Copycat: extreme division

Diana Craig takes Michael Parekowhai’s series The consolation of philosophy: Piko nei te matenga as her own with colour photographs of flower arrangements in the same style of white vase, the same placement in the image, the same large format and the same framing.

Image: Diana Craig's photograph From my mother’s garden in the window of Small Acorns in Wellington

Getting lost in the rush

If you wanted to be the new director of Wellington’s City Gallery you will have already sent in your application. The strange thing about the process though is that even if you'd seen the announcement on day one, you'd only have had 20 days to get yourself sorted. Why the rush?

Current director Paula Savage had been seriously flagging that she'd leave for some time and -- although she certainly did the Museums Trust no favours with her timing -- it's hard to understand why the Trust wasn’t able to arrange her exit more gracefully. At the very least the job could have been advertised a couple of days after she announced her retirement in December last year. 

These appointments famously take time. The process of replacing the director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, for instance, took six months. In that case an acting director took over so maybe this is part of the problem the Trust faced. The City Gallery has no senior curator to step up in the interim. Also word has it that Savage has either already left the building using leave owed or finishes up this month. That means the pressure is on to find a replacement for one of the city's most high profile jobs as the Wellington City Council looks hard at its cultural investments. Just this morning there was tough talk in the DomPost about cutting the Council's contribution to Te Papa.

A list of possible replacements for Savage is easy to come up with as times are tough in museum land. The chances of getting overseas applications have never been better so watch this space as OTN monitors the overseas arrival lounge.

Image: A queue of potential directors line up outside the City Gallery for their interviews. (simulation only).

Prêt-à-potter

"I recently bought a few portraits by Elizabeth Peyton. She did a portrait of Pete Doherty that I loved … and I went to Frieze Art Fair and saw a painting by Jim Hodges. The guy said, 'no, we're waiting for a more prestigious collector to take that.' And I was like, thanks, thanks a lot."

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe in Time Out magazine

Art at work

Art hard at it in the foyers of the world

Stage fright

Wait for it! Yes, it's on the way.  An opera based on the life of Len Lye with music by Eve de Castro-Robinson and a libretto by Roger Horrocks is about to go into production in Auckland. 

This is one of a number of attempts to get Len Lye on the boards. A couple of years ago Brian Hannam’s play Len was workshopped a couple of times - once by Playmarket with a suitably bald Stuart Devenie as Lye and then by the Auckland Theatre Company - but a production never even made it to off-off Queen Street. The actor John Watson also wrote a one-hander Len. The life and times of Len Lye (1901-1980) that he proposed touring round the country but that went nowhere.

Now we hear that along with the opera a musical LYE! is waiting in the wings. A bunch of songs have already been penned including the theme song ‘You are my universe’, ‘Heavy metal’, ‘Twisters’, 'Stop the sculpture I want to get off’, Move me’ and the anthem ‘Stainless.’ More on the Lyes as they come to hand.

Things we hoped we’d never see

American artist Ed Ruscha modelling.

Image: Ruscha for Band of outsiders

Proof positive

For a time in the mid-1980s we arranged with Peter Peryer to get a copy of each of his photographic contact sheets. In those non-digital days photographers passed light through the negatives to produce a same-size positive print to help select images. We've always loved to see the ones that didn’t quite make the cut for the insight they give into what a photographer is aiming for. 

Could anything have been more fascinating than the release of so many Diane Arbus proof sheets in the book Diana Arbus: Revelations? Not for us. For a start who'd have guessed that the famous shot of the young boy clutching the toy hand grenades was selected from a full sheet of the same kid hamming it up for the camera?

Peter Peryer’s proof sheets are just as intriguing. This contact sheet was made in preparation for his October 1985 picture Octopus. The image Peter chose is top right. You can see how he abstracted the image by removing the context of scale, a device he has often used over his 38-year career. You can also see a few clues as to how the photo was shot. In the second image from top right you can spot a peek of Peryer’s shoe and it becomes obvious that the octopus has been placed on a sheet of paper on the ground. To achieve the final version of Octopus Peter would have leant right over his model. A bird's-eye-view of a creature from the bottom of the sea.

Image: Contact sheet Octopus by Peter Peryer (click on image to enlarge). You can see how the final image worked out here in Te Papa's collection

Looks like art

Refurbishing or art installation. You be the judge.

Wind up

We’ve always had a soft spot for inflatable sculpture. The sight of Paul McCarthy’s Complex Shit in the Middelheim Museum’s park outside Antwerp is not easy to forget and Michael Parekowhai’s Jim McMurtry lying in state in Auckland Museum’s Maori Court was a sensation. But artists aren’t the only ones to create inflatable sculpture. In the world of protest inflatables have just the weight to make a big point in any confrontation. 

Anyone who has spent time in New York will be familiar with Scabby the repulsively grimy inflatable rat that Unions park outside recalcitrant businesses. Greenpeace is another master of inflationary art in the service of protest. Here's a roundup of some of the best.

Images: Top to bottom, left to right. Demo pig in 1920s Soviet Russia, Unions bring out a Capitalist Pig and Scabby the rat, Greenpeace’s inflatable whale in Valparaiso, Chile. Unions use scissors and Greenpeace turns to the toilet bowl to make a point. Australians against Japanese whaling. PETA supplying the elephant in the room against circus abuse and a giant pill comes to town for HIV awareness in New Delhi, India.

Lookalike

Left, Man Ray’s 1921 photograph of Marcel Duchamp in Paris. Right Don Logan’s alter ego in the movie Sexy Beast.

Getting messy at Massey

Those of you like us who have stayed on through the epic that is David Cauchi’s battle with Massey University will know that he has handed in his MA thesis. In keeping with Cauchi’s if-they-don’t-react-get-the-stick-out-and-poke-them-again philosophy it is titled A strange book of incomprehensible nonsense or how I became an Intertemporal Avant Garde artist and went completely batshit insane. This time round he is subject to outside examination rather than just the tics of the masochistic Massey staff who so far they have struggled to see the Cauchi for the PBRFs.

The irrepressible author of Pointless and Absurd is certainly pushing the Masters genre around having removed from his own MA submission "the boring factual historical background stuff and added in more madness." At one point he even threatened to "put the entire written output of Philip K Dick into [his] bibliography. And quite a few punk rock records. And Doctor Who. And ..." reminding his readers that, "This is one of many reasons why Fine Arts is the best subject, much better than such dull as ditchwater ones as Art History and Philosophy. Or (shudder) English Literature. Ew. Fuck rigour. Fuck references!" But even he is figuring there will be "a tick in the box labelled 'Major revisions required'."

Will Cauchi be awarded his MA from Massey? (probably). If so, will Massey offer him a job? (possibly). Would he accept? (inevitably). Who would have even thought to ask these questions two years ago?

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.

By the numbers

Art + Object have released some interesting numbers showing the top ten prices paid for art at auction since the early eighties. Colin McCahon takes the number one and number two spots followed by C F Goldie at three and four. McCahon then comes back at five and six while C F claims places eight and nine. Sandwiched between the price titans are Frances Hodgkins in position seven and then Gordon Walters sneaks in at spot ten. Art + Object shares the full list based on Australian Art Sales Digest here.

But hang on. Who fronted up with the most cash for acrerage? Now that is a different list altogether. Here's prices paid per square millimetre in descending order.

$7.12 Colin McCahon I considered all the acts of oppression

$3.17 Colin McCahon Let be, let be

$2.67 Gordon Walters Tirangi II

$1.60 Colin McCahon No 2

$1.04 Frances Hodgkins Still life with landscape

$0.92 Colin McCahon He calls for Elias

And then come the Goldies at $0.70, $0.51, $0.33 and $0.29 a pop.

Contemporary art: putting its money where its mouth is.

Suck it up

Over on Hyperallergic Ben Valentine has been trolling through the depths of FaceBook and other social media in the search of Statue Porn. His animated gif is probably not safe for work (hopefully not too many of you are at work on a Saturday) and not that safe for the sculptures either by the look of it. (Thanks to everyone who sent in the link)

High score

One of our readers searched out the Gibellina memorial in Sicily via Google Maps and here is the result. (click on image to enlarge) Thanks A