OTN goes viral

 OTN hits the Melbourne Age like a thunderbolt. Page Nine boys Jarrod Rawlins and Vasili Kaliman roped in to pose for extensive coverage of OTN's posting on Melbourne Art Fair. You heard it here first. Well, second if you live in Melbourne.

The silence of the sculptures

"I talk too much …The whole point as a maker is to create things that don't talk.”

UK sculptor Anthony Gormley

Death in Venice

And we thought we were relentless! That is nothing in the face of Metro Magazine’s attempt to bring Creative NZ to its knees and in the process jumping all over artist Michael Parekowhai. The first Metro hit was an ‘expose’ of a consultant who left CNZ in the lurch and out of pocket. Now for their second strike they have unleashed Josie McNaught

Judging from talk about her phone interviews the initial focus of her article was a Fair Go type investigation of the Te Papa purchase of Parekowhai’s Venice piano. That story obviously didn't fly which probably explains the minor roll call of offenses she has rustled up in the October issue: CNZ painted signs on the pavement (they were stickers but what the hey), Michael Parekowhai wouldn’t give JMcN an exclusive interview (get away), the tote bags were the most exciting thing at Venice (of course they were), Parekowhai was badly dressed at a party (scoop), and the red piano was “a joke” (journalist always think art they don’t get is a joke). In amongst it all she kicked the junior players and sucked up to the seniors (Alastair Carruthers and the two Jennys – “go girl”) and suggested CNZ should privatise the whole affair (which is their intention anyway). 

Fortunately not all the media has taken such a dim view of the event. As journalist Josie McNaught (relation) said in the 4 June’s NZ Herald article Venice show hits the bull's eye “I doubt the harshest critic would find much to moan about.”

Images: the two Metro Magazine articles headlining their displeasure over two issues

On the road

By popular demand yet another in the OTN series celebrating the Ministry of Land Transport and Local Body support of New Zealand artists.

For others in the series hit the 'on the road' label tag below.

Bent

Plans in New York to transform a sculpture destroyed ten years ago into a memorial have finally been dropped. The sculpture Bent Propeller  was a 7.6 metre work by Alexander Calder that had been bolted onto a pedestrian platform over Vesey Street close by the World Trade Center. When the twin towers collapsed the sculpture was crushed. 

Seeing the potential for a memorial, Calder’s grandson Alexander Rower searched the rubble and found what was left of Bent Propeller commissioned from Calder in 1970. What remains of the sculpture is now in a Port Authority store at JFK Airport with other 9/11 recoveries. 

Still, if you are in New York there are plenty of other Calders to see. The artist was the go-to guy for public sculpture there in the late fifties and sixties. His publicly accessible works include 125 at the JFK Airport, Untitled a mobile in the Chase bank at 410 Park Avenue, Saurien at 590 Madison Building, Le Guichet at the Lincoln Center and Cirque Calder at the Whitney Museum.

Images: Left Bent Propeller before and right, after the 9/11 attack   

art at work

Lunch time on Para Matchitt's Sea to City Bridge sculpture

The best of the boosters: final edition

 This is the final edition of Best of the Boosters (unless unqualified praise enters some new extreme realm)

So let's hear it one last time for art museum marketing departments putting it out for art:

Widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s most important artistic partnerships. - Dunedin Public Art Gallery 

A reputation for innovation and style, inspiring and challenging its audiences with a world-class programme of exhibitions. - City Gallery Wellington

One of the largest and most absorbing presentations of New Zealand art. - Te Papa

This exhibition fizzes with emotion. - Auckland Art Gallery

Offers an unprecedented glimpse into the soul of the region. - Te Papa 

Unique and exemplary experiences – Govett-Brewster

And one from the media

Jaw-dropping pieces in a long-anticipated exhibition. - Dominion Post on behalf of Pataka

Lookalike

Some link chasing to keep you occupied on Saturday morning. The top image is by New Zealand artist Andrew Blythe who is on exhibition at Wellington’s Roar Gallery and bottom French-born Polish artist Roman Opalka who was attempting to paint from one to infinity,  spotted here on Flavorwire (he never made it but you can see him cracking 4 million on Youtube). You can also see more of Blythe’s work here on selftaughtartist. 

Click the image to enlarge

Second life

Who would have thought that a independent Sierra-style game based on a performance art work would be downloaded by over 90,000 people worldwide? And all so they could virtually queue up for hours on end to sit opposite an eight-bit Marina? And yet that’s what has happened to Pippin Barr's game The artist is present. There have also been hundreds of blog posts, tweets (including one from the big MoMA herself) and stories in the Village Voice, Der Spiegel, Slate and The Huffington Post. The opportunity for a second life for exhibitions on the internet will come with its own questions, but clearly there's potential there. Game on.
Image: the end of the line, a virtual visitor gets to be present with Marina Abramovic. 
You can see a week of the game site download stats here

Thoughtless

If you’re thinking unlucky sculptures, think The Thinker. Next to Michelangelo’s David, Rodin’s bronze must be one of the most recognised sculptural images in the world. It also immortalised the thoughtful pose that has launched a million back cover author photos over the years. Thanks for that Auguste.

But The Thinker is back in the wars, most particularly in Argentina. Here the only copy of the sculpture that is located outdoors (all the other 20 full-sized copies are in museums or private collections) has been sprayed pink. The Buenos Aires city council claims not to know why the sculpture has been defaced (although pink and the sexual symbol for female on its arm feels like a clue) but has decided to soldier on and water blast the paint off the statue. This has caused conservators the world over to pale at the thought of the potential damage to the work’s patina.

This is not the first time one of The Thinker has been attacked. The most famous occasion was at the Cleveland Museum of Art back in 1970 when a pipe bomb was stuck between The Thinker’s feet and blew them apart on detonation. Remarkably the Museum decided to leave the sculpture on display in its damaged state as a memory of the civil unrest that had swept America at that time. The damaged work is still on view and is cared for by the Museum like any other of their sculptural works with regular cleaning and rewaxing.

Another recent attack on The Thinker was more prosaic. Thieves attempted to cut up a smaller sized version of the work owned by the Singer Museum in Netherlands for the resale price of the bonze. Stupid really as the bronze at that time would have only fetched around $600 while there was a $1.66 million valuation on the sculpture itself. Panicking when they realised they had nicked a high profile artwork the thieves buried it in a garden. It was later recovered but unfortunately the other six sculptures stolen at the same time did not escape the melting pot.

Images: The Thinker top to bottom, Argentina, Cleveland and The Netherlands

Branded: Michael Harrison

The moment when artists become brands

Never say never

Six months or so ago we visited Don Driver who is now 81 and not as agile as he used to be. On that occasion we were able to help him finish a collage by adding a small bit of colour (on his very, very precise instructions) to the left hand side of a gorilla’s face. 

Hearing Don was not too well we went up again last weekend and there was more to be done. The lower section had been niggling at him and he wanted to replace the brown shapes in the bottom middle of the work. He had offered to sacrifice one of his own red shirts for the job, but his wife Joyce had come up with an orangey sheet of plastic from the studio. We got the job of cutting the pieces to size and Chris (Don’s son-in-law) hot glued them in place. And the artist? He just leant back in his chair and smiled the smile of a Don.

Images: Top left to right, the work in March, the first addition and far right the latest additions pinned ready for gluing. Bottom, Chris hot glues the additions.

A crate exhibition

An entertaining post on the Christchurch Art Gallery blog today as Justin Paton makes a few wry comments on the put-as-much-stuff-on-the-walls-as-will-fit style of display that art museums like to call Open Hang. 

With a teetering apartment block about to be demolished at the rear of the gallery staff have been forced to shift the entire collection away from the danger zone. The result as Paton says is “the most ambitious 're-hang' to be conducted since staff moved the more than 6,000 items in the collection from the old McDougall to the new Christchurch Art Gallery back in the early 2000s.”

Image via Christchurch Art Gallery

Shape lifter

And now, fashion news. Nicole and Michael Colovos as Helmut Lang 2.0 have based their first runway show (following the departure of HL six years ago) on sculpture. “We looked at a Richard Serra exhibit as a starting point.” And so the models hobbled (Alejandro Ingelmo wedges) down the runway swathed in sweeping angular shapes in black and white, the designers having flagged the rust brown colour that is a feature of Serra’s sculpture…. and the weight too of course. In keeping with the Serra theme though, the show was held in a cavernous industrial parking garage on New York’s Pier 57. Some critics complained about the look lacking "specificity“ and being too “nebulous.” Now that's something no one would dare say to contemporary sculpture's tough-guy Serra.

Resting between engagements

Only in the New Plymouth home of photographer Peter Peryer would you come across this sort of thing on a couch in the main room.