Edited by Ralph Ginzburg, Avant Garde was renowned for its graphic content by design guru Herb Lubalin. In 1968 the magazine sponsored an antiwar poster competition, which received over two thousand entries from twenty-four countries. Winning entries included a typographic collaboration between Billy Apple and Robert Coburn.
Image: entry for Avant Gardes's anti war poster competition by Billy Apple and Robert Coburn. Note: MADE IN THE USA at the bottom of the original artwork has been cropped from this image

Tech detective work on some old computer discs show Warhol was one of the first artists to work with digital technologies. Thanks to the curiosity of Cory Arcangel, a forgotten hoard of Warhol artworks have been retrieved from old Amiga discs by students who hacked into the defunct software. Read more…
Image: Andy2, 1985, a self-portrait created by Andy Warhol and recently retrieved from an Amiga computer floppy disc

A version of Takashi Murakam's feature film Jellyfish Eyes has been circulating on the internet since 2012, but Vanity Fair has just premiered a new trailer ahead of the film's arrival in the United States for an eight-city tour from 1 May to 5 June. View Trailer
Image: film still from Takashi Murakami's Jellyfish Eyes

ARTINFO has posted a preview of works selected by Yuko Hasegawa for the Encounters section of Art Basel Hong, which includes Starkwhite's presentation of Automated Colour Field (Variation V) by Perth-based artist Rebecca Baumann. View preview

In our last post on the controversy surrounding the Biennale of Sydney and its links with Australia's policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers we summarised key developments and suggested that the actions of the artists who threatened to withdraw from the event had put the spotlight on the privatisation of Austrlalia's offshore detention policy and not on the policy itself.

On the eve of the second edition of Art BAsel Hong Kong, which runs from 14-18 May, Magnus Renfrew talks to ARTINFO about his vision for the fair and plans for the future.
Image: Magnus Renfrew, Art Basel's Director Asia

During the 31st Bienal de Sao Paulo (6 September – 7 December 2014) the Biennial Foundation will stage the World Biennial Forum No 2. Initiated to provide a discursive platform for the international biennale community, the forum's role is to investigate and research the various modes of operation and production in different regions, and offer insights into the current issues and needs surrounding art biennials worldwide. Read more…
Image:10th Bienial de Sao Paul, 1969

Artspace has launched a new series of critical texts by selected writers responding to recent exhibitions. The online texts can be accessed free of charge here.

In the week leading up to ANZAC day, WWI footage has been projected onto the Auckland Museum. The 13 minute film produced by filmmaker Gaylene Preston, with a soundtrack composed by Jan Preston, can be viewed here.
Image: Gaylene Preston's ANZAC day film projected onto the Auckland Museum

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island art and its relationship with colonial and post-colonial Australia has been under the spotlight over the past few weeks.

Songlines, an exhibition showcasing ancient Aboriginal stories, was postponed indefinitely by the South Australian Museum after a group of traditional owners threatened legal action because it publicises what they say are secret men's stories. The intervention divided the Aboriginal community into camps – those who believe the exhibition is a mortal threat to Aboriginal culture versus those who say it offers a way to preserve knowledge for future generations and advance the understanding of Aboriginal culture.

Daniel Boyd has won this year's $80,000 Bulgari Art Award for a painting that makes subtle reference to the little known history of slavery in Australia and the bleak realities of colonialism.

The painting is of an idyllic scene from drawn from an old photograph of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. The island was home to Boyd's great great grandfather before he and many other Pacific islanders were brought as slaves to work in sugar cane fields of Queensland. Boyd says his ancestor was later forced to leave the country under the introduction of the White Australia policy.

Judged by Wayne Tunnicliffe, head curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the award includes a $50,000 cash prize and a $30,000 residency in Italy.

Boyd follows in the footsteps of Michael Zavros and Jon Cattalan, previous winners of the Bulgari Art Award which was launched in 2012.
Image: Daniel Boyd with his prize-winning painting Untitled 2014

Finland has issued three daring stamps of images by Tom of Finland, the legendary artist whose portraits of vast-shouldered men in leather, denim and knee-high boot is said to have influenced figures including Robert Mapplethorpe and Freddie Mercury.

The images aren't the most explicit of the artist's work, but even so they push philatelic boundaries. While it's not unusual for stamps to depict gay heros, Dean Shepherd, editor of Gibbons Stamp Monthly says he has never seen homoerotic art on stamps. “There was a bit of a storm in the early 1930's when the Spanish Postal Authority approved some stamps featuring Goya's The Nude Maja – a woman reclining naked. The US government apparently barred and returned any mail that bore it.”

Matt Hill, editor of Stamp and Coin Mart also says it's a bold move. “Stamps represent a country, and are the most public of media, so they rarely feature strongly sexual subjects.”
Image: Finnish stamps using imagery by Tom of Finland

As public awareness of climate change grows, Amy Balkin's Public Smog project highlights the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Public Smog is a series of attempts to create a clean air park in the atmosphere. Actions to create the park have included purchasing and withholding emissions from regulated greenhouse gas markets in Southern California and in the European Union, and an attempt to submit the Earth's atmosphere for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Public Smog also offers an array of compelling images that expand the limited repertoire currently used to highlight the effects of climate change – for instance, striking images of skylines with silhouetted buildings and geometric white gaps suggesting clarity and possibility in an otherwise smoggy landscape. Other Public Smog images show serene skyscapes of blues overlaid with phrases such as 'public mog is no substitute for direct action' and 'public smog will save the earth'.

This link takes you to an article on Public Smog and interview with Amy Balkin.

Layla-Rudneva Mackay's Starkwhite exhibition Blue squares, purple pairs closes today at 3pm

Seung Yul Oh's exhibition MOAMOA closes at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (DPAG) on 29 April and then travels to the City Gallery Wellington (CGW) where it runs from 31 May to 24 August. Curated by Aaron Kreisler and Aaron Lister, MOAMOA has been organised as a joint venture between the DPAG and CGW. You can read a review of the show here.
Image: Seung Yul Oh's Pokpo

Show Time: The 50 Most influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art is a new book by Jens Hoffmann covering a period in which “the art world has become globalised, the international biennale has emerged as the ultimate exhibition format of our time and the curator [has become] an all-important arbiter of global art trends and tastes.”

Hoffmann has delivered events like the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012-2013), the 12th Istanbul Biennale (2011) and the first Berlin Biennale (1998) and remains an advocate for the notion of curator-as-artist. “Curating has become a creative act in its own right,” he says. Read more…
Image: Cover of Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art published and distributed by DAP

Rebecca Baumann's Automated Colour Field (Variation IV) is currently showing in Burster Flipper Wobbler Dripper Spinner Stacker Shaker Maker at the Christchurch Art Gallery's ArtBox. Curated by Justin Paton, the exhibition explores the shape-shifting, experimental and seriously playful work of making art, You can see Baumann's work in action here.
Image: Detail from one of Rebecca Baumann's automated colour fields

Adan Yildiz has been appointed director of Auckland's Artspace, replacing Caterina Riva who steps down at the end of May. Originally from Turkey, Yildiz is currently artistic director of the Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart and in 2013 he was one of the curatorial collaborators for the 13th Istanbul Biennale for curator Fulya Erdemci.
Image: Adan Yildiz

Sydney-based artist Shaun Galdwell has picked up the $25,000 prize for the 2014 Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award for his work The Flying Dutchman in Blue (Coogee 2).  This year's award was judged by Natasha Bullock, curator of contemporary art a the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Image: Sean Gladwell's The Flying Dutchman in Blue (Coogee 2

Tom Finkelpearl, the president and director of Queens Museum, is scheduled to be named as New York's commissioner of cultural affairs by mayor Bill de Blasio, putting him in charge of the city's $156m budget.

The New York Times says the appointment is in keeping with the new administration's emphasis on the disenfranchised. In his 13 years at Queens Finkelpearl hired community organisers to professionalise outreach efforts and emphasised the diversity of the local immigrant population. And his institution's recently completed $68m rennovation was largely aimed at making the museum more inviting and connected to the neighbourhood. Read more…
Image: Tom Finkelpearl

Layla-Rudneva Mackay's Blue squares, purple pairs continues at Starkwhite to 12 April.

A exhibition showcasing ancient aboriginal stories has been postponed indefinitely after a group of traditional owners threatened legal action. Although the South Australian Museum consulted widely with community leaders across the region about mapping the songlines of Aboriginal Australia, a group of male elders from the Anangu language group has expressed outrage at the publicising of what they say are secret men's stories. The group includes Yami Lester a revered elder who presided over the handback of Uluru to traditional elders nearly 30 years ago.

The intervention has sparked a fierce debate, dividing the Pitjantjatjara desert people. The Australian says: “No collision in recent decades between the grand designs of of the mainstream world and Aboriginal resistance campaign quite rivals this one for its long-term impact: its controversies dominate the community night-time fires. Senior men in the heartland talk of little else.” Read more…
Image: Mike Williams and Yami Lester

Less than a year after the Long Museum was founded in Pudong by the collector couple Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, another Long Museum opened last weekend on the other side of the river in the Xuhui Riverside Development Area of Shanghai. Spanning over 33,000 square meters, including 16,000 square meters of exhibition space, it is the largest privately owned museum in China and will also house Dream Centre, the animation culture and entertainment complex scheduled to open in 2017.

China has embarked upon a massive programme of museum development, but the development of projects to drive them (and appointment of curatorial staff) is lagging behind. However, the Long Museum has learned from the experience of other museums and has settled on a curatorial approach to programming. Rather than appointing curators, the museum invites well-known domestic and foreign curators to work with an in-house academic department set up to help them develop their concepts into exhibitions.

In an interview with Randian, Managing Director Huang Jian talks about the Long Museum's operations, collections, exhibitions and educational programmes. Read more…
Image: Shanghai's new Long Museum, exterior and interior

Gavin Hipkins' photographic installation Leisure Valley opens tonight at ST PAUL ST Gallery.

Captured during a visit to Chandrigah in 2013, Hipkins' images play with the utopian desire of modernist planning (the city was designed by a team of architects led by Le Corbusier) and mimic the romantic appreciation of the ruin through capturing aspects of the present day Chandrigah that are in various states of decay. Leisure Valley also includes a new experimental film by Hipkins titled The Port. Read more…

Recently we were introduced to The Distance Plan, a project initiated by a group of visual artists, writers, urban planners, poets, environmental scientists and geographers who produce exhibitions, public forums and publications on the effects of climate change.

In the first publication LA-based artist Amy Howden-Chapman writes: “Distance Plan is not another scribbled utopia, not another modelled future but a diligent diagram of causation between current actions and what is coming. There in the distance, but gradually materializing as it starts to impinge on life today, is climate change. With this issue, diagramming is a disorientating task. Our current actions will have consequences largely outside our life spans. The aim of The Distance Plan is to show how necessary it is to conceptualize the effects of this apparently distant phenomenon.”

The publication also contains Questions for my father about climate change, a must-read conversation between Amy Howden-Chapman and her father Professor Ralph Chapman, Director of the Graduate Programme in Environmental Studies at Victoria University, Wellington.
Image: The Distance Plan publication with contributions by Abby Cunnane, Amy Howden-Chapman, Louise Menzies, Ralph Chapman, Amy Balkin, Michael Paludan, Joe Hoyt, Biddy Livesey, Steve Kado, Arini Beautrais and Bjarki Bragason

Climate change is being felt in all corners of the globe and some parts may be undergoing irreversible change, an assessment by the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has found. The report forecasts impacts on hundreds of millions of people of coastal flooding, crop reduction and trillions of dollars in economic losses and says the impact of recent climate-related extremes, such as heat waves, droughts and floods, reveal the significant vulnerability of some ecosystems and many human systems. Read more…

Layla-Rudneva Mackay's Blue squares, purple pairs continues at Starkwhite to 12 April.
Image: Layla Rudneva-Mackay, Still life and sleepless nights (detail), oil on canvas, 400 x 310mm

Chilean architect Smiljan Radic will design this year's Serpentine Pavilion, an architectural intervention that the Guardian's Oliver Wainwright says will be one of the strangest structures Kensington gardens has seen. “Looking like the result of an alien visitation to some ancient pagan site, the pavilion will take the form of a delicate white fibreglass cocoon, resting on a ring of boulders above a sunken grassy bowl, as if a mutant spider had spun a great nest on top of a neolithic stone circle.” Read more…
Image: Smiljan Radic

New Zealand's Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Christopher Finlayson, has appointed 13 inaugural members to a new streamlined arts council, which replaces three statutory boards and one statutory committee. The new lineup includes art patron Grant Kerr. Best known for his support of the arts in New Plymouth, Kerr was a co-founder of the Taranaki Arts Festival and is currently a member of the Govett-Brewster Foundation, the avenue for donations gifts and bequests for the development of  the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery collection and realisation of major projects.

Kerr is now based in Auckland where he continues his trademark approach to patronage – a mix of support for big projects, like his continuing support for the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, and his own initiatives. Last year he facilitated a research trip to Auckland by Art Gallery of New South Wales curator of photography Judy Annear (and hosted a reception for her) and next month he has Sydney-based commentator Ann Elias flying in to speak about Peter Peryer's work at the Auckland Photography Festival.

Like many of New Zealand's most influential patrons, Kerr is also a passionate art collector. But unlike most he focuses on one medium – photography. Kerr has a vast collection of contemporary photography, which includes the country's largest collection of images by Peter Peryer and substantial holdings by other major figures, including Laurence Aberhart.
Image: Peter Peryer's portrait of Grant Kerr

Brisbane-based artist Ross Manning continues his exploration of the mechanisms of technology and nature of light and the role it plays in human perception with Spectra V, a kinetic sculpture installed on Cockatoo Island, one of the venues for the 16th Biennale of Sydney, You imagine what you desire. Manning will also curate the MCA Art Bar during the biennale. ARTBAR happens after dark every month at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It combines exhibitions, music, design and live acts under the direction of a guest curator, transforming the venue into a “pulsating piece of performance art.” Manning's ARTBAR runs on 30 May from 7-11pm.
Image: Ross Manning, Spectra (detail)

Buoyed by the success of Melbourne Now, a large exhibition showcasing work by Melbourne artists (the show has attracted 750,000 visits since it opened in November 2013), National Gallery of Victoria director Tony Ellwood has announced plans to launch a triennial in 2017. And with an eye to collection building from triennial, he will also roll out a new fund dedicated to commissioning and acquiring contemporary art for the NGV collection.
Image: Laith McGregor's ping pong tables in Melbourne Now

“I've never thought of the curator as a creative rival to the artist,” says Hans Ulrich Obrist. “When I started curating I wanted to be helpful to artists. I see my work as a catalyst – and a sparring partner.” Read more…
Image: Hans Ulrich Obrist

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has been awarded this year's prestigious Pritzker Prize. He is best known for his post-disaster zone design projects, such as his temporary housing project in Onagawa, one of the coastal communities devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that left thousands homeless. He also designed Christchurch's cardboard cathedral to replace the historic cathedral that was a casualty of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

From Haiti to Riwanda to China, Ban's low-cost structures have become a symbol of hope for people rebuilding their lives after natural disasters. “For me there is no difference between monumental architecture and temporary structures in disaster areas,” he says. “They give me the same satisfaction.”

Juliana Engberg talks about her biennale, You imagine what you desire, including her stance on Australia's off-shore detention centres and human rights issues. Read more…

The 19th Sydney Biennale, You imagine what you desire, opened last week with a suite of launches at Cockatoo Island, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Artspace and Carriageworks, with most of the press focusing on the fallout from the artists' boycott.

The story so far…

35 artists (of the 90 taking part in the Sydney Biennale) write to the board expressing their concerns over primary sponsor Transfield Holdings link to offshore detention facilities for asylum seekers, presenting the Biennale with an unenviable choice: to bow to pressure from the artists and sever links with Transfield and the Belgiorno-Nettis family (the owners of the company), or remain loyal to the company, recognising its role as founding partner and longtime supporter of the Biennale.