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Also closing today is Glen Hayward's Mirrorworld at the McCahon House. The artist will be in the studio from 11am – 3pm to talk about his work and the old McCahon cottage, which has been restored as a museum, will also be open to view.
Image: the McCahon cottage, Titirangi, Auckland
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Paul McCarthy's Tomato Head (Green) fetches $4.5m at auction; will the artist get a slice of the action?
26 artworks from the collection of Peter Norton went under the hammer at Christie's on Tuesday night. All of the lots were sold bringing in $26.8 million and a few set new records for artists with Paul McCarthy's Tomato Head (Green) topping the list at $4,562,500.
Although he has multiple residences, Norton is identified in Christie's news release as “the Los Angeles collector and software entrepreneur”. According to the California Resale Royalty Act, a seller or seller's agent must give 5% of the resale price to the artist provided that the seller lives in California or the transaction takes place there, making McCarthy's cut $228,125.
So far Norton has not responded to requests for comment.
Image: Paul McCarthy's Tomato Head (Green)
Dane Mitchell's RADIANT MATTER reviewed in ARTFORUM
The latest issue of ARTFORUM includes an Anthony Byrt review of Dane Mitchell's RADIANT MATTER, a series of three exhibitions presented at three public galleries across New Zealand.
Images: Dane Mitchell, Radiant Matter III. The Smell of An Empty Space (Liquid) 2011, Artspace, Auckland. Photo Sam Hartnett and courtesy of Artspace
Los Angeles novelist and art critic Chris Kraus talks to Martin Rumsby
Chris Kraus talks to Martin Rumsby on her experiences of growing up and studying in New Zealand and how those experiences shape her work. View video
Image: Chris Kraus interview with Martin Rumsby
Performa founder RoseLee Goldberg on the rise of performance art
Performance art is everywhere these days – the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale, MoMA, the Guggenheim… To understand the phenomenon, ARTINFO spoke to Performa founder and art historian RoseLee Goldberg about the rise of performance art. Read more…
Image: Marina Abramovic, The Artist is Present exhibition, MoMA 2010
Dying river poses a threat to the Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal, the white marble tomb built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1648 for his third wife Mumtaz Mahal, could soon sink into the sand. The mausoleum's mahogany post foundations which are sunk into wells fed by the Yamuna River are reportedly rotting and brittle because the river is drying up due to pollution and deforestation. The main structure showed cracks last year and the four minarets around the monument are tilting due to the weakening of the foundation.
Ramshankar Katheria, a member of parliament from the northern city of Agra where the iconic monument is located, is leading the movement to save it. He warns that “if the crisis is is not tackled on a war-footing, the Taj Mahal will cave in between two and five years.” He has proposed a $110m dam to maintain the water levels necessary to preserve the foundations, saying, “the river is a constituent of its architectural design and if the river dies, the Taj cannot survive.”
Donations pour in to Ai Weiwei
The New York Times reports that in the days since the Chinese government delivered a tax bill of $2.4m to Ai Weiwei, more than 20,000 people have together contributed at least $550,000. The artist said one businessman had offered him 1 million renminbi, but he turned it down saying he preferred to receive smaller sums. Others had folded 100-renminbi notes into airplanes and tossed them over the wall of his compound. Read more…
The New Fair begins to take shape in Melbourne
The Australian Art Collector has confirmed that Melbourne gallerist Vasili Kaliman is one of the players behind The New Fair, which will run alongside the Melbourne Art Fair in August 2012.
Image: Vasili Kaliman
Alicia Frankovich in Seoul
Alicia Frankovich is represented in two exhibitions in Seoul this month – City Within the City at Artsonje Centre opening on 11 November and running to 15 July 2012, and From Blank Pages at Art Space Pool to 30 November 2011.
Sitting on the High Line watching the actors go by
We've posted before on the High Line, the old railway line on stilts built to carry carcasses to New York's meatpacking district that has been converted into a city park. Last month it was used to stage SeeWatchLook, a collaboration by Brazilian director, Michel Melamed, and the Brooklyn-based theatre company Magic Futurebox. Visitors to the High Line Park formed a ready-made audience for snapshots of street life performed below by actors and dancers from Magic Futurebox, with occasional unscripted cameos by passers-by. Read more…
Images: actors portraying a Hasidic Jew and an Arab gathering condoms as part of SeeWatchLook at the High Line.
Handmade signs favoured over high-tech placards at Zuccotti Park
Occupy Wall Street protesters avoid high-tech placards in favour of scruffy, organic signs made by hand with cardboard construction paper and magic markers. It's part of a deliberate effort to make their message more authentic, says Blake Gopnik. Read more…
Pace Beijing's first solo show by a western artist pays off
Pace Gallery's decision to choose Sterling Ruby for their first solo show by a western artist at their Beijing outpost has paid off with a trifecta of critical, popular and business success. According to Pace Beijing president Leng Lin, the show has been embraced by Beijing's critical and artist community and all works sold have gone to mainland Chinese and Asian collectors, some with no track record of collecting western contemporary art.
Ruby shared his thoughts on making and showing art in the People's Republic with ARTINFO China. Read more…
Image: Pace Gallery Beijing
Dane Mitchell in Afterlife at the Museum Tot Zover
Dane Mitchell is represented in Afterlife – art on the final destination at the Museum Tot Zover, Amsterdam. The exhibition runs from 3 November 2011 to 1 July 2012. Read more…
Shigeru Ban's post-disaster zone project for Christchurch
Architect Shigeru Ban is known for his post-disaster zone design projects, such as his temporary housing project underway in Onagawa, one of the coastal communities devastated on 11 March by the earthquake and tsunami that left 3,800 of its 4,500 homes partially, if not completely damaged.
Ban has also designed a massive temporary building to replace the historic cathedral in the quake-ravaged city of Christchurch. The 9700-square-foot building's A-frame sanctuary will seat 700 worshippers. Topping the structure will be a massive pitched roof made of cardboard tubes and covered with polycarbonate sheets that will allow daylight into the building. Shipping containers filled with earthquake rubble will form the base of the building.
The temporary cathedral is scheduled to open on 22 February, the one-year anniversary of the 6.2 magnitude earthquake that claimed 181 lives and left much of the city in ruins.
Ban talks about his work and the cathedral project tonight at Auckland University's Design Theatre (Symonds Street) at 6pm.
Image: model of Shigeru Ban's temporary cathedral to be built in the city of Christchurch
Hedge fund manager to show his collection alongside Art Basel Miami Beach
Hedge fund manager Adam Sender plans to show his art collection alongside Art Basel Miami Beach (29 November – 4 December). Titled Home Alone, the exhibition will be presented in his 5,000-square-foot Miami house, now empty and on the market. “We had an ability to rent it, but we figured why not throw a show for Art Basel”, he said.
Sender was one of the first hedge fund managers to move into contemporary art and he is still an active collector who also sells. “If its not floating your boat anymore, you are entitled to sell it”, he says. “What we do with the proceeds is we buy more art, and we buy younger art.”
Following a stint with Steve Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors LP, Sender founded his own hedge fund in 1998, which stalled when Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings (FFH) sued several hedge fund firms including Sander's. The suit alleged that the hedge funds acted to harm the firm because they were betting its stock price would decline.
Image: Adam Sender, art collector and hedge fund manager
From VIP to The Armory Show
After stepping down as director of the VIP Art Fair, Noah Horowitz has joined The Armory Show leadership team as the fair's managing director. His appointment is among the signals of changes being made to the fair's infrastructure and amenities. They include the appointment of New York-based architectural firm Bade Stageberg Cox to redesign the floor plan and the connection between the modern and contemporary sections on Piers 92 and 94.
Horowitz is co-editor of The Uncertain States of America Reader published by Sternberg Press in 2006 and the author of The Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market published by Princeton University Press in 2011.
Opening tonight at Starkwhite
The Dragon, The Purple Forbidden Enclosure by Dane Mitchell and in a forest by Ann Shelton from 5.30pm.
Internet retail specialist hired as CEO of VIP Art Fair
Internet retail specialist Lisa Kennedy has been hired by the VIP Art Fair as its first CEO. Kennedy has no previous art experience, but art fair founder Jane Cohan says “she has a tremendous record for building consumer-driven companies.” ARTINFO reports that in addition to streamlining and improving the web product, Kennedy will work to expand the fair to take place multiple times a year.
Kennedy's appointment follows news that rival e-commerce initiative Paddle8 is teaming up with the NADA art fair to provide an online platform for interactions with galleries.
2011 Pritzker Prize for architecture to be announced in China
The Hyatt Foundation's Pritzker Prize ceremony will be held in Beijing this year. Foundation Chairman Thomas Pritzker said China was a particularly appropriate location because of the number of projects Pritzker laureates have completed or are in the process of completing there, including Zaha Hadid's new opera house in Guangzhou; Rem Koolhaas' Shenzen Stock Exchange and Beijing China Central Televsion Tower; and Norman Foster's Hong Kong International Airport.
Image: Zaha Hadid's opera house in Guangzhou, China
Curator of Aboriginal art at AGNSW resigns to pursue her vision for a national indigenous cultural centre
Frustrated by years of unsuccessful advocacy to upgrade the Yiribana Gallery of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and stalled exhibition proposals, Hetti Perkins has resigned from the gallery to pursue her vision for a national indigenous cultural centre in Sydney.
The daughter of the late Aboriginal activist and politician Charles Perkins, she is considered to be one of Australia's most influential indigenous art curators – a view shared by outgoing AGNSW director Edmund Capon who describes her as a “stand-out curator” who will continue to undertake work for the gallery on contract.
Perkins says the proposed centre would display the full spectrum of indigenous arts including performance art, new media work and sound installations as well as more traditional paintings and crafts.
Image: curator Hetti Perkins at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Marina Abramovic curates an online art show for Paddle8
Performance artist Marina Abramovic has curated an exhibition for Paddle8, the new internet platform for introducing art for sale to its online community. Abramovic says: “This exhibition is about artists who push us to the outermost bounds of reality, working with mediums that are all around us and part of everyday living and breathing but that we often take for granted due to their lack of visibility, tactility and weight – such as gravity, time, smell, memory, movement, context and reflection.” Read more…
Coming up at Starkwhite
Ann Shelton's exhibition in a forest opens at Starkwhite alongside Dane Mitchell's The Dragon, The Purple Forbidden Enclosure on Tuesday 1 November at 6.00pm.
Image: Ann Shelton: Seedling, Lovelock's 'Hitler Oak', Timaru Boys HIgh School, 2 x C-type prints, 1214 x 1520 each, 2005-2010
Dane Mitchell: The Dragon, The Purple Forbidden Enclosure
The Dragon, The Purple Forbidden Enclosure by Dane Mitchell runs at Starkwhite to 23 November with the exhibition launch scheduled for Tuesday 1 November. Read more…
Image: Dane Mitchell, The Dragon, The Purple Forbidden Enclosure (2011), installation view, Singapore Biennale
Richard Branson reaches for the stars with a Norman Foster-designed spaceport
Richard Branson has launched the world's first purpose-built space-tourism facility in the New Mexico desert. He admitted that commercial flights were still more than a year away, but guests were able to view the Norman Foster-designed building and features such as the astronaut changing rooms.
Images: Richard Branson's Norman Foster-designed spaceport in New Mexico
Easy Listening: Chris Kraus
You can catch Chris Kraus, the Los Angeles based author and filmmaker, tonight at 6pm at the Auckland Art Gallery auditorium. She is speaking in the Easy Listening programme, a collaborative project by ARTSPACE, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki and Elam School of Fine Arts.
As art museums are are lined up by Occupy Museums, others are rushing to preserve Occupy Wall Street protest art and artifacts
As Occupy Museums (the recent offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement) targets museums in New York as part of its plans to take back cultural institutions from the 1%, other museums, including the New York Historical Society and the Smithsonian Museum of American History, are collecting protest ephemera for use in future exhibitions on the movement's impact.
Less than twelve months ago the Smithsonian Institution was a target for protestors, drawing flak for censoring a video by David Wojnarowicz in the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.
Images: flag made by Occupy Wall Street protestors in Zuccotti Park and the New York Historical Society
Glen Hayward ends his residency with an open day at the McCahon House
Also closing today is Glen Hayward's Mirrorworld at the McCahon House. The artist will be in the studio from 11am – 3pm to talk about his work and the old McCahon cottage, which has been restored as a museum, will also be open to view.
Image: the McCahon cottage, Titirangi, Auckland
Clintons Watkins' Selection show closes today
Clinton Watkins' Selection exhibition closes today at 3pm.
Image: Clinton Watkins, Selection, installation view, Starkwhite
Occupy Museums launched as an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement
Launched as an offshoot to Occupy Wall Street and approved by its art and culture group, the Occupy Museums movement plans to fight “the intense commercialisation and co-option of art” and take back cultural institutions from the 1%. The first protests in New York targeted the Museum of Modern Art, the Frick Collection and the New Museum.
Frieze on Pacific Standard Time
Frieze's Jonathan Griffin asks: “Was there ever such a magnificently hubristic project as Pacific Standard Time?” Read more…
Image: ASCO, Instant Mural (1974) from the exhibition ASCO: Elite of the Obscure at LACMA
Review of Matt Henry's User Friendly exhibition
This link takes you to a review of Matt Henry's User Friendly exhibition at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, which runs to 6 November 2011.
Images: Matt Henry, User Friendly, installation views, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Pakuranga. Photographs courtesy of Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts
Combining the virtual and traditional art fair
The NADA art fair has teamed up with Paddle8, the new online venture providing a platform for interactions with galleries and artists. Paddle8 will preview the work to be presented at the fair in November and its members will be able to purchase online during and for a week after the fair.
Since the VIP Art Fair's arrival, the jury has been out on virtual v. the real McCoy, but Paddle8 co-founder Alexander Gilkes is playing it both ways saying the website aims to “complement, rather than replace the opportunity to view works in person.”
India's art scene on the rise
In line with India's position as as an emerging economic super power, the Indian art scene continues its upwards trajectory with recent developments including: plans for a new museum in Bihar, scheduled to open in 2015; a new museum of modern art in Kolkata, scheduled to open in 2014; the launch of its first-ever art biennial set to debut in 2012 in the port city of Kochi and in neighbouring Muziris; reports of the continuing growth of New Dehli's India Art Summit fair; and India's first dedicated pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale.
Image: Artist's impression of the foyer if the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art
Melbourne may have a new art fair
Bronwyn Johnson's resignation as the CEO and director of the Melbourne Art Fair has been followed by news that Melbourne may have a new art fair. The New Fair has a website announcing that it will open on 3 August 2012, two days after the Melbourne Art Fair, which opens on 1 August.
So far the people behind the new venture are keeping a low profile (they aren't named on the site) but industry insiders are wondering whether it is the same group that floated the idea of an alternative Melbourne art fair a few years ago.
If the new fair goes ahead, it comes at a time when Creative New Zealand has decided to back the Melbourne Art Fair with grants to approved galleries that run with the Fair's recent industry assistance package (half price booths) aimed at boosting New Zealand gallery representation in Melbourne's flagship fair.
Image: Installation view of Seung Yul Oh's project presented by Artspace (Auckland) at the 2010 Melbourne Art Fair
Tate and BMW team up to work with virtual space
The Tate is teaming up with BMW to commission performances exclusively for live broadcast from 2012. The four-year programme will be a virtual version of the ambitious art installations that the Tate Modern presents in its Turbine Hall and will focus on performance, interdisciplinary art and curating digital space. Read more…
Melbourne Art Fair announces resignation of current director
The Melbourne Art Fair has announced its CEO and director Bronwyn Johnson will be resigning from her role at the end of the year and that a search is underway for her successor.
Clinton Watkins' Selection show closes this weekend
Clinton Watkins' Selection exhibition closes on Saturday 22 October at 3.00pm.
Image: Clinton Watkins, Selection, installation view, Starkwhite
Melissa Chiu on Ai Weiwei and creative expression in China
Asia Society director Melissa Chiu reflects on the new parameters of creative expression in China as illustrated by the career of artist and activist Ai Weiwei. View video…
Ai Weiwei tops this year's POWER 100 List
ART REVIEW has published THE POWER 100, its annual list of movers and shakers in the art world. Entrants are ranked according to a combination of influence over the the production of art internationally, sheer financial clout and activity in the past 12 months.
Glen Hayward's Mirrorworld at the McCahon House
Glen Hayward's one-week studio exhibition Mirrorworld opens at the McCahon House tomorrow. The artist will be in the studio each day to talk about his work and the old McCahon house will also be open to view. The visiting days/times are: Saturday and Sunday 11am – 3pm, Monday to Friday 4 – 7pm and Saturday 22 11am – 3pm.
Images: Mcahon House. Titirangi, Auckland
Ullens collection to refocus around ground-breaking artists from China, India, Japan and Korea
The second and final cluster of works from the Ullens Collection of contemporary Chinese art went under the hammer at Sotheby's recently lifting the tally realised from sales to $54.8 million – a record for a single-owner sale of Chinese contemporary art. Ullens also confrimed his continuing interest in Chinese art saying he looked forward to “building and enhancing his collection by “working with ground-breaking artists from China, India, Japan and Korea.” Along with the appointment of Philip Tinari as the new director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing, the announcement will set to rest rumours that the Ullens are getting out of China. Image: Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing, installation view of Yan Pei-Ming's Landscape of Childhood