Things past

Maurice Agis, the 77 year old artist who’s inflatable lifted into the air and killed two people, has been convicted of breaching health and safety rules. The other two charges of manslaughter of the victims through gross negligence are still being considered by the jury who failed to reach a verdict yesterday.

Grab a seat

Off the record, on the QT and very hush hush

Prompted by CNZ's response to out post on their selection process, we zipped over to the Creative New Zealand site to check on the Venice Biennale news section. At the moment there are three stories. New Zealand to participate (December 07), Celebrated artists chosen (June 08) and, thanks to some prodding by OTN, Venues chosen (December 08). That’s one media release on 2009's major visual arts funding event ($650,000 from CNZ) per 122 days.

It’s not as if there’s nothing to report. The venues have been visited on our dime (Trip Of A Lifetime part 2) by the curators, who presumably had cameras and came back loaded with images. We’ve heard one of the venues described as “Dusty and bare and thrilling in that Venice way” which sounds pretty cool. So here are some pics of the venue being used by Francis Upritchard that we found on Google. It looks perfect, and good on Upritchard for organizing it. We weren’t able to find images of the Judy Millar venue.

We’re not sure whether the decision by the CNZ web site not to share images like this or give regular updates (some studio shots, how the fund raising is going, interviews with the artists etc) is a matter of secrecy or disinterest, or both.
Images: The Fondazione Claudio Buziol where Francis Upritchard will show her work.

Art in the workplace 2

Art hard at work in the foyers of the world.

Watershed

Hats off to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for being so relaxed. When the galleries displaying Monet and the Impressionists leaks, Paul Brewer, Te Papa’s PR man, could tell the Dom Post that "We don't expect this is something that will hugely engage their minds." Apparently the fact it was a small leak, a freak shower and a high wind means this incident will create minimal feather ruffling in Boston. Good for them. A more paranoid museum might have asked for their billion dollar art exhibit to be temporarily removed until the leak was fixed. Still it does make you wonder what a lot of the fuss over acceptable exhibition conditions is all about. Try telling some small museum in provincial New Zealand that a leaking roof (however small) is ok and won’t affect their application for loans. All this stuff is obviously more open to negotiation than is popularly supposed.

LEGO art is where you find it

In this case a 16 foot Pharaoh moving down the Thames to its home in LEGOland.

Now you see it, now you don’t

Bizarro World is home to Bizarro, a comic book legend. This alternate ‘superman’ (thanks to a collision with a meteorite) has powers opposite to those of the man of steel. Bizarro has freeze vision rather than heat vision, flame breath instead of frost breath and x-ray vision that penetrates lea. Bizarro also inspired a great Ronnie van Hout sculpture.

And we’re telling you this because?

Late last year we saw a video clip of Curator Rudolf Frieling discussing Hans Haacke’s installation News, at SFMOMA. The Haacke piece is a live feed of news, printed continuously during the length of the exhibition.

FOUR MONTHS LATER, HALF WAY ACROSS THE WORLD...

... Fiona Connor is showing Notes on Half the Page at Gambia Castle in Auckland. This installation is made up of news stands Connor has duplicated from the huge variety she has seen on her travels. But, where Haacke exhibits all the news, Connor exhibits none of it. The news stands are empty.

For more on Connor’s installation at Gambia Castle here’s an interesting review by John Hurrell. You can see pics of both works here on OTN Stuff.
Image: Bizarrow busy at work creating all the news that's fit to tnirp

Things you thought you'd never see

The Para Matchitt cushion.

Don’t ask

Creative New Zealand have responded to our post questioning their talk-or-walk policy for selecting participants in the Venice Biennale. The Sunday Star Times (22 Feb 08) confirmed the requirement was included in documents to be signed before artists could put their names in the hat. This is also supported by Chairman Alastair Carruthers who says, “... it’s actually a valid questioning in those circumstances, to ask applicants what their willingness is to participate in all the communication around it.” We’d say Alastair Carruthers is deeply ingenuous to claim “willingness” had anything to do with it. It was a requirement of the application. Agree to talk the talk or you don't get into the walk pile.

Carruthers also attempted to brush off OTN’s disagreement with CNZ policy as “aggressive” - LOL.

You can read the full text of the CNZ response on OTN Stuff here.

Other voices

This from Daniel...

I have a theory regarding "Para Matchitts Te Wepu, the Whip, delicately skied above Milan Mrkusich's Untitled."

Perhaps its like an awning? Maybe Jeff Thomson's vehicle should be in the carpark, or being winched out of the harbour. While it's obviously distracting to place one work above another, works which are allowed to play with each other and their building gain self esteem.

Visiting the Monet and the Impressionists exhibition this week I thought the works were very well hung, but that the white partition walls looked entirely out of place next to those types of paintings and the ornate frames used. Cezanne's "I want to make of Impressionism something solid and lasting like the art in the museums" might be used to suggest that museum's really don't have time to understand how to display their exhibitions, and therefore artists should make it easy for them.

Style section

This just in from our style editor. Korean designer Kwang Hoo Lee gets into the Monty Python spirit with his Mona Lisa chair.

Grey scale

In Wellington, thinking about et al.

Hover craft copycat

In a leap of virtual copy cat PR imagination, City Gallery in Wellington has a visitor literally floating on air as she looks at a Darren George exhibition in one of the new galleries under construction.
Images: left and middle City Gallery billboard. Right German artist and street performer, Johan Lorbeer

Ian Prior 1924-2009

A long time ago we visited Ian and Elespie Prior’s home in Wellington. It was to attend a meeting to come up with some ideas for the Wellington Sculpture Trust. Can’t remember the outcome, but anyway we were distracted by the paintings that covered practically every flat surface as well as being stacked behind doors and against furniture. An unframed McCahon canvas was hanging across the top of the bay window and while Ian muttered something about needing to get it out of the sun, it had obviously been there since they had purchased it. The collection had that chaotic charm that comes with objects that are all loved and all need to accommodate each other somehow. Elespie died some time ago but Ian kept up his enthusiasm for the arts even though it had obviously been such a shared pleasure. Now the news that Ian too has died. Ian was a dedicated collector of contemporary art and something of an OTN icon, given our obsession with the Trust’s obsession with tall pointy sculpture. We’ll miss him.
Image: Len Lye’s Water Whirler

Style section

Theme shows are back. The Rotorua Museum of Art and History kicked off the season with The Mantle of water and, yes, there is a water work (Hotere Culbert’s “immense” Backwater), Fish/sea creatures (Elizabeth Thomson’s “dazzling” wall installation), rivers (Anne Noble’s “celebrated” Wanganui series), McCahon (gotta be a waterfall) and rain (Brian Brake’s “celebrated” Monsoon). You can catch the show, curated by ex Te Papa staffer Ian Wedde, until 5 April.