By the numbers: over there edition

3       the number in millions of people who visit MoMA a year

6.4     the percentage increase (reaching a total of 2,473) in billionaires in the world over the last year

7        the percentage of art sold online globally last year

31      the percentage drop in sales value of art sold through Sotheby’s auction house last year

70      the percentage of operating art museums in the world that were founded after 2000

190    the amount in thousands of dollars that the movie star Alec Baldwin paid for a painting by Ross Bleckner he didn’t want

800    the number of Andy Warhol paintings owned by the New York based Mugrabi family art collection

1,000  the number of portraits David Hockney claims he will paint of ‘his friends, family plus art world movers and shakers’

1,114  the amount in dollars paid per square centimeter for Jean Michael Basquiat’s 1.8 x 2.13 meter painting Dustheads making a total of $67 million

1,575  the number of art museums in the United States

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

Look and feel

One phenomenon of the last ten or so years has been watching photographers reshape their work to fit better into traditional art categories. At the same time photography has been absorbed by artists as an increasingly important visual tool. No matter how many times critics or curators or anyone else has declared that photography is art in its own right, it's taken some adjustments to let it take the spotlight in the most prominent spaces of art institutions.  The exhibition Ocean of images: new photography 2015 made it to the first floor of MoMA so it seems like the right place to go to look for trends. Following up on our list of how to make big art on smallish budgets, here are 10 ways photography is making itself ‘feel like art’.

1   Print big

2   Add a video screen or multiple screens

3   Present work as free-standing cut-outs

4   Cover wall with duplicate images

5   Exhibit images as piles of giveaway posters on the floor

6   Add a sound track

7   Use many eccentrically shaped frames

8   Make small objects, photograph them and present both

9   Print images as a book and then display multiple copies open at different pages

10  Go high concept. Build an environment, like a shop, as an exhibition space within the exhibition space

Images: top to bottom left to right, Indre Serpytyte (8), Edson Chagas (5), Yuki Kimura (10), Mishka Henner (9) and DIS (2)

Window gazing

Inspired by MoMA’s Sigmar Polke exhibition we made sure to check out his stained glass windows in the Grossmünster church in Zurich. The windows you usually see reproduced are the cross sections of agates and they are spectacular. Although they seemed audaciously contemporary inevitably we found out later that the technique is an ancient one (#whatthehelldoweknowparttwo). 

Maybe it’s being a long way from home but what came to mind in that grandly austere building were Shane Cotton's windows in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland. They were installed so long ago now (10 years) that many people don’t know about them.  If this is the first you've heard of this commission they are definitely worth a visit. As to Polke's project, the obvious European comparison is the Gerhard Richter windows in Cologne cathedral. How inspiring they were when we first saw them and now post Polke’s rich and idiosyncratic triumph, how chilling they feel.

Images: Left Sigmar Polke window at the Grossmünster church in Zurich and right Shane Cotton in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland

What the hell did we know?

The last time we posted about the Museum of Modern Art we were bitching about the crowds and claiming they were completely out of control. The airline industry has a wonderful term for those passengers who nudge their way to the front of the line when the gates open for boarding – Gate Lice. Now the last time we were at MoMA it had a big Gallery Lice problem, but they were not to be seen this time. This was thanks to a simple fix: there are significantly reduced crowds if you head in at 3pm on a week day. And then there was the show. 

However much you travel you get a fragmented view of even the most celebrated artists. For us the Sigmar Polke retrospective Alibis at MoMA was a revelation. The exhibition opened with a very smart selection touching on all periods of his career and then offered a compelling view of this restless artist. Polke’s urge to experiment with formats and materials and his conviction that the personal is political certainly tilts your (well our) perspective on what was going on in art in the sixties and seventies in Europe. Not that Polke didn’t do some exceptional work later but those two decades were astonishing to a couple of NZers somewhat blinkered by an American-centric history of post sixties art. Unsettling and exhilarating.

Image: Sigmar Polke’s Plastik-Wannen (Plastic Tubs) 1964

A word on fashion

Short of Anselm Kiefer breaking out a line of wedding dresses or catching an advert for the the Milan Mrkusich range of boxer shorts, it’s hard to imagine anything more surprising than Lawrence Weiner teaming up with UNIQLO to pump out a t-shirt collection in association with MoMA.

The signs were there of course. Weiner was the guy after all who said, “Art and fashion are the last two bastions where the product itself is what attracts attention; it really doesn’t much matter who made it.” He’s also been known to stand up for the workhorses of the fashion industry. "I have a great appreciation for runway models. Why would they do it? It’s exhausting, terrible, psychological work to do and you don’t have any control over yourself.” Maybe it was this empathy that prompted him to make a runway piece titled (1) FOR THE MONEY, (2) FOR THE SHOW, (3) TO GET READY and (4)

Gifted

Time for another round up of artist branded gifts. From the Barbara Kruger limited edition sunglasses via the Wim Delvoye Yoga Mat to the Joseph Kosuth Water Bottle, there is no end to what artists can be persuaded to do for the honour of the gift shop. For those who met Barbara Kruger and Joseph Kosuth on their visits to New Zealand the shift in tone is gob-smacking. We’ve come a long way but looking at this lot the artist-gift combo there's still a ways to go yet.

Let’s go shopping:

1  Wim Delvoye Yoga Mat from MOCA, $108.00
2  Maurizio Cattelan And Pierpaolo Ferrari: Bitten Soap from MoMA, $18
3  Yoko Ono Pillow Case Set from the MCA in Sydney, $43.00
4   Barbara Kruger Limited Edition Sunglasses (Red) from LACMA, $241.00
5  Agelio Batle Graphite AK-47 from the MCA Chicago, $77
6  Kusama Dancing Pumpkin floating pen from Tate, $39.50
7  Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen snow globe based on Spoonbridge and Cherry from the Walker Art Centre $18.00
8  Joseph Kosuth Water Bottle from the Guggenheim Museum, $34.00

Showing off on Saturday

Some of you may recall and perhaps even played Pippin Barr’s game based on the Marina Abramović survey exhibition at MoMA The artist is present. It turns out you were not alone. The other day Pippin got an email from Abramović saying she had played the game but lost her place in the queue when she left her computer to make lunch. She summed up the experience, “so I never got to sit with myself”. Now, following a meet on Skype, she and Pippin are going to collaborate on some more games. If you find that impressive, join the queue.

Crowd sourcing II

All public art museums crave to attract more people through their doors. Attendances often determine how much sun will shine on them from their funders who in NZ's case are mostly local and regional authorities. Take Auckland Art Gallery for instance. Its council ‘owner’ Robert Domm, the chief executive of Regional Facilities Auckland (RFA), is focussed on the Gallery “enhancing its commercial performance” and that aspiration is a very powerful shaping idea. But, be careful what you wish for. We found our visit to the Museum of Modern Art dispiriting. Commercially successful? No doubt but by pulling in the crowds MoMA has sacrificed what you'd have thought were two of its most important roles; the protection of works of art and the protection of the experience of those works of art.

Hundreds of people rushed through the galleries brushing against paintings, jostling for position in front of famous works and suddenly stopping dead or lurching away as the audio guide spun them round. The guards had all but given up in the face of such crowds only occasionally calling “no flash” if only to prove they even existed. Wow. Meanwhile down the road the sexy fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch kept eager punters waiting in a line outside its Manhattan flagship store until there was space for them to properly enjoy the store. The priority of A&F (like the Barnes collection in Philadelphia) is the experience once you get inside and that's what they protect. MoMA's priority seems to be to take the money and run. Their approach to what the crowds get as an experience (or rather non-experience) at thirty bucks a head? Not our problem.

Images: top left, crowds form at the ticket office and right, they’re off, the rush to the ‘best’ galleries. Middle, six deep at audio tour stops and bottom, shadow play delivers Douglas Gordon’s poignant video Play dead; real time straight back to the circus.

Pippin Barr’s Art game.

The Art game (review here by Huff Post) puts you in a studio ready to make work for inclusion in a big museum show. It also comes complete with a picky curator and an audience not shy of making their opinions known. Can you get your work into the show? How will it be received? Will you get the sort of recognition you deserve? Only one way to find out. Play it here.

Crowd sourcing

Art museums the world over have become obsessed with getting bums through the door. It’s turned out to be one of those ideas that makes sense right up to the minute it doesn't. Yes, be careful what you wish for. Anyone who has tried to get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre or struggled through the crowds at MoMA or the Met knows that now the experience is often not worth the ticket price. Long queues to get in, longer queues to park your coat and bag if it’s Winter and then a constant crush on the stairs, in the corridors and lined up in front of the most famous works. It's crowds all the way down. 

Some museums have reacted to the avalanche of visitors by putting on time restrictions and others by limiting entry numbers but the best visitor strategy is to concentrate on works that aren’t on the greatest-hits list. When you speed walk (ok run) through the Vatican’s corridors to try to have the Sistine Chapel to yourself (we did it back in 1975 by following Georgina Masson's instructions in her classic guide to Rome but it may not be possible any more) you zoom past Raphael’s masterpiece The School of Athens in a room that rarely has more than a few people in it while the Chapel itself is quickly packed with craners. It's the same in Paris where the Mona Lisa shares space with da Vinci's beautiful but not as famous and therefore not as crowded Madonna of the rocks. 

In all the competition over increasing attendance numbers the irony of the next few years may well turn out to be instead how to let fewer people into the building. 
 Image: Crowds at MoMA

The game maker is present

You may remember the why-shoot-at-things-when-you-can stand-in-a-queue-for-five-hours computer game based on Marina Abromovich’s performance. The artist is present caused an internet buzz resulting in around 150,000 people joining the virtual queue to sit with virtual Marina in its first month. Now, as part of the increasing interest art museums are showing in digital based work, Pippin Barr (did we ever mention that he is our son? Possibly) has been invited to join a two-day symposium and to talk about his game at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. You can check out the other panellists and details here.

Image: MoMA is closed. The artist is only present during the museum’s opening hours.