In a piece in the eMagazine World Architects, this drawing of the McCahon House, designed by Bossley Architects for use as an artists residency programme, was part of a compilation of material to illustrate the value of hand-drawn sketches in the age of computers. A hardline elevation and a looser depiction of landscape over a photograph of trees and the sloping site, accentuate the design for a low-impact residence set among the trees and alongside the historic cottage that Colin McCahon lived and worked in from 1953 – 1960.

Sadly the Kauri trees that were a source of inspiration for the artist have been hit by Kauri Dieback disease. Many are in a state of decline and two have been removed, highlighting the need for continuing research and action to strop the spread of the disease.
Images: architectural drawing of the McCahon House and studio by Bossley Architectects and photograph by Patrick Reynolds

Growing investor fears that Washington could miss a payment on its debt has led to a surge in the market for derivatives that insure against a US default. The Financial Times says the average daily trading of credit default swaps (CDS) which give investors protection on US government debt, has jumped to €150m in the past week from about €1.5m in recent months.

The spike in trading activity is unusual for US sovereign CDS, which is traditionally a very thinly traded market, as traders often say buying protection on the possibility of the US government restructuring or defaulting on its debt, is akin to buying insurance for the end of the world.

Tacita Dean's FILM, shot in 35mm film for the Tate Modern's vast Engine Hall, is showing at ACCA as part of the Melbourne Festival (10 October – 24 November).

In a recent article in the The Sydney Morning Herald, Andrew Stephens updates readers on the artist's mission to resist “technological determinism' and save film from obsolescence in the digital age.

In 2006 Dean made a film about the Kodak factory in France, using soon-to-be-obselete film stock – and the place closed down shortly after. Since then, she's found it increasingly difficult to source film stock and get it processed and to get people in authority to understand why it is so glorious.

News that Venice has been added to the World Monument Fund's Watch List of heritage sites at risk has been welcomed by parties set of preserving the city for future generations. Cruise ship tourism has been identified as one of the most significant threats as visitors flock to the city. Visitor numbers have increased by 400% within the past five years and during the peak season an average of 20,000 tourists pour into the city's streets and squares each day.

Jae Hoon Lee will travel to Indonesia in the New Year to take up a two-month residency at the Cemeti Art House before moving to New York for a six-month residency under the International Studio and Curatorial Programme.

Kaleidoscope has announced the release of a special edition dedicated to contemporary art from the Asia Pacific region. The issue includes a piece on Seung Yul Oh whose practice is seen by Emma Bugden as blurring the lines of art and play.

Curated by Celine Poulin for the Ville de Clermont Ferrand, Brigadoon includes Alicia Frankovich's Man Walked on the Moon, on loan from the Chartwell Collection, which is housed at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. [You can see images of works in the show here.]

2013 is proving to be a big year for Frankovich who has featured in: Unknown Forces curated by Sunjung Kim for Tophane-i Amire Culture and Arts Centre (Istanbul); The Real Thing, curated by Antonia Glampi and Jason Waite for Palais de Tokyo (Paris); The Anne Landa Award: The Space Between Us curated by Charloette Day for the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney) and Direct Democracy curated by Geraldine Barlow for Monash Museum of Art (Melbourne).

She is also in the lineup of speakers for the fifth edition of the annual seminar series Three Uses of the Knife, which will explore the way new economies, formats and strategies shape contemporary performance-related art.

The Serpentine will stage the 89plus Marathon, the 8th Festival of Ideas on 18/19 October. Conceived of by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Marathon brings together a diverse array of world-leading figures to investigate a topic from a variety of angles and over a two-day period. Past Marathons have covered subjects ranging from Manifestos (2008) and Maps (2010) to Memory (2012).

This year's Marathon takes its name from the multi-platform research project 89plus, co-founded by Obrist and Simon Castets, which investigates innovative work by the generation born in or after 1989. The event will look to the future considering how the internet and new social and economic networks are changing the world as we know it. Some of the brightest lights of this generation will consider what he future will look like and, more crucially, who will determine that future.

For the first time, an online 89plus Clubhouse, hosted by HP Cloud, will enable remote participation from around the world.

Billy Apple®: NewYork 1970-75 is showing at The Mayor Gallery, London to 28 October. It is Apple's second show at the gallery and follows Billy Apple®: British and American Works 1960-1969.
Image: invitation image for Billy Apple®: New York 1970-75

The US budget standoff continues this week with both sides trading blame for the shutdown that has brought much of the government to a standstill, raising fears about the possibility of a US default. Republican House Speaker John Boehner vowed on Sunday not to raise the debt ceiling without addressing what is driving the debt, while Democrats said it was irresponsible and reckless to raise the possibility of a US default. Asked if his comments meant the United States was headed towards a default if President Obama did not negotiate ahead of a October 17 deadline to raise the debt ceiling, Boehner said: “That's the path we are on.” Read more…

Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the driving force behind the plan to turn her country into a cultural destination, has launched a new website covering arts, style, living and sport in Qatar. You can visit the site here.
Image: Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar

Li Xiaofei's exhibition Assembly Line – Entrance continues at Starkwhite to 29 October.
Image: Li Xaiofei, Assembly Line – Entrance, video still, Starkwhite

A Chinese billionaire plans to build a replica of Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace on the site it occupied in South London in 1854. The Palace was relocated from Hyde Park to Sydenham in 1854, but burned down in 1936. With the backing of Mayor Boris Johnson, Ni Zhaoxing, chairman of property development firm ZhongRong Group, is investing £500m in the project, which is described as a “culture-led exhibition space” that will include a hotel and conference facilities, studios, galleries and other commercial units.
Image: Crystal Palace after it was built in 1851

The troubled art fund industry is still in the doldrums says The Art Newspaper. Further closures, a slow fundraising environment and lower-than-expected returns are compounding the effects of the credit crunch, which had already claimed several victims.

Of the 36 funds that Noah Horowitz, now director of The Armory Show, lists in the apendix to his 2011 book Art of the Deal, ten had closed by the time his book was published and a fruther seven have since been abandoned.

Managers of funds that have survided say they have learned from their mistakes. Philip Hoffman who runs Fine Art Fund Group, ostensibly the most successful art investment group, says that he has to realisitic about the net returns of his first fund (launched in 2004), which is expected to be around 6%, despite gross returns of nearly 19%. He says that administrative costs and currency fluctuations had a bigger impact than expected and that “my mistake was investing long term in old masters, which have done nothing.” Read more…

Washington and international officials have raised the alarm on a potentially disastrous clash over the US debt limit as Democrats and Republicans remain no closer to reolving the budget feud that has shut down much of government. If Congress fails to raise the borrowing cap by mid October, the US could default on its obligations for the first time and send shock waves across the world.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde says: “The government shutdown is bad enough, but failure to raise the debt ceiling would be far worse, and could very seriously damage not only the US economy, but the entire global economy.” And the US Treasury has also warned that failure to raise the debt ceiling could spark a new recession even worse than the one Americans are still recovering from.

So why are Republicans set on taking the US to the brink of financial catastrophe again? Paul Krugman says the party's delusional wing either don't understand what is at stake, or don't care. Read more…

Li Xiaofei's exhibition Assembly Line – Entrance opens at Starkwhite today with a reception at 6pm.
Image: Li Xaiofei, Assembly Line – Entrance, installation view, Starkwhite

The world's first inflatable concert hall was launched in Japan this week. Designed by Anish Kapoor and architect Arata Isozaki, Ark Nova seats 500 and includes a multistage format which can accommodate various events from orchestra to chamber music, jazz , performing arts or art exhibitions. The membrane can be folded up and loaded onto a lorry, allowing it to be used as a pop up venue in Northern Japan, the area devastated by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami in March 2011.
Image: Art Nova designed by Anish Kapoor and Arata Isozaki

Our next exhibition, Assembly Line – Entrance by Shanghai-based artist Li Xiaofei, opens on Thursday 3 October at 6pm.
Image: Projection still from Li Xiaofei's Assembly Line – Entrance

The next Kaldor Public Art Project is Measuring the Universe by Slovakian artist Roman Ondak. The artwork begins as a plain white space and every visitor has their height measured and marked directly onto the wall in black marker, alongside their name, eventually creating a dense black band of names around the space.

“I think the beauty is in the simplicity and how he takes an idea that's been around for centuries and turns it into an artwork,” says Kaldor, who admits to measuring the heights of his own children growing up.

The work, which has previously been staged at MOMA, will be staged in Parramatta Town Hall during next year's Sydney Festival.
Image: installation view of Roman Ondak's Measuring the Universe

You get one chance to make a good first impression and Sydney Contemporary nailed it with the first edition of Australia's newest art fair. Staged at Sydney's historic Carriageworks, it was launched last week with a vernissage attracting over 12,000 guests and a final attendance figure of just under 30,000. Galleries reported better-than-expected sales over the three-day event and gallerists were saying they would be back for the second edition in 2015.

Sydney Contemporary will be staged every two years, alternating with the Melbourne Art Fair, but Melbourne will now be under pressure to lift its game as many of the gallerists at Sydney Contemporary said the fair at Carriageworks should be an annual event.
Image: Seung Yul Oh's Huggong (Variation 1), Installation Contemporary, curated by Aaron Seeto for Sydney Contemporary

Our next exhibition, Assembly Line – Entrance by Shanghai-based artist Li Xiaofei, runs from 2 – 28 October.
Image: Projection still from Li Xiaofei's Assembly Line – Entrance

Our current show,Vagabond by John Reynolds, closes tomorrow at 3pm.
Image: Installation view of John Reynolds' Vagabond exhibition at Starkwhite

ART+OBJECT has launched the second issue of CONTENT, a magazine published “to celebrate the vital contribution New Zealand's visual artists make to our cultural identity and increasingly to the global discourse.” The current issue traces the journey of whare Hinemihi from the desolation of the Mt Tarawera eruption to the grounds of a Palladian manor house in an English country. It also includes interviews with Justin Paton, head of international art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Simon Denny who will represent New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale. Tobias Berger discusses the Asia Pacific focus of Hong Kong's M+, Brian Butler and Isha Welsh comment on the US West Coast art scene and Richard Maloy and Roberta Thornley talk about a seminal photograph that has influenced their practices.  

CONTENT is a must-read magazine, avaialble free of charge from ART+OBJECT.

frieze has posted a piece by freelance writer Joe Turnball (one of the cluster of reviewers axed by the Independent) on critics as an endangered species, adrift in sea of self-promoting press releases. Read more…
Image:Bernard Berenson in teh Borghese Gallery, Rome 1955

Creative New Zealand has provided further information on the selection process for New Zealand's presentation at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

Twenty expressions of interest were received from artists/curators of which nineteen have been asked to submit full proposals. The proposals will be assessed by a selection panel chaired by Arts Council Chairman Dick Grant and including: Heather Galbraith (2015 Commissioner), Alistair Carruthers (Patron), Anne Rush (Arts Council), Blair French (Assistant Director, Curatorial & Digital, MCA, Sydney), Brett Graham, Artist), Caterina Riva (Director, Artspace), Dayle Mace (Patron), Helen Kedgely (Arts Council), and Judy Millar (Artist).

The panel will meet in late September with the aim of announcing the successful artist(s)/curator team in early October.

The 2014 Wallace Art Trust Awards were announced in Auckland last night by the Governor General, Sir Jerry Mateparae. The Paramount Award – a six month residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Programme in New York – went to Korean-born, New Zealand-based artist Jae Hoon Lee.
Image: Jae Hoon Lee's winning entry, Dry Valley (2012), duratrans on lightbox

Alexi Glass-Kantor is the new director of Sydney's Artspace. Since 2006 she has been the director and senior curator of Gertrude Contemporary, one of Australia's longest-running independent art spaces. In 2012 she co-curated Parallel Collisions the 12th Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art with Natasha Bullock and she has worked at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image as well as other independent spaces and festivals.

John Reynolds exhibition Vagabondage runs at Starkwhite to 21 September. Beginning with a mini survey of maxi works, the show presents a changing parade of moments in a practice that ranges across painting, drawing, performance and installation.

Clinton Watkins' Frequency Colour closes on Saturday at 3pm. You can read an exhibition review here.
Image: Clinton Watkins, Frequency Colour (2013), installations view, Starkwhite

Tim Etchells, founder of ART HK (now Art Basel Hong Kong), will launch Sydney Contemporary in September. Unlike the Melbourne Art Fair, which has struggled to realise its international aspirations, Sydney Contemporary opens with a mix of 40% international and 60% Australian-based galleries. The new fair also includes two sections developed in partnership with Artspace and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art – Contemporary Video curated by  Mark Feary and Installation Contemporary curated by Aaron Seeto. The fair runs at Sydney's historic Carriageworks from 19 – 22 September.
Image: Carriageworks, venue for the inaugural edition of Sydney Contemporary

We are at the Auckland Art Fair this week (Booth 32), which runs at The Cloud on Auckland's waterfront to Sunday 11th. Clinton Watkins' Frequency Colour continues at the gallery from 11am  – 6pm during the week and 11am – 3pm on Saturday. You can read an exhibition review here.

Clinton Watkins' Frequency Colour runs at Starkwhite to 17 August. You can read an exhibition review here.
Image: Clinton Watkins, Frequency Colour (2013), installations view, Starkwhite

Charles Saatchi is planning an auction of 50 of his largest sculptures and installations with Christie's – works so large they will be exhibited in a disused London postal depot instead of Christie's HQ. And it will be an auction with a difference from any conducted by Christie's since the 1970s: no lot will have a reserve price or estimate, an idea reported to have come from Saatchi. Read more…
Image: Charles Saatchi

Australia has launched a new award recognising artists and arts organisations engaging with Aisa and strengthening the cultural links between Australia and Asia. 4A Centre for Contemporary Art was in the lineup of award winners for The Floating Eye, the Sydney Pavilion project curated by Aaron Seeto, for the 2013 Shanghai Biennale.

Hou Hanru, curator of the current Auckland Triennial, is the new artistic director of Rome's Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI, Italy's first national museum of contemporary art. He will be responsible for the museum's programming, ranging from architecture and design to contemporary and performance art. Hou takes up his new position in September.

Rafael Lozano-Hemer is turning the Park Avenue tunnel in New York into a reverberating sound and light installation celebrating free speech. Visitors will find a silver intercom to speak into and their comments will pulse through the tunnel in waves of sound and light. However, the NYPD has voiced concerns about content and has asked the artist to install a time delay so comments can be regulated. Lozano-Hemmer has refused to play ball saying “This is the place for people to express their views…I've never in my life censored a work, and I won't do it.”
Image: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's voice tunnel, Park Avenue tunnel NYC, 3-18 August 2013

The director of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, has put a new management team in place to support a move toward digital technology and e-publications. The old management structure had not changed since she took up the reins 13 years ago and she now feels that rapid developments in digital technology require a rethink of how things are done. She cites the recent MCA e-publication, Anish Kapoor's living catalogue as a strong application of digital technology. As well as containing essays and photographs, the publication also included videos, curator and artist interviews, and allowed for audience interaction which was incorporated into a final edition. Read more…
Image: MCA director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor 

Clinton Watkins' Frequency Colour runs at Starkwhite to 17 August.
Image: Clinton Watkins, Frequency Colour (2013), installations view, Starkwhite

Katharina Fritsch talks to the Guardian about her Fourth Plinth cockerel sculpture located near Nelson's column in Trafalgar square. Like previous pieces in the series, Hahn/Cock is ruffling feathers, but controversy is an anticipated outcome of the project: the plinth programme is keen to inspire a healthy debate about what constitutes public art. Read more…
Image: Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/Cock, Fourth Plinth project, Trafalgar Square, London