All at sea

In Raft of Medusa Copy Cat terms, how could we have forgotten the cover of the record we must have played at least once every day of 1985? The Pogues fan site continues the theme and is called In the wake of the Medusa! According to legend the Pogues’ title came from Churchill: “Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash. “ Unfortunately, if you believe Wikipedia, this is a misattribution. Anyway, thanks for the reminder A.

Advice to collectors 12

In her book The Art of Buying Art: An Insider’s Guide to Collecting Contemporary Art, Paige West lists the following types of contemporary art collectors.

• The Decorators: buying to fill spaces at home
• The Investors: Buying low, selling high
• The Specialists: assembling themed collections
• The Vacationers: only buying during trips away
• The Thrill Seekers: moving in on the hot work by the latest hot artist
• The Addicts: ruled by passion

Any others spring to mind? Table tennis balls await.

Image: This Veterinary Surgeon collects pictures of animals. As the artist, Craig Roberts, says, "I am lucky to have a wonderful ever increasing collector base for my work, ranging from celebrities, wildlife art collectors & now Veterinary Surgeons."

Opportunity knocks

As you can see from our side bar WAITING FOR GODOT, we are trying to find out how many artists-with-PhDs the Elam School of Fine Arts intends to produce each year. You might remember that the University of Auckland's goal is 500. So far we haven't been able to find out Elam's share, but fortunately we saw an ad for a National Institute of Creative Industries Post Graduate Study Information Evening to be held in Wellington on Tuesday the 14th. Of course we've signed up. With luck, we'll have the answer for you on Wednesday.
Image: the picture used to promote the Information Evening

Going pair shaped

As you will know if you are a regular reader of this blog, we like to pair images as illustrations for the posts. That’s probably why we were so taken with these pictures collected by William Boling for his WINDOW exhibition You Ain't Wrong. To make these strangely compelling twosomes, Boling used images he found on TradeMe or eBay. Find out more about the show and bid on the works via WINDOW, and see more examples of Boling’s pairings here .

The continuing adventures of Secret Squirrel

An invitation from the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane prompted us again to wonder why Creative New Zealand is declining to make the Trip of a Lifetime Reports public. In Brisbane, the IMA has scheduled three Australians to give public talks on their experiences at the Bienalle. Having travelled on our dime, it is hard to see why the New Zealand public shouldn’t know what our representatives saw and heard, and what they thought about it. We have now made three requests for the five individual reports by Natasha Conland, Gavin Hipkins, Gary Langsford, Lisa Reihana and Undine Marshfield (see WAITING FOR GODOT at the top right of the blog). The most recent response from CNZ claimed that, “The individual reports from delegates are submitted in confidence to us and so will not be publicly issued … this is common practice where free and frank advice is an imperative.” Kind of paradoxical that CNZ feels that getting ‘free and frank advice’ means you have to keep it secret.

Comments: Turn on, or a turn off?

Since it started overthenet has had its comments feature turned both on and off. At present we respond to emails and pass on most information we receive. When the comments were on there were some points of interest but also heavy-handed opining like this:

Dear Mary-Jim Barr,

Well - I must say, this current non-blog entry - as one can't actually
'blog' on your 'blogsite' - really does take the Lemington for
inanity. Not only do you not 'publish' i.e. post responses, you
threaten 'name and shame'. How damnably tabloid. Like being mauled by
a lamb.

Along with the petty gossip and unfounded innuendo - you also manage
to add to the art world bilge with outright misrepresentation and
contradiction.

You clearly have an enormous amount of time on your collective hands.
Hands ringing with misguided, misplaced and unrequited angst.
Perhaps Timewasters.com might be a better moniker for your
neoconservative hogwash. I highly recommend crochet.

Shouldn't collectors be out collecting, leaving artists alone in a
garret to 'make art', without the chattering classes chattering?
Really – you should be ashamed!

Good luck with the future. Publish and be damned.

Kind Regards,

Edward Etherington Esq.


Still, if you’d like the comments section turned on, let us know.

Copy cats

Top, The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault. Middle, The Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand by Louis J. Steele and Charles F. Goldie and bottom, Raft in Magazine: L’Officiel by Mark Squires

"But is it art?" - Volume 1

Age shall not weary them

The recent and upcoming shuffles of art gallery directors prompted us to chart how long these people stay in office. As you can see, it stretches from John Maynard’s lightning four years setting the tone for the Govett-Brewster to the unmatched reign of Bill Milbank at the Sarjeant in Wanganui. The average length of directorship in this sample is just under ten years.

15+ Years
Bill Milbank, Sarjeant Gallery (1978-04) 26 years
Stewart McLennan, National Art Gallery (1948-68) 20 years
Austin Davies, Suter Art Gallery 1976-94 18 years
Paula Savage, City Gallery (1991-) 17 years

10-14 Years
John Coley, Robert McDougall Art Gallery (1981-95) 14 years
Chris Saines, Auckland Art Gallery (1996-) 12 years
Luit Bieringa, National Art Gallery (1979-90) 10 years
William Baverstock, Robert McDougall Art Gallery (1958-68) 10 years
Pat Day, National Art Gallery (1968-78) 10 years

6-9 Years
Peter Tomory, Auckland Art Gallery (1956-64) 9 years
Les Lloyd, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (1971-80) 9 years
Brian Muir, McDougall Art Gallery (1969-78) 9 years
Frank Dickinson, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (1980-89) 9 years
Priscilla Pitts, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (1998-07) 9 years
Christopher Johnstone, Auckland Art Gallery (1990-95) 6 years

1-5 Years
David Millar, Dowse Art Gallery (1971-75) 5 years
Jim Barr (Bless him), Dowse Art Gallery (1976-81) 5 years
Ron O’Reilly, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (1977-79) 4 years
Cheryll Sotheran, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (1989-93) 4 years
John McCormack, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (1994-97) 4 years
John Maynard, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (1967-1971) 4 years
Teller Hirsh, Auckland Art Gallery (1972-74) 3 years

Congratulations to all those who participated.
Click on chart to enlarge

It’s art Jim, but not as we know it

Images: Clockwise from the left, Mondrian car with matching accessories, strange legs and panty sculpture, Van Gogh carved in watermelon, Hitler teapot. Click on image for the full glory.

The Masketeers

The latest Art + Object catalogue arrived yesterday and has, amongst other things, a range of Disney memorabilia. What better reminder to post this incredible picture of the Mickey Mouse gasmask, made for American children during the Second World War.

The mask was first made available on January 7th, 1942 a month after Pearl Harbour. It was made by the Sun Rubber Company with approval from Walt Disney, and approximately 1,000 Mickey Mouse gas masks were produced. Unfortunately for Art + Auction few, if any have survived although, if you’re really keen, there is a hand made prototype in the US Chemical Museum in Houston.

When good collectors turn bad 1

“Ms. Austin devotes significant time to scouting fund-raisers like a recent 'Smash and Grab' event to benefit a Miami nonprofit art group. For an entry fee of $375, every attendee was guaranteed one art work -- if they could grab it before someone else. To claim the piece she wanted, a work made of glass mirrors by Karen Rifas, Ms. Austin literally sprinted past other collectors and dealers. 'Of course I made a mad dash for the piece,' says Ms. Austin, adding that Ms. Rifas's pieces typically go for thousands of dollars. 'I was getting something for nothing.' "
Wall Street Journal

The Do Ron Ron

Our love of artist action figures and our love of Ronnie van Hout makes this a slam dunk. This limited edition Ronnie action figure is a fund raiser for the Christchurch Physics Room's 10th anniversary.

Choice

The overthenet Lifestyle Team has been out and about on your behalf, looking at trends and checking up on who has what and where they put it. (thanks T) We can tell you, as if you didn’t already know, chairs and lamps are key style items for curators and dealers. What might interest you is that our Lifestyle team has spotted, in choices made by the sample group, what might well be a trend within this trend . Preliminary results indicate that curator/dealers are most likely to have either a Tolemeo or Tizio lamps but rarely both. It looks like the same may be true for the Eames and the Barcelona chair. More style news as it comes to hand.
Images clockwise from top left: Tizio, Tolemo, Barcelona, Eames

Time flies when you’re having fun

Seems like only yesterday that Wellington’s City Gallery announced its opening with a copycat McCahon painting. In fact it was 14 years ago today. At the time Paula Savage had been director for two and a half years and told reporters, “I have a very austere aesthetic and I think that is reflected in the building.” The gallery offered twice the space of the temporary gallery in Victoria Street and featured German artist Rosemarie Trockel in its opening exhibitions. Jacqueline Fraser also featured in the ustairs ”New Zealand Room Project Space.” This was described as being “designated as an artists’ installation gallery, giving guest artists control over exhibiting content.”