Attitudes to Art…. Just a tad different to ours in Sweden. The first thing we noticed was the entrance fee to SUPERMARKET – 100SEK or 150SEK with a catalogue ( roughly £9.60 / £14.41 ) I know from experience of working in a gallery that people grumble about paying a fiver for even a big name artist here, and yet the fair was packed with people every day – all clutching their catalogues.
It also appeared that children there were taught at a very early age to respect artworks. Sunday, like here, seemed to be a family day. Rather than allowing their children to treat artworks as glorified climbing frames ( again, something I’ve sadly witnessed)… the children ran up to the work and stopped abruptly to look for their parents approval before going any nearer.
This was quite a pleasant surprise as we jumped up to protect Phill Hopkins fragile match stick house or Julie Dodd’s building blocks, expecting the worst. Nothing at all was touched by youngsters. Adults did pick stuff out of curiosity (again, Julie’s blocks) but all very carefully.
There was a children’s workshop running upstairs and as I was busy watching what they were doing, I hadn’t noticed what the two female workshop leaders were wearing, until they stood up. One was in a bra and short skirt, the other in a fish net body stocking – nothing else. I think my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I realised it, but no one else seemed to bat an eyelid. Hmm… would we get away with that when we plan our next series of workshops? Maybe not.
The final thing was sales….. As it wasn’t a selling event, we hadn’t put prices on anything or even thought about what we would do if anyone was interested. Phill’s matchbox house and small box of sand was the first item to attract interest. No… we haven’t got a price for it. No we can’t sell it as we couldn’t contact the artist straight away…. Andrew Crighton’s photograph and Jacqueline Kerr’s drawing were all enquired about. Crazy. You couldn’t flog an artwork in the UK if you sold it for peanuts!
It’s another world out there.
