Preserving modern architecture is an uphill battle, as the Getty Museum recognised with its recent launch of a new international program, the Conserving Modern Architecture Programm, in the hopes of giving preservation architects new and more sophisticated strategies to preserve 20th century buildings. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to find the beginnings of a good news story in war-torn Baghdad where an attempt is being made to restore Le Corbusier's Baghdad Gymnasium. Read more…
Image: the main entrance to Baghdad's Le Corbusier building

The Tate Modern's oil tanks will be dedicated permanently to live art installation and performance. The giant subterranean spaces will host the live art and film programmes, which were previously presented in diverse spaces around Tate Modern.

“We will see many more works which involve the spectator, said Tate Modern director Chris Dercon. “There is an incredible appetite for participation.” Catherine Wood, curator of contemporary art and performance, adds: “We're excited about the opportunity to create events that are part installation, part discussion, part performance, which is very much in the spirit of the way artists are working now.”

The Tanks are the first phase of a

£215 million extension that will increase Tate Modern's size by 60%, adding 21,000 square meters of new space. Nicholas Serota says 75% of funding has been raised and he hopes the building work will be complete before December 2016.

The Tanks will open on 18 July, ten days before the Olympics, and be filled with a 15 week festival of art. Afterwards the Tanks will be closed during some periods to enable building works on the new galleries above.
Image: Tate Modern Tank

Alica Frankovich has been shortlisted for New Zealand's most prestigious art award.Each of the four artists shortlisted for the 2012 Walters Prize receives $5000 and the opportunity to present their jury-selected project in the Walters Prize exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, which runs for three months from 4 August.

An international judge will be will be named later this year to select the winner who will receive $50,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York, including the opportunity to exhibit at Saatchi & Saatchi's world headquarters.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Floor Resistance, shown at Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU 3, Berlin (25 June 2011). Photograph courtesy of Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU 3

It was billed as an unprecedented cluster of glory that would transform Abu Dhabi into the Paris of the Middle East: three museums including the world's largest Guggenheim, a branch of the Louvre and a national museum designed by starchitects Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Norman Foster. However six years after the project was unveiled the only visible signs of the complex are an illuminated model in an exhibition centre near the construction site.

During this time the United Arab Emirates' art scene has grown, with Dubai now host to a world art fair and thriving gallery scene, while Sharjah has a respected contemporary biennale, prompting calls to replace the Guggenheim with a smaller homegrown art museum that would stimulate cultural development as well as the local economy. The Guggenheim effect is sexy when you are not on the radar,” says art patron Ramin Salsali. “But Abu Dhabi today – I'm sorry to say, but the Guggenheim should pay Abu Dhabi to be there not vice versa.” Read more…
Image: rendering of the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim

The Italian fashion house Marni is making a foray into furniture design. The label will present a collection of 100 colourful chairs at this year's Salon del Mobile in Milan as part of a charitable initiative. The chairs, made of bright strands of woven PVC threads on metal frames, were crafted by Columbian ex-prisoners as part of a social rehabilitation programme. The chairs are selling for between €200-450 with the proceeds going to ICAM, a support group for the children of imprisoned mothers.

Image: Marni's range of chairs made by ex-prisoners

The Art Newspaper outlines the story behind Glasgow's rising profile as an artistic centre and the city's prolific ability to produce exceptional artists. In winning the Turner Prize last December, The Galswegian Martin Boyce became the third artist in a row who was either born in the city or studied at its art school and nine Glasgow artists have been on the Turner Prize shortlist in the past six years. Read more…
Image: The Glasgow School of Art

More than 30 years after creating the Vietnam Memorial, architect and artist Maya Lin has launched a new online project memorialising a different kind of loss. Her What is Missing? project is designed to raise awareness about endangered species and habitats. It's my last memorial,” she says, but I'll be contributing to it for the rest of my life.” Read more…

A museum in Italy has started burning its artworks in protest at budget cuts which it says have left cultural institutions out of pocket. Antonio Manfredi, director of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum on Naples, set fire to the first painting on Tuesday and plans to burn three paintings a week from now on. Read more…
Image: Museum director Antonio Manfredi with a burning painting from the collection of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum in Naples

The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® (Stage 2), opens tonight at 6pm.
Image: The Billy Apple® cell line with the artist, 22 December 2009. Photograph by Mary Morrison

A cardboard cathedral designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban will be built in Christchurch on the site of St John's church which was badly damaged in the Canterbury earthquakes. Ban's A-frame sanctuary will seat 700 worshippers providing a home for Anglicans while their quake-damaged cathedral is largely demolished and replaced.

Topping the 9700-square-feet structure will be a massive pitched roof made of cardboard tubes and covered with polycarbonate sheets to keep it watertight and allow daylight into the building. Shipping containers filled with earthquake rubble will form the base of the building.

Image: model of Shigeru Ban's temporary cathedral to be built in the city of Christchurch

The VIP art fair has announced a new initiative to launch graduating artists in the art market. A panel of six internationally recognised jurors will select 200 artists from a pool of nominations and open call applications from renowned MFA and equivalent progammes. Selected artists will present 5-10 works online at VIP (MFA) from 1-8 June.

The jurors are artist Diana Al-Hadid and O Zhang, Kate Fowles (ICI), Matthew Higgs (White Columns), Jens Hoffman (Wattis Institute) and Joachim Pissaro (Hunter College). They will also award three prizes to outstanding students – $15,000 for first place, $10,000 for second place and $5000 for third place.

Our next exhibition, The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® (Stage 2), opens on Thursday 19 April. You can read the exhibition release here.

Image: The Billy Apple® cell line with the artist, 22 December 2009. Photograph by Mary Morrison

Our Starkwhite Group Show closes today at 3pm.
Image: Matt Henry, TPS-L2 (Grey), 2012, acrylic and lacquer on linen, 35 x 90 x 32mm

Seung Yul Oh stages his performance version of The Ability to Blow Themselves Up at the Auckland Art Gallery today at 3pm. The performance is part of the exhibition Made Active: The Chartwell Show.
Image: press image supplied by the artist

Plans for the world's first underground park moved a step closer to reality with a Kickstarter funding drive that attracted donations of more than $150,000, surpassing the $100,000 target. The pledges – most between $10 and $50 – will enable concept leaders Dan Barasch and James Ramsay to conduct a scale model of the subterranean park.

Dubbed the Low Line, the idea for the park came after Barasch heard about New York's underground spaces from an MTA employee. “There are 13 acres of these kind of spaces that are unused,” he said.

The park will be developed in a 1.5 acre terminal built in 1903 for trolley trains to shuttle passengers between Brooklyn and Manhattan. When the trolley service ended in 1948, the terminal closed and has lain dormant ever since.

With no natural light, the underground terminal isn't an ideal location for what the designers hope will become a public space supporting farmers markets, concerts and art installations, but the Low Line will rely on fibre optic cables to transfer sunlight below ground. The designers say the light will carry the necessary wave lengths to support photosynthesis, allowing plant life to flourish underground.

How long will it take to create? New York's celebrated High Line took ten years to gain public and official support, but Barasch is hoping to build the Low Line within 5 years.
Image: MTA underground space targeted for development

Nintendo has donated 5000 3DS consoles to the Louvre featuring 3D images, animations and audio that can be tailored to individual interests. There are currently two individual tours offered in the software including the masterpieces tour focusing on pieces such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

A spokesperson for the Louvre said: “Through this partnership we wanted to bring together heritage and the innovative world of game entertainment through a system people are already familiar with.”
Image: Visitors using the Nintendo 3DS consoles at the Louvre

Seung Yul Oh is looking for volunteers to participate in a performance for Made Active: The Chartwell Show at the Auckland Art Gallery. The performance takes place at the Gallery on Saturday 14 April at 3pm.

Titled The Ability to Blow Themselves Up (performance version), it requires 50 people to stand at a location around the gallery and blow up balloons over a 30-minute period. Oh needs a few more people to make up the desired number so if you'd like to participate please contact him at: seungyul@gmail.com
Image: press image supplied by the artist

Our Starkwhite Group Show continues this week, closing Saturday 14 April.
Image: Dane Mitchell, The Visible Spectrum (2012), shredder, paper, acrylic

The Sydney Morning Herald talks to Michael Brand, incoming director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, about his his background and how it has shaped his international orientation, and his plans for the AGNSW. Read more…
Michael Brand at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

The New York Times reports US prosecutors have filed suit demanding Sotheby's forfeit a 10th century statue the government says was looted from a Cambodian temple. US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said: “The Duryodhana was looted from the country during a period of upheaval and unrest. With this action, we are taking an important step towards reuniting this ancient artifact with its rightful owners.” Read more…
Image: the 1000 year old Duryodhana statue brought into the United States by Sotheby's

The final room in the Damien Hirst show at the Tate is a gift shop where visitors can find a range of items at eye-watering prices including a £36,800 skull, a set of china plates for £10,500, a deck chair for £310, an umbrella for £195, butterfly-print wallpaper at £700 a roll and for those on a budget, a set of coloured circular spot magnets at £14.95.
Image: Damien Hirst cup and saucer at £12.50 each or £60 for a set of 6

An elevated black cube designed by Melbourne architects Denton Corker Marshall has been selected for Australia's Venice Biennale pavilion, replacing the much-criticised temporary structure by Philip Cox which remained in place for 25 years. The new building has a $6m budget and all funds must be privately raised before building starts at the end of 2013.
Image: artist's impression from DCM website

Starkwhite will be closed over Easter (Friday – Monday), reopening Tuesday 10 April.

If you are wondering why the Tate banned Con Art author Julian Spalding from the Hirst exhibition, you may find the answer in his opinion piece for the Independent on conceptual art (he says it's art that cons people) and Damien Hirst as a sub-prime artist. Read more…

The Independent reports days after it published his condemnation of Hirst as a “con artist” whose art is “worthless” financially and artistically, Julian Spalding (author of the book Con Art – Why You Ought To Sell Your Damien Hirsts While You Can) was denied entry to the Tate's Hirst exhibition. Spalding had turned up at the request of the BBC and two German TV stations only to be informed that the Tate would not allow the interviews. “The Tate's job is to encourage debate about art,” he said. The fact that I'm not allowed to talk about the work in front of it is extraordinary.”
Image: Damien Hirst at the opening of his Tate show

Sotheby's is launching a gallery in Hong Kong to expand its sales at a time when China's appetite for art is booming. The new $7.2 million, 15,000 square-foot space in the Admiralty business district will enable the company to hold more auctions and events, including exhibitions.

Sotheby's is also maneuvering to keep up with rival Christies International PLC, which opened its own 15,000 square-foot gallery and salesroom space in May 2010. Both houses have also recently created Asian advisory boards to nurture ties to major collectors in Asia. Hong Kong supply-chain magnate William Fung and Hong Kong private-equity chief Mary Ma both serve on Christies advisory board and Pansy Ho, the daughter of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, serves on Sotheby's international advisory board.
Image: architectural rendering of Sotheby's Hong Kong gallery

The Brooklyn Museum is showing Keith Haring: 1978-1982, an exhibition exploring the early career of one of the best known American artists of the 20th century. The exhibition is accompanied by a tumblr hosting online pages from Haring's journals which go back to 1971 when he was 12 years old. The site will post one new entry per day ranging across the artist's diary entries, doodles and hand-coloured memorabilia stuck on pages. You can follow the daily posts here.
Image: an untitled journal drawing (1977) by Keith Haring

MTV has announced it will be reviving Art Breaks, its 80s series of short video interludes created by emerging art stars of the day. The art breaks will run between commercials and programmes, but this time they will be curated by MoMA PS1 and Creative Time.

You can check out what's in store at Art Break's Tumblir site.
Image: from Jean Michel Basquiat's 1985 Art Break

Our Starkwhite Group Show continues this week and through to 14 April.
Image: Billy Apple, FROM THE LAI SOO COLLECTION, 2011

The Whitney has commissioned the New York-based architecture firm LOT-EK to design a pop-up studio for the museum's education programme. Made entirely of shipping containers, the material of choice for LOT-EK (a play on low technology), the designers stacked two layers of containers and partially cut the interior to create a 472-square-foot minimalist cube with a mezzanine floor and diagonals of neon yellow glass.

Dedicated to sustainable architecture, LOT-EK principals Giuseppe Lignano and Ada Tolla have been using these overproduced containers for over 20 years, making use of what they refer to as a “marginal aspect of our civilisation”.
Image: the Whitney Studio under construction

In her first major interview, Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani talks to the Economist about the Qatar Museum Authority's mission to be a cultural instigator and catalyst of projects world wide, which is turning Qatar into a cultural destination. Read more…
Image: Head of the Qatar Museums Authority Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani

Tonight Auckland's Artspace launches Volume 2, a collection of essays and page art relating to the programme during Emma Bugden's directorship (2009-2011). Alicia Frankovich's A Plane for Behavers (2009) is documented in the publication and the writing includes Ellen Blumenstein interviewing Frankovich.

The Los Angeles Times reports LACMA's plans to build a massive Jeff Koons sculpture of a train outside the museum seem to be running out of steam. However, the Friends of the High Line have announced their desire to build the sculpture in the celebrated park on the elevated railway line built to carry carcasses into New York's meatpacking district. Read more…
Image: design rendering of Jeff Koons' Train for the High Line, NY

The Wall Street Journal talks to Rachel Kent about her exhibition Marking Time at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, which includes 24 hour marathon viewings of Christian Marclay's The Clock and Stuart Ringholt's after hours nude gallery tours. Read more…

Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art reopens this week with a Sam Marshall-designed extension that adds more than 48,000 square feet of space, including three new galleries – one dedicated to Australian art collected since the museum's inception – and a rooftop sculpture terrace overlooking Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House.

This link takes you to ARTINFO's selection of 20 artists with must-click web sites from Tauba Auerbach to Andrea Zittel.
Image: Wim Delvoye's web site

While Thomas Demand was in Sydney looking at spaces for a project initiated by John Kaldor, he spotted a spaceship-like structure that is part of the MCL Centre. Designed by the late Australian architect Harry Seidler, the building is a hotel occupied by the Commercial Travellers Association Club. “I snuck inside and saw a beautiful circular staircase and small rooms,” he said. It felt like a time capsule from the 70s. They haven't changed anything.”

Kaldor has rented a floor of the building to stage Demand's project. Visitors can walk around a circular corridor along which 15 rooms can be found, each subtly altered by Demand and featuring a photograph from his Dailies series. Read more…
Image: Commercial Travellers Association Club building designed by Harry Seidler and venue for a Thomas Demand exhibition presented by Kaldor Projects

Billy Apple's 2 Minutes 33 Seconds (gold), 1962 is showing in an exhibition devoted to the precious metal gold and its use in art. Curated by Thomas Zaunschirn, Gold runs at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna from 15 March – 17 June 2012.
Image: Billy Apple, 2 Minutes 33 Seconds (gold), 1962, gold plated bronze, painted bronze base, 120 x 356 x 152mm, image courtesy of the artist and the Jennifer Gibbs Trust

Designed by Tokyo-based architects Atelier Bow-Wow, the BMW Guggenheim Lab is a mobile lab traveling around the world to inspire innovative, forward-thinking ideas for urban life. It had its inaugural run in New York in 2011 where it hosted 56,000 visitors over 10 weeks and is currently in transit to Berlin. However plans to set up the lab in the famously alternative Kreuzberg district have been scrapped in response to strong opposition to the project and after the police and local authorities concluded there was a high risk of property damage. Read more…

The Getty Museum is launching a new international program, the Conserving Modern Architecture Program, in the hopes of giving preservation architects new and more sophisticated strategies to preserve 20th century buildings. Its first project will be funding research at the Charles and Ray Eames house in Los Angeles.

Tim Whalen, the director of the Getty Conservation Institute, said the program was not designed as an advocacy organisation, like the Los Angeles Conservancy's Modern Committee to keep landmarks from the wrecking ball. The point is to forge partnerships with architects and organisations already doing research on how to preserve modern masterpieces. Read more…
Image: the living room of the Eames house in Los Angeles