News
During the recent Gallery Weekend Berlin an unknown artist spilled water-based paint on the edge of a crossing at Rosenthaler Platz enabling pedestrians, cyclist and cars to create this vast pattern that will remain until the next rainfall washes it away.
Last year Swine flu threatened to rain on Art HK's parade. This year a cloud of Icelandic volcanic ash hangs over Art Cologne as organisers monitor reports of cancelled flights and airport closures and pray for a change of weather to reverse the southward drift of the cloud across northern Europe.
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Current shows and gallery hours
We are in Hong Kong this week for ART HK 2010. While we are away at the fair our gallery hours are Monday to Friday 11.00am to 5.00pm and Saturday 11.00am to 4.00pm. Downstairs we are showing Gavin Hipkins Bible Studies (New Testament) 2008-2009 and upstairs we have works from stock.
Image: Matt Henry, TPS-L2 (Naptholl Red), 2010, acrylic on linen, 90 x 135 x 30mm
ART HK
Next week we'll be at ART HK. The fair kicks off with a preview and vernissage on Wednesday 26 May and then runs from 27 – 30 May 2010. As usual, we'll be posting images and reports on the event from Hong Kong.
Singapore's Fort Knox for art
Singapore has opened a maximum-security vault for art, gold and valuables signaling the city-state's ambitions to match Hong Kong and and Beijing as an Asian centre for art. Singapore FreePort has 30,000sqm of strongrooms, which are inside Changi airport allowing non-resident collectors to store valuables without paying tax or filing customs forms. FreePort also has exhibition space launched with a by-appointment exhibition presented by a Geneva-based art dealer.
Tommy Koh, Chairman of the National Heritage Board, which runs Singapore's museums decribes the FreePort as “a golden link in the value chain to promote Singapore as a centre for art, culture and antiquities and for the storage and sale of such high value items.”
Lorenzo Rudolf says “It's like Fort Knox.” Rudolf also appears to be a prime mover in the plan to position Singapore as a regional art hub linked to the international art market. The former director of Art Basel, ShContemporary and creator of ArtParis+Guests has launched ART STAGE SINGAPORE, a new art fair scheduled for 12 – 16 January 2011.
Image: Singapore FreePort designed by Swiss architects Benedicte Montant and Carmelo Stendardo
Toxic memorabilia
A porcelain sign that marked the intersection of Wall and Broad Street, near the New York Stock Exchange, is to be sold by Christies in Manhattan next month and is estimated to fetch between USD80,000 – 90,000. Who would have thought a piece of contaminated memorabilia would be worth so much? For most of us, 'Wall Street' conjurs up the creators of the toxic financial instruments that triggered a worldwide recession sending the international art market into freefall.
Bible Studies installation views
Gavin Hipkins' exhibition Bible Studies (New Testament) 2008- 2009 runs to 12 June 2010. You can read our exhibition release here.
Starkwhite et al. at Momentum
the story of
POPULAR PRODUCTIONS_et al. 1973 (NZ)
16mm silent film
Audio by DJ HOUSO 'praising god' 1990 (NZ)
Transfer to digital 2010
Presented by Starkwhite et al. at Momentum/Sydney (May 2010), an art forum focusing on video/film, new media, performance and sound
Bible Studies Opening
The opening for Gavin Hipkins exhibition Bible Studies (New Testament) 2008 – 2009 will take place on Monday 17 May 2010 from 5.30pm.
Image: Gavin Hipkins, Loaded Haze, from the Bible Studies (New Testament) series, 2008-2009, C-type photograph, 1200 x 1400mm
Phil Dadson's new kinetic wind sculpture
Phil Dadson has just completed Akau Tanga, a kinetic wind sculpture installed in the Meridian Wind Sculpture series along Highway 1, Evan's Bay close to Wellington airport. Akau Tanga is the Maori name for Evan's Bay conjuring up the lamenting sounds of the wind in the bay, which is reputed to be one of New Zealand's windiest locations. This link takes you to the artist's website where you will find more images and information on the new wind sculpture.
Images: Akau Tanga, 2010, courtesy the artist and Meridian
Momentum / Sydney
Momentum got underway yesterday in a beautiful old building near Sydney's Carriageworks. The upstairs space is set up up for the two-day Momentum Forum, with a large open space for performance. Downstairs the organisers abandoned initial plans to create booths, opting for open space with wall-mounted screens for projections and 47″ LCDs clamped to columns. Not surprisingly the floor looks more like an adjunct to the Biennale of Sydney than an art fair, but this in line with the orgainsers aim “to re-imagine the art fair into a more sustainable and innovative model”, one that embraces work such as video and performance, that rarely find its way into conventional art fairs.
On day one we presented video works by Stella Brennan (South Pacific), Hye Rim Lee (Crystal City Spun), Jae Hoon Lee (A leaf) and Grant Stevens (Crushing and In the Beyond).
Images from the top: Hye Rim Lee's Crystal City Spun and Jae Hoon Lee's A Leaf, Stella Brennan's South Pacific, Grant Stevens' In the Beyond, and the panel for the forum session on re-imaging the art fair
Images from the top: Hye Rim Lee's Crystal City Spun and Jae Hoon Lee's A Leaf, Stella Brennan's South Pacific, Grant Stevens' In the Beyond, and the panel for the forum session on re-imaging the art fair
Momentum / Sydney
Today we head to Sydney to participate in Momentum, an international forum for contemporary video art, new media and performance. The event takes place from 12 – 15 May 2010 in a building adjacent to Carriageworks. The image above shows one of the two floors being used, but in a raw state prior to fitout
Roadwork, Berlin
During the recent Gallery Weekend Berlin an unknown artist spilled water-based paint on the edge of a crossing at Rosenthaler Platz enabling pedestrians, cyclist and cars to create this vast pattern that will remain until the next rainfall washes it away.
Images: photographs by Boris Dornbusch
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On 6 May 2010 we launched The 'Immortalisation' of Billy Apple, a collaborative project by Billy Apple and Craig Hilton where the artist works in the service of science and science serves the artist to enhance and protect the artist's brand by immortalising his biological tissue for perpetuity. The transaction ensures that the brand (and the artist) can theoretically last forever, unconstrained by death and that Billy Apple cells are available for scientific research.
I consent to the the wide distribution of cell lines derived from my blood, including deposit with the American Type Culture Collection cell bank. I understand this may enable unrestricted use of my cells in research outside my control, including the potential analysis of my DNA. Billy Apple 12/05/2009
In this project Craig Hilton and Billy Apple provide the setting for science to mingle with art. Billy Apple B-lymphocytes were isolated and grown in tissue culture media. These cells were then virally transformed and can now grow indefinitely in cell culture medium. Without such transformation, these cells have, like the artist they are derived from, a limited life span. The immortalised cells, housed in a container that mimics the precise environmental conditions present in the artists' body were installed at Starkwhite for the project launch.
Foreshadowing another phase of this evolving collaboration, Hilton says the Billy Apple cell line will be used in a study that will directly benefit cancer and immunology research as well as continue the conceptual work of Billy Apple through a project where he is simultaneously a subject of art and scientific endeavour.
The 'Immortalisation' of Billy Apple can be seen at Starkwhite today and tomorrow (Saturday).
Images: The 'Immortalisation' of Billy Apple, by Billy Apple and Craig Hilton at Starkwhite, Auckland NZ, 6 May 2010
Phil Dadson in SuperDelux lineup
Tokyo's popular experimental bar/music venue/night club/art gallery SuperDelux will be presented at Artspace as a part of the official programme of the 17th Biennale of Sydney. The SuperDelux@Artspace lineup of artists and performers includes Phil Dadson.
Image: Phil Dadson, Urban Devas, performance work presented at Living Room 2010: A week of goodness, Auckland, NZ
Easy Listening
Greg Burke, director of The Power Plant, Toronto will give a talk tonight at 6.00pm on his exhibition Universal Code and his work and vision for Toronto's Harbour Front Centre. The talk is at the Auckland Art Gallery's Art Lounge located at the corner of Lorne Street and lower Khartoum Place.
Image: Gabriel Orozco, Black Kites Perspective (front horizontal), 1997, Fuji crystal cromogenic archive C-print
Starkwhite at Art Beijing
The photographs above show installation views of our booth at Art Beijing (29 April to 2 May 2010) featuring works by Whitney Bedford, Jin Jiangbo and John Reynolds. Reynolds made his work in Beijing through a residency programme administered by the organisers of the fair.
Coming up at Starkwhite
Gavin Hipkins' exhibition Bible Studies (New Testament) will open at Starkwhite on Saturday 15 May and run to 12 June 2010.
Image: Gavin Hipkins, Loaded Haze, from the Bible Studies (New Testament) series, 2008-2009, C-type photograph, 1200 x 1400mm
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Designed by Peter Zumthor in collaboration with Rainer Weitschies, Kolumba the Art Museum of the Archbishopric of Cologne is another must-see museum for visitors to the city. The building, which has developed in smooth transition from the remains of the late-Gothic ruins of St Kolumba, includes a suite of elegant spaces, many flooded with natural light, that are used for exhibitions combining religious artefacts with contemporary art across a range of media.
The current exhibition, Bequest, documents the traces of human existence that have been recorded in documents, everyday objects and in works of art. At the same time the exhibition makes a theme of the value of remembrance and our responsibility in dealing with our historical legacy. This is illustrated in one of the most striking displays in the exhibition that combines Jannis Kounellis' Tragedia civile (Civil tragedy) with wedding photographs of the 19th and 20th century and two 15th century Copes.
Images: Jannis Kounellis, Tragedia civile (1975), gold-leaf wall, coat-stand, hat,coat, oil lamp; 189 Wedding Photographs of the 19th and 20th century; and Two Copes, 15th century flat stitch embroidery on a gold ground, original blue velvet from Genoa with pomegranate pattern
Gallery Weekend Berlin
Gallery Weekend Berlin features 40 galleries, 40 opening over 3 days and nights from 30 April to 2 May 2010. The lineup of exhibitions includes Measuring Potentials, a group show curated by Marc Gloede and featuring work by Dane Mitchell.
Unnerved: The New Zealand Project
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Curated by Maud Page, Unnerved: The New Zealand Project is the second of GoMA's country- specific exhibitions focusing on the Brisbane art museum's contemporary collections. The exhibition “explores a particularly rich dark vein that recurs in New Zealand Contemporary art and cinema. Psychological unease pervades many of the works in the exhibition with humour, parody and poetic subtlety among the strategies used by artist across generations and genres.” From the GoMA website
Unnerved includes Gavin Hipkins' The Homely, which has been described as a post-colonial gothic novel. Through a cinematic run of 80 images, which are often slightly blurry and filled with the colours of a dreamscape, Hipkins re-presents monuments and memorials of Australia and New Zealand nationalism with fragmented glimpses of domestic interiors and museum dioramas. He also says: “Although New Zealand has an international reputation for being clean, green and beautiful (a mythology that New Zealanders often call on to represent ourselves) it is the treatment and conquest of nature as an adventure playground that interests me with this project”.
Images: images from Gavin Hipkins' series The Homely
Kunst-Station St Peter, Cologne
Founded in 1987 by Friedheim Mennekes, the Kunst-Station at Cologne's Jesuit Church of St Peter has been a haven for contemporary art installations by artists such as Christian Boltanski, James Lee Byars, Jenny Holzer, Anish Kapoor, Barbara Kruger, David Salle, Cindy Sherman and Rosemarie Trockel. The current project at the Kunst-Station is by Motoi Yamamoto.
Images (from the top): Cologne's Jesuit Church of St Peter, Motoi Yamamoto installing his work, and previous installations by Barbara Kruger (detail) and Martin Creed.
When in Cologne
Created for the south transept of the Cologne Cathedral, Gerhard Richter's stained glass window is a must-see work for visitors to Cologne. The original window was destroyed during World War II and had been replaced with plain glass. Inspired by Richter's 1974 painting 4096 Farben, the window consists of 11,500 hand-blown glass squares in 72 different colours. Echoing the colours of surrounding windows, Richter's illuminated abstraction blends a modernist aesthetic with the Gothic ecclesiastical architecture of the cathedral.
Images: Gerhard Richter's window (details) in the Cologne Cathedral
Phantom limb construction sites: final week
Boris Dornbusch's exhibition Phantom limb construction sites closes on Saturday 1 May 2010.
Sign of the times
The homepage for Art Brussels features the following message: Art Brussels will take place as programmed. In spite of the ash cloud only 6% of the galleries may have problems to reach Brussels in time.
Deitch on keepers v sellers
Long time dealer and art world dealmaker Jeffrey Deitch (soon to become director of LAMoCA) has spoken out on art speculators, at the same time putting a spin on the role of art dealers saying their job is to place art with good collectors – ie high-profile collectors who hold onto work, often gifting it to art museums. He says: “People laugh at this whole notion of us saying that we 'place' work instead of selling it. But in fact that's what we try to do. We want the work to go to people who are as serious about the works as we are.”
Deitch's comments come in the wake of an $8m federal lawsuit filed by Craig Robins, a Miami collector claiming compensatory and punitive damages from David Zwirner. Robins says he is on a blacklist because the artist whose work he sold under a so-called confidential agreement with Zwirner now views him as a speculator. You can read more about the Robins/Zwirner lawsuit here.
Image: Jeffrey Deitch
Art Cologne vernissage
Art Cologne was launched yesterday with a preview followed by the vernissage. While the closure of Europe's airports put an end to the travel plans of many US collectors, there was a big turnout of European collectors. Director Daniel Hug's plan to “return Art Cologne to its former glory” appears to be on track, despite the eruption of the Eyjfallajokul volcano.
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Galleries completed their installations today in readiness for the Art Cologne preview and vernissage tomorrow. Our next post will be installation views of our solo pesentation by Dane Mitchell.
Behind the scenes at Art Cologne
As a giant cloud of volcanic ash blankets Europe, forcing countries to impose the biggest airspace closure since 9/11, it's business as usual at Art Cologne – at least behind the scenes. The installation and fitout of booths and visitor facilities is almost complete and galleries are beginning to install. In the Art Cologne office, however, staff must be thinking wistfully about the good old days when organising a fair was a relatively straightforward exercise. Over the past twelve months, art fair organisers have run into Swine flu, a global recession and now an Icelandic volcano spewing ash into Europe's air space.
Images: behind the scenes at Art Cologne, April 2010
Art Cologne on standby
Last year Swine flu threatened to rain on Art HK's parade. This year a cloud of Icelandic volcanic ash hangs over Art Cologne as organisers monitor reports of cancelled flights and airport closures and pray for a change of weather to reverse the southward drift of the cloud across northern Europe.
Images: Art Cologne on standby
Back on the art fair trail
We are Germany for a couple of weeks to present a solo exhibition by Dane Mitchell at Art Cologne. Next week we'll be posting photographs of the preview and vernissage, along with shots of our stand and others at the fair.
Breaking with convention
In May we'll be heading to Sydney to participate in Momentum: Sydney, a new art fair focusing on video, new media and performance. Co-founding directors Charles Merewether, Johann Nowak and Rachel Rits-Volloch say: “The aim of Momentum is to create a worldwide network of practitioners, influential decision makers and theorists to address on an annual basis across different locations, the evolving concerns of commonly marginalised art practices. Momentum will be globally-based, developing sites of engagement across Australia, Europe, Asia and the Americas”.
Featuring 20 invited galleries from around the world, along with collectors, curators, artists, writers, experts and innovators there “to generate a participatory environment”, the first edition of Momentum is scheduled for 12 – 15 May 2010. It will take place in a Sydney industrial space, transformed by Ai Weiwei into an immersive space for the presentation and viewing of video art and performance, and for the professional dialogue which the organisers say is integral to this forum. The event also coincides with the opening week of the Biennale of Sydney.
Image: Carriageworks, a centre for visual culture in Sydney and venue for Momentum