Artist Tania Bruguera has been detained in Cuba, following the performance of an art piece designed to test the U.S.’s resolve to renew diplomatic ties with a country known for censoring free speech. Bruguera was arrested as she walked towards Havana’s Revolution Square, and is currently being held by the government. (more…)
The Frick Museum’s proposed expansion plan has met with a new challenge by opposing forces, this time from a group called Unite to Save the Frick which is citing a 1973 agreement by the museum not to alter a garden designed by celebrated landscape architect Russell Page. This same garden would be demolished in the new expansion, giving the protesting party a stronger case. “It would have to be taken very, very seriously, because there is no qualitative need for this expansion,” said Roberta Brandes Gratz, a former panel member with the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “This is not really necessary for exhibition purposes. Given that, the permanence issue will be more important.” (more…)
The Financial Times analyzes the current protest fervor over the presence of sponsorship and advertising dollars currently at play in the contemporary art world, noting major disputes at the São Paolo and Gwangju Biennials, as well as the ongoing protests over BP’s sponsorship of the Tate. “Creativity has become . . .instrumentalized both by capitalism and the nation state,” says São Paulo curator Charles Esche. (more…)
The Guardian notes the ongoing backlash in Helsinki against the Guggenheim’s proposed expansion, as many doubt the actual benefits a Guggenheim branch may offer the Finnish capital. “I’m not paying my taxes to be handed over to an American corporation to do with what they want,” says one interviewee. “If we’re spending that kind of money, it should be on our own national museum, not another outpost of a global company.” (more…)
Manifesto 10, Installation View, all photos courtesy of Manifesto 10
Despite a steady stream of critiques, criticism and outright protest over the current political climate in Russia, Manifesta 10, one of Europe’s leading contemporary art biennials, has pressed on. The exhibition, which opened late last month, has made much of its presence in Russia, presenting an exhibition that addresses its own political background while using it as a spring board to broader issues. (more…)
A New York businessman has called for the boycott of a Cai Guo-Qiang exhibition in Aspen, due to the artist’s use of tortoises with iPads strapped to their backs. Andy Sabin, a member of the Turtle Conservancy board, has claimed that the work is deleterious to the tortoises’ health, although museum officials claim that the rescued turtles are under close watch by veterinarians. (more…)
Former Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have announced that they will be suing the Russian government on the grounds that their prosecution violated international standards for civil rights. The lawsuit will look for €120,000 each in compensation, as well as €10,000 to cover court fees. (more…)
The opening of Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg has offered many artists the platform for protesting Russia’s increasingly aggressive stance against LGBT citizens. The exhibition sees a number of works speaking candidly about sexuality, including Marlene Dumas’s gallery of gay men who made major contributions to world history. “This is probably the gayest show I have done,” Wolfgang Tillmans tells the Guardian. (more…)
Ai Weiwei, Mask (2013) All Images Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery
One of the most influential and politically vocal artists of his generation, Ai Weiwei has found himself in the headlines frequently since his 2011 seizure by the Chinese government and subsequent imprisonment for more than eighty days without any official charges being declared. As a prominent objector of Chinese government’s oppressive demeanor, Weiwei has been an active figure in the country‘s struggle for freedom of speech and personal rights. Following up on Ai’s presence internationally in the past year, Lisson is currently presenting Ai Weiwei’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, touching upon the artist’s most familiar themes, explored through a combination of new and old objects. (more…)
The Guardian reports on a dispute between Marina Abramovic, the Serpentine Gallery and a group of writers, curators and artists who claim that Marina Abramovic’s new performance at the Serpentine fails to acknowledge the work of Mary Ellen Carroll, another artist who has explored concepts of non-action and doing “nothing” as the core of her performance works. “There are differences,” says art historian David Joselit . “I am not prepared to say Marina Abramović is involved in plagiarising or anything like that. I just think there should be a conversation.” (more…)
Vladimir Umanets, the 2012 vandal of Mark Rothko’s mural Black on Maroon, has published an editorial in The Guardian, expressing regret for his actions but remaining committed to the principles of his conceptual practice Yellowism. “It doesn’t matter how important one believes one’s ideas to be, nor how genuine one’s intentions are,” he writes. “It is unacceptable to deface someone’s property without permission. What I did was selfish. My act has hurt many art enthusiasts and I deeply regret it.” (more…)
Ai Weiwei’s name and works have been removed from a show of Chinese contemporary art in Shanghai, following government pressure over his inclusion. “We were not really a party to this,” says Uli Sigg, the Swiss collector and organizer of the show. “In the end it was the Power Station and the cultural bureau. In the end we said we must accept. We don’t understand but we must accept that his works will not be in there.” (more…)
A new documentary on Ai Weiwei, The Fake Case, is preparing for release, profiling the artist’s release from his 81-day detention under the Chinese state, the artist’s response after his imprisonment, and his preparation for S.A.C.R.E.D., a series of works that documented his time while he was held without bail for tax evasion, a charge one person in his film notes doesn’t even exist in China. “Nobody in China would believe it, because nobody pays taxes in China anyways, so there’s no such thing,” they say. (more…)
A group of artists have donated works to a benefit auction for the legal defense fees of Maximo Caminero, the Miami artist accused of breaking a vase at the exhibition of works by Ai Weiwei at the Perez Art Museum. “We do not support the act, but we support the intention,” said painter Danilo Gonzalez. (more…)
The opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics last week prominently featured the touchstones of the Russian avant-garde, The Art Newspaper notes. References and tributes to Malevich, Tatlin and Rodchenko could be seen throughout the ceremony, but some critics noted that the inclusion of these artists was a bid by Vladimir Putin to culturally tie the country closer to Europe. “He needs to feel that attempts to become European are immediately appreciated and not rejected,” says Marat Guelman, the curator and former museum director forced from his post at the Perm Museum over political critiques. “Otherwise if he sees that whatever he does he is trashed, he’ll spit on it all and start building an Orthodox Iran.” (more…)
As violent protests continue to rock the city of Kiev in the Ukraine, the country’s National Art Museum has issued a statement asking both police and protestors to spare the museum’s cultural heritage. The statement comes after city police lit a bonfire on the steps of the Museum to stay warm during violent clashes with protestors, and asks protestors and police to “remember their responsibility in preserving the cultural heritage of the state [and] refrain from deliberate or accidental actions that may damage the museum and the surrounding territory”. (more…)
The controversial “Playboy Marfa” sculpture previously on view along U.S. route 90, has been dismantled, and will be placed on view at the Dallas Contemporary. The move comes after heated protest over the piece, opposed by Marfa residents for its attempt to turn the town into a space for art-driven marketing and promotion. “We are happy this has been resolved and that Texans will still get to enjoy this piece of art,” said Veronica Beyer, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Transportation. (more…)
Intense protest over the installation of Adel Abdemessed’s Zinedine Zidane sculpture in Doha, Qatar, has resulted in the removal of the piece from public exhibition, due to its “anti-Islam idolization.” The piece, titled Coup de Tete, was installed at the beginning of October, caused such a public outcry among conservative citizens and politicians that it was removed less than a month later. (more…)
Mark Flood, SADISTIC pleasure! (2013), via Peres Projects
Currently on view at Peres Projects in Berlin is an exhibition of new work by American artist Mark Flood, using his new pseudonym “Mike Lood” for the first time. Entitled Ask Officer Pepperspray, the exhibition is Flood’s fifth solo show at Peres Projects. (more…)
The Village Voice has published a rare interview with Banksy, discussing the artist’s ongoing show of street art in New York City, and his views towards his craft. “There is absolutely no reason for doing this show at all. I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There’s no gallery show or book or film. It’s pointless. Which hopefully means something.” The artist says. (more…)
Following pressure from both Michigan art-lovers and the broader art world, an ArtPrize installation has been removed from the surface of Alexander Calder’s La Grande Vitesse. Fleurs et Riviere, a magnetic work by David Dodde, had been attached to the surface of the sculpture, in an attempt to add “whimsy,” but instead received harsh criticism from the Alexander Calder Foundation in New York. “The Calder Foundation wasn’t pleased, and the relationship with the foundation is important to us, so it’s a lesson learned,” said Grand Rapids city manager Greg Sundstrom. (more…)
Street artist Banksy has announced a monthlong exhibition on the streets of New York City, beginning this week. In a message posted on the artist’s website, Banksy revealed that his show Better Out Than In, would be spread across the city, with each work accompanied by a toll free phone number viewers can call to hear witty descriptions of the work. The first piece has already appeared at 18 Allen Street downtown. “Hello, and welcome to Lower Manhattan,” the recorded message says. “Before you, you will see a ‘spray art’ by the artist Ban-sky (sp). Or maybe not; it’s probably been painted over by now.” (more…)
Artist Ai Weiwei, whose scale model recreations of his 2011 incarceration at this year’s Venice Biennale won him critical accolades, has spoken on his ordeal in a recent interview with Salon. Recounting his experiences with his interrogators, Weiwei recounts conversations in which he began to teach his captors about conceptual art, Dadaism and protest. “I explained art to them and then many times they said to me, ‘Weiwei, why whenever we talk about art and concepts do you get so excited that you keep talking? And why when we talk about facts, you say, ‘I don’t know’?’ But I say, ‘You know, I like to talk about art, and it makes me joyful and when I get to talk about art and explain I get very high spirits.’” He says.
Youssef Abdelke, a notable Syrian painter who has repeatedly spoken out against the Assad regime in his home country, has been released from a two month-long imprisonment by government authorities. The 62 year old artist and former Syrian Communist Party Member had previously posted on his Facebook page that he “is healthy and in anticipation of leaving the palace of justice, free as [he] has always been.” (more…)
