Tomorrow @ 10 AM Press conference at North Bangkok (www.northbkk.ac.th) Presenting TIK SHIRO, Basel ART fair in Co-operation with 798 Art District
Date: Apr 29–Aug 31, 2010
Venue: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Japan
‘Alternative Humanities’ is a large-scale exhibition devoted to Jan Fabre and Katsura Funakoshi – two of today’s most influential artists.
Born in Belgium, Fabre remains attuned to the religious paintings of 15th and 16th century Flanders, while exposing the contradictions of human existence through pictures drawn with his own blood and sculptures employing stuffed animals, animal bones, and other organic materials.
The figurative sculptures that Funakoshi carves from camphor wood speak eloquently of the interior landscape of people in our times. They also resonate with the complex emotions visible in images of the Kannon Bodhisattva of the late Edo/early Meiji period – a major turning point in Japanese culture.
Gathering some 190 works in a meeting of East and West, past and present, the exhibition will transcend time and place to inquire into state of the human spirit today.
Indigenous peoples, economic migrants, the vanquished, dispossessed and marginalised take centre stage at the latest edition of the Sydney Biennale (until 1 August). “The aim of this biennale…is to bring work from diverse cultures together…on the equal playing field of contemporary art, where no culture can assume superiority over any other,” said artistic director David Elliott at the inauguration of the show.
Elliott has chosen more than 440 works by 166 artists predominantly from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Scandinavia and Britain, many of them newcomers to the international exhibition circuit. Seven African artists have been included thanks to funding from Puma Creative, which runs the cultural programme of the international sportswear brand. “The European Enlightenment is over,” said Elliott. “Now we are entering another political era where power is more equally distributed. This is my end of Enlightenment show.”
Elliott’s biennale, “The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age”, has a number of discernible themes and includes works that relate well to one another—a welcome departure from many biennials that are sprawling and confused and make sense only in the mind of the artistic director. Stories of peoples on the edges of history whose culture, language and customs have been almost obliterated by colonialism and the advance of the white man run throughout the show.
In the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), one of seven biennale venues, a four-screen video installation by Canadian artist Dana Claxton relates the history of her own Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux tribe, who followed their chief Sitting Bull to Canada in search of new land in 1877 after victory against General Custer in the Battle of Little Big Horn. Claxton interviews descendants of the original inhabitants of the encampment they set up when they got there. They recall a time when they could live off the land in communion with nature. “I miss the old days when we could hunt elk and buffalo,” says one. Annie Pootoogook, an Inuit artist from Cape Dorset, Canada, charts the struggles of daily life in her community with cartoon-like watercolours that describe domestic violence and alcoholism, but also capture intimate family moments.
The Last Silent Movie by Susan Hiller, one of only a handful of artists from the US, is a recording of 24 nearly extinct dialects from around the world, including Silbo Gomero, a whistling language once used by shepherds in the Canary Islands to communicate across vast distances. The dialect, today remembered by very few, is also the subject of the video piece La Gomera by British artist Joy Gregory, which has been installed on Cockatoo Island, another major venue.
The problem, of course, is that just because a story is worth telling, it may not necessarily make good art. Some of the biennale works by Australian artists dealing with history are disappointing in their simplicity and execution. The most beautiful Australian work here is the art produced by indigenous artists: a striking installation at the MCA of intricately decorated burial poles by Yolngu artists from North East Arnhem Land. It says much about prevailing hierarchies in the art world that Elliott felt it necessary to justify the inclusion of the burial poles at the biennale press conference. “You can’t help showing indigenous art in Australia,” he said, adding: “It’s good. It measures up.” The poles, once an integral part of Aboriginal funerary rites, are now produced as sculptures; the examples on display at the biennale are on loan from the broadcasting billionaire Kerry Stokes in Perth.
The failure of capitalism is another biennale theme. British artist Isaac Julien takes the deaths of more than 20 Chinese illegal migrants who drowned in England in 2004 while picking cockles in Morecambe Bay as the starting point for Ten Thousand Waves, a nine-screen video installation. Weaving realism with poetic interpretations of the workers’ imaginative lives, Julien examines the motivations that drive people to cross the world in search of a better life.
French-Algerian artist Kader Attia has made Kasbah, an installation of shanty town roofs collected by the artist. The field of corrugated iron, satellite dishes and other scrap material that visitors are encouraged to walk across reflects the condition of how the majority of the world’s population lives. The work is conceptually interesting and crowd pleasing, and is one of the biennale’s runaway successes.
Another is the inflatable red lotus blossom by the Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa which floats in a pond in the city’s Royal Botanic Gardens. The artist uses a hydraulic system to create the illusion that the giant flower is breathing, inflating and deflating with each breath, emphasising the fragility of the natural world which surrounds us. The theme continues in the gardens with Australian artist Janet Laurence’s sickbed for fragile plants, a white mesh tent inside which visitors can glimpse a laboratory fully equipped to resuscitate sick flora. At the MCA Chinese artist Shen Shaomin takes the theme of man’s despoliation of nature one step further. He is displaying a group of Bonsai trees, each one manipulated into contorted positions by metal instruments of torture.
Collectors spent big money at Christie’s postwar and contemporary art auction on Tuesday, led by Jasper Johns’ pop art painting “Flag” from a collection that had belonged to best-selling author Michael Crichton, which sold for a record $28.64 million.
The $232 million total from the auction, including commission, marked the third consecutive night at which Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s met or exceeded pre-sale estimates for the annual spring sales. Of the 79 lots on offer, only five failed to sell.
Crichton’s collection, one of the season’s star estate sales, soared to $93.3 million — half again the pre-sale estimate — and achieved the highest ever total for a post-war collection, officials said.
While foreign buying has helped drive the market’s recovery, nearly three-quarters of the buyers were American, as expected for what Christie’s described as “a quintessentially American sale.”
Amy Cappellazzo, Christie’s international co-head of post-war and contemporary art, said the market, seemingly well on its way to recovery, now seemed “more sober.”
“There’s not this irrational exuberance,” she said, comparing it to the late years of the boom before the economic crash in 2008. “It’s strong, but selective.”
Well-heeled collectors showed enthusiasm, and readiness to pay, for rare works like Johns’ “Flag” and Andy Warhol’s “Silver Liz,” which fetched more than $18 million.
A rare Song Dynasty hand scroll, classified as a grade one cultural relic of the State, fetched 79.52 million yuan ($11.6 million) on Saturday at China Guardian’s Spring Auction.
The scroll by an anonymous painter of Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1127-1279), entitled A Copy of Guo Zhongshu’s Four-Hunter Painting, vividly portrays four nomadic horsemen who are respectively riding to the field, training an eagle, hunting and resting.
Paintings of the ethnic groups who lived on the vast grasslands of northern China, became a distinct category of painting in the late Tang dynasty (AD 618-907). The painting, part of the treasure trove of the Qing (1644-1911) royal court, was smuggled out of the palace by Emperor Puyi as a reward to his brother in 1922 and was later transported overseas.
Another royal treasure of the Qing court, Listening to Spring by Jin Tingbiao, sold for 45.13 million yuan ($6.6 million). The painting portrays a scholar sitting by a stone among pine trees. It was completed shortly after Jin served as a royal court painter.
Other items that came under the hammer at the auctions included a Qianlong Tibetan-Style Ewer with under-glazed blue and iron red dragon and cloud motif, which fetched 35.84 million yuan ($5.2 million), and Shi Chong’s oil painting Present Landscape that was sold for 26.09 million yuan ($3.8 million).
More than 6,600 lots of Chinese painting and calligraphy, oil painting, sculptures, antique, stamps and coins are going under the hammer at Guardian’s Spring Auctions, which last until Tuesday.
“Global auctioneering came to a standstill last year. But against that backdrop the Chinese auction market has achieved notable growth, and our annual proceeds established a new record,” says Wang Yannan, president of China Guardian Auctions.
Last year, three pieces of Chinese painting and calligraphy heralded the arrival of a 100 million yuan ($15 million) era for the classical Chinese art market, including one item Writings by Prominent Personage in the Song Dynasty on Attendant Xu’s Seal Character, featuring calligraphy by seven renowned scholars, such as Zhu Xi and Zhang Jingxiu, that was sold at Guardian’s autumn auction.
“As a warm-up for the spring auctions, our auctions in March yielded a turnover of 262 million yuan ($38.4 million). It further increased collectors’ confidence in the market,” Wang says.
One work that is expected to set a new record is Zhang Daqian’s Austrian Lake, a painting in a series inspired by the maestro’s two-day stay at the Achensee Lake in Austria, when he traveled through Europe with friends in 1965. The painting to be auctioned is widely believed to be one of the largest and most brilliant of the series.
| Art lovers in Shanghai are encouraged to take a stroll along the “World Art Gallery” during the city’s annual Spring Art Salon. The concept of internationalization is projected as this year’s theme. The event’s highlight is two conceptual oil paintings to remember the late King of Pop Michael Jackson.
More than one hundred prestigious art galleries from different continents around the globe will take part in this year’s event. Various art schools and genres including abstract and realism will give visitors and buyers a huge pool of choices. The two conceptual oil paintings by American Chinese artist Zhou Chi are drawing huge attention. They were created to commemorate the one year anniversary of the death of American pop singer Michael Jackson. The curly hair of young Michael is turned into the eleven black phonograph albums he released during his lifetime. |
On 26th April 2010, Museo Picasso Malaga presents a new approach to the artworks by Pablo Picasso that belong to its permanent collection, highlighting the wide range of themes the artist tackled during his prolific artistic career.
As from tomorrow, Tuesday 27th April, and again, with a second instalment, as from Tuesday 20th July, visitors will be able to discover the MPM collection’s new layout. Until October of this year, the public will be able to view all 233 works that make up the museum’s entire art holdings following its recent expansion, in two separate instalments.
A New Approach is the follow-up to the project for the expansion and consolidation of the MPM’s art holdings, after the creation of the Fundación Museo Picasso Malaga. Legado Paul, Christine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. This process will culminate in October, when the collection will once again be shown alongside the works on free loan from the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte ( FABA).
This presentation coincides with the publication of a guidebook which contains information and a number of brief essays on the MPM, as well as the full catalogue of the MPM permanent collection’s art holdings, and ten academic studies on its ten most representative artworks.
“Among the various sins of which I am accused, none is as false as the one that which states my work is fundamentally driven by a spirit of research. My objective when I paint is to show what I have found, not what I am looking for. In art, intentions are not enough and, as we say in Spanish: obras son amores y no buenas razones (actions speak louder than words). What matters is what one does, not what one intended to do”. This was how Pablo Picasso defined the purpose of his art. He tackled his work with talent, hard work, precise technique and, above all, indomitable creative freedom.
By presenting its permanent collection in this way, the museum is providing a storyline to the artist’s work; a fresh approach to the discoveries that led Picasso to be considered the most important artist of the 20th century. With this in mind, Museo Picasso Malaga is inviting visitors to examine ten key features of Picasso’s aesthetic legacy.
LONDON. Christie’s sale of International Modern and Contemporary Art held in Dubai on 27 April proved a success, leapfrogging three times over its low estimate to total over $15m (presale $4.8m-$6.6m). This was a sharply improved result compared to last year’s sale, which made just $4.8m.
The strongest bidding in this year’s sale was for 25 modern Egyptian artworks consigned by a respected Saudi collector, Dr Mohammed Farsi. This was expected to make $1.2m-$1.7m, but racked up $8.7m, with all the lots sold.
The collection was said by trade sources to have been offered to Qatar—whose Museum of Modern Arab Art is due to be inaugurated in a temporary space this December—but finally went to auction at Christie’s.
Prominent among Christie’s staffers taking telephone bids at the sale was Isabelle de la Bruyère, glamorous director for the Middle East, who was previously Dr Farsi’s daughter-in-law. She snaffled a number of lots including the evening’s prize, the Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said’s “Les Chadoufs”, 1934, which sold for a startling $2.4m, almost ten times its high estimate (est $150,000-$200,000). Trade sources said that it was destined for Qatar.
This year’s spring art auctions begins today with China Guardian, one of China’s leading Chinese art auction houses, raising the curtain on the season’s sales that are shaping up to be an exciting affair.
A total of 29 auctions will be held during the seven-day event, including traditional Chinese painting, jade wares, modern porcelain, sculpture and contemporary works.
More than 6,600 pieces will go under the hammer at Beijing International Hotel, among which ancient Chinese coins, bronze mirrors and stamps, all hotly pursued in recent years, account for more than half.
Traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy works will be a highlight at the auctions, as prices of these types of works have dramatically increased in the past few years, bucking the doom and gloom of the economic recession.
Last year, several traditional Chinese painting pieces and calligraphy works were sold for more than 100 million yuan (US$15 million) each, considered by art experts and economists as a symbol of the Chinese art market’s quick recovery.
China Guardian will offer a range of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy works from the Song (960-1279) to Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, with five different painting schools and six features by individual collectors represented.
Art experts and market researchers are paying close attention to the first spring auctions on the Chinese mainland, the outcome of which will serve as a barometer for the rest of the year’s sales.
“It is not only art lovers and collectors, but other auctions houses in and out of China that are looking forward to these spring auctions,” commented Zhao Li, director of Art Market Research Center (AMRC), an independent organization devoted to Chinese and international art market research.
Zhao added that since Chinese traditional pieces were extremely hot last year both in the domestic and overseas art markets, concerns have been raised about the market’s sustainability and this year’s spring auctions will serve as a key indicator to whether the market will continue to soar, or overheat.
A mammoth new exhibition of 291 Chinese artists, Reshaping History, currently on display at three venues across Beijing, is hoping to cast a light on the growth and maturity of the entire nation, as the exhibition’s subtitle, “Chinart from 2000 to 2009,” indicates.
Often we look to art to illuminate something deeply personal, something lurking under the surface of artists’ imaginations that reflects their view of themselves, their surroundings and the world at large. Art too can serve as a proxy for far larger, more expansive arenas: a community, a people, a race.
Indeed, if there is one buzzword that encapsulates the Chinese experience over the past 10 years, it is “growth,” a concept toward which the artistic luminaries of Reshaping History have no shortage of opinions.
“Like every aspect of the Chinese economy, Chinese art is developing immensely,” said exhibition founder Lü Peng. “So much talent has emerged over the past 10 years, so many contrasting styles and worldviews and I really wanted a venue where we could put them all next to each other and let the viewer take it all in.
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