Monday, April 30, 2012

Dane Mitchell at The Company, LA


Dane Mitchell is currently showing in BSSM, a group show at The Company in LA's Chinatown.
Image: Dane Mitchell Good Fortune Spell 2008, Enlightenment Spell 2008, Cleansing Spell 2008, Summoning the Dead/Ancients Spell 2008, Curse 2008, Positive Self Reflection Spell, 2008, Warding Spell, 2008. Glass and spoken word, dimensions variable

Online art venture amongst Time Inc's most promising NYC startups


Time Inc has unveiled its second list of the 10 NYC startups to watch for in 2012. The list, which includes art.sy, spotlights New York City-based startups with the most potential to reshape areas from social media and entertainment to commerce and art. Touted as a new way to discover art from leading galleries, museums and private collections around the world, art.sy is powered by a genome project run by a team of art historians that distinguishes and connects artworks across 800+ characteristics (they call them genes) to create a new search experience. Read more...

Sunday, April 29, 2012

The rise of New York's High Line park


Since opening in 2009, the New York's High Line has become one of America's favourite urban parks. But a recent survey by Travel & Leisure shows that its popularity as gone global, ranking it #10 on a list of the world's most popular landmarks. You can read our earlier posts on the High Line here.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Berlin's annual celebration of contemporary art starts today


Berlin Gallery Weekend, the city's annual celebration of contemporary art, kicks off today with 51 galleries and 51 openings over three days. Moeller New York + Berlin is in the lineup presenting Howard Wise Gallery: Exploring the New, a tribute exhibition with works by artists supported by the American gallerist, including a piece by Billy Apple.
Image: Billy Apple, Unidentified Fluorescent Object, 1967, neon (129.5 x 71.1 x 50.8 cm)

Friday, April 27, 2012

Takashi Murakami launches new gallery in Berlin


Takashi Murakami has opened a new space in Berlin, his first one outside Japan. The launch of Hidari Zingaro Berlin coincides with the Berlin Gallery Weekend and will feature a live painting event by Kaikai Kiki artist Mahomi Kunkata.
Image: Takashi Murakami

The immortalisation of Billy Apple® (stage 2) closes this weekend


We have extended The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® (Stage 2), by a few days and it will now close on Saturday 28 April.
Image: The Billy Apple® cell line with the artist, 22 December 2009. Photograph by Mary Morrison

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Le Corbusier's Baghdad Gymasium to be restored to its former glory


Preserving modern architecture is an uphill battle, as the Getty Museum recognised with its recent launch of a new international program, the Conserving Modern Architecture Programm, in the hopes of giving preservation architects new and more sophisticated strategies to preserve 20th century buildings. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to find the beginnings of a good news story in war-torn Baghdad where an attempt is being made to restore Le Corbusier's Baghdad Gymnasium. Read more...
Image: the main entrance to Baghdad's Le Corbusier building

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Tate Modern's oil tanks become the world's first permanent museum dedicated to live art


The Tate Modern's oil tanks will be dedicated permanently to live art installation and performance. The giant subterranean spaces will host the live art and film programmes, which were previously presented in diverse spaces around Tate Modern.

"We will see many more works which involve the spectator, said Tate Modern director Chris Dercon. "There is an incredible appetite for participation." Catherine Wood, curator of contemporary art and performance, adds: "We're excited about the opportunity to create events that are part installation, part discussion, part performance, which is very much in the spirit of the way artists are working now."

The Tanks are the first phase of a
£215 million extension that will increase Tate Modern's size by 60%, adding 21,000 square meters of new space. Nicholas Serota says 75% of funding has been raised and he hopes the building work will be complete before December 2016.

The Tanks will open on 18 July, ten days before the Olympics, and be filled with a 15 week festival of art. Afterwards the Tanks will be closed during some periods to enable building works on the new galleries above.
Image: Tate Modern Tank

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Alicia Frankovich nominated for the 2012 Walters Prize


Alica Frankovich has been shortlisted for New Zealand's most prestigious art award.Each of the four artists shortlisted for the 2012 Walters Prize receives $5000 and the opportunity to present their jury-selected project in the Walters Prize exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, which runs for three months from 4 August.

An international judge will be will be named later this year to select the winner who will receive $50,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York, including the opportunity to exhibit at Saatchi & Saatchi's world headquarters.
Image: Alicia Frankovich, Floor Resistance, shown at Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU 3, Berlin (25 June 2011). Photograph courtesy of Hebbel Am Ufer, HAU 3

Monday, April 23, 2012

Abu Dhabi Guggenheim on the backburner


It was billed as an unprecedented cluster of glory that would transform Abu Dhabi into the Paris of the Middle East: three museums including the world's largest Guggenheim, a branch of the Louvre and a national museum designed by starchitects Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Norman Foster. However six years after the project was unveiled the only visible signs of the complex are an illuminated model in an exhibition centre near the construction site.

During this time the United Arab Emirates' art scene has grown, with Dubai now host to a world art fair and thriving gallery scene, while Sharjah has a respected contemporary biennale, prompting calls to replace the Guggenheim with a smaller homegrown art museum that would stimulate cultural development as well as the local economy. The Guggenheim effect is sexy when you are not on the radar," says art patron Ramin Salsali. "But Abu Dhabi today - I'm sorry to say, but the Guggenheim should pay Abu Dhabi to be there not vice versa." Read more...
Image: rendering of the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Italian fashion house and Columbian ex-cons team up at Milan's Salon del Mobile


The Italian fashion house Marni is making a foray into furniture design. The label will present a collection of 100 colourful chairs at this year's Salon del Mobile in Milan as part of a charitable initiative. The chairs, made of bright strands of woven PVC threads on metal frames, were crafted by Columbian ex-prisoners as part of a social rehabilitation programme. The chairs are selling for between 200-450 with the proceeds going to ICAM, a support group for the children of imprisoned mothers.
Image: Marni's range of chairs made by ex-prisoners

Saturday, April 21, 2012

The rise of the Glasgow art scene


The Art Newspaper outlines the story behind Glasgow's rising profile as an artistic centre and the city's prolific ability to produce exceptional artists. In winning the Turner Prize last December, The Galswegian Martin Boyce became the third artist in a row who was either born in the city or studied at its art school and nine Glasgow artists have been on the Turner Prize shortlist in the past six years. Read more...
Image: The Glasgow School of Art

Friday, April 20, 2012

Maya Lin's online memorial to endangered species and habitats


More than 30 years after creating the Vietnam Memorial, architect and artist Maya Lin has launched a new online project memorialising a different kind of loss. Her What is Missing? project is designed to raise awareness about endangered species and habitats. It's my last memorial," she says, but I'll be contributing to it for the rest of my life." Read more...

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Museum director burns artworks to protest lack of funding


A museum in Italy has started burning its artworks in protest at budget cuts which it says have left cultural institutions out of pocket. Antonio Manfredi, director of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum on Naples, set fire to the first painting on Tuesday and plans to burn three paintings a week from now on. Read more...
Image: Museum director Antonio Manfredi with a burning painting from the collection of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum in Naples

The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® (Stage 2) launched at Starkwhite tonight


The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® (Stage 2), opens tonight at 6pm.
Image: The Billy Apple® cell line with the artist, 22 December 2009. Photograph by Mary Morrison

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Cardboard cathedral for Christchurch


A cardboard cathedral designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban will be built in Christchurch on the site of St John's church which was badly damaged in the Canterbury earthquakes. Ban's A-frame sanctuary will seat 700 worshippers providing a home for Anglicans while their quake-damaged cathedral is largely demolished and replaced.

Topping the 9700-square-feet structure will be a massive pitched roof made of cardboard tubes and covered with polycarbonate sheets to keep it watertight and allow daylight into the building. Shipping containers filled with earthquake rubble will form the base of the building.

Shigeru Ban is known for his post-disaster zone design projects, such as his temporary housing project underway in Onagawa, one of the coastal communities devastated on 11 March by the earthquake and tsunami that left 3,800 of its 4,500 homes partially, if not completely damaged.
Image: model of Shigeru Ban's temporary cathedral to be built in the city of Christchurch

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The first generation of artists to emerge in the art market via the internet?


The VIP art fair has announced a new initiative to launch graduating artists in the art market. A panel of six internationally recognised jurors will select 200 artists from a pool of nominations and open call applications from renowned MFA and equivalent progammes. Selected artists will present 5-10 works online at VIP (MFA) from 1-8 June.

The jurors are artist Diana Al-Hadid and O Zhang, Kate Fowles (ICI), Matthew Higgs (White Columns), Jens Hoffman (Wattis Institute) and Joachim Pissaro (Hunter College). They will also award three prizes to outstanding students - $15,000 for first place, $10,000 for second place and $5000 for third place.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Coming up at Starkwhite


Our next exhibition, The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® (Stage 2), opens on Thursday 19 April. You can read the exhibition release here.Image: The Billy Apple® cell line with the artist, 22 December 2009. Photograph by Mary Morrison

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Final day of Starkwhite Group Show


Our Starkwhite Group Show closes today at 3pm.
Image: Matt Henry, TPS-L2 (Grey), 2012, acrylic and lacquer on linen, 35 x 90 x 32mm

Seung Yul Oh's The Ability To Blow Themselves Up at the Auckland Art Gallery


Seung Yul Oh stages his performance version of The Ability to Blow Themselves Up at the Auckland Art Gallery today at 3pm. The performance is part of the exhibition Made Active: The Chartwell Show.
Image: press image supplied by the artist

Friday, April 13, 2012

New York's High Line to be followed by an underground park dubbed the Low Line


Plans for the world's first underground park moved a step closer to reality with a Kickstarter funding drive that attracted donations of more than $150,000, surpassing the $100,000 target. The pledges - most between $10 and $50 - will enable concept leaders Dan Barasch and James Ramsay to conduct a scale model of the subterranean park.

Dubbed the Low Line, the idea for the park came after Barasch heard about New York's underground spaces from an MTA employee. "There are 13 acres of these kind of spaces that are unused," he said.

The park will be developed in a 1.5 acre terminal built in 1903 for trolley trains to shuttle passengers between Brooklyn and Manhattan. When the trolley service ended in 1948, the terminal closed and has lain dormant ever since.

With no natural light, the underground terminal isn't an ideal location for what the designers hope will become a public space supporting farmers markets, concerts and art installations, but the Low Line will rely on fibre optic cables to transfer sunlight below ground. The designers say the light will carry the necessary wave lengths to support photosynthesis, allowing plant life to flourish underground.

How long will it take to create? New York's celebrated High Line took ten years to gain public and official support, but Barasch is hoping to build the Low Line within 5 years.
Image: MTA underground space targeted for development

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Nintendo teams up with the Louvre


Nintendo has donated 5000 3DS consoles to the Louvre featuring 3D images, animations and audio that can be tailored to individual interests. There are currently two individual tours offered in the software including the masterpieces tour focusing on pieces such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

A spokesperson for the Louvre said: "Through this partnership we wanted to bring together heritage and the innovative world of game entertainment through a system people are already familiar with."
Image: Visitors using the Nintendo 3DS consoles at the Louvre

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Volunteers needed for performance at Auckland Art Gallery


Seung Yul Oh is looking for volunteers to participate in a performance for Made Active: The Chartwell Show at the Auckland Art Gallery. The performance takes place at the Gallery on Saturday 14 April at 3pm.

Titled The Ability to Blow Themselves Up (performance version), it requires 50 people to stand at a location around the gallery and blow up balloons over a 30-minute period. Oh needs a few more people to make up the desired number so if you'd like to participate please contact him at: seungyul@gmail.com
Image: press image supplied by the artist

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

This week at Starkwhite


Our Starkwhite Group Show continues this week, closing Saturday 14 April.
Image: Dane Mitchell, The Visible Spectrum (2012), shredder, paper, acrylic

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Sydney Morning Herald talks AGNSW director Michael Brand


The Sydney Morning Herald talks to Michael Brand, incoming director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, about his his background and how it has shaped his international orientation, and his plans for the AGNSW. Read more...
Michael Brand at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Move to reunite ancient Cambodian statue with its rightful owners


The New York Times reports US prosecutors have filed suit demanding Sotheby's forfeit a 10th century statue the government says was looted from a Cambodian temple. US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said: "The Duryodhana was looted from the country during a period of upheaval and unrest. With this action, we are taking an important step towards reuniting this ancient artifact with its rightful owners." Read more...
Image: the 1000 year old Duryodhana statue brought into the United States by Sotheby's

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Tate gift shop offers Damien Hirst merchandise at eye-watering prices


The final room in the Damien Hirst show at the Tate is a gift shop where visitors can find a range of items at eye-watering prices including a £36,800 skull, a set of china plates for £10,500, a deck chair for £310, an umbrella for £195, butterfly-print wallpaper at £700 a roll and for those on a budget, a set of coloured circular spot magnets at £14.95.
Image: Damien Hirst cup and saucer at £12.50 each or £60 for a set of 6

Winning design for Australia's Venice Biennale pavilion announced


An elevated black cube designed by Melbourne architects Denton Corker Marshall has been selected for Australia's Venice Biennale pavilion, replacing the much-criticised temporary structure by Philip Cox which remained in place for 25 years. The new building has a $6m budget and all funds must be privately raised before building starts at the end of 2013.
Image: artist's impression from DCM website

Friday, April 6, 2012

Starkwhite closed over Easter


Starkwhite will be closed over Easter (Friday - Monday), reopening Tuesday 10 April.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Con Art thinking out of favour at the Tate?


If you are wondering why the Tate banned Con Art author Julian Spalding from the Hirst exhibition, you may find the answer in his opinion piece for the Independent on conceptual art (he says it's art that cons people) and Damien Hirst as a sub-prime artist. Read more...

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Hirst critic denied entry to the Tate show


The Independent reports days after it published his condemnation of Hirst as a "con artist" whose art is "worthless" financially and artistically, Julian Spalding (author of the book Con Art - Why You Ought To Sell Your Damien Hirsts While You Can) was denied entry to the Tate's Hirst exhibition. Spalding had turned up at the request of the BBC and two German TV stations only to be informed that the Tate would not allow the interviews. "The Tate's job is to encourage debate about art," he said. The fact that I'm not allowed to talk about the work in front of it is extraordinary."
Image: Damien Hirst at the opening of his Tate show

Sotheby's manouver in Hong Kong to keep pace with Christies


Sotheby's is launching a gallery in Hong Kong to expand its sales at a time when China's appetite for art is booming. The new $7.2 million, 15,000 square-foot space in the Admiralty business district will enable the company to hold more auctions and events, including exhibitions.

Sotheby's is also maneuvering to keep up with rival Christies International PLC, which opened its own 15,000 square-foot gallery and salesroom space in May 2010. Both houses have also recently created Asian advisory boards to nurture ties to major collectors in Asia. Hong Kong supply-chain magnate William Fung and Hong Kong private-equity chief Mary Ma both serve on Christies advisory board and Pansy Ho, the daughter of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, serves on Sotheby's international advisory board.
Image: architectural rendering of Sotheby's Hong Kong gallery

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Keith Haring's journal entries go online


The Brooklyn Museum is showing Keith Haring: 1978-1982, an exhibition exploring the early career of one of the best known American artists of the 20th century. The exhibition is accompanied by a tumblr hosting online pages from Haring's journals which go back to 1971 when he was 12 years old. The site will post one new entry per day ranging across the artist's diary entries, doodles and hand-coloured memorabilia stuck on pages. You can follow the daily posts here.
Image: an untitled journal drawing (1977) by Keith Haring

Monday, April 2, 2012

MTV to run art breaks between commercials and programmes


MTV has announced it will be reviving Art Breaks, its 80s series of short video interludes created by emerging art stars of the day. The art breaks will run between commercials and programmes, but this time they will be curated by MoMA PS1 and Creative Time.

You can check out what's in store at Art Break's Tumblir site.
Image: from Jean Michel Basquiat's 1985 Art Break

This week at Starkwhite


Our Starkwhite Group Show continues this week and through to 14 April.
Image: Billy Apple, FROM THE LAI SOO COLLECTION, 2011

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Whitney's new pop-up studio made of shipping containers


The Whitney has commissioned the New York-based architecture firm LOT-EK to design a pop-up studio for the museum's education programme. Made entirely of shipping containers, the material of choice for LOT-EK (a play on low technology), the designers stacked two layers of containers and partially cut the interior to create a 472-square-foot minimalist cube with a mezzanine floor and diagonals of neon yellow glass.

Dedicated to sustainable architecture, LOT-EK principals Giuseppe Lignano and Ada Tolla have been using these overproduced containers for over 20 years, making use of what they refer to as a "marginal aspect of our civilisation".
Image: the Whitney Studio under construction