Just because no one is writing

Entertaining. 

Tate Modern Turbine Hall

So this is what they use the unused space for. 

Very very long walk for two shows

I think I've got way too much time on my hands :) but cherish it now because I think soon I wont have just as much time to go see so many art things, other than my own.

So today I took a long walk around the west side, (pictures here). Started in Knightsbridge, walked to Royal Collage of Art to see their second year MA painting exhibit. Not too exciting, horrible actually. Two pieces that were ok but other than that very depressing and the building is horribly ugly. I am no longer upset that they didnt take me. From there I walked to Notting Hill, through lots of wrong turns, but finally arrived at the Portobello Market, its fun and all but still, too many people on a Saturday. Then I took a few turns north and managed to pass by Richard Serras drawing exhibit at the Gagosian. Beautiful. Heavy, thick ink. And from there I walked to Wallace Collection to see the illustration show of Osbert Lancaster, only it had already closed at 5pm so I'll have to go back another day. 

Have yet to pass by Hayward to see Andy Warhol and Robin Rhode. 

"Maeght and his Artists"

Bonnard, Matisse, Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque....
all in one place. This was the Aimé Maeght exhibit "Behind The Mirror" at the Royal Academy.
Another impressive place to go to, a little like Tate Britain. I tend to adhere to places like the Met in New York. Places like Louisiana in Denmark. Places like Foundation Beyeler in Basel. It is a need for there to be a historic background and a thought about esthetic architecture in comparison to its nature, its surrounding environment.
I much liked the show and was really impressed by Calders huge lithographs of about 2.5mx1.5m.

Theres also the absolutely beautiful Fondation Maeght in the sound of France. I was there two years ago, really a place to visit as well!

Cosima von Bonin

These are some installation views of the current exhibition "if?if?" of Cosima von Bonin atr Galerie Daniel Buchholz. It's a lot of fun working in the middle of over-dimensional pets. However, I am also a bit worried they could start crawling around since Cosima send me this link: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/24_octopus.shtml
The show was opened with a concert by "The Red Krayola", a legendary band who was formed in 1966 and has palyed ever since in always different combos with people related to the arts, for instance Steven Prina or in cooperation with "Art and Language". It is great how many artists of the gallery work in cooperation with other artists or the music scene.

Francis and Mark

Francis Bacon at Tate Britain and Mark Rothko at Tate Modern. These are two rather big shows to put on at the same time. And of course they occur right at the moment of school start here in London so they will certainly be subjects to discuss coming next week.
Personally I favored the Rothko exhibit, despite the fact that I went on a crowded sunny Sunday and think that the architecture within this old power station has been greatly mislead. The exhibition rooms were crowded, stuffy and dark. You moved past tourists with their audio guides on, faces down, thumbling with the digital stuff on it, mothers with strollers and noisy kids, ignorant ones, large in figure already, leaving their backpack on their back, which only vastens their appearance. And then of course the stereotypical art students and "intellectuals" wadding the pieces up and down as if only their eyes can reveal the truth, oh and not to forget, dosing an air of "how could anyone but us have been allowed in to see these pieces in real?".
But all this aside I did manage to enjoy Rothko's pieces. Because they were immense and gargantuan paintings. My ego turned green and kept begging myself to do pieces just as monumental. His paintings on view were beautiful and for some reason his paintings always make me misty. They are very passionate and emotional paintings. Not every viewer has such a grand opinion of Rothko but not every viewer allows themselves to take the time. Seeing a Rothko is not about understanding something profane or seeing something, its simply about feeling the colour. The warmth, the coolness, the passion. It is like feeling a vast landscape. Of course you see the landscape, but unlike other things you see, you feel something immense when you see a vast and open landscape. Philippe Ségalot, an art consultant, had some words on how a buyer might feel at an auction which I feel suits for any art work you see that impresses you, only here the value is the piece itself and not its market:

"Your heart beats faster. The adrenaline surges through you. Even the coolest...break out in a sweat".

With Rothko I care only about the work. I have no need to know about him or his biography. I've bought a biography of his long time ago but never started it. I have enough with just seeing his work, thats all I care about for the moment. With Bacon however, its a different matter. With his paintings I feel like I need to know more about him in order not to read them simply as distracting creatures but as something of him and his explorations.

I was impressed by Tate Britain. It is a beautiful building and unlike the rooms at the Modern, here they were perfect. Old wooden floors, angled entrances so that from one room you can see into the spaces of others, giving you a wider perspective, not like being locked in in a white cube. And the walls were painted in different shadings of white or gray, so that every space actually feels like a different space.
As to Bacons work. Of course I was impressed, certainly to be able to see so many of his, in real, in one place. It was substantial to see all these paintings. And I can't hide my colorist side, once again, I loved his colours. He had the most beautiful green. An English racing green, a green I've seen on cars here and want to use in a painting. Its a beautiful deep green.
With Bacons work, however, I quickly got to the point where I felt bored. Where, although I am a fan of his work, his lines, his colours, his marks started to annoy me, bother me and feel repetitive. In the end I was picking out things, like his arrows and fat outlines, that I wish werent there or had changed over the years of his work. There were some documentaries on him and interviews that were very interesting. I will have to find them and order them.

As a final note, do come and see these shows if you have the chance and come see me while you're here too.

***A little piece of cake while you wait***

Hello my dears,
While I compile my next and finally from London update about the art here, take a look at my little photo diary on my other blog "cat around".

Lots of Kisses
C

PS if any of you have a much better title, I am in need of a much better title for this blog, please do pitch in, I'm brain dead when it comes to titles.

strangers on a train

bruno, i really do wish you would take up painting. it's such a soothing passtime!

sunday candy

jeff koons at gagosian in moscow, image from artobserved.com

The "MilkyWay"

Working your way around the galleries and directly to the auction house. The new way?

My mom found this article about Damien Hirst in Vanity Fair and was doing some research about his work this morning. She hadnt really heard of him before, but his work didnt impress her much, more impressed she was by his route. Hmmm, so lets auction something a get 200M for it :)

Here some articles:

Diamond Skull 

"Did I say that?" and other links

Painting...

... has happened mostly on my walls during the last days or even weeks, so apologies for beeing absent (at least from the net-) art scene for a while.
However, you artists with a fine sense for colour around us: I hope you find this one allright as it is now all around me in my new appartment.


Great to have another correspondent from Switzerland now ;-)

louise bourgeois at cheim & read

there's a louise bourgeois show at cheim & read in new york running concurrently with the retrospective at guggenheim. it includes a series of sculptures cast from discarded clothing and ink drawings dealing with pregnancy and motherhood. i thought the installation shot looked great.

previously unseen..

found this on artdaily.org. this is a portrait of francis bacon painted by lucian freud and it is to be auctioned at christie's in october. this is the only good thing about the obscenity of the art market, since other freuds have been selling for crazy prices, others we have never seen keep surfacing. i like this one a lot.

The Art Market?

Hello to my conspiracy group. 

I will have to apologize, there will sadly be no trip to St.Moritz for SAM. My brother has left for Denmark and I am here to watch the dogs on my own. 

But I ran into these two articles so please do enjoy: 

Dealers and Public Galleries

Investment or "Like it"?

En route...en Basel

My second art day this week. I went to Basel to see Fernand Leger at Fondation Beyeler. It was alright, nothing to scream for. Somewhat monotone and although he was of no inspiration to me he had been to Rosenquist, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein as well as Rauschenberg. But Beyeler is always worth visiting and to my great despair I got to witness gigantic Anselm Kiefer works being installed. Despair because I most likely will miss the exhibit. 

After Beyeler I drove on to Schaulager, where I saw Monica Sosnowska and Andrea Zittel. Too "gegenward" (present) for me. Although both had their impressive ideas. Sosnowska had some pieces that made you think about space and size relations. One piece that was quite neat was a corridor you walked down, then the corridor turned left and suddenly you stood in front of a wall, only, the wall was the floor continued and when you looked up the corridor kept going but upward, as if a giant had taken it and bent it 45 degrees. 

And Andrea Zittel was trying to answer the question of what it would be like if we didnt rely on scientific time. What would our day look like without any relation or feeling of set, standardized time. 

So that was my day. 

PS. A small, possibly very unnecessary, side note: I realized whilst looking up Fernand Leger og google to find images that Harve Leger images come up almost as frequent. And his so called IN dress actually creates a similar, albeit much slimmer, body shape with breasts and hips greatly emphasized.   

Richard Serra

Speaking of Richard Serra drawings, I just saw that there's a show of 60 of them at Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria. The show is called Drawings| Work comes out of work and it's on until September, 14. In case one of you Europeans wants to do a little art trip to Austria :P Here's what he says about drawing:

“I like to draw. It is an activity I rely on, a dependency of sorts. Drawing gives me an immediate return for my effort and the result is commensurate with my involvement. It is an activity that requires solitude, it is the most concentrated space in which I work.”

The Gold Weaver of Luzern

I have started my week of art. On the first of September. And I am going to count this visit as an experience with art as well because this was not just an encounter with a room full of lovely art pieces but also an encounter with a real piece of art itself. Today I was invited by some very dear friends to go see Lucie Heskett-Brem, the Gold Weaver, in her atelier in Meggen, Switzerland. She is a well known jewelry maker here in Luzern and the daughter of Sculptor Rolf Brem. Her mother too was a jewelry designer and today I got to meet her in her studio. Engulfed with her tiny pieces of silver and gold prepared in odd shapes to make necklaces, rings, earrings and bracelets. She was eager to talk, to explain, to share her passion and my friend and I happily stood in as models. Forgive me if I sound like a grandma, but it was an utter delight for the delicate pieces felt like second skins, they just attached themselves and followed every curve of your neck, collarbones, wrists, wherever they were hung. 

i am now all about stray cats, ugly dogs, and turkish coffee..wanted to share.

now that we have a new author and may have more later(?) i'm going to change the title to international art conspiracy, that should be ok for all of us right?

The New Author

Hello!

So this is her, the new author, the new contributor, and the new very excited participant (the one in the center, in the awkward pose with blond hair in midst Covent Garden, London, but more to that later) who is very honored to join this lovely group.

I am Catrine, I am from Switzerland, I am a painter, (should you be interested in what I do). So the basics. 

The details: I know the two of you, Gamze and Julia. Allison I have yet the pleasure to meet. 

My Gamze darling with whom I've had the joy of playing artist for 3 years already, was my New York coffee, lunch, dinner, brunch? well usually this turned into lunch by the time we both got moving, gallery, movie and museum companion. We are the shining twins. Remember, The Shining with Jack Nicholson? Or the Jane Arbus Twins? Well thats us, really. In another life. Well that was our given "nom de plume", a strange nickname considering that we were never constantly together, are nothing alike and not even the same height or stature. I have no idea :)  Back to coffee, there was lots of coffee, lots and lots of coffee, or rather coffee for me and "one chamomile tea please" for Gamze. She is the best coffee companion one could wish for. Now there will have to be future coffee meetings in new countries, say Turkey in September and then London next?

Julia I got to meet this summer while she was in New York for a very intensive course. Hallo Julia, wie geht es dir? I will never forget our Indian dinner "Unterm Chilihimmel".

So, I will do my very best to report about art in my parts of the globe. Next week I have a whole week of art in mind. I will have a whole week of time on my hands since one sister is leaving with brother as companion to Paris and the other sister is leaving with mom as companion to New York. This means I'm alone at home. In mind are: Fondation Beyeler, then St.Moritz Art Masters (SAM), thats if I can manage to drive myself the three hours up in the morning and then back down in the evening, and then Zürich.

Great to meet you on the blog,

Catrine B.

Düsseldorf..

So I visited this neighbor city last Sunday. There are quite interesting institution also for contemporary art: K21, KIT, Kunstverein, Parkhaus and some good galleries. However, two things I ran into all the time during my walk were the open studios that were going on that week-end and the "Säulenheilige" (saints on columns), installations by Christoph Pöggeler, that can be found all over the place. After wondering what this guy with the suitcase is doing up there the first time, it turned out to be a nice game to watch out for all of his friends. I am sorry for making you bend your head like this, I thought that might be good gymnastics.. ;-)

New Author

I have badgered Catrine into writing with us, I am hoping she'll be joining us with her first post soon, yeayy!

Richard Serra

Here's one for the lady who never reads our blog. There's a 2005 documentary called Thinking on Your Feet chronicling "The Matter of Time" Richard Serra's Bilbao installation comprised of eight sculptures and it'll be screened at Film Forum in New York until September 2nd. One doesn't quite know what to make of Serra's work in the beginning, many are intimidated by the scale and material. I myself always found the prints much more accesible because they have the same physical quality but seem relatively non-threatening because of their 2-D nature. I think his installation work is more of an acquired taste and arouses more and more excitement upon each viewing. It's definitely magnetic and I would love to see the film even if NYT calls Serra "an informative if unanimated guide" and signals boredom. Here's the link to that review and the image is from artinfo.com.

Cologne..

.. after all not such a far-off place as some people say! Even after a couple of years in Berlin, this place keeps me busy (I know that's still a bad excuse for neglecting our blog). There are so many places I need to show you girls and where we should have a coffee or beer some time! I am moving into my new appartment next week, so that would be one obvious spot for new conspirations..
and the artistic scene has quite a bit to offer as well, I'll get back as soon as I took a picture of it all ;-)

dollhouse

this is a life-size installation by artist heather benning, i found it on ohdeedoh.com. she converted an abandoned farmhouse in canada into a dollhouse by replacing the back wall with plexiglass and decorating it with 60s furniture. the old lady inside me loves miniatures and dollhouses so this is fascinating to her.

an article from the guardian's blog about artists explaining their own art..i myself am quite bitter about artist statements, i find them very painful and humiliating. while i do think artists should be informed about art history and theory, i don't agree that they can or should know exactly what they're doing. overintellectualizing can be a big hindrance for the work itself, and cookie-cutter artist statements lead to cookie cutter work. very annoying.

a1one

your fellow partner in crime(the crime being laziness and lack of enthusiasm) is going south to finally swim and see her mother. i might not be able to blog my boring stuff so enjoy this in the meantime:



this is a1one, an iranian street artist. i found the picture on bloggy.com, it doesn't do so much for me as a standalone mural but i like the photo a lot. it's interesting how it acquires meaning through its surroundings.

By the way, I did go to see the Eliasson waterfalls, but I went at around 10 at night and they weren't lit anymore. I ended up watching a tango class.

A couple weekends ago I walked down to the Jersey City marina, a form of meditation really.. anyway I discovered I could see one of Olafur Eliasson's waterfalls from there, the one on the north shore of Governors Island. Alas I only had my camera phone, therefore no (appropriate) zoom, so I was unable to catch it. Thinking that this week I may take the ol' video camera down to get it in action.

Therefore, this is just boats in the marina looking peaceful near dusk. Just to the left of this picture were about 5 NYPD boats on the Liberty State Park side of the marina.. someone's jetski had gotten stuck on a fish or something silly.

Rainbow!

Ladies,

don't worry: I have finally found the rainbow for you. And guess where: its end is in the Bronx..

Yes, let's have some more international art conspirants!

it is sad, is it not? my days have been filled with visiting family, sitting around hot and sweaty in an apartment, hoping to go into New York but have all these assignments! one and a half left to do.

let us have some new recruits.. suggestions in your world? not so sure about ones in mine.

Hi ladies,

I hope you're both well. I myself am very depressed with packing and those horrible assignments. I stay at home to do them but I end up doing nothing apart from staring at the ceiling over my bed and drinking coconut water. panic! And our blog is very sad, noone doing any fabulous cultural activities? maybe we shoul recruit a couple of more people, what do you say?

Visual Culture..

.. after I checked the sky for a thousand suns and had the tuna sandwich I found this new way to visualize the technological world a little more:
go to -www.google.com/help/ig/art/gallery.html- and pick a new outfit for your google site.
I am still thinking whether I like it or prefer the old-fashioned page.
.. now the only one sun has disappeared after the sandwich, too.. cheers, yoko

daily dose of yoko ono

Imagine one thousand suns in the
sky at the same time.
Let them shine for one hour.
Then, let them gradually melt
into the sky.
Make one tunafish sandwich and eat.

Dali at MoMA

This past Friday I went to the member preview at MoMA for the "Dali: Painting and Film" exhibition, on the sixth floor. Member previews, for me, are one of the ultimate perks of a membership, as you can actually experience the exhibition without swarms of people and without school tours. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing tons of people enjoying art, but on my Art days, it's nice to be in a solitary state.

A good portion of the attendees were older retired patrons.. at one point I was sitting with 10 retirement-age folks, watching one of his films, all laughing at the same scripted points. I felt the sense of community and togetherness that I knew was necessary to experience at some point.

Throughout the exhibit (which is on view until September 15), there will be various related film screenings in the MoMA theaters (for films possibly inspired by Dali), including some personal classics: The Fountain, Pan's Labyrinth, The Science of Sleep, Scarface, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. However, you can catch a few of Dali's films INSIDE the exhibition, so I suggest you start there.

One of my FAVORITES was the screening of Destino, which also has accompanying sketches from the production of the short film.

View the online exhibit here.

i kindly request your contribution in the amount of $1500 to buy:

Well I realize I should get over my blankblogphobia and post something, then hopefully the rest will come. I don't want to advertise but the store is one of the few things I liked at the New Museum. Not because of its cultural or educational aspects but because it's fun, like an artsy Urban Outfitters that sells things in editions(that's not a good thing, no). But I WANT this Antonio Murado porcelaine coffee set!

International art conspirancy..

...because this is not only what we thought but also what we think we are going to do...

in different places but with the same idea(s), which still have to take shape. However, we're close and we'll let you know how things are proceeding. Be part of it all!

Introduction and welcome.

Gamze, Julia, and I have been in a summer intensive program together at NYU in arts administration. We decided to start this blog as a way to keep in touch, inform each other of events and exhibitions taking place at home, and present different perspectives on art from our own countries. We will post picture updates, project ideas, commentary on the art world, and various other tidbits. Stay tuned!