Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Lozano-Hemmers installation celebrating free speech runs into NYPD censorship


Rafael Lozano-Hemer is turning the Park Avenue tunnel in New York into a reverberating sound and light installation celebrating free speech. Visitors will find a silver intercom to speak into and their comments will pulse through the tunnel in waves of sound and light. However, the NYPD has voiced concerns about content and has asked the artist to install a time delay so comments can be regulated. Lozano-Hemmer has refused to play ball saying "This is the place for people to express their views...I've never in my life censored a work, and I won't do it."
Image: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's voice tunnel, Park Avenue tunnel NYC, 3-18 August 2013

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Sydney's MCA to become a 24-hour virtual gallery


The director of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, has put a new management team in place to support a move toward digital technology and e-publications. The old management structure had not changed since she took up the reins 13 years ago and she now feels that rapid developments in digital technology require a rethink of how things are done. She cites the recent MCA e-publication, Anish Kapoor's living catalogue as a strong application of digital technology. As well as containing essays and photographs, the publication also included videos, curator and artist interviews, and allowed for audience interaction which was incorporated into a final edition. Read more...
Image: MCA director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor 

Monday, July 29, 2013

This week at Starkwhite


Clinton Watkins' Frequency Colour runs at Starkwhite to 17 August.
Image: Clinton Watkins, Frequency Colour (2013), installations view, Starkwhite

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Katharina Fritsch's blue cockerel is ruffling feathers at Trafalgar Square


Katharina Fritsch talks to the Guardian about her Fourth Plinth cockerel sculpture located near Nelson's column in Trafalgar square. Like previous pieces in the series, Hahn/Cock is ruffling feathers, but controversy is an anticipated outcome of the project: the plinth programme is keen to inspire a healthy debate about what constitutes public art. Read more...
Image: Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/Cock, Fourth Plinth project, Trafalgar Square, London

Friday, July 26, 2013

Jeffrey Deitch steps down from MOCA directorship


Jeffrey Deitch has finally announced he will be stepping down after three years as director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The official news release says he will be stay on for an unspecified time to ensure a smooth transition and the successful completion of MOCA's $100 million dollar endowment campaign, expected to close this fall. Now attention turns to the search for his successor.
Image: Jeffrey Deitch, outgoing director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Clinton Watkins' Frequency Colour opens tonight at Starkwhite


Clinton Watkins' Frequency Colour opens tonight at 6pm. You can read the exhibition release here.
Image: Clinton Watkins, Frequency Colour (2013), production still

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Creative New Zealand announces new selection process for Venice Biennale


Creative New Zealand has announced a new selection process for New Zealand's representation at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.

The approach adopted for the current biennale, which bypassed proposals in favour of informal sector consultation and a hands-on, behind-the-scenes selection process, has been replaced with a two-stage process beginning with preliminary expressions of interest from artists and curators. Eligible applicants will then be invited to submit proposals to be assessed by a panel including a CNZ representative, the 2015 Commissioner (Heather Galbraith), visual arts sector experts and representatives of the Venice Biennale patrons' group.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

DIA's collection under threat as Detroit enters bankruptcy


As the city of Detroit enters bankruptcy, the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts may be under threat. Unlike most art museums in the US, which are owned by non-profit entities holding art collections in trust for citizens, the Institute is owned by Detroit, as is much of its collection and many of the city's creditors have said that the artworks must be considered a saleable asset.

A spokesperson for the state-appointed emergency managers appointed to deal with Detroit's debts, which could amount to more than $18 billion, says"we haven't proposed selling any asset, but we haven't taken any asset off the table. We can't."

Michigan's Attorney-General responded with an opinion saying the artworks - under the state's trust law - "were held in trust for the public" and could be sold only for the purpose of acquiring additional art, not for paying municipal debt. However, under federal bankruptcy proceedings it is unclear what force his opinion would have, all of which appears to point to a lengthy dispute between the city and its army of creditors.
Image: Detroit Institute Arts 

Friday, July 19, 2013

After the quake: a frieze report from Christchurch


Following a trip to New Zealand Carol Yinghua Lu has written piece for Frieze on the making and presentation of art in the quake-devastated city of Christchurch. Read more...
Image: Chill Spree, installation view, Dog Park Art Project Space, Christchurch

Thursday, July 18, 2013

The coming of age of the Asia Pacific art market


The Guardian reports on Art Basel in Hong Kong and the message it sent to the art world. "Art dealers, collectors and the merely curious enjoyed an artistic fusion in late May that mixed bankable western artists with Asia stars. But the east-west paradigm is not the only one at play in the contemporary art market: a pan-Asian shift is under way and local identities are being asserted."Read more...

You can also see a related piece on rising stars in the Asian art market here where Korean born/New Zealand-based artist Seung Yul Oh is one of the featured artists.
Image: Choi Jeong Hwa's Happy Happy

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Coming up at Starkwhite


Our next exhibition is Frequency Colour, a multi-channel video and sound installation by Clinton Watkins consisting of a twenty-minute piece generated using custom-made analog video manipulation hardware. Read more...
Image: Clinton Watkins, Frequency Colour (video still)

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

From MoMA to M+


Doryun Chong, the associate curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, is to be the chief curator of M+, which is scheduled to open in Hong Kong's West Kowloon District in 2017. M+ is being designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron.
Image: Doryun Chong

Monday, July 15, 2013

Art Basel Hong Kong: report from New Zealand




Richard Dale reports on the first edition of Art Basel Hong Kong for the New Zealand Herald. Read more...
Image: (top) Installation views of The Immortalisation of Billy Apple® presented by Starkwhite at Art Basel Hong Kong, with the assistance of Creative New Zealand; (bottom) installation view of Seung Yu Oh's Periphery in the Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong, curated by Yuko Hasegawa and presented by ONE & J Gallery, Seoul 

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Final day for Absorption and Reflection《专注、沉思》


Trenton Garratt's exhibition Absorption and Reflection《专注、沉思》closes today at 3pm. You can read a review of the show here.
Image: Trenton Garratt, Absorption and Reflection《专注、沉思》installation view, Starkwhite

Friday, July 12, 2013

ANTARCTIC CONVERGENCE at the Audio Foundation


Auckland's Audio Foundation presents ANTARCTIC CONVERGENCE  Part 2 this weekend. Curated by Australian sound and intermedia artist Philip Samartzis, it is the second and final evening of presentations of work responding to the uniquely evocative and geophysical attributes of Antarctica. The programme features presentations by Phil Dadson, Jae Hoon Lee, Rosy Parlane and Philip Samartzis. You can catch it at the Audio Foundation on Saturday 13 July, starting at 7.30pm.
Image: Phil Dadson, Terra Incognita, installation view

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Rethinking the stories we tell of the future


A new exhibition at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery challenges 13 artists from New Zealand and Australia to document a 21st-century in which machines, humans and nature have come together. AMONG THE MACHINES provides a setting to rethink the stories we tell of the future and the kinds of images that will help get us there. Each artist presents two works: one selected by curators Su Ballard and Aaron Kreisler, and the other a new work that creates a response to or counter to the original work. The lineup of artists includes Stella Brennan, Jae Hoon Lee and Ann Shelton. Read more...
Image: Haydon Fowler, The New World Order (12013), video still

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Auckland Art Fair reveals special projects for the 2013 event


The Auckland Art Fair has revealed details of some of the projects that will be presented during the 2013 event, which runs at The Cloud on Auckland's waterfront from 7-11 August. They include Seung Yul Oh's oversize inflatable Huggong. Oh has just returned from Art Basel Hong Kong where he presented another interactive inflatable in the Encounters section curated by Yuko Hasegawa. Read more...
Image: Seung Yul Oh's Huggong installed at Starkwhite

Monday, July 8, 2013

Robert Leonard on curating


In a new series of interviews for ABC Arts, Hannah Mathews invites leading curators in Australia to reflect on their influences, experience, the state of the profession and their relationship with art and artists. Here she talks to Robert Leonard, the outgoing director of Brisbane's Institute of Modern Art who returns to New Zealand in the New Year to take up the position of chief curator at the City Gallery Wellington. Read more...
Image: Robert Leonard

Friday, July 5, 2013

Hou Hanru on the Auckland Triennial as a locally engaged project of global art


Recently Hou Hanru talked to ARTINFO about the Auckland Triennial as a locally engaged project of global art and how it has validated the international significance of a city he he refers to as "one of the leading cities of the Pacific Rim." Read more...
Image: Hou Hanru, curator of the 5th Auckland Triennial If you were to live here

Monday, July 1, 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