Artbusiness.com

Alan Bamberger considers some San Francisco art.

Artbusiness.com is a priceless reference for artists, art dealers, collectors, and art fans in general. It's a San Francisco-based website which provides free articles on the very practical aspects of an art career and art collecting.

Art appraiser and consultant, Alan Bamberger, also covers San Francisco art openings like my own Gallerycrawl.ca does for Toronto. In 2003, Bamberger established the basic template for how to promote an art community over the net which has been a great example to me.

From what I've seen, the SF market and community is maybe three times larger and more diversified than Toronto's. Strange, for a city with a smaller population (750,000 +/-). A worthwhile study for the Toronto art community if it wants to continue growing. I think San Francisco's art scene offers a fine example of what Toronto could become.


Most of all, I appreciate Bamberger's knowledgeable frankness. Here's an example...

I'm having this chat-up with a confirmed local artster of some repute when I commence to carp on one of my abiding beefs-- the boundless barrage of bombastic blather that pretenders relentlessly drub the public with in order to validate and sustain their art. So the artster looks at me and says something like, "We have to do that in order to maintain credibility and justify value." So I'm thinking, wait-- an established Union Square or Fisherman's Wharf gallery sells more art on a good opening night than many of San Francisco's non-commercial galleries sell in a YEAR. And I can assure you, they don't do it by confounding the client base. The good news is that the unintelligible gibberish approach to "explaining" art appears to be on the decline.

I'll second that, Alan.