If anyone can a web cam can

If you don’t live in Auckland you don’t really get to see contemporary art auctions live. The odd visit may coincide with a chance to look at what’s available, but that’s only a shadow of what happens on the night. Now all that’s changed. Last night we watched the Art + Object auction at home in Wellington via Live Auctioneers. And you had to watch closely as auctioneer Ben Plumbly stormed through the 218 lots; leave the room to make a cup of coffee and you’d miss half a dozen. It was fun to peer at the live stream in a small window at the same time as tracking the progress by lot in large images and the all-important state of the bids scrolling down the side of the screen. Then, when it was all over you can check out all the hammer prices, something it usually takes weeks to get hold of. 

So how did it go? Nothing to write home about. As happens in most auctions these days, the real selling is done the next morning. Canny buyers have been bidding just shy of the low estimate for a while now and taking their chances that the sellers will be enticed by the cash after a restless night’s sleep. Most of the big money items fell below their lower estimates, although a very pink Liz Maw painting did well, climbing toward the upper estimate before being called at $29,000 and ruining any chance of heading this post Less is Maw.

Image: Art + Auction live on screen selling Stephen Bambury’s Necessary Correction VII with a tiny Ben Plumbly at the rostrum.

Russia blood to the head

As one of the few cities in the South Pacific with a social realist sculpture we have become interested in the genre. Here a Bulgarian response to giant monument that was built to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Russian 'liberation' of Bulgaria in 1944. Just saying.

You can read more here

Alexander the great

You can expect more frock shows in our art galleries and museums. Te Papa has already been in this particular game and is aiming for even bigger crowds in December with Unveiled, a survey of 200 years worth of wedding dresses, pimped with celebrity examples, from around the world. As Te Papa admits, the exhibition 'shows the huge media and public appetite for celebrity weddings' (in Australia it was shown exclusively at the Bendigo Art Gallery) but it comes from the V&A so there you go.

What is exciting museums obsessed by bums through the door is the huge success of Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty that has just wrapped up at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The huge attendances (it is the eighth most popular show the Met has ever mounted) are up there with names that gave the word 'blockbuster' its allure: Mona Lisa, Picasso, Tutankhamen.

As for the McQueen numbers, they're enough to make any museum marketer salivate. Attendances topped 650,000, over half a million more than the Met's most popular fashion show to date. Over 23,000 people paid for museum membership so they could jump the queue. 17,000 paid $61 to visit on Monday when the museum is usually closed. The catalogue alone grossed $1.5 million.
Source Artinfo

"You can express yourself, but express yourself in a beautiful way."

Shoe guru Imelda Marcos Urging the closing of an art installation that featured Jesus with a dildo in the Cultural Center of the Philippines

Shooting yourself in the architect

A topic of discussion at the Venice Biennale was the rebuilding of the Australian pavilion in the Giardini, the gardens where most of the national pavilions are located. A side conversation (like really on the side) was the possibility that New Zealand might go halves and share the primo space when it was built. Nice thought but too off left field to get much traction on the big Rock.

Anyway, the Aussies have now gone and set up an international competition through the Australia Council. That’s smart you might think, except it turns out that the rules preclude Australia's greatest (and that’s greatest in the greatest sense of the word greatest) architect from participating. That would be, of course, Glenn Murcutt, Australia’s (and Australasia’s) only Pritzker Prize winner (2002). 

The competition rules state that “only Australian architects with experience designing a public art space and experience delivering projects internationally will be eligible to enter.” So that’s Glenn Murcutt out, the guys who designed the Christchurch Art Gallery in. How stupid is that? As for Glenn Murcutt? Not happy.

There’s a petition calling for a rethink etc but the risk is that Murcutt and other top line architects will walk. You can read more here.

Image: Not an art gallery by Glenn Murcutt (Simpson-Lee House)

Let me through, I’m a curator

"I happened to be there that afternoon and immediately went down and removed as much of the lipstick as I could with benzine."

Museum of Modern Art curator Dorothy Miller in 1952 describing her reaction when one of Clyfford Still’s paintings was marked by a lipstick wielding woman. Different days.

Cruisin’ for a bruisin’

A friend of ours once served as the resident magician on a luxury cruise liner. It was a pretty relaxed job that involved doing the rounds of the dining room to make fools out of husbands who thought they knew how a card trick was done when they saw one. In those days the entertainment was all mime artists, musical trios and stand-up comics with the odd fancy dress competition to add spice. Nowadays cruise ships are more shopping malls than anything else and one of the big ticket items often on offer is art.

You'd think, wouldn’t you, that even on a cruise you might keep your $15,500 in your pocket when offered an “embellished lithograph” by American artist Alexandra Nechita. But no. On board the good ship Pacific Dawn, works by Alexandra were being offered at knock-down prices, like you could get her Riding the Waves for just $46,500, a massive $62,000 discount on the original ticket price. Who could resist? Not Australian art lover Jason Hall who snapped it up.

Jason should have checked out Alexandra’s web site. There he would have found a small but significant statement that might have sounded warning bells. “The thumb print of the Great One is on her." The author? Whoopi Goldberg. Despite WG's endorsement, Jason discovered once he reached shore that his work was valued at around $2,000, on a good day. As our own Andy Schmulow, a lecturer at Victoria University's faculty of business and law, remarked, ''I wouldn't be buying anything other than a cocktail on the high seas.'' You can read more here

Just kidding

Older OTN readers and second hand book junkies may recognize this very familiar book design. But who was the designer, it’s a bit of a surprise. You can find out the artist's name and see more examples here.

Saving the world one museum at a time

Back in May we posted on Te Papa embarking on the search for a new vision. The draft idea is online (rather buried we'd have to say) and they are calling for input. 

So what has Te Papa come up with? It’s kind of spiritual.

"Changing hearts. Changing minds. Changing lives."

In our previous post we came up with three questions to help evaluate any proposed vision:

• Is it easy to understand and remember?

• Does it make sense to people outside the organisation?

• Are there sensible ways to find out whether they are on track?

Well you can’t say it isn’t short and easy to remember, but understandable? That’s something different altogether. It’s an eternal problem with the vision thing. Get too specific and you can be brought to account. Go general and you can end up sounding like a revivalist church. Te Papa has gone down the religious route.

To anyone outside Te Papa this visionary trifecta looks like a huge stretch for a public sector organisation. Te Papa aspiring to change the world? Is that what we even want from our national museum? Changing people (hearts, minds, lives) is one thing, but the question is, changing them to what? Whose version of NZ gets to set the goal? It all feels profoundly political and the trouble is that Te Papa-style boosterism has never proved the most effective way to make political change. Trickiest of all, if it's not political, then it is just more rhetoric.

So we the people need more from Te Papa about the world it sees all this change creating. Don’t look to the leadership (Michael Houlihan and Michelle Hippolite) for optimism:

"However, the world is changing and fast. The next ten years will see Aotearoa New Zealand and the planet grapple with massive issues of overpopulation, water, food and conflict.”

Biculturalism is in the Vision docs front and centre. It's good to see Christchurch coming in for a bit of love and we like the effort to broaden the authority of knowledge. Digital is big of course, but then it is, isn’t it. But how will Te Papa decide what are the 'important contemporary issues'? The growing disparity between rich and poor New Zealanders seems to us to be one, yet how can Te Papa come to grips with that through their endemic culture of celebration? Why is the assertion of the 'breadth of the nation's culture' simply taken as read?

As for the 'A' word, you won't find it in the vision. Art is probably wrapped up somewhere in ‘culture' and 'important contemporary issues' and 'contemporary culture.' Feels like an under-performer when set against Te Papa's lol aim to 'foster the survival of species including humanity.'

You still have six days left to make your own comments on this vision thing here.

Dotty

What is it about the Mona Lisa that drives people to such extremes? Is there any material that has escaped being used to make a replica of the famous image, Rubik’s cubes, pencils, bottle tops and coins – there’s no end to it. We’ve even seen the famous portrait reduced to a recognizable 140 dots but how about 6,239 of them? More Mona lunacy in a World Record attempt for Connect the Dots. You can see the action here.

Dildo Bagging

"You can express yourself, but express yourself in a beautiful way."

Shoe guru Imelda Marcos urging the closure of an art installation featuring Jesus with a dildo on show at the Philippines Cultural Center

The more things change

There’s a lot of chat internationally about how art fairs are starting to dominate the primary market and transforming the traditional fixed location dealer gallery model. Globally dealers are finding that a significant amount of their annual income now comes directly from art fairs and not the daily grind of opening the shop. Is that true in NZ?

Our own art fair, the one in Auckland, has just finished and by all accounts sales went well and visitors certainly seemed to be having a good time. You'd have to say though most of the work was certainly not up there on the dollar stakes. No big money Hammonds, Cottons or McCahons. If you wanted to see blue chip you had to get over to Webb’s who were outing their next auction. The art fair was more like taking a stroll around the galleries on a typical Saturday morning, but with no driving (that was good). So, lots of walk-bys, a few things that demanded a second look and lots of talk. More a community building exercise than record breaking or heart-stopping.

At global art fairs the collectors come from all over to see works they would usually not be able to access at home. And they are reeled in like fish, free tickets, accommodation and tickets to vernissages that go for the lavish way beyond the AAF’s filled rolls and homely wine (a wee bit too picnic-on-the-beach for $125 a head).

Our art fair seems to be more about giving the punters a bit of fun with a nicely varied and unthreatening art experience. As a way to get people interested in art it’s a huge success. As director Jennifer Buckley says, it’s "like a Big Day Out for art lovers with opportunities to engage one to one with artists, curators and gallery owners." A threat to the standard dealer gallery model? Unlikely.

Image: Art Fair punter with good eye

Lookalike

Images: Top, today in Cuba Mall. Bottom, latest Webb's catalogue showing Rose Nolan's work Help me do things differently

Game on!

August has arrived and Artspace faces its moment of truth. Will Creative New Zealand continue to fund it? An announcement has been promised for next month.

Yes, this is Masterchef CNZ style. Remember the cliffhanger at the end of the last series in December 2010? Artspace and some others were still in the game but the judges weren't happy. They called for a challenge (more info to be served up), asked the competitors to leave the room and went into a huddle.

Now they've had since May to make the big call. Who will leave the game and who will go on. The Artspace contestants are confident their presentation skills will win the day - they've even hired a new chef - but then their competitors probably feel safe too.

Left in the game are Arts Access Aotearoa, Artspace, Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Circa Theatre, Downstage Theatre, Footnote Dance, Fortune Theatre, Southern Sinfonia and Vector Wellington Orchestra.

The clock is ticking, the judges are just about to come back with their decision. Who's going to make it into the next round?

The ice men sculpteth

You can’t stop the sculpting impulse at Wellington’s Moore Wilson deli. This morning it’s ice sculpture by “food heroes and ice sculptors Ian Hornblow and Paul Hoather”. The pair also have the museum installation thing spot on with a big explanatory label and a barrier to stop anyone touching the work.