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Gillian Wearing, Self Portrait at 17 Years Old, (detail), 2003
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cover
news + headlines
feature
reviews
one to watch
interview
media
credits
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AbFab London
October 15-28, 2008
Even amid the market turmoil, London is overflowing with international collectors, gallerists, and artists. This issue of
Artkrush turns its attention across the pond on the annual occasion of the Frieze Art Fair, touring Regent's Park for choice works from Frieze’s Galleries, Projects, and Sculpture Park, and looking at a handful of
satellite art and design fairs. We leave the city limits for the 2008 Liverpool Biennial, where we highlight Alison Jackson's paparazzi-style shots of celebrity and politico lookalikes caught in outrageously staged situations. Back in New York, Artkrush
editor Paul Laster sits down for a colorful interview with London-based duo Gilbert & George, whose current retrospective has patrons blushing at the Brooklyn Museum, while our media pick explores the manifold inspirations
of London design maverick Tom Dixon. Our reviews, on the other hand, offer a steadfastly international spread, including taxidermied creatures from Thomas Grünfeld
in Berlin, Gagosian Gallery's showcase at the Red October Chocolate Factory in Moscow, and Clifton Childree's distorted fairgrounds
in Miami.
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Amsterdam Swaps Prostitutes for Art
(Artnet.com, October 6)
In an effort to tidy up its notorious Red Light District, Amsterdam's city government is teaming with private real-estate developer De Key to convert ten buildings in the area into residences designed to attract top-flight visual artists. While it's not yet clear
whether the studios will be open to international talent or just locals, De Key has already announced a residency program,
Art Stay, which will place young Dutch artists in the refurbished buildings. In addition, the developer claims that, due to the deal,
at least two streets in the district have become "prostitute-free." Because art and sex are completely unrelated, right?
Can the Asian Art Market Hold?
(BusinessWeek.com, October 6)
The global financial crisis seems to be catching up with the art world. At a recent Sotheby's auction of contemporary Asian
art, almost half of the works went unsold, including paintings by previously hot artists such as Subodh Gupta, Liu Wei, and Zhang Xiaogang. While China's government has been loosening restrictions on its artists due to their ability to attract international investors, it remains to be seen what will happen
if the money stops coming in. In a related story, the New York market also appears to be slowing down, even as writer Sarah Thornton considers dealers' remarks that "Art is the new gold!"
Campana Brothers Top Design Miami
(Dexigner.com, October 1)
Humberto and Fernando Campana nabbed the highest honors for this year's Design Miami. The brothers will update their TransPlastics series with an installation adorning the courtyard of the fair's Aranda\Lasch-designed temporary structure. As with their other TransPlastics pieces, Diamantina will utilize the Brazilian plant apuí, which grows on and eventually overwhelms other flora, as well as Brazilian amethyst
crystals to create a number of "biomorphic islands" that visitors can sit on. The brothers explain that the work alludes to its namesake city, saying that the "mixture of materials, both poor by
the wicker and precious by the combination with the natural amethyst…evokes the same sensation of long-forgotten poetry."
LACMA Receives Millions
(New York Times, September 29)
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently announced a $45 million pledge from Lynda and Stewart Resnick. The gift will fund the construction of a 45,000-square-foot, Renzo Piano-designed pavilion that is expected to open in 2010. The glass and marble building will host special exhibits and allow the
museum greater flexibility to showcase their permanent collection. In addition, the couple has promised $10 million worth
of art to the museum. LACMA director Michael Govan, meanwhile, did a little crystal ball-gazing for Esquire, naming Pierre Huyghe, Diana Thater, Francis Alÿs, Jorge Pardo, and Gimhongsok as the most important artists of the next several decades.
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Shepard Fairey treads the mainstream/edgy line more »
Dubai plans for world's tallest tower more »
An architect and an artist find the perfect contemporary house in Princeton more »
Moscow group buys controlling interest in Phillips de Pury more »
Middle Eastern art market heats up more »
New San Francisco buildings bring the city into the 21st century more »
Critiquing the Turner Prize shortlist more »
Installation artist Corin Hewitt moves into the Whitney — literally more »
Inside Charles Saatchi's new London gallery more »
After 30 years, abstract painter Mary Heilmann makes New York solo debut more »
National Portrait Gallery to purchase Marc Quinn's latest blood-cast self-portrait more »
Damien Hirst preps retail store more »
Annie Leibovitz steps out from behind the camera more »
NYC Freedom Tower now set for 2013 more »
Surveying LA's lowbrow scene, past and present more »
Yoko Ono, from art-world superstar to punch line and back again more »
LA installation artist Amanda Ross-Ho profiled more »
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov celebrate storied career with new show more »
Time for a little housecleaning for the NYC skyline? more »
Photographer Richard Kern's new show skirts the line between porn and art more »
David Adjaye tapped to design DC libraries more »
Bronx Museum looks at street art in the big city more »
French painter Simon Hantaï dies at 85 more »
Note: Some online publications require registration to access the articles. If you encounter a registration screen, try a
shared username and password from BugMeNot.
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[ Frieze Art Fair ] |
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Piotr Uklanski / Kiyoji Otsuji / O Zhang
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After Damien Hirst's recent auction trumped expectations to the tune of $200 million, fears over the stability of the art market partially subsided.
Now, the Frieze Art Fair is the first major fair to test the sagging global economy's effect on contemporary-art sales. With a roster of 151 contemporary galleries representing 27 countries and more than 1,000 artists, a much-expanded Sculpture Park, and a full curatorial program, Frieze is as ambitious as ever.
In the fair's main hall, New York's CRG Gallery brings Chinese artist O Zhang's new photographic series, which riffs on Maoist propaganda posters. Zhang contrasts the mistranslated English slogans on
t-shirts worn by Chinese teens with phrases popularized during China's Cultural Revolution and her own sayings. Expanding
upon his iconic kitchenware sculptures, Indian artist Subodh Gupta exhibits chaotic paintings of shiny spittoons and spilling pots at London and Zurich's Hauser & Wirth. Tokyo's Tomio Koyama Gallery displays colorful, corrupted landscape paintings by Japan's Satoshi Ohno, while Milan's Galleria Massimo de Carlo presents Chinese painter Yan Pei-Ming's sly watercolors of Vladimir Putin, Tsar of the New Russia alongside Polish artist Piotr Uklanski's colossal clenched-fist sculpture, referencing his homeland's Solidarity movement. Meanwhile, London's Victoria Miro Gallery
offers the coveted ceramics of Grayson Perry, and Maureen Paley shows YBA Gillian Wearing's eerie Self Portrait at 17 Years Old.
The Frieze Sculpture Park, led by curator David Thorp, features outdoor works by 16 artists. In Another Side, Qiu Zhijie from Beijing's Long March Space arranges Tibetan prayer stones engraved with phrases from the Bible and the Koran; a corresponding installation is piled in China's Qinghai province. Brazilian sculptor Ernesto Neto links a laser-cut steel chain, while American artist Dan Graham designs a site-specific pavilion reflecting the interplay between the city and nature. Nearby, German artist Michael Sailstorfer considers urban movement using industrial materials in Wohnen mit Verkehrsanbindung, Grosskatzbach (Living with Transport Connection, Grosskatzbach).
Frieze Projects, curated by art critic Neville Wakefield, presents 11 new artist commissions and two partner institutions and exhibits a new site-specific work by the Frieze Foundation's
2008 Cartier Award winner, Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto. A series of performances by American artist Sharon Hayes ramps up over successive days as she critiques the composition of the fair's constituency. Caricaturing accepted art jargon,
Polish artist Agnieszka Kurant's trained parrots use a fictional language, and American new-media artist Cory Arcangel intervened in the selection process for exhibitors by sending chocolate bars, one concealing a golden ticket of admission, to galleries not initially admitted to the fair. Elsewhere, Frieze Film offers Road Movie, which uses YouTube as a filmmaking tool in a collective adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road.
As with most art fairs, Frieze is shadowed by a gaggle of specialized spin-off fairs. In its fifth year, Zoo Art Fair rounds up younger London galleries and an edgier spread of galleries from Europe and the United States, Scope London returns after a year off to Lord's Cricket Grounds, a new venue, and DesignArt London is back for its second year. And firmly outside the art-market periphery — and guaranteed to succeed regardless of economic
conditions — the Free Art Fair flouts its stated purpose by distributing all of its exhibited work for free when it concludes.
- Anna Altman
The Frieze Art Fair takes place in London's Regent's Park from October 16-19, 2008; Zoo Art Fair is on view from October 17-20,
Scope London from October 16-19, DesignArt London from October 15-19, and the Free Art Fair from October 13-19.
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Kimsooja: Mumbai: A Laundry Field
Beijing
Galleria Continua
Now through December 28
In her new exhibition at Galleria Continua's Beijing branch, Korean-born, globe-trotting artist Kimsooja explores the caste system in India through the use of colorful fabrics, photography, and a video installation. A passageway leads viewers between vibrantly colored swatches of Indian fabric hung on one wall and photographs depicting members of Mumbai's
poorest caste on the other. In a larger gallery, a tricycle-wagon, Bottari, is piled high with bundles of Chinese bedclothes, and the four-channel video in the main gallery captures the sound, colors, and anonymity of the migrant Mumbai laundrymen known as dhobi. Unlike Kimsooja's earlier work, which often featured the artist herself, this exhibit takes on a third-person perspective,
observing the rhythms of labor and finding a poetic beauty there.
- Juliana Loh
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Aaron Parazette: Surf Trip
Dallas
Dunn and Brown
Now through October 18
Houston-based painter Aaron Parazette mines his California surfer roots for his latest show at Dunn and Brown. Using computer
software, Parazette manipulated letters from such surfer lingo as "indicator," "surf bum," and "kook" to create brightly colored abstract patterns. The artist then meticulously hand-transferred the designs onto large-scale
canvases in acrylic, with each image marked by its immaculate edges, flawless surface, and Parazette's signature lines around
each shape. The formal elements of the nine paintings on display are reminiscent of the hard-edge style of the late '60s; although thematically linked by surfer jargon, the works are primarily centered on technical elegance
— the interplay of flatness and depth, clarity of line, and bold use of color.
- Lisa L. Powell
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Clifton Childree: DREAM-CUM-TRU
Miami
Locust Projects
Now through October 25
For his first gallery exhibition, filmmaker Clifton Childree has transformed Locust Projects into a dilapidated amusement park littered with irreverent Victoriana and replete with working
nickel arcade games. DREAM-CUM-TRU is the culmination of Childree's summer residency at the Miami art space after winning the 2007 Hilger Artist Project Award. Known for 16mm silent movies in his signature "slapstick horror" genre, the artist has created an installation that brings his creepily perverse film sets to life. Viewers can step right up to Sir Komsician, a creaky contraption where,
as its sign indicates, one can insert his penis into a hole for an instant circumcision. Constructed from old lumber, antique
headboards, and other found rubbish, this show is Childree's personal fantasy, and viewers must surrender to it — as the placard
cautions: "Shitz Ahoy! It's a Butthole Bonanza!"
- Daria Brit Shapiro
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Thomas Grünfeld: Théabaïde
Berlin
Galerie Michael Janssen
Now through October 18
With a title that references J.K. Huysmans' 1884 novel À rebours (Against the Grain), which depicts an eccentric recluse repulsed by society, German artist Thomas Grünfeld's fourth exhibition at Michael Janssen combines four of his projects from the last 20 years. Floor-to-ceiling fabric wall hangings
and eclectic furnishings — including a pair of part-shelf, part-tableau Wall Tablets, six felt collages, and three oversized Cushions — are ostensibly plush, but provide little in the way of comfort. Rounding out the artist's curious collection are his handmade
animal hybrids, such as Misfit (swan/nutria/donkey). Resembling fantastical hunting trophies, the pieces suggest not entirely implausible new species. With familiar yet inapt
objects, Grünfeld critiques domesticity by creating a paradoxical world at odds with our lived experience.
- Sarah Stephenson
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For What You Are About to Receive
Moscow
Gagosian Gallery at the Red October Chocolate Factory
Now through October 25
For What You Are About to Receive marks powerhouse Gagosian Gallery's second showcase in Moscow, and its first in the Red October Chocolate Factory, a former
sweets factory that's been rehabbed as a contemporary-arts center. This museum-grade group show features some of the gallery's
flashiest artists, from superstars Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, and Christopher Wool to fashionable upstart Aaron Young — whose motorcycle performance christened the opening — and celebrated modernists Giacometti,
de Kooning, Twombly, and Calder. Koons' Baroque Egg with Bow, with clear overtures to the tsar-commissioned Fabergé eggs, is the consummate luxury gift: a large, textured, turquoise
egg lies on its side bedecked by an outsize purple ribbon. If one considers the exhibition title along with Koons' contribution
and today's complicated Euro-Russo relations — Russian collectors are keeping the Western art market afloat even as government
ties are strained — Gagosian's exhibition is a clever instance of marketing savvy meeting cultural diplomacy.
- H.G. Masters
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[ Alison Jackson ] |
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Alison Jackson
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Visitors to the 2008 Liverpool Biennial may well stumble across a beleaguered George W. Bush grappling with a Rubik's Cube in the Tate Liverpool's café. Alison Jackson's new site-specific work, Bush with Rubik's Cube, continues to explore the themes that have preoccupied the artist ever since her days studying fine-art photography at London's
Royal College of Art in the late '90s, after an undergraduate course in sculpture. Her master's show, Mental Images, comprised a series of grainy, black-and-white photographs taken in the style of celebrity-preying paparazzi snaps. The images
then inspired Jackson's BBC miniseries, Doubletake, which won her a BAFTA award in 2002.
Fascinated by the media's exaltation of celebrity and the public's appetite for any glimpse into the lives of the rich and
famous, Jackson creates titillating scenarios starring meticulously cast lookalikes. Her imaginary episodes — Prince William trying on the imperial crown, Madonna laboring over laundry — have appeared on gallery walls in Europe and America, and her fantasy-filmic encapsulation of Tony
Blair's decade as prime minister, Blaired Vision, aired on the UK's Channel 4 last year.
It's no surprise that Jackson's work has courted controversy. In a perverse full circle, her images have been splashed across tabloids in earnest outrage, while other media outlets have
celebrated her work, which has also appeared on the pages of Tatler and in an ad campaign for Schweppes.
Departing from the slippery world of photography, but still firmly entrenched in the realm of voyeurism, Bush with Rubik's Cube sees Jackson return to the solid forms of sculpture. Despite knowing better, the viewer, tacitly invited to share Bush's
table, attributes myriad aspects of the US president — Texan cowboy, leader of the free world, and so on — to the waxwork.
The piece becomes a fetish object in the same way that photographs embalm their celebrity subjects, revealing, as Jackson
so relentlessly does, the exploitation of truth.
- Helen Holtom
Alison Jackson's Bush with Rubik's Cube is on display at Tate Liverpool through November 30, and her recently published book of photographs, Alison Jackson: Confidential, is available from Taschen.
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[ Gilbert & George ] |
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Gilbert & George View more images » |
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Working collaboratively for more than 40 years, Gilbert & George have consistently been at the forefront of British contemporary art. Starting out as "living sculpture" — making "Art for All" — they evolved into fearless "picture"-makers, willing to tackle a broad range of social subjects. With a traveling Tate Modern retrospective currently in its final presentation at the Brooklyn Museum, Gilbert & George recently sat down with Artkrush editor Paul Laster to discuss their working process and humanist values.
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AK: How did you meet?
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George: We met at Saint Martins School of Art in 1967. It had the most famous sculpture department in the world.
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Gilbert: We met in a special course that didn't have anything to do with the official college. It was more about experimentation on
the third floor.
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AK: When did you start working together?
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George: We exhibited together for our degree exhibition, except it wasn't an exhibition in a room.
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Gilbert: We hired a small café nearby and made all the students and professors leave the school and go there. I put three objects on
one table, and George put three objects on another table. We gave everyone free tea and biscuits, and that was the first time
we made art together.
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George: We wanted to take art out of the normal context of school, where a group of students and tutors went around and discussed
each person's art in the same formal terms. No one ever mentioned content to me, or suggested that art could mean something
— it only mattered if it was a "good piece."
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Gilbert: In school, art has its own language, but outside it's totally different. We didn't know exactly what we were doing, but we
were already exploring the idea of art in the world.
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AK: How did you conceive the idea of becoming "living sculpture"?
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The Interior World of Tom Dixon
Tom Dixon
Conran Octopus
Art-school dropout Tom Dixon became an industrial designer by happenstance — after learning to weld so he could fix his motorcycle, he discovered that
his newfound skills could put money in his pocket as well as providing him with an outlet for his creative energies. A London
design maverick who was awarded an OBE for his innovations in British design in 2000, Dixon got his start with the iconic S-Chair, first produced by Italian design manufacturer Cappellini in 1985; soon after, the indefatigable designer founded a design space, opened a retail shop, and started up a design production
company. In 1998, he was named head of design at Habitat (a position he recently left), and in 2004, he became the creative director of Artek, the Finnish furniture manufacturer founded by Alvar Aalto. This massive tome — filled with images and texts that explore Dixon's DIY vision, as well as the world of natural and manmade construction we inhabit — is divided into six chapters: Materialism, Constructivism,
Expressionism, Primitivism, Reductionism, and Futurism. Ranging from reproductions and analyses of fractals, hornet's nests,
and sandcastles to images of scrap piles, assembly lines, and art installations, this compilation of Dixon's work presents
a fascinating world of materials and processes, enlivened by handiwork.
- Paul Laster
Rove Gallery shows a new chair by Tom Dixon at DesignArt London from October 15 through 19, while Dixon's interior design for the Paramount, a members club atop London's Centre Point tower, is the toast of the town.
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Cover Art
Gillian Wearing
Self Portrait at 17 Years Old, 2003
45 1/2 x 36 1/4 in./ 115.5 x 92 cm
Courtesy Maureen Paley, London
All Rights Reserved
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Editor
Paul Laster
Deputy Editor
Joel Withrow
News Editor
Greg Zinman
Reviews Editor
H.G. Masters
Contributing Editors
Adda Birnir
Jennifer Y. Chen
Erin Cowgill
Shana Nys Dambrot
Sarah Kessler
Doug Levy
Andrew Maerkle
Marlyne Sahakian
Peter Stepek
Sarah Stephenson
Contributors
Helen Holtom
Juliana Loh
Lauren McKee
Lisa L. Powell
Daria Brit Shapiro
Mailer Design
Jessica Bauer-Greene
Mark Barry
Cultural Partner
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Production
Anna Altman
Morgan Croney
Publishers
Sascha Lewis
Mark Mangan
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