Art at work

This photo of a kid bunking on a work by Donald Judd at Tate Modern in London did the rounds earlier this week. The photographer tweeted "I told the woman the kids were using a $10mm art work as a toy, she told me I knew nothing abt kids.” The parent’s bite-you response and the hat with ears aside, it’s not the first time such a thing has happened. Many years ago at the Whitney our own three year old son spotting what looked for all the world like a museum couch with its squab missing, attempted to sit on a copper Donald Judd floor sculpture. The ticking off he got from the guard certainly put him off sitting down in galleries although there was also an unintended effect. He switched into Duchamp mode and anything in a gallery (fire hydrants, furniture, humidity readers etc) was instantly converted into art and left the hell alone.

Start spreading the news

It’s a dream come true and it’s been achieved virtually overnight. Te Papa has established a robust Regional Gallery Network. Yes, 33 (count ‘em) buildings branded with the Te P thumb strategically dotted throughout New Zealand. “The Te Papa: Art Regional Gallery network has a commitment to showing a wide variety of art media from a range of eras – from historical to contemporary – with an emphasis on works about and by artists from the region.”

For close watchers of Te Papa the speed of this national roll-out may come as rather a surprise but think about it. With the new network Te Papa will be able to respond quickly to the urgent requests that come in daily from the regions. “Can we get Michael Stevenson’s Trekka here pronto” “the far North wants to see more of et al. and they want to see it now”.

But don’t just sit there. Check here for details and venues near you. 

NOTE: Since posting this  story Te Papa (possibly concerned that people might believe that the idea of their having a regional presence was all true) has evidently asked the site to put up the disclaimer "This website is an artwork intended to question a leading New Zealand art institution by suggestion. The idea is fictional yet we, the artists, believe it is in fact plausible, and even essential, to ensure that our National Collection is given safer storage and made more accessible to all New Zealanders."

Images: Top left Te Papa in Fiordland and right Bay of Islands with prospective sculpture park out front. Bottom Te Papa Southland and drawings for Te Papa Wairoa as part of a new culture precinct development

Snap happy

There's hardly any need to beat the why-no-photography drum in art museums anymore. Slowly but surely they're accepting the inevitable and releasing their collections to snap-happy visitors. In places like the Dowse there's still the familiar camera shape there in the dos and don’ts signage but now it’s as a do, as in, do feel free to take a photo.

A bit late to the game is this…er…game. It’s a two-player (you can be either a photographer or a security guard) that let’s you outwit guards as you snap stuff you're not supposed to. And yes ,you can use your flash to blind the guard for a quick getaway. It’s not quite on the market but if you like reading lots of instructions, you can see how it works here.

Bums on seats

In the game of musical chairs one chair is removed and when the music stops everyone scrambles for the chairs that are left. Now imagine a game where six or seven players were removed instead. Empty chairs all over the place. Welcome to the world of the public art museum. 

Wellington City needs a senior curator. 

Dunedin Public Art Gallery needs a director (it took them nearly a year to get one last time) 

Te Papa needs a Senior Curator, Art (they go through about one every two years although the last one only lasted nine months) and tragically a Curator Historical New Zealand art 

Christchurch is out of its permanent home for at least another twelve months and its contemporary curator Justin Paton in France for the rest of the year. 

Auckland is about to lose its top line of management and nearly lost its director. Also word on the street has it that Te Papa tried to poach Mary Kisler, Mackelvie curator of International art, from them (#fatchance). 

Where are all the talented and experienced people to fill these roles going to come from? The same people circulating around the jobs is proving a short term fix. The truth is that curators are thin on the ground and the attrition rate is scary. Senior curators Robert Leonard and Gregory Burke left to work in other countries but too many people simply get out the business altogether. Take Lara Strongman, Courtney Johnston, Heather Galbraith and Kate Montgomery,  all in curatorial roles at the City Gallery and now doing anything but. 

So fun and games. And that is what we will tag it.

Art rules OK

 This weeks New York Magazine features a long article on How to make it in the Art World, “a tongue-in-cheek rulebook for how to make it in the art world now.” Here’s a sample: 

Rule One: Reject the market. Embrace the Market. 
Rule Two: Stay on trend 
Rule Three: Make art that is difficult to collect (so the art museums will buy it) 
Rule Six: Outsource to China 
Rule Eight: Don’t be afraid to trade up (when a bigger gallery comes calling, listen) 
Rule Nine: Show up 
Rule Thirteen: Don’t let your gallerist take 50% of the profit. 
Rule Fifteen: Pretend you’re an outside even when you are at the center of everything 
Rule Seventeen: Be everywhere at once 
Rule Eighteen: Join the establishment but cling to your street cred. 

You can read the article and the rest here: 

Pimp my gallery

As we've heard via a leak to the NZH Super City announces it is going to make the Auckland Art Gallery 'more commercial' (with or without its current director) and apart from a few tweets (we counted 10 and two of them were ours) no one seems to be very exercised by the prospect. You'd think a large bear had padded into the cave to eat someone, growled and when nobody noticed just slunk away. No harm, no foul. 

That doesn’t sound right, and when things don’t sound right, they probably aren’t. The big question here is what the Super City reckons 'more commercial' means. And, when you look at the way the AAG operates, it's hard to fathom where it could go next. There’s a definite sense that management have already jumped the commercial shark. 

Take for example their A red carpet venue hire brochure (you can download it here). Forget the good old days when you couldn’t drink in the galleries, let alone scoff down a canapé or get stuck into a side of dressed lamb. The curators and conservators lost that battle long ago. Now event-seeking punters are invited to “Entertain between walls hung with work by some of our country’s most respected artists. Perfectly proportioned for dinners and receptions…” or to “raise a toast beneath the barrel-vaulted ceiling… in the Mackelvie Gallery.” 

How can the new commercialisers top that? Are we talking sleep-overs? Pokies? Pick-your-favourite-painting-to-hang-in-the-bridal-chamber? Fact is, wont be until someone publicly articulates what ‘more commercial’ means that we will know what the future brings for the Auckland Art Gallery. Whoever they get to run it. 

Images: Left, 'the acoustics of the Lower Grey Gallery mean that live music – whether classical or modern - adds the ideal finishing touch to your event' and right, 'Whether a family or business occasion, experience the striking character and lavish opulence of this Victorian picture gallery'

The days of our lives

Episode 25

You’ll remember how Chris was going to be written out of Kitchener Street and asked to take the lead in a new series Super City that was having trouble with its demographics, only given his success in recent episodes of KS and getting such high ratings and stuff he thought he was better off staying on as the star and leading man. But turns out the producers wanted him for his creative skills so he could be like a totally creative centre of the SC show. And how this big time Australian producer Robert had set up this Russian Roulette kind of thing that would only keep one person from the core cast of Kitchener Street and Louise and Catherine were wondering if they were going to be the chosen one or if like they would even be in the cast at all and how they might end up having to do auditions for some crummy zoo reality programme or worse still a sports show. And the rest of KS’s cast and the non-speaking walk-ons had no idea what was going on with the storyline except that they had all heard about how the star was going to another show and they were getting like some slicked-up reality show ‘actor’ to take his place. OMG! And then Hamish from the History Channel told all his friends that the whole idea of Chris being killed off in the next episode of KS was just a leak like and that there would be a production meeting and that things would be ok only no one really believed him because Chris was going around saying how he totally didn’t like the sound of the Super City show or its production values and he didn’t want to be its star anyway.

Episode 26

This episode begins with a production meeting and a lot of harsh words being spoken and then someone says it wasn’t a good idea interfering with the star of Kitchener Street even if the last episode about Scotland had dropped a bit in the ratings and someone else agrees and says that maybe Chris can stay on as its star and not go over to the new Super City show after all. But then everyone wonders what would happen to the rest of the core cast on account of them having been told to do auditions for other shows. And Robert says that he's bringing over a star from a high-rating reality TV show to play opposite Chris in Kitchener Street and that was what he meant in the first place and that the media got it all totally wrong as usual.

Skin in the game

You like getting naked and you like art? Then you need to make a note in your diary now for Stuart Ringholt’s nude tours of Sydney's MCA exhibitions celebrating the opening of their new extensions. But be warned. Artist Ringholt specialises in putting himself in compromising situations so that his audiences confront fear. His approach has been inspired by his own long illness and drug problems as he worked through “feelings of embarrassment and low self-esteem.” Ringholt’s performance is called Preceded by a tour of the show by artist Stuart Ringholt 6-8pm (the artist will be naked. Those who wish to join the tour must also be naked. Adults only). So don't say you weren’t warned.

Image: Naked tourists take time out with Christian Marclay’s The Clock which will be on view at the new MCA (simulation only)

McCahon house

As you know from our ongoing series On the road, New Zealand is dotted with street names honouring New Zealand artists. Now here’s a chance to have one of them on your letterhead or the envelopes that come through your mailbox. Simply by resettling in Rotorua and stumping up $349,000 you can have 30 McCahon Drive (a “modern, quiet cul-de-sac”) in Pukehangi as your own.

Stage fright

Wait for it! Yes, it's on the way.  An opera based on the life of Len Lye with music by Eve de Castro-Robinson and a libretto by Roger Horrocks is about to go into production in Auckland. 

This is one of a number of attempts to get Len Lye on the boards. A couple of years ago Brian Hannam’s play Len was workshopped a couple of times - once by Playmarket with a suitably bald Stuart Devenie as Lye and then by the Auckland Theatre Company - but a production never even made it to off-off Queen Street. The actor John Watson also wrote a one-hander Len. The life and times of Len Lye (1901-1980) that he proposed touring round the country but that went nowhere.

Now we hear that along with the opera a musical LYE! is waiting in the wings. A bunch of songs have already been penned including the theme song ‘You are my universe’, ‘Heavy metal’, ‘Twisters’, 'Stop the sculpture I want to get off’, Move me’ and the anthem ‘Stainless.’ More on the Lyes as they come to hand.

Suck it up

Over on Hyperallergic Ben Valentine has been trolling through the depths of FaceBook and other social media in the search of Statue Porn. His animated gif is probably not safe for work (hopefully not too many of you are at work on a Saturday) and not that safe for the sculptures either by the look of it. (Thanks to everyone who sent in the link)

The art of dressing up

OK, so a lot of it was guys squeezing into frocks and bras but in amongst the Sevens’ cosies were a few art references. Top left, Roy Lichtenstein. Top right, come on, it’s a statue. Bottom left, Wellington’s Bucket Fountain. Bottom right may not be based on an artwork (it’s the sunken ship Rena off the coast at Tauranga) but it’s surely a work of art. Enjoy Waitangi Day.

Photos Dominion Post, MAARTEN HOLL/Fairfax Media

We're in Auckland...

...and it's Anniversary Day so up and running again tomorrow.

Dotty

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.

Sculpture wars

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.

Googling on: Christmas edition

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

A new angle on weekend boating

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.

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

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

Kcin

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

Colour me shameless

When we suggested McCahon black and white as a colour range derived from his late paintings, we were playing the irony card. Turns out the Guggenheim, with out so much as a hint of it, had beaten us to the finish line way back (thanks R). The Museum is in bed with the Netherlands company Fine Paints of Europe and is offering not only the colours of its building as the McCahon house did, but also colour riffs based on paintings from their collection. How do they do that?

“Each colour was carefully chosen from paintings in the Guggenheim galleries. The selection was then refined in consultation with exhibition designers to ensure the colours are appropriate for a variety of architectural settings. Fine Paints of Europe precisely matched each colour and created the final formulations. Each Classical Colour relates to the painting from which it was derived and the artist who created it.” Take that Matisse.

Images: Top gallery colours. Bottom, swatch of colours based on paintings from the collection