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Review of Clinton Watkins: Selection

This link takes you to a review of Clinton Watkins' exhibition Selection.

Image: Clinton Watkins, Selection, installation view, Starkwhite 2011. Photo Samuel Hartnett

Gibbs Farm has a new website

This link takes you to the new Gibbs Farm website.

Images: Daniel Buren's Green + White Fence, 1999/2001 and Sol LeWitt's Pyramid (Keystone NZ) 1997, Gibbs Farm, Kaipara Harbour NZ, image from the Gibbs Farm website

Ernesto Neto's installation at the new Faena Arts Centre in Buenos Aires

The new Faena Arts Center in Buenos Aires has opened with Ernesto Neto's installation Crazy Hyperculture in the Vertigo of the World, a fantastical bridge made of woven climbing rope and hollow plastic balls, which spirals through the space. It's the first time Neto has made a work that can support adventurous viewers who want to ascend into the space.

Images: the Faena Arts Center, Crazy Hyperculture in the Vertigo of the World (installation view) and Ernesto Neto (left) with Alan Faena

Dane Mitchell's RADIANT MATTER exhibitions reviewed in the latest issue of frieze

The latest issue of frieze includes a review of Dane Mitchell's RADIANT MATTER, a series of three exhibitions presented at three public galleries across New Zealand. This follows last week's launch of the publication RADIANT MATTER I/II/III in Berlin by the artist and the Berliner Künstlerprogramm DAAD.

Images: frieze cover, issue 142 October 2011 and Dane Mitchell RADIANT MATTER PART 1 installation view, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, 2011

Clinton Watkins: Selection installation views

Clinton Watkins' exhibition Selection runs downstairs to Saturday 22 November 2011.

Images: Clinton Watkins, Selection, installation views, Starkwhite, October 2011. Photographs Samuel Hartnett

CNZ announces New Zealand artist for the 55th Venice Biennale

Creative New Zealand has selected Bill Culbert to represent New Zealand at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, allocating $650,000 for participation in the event. Culbert was recommended by an advisory panel comprising Biennale commissioner Jenny Harper (Christchurch Art Gallery), Alastair Carruthers (CNZ), Christina Barton (Adam Art Gallery), Elizabeth Caldwell (Dunedin Public Art Gallery), Heather Galbraith (Massey University), Michael Houlihan (Te Papa), and Peter Robinson (artist). CNZ says prior to making the selection, advice was sought from the wider visual arts sector inviting them to propose names of artists and/or artist/curator teams.

Thirty Years of video in China at the Minsheng Art Museum

The Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai opened in April 2010 with a thirty-year survey of contemporary Chinese painting. This month the Museum launched the second installment of its metanarrative, a survey of the moving image in China from its first appearance in 1988 through to 2011. Read more…

Image: Shanghai's Minsheng Art Museum

Gagosian closes Madison Avenue space

Uber dealer Larry Gagosian's store on Madison Avenue has closed suddenly. The space previously sold high-end multiples by artists such as Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, John Currin and Jeff Koons. However as ARTINFO reports, the ongoing expansion of his gallery network (stretching from Hong Kong to Geneva, Rome and London) suggests the decision to close the store was not motivated by cash flow.

Testing the idea of an art centre as a place for the production and presentation of art

Marc-Olivier Wahler, the outgoing director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, will open temporary art centres in Los Angeles and Paris next year. Chalet Hollywood will open at Los Angles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) and Chalet Society will open on Boulevard Raspail on Paris' Left Bank.

Palais de Tokyo has previously organised exhibitions and artists projects under the name Les Chalets de Tokyo in Buenos Aires, Roswell in New Mexico, Edinburgh, Seoul, New York and Coimbra in Portugal. Wahler's new projects are an extension of this initiative. He says: “My idea is to reflect on whether an art centre is the best structure for showing art and as a place of production. Chalet Society and Chalet Hollywood will be a laboratory to test this hypothesis for the benefit of young artists and [to examine] how to use and share this knowledge.

Later next year Wahler plans to open a third chalet in Marrakech in collaboration with the artists' residency centre Dar Al-Ma'mun. “Each time the Chalet will respond to a context and local needs”, he says. Read more…

Arab Spring-inspired work called off by London authorities

While the wave of civil uprising and resistance washing over North Africa and the Middle East is supported by the West (the Arab Spring is now the focus of speculation over this year's Nobel Peace Prize), it isn't always embraced closer to home. Last week London's Westminster council called off Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr's plan to cut the Kufic inscription “The people want the fall of the regime” (a chant of Arab Spring demonstrators) into a grass lawn at Mayfair's Hanover Square claiming the protests were still too raw.

Images: Protest in Egypt and Moataz Nsar's The Maze, 2011

Te Papa presents Maori culture at the musee du quai Branly

Maori: their treasures have a soul, opens this month at the musee du quai Branly, a museum that displays collections of objects from African, Asian, Oceanian and American civilisations. Created and toured by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the exhibition “presents Maori culture as seen by Maori, free from Western views and biases.” It also shows the links between taonga (ancestral treasures) and contemporary art, featuring works that address “the political, spiritual and aesthetic developments that have shaped Maori culture.”

Looking back on LA's early art scene

The Art Newspaper reports: “There has never been anything like Pacific Standard Time. The six-month-long, multi-venue initiative is almost certainly the most expensive, ambitious and collaborative project that any US city has attempted. Even on an international scale, perhaps only the Venice Biennale matches the cost and organisational effort that has gone into project, which documents Los Angeles' position as a hub for contemporary art after World War II.” Read more…

Image: Welcome to LA: Pacific Standard Time, which is taking place in 60 museums across Los Angeles

Victoria Lynn appointed director of TarraWarra Museum of Art

The TarraWarra Museum of Art has appointed Victoria Lynn as its new director. She will take up the position in April 2012 after completing a contract as visual arts curator for the 2012 Adelaide Festival.

In 2003 Lynn was the commissioner of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and in 2007 she curated Turbulence, the Auckland Art Gallery's third Auckland Triennial. She also also curated the Tarrawarra Biennial in 2006, an event she plans to reintroduce to the Museum's programme.

Image: Victoria Lynn, incoming director, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healsville, Australia

Alicia Frankovich in conversation with Eleanor Weber @ Kaleidoscope

Having experienced Alicia Frankovich's work live for the first time at her Undisciplined Bodies event at Berlin's Salon Populaire, Eleanor Weber spoke with her about the ideas behind and around both the event itself and her practice more broadly, moving from a discussion of unconventional spaces of art to ideas about the body, performing sculpture, ideas of bodily disciplining, the audience and notions of liveness. Read more…

Image: Undisciplined Bodies; an Evening Disolving Social and Spatial Conventions (2011), Salon Populaire, Berlin. Photograph by Fiona Geuss

RADIANT MATTER publication launched in Berlin tonight

Co-published by the Berliner Künstlerprogramm DAAD & Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (New Plymouth), Dunedin Public Art Gallery (Dunedin), Artspace (Auckland) and designed by Tana Mitchell, RADIANT MATTER I/II/III will be launched tonight in Berlin by Dane Mitchell and the Berliner Künstlerprogramm DAAD.

RADIANT MATTER was a series of exhibition by Dane Mitchell presented at three public galleries across New Zealand, each exhibition operating in autonmous ways and yet sharing similar aesthetic, conceptual and material concerns. The publication brings together these three bodies of work, anchoring them in research begun while Mitchell was a guest of the

Berliner Künstlerprogramm in 2009 and further explored in texts by Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, Chris Sharp, Aaron Kreisler, Dane Mitchell and foreward by Ariane Beyn.

Collecting by clicking

The VIP Art Fair is gearing up to return in 2012 with the jury still out on whether the first edition of the world's first virtual art fair was a great idea marred by imperfect execution, or a sign that there is no substitute for experiencing art in the flesh in a real art fair.

After 10 days of mixed success and technical malfunction, the 2011 VIP Art Fair closed with, as fair organiser James Cohan put it, “some very sore feelings”. The VIP organisers offered 50% refunds to participants and allowed galleries to continue maintaining their virtual online booths for months after the official close of the event. But Cohan also believed the first fair was “a big success” and referred to the website as an “enormous resource” – one that was not to be dismantled at the end of the fair but that galleries will use on an ongoing basis. [This initiative has been put on the back burner.]

In the lead up to VIP1, Jane Cohen said the fair's success would be measured against the traffic generated by other international art fairs. Because users would have to register with the site to enter the fair, she said, the VIP Art Fair would have accurate numbers. The final count was 41,000 registered users – pretty good, but not a spectacular result for a fair that could be attended by people dressed in their pyjamas. Most of the major fairs claim 60,000 or more attendees for their events.

However, galleries are signing up for the second edition which will take place in February 2012. One intriguing feature of VIP2 is a virtual Museum and Edition Hall where international museums will sell editions. Cohan is reported as saying the Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery and Parkett magazine are already on board.

Ireland's 'bad bank' ventures into the art market

It's a long way from its core business (debt management/repayment plans), but Ireland's so-called bad bank is getting involved in the international art market. Created to buy risky loans from the country's beleaguered banks, the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is placing a number of artworks on the market, including an Andy Warhol Dollar Sign, to recoup some of the debts of one of Ireland's biggest real estate investors during the Celtic Tiger property boom.

Image: Andy Warhol's Dollar Sign

de Appel and the Stedelijk present a conference on exhibiting contemporary performance

Staged by de Appel arts centre and the Stedelijk Museum, a little less conversation will question how contemporary performance is exhibited. The conference follows previous enquiries into contemporary performance organised by the de Appel arts centre, including the symposium The Manifiold (after) lives of performance (2009 and 2010), which scrutinised the different ways performance is documented and collected.
Image: Marina Abramovic, The Artist is Present exhibition, MoMA 2010

Renzo Piano's new convent below Le Corbusier's famous chapel at Ronchamp

After running into resistance from the Fondation Le Corbusier, a fierce guard of the architect's reputation, Renzo Piano has created a new convent for the Clarisses (or Poor Clare Sisters) on a French hillside below Le Corbusier's famous chapel of Notre Dame du Haut.

Piano also had some initial reservations but the abbess, Sister Brigitte de Singly, finally persuaded him to accept the commission reminding him of the long tradition architects have had with the church. Read more…

Images: A concealed slit in the wall floods the chapel with daylight, Renzo Piano with a priest in the chapel and a nun in her Renzo Piano-designed room

Phil Dadson solo set tonight at Auckland's Wine Cellar

You can catch two acts at Auckland's Wine Cellar tonight: a solo set by Phil Dadson and the first performance of John Bell's Spoilers of Utopia Brass Band. The first performance starts at 8.30pm and there is a $5 entry charge.

Image: Phil Dadson in performance

Clinton Watkins' Selection opens tonight

Clinton Watkins exhibition Selection opens at Starkwhite tonight at 6.00pm.

Image: Clinton Watkins, Force Field (2010), installation view, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Pakuranga, NZ

Asian art fairs: points of difference sharpening up between the three major players

Under the new directorship of Massimo Torrigiani SH Contemporary has set its sights firmly on being the best fair on mainland China, aiming to head off its Beijing rivals. Torrigiani has also responded to comments that the fair's aspirations are well short of those mapped out by Lorenzo Rudolf when he launched the fair in 2007, saying: “The fair's conception was marred by an 'original sin' – that of imagining that it could be an outpost of international galleries in mainland China, rather than an event built on the foundations of the local scene.”

With ART HK now positioned as the 'Art Basel' of the Asia-Pacific region, observers will be watching to see how the art fair scene develops in the region with art supremo Lorenzo Rudolf at the helm of Art Stage Singapore positioning Singapore as another emergent Asian art hub, and Torrigiani playing his mainland China hand.
Image: Sh Contemporary 2011

Philip Tinari replaces Jerome Sans as director of Beijing's UCCA

Beijing-based editor and curator Philip Tinari has been appointed as director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA), replacing outgoing director Jerome Sans. Tinari has been a part of the Chinese scene for a decade, working as a curator, editor, writer and translator and he is currently the editor of LEAP, a bilingual contemporary culture magazine published by China's Modern Media group.

Tinari's appointment is a signal that the UCCA is committed to staying in China, putting an end to the rumours that have been circulating since Guy and Miriam Ullens decided to sell a major part of their collection of Chinese contemporary art earlier this year.

Image: UCCA outgoing director Jerome Sans and incoming director Philip Tinari

Matt Henry's User Friendly opens at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts

Matt Henry's User friendly exhibition opens at 2.00pm today at the Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts in Pakaranga. You can get to the opening on a free bus departing at 1.30pm outside Artspace, 300 Karangahape Road and returning to the city at 3.30pm.

Recipient of the Arts Foundation's Award for Patronage announced

The Chartwell Trust is the recipient of the Arts Foundation's 2011 Award for Patronage. The Arts Foundation provides $20,000 to the recipient to distribute to arts projects of their choice. As with previous awardees, the Chartwell Trust is donating $20,000 so that four $10,000 awards can be made to artists and/or arts organisations at the award ceremony on 11 October.

To date the award has gone to: Gus and Irene Fisher (2010), Adrienne, Lady Stewart (2009), Gillian and Roderick Deane (2008), Dame Jenny Gibbs (2007) and Denis and Verna Adams (2005).

Image: Clinton Watkins, Feedback (2011), video stills from a free art download project presented by Chartwell and Starkwhite at the 2011 Auckland Art Fair

Rocco Landesman's new arts venture capital fund

NEA chairman Rocco Landesman has launched ArtPlace, a new initiative that aims to enliven communities, spur economic growth and promote the best new arts projects across the USA. With funding from foundations, corporations and federal agencies, ArtPalce will operate as an 'angel investor', a venture capital firm providing seed money to non-profit arts organisations instead of tech start-ups. Read more…

Image: Rocco Landesman at the Wexler Centre for the Arts, Ohio State University

Sovereign debt and the art market

As the combination of high debt loads and unpredictable politics in the US and Europe fuel speculation about a double dip recession, commentators are divided on the effect another round of global financial turmoil would have on the art market. As Melanie Gerlis says in a recent article in The Art Newspaper: “At issue now are two diverging premises: that art is a luxury brand, as sensitive to stock markets as high-end fashion and first class flights (this is the view of people looking at the art market from the outside); or that it represents a safe investment, sought after in troubled times, much like gold and the Swiss franc (the view of those with more vested interests).” Read more…

Lewis Biggs moves on and Sally Tallant takes up the reins at the Liverpool Biennial

Sally Tallant, the Serpentine Gallery's head of programmes, has been announced as the Liverpool Biennial's new artistic director. She succeeds Lewis Biggs who has been with the Biennial as a board member and its director since its inception in 1998.

Image: Rigo's Caged Lions guarding St George's Hall at the 2006 Liverpool Biennial

Defne Ayas replaces Nicolaus Schafhausen at the Witte de With

The Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art has announced the appointment of Defne Ayas as its new director. The former curator of Performa replaces Nicolaus Schafhausen who has been director for the past six years.

Grayson Perry's Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum

Turner prize winning artist Grayson Perry long cherished an ambition to show his own art – his own civilisation as he calls it – alongside the great civilisations of the world. So he sent a proposal to the director of the British Museum outlining the concept for an exhibition of his objects presented alongside objects he would select from the the museum collection. He called his idea The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman and to his surprise the Museum agreed to run with it. In an article published in the Guardian, Perry talks about his idea and the challenges of translating “a vague fantasy into an increasingly daunting reality.” Read more…

Grayson Perry, as Claire, outside the British Museum, the venue for his exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown, which opens on 6 October 2011

Coming up at Starkwhite

Clinton Watkins' Selection exhibition opens at Starkwhite on Tuesday 27 September 2011.

Image: Clinton Watkins, Force Field (2010), installation view, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Pakuranga, NZ

Upstairs at Starkwhite

Next week we are changing exhibitions downstairs, but upstairs we have a small group show of works by represented and guest artists.

Image: Hector Zamora, White Noise (2011), pigment inks on Ilford paper, 1200 mm x 800 mm

Jin Jiangbo's Dialogue with Nature closes today

Jin Jiangbo's Starkwhite exhibition Dialogue with Nature closes today at 4.00pm.

Image: Jin Jiangbo, Hidden (2011)

12th Istanbul Biennial: exploring the relationships between art and politics

In this interview, Jens Hoffman and Adriano Pedrosa, the curators of Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial) 2011, talk about their biennial, which is structured as five shows inspired by the work of Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The biennial runs from 17 September to 13 November 2011.

Gibbs Farm Sculpture Walk

Later this month Aucklanders and visitors to the city will have a rare opportunity to visit the Gibbs Farm at Kaipara, the site of a number of exceptional works by artists such as Daniel Buren, Andy Goldsworthy, Anish Kapoor, Sol LeWitt, Tony Oursler and George Rickey. For $100 plus Ticketek booking fee (www.ticketek.co.nz) you can visit the Farm on 30 September from 12.30 – 4,00pm with funds going to the New Zealand Institute of Architects Benevolent Fund to help re-establish Christchurch architects.

Images: Richard Serra's Te Tuhirangi Contour and Anish Kapoor's Dismemberment Site 1, The Farm, Kaipara, NZ

Performa 11: New York's first and only performance art biennial

Performa 11, a performance art biennial to be held in New York next month, will feature work by over 100 artists from around the globe including a number from Asia and the Middle East such as Shoja Azari (Iran), Shirin Nishat (Iran), Tarek Atoui (Lebanon) Asli Cavusoglu (Turkey), Ming Wong (Singapore) and Zhou Xiaohu (China). The programme, which is curated by Performa founder Roselee Goldberg, will be presented at over 80 locations throughout the city. Read more…

Olafur Eliasson's shimmering glass facade animates the new Harpa-Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre

Iceland is celebrating the opening of the Harpa-Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre, a stunning building whose shimmering glass facade was designed by Olafur Eliasson. Conceived of as a cultural hotspot, it is hoped that the building will also be a tourist draw during the long, dark winters – a fact of life that was central to the design. “In Iceland, 30% of the day is twilight. One third of people's lives are lived in this transitional zone,” says Eliasson whose facade reflects the low northern light in all its variations, as though lit from within. “The relationship people in Iceland have to the landscape is like the relationship you have to a close family member. It has to do with the way light gives landscape a constantly changing personality. It speaks to you with such finesse.”

Image: Iceland's new Harpa-Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre

Installation views and review of Jin Jiangbo's Dialogue with Nature