December 22, 2014
The Kingaroy Art Gallery will be kicking off 2015 with something different … how do you value art?
If you hired a tradesman to install a new kitchen, he might charge you $99 per hour for labour (and take 80 hours to do the job). That’s $7920 and it doesn’t guarantee the quality of work.
Now take a look at an artist’s average “wage” on a piece of artwork that took 80 hours to complete.
It’s hard to find an example where the artist even charges more than $800 for that painting. That’s less than $10 per hour and there are outlays before the artist sees a cent!
A joint collaboration by Glenn Kelly and Deidre Amos is asking the question: “What’s the value of art?”
“The whole concept of this one-off exhibition (resin art) is to let people tell us what they are prepared to pay for our art work,” Glenn Kelly said.
The exhibition will run from Tuesday, January 6, to Monday, February 2.
The opening night will be on Friday, January 9, from 7:00pm.
Every piece on display – some 40 paintings and coffee tables – will be in a silent running auction.
Bids will start at the cost price of each piece, and at 7:00pm on opening night, the silent running auction closes.
“We have calculated the cost of each piece of art work, and the value of it,” Glenn said.
“With all pieces of art work, there are what we call the production costs and our time and skill.
“The production costs you can’t avoid. It’s what we have to actually pay out to be able to produce art: frames, boards, resin, inks, paints, varnish, preparation and cleaning products, art studio room hire, gallery hire and commissions etc.
“And then there is our time and skill. We want to know what value the community puts on our time and skill.”
Any pieces not sold during the auction will be available for sale at their value, until the remainder of the exhibition.
