Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Blake Gopnik on James Turrell's installation at the Guggenheim


James Turrell's installation in the rotunda of the Guggenheim is the must-see show in New York this summer. Blake Gopnik arrived at the museum expecting to experience the light of timeless truth, but says what he could feel and see most clearly were "dollar signs and the troubling social structures that art such as this now reflects." Read more...
Image: James Turrell's Aten Reign at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art launches a winter festival




Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art is back in the news with its inaugural winter festival Dark Mofowhich lit up the city over the weekend.

The visual arts component of the festival includes Kurt Hentschlager's installation Zee, which comes with a warning of its hallucinatory and potentially dangerous effects. People entering the piece must sign a waiver as the work can trigger what the artist decribes as an emergency shutdown of the brain as it struggles to process the aural and visual onslaught. But other works in the program offer more contemplative experiences, such as Ryoji Ikeda's tower of pure white light reaching 15 kilometers into Hobart's night sky.

MONA has transformed Hobart, putting what was once regarded as a sleepy hollow on the global arts and culture map. And the state government is happily piggybacking on the stunning success of the museum - on this occasion by contributing $1 million a year for three years to the winter festival.
Images: Kurt Hentschlager's Zee and Ryoji Ikeda's Spectra [Tasmania], featuring in MONA's winter festival Dark Mojo

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Gritty, politically-engaged work featured at Art Unlimited


A number of powerful works addressing war, conflict and terrorism made an impact at Art Basel this year - partly because they were timely presentations with a civil war raging in Syria and anti-Government protests in Turkey and partly because political work like this is not often seen at art fairs.

Visitors queued at Art Unlimited to see The Sound of Silence, Alfredo Jaar's work about the late photojournalist Kevin Carter, whose photograph of a starving child in the Sudanese desert won him a Pulitzer Prize. Other gritty, politically-engaged work presented at Art Basel included Huang Yong Ping's terracotta model of Osama bin Laden's compound where he was killed by US forces (Abbottabad), Johan Grimonprez's film exploring the global arms industry (The Shadow World) and Willie Doherty's harrowing account of the Troubles in Ireland (Remains). Read more...
Image: from Johan Grimonprez's The Shadow World 

Monday, June 17, 2013

This week at Starkwhite


Trenton Garratt's exhibition Absorption and Reflection《专注、沉思》runs at Starkwhite to 13 July.
Image: Trenton Garratt, Absorption and Reflection《专注、沉思》installation view, Starkwhite

Friday, June 14, 2013

AGNSW launches digital iPad publication


The Art Gallery of New South Wales has launched a digital iPad publication to accompany the Anne Landa Award for video and new media arts 2013 exhibition The Space Between Us. The publication explores the relationship between video and performance art through videos, audio clips, still images, essays and curator interviews.

The Space Between Us features works by Lauren Brincat, Alicia Frankovich, Laresa Kosloff, Angelica Mesiti, Kate Mitchell, James Newitt and Christian Thompson.

"Each artist approaches the idea of performance from a different angle, " says curator Charlotte Day. "A number of the artists are there performing directly, a few of the artists are creating situations in which performances occur whereas others are drawing on a rich history of performance and how they might create a kind of space in which we can come together."

The winner of this year's $25,000 Anne Landa Award will be announced later this month.
Image: Alicia Frankovich's The Opportune Spectator, 2013

Thursday, June 13, 2013

New York's Public Art Fund director to curate outdoor exhibition at Art Basel Miami


Nicholas Baume, the curator and director fo New York's Public Art Fund, will curate the public sector at Art Basel Miami. With Miami's Bass Museum of Art, he will transform Collins Park into an outdoor exhibition that will be a site for video, installation, performance and large-scale sculpture.
Image: Nicholas Baume

Fujimoto's cloud-like Serpentine Pavilion launched in Hyde Park


With the launch of his cloud-like gridded pavilion in Hyde Park, Sou Fujimoto became the youngest architect in the lineup of Serpentine Pavilion architects. Each year the Serpentine commissions an architect to design a temporary structure. Starting with Zaha Hadid in 2000, the commission has attracted a stellar list of architects including Frank Gehry, Herzog & de Meuron with Ai Wewei, Rem Koolhaas, Oscar Niemeyer, Jean Novel, Alvaro Siza and  Peter Zumthor. Read more...
Image: Sou Fujimoto's 2013 Serpentine Pavilion

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

艺术家Trenton Garratt先生之近作: Absorption and Reflection《专注、沉思》


STARKWHITE画廊谨向您呈献:
艺术家Trenton Garratt先生之近作: Absorption and Reflection《专注、沉思》
这是Garratt先生延续其以自然和光作为主题的表现。《专注、沉思》捕捉如诗境般波光粼粼的海景, 显示了此位艺术家对滨海风光的憧憬,及欲以海边为驻足静思之所。
《专注、沉思》将于615, 星期六下午两点钟开幕, 届时欢迎您的参与。

展览期间:2013615 - 2013713

Coming up at Starkwhite


Our next exhibition, Absorption and Reflection by Trenton Garratt, runs from 17 June to 13 July with a preview on Saturday 15 June (2 - 6pm).
Image: Trenton Garratt, Deep Blue, 2013 (detail), oil on canvas, 500 x 400mm

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Final day for Bazinga!


Bazinga! closes today at 3pm. You can read exhibition  reviews here (EyeContact) and here (part of Anthony Byrt's review of the Auckland Triennial in Art Forum's Scene & Herd).
Image: Daniel McKewen, Conditions of Compromise and Failure, 2011-2 (detail), wall assemblage/cork, photographs, pins, threads, index cards, pen/1.8 x 2.75m. Curated by Robert Leonard, Bazinga! is a joint project by Starkwhite and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Photograph by Sam Hartnett

Friday, June 7, 2013

Sydney Contemporary announces lineup of galleries


Sydney Contemporary has announced the lineup of galleries for the first edition of the fair, which takes place at Carriageworks from 20-22 September. Seventy three galleries from twelve countries have been confirmed with one-third international and two-thirds Australian based. The full list of participating  galleries is published here.
Image: Seung Yul Oh, RaMyun (2011). Starkwhite will present a group show at Sydney Contemporary, including work by Oh 

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Arthub Asia announces new director


Charles Esche has been announced as the new director of Arthub Asia, a not-for-profit organisation supporting contemporary art creation in China and the rest of Asia. A curator and writer, Esche is the Director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands and Editorial Director of Afterall Journal and Books in London. This follows his recent appointment as Curator of the upcoming Sao Paulo Biennial.
Image: Charles Esche

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Tino Sehgal picks up Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale


The Golden Lions at this year's Venice Biennale have been awarded to Tino Sehgal for his work in Massimiliano's biennale exhibition The Encyclopedic Palace and to Angola for the best national pavilion, which included a show by photographer Edson Chagas and a group show called Angola in Motion. Read more...
Image: Tino Sehgal 

Final week for Bazinga! at Starkwhite


Our current exhibition Bazinga! enters its final week, closing Saturday 8 June at 3pm. You can read exhibition  reviews here (EyeContact) and here (part of Anthony Byrt's review of the Auckland Triennial in Art Forum's Scene & Herd).
Image: Danielle Freakley's The Quote Generator in Bazinga! Curated by Robert Leonard, the exhibition is a joint project by Starkwhite and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.