Art is where you find it

Philadelphian  edition

Art is where you find it

In another life we have been taking a set of photographs we have called Once were petrol stations. This is to explain why we have been showing an interest in a new petrol station that is being build just round the corner. So we were there yesterday when, as you do with your modern petrol station, they brought in the sculpture to install.

Underground art

The last place you'd expect an arresting art experience would have to be a disused Air Force ammunition bunker. And the name of the place - Bomb Point - would have to be another clue against it. But there in a small buried chamber beneath a dispersal field, we came under this steady gaze. In an era of exhibition spectacle and career competition it was nice to stumble across something done just for the pleasure of it and for those few who might find it.

Simply Simon

Let’s put two and two together here. Last year Simon Denny was nominated for the prestigeous Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst (National Gallery Young Art Prize) the judges included ex Artspace direrctor Tobias Berger and Massimiliano Gioni. Last week on Radio New Zealand Venice Commissioner Jenny Harper mentioned she'd heard that the first New Zealand artist had been selected for the important Arsenale exhibition that accompanies the Biennale. That exhibition will be selected and curated by Venice Biennale’s artistic director who is also Massimiliano Gioni.

Copy Cassie

The trouble with artists mixing it with design and fashion is that it gives your signature style an incentive to sneak off and slum it down in the commodity markets. One day you’re pimping Louis Vuitton, the next you’re background fodder for a trashy video clip. If you’re up for it here’s a music video by Nicki Minaj & Cassie performing The Boys. Apart from the Kusama blitz there are other art references to be spotted – at least a nod to Warhol and that sure looks like a Turrell roof piece, then there’s the Dali chair and (if one pink balloon is enough) the start of Creed’s Work Number 329 Pink balloons, a room with balloons talking up half its volumetric space.

Images: Lookalikes from top to bottom left to right, Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, James Turrell, Salvador Dali and (at a pinch) Martin Creed

Art is where you find it

The art. Where we found it.