Leigh Davis Flag Poems in Time, Text & Echoes

Image: Leigh Davis, Ishmael and Epitaph, flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010-2011), a sequence of ten-day hoists over 300 days, New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland, NZ

De-Building at the Christchurch Art Gallery

De-Building is inspired by a moment usually hidden from viewers when an exhibition ends and the de-build begins. Described as an exhibition full of surprises and architectural double-takes, it presents new installations and commissioned works by artists including Glen Hayward. De-Building runs at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu to 15 May 2011.
Image: Glen Hayward, Yertle (2011), acrylic paint, metal, wood, installation view, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu 

There's something about Barbie

Barbie is heading for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The iconic doll with a new outfit for every occasion has been acquired by the Museum for its big Fall show California Design, 1930 -1965: Living in a Modern Way. Wendy Kaplan, who is co-curating the show, says that Barbie helps tell the story of how mid-century manufacturers sold toys, furniture and fashion alike by selling the idea of a leisurely California lifestyle. "Barbie is emblematic of aspirations of the mid-century. Her house is a suburban ranch home, and her first outfit, so appropriate for California, is a bathing suit", says Kaplan. Read more...

Image: 1959 Barbie Teenage Fashion Model (Mattel)

Is the art market entering a new age of volatility?

Outwardly, the art market looks the picture of perfect health. But ARTINFO asks whether it is all as rosy as it seems. "Some analysts believe that the increasing readiness of investors - rather than art lovers - to sink money into art are turbo-charging a boom that might lead to busts. In its latest analysis of the contemporary art market, London-based art market research firm ArtTactic warns that this bull market trend could go on for some time, supported by China's rising class of super-wealthy, but eventually the bubble will burst, as it did in Japan in the early 90s and the global art market crash in 2008." Read more...

Image: David Hockney's Hotel L'abois Sainte-Maxime at Sotheby's Auction House in London, estimated to reach $2.3 million

Phil Dadson at Starkwhite tonight

Phil Dadson's exhibition Deep Water opens at tonight at Starkwhite, from 5.30 pm.

Image: Phil Dadson, Deep Water #8 (2011), pigment inks on ilford paper, 900 x 500 cm

Does the VIP Art Fair have a future?

After 10 days of mixed success and technical malfunction, the VIP Art Fair closed with, as fair organiser James Cohan put it, "some very sore feelings". But he also believed the first fair was "a big success" and referred to the website as an "enormous resource" - one that was not to be dismantled at the end of the fair but that galleries will use on an ongoing basis (the details of which are yet to be confirmed). 

In the lead up to VIP, Jane Cohen said the fair's success would be measured against the traffic generated by other international art fairs. Because users would have to register with the site to enter the fair, she said, the VIP Art Fair would have accurate numbers. The final count was 41,000 registered users - pretty good, but not a spectacular result for a fair that could be attended by people dressed in their pyjamas. Both Frieze and the Armory Show claim 60,000 attendees for their 2010 events and Art Basel topped the head count with 62,500. 

Participating dealers would have had other measures in mind, like sales, but only a few galleries have reported sales outcomes. You can read Art Market Monitor's VIP sales round-up here.

It's difficult to judge whether the world's first virtual art fair was a great idea marred by imperfect execution, or a sign that there is no substitute for experiencing art in the flesh in a real art fair. But a second edition of VIP has been scheduled for 2012, so it's a case of watch this space.

A take on the Google Art Project

With 17 great museums, Google's Art Project will take art lovers on a virtual grand tour. But can a digitised masterpiece possibly match being face to face with the original? Read more...

Image: Google Art Project, detail from Pieter Bruegel's The Harvesters

NZ artist-led project at the Grimmuseum, Berlin

Trenton Garratt is one of six New Zealand artists represented in I Could Have Sworn I at the Grimmuseum, an artist-run space in Berlin. This follows the first iteration of the project at Daire Sanat, an open art space in Istanbul. 

Image: Trenton Garratt, Cast out/in (2010), MP3 player, radio transmitter, receiver set, ink jet prints on A3 paper,Daire Sanat, Istanbul, 2010. Photograph: Ralph Nashawaty

Coming up at Starkwhite

Phil Dadson's Deep Water runs at Starkwhite from 9 February to 5 March 2011. You can read our exhibition release here.

Image: Phil Dadson, Deep Water #8 (2011), pigment inks on ilford paper, 900 x 500 cm

Google touts "game changer" in online art viewing

Google aims to bring the world's great art galleries into the home with a new website that offers virtual tours using Street View technology. Read more...

The Year of the Rabbit

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit. Last year we celebrated the Chinese New Year with Jin Jiangbo's exhibition Shanghai Ye! Shanghai. This year he is back again, this time as a visiting scholar at Auckland University's Elam School of Fine Arts.

LAST WORDS on contemporary art in an age of cultural diversity and globalisation

Published by Sydney's 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, LAST WORDS is the culmination of a year-long project of exhibitions, artists' projects and performances that set out to tackle some of the issues of language, communication, memory and history in an age of cultural diversity and globalisation.

In the introduction to the publication 4A director Aaron Seeto writes:" The artists in this project illustrate that it is no longer straightforward to answer questions such as who are you, where are you from, how do you fit in? It seems we have entered a period where traditional forms of identification are neither consistent or certain, particularly as our ideas about place and location are increasingly defined by the intersection of local, national and global references - colliding histories, traditions and politics are what define our contemporary experiences."

Jae Hoon Lee was one of the artists represented in the year-long project with NOMAD, an exhibition of large-scale photographs and videos from his travels through India, Nepal and Korea. While on the road, Lee collected images that were subsequently digitally stitched together to create fictional landscapes and a visually compelling interplay of real and virtual experiences. 

Seeto has written on Lee's work in LAST WORDS in a piece titled Intimate Camera. You can order a copy of the publication here.

Image: Jae Hoon Lee, Becoming (Self Portrait), 2002, digitally collaged photograph, 100 66 cm

VIP Art Fair draws fire

Reports are beginning to circulate on the VIP Art Fair. This link takes you to the latest Bloomberg article World's first online art fair draws fire as top works go unsold. 

Image: in front of Pierre Huyghe's Untitled (2010) at Marian Goodman at the VIP Art Fair

Gambling wizard's Museum of Old and New Art launched in Hobart

MONA, the $150m Museum of Old and New Art built by gambling wizard David Walsh to house his private collection, has opened in Hobart. MONA is directed by Mark Fraser, who was the managing director of Sotheby's Australia for 19 years before leaving to take up his new position.

15,000 people requested invitations to the opening but only 2,500 were lucky enough to to be selected. They were randomly chosen by a computer which is fitting as Walsh owes his millions to games of hazard.

This link takes you to a Sydney Morning Herald article on Walsh and his new museum.

Image: MONA (Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Australia

2010 auction records set by mainland Chinese collectors

In 2010 mainland Chinese collectors really began to make their presence felt at auction houses around the world, showing what a game-changer the relatively new pool of buyers has become. Recently ARTINFO China looked back on the year and selected their picks for the top key lots of the year. Read more...

Image Xu Beihong's Ba People Fetching Water (detail), 1937, which sold for $25.8m, a record price for Chinese painting at auction

Bust to boom?

Christie's International has announced worldwide sales for 2010 of USD5 billion, up by 53% on the previous year. The highest sales total in the 245 year history of the firm, the figure is also the highest sales total ever recorded in the industry. 

What does this mean for the art market? That it has moved from bust to boom in a sluggish global economy? Or is it a timely reminder that the day Damien Hirst abandoned the traditional method of selling art, going straight to Sothebys instead where the auction smashed top estimates to reach a record total of USD125m, was also the day Lehman's declared itself insolvent, triggering the credit crisis that left the global economy teetering on the brink of calamity and sent the art market into freefall?

Image Roy Lichtenstein's Ohhh... Alright... which sold at Christies for USD42.6 million to an anonymous buyer on the phone.

Leigh Davis Flag Poems in Time, Text & Echoes

Images (top to bottom): Leigh Davis, Un Guerrier and St Joy of Compassion, flag poems presented in the JAR exhibition Time, Text & Echoes (2010-2011), a sequence of ten-day hoists over 300 days, New North Road, Kingsland, Auckland, NZ

Seung Yul Oh in residence at Choi Jeong Hwa's ggooll space

Seung Yul Oh is currently undertaking a residency in Seoul where he will produce a solo show at ggooll, an artist-run space founded and managed by artist Choi Jeong Hwa. Oh is also represented in the exhibition Top Ten: New Acquisitions of the University of Auckland at the Gus Fisher Gallery which runs to 15 March 2011.

Image: Choi Jeong Hwa's space ggooll in April 2010

Hans Ulrich Obrist on India's rising art scene

Hans Ulrich Obrist was recently in New Delhi to begin the Indian chapter of his marathon interview series. Sahar Zaman sounded him out about his views on the contemporary Indian art scene, it's growing international impact, and its place in his interview series. Read more...

Image: curator Hans Ulrich Obrist in India

Billy Apple at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris

Billy Apple continues his run of international shows at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris. He is represented in the second chapter of an exhibition dedicated to artists prefiguring the conceptual phenomenon. You can read the exhibition release here.

Image: Billy Apple, For Sale (1961), letterpress on canvas at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris