Artists boycott Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project

The Guggenheim's Abu Dhabi outpost faces a boycott from a group of 130 international artists, curators and writers who say they will refuse to cooperate on the project until working condition for labourers building the $800m museum are improved.

The petition, published online and and addressed to Richard Armstrong, the director of the Guggenheim Foundation and also its New York museum says: "Human rights violations are are currently occurring on Saadiyat Island, the location of the new museum." Read more...

Image: A model of Frank Gehry's planned Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

The 15th Tallinn Print Triennial: FOR LOVE NOT MONEY

Billy Apple and Jim Speers are represented in the 15th Tallinn Print Triennial, FOR LOVE NOT MONEY which runs at the Kumu Art Museum in the city of Tallinna, Estonia to 8 May 2011.

In his introduction to the exhibition, co-curator Simon Rees says: "While 'love' and 'money' are universal concepts their meanings are contextual and relative to the time in which they are encountered. History - to be understood in its individual versus collective, private versus public, and personal versus national manifestations - is a major determinant of perceptions of love and money (and their relationship). The location of the exhibition in Tallinn, a former communist territory and recently returned to capitalism and representative democracy, offers a special historical perspective."

Images: Billy Apple's billboard work THE ARTIST HAS TO LIVE LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, here located opposite Central Station Rotterdam, on the corner of Weens and Kruisplein: and Jim Speers, Untitled (Crystal Spirit series), 2009, digital/screen print

Francois Pinault hones his Venetian art project

This year Francois Pinault is using the Palzzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana to stage exhibitions that reflect his vision for the future use of the spaces. Caroline Bourgeois will curate two exhibitions: The World Belongs to You, which will present work including commissions and site-specific installations by international artists who reflect a globalised world "now characterised by proliferation, multiplicity, movement and nomadism", and In Praise of Doubt which will present "another reassessment of the traditional limits of geography of art, and how we relate to others and the world."

Timed to coincide with the Venice Biennale and drawn from Pinault's collection, the exhibitions foreshadow a new phase in the French billionaire's Venetian art project. Under the direction of Martin Bethenod, hired last year to manage both spaces, the Palazzo will become a kunsthalle-like space for changing exhibitions while the Punta della Dogana will become a permanent home for Pinault's collection that will operate more like a traditional collection-based museum.

Images: Venice's Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana 

Carlos Slim's Soumaya Museum

Carlos Slim, the world's wealthiest man, will open his own art museum in Mexico later this month. Designed by his son-in-law, Fernando Romero, the building will house and present works from his collection of 66,000 items, which includes works by Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera as well as European masters.

Described as a shimmering aluminium-clad structure resembling a saddle horn, the Soumaya Museum (named after his late wife) will tower 150 feet into the air with five stories of exhibition space totalling 183,000 square feet. Read more...

Image: Slim Carlos' new Soumaya Museum, Mexico

Venice Biennale releases artist list for Bice Curiger's ILLUMINations exhibition

The Venice Biennale has released the list of artists for Bice Curiger's international pavilion show ILLUMINations. Curiger says her show will focus on "the intuitive insight and illumination of thought that is fostered by an encounter with art and its ability to sharpen the tools of perception". You can see the list here.
Image: Venice's Arsenale

Upstairs at Starkwhite

While the exhibition IF SAMENESS IS IN THE CENTRE, THEN DIFFERENCE IS ON THE PERIPHERY is showing downstairs, we are presenting works by represented artists upstairs, including: Whitney Bedford, Phil Dadson, Trenton Garratt, Gavin Hipkins, Jae Hoon Lee, John Reynolds, Layla Rudneva-Mackay and Grant Stevens.

Image: Trenton Garratt, Sunbeams (2011), oil on plastic film (painted on reverse side), 720 x 540mm

Leigh Davis Flag Poems in Time, Text & Echoes

Image: Leigh Davis, Heloise & Abelard's Ordinary Life, flag poem 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

Showing at Starkwhite

IF SAMENESS IS IN THE CENTRE, THEN DIFFERENCE

IS ON THE PERIPHERY

ALICIA FRANKOVICH (NZ), LARESA KOSLOFF (AUS), RUTH PROCTOR (UK)

This exhibition continues to 2 April 2011. You can read our

exhibition release here.

Image: Ruth Proctor, Let's Dance (transcription via google and Columbian
typist), 2010

Singapore Biennale opens tomorrow

The 3rd Singapore Biennale Open House will be launched tomorrow at the old Kallang Airport, which opens its doors to the public for the first time after over 5 decades.

Led by artistic director Matthew Ngui and curators Russell Storer and Trevor Smith, Open House will be presented across four exhibition venues, each with their own particular character, that draw upon emblematic spaces in Singapore: Housing Development Board flats (Singapore Art Museum and 8Q), shopping centres and night markets (National Museum of Singapore) and international air and sea ports (Old Kallang Airport).

The Biennale will feature over 150 works by 63 artists from 30 countries. Over half the artists are creating new commissions or premiering new works. They include Dane Mitchell who has installed his work in the old airport building.

You can read more about the exhibition and lineup of artists at the Singapore Biennale website.

Open House runs from 13 March - 15 May 2011.

Image: Singapore's Old Kallang Airport, one of the venues for the Singapore Biennale Open House 2011

Artists donate Artangel collection to the Tate

A collection of film and video artworks by artists including Jeremy Deller, Douglas Gordon, Steve McQueen and Catherine Yass is to be donated to the Tate.

Artangel, which this year celebrates its 20th birthday, announced the creation of the Artangel collection, which will be looked after by the Tate and made available to galleries and museums across the UK. Read more...

Image: Still from Catherine Yates' film High Wire which features the French high-wire artist Didier Pasquette

Tatzu Nishi's The Merlion Hotel at the Singapore Biennale

For the 2011 Singapore Biennale, Tatsu Nishi has created a luxurious temporary hotel room around the city's iconic Merlion, staging an uncanny encounter with a public landmark in the intimate space of a hotel room. During the day visitors can visit The Merlion Hotel, while each evening a guest will check in and spend the night. Guests will enjoy a luxury hotel stay with a hospitality team from the Fullerton Hotel providing a full service, which includes personalised room check-in and Merlion Hotel Butler service. The Biennale reports that the 32 available nights were fully booked just one hour after the reservation lines opened.

The Singapore Biennale Open House opens on 13 March and runs to 15 May 2011.

Images: the Merlion and Tatzu NIshi's The Merlion Hotel 2011 (artist's rendering)

Norman Foster to design the $2.8 billion Cultural District in Hong Kong

Norman Foster's "City Park" has been selected for the $2.8 billion West Kowloon Cultural District. According to a statement on the Foster + Partners web site, the 100 acre project is the largest cultural initiative in the world today. It will include a contemporary art museum, theatres, arts education centres, galleries, studios and commercial space, along with a 57-acre public park.

The art contemporary museum on the site, M+, is led by Lars Nittve, the first director of the Tate Museum. M+ will open in 2016.

Images: architect Norman Foster and the skyline of Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District

Group show opens tonight at Starkwhite

IF SAMENESS IS IN THE CENTRE, THEN DIFFERENCE

IS ON THE PERIPHERY

ALICIA FRANKOVICH (NZ), LARESA KOSLOFF (AUS), RUTH PROCTOR (UK)

Opens tonight at 5.30pm

Image: Laresa Kosloff, New Diagonal, Production still: Alex Martinis Roe,

Digital Video (3 mins), 2007

Leigh Davis Flag Poems in Time, Text & Echoes

Image: Leigh Davis, Mulberry Tree and Nothing will keep, 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

Video live performance tonight at ST PAUL ST Gallery

Tonight at 7.30pm St Paul St presents a performance by Ko Nakajima working with Phil Dadson and other musicians and dancers to create a live performance work responding to and activating his work Tao installation in the exhibition Video Life. Kentaro Taki will also present a live video performance combining analogue and digital processes. Informed by an idea of finding a path to an artwork through a process rather than becoming attached to an outcome, Taki will attempt to find his way through a barrage of media to create his performance.

Hector Zamora's White Noise moves from Bethells Beach to the city

Following the first stage of the project at Bethells Beach, Hector Zamora's White Noise reappears tomorrow to Shed 6, 90 Wellesley Street (from 11.30am) and the Elam projectspace, Elam School of Fine Arts, Whittaker Place. White Noise is part of the visual arts programme for the Auckland Arts Festival 2011. Read more...

Image: Hector Zamora, White Noise (2011), public installation at Bethells Beach, 26 February 2011. Photo courtesy of the artist and the Auckland Arts Festival 2011

Dane Mitchell at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery

Coming up at Starkwhite

IF SAMENESS IS IN THE CENTRE, THEN DIFFERENCE
IS ON THE PERIPHERY

ALICIA FRANKOVICH (NZ), LARESA KOSLOFF (AUS), RUTH PROCTOR (UK)

This exhibition, which is part of the 2011 Auckland Festival, opens
Monday 7 March at 5.30pm and runs to 2 April 2011. Laresa Kosloff
and Ruth Proctor will be in Auckland for the opening.

Image: Alicia Frankovich, Trajectory, 2008-09, video projected onto found
technologies, installed at Artspace, Sydney

Billy Apple's charity entry to the Auckland Cup

Billy Apple's entry in the Resene Fastest Art Exhibition Horse charity auction is currently on display at the Mini Garage on Auckland's Ponsonby Road. The horse stands 15.3 hands high and the reserve is $15,750. The auction is taking place on trademe and the current bid is $10,000.

Billy Apple's nominated charity of choice is the NZ Native Forests Restoration Trust, which is dedicated to the forest restoration. Since its establishment in 1980, the Trust has acquired land at the rate of 200ha a year to protect important species, restore their habitats and improve the quality of waterways. It now has 30 reserves with a total of more than 6,000ha of protected native forests.

The artist's horse, named Billy, is the latest piece in his community art series, with earlier works going to charitable auctions for the Aids Foundation, Women's Refuge, TYLA (Turn Your Life Around Trust), amongst others.

Image: Billy Apple's entry to the Auckland Cup Week Charity Auction Resene Fastest Art Exhibition Horse (2011).

Christchurch art community news

OVER THE NET AND ON THE TABLE  has posted a list of people in the Christchurch art community that have been contacted or sighted after the earthquake. You can see the OTN list here.

Image: The Christchurch Cathedral following the 22/3 earthquake