The real Body Shop
Von Hagens in his body shop
Shock doc Gunther von Hagens, of the infamous Bodyworlds exhibition which features preserved and flayed human cadavers, is taking the museum gift shop to a whole new—and extremely creepy—level. Opening today in the town of Guben in Brandenburg, Von Hagen’s “Plastinat Shop” is selling human and animal body parts and is being called the “Supermarket of Death” by the German media. So how much will a piece of this macabre memorabilia cost you? Tiny chicks are reportedly going for only €250 while a laminated cross-section slice of a whole human body has a price tage of €11,000. A steal when you consider a Hirst animal in formaldehyde can cost millions. But Von Hagens says these specimens are for educational and scientific purposes, and only medical professionals and professors will be allowed to buy them.
From In The Frame
Published online: 28 May 2010
This month:
Bad news on the Rialto
Bad news on the Rialto
Venice will not be Italy's candidate to host the 2020 Olympic games. On 20 May, Rome was chosen instead, to the anger of the president of the Regione, Luca Zaia, who said that the institutions and businesses of Venice and the Veneto had collaborated well over their proposal. Renato Brunetta, the defeated candidate in the recent mayoral elections for Venice and a minister in the government, said that Venice should have offered itself only for the Olympic water sports. Gianni de Michelis, who as foreign minister had fought hard but failed to get the 1990 World Expo for Venice, said that the city should now concentrate on aiming to be European Capital of Culture in 2019.
From In The Frame
Published online: 27 May 2010
Humongous Doig unveiled at Tate
Peter Doig: Ascension, 2009
A gargantuan painting by Peter Doig, briefly seen last October during a music recital at London's most important Roman Catholic church, is set to go on show at Tate Britain from today (until 6 June). The work, a dramatic backdrop to a performance at London’s Westminster Cathedral by British pianist Stephen Hough last autumn, is almost 11 metres high. The colossal canvas, entitled Ascension (2009), "was inspired by the cathedral’s architecture and its mosaic depicting the heavens", says the Tate.
From In The Frame
Published online: 24 May 2010
Do we have Deitch to thank for Lady Gaga?
There’s no doubt that Jeffrey Deitch has been one of the most influential contemporary gallerists in downtown New York, but just how influential is he? Arts blogger Culturegrrl relates an anecdote the soon to be MOCA director made in March in a talk at the Guggenheim, where it seems he might be taking some credit for planting the seed that germinated into pop phenomenon Lady Gaga: Lady Gaga fascinates me because she embodies so many of the stylistic innovations and attitudes that we were working with in our shows with Fischerspooner and Kembra Pfahler and others in our gallery. She [Gaga aka Stefani Germanotta] was a student at the Tisch School at NYU when we were presenting all these projects, and I wonder if she was in the audience, absorbing this all, and then understood brilliantly how to insert this into mainstream popular culture.
From In The Frame
Published online: 20 May 2010
Culture Minister Vaizey vouches for Hockney
Yesterday the new British culture secretary Jeremy Hunt faced the press for the first time since his appointment -and no doubt he was subjected to an inquisition on what was the last play or exhibition he saw. This event has now become a traditional rite de passage for incoming politicians at the culture department. However, we already know about the personal tastes of his deputy, culture minister Ed Vaizey. Last year Vaizey was asked by “Art Quarterly”, the Art Fund magazine, whether he would prefer to go to a Hogarth or a Hirst exhibition. It turns out his taste lies somewhere in between, and he said what he would really like would be Hockney. Vaizey is in luck, since the Royal Academy is planning a major show-although not yet announced, it is pencilled in for early 2012. However, that’s a long way ahead for a politician.
From In The Frame
Published online: 19 May 2010
Posh & Becks: art's new power couple?
Footballer David Beckham and his wife, ex-Spice Girl Victoria, have put together a contemporary art collection worth over £30m, according to the UK newspaper The Mirror. The collection, bought over eight years, is apparently "love themed" with paintings, portraits and sculptures by Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor Wood, Tracey Emin, Banksy, and Jake and Dinos Chapman. "The Beckhams' collection - much of it purchased from The White Cube gallery in London - is enough to make any self respecting art fan green with envy," gushes the report. Victoria is apparently in talks with a museum to show a portion of the collection.
From In The Frame
Published online: 18 May 2010
Cy's Parisian palace
The recent grand unveiling of the Cy Twombly ceiling at the Louvre’s Greek Bronze galleries was enlivened by the revelation that the 83-year-old maestro still always stays at the Hotel la Louisiane when in Paris, happy haunt of his bohemian youth. That auberge’s price structure, from 70 euros to their most expensive Quadruple suite at 150 euros a night, makes a notable contrast with the $1.6m cost of the newly installed ceiling. As he quipped to his gallerist Larry Gagosian, who had paid for the Louvre intervention along with philanthropist Janet Wolfson de Botton: “You always stay at the Ritz, I stay at the pits.”
From In The Frame
Published online: 17 May 2010
Lawn art (not land art)
Greece-based artist Jeremy Wood is a trailblazer in the field of drawing and mapping with satellite navigation technology. "After making the world’s biggest drawing of a pentagram by taking/tracking five airline flights over Europe, Wood has now switched focus to the microcosm that is his back garden," says a spokeswoman at Tenderpixel Gallery in London which is hosting a show of Wood's works (until 22 June) - made on the back of a lawnmower. "The Lawn Mower series charts the artist's movements on a riding mower throughout the course of several seasons. In this new body of work, Wood makes use of his unique GPS data stream by precisely plotting his time, date and position coordinates to reveal an evolving exploration of time/travel," she adds. The abstract compositions on show reflect this 21st-century sat-nav art experience.
From In The Frame
Published online: 14 May 2010
Michael Gross tries to crack the Met's wall of silence
The code of omertà and oral history might seem a contradiction in terms, but great museums move in mysterious, some might say Sicilian ways as the writer Michael Gross discovered recently. As he reported in the Huffington Post last week, when he asked to listen to taped interviews then deposited in the Smithsonian Institution about the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, while researching his history of its movers and shakers, Rogues’ Gallery, he met an official wall of silence. The Met’s tapes are now back in the Met under lock and key, access restricted, but the saga of “oral-gate” is told in the paperback version of Gross’ book, which is published this week.
From In The Frame
Published online: 12 May 2010
Mucking in at Le Centre Pompidou-Metz
It's always good to see museum bigwigs rolling up their shirtsleeves with Laurent Le Bon, director of the new Centre Pompidou-Metz, happily helping to wax the floors before the much-anticipated satellite branch in north eastern France opens tomorrow. According to one onlooker who witnessed Le Bon's efforts, the esteemed curator was also wearing a pair of "slippers" while he helped spruce up the swanky, new gallery.
From In The Frame
Published online: 11 May 2010
Captcha if you can
Proof that some contemporary artists have become all too invasive comes from a Facebook captcha (a security test that makes sure a user is human by making them enter an everyday but slightly distorted word). One of the test words should be familiar to any The Art Newspaper reader, contemporary art fan, or pickled animal aficionado. As we carefully typed in the name of the art world’s most famous enfant terrible—h-i-r-s-t—we wondered at the lower case spelling. Is there some common noun “hirst” unconnected to the proper noun artist of which we were unaware? And just what could such a “hirst” be? Reader’s guesses are welcome and the most entertaining wins a The Art Newspaper canvas bag.
From In The Frame
Published online: 10 May 2010
ICA: "No vacancies in the creative team"
In the Frame reported last week that London's beleaguered Institute of Contemporary Arts had advertised two new posts: Director of Strategy and Development (£67,500-£75,000) and Director of Finance and Operations (£67,500-£75,000). Ekow Eshun, the ICA’s artistic director, confirmed to The Art Newspaper earlier this year that to balance the books at the troubled institution, the ICA needs to cut £1m from its current salary bill of around £2.5m. Key creative figures such as Mark Sladen, ex-director of exhibitions, have since departed (“his position has been made redundant,” said an ICA press statement in March). David Thorp, who has been working with the institution as an external consultant since last year, has been advising on the ICA’s artistic programme. But will other curatorial posts be created as part of any restructuring package? "There are no vacancies in the creative team so no ads! The two directorship posts that have been advertised are part of a forward looking strategy around the creation of a new senior management team here as per the organisational review," said an ICA spokeswoman.
From In The Frame
Published online: 09 May 2010
Museum sues airline for lost...fish
Something fishy is going on the Upper West Side. Or rather it isn’t, which is the problem. The American Museum of Natural History is suing American Airlines for purportedly dumping two barrels of fish, according to documents filed in a Manhattan federal court. The museum claims the preserved fish were to be studied as part of its "Congo Project" and is seeking at least $25,000 in damages and the "loss of research”. The airline allegedly destroyed the aquatic specimens when the plane carrying them stopped in Brussels on its way from Africa because the barrels they were packed in were leaking and “full of maggots”. But the museum says that “explanation is not credible because the fish specimens had been preserved in a solution of formalin and then double-bagged, creating an environment in which no maggot or pest could survive”.
From In The Frame
Published online: 07 May 2010
Nollywood comes to NYC
You’ve heard of Hollywood, you’ve heard of Bollywood, but have you ever heard of Nollywood? That’s what the independent film industry in Nigeria is called, and curious movie buffs can get an idea of the genre at tonight’s screening of the Nollywood inspired short film Dr Cruel, written by and starring Danish-Icelandic artist Jakob Boeskov and directed by Nigerian action movie director Teco Benson. We don’t know how a Scandinavian artist hooked up with an African director, but the work’s description sounds irresistible: “the film begins with a press conference featuring the sinister character Dr. Cruel, head of the Afro-Icelandic Liberation Front based in Lagos, who holds a kidnapped oil executive for ransom while preaching a message of non-violence. All goes awry, however, when the Nigerian police surround his hideout and he makes a mad dash with his crew to escape. ‘It’s a mix between the Beastie Boys and an Al-Qaeda kidnapping video gone haywire,’ says Boeskov.” For details visit Creative Time which is hosting the premiere at the African Film Festival.
From In The Frame
Published online: 06 May 2010
Sacha's (art) world
A pr statement has popped into our in-box duly informing us that Anglo-Indian artist Sacha Jafri will show works at the Russian Eastern & Oriental Fine Art Fair in London (9-12 June) with Tanya Baxter Contemporary gallery. Jafri has a hectic schedule with the press notice pointing out that his solo show Universe of the Child is set to open at the Saatchi Gallery's Phillips de Pury space in April 2011. Jafri's major 2010 project is also highlighted: The Royal Commission, "which will see Jafri paint the “22 Most Influential Living Muslims...the initiative will see Jafri paint 22 inspiring and influential leaders of the Muslim world, a montage of their remarkable journeys, life achievements and beliefs on large scale canvases, including such luminaries as: Mohammed Ali, Yousef Islam, Zinedine Zidane, Imran Khan, Omar Sharif, HRH Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum - Dubai, HRH Sheikh Khalifa al Nahyan - Abu Dhabi, HRH King Hamad of Bahrain, King Abdullah of Jordan, Queen Rania of Jordan, HE Sheikha Lubna Al-Qassimi, HRH The Emir and HRH Sheikha Mozzah of Qatar, Amir Khan, Hicham El Guerrouj, M.F Hussain, HH Prince AlWaleed AlSaud, HRH Sheikh Dr.Sultan Al-Qassimi and 'Honoury (sic) Muslim' - Baraq (sic) Obama."
From In The Frame
Published online: 06 May 2010
Dexter Dalwood is bookie's favourite for Turner Prize
Tate has announced the finalists for its prestigious and often contentious Turner Prize. The four UK artists shortlisted for the £25,000 include Glaswegian Susan Philipsz, best known for singing over a supermarket PA system; London-based Angela de la Cruz, who displays her torn and folded paintings in the corners and doorways of galleries; Bristol-born painter Dexter Dalwood, who depicts famous death scenes; and the artist team the Otolith Group, aka Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun (brother of Ekow, artistic director of the beleaguered ICA), whose work includes a film investigating Mumbai’s sweatshops. They all sound like strong contenders, but if you’re a betting man (or woman) bookmaker William Hill has already come out with odds in favour of one artist, Dexter Dalwood, who has been installed as their 2/1 “obvious favourite” to win “as his work is well know and easy on the eye,” according to Hill's spokesman Rupert Adams.
From In The Frame
Published online: 04 May 2010
Fairey faces the law over mural—again
Shepard Fairey just can’t win it seems. The graffiti artist and activist is used to run-ins with the law—it comes with the territory when your medium is wheat-paste posters and your canvas is private property—but even his official commissions have come under scrutiny. According to blog Animal New York, the city's buildings commission has issued a stop work order on his mural project on the Bowery, commissioned by dealer Jeffrey Deitch for his last gallery show before he leaves the commercial world to take over LA’s MOCA. According to the official notices, the mural was erected without a permit and if the correct paperwork isn’t filed, the structure will have to be torn down. The question remains, is this guerrilla art or guerrilla marketing? Details of the notices can be seen over at Animal.
From In The Frame
Published online: 03 May 2010
Cash-strapped ICA on the hunt for new staff
We noted with interest a prominent advertisement in this weekend's Guardian for two new managerial posts at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. Ekow Eshun, the ICA’s artistic director, confirmed to The Art Newspaper earlier this year that to balance the books at the beleaguered institution, the ICA needs to cut £1m from its current salary bill of around £2.5m. Key figures such as Mark Sladen, ex director of exhibitions, have since departed (“his position has been made redundant,” said an ICA press statement in March). The two roles up for grabs are Director of Strategy and Development (£67,500-£75,000) and Director of Finance and Operations (£67,500-£75,000). So what kind of qualities will prospective candidates need to possess? For the finance post, the ad stresses that "you will drive revenue and contribute to developing strategy and setting the future direction of the organisation within a framework of prudent and effective controls."
From In The Frame
Published online: 03 May 2010