Famous people in front of art

Number 2: Woody Allen

Spam

reckless guesswork, insinuations and possible inventions that have turned up in otn's email: francis upritchard is to exhibit in vienna’s secession (gasp for air) • mark amery is to leave playmarket and freelance (cross fingers) • tara banks paid a special visit to michael parekowhai’s show at michael lett (squeal) • there is no father christmas (lip tremble) • sriwhana spong has been selected for the statements section of art basel (applause) • te papa has called it quits on its obscurely located sculpture court (sigh) • peter mcleavey is to show nick austin and andrew barber (omg) • chances of roundabout showing at the city gallery not good (raise eyebrow) • cnz to drop art-form categories for grants (say what?) • ivan anthony purchases karen walker’s house in west auckland (grudging respect) • rohan wealleans, jason greig, shane cotton, fiona pardington, reuben paterson and julia morrison are around half the artists selected for the sydney biennale (pause for reflection) and it’s not the welshman for te papa (groan) • any missed details, changes to outright lies, indignant denials or embellishments gratefully received and the best of them generously rewarded.

Mark it

Rothko is clearly décor du jour on American TV this year. Lookalike fans will remember the Rothko-like-product we spotted in Mad Men. Now we’ve caught another "Rothko", this time hanging in Ari’s new offices in Entourage.

.

There’s a story in the biography of Lord Duveen – the fabled Edwardian art dealer – that has him guiding a collector down a red velvet lined hall to the furthest recesses of his gallery. As they passed a door slightly ajar they saw, bathed in light, a jewel-like painting by Fra Angelico. The collector is entranced and begs to have a closer look. Duveen laid his arm across the collector’s shoulder and cooed, “No, no. You’re not ready for that yet.” 

Welcome to the world of the inner sanctum. Every dealer has one, the place where all the good stuff is stored and deals are done. Even at art fairs, where desks and databases are in full view, secret white on white doors open into tiny sanctums just big enough for a couple of collectors with room to close the door and the deal. 

And then of course there is the inner-inner sanctum.
Illustration: Pippin Barr

The gathering

“I don’t trust curators who don’t live with art, I want to be surrounded by it all the time.”

Eric Shiner, curator at The Andy Warhol Museum

No pressure

The Walters Prize selection team have no doubt been roaming up and down the country on the look out for “outstanding contributions to the visual arts over the last two years.” The kick off point for the next prize is, as best we can work out, March 2008 and will close around February 2010. So any “outstanding contribution’ made within that time frame is eligible.

Here’s our pick from what’s happened so far.

Michael Parekowhai’s astonishing exhibition The moment of Cubism at Michael Lett. It’s still on so no excuses.

Alicia Frankovich has been impressive over the period, particularly in her series of performances at Artspace in May this year.

Simon Denny must be in there with his Quodibet show at Daniel Buchholz’s gallery in Cologne.

Fiona Connor for her Gambia Castle show Notes on half the page and of course Something transparent (please go round the back) at Michael Lett.

Dane Mitchell has made an impression over the past couple of years especially with his appearance at last year’s Basel Art Fair with Starkwhite.

Then, on top of all this, there are the artists who have done great work over the last two years who have already either won the prize (can you win it more than once, like an Olympic Gold medal?) or been runners-up or – as in Peter Robinson’s case – both.

et al. That’s obvious! That’s right! That’s True at the Christchurch Art Gallery, Peter Robinson’s Snow blind at the Govett-Brewster and Ronnie van Hout’s knock-out exhibition Hold that thought at Hamish McKay in October last year.

Tough choice Walters Prize guys.

Art in the workplace

Art, hard at work in the foyers of the world.

Andy is Randy

As lookalike central we've kept an eye out for multiple Warhols. Here’s the latest break-out: Randy Harrison as the silver wigged one in the musical Pop! Today it’s playing at the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, tomorrow who knows.

Images: Left Randy Harrison as Andy. Right, from the left, Odine (Doug Kreeger), Gerard Malanga (Danny Binstock), Candy Darling (Brian Charles Rooney) and Randy again. Photo: Joan Marcus

Thomas Hoving 1928 - 2009

The man you can thank for the advertising banners outside Te Papa, the late night entertainments at the Auckland Museum, the invitation of Te Maori to the Metropolitan in 1984 and the focus on entertainment by so many of today’s museums, died last week. Thomas Hoving all but invented the museum blockbuster and although he had left the Metropolitan Museum by the Time Te Maori showed up, his spirit was still presiding over the box office. As director of one of the greatest museums in the world, Hoving swung the limelight away from curators and researchers and onto the announcement and display of spectacular purchases, crowd thrilling exhibitions and media stunts. He called his memoir Making the mummies dance and that’s exactly what he did. The Metropolitan is now steering a somewhat more sedate course, but like them or not, most museums and art galleries throughout the world (including our own) are children of Hoving's style.

Tasteless

The Taste: food and feasting in art exhibition currently showing at the Auckland Art Gallery isn’t subtle. It’s the sort of show you put together by feeding taste-related words into the collection database. “How about ‘fruit’? Let’s try ‘eat’ and ‘meat.’ What do we get with ‘dine’?” Given the small amount of space the Gallery has available until mid-2011 when the major rebuilding is completed (that’s at least another 18 months), you’d think the plan would be to make a serious effort with smart, credible exhibitions that build its reputation as New Zealand’s leading art institution rather than undercut it. And what's with entry to this exhibition (mostly from the collection) costing $7.50 while the more substantial collection show Picturing History downstairs is free?

Still, we coughed up only to find art and life weirdly merge as we sat down to watch the Ed Ruscha early seventies video Premier. The soundtrack was disrupted by a high-pitched and insistent electronic alarm beeping which was definitely not part of the work. Nearby was an open door, and through it we could see a small table with a plate of biscuits. ‘Taste!’ we thought and checked it out. As we approached we could also hear the clanking of knife and fork which we traced to a guard eating his lunch. We asked if he could turn off the door alarm. Without looking up from his meal he said, “I’m working on it.” Turned out he meant his salad.

Meanwhile, up on K-Road we saw a work made from Raro and spit at Artspace and a bronze lemon tree at Michael Lett, two works that escaped the Taste net. The artists Campbell Patterson and Michael Parekowhai are no doubt relieved.


Image: staff room as installation

The Saturday serial: Part 2

Click on image to enlarge, Part 3 next week

On the road

On the road is an ongoing series celebrating the Ministry of Land Transport and Local Body support of New Zealand artists.

For others in the series search 'on the road' in the blog search box above.

Vote National

When Hamish Keith opens Francis Pound’s new book The invention of New Zealand, let’s hope someone has the foresight to scatter pillows at his feet because he may well faint dead away. Anyone who lived through the brouhaha surrounding the publication of Pound’s first book Frames on the land – famously described by Keith as a ‘slim pink volume’ which has to be a word play up there with Rob Muldoon’s suggestion that Bill Rowling was ‘a shiver looking for a spine to run up’ – will remember the harsh words flung between the Internationalist and the nationalists.

Gordon Brown and Hamish Keith’s book New Zealand painting had held the floor since 1969 and it was a big target starting its coverage in 1839 and running all the way through to the end of the sixties. There was harsh New Zealand light, there were unique forms of landscape and there were arrivals and departures asking the question whether a true New Zealand artist had to live in the country. The national/ international dispute flared up again when the exhibition Headlands opened at the MCA in Sydney. Here the curators dared hang internationalist Gordon Walters with nationalists Para Matchitt and Sandy Adsett in an ‘inside out’ argument and among the deeply offended was Francis Pound.

Now Pound has come up with a book that centralises proto-nationalist Colin McCahon (47 illustrations and 124 page references). Milan Mrkusich barely gets a mention (only two illustrations and 22 page references) and Walters is strangely positioned as the not-a-koru-painter (20 illustrations of abstract Walters to three koru works).

It’s a substantial book and Pound is very gracious about the contribution of his old adversaries Brown and Keith, using their book as the clearest articulation of Nationalism ideology and the triumphant ending to his story. Well nearly the end, after some Walters and Killeen talk, it’s over to Shane Cotton, Michael Parekowhai and Peter Robinson. The more things change etc. etc.

Image: the Pound book packaged with safety device

Simply the best

Continuing our interest in living sculptures, this one in Tokyo.

Go figure

It's nearly Christmas, so let's go shopping. The Van Gogh Action Figure with replaceable head also comes with an easel painting of your choice. And, for that special someone, there's nothing to stop you putting on a GI Joe head to create your own 21st Century Action Painter.