Re-posting a few questions I posed on Tu Scene earlier today because I was kind of ready to ask them in terms of my own personal artistic practice lately (see the TuScene comment further down), although I felt given the conversation with my friends about local Tucson art, it was a good idea to start with TuScene, as I am trying to put forth more deeper-level questions and incisive comments on the blog. Quality, not quantity. But much like Mr. Leviton says in the comments, I feel these things take me, personally, some time to process, which is why I have such a difficult time articulating my thoughts in writing. Yet initially in talking to people, no problem — no problem at all! I can nerd out and rant for hours. But I don’t think the conversation really carries the weight and legitimacy of the topic. As I say below, it took several days of reflection to even ask what I felt were appropriate questions to respectfully ask the readers, and it will probably take me much longer to arrive at some answers for myself. Nonetheless, I’m quite pleased a nice little conversation got going right away with other Tucson artists and gallery proprietors I truly admire.

A few days ago, some artist-friends and I got into some post-game commentary over beers at Congress about a show we’d seen earlier in the evening. We’d all seen about half of the work before other other venues around town within the last year. In the heat of the discussion, I agreed with them that seeing replays was kind of a turn-off and just brought down the presentation as a whole. Now I’m not so sure how much it really matters. We’re hardcore art nerds and go to nearly every show that we can so we probably see, and I mean really look at and remember a lot more art than most people.  I think this cross-pollination exists only in our little unofficial ivory tower, since we’ve strayed so far from the casual art appreciator who may visit one gallery that caters to the tastes of their particular social scene, but not another. With this in mind, I’d like to pose a few questions to artists, gallerists, academics, and art professionals:

• Do you let your work “leak” on the web (your personal site or Facebook, Flickr, etc.) before putting it in a show? Or do you reveal it publicly in an exhibit, then put it up on the web?
• Do you prepare a body of work, then share it online? Or do you post images as you complete each piece?
• Are there (loose) professional standards for any of these practices, or are they still developing as technology expands?
• To what extent does revealing your work depend on context? For example, if you have work in a major show, do you keep everything secret until the opening? If it’s a less-important show or a short-run, do you recycle old work?