Getting the point

Drawing has always been a problem for artists. Some people have a natural ability, the rest have to work it out the hard way. Well no more, at least with the how-the-hell-do-you-do-that skill of perspective drawing. Thanks to Instagram’s architectdrw  and a piece of elasticised string, doing the perspective thing just became a possibility for everyone. You can watch it in action here.

The art of art chart art

As part of our admiration for the certainty of Art Charts, we’ve previously posted the famous one by Alfred Barr that fronted the catalogue for MoMA’s groundbreaking exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art in 1936. Many years later the idea showed it had legs when it was provocatively updated. The ‘torpedo’ chart was also a Barr special demonstrating his unwavering faith that the art of the Americas owned the future and that the end of Europe as path-finders was nigh. We also found in MoMA’s archives online Barr’s original sketch for his Abstract art mind-map. All this gives us the opportunity to list two of our favourite art charts that have come our way, a link to others and thank again the people who sent them in.

The art chart thing
Jobs at Te Papa
Touch, don't touch?
How to be an artist
List of past art charts

Back in your court

We’ve now had time to read through the Judgment papers issued by High Court Judge John Fogarty in the case of Bambury vs Jensen. At 145 pages it must be one of the most expensive art texts written in this country! A number of readers have suggested that our initial post was somewhat unfair to defendant Andrew Jensen claiming Stephen Bambury as a clear winner. Despite our comment that the settlement was ‘a much reduced pay out based on the initial claim of around $700,000 about the much reduced pay out on the initial claim of around $700,000’ we also wrote up that ‘the High Court has found in favour of the artist’ so it’s probably a fair enough reaction. 

Here’s a little more detail about what happened. There were 41 items disputed by the artist (mostly around payments owing on paintings) of which 26 failed to convince Judge Fogarty for various reasons. Two other items were set aside because of the Limitations Act, a couple were granted leave to apply at another time and seven required payments being made to Bambury in the total amount of $139,200 plus some interest. Given the amount of money that must have been spent taking this action to the High Court there were probably no winners on the day. We’ll try to make a copy of the Judgment easily available on OTN if we can. It’s a fascinating insight (and a rare one) into the back office world of dealers and artists. 
Image: trajectory of a ping pong ball

Did we say small? We meant big

The exhibition spaces in the contemporary art museums of Tokyo are like their peers in the rest of the well-off world - grossly inflated. When was the last time you could use a simple ladder to hang something off the ceiling of an exhibition space? The result of this institutional love affair with volume is extreme pressure on artists to produce larger and larger works. Having seen a lot of art over the last few days, here's some of the strategies currently in use to make big work with smallish budgets.

1 Building large structures from cheap materials (bamboo, cardboard, plastic etc)

2  Arranging 100 or so small paintings in a grid pattern to take up a big wall

3  Presenting videos inside cheap structures like tents or cupboards

4  Installing large real world objects (the more unexpected the better) in front of paintings or videos. Start with a rowboat or a car and you'll probably get to a homemade working helicopter

5  Leaning large objects (the floor from a school room, for instance) against walls

6  Locating multiple screens in a long line (and they can be showing the same image, see repetition below) or as large scale panoramic projections

7  Isolating and spotlighting furniture (desks, tables, benches) to facilitate a visitor survey or some other bureaucratic task

8  Piling things or stacking things

9  Going for repetition. One plaster cat is dull, 1,000 not so much

Images: top to bottom, left to right. large structure - cheap material, piles, large real-world object, tv in a tent, survey and lots-a-paintings

Big eyes

After a scan of some dealer galleries, a best-of show in LA and too much time on Google, here’s some of what to expect from art in the next 12 months.

• Plants in pots, in arrangements and in fragments
• Large mirrors and reflective surfaces
• Installations in stand-alone rooms
• Tiles and more tiles, on the floor, on the wall and on the ceiling
• Performances (many of them based on work by Yvonne Rainer)
• Collectives and groups
• Ceramics, ceramics and more ceramics
• Rumbling bass sound tracks
• Small abstract paintings that remind you of other paintings you've seen
• Artist statements printed onto the gallery wall
• Things made of bronze that look like they are made of something else
• Artists writing printed in handouts
• Artists curating other artists as their own work of art

Space invaders

Palais de Tokyo in Paris must be up there as one of the biggest contemporary art spaces in the world. Who knows how many thousands of square meters it covers, possibly no one. Who could be surprised then when most of the work it shows is of the installation art kind. The pressure on artists to fill these jaw dropping spaces is extreme. What counts as a 'small' space comes in at around 150 square meters and the largest at around a thousand or more. As a visitor it's fascinating to see the strategies various artists adopt to cope with filling these sorts of areas. Here are some techniques we saw at work. Feel free to use them to fill your own large spaces.

1   Use cheap materials. Clay, paper, cardboard boxes, corrugated card and iron, tires and bricks.

2   Cover the floor with a cheap material. That clay comes in handy again and so does paint or, if you’re really low on funds, water (in sheets or puddles).

3   Install a very small work into a very large space.

4   Construct a set and decorate it with theater props

5   Use video projection on free-standing screens or the back wall of a large room

6   Project video onto floors (this seems the same as item 5 but add a balustrade – more bang for the bucks)

7   Use old school tv sets to show your video and fill up the remaining space with chairs and couches

8   Cover walls with decorative surfaces (wallpaper, newsprint, graffiti)

9   Make something large and hollow using light cheap materials (painted paper, paper mache etc)

10  Place small works on plinths widely separated from one another

11  Performance

You're welcome.


Images: some example left to right top to bottom. Light weight and hollow – Eduardo Basualdo, painted floors and walls - Michael Riedel, video on floor - Tony Ousler, small ojects large space – Julien Bismuth, cheap materials on floor - Dominique Ghesquiere, plinths – Agnieszka Kurant, large found objects and theatrical devices – Hiroshi Sugimoto

The ghosts in the machine

With only 13 days before university students get back to work you'd think that Unitec could at least have come up with a list of who'll be teaching this year. It was quick enough to strip its arts school's ‘core teaching team’ from 50 to 17.6 late last year but the follow-up is non-existent from the public point of view. Look up staff and it’s ‘Please check back for the latest staff information.’

Even worse is the way the institution is coasting on the reputations of ex-staffers. It's got to be galling for them (whether they saw the approaching steam roller and got out of the way by taking redundancy or attempted and failed to get one of the new jobs) to still be used by Unitec’s PR machine. Take just two of them: ex Associate Dean of Research Marcus Williams and Susan Jowsey who used to be a ‘Senior Academic Staff Member.’ They are still trumpeted on the Unitec website as king hit successes for the institution.

Who knows how students will react. As this student video demonstrates they were certainly unimpressed by losing their big-name art teachers partway through their courses. They may be equally fed up to find that the ghosts of staff past are still being served up as exemplars of the Unitec brand.

Batten down the hatches

A chill wind is blowing through tertiary art education as schools are repurposed and staff shed. To give you an idea of how the new tick-the-boxes model is being presented at Unitec in Auckland, here's part of the evaluation the prominent NZ photographer Edith Amituanai received when she was told why she (along with many others) no longer had a job.

"The panel felt that you had research credibility but lacked the professional networks and industry experience that we are looking for. We are also looking for more programme development experience. You have good relationships with students but did not communicate strongly in interview and you were not able to articulate your teaching philosophy. It was also felt that you didn’t understand peer learning. You did not demonstrate that you are a critical thinker. It was also felt that you didn’t have strong examples of implementing new ideas and following through."

Edith Amituanai put her evaluation up on her blog and you can read her remarkably sanguine response there too.

Waterskiing

"Does the person who makes the hubcaps or whatever they're called these days point at a passing Mercedes  SLK or whatever it's called, saying, 'I did that?' No. So why should assistants claim possession for their work? It's a job…. We're not here to mentor them. They're here to work for us."

UK artist Jake Chapman (of the Chapman brothers) talking about studio assistants in the Guardian

Advice to art students

Here’s a way to bring drawing back into your life and get fit at the same time. Ok, not very good drawing.

You can see more Figurerunning drawings here

The son also rises

We constantly fight the urge to bombard you all with cross posts of brilliant stuff from our son. But The Meta-Aesthetics of Artists , who could resist it? Not these parents.

Advice to art students

"As valuable as the arts are to our society, now is not the time to be turning down available work to follow an artistic dream."

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett

A quick plug for life drawing

Advice to art students

Don't give up.

Click on image to enlarge and learn how to make use of 'a lively imagination.'