Mike Smith started making sculptures for other artists (Hirst, Whiteread etc) in the early YBA-era. Then he stopped making his own and started Mike Smith Studio to provide technical/engineering/fabrication expertise and "sympathy to an artist's vision that an ordinary fabricator or contractor could never achieve". And there's a book, Making Art Work, too.
[Q]uestions about the authenticity of the artist's hand in the production process are part of a view of the economics of the art world that is long out of date, according to Smith: "A lot of people in the art world still just think things are made by the hand of the artist. I always want to say: 'How many Henry Moore sculptures are there in the world?' He would have had to work seven days a week and 24 hours a day to produce that much. I mean, do people really think that Richard Serra is forging ellipses on an anvil somewhere?"
Nothing more irritatating than a self important tradesman. Only in the arts industry would the engineers behind the scene want so much gratification. You take the money... just do the job & shutup.
Posted by: I. Don Belevit | March 17, 2005 at 10:13 AM