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Korea's design biennale presents extreme works rather than commercially-driven product displays

Curated by Korean starchitect H-San Seung and Ai Weiwei, this year's Gwangju Design Biennale presents an extreme body of work (not a chair in sight) including: a pamphlet handed out in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian uprising that advised protesters on the most effective tactics for civil disobedience, including how to improvise a helmet and breach police lines; designs for IEDs (improvised explosive devices); a video of the plastic surgery that Ultimate Fighting Championship competitors can undergo in order to to bleed less from the nose or above the eyes; and a section on communities, which includes the WikiHouse, an open-source house design kit.

The biennale directors also played a more traditional hand by bringing in a number of internationally recognised architects, like Peter Eisenman and Atelier Bow-Wow, to build follies around the city. You can read more on the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale here (a review by the Guardian's Justin McGuirk) and here (an interview with H-Sang Seung).

Image: Francisco Sanin's Folly built for the Gwangju Design Biennale

Kapoor designs a mobile concert hall for the areas of northern Japan devastated by the earthquake and tsunami

With Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, Anish Kapoor is designing a mobile 700-seat concert hall to bring music and the performing arts to the areas of northern Japan devastated by the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year. Kapoor will design the shell of the building, a “pneumatic structure” made of an elastic material such as PVC that can be erected quickly by inflating it with air.

Entitled Ark Nova, the project is being sponsored by the Swiss bank UBS, but organisers hope to find additional supporters for each performance so that attendance can be free. An artistic committee which includes conductors Claudio Abbadio and Daniel Barenboim, Chinese pianist Lang Lang and Japanese cellist Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and others has been set up to plan the programming, which is due to begin in Spring 2012.

A closer look at the mobility of art professionals

The two year project RE-tooling RESIDENCIES, which came to and end last month, involved five residency organisations embarking on discussions with curators, artists and organisers about the theoretical and practical aspects of residencies. The project began in November 2009 with an international conference followed by an exchange programme for art professionals and institutions new to the field of residencies.

They have been followed by a publication on rethinking residencies and issues relating to the mobility of art professionals, along with a website offering a platform for sharing theoretical and practical knowledge around the idea of residencies. The book and related website aim to stimulate much-needed analytical and practical investigation in the field by asking: can the experience of the art scene in Eastern Europe be used as a basis for creating unique ways of organising artistic work and which possible stratgeies could provide a critical framework for the institutiuon of artistic residencies?

SH Contemporary 2011: all that is new in Shanghai

The 5th edition of Shanghai's international art fair gets underway tomorrow at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre. Under the new direction of Massimo Torrigiani, SH Contemporary 2011 “highlights the work of galleries that promote innovative practices and and research and nurture the creative movements that are crossing China and Asia, changing the global cultural landscape.”

This year's edition includes a special projects section organised in cooperation with Arthub Asia, led by Davide Quadrio, Defne Ayas and Qiu Zhijie. It includes: First Issue, featuring Asia Pacific artists who had their first show or important presentations in 2010-2011; Hot Spots presenting monumental and site-specific works by established artists; The video Room presenting works selected by members of the LEAP magazine editorial team; and the Search project initiated by the RogueArt (Malaysia) displaying ways in which Southeast Asian art is categorised throughout literature, exhibitions, archival projects and the media.

Image: The Shanghai Exhibition Centre, venue for SH Contemporary 2011

Dublin Contemporary 2011: an exhibition highlighting artist-led models of art discourse, production and presentation

Alicia Frankovich is in the lineup of artists represented in Dublin Contemporary 2011, which run from 5 September to 31 October. The title and theme of this year's exhibition is Terrible Beauty – Art, Crisis, Change & The Office of Non-Compliance. Taken from William Butler Yeats' famous poem “Easter, 1916” the exhibition title borrows from the Irish writer's response to turn-of-century political events and underscores art's potential for commenting symbolically on the world's societal, cultural and economic triumphs and ills. Read more…

Image: Alicia Frankovich, Volution 2011, 35 mm film transferred to digital video

ArtBox offers an imaginative and practical way to support artists in Christchurch

If you are looking for a good art cause to support, you can't do much better than this. ArtBox is a project that will provide exhibition space and studios for Christchurch artists. The people behind this timely initiative aim to raise $250,000 to build 18 modular, mobile gallery/studio spaces that will provide 300 square metres of exhibition and work space for artists. It's a great idea and a cost-effective and practical way to assist artists in a city that has suffered over 8,000 earthquakes and aftershocks since the first 7.1 magnitude quake almost a year ago that wrecked the city centre and thousands of homes. There are a number of ways you can help them to achieve their funding target, all outlined on the ArtBox website.

Creative Time announces the winner of a $25,000 art and social change award

Creative Time has announced that Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk is the winner of the 2011 Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change. Known for creating contexts for interaction through public spaces, she is the third artist to receive the $25,000 award given every year to an artist whose work has been devoted to instigating social awareness and harnessing the communicative power of art to engage communities around critical public issues. The award is presented annually at the Creative Time Summit, a conference that brings together cultural producers – including artists, critics, writers and curators – to discuss how their work engages issues affecting our world.

Image: Jeanne van Heeswijk's Blue House in Amsterdam, a centre for cultural production and radical exploration of urban planning issues

The Auckland Art Gallery re-opens its restored and expanded building today

The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki re-opens its restored and expanded building today. Visitors entering the building will encounter Flower Chandelier, a large-scale commissioned work by Choi Jeong Hwa. Specifically designed for the Gallery's north atrium, its giant flowers inflate and deflate while LED lights in and around the blooms illuminate the artwork at night. The artist has also installed another temporary installation Red, in the reflection pool in the forecourt.

Image: Choi Jeong Hwa's Flower Chandelier at the new Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tamaki

Film/Body/Gesture Alicia Frankovich: Book of Works published by the Künstlerhaus Bethanien

Following Alicia Frankovich's 12 month Creative New Zealand Berlin residency, the Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH has published Film/Body/Gesture Alicia Frankovich: Book of Works with a text by Dominic Eichler and interview by Francesca Boenzi, both in German and English. Designed by Alicia Frankovich and Bijan Dawallu and published in an edition of 500, the 116 page book is available from: Archive Books, Berlin; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; World Food Books, Melbourne; and starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz

Image: cover of Film/Body/Gesture Alicia Frankovich: Book of Works, published by the Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH

Peter Eleey on his 9/11 exhibition at MoMA PS1

Bloomberg's James Tarney interviews Peter Eleey on September 11, his thought-provoking show at MoMA PS1 about the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York. Read more…

Image: Diane Arbus' Blowing Newspaper at Crossroads, NYC, one of the works in September 11

art: gwangju: 11 / New Glocal Art Fair in Asia

The 'glocal' is the key inspiration for the second edition of art gwangju, which runs from 1 – 4 September.

This year's event been developed around four projects aimed at giving it a point of difference from other art fairs: Museum Outlet, where non-profit institutions and museums will present editioned works for sale along with a solo or two-person show of emerging artists they have been working with; Videolet, which focuses on new media, ensuring that art gwangju also serves as a video art fair; Art & Company, a platform for collaborations between contemporary art and companies seeking creative corporate branding; and Double Democracy, a curated exhibition exploring a notion of cultural democracy within new markets and the roles of technologies and performance in introducing art to new audiences.

Violence, generosity, emptiness and the search for the sacred and ritualisitic at the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana

Dane Mitchell is in the lineup of artists represented in the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana. Curated by Beti Zerovc, THE EVENT will explore the rise of the art event in recent decades, along with its distinguishing attributes and its role as a producer as well as presenter of art. The exhibition will be developed around four topics: violence, generosity, emptiness and the search for the scared and ritualistic. Read more…

Connells Bay billboard project winner announced

Gavin Hipkins has been awarded the biannual photographic billboard project at the Connell's Bay Sculpture Park on Waiheke Island. He has worked with the billboard format before, notably with a nine-part work at Macraes Art and Heritage Park in East Otago.

Image: Gavin Hipkins' The Mine, Macraes Village, East Otago, NZ

Artbox project for the Christchurch arts community

Artists in the quake-ravaged city of Christchurch face many challenges, including the loss of studios, galleries and artists' quarters. However, a recent initiative by the CPIT Faculty of Creative Industries has introduced a ray of hope. The Faculty has designed and is about to construct a series of mobile art galleries and artists' studio modules that will function as moveable art precincts. Intended to be affordable, the 300 square metre spaces will be offered to artists at a weekly rental of $50.

Spokesperson for the Artbox project Martin Trusttum says the spaces interlocked and grouped will create the feeling of a gallery hub, not only proving venue and workspaces for artists but also taking the arts to all corners of the city.

Image: Cho Duck Hyun, Dark Water: The Antipodes Project, 2009, Princes Wharf, Auckland. Photographs courtesy of the artist

For want of a nail at the Tauranga Art Gallery

Glen Hayward's exhibition For Want of a Nail runs at the Tauranga Art Gallery to 6 November 2011.

Image: Installation view of Glen Hayward's For Want of a Nail (detail), all pieces acrylic paint on carved wood

Upstairs at Starkwhite

Upstairs at Starkwhite we are presenting works by represented artists, including Clinton Watkins' Force Field. Over the past 15 years Watkins has worked with combinations of sonic and visual material. With this work he translates sonic frequencies into minimal colour fields through customised audio/visual hardware.

Images: A sequence of video stills from Clinton Watkins' Force Fields, 2010

The Matter of Air at Gertrude Contemporary

Running for over a decade, the annual Octopus exhibition series at Gertrude Contemporary offers a curator “the opportunity to explore key ideas in current curatorial practice, experimenting with their methodology and opening up new possibilities for the discipline.”

The Matter of Air takes air as a starting point for broader examination of matter in its many physical, perceptual and symbolic guises. Featuring five artists from around the globe, including Dane Mitchell, the exhibition considers the transformation of artworks that traverse the threshold between the material and the immaterial.

Image: Dane Mitchell, Various Solid States, 2010-2011, installation view, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth

$20,000 dollars in cash to be sold as an artwork at auction

Later this month, Sydney-based artist Denis Beaubois' Currency, 2011 goes under the hammer at Deutscher and Hackett's August Fine Art Auction. The work consists of two sections of uncirculated Australian banknotes with a face value of AUD20,000, presented as a sculptural object for auction. Beaubois sees the auctioning of Currency as a key part of completing the work.

The material for the work (ie cash) was sourced from a New Work- Established grant from the Visual Arts and Craft section of the Australia Council for the Arts.

So how will it do on the night? Auction house director Damien Hackett believes the concept has added an intangible value to the work and that it has the potential to fetch more than its face value.

Image: Denis Beaubois' Currency, 2011

Jim Speers' New Windsor Rd screens at Starkwhite

Jim Speers' New Windsor Rd is screening upstairs at Starkwhite to 10 September 2011. You can read our exhibition release here.

Image: Jim Speers, New Windsor Rd, 2011 (still), digital film on DVD, 25 mins

Time and money at the MFA, Boston

Christian Marclay has censured the Museum of Fine Art, Boston over its plans to charge $200 per person for a VIP showing of The Clock, the work that won him the Golden Lion for best artist at the 54th Venice Biennale. In a statement he said: “It has always been my express wish that there should be no additional charge to show my work The Clock over and above any general admission price to an institution or any other venue, nor should it be used in connection with promotion, advertisement, or sponsorship of any person or business…It is my intention that the work be made equally accessible to all.” Read more…

Image: A still from Christian Marclay's The Clock, 2010

Art and money at the Guggenheim

As the winner of the 2010 Hugo Boss Prize, Hans-Peter Feldmann received an honorarium of $100,000 and the opportunity to stage a show at the Guggenheim, where he chose to pin this exact amount to the gallery walls in a grid of overlapping one-dollar bills.

The curator of the project Katherine Brinson says: “Feldmann has a history of resisting the art world's commercial structures, issuing his work in unsigned, unlimited editions and retiring from art making altogether for nearly a decade in the 80s at which point he gave away or destroyed works remaining in his possession. Banknotes, like artworks, are objects that have no inherent worth beyond what society agrees to invest them with, and in using them as a medium Feldman raises questions about notions of value in art.” Read more…

Image: installation view (detail) of Hans-Peter Feldmann's exhibition at the Guggenheim, NY which runs to 2 November 2011

Mobile utopian house stars in design show

Designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1964, the Futuro was designed for mass production as a kit of prefabricated parts that could be assembled, taken apart and reassembled anywhere. Nearly 100 Futuros were manufactured in the late 60s and 70s and are scattered all over the world. The prototype, which looks like a flying saucer in a 60s comic book, is now on display at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam in the exhibition Futuro: Constructing Utopia. Also in the exhibition are objects by other designers who shared Suuronen's desire to create the perfect form.

Images: the Futuro designed by Matti Suuronen, which has a central living space, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen.

A bridge over troubled waters

One of Venice's four bridges to cross the city's Grand Canal may be torn down and replaced by a more contemporary equivalent. Designed by Alfred Neville and constructed in iron in 1854, the original Ponte dell'Accademia has been replaced twice – the steel original exchanged for a wooden counterpart in 1933, then perfectly replicated in 1986. However, plans to replace the bridge have met with strong opposition. Echoing the sentiments of local residents and other conservation groups, Lidia Fersuoch of the Italian conservation group Italia Nostra says the splintering bridge should be restored. Others argue that a new bridge will save the city money and and cater to the needs of all visiting demographics saying elderly and disabled access to the bridge is limited.

Image: Ponte dell'Accademia, Venice

Starkwhite exhibition opening today

Jin Jiangbo's exhibition Dialogue with Nature opens this afternoon at 4.00pm.

Image: Jin Jiangbo, Vast (2011), pigment inks on paper, 1000 x 750 mm

Rachel Shearer's sound installation at the Wynyard Quarter

Located at the Wynyard Crossing, Flooded Mirror is a sound installation by Auckland-based artist Rachel Shearer that “tells an abstract sound story of the interconnections between sea, geology and humans.” Shearer has developed sounds inspired by mineral structure as a metaphor for those processes that affect land formation, geological strata, culture and communities. She says “it is like an aural map of energy flow narrating ancient general histories and specific recent histories.”

The sound operates on a six hour ten minute loop in time with the ebb and flow of the tide. Within the loop there are sections of sound that build, peak and recede delivering an ongoing undulating wave of sound.

Image: Rachel Shearer's sound installation The Flooded Mirror (2011). Photograph by Terry Urbahn

Rewriting Worlds: the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art opens on 23 September

Titled Rewriting Worlds, the 4th edition of the Moscow Biennale gets underway next month. The main exhibition features 64 individual artists and 16 groups of artists from 33 countries and is curated by Peter Weibel, with Joseh Backstein as commissioner.

“Peter Weibel is a specialist in new media,” said Backstein. “Unlike the contents and style of the main project in the third biennale, this year's exhibition will show different approaches to how media can be used in the contemporary artistic process, as well as types of art that are deliberately critical of the role of technology and media in the life of modern civilisation.” Read more…

Sounds of the Sea at Auckland's new Wynyard Quarter

The suite of artworks installed at Auckland's Wynyard Quarter includes Sounds of the Sea by Company, an art and design duo (Finland/Korea) that has been operating in various fields of art and design since 2000.

Sounds of Sea is based on the ventilation funnels and speaking tubes used on ships with the components designed for sitting, listening and speaking. The commissioners say “the sculptures act as a reminder of the history of the warterfront and its on-going role as an active shipping harbour, transforming the wharf into and old shipping deck.”

Images: Company's Sounds of Sea (2011), stainless steel & powder-coating, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland

Something old, something new at Auckland's Wynyard Quarter

Over the next few days we'll post images of the public art projects installed for the opening of Auckland's Wynyard Quarter, a 36 hectare area of reclaimed land stretching from the eastern side of the Viaduct Harbour to the Westhaven Marina.

The suite of works respond to the character of the waterfront through reflection, sound, texture and movement. Today's post features Michio Ihara's Wind Tree with its stainless steel trusses designed to swing in the wind. First installed in Queen Elizabeth Square in 1977, it was removed in 2002 to make way for the new landscape elements as part of the redevelopment of the Brittomart rail station and square upgrade. After years in storage, the work produced as a result of the Auckland International Sculpture Sypmosium in 1971 has finally found a permanent home on Auckland's waterfront.

Image: Michio Ihara's Wind Tree, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland. Photos by Terry Urbahn

Harriet Friedlander Residency takes Seung Yul Oh to NYC

Seung Yul Oh arrived in New York this week courtesy of the $80,000 Harriet Friedlander Residency. Administered for the Friedlander Family by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, the award has no strings attached to it. Recipients are free to stay in NYC for as long as the $80,000 lasts, and Oh picked the right time to go with the NZ dollar trading at a post-float high of between US$0.8000 and US$0.8600. While recipients of the award are not required to develop specific projects under the Residency, the inaugural awardee, filmmaker Florian Habicht, set the bar with his NY film Love Story which premiered in Auckland recently at the New Zealand International Film Festival.

Image: a recent (untitled) work by Seung Yul Oh

JIn Jiangbo: Dialogue with Nature opening

Jin Jiangbo's exhibition Dialogue with Nature opens on Saturday 20 August, 4.00 to 7.00pm. You can read the exhibition release here.

Image: Jin Jiangbo, Boundless (2011)

Top 10 best selling lots for 2011

As the art world awaits to see how the global market downturn will affect the art market, MutualArt looked back over the first six months of the year with a review of the top lots so far.

Top 10 best selling lots:

£26,697,250 – Francesco Guardi, Venice, a view of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon, late 1760s

£25,241,251 – Pablo Picasso, La Lecture, 1932

£24,681,250 – Egon Schiele, HAUSER MIT BUNTER WASCHE (VORSTADT II), 1914

$38,442,500 – Andy Warhol, Self Portrait in four parts, 1963-64

£23,001,250 – Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Portrait of Lucien Freud, 1964

£22,441,250 – George Stubbs, Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a trainer, a jockey and stable lad, 1765

$33,682,500 – Mark Rothko, Untitled No.17, 1961

$29,202,500 – Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The meeting of Antony and Cleopatra: 41 BC, 1883

£17,961,250 -Pablo Picasso, Femme assise, robe bleue, 1939

£17,961,250 – Francis Bacon, Study for a Portrait, 1953

Hans Ulrich Obrist's latest domestic intervention in Sao Paulo's Glass House

Hans Ulrich Obrist will curate an exhibition of 15 to 20 artists' projects in Sao Paulo's Glass House, the former home of modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi. “Lina is one of the great women architects of the 20th century and her major projects haven't been recognised enough”, he says. The project is the latest in a series of domestic interventions by Obrist. He has previously staged exhibitions in the homes of architect Luis Barragan in Mexico City, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in Sils Maria, Switzerland and poet Frederico Garcia Lorca in Granada, Spain.

$1k to $50m

50 years ago LA art dealer Irving Blum, a former furniture salesman who bought a stake in Ferus gallery, persuaded Andy Warhol to mount his first solo show there. He also had the foresight to buy Campbell's Soup Cans for $1,000. The work which eventually sold for $15 million has returned to LA MOCA for a tribute exhibition to the gallery and Blum as one of its directors who also championed Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha and Frank Stella early in their careers.

Image: Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962

Marina Abramovic to direct LA MOCA gala

Following her Manchester performance The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic with actor Willem Dafoe, singer-songwriter Antony Hegarty and director Robert Wilson, Abramovic has been named to direct LA MOCA's annual gala in November. The fundraising event has become something of an art world extravaganza. Last year Doug Aitken created an immersive, multimedia project that included a set by Devendra Banhart, and in 2009 Francesco Vezzoli created a spectacle that included Lady Gaga performing on a Damien Hirst-painted piano.

Image: From The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic

LEAP on design at the boundaries of art in China

LEAP is the international art magazine of contemporary China. Published six times a year it presents a mix of contemporary art coverage and cultural commentary. The August issue covers design at the boundaries of art, from fashion to architecture. If you want to check out the magazine you can look for its content to appear online at leapleapleap.com in the coming weeks.

Image: from LEAP's feature article on design in China

Coming up at Starkwhite

Coming up is Jin Jiangbo's Dialogue with Nature which runs from 19 August to 17 September 2011.

Image: Jin Jiangbo, Hidden (2011), pigment inks on Ilford paper

Is the art market entering another period of volatility?

On 3 August Sotheby's (BID) reported its best ever quarterly profit of $127 million with record sales of $3.4 billion for the first half of 2011. Yesterday Sotheby's shares plunged 20% showing the publicly-traded auction house wasn't exempt from the recent market drop triggered by the US debt ceiling crisis and credit downgrade. With concerns about the state of the art market on the rise, eyes will be on Sotheby's September 13 auction of classical Chinese painting.

Image: an electronic board showing stock market information in Wuhan, China

AGNSW director Edmund Capon calls it a day

The Australian reports that Edmund Capon is to retire after more than three decades as director at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Capon leaves on a high note with the recent creation of new gallery space to house the $35m John Kaldor Collection gifted to the AGNSW under his watch. Read more…

Len Lye curator Tyler Cann takes up new position at IKON gallery

Tyler Cann, the Len Lye curator at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, is moving to the Ikon gallery in Birmingham. He takes up his new curatorial position at the end of this month, but will continue to work with the GBAG as a curatorial advisor and trustee of the Len Lye Foundation.

Image: Tyler Cann with Len Lye's Wind Wand

Light as experience and symbol

Trenton Garratt's exhibition What's the Sun continues at Starkwhite this week, closing Saturday 13 August. You can read an exhibition review here.

Image:Trenton Garratt, Clearing (2011), oil on linen, 1000 x 1200 mm