosophy, ...humanity, ...feeling, ...meaning...(snooze)
What? What? Oh, so sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes. It is hard isn’t it—you know—deciding which Art is good? So much easier to be told by your financial consultant the best Art to buy. Don’t trust your instincts. They are outmoded, outgunned, and definitely unable to come up with the kind of funds that buy influence in the Contemporary Art Market. Trust you financial advisor instead.

Letter to the bank #37

Dear BM,

Who holds the Moral High Ground? What is that and how valuable is it? Isn’t this something worth examining? When countries sacrifice their moral high ground for lucrative armaments deals have they spent down an asset the value of which they have vastly underestimated? I’m thinking some of the clever chaps over at your fine institution might consider packaging these lots of moral high ground that have been so carelessly tossed aside by governments the world over and then sell them back to those very same governments. They might make a killing! You would of course have to articulate the value of these assets in ways they can understand. Don’t say I have not given you some valuable advice. Of course my biggest problem is I am not capable of taking advantage of the situation because, absurdly, I cling to notions of doing the right thing and doing right by one’s fellow human beings and so cannot separate business from ethics as easily as you guys can*. Also I am numerically dyslexic but that is a whole other issue. You could say holding the moral high ground runs counter to the act of making money but I surely do not want to believe it is so. Then I'd have to think, god forbid, of Capitalism as fundamentally flawed. So if you can figure out how to proceed with the above transaction successfully all the more credit to you.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian W.

PS*—As an Atlantean I fall between two worlds that each can, or certainly do, claim to have held that very moral high ground of which we speak, even if they no longer do: England and the US of A. This would also explain my ambidextrous use of words like “chaps” and “guys”. Hope it isn’t all too confusing for you as you struggle to squish language into the necessary documents so that selling moral high ground can become a reality and not just a pipe dream.

Letter to the Bank #36

Dear Bank Manager,

Walking past the crossing guard this morning he hailed me with: “Ah! The man with the money!” Naturally I responded (as any good citizen would) with: “Ha! Yeh, right! When I have some extra cash I’ll give you some!” We are always exchanging quips but this one, I must admit, left me somewhat stunned. As I walked away it occurred to me that both of us knew this to be a joke. Money? Who has money these days? The idea of it is almost quaint! Which brings me to a pertinent question: Why don’t I have any money? You could as well apply it to yourself I’m sure…well maybe not you but perhaps someone you know…unless you are in the top one per cent of earners in which case this just doesn’t apply. For them what I write here is written in some kind of Alien language that simply does not compute.
We can breath again. They’ve gone.
Seriously though—I work, my wife works, our children make mud bricks in the back yard for board and lodging, we are even frugal in a middle-class-sort-of-frugal-way. One major reason for this would be the confirmed fact that real wages have pretty much been locked in since the seventies whilst the cost of living has skyrocketed, expanded much like a party balloon—oh my gosh! What an analogy! Like…like…like a balloon that is about to pop! Then, as soon as one has built up any savings a vulture comes down and eats them all up. This has happened to us a lot lately—flooding in the basement, two cars on the fritz and needing major repairs two weeks in a row to the point of do we keep them going or roll them in to another less old clunker. Is it better to stay with the devil you know or exchange him for one your car mechanic claims to know, if distantly. Then anxiety sends us to the doctor with back complaints and nasty scalp conditions that our health insurance (we are SO LUCKY to have health insurance) all of a sudden deems a pre-existing condition, or not covered in the small print, or covered but yet to be met by our various deductibles. By this point the hair is so easy to tear out.
I’d feel no pity whatsoever for said plight if I was homeless or jobless, or without health insurance. I’d probably feel the same way if I was a wealthy—how can I put this delicately—Republican. I’d probably scoff. I’d say: Well what do you expect you lazy, liberal, socialist, bohemian, HOBOhemian whiner—a hand out? I’d say it with gusto too! Funny that—you can imagine the very same words coming out of the mouths of the most disenfranchised in this our—society. Now there’s a party of possibilities, an alliance. If I were you I’d have stopped reading by now. They are right! Why should the banks undermine their profit motives to prop up individuals like my ignoble self who wish to be freed up from financial anxieties so they can daub with paint on canvas all day, or write their silly letters—or cut sharks in half (down to size so to speak). And why should the government get involved? They are already way over extended. Like the banks they have financial anxieties of their own. However I do feel compelled to point out that I remain in my ignobility, a good citizen. I pay my taxes toward the dubious common good. I keep paying the interest on my mortgage and credit cards and ever so occasionally pay something toward principal. Now if only you’d stop asking for all that exorbitant interest and let me pay down my principal we could all get back on track. Better that than me, and millions of others in the same boat, from defaulting. I do sometimes feel that if I take one step too many backwards I’ll fall into the biggest hole and the only option will be to walk away from it all. That isn’t an option anybody would choose lightly. Strangely though it is almost comforting to imagine the silver lining around the black, black cloud that has been hanging over one’s head—the loss of all that Sisyphean debt.

Yours sincerely,

K. Witherkay

PS—As a good-for-nothing laz-a-bout I’m thinking of making these letters into big paintings and then persuading corporate art collections to buy them. I really should do that. I will.

PPS—I asked my seven year old to draw a lazy monster AKA a lazy middle class bohemian monster like me, not that I tried to explain. The somewhat phallic nature of the drawing is, I assure you, unintentional.

a Typical Day in the Life of...#2 PART THREE

a Typical Day in the Life of...#2 PART TWO

A Typical Day in the Life of...#2 PART ONE

The Bouncy Banker Starts his Day

Financing Art

Anthony Haden Guest on the art bridge finance group

It was two years ago that Kristina McLean, a Canadian-born financial analyst in her early 20s, left Morgan Stanley in order to enter the art world. This was when bankers were surfing a wave that seemed as if it was going to crest forever and McLean's peers thought she was crazy. "It's not looking so crazy now at all," she says. "And I'm happy that I did it when I did it."

It happened that McLean was still at Morgan Stanley when we first met. She had contacted me to suggest I take a look at a high-profile art fund, Fernwood Art Investments. Fernwood, which was the creation of a certain Bruce Taub, which had some savvy pros on board, and had been the subject of a 2004 Harvard Business School study, 'Fernwood Art Investments: Leading in an Imperfect Marketplace'.

McLean had visited Taub in his Manhattan office. The picture he painted was rosy, rosy, rosy. But by the time she and I spoke Taub had run through the money and the fund was a smoking crater above which legal clouds were gathering.

McLean then moved to London. And, considering her close scrutiny of Fernwood, it is interesting that McLean is now herself sallying off into the Imperfect Marketplace by launching an art fund of her own. It's called the Art Bridge Finance Group, and is funded by a group of private investors. Saturday October 18 was the day of its public outing at Frieze. McLean hired a Routemaster double decker bus to take a mix of collectors, curators and press on a tour of young and emerging galleries, during which time - for any travellers who felt hopelessly art-starved during Frieze Week - Performance art took place on both decks.

Actually this tour might stand as a live demo of the contrarian nature of McLean's fledgling fund. Her research has indicated that there are some fifty funds worldwide, all of which buy and sell artworks and a few of which short Sotheby's - Christie's not being publicly held - or what they perceive as art-related stocks as a kind of hedge.

McLean's thinking is quite different. The Art Bridge Finance Group won't be cutting out dealers by buying art and squirreling it away. The fund will be investing in cutting-edge mostly young galleries. "What I am doing is I'm giving them a bridge loan," she told me some months ago. "The loan is to enable the gallery to buy art from their artists and to fund their projects. It used to be that you would find an underknown artist, usually young, buy in and wait for them to rocket to the skies. You can't wait. You have to actively do something. That's what I think. A good way of doing that is aligning yourself with the right gallery."

What McLean is trying here is more radical than it may at first sound. It's a counter-attack against the blue chip, often multi-national mega-gallerists that have been vastly increasing their power in the art world and which tend to use the smaller galleries as so many fish farms, pools from which they can snatch attractive prospects at their leisure.

"The smaller galleries are pushing the artist into that first group show ... maybe a first solo show ... maybe a tiny museum show somewhere. And then suddenly they get poached by these bigger galleries," McLean says. "So instead of helping galleries where I could just give them cash, if I help the younger galleries I can add a lot more value than just money. In the early stage it's developing goodwill with the gallery. And working on smaller projects in order to establish relationships. Which might only become fruitful for me, investment-wise, in a couple of years. I'm going to leave the expertise in the hands of people who really know what they are doing. And the people who are adding value. And that, ultimately, is the gallery. And I think that, coming from a finance perspective, where everything is about adding value, and activist investing, and things like that, I think that I can add most value to younger emerging galleries."

This value will include access to the collectors and institutions that McLean has cultivated. And she plans to target them precisely. "I'll do extensive research to develop a sense of who the client base is. Are they willing to pay what the work will end up costing? And all these things. And then I will do special arrangements with them. I can transfer the money directly to the artist. Through the gallery."

This is not, of course, a cultural equivalent of pro bono. If the Art Bridge Finance Group puts up the capital for an entire project, they will expect half the profits, if any. Otherwise, she will work things out on a case by case basis.

And - as with any art funds - everything will depend on the eye of Kristina McLean and whomsoever else is working with her. "I try to pick from each gallery artists who I think are liquid." Which is to say artists that she thinks are likely to sell. Which is also to say the most poachable. Which is, of course, where the fund comes in. "The gallery that can write a cheque in the studio is the gallery who ultimately ends up winning. So I guess I have to pick the galleries who I think deserve that," she says.

This conversation, I should say, was before the tsunami took down the banking system, so as Frieze week opened I called McLean to ask whether she had come through all this turbulence unscathed?

"Yeah, totally! Absolutely!" she said buoyantly. "Now that so many traditional backers are becoming scared of backing galleries I think maybe I have even more opportunities."

And if things do flatten?

"A rising tide lifts all ships," she says. "But as soon as the market kind of corrects itself the galleries that really do have talent will be the ones that remain. And the galleries that don't will fall by the wayside."

Anthony Haden-Guest

'The Color of Money' Exhibit Shows Artists' Interpretations of Wall Street -- New York Magazine

'The Color of Money' Exhibit Shows Artists' Interpretations of Wall Street -- New York Magazine

A Typical Day in the Life of...PART TWO

A Typical Day in the Life of...PART ONE

Financial Crisis-a definition

Financial Crisis-
1. Being monetarily in a bind.
2. Being in a state of fiscal paralysis.
3. Something most people suffer through for the bulk of their lives.
4. Something banks encounter (and only suffer-ever so briefly) once in a blue moon. Latest example: Sept 2008-June 2009.

Gmail - Personal Finance: We're Not Out of the Woods Yet

Gmail - Personal Finance: We're Not Out of the Woods Yet - rssllchristian841@gmail.com

Financial Advice From a Numerically Dyslexic Artist-2

Ever with an eye for the main chance my latest advice for fiscally embarrassed artists everywhere:

Make Art! Why? Because, and I know we all forget this at times, Art is worth more than money. Hope this was helpful.

Letter to the Bank #35

Dear Banker,

(Knocks on screen of video camera) Helloooo? Anybody there…? (Pauses)

I’ll take a deep breath and start over. I'm not being sarcastic. I really do not know. But assuming there is...here goes.

Do you remember a while back when I promised, however angry I might feel, to remain civil at all times? I wouldn’t swear or use foul language. I wouldn’t call anybody names and I wouldn’t threaten to bomb, burn or generally take out my frustrations on any of your fine institutions—the latter more because I do cherish my freedom and the authorities are so sensitive these days they cannot distinguish between literal and metaphorical, real and imagined. Luckily for them and for me I, like our dear president, do believe in civil discourse. I would never shout: “You lie!” or “You cheat!” across the aisle. I might instead say: “You are a bit blinkered”,  or: “I find you lacking on the imagination front,” or “You aren’t very good at stepping into other people’s shoes are you?” and so employ the brilliant art of English understatement, i.e. I'd take the passive aggressive approach. I roll up my sleeves and dribble instead of spitting. I studied semi-idiotics in school. That is to say: I went to Art School, which brings me to my point, my present point of being in perpetual dire straights (in the middle class sense of dire straights if you get my drift). Who in their right mind goes to Art School? A middle-class, born with a regularly dish-washed spoon in his mouth, kid—that’s who. My parents did all they could to discourage me. They threw logs in my path, moved refrigerators in front of the bedroom door which took a huge amount of effort given my bedroom was on the second floor. They didn’t do so to discourage aspirations so much as to point out how aspirations and earning a living can (and in my case) prove to be quite at odds. That said I love to make art. Oh, boy! Don't I just! Trouble is I can’t, not with infinite bills to pay from an ever-emptying account. It’s problematic.

To your mind I’m sure the effort I put into trying to keep old obsessions alive and, in the case of my children, nurture new ones is, to say the least, counter productive. My son for example has just embarked on a search for a bawu, a kind of Chinese flute. Should I say: You concentrate on your schoolwork young man, and stop wasting my time! I know you think I really need to teach them, preferably by example, how to make a living in this ever changing economy, and, dammit (oops!) You are probably right.

Yours sincerely,

K. Witherkay

PS—Why are artists poor? There is a book by the same name. I haven’t read it yet but just might if I can get my hands on a copy. I'm guessing one problem is they are idealists and despite having no money keep giving the money they don't have to charities and good liberal causes like NPR. I'm curious about what artists of the other extreme give their money to— the NRA? That is fine I suppose as long as they don't have the money.

A Devilish Look At The Financial Lexicon - Planet Money Blog : NPR

A Devilish Look At The Financial Lexicon - Planet Money Blog : NPR

Steve Bell on art and the financial crisis | From the Guardian | The Guardian

Steve Bell on art and the financial crisis |
From the Guardian |
The Guardian

Bubble Watch

Here begins an informal survey of the economic bubbles that have occurred, will occur, might occur, and the predictions prescient or not concerning such.

Nobody yet is talking about the credit offers that were made so easily to so many young people (who had yet to develop credit profiles) as soon as they were of age. I wonder how many of them see such credit as a birth right and continue to spend up their credit cards for all the things they need even as the system barks in alarm? I work in a part of the city where consumers continue consuming like there is no tomorrow. Are young credit cards a potential bubble?

Bubbles are no joke. If any of you have ever watched The Prisoner you know what I mean.

Letter to the bank #34

Dear Mr. Bank Manager,

I am taking up a formal tone this morning as I have a formal proposition to make and for once it is entirely altruistic. I'm not asking you to buy my art, or bullying you with interest charges for art you have yet to return to me. I am not asking you to accept as collateral my old washing machine either. No. My suggestion is this: Now that you have been bailed out and are now rolling in it again perhaps you could now bail out the states that are unable to meet this year's budget obligations (see below). Think how swimmingly things would go if these states were not in such a bind. Make it a one time gift. Perhaps each bank could choose a state as a pet project, or a pen pal. Such an altruistic act on your part would only enhance your image and the money spent, considering the banks are no longer in the current recession, would barely make a dent in your expenditures. You know what? I even feel good just for having suggested this!

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay

New Fiscal Year Brings No Relief From Unprecedented State Budget Problems* — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

New Fiscal Year Brings No Relief From Unprecedented State Budget Problems* — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Financial Advice From a Numerically Dyslexic Artist-1

Don't buy anything but necessities.
Barter when possible.
To satisfy those consumerist urges attend yard sales, car boot sales. stoop sales and Estate Sales. Make sure you buy at least one thing pertaining to your passionate interests...then pass it on.

The Remorseful Banker

Has the time of the Remorseful Banker come? No. Quite simply: No. It'll never happen. Be nice though.

The Art of Finance

The Art of Finance by Harold James
Project Syndicate
Excerpt:
"...Some modern artists and their patrons explicitly point to the parallel between contemporary art and new financial products. Deutsche Bank, Europe’s most prominent art-collecting bank, published the view of academic experts to the effect that customers, the broad public, were “extremely conservative, boring, lack imagination, and don’t know their own minds.”

After financial implosions, such as the collapse of the dot-com bubble in 2000 or the sub-prime meltdown of 2007-8, such views appear arrogant. The parallel between bewildering and apparently meaningless art and unintelligible financial products is damning rather than reassuring."

Letter to the FA 1

I wanted to share this wonderful poem with you. It is a DADA or MERZ poem by  Kurt Schwitters, non-sensical to some ears but to others it is language at its purest. I'd dare to compare it to the linguistic acrobatics of, and poetical license taken by, the banking industry and the financial sector in general.
Take a moment to listen to my rendition of the Jabberwock by Lewis Carroll. (Poem to come) If you imagine the Jabberwock as, for example, the Banks, or as credit card offers even, you can quickly see how Art can aid in deconstructing the language of money. In a further audio sample I read my own recent poem, Structured Investment Vehicles, a poem of which I am very proud. (Poem to come). Somehow I feel it will bring me ever closer to the financial advisors who are so dilligently working on my mounting debts as we speak. Please enjoy.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian (with a "K").

PS—You know what? I'm giving myself a new last name—poetic license and all—Kristian Witherkay. I think it has a dignified ring.

Letter to the Bank from the Young Ones

How to write a letter to the bank from the Young Ones

Letter to the Bank #33

Dear BM,

I’m suddenly discovering a world of people out there who appear to be making money…ethically! Not only are they making money but they are also donating money to micro-loan enterprises like Kiva and the Grameen Bank. I’m thrilled to hear it. I’m simplistic enough to assume if money is being made it is at someone else's expense—just about always—shame on me. Well I now stand corrected thanks to folks like those at millionairemommynextdoor

You of course I trust. YOU are my trusted bank manager. I have to trust you. I cannot not trust you! You must understand this. My god! Where would I be if I couldn’t trust my very own bank manager? Perhaps you don’t exist but I have to believe you do. Do you understand? That, after all, is what all these letters are about. I’m willing you into existence. I’m making you happen. I’m laying the groundwork for your materialization. I am like Doctor Frankenstein. If I put all the right ingredients in the bucket and stir I’ll finally have the ethically responsible, smart, considerate, likeable, financially astute bank manager that I have always dreamed of, the one I imagine remembering from my childhood, the one who offered me a lollipop with a kindly smile as my father sat down in a plush red leather chair with brass rivets to talk with him, his trusted financial advisor, an advisor who, only in later years, morphed into a dull computer screen.

Perhaps with my new found faith in the possibility that money can be made without supporting sweatshops, or dictatorships, can be made without treading on the fingers of those below you on the vicious ladder of life (delightful alliteration), I can now consider the possibility of making this, my forum, into some kind of money making concern. Perhaps I too can dare to make money, print it off as and when needed? I can promise you this: My letters will remain reasonably literate, devoid of foul language or adult content (I promise to keep it childish), and free of slander or direct attacks on individuals. I am much more interested in philosophizing around issues of ethics, than pointing my finger directly at certain unscrupulous individuals who have contributed more than their fair share to our collective, current and dire state of affairs.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian C

Letter to the Bank #32

Dear Mr. Banks,

I still hang on to the belief that you have my best interests at heart and that is why I insist on treating you as an individual, a tangible human being made of flesh and blood. This is why I continue to anthropomorphize you. You are, as it were, what I decide you are. On a good day you are kind and considerate. I can hear it in your voice and can imagine your look of warm concern. Your rotund figure is one day flabby and covered in old fashioned bling, a fob watch folded into your rippling pin stripped waistcoat as you puff on your cigar and address my deepest concerns. You ask after my family and I ask after yours. You live in a house not far from mine and socialize with the grocer, the taylor, the bike shop owner and, occasionally, me.
I know I am a deluded being.

You thinks I fantasize too much but I am capable of keeping it real. I’ve dipped into books like Liar’s Poker and seen the gleam in your collective eye. Lately I’ve begun a List of Ignominy. Here is how it begins:

Bankers,
Accountants,
Bookkeepers,
Traders,
Car manufacturers,
Insurance executives,
Realtors,
Mortgage adjusters...

...you get the idea. Believe me Artists and Homeowners are on the list somewhere. I just didn’t get to them yet and the above does not reflect, necessarily, the order of ignominy. This is the problem. Everyone goes on the list, EVERYONE! We’re ALL either stupid or greedy, or evil or naive or all of the above.
Sometimes the being I imagine behind that polished wooden desk at the bank as I pine for something that probably never was, is a therapist. That is fine but really, dull as it seems, all I crave is genuine financial advice.

If you grow my assets I’ll grow yours. Creepy as it sounds doesn’t that make fundamental sense? Instead I all too often feel as if you are taking advantage of me. What you look like then in my imagination would take up too much of my time just now and time is, as you have always taught me, MONEY. Honestly I do not have the time to write you these letters as they do not earn me a dime. I do have to ask myself: Is this time well spent?

Sincerely,

KC

PS—I do have some assets. One is my inclination to remain polite even when most tried. As angry as I ever get I remain inclined to leaving the doors open for further (totally imagined) dialogue.

Arts, Briefly - Leibovitz Faces Suit and Loan Deadline - NYTimes.com

Arts, Briefly - Leibovitz Faces Suit and Loan Deadline - NYTimes.com

Annie Leibovitz, a great photographer and artist, is facing bankruptcy and the loss of rights to her output.

In Cheap We Trust and Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

The paradox of thrift? Surely the paradox lies in being encouraged to spend what we do not have, virtual, abstract, not quite believable, real, or tangible money, assets, or coinage—coinage you cannot feel...

Two recent publications have caught my much cauliflowered ear and soothed them somewhat their rational takes on consumerism acting like balm to an auditory system much battered by insane economic advice, and irrational forecasts that see us all rising up out of the ashes of a recession that was never publicly defined as a depression and puffing hard to inflate another lie of a bubble, or two, or three. I’ve heard the authors talking on NPR and WNYC and was overjoyed to hear their clear and succinct telling of the true stories behind the outlet malls, super malls, buying American, bargain hunting, free offers, and how we all continually are being encouraged to spend and rack up further debt:


In Cheap We Trust Lauren Weber examines the cultural history of thriftiness

and in Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, Ellen Ruppel Shell traces “our national obsession with the bargain from the Industrial Revolution to the modern assembly line, and from chain stores to big-box retailers who value convenience and low-prices over quality”. (WNYC web page). Click on Author names to see their interviews with Leonard Lopate on WNYC

Letter to the Bank #31

Dear BM,

I’m kind of on a roll—so many ideas! I’ve decided that these letters I’ve been writing have a certain je ne sais quoi. I do hope I’ve spelt that right. Unlike you guys I am not a linguistic acrobat. Anyway this leads me to my next point. Despite the dearth of responses to my letters from your otherwise (I am sure) amicable self I am considering trying to “monetize” my letters, my blog. I am not quite sure how it works. You’re the financial wizard, not me! What I do know is this: If I press a certain button (in the guts of my blog) people will (I should say might) start advertising their products on The Bouncy Banker. Wouldn't that be nice! Wouldn’t it be funny if I started making money from the very financial institutions I am critiquing, gently poking fun at, lampooning, mocking, trying very hard to ridicule and shame, acting like a little David trying with his pen, his sharpened computer mouse, to bring down the Methuselahs of Finance,(they’ve all been around for ever haven't they and will be forever more so what do I think I am doing? Getting my diminutive ire off my hairless chest?), the Goliaths of Insurance, the Rasputins of the Mortgage industry (a peg or two), trying to shame or at least spotlight, shine a torch on, the immoral, unscrupulous, heartless, unthinking, soulless practices that have brought the world to its very knees. Of course I do this in the spirit of one who cannot absolve himself of his own failed responsibilities, one who saw dollars in the cracked foundations of his own home. I am not quite ready to press that button yet. Thing is this is a lot of work and it would be nice to get paid especially as the kids are in dire need of new lunch boxes. But the question remains: Is it moral to make money from a, some might say, rather angry blog? That is my problem right there: I have scruples.

Yours sincerely,

KC

PS—Maybe this letters does demonstrate a certain flair for, as I put it, linguistic acrobatics, though nothing in it is half as good as “structured investment vehicles”. That is gorgeous. I could say it again and again. In fact I think I will…

PPs—I just really liked these pictures of Methuselah Trees. I'd never heard of them before but are they not striking? Striking is good, right?

Letter to the Bank #30

Dear BM,



You are so elusive. We’ve been working together for years and yet I still do not have a sense of what you look like. I’ve asked before and now ask again: can we get together for a drink some time, or are you still mad at me for piling up all my possessions outside your bank? I did this on good faith to try and fulfill, honor, my collateralized debt obligations! Anyway I didn’t mean to bring up a sore point. Let us let bygones be bygones. Let us rekindle our relationship once more and try and give it a little more personal zap.

You know how you hear voices on the radio and begin to imagine the faces behind those voices? I find myself receiving your bank statements (I have not seen any of your more personalized letters in I don’t know how long) and picturing you. I’ll try to bang out some portraits, quick paintings that capture how I see you in my imagination. It’ll be fun.

Yours sincerely,

KC

PS—Here is another of those mortgage offers. What do you think? Should I go for it? I tried Googleing info about the company and discovered they and HUD are not one and the same. Indeed they’d received a couple of highly negative reviews. I guess I just answered my own question. Maybe I should have more faith in my own expertise and also trust those gut feelings.

Letter to the Bank #29

Dear BM,

You guys are Alchemical geniuses! Wow! Buying up and packaging life insurance policies sold by ill and elderly people sounds like a brilliant idea—a little sinister—but brilliant. The sooner they die the better…right? I’ve yet to see a name for this and you know how much I enjoy the names you come up with for your phantom products. I wonder if the tailors who made the invisible clothes for that gullible king had a name for their product?

I’ve just come across the term re-remics. Who came up with that? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—you guys are linguistic acrobats. That said re-remics is a bit cumbersome—not poetic in the least though better, I suppose, than re-securitization of real estate mortgage investment conduits, though if you say that very fast it kind of trips off the tongue quite nicely. What does it mean? Still it is good to hear that new exotic investments are emerging on Wall Street once more. I miss the more fantastic terminologies you all come up with. Among my favorites are: structured investment vehicles, collateralized debt obligations and, of course, credit-default swaps. Swapping, bartering, these are things we can all relate to. I recently exchanged a couple of books of John Berger’s brilliant essays on Art and Culture for a train ticket. My daily commute gets so expensive but enough of me.

You all keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

KC

PS—Remember you don’t have much time left before the government begins to crimp your natural style, your laissez faire attitude, with increased financial regulation. You should hire some out of work English teachers to help you with the wording.

PSS—I enclose an offer to reduce my mortgage payments. As my most trusted financial advisor what do you think? Is it legit?

Deconstructing Financial Jargon and Legalese (an introduction)

The following definition of Deconstruction comes from Wikipedia:

Deconstruction is the name given by French philosopher Jacques Derrida to an approach (whether in philosophy, literary analysis, or in other fields) which rigorously pursues the meaning of a text to the point of undoing the oppositions on which it is apparently founded, and to the point of showing that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable or impossible.
Deconstruction generally operates by conducting textual readings with a view to demonstrate that the text is not a discrete whole, instead containing several irreconcilable, contradictory meanings. This process ostensibly shows that any text has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point. Derrida refers to this point as an aporia in the text, and terms deconstructive reading "aporetic." J. Hillis Miller has described deconstruction this way: “Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently-solid ground is no rock, but thin air."

Here I will attempt to perpetrate a number of deconstructions on the jargon imbedded in the current economy. Given my attention span when it comes to all small print I'll only tackle those terms that hold my interest long enough for me to take them apart (like a kid dismantling a watch or, these days, an ipod or cell phone).

The economic use of language, i.e. attempts to simplify the abstruse terms used in mortgage documents and bank statements can and often does lead to more confusion and misunderstanding and not less, intentionally or not. A lot of the language becomes loaded or leaden and new language is created to brush off and revamp dubious or dusty practices. Some of this language is quite fascinating. More later.

Trader

7 Towns in Norway Sue Citigroup Over Investment Losses - washingtonpost.com

7 Towns in Norway Sue Citigroup Over Investment Losses - washingtonpost.com

Letter to the Bank #28

Dear Banksy, and I mean YOU, my personal BM, not that secretive art collective that goes around destroying the facades of fine institutions not dissimilar to yours and calls it Art and Commentary and the like,

I am so excited. Despite none of your guys showing up the potluck confessional was a huge success. For the next one not only will there be a place to go if you want to get some of the terrible underhanded deals you’ve nailed down of late off your chest, but there will also be a photo booth element. You’ll now be able to:
Confess (as mentioned above),
Draw money (quite literally using the crayons and paper provided),
Give away your money to an ever-changing list of charities deemed by yours truly to be worthy recipients,
Vote for your favorite whatever,
AND…
Pose for a photograph as a remorseful engine of Capitalism as opposed to a remorseless one. What a change that will be! I’m asking people to pose as if remorseful but know full well most will scoff at the idea or even be nonplussed by it. Some might even gamely try with ghastly results but it is all to the good. As more and more people are invited to the party—the insurance folks, the traders, and the bookkeepers—this “rogues” gallery will hopefully grow and grow. I believe the inclination to let it all hang out or get things off one’s chest is an almost irresistible one when presented with the opportunity to do so. It is a bit like that Truth and Reconciliation Commission created with the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Not only did the generals and the torturers step forward but so did the humblest of collaborators, the shoemaker, the shopkeeper, who, not thinking of the consequences did partake of, or impart, in most inappropriate fashion, information that, to say the least was flawed. The advice so proffered was all too eagerly taken methinks (as one who is perhaps a case in point). Maybe home owners will soon be standing side by side with the top bank executives as they all hold hands and bow their heads in a collective sigh of shame. Actually the thought of it makes me a touch queasy. Still a little culpability would do us all the world of good.
Anyway do come this time and please bring your friends preferably those in the greatest denial. It will be fun to draw them out and in the end they will appreciate the benefits of group therapy I assure you. Having scruples if you’ve never had them before is quite an experience, a unique “high” if you will.

Until then yours most sincerely,

KC

PS—I almost forgot to add: The booths also have the ability to spit out Coke and the like if you put in the right number of quarters. What the right number is is for you to figure out and if you get it wrong you’ll lose your coins. It is, I suppose, a bit of a gamble. As vending machines go it is more spiteful than most and, if you can believe it, is bitterly opposed to giving out sugary drinks. Come to think of it “it” is an ominous box all in all.

Secular Confessional

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2007, Todd Julie and Jesse Ewles, Secular Confession Booth, 2007
Photo courtesy City of Toronto

Letter to the Bank #27

Dear BM,

I’m having a potluck confessional this coming weekend and I do hope you’ll attend. Its a chance for everyone to let their hair down, let it all hang out, get it off your chest be you banker or artist, finance guy, or modern dancer, because in the end, underneath it all we are all after the same things aren’t we? We all want a roof over our heads, food in our bellies...perhaps where we diverge is how we describe things. Bankers want more stuff, artists want more substance. The difference may seem subtle but the ultimate ends take us to very different places. Once you have all the material things you desire do you not still feel a lack? Once artists have achieved a level of success are they satisfied? Never! Maybe we are not so different after all. Anyway if all goes well I might make this a regular event. Just bring your favorite dish as in your current beef, gripe so forth. Think about who you’d most like to blame for the end of Capitalism for example. For desert maybe supply your guilty pleasures, greatest indulgences. Perhaps you speculated on the value of your home, took out equity, used the (phantom) collateral and applied it to a fabulous vacation instead of ploughing it back into fixing up your abode as any sensible person might’ve. If so you are probably feeling a little ashamed if you are a self flagellating artist, or not in the least bit ashamed if you are an unscrupulous maker of money. Either way help is at hand, help from your suffering peers. Should be fun. Group therapy always is. To give the whole proceedings a little spice I’ll have an ATM machine on hand, well a confession booth/ATM, an ATM what is more that you can only put money into, money I assure you which will go to a worthy cause. This way I figured, if inclined, you could give something back to the community you brutalized (unintentionally, naturally).

Yours,

KC

PS-I know being sincerely sorry for the damage done will be hard for some at first but believe me the resulting relief will be worth all the money you give to, say Habitat for Humanity or Doctors Without Borders. If you give a lot you’ll feel great. I think that is how it works. These are the things that confuse me and that is why I sincerely hope you will come so you can straighten me out on a few points.

Letter to the Bank #26

Dear BM,

Who am I kidding? You won’t employ me as a curator, or let me have a say in your acquisitions process. Deep down in my gut I know this to be true. I must have been curiously disconnected the other day or high on the huge dose of Ibuprofen prescribed for my infuriating backache. Truthfully my gut also cannot quite stomach the idea of working within your “for profit” system though clearly, penniless as I am, I could surely learn a thing or two. Is it within the realms of possibility to earn well AND honestly, with higher purpose? Is this a higher calling you are pursuing as you enable museums to put on shows that they could probably not afford to mount without your help in the current economy? I know funding for many museums has been drastically cut. So in your efforts to mount these ambitious shows are you being altruistic or pragmatic? I honestly can not tell.

So many of the people I know have great dreams, positive dreams, poetic, artistic dreams but to do anything to realize them requires (dammit) money! Financing! Getting in to debt! Going in to foreclosure for goodness sake! Getting a bad credit score! Or...writing amazing proposals! Now there’s a good idea. Would you listen if I wrote you a proposal? I’ve got this great idea that requires I build a paper maché and cardboard bank, write a monologue and pretend to be working on behalf of the bank as a PR man. I attempt to reach those corners of the community most suspicious of banking institutions. You’d have to have some humor, be able to laugh at yourself, take a joke. I’d do all the hard work and your support would only reflect well on your institution. When I have a moment, when I’m not busy fixing a broken toilet, replacing a broken sump pump, or tearing out a ruined ceiling and so compromising my back, I’ll find a moment to work up my proposal. I only ask you to keep an open mind and stop badgering me with bewildering notices regarding my various credit cards. I know you only have a couple of weeks left to do your dirty work before new banking regulations kick in but how about leaving me out of it?

Sorry. I got a bit distracted didn’t I. More soon.

Sincerely,

KC

Letter to the Bank #25

Dear Mr. Manager!

What’s this I hear? Can it be true? Have you really broken into the business of curating blockbuster shows of blue chip Art? (See previous post). Honestly I didn’t know you had it in you but as they say: All is fair in love and war. If I feel I can dole out financial advice then why shouldn’t you be a curator? Still this does bring up some interesting issues. It is one thing to have work you own included in a show but it is quite another to mould whole traveling shows around the work you own and all whilst bumping my interest rates up and up and up—all no doubt to help defray the cost of mounting such enormous shows. I guess you’ll worry about paying back your government loans later. Anyway my main point is this: Shouldn’t I have a say in the kind of shows you curate? Am I not, in theory, a shareholder?

So here is what I propose: I shall become one of your curators. I’ll pitch a few of the wonderful ideas I have for shows (some of which admittedly could be construed as slightly anti-corporate) and you can tell me if you are interested. Remember I am not anti YOU. You are my BM! I am “with you” so to speak. You are my bank and I am your loyal customer.

I do have some remaining questions though. Who chose all the art you’ve collected? Did you my bank, my struggling bank, go out and buy this stuff? Isn’t that awfully extravagant of you? Doesn’t that amount to somewhat irresponsible behavior given the current financial crisis we are all confronting? Or is this an alternative investment strategy? That I can appreciate. Why waste your money on toxic assets when you can buy Art? Or did you never intend to collect art in the first place? Did it arrive willy-nilly—one lien here, another bankruptcy there—until suddenly one day you realized you had an amazing collection of seized collateral? This is a topic that interests me greatly. When not piling my own freely offered collateral on your doorstep I am also out there trying to interest people in my art. I occasionally even sell a piece or two, which gives me quite a buzz. I even tried to interest your bank in my work a while back. I tried selling my art to you but that didn’t work so how about accepting my art as collateral. I suspect you’d prefer it if genuine artworks piled up in your basement rather than old washing machines and other sundry (unwanted) old possessions. Not only would this help me if you bought or accepted as collateral my artwork. It would also provide a boost to your collection. It would boost it no end, well, maybe not boost it so much as round it out a bit. I am offering you, my bank, a chance to get in on the Living Artists’ Support Network, or The Artists’ Collateral Order Network (TACON is a better acronym but none of this is final yet). You’d in effect be underwriting the future cultural wellbeing of your country. Some might call it gambling but I’d call it a sure fire bet. Instead of buying, or accepting as collateral, a hugely expensive Rosenquist painting, instead acquire tons of smaller artworks by hundreds of different, mostly unknown artists. The chances are with one of those artworks you may, one day, just hit the jackpot. Just when your bank is failing you’ll find you’ve been sitting on a jewel all this time, a jewel you didn’t fully appreciate at the time, a jewel so valuable it might just save your neck.

Yours sincerely,

KC

PS-The artists’ community is quite “hep” to the idea of bartering their artwork in exchange for debt reductions and so forth so do give this project some serious consideration. The ball is in your court.