24 exhibitions found in
Amsterdam
Cambridge
Dresden
London
Los Angeles
Miami Beach
New Haven
New York
NewYork
St Petersburg
Tønsberg
Hermitage Amsterdam
At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th Century
Dates: 20 Jun 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Decorative
Address: Amstel 51 Amsterdam 11675
Tel: +31-20-5308755 Website
This huge exhibition—featuring more than 2,000 objects on loan from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg—inaugurates the Russian museum’s Amsterdam’s home in the newly restored 17th-century Amstelhof (now the Hermitage’s sole foreign exhibition centre). The space has been designed by the architectural firm Merkx+Girod to give an impression of the splendour of public rooms in which the court met in the royal palaces in St Petersburg and Moscow. Russia vacillated in the 19th century between Francophile and “native” Slavic and Byzantine poles: the court fashioned its taste on European or national styles and more often than not a combination of the two. The tsars patronised artists and craftsmen from Italy, France and Germany, and British gardeners to ensure that the Russian court kept pace with developments in western Europe, and a succession of German tsarinas ensured a regular flow of works by Romantic and Nazarene artists. In the court costumes and furniture we see the native adaptation of the same sequence of styles seen elsewhere—neo-classical, Egyptian, Gothic revival and art nouveau. In this show are ball gowns and uniforms, jewellery by Fabergé, court paintings, furniture, silver, clocks and watches and Sèvres and other porcelain dinner services. D.L.
A. Malyukov, after original by Franz Krüger, Alexandra Feodorovna, 1836.
Kettle’s Yard
Roger Hilton: Late Works and the Night Letters
Dates: 21 Nov 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Post-War (1945-70)
Address: Castle Street Cambridge CB3 0AQ
Tel: +44 (0)1223 748 100 Website
The British painter Roger Hilton’s final years were spent in his cottage at Botallack Moor, Cornwall, suffering from peripheral neuritis and the effects of long-term drinking and smoking. Confined to bed, he turned to working with poster paints, charcoal and gouache through the hours of the night, sleeping during the day. This show consists of more than 50 paintings and drawings that reflect his prolific return to an interest in figuration, and letters he left for his wife, the artist Rose Hilton. The show coincides with the publication of a new edition of “Night Letters”, edited by Timothy Bond and published by the Archive of Modern Conflict. The exhibition follows last year’s show of paintings by the artist at Kettle’s Yard, “Swinging Out into the Void”.
Untitled, 1974
Residenzschloss
Dates: 23 Aug 09 - 4 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Address: Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Schlossplatz, Georgenbau Dresden 01067
Tel: + 49 (0)3 51 49 14 2000 Website
News of arranged marriages causes outrage in the western media: the very idea of an involuntary wedding flies in the face of the bien-pensant orthodoxies of feminism and romantic love. Meanwhile, the west’s own history of arranged marriages goes largely unacknowledged (apart from anachronistic condemnations) and with it any recognition that these arrangements are largely responsible not only for the political shape of our nations today, but that they resulted in a vast and rich European artistic and cultural heritage. Should there be any doubt about the positive effects of diplomatic unions, this exhibition of 260 objects and works of art from eight of the Dresden State Museums and another 100 loaned by the Royal Danish Collections at Rosenborg Castle (whither the show will travel next year), Fredericksborg Castle, the National Museum of Denmark, the Royal Library and the Statens Museum for Kunst, will convince the severest cultural critic. Following the establishment of Lutheranism as the state religion of Saxony and Denmark (in 1527 and 1537 respectively), it was imperative for their rulers to find brides of the right religion to create political bonds. The international diplomatic approaches, the marriage negotiations and contractual terms, the weddings and the ensuing relationships—personal, public and political—were all commemorated by the production, exchange and collection of a vast array of works of art. Paintings (mainly portraits) and drawings (many of the diplomatic and state occasions) by artists such as Lucas Cranach the Younger and Karel van Mander, jewellery (including spectacular Saxon and Danish chivalric orders), silver, ceremonial arms and armour, highly wrought objets de vertu in silver and gold by Johann Melchior Dinglinger, among others, commemorative coins and medals, textiles including uniforms and court dress, printed texts and images, ceramics and glass have been assembled to illustrate and provide a backdrop to four marriages over five generations and 150 years of Saxon and Danish marriages—first, of the Saxon Elector August to Anna, the daughter of King Christian III of Denmark in 1548; of the Elector Christian II to Hedwig, the daughter of the Danish King Frederick II in 1602; of Magdalene Sibylle, daughter of the Elector Johann Georg I, to Christian, Crown Prince of Denmark, in 1634; and of the Elector Johann Georg III to Anna Sophie, daughter of King Frederick II in 1666. (There is, incidentally, a British connection in all this: Hedwig’s sister, Anna, was the wife of King James VI and I of Scotland and England, and Anna Sophie was the sister of Prince Georg, the husband of the fecund but fruitless Queen Anne of England.) The objects on display relate directly to these unions; for example, we are shown the Elector Augustus’s wedding uniform, objects collected by Hedwig during her long widowhood, illustrated prints of the wedding of Magdalene Sibylle, the silver wedding armour of the Elector Johann Georg III, and much, much more. This exhibition has been long in the making. Its principal curator, Jutta Kappel, deputy director of the Grünes Gewölbe, told The Art Newspaper: “It has long been my dream to curate this exhibition. When I started work at the Grünes Gewölbe 20 years ago, I wanted to write about the women of the Saxon court and I found Jorgen Heim [curator of the Royal Danish Collections] had a similar idea. So, ‘Crossing the Sea with Fortuna’ is literally a dream come true.” The 320-page catalogue, edited by Dr Kappel and the exhibition’s specialist curator, Claudia Brink, is published by Deutscher Kunstverlag (€34.90, ISBN 9783422069091). D.L.
A 16th-century Milanese crystal nef or salt, in the form of a ship mounted in gold, enamel, emeralds and rubies
British Library
Points of View: Capturing the 19th Century in Photographs
Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 7 Mar 10
Categories: Photography
Address: 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB
Tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7332 Website
British Museum
Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Latin American
Address: Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7323 8299 Website
A dejected ruler murdered by his own people after failing to prevent Spanish forces from conquering his once mighty empire that at its height stretched from the Pacific Ocean the Gulf of Mexico; this is the image of Moctezuma II that resonates five centuries after his demise. This show, the last in the museum’s series to explore power and empire through historical figures, investigates the less well-known period in the life of the Aztec emperor—the 18 years he reigned prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. The display tells the story of Moctezuma (reigned 1502-20) through monumental sculpture, gold and turquoise artefacts, codices, European portraits and enconchados (oil paintings with mother of pearl detail inlaid on wood panels) drawn from the museum’s collection as well as those in Mexico, the US and Europe. “We want to reinsert Moctezuma into the Columbian world as a unique ruler in his own right—not merely as a post-colonial figure. It’s a wonderful challenge,” says Dr Colin McEwan, head of the museum’s Americas department and curator of the show, in cooperation with his Mexican colleagues Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Leonardo López Luján and Felipe Solís Olguín, who died in April 2009. Divided into thematic sections, the show examines various aspects of Moctezuma’s life including his role as a semi-divine figure or intermediary with Aztec gods, his military prowess and his varied achievements as a ruler. The exhibition also delves into the Spanish conquest and presents an alternative version of the ruler’s death. On display are two 16th-century codices—shown together here for the first time—one of which depicts Moctezuma in chains and the other with a rope around his neck, suggesting he might not have willingly welcomed the Spanish, but rather been a captive who was later dispatched by the Hispanic invaders. “We’re showing how history is constructed and represented and how events can be read in the 21st century. We want to bring less well-known aspects of his life into Western historicity,” says McEwan. The show presents new scholarship on the emperor including the first in-depth reconstruction of a lost portrait of Moctezuma carved into Chapultepec Hill in Mexico City. E.S.
Turquoise mosaic mask, Aztec/Mixtec, 1400-1521 AD
National Portrait Gallery
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize
Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Photography
Address: St Martin’s Place London WC2H 0HE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7312 2463 Website
This portrait photography prize, sponsored by law firm Taylor Wessing, is seen as one of the leading international photographic awards with a £12,000 prize for the winner. The 60 works on show have been chosen from about 6,300 submissions by a panel that includes Diane Smyth, deputy editor of the British Journal of Photography, NPG director Sandy Nairne and photographer Fergus Greer. “We were all very much agreed on the work that didn’t quite hit the mark, but the process of whittling the list down to the 60 photographs that would be shown in the NPG, and then the top four that would become the shortlist, was a lot tougher,” says Smyth “It was interesting to see that two styles that seem popular in both the UK and the US—the snapshot aesthetic and highly polished, retouched imagery—were not that prominent. A large majority of the work was documentary and semi-staged”. New this year is the Elle Commission, judged by Elle’s editor-in-chief Lorraine Candy, the winner of which will be commissioned to shoot a feature story for the magazine. W.O.
Paul Floyd Blake, Rosie Bancroft, 2008.
Poussin
Dates: 1 Aug 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Block K, 175 Bermondsey Street London SE1 3UW
Tel: +44 (0)20 7403 4444 Website
Richard Green
Old Master and British Paintings
Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: 147 New Bond Street London W1S 2TS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 3939 Website
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
Renoma: Reflections of Wroclaw
Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 30 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
A Higher Ambition: Owen Jones (1809-74)
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Decorative
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Mind into Matter: Eight Exemplary Buildings 1834-2009
Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Modern (1900-1945)
Post-War (1945-70)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Photography
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Of Dreams and Cities - Architecture in Film
Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Video & New Media
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Open Poland: Architecture and Identity
Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 25 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Saatchi Gallery
Newspeak: British Art Now at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Dates: 25 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Duke of York, King's Road London SW3
Tel: +44 (0)20 7823 2363 Website
Tate Britain
Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 16 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Millbank London SW1P 4RG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7887 8888 Website
The annual hunt for trends and themes that inevitably accompanies the announcement of the Turner Prize shortlist has fallen this year on the works of contemporary surrealist Enrico David, installation artist Roger Hiorns, Glasgow-based artist Lucy Skaer, and wall-based artist Richard Wright. Drawing is in, while Glasgow’s standing as a British centre for contemporary art is recognised with two of the artists living and working in the Scottish city. The exhibition is curated by Lizzie Carey-Thomas, the Tate’s curator of contemporary British art: “If anything characterises this year’s shortlist it is probably craft and drawing, which underpin all of the artists’ work. They also have a very direct engagement with their materials and the process of making in the more traditional sense of the word.” Another key theme that engages the four, she says, is the process of transformation. “Lucy Skaer, for example, always starts with a found image that she transforms through a process of transcribing it from one format to another,” said Carey-Thomas. “Through that process she attempts to slow down our understanding of what we are looking at, to draw attention to the act of looking.” Skaer, who divides her time between Glasgow and London, has meditated on diverse themes in past works, including whales, prison cells and the artist Leonora Carrington. Italian-born David, like Skaer, often appropriates and uses pre-existing imagery in his sculptures, paintings and works on paper that feature comically grotesque cloth dolls and harlequins—he is shortlisted for solo shows at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, and the Seattle Art Museum. Glasgow-based artist Richard Wright (b1960), who just sneaks in under the prize’s under-50 criteria, moved in the early 1990s from figurative paintings on canvas to delicate, hand-drawn patterns and marks applied directly on to walls. The drawings relate closely to their architectural context, often sitting modestly in unlikely corners or on decorative features. Roger Hiorns is shortlisted for his Artangel-commissioned exhibition Seizure, 2008, for which he filled a disused 1960s South London flat with 90,000 litres of liquid copper sulphate to create an alien, cavernous space coated in intense blue crystals. Hiorn’s knowledge of his materials is such that he can set the works in motion and then allow them to take their course. Carey-Thomas suggests there will be surprises in the show but that the artists have remained focused on the long view. “Yes, it’s the Turner Prize and it has a higher profile than most shows of contemporary art, but I don’t think that’s really entered into their decisions as to what to show. They’ve approached it thinking about where they are now in their practice, where their work is going and wanting to reflect that in the exhibition above and beyond anything else.” The artists were selected by Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Jonathan Jones, art critic, Mariella Frostrup, writer and broadcaster, Andrea Schlieker, director of the Folkestone Triennial and Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain and the jury’s chair. The winner of the £25,000 award—the runners-up receive £5,000 each—will be broadcast live on Channel 4 on 7 December. James Hobbs
Whitechapel Art Gallery
Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Curious
Address: 77-82 Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7522 7888 Website
Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical
British Watercolors of the Eastern Mediterranean
Dates: 18 Jul 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Old Master
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 1151 Oxford Road Los Angeles 91108
Tel: +1 626 405 2125 Website
Wolfsonian-Florida International University
Rhythms of Modern Life: British Prints 1914-39
Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: 1001 Washington Avenue Miami Beach 33139
Tel: +1 305 535 2622 Website
Yale Center for British Art
Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill
Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Address: 1080 Chapel Street New Haven 06520-8280
Tel: +1 203 432 2800 Website
Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 1080 Chapel Street New Haven 06520-8280
Tel: +1 203 432 2800 Website
Towards the end of the 18th century, Edmund Burke summed up Mrs Delany as “a real fine lady, the model of an accomplished woman of former times”, a succinct and just verdict: Mary Delany, née Granville (1700-88), was the epitome of sense and sensibility. A niece of George Granville, First Baron Lansdowne, she was a friend of Handel, corresponded with Swift, was entertained by Garrick, courted by John Wesley, discussed botany with Banks and Solander, studied drawing with Hogarth, flower drawing with Ehret, painting with Goupy, her collages were praised by Reynolds, and her portrait was painted by Opie. At the age of 17, she had entered into a loveless arranged marriage with Alexander Pendarves, MP, 40 years her senior. When he died in 1724, she moved to London where she began to create a circle of friends and acquaintances and to perfect her talents as an artist, writer and needlewoman. Following an introduction in 1776 to King George III and Queen Charlotte, she moved to a small house in Windsor, provided by the royal couple, to facilitate frequent visits. This exhibition, created in collaboration with Sir John Soane’s Museum (whither it travels, 18 February-1 May 2010), consists of 130 objects that belonged to or were associated with her: drawings, embroidery, shell-work, botanical specimens, manuscripts and, above all, her découpages—extraordinary illustrations of plants and flowers, made entirely of colour paper. D.L.
Opie, Portrait of Mrs Delany, 1782
Asia Society
Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 725 Park Avenue New York 10021
Tel: +1 212 288 6400 Website
Performa 09 is the third biennial of new visual art performance, held in collaboration with 80 institutions, and featuring more than 150 international artists in about 110 events organised by 40 international curators—all in just three weeks. That dizzying set of statistics is being overseen by director RoseLee Goldberg, who set up the non-profit arts organisation Performa in 2004 and has done much to bring performance art and its history to the fore, as much through her writings as through her teaching and curatorial work, turning the public eye on to such performance artists as Marina Abramovic and Laurie Anderson. “The major difference for Performa 09 compared with previous biennials is that we’re commissioning from all disciplines, encompassing art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, film, television, design, food—it’s crossing all disciplines, and that is the big leap forward this year,” said Goldberg. Her major contribution this year is the “Performa Commissions” series, which forms the nerve centre of the biennial, alongside, for the first time, a “Performa Premieres” programme featuring six pieces never before seen in New York. The 11 new commissions are by Guy Ben-Ner, Candice Breitz, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Omer Fast, Yeondoo Jung, Mike Kelley, Arto Lindsay, Wangechi Mutu, Christian Tomaszewski, Futurist Life Redux and Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners (a group of experimental musicians and composers). South African video and installation artist Candice Breitz is presenting New York New York, 2009, her first live performance work. The piece features two casts, made up of identical twins performing on identical sets, spontaneously responding to scripts given to them on the spot. Unlike the performers, viewers will be able to take in both performances in real time. Other highlights in this programme include Yeondoo Jung’s Cinemagician, 2009, at the Asia Society—a theatre piece, commissioned with the Yokohama Festival for Video and Social Technology, that looks at the relationship between magic and cinema—and Omer Fast’s first live performance piece, commissioned with the Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, which looks at history and memory through the re-enaction of a childhood storytelling game. The six artists chosen for the “Performa Premieres” programme are Keren Cytter, Tacita Dean, Alicia Framis, Loris Gréaud, William Kentridge and Joan Jonas. British artist Tacita Dean is presenting Craneway Event, 2009, at Danspace Project in the Bowery. This feature-length work shows the choreographer Merce Cunningham and his company in rehearsal in a deserted Ford motor factory in California, marking Cunningham’s last appearance on film before his death in July. South African artist William Kentridge is showing I Am Not Me, the Horse is Not Mine, 2009, a work related to his current opera-in-progress inspired by Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1928 satirical opera “The Nose”, and French artist Loris Gréaud is showing a video of a fireworks display in Abu Dhabi that he co-designed with Groupe F. There are related events across the city involving architecture, design, dance, film, music and food. Berlin-based architecture collective An Architektur is creating a “living think-tank” about the future of architecture in New York, Spanish designer Marti Guixé is staging Mealing, a three-hour performance involving 200 people and “edible microsnacks”, and Jennifer Rubell stages Creation on the opening night of the biennial, with a series of food installations at X Initiative. Rosie Spencer
A performance still from the Korean artist Yeondoo Jung’s theatrical work Cinemagician, showing at the Asia Society, New York
Performa
Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Video & New Media
Address: Various venues NewYork
Tel: Website
P erforma 09 is the third biennial of new visual art performance, held in collaboration with 80 institutions, and featuring more than 150 international artists in about 110 events organised by 40 international curators—all in just three weeks. That dizzying set of statistics is being overseen by director RoseLee Goldberg, who set up the non-profit arts organisation Performa in 2004 and has done much to bring performance art and its history to the fore, as much through her writings as through her teaching and curatorial work, turning the public eye on to such performance artists as Marina Abramovic and Laurie Anderson. “The major difference for Performa 09 compared with previous biennials is that we’re commissioning from all disciplines, encompassing art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, film, television, design, food—it’s crossing all disciplines, and that is the big leap forward this year,” said Goldberg. Her major contribution this year is the “Performa Commissions” series, which forms the nerve centre of the biennial, alongside, for the first time, a “Performa Premieres” programme featuring six pieces never before seen in New York. The 11 new commissions are by Guy Ben-Ner, Candice Breitz, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Omer Fast, Yeondoo Jung, Mike Kelley, Arto Lindsay, Wangechi Mutu, Christian Tomaszewski, Futurist Life Redux and Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners (a group of experimental musicians and composers). South African video and installation artist Candice Breitz is presenting New York New York, 2009, her first live performance work. The piece features two casts, made up of identical twins performing on identical sets, spontaneously responding to scripts given to them on the spot. Unlike the performers, viewers will be able to take in both performances in real time. Other highlights in this programme include Yeondoo Jung’s Cinemagician, 2009, at the Asia Society—a theatre piece, commissioned with the Yokohama Festival for Video and Social Technology, that looks at the relationship between magic and cinema—and Omer Fast’s first live performance piece, commissioned with the Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, which looks at history and memory through the re-enaction of a childhood storytelling game. The six artists chosen for the “Performa Premieres” programme are Keren Cytter, Tacita Dean, Alicia Framis, Loris Gréaud, William Kentridge and Joan Jonas. British artist Tacita Dean is presenting Craneway Event, 2009, at Danspace Project in the Bowery. This feature-length work shows the choreographer Merce Cunningham and his company in rehearsal in a deserted Ford motor factory in California, marking Cunningham’s last appearance on film before his death in July. South African artist William Kentridge is showing I Am Not Me, the Horse is Not Mine, 2009, a work related to his current opera-in-progress inspired by Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1928 satirical opera “The Nose”, and French artist Loris Gréaud is showing a video of a fireworks display in Abu Dhabi that he co-designed with Groupe F. There are related events across the city involving architecture, design, dance, film, music and food. Berlin-based architecture collective An Architektur is creating a “living think-tank” about the future of architecture in New York, Spanish designer Marti Guixé is staging Mealing, a three-hour performance involving 200 people and “edible microsnacks”, and Jennifer Rubell stages Creation on the opening night of the biennial, with a series of food installations at X Initiative. Rosie Spencer
A performance still from the Korean artist Yeondoo Jung’s theatrical work Cinemagician, showing at the Asia Society, New York, as part of Performa 09
State Hermitage Museum
Dates: 25 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 2, Dvortsovaya Ploshchad St Petersburg 190000
Tel: +7 812 710 90 79 Website
The Hermitage continues its “20/21” contemporary art programme with “Newspeak: British Art Now”, the museum’s second collaboration with London’s Saatchi Gallery after “USA Today” in 2007, which kicked off the project. Since then the Hermitage has shown paintings by US artist Chuck Close, textiles by Russian artist Timur Novikov, photography by Russian artist Boris Smelov, and gothic sculpture by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. “Newspeak” at the Hermitage includes the work of around 20 British artists—including Spartacus Chetwynd, Mustafa Hulusi, Goshka Macuga, Toby Ziegler, Pablo Bronstein and Littlewhitehead—on show in one of the museum’s largest rooms, the Nikolaevsky Hall in the Winter Palace. The exhibition will have an expanded UK showing at the Saatchi Gallery in June 2010. “After the success of ‘USA Today’, we were discussing possibilities of future joint projects with the Saatchi Gallery,” Dimitri Ozerkov, head of the 20/21 project and curator of “Newspeak”, told The Art Newspaper. “We agreed to make a British show in partnership, but agreed that the final selection and conception would be carried out by a Hermitage curator, and the premiere is in St Petersburg.” Ozerkov is an enthusiastic follower of Saatchi, and is convinced of the superiority of this collection. “Some 80%, if not more, of the world’s contemporary art is total rubbish, and big institutions such as museums know this, but are not allowed to say it publicly. One feels this when researching material for a show,” he told us. Saatchi proposed the title “Newspeak”, which refers to the fictional language spoken in George Orwell’s novel “1984”. Ozerkov made the initial selection of exhibits from Saatchi’s website, and then visited the works in storage in London, where most of the works for the exhibition were chosen. He also visited studios and galleries to finalise a number of acquisitions and commissions for the show, including a new work by Pablo Bronstein, Relocation of Temple Bar, 2009. “The Hermitage will present only the best part of the collection,” Ozerkov told us. “Some of the works I didn’t find interesting for a Russian audience—such as those referring to everyday realities that a Russian visitor would not understand. Some of the works won’t work well in the context of an old traditional museum. But there are still a couple of risky decisions and I’m curious about the reaction of visitors.” He cites Barry Reigate’s work, in which “cartoon characters parade, penises in hand, to be installed at the Hermitage’s heart”. The exhibition will also include the work of one of the artists featured in the forthcoming reality TV show, currently titled “Saatchi Art Stars”. The BBC programme—which is due to air from late November for four weeks—will feature six artists, to be judged by a panel comprising artist Tracey Emin, broadcaster and critic Matthew Collings, collector Frank Cohen and Barbican Art Gallery head Kate Bush. Rosie Spencer
![Alastair MacKinven, Et Sick
In Infinitum [Sic], 2008](exhpics/206-wo-rs-newspeak1.jpg)
Alastair MacKinven, Et Sick In Infinitum [Sic], 2008
Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum
Dates: 12 Sep 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Gråbrødregaten 17 Tønsberg N-3110
Tel: +47 33 30 76 70 Website
Bringing together Norwegian and international artists, including Lucy and Jorge Orta, Sonja Braas and German multimedia duo SpringerParker, this exhibition highlights the worldwide effect of climate change. Some of the works, which include installations, sculptures, paintings, photography and sound pieces, have been inspired by time spent by the artists on Arctic and Antarctic research ships, giving the contributors first-hand experience of the state of the polar ice caps. Other artists have produced works that reflect on the energy crisis and depleting global resources. British artist Charlie Hooker brings these elements together in Timeline, which utilises archival material to trace the changes in climate over a period of 30,000 years. W.O.
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