‘It was my life’: Former North Hills resident continues 40-year photography business in Manor

By in Photography

‘It was my life’: Former North Hills resident continues 40-year photography business in Manor

Alicia Dallago’s journey with photography first took shape far outside Western Pennsylvania.

Over a 40-year career behind a camera, she earned numerous accolades, including two Kodak Gallery awards.

Dallago, owner of Alicia Photography, was a portrait photographer in the North Hills for 36 years. For the past year, she has operated a photo restoration studio out of her home in Manor using skills refined during the darkest days of the pandemic.

Dallago came to the United States from Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1977 with her then-husband and two sons, who were 4 and 6. Her husband had a work permit for a job in Cleveland, but she did not.

“The only thing that I could legally do was volunteer (at) a museum or go to school,” said Dallago, 81. “I didn’t speak English, and I had never driven in the snow. I thought going downtown to the museum area — it was out of the question.”

Photography quickly captured her eye.

Dallago enrolled in photography classes at a community college in Cleveland and fell in love with the art form. She earned an award from the Cleveland Museum of Art at one of the first photography shows she entered.

Despite her passion for photography, Dallago realized she had a lot to learn after booking her first two portrait photography contracts.

“I didn’t know anything about posing, so my posing was awful,” Dallago said. “My lighting was even worse.”

Seven years later, Dallago’s husband was transferred to Pittsburgh for work.

“I left all of my mistakes behind,” Dallago said. “But then I knew that I didn’t know anything.”

She studied under a master photographer for a few years and opened her own studio in the North Hills in 1986, shortly after she and her husband filed for divorce.

To continue honing her craft, she enrolled in classes at the Winona International School of Professional Photography — a branch of Professional Photographers of America — which operated from 1921 to 1984. She learned a variety of photography styles and techniques, shooting different images each week and receiving critiques from her instructors.

Her studio began to grow.

She had a real knack for capturing expressions, said Kay Bush, Dallago’s former studio manager and close friend of 30 years.

“When she worked with kids, she was down on the floor with them,” said Bush of Allegheny Township. “It was fun to watch her work.”

Through photography, Dallago found ways to give back to the community.

In place of a portrait sitting fee, she accepted toys from her clients, which she donated to North Hills Community Outreach for Christmas.

Dallago created a scholarship for women with children who wanted to return to school.

She generated funding through her studio work. The recipients — many of whom were single mothers or domestic violence survivors — were selected by the outreach and the Pittsburgh North Regional Chamber.

“She is an active leader, especially toward women who need a lift,” Bush said. “She is really helpful with that.”

When Bush herself needed a lift, Dallago was there.

The two met through a divorce support group held in a local church and became fast friends. They went on walks “most every evening” to commiserate, Bush said.

“Sometimes, the angrier we were, the faster we walked,” Bush said. “But other times, we just had a really good time and enjoyed being together.”

For Dallago, photography was more than a job.

“There’s people that take their job as a job,” Dallago said, “and there are people like me (for whom) it has never been a job. It was my life.”

Dallago closed her studio in 2012. She shot portraits out of her home, using the wildflowers and water feature in her yard as backgrounds.

Then the pandemic hit.

Unable to safely invite clients into her home for portraits, Dallago became depressed.

While decluttering her home, Dallago came across a few old photos of her family, including a candid shot of her mother and father holding her as a baby. Her mother hated having her picture taken, Dallago said. It touched her to see her mother’s natural expression and smile again.

Dallago found a new direction. She began restoring and enhancing old photos — fixing spots that were dark, blurry, torn, scratched or stained. Soon, she realized others may want the same.

“When you’re a business person, the idea of a business is always there,” she said.

After moving to Manor to be closer to her son, she opened her home photo restoration studio on Sandy Hill Road. She has stuck with the practice since.

Dallago is still searching for organizations to support in her new Manor community.

“I told my son, ‘I’m not going to get involved in the community. I’m not going to be a chamber member,’ ” she said. “I went downtown (during my first week in Manor), I saw the (Norwin Chamber of Commerce) on Main Street, I walked in and I left being a member.

“I thought, ‘No, I have to be a part of this.’ ”

Quincey Reese is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Quincey by email at qreese@triblive.com or via Twitter .

The Impact of AI and Machine Learning on the Field of Photography

By in Photography

The Impact of AI and Machine Learning on the Field of Photography

In today’s dynamic world, the convergence of art and technology has significantly transformed various industries, including photography. The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has brought exciting possibilities to the field of photography, and this article aims to delve into how these technologies are reshaping the industry.

Photography has always embraced technological advancements, from the evolution of camera designs to the development of photo editing software. Now, AI and ML are the new frontiers in photography, offering unparalleled opportunities to enhance creativity and efficiency.

One of the most significant impacts of AI and ML can be seen in image processing and editing. With the help of AI-powered software, complex editing tasks can be automated, image flaws can be identified and corrected, and composition improvements can be suggested. This not only saves time but also allows photographers to focus more on their creative vision.

Computational photography is another area revolutionized by AI. Advanced algorithms now enable smartphone cameras to offer features like High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging, depth perception, and low-light processing, which were once limited to high-end cameras.

Moreover, ML algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data to recognize patterns and make predictions. In photography, this can be used for tasks such as object recognition, scene recognition, and optimizing camera settings for a particular shot. Wildlife photographers, for example, can benefit from ML algorithms that help identify species, track movements, and predict behavior.

The integration of AI and ML in photography is only the beginning. As these technologies continue to evolve, we can anticipate even more intriguing breakthroughs. AI could be used to create hyper-realistic virtual models for fashion photography, while ML algorithms could analyze and learn a photographer’s unique style, applying it consistently across their work.

For aspiring photographers, this presents a world of opportunities. Pursuing a career in photography means not just mastering the art of capturing light and moments but also being at the forefront of technological innovation. The fusion of art and technology opens up new avenues for creativity and offers unique ways to express one’s vision.

In conclusion, the intersection of technology and photography, with the advent of AI and ML, is shaping a new paradigm in the field. These technologies enhance the capabilities of photographers, transform image processing and editing, and redefine what is possible in a photograph. For students considering a career in photography, this is an exciting time to explore the field and be part of a rapidly evolving intersection of innovation and creativity.

Want to Buy This Painting? First, You’ll Have to Audition.

By in Native

Want to Buy This Painting? First, You’ll Have to Audition.
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A younger, more diverse generation of artists are demanding a greater say in which collectors end up with their work.

IN JANUARY 2020, less than two months before galleries around the world closed to the public because of Covid-19, Lauren Halsey had a solo show at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles. She was exhibiting works about the historically Black community in South Central — where she was born, raised and still works — which is physically quite close to the gallery in Mid-Wilshire but is spiritually farther away. A big crowd came to the opening to see Halsey’s large-scale sculptural installations, which resembled storefront signage, some featuring protest slogans. “Reparations Now! In Memory of Our Black Ancestors,” one of them read. “Black Workers Rising! For Jobs Justice & Dignity,” said another.

But the show soon caught the art world’s attention for a different reason after a white collector posted on Twitter what he claimed to be a note attached to a sales list from the gallery, which indicated that a number of Halsey’s works were not for sale. Or at least not for sale to him. According to the gallery, in a statement released to Artnet at the time, “Per the artist’s wishes, we reserved certain (not all) sculptures from this body of work for people of color and public collections.” Halsey, 36, wanted her art to be acquired — to be lived with — by a diverse group of owners who’d have a special appreciation for the artist’s overall project, which is dedicated, as she’s put it, to “the empowerment and transcendence of Black and brown folks sociopolitically, economically, intellectually and artistically.”

With the exception of a co-op apartment, buying a work of art is unlike buying anything else in America. Just because you have the funds to purchase a painting doesn’t mean you can. Since the art world has few formal regulations, it’s guided instead by longstanding rules of decorum: Galleries, which are responsible for discovering artists and fostering their careers, generally take a 50 percent cut, exponentially higher than that of manager equivalents in other creative fields. And visual artists, unlike any other cultural producer, receive no official percentage in residuals, thanks in large part to the outdated first-sale doctrine in U.S. copyright law. This has helped make flipping art at auction a common revenue-generating practice among a certain collector class.

One way that artists and galleries have protected themselves from speculative buyers is by making potential owners audition for the privilege of purchasing art. A first-time buyer can expect to be questioned by a gallery, with no apparent irony, about what other works they have in their collection. Another collector might need to promise to buy two works by the same artist: one they vow not to sell at auction, the other they pledge to give to a museum. Some artists have had success with other strategies. Major works by the painter Julie Mehretu have only rarely been resold at auction, which has made her work among the most expensive by a living artist — there’s never enough supply to meet the demand. The conceptual artist David Hammons spent much of his career not showing in white-owned galleries and making difficult-to-sell works, preferring to exhibit in public areas like vacant lots.

A work by Lauren Halsey, “Reparations Now + Welcome Family,” which was included in the artist’s 2020 exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles.Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery. Photo: Jeff McLane

Historically, the artists who’ve made collectors prove their good intentions have been those, like Hammons and Mehretu, with enough power and influence to make the business bend to their will. Most artists have no autonomy, which means that once their work leaves the studio and goes to the gallery, their involvement with it is through. Lately, though, the practice of auditioning collectors has changed, especially as galleries and museums attempt to elevate work by artists who’ve long been neglected or ignored by mainstream institutions. A younger, more diverse generation of artists are asking for more control over how their work gets sold and to whom. Their motivation is as much cultural — and personal — as it is financial.

ONE OF THOSE artists is Janiva Ellis, whose paintings she once described as “inherently Black because I am.” She said it was witnessing the art world’s “gross and stressful” embrace of Black painters, especially figurative painters who focus on Black lives, during the protests against racial injustice in 2020 that “encouraged me to be more intentional” in deciding who gets to collect her work. At 35, she has a resale agreement that grants her residuals so long as she’s living, and she’s tried to prioritize what she calls “safe stewardship.”

Black artists are not the only ones pushing against precedent. Queer artists — another historically marginalized group — are also fighting for the same rights. These efforts have unsettled standard practices in an industry that remains overwhelmingly white, and attempts by artists of color and others seeking a more equitable share have proven controversial enough that few art-world figures are willing to talk about the subject. Ellis was an exception: She agreed to speak on the record but only over email in a conversation mediated by her gallery, 47 Canal in New York, where a representative told me, “She is open to talking, but I hope you understand that we’d like to be cautious as we approach this.” Both Halsey and Kordansky declined to comment on the details of the sales contract for her show in 2020.

Among collectors, the response has varied. Gardy St. Fleur, an art adviser originally from Haiti who has helped galleries place works by artists of color with “people who look like them,” said it was important to find collectors who will truly value a work rather than cash in on what’s popular. “For some people,” he said, “it’s cool they collect Black art, but they’re not hanging that stuff in their home. I’ve dealt with collectors who will want to collect Black artists, but then they’ll just put them directly into storage.” But Komal Shah, a philanthropist and former tech executive who grew up in India and now lives in California among some 300 pieces of art made by women and artists of color, told me that the idea of sorting collectors by race left her feeling “a little dismayed — because works by Black artists going to Black collectors does not really make for a broader acceptance.” It was the same logic, she said, as arguing that art by women can only be enjoyed by women: “To me, that sounds almost like death upon arrival.”

A scene from Rashid Johnson’s 2019 film “Native Son.”Matthew Libatique/HBO

One of the people who bought Halsey’s work at the 2020 show at Kordansky was the visual artist Rashid Johnson, who’s spent his career making works that subtly and often ambiguously center Black identity. “If Lauren feels that she’s empowered and feels rewarded by having her work located in the homes of Black families, then that is absolutely her right as an artist,” he told me. “I’m not even sure it has to be viewed as an activist position. I think to view it as an activist position is to condition the experience of Blackness as one that is inherently radical. Whiteness is nothing if not great at centering itself. This act by a young Black woman saying this is what she wants for her work can be taken by a white audience as somehow being about them — when she has explicitly said that this is about the Black folks [whom she wants] to acquire the work, not about a rejection of whiteness.”

Johnson is also one of the few artists who’s made work that explicitly addresses the idea of white ownership of Black art. In 2019, he directed a film adaptation of “Native Son,” based on Richard Wright’s 1940 novel about the tragedy that results after a 20-year-old Black man, Bigger Thomas, is hired as a driver by the Daltons, a wealthy white family in Chicago. In the book, the Dalton patriarch is also Bigger Thomas’s landlord, the owner of the rat-infested building where Bigger lives with his mother, sister and brother. In the film, which updates the story, Bigger is a lover of punk music, and Mr. Dalton is a philanthropist and an art collector. The walls of his mansion are covered in works by Sam Gilliam, Deana Lawson, Glenn Ligon, Henry Taylor and Johnson himself — all Black artists the art market has recently anointed as valuable. Mr. Dalton’s taste in Black art is intentionally difficult to interpret. “There’s a read of this where we recognize that Dalton sees the opportunity to invest in a group of voices with incredibly thoughtful and critical ways of amplifying their thinking,” Johnson said. “There’s a more sinister read that could imagine Dalton as opportunistic. There’s also the hybrid read, which is the place where I think we mostly live.” In that case, Johnson said, Dalton “is all of the above.” As a prominent man of wealth, he’s certainly able to buy this work. But left unanswered is the question of whether he truly has the right to it.

Kordansky, who is also Johnson’s dealer in Los Angeles, makes a cameo in “Native Son” as the owner of a record store that Bigger frequents. Really, he’s playing a stand-in for the contemporary art world, or for the way the business has operated until recently. Bigger’s experience in the store parallels the alienation many people feel when they walk into a gallery. He inquires about an LP on display behind the store’s counter, a rare 1976 promo by the short-lived but influential Detroit punk band Death, which was one of the few bands that looked like Bigger within a largely white milieu. Kordansky’s character regards Bigger’s interest as unworthy. “This, man?” he says. “There’s one in the Smithsonian.” It’s a real collector’s item, and he won’t even say the price.

An Artist Grappling With Mexico’s Cultural Legacy

By in Native

An Artist Grappling With Mexico’s Cultural Legacy

In her first solo museum exhibition, the painter Lucía Vidales subverts a muralist’s canonical work.

Lucía Vidales didn’t intend to be a painter, at least not a traditional one. When she enrolled as an undergraduate at the National Institute of Fine Arts in her native Mexico City, she thought of painting as “conservative,” she says. At the time, the artist, now 37, was working mostly with garbage and other found objects, continuing a practice she had begun as a teenager living in Hong Kong, where she attended an international high school on a scholarship: “I didn’t want to relate my work to canvas or frames.”

That changed as she learned more about art history, especially the era of pintura virreinal (“viceregal painting”) that spanned Spanish colonization to Mexican independence. Vidales — who now resides in Monterrey, where she is an instructor at the University of Monterrey — says she became intrigued by the “tensions between Hispanic traditions in terms of technique, iconography and how they understood the world.” She began to wonder how her own work could relate to a cultural canon that, however fascinating, she says, “is so problematic and kind of foreign and violent.”

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Ana Topoleanu

The question continues to motivate her practice. Next month, Vidales will open her first solo museum exhibition, at Guadalajara’s Museo Cabañas, home to 57 frescoes by the Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco. Commissioned by the state of Jalisco in the 1930s, the Expressionist paintings depict themes of conquest, creation and modern industry. The most famous of them, “The Man of Fire” (1937-39), renders its subject in flames encircled by figures whose entwined limbs resemble both angels’ wings and the musculature of cadavers.

Vidales’s show, she says, is a response to what she characterizes as the masculinity of Orozco’s output. A series of paintings and ink and charcoal drawings, it explores what she describes as fire’s feminine potential, from its regenerative use in agriculture to its significance in social gatherings and pagan rituals. In her ink-and-acrylic painting “The Shape of Fire” (2023), she invokes the Greek myth of Prometheus with three amorphous figures whose red hues suggest fresh blood and flames. Like much of Vidales’s work, it’s both figurative and abstract. “For me, these are like witches, but I like the fact that you don’t know exactly what they are,” she says of the forms, adding, “It gives place for the painting to become something else.” When asked how her feelings about Orozco have evolved since she began working on her new show, she laughs. “I’m in a moment,” she says, “when I don’t really want to think about him anymore.”

Stylist’s assistant: Priscila Cano

Artisse Launches Groundbreaking AI-Powered Personalized Photography App

By in Photography

Artisse Launches Groundbreaking AI-Powered Personalized Photography App

NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Artisse, a pioneering force in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, today unveiled its groundbreaking personalized photography AI application. The app, set to launch globally in over 30 countries, empowers users to create perfect, highly personalized photos instantly and effortlessly, marking a transformative shift in the photography industry.


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Hyper-realistic photos produced by Artisse's new AI photo application.
Hyper-realistic photos produced by Artisse’s new AI photo application.

Artisse’s application is the world’s first AI-powered tool that empowers anyone to create perfect, highly personalized photos instantly and effortlessly. By leveraging AI technology, the app generates photos from text or visual prompts, offering users the freedom to create unique and unlimited personalized photos in any setting, posture, clothing, hairstyle or facial expression in a matter of minutes.

“Personal photos serve as life’s most cherished language – a universal way to foster connections and interactions, preserve moments, and express our perspective on life. Every day, we take more than 2.3 billion photos across the globe. Yet the process of capturing the perfect shot remains complex, time-consuming, and often outside the reach of most people,” said William Wu, CEO of Artisse. “Artisse is proud to lead the industry in integrating creativity and cutting-edge technology, enabling millions worldwide to create perfect photos effortlessly.”

Artisse, backed by a world-class team with a proven track record from leading consumer application and technology teams, is set to transform the way photos are created for social media. Artisse’s revolutionary technology complements and enhances the user experience on existing photo-centric social media platforms, such as Instagram and WeChat, providing a much-needed tool for the creation of unique, personalized photos.

The app launches globally from today.

About Artisse

Recognised by KPMG & HSBC as the #1 fastest growing startup in Hong Kong and #8 fastest in Asia (among 6400+ startups), Artisse Interactive is a leading technology focused AI and blockchain gaming company. The company’s consumer application launched in August 2023 to change the photography industry and empower users to create perfect, highly personalized photos instantly and effortlessly.

For more information, please visit artisse.ai or email info@artisse.ai.

Contact
William Wu 
[email protected] 

SOURCE Artisse

Mural project underway outside Merrimac school

By in Native

Mural project underway outside Merrimac school

MERRIMAC — The public is welcome to stop by Dr. Frederick N. Sweetsir School at 104 Church St. this month to observe art being created before their eyes.

The nonprofit Pentucket Arts Foundation has hired local muralist Jenn Houle to design and install the final mural of its three-phased public art project, “Natural Restorations”.

The impetus for the project was sparked by a donation to the arts foundation from the Essex County Community Foundation during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Phase 1 was completed at the Groveland Water and Sewer Building in 2021 by West Newbury graphic artist Jen Pepper. It depicts a woodland landscape – complete with pine trees, a rabbit and deer – abutting the Merrimack River.

Phase 2 was installed last year on two exterior walls at West Newbury Food Mart by muralist Alexander Golob. Referencing American folk art through style and bold color choices, he created a piece that spoke to West Newbury’s character and agrarian history.

“It’s really wonderful how the magnificent artwork from both the Groveland and West Newbury murals have moved and inspired a community,” said foundation co-Chair Sue Stasiuk, who is overseeing the multiyear project.

Painted on an exterior wall at the front of the elementary school, the mural’s background will be large-scale silhouette paintings of native plants.

“Native plants offer the most sustainable habitat and food to local animals and invertebrates, having co-evolved with them over millennia, and are an important homegrown solution to help address the climate crisis,” notes the artist, who frequently uses her art to express thoughts on environmental issues.

With the plants serving as a background, Houle is painting six large-scale butterflies – all species from Massachusetts.

Four small butterflies are designed at the average heights of children in prekindergarten through second grade so students can document their own growth during their time at the school.

And the two large adult butterflies leaning toward one another represent the need for support and collaboration while raising and educating children, according to Houle.

The interactive mural can also serve as a source of inspiration and discussion for prekindergarten through second-grade science classes, including animal and plant interaction and interconnection; as well as their structure and behavior – including metamorphosis.

“The mural highlights the importance of native plants to pollinators and ecosystem health, and also represents interconnection and community both in the natural and human worlds,” Houle explained.

Now in its 20th year serving the community, the all-volunteer Pentucket Arts Foundation applied for funding as seed money for a multitown art installation that would employ local artists and allow people to come together through creativity in an outdoor setting.

Haverhill Bank and the Massachusetts Cultural Council are sponsors of this initiative.

Houle intends to paint Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. but said this schedule could change. She hopes to finish by September, but the end date may extend into fall.

For more information about the Pentucket Arts Foundation, visit pentucketarts.org.

The Art of AI Prompting Copilots for your Marketing Team

By in Art World News

The Art of AI Prompting Copilots for your Marketing Team

Lisa Schwartz, Growth Marketing lead at Digitate (a Tata Consultancy Services AIOps company) and Amazon author of “Guidebook to Digital Marketing and Customer Attraction,” personifies 18+ years driving innovative marketing transformation for top tech brands in the world, such as HP, AWS, Citrix, Oracle, and Nortel. Lisa is a sought-after speaker on executive marketing thought leadership, demand generation, marketing operations, global marketing, ABM, and AI use cases in Marketing. In her free time, she writes about how executives can harness the power of AI in their marketing teams.

The art of ChatGPT AI prompting for marketers is truly the differentiation that sets most modern marketers apart from other organizations that merely use paid AI tools. With ChatGPT you can quickly create a lot of real-world value in your marketing team where results are realized quickly and can supplement budgets that are being scrutinized during market and category consolidations and economic uncertainty.

Harnessing the ability of AI apps like ChatGPT, marketing teams can create content, videos, graphics (both 2D and 3D), chatbot assistants, visual assets, grammar corrections, derivative assets from videos and images, product, category or social post titles and names and descriptions, SEO, proofreading, plagiarism checking, analogy creation, keyword discovery, topic outlines and web scraping, and more. Making AI accessible to marketing teams with a consistent framework is a method I’ve termed called “co-piloting.” ChatGPT copilots will supplement your marketing projects but won’t steal people’s jobs, however, learning these prompts will develop a modern marketing team that can compete effectively.

For those unfamiliar with prompting or ChatGPT, it does take practice and some trial and error.  For example, at the beginning of using ChatGPT, it would provide a very generic, plain vanilla, boring output. After several tries, I received a good response and that was my aha moment and the learnings I share in the co-pilot framework.

Here’s the co-pilot art of prompting framework to successfully create responses from ChatGPT.

In this framework, prompts are split into five core areas: 1/goal, 2/context, 3/intent, 4/instructions, and 5/presentation. This sequence helps to layer information into your prompts intuitively, flowing from one area of the prompt to the next. It also allows you to edit or tweak your prompts, because it’s easier to navigate around the prompt and understand what each area of the prompt is designed to do.

By following the co-pilot framework steps, you’ll be able to create tailored prompts that meet your specific needs. For this example, we will create product descriptions for our main technology categories.

Step 1: Goal (Set the Scene)

The first step is to greet ChatGPT and ask it to assume a specific role. In our example, the person who will be doing this prompting is the marketing manager who will have information about the product and target audiences.  This information is needed so the prompt knows the context of the question (who is asking the question).

By telling ChatGPT to assume a specific role, it’s able to draw on specific parts of its training that relate to the topic. You’ll also want to give ChatGPT a high-level overview of the task you want it to help with. This will help ChatGPT understand the context of the prompt and tailor its output accordingly.

Step 2: Context

Provide ChatGPT with information to help it understand the context of the prompt. This could include details about your target audience, the specific use case, or any other information that will help ChatGPT deliver the best possible output. Think of this as your INFORMATION part of the prompt. The context provides ChatGPT with all relevant information that it will draw from when creating the output. It’s a critical part of the prompt.

To create context, just write in your own words the background information that you think is important for ChatGPT to know about to create the output.  If you simply instruct it to write a product description that resonates with the target market, but you haven’t provided who your target market is in the CONTEXT, then you’ll get bland output that won’t be very useful, and most certainly won’t resonate with your audience.

Step 3: Intent

The intent is the “why”. This could be anything from providing information to encouraging action. You should try to be as specific and clear as possible when stating your intent to avoid ambiguity and ensure that ChatGPT fully understands the goal.

By clearly stating your intent, you’ll help ChatGPT create a prompt that is specifically tailored to your intended goals. By providing intent, it will produce marketing content and responses that act as your marketing co-pilot.

Step 4: Instructions

As an artist, you shape and control the output using the instructions and your modifiers. Think of a large block of marble – Michelangelo can sculpt amazing statues from these blocks, whereas someone who can’t sculpt will never be able to produce amazing statues. Your instructions are where you ‘sculpt’ your output and express your unique creativity and vision.

Within the instruction segment of the prompt, we use moderators that convey the tone, emotion, and voice to adjust the output to our unique needs to tailor the prompt to match your brand’s personality and tone of voice and convey the right emotions that resonate with your target audience.

You can also include any other relevant instructions that will help ChatGPT create the perfect prompt. Other instructions you might include could include, the length of the output, information to use, information NOT to use (exclude), level of creativity you want to use, and a step-by-step breakdown of the desired output.

Step 5: Presentation

Finally, it’s time to tell ChatGPT how to present the information. This could be anything from a table or list to an article to copy blocks or blog posts. By providing ChatGPT with clear instructions on how to present the information, you’ll ensure that the final output is exactly what you need. You can have ChatGPT output lists, articles, blogs, landing page copy, tables, code…you name it, ChatGPT can probably do it!

For marketing teams, prompting can become your marketing co-pilot and those who can prompt will be able to ride this incredible AI wave! The key is practice. Use this structure to add marketing AI co-pilots to your team. Keep reading Digital First Magazine for the next part of this Marketing AI use cases series to easily set up your marketing co-pilots using AI.

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How Has the Art World Changed Since 1983? On the 40th Anniversary of His Gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac Has Some Ideas

By in Art World News

How Has the Art World Changed Since 1983? On the 40th Anniversary of His Gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac Has Some Ideas

“Today we look back with a bit of shame at the time when the art world was very male dominated,” Thaddaeus Ropac reflected on a drizzly afternoon in late July as guests started pouring in to his Salzburg gallery’s 40th anniversary exhibition.

Spread across two locations in the Austrian city—a villa in the heart of the manicured historical center and a converted industrial hangar on its outskirts—the show’s concept is straightforward: Ropac wanted to present works capturing the spirit of the art world around 1983—the year when he opened his first gallery—and juxtapose them with works created today. “In those four decades, I’ve seen art move from the ivory tower to the center of life,” he said with contagious enthusiasm.

Installation view,

Installation view, “1983 | 2023” at Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg. Photo by Ulrich Ghezzi.

In one of the rooms dedicated to the early 1980s, a work by Georg Baselitz, who famously proclaimed women couldn’t paint, hangs next to a painting by the late Austrian artist Maria Lassnig, whom Ropac has represented since the gallery’s early days. Call it heavy-handed, but this gesture encapsulates a certain authenticity and humbleness that the artists in his stable seem to appreciate. “We speak, we fight, we take positions! When we started to represent the estate of Donald Judd for example, some of our painters weren’t happy. I had to defend it. Judd had a strong position against painting, especially figurative painting.”

The story of how Ropac started out as a gallerist has been told many times, and involves a life-altering encounter with the work of German artist Joseph Beuys in 1979, on a school visit to a Vienna museum. Realizing he didn’t have what it takes to become an artist himself, Ropac still wanted to be involved but wasn’t sure how. So he moved to Düsseldorf and took an unpaid gig at Beuys’s studio.

“I came in at an epic moment for the art world, in 1982. It was Documenta 7, and Beuys, a founding member of Germany’s Green Party, was planting 7,000 oak trees in Kassel. And in Berlin, Norman Rosenthal’s landmark exhibition ‘Zeitgeist’ gathered all these international names together for the first time,” he recounted. When he decided to open his own gallery the following year, Beuys connected Ropac with Andy Warhol, who introduced him to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Ropac ended up working with both, bringing them and other American artists to Salzburg where he also showed Beuys, Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, and VALIE EXPORT, attracting a loyal German-speaking collector base.

Thaddaeus Ropac with David Hockney and Sydney Picasso. Photo ©Angelika Platen.

Thaddaeus Ropac with David Hockney and Sydney Picasso. Photo ©Angelika Platen.

But as his roster of artists expanded, it became clear he needed to open a gallery in a major art city, or his artists would take their best work elsewhere. Salzburg, as he found out early on, only comes to life during its summer music festival. “I was here out of a misunderstanding, but it grew close to my heart. I didn’t want to leave Salzburg. Yet I owe a big part of my success to Paris.”

In 1990, he opened his second location in the Marais district of the French capital showing a group of New York artists including Jeff Koons and Haim Steinbach. It was just one year after Jean-Hubert Martin’s groundbreaking exhibition “Magiciens de la terre” at the Centre Pompidou, which looked beyond the Eurocentric art world to show contemporary artists from across Asia, South America, and Indigenous communities. It was a stark contrast in attitude to MoMA’s 1984 “Primitivism” exhibition, and for Ropac, it came to symbolize the curiosity and openness of the French audience. “It was a life-changing exhibition for me; the French were looking where the rest haven’t looked yet. They were the first to show contemporary Chinese art in Europe.”

Installation view,

Installation view, “1983 | 2023” at Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg. Photo by Ulrich Ghezzi.

Ropac’s work with strong trail-blazing women artists has flown under the radar. His second show there was dedicated to American conceptualist Elaine Sturtevant, who had just moved to Paris. She felt misunderstood in the U.S., and thought the French had a wider intellectual access to her concepts around appropriation. Across the channel, in London, Ropac had started working with the likes of Gilbert & George, Tony Cragg, Antony Gormley, and Richard Deacon, who became the biggest names of their generation—but he completely missed out on the next one, the YBAs. It wasn’t until much later, in 2017, that he opened his London outpost in Dover street’s Ely House.

Today, the London gallery plays a key role. There’s an entire team dedicated to forging new artist representations, led by former Serpentine director Julia Peyton-Jones. Since she took the position in 2017, coinciding with the opening of the London location, the gallery’s roster swelled from 60 artists and estates to some 72, taking on a younger generation including Alvaro Barrington, Mandy El-Sayegh, and Zadie Xa. “I’m no longer the one dominating these decisions—and it feels good.” Ropac recounts receiving a phone call from Peyton-Jones urging him to hurry to a graduate show, to look at painter Rachel Jones’s work. “We are not the kind of gallery that picks an artist from a degree show, but as soon as I saw the work it was clear to me we had to work with her.”

Installation view,

Installation view, “1983 | 2023” at Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg. Photo by Ulrich Ghezzi.

Having been a part of the art world since the early 1980s, Ropac naturally became the gallery of choice for numerous lucrative estates, including those of Beuys, Sturtevant, James Rosenquist, Warhol, and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as experimental German filmmaker Harun Farocki. However, his success was not only about being at the right place at the right time. Ropac is driven by genuine curiosity and possesses an uncanny ability to recognize potential and opportunity in unlikely places. He’s also a perfectionist, describes himself as being “obsessed with the art world,” and is often plagued by insomnia, which he still manages to turn into new opportunity. “I use these moments to read and engage with things outside the art world; it opens other worlds for me, so I’m sometimes almost thankful for it.”

Ropac has developed a strong sense for when and where good art is being made, and why. But he always wisely avoided putting on group shows spotlighting art from certain places, opting instead for a deeper engagement with singular artists. “It’s a gut feeling, something you feel really strongly about,” he explained. That was the case when he started working with Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie. “It grew out of my deep interest in middle-Europe, and his work really stood out.” And in 2021, as the world was reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, Ropac opened a gallery in Seoul, which expanded to double its size this year. “Korea has one of the most sophisticated art worlds you can imagine. Today, it’s driven by young people, it’s incredibly creative.”

Thaddaeus Ropac and Alex Katz. Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul.

Thaddaeus Ropac and Alex Katz. Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul.

Knowing what he knows about the art market, and how different it is from when he first started out 40 years ago, would he would still take the leap today? “Immediately!” he says without hesitation. “I think now, after Covid, is the best time to open a gallery. It was a time for artists to go back to the studio and reflect. I think in the future, we will look back at 2020 as one of the strongest years in terms of art production. Any gallery starting out now already has the fruits of one of the most creative changes in the art world. I wish I were a young gallerist opening in 2023.”

“1983 | 2023” is on view at Thaddaeus Ropac’s Villa Kast and Salzburg Halle through September 30.

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