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Images (top to bottom): Leigh Davis, Un Guerrier and St Joy of Compassion, flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010-2011), a sequence of ten-day hoists over 300 days, New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland, NZ
Tacita Dean, the British artist known for her work with film, has been commissioned to create the next installation for the Lobby of London's Tate Modern. She will come after Ai Weiwei who paved the Hall with 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds.
Images (top to bottom): Leigh Davis, Madonna of Gowns, Do Not Construct, Space of Mouthing, flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010-2011), a sequence of ten-day hoists over 300 days, New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland, NZ
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Bust to boom?
Christie's International has announced worldwide sales for 2010 of USD5 billion, up by 53% on the previous year. The highest sales total in the 245 year history of the firm, the figure is also the highest sales total ever recorded in the industry.
What does this mean for the art market? That it has moved from bust to boom in a sluggish global economy? Or is it a timely reminder that the day Damien Hirst abandoned the traditional method of selling art, going straight to Sothebys instead where the auction smashed top estimates to reach a record total of USD125m, was also the day Lehman's declared itself insolvent, triggering the credit crisis that left the global economy teetering on the brink of calamity and sent the art market into freefall?
Image Roy Lichtenstein's Ohhh… Alright… which sold at Christies for USD42.6 million to an anonymous buyer on the phone.
Leigh Davis Flag Poems in Time, Text & Echoes
Images (top to bottom): Leigh Davis, Un Guerrier and St Joy of Compassion, flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010-2011), a sequence of ten-day hoists over 300 days, New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland, NZ
Seung Yul Oh in residence at Choi Jeong Hwa's ggooll space
Seung Yul Oh is currently undertaking a residency in Seoul where he will produce a solo show at ggooll, an artist-run space founded and managed by artist Choi Jeong Hwa. Oh is also represented in the exhibition Top Ten: New Acquisitions of the University of Auckland at the Gus Fisher Gallery which runs to 15 March 2011.
Image: Choi Jeong Hwa's space ggooll in April 2010
Hans Ulrich Obrist on India's rising art scene
Hans Ulrich Obrist was recently in New Delhi to begin the Indian chapter of his marathon interview series. Sahar Zaman sounded him out about his views on the contemporary Indian art scene, it's growing international impact, and its place in his interview series. Read more…
Image: curator Hans Ulrich Obrist in India
Billy Apple at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris
Billy Apple continues his run of international shows at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris. He is represented in the second chapter of an exhibition dedicated to artists prefiguring the conceptual phenomenon. You can read the exhibition release here.
Image: Billy Apple, For Sale (1961), letterpress on canvas at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris
Czech culture minister backs jury's Venice selection following national gallery director's decision to exercise his right of veto
The selection process for the Czech Republic's participation in this year's Venice Biennale hit the headlines after Milan Knizak, the director of the country's National Gallery, refused to accept the decision of the selection committee to run with installation artist Dominik Lang. As director of the country's leading gallery, Knizak has the right of veto over the Biennale entry. However, the minister of culture, Jiri Besser, stepped in to overrule Knizak, declaring that the selection committee's choice would stand.
After rejecting the jury's decision, Knizak (who is also an artist and is associated with the Fluxus movement) had proposed an alternative project by three young Czech artists for the Czech pavilion. The artists, however, rejected his offer and called for Lang to be reinstated as the country's official selection.
Image: Dominik Lang's Walking Blackboard, 2006
Venice Biennale to grant space for new pavilions at the Arsenale
The Guardian reports that the Venice Biennale is in talks to offer new permanent pavilion sites to Argentina, Chile, Mexico, the UAE and Bahrain. The newcomers will set up their pavilions in the 16th century barracks building at the Arsenale, the sprawling complex of docks and warehouses adjacent to the Giardini.
The President of the Biennale, Paolo Baratta, says for a 20 year concession the newcomers could be asked to pay between €1.5m and €1.7m towards the renovation works in the buildings, which are estimated at €20m.
When Australia snapped up one of the last pavilion spaces at the Giardini, New Zealand appeared to have missed the boat. However, the move to grant new permanent space for pavilions at the Arsenale may offer a new window of opportunity.
Lorenzo Ruldolf likens his experience of Art Stage Singapore to his early days at Art Basel
The inaugural edition of Art Stage Singapore drew 32,000 visitors and favourable press and seems set to take its place alongside ART HK and ShContemporary as one of the region's leading art fairs. You can read more on Art Stage Singapore here and here.
The continued presence of Lorenzo Rudolf is likely to be a critical factor in Art Stage Singapore's attempts to grow its reputation in the years to come. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, given the fair is backed by four prominent Singaporean government agencies, including the Singapore Tourism Board and the Economic Development Board – deeming it the “flagship” effort to turn the city-state into a contemporary arts hub – it's likely that Rudolf has been offered strong incentives to stick around.
Image: Lorenzo Rudolf at Art Stage Singapore, 2011
VIP Art Fair opens today
The VIP Art Fair opened today at 8.00 a.m. EST and closes on 30 January at 7.59 a.m. EST. You can browse the fair for free, but to access the interactive capabilities visitors must have a VIP ticket which on 22 & 23 January costs $100 and thereafter $20. You can register here to browse or purchase a VIP ticket.
Limited edition prints by contemporary recording artists in ART/MUSIC/ALCHEMY
Our current exhibition ART/MUSIC/ALCHEMY includes limited edition prints by contemporary recording artists represented in the show – Devendra Banhart, Tomory Dodge {Capacitor}, Julian Gross {Liars}, Harrison Haynes {Les Savy Fav}, Raffi Kalenderian {Wounded Lion}, David Lovering {The Pixies}, Pat Mahoney {LCD Soundsystem}, Tim Presley {Darker My Love}, Sarah Rara & Luke Fischbeck {Lucky Dragons}, Rob Reynolds {Dungbeetle} and Nancy Whang {LCD Soundsystem}.
You can purchase prints online here.
Image: Devendra Banhart poster (2010), archival inkjet on paper, edition of 25 plus 5 ap; website design by inhouse
On the rise of right-wing populism and what it means for contemporary art
Issue #22 of e-flux journal takes as its topic the rise of right-wing populism in the US and Europe and what it means for contemporary art. Titled Idiot Wind, the issue begins with an introduction by guest editors Paul Chan and Sven Lutticken.
“The global financial crisis that began in 2008 continues to impoverish countries by exposing them to punishing economic forces that seem neither controllable nor accountable to the sociality from which they spring. And like clockwork, right-wing populist movements in the US and Europe step onto the social stage to reassert the will of 'The People' in these great times.” Read more…
Clough defends removal of A Fire in My Belly
Wayne Clough has defended his decision to remove A Fire in My Belly from Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, a major show on sexual identity in portraits at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. Speaking for the Smithsonian, he said: “We are not here to cause controversy. We are here help people understand these issues that are important to our growth as a society.”
Clough has decided to hold a public forum in April to discuss all the issues that have been raised. “I know we have to continue a dialogue,” he sad. “Some of the issues to be discussed are the difference between publicly funded and private museums, their approaches to exhibitions and the role of the Smithsonian as a national leader.”
Image: National Portrait Gallery
MoMA acquires controversial Wojnarowicz video
The Museum of Modern Art has acquired the David Wojnarowicz video that was removed from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington after the Smithsonian's top executive G. Wayne Clough bowed to pressure from the New York-based Catholic League and congressional Republicans who objected to the work because it was “anti-Christian”.
Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992, made A Fire in My Belly in the late 1980s in response to the AIDS crisis. It was included in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (a Smithsonian museum) examining gay themes in American portraiture.
Last week artist AA Bronson joined the fray asking for his piece to be removed from the show in protest. His lawyer has sent a letter to Clough and the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Martin E. Sullivan, threatening legal action if the museum does not comply.
Meanwhile A Fire in My Belly is being shown at MoMA in a collection show that runs to 9 May 2011 and it will feature in an event at the Tate Modern on 22 January to reconsider Wojnarowicz's work in the light of efforts to distort its intentions and legacy.
Image: David Wojnarowicz, A Fire in My Belly (1987), video still
Fourth Plinth commissions announced
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has announced the 2012/2013 Fourth Plinth winners. Powerless Structures, Fig.101 by Elmgreen & Dragset has been commissioned for 2012 to be followed by Katharina Fritsch's Hahn / Cock in 2013.
Images: Powerless structures, Fig. 101 by Elmgreen & Dragset and Hahn / Cock by Katharina Fritsch
ART/MUSIC/ALCHEMY curated by Whitney Bedford
Curated by Whitney Bedford, ART/MUSIC/ALCHEMY runs at Starkwhite from 21 January to 20 February 2011. You can read our exhibition release here.
Image: Tomory Dodge, Beaucoup Fantastic (2009), watercolor on paper, 16 x 12 inches, courtesy of the artist and ACME, Los Angeles, California
From here to there draws to an end
We are having an end-of-show function for Whitney Bedford on Wednesday 19 January from 5.30pm, Please join us at Starkwhite if you would like to meet the artist and catch From here to there before it closes.
Image: Whitney Bedford, Untitled shipwreck (rocked), 2010, ink and oil on panel
Stella Brennan project goes online at SCREENS
Stella Brennan's first online work has been launched on SCREENS. Instant Pictures is a series of networked pages taking the viewer into their tiniest details, gateways and to the next enveloping image-scape lodged amongst the hairs, scratches and dust particles.
Founded and curated by Luke Munn and Jeff Nusz, SCREENS is series of commissioned online works by artists seeking to redefine the artgame/interactive field with pieces that create new relationships, deal with untouched themes, and utilise on and offline media.
Image; Stella Brennan, Instant Pictures (still), 2011, SCREENS
Leigh Davis Flag Poems in Time, Text & Echoes
Images (top to bottom): Leigh Davis, GMI and Last Waves, flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010-2011), a sequence of ten-day hoists over 300 days, New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland, NZ
Upstairs at Starkwhite
Image: Gavin Hipkins, New Age (Falls), 2009, archival pigment print, 80 x 80 cm
A sign of things to come for Auckland's public art programme
Situated at Gustav Adolfs torg in Helingsborg, Sammasrala/Shine Together is a new work by by David Svensson. The artist has collected nine lampposts from different eras and parts of the world and relocated them around an existing post the Helingsborg Square. Svensson is one of the international artists commissioned to make a new public sculpture for Auckland city under its Public Art Programme.
Image: David Svensson, Sammasrala/Shine Together (2010), installation view, Gustav Adolfs torg in Helingsborg, Sweden
Billy Apple's corner post
Recently we posted images of Billy Apple's Waipero Swamp Walk, which opened to the public in December 2010. The images above are of The Corner Post, a related component of the work at a nearby corner site. You can read a review of the work here.
Image: Billy Apple's The Corner Post (2010), commissioned under Auckland City's Public Art Programme
VIEWING IN PRIVATE Art Fair
This link takes you to a video update on VIEWING IN PRIVATE (VIP) the new international art fair being conducted exclusively online.
The design of VIP allows art collectors to view artwork online in relation to other works and in relative scale to the human figure. Visitors can zoom in to examine details of a painting's surface, get multiple views of a three -dimensional work, and watch videos of a multi-media piece. Another feature is the interactivity between dealer and collector. Each dealer has the ability to hold conversations with collectors via instant messaging and Skype. Dealers can also provide access to their back room inventory, sharing works in real time with clients in specially created private rooms on the client's computer screen.
The fair opens on Saturday 22 January 2011 at 8.00 a.m. EST and closes on Sunday 30 January at 7.59 a.m. EST. Browsing the Fair is free of charge but visitors must have a VIP ticket to access interactive capabilities.
Jae Hoon Lee's Annapurna at the Christchurch Art Gallery
Commissioned by the Christchurch City Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu for its Springboard series, Jae Hoon Lee's digitally collaged image, Annapurna, is the latest installation in the Gallery's Outer Space programme.
Image: Jae Hoon Lee, Annapurna (2010), installation view, Christchurch Art Gallery, Annapurna image courtesy of the artist. The work to the left of Jae Hoon Lee's billboard is Jim Speers' DIDN'T GET TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT, commissioned by the Gallery in 2004
Whitney Bedford: From here to there continues at Starkwhite
Our current exhibition, Whitney Bedford: From here to there, runs to 19 January 2011. You can read our exhibition release here.
Image: Whitney Bedford, Untitled shipwreck (the not/knot), 2010, ink and oil on panel 22″ x 26″
Image: Whitney Bedford, Untitled shipwreck (the not/knot), 2010, ink and oil on panel 22″ x 26″
Starkwhite summer hours
Starkwhite is closed over the Christmas/New Year period, reopening Tuesday 6 January 2011. Our summer hours are Tuesday – Friday 11am to 5pm, Saturdays 11am to 3pm. And we'll take a break from the blog for a week and resume our posts on 3 January 2011.
Conceptual artist commissioned to create Tate Britain Christmas Tree
This year conceptual artist Giorgio Sadotti has been commissioned to create the Tate Britain Christmas Tree.
For Flower Ssnake, Sadotti has chosen to display a Norwegian Spruce in the gallery's neoclassical Rotunda, but has resisted the tradition of decorating it. At the bottom of the tree rests a coiled bullwhip to be used in a performance on the twelfth night when the spell of Christmas will be dramatically driven out of the tree with the whip.
Sadotti said: “For me the challenge was to present a tree that was naturally effortless. A tree that managed to maintain its dignity and timeless grace. A tree that remained sublime. A tree that was familiar but strange, like all trees but no other. A tree that had the potential to become another. A tree that talked. A tree as art.”
Image: Giorgio Sadotti, Flower Ssnake (2010), Tate Britain Christmas Tree for 2010. Image from the Tate Britain website
Publishing the unpublishable
As a prelude to the 2012 exhibition, dOCUMENTA (13) and Hatje Cantz are publishing a series of notebooks, 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts, comprised of facsimiles of existing notebooks, commissioned essays, collaborations and conversations.
“A note is a trace, a work, a drawing that all of a sudden becomes part of thinking, and is transformed into an idea. This publication follows that path, presenting the mind in a prologue state, in a pre-public arena. A space for intimacy and not yet of criticism, dOCUMENTA (13) is publishing the unpublishable, the voice–and the reader is our alibai and ally. Note taking encompasses witnessing, drawing, writing, and diagrammatic thinking; it is speculative, manifests a preliminary moment, a passage, and acts as a memory aid.” dOCMENTA (13) media release
You can read more about 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts here.
Starkwhite in the lineup for ART HK 2011
We are pleased to announce that we will be returning to ART HK in 2011 (we were at the 2009 and 2010 editions of the fair). While we will continue to work with art fairs in Europe and the USA – over the past two years we've participated in Art Basel's Art Statements and Art Unlimited, The Armory Show, Art Cologne and Art Los Angeles Contemporary – we are also committed to working with the art fairs that are emerging in the Asia/Pacific region such as ART HK.
The lineup of galleries for ART HK 2011 includes: 1301PE, ARNDT, Beijing Commune, Bernier/Eliades Gallery, Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Blum & Poe, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, James Cohan Gallery, Sadie Coles HQ, CONTEMPORARY FINE ARTS, Gagosian Gallery, Gladstone Gallery, Lisson Gallery, Long March Space, Marian Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Sean Kelly Gallery, Kukje Gallery, Yvon Lambert, Kate MacGarry, Galerie Urs Meile, Victoria Miro Gallery, The Modern Institute, NANZUKA UNDERGROUND, ONE AND J Gallery, Pace Beijing, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Sperone Westwater, Spruth Magers Berlin London, Vilma Gold Gallery, Vitamin Space, White Cube and David Zwirner.
ART HK is clearly on the rise. The third edition of Art HK in 2010 attracted 47,000 visitors (up from 30,000 the previous year) compared to 60,000 for Art Basel and The Armory Show and is expected to increase in 2011. The international visitor mix was reflected in the fair's VIP list, which included influential collectors from Australia, China, France, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan and the USA, along with art museum directors and curators such as:
Richard Armstrong, Director, Guggenheim Museum
Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg, Director, Los Angeles County Museum
Joseph Thompson, Director, MASS MoCA
Olga Viso, Director, Walker Art Center
Elizabeth Ann MacGregor, Director, MCA Sydney
Jock Reynolds, Director, Yale Art Gallery
Nigel Hurst, Director of the Saatchi Gallery, London
Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator, Guggenheim Museum
Maxwell Hearn, Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Shinji Kohmoto, Chief Curator, National Museum of Art, Kyoto
Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Yuike Kamiya, Chief Curator, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
Barbara London, Associate Curator Museum of Modern Art
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of Exhibitions, Serpentine Gallery
Annette Schonholzer and Marc Spiegler, Co-directors, Art Basel
Image: Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre, venue for ART HK
A play for philanthropy in uncertain times
The Cultural Philanthropy Taskforce set up by Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Chris Finlayson, has responded to his brief to explore whether there are new opportunities to encourage private investment in the arts in New Zealand over the next five to ten years.
The Taskforce's recommendations to the Minister are to:
- develop a fundraising capability initiative to mentor and advise cultural organisations on a one-to-one basis
- promote knowledge and awareness of recently introduced tax incentives
- introduce Gift Aid to boost private giving
- explore the workability of a cultural gifting scheme
- recognise the value and generosity of philanthropists
- reward with matched government funding cultural organisations that succeed in increasing their levels of income derived from private giving
This link takes you to Growing the Pie: increasing the level of cultural philanthropy in Aotearoa New Zealand. It's a broad-brush report highlighting the need for further research and development, focusing on the development of philanthropy rather than on specific proposals aimed at encouraging forms of arts patronage that might, for instance, benefit practicing artists.
Meanwhile in the UK where austerity measures are impacting on arts funding, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced an 80 million pound matching fund to boost cultural philanthropy, saying the rich in Britain gave six times less to the arts than their US equivalents – cultural giving per capita is 37 pounds per month in the US compared to 6 pounds in the UK.
Back in New Zealand it's harder to predict whether new money from the private sector will be sought to “grow the pie” or shore up arts funding as the government looks for ways to achieve savings to reduce debt. The Minister has said his intention is not to replace government funding but to grow the cultural philanthropy pie. However, a recent Creative New Zealand announcement regarding arts organisations that have been confirmed into the new Arts Leadership Investment programme has fueled speculation on the future of arts funding. Only two visual arts organisations – the Physics Room in Christchurch and Objectspace in Auckland – made the cut.
Surprisingly, Auckland's Artspace has been asked to submit further programme and budget information to help assess their fit with the new Arts Leadership Investment programme. What does this mean? That Artspace has to jump through a few more hoops to be confirmed under a new programme that ensures long term funding? Or is it a sign that no art institution, not even one with a track record like Artspace, can take public funding for granted in a post-recession economy?
Image: Billy Apple, PAID – THE ARTIST HAS TO LIVE LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, Auckland Regional Council (2003), invoice mounted on lithograph on paper
Dane Mitchell amongst the artists selected for the 2011 Singapore Biennale
Titled Open House, the third edition of the Singapore Biennale will feature over 150 works by 63 artists from 30 countries. Over half the artists are creating new commissions or premiering new works. They include Dane Mitchell who is currently in New Plymouth under the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's artist-in-residence programme.
Led by artist Matthew Ngui and curators Russell Storer and Trevor Smith, Open House will be presented across four exhibition venues, each with their own particular character, that draw upon emblematic spaces in Singapore: Housing Development Board flats (Singapore Art Museum and 8Q), shopping centres and night markets (National Museum of Singapore) and international air and sea ports (Old Kallang Airport).
You can read more about the exhibition and lineup of artists at the Singapore Biennale website.
Open House runs from 13 March – 15 May 2011.
Tate Modern says Wojnarowicz's work remains a crucial, inspiring response to the mortality, decay and rage that defined his era
While artists, foundations and activists continue to protest the Smithsonian's decision to pull David Wojnarowicz's video from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, many museums, including the Tate Modern, are lining up to show the disputed video.
The Tate Modern will present a selection of films and readings to reconsider David Wojnarowicz's powerful work in the light of recent efforts to distort its intentions and legacy. The programme will include A Fire in My Belly plus Wojnarowicz's collaboration with Ben Neill, ITSOFOMO (in the shadow of forward motion). Other material will be screened along with readings of the artist's writings by local artists and writers.
This link takes you to the Tate's release on the Wojnarowicz event scheduled for 22 January 2011.
Image: David Wojnarowicz, A Fire in My Belly (1987), video still
Seung Yul Oh's PokPo at Artspace
Seung Yul Oh's PokPo is currently showing at Auckland's Artspace and runs to 19 February 2011.
Images: from Seung Yul Oh's PokPo exhibition at Artspace, Auckland, NZ. Photographs by Sam Harnett
Tacita Dean to follow Ai Weiwei as Tate Modern's Turbine Hall artist
Tacita Dean, the British artist known for her work with film, has been commissioned to create the next installation for the Lobby of London's Tate Modern. She will come after Ai Weiwei who paved the Hall with 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds.
“We've never really had anyone who has approached the Turbine Hall from the point of view of filmmaking, and the role and importance of the camera in articulating and animating space,” said Tate Modern Chief Curator Sheena Wagstaff in an interview at press launch.
Images: Tacita Dean, Kodak (2006), film still and Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds (2010)
First recipient of Victor Pinchuk's Future Generation Art Prize announced
Cinthia Marcelle, a Brazilian artist who makes films, photographs and installations, is the winner of the first Future Generation Art Prize from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation. She receives USD$60,000 in cash and USD40,000 to be invested in the production of new work.
Marcelle was seleted by a jury consisting of Daniel Birnbaum, Okwui Enwezor, Yuko Hasegawa, Ivo Mesquita, Eckhard Schneider, Robert Storr and Ai Weiwei.
You can see her work here.
Image: Cinthia Marcelle, O Conversador (The Speaker), 2005, photograph, 50 x 70cm
Andy Warhol Foundation steps into art censorship debate
The Andy Warhol Foundation has threatened to to end Smithsonian funding unless the David Wojnarowicz video A Fire in My Belly is restored to the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, but the Smithsonian is refusing to budge.
Image: Protestors hold mask in support of artist David Wojnarowicz on the steps of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
Whitney Bedford: From here to there
Whitney Bedford: From here to there runs at Starkwhite to 24 December 2010 and from 4 – 19 January 2011. During the Christmas/New Year period (27 December – 3 January) the gallery will be open by appointment.
This link takes you to our exhibition release.
Image: Whitney Bedford, Untitled shipwreck (touched), 2010, ink and oil on panel, 15″ x 18″
Seung Yul Oh awarded the Harriet Friedlander Residency in New York
Seung Yul Oh has been awarded the 2011 Harriet Friedlander Residency. The Friedlander award sends an artist to New York, with no strings attached, for as long as $80,000 will last them.
Sacrilege and the sacred
The New York-based Catholic League, a self-described civil rights organisation at the forefront of the fight to remove David Wojnarowicz's video A Fire in My Belly from the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, has changed tactics this week. Originally objecting to the video that League president William Donohue described as “anti-Christian”, the organisation now says that museums should have all federal funding pulled because “they cater to the affluent and well educated rather than to the working class”.
The controversy surrounding Wojnarowicz's video echoes the furore that erupted in New Zealand in 1998 when Te Papa Tongarewa the Museum of New Zealand presented Tania Kovats' Virgin in a Condom in the Pictura Britannica exhibition. New Zealand's Catholic community was outraged by the small statuette of the Virgin Mary sheathed in a condom. This followed the 1997 closure of the Andres Serrano exhibition at Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria after a second attack on the artist's controversial work Piss Christ, death threats to staff and an alleged concern for a Rembrandt exhibition that was on at the time.
The Catholic League's latest move (going after the museum project) also echoes the tactics of Catholics and evangelical Christians in New Zealand who questioned the national museum's double standards, pointing out that Te Papa (Maori for Our Place) had engaged in a lengthy process of consultation with Iwi aimed at developing a bicultural museum, but was unwilling to do the same for other communities of interest. They said the museum took great care to observe Maori spiritual values but ran roughshod over Christian values.
Te Papa officials dug in, refusing to budge in the face of daily protests outside the museum and a 33 thousand-signature petition demanding the removal of Virgin in a Condom. But while the art world supported the museum's refusal to bow to pressure, many also felt that by its unwillingness to enter into an open debate Te Papa lost an early opportunity to foreground the museum's role as a forum – a place where ideas could be presented, tested and contested.
The trans-Tasman responses in the late 90s (closing an exhibition in Melbourne v. an unproductive stand-off in Wellington) were less than ideal so it'll be interesting to see how the current controversy generated by Wojnarowicz's searing meditation on aspects of the AIDS pandemic plays out in the States.
This link takes you to a Backchat panel discussion screened by TVNZ in 1998 on Virgin in a Condom, the sacred and the profane, and art museums and controversy.
Images from the top: David Wojnarowicz, A Fire in My Belly (1987), video still; Tania Kovats, Virgin in a Condom (1992); Andres Serrano, Piss Christ (1989)
Leigh Davis Flag Poems in Time, Text & Echoes
Images (top to bottom): Leigh Davis, Madonna of Gowns, Do Not Construct, Space of Mouthing, flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010-2011), a sequence of ten-day hoists over 300 days, New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland, NZ