Blanc Artist Resource aims to provide access to materials about artists as well as the works they make.

As the works doesn’t come out from nothing, or from imagination alone, and artists cannot live in isolation (or without patrons, even if they pretend to), so we need industry-standard painting racks; bookshelves for their portfolios, exhibition catalogues and zines; and a sustainable archiving system for documents that authenticate and validate the works such as certificates, receipts, consignment forms, and condition reports.

As much as these materials are being used in myth-making and tend to mystify, if not speculate on artists and artworks prices, these can be the same materials that can help demystify the operations of the so called art world by revealing the mechanisms that enable and sustain it.

But one might ask, how? And accessible for whom? As the institutions that used to provide answers cannot do so in their religious, political, cultural, and educational capacities, let us not settle on the answers provided by one dominating system left working – – the market. Maybe we haven’t asked the right questions yet.

But we have to start somewhere and to learn to decode and activate these materials. It may reveal how artworks crack as artists cram to produce works to keep up with the pressures of production; the risk of inhaling odorless turpentine – – the more it appears harmless, the more damage it can make.

As we will build the Blanc Artist Resource, not from nowhere but from existing infrastructure and coordinates provided by the market, we hope that we do not end up decorating these frames to cover-up our embarrassment by giving the impression the everyone is doing something.

Buen Calubayan