Branching out

It’s not too late to make Eden Park a great venue for the World Cup - and get some much needed home ground advantage. This 10-meter high magnolia tree was planted by artist Sebastian Errazuriz in the centre of Chile’s National Stadium.

Your tax dollar at work

If you want to read John Hurrell reviews there is a new place to go. Up to a month or so ago he was review meister for artbash. How Artbash will cope without the man they call “the Headmaster" is hard to tell, but already there are signs that it is wobbling away from discussing art. John Hurrell was given $10,000 by CNZ and is using it to “assist him in the writing of the articles” which he is posting on a blog called eyeCONTACT. John obviously intends to run a tight ship. “My insistence on proper names is to minimize personal abuse, waffle and shameless self-promotion.” That said, he’s not short on content. In the just four days of operation he’s already posted thirteen of his relentlessly positive reviews. Better get over there quick or you’ll never catch up.

Andy down under

The Andy Warhol show in Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (December 8 to March 30) is only 3 and a half hours away and sure has a lot of stuff in it, most from the Warhol Museum in Pittsburg. There are 300 objects including paintings, films, drawing and prints along with a selection of Brillo, Heinz, Del Monte and Campbell’s boxes, wall paper, floating balloons, magazines and the inevitable memorabilia. Although there are some good examples of the early work, the exhibition is constrained by the limited number of first-class examples of Warhol’s output. As a result the exhibition struggles to show why Warhol is considered such an important figure in 20th century art. The black and white Telephone from 1961 certainly demonstrates Warhol grabbing Pop Art by the scruff of the neck, but its prim editing excludes the drips and scumbles of other works of this time, imperfections that Warhol prudently included just in case Abstract Expressionism hadn’t completely run its course. Of more interest are a set of 1961 drawings of newspaper front pages, showing Warhol working his way toward a Pop aesthetic, still with an expressionist drawing hand. A high point is a stunning selection of Warhol’s films, integrated into the exhibition in a way that is bound to be influential on future exhibitions. Duchamp’s screen test is a rare delight, and so too Sleep, the Empire State and Blow Job. One strong endorsement the show makes is that two of its best works are from the collection of the National Gallery of Australia (an acidic Electric Chair from 1967 and a1963 silvery Single Elvis). The Gallery’s inaugural director, James Mollison, instinctively understood that if a national collection is going to be anything more than a pinched provincial experience, it needs to acknowledge the world around it. To see the National Gallery of Australian’s Warhols shining in the company of Pittsburg’s Warhol Museum collections is to appreciate both Mollison’s daring, and Australia’s confident positioning of itself as a citizen of a wider world.
Image: Liza Minnelli helps out with marketing

Nice bodywork on the Lincoln

We don’t want to make like the Arnotts biscuit tin lid and just talk about our own posts, but the pics above left is the circa 1860 portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as constructed out of Lincoln's head and, right, the Southern politician John Calhoun's body. You may remember we referred to this altered photograph when discussing Te Papas Lose-the-Maori banner for their exhibition Tangata o le Moana. Thanks BB.

Choc-prix

Continuing with the Christmas spirit on overthenet, a short video to whet your appetite. Paul McCarthy’s chocolate factory in full swing. Christmas gifts galore.

Tour guide

The Auckland City Council has certainly made locating Auckland’s public sculpture easy. The City Council has made all the works available on the internet in sensible bite-sized groupings.
Public art
Recently installed work
8 sculptures in the Domain
7 sculptures on waterfront
Current projects
Image: John Pule's mural on Williamson Avenue in Ponsonby.

They’ve got game

We found what look like screen grabs for Dungeons and Dragons on the Adam Art Gallery site. Not sure how you play but, judging by the arrows, you have to be very careful about which chambers you enter. Some have got reverse arrows to show you how to escape, but from others it looks like there’s no exit.
Click on image to enlarge

Oh deer

Seriously, the world of sculpture doesn’t get any better than this.

You are looking at a 45m tall, 47m long moose that will hold up to 350 people. It is to be built on the top of Vithatten mountain in northern Sweden. The people of Vithatten are claiming it as the largest moose in the world. Meanwhile, the people of Wellington are asking their Sculpture Trust, “Where’s our moose?”

Stepping up to the plate

It’s not often you see museum directors promoting local artists, but the Govett-Brewster is wearing its heart on its bumper. One of the number plates above is on the car of Govett-Brewster director Rhana Devenport. An overthenet able tennis ball, signed by an artist of note, for the first right answer*.
*Some conditions apply: staff of the Govett-Brewster and people living in New Plymouth are not eligible.

Look alike

Images: Top, Intro credits to The Southbank Show (you can watch them here). Right, Intro credits to The Big Picture

The spirit of the Beecroft

Pietra Brettkelly’s documentary on Vanessa Beecroft The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins has been accepted for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema section. As far as we know, it is the first New Zealand documentary ever accepted. Brettkelly wrote and directed the film which follows Beecroft as she set out to adopt twin Sudanese orphans. Bringing her famously obsessive personality to the task, American über artist Beecroft tests her marriage and raises questions about “exploitation, culture clash, and the imposition of the West on Africa”. Another of Brettkelly’s documentaries, Beauty Will Save the World, about a contestant in Libya’s first ever beauty competition, screened at the American Film Institute Film Festival in Los Angeles. You can read about her other documentaries here.
Image: Vanessa Beecroft VbSouthSudan

Look alike (Creepy Division)

Images: Top, M C Escher Drawing Hands 1948. Bottom, Shane Willis MC Mechanic Hand Fixing Hand

Will Elias come to save them?

Way back in 1990, we were involved in an attempt to publish a catalogue raisonné of the works of Colin McCahon. For a number of reasons, the main one being the Auckland Art Gallery advising the McCahon family against it, the catalogue was never published and the $50,000 offered by Government never picked up. It was made clear that this was not a job for the private sector. This might seem reasonable in retrospect if we had a catalogue raisonné to leaf through today, but we don’t. Instead we have the Colin McCahon Database and Image Library.

OTN UPDATE: The McCahon database was finally updated in July 2010 you can see the revised version here)

The database was organised by the Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust and its publication taken over by Te Papa five or six years ago. Each year Te Papa notes in its Annual Reports that it hosts the database and records the number of visits (in 2006 it was 13,454 visits). And each year, in its statement of intent Te Papa claims: “Te Papa Speaks with Authority. All of Te Papa’s activities are underpinned by scholarship ….” So has an exception been made for the McCahon database? It appears to be virtually unchanged since it was first put online.

So what's it like? Around 1600 works are included with basic catalogue details. The quality of many of the images is poor with some badly cropped and damaged. The search function is primitive with a search by year, for example, delivering not only the art works for that year but every work that has a bibliographic reference for that year. You can only be thankful that there are so few bibliographic references. The functionality is very limited. It is not possible for instance to compare two works on the same screen. A section promising essays "on Colin McCahon's life and work" has been empty since its inception.

Of more concern in a database published by a national institution like Te Papa, are the many errors that undermine the credibility of the project and certainly compromise any claims to scholarship.

A random selection:

cm001244 A painting for Uncle Frank is credited as being in a private collection. In fact it is in Te Papa’s collection, and has been since 2004.

cm001709 is titled Crucifixion with MacPalene. Unfortunately MacPalene was unable to be at the crucifixion, they probably mean Mary Magdelene.

cm000073 is titled A vessell(sic)... ('Prayer for the Second Coming' Peter Hooper). The (sic) is inappropriately pedantic for this level of scholarship, and unnecessary as Vessel is spelt correctly by McCahon on the painting.

cm000512 is titled As there is a constant flow of light we are born into a pure land (McCahon to Shadbolt). The painting is inscribed by McCahon ‘Shadbolt from/McCahon’

cm000002 and cm001220 are in fact the same painting recorded with two different unique numbers.

Some questions. Why has Te Papa had responsibility for the database for so long, and left it in such a amateurish state? How do they reconcile their commitment to scholarship with this project? Has the database in fact been abandoned and was never intended to be a growing resource for research? Is Te Papa even able to correct the many mistakes in the database?

Te Papa should either put in the resources needed to make the database the tool it should be, or take it off line and hand it over to another institution willing to make a serious and professional commitment.

The Colin McCahon Research and Publication Trust is credited on every reproduction of a work by Colin McCahon and The Trust’s name fronts the database along with a list of its members. So you might also ask what are they doing about the database? They are: Julian Miles (Chairman), Victoria Carr and William McCahon (McCahon family), Chris Saines (Auckland Art Gallery), Dr Seddon Bennington, Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Te Papa), Trish Stevenson.

Legs eleven

In November we: were shocked at Te Papa swapping out a Maori • kept plugging away at getting information from CNZ • played footsy with McCahon and Rothko • began our Christmas gift list with a Santa holding a chocolate butt plug • ruminated over artist publication fees • wondered what it was about men, tv shows and the history of art • questioned the authenticity of an Apple • commiserated with Celia Dunlop • put a bit of colour into the Guggenheim • questioned the Hammond exhibition lighting • realised it has already taken CNZ two and a half years to decide whether or not to go back to Venice • celebrated being 1 year old • kept on with the rabbit thing

Outlook for Thursday on Saturday

A great song by a great band with enough of an art connection to sneak it on overthenet. Outlook For Thursday by DD Smash. Thanks for that R.
Image: DD Smash Guitarist, Gary Langsford