Sou Fujimoto’s Serpentine Pavilion, via The Serpentine
The Serpentine Gallery’s annual summer pavilion opened late last week in London’s Hyde Park, with a presentation by designer Sou Fujimoto and Serpentine Directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Fujimoto, Peyton-Jones, and Obrist, via Bloomberg (more…)
The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, London has been awarded the UK’s prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year, entitling it to a £100,000 prize. The award comes after an ambitious renovation and restoration project, which put £3 million into upgrades and new curatorial standards to make the museum a jewel of the city’s already burgeoning cultural offering. Says Art Fund Director Stephen Deuchar: “The collections are not only important but they are very beautifully presented, in terms of the physical fabric of the showcases and also the interpretation – the labels are erudite and accessible. There is a great curatorial coherence to the collections and that comes across in every square foot of the museum.” (more…)
Time and again, Artist Marc Quinn has defined himself as an artist of grand statements. Utilizing imagery and materials from his surroundings, often cast on symbolically enormous scale, the artist has created a body of work that digs at the complex interrelations of art and science, life and meaning, process and creation. The act of viewing seems central to Quinn’s body of work, collected for a major solo exhibition in Venice this summer, and running concurrently with the Venice Biennale at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. Scale and image converge to create a striking and powerful impression of the human condition for viewers who find themselves in front of his work.
Marc Quinn, Self (2011)
A drawing stored in a locked cupboard at the University of Reading has been rediscovered as an original work by 17th century artist Peter Paul Rubens. The work, a depiction of Queen Marie de’ Medici of France, was originally thought to have been made by a follower of Rubens, until a conservation effort revealed telltale signs that the work was made by the Renaissance master. “It was bought as a so-called Rubens, attributed to Rubens,” said Reading professor Anna Gruetzner Robins. “But we didn’t take it seriously.” (more…)
With the opening of the Chelsea Flower Show in London, British artist Marc Quinn has unveiled his large-scale bronze orchid sculpture, commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society. The flower work took Quinn six months to complete, and is painted with 18 layers of color. “Hopefully, the flowers and the sculpture blend. There is a sense of real nature and artificial nature, although having seen the transformation of this place from a muddy field it is not so clear what is real nature.” Quinn said. (more…)
Artists Jake and Dinos Chapman will bring three monumental dinosaur sculptures to London this summer, part of a series of sculptural installations that will also include work by Antony Gormley and Robert Indiana. “Art is an essential part of vitality of the City of London, a draw for workers and visitors alike, a major contributing factor in our economic vibrancy and the kernel of the cultural brio of the Square Mile.” Says John Scott, chairman of the City of London Corporation’s arts advisory board. (more…)
Artist Gavin Turk spoke with The Guardian this week in advance of his upcoming show this summer at Ben Brown Fine Arts, covering his practice, failing his MA Thesis show, and his views on the tag “conceptual art.” “People often don’t want to do any work with art – they just want to see something and enjoy it. I can’t see art in those terms. To me, art is always about ideas. Really, it’s all conceptual.” He says. (more…)
The National Portrait Gallery in London has purchased a postcard-sized portrait of Queen Elizabeth I for the price of £329,000. Thought to be by renowned miniature painter Isaac Oliver, the piece will be part of a show of portraits depicting the Queen and her courtiers, opening this October. (more…)
The Shortlist for the 2013 Turner Prize was announced today, including artists Laure Prouvost, Tino Sehgal, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and David Shrigley. The winner of the award will be announced on December 2nd, and the presentation of the award this year will occur in Derry-Londonderry in Northern Ireland as part of its year as UK City of Culture. “The Turner prize is on everyone’s lips. There is a level of real excitement. Having the Turner prize in Derry will create the biggest impact the Turner prize will have had on anywhere in its history.” says executive producer for the City of Culture Graeme Farrow. (more…)
Embracing performance and creative theatrics, a group of protestors converged on the Tate Modern yesterday, protesting the ongoing sponsorship of the institution by petroleum giant BP. Chanting snippets from the corporation’s court proceedings over the Deepwater Horizon spill (yesterday was the disaster’s three-year anniversary), the group sought to underscore the corporation’s ties to the art community. “It’s not only BP that’s on trial for the devastation it has caused to Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems, it’s also Tate and other cultural institutions that provide BP with the social legitimacy to continue operating with such destructive consequences,” said performer Paul Brady. “We’re making a performance that brings the BP trial into Tate Modern because BP’s arts sponsorship cannot be separated from the irrevocable damage it does to communities and the climate.” (more…)
Charles Atlas, Glacier (2013), courtesy of Vilma Gold, London.
The American-born Charles Atlas has been a pioneer in the fields of dance, theater, and performance on video. In his career he has worked with world renowned artists such as Marina Abramovic, Leigh Bowery, Michael Clark, Merce Cunnigham, Diamanda Galas, Antony and the Johnsons, and Yvonne Rainer. In a current collaboration with South London Gallery and Bloomberg SPACE, Atlas presents Glacier, a 360-degree multi channel video installation consisting of original, found and manipulated images. (more…)
Jim Shaw, Untitled (US Presidents), 2006, Courtesy of the artist and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
The Baltic Centre in Gateshead is currently holding the first-ever retrospective of works by American Jim Shaw outside the United States. Including over one hundred works in a variety of media, from video and sculpture to paintings and installations, the show explores Shaw’s ongoing examination of American life, and his unique set of aesthetic signifiers at play throughout his career.
UK-based arts commissioning body Artangel has announced an open call for proposals, offering £1 million in backing for the five chosen projects. Artangel has a history of backing Turner prize winners and shortlist candidates, including Jeremy Deller’s 2004 Turner Prize-winning “The Battle of Orgreave” re-enactment, and is seeking proposals that attempt the fantastic and seemingly impossible. “We hope to find younger artists who will put forward amazing proposals. We feel that we want to get ideas that are forming in the darkness into our field of vision.” Says Artangel Director James Lingwood.
In a bid to become a global destination for art lovers, the British city of Yorkshire has created the Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle, a coalition of galleries and institutes dedicated primarily to the art of sculpture. The Triangle includes the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds Art Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and The Hepworth Wakefield, and showcases a variety of both classic works and new pieces from around the world. “I’m delighted that we can support a project that will attract further investment and visitors to Yorkshire. It is a great example of how partnership-working can help more people to become more familiar with Yorkshire’s pre-eminence in modern sculpture.” Says Cluny Macpherson, director of the Yorkshire Region of the Arts Council. (more…)
The Tate Modern‘s Tanks, designed to hold commissions, acquisitions, and live performances, opened yesterday. “We are the first in the world with the ambition, the scale, and with the consistency to meet that increasing demand. The Tanks are a new instrument for the orchestra that is the Tate,” claims Sir Nicholas Serota, head of the Tate museums in the U.K.
