One swallow a Summer makes

Hey, that looked familiar. In the seemingly endless corridor that is the MCA in Sydney were three bronze barnacle covered balloons on the floor. The last time we’d seen them was on the floor in Ricky Swallow’s studio about seven years ago in LA.  Swallow has lived in the United States for a long time now and it’s hard to recall what a major impact he had in New Zealand. Hamish McKay was a big supporter and had regular exhibitions for years while Justin Paton wrote the first major monograph on Swallow in 2004. But it’s been a while since his work has been seen in New Zealand, so it’s good to see he still has a spot in the Australian art story. You can see pictures of his studio in 2009 when the balloon sculptures were being made here on OTNSTUDIO

Image: top, Ricky Swallow work on exhibition at the MCA in Sydney and bottom Swallow in his studio, 2009 

Len Lye down: when good sculpture turns bad

Nobody said owning a whole lot of sculptures powered by analogue motors, that bounce and bend and shake in ways that engineering probably doesn’t totally understand, would be easy. And guess what, it’s not. Trilogy - the dramatic Len Lye Centre headliner - was taken down just before the new building opened last year after it took a chunk out of the wall. Disappointing, but reasonably enough it was passed over as a blip.

But last week, when the three-part monster was put into place again in the new custom-made gallery for large Len Lye sculptures and revved up, there were more problems. Word is that it had to be stopped before it shook itself off the ceiling. Whoops (again). And wouldn’t you know it, this was in the first week of the school holidays (#kidslovenoisysculpture). So, no going up the ramp while the place is being re-strengthened enough for Trilogy to do its thing again after years in storage.

Still, there’s a moment for everyone who felt the Len Lye Centre had taken over the Govett-Brewster. Because of the mess-up all visitors now have to enter the new complex via the discreet Govett-Brewster Art Gallery entrance rather than the architect’s ramp. We could get used to that. And while your at it get rid of the new wall behind the reception desk. Then it's straight ahead to the G-B and LLC and, if you want to do the ramp thing, turn left. 

Later: Trilogy was reinstalled on 12 October and is now fully functional  

Image: Trilogy, back in the day

This post is brought to you by the numbers one and two

Maurizio I-will-never-make-another-sculpture Cattelan is at it again. This time he’s attempting to put a final nail into Marcel Duchamp’s defining gesture Fountain. Cattelan’s toilet is made Trump-style in 18-karat gold and called America. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that this title alone would be enough to stop any American sitting down to do business in it, but no such luck. Queue time is often over an hour at the Guggenheim where the work is installed in the fourth floor bathroom.

Images: top to bottom, left to right, America by Maurizo Cattelan, Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 Fountain, Sherrie Levine Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp), Lady Gaga Armitage shanks, Michael Parekowhai Mimi (currently on exhibition at Te Uru), Robert Gober Three urinals, Untitled by Prague & Kutna Hora, and Eli Hansen and Oscar Tuazon’s Huh

Reality bites

Just before the Christchurch Art Gallery was closed after the second big earthquake, it was pulling in mega crowds. The National Gallery of Victoria’s exhibition of super realist sculptures by the Australian artist Ron Mueck attracted over 135,000 people. As the exhibition cost around $750,000 TO MOUNT and charged an entrance fee of $15 for adults, we’re talking a potential profit of $5.55 earned per person. So some serious money was made. That was back in 2011 and the hyperrealist sculpture business is now bigger than ever. Given advances in 3D printing you have to wonder whether it’s going to get even bigger still, or collapse into the commodity category. Place your bets.

Images: top to bottom left to right, Ron Mueck, Duane Hanson, Carol Feuerman, Marc Sijan, Jamie Salmon, Jackie K Seo, Tony Matelli, Xooang Choi, John De Andrea, Sam Jinks

Thinkalikes

Thirty-one years apart Jeff Koons with his bronze life preserver and Ai Weiwei with carved marble life savers come up with the same sink or sink concept.

Top: Jeff Koons Snorkel Vest, bronze (1985) and bottom, Ai Weiwei Tyre, marble (2016)

Taking sides

We am

Content is not usually your first thought when you look at Carl Andre’s famously reductive sculptures, but no one familiar with New Zealand art could walk past Andre’s Tau and Threshold (Element Series) without giving a thought to Colin McCahon. And it was not only a connection made by the Tau Cross that McCahon has made his own in NZ. There was also the Roman capital letter I  that is the basis of McCahon’s Necessary Protection series. To add to the zeitgeist jitter these two works were both made in the same year of 1971.

Images: left, Carl Andre Tau and Threshold (Element Series) and right, Colin McCahon The days and nights in the wilderness showing the constant flow of light passing through the wall of death

A step up

After getting so exercised over the years by museums erecting rails around sculptures, here’s a novel approach to contemporary art. You can walk on it, but please don’t touch! These are the rules at the Carl Andre exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. Around 50 of Andre’s floor-based sculptures are on show, and you can stand all over 10 of them. The do not touch thing is apparently to prevent oils from your hands changing the metallic surfaces.  Looking at the oils that have already etched footprints into many of the pieces it feels a bit after-the-stable-doorish, but what an institutional effort to have got this far.  Many of the works are from private collections so the negotiation required so that visitors could walk over the work as Andre intended for a few months must have been intense. We're thinking some very expert curatorial schmooze…and maybe some flowers and wine too.

Images; top, foot traffic on Carl Andre’s 6-Metal Figure (for Mendeleev) 1995 and below, a record of all the footprints etched into it already.

Chairmen

Julian Dashper was a great fan of Gerrit Rietveld chairs, and Rietveld tables for that matter. He had copies made of both the well-known Blue chair (which he painted in a new Dashper colour range) and the famous Zig-Zag chair. Rietveld himself once called the Zig Zag a ‘designer joke’ but Dashper took it pretty seriously. An early version made from MDF board didn’t survive but two more based on drawings in the book How to construct Reitveld furniture did. One is in 12mm ply and another in American ash (thanks M). We remember sitting (nervously at first) on one of the later sturdier versions. And now another  version of the Rietveld Zig Zag chair with a strong NZ connection has turned up in the Berlin dealer gallery Neugerriemschneider. This chair was made from swamp kauri by the British artist Simon Starling who has, yes, you guessed it, recently visited New Zealand. He had an exhibition at the City Gallery in 2014 and maybe it was then he came across the complications of exporting swamp kauri out of NZ. This red tape would no doubt have appealed to Starling. His bedtime reading probably includes bureaucratic gems like the Legislative requirements that relate to the milling and export of swamp kauri under the Forest Act 1949 and listings of documentation required to give Notice of intention to export. Anyway he wraps all these rules and regulations into his perfectly simple Zig Zag chair. We need one in NZ, (looking at you Te Papa) anyone out there to do the paperwork?
Image: Simon Starling Zig-Zag chair

What’s in that crate?

This crate was one of many we saw arranged around the huge, light empty gallery spaces of MUAC (the contemporary art museum of the University of Mexico). They contained the Anish Kapoor exhibition Archaeology, Biology that was in the process of being installed. The many labels on this single crate can  show us something of the reach and value of Kapoor's work. First we could see that it contained his sculpture Large blue void from 1989. This particular crate had come from Lisson Gallery in London who have represented Kapoor since 1982. It was built by Mtec, a specialist art transport and shipping company based in the UK who, incidentally, have a very cool website. The head office is located at what seems to be the stereotypically English address of 10 Gentlemens Field, but this is only one of a number of units, there are 23 works in the exhibition. This is a big operation. At some stage the crate was under the care of Martinspeed, another specialist art transport firm in the UK. The shipment was one of four crates and weighs 474 kilograms and has the entire sculpture in it. Well, we found it interesting anyway.

Images: top the crate and below all the markings on one side.

With knobs on

Spend a day with the artist Fiona Connor in LA and you’re going to see some good art (and we did) but there's more. We also got to visit some of the stores that Fiona uses as references for her work - those sources of hard-to-find details like an unusual hinge or decorative lighting panel. The epitome of this kind of place is Liz’s Antique Hardware in mid-town. This large store is packed floor to ceiling with every item that ever went into fitting out houses in LA from around the 1920s on. The proprietors not only know exactly what is in their remarkable stock but they can lay a hand on it instantly. If you’re into replicating architecture, as Fiona often is, or you're home decorating or you just want to experience one of the great visual treats of LA, Liz’s is the go-to place.

Images: top, Fiona Connor at Liz’s. Middle, the shop on 453 S. La Brea and all the keyholes in the world and bottom, ‘electric candles, you want electric candles?’

Robert Jesson 1947 - 2015

A few days ago we heard that the artist Robert Jesson had died in February of last year in Tauranga. Anyone who knew Robert in the 1980s also knew they were in for a ride whenever they met up with him. As a sculptor Robert had something of a meteoric rise in the New Zealand art system. One minute he was exhibiting in Ray Castle’s Upper Queen Street Closet Gallery and the next he was showing fully-formed at Peter McLeavey.

Robert's work in New Zealand careened from large heavy works hewn by chainsaw to what became his iconic star-shaped forms. The most spectacular version were the two he attached to the wall of a Wellington building as part of an art for space deal. We were there as Robert signalled the cranes to place the two large (and heavy) objects onto their holding bolts. One of them wouldn't quite fit and Robert made a snap judgement to shift it along and up a bit. The guys on the crane who worked in millimeters rather than near-enough were amazed at his confidence. In the end everything was bolted into place even if Robert did mention that one of the nuts was just glued on. ‘Is that a problem?’ we asked, ‘well not one of mine,’ Robert told us. Of course he knew the installation was over-engineered in the first place, as was discovered by the crew that struggled to take it down some years later.

Robert Jesson gave up art almost as abruptly as he became a local star. Having moved to Melbourne in 1988 and continuing to work and show there, he announced to his wife Margaret that he had nothing left to say as an artist. And that was that. He was not interested, he said, in simply making something pretty just to sell.

Once when he was staying with us in Wellington a rather more buttoned-up artist came to visit with transparencies of his work immaculately presented in professional slide holders. Robert snorted and left the room. A few minutes later he was back asking if we'd like to see some of his slides. Before we could answer he poured a bunch of them onto the couch out of a creased brown paper bag. Buttoned-up had never seen anything so no-frills in his life.

For the third act of his life Robert and Margaret went sailing. The last time we heard from him they were in Japan. 'Currently in Japan. Next stop Philippines, Borneo and Malaysia.' We'd written a post about the relocation of those star forms and he wanted to tell us that he wasn't bothered by it. 'As far as I'm concerned' he wrote, 'once it's sold, it's pretty much forgotten.' That was definitely our Robert Jesson, head up, a grin on his face and moving forward.

Watching two up in Aussie

If you ever needed a reminder of the limitations of photography you only need to look at the exhibition 100 chairs in 100 days at RMIT in downtown Melbourne. Martino Gamper’s book of this project was published to great acclaim in 2012, but to see the chairs themselves is something else. There are indeed one hundred (rather sadly we counted them) and Gamper declares he did make them in 100 days, and this is where photography gets left behind. It's is a remarkable demonstration of formalism plus functionalism freely mixed up with spontaneity, wit and humor. Gamper makes up his own rules just for the fun of breaking them and we, the viewers, are drawn into his processes and ideas. Famous chairs, everyday chairs, stylish chairs, absurd chairs, classic chairs are elegantly collaged into new arrangements. That all this was done in 100 days is remarkable enough, but individually these works each test the very idea of function in ways that are both amusing and profound. And then, on the other side of the city, Gamper’s partner and sometimes collaborator Francis Upritchard is on impressive show at Monash University. Her first major survey exhibition Jealous saboteurs takes full command of the art museum there. This large show demonstrates Upritchard's distinctive style and her consummate skill with materials and ideas. Fortunately Jealous saboteurs will be shown in New Zealand later this year as it is a joint project of the City Gallery and Monash University. With a bit of luck, someone might also pick up the Gamper show.

Images: top, Martino Gamper chairs from 100 chairs in 100 days and bottom Francis Upritchard works from Jealous saboteurs

Fright night

For at least five years it's as though Dane Mitchell has been stalked by another artist. It’s the horror film scenario. First off you just catch a quick glimpse of something at the window. 'Was that one of my works?' (cue unsettling music). Later, flicking through an art mag, there's a sudden, heart-stopping sound as a deep shadow blacks out the page. 'That’s a work I made ten years ago!' (shivering violins). Initially it was reasonable to pass it off as global zeitgeist thing (after all, ideas are seldom unique) but when the echoes turn up in production, look and feel, scale, it gets harder to accept as coincidence. So what can be done? Not much as it turns out. Despite discussion the other artist refuses to acknowledge the takes and keeps on going. Legal redress across borders is of course complex, expensive and out of the question.

And now it’s happening again, this time with a different artist. Visitors to Art Basel Hong Kong who know Dane Mitchell’s work will see a familiar face, well a familiar sculpture actually. The Polish artist Alicja Kwade’s work is more than just a close call (is Mitchell some sort of flypaper for lookalikes?) the two rings are not only in a Venn diagram arrangement but have exactly the same dimensions and lean against the wall like the Mitchell work. It was first exhibited in his 2014 at Hopmoss show Other explications, in LA the same year and Switzerland in 2015. In the end the implicit system of art making and influence relies on good citizenship. Well, that didn’t seem to work.

Images: top, Dane Mitchell 2014 and bottom, Alicja Kwade 2016

I robot

You know OTN is lookalike central, but who'd have thought we'd score a lookalike of an art dealer so close to home? Maurizio Cattelan once famously made a replica art collector and dumped it face down into a swimming pool, oh, and also gaffer-taped his dealer to the wall, but make another version? Not so common. Callum Morton, the Australian artist, went there. A decade ago, for his last Christchurch outing, he showed with chilling prescience a huge rock crashed through the roof of a shop, and now he has twinned Anna Schwartz in his latest work Reception. The robot Schwartz is looking a bit wonky on it (more farmer skinned by aliens in the opening minutes of Men in Black than Japanese Otonaroid) but Morton says this is intentional. 'It's a little bit Thunderbirds in a way and I kind of like that clunkiness.' Given that Anna Schwartz, is pretty much the opposite of clunky they’ll be easy to tell apart. You can read more about the good robot Schwartz and Morton’s work here in the SMH and, even better, some Roboschwartz live action here.

Images: Top, Roboschwartz. Middle left, Schwartz and right, Schwartz.01 and Bottom, left MiB farmer and right Otonaroid.

In Fukuoka...

...we were thinking about Paul McCarthy.

Images: left advertising Fukuoka and right Paul McCarthy Daddies

Down sizing

With public and dealer galleries building bigger and bigger spaces it’s hard to figure how artist are going to be able to fill them with enough art to keep things going? Will we see a return to tiny art? Photographer and art director Tatsuya Tanaka obviously thinks so. You can see more of his work here.

Double negative

“A plaster cast is exactly like the original except in everything”
Jean Cocteau

Image: plaster cast, foundry Berlin

Zombie sculpture

On seeing an early photographic image the artist Paul Delaroche is said to have claimed, “From today painting is dead”. Given that Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne, Malevich and a few others were still to come he was probably a bit previous but at the time he was shaken up by the power of the Daguerreotype process.  Had Delaroche been around today he'd probably have added sculpture to his death list. Twinkind, a 3D printing company in Berlin, wants to convert all your family and friends into creepy little figurines you can keep on the bookcase or any other convenient flat surface. All you need to do is pop over to Berlin, get yourself scanned and Twinkind will produce a pint-sized you in a range of diminuative sizes under 35 centimetres. For instance, how about a 20 centimetre tall copy of yourself for around $450? Twinkind promises it will be ‘as life like as possible’ although that will probably depend as much on you as on them. From today figurative sculpture under 35 centimetres is dead.

Noticed at the Bode Museum in Berlin...

...a man admires a ring by Karl Fritsch.

Image: John Gregor van der Schardt, Bust of patrician Willibald Imhoff the elder. 1570