LA Art Girls

TV, and more TV

Some years ago-maybe 12 years ago-I was visiting an Italian friend (Matteo)from college at his home in Forli. We had to get home early one night to watch the Italian version of the now internationally-famous "Iron Chef". Matteo assured me that it was one of the most riveting and popular shows in Italy. If we are to understand that Italian TV is progressive, then check out this exerpt from one of Mark Kostabi's columns on Artnet:

"The exclusively Italian phenomenon of selling art via TV has been going on since around 1980 and was very successful throughout the '90s and is especially hot now. I'm amazed it hasn't caught on in the United States yet.

Three main gallery chains do it on a national level: Telemarket, Galleria Orler and Gio. Then various smaller outfits do it on a regional basis, concentrating just on Naples, for example. Telemarket is the biggest. Owned by Giorgio Corbelli, it has its own TV station that broadcasts 24 hours a day, selling contemporary art, modern masters, antique rugs, jewelry and furniture.

Telemarket occasionally sells my (Kostabi) paintings, which they buy "in giro," meaning works that are "going around" the secondary market. Orler is the gallery I recently started working directly with. They rent air time every weekend. They sell contemporary art on Friday nights, antique rugs on Saturday nights and contemporary art again on Sunday mornings. In the past month they bought about 100 paintings from me and many others "in giro."

They invited me up to Padova, where they broadcast from, to give a half hour live interview for a "Kostabi Special," meaning they'd offer only my works for a two hour period instead of their usual mixture of Picasso, Warhol, de Chirico, Arman, Fontana, Paladino, Chia, Cucchi, Pomodoro, Alighiero Boetti, Piero Manzoni, Mario Schifano, the Futurists and others.

The television presentation is dramatic, passionate, authoritative and informed. His name is Dario Olivi, and to watch him passionately and theatrically sell a $180,000 small, pink Lucio Fontana painting on TV..."

Posted by Elizabeth at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)