Holding the line

If you want to see a concise demonstration of what a great curator does, try to catch the documentary Marina Abramovic: The artist is present. In this instance the ‘curation’ came from her dealer Sean Kelly. 

As Abramovic works toward her MoMA performance (90 days sitting in front of visitors to the museum) she meets the magician David Blaine. He proposes a wild and spectacularly gruesome ending to her performance involving his illusionist skills. Abramovic is clearly excited and tells Kelly that she's going with it. Now Marina Abramovic is not a person to be trifled with but Kelly doesn’t hesitate. “I think it is a terrible idea,” he tells her. She looks up sharply. Kelly goes on to explain that Blaine’s idea is about illusion and that she is completely about reality and that he will do everything in his power to stop her going ahead with it. “You’re right,” she says. 

As a sidebar, Wystan Curnow reminded us that Marina Abramovic and Ulay made a performance in Christchurch in 1981. They'd been invited by Andrew Drummond to take part in ANZART. The performance started at 4pm and went through to around 8pm. 

“It’s a piece that’s almost unknown,” Abramovic recalls in an interview on orneryworld.film.com. “It was a work called Witnessing. Ulay was sitting on the floor and I was standing and pointing one finger in his direction. The natural light was becoming darker over the four hours of the piece. My feet were on a pedestal and they had to lift me down because I was completely cramped. It was a very strange piece.” 

Image: The 1977Abramovic Ulay work Imponderabilia as recreated at Sean Kelly’s booth at Art Basel this year. Kelly is seen in his tux experiencing the work. (you can watch a film clip of the original version here).

Stand and deliver

Simon Denny's prize winning installation at Michael Lett's Art/Statements stand at the Basel Art Fair

Big Ears: omnibus edition

At the Basel Art Fair: 

“What’s the situation with that mark on the wall?” 

“That’s accidental. It was not made by the artist.” 

…

“I haven’t been able to get five minutes with Mark for years.” 

…

“I like to buy my art fast. Yesterday I bought a Dubuffet pretty fast.” 

… 

“So he was a dealer?” 

“Yes. He was very active for a while, but not active so much now.” 

“Not interesting then?” 

“Not interesting.” 

 … 

"Of course she ended up suing me.”

 …

 “Have you seen the Koons?” 

“No. Is it good?” 

“It’s Koons.” 

 … 

"We live next door to Leonardo DiCaprio. He lives with his mother. Did you know that?”

  … 

“Basel is just days without food and sleep so far as I’m concerned.” 

… 

“I said it was eight thousand bucks and he offered seven, so I told him ‘we’re not having this conversation.’” 

… 

“So he bought this Franz West sculpture and didn’t even know it came with a car. He thought he was just buying a group of sculptures. When they delivered it to him they said, ‘where do you want the car?’ Hard to believe huh!” 

“But true?” 

“But true.” 

… 

“I’m just going to go over there and pat the dog.”

The loneliness of a long-distance gallery director

Remember back in the day when New Zealanders rushed to the Basel Art Fair like lemmings to a cliff? The Trip of a Lifetime crowd, how they loved Basel. ‘We need to be here’ they clamoured to CNZ. ‘We absolutely agree,’ CNZ chorused back. The harmony was, well, unusual is as good a word as any. 

Now skip forward three years and try to get funding for an international art fair. You’re lucky to get $7500 here and $7500 there, bit of a change from the $90,000 they put up for Art Basel last time. There’s more support at CNZ for the Melbourne (is it still happening?) Art Fair adding up to what is not exactly the most dynamic overseas strategy. This year at Basel there is barely a government paid New Zealander to be seen. 

This is all very unfortunate because Sriwhana Spong’s installation at the Basel Art Fair’s Statements exhibition is outstanding and attracting a great deal of attention. The problem is, from CNZ’s point of view, it might as well be the sound of a plinth falling in a forest. If CNZ really believes in the power of international connections (and they said they did, didn’t they?) one or two of them really need to get over to see what’s going on. Would some of us then call them out as junket travellers? Possibly, but they need to do it anyway.

Big Ears (Limited edition)

Buyer: Can I sit on it?
Dealer: That's a $1 million euro Roni Horn glass work that weighs three tonnes
Buyer: Sure, but can I sit on it?
Dealer: If you wanted to.

and

"You can alarm it if you like, but we've gone with guards."

Theme park

Things we saw a lot of in art works at the Basel Art Fair.

White neon, video screens in elaborate picture frames, abstract human heads on animal bodies, vitrines hanging on walls, film projectors, mirrors, triangular shapes in paintings and sculpture, and, still, rabbits (lots of them).

Spellbinding

If anyone had doubts about how et al. would fare in an exhibition of top international artists (SPOILER ALERT: we never did), they would have had them removed at Art Unlimited at the Basel Art Fair. Walking past a truly great Carl Andre, a spectacular Murakami and an entire train craned in by Chinese artist Qiu Anxiong, et al.'s installation was right up there with the best of them and ahead of a lot. Starkwhite's John McCormack and Dominic Feuchs had good cause to be pleased with themselves and their artists. They also had Dane Mitchell in Statements. Mitchell, in cahoots with a witch, had cast a spell over part of the exhibition space. We noticed that even the doubters kept their feet and hands well clear of the demarcated space. Even we took a spell check on risking a photograph. CNZ was involved in supporting Dane Mitchell and may have (they will no doubt tell us in their own good time) supported et al. too. If so, good on them.
Image: entrance to et al.'s installation altruistic studies 2008

Big ears: English edition

Day one at the Basel Art Fair

The Dealers
"It's always good to make promises, but sometimes you can't keep them."

Dealer to artist: "I have an estimate of between 60 and 80 thousand pounds. I mean, you could leave the work under the bed but the media is strong at the moment. I think you would be better off with the money under the bed."

"These are major (pause) monster works."

The Collectors

Stubble 1: "He's a great artist. But this is not great art"
Stubble 2: "Isn't it?"
Stubble 1: (silence)

"It's hot!"
"Which one?"
"I mean the room."

"It's a reindeer and a towel. Everyone's excited."

Jolly good company

et al. will be in good company when they exhibit in Art Unlimited in the Basel Art Fair. Other artists in the grand hall include: Rosemarie Trockel, Thomas Ruff, Pipilotti Rist, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Damián Ortega, Takashi Murakami, Karen Kilimnik, Thomas Hirschhorn, Douglas Gordon, Jan Dibbets and Bruce Conner. There are also familiar names from NZ exhibitions, Shintaro Miyake from Auckland Art Gallery's Mixed up Childhood, Jessen Gallery’s Tony Tony Oursler and Artspace exhibitor Diana Thater. For the full list, go here.
Later... Auckland Art Gallery adds to the list: Joachim Koester at Jan Mot - was in Mystic Truths with a 16mm film, photographs and two-channel video work. Jesús Rafael Soto has a work from the collection in this year's Sydney Biennale.

In tents

No sooner did we get news of Starkwhite’s invitation to show et al. at Art Unlimited at the Basel Art Fair than Michael Stevenson’s book Celebration at Persepolis turned up in the mail. The small book that is jamb packed with incredibly interesting information about the Last Hurrah of the Iranian Shah, has been published jointly by the Aldofini in the UK who took the exhibition after Basel and Keller Editions. Aucklanders might remember the exhibition of books and magazines compiled by Christoph Keller shown in Artspace this time last year. It was also shown at the Physics Room in Christchurch. The publication includes an interview with Stevenson, a detailed account of the party including important details (Nixon didn’t attend, sending Spiro Agnew in his place, Tito was there, so too was Prince Philip and Anne. And you couldn’t keep Ceausescu away, not with roast partridge stuffed with foie gras on the menu). Finally there is a suite of great pics of Stevenson’s own version of the desert folly as shown in Basel.