Anthea Hamilton, Project for a Door (After Gaetano Pesce) (2016), vi Art Observed
With the early weeks of the fall art season comes the opening of the annual Turner Prize exhibition, bringing together works from each of the artists’ nominated for Britain’s highest honor for contemporary art. This year’s exhibition, one of the more cohesively selected, and consistently inventive in recent years, has already earned impressive accolades, with a striking quartet of artist’s each exploring constructions of space and identity through diverse historical, technical, and material connections. (more…)
As the Tate Britain closes its show of Barbara Hepworth sculpture, the Guardian looks back on the career of departing curator and director Penelope Curtis, publishing an open letter from a group of prominent British intellectuals. “Curtis, and the curators with whom she worked within and outside Tate Britain, re-introduced us to the British collections – often showing us works long hidden, invariably in fresh contexts,” the letter reads. (more…)
The Guardian notes the convoluted history of a John Constable painting in the collection of the Tate, as a recent export license raises questions as to whether or not the work should be classified as Nazi loot. “The Spoliation Advisory Panel have reviewed the new information which came to light in 2014 regarding John Constable’s Beaching a Boat, Brighton, 1824,” the Tate said in a statement. “They have made a recommendation, which will be taken to Tate’s Board of Trustees at their next meeting.” (more…)
As part of new project titled “After Dark”, the Tate Britain will deploy four remote-controlled robots throughout its galleries for five nights beginning September 13th. The public will be able to watch live-stream footage on the Tate’s website as the camera-equipped robots roam the museum’s collection, which includes works by David Hockney, Lucian Freud, and Henry Moore, for five hours each night. Since the robots choose new operators every few minutes, some viewers might get the chance to control the feed and see their favorite artworks in the empty galleries. (more…)
The Tate has unveiled their 2015 lineup, which will include sculptor Alexander Calder‘s first retrospective at the Tate Modern, from November 2015 to the spring of 2016. The Tate Modern will also present an a large exhibition of works by the South-African artist Marlene Dumas in Spring 2015 in addition to the show “The World Goes Pop,” an exploration of Pop Art in the ’60s and ’70s. At the Tate Britain, Cornish sculptor Barbara Hepworth will be featured during Summer 2015, and the museum will also present exhibition of works by painter Frank Auerbach during the following autumn season. At the Tate Liverpool, the late work by Jackson Pollock will be exhibited in a summer show titled “Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots”. (more…)
Tate Britain has recently hung a pair of paintings by British artist Mary Beale, depicting her young son, as part of the museum’s efforts to get more female artists on its gallery walls. The effort has already brought out a number of rarely seen works from the museum’s collection, and falls in line with museum’s new chronological hanging strategy. “We are aware that in the past we have under-achieved in presenting the work of women artists,” says head of displays Chris Stephens. “This time in every section we have looked at all the women artists in the collection, and asked why not?, instead of why?” (more…)
The Guardian has posted a video interview with conceptual artist Simon Starling, showing the artist in the midst of production for Phantom Ride, an 8-minute video that explores the ongoing history of the Duveen Galleries of the Tate. “The idea is to create a sort of historical collapse, so as to tell the story of the space in 8 minutes of film, to take artworks that have been shown here over a very long period of time, and to force them to coexist in the space.” (more…)
Continuing its recent policy to hold the Turner Prize presentation ceremony outside of London on alternate years, the Tate Britain has announced that the 2015 awards ceremony will be held for the first time in Glasgow, Scotland at the Tramway Arts Centre. This will be the fourth time that the Turner Prize will be awarded outside of London, and could in fact be the first Turner Prize awarded outside of the UK, pending the results of the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum.
As announced by Jude Law at the Tate Britain, the winner of the 2012 Turner Prize is Elizabeth Price. Price was nominated for her solo exhibition at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, in which she presented a trilogy of video installations. Her work, THE WOOLWORTH’S CHOIR OF 1979 2012 is a complex, multi-layered video she describes as something that morphs into a “PowerPoint lecture, to something that looks like an infomercial to something that feels like a cinematic melodrama”. Black and white photographs of 19th century churches intermingle with web clips of pop performances and news footage of the 1979 Woolworth’s furniture fire, giving the viewer an immersive, guided tour through the debris of consumer culture. Each year, the Turner prize (worth $40,000) is presented to an artist under 50 years old, living, working or born in Britain for an outstanding exhibition in the previous 12 months. (more…)
A catalogue of mishaps in art handling has been released, with victims ranging from Poussin to Roy Lichtenstein damaged. One example is Roy Lichtenstein’s early famous painting Whaam!, which was defaced by a visitor disposing their chewing gum on the painting’s surface. Tate Britain, which suffered the vandalism against a £50 million Rothko, is now planning an exhibition called Art Under Attack. (more…)
Four Turner Prize shortlisted artists showcased their work last night at the show’s inauguration. For the first time a performance artist has been nominated, Londoner Spartacus Chetwynd. When asked about if her art is contemporary, the artist, who lives and works in a nudist colony, and who arrived in a beard, stated, “We’re all alive at the moment so that would make it contemporary.” Once again on display at Tate Britain, the show also presents the work of Glaswegian Luke Fowler, Londoner Elizabeth Price and Londoner Paul Noble and runs through Jan 6th. (more…)
Tate Britain reaches fundraising goal of £45 million for various refurbishments to the building, including a “semi-permanent display” of historical British art featuring work by William Blake, David Hockney, and LS Lowry
The 2012 Turner Prize nominees have been announced: Spartacus Chetwynd, Luke Fowler, Paul Noble, and Elizabeth Price. The £25,000 prize is awarded annually to a British artist under age 50, with the four artists showing at Tate Britain each fall.
BP Oil £10m controversial sponsorship of four British museums to continue, Tate director stating, “The fact that they had one major incident in 2010 does not mean we should not be taking support from them.” [AO Newslink]
Tate Triennial 2012 cancelled due to questionable success, the museum instead reviewing the programme and focusing on the Tate Britain Millbank project [AO Newslink]
On October 5, Tate Britain unveiled its Finalist Exhibition for the 2010 Turner Prize. Painter Dexter Dalwood, installation artist and painter Angela de la Cruz, sound artist Susan Philipsz, and film collaborative Otolith (comprised of Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun) represent the shortlist for the coveted annual award. The winner selected from among this group will be announced at the museum on December 6, 2010.
Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery on Davies Street in London is an exhibition of drawings and new sculpture by Rachel Whiteread. The sculptural work is the latest in a series created for outdoor spaces, produced in soft materials such as plaster, rubber and resin. Five cubic forms of varying size, texture, and color are positioned in a straight line. A principle theme in Whiteread’s oeuvre, the new sculptures rely on form to reflect upon the surrounding negative space.
Martin Creed, Work No. 928, 2008, courtesy of The Guardian.
As part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival, Fruitmarket is honoring one of Britain’s most popular and esteemed artists, Martin Creed, in a major solo exhibition of recent and newly-commissioned work. Entitled “Down Over Up,” the show focuses on basic visual properties like the differentiation of size, proportion, and tone of everyday objects such as chairs, tables, boxes, and Lego pieces. Creed has often been criticized for the accessible quality of his materials and technique; while this aspect of his practice is visible in “Down Over Up,” the artist has also incorporated more conventional art forms such as paintings, drawings, and sculpture into the exhibition.
Creed initially won critical acclaim for his minimalistic sculptures, in which he rearranges everyday objects. He manipulates the common as a material representation of his primary preoccupation: modern culture. The artist often creates work in order to elicit particular responses from the viewer, by deploying a spectrum of motifs ranging from the absurd to the familiar.
Luc Tuymans The Secretary of State , 2005 on display at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. All images via SFMOMA unless otherwise noted
Currently on view at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a very significant retrospective of the work of Luc Tuymans, a renowned artist from Antwerp, Belgium. This comprehensive retrospective is the first American show of such scale for the artist. The traveling exhibition opened in September 2009 at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, then on January 3, 2010 it traveled to SF MoMA. The show will then travel to Dallas Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The exhibition features seventy five paintings produced since 1975 to the present. The retrospective is co-curated by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (and former SFMOMA Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture), and Helen Molesworth, Maisie K. and James R. Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museum (and former chief curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts).
CCTV, 2009
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Reclining Figure (1951), by Henry Moore, via The Guardian
Currently on view at Tate Britain is an exhibition celebrating the work of renowned sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986). With a display of over 150 stone sculptures, wood carvings, sculptures, bronzes, and drawings, the show revisits the legendary works of one of the masters of twentieth century art. The show attempts to emphasize the revolutionary in Moore. It highlights his fight to preserve the figurative tradition for three decades by challenging and yet incorporating elements of abstraction.
Seated Nude with Mirror (1924) by Henry Moore, via Tate Britain
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School, 2008 Subodh Gupta [ All images via Hauser & Wirth unless otherwise noted]
Currently showing at Hauser & Wirth London, 15 Old Bond Street is “School,” a selection of most recent works by Subodh Gupta. The show features forty five brass stools paired with stainless steel thali trays (traditional Indian trays with multiple compartments used for meals containing several dishes).
Chris Ofili’s familiar hits are brought together with his more mature recent works for the first time in a mid-career survey at the Tate Britain, London, through 16 May 2010. The collective effect of the show is a kaleidoscope of wild humor, brilliant color and raw energy. What is striking about the exhibition is its unique position within the growing contemporary canon: firstly, Ofili is unusual as a painter in a conceptual era, and, secondly, he is intensely concerned with the aesthetic. The paintings in this exhibition are richly ornamented; their surfaces are imaginatively constructed from such incongruous materials as elephant dung (Ofili’s signature), map pins and glitter. The paintings are structural and highly tactile, and the viewing experience is a sensory event. This perhaps most evident in The Upper Room, a collaboration with the architect David Adjaye to design an independent and enclosed viewing space. The audience is guided down a barely lit corridor into a dim, yet glittering chamber that enhances the spiritually of viewing paintings which reference both the Christian and Hindu faiths.
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Tacita Dean’s Christmas tree, ‘Weihnachtsbaum‘ at Tate Britain via Zimbio
The Tate has been embracing the Christmas spirit this week with a series of headlining seasonal happenings. The Tate Christmas Tree 2009, “Weihnachtsbaum” designed by Tacita Dean, shocked critics by actually appearing “Christmassy”[Bloomberg] This weekend, Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall was taken over by Rob Pruitt‘s festive ‘Flea Market’ – originally held at Gavin Brown’s Passerby gallery in New York in the late 1990s, this event was programmed to coincide with the Tate Modern exhibition Pop Life: Art in a Material World, in which Pruitt also appears [POP Magazine]
Italian police have seized works of art belonging to Carlisto Tanzi – founder of the Italian firm Parmalat who collapsed in a massive fraud scandal in 2003. The 19 paintings and drawings, included works by Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh, and is estimated to be worth more than 100million euros [BBC News]
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Antony Gormley’s Event Horizon that will appear in New York’s Madison Square Park in March 2010 via ArtInfo
Antony Gormley has announced plans to install 31 nude sculptures cast from his own body in and around Madison Square Park in Manhattan’s Flatiron District beginning March 26 [NY Times]
to stay apprised of the latest relevant news of the art world read more….. –> (more…)
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Richard Wright’s winning wall painting, via TimesOnline
Last night, Richard Wright was announced the winner of the prestigious Turner Prize at a ceremony in Tate Britain. Wright’s highly intricate gold-leaf painting that won him the prize can be seen across one wall of the Turner Prize exhibition currently on display at Tate Britain through January 6, 2010. Wright lives in Glasgow and so follows an illustrious line of Scotland-based winners – from Douglas Gordon back in 1996 to Martin Creed in 2001 and Simon Starling in 2005. At 49, Wright is the oldest man to win the prize since the under-50 age limit was imposed in 1991.
Wright rejected painting on canvas in the late 1980s and has become best known for his wall paintings which are temporarily crafted onto walls in overlooked places with the knowledge that they will soon be erased – almost everything Wright has created since this decision has been destroyed. His paintings combine graphic imagery and intricate patterning from sources as varied as Medieval painting, graphics and typography.
Four artists, working a variety of media, were in contention for the prize – Enrico David, Roger Hiorns, Lucy Skaer, and Richard Wright – Hiorns had been the critics’ favorite going into the competition.
–> Andrew Dickson, Arts Editor of the Guardian, talks to Turner Prize winner Richard Wright, Stephen Deuchar, Carol Ann Duffy, and 2001 Turner winner Martin Creed via The Guardian
Richard Wright: 2009 Turner Prize Winner [The Guardian] –>
A Turner Prize Winner Who Takes Viewers By Surprise [NY Times] –>
Turner Prize Winner Richard Wright Shocks World – Actual Art [Daily Mail] –>
Richard Wright Who Wrecks His Own Work Wins Turner Prize [Bloomberg] –>
I’d Like Him to Do My Living Room Wall [TimesOnline] –>
School of Art [BBC News] –>
You could call Wright’s art Minimalist, but it is also luxurious [Independent] –>
Richard Wright Wins Turner Prize [Financial Times] –>
Fresco Painter Richard Wright Wins Turner Prize [Reuters]
Groupon Class Action Suits Challenge Online Coupon Business.
Mondaq Business Briefing July 21, 2011 In the latest action to be filed in a series of class action lawsuits against Groupon, Inc., Carlos Vasquez filed a complaint on March 8, 2011 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of himself and other similarly situated consumers alleging that Groupon places unlawful expiration dates on its gift certificates. see here groupon houston
The action is preceded by similar class action suits pending in Illinois, Minnesota, California and Florida federal courts. In the complaint, Vasquez alleged that he purchased a $20 coupon for a one-month gym membership valued at $305, and the coupon expired two months later before he had the opportunity to use it. Because Vasquez was not aware that he could seek redress with the gym retailer, he claims that he lost the money that he invested.
The suit alleges that Groupon’s sale of coupons with short-term expiration dates is deceptive and illegal under state and federal laws. Specifically, the complaint states that Groupon is in violation of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (the CARD Act) and the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA), which prohibit the sale and issuance of gift certificates with expiration dates of less than five years after the date of issuance. However, under the definitions covered by the CARD Act, EFTA and the implementing rule Regulation E, a “gift certificate” and “gift card” must be issued “in a specified amount.” Clarifying the meaning of “specified amount” under the rule, the official staff commentary of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors states that “the rule does not apply to gift certificates or gift cards that entitle the cardholder to a specific ‘experience,’ such as a hotel stay or a golf lesson,” and expresses concern that sponsors of ‘experience’ cards would have to raise prices to adjust for anticipated cost increases over a five-year period if the five-year minimum expiration period applied. Despite the federal statutory definition of “gift card” and “gift certificate,” the complaint seeks to include the defendant’s gym membership coupon as falling within scope of the CARD Act and EFTA. The complaint also charges Groupon with breach of contract and violations of the District of Columbia’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act.
In addition, the suit alleges that Groupon preys on unsuspecting consumers through its sales process whereby gift certificates are placed on sale and consumers feel pressured to act quickly – usually within 24 hours – to purchase the gift certificates under burdensome conditions. It further states that consumers “often cannot take advantage of and/or use the product or service they paid for before the expiration date unilaterally imposed” by Groupon. The complaint includes a sampling of internet postings by consumers who expressed frustrations about Groupon’s expiration dates, and states that “thousands of consumers have lost money” because of short-term expiration dates. The suit seeks restitution, disgorgement of monies that Groupon obtained as a result of the conduct at issue, compensative and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and a court order enjoining Groupon from engaging in these practices and requiring the company to fund an advertising campaign to remedy its allegedly lawful conduct. see here groupon houston
With similar class action suits pending against Groupon, it is unclear how courts will view the company’s practice of selling gift certificates with short-term expiration dates. However, after settling a lawsuit brought in Chicago last year, Groupon changed its terms of service to allow consumers to get refunds in cases where a merchant refuses to honor a coupon that is arguably still valid under state law. Because websites offering daily deals and discount coupons have significantly increased in numbers and popularity, the Groupon suits have the potential to affect many key players utilizing this business model and may shape how existing state and federal gift card laws will applyto online coupon services.
THE BOTTOM LINE Recent class action lawsuits brought against Groupon allege that its online discount coupons are subject to the five year federal minimum expiration period for gift cards as well as to relevant individual state expiration requirements, and may determine how these state and federal gift card legislation laws apply to online discount coupon providers.
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