Hot Photo Friday – Jean-Philippe Charbonnier
Month: March 2012
Nipples at the Met
James Cabot Ewart’s Nipples at the Met website is fairly self explanatory. He’s taking happy snaps of each and every human nipple in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection (that’s 832 nipples and counting). And why is Ewart so interested in this part of our anatomy? “Nipples are a constant” he says. “[they are] universal throughout time, culture and sex. Sure, the same can be said about a foot, a knee or a bellybutton, but I chose nipples because hey, sex sells and the Met has no shortage of nipples”. Read his full interview about the project with The Huffington Post here.
A Room With A View
Artangel and Living Architecture are staging a charming project as part of this year’s London Festival. A Room For London is a one-bedroom installation set inside a riverboat perched high atop the Southbank Centre. Designed in collaboration with artist Fiona Banner, The Boat could be rented out by the public for night-long stays (it’s now fully booked). Artists, writers and musicians have also been invited to occupy the little vessel, using their time there to create new work.
A recent inhabitant was musician and artist David Byrne, who conducted a series of field recordings around the site, fusing the sounds of strawberry sellers, jackhammers and footsteps into a common rhythm that resulted in Get It Away, the work you see above. Forthcoming residents include Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller and the boat’s designer, Fiona Banner. The project runs until the end of the year.
Now Hiring
Australia’s top dealer gallery Roslyn Oxley9 is looking for a new Gallery Manager. The position has been held by curator and writer Amanda Rowell for over a decade, so her departure marks the end of an era for RO9G. During her tenure, Rowell curated stand out group exhibitions including Everything’s Alright (2010) and Oblivion Pavilion (2008) that focused on emerging practice. Rowell’s interest in early to mid career artists feeds directly into her new rumoured venture – a dealer gallery located in the Sydney suburb of Redfern.
H B M B
Matthew Barney turned 45 yesterday. To celebrate, let’s revisit an oldie but a goodie – the Cremaster Cycle Cheat Sheet. From creepy bee sex to prolapsed colons, it’s your go-to guide for all things Cremaster.
Hot Photo Friday – Dylan Hartmann
Some work by Paul Yeung
Archibald Finalists Announced
The finalists for this year’s Archibald Prize for portraiture, held annually at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, are now listed online. Amongst the mixed bag of contenders are a couple of standouts – Martin Bell and Vernon Ah Kee deserve a mention here – but the most striking work is a portrait of collector Michael Buxton by Melbourne painter Tim McMonagle (above).
Buxton is a property developer, passionate art collector and friend of the artist. He’s the type of guy art dealers treat with kid gloves; so depicting him covered in raised, textured sores is a bold move indeed. It’s also an approach that folds into McMonagle’s interest in the painterly elements of his craft. The surfaces of his paintings are often scraped back then built up into densely layered patches – Buxton’s glaring liver spots being a case in point. Formalism aside, there’s no escaping the confronting, somewhat unflattering nature of the work. And what did Buxton think of it? He allegedly loved the painting so much he bought it on the spot.
Marino Marini vs. Wang Shugang
New Curator for Warhol Museum
Australian curator and art historian Nicholas Chambers has been appointed the new Milton Fine Curator of Art at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. He takes over from Eric Shiner who vacated the position when he became Warhol Museum Director last July.
Chambers is currently Curator of Contemporary International Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, where he was one of the chief curators of Warhol’s first Australian retrospective in 2007. His appointment comes at a time of change for QAG. Not only is Chambers departing for the States next month, current QAG Director Tony Ellwood leaves for his new position as Director of the NGV on August 1st. Both are yet to be replaced.
Leg of Lamb 