We’re toast

It’s true OTN has never baulked at art made on the edges. Over the years we have featured animals, savants, LEGOISTS and all kinds of alternate materials. But when three (thanks G, L and R … we think) send in Ida Frosk’s art toast efforts we get the feeling we’re drifting off brand.

The voice of Domm

Wow that didn’t take long. Auckland Art Gallery’s first Deputy Director Viv Beck (and acting director since Chris Saines’s departure) has resigned after just seven months in the job. Not a good look for the Art Gallery boss and CE of Regional Facilities Auckland Robert Domm. You may recall that Domm’s first foray into the Art Gallery’s business was to try and push AAG director Chris Saines out of his job. That didn’t work and Saines was allowed to stay on during which time he sensibly got himself another posting.

Beck was brought in to zoom up the commercial aspects of the Gallery but clearly met with difficulties. Art galleries are seldom built to serve as commercial spaces and the new AAG building for all the fanfare is no exception. The foyer for all its fancy kauri kit-out, can only squeeze in 180 for dinner and that's not enough to bring in big bucks. Besides, anyone who was at the Walters Prize sit-down last year will know that the space really struggles even at that number.

Of course Domm's Facilities team is also counting on the actual gallery spaces to pull their weight. Their brochure promises that “works by some of the country’s most respected artists provide instant colour and pizzazz for dinners and cocktails.” This offer gives you some idea of how Regional Facilities approaches things cultural. 

So watch closely to see who replaces Beck. Word is, thanks to her art world experience and interest, Beck got on with AAG staff and was seen out and about at art events which always goes down well. It would certainly not be a good sign for the future of the gallery if Domm fills the Beck gap with someone who has no art background or connections.

An education

Yes that is a Donald Judd sculpture and yes that is pretty much how the kids drew it on circles of cardboard and made it out of brown paper. Fortunately Donald Judd wasn’t there to see it. Fortunately for the kids that is.

Spaced out

One piece of weirdness currently on sale on TradeMe  and LinkBusiness is an Auckland gallery specialising in “original contemporary New Zealand art by renowned New Zealand artists”. Sounds ok, except the works shown to entice you are a painting and sculpture by Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell’s Black figuration on blue and Transcendent presence by Richard Pousette-Dart. Who's betting these works come with the gallery asking price of $110,00?

The gallery image has of course been liberated from the internet and this TradeMe seller is not alone. Start with the Serenity Bed and Breakfast in Canada. It's offering tours art tours round the local galleries and guess what? That damn de Kooning is on show in Brighton, Ontario. Meanwhile Aaron Blumenshine has taken down the masters and replaced them with his own work while the San DiegoUniversity art school has thrown caution to the wind and simply used the image as is to promote itself. Karro International Fine Art in Miami at least had the decency to hang its own paintings in the hijacked space although it did leave the de Kooning sculpture as part of the decor. Biggest surprise use of the space has got to be a model wearing a hijab in a virtual fashion shoot although Cherry Cole, bless her, is up there with her imitation of a statue right in front of the de Kooning.

 

Who knows why this particular image has attracted so many appropriators (we found over fifty examples). Maybe it was nothing more than that the gallery space and the de Kooning looked like modern art should. Once it was out there and digital though, it was fair game

For the record the real owner of this museum space and the art works is the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan.

Images: From the top as seen in TradeMe, SanDiego University art school, Karro International Fine At, Aaron Blumshire's page, hajib fashions, Cherry Cole and as originally photographed in the galleries of the Grand Rapids Art Museum

Sitting ducks

Anyone who is a regular at art openings will have been to at least one after show dinner. At worst you’re trudging the streets in a pack of twenty looking for a restaurant (“no, we won’t have to book, there’s plenty of places") or the place has been pre-booked ("there’s 30 of us now and we're two hours late, can you manage?”). Even if you get inside the doors though, you'll still be left with the biggest question of all: where do I sit? Or, even more importantly, who will I end up sitting next to?

Fortunately help is at hand thanks to some brain time by Alex Cornell. He points out that “as the diameter of the table increases so does the importance of who you sit next to.” Safest are four person round or square tables where at least one of the three should be good company and is easily available from every sitting position.

A room with two tables of any size? As Mr Cornell says, “You’re fucked.“ He explains. “Whenever you make your choice of where to sit you will always choose too soon. You can only lament as the other table’s attendance crystallizes into what is clearly the superior group. Sometimes it’s best to visit the bathroom while seats are chosen, so any seating disasters are the result of chance, and not your own miscalculation.” You can read Cornell’s comments on other table arrangements and important concepts like diagonals, quiet spaces and lonely end-seats here.

And if you want a reminder of just how bad these dinners can be, try watching the ultimate glad-I-wasn’t-there after opening party in this clip from Julian Schnabel’s movie Basquiat.

Image: 'Andy' and Co. at the diner from hell in Basquiat

Onward my brave Hawkmen

It’s not everyday that the people running our cultural institutions let their guard down and reveal what they're thinking - particularly about the future and how it might affect their audiences. In the weekend a long piece in the DominionPost got Te Papa CEO Michael Houlihan to open up on the ways Te Papa intends to implement its radical new plan to split into a museum of living culture and a museum for the future. They are:

Create a display of a Gallipoli trench

Display more of the fine art collection

Continue showing art on the fifth floor

Collect furniture

Collect video games

Change the Treaty of Waitangi exhibit

Exhibit more photography

Record plays and performances

Tour Te Papa exhibitions

Not be the home of the usual museum-going crowd

Let the magic begin

Image: Red stave chair by Humphrey Ikin purchased for the Te Papa collection in 1997

Members only

Outstanding combination of images on the Sarjeant Gallery's Tumblr promoting Sarah Maxey's Dome installation Comeback. Thanks to regular reader KEAT for pointing it out. If you need an innuendo break go here.