Peter Lik

cliveh · Feb 24, 2015

blansky said:
It's called marketing.

Or is it fashion?

doughowk · Feb 24, 2015

It is border-line fraudulent marketing. The art market is a good example of Stiglitz asymmetrical information model where buyers rely on gallery owners, etc. to provide them with good market investment information. Lik only provides his in-house sales info which is deceptively skewed to show increasing value.

Mainecoonmaniac · Feb 24, 2015

You're a wise man

blansky said:
In case we are having a problem seeing the forest for the trees, the lesson here is quite obvious.

Does McDonalds sell billions of burgers because they are great burgers.

Does Rolex sell millions of watches because they are the best watches.

It's called marketing.

In case you haven't been paying attention, that's the name of the game.

The products are good or bad according to you personal opinion. But it has no bearing on the sales figures.

If you toil in your basement making masterpieces, chances are you will die broke. With your integrity intact.

What you said is very true indeed. It takes knowledge to discern crap from culture. That's the sad thing about mass media, mass consumption and marketing. Everything is branded and every brand is trying to sell a culture. Consumers define themselves by what they have.

snapguy · Feb 24, 2015

Foul ball

It is the bottom of the 9th inning

Aussies 1, Lik 0.

DREW WILEY · Feb 24, 2015

I've seen these art gig fastbuck schemes over and over. There are all kinds of ways to make a buck. Big deal. Life is short. I want to actually experience the light - immerse myself in it, soak it in, not fake it - then have the joy of making the quality of prints I can take some satisfaction in. There's nothing special about selling just another slick commodity to yet another sucker.

hoffy · Feb 24, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
I've seen these art gig fastbuck schemes over and over. There are all kinds of ways to make a buck. Big deal. Life is short. I want to actually experience the light - immerse myself in it, soak it in, not fake it - then have the joy of making the quality of prints I can take some satisfaction in. There's nothing special about selling just another slick commodity to yet another sucker.

And I'm sure his immediate response to you would be 'How many prints have you sold this week?'

I get the feeling he would just about feed off of comments like yours! He seems like that kind of person.

DREW WILEY · Feb 24, 2015

I'd be ashamed to sell one print in my entire life that looked like one of his! By now, lots of people already know that I've referred to Lik as
"Nature's Pimp": take something ugly and slather it with enough cheap gaudy makeup, and bag the money! But yes, Hoffy, I certainly agree
with you in the sense that this guy probably does feed off negative feedback. Do something particularly egregious, and it garners free publicity. But he probably doesn't give a damn about forums like this one, or even pay attention to what anyone like us says. Probably never reads these kinds of things in the first place. In these kind of marketing scams, all one has to do is push out those wild alleged sales figures and sit back - no need to document or verify them. I'm more into home cookin', not into how many millions of greasy burgers are sold per month by a particular franchise. It's the quality that interest me, not the quantity. But I will guarantee you that the type of people who have bought my prints are definitively NOT the kind that buy Peter Lik's. Two entirely different species!

blansky · Feb 24, 2015

doughowk said:
It is border-line fraudulent marketing. The art market is a good example of Stiglitz asymmetrical information model where buyers rely on gallery owners, etc. to provide them with good market investment information. Lik only provides his in-house sales info which is deceptively skewed to show increasing value.

Isn't all marketing fraudulent?

blansky · Feb 24, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
I'd be ashamed to sell one print in my entire life that looked like one of his! By now, lots of people already know that I've referred to Lik as
"Nature's Pimp": take something ugly and slather it with enough cheap gaudy makeup, and bag the money! But yes, Hoffy, I certainly agree
with you in the sense that this guy probably does feed off negative feedback. Do something particularly egregious, and it garners free publicity. But he probably doesn't give a damn about forums like this one, or even pay attention to what anyone like us says. Probably never reads these kinds of things in the first place. In these kind of marketing scams, all one has to do is push out those wild alleged sales figures and sit back - no need to document or verify them. I'm more into home cookin', not into how many millions of greasy burgers are sold per month by a particular franchise. It's the quality that interest me, not the quantity. But I will guarantee you that the type of people who have bought my prints are definitively NOT the kind that buy Peter Lik's. Two entirely different species!

Perhaps we should petition the Australian government to stop letting these guys out of the country.

Look at the mayhem that assholes like Rupert Murdoch have perpetrated on the world.

DREW WILEY · Feb 24, 2015

No. In the long run, honesty and integrity is always the best sales policy. But this isn't about the long run, but about an ephemeral conspicuous consumption fad someone needs to capitalize on relatively quickly. After all, these kinds of huge prints can't really be archived.
They're decor that's going to get baked by UV one way or another. That's nice to know. The faster they fade, the better. But philosophically,
I guess if your name is Karl Marx, all marketing is evil. I prefer to sell products I actually believe in, that offer real tangible benefit to my
customers. So I'm fine with that approach. Everybody wins. Trying to sell something I might secret despise, however, that's a cynical trait
for slick snake oil salesmen. If you've ever walked into a Lik or Kinkade gallery, you'll know exactly what I mean. Think "used car lot".

hoffy · Feb 24, 2015

blansky said:
Perhaps we should petition the Australian government to stop letting these guys out of the country.

Look at the mayhem that assholes like Rupert Murdoch have perpetrated on the world.

Ahhh, Rupert is an American Citizen. He's all yours now!

Anyhow, back to Lik.

I know plenty of people that would ohhh and ahhh over his work. If I was to steal some (not all) of his images and display it at a Camera club competition, I think that there would be no doubt I would be given 10 out of 10 for them. His images are all about smack in the face instant visual stimulation (or visual masturbation, which phrase ever suits you better). Camera club judging is all about looking at a picture for 10 seconds and moving on. They are not images you could sit back and just study.

There are images, though, that I think "Really"? I had a bit more of an in-depth view through his website last night and came across the Aviation set. The only difference I see between me and any other of the million weekend warriors with the images produced is that he had access. Sure, I'd probably be happy to take photos like that, but I ain't trying to sell them for $thousands.

cliveh · Feb 24, 2015

blansky said:
Isn't all marketing fraudulent?

Yes, but you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

Sirius Glass · Feb 24, 2015

Marketing on steroids, questionable talent, and a gullible customers with much more money than brains. Why are your surprised?

MattKing · Feb 24, 2015

blansky said:
Isn't all marketing fraudulent?

No.

Because some marketing does indeed educate and serve to bring products that fulfill a need to the attention of those who have that need.

You know, like the Lee Valley Tool catalogue

DREW WILEY · Feb 24, 2015

Marketing has been around ever since trade has been, well back into the Stone Age, in fact. It can be a simple as a menu posted in a restaurant window, or that window being open a bit to let the aroma of the food waft into the street. It simply lets people know what you've got to offer. Deceptive marketing has been around just as long, probably. But marketing is not inherently deceptive. That's a choice.

blansky · Feb 24, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
Marketing has been around ever since trade has been, well back into the Stone Age, in fact. It can be a simple as a menu posted in a restaurant window, or that window being open a bit to let the aroma of the food waft into the street. It simply lets people know what you've got to offer. Deceptive marketing has been around just as long, probably. But marketing is not inherently deceptive. That's a choice.

True, but we live today. And marketing is done mostly by large corporations who have one goal.

Sell a whole bunch of shit. Sell the sizzle not the steak. Sell with fear. Most effective.

Sell with sex, second most effective. Sell to enhance prestige. Third most effective.

In reality the product is almost irrelevant. They're just selling the sizzle.

Let's face it most products sold today, people don't actually need.

During the worst of the recession when most stores were going broke or doing poorly, Apple was packed.

DREW WILEY · Feb 24, 2015

Well, today you have advertising. The better the ads, the worse the product - at least that applies to how we purchase our politicians! Then
there is the need for expertise. So you have people like Marketing MBA's, who are experts at bankrupting corporations as quickly as possible, but otherwise don't know how to do anything except Powerpoint presentations, which can be used to prove anything. So that kind of skill is analogous to what an Expert Witness does in a courtroom. And here we've got a case of press releases and in-house gallery spin that has effectively generated a lot of talk. But try substantiating any of it, and you get referred to a lawyer. Remind you of anything? Remember that Uncle Earl debacle a few years ago?

Dr Croubie · Feb 24, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
Well, today you have advertising. The better the ads, the worse the product

I've always wanted to meet someone who owns a Jeep.
And ask them, quite seriously, what they think was the percentage of the purchase price of their fake wheel drive that went towards their saturation advertising campaign.
I know we'll never get to see the real numbers, but I really wouldn't be surprised if it's near the amount that went towards the raw steel (or plastic, whatever those things are made of these days)...

MattKing · Feb 24, 2015

Sorry Drew, I cannot agree about the "Expert Witness" part of your comment.

Some expert witnesses are certainly "hired gun" types - almost more advocates than witnesses. But I have worked with others who are almost universally respected in their fields, and also truly expert at explaining and clarifying complex subjects, and thus providing great assistance to courts of law.

The best ones tend to be hired by lawyers acting for parties coming from a wide variety of viewpoints.

DREW WILEY · Feb 24, 2015

I've long known a few expert witnesses in my own field. They made a career out of being an "expert witness" because they were otherwise too incompetent to succeed in their chosen field in any other manner. And I recently sat in on a major medical malpractice trial where I correctly guessed the outcome just by the logistics of how the inevitably conflicting expert witnesses were being juggled on the chessboard.
If they're good at what they do, of course they need to be articulate. A lot depends on the skill of judge himself, and what he allows the lawyers to get away with in terms of BS and manipulation. I've seen both extremes. It's interesting, for sure.

Sirius Glass · Feb 24, 2015

Dr Croubie said:
I've always wanted to meet someone who owns a Jeep.
And ask them, quite seriously, what they think was the percentage of the purchase price of their fake wheel drive that went towards their saturation advertising campaign.
I know we'll never get to see the real numbers, but I really wouldn't be surprised if it's near the amount that went towards the raw steel (or plastic, whatever those things are made of these days)...

You are barking up the wrong building. Start off asking how few Jeeps or other four wheel drive vehicles actually touch dirt.

winger · Feb 25, 2015

There are different kinds of "expert witnesses" out there. Technically, an expert witness is one who has specialized knowledge of an area which the average person would not. In some states, in criminal cases, the jury is never told that a particular witness is considered an expert witness (it's up to the judge in MA and most do not ever utter those words), but an expert witness is the only one allowed to give an opinion.
When I read your original post on that, I really cringed. Especially having testified over 100 times as an expert in a few areas of forensic science. Yes, I've known a few outside (ie. non-crime lab) experts who were anywhere from fudging it a bit to outright idiots/liars. But those of us who did forensics as a living really just wanted the evidence tested correctly and consistently. We had no real stake in the outcome - we just wanted it done right.

As for Lik - I'd have to go look for his work to even be able to recognize it, but whatever he says he makes doesn't affect anything I do or make. Money-wise or image-wise.

Sirius Glass · Feb 25, 2015

winger said:
There are different kinds of "expert witnesses" out there. Technically, an expert witness is one who has specialized knowledge of an area which the average person would not. In some states, in criminal cases, the jury is never told that a particular witness is considered an expert witness (it's up to the judge in MA and most do not ever utter those words), but an expert witness is the only one allowed to give an opinion.
When I read your original post on that, I really cringed. Especially having testified over 100 times as an expert in a few areas of forensic science. Yes, I've known a few outside (ie. non-crime lab) experts who were anywhere from fudging it a bit to outright idiots/liars. But those of us who did forensics as a living really just wanted the evidence tested correctly and consistently. We had no real stake in the outcome - we just wanted it done right.

As for Lik - I'd have to go look for his work to even be able to recognize it, but whatever he says he makes doesn't affect anything I do or make. Money-wise or image-wise.

Winger, given your expertise, would you please explain why on television shows, NCIS et al, CSI et al, ... the bodies that were in hot dumpsters for three days or out in a field for a week look so fresh and seemingly have healthy clear skin and a healthy skin color despite their condition? I do not understand it. 'splain it to me please.

Sirius Glass · Feb 25, 2015

My girl friend asked me to ask Winger why the bodies never look bloated, never liquified, nor are dismembered and mangled.

DREW WILEY · Feb 25, 2015

"Expert Witness" is a routine expression in Calif courts, and might not have a single thing to do with a forensics technician. Each side pays for
their own "expert" and, of course, each will skew the testimony in favor of who paid them. Lawsuits with ambulance chasers or class action
suits are magnets for this kind of thing. Or think of the OJ Simspon trial, where the same "expert" who claimed 3-day old DNA was worthless established the paternity of a 3,000 year old mummy when a different party paid him to determine that instead! (I shouldn't go there at all, but I have a neighbor who happened to work for a real forensic lab back then, which was one of three independent labs with independent samples - none of which was even called to testify! and guess what? - well, we all know how that one went.) The "expert" served out the version of BS which equated to his own payday. I'm just using this as an obvious illustration, not as a bone to pick. But
in this "art" whatever thing here, something just smell like a rat. Why would anyone intelligent believe anything Lik says? It's obvious that
he's making money, but the whole things could be a house of cards, just like Kinkade's temporary empire.

Peter Lik

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