Forever young

Overthenet will be back next Wednesday.

Images: Top to bottom, left to right. Julian Dashper in the studio 1990, at Peter McLeavey's 1989, in the studio 1989, with Les Paris and Marie 1992, in the studio office checking out a parcel from Derek Cowie in 1988 and at the 2007 Auckland Art Fair.
Click on photos to enlarge

Julian Dashper 1960-2009

We have just heard the expected but still shocking news that Julian Dashper died this morning. Julian has been an irrepressible presence in the New Zealand art scene for so long now, it is impossible at the moment to imagine it without his emails, funny stories, relentless optimism and a sweet nature, albeit tinged with steel when it came to his work. Julian and Marie managed what has often been considered impossible: two artists living together, both hugely admiring and supporting the other’s work. Add their son Leo and you had a very tight unit. Much of Julian's earlier work is little known by a decade of young artists – his wild exhibition with John Reynolds at Peter McLeavey’s in 1984 is an incendiary memory. His later work, and his impeccable role model as a working artist, has been a profound influence. We will miss Julian terribly, but his presence is everywhere.

2D

Dali fever has hit Melbourne with the exhibition Liquid Desire. If you like Dali and want to see some great works by the erratic master, now is the time to do it. You have a couple of months before the show closes on 4 October. We have posted on Dali and his excursions into film and television before but here’s a great one: the recently discovered update of a 1946 project Dali began with Walt Disney. The outcome was to have been a short film called Destino but the project was dropped with only an 18-minute test in the can when Disney ran into financial trouble. It was picked up again by Roy Disney in 1999 to be incorporated into Fantasia 2000. That movie was finished but the Dali/ Disney tale of two tortoises didn’t even make it to the final cut. In the US anyway Destino’s fate was to appear as a short to the animated feature The Triplets of Belleville. Surprising that Disney has allowed this clip to stay on YouTube, so enjoy it while you can. If the link is broken try typing Destino Disney into the YouTube search box

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.

Cave art

At the last Scape in Christchurch in 2008, Callum Morton installed a giant boulder in a disused shop and called it Monument #19: Sexy Beast. The work gained special resonance when we were bussed out to a large privately-owned cave for Scape’s opening party. More than one person (Callum Morton included) noted that being in the cave was like being inside the rock-in-a-shop installation. Now that thought has taken physical form in Morton’s latest installation Grotto. It was commissioned by Fundament Foundation, Tilburg in the Netherlands and as in Monument #19: Sexy Beast, a massive ‘rock’ is enclosed inside an architectural space. The difference is that this time you can get inside the rock and have the full cave experience.
Images: Top, Monument #19: Sexy Beast at Scape. Bottom, Grotto, 2009 (Pics from the roslynoxley9 web site - thanks for that.)

Look alike

Images: Left, Jeff Koons Lobster. Right, Te Papa poster for F1 exhibition

Signature style

Here’s a lookalike story from the dark side. Master con man John Drewe and artistic accomplices like John Myatt are the subjects of Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo’s investigation Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art. The book examines how Drewe managed to get forgeries of works by artists like Jean Dubuffet, Nicolas de Stael, Marc Chagall, Graham Sutherland, Ben Nicholson and Alberto Giacometti accepted as genuine by the British art establishment. His mastery of the all-important archival documentation of the works and judicious gifts to institutions were among his tools. Salisbury and Sujo conclude that over 100 of the fake paintings are still in circulation. On a TV chat show, anxious to prove that not all his principles had gone down the drain, John Myatt made a play for artistic credibility. He told the interviewer that if someone came to him with one of his fakes and he knew that if he admitted he’d painted it they would lose “a whole lot of money”, he’d keep mum. “What kind of person would I be if I ever took pleasure in something like that? If someone comes to me with a painting I know I’ve done, to my dying days, I’ll deny it.” On behalf of collectors everywhere, thanks John.

K rules OK

It was a King-hit for K-Road in the Weekend Herald’s supplement Canvas on ‘emerging artists’ going international. The story looked at New Zealand artists living in foreign countries who still manage to retain a strong presence back home. Featured were Martin Basher, Alicia Frankovich and Dane Mitchell from Starkwhite and Eve Armstrong and Simon Denny who show with Michael Lett. Among those interviewed were K-Road associates Robert Leonard and Brian Butler (ex Artspace directors), current Artspace director Emma Bugden and Dominic Feuchs (Starkwhite again).

Well covered

In an inspired act of patronage, two anonymous Australian collectors offered to pay for the 28-page Ronnie van Hout puzzle book Who Goes There that accompanies his exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery. Of course the inspired patronage also extends to Ronnie van Hout who took time out to conceptualise and draw up what must be the most entertaining art publication ever produced in New Zealand. At the opening it was offered free to everyone who turned up and it should be available throughout the show. If you can’t make it to Christchurch, you could send a begging letter to the gallery. Each page of the book is based on a work in the exhibition treated as a puzzle. All the old favourites are there from join-the-dots, pick-a-path and colouring-in pages to spot-the-difference and quiz questions. At the opening Ronnie had a tail of people waiting to have their book signed which he did with good cheer, occasionally adding a drawing to go along with the sig.

Mimi and Kim

We saw The Creation of Value: meditations on the logic of museums and other coercive institutions by Kim on Hamish Keith’s blog One City- Many Voices. Kim’s report describes museums as “reverse time machines” that treat each object in the collection “as though it is frozen in time … with nothing being allowed to get old or fall apart.” As the cat so sagely reflects, “…this is impossible… because no matter how much the museums try to copy reality, it never comes out right.” Essential viewing for museum staff everywhere, and a laugh for the rest of us.

Guarded

Once in a museum in the US we got too close to an Indian rug and a recorded voice from nowhere instructed us to, "Move away. Do not touch." Only problem was that the voice was in a strong Indian accent. Even though breaking the security beam that triggered the voice got the guards into the room, we did it a couple of times to confirm that we did hear "touchem" instead of "touch." Yesterday at Ronnie van Hout's exhibition, Who goes there, at the Christchurch Art Gallery we tripped another beam and got "Please stand back from the art work. Thank you." Was it Ronnie? Was it part of the work? Did it really matter? It was great whatever.
Image: Hidden beam lying in wait.

A professional attachment

First up, the three exhibitions (et al, van Hout and Pick) now on at the Christchurch Art Gallery are outstanding. Add to that a set of galleries that are easily the best exhibition spaces in the country and it is well worth a visit. Not often do you see such large-scale backing of contemporary NZ art. One detail said as much about the Christchurch Art Gallery as the shows themselves. No one would say that installing an et al. production is anything less than demanding, with technical requirements, sound, paint-outs and, usually, challenges to conventional practice. et al.'s that's obvious! that's right! that's true! was definitely in that mode, but here the technical team appeared to have performed faultlessly. Often a sticking point with installations is the willingness by managment to allow the work to affect the structure of the building. With that's obvious! that's right! that's true! not only had ceiling panels been removed to reveal the air conditioning ducts and electrics, but very tall metal stands had been dynabolted directly to the floor. Remember that some institutions will not even allow sculpture to stand directly on their highly polished floorsl let alone drive steel dynabolts into them. Whenever you see dynabolts in stone you know you are looking at total commitment.

Flattery will get you Erewhon

"Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it."
Samuel Butler

Art is where you find it

Over the last few years the web has recorded the amazing images created in Japanese rice fields. The 2009 crop [link] is beginning to take shape with different varieties of rice producing different leaf colours. The images of the Sengoku-period warrior and Napoleon are from the Aomori prefecture village of Inakadate. You can see more rice paddy art and get more information here.

Hammered

A classic Don Binney, Kotare Over Hikurangi did well at the Webb’s auction last night with a winning a bid from the floor of $220,000. That put it just under the high estimate of $250,000. Most of the other feature paintings seemed to go for under their lower estimates including the Goldie. A surprise was the high price paid for Rough Crossing a 2006 painting by Alvin Pankhurst. Back in 1974 Pankhurst won the then premier national art award sponsored by Benson & Hedges (the painting is now in the collection of the Dunedin Art Gallery). Not surprising that $27,000, on a high estimate of $12,000, got the room going.