Art is where you find it

OK we have shown you this sort of thing before, but it wasn't Lisa Wong and it certainly wasn't the winning act in the fabulously named Narcissus Pageant. Besides, in a rare twist at the end of the clip, you get to see art make a fool of television.

A reflective post on table tennis

From the Relational Aesthetics adviser to the Ping Pong heads of Europe, Rirkrit Tiravanija's Untitled (The Future will be Chrome) 2008. Thanks again P, thanks again.

Equestrian glory

Later today we are going to Auckland to see the exhibition Beginning in the archive: Giovanni Intra 1989-1996 at Artspace. Anyone who knew Giovanni would have had drawers full of his distinctive graphics on invitations, letters, small magazines and Teststrip publications. His spidery, surreal exhortations to become involved in CRIMINY or to contact 0800 ANALGESIC were as distinctive as your own handwriting even though designed by exotics like crushed honey and sex checks. The invitation to the opening show of Teststrip in the Vulcan Lane space was typical of the seriously insane fun being had then, and hopefully in Auckland tonight. Click on the image for the greater glory of Intra.

Art is where you find it

Computer carved from marble on a Russian grave

By the numbers: Those were the days edition

2100 Number of staff currently working for Christies
200.8 The number in millions of US dollars paid for works at the Damien Hirst auction
30 The salary in thousands of dollars reportedly paid to staff working for Damien Hirst
50 The percentage of staff let go by Hirst after the auction
6000 The number of times work by the painter Zhang Xiaogang appreciated over one year ($US 1000 to $US6 million)
60 The number of assistants working for German artist Anselm Reyle
26 The estimated dollar value in billions for the global contemporary art market over the last eight years
983 The percentage increase in sales of contemporary Chinese art between 2005 and 2006
300 The percentage rise in the Russian stock market between 2000 and 2005
2365 The percentage rise in the contemporary Russian art market between 2000 and 2005
57 The dollar value of Sotheby’s stock in 2007
8 The dollar value of Sotheby’s stock in 2008
23 Highest price in millions of dollars paid for a Jeff Koons sculpture
4 The number of houses Amy Capellazzo, head of Christies contemporary art division, famously referred to in her statement “After you have a fourth home and a G5 jet, what else is there?”
454 The number of contemporary art works that achieved more than $US1 million in the first half of 2006
15 The number of Chinese artists represented in the 35 most expensive contemporary artworks sold in 2007
1000 The number of contemporary artists that achieved auction record prices for their work in 2006

Copycat

Sebastian Errazuriz takes artist designers the Campana Brothers’ idea to the catwalk. You can see this and other Campana chairs on Gary Langsford’s design store site (and maybe still at the store).

Storm Warning

Brandeis University in Boston is to close its Rose Art Museum to help solve a budget crisis. The university intends to sell its 6,000-object collection that includes work by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Nam June Paik.

Scoop

Just when art dealers thought it was safe to get back in their galleries for the tough year ahead, the limping impala of news journalism – TV3’s 60 Minutes – attempts to spring a fast one on them.

“Dear Gallery Owner,” writes ace reporter Amanda Millar, “TV3's '60 Minutes' programme is canvassing gallery owners throughout the country to seek their opinion about the work of an artist we're featuring in a story.” Fair enough. Art dealers know about art, why not. Amanda continues, “We want to to (sic) know whether you rate it or not and if you would be prepared to exhibit the work in your gallery?” And then, “I know this is mysterious but that's all part of it.” Amanda subtly concludes. CLUNK. Yes, it’s a leaden attempt to make idiots out of the art world (again). This time it’s the good old and-what-would-you-say-if-we-told-you- it-was-painted-by-an-earthworm? story.

Regular readers will also recognise it from OTN’s post a month ago. To think that at the time we gave the Dominion Post stick for the story three months after the event was reported by The Age in Australia. You can read about two year old Aelita’s painting here.
Image: Freddy Linsky another two year old painter TV3 might like to do a story on.

Nearly 52 years ago, almost to the day

“Therefore there is a hope that within the next few decades, which will see in any case the fruition of a national character for New Zealand, will be seen the birth of a native school of painting supported by artists who have not since their cradle days had their art emasculated by the fever of Europe.”
Peter Tomory in the catalogue New Zealand Painting 1956

Same

A few things have happened over the past week that bring authenticity, appropriation and the ownership of art images into focus. Again. The first is the bizarre exhibition Terracotta Warriors on show in Wellington. These are contemporary replicas made and aged in China. A selection of the original terracotta figures from Shaanxi province were exhibited in New Zealand years ago and now this new lot are showing upstairs in Wellington’s St James Theatre foyer. In Auckland they showed at Sky City which reminds us of another display, this time of of Egyptian artifacts, we saw in the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas (now sadly closed). It too was populated by copies made locally for tourists. At the St James the show comes complete with guards, in what is perhaps traditional dress, and a number of the figures are painted in “vibrant colours” to show visitors “how the Terracotta Warriors originally looked when buried.” The 54 sculptures are owned by Auckland Creative Business Financier and exhibition wrangler Marshall Bird, author of How to start a business using none of your own cash. Bird has been assembling his doppelganger army over the years, warrior by warrior. Meanwhile, in the United States the heat’s on Richard Prince, painter and appropriator. He’s being sued by photographer Patrick Cariou who is upset by Prince’s nicking his images of Rastafarian culture. As if that weren’t enough for one week, in the Paris quarter of Montmartre, traditional sidewalk painters are gathering forces to remove skilled Chinese painters from their streets. You will remember we encountered this same phenomenon in New York. The French claim that the Chinese paintings are too cheap, too slick and, given the training of the artists, possibly too expert. Also, they are not French. Keep alert for Chinese artists and artisans putting even more pressure on the meaning and value of that word - original.

Function follows form

Louis Kahn's Jatiya Shangshad Bhaban, Bangladesh’s General Assembly Building, will be back in business after nearly two and a half years of military government. Today (Sunday afternoon in Bangladesh) the new parliament convenes in Khan's architectual masterpiece in the capital city, Dakka.

Madness

It’s hard to believe that a humour magazine started in 1952 could still be publishing much the same kind of stuff over 55 years later (MAD was started by Harvey Kutzman as a satire on other comics). Over the years MAD has looked at art and used art clichés on its covers many, many times. The two covers illustrated here were published nearly 50 years apart but both rely on the same basic idea – art is as dumb as anything else in the world. These MAD musings were triggered by news of the magazine reducing its monthly publishing schedule to once every three months. In true MAD tradition editor John Ficarra said, “The feedback we’ve gotten from readers is that only every third issue of MAD is funny. So we decided to just publish those.” You can see some MAD art parodies of Norman Rockwell here on OTN Stuff along with other art-related features including the MAD fold-out which we have posted on before.

Puppy love

Durex meets Jeff Koon’s Made in Heaven, balloon dog style.

Art inthe workplace 2

John Drawbridge, Wellington

The Label from Hell

Over the Net has a fascination for labels and signs. They can make exhibitions by adding new information and insight or break them with irrelevance and obscurity. Too often museum labels say more about the institution than they do about the work. An OTN cap for the best labels (great or gross). In the meantime this extraordinary example from the Los Angeles County Museum.

Imagine. You see a painting that looks like a man flaying himself. You head toward the label to find out what’s going on and why. Leaning forward you read,

Victor Brauner Romania 1903-1956, active France Suicide at Dawn, 1930 Oil on canvas Purchased with funds provided by Robert and Mary Looker, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Max and Eleanor Baril Family Trust, Helena and Boyd Krout, Alice and Nahum Lainer, Sheila and Wally Weisman, Herta and Paul Amir, Abby and Alan Levy, Sandra and Jacob Y, Terner, and Bill and Maria Bell through the 1996 Collector’s Committee, and gifts of Richard L. Feigen, New York AC1996.18.1. 703

Whatever story this label is telling, it is sure not the artist’s or the painting’s. It doesn’t even tell you that Brauner was introduced to the Surrealists circle by Yves Tanguy and was included in most of their exhibitions. And you would never know that in the same year he painted Suicide at Dawn, Brauner also painted Self-portrait with enucleated eye, a painting that turned prophetic eight years later when Brauner lost his left eye in a bar brawl with another artist. Biennale fans will be interested to know that Brauner represented France at Venice in 1966. As for what the painting represents, we still have no idea.