Over the net and on the table

The Dotcom boom

2012-01-28T06:59:00.003+13:00

“It is not very significant, appealing to unsophisticated nerdy types."

Art critic John Daly Peoples in the NBR responding to the following confiscated art works in Dotcom’s art collection: a fiberglass sculpture, imported from the United Kingdom, In High Spirits, Olaf Mueller photos from The Cat Street Gallery, a Predator Statue, sculptures by Christian Colin and an anonymous Hooded Sculpture. (Thanks H)

2012-01-27T11:59:00.001+13:00

They're at it again. This time it's Ralph Hotere like product for the Auckland motorways.

When art goes to the movies: Jackson Pollock

2012-01-27T06:59:00.002+13:00

No big surprise to regular OTN readers that much of the art you see in the movies is made for the occasion, whatever the signature. Usually this task is taken on by the movie's art department but in the case of Pollock, enter Method actor (so Method he collapsed on set with the strain of playing the part) Ed Harris. Determined to make a uniquely accurate account of Pollock’s life, Harris spent a couple of years working in the artist's style making it plain that the only person who was going to paint the paintings in the movie was Ed Harris. “I'd been painting and drawing off and on since I became committed to making this film. I had a little studio built so I'd have enough floor space to work on larger canvases.” You can see Harris painting a tribute Pollock-like product (although on a canvas leaning against the wall rather than on the floor) and compare it with the real Pollock painting.
Image: Ed doing a Jackson

Nearly curtains for Campbell

2012-01-26T11:54:00.001+13:00

For six years now, once a year, the artist Campbell Patterson has been lifting his mother off the ground for as long as he can and videoing the result. The six resulting videos (the seventh is due to be made soon) were all shot in front of the curtains that hang in the home of Patterson’s parents. Trouble loomed when the parents got on the move and the house was put on the market. When Patterson asked them to save the floral curtains, they made it a condition of sale. The curtains were taken off the list of chattels and are leaving with them.

Image: Campbell Patterson lifting his mother in 2007 in front of the signature floral curtains.

Roadside Serra

2012-01-26T06:59:00.003+13:00

If American sculptor Richard Serra were to visit Auckland and take a ride along the Upper Harbour Highway, he might be forgiven for thinking he had been either ripped off or weirdly honoured by Auckland Transport. Alan Gibbs might be less amused. It was Gibbs who commissioned Serra’s great work Te Tuhirangi Contour on his Kaipara farm. No way the noise control walls alongside the winding Harbour Highwaycould have been designed like this without the precedent of Richard Serra’s work. To add insult to injury they have been painted orange, a clear reference to the rust coloured original. Still these Serra copycats are a major step-up from the gecko and the pohutakawa, no one is likely to raise a hand to say their work had been copied in those two cases. But with everyone getting so snotty about Mr Dotcom ripping off creative content on the internet, spare a thought for Richard Serra.

Images: Top and bottom left Auckland Transport's effort. Bottom right Richard Serra's Te Tuhirangi Contour

Branded: Garth Tapper

2012-01-25T11:59:00.001+13:00

The moment when artists become brands

Dotty

2012-01-25T06:59:00.002+13:00

More on the Damien Hirst spotathon. There’s been a winner in his global spot the spots chase and it is 27-year-old Valentine Uhovski, a former Russian child star, socialite and Hirst groupie. In one week he travelled the required 30,000 plus miles to check in on each of the Damien Hirst Gagosian exhibitions dotted around the world.

Uhovski’s reward is a Damien Hirst print (yes, a spotted one) and the latter day Phileas Fogg has predictably told the media that ‘no way’ would he sell it. Hirst himself has famously said he only ever painted five of the spot paintings himself because he found the process more boring than bat shit (or something like that). Not the experience of the 760 registered spot seekers three of whom have already completed the task.

Image: Dot Boots created by Spanish designer Manolo Blahnik and Damien Hirst in 2002.

That was then

2012-01-24T11:59:00.000+13:00

Andy Warhol puts out his experience to the editor of Harpers Magazine in 1949 soon after he arrives in New York fresh from arts school. In our day of finely crafted pages (and pages) of cvs and personal profiles it’s hard to imagine AW getting anywhere with this kind of self-deprecating note. As you can probably guess, he nailed it.

Thanks again to Letters of note

One day at the advertising agency

2012-01-24T06:59:00.000+13:00

Ad guy: … and so these robots which are actually Daleks - “exterminate, exterminate” - and they are huuuuge with robot arms that can fire out death and destruction only instead they will be firing out Jeff Koons' Balloon Puppies because it’s all about power and your power company and how Jeff Koons is one of the most powerful artists in the world and the Balloon Dog is one of his most powerful images so it’s a power, power combo. And that’s why the small little people are waving at the Dalek because they are so amazed to see these giant stainless steel puppies coming out of the Dalek arms instead of a hail of bullets or laser beams … Power.

Client: Whatever.

Image: Poster for Powershop.co.nz

On the road

2012-01-23T11:57:00.001+13:00

Another examples of the Ministry of Transport celebrating the lives of artists young and old, living and dead, throughout the land.

Beknighted

2012-01-23T06:59:00.002+13:00

First up, let’s be clear that although we're grateful to all those who put us up for New Year's honours, we’ve heard via the back door that OTNOBE sounds too much like a Star Wars character to be acceptable. In any case OTN has a no-knighthoods-for-us policy meaning we can look at art honours with some sort of weird dispassion.

In so far as knights and dames are a measure of the country’s love and respect, the arts ain’t getting much and the artists even less. As Hamish Keith mentioned in a recent Listener column there have been very few NZ artists recognised. Ever. Woollaston was one (which meant that Peter McIntyre missed out as it was beyond a Muldoon Government to acknowledge two artists at a time) and so too were Peter Siddell, Louise Henderson, Robin White and Eileen Mayo. Then there are Ralph Hotere and Cliff Whiting who were awarded the ONZ.

We like to think that Colin McCahon told them to stick it (a nice thought, but it might not be true) and that most of the deserving rest (you know who they are) refused to have her majesty’s sword anywhere near them.

Nuts

2012-01-21T06:59:00.012+13:00

However often we say we'll never do it again, the fact remains that OTN is the go-to place for animal art. Of course with over four and a half years experience we have developed a rigorous selection process to chop out random animals doing things that needy readers want us to believe is art. This squirrel just squeaked in (stand by for the mean-spirited to say it's only chewing on the end of the paint brush). Hope you enjoy this rare look inside an animal artist's studio.

2012-01-20T11:59:00.002+13:00

"When I go to the roof top of a high-rise building, I feel an urge to die by jumping from it. My passion for art is what has prevented me from doing that."

Yayoi Kusama

Soldier on

2012-01-20T06:59:00.004+13:00

Might as well start the year as we mean to go on with a sculpture made of something weird. This time it's little soldier figures (come on, at least it isn’t made by a horse or an ant or a dog). In fact this is made by human being Mr Joe Black (his website claims “If it’s small enough I’ll stick it down”). Black amassed 5,500 toy soldiers and created a 3D version of Robert Capa’s famous March 1938 Life magazine cover photograph Boy soldier, Hankou, China. The photo spread was part of the magazine's coverage of the Nanking Massacre that started in December 1937. You can still buy a copy of the magazine with the Capra cover.

Image: Left Joe Black’s sculpture Big China, Right top, detail of the Black work and Right below, the Life cover with Capra’s photograph

Art in the workplace

2012-01-19T11:58:00.000+13:00

Art hard at work in the foyers of the world

Art and the movies: Ron plays ludo

2012-01-19T06:59:00.003+13:00

Last week the Christchurch Art Gallery blog Bunker Notes wistfully featured a photograph of the long queues waiting to get into the Ron Mueck exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery in January last year. The post, written by Director Jenny Harper, was of course hoping for a quick return to the Galley’s opening after the February quake, but sadly this seams increasingly unlikely.

The image reminded us of Ron Mueck’s early career in the movie business, first as a member of Jim Henson’s team of puppeteers and then as a star in the 1986 hit Labyrinth. It was Mueck inside the oversized fur and fang get-up as the big-hearted monster Ludo who he also voiced. In fact Mueck needed some help and an actor named Rob Mills did some of the work inside the cossie. You can see a short clip of Mueck (or is it Mills?) suited up and starring as Ludo here.

Image: Ron Muek (left) inside Ludo, as it were

Container theft

2012-01-18T11:59:00.001+13:00

"When things do go, they go high up the food chain and you don't often get them back."

Masterworks Gallery director Eloise Kitson in the NZH attributing recent lookalike thefts (container division) to drug users.

By the numbers: international edition

2012-01-18T06:39:00.000+13:00

2 the number of women artists included in the 202 works donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales by the Kaldor Family Collection

8.8 the number in millions of visitors to the Louvre last year

13 the number of hedge fund operators in the 2011 ArtNews Top 100 collectors list

24 the height in meters of the Richard Serra sculpture recently installed in Qatar

50 the percentage of the 700 acknowledged Rembrandt paintings that have been reattributed over the last 100 years

70 the number in degrees which when coupled with 50% relative humidity provides the climate required by international museums lending major art works to other institutions

94 total number in millions of dollars paid for eight Gerhard Richter paintings in the last Sotheby’s auction

122 number in hundreds of thousands of dollars exchanged as ransom for René Magritte’s painting Olympia stolen in 2009

18,000 the number of spots Damien Hirst plans to apply to a 16 x 41 cm canvas for the opening of his spot painting exhibition

50,000 the estimated number of art works made by Pablo Picasso in his lifetime

89,000 the number of dollars paid by the Warsaw Museum of Modern Art for a concentration camp LEGO construction set made by Polish artist Zbigniew Libera

Touching

2012-01-17T11:58:00.000+13:00

“I don’t design. I don’t paint. I don’t sculpt. I absolutely never touch my works.”

Maurizto Cattelan

“I don’t think art gets made with your hands.”

Jorge Pardo

From Michael Petry’s book, The art of not making: the new artist / artisan relationship as quoted in Art News

The 96 percent

2012-01-17T06:57:00.000+13:00

If you've ever been on the New Zealand art review site EyeContact (the place everyone says they never visit to but go there anyway), you will know that its editor John Hurrell rules with an iron hand. One of his bugbears is people who want to comment on reviews but prefer to remain anonymous or use internet sigs. Given the size of the New Zealand art scene you can get their point but JH has been firm: sign in or stay out. Still, he might like to consider new research courtesy of Disqus that shows that maybe the option of anonymity encourages participation and that people who use pseudonyms or social media IDs make the best comments. Disqus is a global comments system used by the likes of CNN, Time, Blogger and tumblr and their findings about how their system is used surprised us. Apparently 61 percent of commenters use pseudonyms, 35 percent choose to be anonymous and 4 percent use their real identity. They also found “those with pseudonyms post the best comments” and that commenters using pseudonyms are most likely to post 'positive' quality comments that get likes and replies”. As to the likelihood of John Hurrell changing his policy? No comment.

The Chairman

2012-01-16T11:59:00.001+13:00

OTN is not going to let a good art tat pass it by and that’s why you're seeing this guy who went into a parlour looked straight into the needle man’s eyes and said, “What I’m after is a line of modernist furniture going down my right leg." And got it.

Going bananas

2012-01-16T06:59:00.004+13:00

This unsettlingly apposite visual combo came through on our RSS feed with a story about the 60s performance band The Velvet Underground sticking it to the Andy Warhol Foundation. The squabble is over the famous ‘pealable’ banana ("peal slowly and see" it said, though all you got to see was a banana) graphic designed by Andy Warhol that features on the cover of their 1967 album The Velvet Underground and Nico. Lou Reed and John Cale of The Velvet U claim the AW Foundation slipped the banana to iPhone and iPad accessorises to use as a decorative motif. They've asked the judge to rule that the Foundation hands over any revenue from these banana deals. And the reason you got to hear about all of this was because Google popped a 'themed' banana diet ad under the story.

Saturday's fun page

2012-01-14T06:59:00.001+13:00

For your Saturday entertainment a mash up of three OTN interests art, tattooing and polka dots. More here.

Lookalike

2012-01-13T11:58:00.000+13:00

Artist Wayne Chisnall's life-sized model kit When I’m a Man 2010 channels Michael Parekowhai's 1994 exhibition Kiss the baby goodbye

Mr Fowler

2012-01-13T06:39:00.001+13:00

Over the years we have taken photos of artists we have met and known so we thought that form time to time we'd put one up here for the record. This image is of Mr Fowler a self-taught painter who lived in Motueka. We met him in the late 1970s via the artist Toss Woollaston who encouraged him to paint local sights like the beach at Kaiteriteri and other parts of the Nelson coast. Mr Fowler was chain smoking every time we met him and we never saw him leave the couch. Responding to Woollaston’s enthusiasm, Mr Fowler was given a small exhibition at the Dowse Art Gallery in the early eighties. At that time the Dowse sold work from its shows and a few paintings were purchased including one by Tony Fomison who was also a big Fowler fan.

Image: Mr Fowler photographed at his home in 1980

COMMENT: 13:01:12 Ross wrote: "I still have 2 lovely Lindsay Fowler paintings and my son Felix also has 2. The joy of his work is that whilst he was painting in the late 80's early 90's, he solely painted from memory and created a beautiful uncluttered vision of the Kaiteri -Riwaka area. Interestingly the buildings and sheds that dotted the landscape were often painted on cardboard first and moved around his compositions until he was happy with their placements."

OMG

2012-01-12T11:56:00.002+13:00

There is still some light peeking through the Art Museum/Marketing PR divide. When three trench-coated models stripped off in the Louvre to be filmed promoting lingerie the museum was not impressed. Louvre staffer Amélie Hardivillier told the media that "I'm responsible for filming and such a shoot would never have been accepted. It's unthinkable." Sure, but you have to wonder for how long? You can see the three cavorting on the Louvre's parquet here

Um...er

2012-01-12T06:59:00.017+13:00

Boy did we get things wrong. There we were thinking that Creative New Zealand had turned down the Depots cultural interview programme because of content issues. The Depot is involved in creating an invaluable series of interviews with people who have impacted on the New Zealand culture. The only problem is that the culture they investigate is achingly conservative, primarily white and male. Did this impact on CNZ? Doesn’t sound like it. They wrote back to the Depot telling them that the questions raised by the application (and one presumes the reason for its demise) were the “ownership and copyright of the recorded material”, the process involved in “the recorded material deemed appropriate for uploading” and “marketing”. Hey couldn’t all of that bureaucratic box ticking been sorted out with a quick phone call?

The Depot’s release of the CNZ follow up also sheds an interesting light on their rather stern go-away approach to customer service. “Notwithstanding the value of your project, and the more than 50 interviews which you have already conducted, other applications were assessed as being a better fit with Creative New Zealand’s strategic outcomes.” Not much you can say in reply to that, which presumably was the point.

The CNZ strategic outcomes are: New Zealanders participate in the arts; high-quality New Zealand art is developed; New Zealanders experience high-quality arts and New Zealand arts gain international success.

Robbed No. 2

2012-01-11T11:51:00.002+13:00

The moment when artists get robbed of their dignity. (Thanks S)
More in this ongoing series here

What’s in that crate?

2012-01-11T06:59:00.017+13:00

Why, it’s a Jackson Pollock-like product made for the movie Mona Lisa Smile. And who said you couldn’t make a movie about an art historian and make money? Had to be someone who never thought of having Julia Roberts as the art historian. As it was, Mona Lisa Smile went up against Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King on its opening weekend and ranked an inevitable, but surprising, number two. What we are saying here is that a movie based on the life of an art history teacher grossed $182 million worldwide from a measly $84 million budget. There’s gold in them art history hills.

Image: You can watch the crate opening here on YouTube

Produce

2012-01-10T11:59:00.002+13:00

Looking at the website Archinet and thinking about Don Driver

Google Reader sucks

2012-01-10T09:24:00.000+13:00

Google reader cuts off OTN's Len Lye post a couple of words shy of the full sentence. Sorry Len.

The Len Lye problem

2012-01-10T06:49:00.000+13:00

Anyone who visited the exhibition Len Lye: All Souls Carnival at the Govett-Brewster knowing nothing about the artist could be forgiven for imagining him a Mies van der Rohe figure - all dark suits, carefully poised cigar and sharp pocket handkerchief - rather than say the a restless comic genius like Spike Milligan. Although the exhibition was beautifully displayed and well executed, it sucked the antic spirit right out of the New Zealand-born, New York-based sculptor.

If you want to know what a prankster and wild mind Lye was, just read some of his letters. They crackle with ideas careening against one another, some completed, others left to their own devices. Indeed you get the impression that Lye wasn’t after creating order out of chaos as most artists aspire to do, as much as giving chaos a chance to emerge in patterns of its own. This spirit is what is repressed by the tastefully modernist, black and silver world that Lye’s sculptures have come to inhabit under the auspices of the Len Lye Foundation. More solemn beauty than carnival.

Where did this darkened room thing come from anyway? Not the studio. Certainly Len Lye was tickled when black curtains were first used behind Fountain to throw its silver wands into relief but that's hardly ordering up a black box. Of course this melodramatic darkened display style is most often used (ok, almost exclusively used) to display ‘primitive’ cultural artefacts. Although this approach is slowly retreating from the museum repertoire, if the new Lye building plans are anything to go by (big windowless box and stainless steel exterior), it ain’t going to be leaving New Plymouth in a hurry.

These thoughts were prompted by reading letters Lye had sent to Hamish Keith in the seventies (Hamish Keith’s papers are in the Te Papa Archive). At the bottom of one of them was a quick sketch by Lye of the kind of room that might display some of his work. Like other Lye-imagined spaces, the walls are curved, no mention of black-out and, given the cacophony of sound and movement he anticipated, if you wanted to get out of there alive, you’d probably be happier with the lights on.

If the Govett-Brewster is going to attract crowds of repeat visitors to the planned new Len Lye Centre (and that’s a big ask) how about leaving the lights on full beam to illuminate the joy of Lye in action rather than keeping him on the dark side.

Image: Detail of a letter from Len Lye to Hamish Keith, 26 February 1970. Te Papa Archives

Spot prize

2012-01-09T11:53:00.013+13:00

Here’s a chance to pump up the international side of your art collection. British artist Damien Hirst has offered to give anyone who attends all the Gagosian gallery venues showing his spot paintings between 12 January and 18 February a free personalized print. The only problem is that Larry Gagosian has 11 galleries and they’re scattered all over the world. Still, if you’re up for it, here are the addresses: 980 Madison Avenue, New York; 555 West 24th Street New York; 522 West 21st Street New York; 456 North Camden Drive Beverly Hills; 6-24 Britannia Street London; 17-19 Davies Street London; Via Francesco Crispi 1600187 Rome; 4 rue de Ponthieu 75008 Paris; 19 place de Longemalle 1204 Geneva; 7/F Pedder Building 12 Pedder Street Central Hong Kong and 3 Merlin Street Athens.

Leg up

2012-01-09T06:59:00.003+13:00

The current Government is hot on philanthropy as the way forward for arts funding. Remember the Cultural Philanthropy Taskforce of 2010? (well, maybe not). In all the talk of capability building and mentors, there was not a mention of what is turning out to be a low-investment, high community winner: crowdsourcing. There are now a few crowdsourcing platforms for fundraising but the basic idea is the same. Announce your project, ask for contributions (how much is up to the giver) and spread the word.

Does it work? Can do if Melbourne-based Leg of Lamb's efforts on behalf of Yvonne Todd are anything to go by. Using Pozible (Kickstarter is another crowdsourcer and it has raised over $74 million for 10,626 “creative projects” in only two years) Leg of Lamb put up a few pics from Todd’s next exhibition and asked for funding for a catalogue. As the pledges were made (one each of $A20 and $A40, six of $A60, three of $A80, eight of $A100 and three of $A200 and $A500 ) the Leg made sure participants got regular progress reports. LoL (sorry it just came out that way) also sweetened the deal with signed catalogues and the chance to win a print. A few days before the deadline the project reached the $A4500, plus a little more.

So how about the public institutions? Forever complaining about having no money to buy works for their collections, this feels like a perfect opportunity. Can they convince the public of the benefits of having great art on tap for the community? OTN will put up $200 for the first one to give it a go.

Cover version

2012-01-07T06:59:00.001+13:00

Stuck in the house this Saturday? You could do worse than join the ‘cover-version’ craze. Grab things from around the house and make covers of architect designed buildings you like (or hate). Here to start you off is Luis Urculo.

Images: Top...um and bottom...er.

Friday's chart

2012-01-06T11:58:00.002+13:00

(Thanks F)

Sculpture wars

2012-01-06T06:59:00.015+13:00

The gloves are off in the wax sculpture business. LA wax museum Madame Tussauds has thrown the first punch with a we-are-better-than-they-are exhibition aimed at the Hollywood Wax Museum down the road. Its wax sculpture of the thin tattooed Jolie one has been set up against a full-sized image of the Hollywood Wax Museum’s effort. Neither really hit the spot, and they do show how good artists like Duane Hanson are at not only making believable likenesses but (possibly more importantly) at stance, gesture and context.

While the Hollywood Wax Museum’s version does look a bit like Angelina Jolie it is obviously after a very hard day and lacks Tussauds' convincing super bra confidence. Back to the ring. In the first clinch Tussauds hissed that Hollywood’s efforts were kitsch but Hollywood hissed right back that kitsch was what they were selling numb nuts and at a better price ($25 entry to Tussauds, $12.95 for the Hollywood experience). We’ll keep you up with the fight as it continues.

Images: Tom Cruise via left, Madame Tussauds and right, the Hollywood Wax Museum.

2012-01-05T11:59:00.004+13:00

“I always thought you should never buy anything that cost more than your own work. I thought that was a good rule, but I broke it a few times, so I changed it.”

Damien Hirst talking about his art collection to Hans Ulrich Obrist

Reality check

2012-01-05T06:58:00.003+13:00

Our man (if we can own Len Lye and Bill Culbert we can sure as hell put our dibs on Young Sun Han) has finally crashed out of the American reality TV show Work of Art. OK this is a spoiler but it is such a dog of a show you shouldn’t be thinking of watching it in the first place.

In fact YSH was odds on favourite to be the ultimate winner and in the last round was one of three in the final art-off for the $US100,000 prize. Still, he has made a decent sum in part prizes and will be well pleased with his effort. Panel member, NY art critic Jerry Saltz had this to say, “Young should move to New York, find a dive in Bushwick, have his New York nervous breakdown, and join a promising next wave of talented people."

Image: Young Sun Han prepares his final exhibition

Right then

2012-01-04T11:59:00.003+13:00

If you thought the National Party had nothing to offer the arts how about the Republican front runners lining up against Obama?

"[Since 1965] there has been a calculated effort by cultural elites to discredit this civilization and replace it with a culture of irresponsibility that is incompatible with American freedoms as we have known them." - Newt Ginrich

“[As President I would] enact deep reductions in the subsidies for the National Endowment for the Arts.” - Mit Romney

The play’s the thing

2012-01-04T06:59:00.004+13:00

It’s mid-October last year and a performing arts school down the road from where Billy Apple lives is working on a kids' holiday drama programme. The production is billed as The apple. How does Billy know this? A brochure has been pushed through his letterbox by one of the neighbour’s kids. Billy and Mary decide to go and at 3pm they are seated in an audience of parents waiting for the performance by a group of 12-year olds to begin.

The set turns out to be an art gallery with paintings on the walls and centre stage an empty plinth. A janitor wanders on stage sweeping. When he reaches the plinth he props up his broom, pulls an apple out of his dustcoat pocket and rubs it absentmindedly on his lapel. Resting the apple on the plinth he picks up the broom again and continues sweeping (exit stage right). A group of art enthusiasts enter and seeing the apple on the plinth begin what to Billy is probably a familiar critique. Eventually the janitor returns, grabs his apple and munches into it as he departs. Cue general critical confusion and recanting.

After the play the tutor Mark Clare approaches Billy who he recognises. As they talk Billy becomes aware of something behind him. It's a line of kids each holding a copy of the poster for the play. They want Billy to sign them, which he does. The circle completed they all go home.

Image: A signed poster. (Thanks M, thanks B)

Another brick in the wall

2012-01-03T06:59:00.003+13:00

Because we initially said we would start up again today, here's a quick LEGO moment with artist Lene Rønsholt Wille who took six weeks and 270,000 LEGO bricks to create this Richard Serra lookalike. You can watch the painfully slow process here.

Open and closed

2012-01-01T06:59:00.005+13:00

Note the revised time for Gow Langsford, we should have known they would be up earlier in the day than we had it.

2011-12-31T15:55:00.000+13:00

“If the artist talks about it what's the point in making it.”

Ralph Hotere, who was awarded the Order of New Zealand today

Just saying

2011-12-30T12:32:00.000+13:00

The trouble with interactivity is that it is just so…interactive. The City Gallery is finding this out with its latest efforts to get people into Prospect - NZ Art Now. The campaign consisted of five different poster variations inspired by the initial letters of P.R.O.S.P.E.C.T. one of which is ready to be filled in. The City Gallery (or perhaps its ad agency) primed the pump with four examples. You can see the Gallery's efforts plus one from a member of the public by clicking the image above. Your mission? Pick the punter. You can see more audience versions at the exhibition many of which, in all fairness, are positive.

Click on image to enlarge

art as metaphor

2011-12-28T11:07:00.001+13:00

Q: When is a work of art not a work of art? A: When it's a hedge. Some private/dealer sales here (rumours of McLeavey selling a handful of Hammonds for $100,000 plus) indicate that our top one percent are also looking for art to protect their money during troubled times. Might work, might not, but it is a world-wide trend. This year in spite of economic woes in Europe and the States top-end auctions broke records at nearly every outing. An example? Roy Lichtenstein’s “I can see the whole room… And there’s nobody in it" brought in $56 million or, in our language, 400 Hammonds.

Tuesday's chart

2011-12-27T11:20:00.001+13:00

A quick reminder as you travel round the galleries these holidays of Komar & Melamid’s research results after asking 'what constitutes the most popular and most disliked kinds of painting?' You can see the full results here. They are also available in Komar & Melamid’s book Painting by Numbers: Scientific Guide to Art, published in 1997.

Art at work

2011-12-25T06:55:00.002+13:00

Max Patte’s sculpture Solace in the Wind doing seasonal work on Wellington’s waterfront.

Enough already

2011-12-24T08:24:00.002+13:00

Christchurch Art Gallery's heartfelt response to a miserable year

2011-12-24T07:16:00.000+13:00

OTN will be back on 3 January. Posts between now and then will be intermittent.

Copycat

2011-12-23T11:57:00.000+13:00

A Wellington paste-up channels Hotere channelling McCahon

Googling on: Christmas edition

2011-12-23T06:55:00.003+13:00

One great benefit of friendships with artists is the occasional original Christmas card that comes your way. The tradition goes back aways, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner famously made cards for friends like Ray and Charles Eames and you could always rely on Ad Reinhardt and Philip Guston for one at the end of the year.

Even the bright idea of making Christmas cards has art/museum origins with the first one being run up by the first director of the V&A in London. That card was designed by John Horsley (a copy of it was sold in 2001 for $45,500) and ran into trouble for showing a child drinking, a very long way from David Shrigley’s FU Santa card published this year by the Guardian. And only Damien Hirst could elevate the most banal of ‘Peace on earth’ imagery into the rarified air where people pay big bucks for reframed popular imagery.

You can see a range of American artists (including Guston, Pollock and Reinhardt) Christmas cards on the Smithsonian site and a range of British artist cards (including the Shrigley) commissioned by the Guardian here. You can see Hirst's translation here, and a very Happy Christmas and a great New Year to you all from OTN.

Images: Christmas cards from top to bottom, Richard Killeen, blanche readymade of et al. and Shane Cotton

Branded: Jim Allen

2011-12-22T11:57:00.000+13:00

The moment when artists become brands

Look who’s putting the layer back into layer cake

2011-12-22T06:59:00.004+13:00

In a surge of enthusiasm for middle management both Auckland Art Gallery and Te Papa are on the hunt for someone to head up their curatorial departments. Both jobs are virtually the same with similar requirements and expectations. Applications are due on 20 January and 27 January respectively. See if you can spot the differences.

1 Which institution offers “an inspiring place to work”?

2 Who requires “A minimum of 5 years experience in a public gallery/art museum, managing exhibition and collection processes and delivery”?

3 Which job requires the applicant to be ‘politically savvy’?

4 Who requires the successful applicant to be “responsible for increasing the awareness, understanding and enjoyment of works of art”?

5 Which institution wants to “ ensure that art scholarship and research is of the highest standard”?

6 Who insists on “an exceptional track record of exhibitions and publications”?

7 Who's on the lookout for a "coach"?

8 Which manager will be in charge of “seven curators and exhibition project coordinators”?

9 Who wants their manager to “lead the development and display of the art collection”?

10 Who wants their manager to be responsible for the “development and provision of high quality, innovative exhibitions”?

Te Papa = a, AAG = b. Answers: 1b, 2b, 3a, 4b, 5a, 6a, 7b, 8b, 9a, 10b

Lookalike

2011-12-21T11:55:00.003+13:00

Top, a haul by noise control officers in Wellington pictured in the Dominion Post. Bottom, Sean Kerr's Stacker

Done deed

2011-12-21T06:39:00.000+13:00

Sometimes you just don’t want to rush stuff. That was certainly the case when it came to the transfer of Colin McCahon’s Landscape Theme and Variations Series B from Creative NZ’s collection to Te Papa. Way back in 1964 the newly formed Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council purchased the work in order to stop it from going overseas and with the intention of gifting it to the National Art Gallery.

The first objective was obviously a great success as the work is still in the country and the second? Well that was only achieved a couple of months ago. Yes, 47 years after it was purchased Landscape Theme and Variations Series B has become part of the National collections at Te Papa. Mind you the Arts Council did try to give the work to the National Art Gallery back in 1964, but they apparently said they were full.

Somewhere along the way the works were pasted down on boards and the banners became framed panels, something McCahon was very unhappy about. "I feel the more official treatment of the B series was a mistake." Another version Landscape Theme and Variations Series A survived the glue pot and framing and ended up in the Auckland Art Gallery’s collection as a gift from the McCahon family.

Image: Landscape Theme and Variations Series B (rear) with Practical Religion: the Resurrection of Lazarus showing Mount Martha being exhibited at a Dowse Art Gallery in 1980. You can read the CNZ story here.

Lookalike

2011-12-20T11:59:00.000+13:00

Images: Left Chales Ray's Firetruck outside MoMA. Right Firetruck on top of Fun Ho! Museum in Inglewood

Copy that

2011-12-20T06:58:00.001+13:00

A reader sent this image to OTN playing to our interest in lookalikes. This painting is a copy from a photograph that artist Jonathan Monk took of a Martin Kippenberger painting. The painted copy was made by a Chinese copy painter and is one of an open-ended edition available from Monk's dealer gallery. The stinger is that the Kippenberger ‘original’ was also a copy made from an image created by Kippenberger and rendered by Werner a billboard painter for Kippenberger’s exhibition Dear painter, paint for me. So there you go, a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. (Thanks M)

Image: Jonathan Monk, The D.E.A.R. Painter Seated On The C.O.R.N.E.R, 2011.

The corrections

2011-12-19T11:59:00.010+13:00

Te Papa has responded to our post about how much each visit to the museum costs the taxpayers of New Zealand. We couldn't make the numbers stack up (and some complicated stuff about how Te Papa reports its attendances as an average over the last nine years didn't help much), but it turns out that they add to the number of visitors to its building on Wellington's waterfront the visitors to Te Papa's travelling exhibitions held in other institutions. This sleight of hand reduces the cost per visit by around 35%. So when you stumble into, say, a Te Papa exhibition of Rembrandt etchings in some small art museum somewhere in the country, you are doing your bit for Te Papa door count.

Te Papa also noted that our estimate that 800,000 people visit the art exhibitions on the fifth floor each year was completely wrong. And then they went and spoiled it all by telling us that in fact there's half that number at 400,000 visitors. That is, on average, 7,693 people a week, every week find the art on the fifth floor. We acknowledge the mistaken Noble 800 figure but anyone who has ever been up to the lonely fifth floor is going to wonder how they can kid themselves like that. You can read our request and Te Papa's response here.
Image: The 5th floor of Te Papa at 11 am on 14 August 2011

Over the moon

2011-12-19T06:37:00.001+13:00

We posted recently about Rudi Gopas and his ‘visits’ to the outer planets and back. Then, in a touch of serendipity, we not only came across a photograph that Rudi had given us at the time (one of his moon shots), but we read on Bunker Notes the Christchurch Art Gallery blog that they have a collection of Gopas photography.

As absurd as it seems, the earthquakes have animated some aspects of culture in Christchurch. Witness gapfiller, artsvoice and a wave of other initiatives and spaces. The disaster has also shaken loose some time for the staff of the Christchurch Art Gallery to push forward on making the collection and their ideas more widely available. Whereas pre-quake you mostly had to wait around for a book or a catalogue to read stuff from Justin Paton, you can now get regular ideas and insights from him on Bunker Notes.

And there's a lot more. People on staff like Felicity Milburn and Peter Vangioni are curating shows from the collection via My Gallery and anyone online is being encouraged to make and share their own selections.

It was also by browsing through My Gallery we were able to see a full range of the Gopas photos in the Christchurch Art Gallery's collection. Excellent, we’ll send the moon shot down to join them.

A new angle on weekend boating

2011-12-17T06:54:00.005+13:00

It’s Saturday (again), so put your feet up and enjoy the work of Julien Berthier the French trickster artist who gives Maurizio Cattelan a run for his lire. You can see more of his work here and why that boat never actually sinks, here.

Image: Love love, by Julien Berthier.

iShop therefore iAm

2011-12-16T11:59:00.004+13:00

A Christmas gift for someone who has everything? (well they have to have an iPhone at least). S[edition] offers art apps for when your phone alone and needing a culture hit. Some of them just stare right back at you but others, like the Tim Noble and Sue Webster effort manage to muster up a bit of a twinkle in your eye.

Resting between engagements

2011-12-16T06:59:00.001+13:00

Sometimes it's good just to sit and look at something wonderful. These drawings from the exhibition Tantra Song: Contemporary Tantric Paintings from Rajasthan at the Santa Monica Museum of Art are perfect for a moment of end of year reflection. Who can see them without reaching back for memories from the history of art? Whether it's Russian Constructivists or French Impressionists or Gordon Walters and Michael Illingworth, our connections say as much about us as they do about the paintings themselves. Best of all, these Tantric images may have an ancient lineage but they were made between 1985 and 2009. They are featured in a book of the same name.

Click on image to enlarge

2011-12-15T11:52:00.007+13:00

"I felt shy and thought, 'It's Tony Bennett, why am I naked?'"

Lady Gaga comments on posing for celebrity artist/crooner Tony Bennett. You can bid for a Bennett Gaga moment here on EBay.

Nailed

2011-12-15T06:21:00.001+13:00

On the road going up to Don Driver’s funeral earlier this week we remembered a very funny situation we got ourselves into when we were visiting him at the end of the seventies. We were gathering material for the book Contemporary New Zealand Painters. It was based on interviews and visits to artists' studios but the trouble was that Don was not really given to talking about his work. We sat with him for most of a morning on a couch in his living room trying to get some words out of the man. By mid-afternoon we were desperate and suggested we visit the studio hoping this would loosen his tongue. Not a chance.

Finally, when we were pushing hard about the materials he was using, Don looked up and said, “Sacramental.” Sacramental. That'll do. We figured we could write a whole Don Driver book around sacramental. “In what way sacramental?” we asked him. Don gave one of his classic shrugs. “What I said was sack and metal”. Ok.

Art in the workplace

2011-12-14T11:58:00.002+13:00

Art hard at work in the foyers of the world

Te Papa’s cost per visit: surely some mistake.

2011-12-14T06:58:00.022+13:00

Whenever you go into a museum and see someone click a small hand counter or notice a ‘magic’ eye, you are being added to the rough count of the institution’s attendance. Rough because these counts have to be adjusted to allow for multiple people passing the eye and only being recorded as one, the counter’s desire to boost the institution, staff entries etc. With ticket sales the only accurate gauge, it’s over to spot checks, demographic formulas and rule of thumb comparisons. As massaged as the attendance figures are (and as irrelevant as they may be to the actual experience of visitors) museums are usually keen to use them as facts.

Take, for example, the cost to the New Zealand taxpayer of each visit to Te Papa. It would seem to be a simple equation.

Based on the figures in Te Papa’s Annual Report, 1,334,712 visitors divided by the government contribution of $23,574,000 equals $17.66 per visit. Right?

Not according to Te Papa. It claims on page 3 that the cost per visit is $11.40 and remarks on how significantly low that is. For comparison, the City Gallery in Wellington (no collection and a fraction of the staff) aims not to exceed $12 per visit in subsidy from its primary funder the Wellington City Council and in March this year was sitting at $11.47 per visit.

The problem with Te Papa’s $11.40 a visit on the Government dime is that to get to that figure, 2.07 million people would have to be going through the door, not 1,334,712. It’s a big difference.

It gets more dramatic when you take into account the total operating costs of the museum of $45.910 million (wherever the money comes from). So the real cost per visit is more like $34.40 which is closer to international figures. So why not just fess up that it costs a lot to entertain people the way they do?

We'll ask them on your behalf and get back to you.

Signs of the times

2011-12-13T11:58:00.003+13:00

“The works of art presented in this room may hurt people’s feelings, especially those of children”

Signage at the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. (Thanks J)

One day at the National Gallery in London

2011-12-13T06:59:00.002+13:00

Marketing Department 1: This Leonardo show is surprisingly successful.

Marketing Department 2: Kinda. Like who’d have thought an Italian artist would be such an attraction to an English audience?

M1: Well, he is quite famous.

M2: He is? Not in my world. Is he a celebrity of some kind?

M1: Mmm. Sort of....

M2: Then why don’t we step him up to the plate? Although I'd like a bit more than ‘sort of’.

M1: Step up how?

M2: Oh I don’t know, an app?

M1: Done it already.

M2: A video game?

M1: Please.

M2: A TV series?

M1: I said please before.

M2: I know. A full-length feature film.

M1: Why the hell not. We could show it all round the world. Make a fortune.

M2: Get an Academy Award from Billy Crystal even… but we’d need a star, what about that chick with the ‘sexiest voice on TV’? Gravel someone…

M1: You mean Mariella Frostrup?

M2: We can change her name.

M1: But if we showed a feature length film of people just talking about the Leonardo show and sent it all round the world, do you think anyone would pay to see it?

M2: They all queued up for Toy Story 3 didn’t they?

M1: Yes… that’s right…they did! Let’s get a crew together and start shooting this week.

And that's is what they did

Images: The thrill that is Leonardo Live: the motion picture. You can see the trailer here

Door charge

2011-12-12T11:51:00.002+13:00

"Move five steps back! Move five steps back!"

Guards at the W Hotel's Wall nightclub in Miami to a crush of art collectors out for a night on the town after attending the Miami Art Fair

Parsons and Picasso

2011-12-12T06:42:00.000+13:00

One painting that has always held a special place in Wellington is Picasso’s Girl before a mirror. Not the original, you understand, that's in the Museum of Modern Art, but the one on the mezzanine in Parsons’ bookshop on Lambton Quay. The copy, for that is what it is, was painted by English-born Roy Parsons who was Picasso obsessed. Stuck in a city, well a country really, that had no original works by his hero back in the early seventies, he took the obvious action and painted his own.

One of those paintings is still hanging in the mezzanine coffee bar in Massey House the Ernst Plischke designed building where the bookshop relocated in 1958. How passionate was Roy Parsons about Picasso? One of his sons recalls the time when the Picasso Estate finally moved its collections into Paris’s Picasso Museum in the mid-eighties. “He practically jumped on a plane the day he heard the news.”

Images: Top, Roy Parsons' copy of Girl before a mirror in the mezzanine coffee bar at Parsons bookshop. Bottom, Picasso’s portrait of Marie-Therese Walter known as Girl before a mirror 14 March 1932 on display at the Museum of Modern Art

Alex shrugged

2011-12-10T06:58:00.003+13:00

While we’re all hanging out for Conceptual Artist Barbie, to keep us going, the Barbie I Can Be series has slotted in a Architect Barbie. OK, she does come across a little the-hills-are-alive in that Tyroleanish outfit with a city skyline trim, and the Philip Johnson glasses are not quite right, but the plan roll and hard hat certainly push things along architect-wise. And as if they don't nail the architect thing, AB also comes with her own (presumably architect designed although it doesn’t look like it) Dream House.

More Don

2011-12-09T14:10:00.000+13:00

Don Driver outside his studio with Yellow tentacle pram in 1980
(click on image to enlarge)

Mexican wave

2011-12-09T11:53:00.004+13:00

Yesterday Google dipped its masthead to the 125th anniversary of Diego Rivera’s birth.

What’s in that crate?

2011-12-09T06:54:00.000+13:00

OK, we're not even sure what in fact is in this crate seen downstairs at Ivan Anthony's, but the signage is curious. The idea that anyone might intentionally drop a huge crate is weird but if someone did want to drop it (just for fun), what are the chances a couple of stencilled don’t-do-its would stop them? Of course on one famous occasion dropping a very large crate worked out just fine. When Marcel Duchamp’s work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) was being shipped backfrom its first exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, the glass was broken leaving a network of cracks. Duchamp chose to leave them as part of the work.

Don Driver 1930 - 2011

2011-12-08T13:27:00.001+13:00

For us there have been just three reasons to visit New Plymouth: check out the Govett-Brewster, spend time with Peter Peryer, go see Don and Joyce Driver.

The news of Don’s death this morning is not unexpected but is a shock. We first met Don in the early 1970s when he was moving on from making highly finished abstract paintings and starting with his great large banners assembled from tarpaulins, clothing, sacks, tools and whatever else captured his attention. It was quite a time. Some of our most memorable experiences over the years have been fossicking around in his various studios with Don discovering what he had been up to.

Don was never a great talker so the silences were as memorable and as eloquent as the conversation. He was a gentle man who made tough, raucous, and magnificent work. Audiences were often riled by his challenges but Don was implacable. He knew what he wanted to do and he did it. Of course such determination came with a cost, and we can't fully express our admiration for Joyce and for their daughter Justine and her family for the enduring support they gave him freely and with love. Joyce's determination matched Don's and her unwavering confidence in the work was always an inspiration.

New Plymouth without Don Driver. Such an unlikely idea. But even without his presence all of us who know his work will always see the city through his eyes. The ordinary made extraordinary. Even so we will miss him deeply.

On the road

2011-12-08T11:58:00.001+13:00

And still they come. Another in our much loved series ("love the series" - R of Taranaki) of examples of the Ministry of Transport giving it up for artists young and old, living and dead, throughout the land.

The days of their lives

2011-12-08T06:59:00.001+13:00

In this week’s episode:

Paula announces she is leaving the City Gallery hard on the heels of Kate who has been in her job for under a year after the departure of Heather who went to Te Papa for a short time and then on to Massey. But before Paula announces her departure Pat begins a search for Kate’s replacement and Paula interviews Robert. Afterwards she surprises him with the news she is moving on. Robert flies back to Australia. The next week Greg, who lives in New York, turns up in town for a day. Meanwhile Pat surveys the community to see how a $10 door charge might go down. The survey also suggests that Wellington people might get in free. Will that fly Pat wonders. Will it even walk?

Next week:

Pat turns her mind to replacing Paula. Could she get Greg to return or did he have his sights on something more juicy across the Tasman? Tim might step up but how would Tim’s Te Papa style fit with the City Gallery contemporary art brand? Then there was Cam, close but maybe a little too close for comfort. Perhaps Elizabeth might want to come out of the cold or Blair away from the shakes. Would Heather do a boomerang? Well, she thinks, anythings possible, why Tina might even be persuaded to come down off the hill. As these options race through Pat’s mind, Paula plans her move to Auckland.

Lookalike

2011-12-07T11:59:00.000+13:00

Life follows art as Danielle gets trapped in a clothes horse when she falls off a bed.

Images: top, Danielle's accident. Bottom Campbell Patterson's Sandwich 2008

Your tax dollar at work

2011-12-07T06:36:00.001+13:00

The Te Papa Annual Report is always launched with little or no fanfare. That's a shame as it tells a lot about how the place really works and what happens to the around $23 million we spend on Te Papa each year. So here are a few numbers for the year 2010 to 2011. You can see a list of art acquisitions for the year here on OTN stuff or download the Te Papa Annual Report here.

First up visitor numbers. It would be interesting to have visitor numbers in more detail like how many people actually schlep up to the fifth floor to see the art (Te Papa claims 80 percent of all visitors make the climb which would be 800,000 ). It would also be interesting to know what percentage of counted visitors go to functions (weddings, film festivals, conferences, product launches etc.) rather than look at the collections. Anyway here are a few figures from the 2010-11 year:

1.34 the number in millions of total visitors

7.3 the percentage drop in annual visitors to Te Papa last year

36.7 the percentage of Te Papa visitors who live in Wellington

As to figures on specific exhibitions - there aren't any. As a rule, unless it's a huge success, Te Papa keeps pretty quiet on audience numbers to exhibitions. It would have been interesting to know, for example, how much European Masters (or any other exhibition) cost when fees, marketing and exhibition expenses are deducted from ticket sales (which are presumably tucked away in the commercial revenues figures).

Next up art purchases.

3.65 the number of dollars in millions spent on art acquisitions

.72 the number of dollars in millions spent on all other Te Papa acquisitions

9 the number of paintings by New Zealanders purchased last year

1 the number of paintings by New Zealanders purchased that were made after 1970

6 the number of contemporary New Zealand sculptures purchased

9 the number of contemporary Maori works made after 2007 purchased

2 the number of International contemporary art works purchased (both by Australian Nick Mangan)

And finally sharing the art collection with the rest of the country:

4000 the approximate number of total Te Papa loans made to other NZ institutions

36 the number of art works lent to other NZ institutions (22 of them a single exhibition loan to Wellington's City Gallery)

Images: Te Papa's "visitor numbers" chart published in this year's Annual Report with internet and touring figures included and bottom, the same chart just showing visitors to Te Papa. (click to enlarge)

City Gallery up for grabs

2011-12-06T18:00:00.000+13:00

Paula Savage, has resigned from the City Gallery. She will leave in March 2012 to take up a job in Auckland. She was appointed Director of the Wellington City Art Gallery in 1991 and managed its move to the old library building where it was renamed City Gallery.

Image: Queuing at the City Gallery for Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years

Art is where you find it

2011-12-06T11:57:00.001+13:00

Someone making an art like product round the back of the old Michael Lett Gallery

Tectonic plate

2011-12-06T06:58:00.000+13:00

OTN regular N has certainly achieved cut through with this drive-by shooting of a classic personalised plate an image that opens up the opportunity for a new OTN series. We have no idea how many ‘series’ we are currently running on OTN. Tragically some of them have only run to a single post, but this time we're optimistic. This could be an important addition to OTN’s ongoing practice, a project that interrogates artists' personas, number plates, fandom, automobiles and urban transport. We hope you enjoy the posts in the forthcoming series APNFAUT.

On the other hand…

2011-12-05T11:53:00.006+13:00

"...the success of the uber art dealers is based upon the mystical power that art now holds over the super-rich. The new collectors, some of whom have become billionaires many times over through their business nous, are reduced to jibbering gratitude by their art dealer or art adviser, who can help them appear refined, tasteful and hip, surrounded by their achingly cool masterpieces."

UK art collector Charles Saatchi has a go in the Guardian

“Miami likes a faster read”

Art dealer Casey Kaplan on the Miami Art Fair crowd

Home and away

2011-12-05T06:58:00.003+13:00

The latest round of Creative NZ Arts Board Grants has some surprises. Going through the 65 grants (totalling $1,598,359) we found the visual arts ended up with 12 percent compared to performing arts with 45 percent. The visual arts numbers look better (up to around 20 percent) if you add relevant media art funding. It’s very odd of CNZ funding media art separately to the visual arts. Followed to it’s logical conclusion CNZ would also have categories for painting, sculpture and photography etc.

The big difference this time though is that most of the visual arts money (a whopping 60 percent) goes to what you’d call specific individual artist based projects. Residencies, art school study, new work - that sort of thing.

Publishing is still getting a lot of attention grabbing $66,000 of the $190,970 the visual arts end up with. Over half of it ($36,000) goes to Robert Leonard to finish off Rock on, his history of contemporary NZ art post 1956 that he started when he was a Stout Fellow back a while.

Another interesting feature of the visual arts funding is that a big chunk ($87,490, that’s 45 percent) goes off-shore to international projects. This time it includes $16,420 to 2009 Venice artist Judy Millar to show at Museum Otterndorf in Germany and $28,810 to send three artists to the Sydney Biennale.

Saturday's a leg of lamb, is everybody happy?

2011-12-03T06:57:00.003+13:00

This French & Saunders version of Gilbert & George via Leg of Lamb (thanks Leg)

Branded: Chris Booth

2011-12-02T11:53:00.000+13:00

The moment when artists become brands

Kcin

2011-12-02T06:55:00.001+13:00

When you’re rummaging around the OTN Forgotten Archive, you may notice that Nick Spill was once found and soon after disappeared. The reason is simple. Nick asked us to remove the entry that was peppered with references to security, guns and bodyguards and so we did.

Now Nick has re-emerged, this time via the image of an early art work sent in by a reader (thanks A). It turns out that Spill might well be a world leader in art taping. Our earliest example used to be Maurizio Cattelan’s effort with his dealer Massimo De Carlo but Spill’s precedes that by 21 years.

When we asked if we could publish the taping pic we were pointed toward his novels published on Amazon. Whoa. Nick has literally spilt the beans on NZ art and sex (mostly sex) in the seventies. It’s a novel but those who were there and anyone who can google should be able to sort out who’s doing what to whom. You can buy Growing Up Horny in New Zealand by Nick Spill for kindle here on Amazon. His next book The Way of the Bodyguard is coming soon.

Image: Llips together 1978, courtesy of the artist

elevenses

2011-12-01T11:55:00.002+13:00

In november we: wondered how the hell te papa and the city gallery managed to spend $600,000 on oceania • came up empty when we looked for art related election promises • became depressed at the old-guy selection for venice • drummed up a cricket team • pondered the future of art publishing • revisited rudi gopas • worried about where to send the kids to art school and nearly scooped the announcement of michael parekowhai’s brisbane commission (nice one lara)

But wait, there’s more

2011-12-01T06:59:00.001+13:00

It is the tradition of the great newspapers of the world to champion the rights of the oppressed, maintain a close vigil on the political and expound directions for the future. Blogs are somewhat different choosing instead to offer instant opinions, prod institutional power, advocate the importance of cuteness in cats and shamelessly promote those near and dear to them.

In this spirit we must tell you our son Pippin's book How to play a video game has just been published and is in bookshops now (or near as dammit). This means that the perfect Christmas gift has appeared right before your eyes.

For everyone who was left behind when the PlayStation controller hit the scene as well as those who despair of their partners, parents or work mates ever understanding the joy of gaming, this is the book for them and this is the book for you.

… don’t just take our word for it:

‘A fabulous insight into how video games work’

Simon Morton

‘Passionate, insightful and full of easy charm, this smart, informative, funny guide to the gaming world is a great read for ardent fans, the uninitiated and sceptics alike’

Derek Lockwood, Worldwide Director of Design, Saatchi & Saatchi

‘Pippin Barr is an emissary from the flourishing civilisation of video games. His book is the perfect introduction to a global movement becoming ever more influential and all-consuming’

Toby Laing, trumpeter, Fat Freddy’s Drop

Lookalike

2011-11-30T11:59:00.000+13:00

A riff on Alfred Barr's famous where-the-hell-did-that-abstract-stuff-come-from? diagram, via I love charts
Click on image to enlarge

Fundamental

2011-11-30T06:59:00.005+13:00

It’s not often that someone makes a fuss when they miss out on funding from Creative NZ (a public one anyway) so the Depot’s response is unusual. It has put out a media release expressing ‘dismay’ that CNZ has declined to fund a new round of its video interviews with cultural ‘icons’. The interviews are available free online and the production quality is excellent. We’ve watched a few of them over the year and while the content is variable some is outstanding. We were particularly impressed by Rodney Wilson’s interview of gallerist and auction guy Peter Webb.

So why wouldn’t CNZ fund a programme like this?

A glance at the complete list of interviews might give you a clue to the possible reasoning behind CNZ’s “perplexing decision.” At a rough count, of the 41 interviews online so far, 33 of them are of white men. People of Maori or Pacific descent just don’t get a look in (which is odd as virtually all the interviewees live in Auckland). As far as the visual artists go, all but one are painters and six of the eight figurative, they include Nigel Brown, Dean Buchanan, Stanley Palmer, Alan Pearson and Claudia Pond-Eyely.

Creative NZ has made no secret that it is changing its focus and that recognising diversity is one of its fundamental values. The Depot’s selection has many virtues, but diversity is not one of them. Maybe the 20 planned interviews put up for funding were intended shake up the white-guy thing but judging from what has been done so far you can see why the Depot request could easily fail a CNZ funding tick.

A RESPONSE FROM THE DEPOT: ".... Our goal is to secure funding that enables us to carry out as many interviews as our community recording studio will accommodate and as our time to edit and download will allow. We feel perhaps that seeking sponsorship could be the best avenue for this and for ensuring that the great and rich diversity of cultures and disciplines, and gender balance, are represented.

The Depot has for fifteen years has honoured and sought to actively represent its philosophy, an aspect of which is inclusiveness, from which the Cultural Icons series originated."

You can read the full response here on OTN Stuff

Oh, oh

2011-11-29T11:59:00.004+13:00

“Consider this the official PR spin from the Te Papa Museum Building at this point in time, but the concept idea of a facility in Auckland that could potentially host items in the national collection is very interesting, surely sharing the national collection, and the expertise of the people caring for and learning from the collection is a good thing huh?... The point I’m going to proffer is, that as long as a collection is accessible to as many people as possible – then where it's housed should not matter at all, right?”

Te Papa’s Communications Department on the Te Papa blog

One day in the lab

2011-11-29T06:57:00.018+13:00

G: Are they out there?

B: Yes, the waiting room's packed.

G: how many do you think?

B: Oh, I don’t know, more than 200, say 236.

G: Perfect.

(Time passes)

B: omg, look at that!

G: Unbelievable, is that six or seven times this morning?

B: Well, if you count the parking attendant it’s eight, but I’m concerned that will skew the stats.

(later)

G: The FA's are a bit listless this morning, don't you think?

B: Yes, a few of them did well last night but a lot complained of headaches.

G: A reaction to oil paint possibly?

B: Doubt it. Over 79 percent of them are conceptualists.

G: Right, not that then.

(later still)

G: The MA’s really are outstanding…

B: They certainly are. What are we talking? A two percent dysfunctionality, if that.

G: … I mean that one over there, I didn’t even know that was possible.

B: Should I write it up into the results?

G: Yes, yes, do that and don’t worry about the tapes, I’ll hold onto them.

Behavioural scientists at Newcastle University have hypothesized that producing artwork functions as a mating display through investigating the relationship between mating success and artistic success in a sample of 236 visual artists. Their findings indicated that "more successful male artists had more sexual partners than less successful artists, but this did not hold for female artists." You can read more here.

Magnificent

2011-11-28T11:59:00.001+13:00

On the Christchurch Art Gallery blog Bunker Notes Justin Paton joins the inspirational movement against boosting in art museum labels and promotional material. Paton also adds a kicker on the continual repetition of redundant statements. You can read Paton’s piece here and one of OTN’s sensational Best of the Boosters examples here.

Show time

2011-11-28T06:58:00.001+13:00

Why don’t more artists get to curate exhibitions? Many of them have the same academic qualifications as most curators and most of them have a distinctive take on the visual possibilities of the exhibition. If you want a textbook example, visit the exhibition curated by Eve Armstrong at Michael Lett in Auckland of her sculpture with Gretchen Albrecht’s paintings. Armstrong is right on pitch with tone and colour and brings Albrecht’s work into a focus it hasn’t received for over a decade. It’s hard to imagine an institutional curator having the nerve to pitch the transition between Albrecht’s smoky stained canvas Tongue and Armstrong’s scoria and furnishing based sculptural collage.

Over the years we have posted on a number of outstanding exhibitions that have set an artist’s vision and sensibility at their core. The juxtapositions, visual acrobatics and ideas about presentation that artists can bring to exhibitions are often the very things that fall victim to institutional politics and indifference to the viewer experience. History shows that most great curators have had artist friends as their visual mentors and used studio visits for an intellectual shake-up. It’s a great tradition. How about art museums enticing more artists into their exhibition making as devisers, curators and designers? Good for inventiveness, good for cut-through, good for audiences.

Turn up

2011-11-26T18:38:00.001+13:00

Michael Parekowhai’s sculpture The World Turns, a three part work in bronze, has been selected for the Premier of Queensland’s Sculpture Commission. It is to mark both the fifth anniversary of the opening of Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art in December 2011 and 20 years of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in 2012. Submissions were requested from a shortlist of three artists. Parekowhai’s proposal was the unanimous selection of the committee chaired by Queensland Art Gallery head Tony Ellwood.
Image: a visual representation of The world turns showing the three bronze elements, a life sized elephant, a school chair and a small native rat.

Plink, plank, plonker

2011-11-26T06:59:00.002+13:00

Lookalike: horror division

2011-11-25T11:59:00.000+13:00

Images: Left Marina Abramovic, right Michael Myers

Man up

2011-11-25T06:59:00.000+13:00

The days when the integrity of artists’ content was jealously protected by art museums has long gone. To think that there was once a time when simply putting type over an art work could cause an upheaval. Now it’s open slather. Sometimes the artists are into it and sometimes they just have to suck it up. Whether René Magritte is beaming or sucking is anyone's guess but the Magritte app from Tate (Magritte it) is certainly another step in the journey. Now you can make men in bowler hats cascade in front of any image you choose. There is also an animated version. We chose the face of Tate Director Nicholas Serota just in case René is after some payback.