Being an artist is not for the faint of heart - especially not financially

Grendizer 7ay fina - artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Larry Gagosian opened a gallery in Rome just for him to represent Cy Twombly.

But the lot of us are not Twombly, and rarely do we get to deal with Gagosian. Someone told me that famed gallerist Leo Castelli (yes, the man who launched the pop art movement to great heights) was "the best boss to ever work for". But again, artists rarely land on such a gallerist.

My first proper exhibition dates back to 2001 - it was a collective. The artwork was printed by someone else, and in January 2002 - I had my first solo. SupermARTket at the now defunkt SD Gallery. Long story short, artists need warehouses to keep their unsold work, because inevitably they are going to end with a lot of them.

One of the main reasons I moved to multimedia/digital art was because - even if lucky to live in a duplex house where I can store my unsold pieces (most of which thankfully is printed without being stretched on wood - which means I can easily roll it and store it). Just to be clear, I have no hick up about me not selling and having a backlog: A long time ago famed gallerist Saleh Barakat, during the opening of one of the exhibitions he was hosting, told me to look at the pieces shown, then he said even if they were great, they will not sell. And then launched the bomb "Tarek, there are artists who sell, and artists who don't, this artist does not". Well, just for you to know in all this life Vincent Van Gogh sold just one piece, in comparison I have sold more.

I know when I say multimedia art, it sounds snotty and pretentious. Believe me my art is not once you forego the original medium. In 2013 I had the pleasure of being the opening exhibition of the - again, defunkt - 392Rmeil393, as I was installing the work there was an installation among the lot. Fragments of a Grendizer (Goldorak) sculpture mounted on sets of old soft drink crates (both items stolen from original locations). 

The Syrian workers who were painting the gallery asked me what it was and I answered "Grendizer 7ay fina" (Grendizer lives in us - which is a riff on the Bechir Gemayel slogan after his assassination) and I explained that in the Arab world we needed both martyrs and causes for little or no reason. I think they laughed heartily for several minutes straight. At that moment I knew that the exhibition was going to be a roaring success - all right I sold nothing but the amount of people who visited was astonishing.

The leftover work is now stored upstairs.

But people fail to understand that as artists we need to pay (depending on the gallery) - a percentage of the sale of the works (which varies from 30% - a common number in Beirut - to 50 in places like New York), rent of the premises (sometimes electricity included, sometimes not), opening cocktail, this, that in addition to having our own list of people to invite on top of that of the gallery. Of course, the works need to be printed - sometimes framed - at the expense of the artist. 

I have a specific exhibition I would like to mount. And I am trying to fish for venues. I contacted one recently and - without delving too deep into the numbers, turns out I need between 4000 to 5000 Dollars for the exhibition. Considering that my work is digital to save on the expense of printing and eventually storing and therefore there is nothing to sell, it means all this is incurred from my pocket without any revenue.

No thank you. Because all this financial strain just does not make sense. Truly, being an artist is not for the faint of heart, especially not financially.

On separating the art from the artist: The case of Msgr Mansour Labaki

Source

So, can we separate the art from the artist? The French tribunal has just sentenced Msgr. Mansour Labaki for 15 years of prison for crimes of pedophelia (he, however has not been extradited from Lebanon, neither was he at the trial pretexting health issues, yet he remains in a nuns' monastery in Broumana sequestered by order of the church). Labaki is very well known (and dare I say respected) in Lebanon. Apart from the his philanthropic works (yes, there is no other word) and his political bravado during the war (again, there is no other word), one of his most known facets has been his hymn-making. A very staunch Maronite acquaintance of mine once told me: If it's a memorable hymn it's Mansour Labaki.

And if you do not believe him try these for size:

Inshallah el am7a انشالله القمحة

3araftan bi an kad ta3athara darbi عرفت بـأن قد تعثر دربي

Ta3ala baynana تعال بيننا

Fi zolli 7imayatiki في ظل حمايتك

Rabbi anta tariki ربي انت طريقي

Hananaka ya rabba al akwani حنانك يا رب الاكوان

Outrouk koulla chay2in wa itba3ni اترك كل شيْ واتبعني

Albi mhayya mghara قلبي مهيا مغارة

Tawakalna 3ala el Allahi توكلنا على الله

Laylata al Milad ليلة الميلاد

For my generation, these were ubiquitous hymns taught either at school or at church or during religious gatherings. Easy, suave and very catchy to learn. (Please catch his most known "hits" - part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). But where does this leave us? It leaves us with a full generation of Christian children (the war generation) having their collective memories built around a Pedophilic priest. Ask any person of my generation who is of Christian heritage (regardless of their current state of faith), about their childhood memories, and bingo - you get Mansour Labaki (know him or not, as lately I came to understand that people know his hymns without knowing he was the author).

Which begs the eternal question: Can we ever separate the art from the artist?

The list is endless and long - starting from the very fresh Kanye West with his daily mutterings and views, to Richard Wagner and his ties to Nazism, to Coco Chanel with also ties to Nazism (she was after all, the only non-military resident at the Ritz in Paris during the war), to French actress Arletty and her very known sentence "mon coeur est Francais, mais mon cul est international" (my heart is French, but my p*ssy is international), to Caravaggio who was a pimp and murderer, Betrolt Brecht was enamored with Stalin, and Plato was a Pedophile.

The above is just an amuse-gueule of a much longer, tortuous and very complicated list. Most people do not realize who did the artworks they have come to like, what the past of these people is, their convictions, their attitudes, but also to be fair - what was socially permissible when these artists lived. Tell any staunch Christian with a cheap copy of the Mona Lisa that the person who drew that photo hanging in the salon (above their fake Louis whatever number furniture) was homosexual and see them gasp. Once more, people just like the art, irrespective of who had done it, with little interest in who had done it as a matter of fact, and few of them bother to research who did and what their views, values and principles were.

I know, I know, it seems I actually defending a convicted pedophile at this stage. But again, ask those elderly women in the sororities, and the middle-aged men (yes, this includes me as I was born in 1974!) about who did this hymn they memorized and which they might hum come Christmas (am thinking of Labaki's simple, glorious, lovely "Laylat al Milad") and the answer would be a total blank. The artwork will outlast its author, whomever its author was.

Dear artists, galleries are a dime a dozen!

Artwork by Tarek Chemaly

Hmmm, why am I writing this at this time?

Because maybe there are no ads to talk about, and the reality is already bleak enough for the Lebanese to go on about more talks about daily life and banks and other morose topics. But also because, I am creating art very very seriously since last lockdown. Now that before my art was not being created seriously, but rather the whole theme came together and I am exploring it to the end of it (see here). Of course, you might ask - how do you make a living out of art? Well, the answer, as with my personal life: "It's complicated".

But then again, as with everything, I had a clear strategy. The last time I was represented by a gallery - that would be 2013 - which was a smash exhibition with the public though it did not sell (no shame in that, rarely anyone sells despite bragging of the contrary). Anyhow, my first gallerist had shoddy ethics, my second gallerist simply did not like my work, my third was young and inexperienced, and my fourth did not gel with my style (despite excellent ethics from his side). But you might say: Oh that's your personal experience Tarek, look at Gary Gagosian, he built a full gallery in Rome just to represent Cy Twombly (who happened to reside there!). Yes, but that's Gagosian and Twombly. 

Which brings us to. Ok smarty pants, what's your strategy? Since 2013, after that famed exhibition and basically my disillusion with the gallery world, I promised myself not to put any penny in the production of my art. And it worked. All the exhibitions which I have done since, were paid for by other institutions. Space? For free. Printing? For free. Cocktails? For free. Communication? By myself, ergo, for free (I took control of all the material surrounding my exhibitions since 2013). Because it case you did not know, artists produce, frame, rent, pay for the reception cocktail, are expected to mount and dismantle (with the help of the gallery staff), and on top (in Lebanon at least) are expected to give 35% of sales to galleries (50% in New York for example). Which basically means, once all costs added, makes exhibiting via a gallery a losing prospect.

Now, some artists participate in municipal exhibitions, or in gardens, or such venues, I have nothing against. this is their strategy and I respect it. But this is not the one I had set for myself. With strong emphasis on concept, on execution, on scenography, and overall presentation, it does not reflect well on my work to be immersed in such environments. Still, between Instagram as a showcase, my books, and other online presences (this blog included), I have established a solid identity as an artist and control my narrative very meticulously, something no gallery can match (actually, I went through the website of all of my previous galleries and I realized the sites no longer exist - all four galleries), which means had it not been for my own archives, there would be no traces of the exhibitions.

Now thankfully, all of my archive is neatly preserved. Now just the large amount of work, but also the "making of" section (which comes in handy when one wants to replace or redo an artwork), the exhibitions, the published books (and again the pages and images), the video art (frame per frame when hand-animated).... So there, the day will come when all of this will be asked for (by whom I know not!). But of this, am sure. And no gallery is going to take credit for that. 

They are a dime a dozen, trust me!