{"id":2490,"date":"2010-05-11T09:44:48","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T13:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=2490"},"modified":"2010-05-11T09:44:48","modified_gmt":"2010-05-11T13:44:48","slug":"poor-manners-flared-jeans-and-a-city-of-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2010\/05\/poor-manners-flared-jeans-and-a-city-of-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Poor Manners, Flared Jeans and A City of Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had hoped that my interview experience with Mandell\u2019s Gallery<\/a> on Elm Hill <\/a>would make up for Mr. Mandell\u2019s poor email correspondence\u2026 it didn\u2019t. I began to email and call the gallery after another art dealer that I should go and ask a few questions about the gallery suggested it to me. The first time I went into the gallery (around March), I told Mr. Mandell my name and about my research paper. He seemed interested enough, but said he didn\u2019t have time for an interview at the moment. I told him that was fine (I know his business comes first) and that I would email him the questionnaire so he could fill things out at his earliest convenience. After a few weeks I began to email again, no response. I called to make sure I had the right email address. The woman on the line told me the Gallery was about to open a show of John Kiki\u2019s <\/a>works and that Mr. Mandell would be more available after the opening\u2026. OK, so I wouldn\u2019t have the interview until after the first draft of my paper was due. OK, not going to panic. After a week and still no response (email or otherwise) I decided to go into the gallery to see if I could get some answers. The way I was raised, this kind of behavior is unacceptable. If you receive email or a call, at least have the decency to respond\u2026even if it\u2019s just to say you\u2019re too busy and to give a date when you WILL be available. Well, after I reintroduced myself to Mr. Mandell he kind of gave me the \u2018I think I remember you, but I\u2019m just not quite sure\u2019 kind of look and then searched his inbox for my email. \u201cAh, yes\u201d he said, \u201cyes, I don\u2019t really feel comfortable answering some of these questions\u2026I think they are a bit leading\u201d Alright, how does one respond to that? I\u2019m sorry? I didn\u2019t think my questions were that leading\u2026.just enquiring about the general policies of the gallery and what kind of people buy their art. Apparently Mr. Mandell\u2019s competition is hot for him right now and they will do ANYTHING to learn his secrets. I was a bit taken aback, and although I assured him my research was purely academic, he was still unwilling to answer any questions about how he prices his art or what kind of client he markets for. Mr. Mandell, if you\u2019re reading this, I\u2019m sorry, but I really don\u2019t think you have any reason to worry\u2026I am NOT going to spill any sort of insider gallery dealer secrets. I think you are probably a nice guy, especially after you told me you used to vent your jeans in the 60s to make them flare out\u2026it\u2019s cool, it was the 60s after all. Anyway\u2026back to the point. While this interview was not as helpful on the specifics of buying art in Norwich, he did have some opinions on the general culture in Norwich. Essentially, Norwich has always been a bit of a hot spot for the arts\u2026the only problem? Geographical isolation. However, this isolation made the arts in Norwich a priority as the people would have hardly been able to travel to London to see a play or a painting. Norwich has always had a thriving theatre (the first being the Maddermarket Theatre<\/a>) and the Norwich School artists are probably the area\u2019s most famous visual artists. Even today, the Norfolk and Norwich Contemporary Art Circle, the Playhouse Theatre<\/a> and the city\u2019s recent bid to become a UK \u2018City of Culture\u2019 keep this arts-rich area a cultural meeting place. Despite the provincial setting, the isolation has kept the art world in Norwich centered on Norwich. And with so many galleries opening in the last fifteen years, the people in this area still don\u2019t have to travel down to London to acquire great art. Right now, I\u2019d say the traditional subject matter of landscape and portraiture are still outselling the more abstract contemporary pieces, but the contemporary arts are on the rise. The trends in art (and other areas) will come and go, but Norwich will always remain a city of the arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had hoped that my interview experience with Mandell\u2019s Gallery on Elm Hill would make up for Mr. Mandell\u2019s poor email correspondence\u2026 it didn\u2019t. I began to email and call the gallery after another art dealer that I should go and ask a few questions about the gallery suggested it to me. The first time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741],"tags":[12,2206,2207,784],"class_list":["post-2490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grace","tag-art","tag-art-galleries","tag-contemporary-art","tag-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}