Sotheby's Institute of Art: London • New York

Richard Prince

Earlier this year Richard Prince lost in court to Patrick Cariou, whose images Prince appropriated for several collages and paintings. The debate is still raging, especially as the court’s ruling would bar artists from appropriating images unless they are commenting on the original work–something Prince’s work fails to do, and a difficult test to use in the digital media world where images are so easily accessible and useful to artists for any and all purposes. Randy Kennedy has written an excellent analysis of the case and its potential impact on artists, collectors and museums in today’s New York Times. The implications of this case are far-reaching and controversial but might not have much effect today, according to Kennedy, who reminds us that the proverbial horse has long ago fled the barn. MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum

a Richard Prince collage using Patrick Cariou's photos

have weighed in on Prince’s side to support freedom of expression for artists, but so much appropriation is happening today in so many places, the courts would have a difficult time pursuing perpetrators and if the law stands it would be nearly impossible to enforce.

Helen Frankenthaler painting in 1969

Now that she has died, Helen Frankenthaler is being widely acclaimed by art critics and others, but remembered as a force for conservatives and responsible for the weakening of federal arts funding by others. In her New York Times “Critic’s Notebook“, Roberta Smith talks about Frankenthaler and John Chamberlain (who also died this week) saying each brought a, “new, unfettered approach to materials that pushed their respective mediums toward greater expressive freedom, unabashed physicality and a rough-edged, aggressively color-based beauty.”

Her husband, Jerry Saltz, tells us in his tribute in New York Magazine that, “not enough people have thought about the far-reaching accomplishments of Helen Frankenthaler, foremost inventor in the fifties of what is variously called American Color Field painting and post-painterly abstraction.”

Others, however, remember a darker side of Frankenthaler. The Los Angeles Times obituary reminds us that: “Frankenthaler did take a highly public stance during the late 1980s “culture wars” that eventually led to deep budget cuts for the National Endowment for the Arts and a ban on grants to individual artists that still persists. At the time, she was a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts, which advises the NEA’s chairman.”

“In a 1989 commentary for the New York Times, she wrote that, while ‘censorship and government interference in the directions and standards of art are dangerous and not part of the democratic process,’ controversial grants to Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe and others reflected a trend in which the NEA was supporting work “of increasingly dubious quality. Is the council, once a helping hand, now beginning to spawn an art monster? Do we lose art … in the guise of endorsing experimentation?”

In today’s New York Times, Roberta Smith makes an impassioned plea for the Folk Art Museum. She says New York needs to have access to its vast and unusual collection of objects and that it creates a counterpoint to the kinds of exhibitions shown at other institutions around town.  She criticizes the board of trustees for mismanagement and worse, but praises the exhibition program and curatorial bravery of the museum.  The current plan seems to be to sell off the collection to the Smithsonian or another institution, or even give the collection to one of them so that the trustees can just close the whole operation and get out of the business of folk art all together.

When a museum fails to pay its bills, fails to attract an audience, fails in every way but the art, what is the answer? One might ask the same questions about the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, another time-honored institution with a timid and unsophisiticated board of trustees who would rather sell off the collection than pony up the funds to keep the institution alive and whole.

It’s now possible to get inside the $50 billion art world with Sotheby’s Institute of Art Online. You can study from anywhere in the world. All you need is a computer and  you can study everything from understanding trends in the art market to using art as an alternative investment to the history of museums and more. It is all at your fingertips, taught by the Institute’s leading faculty as well as some of the world’s most important experts in the art world, from bankers to  historians to gallerists to international art lawyers.

With Sotheby’s Institute Online you can get inside the art world, learn about the art market and the vibrant international art scene from any computer anywhere. You’ll gain unparalleled access to Sotheby’s Institute of Art faculty and experts as well as a network provided by the online learning system. You’ll attend lectures, interact with faculty and other students and participate in discussions all via computer. A free, fully-online student orientation begins before each session. In addition, you’ll also have access to telephone technical support from noon to midnight each day.

Cy Twombly, the enigmatic, controversial, operatic artist is dead at age 83. I must say I have extremely mixed feelings about Twombly. I have been moved by some of his paintings, am bored by most of his sculpture, and despite some misgivings believe he was a very important and influential figure in 20th century art. However, having worked with him on an exhibition at the Whitney, I got to know him slightly and as my mother often told me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.” So, in this case, I will follow her advice. Here are some of the obits, reflections and appreciations that have been written over the past few days.

The Wall Street Journal

New York Times

LA Times

New York Times Appreciation

Jerry Saltz on Facebook

Allora and Calzadilla's upturned tank/treadmill

After a week of racing through both the official and collateral events in Venice, it is hard not to notice the proliferation of  events organized by galleries, corporations or other commercial entities. There are palaces, storefronts and warehouses all over town devoted to one artist or group shows, some of which are pretty good, others are simply designed as commercial ventures and could easily be skipped. The main pavilions and the Arsenale are their usual mixture of memorable and not so memorable installations. The overall title of the Biennale this time is IllumiNATIONS, which the organizers say has to do with artists searching for light. However, to me the Pavilions and collateral exhibitions have more to do with degradation, desperation, dissolution and despair. We are everywhere confronted with uncomfortable truths we don’t really want to see, and sometimes that makes for pretty good art.  It is impossible to write about everything that I saw and liked, so here are a few highlights.

Church Organ ATM in the American Pavilion

I especially liked the American Pavilion. Even though their messages were completely unsubtle, Allora and Calzadilla did a masterful job of summing up the shallow and hypocritical state of politics, war, luxury, and society in the USA (if not the rest of the world). I love how the upturned tank/treadmill acts as a magnet to the pavilion with its ear-piercing clatter. It is an obvious statement, but a nice piece of work. The best is the ATM church organ. It is not only beautiful, it is hilarious, and it expresses one of the main leitmotifs of the Biennale–the worship of money. In the main rooms there are two wooden sculptures of first class airline seats that serve as platforms for acrobatic performances.

Acrobat at the American Pavilion

When they are activated by the gymnasts, who wear US Olympic team uniforms,  the sculptures make sense, but without them the space feels rather dead. For this reason I am glad that the IMA raised enough money to continue regular performances through the run of the Biennale.

 

Film still from the Japanese Pavilion

Another worthy effort is the Japanese pavilion. The young artist Tabaimo has created an entire animated world with a beautifully crafted video installation. It starts out with a cityscape that is gradually invaded by enormous mushrooms, flowers, fingertips and other organic materials that move in and out of the drawings. The entire effect is dramatized by mirrored walls and an opening in the center that shows us the sky, providing us with the realization that we are trapped in an upside down well. The experience is hallucinogenic and hypnotic. I don’t really understand what she is trying to say, but her mixture of anime, video, drawing and architecture is quite compelling.

Inside the British Pavilion

Mike Nelson’s British Pavilion takes us into another dystopia. This one is full of dusty, abandoned spaces, warrens of cast-off machinery, darkrooms hung with fading photographs, staircases leading to tiny rooms with ceilings so low one has to bend to walk through them into another similar space. It is no surprise that the lines to get in are blocks long—but what does one come away with? I am not sure.

And in this same vein,  Thomas Hirschhorn has transformed Switzerland’s pavilion into a terrifying maze of tin foil, PVC pipes, plastic-wrapped objects and low walls topped with broken bottles. Not my favorite of the offerings, but my discomfort with the installation must have been something the artist intended. He certainly lets us know that our commercialism is doomed and dangerous.

Christoph Schlingensief died before he could organize an exhibition for the German pavilion, but the curators decided to go ahead and make something using documentation and parts of earlier installations. The result won the Goldon Lion, and is a retrospective of his fluxus-inspired work within a church environment that Schlingensief created for another piece. The audience sits on pews surrounded by films of a rabbit being consumed by maggots, several clips showing the advance of a patient’s (the artist’s) lung cancer, and various other objects and projects from different stages of his life. The result is a moving pastiche of sound, film and setting that requires one to consider life, death, and decay. It is too bad we will never know what he would have done himself.

Still from Mary Koszymary

And then there is the puzzle of Poland.  Called “…and Europe will be stunned” Israeli artist Yael Bartana has created three interrelated videos about a movement calling for the return of Jews to Poland. On the surface, all seems reasonable. We see a political organizer addressing a stadium of supporters giving an impassioned speech. His purpose is to repatriate the 3 million Jews lost from the country during and after WWII. He tells us Poland needs them to have a vibrant, diverse, living culture.  The speaker has all the trappings of a charismatic leader, he pleads for sanity, he tells us that Poland misses the Jews, and that forty million Poles need Jews to enrich their culture. The video is straight propaganda and right out of the 700 Club or even Nazi Germany. One is moved by the idea of a newly diverse Poland, the idea of Poland perhaps welcoming Jews back in order to heal wounds from the past, even if the whole idea seems rather preposterous and creepy. And, one wonders, what is the message about Israeli culture embedded in this little film? How diverse is Israel these days? And, as expected, the second video unveils sinister underpinnings of the plan. In this video, Polish youth are building a settlement for the newly repatriated Jews. The settlement is tiny, its walls are high with no windows. The tops of the walls are ringed with barbed wire, and a watchtower is erected to guard the occupants, who wear armbands with the movement logo. A sign on the gate says Kibbutz. One is not certain whether the Jews are being protected or threatened.  Another snippet shows settlers being re-educated to Polish language and culture. What has happened, we wonder, to the idea of diversity?  We also wonder whether this is a comment on Israeli settlements in the occupied lands and its re-education of those who make “alia” as much as it is about Poland’s anti-Semitism. 

Film still from Zamach (Assasination)

In the third video the movement’s leader has been assassinated and we are at his funeral. An enormous (and horribly ugly, glasses and all) statue has been erected in his honor. Important speakers are invited to talk about his vision and life.  Several are Israelis who dismiss the movement out of hand, and movement youth praise him and vow to carry on the mission without him.  As we leave, visitors to the pavilion are invited to join the movement and are given numbered cards that carry its logo.  What are we joining? What does it mean? All in all it is one of the most powerful works of art in the Biennale. It is complicated, layered, international, political and well-crafted. And in addition to that, I am still thinking about it, puzzling it out, mulling it over, and I find that the more I learn about it the better I like it.

Venice Pavilion

There is a lot of water in this Biennale. In the Greek pavilion, we walk over a pond across a wooden platform. In the Venice pavilion Fabrizio Plessi has created a line of upright boats in a dark semi circular room, each with a waterfall video. The Israeli pavilion is a water purification plant by artist Sigalit Landou. The machinery winds through the space with pipes vibrating and groaning from the pressure. In addition to the

Video from Israeli Pavilion

pipes, there is a video of three naked women moving in and out of the ocean, scratching lines in the sand before they jump back into the waves. This is playful but also a bit ominous, reminding us that the economy of the entire country rests on its ability to de-salinate water and control whatever fresh water it can for the use of its population.  

Nathaniel Mellors's Sculpture

The International pavilion, curated by Bice Curiger, includes 83 artists and groups. There is a lot to see but it doesn’t all work together.  Highlights for me were the Cindy Sherman room, the Nathaniel Mellors videos and sculptures, the David Goldblatt photography, the Omar Fast video and of course, the Tintorettos at the entrance.

 

Adel Abdin, Consumption of War

Off site, pavilions that were particularly striking to me were the Bangladesh pavilion, the Luxembourg pavilion and the Zimbabwe pavilion. The Iraqi pavilion is called Wounded Water and features 6 artist’s interpretations of water, with haunting images of families and villages destroyed by war along with a hilarious, yet strangely moving video by Adel Abdin called “Consumption of War” that shows two men dressed in business suits battling with florescent lights, making jeddi warrior sounds as they swing their weapons.

Venice in Venice was a lot of fun, especially the light works of Laddie John Dill installed in the rough brick basement spaces. Artist Chiharu Shiota, represented by Haunch of Venison has an installation called “Memory of Books”on Via Garabaldi which is beautifully installed and the Tim Davies exhibition is too large but worth a quick visit if you are in the neighborhood to see Iraq and Bangladesh.

by Jan Rothschild

Next installment will cover the Arsenale and other off site exhibitions of note.

The Whitney's Historic Breuer Building at Madison Avenue and 75th Street

The rumor has finally been confirmed that the Metropolitan Museum will take over the Whitney Museum’s landmark Breuer building when the Whitney moves downtown to its new site at The High Line. Groundbreaking is in two weeks on the Whitney’s new building, designed by Renzo Piano, and this announcement in the New York Times reassures us that the Breuer building will continue to be a museum for at least the next ten years while the Metropolitan refurbishes its modern and contemporary wing and the Whitney establishes itself in its new home. No one is talking about long term plans for the Breuer building since Leonard Lauder’s $131 million gift stipulated that the Whitney could not sell the building for an unspecified amount of time. But the Metropolitan’s use of the building to show their holdings in contemporary art is a wonderful opportunity for art lovers in New York. Let’s hope they will do exciting projects and take some risks. Bravo to Tom Campbell and Adam Weinberg for getting the deal done.

Yesterday the Independent newspaper in London published an article with the headline “It’s Oil Money that Fuels our Museums” by Tiffany Jenkins that discusses the pros and cons of museums accepting money from oil companies and others who may not always take the high ground when it comes to the gathering of wealth. This has been a conversation in non profits as long as they have existed. In fact, it is a conversation in every situation where fund raising occurs. Think about political fund raising and how many politicians have shamefacedly had to hand back donations from crooks. Bernie Madoff was a trustee of several charitable organizations, and Enron senior executives were pillars in their communities. What’s a non profit to do?

Typically Jenkins suggests that arts organizations should take the money and run. Take it and turn lemons into lemonade. Others, including protesters at the Tate Modern and other museums around the world take a different view and believe that tainted money perverts institutions and should be avoided at all costs. What do you think?