Café society

Another brand Apple experience in Auckland, this time at the Gala café, 23 Edwin Street Mt Eden. Along with other art on show in the café is a wall work sporting the Apple logo seen before on overthenet. If it has the appearance of branding for an actual apple this is probably because an edible Billy apple is in the wings. Word is that the fruit has been selected (it is crisp and sweet) and only awaits sponsorship to put it to market.

Cannon fodder

For everyone thinking that the Fine Arts faculty at the University of Canterbury has anything to do with education, this from today’s Press in Christchurch.

Head of the School of Fine Arts Desmond Rochfort said he was facing the reality of "horrendous" budget and staff cuts next year. The school had been told to find $85,000 in savings from its general operating budget or take on 10 more equivalent full-time students (EFTS) a year to make up costs", he said.

Image: Cannon ball

Pattern recognition

You can take the art out of the agency, but you can’t take the agency out of the art. We have already pointed to schlock uses of Maori moko, and advertisers who use great art like scraps for a family album. Here is another version capturing both from the foyer of Saatchi & Saatchi in Wellington.

Head count

News on the street is that staff numbers at the School of Fine Arts University of Canterbury are in turmoil. Will changes improve the current 80/20 split? Every cloud.

Image: Staff of the School of Fine Arts University of Canterbury, left hand panel men. Right hand, not.

Warning to collectors

“That’s the bizarre thing — first you never saw the prices, and now you never see the names. We’re all too frightened to ask.”
Collector at the Frieze Art Fair

Copy cats

A stereo Warhol moment thanks to Plunket on the left and some cow-print-person on the right.

Separated at birth

The battle of the auction houses has certainly stepped up the number of contemporary art auctions in Auckland. It’s hard to imagine there are enough people on earth to buy all the stuff that is put on the block month by month. Works fly from one auction to another with barely time to breathe between sales, let alone research and check catalogue details. An example is lot number 25, a Julian Dashper multiple, in the catalogue of Webb’s 16 October sale. It was last sold in Art+Object’s 3 May auction as lot number 8 and fetched $14,000 and just four-and-a-half months later it is back on the block. The price estimate by Webb’s is between $12,000 and $16,000 and the work is described by Jonathan Organ in Webb’s online video as being “…originally shown in an exhibition with six other pieces, so there were seven drumskins in the show. So it is a one off piece, a unique piece.” Well, not really. This work was in fact from an edition of three and to the best of our knowledge has only ever been shown as an individual item, representing the edition. Webb’s and Art+Auction have always been quick to rectify cataloguing mistakes when they are alerted to them, so most often no harm is done. Is precise cataloguing expected in this sort of sale? Probably not, but Webb’s in particular do claim their staff as “fine art experts” and promote, via their lecture series and catalogue entries, a close association with “leading art historians, curators and architects”, which certainly implies a rigorous standard.
Images: Catalogues from Art+Object, top and Webb's, bottom.

Dogged

"I was a beagle," he says, firmly. "Tail goes up. I'm off."
"How," I say, "do you know you were a beagle?"
"How do you know anything?" he says.

Max Gimblett talking to the New Zealand Herald about a former incarnation

Wind up

You can never have too many wind sculptures, says the Wellington Sculpture Trust. Is Wellington alone in this obsession? Not at all. Here, for a taste of wind sculptures from around the world.

Images: Top left to right Mike Westra Wind Dancer (Saugatuck Michigan), Susumu Shingu Gift of the Wind (Cambridge Massachusetts), Paul Margetts (Worcester UK), Jim Sullivan Birds in flight (Sedona , Connecticut). Middle left to right Jim Bond, Unknown (Israel), Stephen Powell (Bloomington, Illinois), Ed Meets Wind-A-Ma-Jig (Santa Barbara). Bottom left to right Duncan Stemlar Blowhole (Melbourne), Robert Mullins (Westerville Ohio), James Barnsley Wave Sculpture I (Cornwell)

Attention span corner

Ralph Rugoff, director of London’s Hayward Gallery has been mentioned on overthenet before. This time he’s got interesting things to say about art and money, money and art. You can read the rest of the interview here.

Nayeri: In your talk, you said artworks today were recognized for their price and as commodities. Is the art market something that disturbs you?

Rugoff: I wouldn't say it disturbs me. It certainly has an effect on what I do.

There's a Warhol in this show that probably doubled its value due to the auction activity from the time we first contacted the lender to the time we had to cover it with insurance. There is another Warhol that the collector finally decided he didn't want to lend, because the market for Warhol suddenly seemed to have doubled.

All the attention of it -- how much money is paid for a Peter Doig or a Damien Hirst -- distracts us from thinking about what the work is about. It's amazing that these contemporary artworks are selling for as much money as they do, but I don't think it necessarily helps anybody appreciate what's interesting about contemporary art.

Source: Soaring Prices Turn Art Into a Commodity, Hayward's Boss Warns. By Farah Nayeri on bloomberg.com
Image: a gnat

Rabbiting on

We were wondering how that giant rabbit was going – the one stretched out on the Italian mountain. It turns out the sculpture is so big it can be picked up from space and located via Google Earth. So there you go. It's also kind of creepy the way that road makes a rabbit-like head if you ask us. If you want to catch up on recent projects by the big bunny’s creators, Austrian artists Gelitin, you can go here. You can click on the image to get a bigger version.

Warning to collectors

“The [art world] system is making people offers they can’t refuse when it should be making them offers they can’t understand.”
David Hammons – artist

“You just make things and you sell them, you make things and you sell them.”
Damien Hirst – artist

“After you have a fourth home and a G5 jet, what else is there?”
Amy Cappallazzo – Christie’s on rich people buying art

“Will young artists having 30-month careers be able to also have 30-year careers, or are we simply eating our young?”
Jerry Saltz – New York magazine

These comments and more in Jerry Saltz article Has money ruined art? in New York Magazine. You can read the article here.

Image: David Hammons Too obvious (shells and porcelain) 1996

A billboard too far

This billboard promoting “Absolutely Creatively Wellington” is located on the main route in from the airport to the city. Weta and WOW are included – although without the third leg of that stool, Te Papa. All the images are relatively straightforward apart from Neil Dawson’s Ferns. Presenting as a pseudo sixties representation of an atom, is the equivalent of using the Sydney Opera House or the Eiffel Tower as funny hats. Sadly, "Creative" Wellington can't bring itself to respect someone of Dawson's stature, and call their ad agency off from continually trivialising the city’s most powerful icon.

On the road

Artist roadsigns. Number 1 in a continuing series. Contributions welcome.
Image: Otaki

In response…

… to Elizabeth Thompson’s wall sculpture, The Fearless Five Hundred, being covered over by new building owners Fonterra

The artist
“It shouldn't be sealed into a wall. It is obscene and disrespectful."
Elizabeth Thompson

The Curator
"It really pissed me off. They have put a wall over it and covered it in perspex. This is atrocious. It is a very important work; they wouldn't be able to do it to a Colin McCahon."
Greg O’Brien

The Dealer
"This very major work is incarcerated, entombed."
Mark Hutchins

The Government Department
"it is always disappointing when artworks designed for public spaces are not available to be enjoyed".
Stephen Wainwright, CE Creative New Zealand

Source: Stuff.co.nz