Emerging Art Techniques and Vocabulary

The Wall Street Journal takes a fun look at some of the new vocabulary being used in the art world.  The article touches on a few unusual terms such as houseable, permanent loan, chandelier bides, and curated.

Yet the meat of the article looks at the fuzzy terminology surrounding prints such as "original prints" and limited editions. The article them moves on to digital art with giclees, digital C prints and digital color coupler prints.  The next group is sculpture, such as bronze, Aqua-Resin, concrete, fiberglass, plaster, terra cotta, bronze powder, cold case bronze and bonded bronze.

As appraisers we should be familiar not only with the terminology, but also all of the new and innovative processes artists are using which come along with technology.

The Wall Street Journal reports

Just as the legal profession has its Latinisms and the sports world its slang, the art world has its own language and jargon that can often leave outsiders scratching their heads.

This insider vocabulary includes terms that may seem a bit comical ("houseable," meaning the artwork fits in a normal-size living room) or contradictory (objects in a museum may be on "permanent loan," which is a loan no one has any intention of paying back, or donated as a "fractional gift," meaning the owner may keep possession of the piece while donating it in installments over time).

Some auction houses take "chandelier bids" (nonexistent bids that auctioneers call out while pointing at light fixtures) to get prices higher at major sales that increasingly are "curated" (organized in a way to increase prices).

Here is a look at a few more:

Prints and More Prints
Art galleries sell "original prints" (multiple versions of the same image) that are produced in "limited editions." One might assume that the meaning of the term limited edition is self-evident, that a fixed number of copies have been made of one image: A limited edition of 20 means that only 20 of these prints exist. But this is where customary use of language and art world practices diverge.

Some state laws don't prohibit publishers from printing more copies of the same image, and publishers might even call these later printings limited editions if they print them in, say, different sizes, different colors, on different types of paper, call one an American edition and the other a European edition or use different printing technology. Multiple limited editions isn't an art-world term, but it should be.

Then, there are "proofs." There are printers' proofs, publishers' proofs, presentation proofs, artists' proofs, B.A.T.s (bon-a-tirer, or final working proofs) and hors de commerce (not-for-sale proofs, which sometimes are sold anyway), and they may equal or exceed the number in the edition itself.

Proofs often are prized, as they traditionally have been used as rough drafts of the final image, with notations—often written in by the artist on the proof—for adjustments in color or something else; theoretically, a proof gets one closer to the thinking of the artist.

Nowadays, there is no difference between the edition and the proofs, but because of that long-lost mystique of uniqueness, sellers typically charge more for proofs than for works in the regular edition.

A Digital Revolution
The realm of contemporary fine-art photography has become more confusing over the past dozen or so years with the advent of digital photography. It used to be that buyers could choose between black-and-white or color photographs, or the occasional platinum print, but that was when everyone had cameras that used actual film to record images and printed them on traditional photographic paper.

These days, a photographer may use a digital camera and print on traditional photographic paper or produce a photographic negative that is printed on a digital inkjet printer. Other artists are digital from start to finish.

The result is a new language to describe what used to be called photographs. However, it isn't always a shared language.

Take inkjet prints. Fine-arts photographer Emmet Gowin refers to some of his work as "digital inkjet prints," while Judith Joy Ross describes her photographs as "archival pigment prints," perhaps to inform prospective buyers that something about the paper and inks will make the artwork last longer than what typically comes out of an office printer. (Today's digital prints have been shown through accelerated life span tests to have at least a century in them, if cared for properly.) Laurent Baheux, known for his photos of African wildlife, creates what he calls "giclees" (a French term that began being used to describe inkjet prints in the 1980s), while Chuck Close, known for his massive-scale portraits, produces "digital pigment" prints.

Then there are "digital C prints," "digital chromogenic prints" and "digital color coupler prints." All three terms describe the process of a photographic file (rather than a traditional negative) going through a digital exposure system, and then being developed using conventional photographic chemicals.

Are these differences important to collectors? Buyers of black-and-white images from earlier eras care deeply about photographic processes, as well as who did the printing and how soon the print was made after the image was taken, insiders say. Buyers of contemporary photography "couldn't give a damn," says New York City photography dealer Laurence Miller.

What's In a Sculpture?
Bronze, which is 95% composed of copper, has become very expensive, forcing sculptors who have to pay foundry costs upfront to search for ways to economize. Some do so by casting only one sculpture at a time as they find buyers, rather than creating an entire edition.

But more artists are starting to create work from other materials—including Aqua-Resin, concrete, fiberglass, plaster and terra cotta—which are less expensive and can be produced right in the studio. Some resin sculptures are now labeled "cold case bronze" or "bonded bronze." That may lead some buyers to believe they are purchasing a traditional bronze when the piece actually is made from a polymer in which some bronze powder was poured in.

Artists also are buying metal and mica powders that are poured into molds or applied as a patina to give a "faux finish" that resembles bronze, which may add to a buyer's confusion.

Also confusing can be the terms used to describe posthumous work. Consider the Roy Lichtenstein sculpture "Coups de Pinceau," or "Brushstrokes," which was recently installed at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Calif. The work, created in 2011, almost 15 years after the artist's death, is called a posthumous artist's "proof," even though the artist obviously had nothing to do with it. (His estate made the new version.)

Perhaps the best advice for those who aren't fluent in the language of galleries is to look upon art-world terms and descriptions as a sort of word soup—one that should be consumed with a dash of skepticism.

Source: The Wall Street Journal