The Art Newspaper

Unsigned artists’ event is a flop

By The Art Newspaper. Market, Issue 192, June 2008
Published online: 01 June 2008

Unsigned artists’ event is a flop

chicago. The Artist Project showed works for sale by unsigned artists “undiscovered by the gallery community”. Around 450 applied for 300 stands, judged by four arts professionals. They advised MMPI to accept only the best 50. Instead, to fill space, MMPI invited 300 of which 237 showed up. As a result, quality was wildly uneven: one dealer said “many [are] appalling, and with few sales”. There were exceptions, he added, including the Indianapolis artist Casey Roberts whose fantasy landscapes, such as War Crimes, 2008, sold for around $7,200 each (the one illustrated, left, went to a New York collector). On 2 May, the Mart said the next Artist Project will take place on 4-7 December this year where it will share space with a Christmas sale. V.C. and M.G.