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A biennial for artists living outside the mainstream art world
People's Biennial is a project conceived by artist Harrell Fletcher and exhibition-maker Jens Hansen. Organised by Independent Curators International (ICI), People's Biennial is an exhibition that examines the work of artists who operate outside the mainstream art world in the United States. It also proposes an alternative to the the standard contemporary art biennial, which the curators say mostly focuses on art from a few select cities (New York, Los Angeles, occasionally Chicago, Miami or San Francisco). This link takes you to the ICI website and further information on the event.
An outpost for photography
In his latest entry on Outpost curator Ron Brownson says: “I was wondering do many people know the difference between sheet fed gravure printing and platinum printing nowadays?” It's an unusual opening gambit for a gallery blog post, but not an unexpected one for followers of his writing.
Outpost began as a blog for the personal thoughts, opinions and activities of the Auckland Art Gallery staff, but Brownson is using it to publish a lot of writing on photography. Outpost also allows him to present images and writing to a readership while the Auckland Art Gallery's main building is closed for renovations.
It's a smart move. Brownson is developing an online research and publishing project with the potential to inform and enrich the exhibition programme of the Auckland Art Gallery when it re-opens in 2011. In the meantime, Outpost is well worth a visit if you are interested in the history of photography, viewed through a curatorial lens and packaged for a blog.
Image: Auckland Art Gallery renovations, 2010
A virtual museum dedicated to digital media
The Adobe Museum of Digital Media (AMDM) is a virtual space designed to showcase and preserve groundbreaking digital work and to present expert commentary on how digital media influences culture and society. This link takes you to the AMDM site and further information on the new museum project and opening exhibit by Tony Oursler.
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The Danish Pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai is a class act. Bypassing propagandistic advertising, the Danes have combined art and architecture with an icon (Copenhagen's Little Mermaid) creating a spiral shape for visitors to explore while taking in photographs, films and Jeppe Hein's social bench and fountain. As well as animating the architectural space Hein's intervention functions as a barrier between the pedestrians and cyclists who use the cycling lanes that take them from the ground through two curves and up to a level of 12 metres and down again.
Images: from the Bjarke Ingels Group website, Danish Pavilion architects
ShContemporary 2010: a market for ideas
The following links take you to reviews of ShContemporary 2010, the art fair that styled itself as a market for ideas as well as an Asian outpost of the art market: ShContemporary opens with wary dealers and an academic cast and Shanghai's 'messiest' art show is back.
Image: Choi Jeong-Hwa's towering balloon installation at ShContemporary 2010
China's Great Firewall
We were unable to post from Shanghai because we couldn't jump the Great Firewall of China that allows Beijing's internet police to block access to blogs. However, we resume our daily posts today.
Leigh Davis flag poems at JAR
Image: Leigh Davis, Mouthing of Space, flag poem presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010 – 2011), New North Road, Kingsland, NZ.
Radio Berkman: a brief history of noise
Noise is distracting and irritating enough in the real world, but Kate Crawford, Associate Professor in Media Research at the University of New South Wales, says it also exists in the virtual world, and is often more insidious. Digital distractions disguise themselves as useful information – posts from friends on Twitter and Facebook, text messages, email and instant messaging. She says separating the noise from the signal is often an arduous and personalised task. And as a new generation of youngsters grows up with mobile phones and uninterrupted network connectivity, researchers fret about a possible information overload and its effects on attention span. Last month Kate Crawford spoke with David Weinberger on Radio Berkman about the history of noise and how noise lives in the digital world.
Glen Hayward picks up the Kaipara Foundation Wallace Arts Trust Award
The winners of this years Wallace Arts Trust Awards have been announced this week. Glen Hayward has been awarded the Kaipara Foundation Wallace Arts Trust Award, receiving a three-month residency at Altes Spital in Solothurn, Switzerland.
Image: Glen Hayward, Closed Circuit, 2010, acrylic on carved wood
NICE WORK: installation views (Part 1)
Our exhibition Nice Work continues this week and is scheduled to end on Wednesday 22 September 2010.
Images (from the top): Whitney Bedford's Weather; Billy Apple's String Piece; Trenton Garratt's Model Conversations: The Last Days of a Famous Mime (with Grace Jung); John Reynold's Untitled [De Chirico, Pacific Ocean] with Seung Yul Oh's Globglob; Jim Speers' Recording Angel with Glen Hayward's Closed Circuit.
NICE WORK: installation views (Part 2)
Images (from the top): Hye Rim Lee's Bunny Luv, pink with Seung Yul Oh's Globglob; Seung Yul Oh again and Jim Speers' Recording Angel; Jae Hoon Lee's Hajodae with Billy Apple's String Piece; Whitney Bedford's Weather with Trenton Garratt's Model Conversations: The Last Days of a Famous Mime (with Grace Jung) and Seung Yul Oh's Globglob sculptures
Posts from China
While we aim to continue our daily posts, they may be intermittent this week as we are in Shanghai.
Jim Speers at Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts
Jim Speers' exhibition Numerology and Territories opened yesterday at the Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts and runs to 5 December 2010. You can read about the show here.
Image: Jim Speers, Egyptian Rims (2010) digital print on photographic paper
Dane Mitchell at the Busan Biennale
The 2010 Busan Biennale Living in Evolution opens tonight and runs to 20 November. The biennale includes a new work by Dane Mitchell commissioned by artistic director Azumaya Takashi. We'll post installation views of Mitchell's work next week.
Image: Busan Museum of Art, one of the venues for the 2010 Busan Biennale
Peter Stichbury opens at Tracy Williams Ltd, NY
Peter Stichbury's exhibition The Proteus Effect opens tomorrow night at Tracy Williams Ltd New York and runs to 30 October 2010. The exhibition features five paintings and a suite of prints reflecting the metamorphosis that occurs through digital self-representation via the use of avatars and invented personas. This link takes you to the exhibition press release.
Image: Peter Stichbury, Bernard M (2010), acrylic on linen, 19.7 x 23.6 inches (500 x 600 mm), courtesy Tracy Williams Ltd, New York
John Reynolds' Untitled [De Chirico, Pacific Ocean]
John Reynolds' Untitled [De Chirico, Pacific Ocean] is currently showing downstairs in the exhibition Nice Work, which runs to 22 September 2010.
Image: John Reynolds, Untitled [De Chirico, Pacific Ocean] (1989/2010), oil/wax crayon on acrylic on canvas, 1680 x 1680 mm
ShContemporary launched this week with a curated exhibition and Hou Hanru conference
ShContemporary, the Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair, takes place this week from 9 – 12 September 2010.
This year's edition includes Discoveries: Re-Value a thematic exhibition that highlights the confrontation between different ideas of artistic and commercial value. Curators Mami Kataoka, Manray Hsu and Colin Chinnery, have selected work by artists whose practices evoke different notions of value: value of the ordinary and the extraordinary, innovation against traditional values, as well as the value of physical objects versus the ephemeral, technique and craftsmanship, or conceptual value associated with political, sociological conditions and backgrounds. It's an exhibition that asks questions about the way we see and consume art.
The fair also includes a conference co-organised with Hou Hanru on the theme Collecting Asian Art: What, When and How? The Chinese-born curator and critic currently based at the San Francisco Art Institute believes that ShContemporary is a seemingly contradictory but effective context for this kind of debate. Somehow, he says, the pragmatic coexistence and interaction between the intellectual and commercial worlds can produce unexpectedly productive and interesting solutions. This link takes you to the conference programme and lineup of speakers.
Image: Shanghai Exhibition Centre, venue for ShContemporary 2010
Billy Apple's String Piece
Billy Apple's String Piece is currently showing downstairs in the exhibition Nice Work, which runs to 22 September 2010.
Image: Billy Apple, String Piece (2010), builders string, cotton strips, starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz
Catching the eye of international curators
New Zealand has featured in previous editions of the Sao Paulo Bienal – Joe Sheehan in the 28th, Andrew McLeod and Brendan Wilkinson in the 27th, Remember New Zealand curated by Tobias Berger for the 26th, Gavin Hipkins in the 25th and Peter Robinson in the 23rd. No artists, however, have made it into the lineup for the 29th Bienal titled There is always a cup of sea to sail in. Perhaps it's because we aren't doing enough these days to get the curators of international exhibitions and events to our corner of the world?
For instance, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the Artistic Director of Documenta 13, was in Australia recently looking at artists for her 2012 exhibition, but didn't make it across the Tasman. Christov-Bakargiev was in New Zealand four years ago to judge the Walters Prize and made time for presentations by a number of Auckland-based artists while she was here. It's a pity we weren't able to capitalise on the connection by flying her over. However, no-one knew of her plans until she turned up in Sydney, which raises questions about the international visitor programmes operating around the country – some funded by Creative New Zealand. Is anyone thinking about representation in international events like the Sao Paulo Bienal and Documenta and how we catch the eye of the curators and exhibition makers early enough for our artists to be considered for inclusion?
Image: Pavilhao Ciccillo Matarazzo, venue for the 29th Sao Paulo Bienal
From Gambia Castle to GAK
One of the founding artists of Auckland's Gambia Castle, Kate Newby, is having her first solo show in Europe. Her exhibition Crawl Out Your Window is showing at Bremen's GAK Gesellschaft fur Aktuelle Kunst to 7 November 2010. This link takes you to a review of the show.
Image: Kate Newby, Crawl out your window (2010), installation detail, GAK Gesellschaft fur Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, photograph from the GAK website
Hye Rim Lee's Bunny Luv
Hye Rim Lee's Bunny Luv, pink is currently showing downstairs in the exhibition Nice Work, which runs to 22 September 2010.
Image: Hye Rim Lee, Bunny Luv, pink (2010), C Print, 1200 x 1200 mm, edition of 5, starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz
Jae Hoon Lee's Farm
Over the next two weeks we'll show images of works in Nice Work, an exhibition and series of presentations for new collectors and art collectives. The group show includes new work by artists along with earlier works such as Jae Hoon Lee's Farm. Please contact us at starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz if you would like to know more about works in the show or the programme.
Image: Jae Hoon Lee, Farm (2007), digitally collaged photograph, 1060 x 1190 mm, edition of 8
A new broom sweeps through Creative New Zealand
In the 1980s the Labour government led by David Lange strayed from its social-democrat roots, adopting free market classical liberalism and setting in train a rapid programme of deregulation and public asset sales. The approach dubbed Rogernomics after Minister of Finance Roger Douglas was viewed as the antipodean version of Thatcherism and Reaganomics.
The high priests of the prevailing free market philosophy also insisted on a clear separation between policy and service/funding delivery and eventually they got around to bringing the arts into line, notably with the restructuring of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand, which became Creative New Zealand with a council responsible for policy and three boards established to oversee the distribution of funds and services.
However, new developments are afoot. A bill which will streamline the governance of Creative New Zealand has passed its first reading in Parliament. The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill addresses the overly complex structure of Creative New Zealand, creating a 13-member Arts Council responsible for policy, strategy and funding allocations, replacing the more unwieldy division of responsibilities between the existing Arts Council, Arts Board, Te Waka Toi and the Pacific Arts Committee which are governed by 28 members.
The new streamlined structure will be welcomed by most in the art world, particularly if the efficiencies arts minister Christopher Finlayson is aiming for reduce operating costs and free up staff to focus on artists, arts organisations and arts development. But while restructuring is a good start, let's hope the minister remembers that the performance of the new organisation will ultimately depend on the people he appoints to govern it.
Image: Old Public Trust Building (Wellington) which houses Creative New Zealand
Leigh Davis flag poems at JAR
The images above are of Leigh Davis flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes, a 300-day project of 30 poem flags presented one at a time in a sequence of ten-day hoists. The exhibition runs to March 2011.
Images: Leigh Davis flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010 – 2011), New North Road, Kingsland, NZ. From the top: Hau (red), Macoute, Temptation of the World, all works dyed polyester knit appliqued onto dyed woven bunting, with canvas head, sisal halyard and brass clips, 1.5 x 3.5 m
Coming up at Starkwhite
From Wednesday 1 September 2010 we are running a programme of presentations for new collectors and art collectives in conjunction with the exhibition Nice Work. Please contact us at starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz if you would like to know more about the programme.
Image: Whitney Bedford, Weather (2010), ink on canvas, 7' x 10'
Upstairs at Starkwhite
Image: Jim Speers, Untitled (2009), digital/screen print, 800 x 1200 mm edition of 3
Ground Zero: last day
Jae Hoon's exhibition Ground Zero closes today at 4.00 pm.
Image: Jae Hoon Lee, Spacetree 2 (2010), digitally collaged photograph, 1200 x 1200, edition of 8
JAR presents a 300-day exhibition of Leigh Davis flag poems
Jar is a small not-for-profit trust for promoting strong, singular work for public consumption. The first Jar space is 589 New North Road, Kingsland, NZ where projects have been staged by Auckland-based artists Stephen Bambury and Peter Robinson.
Jar is currently presenting a sequence of thirty exhibitions, entitled Time, Text & Echoes, each devoted to a single Leigh Davis flag poem. All but the last of the flags to be shown at Jar were previously exhibited as single installations under the title Station of Earth-Bound Ghosts in the Auckland Railway Station (1998) and the Gisborne Army Hall (1999). Both were contextualised in Te Tangi a te Matuhi, Jackbooks 1999, edited by Davis and Wystan Curnow.
You can read more about the current Jar exhibition here.
Image: Jar, New North Road, Kingsland, NZ
Alicia Frankovich takes up Kunstlerhaus Bethanien Residency in Berlin
Alicia Frankovich has taken up a 12-month residency at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin as her exhibition Effigies draws to an end at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (it closes on 19 September 2010). You can read a review of Effigies here.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Rapture (2010), neon, cord, plugs, t-shirt and string
Going virtual: are traditional art fairs history?
VIP Art Fair, the first fair to mobilise the collective force of many of the world's leading galleries with the unlimited reach of the the Internet, will take place exclusively online in January 2011 at www.vipartfair.com. VIP Founding galleries include Sadie Coles, Xavier Hufkens, Gagosian, David Zwirner, Hauser & Worth, Anna Schwartz and White Cube.
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.
Yin Xiuzhen's Black Hole on New Plymouth's foreshore
Yin Xiuzhen's Black Hole has been installed alongside New Plymouth's waterfront walkway as an extension to the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery's current exhibition China in Four Seasons: Song Dong + Yin Xiuzhen, which runs to 12 September 2010.
Known for her interest in forms of globalisation (and its movements) the artist has converted a worn shipping container – heavily relied upon in the port town of New Plymouth as a mode of transport – into a round signature-cut diamond and positioned the sculpture in the local environment, adjacent to Len Lye's Wind Wand. Emanating light from within, the work is conceptually grounded in ideas about light, purity, progress, trade and desire.
Image: Yin Xiuzhen, Black Hole (2010), installed at New Plymouth's waterfront walkway with Len Lye's Wind Wand in the background
Six new ideas for the Fourth Plinth commission
Over the past four years the 'empty' fourth plinth in the Northwest corner of Trafalgar Square has featured works by Marc Quinn, Thomas Schutte, Anthony Gormley and the current commission Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Shop in a Bottle. You can see six new ideas for the next Fourth Plinth commission here.
Image: Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/Cock, shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth commission, Trafalgar Square, London
Ground Zero: final week
Jae Hoon Lee's exhibition Ground Zero runs for one more week, closing on Saturday 28 August 2010. This link takes you to an eyeCONTACT review of the show.
Image: Jae Hoon Lee, Hajodae (2010) digitally collaged photograph, 1500 x 2000 mm, edition of 8
Upstairs at Starkwhite
Images: Martin Basher, THE EASE AND COMFORT OF WEIGHTLOSS IN YR HOME (2009), used light box, shoes, jump-rope
Blockbuster paves the way for Turrell's new skyspace installation
Love them or hate them, blockbusters continue to be staged by art museums under pressure to deliver huge audiences, publicity and revenues for their stakeholders as well as museums in the blockbuster delivery game, like the Guggenheim which as Time magazine once put it has already taken the notion of global franchises further than any other American palace of culture.
The press around blockbusters always reflects the numbers game with reports of record-breaking attendances, giving audiences a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity to see masterpieces and so on, as was the case with the Australian National Gallery's April 2010 release headed Au revoir to 'Masterpieces from Paris' the most successful exhibition in Australian history.
More recently though ANG director Ron Radford put a novel spin on the numbers saying James Turrell's skyspace installation Within without was partly funded by profits from the Masterpieces from Paris exhibition adding “it's been paid for by the people of Australia that came to visit that show, the half million people, so in a sense this is a reward for them and the people of Australia”.
Images: James Turrell, Within without (2010), lighting installation, concrete and basalt stupa, water, earth, landscaping. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA unveils James Turrell installation
The National Gallery of Australia has unveiled Within without, a monumental 'Skyspace' installation by James Turrell who is best known for his ambitious work-in-progress the Rodin Crater, a naked-eye observatory located in a dormant volcano in the Painted Desert of northern Arizona. The only work of its kind in Australia, the partly subterranean installation creates an immersive viewing experience that uses space, shape and light to affect perception of the sky. You can read more about the work here.
Images: James Turrell, Within without (2010), lighting installation, concrete and basalt stupa, water, earth, landscaping. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Do you really expect to get paid?
It has been eight years since Macquarie University economist David Throsby last reported on the financial status of artists for the Australia Council and found a third of them living below the poverty line. Based on 2006 census data, Throsby's latest report (the fifth in the series) on the topic Do you really expect to get paid?, concludes that the income gap between artists and the general workforce has widened.
Throsby says Australia's artists are adapting to changing circumstances by mixing up their work with arts-related work in occupations such as advertising or online development, seeing their working life made up of short-term engagements rather than a “traditional linear trajectory beginning with training, passing through an emerging phase, arriving at establishment and continuing with a life devoted exclusively to a core creative practice”.
The numbers game:
The average income of artists is well below the average wage – just $37,000 compared with $43,400 and the gap is widening.
16% of artists earn less than $10,000 a year directly from their art, although 5% earn more than $100,000.
A third to half of Australia's artists put their skills to use in other industries.
Arts bureaucrats and administrators have a higher and more secure income than artists.
16% of artists earn less than $10,000 a year directly from their art, although 5% earn more than $100,000.
A third to half of Australia's artists put their skills to use in other industries.
Arts bureaucrats and administrators have a higher and more secure income than artists.
You can read an article on the Throsby report here.
Image: funding by art form delivered by the Australia Council 2006 – 2007
NZ curators head to Asia
Three contemporary art curators will travel to Asia in October to build their professional networks and working relationships with artists, curators and arts institutions. Funded by Creative New Zealand and the Asia New Zealand Foundation, the trips are timed to coincide with biennales in Busan, Gwangju and Shanghai. The three curators are Stephen Cleland (Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Manukau city), Aaron Kreisler (Dunedin Public Art Gallery) and Hanna Scott (Auckland-based independent curator). You can read more about the trip here.
Image: Busan city