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“If you said to someone 20 years ago that you were going to the National Gallery this weekend, they would have assumed you meant you were going to see the permanent collection,” he says. “Today, it will elicit the question, ‘What’s on?’"
Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery London
The Dutch economist P H Franses has been fossicking around on the edge of the art market establishing the sweet spot when artists hit the high point in their careers. OK, it’s market driven, but Franses discovered via examining 221 high flying 19th and 20th century artists that on average they hit their market peak at 62 percent of their lives. The prime age is 41.92 years.
So Scott Eady, Nicola Farquhar, Tahi Moore, James Robinson, Heather Straka and Daniel Von Sturmer, your moment is at hand. Use it wisely.
Left, Chicago artist William J.
O’Brien Untitled 2011 and right, Rohan Wealleans Beast
head gem holder 2006
There's hardly any need to beat the why-no-photography drum in art museums anymore. Slowly but surely they're accepting the inevitable and releasing their collections to snap-happy visitors. In places like the Dowse there's still the familiar camera shape there in the dos and don’ts signage but now it’s as a do, as in, do feel free to take a photo.
A bit late to the game is this…er…game. It’s a two-player (you can be either a photographer or a security guard) that let’s you outwit guards as you snap stuff you're not supposed to. And yes ,you can use your flash to blind the guard for a quick getaway. It’s not quite on the market but if you like reading lots of instructions, you can see how it works here.
City Gallery signage channels Ronnie van Hout.
Images: Top Ronnie van Hout’s 1996 work Help me I’m in the land of giants and bottom detail from the 3D signage for The City Gallery’s exhibition South of no North: Aberhart Eggleston McKenna
Last year we promised to make some the photos we've taken over the years available. They reflect our own interests and friendships, of course, and the picture they show of NZ art is idiosyncratic to say the least, but the passing of time has given them added interest. Thanks to the agreement of the artists involved, these images are now freely available to anyone who finds them of use.
As we've been doing this a long time what you see now is just a sample (Clairmont 71-78, Cotton 94, 03, Dashper 85-88, Dawson 91, Driver 08-11, Freeman 94, Harris 89-06, Peryer 85-12, Shannon 89, 93) so we'll be adding images throughout the year. When you visit you will see we have also included a number one-off photos of artists and art world people we've met under a 'portraits' section. If you have any thoughts on how this site could be improved let us know. Hope you enjoy it.
The pics can be found on over-the-net.weebly.com or, if you hate typing, click this link to go direct
Images: Top left to right, Phil Clairmont hiding behind Jackson Pollock’s Tate Gallery catalogue in 1978 and Marie Shannon in her Richmond Road studio in 1989. Middle, Neil Dawson’s studio during the construction of Paua for the Auckland Civic Centre in 1991. Bottom left, Julian Dashper in his studio in Richmond Road, Auckland, 1988 and Jeffery Harris’s studio in Dunedin in 2006.
As is usual at this time of year anyone wanting a hit of contemporary art has to find it without the help of most of the dealers. The most popular time for their exhibition programmes to kick into action seems to be the start of February, well fours days into it anyway. Often dealers are up for appointment-only visits from around mid Jan so make that call.
As more art museums put their collections online we're starting to see a new style of curating (or maybe gathering is a better word) art into fresh and sometimes surprising combinations. Without the rules, conformity and second guessing that marks so much curation, artists and others outside the institutions can play with art works in ways not possible until now.
Great art in ugly rooms (coming at you with hefty humour) is a great example of dizzy decontextualizing - or is that recontextualising? It also serves to show how deadening the white cube has become. From stylish and respectful to plain old boring. There's a rising interest in ugly. You can start with Robert Storr on the word - "Ugliness doesn't get its due. Ugliness is one of the main qualities of art. Key examples would be Goya and Picasso.”
Great art in ugly rooms. Check it out, somewhere in there has got to be a pony.
A chill wind is blowing through tertiary art education as schools are repurposed and staff shed. To give you an idea of how the new tick-the-boxes model is being presented at Unitec in Auckland, here's part of the evaluation the prominent NZ photographer Edith Amituanai received when she was told why she (along with many others) no longer had a job.
"The panel felt that you had research credibility but lacked the professional networks and industry experience that we are looking for. We are also looking for more programme development experience. You have good relationships with students but did not communicate strongly in interview and you were not able to articulate your teaching philosophy. It was also felt that you didn’t understand peer learning. You did not demonstrate that you are a critical thinker. It was also felt that you didn’t have strong examples of implementing new ideas and following through."
Edith Amituanai put her evaluation up on her blog and you can read her remarkably sanguine response there too.
OTN isn’t so keen on (#didn'tgetroundtomakingone) annual that-was-the-year-that-was lists, but what-do-you-reckon-will-happen-this-year lists? Now that’s a different story.
Steady on
Around the end of April the Walters Prize selection committee will produce a more conventional list of older finalists
Drawing the line
More university art schools will come under severe pressure from the Government via the Tertiary Education Commission to reduce staff and student numbers
HK OK
Dealers will swing their art fair energy from Europe to Asia
Still life
A lot of art will be made and a heap of museum time and money expended to glorify the completely senseless slaughter of World War I
Man alone
A lone New Zealander will slope over to Sydney to install his work in the 18th Biennale of Sydney
Boy oh boy
More men will get more solo shows in the public art museums
Time Lord
In Auckland T J McNamara will ease into his 47th year of reviewing art for the NZ Herald
Painting by numbers
More figurative paintings will create more auction records
Northern exposure
Te Papa will start wishing it had never come up with the idea of putting an outreach gallery into South Auckland
How great thou art
Everyone will be super excited by the awesome art stuff that will be tweeted throughout the year #whoa #thrilling #because
But who’s counting
Over the net will publish its 4,000th post
The Scottish play
The Auckland Art Gallery will announce the mother of all art works is to hang in its foyer
On reflection
The Govett-Brewster will find out whether or not that shiny mirror surface on the Len Lye Centre is feasible and, if it is, whether it’s actually a good idea
Slice and dice
Creative New Zealand’s budget will be spread even thinner across a wider range of art forms
Movement
Christchurch Art Gallery will straighten up
