REVIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO TRIBAL ARTS WEEKEND 2010

The week of February 11th through 14th , 2010 brought to San Francisco the first Tribal Arts Weekend, combining the regular SF Tribal & Textile Arts show with the Marin Show: Art of the Americas, usually scheduled a week or two later. The show organizers, Bill Caskey, Liz Lees, and Kim Martindale, along with their PR teams, put together this concept, with the intention they would create a bigger and better experience for the tribal art market. In addition, Tribal Arts Weekend was part of an even larger concept: Arte Du Monde SF, which included the Arts of Pacific Asia show, held on the previous weekend and the Bonhams & Butterfields auction on Friday, the 12th.

Arte Du Monde SF and the Tribal Arts Weekend partnered with the Asian Art Museum, the Marin Museum of the American Indian, SF Tribal (a local dealer organization), and ATADA (Antique Tribal Art Dealers Assoc) to offer special programs within the larger framework. There were lectures on a Kiowa pictorial calendar and on basketry plants of North America, an exhibition of Southwestern pottery at the Marin Museum, and an ATADA sponsored panel discussion on Collecting and the Law. The Tribal & Textile Arts show had their opening on Thursday evening and the Marin Show had their first opening night in many years on Friday. In addition to the official Arte Du Monde SF programs, the De Young Museum sponsored a mini-symposium on Scientific Testing of Art and Textiles and held a lecture on Turkmen carpets. There were also the usual openings at Michael Hamson’s gallery and at Dave DeRoche’s home gallery, as well as two special previews at the new Tribalmania gallery in Half Moon Bay (with transportation provided by limo from the Fort Mason Center).

I don’t have the exact count of participants at each event, but it appeared all were well attended and well received, especially considering that several events conflicted with others. I am not sure at this time how to gauge the effectiveness of so many events scheduled during that week, but personally I found it difficult to make the rounds, missing out on several openings and lectures that I would like to have attended. As much as I appreciated the effort, it may have been too ambitious to have so things going on in such a short time.

My impressions of the events I participated in:

The mini-symposium on Scientific Testing at the De Young was a big hit for me, although I had to duck out half way through to make it in time to sit on the panel on Collecting and the Law across the bridge at the Marin Center. I am fascinated by the use of science in helping institutions, dealers, and collectors with the process of determining authenticity and possible antiquity of tribal art artifacts. Expert discussions were provided on the use of X-Rays, Radiocarbon, visual examination, and conservation. What was made clear is that science, while extremely helpful, is only one tool in making these determinations and that additional scholarship and research was needed to confirm testing data.

I was asked to participate on the panel discussion concerning Collecting and the Law. Frankly, I had no idea what to expect and if there would be an opportunity to discuss issues I was most concerned with. The other panel members were: Kate Fitz Gibbon, a former dealer in Central Asian art, she served on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee to the President, and is currently a lawyer specializing in cultural property issues; Steven F. Gruel, a former prosecutor, now defense attorney; and Ann-Marie Holmes, supervisory wildlife inspector for the Fish and Wildlife Service. Attempts to include archeologists and other government officials for counter points to the cultural patrimony issues were not successful.

The primary discussion focused on the law as currently enacted and examples of recent enforcement were mentioned. What was obvious is the law is very complicated and several overlapping and occasionally contradictory laws apply. For example under Fish and Wildlife, you may have to deal with CITES (Convention on International trade in Endangered Species) if animal parts are imported, the Endangered Species Act if transported across state lines, and state law for sales within the state. One law may allow the sale while another one would not. On a hopeful note, Inspector Holmes, made it clear that their department was more than willing to answer any specific questions and to assist with advice and paperwork to make transportation and sales of permitted animal parts as easy as possible. Just give them a call!

My participation was negligible, because frankly I support the intended goals of the Endangered Species Act and other laws meant to protect threatened flora and fauna. My position is that the tribal art community should do everything possible to comply with these laws while finding ways to still possess and trade in authentic or antique cultural objects that may include animal parts, acquired legitimately and used by indigenous peoples. As far as the issues with cultural patrimony, there were no participants present opposed to our activities, therefore no debate was needed at this time (I will include a paper on my views on this subject in a separate posting on my blog in the near future).

I did preview the Bonhams and Butterfields auction, but was not able to attend the actual day of sale, as I was attending my own booth at the tribal art show. I don’t have a lot of details, but it is my understanding that Oceanic material sold well, but African art sales were flat. I believe about 60% of the lots were sold.

The SF Tribal & Textile Arts show brought out the usual suspects: most of the top dealers from around the world; many high end collectors; buyers of more modest means; academics; and the simply curious. As the premier tribal art show in America and arguably the world (because of its depth and breadth of material) most of the sellers go all out to offer their best pieces. I am always impressed by the quality of this show and certainly do my best to make an important presentation. The lobby held a well received showing of tribal themed photography, titled: “Other Worlds” by Bay Area resident and collector Mike Glad. Attendance was actually quite high, with a good showing at the opening, Friday, and Saturday.

Unfortunately, sales were low, generally less than last year and certainly down from two years ago. Very few exhibitors reported sales of any significance. Most sold modestly, with some reporting they barely covered expenses. There did seem to be a general malaise with most attendees, either due to perceived sticker shock or reluctance to spend because of continuing economic issues. I had several collectors comment that they could not find anything they liked that they could afford. Sure, there were many important pieces offered with big numbers, but I found plenty of material that I thought was more than reasonably priced. Certainly the last two years of economic downturn has kept a lid on price increases on all but the very best pieces, so this should have been a good buying opportunity. I guess most buyers are still nervous about spending any serious money until they see a major upturn to the economy.

I was able to attend the Marin Show for their Friday night opening and clearly this show is having problems attracting as many dealers as they had in the past. To make up for shortage of booths, the organizers increased the aisle space. Most of the participating sellers cram most of their material onto tables, walls, and display cases, making it look a bit like a flea market, so it would have made more sense to allocate most of the unused space to increasing their booth size and display area. That said it is an interesting show with lots of beautiful baskets, blankets, and jewelry. If you love American Indian art, this is the show for you! Sales were mixed, with one report noting that there were several high end sales and another report indicated overall sales were generally down this year.

Having both of these shows on the same weekend allowed for an interesting culture contrast. This was pinpointed by a good friend, while discussing how to bring the two groups together on the patrimony issue. It was noted (humorously) that the many of the sellers and buyers at the Marin Show, all Americans, selling American art, in America were likely to be conservative Republicans (possibly with some membership in militias and the ‘tea party’) while the majority of participants at the SF Tribal & Textile Arts show were a mix of liberal Democrats, intellectuals, world travelers, and Europeans (most likely all socialists) selling a potpourri of primarily non-American artifacts to an international audience. Despite those possible political differences, we all have at least one thing in common and that is the love of great tribal art!

Generally speaking, I enjoyed the events I could attend. I wish I had time to get to more of them so it would be helpful if next year the event organizers can arrange schedules with less overlap. Did it bring in more buyers? I’m not sure, although I do know that several attendees at the SF show told me they took advantage of the “two shows for one ticket price” and made their way to the Marin show for the first time. I know these things take time to work themselves out and I am willing to give it another chance.

However, if sales remain elusive, what is the future of these shows? The sellers go to great expense to exhibit. Besides the cost to display (including booths, lights, cases, pedestals, & stands) there are travel, hotel, and shipping charges, as well as the cost of goods and the time and money spent sorting through piles of junk to find the few gems that are offered. There is no better buying opportunity then to come to one of these annual shows, where collectors can see, discuss, and purchase so much great material under one roof and in such a short time. I just don’t get why buyers don’t understand the dynamics and importance of these shows. The show producers and the dealers are spending considerable sums of money up front to give buyers a rare chance to make smart decisions and add authentic high quality pieces to their collections. Basically, these shows are underwritten by dealers to bring the tribal art community together, with the intention of benefiting all interested parties. All that the sellers ask; please attend, look at the art, and make every effort to buy at this time.

The bottom line: if collectors are not buying, then dealers can’t afford to pay the expenses to exhibit. If too many sellers drop out, the organizers will have to cancel shows and the best opportunity for buyers to educate themselves and find good pieces will vanish.

REVIEW OF THE LA TRIBAL SHOW AT THE HELMS BUILDING:

Los Angeles Tribal, a local association of dealers specializing in the traditional tribal arts of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, held their first exhibition at the Helms Building in Culver City, California on March 13th, 14th and 15th 2009. Participating LA Tribal members: Anthropos Gallery (Ron Normandeau); Dimondstein Tribal Arts (Joshua Dimondstein); Philip Garaway; Mark A. Johnson Tribal Art; Leonard Kalina Fine Arts; Fily Keita Tribal Arts; Primary Source (John Strusinski); and Jerry Solomon Asian & Tribal Arts. Tribal Arts magazine were also represented.

There was a Friday night opening benefit for “The World Is Just A Book Away”, a non-profit organization promoting literacy in developing countries. On Saturday and Sunday, members of LA Tribal with Jonathan Fogel of Tribal Arts magazine held a Tribal Art Appraisal Clinic.

This untried venue turned out to be a very good place to hold a smaller and more intimate exhibition. Frankly, until set-up, we had no idea if the overhead track lights would work properly or the display cases could be easily plugged in! But, it all came together with no problems and the individual displays were first rate. In addition, the Helms Building (formerly the Helms Bakery) is a well known icon in Los Angeles, easy to get to from all parts of town, with lots of available parking.

The opening benefit and appraisal clinic were designed to draw in new people and hopefully potential buyers. Without question these were successful in bringing in new faces, and thanks to the efforts of the non-profit, a good PR team, ads, mailers, and email announcements, the event was well attended, better than expected. We had close to 200 attendees on opening night and at least that number over the next two days (mostly new people). Approximately 70 of these attendees (again, mostly new people) brought in items to be appraised. Tribal Arts magazine was able to sign up more than 20 subscribers, a very high number for this kind of show.

The bad news, which was not un-expected during this slow economy, was that sales were underwhelming. But, more disappointing than the lack of significant sales, was the lack of participation by those members of the local tribal art community that I would have expected to attend. It never surprises me who comes to these shows, but instead who doesn’t. Without question, we were able to get the word out to this community including all of the LA area collector’s councils, organizations, individuals, and museums that have an interest in tribal art, so it was extremely unlikely they would not have been aware of this event.

With the exception of the director of the Bowers Museum in Orange County (thank you Peter Keller for making the trip to LA!), I am not aware of any other museum staff that came by (I am looking at you Fowler Museum! You too LACMA!). And worse, perhaps 20% of the LA based Ethnic Arts Council (EAC) bothered to attend! This is especially disappointing considering that virtually all of the members of Los Angeles Tribal are EAC members and very supportive of their programs and events.

In the entire Southern California region, there is one regular public show of Asian and Tribal Art (the Caskey Lee show in November) a very few museum exhibitions, and this LA Tribal group show. That’s it! You would think that anyone that has enough interest in tribal art to spend money to join an organization dedicated to appreciating tribal art or work for an institution with a tribal art collection would find a little time over three days to take advantage of this rare, free opportunity to view these works up close and actually talk to people who are willing to give you information and answer your direct questions!

Despite the economic issues and the lack of full local participation, other aspects were very successful. It has been a goal of Los Angeles Tribal to hold a regularly scheduled annual show, so we will likely do this event next March at the same location.

LOS ANGELES TRIBAL: http://www.latribal.com/
THE WORLD IS JUST A BOOK AWAY: http://www.theworldisjustabookaway.com/
DUBROWORKS PR: www.dubroworks.com
TRIBAL ART MAGAZINE: http://www.tribalmagazine.com/
ART & ANTIQUES MAGAZINE: http://www.artandantiques.net/

REVIEW OF LOS ANGELES ASIAN & TRIBAL ART SHOW

I recently participated in the 18th annual Los Angeles Asian & Tribal Art Show. It is produced by the Caskey Lees organization and held in mid November at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. There were approximately 60 dealers present, offering classic Asian material from Japan, China, Korea, and India, as well of tribal, textile, and pre-Columbian art.

Tribal Art dealers present were LA Tribal members: John Strusinski, Ron Normandeau, Joshua Dimondstein, Philip Garaway, Fily Keita, Jerry Solomon, myself of course, as well as Michael Hamson, Georgia Chrischilles, Aarin Richard, Tom Murray, Zena Kurzick, Craig De Lora, Peter Boyd, and M B Abram. Carpets and textiles were well-represented by John Ruddy, Casey Waller, Ron Hort, Noel Glenn, and Jeff Appleby. My apologies to any others I may have missed.

Once again, UCLA’s Fowler Museum was the beneficiary of the opening night proceeds. They also had a silent auction to raise funds for their Textile support group.

As usual, the show produced mixed results. First, the bad news:

Most of the dealers I spoke with were reasonably nervous about the poor economic news and how it might affect sales at the show. Frankly, regardless of how well the economy is doing, dealers tend to mope about this subject and rarely find any reasons to be optimistic about big sales at any of these shows! It’s just part of the pre-show drama.

However, the slow economy was clearly a factor and sales were down for the majority of dealers, including myself. Most of the buyers did seem hesitant to make any serious purchases under this economic cloud. There isn’t much we can do about this right now, except hang in there until things get back on track.

Also, it has been my view for some time, that the high end market for tribal art in LA is anemic, so it can be difficult to just blame the economy on poor sales. Most of my important sales are made outside of the LA area. I am still not sure why this is the case. LA is one of the wealthiest communities in the world. Most of these people collect art, yet very few seriously collect tribal art or appear to have any interest in doing so. The older collectors in LA are not very active and few younger collectors have stepped up. There are plenty of reliable resources for high quality tribal art in the LA area, but the local collectors rarely take advantage of this situation.

I was disappointed (again) with the Fowler Museum’s participation. This is premier tribal arts institution in Los Angeles and I would expect a more enthusiastic relationship with our local tribal art show. I have been to openings at the Fowler and many hundreds of people attend, yet I rarely see any of those people at our event. Sure, some of the staff comes through and perhaps a few others that may have heard about the show via the Fowler, but virtually no one I talked to on opening night had any connection to that museum. I don’t understand why the Fowler would not take advantage of this relationship and beat the drum to get their troops to the opening. They get a big chunk of the money that comes in that night and it gives their people a rare opportunity to view and purchase authentic tribal artifacts, that likely will be donated or loaned to that museum!

The last point is the venue, which I have mentioned before. The Santa Monica Civic is a tired old building and was not designed to hold quality art shows. I am surprised that the City of Santa Monica has no plans to tear that building down and replace it with a modern and more interesting architectural structure that would draw larger crowds. They have literally improved or re-built every single other building in the nearby Civic Center complex, but for some reason have ignored this out-dated blight right next door. There doesn’t seem to be any viable alternative for now, but it is my hope that the City will eventually address this issue.

The good news:

The current PR firm (AGK Media Group) and Art & Living Magazine (which was one of the co-sponsors of the show) made a huge effort to bring in new people to the opening and over the weekend. I believe we had 400 to 500 people on opening night, the largest attendance I can recall. There were considerably more people on Saturday, as well. I had so many new people, as well as the regulars, come into my booth that I couldn’t take a break all Friday evening and most of the day on Saturday. And more importantly, most of the sales I did make were to new buyers.

As a positive side note, the opening was catered for the first time by a local restaurant, Mercedes Grill, which just happens to be my one of my regular hangs. Great food and drinks were provided, but unfortunately they had not anticipated the larger crowd so there wasn’t much to go around after the first hour or so.

I like the overall mix and look of this show and it really seems to be hitting its stride. There is a nice variety (and price ranges) of material for sale and I am always happy to see more tribal art at this venue. The displays and material are not on the level of the San Francisco Tribal show, but it seems to be improving each year. The show has potential and I look forward to doing it again next year, especially if the economy is in better shape and the PR people can continue to bring in new faces.

Lastly, I want to put in a good word for the show producers and their team who work tirelessly to organize these events. Not everyone appreciates the amount of hard work and months of prep it takes to make this all happen. It is a thankless job trying to please everyone and get all of the details worked out before opening.