Looking Forward – Yvonne Todd

Opening at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, 404 George Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne, on Thursday February 9th at 6pm, all welcome!  (And yes, Ervon will be present).

Hot Photo Friday – Wei Liu

Wei Liu, 'It Looks Like a Landscape', 2004

The End of an Era

The interior of Parsons Bookshop, Auckland

New Zealand’s best art bookshop Parsons is closing its doors after 36 years in business. Keen to (semi) retire, owners Roger and Helen Parsons have been unable to find an interested  buyer and will instead run ‘Parsons Library Supply’ – a special order service for hard to find New Zealand, Pacific and Maori titles – from their garden shed in Ponsonby.  A victim of the rise of online stores like Amazon and Book Depository, Parsons’ closure is a sad loss for Auckland.

The humble art sandwich

Mondrian sandwich

Rothko sandwich

Christo sandwich

Cheese and marmite not cutting it?  Why not try an ‘art sandwich’… (made by Brittany Powell in collaboration with Tae Kitakata).

Rob McHaffie vs. Peter Peryer

Rob McHaffie, 'Untitled', 2012

Peter Peryer, 'Kereru', 2006

Gagosian Sued

Roy Lichtenstein, 'Girl in Mirror', 1964

Art dealer Larry Gagosian is being sued by elderly collector Joan Cowles for selling a Roy Lichtenstein painting without her consent.  Cowles claims that her son Charles offered the 1964 painting ‘Girl in Mirror’ to Gagosian without gaining her permission to do so.  Asserting that the painting was damaged, the dealer sold the work to an unnamed collector for $ 2 million (far less than its market value) and took a $ 1 million commission in the process.

The $10 million suit accuses Gagosian of “such wanton dishonesty as to imply criminal indifference to civil obligations, with reckless disregard of Cowles’s rights”.  In response, Gagosian has described the accusations as “outrageous and baseless,” stating that the fault lies with Charles Cowles, who failed to disclose that he had no authority to sell the painting in the first place.

Hot Photo Friday – Urs Lüthi

Urs Lüthi, 'Self Portrait', 1970

Kodak files for bankruptcy

In a bid to survive a liquidity crisis after years of falling sales, photography pioneer Kodak is filing for bankruptcy. Crippled by the rise of digital photography, the organisation plans to shrink significantly, with Kodak Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez claiming; “This is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak.”

MOCA TV

LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art is launching its own video channel on YouTube. MOCA TV will feature a range of arts-focused programming including a weekly art news roundup called The Art News Network, a documentary series on street art, and – wait for it – a ‘post-reality and talk show’ hosted by Ryan Trecartin. MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch (who is also the channel’s executive) claims; “MOCA TV will be the ultimate digital extension of the museum, aggregating, curating and generating the strongest artistic content from around the world for a new global audience of people who are engaged in visually oriented culture”.

(Above: excerpt from Ryan Trecartin’s ‘I BE AREA’, 2011)

Hennessy Slams Hirst

Last week Larry Gagosian launched one of his most ambitious projects to date: all eleven of his galleries across 3 continents have been simultaneously filled with the collected spot paintings of Damien Hirst.  The critical response to this audacious venture has been lukewarm at best, but it’s internet sensation Hennessy Youngman a.k.a Philadelphia artist Jayson Musson’s critique (above)  that takes the cake. Describing the suite of exhibitions as “The perfect storm of banality”, Youngman proceeds to pan Hirst’s cheesy PR poses – particularly his open mouthed ‘Sharkface’ – and goes on to suggest that Hirst is as big a “tw*t” as Bono. Ouch.