Small print

To save readers from having to wade through boring information they are not in the least bit interested in, we will be using this post space as a parking lot for future references.

Heads up

These telling images of New York dealer gallery reception areas have been around for a while, but here's a selection for those that missed them. For more of the same, click here.
Images: Top left, Andrea Rosen, right Cheim&Reid. Bottom left, Pace Wildenstein, right Metro pictures from the series Sentry by Andy Freeberg

Desolate Dreams

There's a new, art-related comic now on display at stimulusresponse called Desolation Row (Of Panels). The connection to this blog is tenuous, but strangely powerful. The comic features a painting.

And that's about it.

Hyperbole

The art galleries talk things up.

Mystic Truths
“… this courageous and enigmatic exhibition.”

Bill Hammond
“The long-awaited spectacular survey exhibition.”

King Kong
“This unique exhibition.”

Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award 2007
“It has put Waikato on the map for refusing to shy away from controversy.”

Laurence Aberhart
“This major exhibition of New Zealand’s most eminent photographer.”

All extravagant claims by art galleries for their exhibitions gratefully received. The best published and, the very best, rewarded.

Look alike XVI

Images: left, Marcel Duchamp L.H.O.O.Q. Right, poster Brussels.

Show time

Today's the day the Trip of a Lifetime Tour travellers have to pay the Piper, and hand in personal reports on their tax payer funded trip to the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, Liste, Volta, Scope, Documenta and Sculpture Projects Muenster 07. We have asked CNZ for copies of the reports so we can share highlights with you. We have also requested the timetable and process for the Reference Group's (three women museum directors: Tina Barton, Rhana Devenport and Jenny Harper, a couple of artists: Gavin Hipkins and Riki Manuel and a curator: Jim Vivieaere) review. CNZ have asked the TOALT team to report to the next meeting of the visual arts reference group in October 2007. Of course this is the second review of Venice requested by CNZ. The first was commissioned from Australian consultants SGS Economics and Planning Pty Ltd. That report strongly recommended a return to Venice but as far as we can see is no longer available on the CNZ web site.
UPDATE: The first report has been found by one of our readers. You can read it here.
Don't forget, if you have the psychic strength, you can read all the Trip of a Lifetime posts by clicking Trip of a Lifetime in the Labels box at the bottom of this post.

Wiseguys

Over at stimulusresponse there is, at long last, a post relevant to this blog. It's a comic called Three Wise Men featuring Ronnie Van Hout's Son of Nothing Else as one of the men.

Lifestyle section

The Breakfast opening
Signs are that Saturday morning openings are on the up, with breakfast starting to push wine and cheese off the menu, as the savvy art opening offering. A recent breakfast opening at Wellington’s Adam Art Gallery offered juice, croissants, fruit and coffee, and now a breakfast opening is promised for the Julian Dashper exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery on Saturday morning 11 August. We welcome any thoughts on art lifestyle trends for this new overthenet feature. Insights into topics such as curator shoes, gallerist restaurant preferences, wall colour tones and invitation design styles will be rewarded.

Simple pimple

Why the hell didn't we think of that?

Getting an earful

News that the Christchurch Art Gallery has just introduced a new audio tour with Sam Neil talking to the art works via iPod didn’t cause a ripple, and why would it? Like corporate sponsorship, cafes and souvenir shops, the audio tour is now accepted as part of what a good art museum should offer its public. Indeed, it’s hard to remember now what it was about audio tours that offended the art profession in the first place. Some we concerned about the overly didactic nature of this sort of material, but computer lettering on the wall has put an end to that sensitivity. Others worried that visitors would not look at the work, just listen to the tape and move on. Guess what, people were smart enough to do both things at once. Checking out audio tours in action recently , the only conclusion we could draw (apart from the fact that they are ubiquitous), is that the people with the headphones study the specified works longer and more intently than virtually all other visitors. There’s a lot of controversy behind that phrase ‘specified works,’ but moving on, the iPod and easy uploading has also opened the opportunity for anyone to create their own tours. Do a tape, put it up on the web and anyone can download your perspective on an exhibition. Even better, tours can include commentaries by artists, conversations and a mix of voices and sounds. Don’t like the museum’s selection of work? Make your own. Check out the tour of the most overrated and underrated paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Modern Art Gallery by Slate critic Lee Siegel and Art Mobs unofficial guides as podcasts for inspiration.

Wow indeed

Sculptor, Neil Dawson, will be one of the judges for the 2007 World of Wearable Art (WOW) awards.

Spam

unvarnished facts, reckless guesswork, insinuations and possible inventions that have arrived at overthenet.blog@gmail.com: tony preston, former director of the christchurch art gallery, is planning to stand for the christchurch city council in the october 2007 elections. although the 2007 annual plan for the university of auckland (national institute of creative arts and industries) elam school of fine arts is 18 pages long, it doesn’t include the words, sculpture, painting, photography or installation. on the other hand, the word research is used 85 times. at least one major request for cnz arts funding in the last round that was approved by the specialist visual arts panel was rejected by the arts board, none of whom have any specialist visual arts knowledge. the next scape in Christchurch will be curated by the “unique curatorial pairing” of “the hugely influential” danae mossman and the “internationally renowned” fulya erdemci. scape’s press release tells us the two intend to “reinvent democracy, equality and “publicness”. the art newspaper reports that the university of auckland’s hood fellow for 2007, stephen farthing RA is the subject of a$35 million law suit accusing him and the board of the new york academy of art of ‘conspiring to conceal the illegal spending of more than $1 million of the school’s endowment’. any missed details, indignant denials or additions gratefully received, and the one that makes us laugh out loud the longest - rewarded. thanks to everyone involved and anyone responsible.

Franchise

Brussels

Advice to collectors 10

As former stripper, painter, and Saatchi Collection favourite, Melissa Vine, noted in this week’s Independent. “The art world is exactly the same as the sex industry: you have to be completely on your guard or you will get shafted; fucked over left, right and centre.”

Look alike XV

Not for the faint hearted, on the left Paul McCarthy Black plug and on the right a chocolate fountain in Brussels.
Note: this is the last post until next Monday, so we can get back home again.