Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, son of Biennale founding patron Franco-Belgiorno-Nettis, has resigned as chair of the Biennale of Sydney, a move that comes in the wake of artist protests over Transfield's links to Australia's off-shore detention centers for asylum seekers.

And the board has severed links with Transfield, the family-owned company that has backed the Bienale since its inception. This comes as a surprise in the light of a recent announcement on the longstanding relationship between the Biennale and Transfield and the Belgiorno-Nettis family. In a statement issued to the media the board said: “The Biennale's ability to effectively contribute to the cessation of bi-partisan government policy is far from black-and-white. The only certainty is that without our Founding Partner, the Biennale will no longer exist. Consequently, we unanimously believe  that our loyalty to the Belgiorno-Nettis family – and the hundreds of thousands of people who benefit from the Biennale – must override claims over which there is ambiguity”.
Read more…
Image: Luca Belgiorno-Nettis

Five artists have withdrawn from the Biennale of Sydney over links between Transfield Holdings (founding patron and sponsor of the Biennale) and Australia's offshore detention centres for asylum seekers. You can read their Statement of Withdrawal to the Biennale at Leg of Lamb.

A few weeks before the Biennale of Sydney opens, 35 artists (of the 90 taking part) wrote to the board expressing their concerns over primary sponsor Transfield Holdings link to offshore detention facilities for asylum seekers. This left 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.

The board has issued a statement saying: “The Biennale's ability to effectively contribute to the cessation of bi-partisan government policy is far from black-and-white. The only certainty is that without our Founding Partner, the Biennale will no longer exist. Consequently, we unanimously believe  that our loyalty to the Belgiorno-Nettis family – and the hundreds of thousands of people who benefit from the Biennale – must override claims over which there is ambiguity”.

With just days to go before the Biennale is launched, the art world will be watching to see how the artists respond.

Lovers continues at Starkwhite this week, through to 6 March. You can read a review of the show here.
Image: installation view of Lovers, curated by Martin Basher

“What artist wants to show with a gallery that can't offer them shows?” says Marc Spiegler, the director of Art Basel. “We stand for a gallery-centred vision of the art world.” Spiegler is quoted in Blake Gopnik's article, Great art needs an audience, on why those who believe galleries are no longer necessary are wrong. Read more…
Image: detail of David Scanavino's Changes (2104), 270 x 700cm, VCT tiles and change, installed in LOVERS, a group show curated by artist Martin Basher for Starkwhite 

Overthenet has picked up on news that there are no New Zealand (or Australian) galleries in the lineup for this year's Art Basel (Switzerland). In the past, Michael Lett (two presentations at Art Statements) and Starkwhite (one presentation at Art Statements and another at Art Unlimited) have flown the New Zealand flag in Basel. Now Art Basel Hong Kong appears to be the preferred fair for many New Zealand and Australian galleries. Starkwhite has been showing at Art HK and Art Basel Hong Kong since 2008 and will participate again this year in Hong Kong's international art fair, along with Michael Lett and Hopkinson Mossman, and Australian galleries Jensen|Sydney, Roslyn Oxley9, Anna Schwartz, Tolarno and Utopian Slumps.

Starkwhite's 2014 season begins with Lovers, a late-summer group show organized by gallery artist Martin Basher.

Picking up on the semantic slippage of the show's title, Lovers is a paean to beauty for the romantic viewer and illicit assignation with visual pleasure for the serious conceptualist. Featuring work by eleven of Basher's New Zealand and American contemporaries along with Basher himself, Lovers hones in on the physical and tactile elements of the work by this varied and inter-generational group, finding material and conceptual affinities connecting work otherwise separated by geography, time and conceptual focus. Lovers is a show with the tenor of sunsets, long cocktails, and holidays drawing to a close, and in this atmosphere, the works in the show find intimate common ground in the visceral and sensate, their relationships immediate and intense; summer lovers for a month.

Celebrations are underway in New Zealand to mark the arrival of the Year of the Horse. Communities here join over a billion Chinese around the globe celebrating the Chinese New Year, which falls on January 31.

A decade ago only a handful of Wall Street investors, such as Steve Cohen and Daniel Loeb, were collecting art, but now dozens of hedge-fund managers are joining the fray, applying their day-job tactics to their art buying.

The Wall Street Journal says: “Hedge-fund managers, who play a vital but disruptive role in the broader financial markets, are increasingly throwing their weight around in the art market. They are paying record sums to drive up the values for their favourite artists, dumping artists who don't pay off and offsetting their heavy wagers on untested contemporary art by buying the  reliable antiquity or two. Aggressive, efficient and armed with up-to-the-minute market intelligence supplied by well-paid art advisors, these collectors are shaking up the way business gets done in the genteel art world.” Read more…

Two of our best curators have returned to New Zealand to take up new positions. After a stint as director of Brisbane's Institute for Modern Art (IMA), Robert Leonard arrived in the New Year to take up the position of senior curator at the City Gallery Wellington (he is also the curator of the New Zealand pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale), and Simon Rees has just arrived back in the country to take up the directorship of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth.

Leonard will bring a fresh approach to curating and programming at the City Gallery. He says: “I want to balance my love of detailed exhibition making with coal-face responsiveness, high turnover and direct collaboration with artists. I am interested in the radical relativism of contemporary art, the fact that everything is up for grabs, but also understand that all new moves are always read against a tradition, a canon, and will transform or succumb to it. I appreciate art that stands the test of time, but I am equally into art that is right here, right now.”

You can read more about Leonard's approach to curating here.

Rees returns to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (GBAG) as director this time – he was curator there during Greg Burke's directorship – to oversee the building of the Andrew Patterson-designed Len Lye Centre (LLC) and launch the combined GBAG/LLC in 2015. We'll have wait to see what kind of project and programme he rolls out, but he brings a wealth of ability and experience to the task. He is, for instance, the only New Zealand curator to have won a prize at the Venice Biennale. In 2007 he curated the award winning Lithuanian pavilion with artists Gediminas & Nomeda Urbonas. Rees is also a regular contributor to frieze and frieze d/e.

Our first post for 2014 is a good news story for those following trends that will impact on the performance of the New Zealand art market this year.

After five years in the doldrums the New Zealand economy is on the rebound. At the end of 2013 economists were predicting GDP growth of 3% or more and even the IMF expected growth to pick up to 2.9% – ahead of our Western trading partners (including Australia) and not far behind Asian nations like South Korea and Singapore.

And consumer confidence in New Zealand has climbed to a seven-year high in the monthly ANZ-Roy Morgan survey where the index stands at 135.8, up from 129.4 last month and its highest ever since February 2007. A net 50% of the respondents think it is a good time to buy a major household item, up from 39% last month.

The prevailing sense of optimism is reflected in a piece published this week in the Wall Street Journal where Rebecca Howard writes:

“In a world still limping its way out of the global financial crisis, New Zealand's economy is looking remarkably zippy.

“The small Pacific nation of around 4.5 million people expanded by 3.5% in the this quarter from a year earlier, a good deal faster than many other developed economies, including its larger neighbour Australia.

“The Organisation for Economic development, or OECD, expects New Zealand to grow by 3.3% this year, compared with an estimate of 2.9% for the U.S. and a mere 1.0% in the euro area.

“New Zealand's economy is performing so well that some economists expect the central bank to raise interest rates as early as this month – which would put it among the first developed nations to tighten monetary policy since Lehman Brothers Inc collapsed in 2008 and sparked a global recession.”
Read more…

We are taking a break over the Christmas/New Year period and will resume our posts on 20 January. Happy holidays!

Starkwhite is closing for Christmas and New Year reopening on Monday 20 January with a continuation of Glen Hayward’s exhibition I don’t want you to worry about me, I have met some Beautiful People.  We start our 2014 season in February with Lovers, a late-summer group show organized by gallery artist Martin Basher. Featuring work by a number of Basher’s New Zealand and American contemporaries, the show will hone in on the visceral and tactile facets of the work of a varied and intergenerational group. Picking up on the semantic slippage of the show’s title, Lovers will be an earnest paean to beauty for the romantic, and a furtive dalliance with visual pleasure for the serious conceptualist.
Glen Hayward: I don’t want you to worry about me, I have met some Beautiful People, 2013 Installation view. Photograph Hamish McLaren

A decade after secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld dismissed looting of the Iraq's National Museum with the comment “stuff happens”, US officials have acknowledged mistakes over the protection of cultural property after the US-led invasion. Read more…
Image: a minaret damaged during fighting in in Iraq in 2005.

An all-star jury has been assembled to select the best of new curators from across the globe. The Curate competition is an initiative of the the Qatar Museums Authority and Fondazione Prada.

The jurors are: Sheika Al Mayassa bint Hamad al-Thani, chairperson of the Qatar Museums Authority; Miucca Prada, president of the Fondazione Prada; Rem Koolhas, architect and urban theorist; Nadine Labaki, Lebanese actress and filmmaker, Nawal El Moutawakel, the vice president of the International Olympic Committee and first woman from a Muslim country to win an Olympic gold medal; and Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery.

Applications to Curate can be submitted here. (The closing date is 31 December)
Image: Muccia Prada

Glen Hayward's I don't want you to worry about me, I have met some Beautiful People continues at Starkwhite this week.

Known for his signature gunpowder works, Cai Guo Qiang's current exhibition at Brisbane's QAG|GOMA reveals the artist's more reflective side, which has been attributed to his increasing focus on the world we live in. Recently ArtAsiaPacific exchanged emails with him about his vision for Falling back to earth. Read more…

ShContemporary's sabbatical has paved the way for a new art fair in Shanghai. ART021 was launched at the end of November and, although modestly scaled, it attracted some prominent galleries from China and further afield including: Beijing Commune, Vitamin Creative Space, Long March Space, Chambers Fine Art, James Cohen, White Cube and Galerie Perrotin. All eyes are now on ShContemporary to see whether it can stage a come-back in 2014.

Best known for supporting the work of young American artists, Don and Mera Rubell have revealed another strand in their collection. Over the past decade they have been visiting China seeking out artists and galleries in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities. A new exhibition at their Miami museum (staged to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach) displays for the first time their acquisitions from six trips to China. Read more…

Each week the art world waits for two of New York's most influential critics to publish their reviews – Roberta Smith in the New York Times and Jerry Saltz in New York magazine. Through their respective writings, both have become bellwethers in appraising and transmitting the prevailing winds of contemporary art. Christopher Bollen, editor at large of Interview Magazine, talked to them about how they manage a marriage of art and criticism. Read more…

In this interview Okwui Enwezor talks about his career and vision for the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Image: Okwui Enwezor

Glen Hayward's I don't want you to worry about me, I have met some Beautiful People opens at Starkwhite tonight at 5pm
Image: Glen Hayward, I don't want you to worry about me, I have met some Beautiful People, installation view (detail). Photo Hamish McLaren

Okwui Enwezor has been named as the artistic director of the 2015 Venice Biennale. Currently director of Haus der Kunst in Munich, Enwezor has also been artistic director of Documenta 11 (2002), Triennale d'Art Contemporain of Paris at the Palais de Tokyo (2006) and the Gwuangju Biennale (2008). Read more…
Image: Okwui Enwezor

Artspace's Mark Feary has curated a show from his Video Contemporary exhibition at Sydney Contemporary for Santiago's Centro Cultural Matucana 100 (M100). The exhibition, which runs from 6 December 2013 – 26 January 2014, includes Clinton Watkins' Continuous Ship #1 and Continuous Ship #3. Watkins' work also features this month in another Feary video project at Seoul's ONE AND J Gallery.
Image: Clinton Watkins' Continuous Ship #1, video still

Art Basel director Marc Spiegler has sent a hands-off Miami message to auction houses following actions that some gallerists have deemed “counterproductive to their gallery business” at art fairs. Read more…
Image: Marc Spiegler

Artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei is one of the most famous prisoners in recent history. The New York Times reports he is now taking on one of the most infamous prisons, using Alcatraz as the inspiration and site for a new series of works. Read more…
Image: the operating room at Alcatraz

London-based French artist Laure Prouvost has been awarded this year's Turner Prize for her video installation Wantee, which weaves together art history and fiction in video form. She was the unexpected winner beating out strong competition, including the hot favourite Tino Sehgal.

Glen Hayward's I don't want you to worry about me, I have met some Beautiful People runs at Starkwhite from 7 – 21 December 2013 and 13 – 30 January 2014, with a preview on Saturday 7 December from 5 to 7pm.

Hayward produced his sculptural double of Mr Anderson's cubicle from The Matrix in 2012 under a Rita Angus Fellowship and the Starkwhite show follows presentations of the work in 2013 at the City Gallery, Wellington and the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. A publication with an essay by Aaron Lister is available from the City Gallery, Wellington.

Matt Henry's exhibition High Fidelity continues at Starkwhite (upstairs) to 21 December.

A gigantic Louis Vuitton suitcase set up in Moscow's Red Square to house an exhibit on travel and possessions of the rich and famous has caused outrage in Russia. Communists have denounced the suitcase-shaped pavilion placed near the Kremlin and mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin as a symbol of the conspicuous consumption that has enveloped Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Members of the Russian intelligensia have seen something more profound, describing it as an unintended art installation that depicts, with cutting precision, the essence of modern Russia. One commentator has even suggested that it is worthy of the Kandinsky Prize, Russia's largest and most prestigious contemporary art award.
Image: the Louis Vuitton pavilion in Moscow's Red Square

Richard Maloy's All the things I did closes at Starkwhite today at 3pm.
Image: Richard Maloy, All the things I did, installation view, Starkwhite

Freedom Farmers: New Zealand Artists Growing Ideas is currently showing at the Auckland Art Toi o Tamaki. Curated by Natasha Conland and featuring commissioned works by 20 artists, including Martin Basher and Richard Maloy, the show traces the way New Zealand artists are using ideas of utopia, sustainability and artistic freedom in their work. You can read a review of the show here.
Image Martin Basher's Untitled (Spiritual-Marketplace), installation view at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. Photo by Jennifer French

Fiona Hall has been selected to represent Australia at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. Her project will be curated by Linda Michaels, deputy director at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, and presented at Australia's new pavilion in the Giardini. Read more…
Image: Fiona Hall at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Doryun Chong, Chief Curator at Hong Kong's M+, talks to Art Radar Asia about his curatorial vision for the new Herzog & de Meuron-designed art museum, which is scheduled to open in Hong Kong in 2015, and the collection of contemporary Chinese art gifted to the museum by uber collector Uli Sigg. Read more…
Image: Doryun Chong, Chief Curator at Hong Kong's M+ art museum

The Documenta quinquennial has announced that its 14th edition will be directed by Adam Szymczyk, the director and chief curator of the Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland.
Image: Adam Szymczyk

Matt Henry's High Fidelity is showing upstairs and Richard Maloy's All the things I did continues downstairs at Starkwhite this week.

Phil Dadson's Bodytok Quintet features in this year's SCAPE Biennale in Christchurch. Drawn from his Human Instrument Archive, and staged at ArtBox, Dadson's interactive videos of “non-verbal body music” are presented on five screens that are activated by viewers when they approach them. SCAPE posted a video on YouTube of  Dadson and SCAPE curator Blair French talking about Bodytok Quintet
Image: the SCAPE art box housing Phil Dadson's Bodytok Quintet

Seung Yul Oh's MOAMOA opens tonight at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Curated Aaron Kreisler and Aaron Lister, the exhibition features a selection of work produced over the past decade, along with new pieces commissioned by the organising galleries and created with the support of Creative New Zealand.

Next week Oh heads to Art Basel Miami Beach where ONE AND J (Seoul) will present a solo show of his work.
Image: Seung Yul Oh's Pok Po in MOAMOA, an exhibition organised by the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and City Gallery Wellington. MOAMOA runs at the DPAG from 23 November 2013 to 27 April 2014 and then travels to the City Gallery Wellington.

In 2012 Jae Hoon Lee visited the frozen continent under Antarctica New Zealand's arts fellowship programme, a trip that enabled him to produce an award-winning suite of videos and photographs. Recently, TurnOnArt interviewed him about about his voyage, motivations and creating art in the world's most pristine environment. Read more…
Image: video still from Jae Hoon  Lee's A Frozen Column