So, these Sunday links (which aren’t really coming on Sunday anymore) are really a prod to get me to blog more often. It’s a weak premise, so I’m going to try to make it more interesting (for myself and for you) by describing more the path that got me to that link rather than very much about the link itself.
So about yesterday’s link. It all started back in 1998 or so, when I was a studying under Hugh Innis (son of the great communications theorist Harold Innis) at Ryerson University. Hugh, who once said to me, “If your Dad is Mickey Mantle don’t go into baseball”, made economics his focus and then somehow ended up teaching popular culture courses at Ryerson. In one class, he described with his usual passion a trip he had recently taken to New York City, where he visited the studio of an artist by the name of Mark Kostabi, who had christened his studio “Kostabi World”. Hugh recounted with particular glee the experience of putting a quarter into a slot so that a small window would open, and one could see the army of painters working inside on the next Kostabi paintings, for about one minute, at which time the window would shut again, awaiting the next quarter for activation. An art peep show, if you will.
Several years later, in 2003, I made my own pilgrimage to Kostabi World. The peep show window was no longer in operation, but I was welcomed into the studio and allowed to take photographs. Kostabi himself was there and dedicated my “Conversations With Kostabi” book to “Michelle from Canada”.
Just before my trip to Kostabi World, I had discovered Kostabi’s “Ask Mark Kostabi” column on artnet.com. I always viewed Kostabi as a kind of Donald Trump of the art world, being quite impressive in terms of creating a brand out of himself and spinning off so many things from his central practice. (Like Trump, he has his own television show now as well: “Name That Painting”, viewable on cable television in Manhattan and on the internet at mnn.org, Channel 34, on Wednesday nights at 9:30 EST.) The “Ask Mark Kostabi” advice column was so funny and refreshing, shifting between acrimonious banter between Kostabi and his detractors, and advice on how to “make it in the art world” to his fans.
At around the same time that I paid my visit in 2003, his column went silent. 2004 passed, and no new columns were posted. I despaired that there might be no more columns at all, and I would have to trawl the archives for quotables that made me want to laugh (instead of the usual, cry) about what it takes to be a “professional artist”.
Then this month, Kostabi posted a new column. It lacks some of the bite that previous columns have had (I encourage you to browse the archives), but this sign of life is encouraging. I look forward to columns to come. And though I’ve lost track of my old professor Hugh Innis, I wonder if he ever returned to Kostabi World and found that the peep show window was gone, or if he too reads the “Ask Mark Kostabi” columns when he can.
And so without further ado, I invite you to check out the latest Ask Mark Kostabi column.