ARTmostfierce wishes everybody Happy Halloween!!!
Trick or Treat ...whatever suits you better!
Lisa Barlow: Holy Land U.S.A.
6 hours ago
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
ECONOMY Meltdown by Ligorano/Reese
Economy- Sculpture by Ligorano/Reese 2008
ARTmostfierce loves Ligorano/Reese political statements. From their FUCK snow globe to the latest ECONOMY meltdown ice sculpture in Downtown Manhattan there is always a strong socio-political message with a dark sense of humor making quite a statement. We are starting to witness what it could be the re-emerging of art that finally makes sense and sends a strong message. Check it out before it melts down along with your $$$$.
Ligorano/Reese is a couple of artists and they are represented in NYC by Jim Kempner Fine Arts Gallery.
NEW YORK, NY.- On October 29, 2008, the 79th anniversary of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that caused the Great Depression in 1929, artists Ligorano/Reese melted down the “Economy.”
In a new, time-based event, called Main Street Meltdown the artists installed the word “Economy,” carved in ice, in Foley Square, using the New York Supreme Court as a back drop.
The event began on Wednesday, October 29th at 9 AM and will last 24 hours.
The artists chose Foley Square, close to the heart of Wall Street, as the site to focus on the timeliness of the financial crisis in the final week of the presidential campaign. The artists refer to Main Street Meltdown as a “temporary monument.”
The monument measures 15 feet long, 5 feet tall, and weighs almost 1,500 pounds. It is the fourth in a series of ice sculptures by the artists that deal with important political issues. Earlier this year, Ligorano/Reese staged ice sculptures of the word “Democracy” during the Democratic and Republican Conventions in Denver and St. Paul.
“What we like about these sculptures,” Reese says, “is that they are very popular in the best sense of the word, people love to touch them, but in the shape of a word, to see them meltdown and vanish, they take on a completely different meaning.”
“With the recent turmoil in the financial markets,” Ligorano adds, “the anxiety creeping through the country from Main Street to Wall Street… this sculpture metaphorically captures the results of unregulated markets on the U.S. economy. To see the word “economy” melting down is representational of an extreme time.”
It can take Ligorano/Reese’s sculptures anywhere from 10 to 24 hours to meltdown. The artists photograph and videotape the event to create timelapse photographs and films, posting the results in realtime on a special internet blog.
How long will it take for “Economy” to meltdown, no one knows.
Ligorano/Reese is a couple of artists and they are represented in NYC by Jim Kempner Fine Arts Gallery.
NEW YORK, NY.- On October 29, 2008, the 79th anniversary of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that caused the Great Depression in 1929, artists Ligorano/Reese melted down the “Economy.”
In a new, time-based event, called Main Street Meltdown the artists installed the word “Economy,” carved in ice, in Foley Square, using the New York Supreme Court as a back drop.
The event began on Wednesday, October 29th at 9 AM and will last 24 hours.
The artists chose Foley Square, close to the heart of Wall Street, as the site to focus on the timeliness of the financial crisis in the final week of the presidential campaign. The artists refer to Main Street Meltdown as a “temporary monument.”
The monument measures 15 feet long, 5 feet tall, and weighs almost 1,500 pounds. It is the fourth in a series of ice sculptures by the artists that deal with important political issues. Earlier this year, Ligorano/Reese staged ice sculptures of the word “Democracy” during the Democratic and Republican Conventions in Denver and St. Paul.
“What we like about these sculptures,” Reese says, “is that they are very popular in the best sense of the word, people love to touch them, but in the shape of a word, to see them meltdown and vanish, they take on a completely different meaning.”
“With the recent turmoil in the financial markets,” Ligorano adds, “the anxiety creeping through the country from Main Street to Wall Street… this sculpture metaphorically captures the results of unregulated markets on the U.S. economy. To see the word “economy” melting down is representational of an extreme time.”
It can take Ligorano/Reese’s sculptures anywhere from 10 to 24 hours to meltdown. The artists photograph and videotape the event to create timelapse photographs and films, posting the results in realtime on a special internet blog.
How long will it take for “Economy” to meltdown, no one knows.
Monday, October 27, 2008
KIM KEEVER -Photographs@KINZ, TILLOU + FEIGEN
Photographs by Kim Keever
ARTmostfierce recommends checking this show out. The photographs are brilliant and so it is creative process. They posess great painterly quality. And if any photographs justify its size, Kim Keever photographs are the right ones!
Don't miss it!
Please read invite and press release
KIM KEEVER
PHOTOGRAPHS
OCTOBER 30, 2008 - JANUARY 3, 2009
PLEASE JOIN US AT A PREVIEW RECEPTION:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
KIM KEEVER's large-scale photographs are created by meticulously constructing miniature topographies in a 200-gallon tank, which is then filled with water. These dioramas of fictitious environments are brought to life with colored lights and the dispersal of pigment, producing ephemeral atmospheres that he must quickly capture with his large-format camera.
Keever's painterly panoramas represent a continuation of the landscape tradition, as well as an evolution of the genre. Referencing a broad history of landscape painting, especially that of Romanticism, the Hudson River School and Luminism, they are imbued with a sense of the sublime. However, they also show a subversive side that deliberately acknowledges their contemporary contrivance and conceptual artifice. Keever's staged scenery is characterized by a psychology of timelessness. A combination of the real and the imaginary, they document places that somehow we know, but never were. The symbolic qualities he achieves result from his understanding of the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of its effects and the limits of spectacle based on our assumptions of what landscape means to us. Rather than presenting a factual reality, Keever fabricates an illusion to conjure the realms of our imagination.
Kim Keever lives in New York City, and has exhibited extensively in galleries throughout the United States and abroad.
For more information and images click here
KINZ, TILLOU + FEIGEN
529 W. 20TH STREET, 11TH FL. NEW YORK, NY 10011
TELEPHONE 212.929.0500, FAX 212.929.0065
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Editions/Artists' Book Fair 10/30/08
ARTmostfierce wants you to check the EAB Fair !
The Editions/Artists' Book Fair Opening Night Gala
Benefiting Exhibitions and Programs at P.S.1
Thursday, October 30
5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
The Tunnel, 269 Eleventh Avenue, between 27 and 28 Streets
Tickets are $50 at Ticketweb.com, at P.S.1, or at the door.
Please join us for the Opening Night Gala of the Editions/Artists' Book Fair (E/AB) benefiting exhibitions and programs at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. A great night for an even better cause, the evening's festivities will include a cocktail reception, a special DJ set by artist duo Lovett/Codagnone, and music by AJ Slim.
Now in its eleventh year, the E/AB Fair is the premier showcase for contemporary publishers and dealers presenting the latest and greatest in prints, multiples, and artists' books.
This year's E/AB Benefit Host Committee brings together artists and patrons of P.S.1: Terry Adkins, Sarah Basile, Robert Boyd, Phong Bui, Nicole Cherubini, William Cordova, Eyal Danieli, Dana Farouki & Mazen Makarem, Lia Gangitano, Jaime Johnson, Michael Joo, Lovett/Codagnone, Carrie Moyer, Primary Information, Ernesto Pujol, Børre Sæthre, Franklin Sirmans, Neville Wakefield, Saman Westberg, Arden Wohl.
Special thanks to Blue Point Brewing Co., Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Original Sin Hard Cider, Brooklyn Oenology, and GuS — Grown-up Soda, beverage sponsors of the 2008 Opening Night Gala.
For more information, please visit ps1.org.
$30 of each ticket is tax-deductible as a charitable contribution.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Signs of Financial Trouble Abound
Two weeks ago , I wrote in this blog something similar as Jerry Saltz for New York Magazine wrote this past Oct 24, 2008 about the current state of the Art market.
Please read article below and enjoy!
Frieze After the Freeze
At London’s big art fair, signs of financial trouble abound. But maybe that’s okay.
By Jerry Saltz Published Oct 24, 2008
Two weeks ago, the Death Star that has hovered over the art world for the last two years finally fired its lasers. It was October 15, the day the stock market fell more than 700 points—again—and a month after Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch collapsed and Damien Hirst pawned off $200 million worth of crapola on clueless rubes at Sotheby’s. Against this backdrop, at 11 a.m., the gates of London’s Frieze Art Fair opened, and in streamed the international traveling circus of bigwigs, collectors, curators, advisers, museum directors, trustees, models, movie stars, and critics like moi.
Talk of financial doom filled the air. Karl Schweizer, UBS’s head of art banking, told one reporter, “We are in a liquidity crisis.” Money manager Randy Slifka added, “There is blood on the streets on Wall Street.” Collectors talked about “sewing up our pockets.” Yet much of the art world was playing on as if nothing had happened. A German dealer told Artforum.com, “This economic mess will all be over by January.” Christie’s Amy Cappellazzo spun her house’s recent sales: “If you bought something, you bought something real.” In truth, most of the speculators are buying something real bad or badly overpriced.
In fact, though, things were different. Those of us who have frequented Frieze could see that something was off. Dealers and assistants who in recent years were always busy with clients now stood or sat quietly. Sales were happening, but slowly, one at a time. The claim of “It’s sold” was replaced by “I have it on several holds.” Although the megagalleries like Gagosian and White Cube teemed with moneyed types and very tall women in very high heels, many younger dealers looked perplexed. A gallerist who entered the field in the go-go aughts and who had sold only two pieces by 5 p.m. that first day asked, “What’s going on?”
As I made my way through the 152 booths, I thought about the moment in Titanic when the designer of the doomed luxury liner warns Kate Winslet to find a lifeboat because “all this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.” When I tried this idea out on attendees, several said I was “a buzzkill.” I asked, “Isn’t the buzz already beginning to disappear?”
If the art economy is as bad as it looks—if worse comes to worst—40 to 50 New York galleries will close. Around the same number of European galleries will, too. An art magazine will cease publishing. A major fair will call it quits—possibly the Armory Show, because so many dealers hate the conditions on the piers, or maybe Art Basel Miami Beach, because although it’s fun, it’s also ridiculous. Museums will cancel shows because they can’t raise funds. Art advisers will be out of work. Alternative spaces will become more important for shaping the discourse, although they’ll have a hard time making ends meet.
As for artists, too many have been getting away with murder, making questionable or derivative work and selling it for inflated prices. They will either lower their prices or stop selling. Many younger artists who made a killing will be forgotten quickly. Others will be seen mainly as relics of a time when marketability equaled likability. Many of the hot Chinese artists, most of whom are only nth-generation photo-realists, will fall by the wayside, having stuck collectors with a lot of junk.
Much good art got made while money ruled; I like a lot of it, and hardship and poverty aren’t virtues. The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists—especially emerging ones—won’t have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They’ll be able to experiment as much as they want.
But my Schadenfreude side wishes a pox on the auction houses, those shrines to the disconnect between the inner life of art and the outer life of commerce. If they don’t go belly up or return to dealing mainly with dead artists, they need to stop pretending that they have any interest in art beyond the financial. Additionally, I hope many of the speculators who never really cared about art will go away. Either way, money will no longer be the measure of success. It hasn’t made art better. It made some artists—notably Hirst, Murakami, Prince, and maybe Piotr Ukla´nski—shallower.
Recessions are hard on people, but they are not hard on art. The forties, seventies, and the nineties, when money was scarce, were great periods, when the art world retracted but it was also reborn. New generations took the stage; new communities spawned energy; things opened up; deadwood washed away. With luck, New Museum curator Laura Hoptman’s wish will come true: “Art will flower and triumph not as a hobby, an investment, or a career, but as what it is and was—a life.”
Please read article below and enjoy!
Frieze After the Freeze
At London’s big art fair, signs of financial trouble abound. But maybe that’s okay.
By Jerry Saltz Published Oct 24, 2008
Two weeks ago, the Death Star that has hovered over the art world for the last two years finally fired its lasers. It was October 15, the day the stock market fell more than 700 points—again—and a month after Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch collapsed and Damien Hirst pawned off $200 million worth of crapola on clueless rubes at Sotheby’s. Against this backdrop, at 11 a.m., the gates of London’s Frieze Art Fair opened, and in streamed the international traveling circus of bigwigs, collectors, curators, advisers, museum directors, trustees, models, movie stars, and critics like moi.
Talk of financial doom filled the air. Karl Schweizer, UBS’s head of art banking, told one reporter, “We are in a liquidity crisis.” Money manager Randy Slifka added, “There is blood on the streets on Wall Street.” Collectors talked about “sewing up our pockets.” Yet much of the art world was playing on as if nothing had happened. A German dealer told Artforum.com, “This economic mess will all be over by January.” Christie’s Amy Cappellazzo spun her house’s recent sales: “If you bought something, you bought something real.” In truth, most of the speculators are buying something real bad or badly overpriced.
In fact, though, things were different. Those of us who have frequented Frieze could see that something was off. Dealers and assistants who in recent years were always busy with clients now stood or sat quietly. Sales were happening, but slowly, one at a time. The claim of “It’s sold” was replaced by “I have it on several holds.” Although the megagalleries like Gagosian and White Cube teemed with moneyed types and very tall women in very high heels, many younger dealers looked perplexed. A gallerist who entered the field in the go-go aughts and who had sold only two pieces by 5 p.m. that first day asked, “What’s going on?”
As I made my way through the 152 booths, I thought about the moment in Titanic when the designer of the doomed luxury liner warns Kate Winslet to find a lifeboat because “all this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.” When I tried this idea out on attendees, several said I was “a buzzkill.” I asked, “Isn’t the buzz already beginning to disappear?”
If the art economy is as bad as it looks—if worse comes to worst—40 to 50 New York galleries will close. Around the same number of European galleries will, too. An art magazine will cease publishing. A major fair will call it quits—possibly the Armory Show, because so many dealers hate the conditions on the piers, or maybe Art Basel Miami Beach, because although it’s fun, it’s also ridiculous. Museums will cancel shows because they can’t raise funds. Art advisers will be out of work. Alternative spaces will become more important for shaping the discourse, although they’ll have a hard time making ends meet.
As for artists, too many have been getting away with murder, making questionable or derivative work and selling it for inflated prices. They will either lower their prices or stop selling. Many younger artists who made a killing will be forgotten quickly. Others will be seen mainly as relics of a time when marketability equaled likability. Many of the hot Chinese artists, most of whom are only nth-generation photo-realists, will fall by the wayside, having stuck collectors with a lot of junk.
Much good art got made while money ruled; I like a lot of it, and hardship and poverty aren’t virtues. The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists—especially emerging ones—won’t have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They’ll be able to experiment as much as they want.
But my Schadenfreude side wishes a pox on the auction houses, those shrines to the disconnect between the inner life of art and the outer life of commerce. If they don’t go belly up or return to dealing mainly with dead artists, they need to stop pretending that they have any interest in art beyond the financial. Additionally, I hope many of the speculators who never really cared about art will go away. Either way, money will no longer be the measure of success. It hasn’t made art better. It made some artists—notably Hirst, Murakami, Prince, and maybe Piotr Ukla´nski—shallower.
Recessions are hard on people, but they are not hard on art. The forties, seventies, and the nineties, when money was scarce, were great periods, when the art world retracted but it was also reborn. New generations took the stage; new communities spawned energy; things opened up; deadwood washed away. With luck, New Museum curator Laura Hoptman’s wish will come true: “Art will flower and triumph not as a hobby, an investment, or a career, but as what it is and was—a life.”
Friday, October 24, 2008
Hey, looks like you are in this video!!!
ARTmostfierce looks like he is in this video!
You can customize it for you and your friends and get a good laugh. That way you will not forget to vote and encourage your friends to rock the vote!
Enjoy!
www.cnnbcvideo.com/index.html?nid=JvJ6iAcRufOX8Jq61mR1AjM4NDQ0NjI-&referred_by=11230421-t77PM6x
You can customize it for you and your friends and get a good laugh. That way you will not forget to vote and encourage your friends to rock the vote!
Enjoy!
www.cnnbcvideo.com/index.html?nid=JvJ6iAcRufOX8Jq61mR1AjM4NDQ0NjI-&referred_by=11230421-t77PM6x
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
It Is Time For... CHANGE!
Elizabeth Peyton
Michelle and Sasha Obama listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention
August 2008 Oil on MDF 11 x 14 inches , photo courtesy of W Magazine.
Ok folks! I had enough! Time for CHANGE!
As I see today more of my $$$ and your $$$$ tumble in the market today...well it is time!
The ARTmostfierce ART Blog sends its 100% endorsement and support to the Obama- Biden ticket!
So make sure you vote and make the right decision!
Special thanks to Catherine Hong, Online Director of W magazine and new ARTmostfierce blog reader for sending me this photo.Elizabeth Peyton portraiture again hits it where it got to hit.This Elizabeth Peyton painting was commissioned by W magazine Please click link read the article below for more info about Elizabeth Peyton.
http://www.wmagazine.com/artdesign/2008/11/elizabeth_peyton
Michelle and Sasha Obama listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention
August 2008 Oil on MDF 11 x 14 inches , photo courtesy of W Magazine.
Ok folks! I had enough! Time for CHANGE!
As I see today more of my $$$ and your $$$$ tumble in the market today...well it is time!
The ARTmostfierce ART Blog sends its 100% endorsement and support to the Obama- Biden ticket!
So make sure you vote and make the right decision!
Special thanks to Catherine Hong, Online Director of W magazine and new ARTmostfierce blog reader for sending me this photo.Elizabeth Peyton portraiture again hits it where it got to hit.This Elizabeth Peyton painting was commissioned by W magazine Please click link read the article below for more info about Elizabeth Peyton.
http://www.wmagazine.com/artdesign/2008/11/elizabeth_peyton
Amy Elkins Solo Show Tomorrow 10/23 @ Yancey Richardson Gallery
Peter, Brooklyn 2008 Photo by Amy Elkins
''WallFlowers'' by Amy Elkins
ARTmostfierce recommends stopping by and check out the classic portraiture with a modern twist of photographer Amy Elkins. This is her first show exhibit at the prestigious Yancey Richardson Gallery in NYC.
If you are not familiar with Amy's work I encourage you to do so.
Oct 23 - Dec 06,2008
Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street, 10011 New York
NewYork, USA
Phone: +1-646.2309610
Tue-Sat 10-18
http:///amyelkins.com
www.yanceyrichardson.com/
''WallFlowers'' by Amy Elkins
ARTmostfierce recommends stopping by and check out the classic portraiture with a modern twist of photographer Amy Elkins. This is her first show exhibit at the prestigious Yancey Richardson Gallery in NYC.
If you are not familiar with Amy's work I encourage you to do so.
Oct 23 - Dec 06,2008
Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street, 10011 New York
NewYork, USA
Phone: +1-646.2309610
Tue-Sat 10-18
http:///amyelkins.com
www.yanceyrichardson.com/
Interview with Photographer Erwin Olaf
Erwin Olaf-The Ice Cream Parlor, 2004
Ruben Natal-San Miguel a member of ARTmostfierce Art Blog had the privilege and pleasure during the Lucie Awards Press Luncheon on Sunday October 19, 2008 @ Splashlight Studios to conduct interviews with several of the award recipients.
Erwin Olaf, honoree for Achievement in Advertisement , Susan Meiselas for Achievement in Photojournalism and Herman Leonard for Achievement in Portraiture were ones who I had such honor to ask several questions.
Due lack of time and creative ways , I decided to formulate and ask the same questions to see how different or similar their answers will be. The interviews will be posted in three different blog postings to provide each artist the images and attention that they surely deserve!
Ruben Natal-San Miguel- Congratulations Erwin!
Your body of work is extremely elegant, avant garde, rich in detail, sophisticated and your Aperture Monograph is such a gorgeous publication
Erwin Olaf- Thank you very much!
RNSM- Your photographs have a cinematic/ documentary quality, Is that your main source of inspiration?
EO- A lot of my work takes on inspiration from the 1970-1980's Italian , Spanish and German cinema. Films by directors David Lynch, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Passolinni and Almodovar are among my favorites. I like to portray the inner life of people. There is always a story behind them but, I always leave it open to the audience so they can make their own interpretation. Also, I like to pay great attention to detail, the eye for detail is very important to me. In addition some of my inspiration comes from the paintings of Norman Rockwell, Edward Hooper and the photography of Guy Boudin, Helmut Newton and Christopher Makos.
I had done some video but , they so far last roughly about 3 minutes . I want to make them last longer at least 20 minutes. I want the viewer to observe them for a longer period of time and keep them entranced in the process.
RNSM- How do you establish a difference from your editorial commissioned work vs. your artistic free work?
Is there such a difference? and why?
EO- There is a difference between them but, at times, one can influence the other. On the editorial commissioned work you are selling a product and you need to satisfy the clients needs.
At times it can be difficult but, also is a learning experience for when you do more creative artistic work . There is no boundaries when you are doing your artistic work so it can be more satisfying, however the commission work help you set parameters of how far your artistic work can go.
RNSM- What is your favorite photograph or series of your work?
EO- Oh No! I can't answer that ! That is a very difficult question! LOL!
I must say, that the Mature Series in which I photographed mature woman is very dear to me.
In addittion the Royal Blood series is also dear to me as well.
RNSM- What is the best piece of advice that you can provide to an aspiring photographer in order to succeed?
EO- I think it takes about 3-4 years of hard work. It is very important that you choose your own personality , your own signature style and know yourself really well . Also to have a vision and real motivation in life. They say that every 25 years the establishment finds about 5 individuals to be the next stars and you don't want to wait that long to be the next one.
RNSM- Last question...What are you working on right now? Can you tell us?
EO- Right now I am getting inspiration from Helmut Newton . I am exploring his photo series from the 1970's . I would like to pay homage to his work and develop my own interpretation from it.
RNSM- WOW! I love Helmut Newton's 70's work and I can't wait to see what you generate.
Thank you so much Erwin is a pleasure meeting you and thanks for sharing your opinions with us.
EO- Your welcome!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Art and Commerce Canoodling in Central Park
Photos -NY Times
Times Topics: Zaha HadidDesigned to display artworks that were inspired by Chanel’s 2.55, a quilted chain-strap handbag, the pavilion certainly oozes glamour. Its mysterious nautiluslike form, which can be easily dismantled and shipped to the next city on its global tour, reflects the keen architectural intelligence we have come to expect from its creator, Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born architect who lives in London.
Yet if devoting so much intellectual effort to such a dubious undertaking might have seemed indulgent a year ago, today it looks delusional.
It’s not just that New York and much of the rest of the world are preoccupied by economic turmoil and a recession, although the timing could hardly be worse. It’s that the pavilion sets out to drape an aura of refinement over a cynical marketing gimmick. Surveying its self-important exhibits, you can’t help but hope that the era of exploiting the so-called intersection of architecture, art and fashion is finally over.
The pavilion, made of hundreds of molded fiberglass panels mounted on a skeletal steel frame, was first shown in Hong Kong in February. From there it was packed up in 55 sea containers and shipped to Tokyo, closing there in July and heading to New York, where it will be on view through Nov. 9. Chanel is paying a $400,000 fee to rent space in the park and has made a gift of an undisclosed amount to the Central Park Conservancy as part of the deal.
The company’s money couldn’t have bought a prettier site. The pavilion stands on Rumsey Playfield, near Fifth Avenue and 69th Street, on a low brick plinth at the edge of the park’s concert grounds. Groves of elm and linden trees frame the pavilion to the north and south; a long trellis draped in wisteria flanks it to the west, with the Naumburg Bandshell rising immediately behind it. The area is carpeted in colorful fall leaves.
Visitors arrive at the site along a low brick staircase where Chanel employees collect their tickets. (The tickets are free but must be reserved in advance on the Internet.) When you reach the top of the staircase, the pavilion’s white shell seems suddenly to peel open, as if to lure you inside. A broad ramp and a few shallow steps lead up to a small terrace. The long, curved form of the ticket booth frames the terrace’s outer edge, its tail-like shape stretching back to envelop the composition as if it were an embracing arm.
As with all of Ms. Hadid’s best work, the forms are not just decorative but also direct the pattern of movement through the site, collecting the energy surrounding it and channeling it into the building. Visitors enter one at a time, catching a brief glimpse of the interior before emerging into a narrow lobby. A guide instructs you to sit down and fits you with an MP3 player. The husky voice of the French actress Jeanne Moreau then invites you to stand up, before guiding you through your “personal journey.”
A series of curvaceous forms, finished in a pearlescent white car paint, are used to break down the pavilion’s interior into discrete galleries without interrupting the sense of flow. A staircase leads up to a small balcony, where you can gaze back down into one of the galleries and orient yourself. (Most of the artwork, which includes a life-size S-and-M teddy bear and scenes of a Japanese model tied up in gold chains, is completely mundane: tame clichés laboring to be provocative.)
Eventually you spiral around to an interior courtyard that serves as the pavilion’s social heart. Light pours down through skylights made of soft, pillowy panels, illuminating a gigantic reproduction of a quilted Chanel handbag tipped on its side.
The sequence of spaces is masterly choreographed. The flow of movement slows at certain points, only to speed up again before thrusting you back outside. The design’s structural refinement also reflects a high level of control. Although the building’s steel ribs vary in size, they all radiate from a central point, so that you sense an underlying order in the form. The pavilion has the taut, finely crafted look of a luxury sports car, a winking echo of Modernism’s centurylong obsession with the assembly line.
It’s not that hard to see why Ms. Hadid accepted the commission. One of architecture’s most magical aspects is the range of subjects it allows you to engage, from the complex social relationships embodied in a single-family house to the intense communal focus of a concert hall. Great talents want to explore them all; it is what allows them to flex their intellectual muscles.
But traumatic events have a way of making you see things more clearly. When Rem Koolhaas’s Prada shop opened in SoHo three months after the World Trade Center attacks, it was immediately lampooned as a symbol of the fashion world’s clueless self-absorption. The shop was dominated by a swooping stage that was conceived as a great communal theater, a kind of melding of shopping and civic life. Instead, it conjured Champagne-swilling fashionistas parading across a stage, oblivious to the suffering around them.
The Chanel Pavilion may be less convoluted in its aims, but its message is no less noxious. When I first heard about it, I thought of the scene in the 1945 film “Mildred Pierce” when the parasitic playboy Monte Beragon sneeringly tells the Joan Crawford character, a waitress toiling to give her spoiled daughter a better life, that no matter how hard she scrubs, she will never be able to remove the smell of grease. We have been living in an age of Montes for more than a decade now. For strivers aching to separate themselves from the masses, the mix of architecture, art and fashion has had a nearly irresistible pull, promising a veneer of cultural sophistication.
Opening the pavilion in Central Park only aggravates the wince factor. Frederick Law Olmsted planned the park as a great democratic experiment, an immense social mixing place as well as an instrument of psychological healing for the weary. The Chanel project reminds us how far we have traveled from those ideals by dismantling the boundary between the civic realm and corporate interests.
The pavilion’s coiled form, in which visitors spiral ever deeper into a black hole of bad art and superficial temptations, straying farther and farther from the real world outside, is an elaborate mousetrap for consumers. The effortless flow between one space and the next, which in earlier projects suggested a desire to break down unwanted barriers, here suggests a surrender of individual will. Even the surfaces seem overly sleek by Ms. Hadid’s normal standards; they lack the occasional raw-material touch common to her best buildings, which imbued them with a human dimension.
One would hope that our economic crisis leads us to a new level of introspection and that architects will feel compelled to devote their talents to more worthwhile — dare I say idealistic? — causes.
ARTmostfierce loves the marriage between Art , Design , Fashion & Architecture. Zaha Hadid embodies all of it. One of my favorite Architects, the Iraqi born Zaha, designed this amazing pavilion for The House of Fashion Chanel and you have to check it out!
Take a stroll through the park and while watching the changing foliage you, will discover this gem.
Only in New York City folks~!
See review and NY Times article
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: October 20, 2008
The wild, delirious ride that architecture has been on for the last decade looks as if it’s finally coming to an end. And after a visit to the Chanel Pavilion that opened Monday in Central Park, you may think it hasn’t come soon enough.
The Chanel Pavilion in Central Park
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Published: October 20, 2008
The wild, delirious ride that architecture has been on for the last decade looks as if it’s finally coming to an end. And after a visit to the Chanel Pavilion that opened Monday in Central Park, you may think it hasn’t come soon enough.
The Chanel Pavilion in Central Park
Times Topics: Zaha HadidDesigned to display artworks that were inspired by Chanel’s 2.55, a quilted chain-strap handbag, the pavilion certainly oozes glamour. Its mysterious nautiluslike form, which can be easily dismantled and shipped to the next city on its global tour, reflects the keen architectural intelligence we have come to expect from its creator, Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born architect who lives in London.
Yet if devoting so much intellectual effort to such a dubious undertaking might have seemed indulgent a year ago, today it looks delusional.
It’s not just that New York and much of the rest of the world are preoccupied by economic turmoil and a recession, although the timing could hardly be worse. It’s that the pavilion sets out to drape an aura of refinement over a cynical marketing gimmick. Surveying its self-important exhibits, you can’t help but hope that the era of exploiting the so-called intersection of architecture, art and fashion is finally over.
The pavilion, made of hundreds of molded fiberglass panels mounted on a skeletal steel frame, was first shown in Hong Kong in February. From there it was packed up in 55 sea containers and shipped to Tokyo, closing there in July and heading to New York, where it will be on view through Nov. 9. Chanel is paying a $400,000 fee to rent space in the park and has made a gift of an undisclosed amount to the Central Park Conservancy as part of the deal.
The company’s money couldn’t have bought a prettier site. The pavilion stands on Rumsey Playfield, near Fifth Avenue and 69th Street, on a low brick plinth at the edge of the park’s concert grounds. Groves of elm and linden trees frame the pavilion to the north and south; a long trellis draped in wisteria flanks it to the west, with the Naumburg Bandshell rising immediately behind it. The area is carpeted in colorful fall leaves.
Visitors arrive at the site along a low brick staircase where Chanel employees collect their tickets. (The tickets are free but must be reserved in advance on the Internet.) When you reach the top of the staircase, the pavilion’s white shell seems suddenly to peel open, as if to lure you inside. A broad ramp and a few shallow steps lead up to a small terrace. The long, curved form of the ticket booth frames the terrace’s outer edge, its tail-like shape stretching back to envelop the composition as if it were an embracing arm.
As with all of Ms. Hadid’s best work, the forms are not just decorative but also direct the pattern of movement through the site, collecting the energy surrounding it and channeling it into the building. Visitors enter one at a time, catching a brief glimpse of the interior before emerging into a narrow lobby. A guide instructs you to sit down and fits you with an MP3 player. The husky voice of the French actress Jeanne Moreau then invites you to stand up, before guiding you through your “personal journey.”
A series of curvaceous forms, finished in a pearlescent white car paint, are used to break down the pavilion’s interior into discrete galleries without interrupting the sense of flow. A staircase leads up to a small balcony, where you can gaze back down into one of the galleries and orient yourself. (Most of the artwork, which includes a life-size S-and-M teddy bear and scenes of a Japanese model tied up in gold chains, is completely mundane: tame clichés laboring to be provocative.)
Eventually you spiral around to an interior courtyard that serves as the pavilion’s social heart. Light pours down through skylights made of soft, pillowy panels, illuminating a gigantic reproduction of a quilted Chanel handbag tipped on its side.
The sequence of spaces is masterly choreographed. The flow of movement slows at certain points, only to speed up again before thrusting you back outside. The design’s structural refinement also reflects a high level of control. Although the building’s steel ribs vary in size, they all radiate from a central point, so that you sense an underlying order in the form. The pavilion has the taut, finely crafted look of a luxury sports car, a winking echo of Modernism’s centurylong obsession with the assembly line.
It’s not that hard to see why Ms. Hadid accepted the commission. One of architecture’s most magical aspects is the range of subjects it allows you to engage, from the complex social relationships embodied in a single-family house to the intense communal focus of a concert hall. Great talents want to explore them all; it is what allows them to flex their intellectual muscles.
But traumatic events have a way of making you see things more clearly. When Rem Koolhaas’s Prada shop opened in SoHo three months after the World Trade Center attacks, it was immediately lampooned as a symbol of the fashion world’s clueless self-absorption. The shop was dominated by a swooping stage that was conceived as a great communal theater, a kind of melding of shopping and civic life. Instead, it conjured Champagne-swilling fashionistas parading across a stage, oblivious to the suffering around them.
The Chanel Pavilion may be less convoluted in its aims, but its message is no less noxious. When I first heard about it, I thought of the scene in the 1945 film “Mildred Pierce” when the parasitic playboy Monte Beragon sneeringly tells the Joan Crawford character, a waitress toiling to give her spoiled daughter a better life, that no matter how hard she scrubs, she will never be able to remove the smell of grease. We have been living in an age of Montes for more than a decade now. For strivers aching to separate themselves from the masses, the mix of architecture, art and fashion has had a nearly irresistible pull, promising a veneer of cultural sophistication.
Opening the pavilion in Central Park only aggravates the wince factor. Frederick Law Olmsted planned the park as a great democratic experiment, an immense social mixing place as well as an instrument of psychological healing for the weary. The Chanel project reminds us how far we have traveled from those ideals by dismantling the boundary between the civic realm and corporate interests.
The pavilion’s coiled form, in which visitors spiral ever deeper into a black hole of bad art and superficial temptations, straying farther and farther from the real world outside, is an elaborate mousetrap for consumers. The effortless flow between one space and the next, which in earlier projects suggested a desire to break down unwanted barriers, here suggests a surrender of individual will. Even the surfaces seem overly sleek by Ms. Hadid’s normal standards; they lack the occasional raw-material touch common to her best buildings, which imbued them with a human dimension.
One would hope that our economic crisis leads us to a new level of introspection and that architects will feel compelled to devote their talents to more worthwhile — dare I say idealistic? — causes.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Museums Start Feeling The Pinch!!!!
Photo by Ruben Natal-San Miguel 2008
The Herman Leonard talk was great, amazing portraits!
After that I met up with photographer Amy Elkins, her boyfriend Kevin and Janet Finkel (yeah the girl re-surfaces again!) and went to the Best of show, where the flowing sushi , wine and some women in tacky eighties slouchy boots (please don't wear them...hideous!) partied on!
All these events and I still manage to work out and feed my little cat Gia (well I haven't decided to adopt her yet since my parental skills are highly questionable...) Maybe next year I get the award for bad pet owner of the year..lol
Anyway, Please enjoy (or beware!) about this article by Carol Vogel of the NY Times about the Museums and our current economic times.
Museums Fear Lean Days Ahead
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: October 19, 2008
Since it opened last month at the Museum of Modern Art, “Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night” has been attracting several thousand people each day to the second-floor galleries. Visitors can be seen waiting in line for tables at all three of the museum’s restaurants, and MoMA’s shops are reporting a 5 percent increase in sales over a year ago.
The current “Gilbert & George” show at the Brooklyn Museum.
But in executive offices several floors above the bustle, officials are wondering how long the good times will last.
“We know there’s a storm at sea and we know it’s going to hit land and it could get ugly,” said Glenn D. Lowry, the museum’s director. “But we don’t know how hard it will be or when it’s coming. So we are trying to make educated guesses.”
As a result, the museum instituted a temporary hiring freeze last week as well as a 10 percent cut in its general operating budget that will be revisited in December.
Across the country directors like Mr. Lowry are bracing for the effects of an economic crisis that could change everything from the size and kinds of exhibitions a museum presents to the acquisitions it could afford and the merchandise it should offer in its shops.
Already the financial-market meltdown has diminished the endowment funds that cover museums’ day-to-day operating expenses. Lehman Brothers, for years a crucial sponsor for museums across the country, is no more. Surviving banking institutions and corporations that also have been the bedrock of exhibition support are likely to give far less or cut off gifts altogether.
Even the most beneficent of museum trustees are feeling the pinch. So are paying members, like the 115,000 signed up by MoMA who fork out anywhere from $50 (student membership) to $60,000 for their privileges. Directors and curators are thus in a holding pattern, waiting to see if year-end gifts materialize or membership revenues take a tumble.
“Caution is the word of the moment,” Mr. Lowry said.
At the Brooklyn Museum, which opened a critically praised retrospective of the British artists Gilbert and George two weeks ago, officials are already fretting about a midcareer retrospective next June devoted to the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare. So far no money has been raised for the show, said the museum’s director, Arnold L. Lehman.
“There is no safety net,” he added. “We’re being squeezed at every end.”
Yet slowly and methodically, museums have been mapping out strategies for dealing with the potential shortfall.
Although few anticipated the global shock waves that accompanied the market slide, internal planners had long been aware that a downturn was in the making. Even as far back as late-2001, when terrorism insurance became a major issue, museums predicted a drop in loans and urged curators to focus on inventive shows drawing from their permanent collections.
Evidence that museums have been more creative with their holdings ranges from MoMA’s van Gogh exhibition, which uses the museum’s “Starry Night” as its centerpiece, to “Kirchner and the Berlin Street,” which revolves around two seminal paintings owned by the museum, although both shows include loans from the United States and abroad. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which for years has been presenting shows based on its holdings, will open “Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography” on Nov. 4, featuring 30 works from its holdings.
Many predict that the impact of the slowdown will become far clearer at the end of the year, by which time most individuals will have made their annual tax-deductible donations. Museum officials will also be holding their breath to see whether loyal donors continue to give art or will be forced to sell part of their collections to raise capital for themselves.
“There is bound to be belt-tightening across the board,” said Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “I imagine a lot of donors who are leveraged will probably be postponing decisions until the first of the year. A lot of people are waiting to see what happens, which means things will be put on hold.”
Mr. Govan said that he also wondered how the economic crisis would affect memberships, a crucial revenue stream for all museums. “We’re competing with buying gas and going out to dinner,” he said.
The Los Angeles museum’s memberships, which bring in about $8 million a year, range from $25 at the student level to $50,000 for members of the Director’s Circle (a status that affords what the museum terms “intimate dinners with artists and the director”).
In New York, meanwhile, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s office has asked the department of cultural affairs, which decides how much city money each museum receives, along with other city agencies, to reduce its spending by 2.5 percent in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and make an additional 5 percent cut in the next one.
Since most of the museums’ big loan shows are planned years ahead, development offices are scrambling to arrange financing for exhibitions that won’t open for several years. While few officials will discuss the matter for attribution, most admit that the effort is more difficult than ever.
Still, not all supporters are cutting back. So far the discount retailer Target, for instance, continues to finance 1,500 free days a year at more than 70 museums across the country even though it reported that its sales are down 3 percent from this time last year.
Supporters like U.B.S. and Bank of America said last week that they were still planning support for museums next year, although they declined to provide figures. Many point out that cultural philanthropy is not only a way of building good public relations with arts audiences but also a way to telegraph that they are still in business and confident.
At Bank of America, which announced this month that it wanted to raise $10 billion in additional capital because of weaker-than-expected earnings, officials said they had no plans to stop supporting cultural institutions. “In times like these it’s especially important,” said Rena M. DeSisto, Bank of America’s arts and culture executive.
Customer surveys indicate that clients appreciate the company’s support of the arts, she said, so “it’s a marketing decision.”
Although she declined to say how much the bank has invested in the arts over the last few years or intended to spend in 2009, Ms. DeSisto said the bank had helped to finance “Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters From the Cleveland Museum of Art,” which opened last week at the Detroit Institute of Arts; “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples,” which opened on Sunday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and goes to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in May; and “Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth,” which arrives Feb. 14 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
U.B.S., which is perhaps best known in the art world for sponsoring the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and its counterpart Art Basel Miami Beach, said it planned to continue supporting such contemporary-art projects. “But this year we have to be more diligent with every dollar spent, ” said Peter Dillon, head of sponsorship at U.B.S. in America. “And get more for our money.”
Typically corporate museum members, who spend $25,000 to $40,000 for their subscriptions, gain free admission for their employees and, at the higher end of largess, use of the museum for parties. Now as these corporations go to the bargaining table, they are asking for more — advertising on bus shelters and street banners, in magazines and online — in exchange for less.
From the museums’ side, gift shops that in good times offered expensive jewelry, china or furniture are beginning to lower their price points, several directors said.
But even in the face of leaner times, some directors are trying to find an upside.
“Making the best of our permanent collections is no bad thing,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
And if art prices start to nosedive, said Mr. Govan in Los Angeles, “maybe we’ll finally be able to afford to buy things.”
Mr. Govan and others said that in tough times, museums that viewed one another as competitors might find themselves working better together.
And some directors argue that museums are not simply a great escape, but good value compared with a movie that can cost about $12 and end in two hours. At a museum, many said, visitors can spend an entire day and often take in a movie, too.
Then there’s the more cosmic view. “Art doesn’t lose its emotional or artistic value,” Mr. Govan said. “That doesn’t change no matter what the economy.”
Supporters like U.B.S. and Bank of America said last week that they were still planning support for museums next year, although they declined to provide figures. Many point out that cultural philanthropy is not only a way of building good public relations with arts audiences but also a way to telegraph that they are still in business and confident.
At Bank of America, which announced this month that it wanted to raise $10 billion in additional capital because of weaker-than-expected earnings, officials said they had no plans to stop supporting cultural institutions. “In times like these it’s especially important,” said Rena M. DeSisto, Bank of America’s arts and culture executive.
Customer surveys indicate that clients appreciate the company’s support of the arts, she said, so “it’s a marketing decision.”
Although she declined to say how much the bank has invested in the arts over the last few years or intended to spend in 2009, Ms. DeSisto said the bank had helped to finance “Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters From the Cleveland Museum of Art,” which opened last week at the Detroit Institute of Arts; “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples,” which opened on Sunday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and goes to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in May; and “Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth,” which arrives Feb. 14 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
U.B.S., which is perhaps best known in the art world for sponsoring the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and its counterpart Art Basel Miami Beach, said it planned to continue supporting such contemporary-art projects. “But this year we have to be more diligent with every dollar spent, ” said Peter Dillon, head of sponsorship at U.B.S. in America. “And get more for our money.”
Typically corporate museum members, who spend $25,000 to $40,000 for their subscriptions, gain free admission for their employees and, at the higher end of largess, use of the museum for parties. Now as these corporations go to the bargaining table, they are asking for more — advertising on bus shelters and street banners, in magazines and online — in exchange for less.
From the museums’ side, gift shops that in good times offered expensive jewelry, china or furniture are beginning to lower their price points, several directors said.
But even in the face of leaner times, some directors are trying to find an upside.
“Making the best of our permanent collections is no bad thing,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
And if art prices start to nosedive, said Mr. Govan in Los Angeles, “maybe we’ll finally be able to afford to buy things.”
Mr. Govan and others said that in tough times, museums that viewed one another as competitors might find themselves working better together.
And some directors argue that museums are not simply a great escape, but good value compared with a movie that can cost about $12 and end in two hours. At a museum, many said, visitors can spend an entire day and often take in a movie, too.
Then there’s the more cosmic view. “Art doesn’t lose its emotional or artistic value,” Mr. Govan said. “That doesn’t change no matter what the economy.”
Supporters like U.B.S. and Bank of America said last week that they were still planning support for museums next year, although they declined to provide figures. Many point out that cultural philanthropy is not only a way of building good public relations with arts audiences but also a way to telegraph that they are still in business and confident.
At Bank of America, which announced this month that it wanted to raise $10 billion in additional capital because of weaker-than-expected earnings, officials said they had no plans to stop supporting cultural institutions. “In times like these it’s especially important,” said Rena M. DeSisto, Bank of America’s arts and culture executive.
Customer surveys indicate that clients appreciate the company’s support of the arts, she said, so “it’s a marketing decision.”
Although she declined to say how much the bank has invested in the arts over the last few years or intended to spend in 2009, Ms. DeSisto said the bank had helped to finance “Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters From the Cleveland Museum of Art,” which opened last week at the Detroit Institute of Arts; “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples,” which opened on Sunday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and goes to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in May; and “Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth,” which arrives Feb. 14 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
U.B.S., which is perhaps best known in the art world for sponsoring the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and its counterpart Art Basel Miami Beach, said it planned to continue supporting such contemporary-art projects. “But this year we have to be more diligent with every dollar spent, ” said Peter Dillon, head of sponsorship at U.B.S. in America. “And get more for our money.”
Typically corporate museum members, who spend $25,000 to $40,000 for their subscriptions, gain free admission for their employees and, at the higher end of largess, use of the museum for parties. Now as these corporations go to the bargaining table, they are asking for more — advertising on bus shelters and street banners, in magazines and online — in exchange for less.
From the museums’ side, gift shops that in good times offered expensive jewelry, china or furniture are beginning to lower their price points, several directors said.
But even in the face of leaner times, some directors are trying to find an upside.
“Making the best of our permanent collections is no bad thing,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
And if art prices start to nosedive, said Mr. Govan in Los Angeles, “maybe we’ll finally be able to afford to buy things.”
Mr. Govan and others said that in tough times, museums that viewed one another as competitors might find themselves working better together.
And some directors argue that museums are not simply a great escape, but good value compared with a movie that can cost about $12 and end in two hours. At a museum, many said, visitors can spend an entire day and often take in a movie, too.
Then there’s the more cosmic view. “Art doesn’t lose its emotional or artistic value,” Mr. Govan said. “That doesn’t change no matter what the economy.”
ARTmostfierce had quite a busy weekend!
The Herman Leonard talk was great, amazing portraits!
After that I met up with photographer Amy Elkins, her boyfriend Kevin and Janet Finkel (yeah the girl re-surfaces again!) and went to the Best of show, where the flowing sushi , wine and some women in tacky eighties slouchy boots (please don't wear them...hideous!) partied on!
Most of us had our free portrait taken...results will be available Tuesday( after so much wine and sushi...who knows what I ending up looking like)
At the Lucie Awards Press Luncheon Sunday, I was lucky enough got to interview award recipients, Erwin Olaf, Susan Meiselas and Herman Leonard. As soon as I get a chance will post the interviews.
Later on, the Sara Terry & Hank Willis Thomas talk was phenomenal! Sorry for the ones who missed it!
Tonight, jumping in a Penguin suit after work to hit the Lucie Awards at Lincoln Center !
At the Lucie Awards Press Luncheon Sunday, I was lucky enough got to interview award recipients, Erwin Olaf, Susan Meiselas and Herman Leonard. As soon as I get a chance will post the interviews.
Later on, the Sara Terry & Hank Willis Thomas talk was phenomenal! Sorry for the ones who missed it!
Tonight, jumping in a Penguin suit after work to hit the Lucie Awards at Lincoln Center !
All these events and I still manage to work out and feed my little cat Gia (well I haven't decided to adopt her yet since my parental skills are highly questionable...) Maybe next year I get the award for bad pet owner of the year..lol
Anyway, Please enjoy (or beware!) about this article by Carol Vogel of the NY Times about the Museums and our current economic times.
Museums Fear Lean Days Ahead
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: October 19, 2008
Since it opened last month at the Museum of Modern Art, “Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night” has been attracting several thousand people each day to the second-floor galleries. Visitors can be seen waiting in line for tables at all three of the museum’s restaurants, and MoMA’s shops are reporting a 5 percent increase in sales over a year ago.
The current “Gilbert & George” show at the Brooklyn Museum.
But in executive offices several floors above the bustle, officials are wondering how long the good times will last.
“We know there’s a storm at sea and we know it’s going to hit land and it could get ugly,” said Glenn D. Lowry, the museum’s director. “But we don’t know how hard it will be or when it’s coming. So we are trying to make educated guesses.”
As a result, the museum instituted a temporary hiring freeze last week as well as a 10 percent cut in its general operating budget that will be revisited in December.
Across the country directors like Mr. Lowry are bracing for the effects of an economic crisis that could change everything from the size and kinds of exhibitions a museum presents to the acquisitions it could afford and the merchandise it should offer in its shops.
Already the financial-market meltdown has diminished the endowment funds that cover museums’ day-to-day operating expenses. Lehman Brothers, for years a crucial sponsor for museums across the country, is no more. Surviving banking institutions and corporations that also have been the bedrock of exhibition support are likely to give far less or cut off gifts altogether.
Even the most beneficent of museum trustees are feeling the pinch. So are paying members, like the 115,000 signed up by MoMA who fork out anywhere from $50 (student membership) to $60,000 for their privileges. Directors and curators are thus in a holding pattern, waiting to see if year-end gifts materialize or membership revenues take a tumble.
“Caution is the word of the moment,” Mr. Lowry said.
At the Brooklyn Museum, which opened a critically praised retrospective of the British artists Gilbert and George two weeks ago, officials are already fretting about a midcareer retrospective next June devoted to the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare. So far no money has been raised for the show, said the museum’s director, Arnold L. Lehman.
“There is no safety net,” he added. “We’re being squeezed at every end.”
Yet slowly and methodically, museums have been mapping out strategies for dealing with the potential shortfall.
Although few anticipated the global shock waves that accompanied the market slide, internal planners had long been aware that a downturn was in the making. Even as far back as late-2001, when terrorism insurance became a major issue, museums predicted a drop in loans and urged curators to focus on inventive shows drawing from their permanent collections.
Evidence that museums have been more creative with their holdings ranges from MoMA’s van Gogh exhibition, which uses the museum’s “Starry Night” as its centerpiece, to “Kirchner and the Berlin Street,” which revolves around two seminal paintings owned by the museum, although both shows include loans from the United States and abroad. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which for years has been presenting shows based on its holdings, will open “Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography” on Nov. 4, featuring 30 works from its holdings.
Many predict that the impact of the slowdown will become far clearer at the end of the year, by which time most individuals will have made their annual tax-deductible donations. Museum officials will also be holding their breath to see whether loyal donors continue to give art or will be forced to sell part of their collections to raise capital for themselves.
“There is bound to be belt-tightening across the board,” said Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “I imagine a lot of donors who are leveraged will probably be postponing decisions until the first of the year. A lot of people are waiting to see what happens, which means things will be put on hold.”
Mr. Govan said that he also wondered how the economic crisis would affect memberships, a crucial revenue stream for all museums. “We’re competing with buying gas and going out to dinner,” he said.
The Los Angeles museum’s memberships, which bring in about $8 million a year, range from $25 at the student level to $50,000 for members of the Director’s Circle (a status that affords what the museum terms “intimate dinners with artists and the director”).
In New York, meanwhile, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s office has asked the department of cultural affairs, which decides how much city money each museum receives, along with other city agencies, to reduce its spending by 2.5 percent in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and make an additional 5 percent cut in the next one.
Since most of the museums’ big loan shows are planned years ahead, development offices are scrambling to arrange financing for exhibitions that won’t open for several years. While few officials will discuss the matter for attribution, most admit that the effort is more difficult than ever.
Still, not all supporters are cutting back. So far the discount retailer Target, for instance, continues to finance 1,500 free days a year at more than 70 museums across the country even though it reported that its sales are down 3 percent from this time last year.
Supporters like U.B.S. and Bank of America said last week that they were still planning support for museums next year, although they declined to provide figures. Many point out that cultural philanthropy is not only a way of building good public relations with arts audiences but also a way to telegraph that they are still in business and confident.
At Bank of America, which announced this month that it wanted to raise $10 billion in additional capital because of weaker-than-expected earnings, officials said they had no plans to stop supporting cultural institutions. “In times like these it’s especially important,” said Rena M. DeSisto, Bank of America’s arts and culture executive.
Customer surveys indicate that clients appreciate the company’s support of the arts, she said, so “it’s a marketing decision.”
Although she declined to say how much the bank has invested in the arts over the last few years or intended to spend in 2009, Ms. DeSisto said the bank had helped to finance “Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters From the Cleveland Museum of Art,” which opened last week at the Detroit Institute of Arts; “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples,” which opened on Sunday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and goes to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in May; and “Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth,” which arrives Feb. 14 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
U.B.S., which is perhaps best known in the art world for sponsoring the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and its counterpart Art Basel Miami Beach, said it planned to continue supporting such contemporary-art projects. “But this year we have to be more diligent with every dollar spent, ” said Peter Dillon, head of sponsorship at U.B.S. in America. “And get more for our money.”
Typically corporate museum members, who spend $25,000 to $40,000 for their subscriptions, gain free admission for their employees and, at the higher end of largess, use of the museum for parties. Now as these corporations go to the bargaining table, they are asking for more — advertising on bus shelters and street banners, in magazines and online — in exchange for less.
From the museums’ side, gift shops that in good times offered expensive jewelry, china or furniture are beginning to lower their price points, several directors said.
But even in the face of leaner times, some directors are trying to find an upside.
“Making the best of our permanent collections is no bad thing,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
And if art prices start to nosedive, said Mr. Govan in Los Angeles, “maybe we’ll finally be able to afford to buy things.”
Mr. Govan and others said that in tough times, museums that viewed one another as competitors might find themselves working better together.
And some directors argue that museums are not simply a great escape, but good value compared with a movie that can cost about $12 and end in two hours. At a museum, many said, visitors can spend an entire day and often take in a movie, too.
Then there’s the more cosmic view. “Art doesn’t lose its emotional or artistic value,” Mr. Govan said. “That doesn’t change no matter what the economy.”
Supporters like U.B.S. and Bank of America said last week that they were still planning support for museums next year, although they declined to provide figures. Many point out that cultural philanthropy is not only a way of building good public relations with arts audiences but also a way to telegraph that they are still in business and confident.
At Bank of America, which announced this month that it wanted to raise $10 billion in additional capital because of weaker-than-expected earnings, officials said they had no plans to stop supporting cultural institutions. “In times like these it’s especially important,” said Rena M. DeSisto, Bank of America’s arts and culture executive.
Customer surveys indicate that clients appreciate the company’s support of the arts, she said, so “it’s a marketing decision.”
Although she declined to say how much the bank has invested in the arts over the last few years or intended to spend in 2009, Ms. DeSisto said the bank had helped to finance “Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters From the Cleveland Museum of Art,” which opened last week at the Detroit Institute of Arts; “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples,” which opened on Sunday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and goes to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in May; and “Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth,” which arrives Feb. 14 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
U.B.S., which is perhaps best known in the art world for sponsoring the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and its counterpart Art Basel Miami Beach, said it planned to continue supporting such contemporary-art projects. “But this year we have to be more diligent with every dollar spent, ” said Peter Dillon, head of sponsorship at U.B.S. in America. “And get more for our money.”
Typically corporate museum members, who spend $25,000 to $40,000 for their subscriptions, gain free admission for their employees and, at the higher end of largess, use of the museum for parties. Now as these corporations go to the bargaining table, they are asking for more — advertising on bus shelters and street banners, in magazines and online — in exchange for less.
From the museums’ side, gift shops that in good times offered expensive jewelry, china or furniture are beginning to lower their price points, several directors said.
But even in the face of leaner times, some directors are trying to find an upside.
“Making the best of our permanent collections is no bad thing,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
And if art prices start to nosedive, said Mr. Govan in Los Angeles, “maybe we’ll finally be able to afford to buy things.”
Mr. Govan and others said that in tough times, museums that viewed one another as competitors might find themselves working better together.
And some directors argue that museums are not simply a great escape, but good value compared with a movie that can cost about $12 and end in two hours. At a museum, many said, visitors can spend an entire day and often take in a movie, too.
Then there’s the more cosmic view. “Art doesn’t lose its emotional or artistic value,” Mr. Govan said. “That doesn’t change no matter what the economy.”
Supporters like U.B.S. and Bank of America said last week that they were still planning support for museums next year, although they declined to provide figures. Many point out that cultural philanthropy is not only a way of building good public relations with arts audiences but also a way to telegraph that they are still in business and confident.
At Bank of America, which announced this month that it wanted to raise $10 billion in additional capital because of weaker-than-expected earnings, officials said they had no plans to stop supporting cultural institutions. “In times like these it’s especially important,” said Rena M. DeSisto, Bank of America’s arts and culture executive.
Customer surveys indicate that clients appreciate the company’s support of the arts, she said, so “it’s a marketing decision.”
Although she declined to say how much the bank has invested in the arts over the last few years or intended to spend in 2009, Ms. DeSisto said the bank had helped to finance “Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters From the Cleveland Museum of Art,” which opened last week at the Detroit Institute of Arts; “Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture Around the Bay of Naples,” which opened on Sunday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and goes to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in May; and “Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth,” which arrives Feb. 14 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
U.B.S., which is perhaps best known in the art world for sponsoring the Art Basel fair in Switzerland and its counterpart Art Basel Miami Beach, said it planned to continue supporting such contemporary-art projects. “But this year we have to be more diligent with every dollar spent, ” said Peter Dillon, head of sponsorship at U.B.S. in America. “And get more for our money.”
Typically corporate museum members, who spend $25,000 to $40,000 for their subscriptions, gain free admission for their employees and, at the higher end of largess, use of the museum for parties. Now as these corporations go to the bargaining table, they are asking for more — advertising on bus shelters and street banners, in magazines and online — in exchange for less.
From the museums’ side, gift shops that in good times offered expensive jewelry, china or furniture are beginning to lower their price points, several directors said.
But even in the face of leaner times, some directors are trying to find an upside.
“Making the best of our permanent collections is no bad thing,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
And if art prices start to nosedive, said Mr. Govan in Los Angeles, “maybe we’ll finally be able to afford to buy things.”
Mr. Govan and others said that in tough times, museums that viewed one another as competitors might find themselves working better together.
And some directors argue that museums are not simply a great escape, but good value compared with a movie that can cost about $12 and end in two hours. At a museum, many said, visitors can spend an entire day and often take in a movie, too.
Then there’s the more cosmic view. “Art doesn’t lose its emotional or artistic value,” Mr. Govan said. “That doesn’t change no matter what the economy.”
Economic Downturn Hits Contemporary Art; Collectors 'Are Just Being So Cautious'
Skulls by Andy Warhol
OCTOBER 20, 2008
Not a Pretty Picture at Auctions
Economic Downturn Hits Contemporary Art; Collectors 'Are Just Being So Cautious'
By KELLY CROW
After months of gradual softening, the contemporary art market suffered a sharp downturn over the weekend at a mid-season round of auctions held in London, with many collectors wary of making seven-figure bids for new artworks amid the global financial crisis.
Yet the world's chief auction houses -- Sotheby's and Christie's International PLC -- managed to calm some fears of a broader market meltdown by convincing many of their sellers to accept lower prices, which helped entice bargain hunters from the U.S. and Europe.
Overall, Sotheby's and Christie's evening sales of contemporary art brought in a combined £54 million ($93.4 million), well below their combined presale estimate of between £88.4 million and £118.3 million. The result was down 19% from similar sales last October. Boutique auction house Phillips de Pury brought in £5 million, less than a third of its expected total and representing only 25% of its sale's potential value.
"People are just being so cautious," says Roberto Annicchiarico, a Milan-based dealer. "Before, collectors had to take whatever art they could get from dealers and auction houses, but now those collectors are saying, 'Kneel down and ask nicely.' "
Christie's won this latest round over Sotheby's by selling £32 million at its evening sale on Sunday, below its presale estimate of between £57.8 million to £75.6 million. The star of the sale was Lucio Fontana's 1963 futuristic black oval, "Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio," sold to a private buyer for £9 million, below its £12 million estimate. A pensive portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud also sold for £5.4 million, inching over its £5 million low estimate.
Of the 47 lots offered by Christie's, 26 found buyers, achieving 62% of its potential value. Among those works that didn't sell were two particularly pricey disappointments: Gerhard Richter's 1986 abstract, "Claudius," which had been estimated to sell for around £6 million, and Francis Bacon's honey-hued portrait of a friend, "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes," which bore a low estimate of £5.5 million.
Two days earlier, Sotheby's evening sale brought in £22 million, far below its £30.6 million low estimate but besting its £9.9 million total at last year's sale. Its top lot was a rainbow-colored set of 10 "Skull" silkscreen paintings by Andy Warhol that sold to collector and dealer Jose Mugrabi for £4.3 million, under its £5 million low estimate. Mr. Mugrabi didn't need to put up much of a fight to win the work: His only rival was a Sotheby's specialist bidding on behalf of an unknown client.
Later in the sale, a European collector bidding over the telephone paid £2.8 million for Gerhard Richter's red "Abstracke Bild," under its £3 million low estimate. An American telephone bidder, meanwhile, paid £1.6 million for an untitled painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Basquiat had been estimated to sell for between £1.5 million and £2 million. Of the 62 works offered by Sotheby's, 17 failed to find buyers, including pieces by Cindy Sherman, Yan Pei-Ming, Erik Bulatov, Sigmar Polke and Marlene Dumas. The sale achieved 72.5 % of its potential value.
In a twist, 40% of the winning bids came from Americans, up from 19% at last year's sale. After the sale, New York collector Larry Warsh said he was "relieved" that a majority of the works had sold. But he said collectors who decide to put their works up for auction will need to scale down their expected price levels for art by as much as a third until the financial markets begin to climb again.
Most of the works offered during the London sales were consigned by sellers -- and given estimated prices -- at least three months ago when the financial outlook was somewhat sunnier. Over the past two weeks, the auction houses have been working overtime to persuade these sellers to lower their reserves, or the minimum price needed for the work. In the case of Damien Hirst's sculpture, "The Blood of Christ," at Sotheby's, the low estimate was £1 million but the auctioneer kicked off the bidding level at £400,000. The work sold for £825,250. Phillips' sale on Oct. 18 was highlighted by Warhol's "Flowers", which sold for £735,650, nearly reaching its £800,000 high estimate, but the crowd in the salesroom were more focused on artist Takashi Murakami, who sat in the front row and watched as his two-story-tall sculpture, "Tongari-kun," stalled at £3.2 million, just shy of its £3.5 low estimate, and failed to sell. Overall, 38 of the 70 artworks offered by Phillips failed to find buyers, including pieces by Richard Prince, Ron Arad, Ed Ruscha, Lisa Yuskavage and Eric Fischl.
After the sale, Phillips' Chairman Simon de Pury said he was "disappointed" by the result, adding that collectors "obviously took a wait-and-see approach" to the sale. He said he and his staff might work to further lower the reserve levels set for works already consigned to Phillips' important New York sale scheduled for next month.
The London auctions, which conclude with Christie's day sale on Tuesday, coincided with the city's biggest contemporary art show, the Frieze Art Fair, which also saw fewer sales despite large crowds, according to dealers exhibiting in the fair.
Tiqui Atencio, a major London collector, attended the fair and several auctions but says she didn't buy a thing: "I'm behaving right now."
Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com
Here is more for you all to know . Please enjoy article by Kelly Crow (and you will eat crow after reading it!) from the Wall Street Journal about recent ART auction results.
OCTOBER 20, 2008
Not a Pretty Picture at Auctions
Economic Downturn Hits Contemporary Art; Collectors 'Are Just Being So Cautious'
By KELLY CROW
After months of gradual softening, the contemporary art market suffered a sharp downturn over the weekend at a mid-season round of auctions held in London, with many collectors wary of making seven-figure bids for new artworks amid the global financial crisis.
Yet the world's chief auction houses -- Sotheby's and Christie's International PLC -- managed to calm some fears of a broader market meltdown by convincing many of their sellers to accept lower prices, which helped entice bargain hunters from the U.S. and Europe.
Overall, Sotheby's and Christie's evening sales of contemporary art brought in a combined £54 million ($93.4 million), well below their combined presale estimate of between £88.4 million and £118.3 million. The result was down 19% from similar sales last October. Boutique auction house Phillips de Pury brought in £5 million, less than a third of its expected total and representing only 25% of its sale's potential value.
"People are just being so cautious," says Roberto Annicchiarico, a Milan-based dealer. "Before, collectors had to take whatever art they could get from dealers and auction houses, but now those collectors are saying, 'Kneel down and ask nicely.' "
Christie's won this latest round over Sotheby's by selling £32 million at its evening sale on Sunday, below its presale estimate of between £57.8 million to £75.6 million. The star of the sale was Lucio Fontana's 1963 futuristic black oval, "Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio," sold to a private buyer for £9 million, below its £12 million estimate. A pensive portrait of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud also sold for £5.4 million, inching over its £5 million low estimate.
Of the 47 lots offered by Christie's, 26 found buyers, achieving 62% of its potential value. Among those works that didn't sell were two particularly pricey disappointments: Gerhard Richter's 1986 abstract, "Claudius," which had been estimated to sell for around £6 million, and Francis Bacon's honey-hued portrait of a friend, "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes," which bore a low estimate of £5.5 million.
Two days earlier, Sotheby's evening sale brought in £22 million, far below its £30.6 million low estimate but besting its £9.9 million total at last year's sale. Its top lot was a rainbow-colored set of 10 "Skull" silkscreen paintings by Andy Warhol that sold to collector and dealer Jose Mugrabi for £4.3 million, under its £5 million low estimate. Mr. Mugrabi didn't need to put up much of a fight to win the work: His only rival was a Sotheby's specialist bidding on behalf of an unknown client.
Later in the sale, a European collector bidding over the telephone paid £2.8 million for Gerhard Richter's red "Abstracke Bild," under its £3 million low estimate. An American telephone bidder, meanwhile, paid £1.6 million for an untitled painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Basquiat had been estimated to sell for between £1.5 million and £2 million. Of the 62 works offered by Sotheby's, 17 failed to find buyers, including pieces by Cindy Sherman, Yan Pei-Ming, Erik Bulatov, Sigmar Polke and Marlene Dumas. The sale achieved 72.5 % of its potential value.
In a twist, 40% of the winning bids came from Americans, up from 19% at last year's sale. After the sale, New York collector Larry Warsh said he was "relieved" that a majority of the works had sold. But he said collectors who decide to put their works up for auction will need to scale down their expected price levels for art by as much as a third until the financial markets begin to climb again.
Most of the works offered during the London sales were consigned by sellers -- and given estimated prices -- at least three months ago when the financial outlook was somewhat sunnier. Over the past two weeks, the auction houses have been working overtime to persuade these sellers to lower their reserves, or the minimum price needed for the work. In the case of Damien Hirst's sculpture, "The Blood of Christ," at Sotheby's, the low estimate was £1 million but the auctioneer kicked off the bidding level at £400,000. The work sold for £825,250. Phillips' sale on Oct. 18 was highlighted by Warhol's "Flowers", which sold for £735,650, nearly reaching its £800,000 high estimate, but the crowd in the salesroom were more focused on artist Takashi Murakami, who sat in the front row and watched as his two-story-tall sculpture, "Tongari-kun," stalled at £3.2 million, just shy of its £3.5 low estimate, and failed to sell. Overall, 38 of the 70 artworks offered by Phillips failed to find buyers, including pieces by Richard Prince, Ron Arad, Ed Ruscha, Lisa Yuskavage and Eric Fischl.
After the sale, Phillips' Chairman Simon de Pury said he was "disappointed" by the result, adding that collectors "obviously took a wait-and-see approach" to the sale. He said he and his staff might work to further lower the reserve levels set for works already consigned to Phillips' important New York sale scheduled for next month.
The London auctions, which conclude with Christie's day sale on Tuesday, coincided with the city's biggest contemporary art show, the Frieze Art Fair, which also saw fewer sales despite large crowds, according to dealers exhibiting in the fair.
Tiqui Atencio, a major London collector, attended the fair and several auctions but says she didn't buy a thing: "I'm behaving right now."
Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com
Friday, October 17, 2008
Erwin Olaf Talk and Book Signing 10/21@ Aperture Foundation
Erwin Olaf, from Erwin Olaf (Aperture, September 2008)
Book Cover
Book Cover
Erwin Olaf, from Erwin Olaf (Aperture, September 2008)
The Boxing School, 2005 (Hope)
Erwin Olaf, from Erwin Olaf (Aperture, September 2008)
The Hairdresser’s, 2004 (Rain)
Erwin Olaf, from Erwin Olaf (Aperture, September 2008)
Caroline (Portrait), 2007, (Grief)
The Boxing School, 2005 (Hope)
Erwin Olaf, from Erwin Olaf (Aperture, September 2008)
The Hairdresser’s, 2004 (Rain)
Erwin Olaf, from Erwin Olaf (Aperture, September 2008)
Caroline (Portrait), 2007, (Grief)
Artmostfierce will be asking a few questions to Erwin Olaf during the Lucie Awards Press Luncheon October 19,2008. More to come!
ERWIN OLAF
TALK & BOOK SIGNING
On the occasion of the publication of his self-titled Aperture monograph, we are pleased to announce a talk and book signing with Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf on Tuesday, October 21. A key European figure in both fashion and fine art photography, Olaf will discuss the work from his highly anticipated new book, bringing together for the first time three of the artist’s series—Rain, Hope, and Grief. Included is a first comprehensive look at his film work, through stills and an accompanying DVD that offers an overview of five of his movies, each related to the series featured in the book.
In each series, Olaf creates his own enigmatic and enticing worlds, blending together a Norman Rockwell-style kitsch, a film noir intensity, and a strangeness reminiscent of the films of American filmmaker David Lynch. The work wryly celebrates America of the 1950s and 1960s with stereotypical characters, including cheerleaders, a boy scout, a housewife, a young couple, and a sailor. He explores issues of beauty, loneliness, and despair, expressed in an individual style that combines fashion, cinema, history and advertising.
The first major U.S. exhibition of Olaf’s work recently opened at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, presenting the series from the book contextualized with previous work. The exhibit will remain on view until January 4, 2009. Olaf’s work is also featured in another important exhibition at the Hague Museum of Photography (Fotomuseum Den Haag) in Holland. Erwin Olaf will be honored at the 2008 Lucie Awards for his achievement in advertising on Monday, October 20.
Erwin Olaf (born in Hilversum, the Netherlands, 1959) graduated from the Utrecht School for Journalism, in 1980, with a degree in newspaper journalism and photojournalism. Olaf has earned several Silver Lions for his commercial work, which is increasingly sought after by magazines such as the New York Times Magazine and London Sunday Times. He is represented by Hasted Hunt, New York, and Flatland Gallery, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
WHEN AND WHERE:
Talk and Book Signing:
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
6:30 p.m.
Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
(between 10th and 11th Avenue)
New York, NY
(212) 505-5555
www.aperture.org
Subway: C, E to 23rd Street and 8th Avenue or 1 to 28th Street and 7th Avenue
FREE
Media contact: Yseult Chehata, Aperture Foundation, (212) 946-7108; ychehata@aperture.org
Become an UltraViolet Beauty!!!
Photo- from Ultra Violet Beauty series by Cara Phillips
ARTmostfierce will be lending a hand to Cara October 25 , 2008. Yes...I am going to be a photographer assistant for the day. Since they say curiosity killed the cat...I have to give it a try !
After all my very first job ever was an assistant of Photography at the Univ. Of Puerto Rico School of Architecture...so back to school it is!
Besides the talented Cara will be the perfect teacher to learn photography for a day. I am very intrigued by this project and looking forward having my portrait done as well.
Which leaves me to all of you folks...get yours done as well too...FOR FREE.
Also lets not forget to assist Cara with some mula $$$. This is an interesting and worth being part of project so, swing by , take a glamour break, get a glamour shot as well and break the piggy bank and contribute to this wonderful project!
See you Oct. 25th!
See below and read Cara's shout out!
Hello Everyone
You are all invited to come get your portrait taken tomorrow & Friday 10am to 5pm in Union Sq and next Friday & Saturday 10am to 5pm at 14th St and 9th Ave across from the Apple Store. For Union Sq look for the bright lights, I will most likely be near the George Washington Statue across from Whole foods, or over by 16th and University. Friday the 24th, you have a chance of getting on a Brazilian MTV like show that will be there to interview me and film the shoot.
I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for your support, encouragement and donations. I am truly moved. Because of your generosity, and the $10, $25 and more contributions, I was able to pay for 3/4 of my insurance bill. So thank you all! I am half way to my $1000 goal, so if you have not contributed even $5.00 adds up. Please click on the link below to contribute using paypal. Or if you are having trouble with paypal, because you are not verified (yes I hate them too) you can mail me a check or cash to:
Cara Phillips
161 Engert Ave Apt #2R
Brooklyn, NY 11222
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=PB8RUVHP83RDW&lc=US&item_name=Cara%20Phillips%20AIOP¤cy_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted
Thanks again,
Cara
website: www.cara-phillips.com
ground glass: http://caraphillips.wordpress.com
women in photography: http://www.wipnyc.org
ARTmostfierce will be lending a hand to Cara October 25 , 2008. Yes...I am going to be a photographer assistant for the day. Since they say curiosity killed the cat...I have to give it a try !
After all my very first job ever was an assistant of Photography at the Univ. Of Puerto Rico School of Architecture...so back to school it is!
Besides the talented Cara will be the perfect teacher to learn photography for a day. I am very intrigued by this project and looking forward having my portrait done as well.
Which leaves me to all of you folks...get yours done as well too...FOR FREE.
Also lets not forget to assist Cara with some mula $$$. This is an interesting and worth being part of project so, swing by , take a glamour break, get a glamour shot as well and break the piggy bank and contribute to this wonderful project!
See you Oct. 25th!
See below and read Cara's shout out!
Hello Everyone
You are all invited to come get your portrait taken tomorrow & Friday 10am to 5pm in Union Sq and next Friday & Saturday 10am to 5pm at 14th St and 9th Ave across from the Apple Store. For Union Sq look for the bright lights, I will most likely be near the George Washington Statue across from Whole foods, or over by 16th and University. Friday the 24th, you have a chance of getting on a Brazilian MTV like show that will be there to interview me and film the shoot.
I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for your support, encouragement and donations. I am truly moved. Because of your generosity, and the $10, $25 and more contributions, I was able to pay for 3/4 of my insurance bill. So thank you all! I am half way to my $1000 goal, so if you have not contributed even $5.00 adds up. Please click on the link below to contribute using paypal. Or if you are having trouble with paypal, because you are not verified (yes I hate them too) you can mail me a check or cash to:
Cara Phillips
161 Engert Ave Apt #2R
Brooklyn, NY 11222
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=PB8RUVHP83RDW&lc=US&item_name=Cara%20Phillips%20AIOP¤cy_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted
Thanks again,
Cara
website: www.cara-phillips.com
ground glass: http://caraphillips.wordpress.com
women in photography: http://www.wipnyc.org
The Lucie Awards!!!
Start your Monday next week with a bang!Work is letting you down?
Way too many economical worries?
Well...time to party up!
Actor-comedian Mario Cantone to host
6th annual LUCIE AWARDS
Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center
honoring photographers on Monday, October 20, 2008, 6:00 p.m.
Presented by Pilsner Urquell
Media Contact: Sherrie Berger
310.503.4455
press@sherrieberger.com
www.lucieawards.com
http://www.lucieawards.com/08/
http://www.luciefoundation.org/
Tickets for the Lucie Awards are available at http://www.lincolncenter.org/
6th Annual LUCIE AWARDS
Celebrate LEGENDARY PHOTOGRAPHERS at
Prestigious LINCOLN CENTER
Photographers are honored on Monday, October 20, 2008, 6:00 p.m.
Presented by Pilsner Urquell
Los Angeles, Calif. (September 9, 2008) - The Lucie Awards, presented by Pilsner Urquell, celebrate their 6th year anniversary at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Monday, October 20, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. Honorees and top winners from the 2008 IPA competition will be recognized. The Lucie Awards, produced by the Lucie Foundation, (a non-profit, charitable foundation), salute the achievements of the world’s finest photographers, discover emerging talent through the International Photography Awards and promote the appreciation of photography worldwide.
The 2008 honorees are: Gianni Berengo Gardin (Lifetime Achievement), Sara Terry: The Aftermath Project (Humanitarian Award), Richard Misrach (Achievement in Fine Art), Josef Koudelka (Achievement in Documentary), Susan Meiselas (Achievement in Photojournalism), Herman Leonard (Achievement in Portraiture), Patrick Demarchelier (Achievement in Fashion), Erwin Olaf (Achievement in Advertising) and John Iacono (Achievement in Sports). In addition to celebrating the masters, Visa Pour L'Image Festival will be honored with the Spotlight Award for celebrating their 20 year Anniversary in 2008. Each year, Honorees are selected by the 55 member Advisory Board.
-more-
Past honorees include: Larry Clark, Elliott Erwitt, Kenro Izu, Albert Watson, Melvin Sokolsky, Steve McCurry, Mary Ellen Mark, Sebastiao Salgado, Bert Stern, James Nachtwey, Douglas Kirkland, Sarah Moon, Harry Benson, David Bailey, Neil Leifer, Peter Lindbergh and the late Gordon Parks, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip Jones Griffith and Cornell Capa.
The Lucies will also recognize those in the creative community who are integral in crafting an image in the following categories: Print Advertising Campaign of the Year, Fashion Layout of the Year, Photography Magazine of the Year, Book Publisher of the Year, Exhibition/Curator of the Year and Picture Editor of the Year. The IPA competition will announce its top winners from the 2008 competition and distribute $20,000 in cash prizes across the top three awards.
The Lucie Awards official media partner is PDN and Photo Plus International. In addition to title sponsor Pilsner Urquell, support is provided by Blurb, Amvona, AtEDGE, Canon and Splashlight Studios.
Tickets for the Lucie Awards are available at http://www.lincolncenter.org/
About the Lucie Foundation
The Lucie Foundation’s three fold mission is to salute the achievements of the world’s finest photographers, to discover and cultivate emerging talent and to promote the appreciation of photography worldwide. The photography communities from countries around the globe pay tribute to the year’s most outstanding photographic achievements at the annual Lucie Awards ceremony. Presented by Pilsner Urquell, the Lucies recognize men and women whose life’s work in photography merits the highest acclaim by their peers. The winners of IPA Photographer of the Year, the Discovery of the Year and Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year are announced at the Lucies and are awarded cash prizes and statues. The Lucie Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit charitable foundation.
About Pilsner Urquell
Pilsner Urquell is the first clear golden beer, created in 1842. Pilsner Urquell means ‘pilsner from the original source’. Pilsner Urquell is the flagship brand of SABMiller’s international brand portfolio and is a contender in the premium status segment of the market. The brand states its global vision as being ‘To be the most rewarding beer choice amongst premium status beer consumers’.
The brand has made it its mission to support and promote photography as a contemporary art form that inspires people around the world and took on title sponsorship of the International Photography Awards and Lucie Awards in 2005.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Best of Show Exhibit 10/18/08 @ Splashlight Studios, SoHo
ARTmostfierce highly recommends stopping by and check out this special Best of Show exhibit curated by Bill Hunt of Hasted Hunt Gallery. This is part of the Lucie Awards festivities culminating with the Lucie Awards presentation Monday October 20, 2008 @ Lincoln Center . Best of Show exhibit is free to the public and a great way to start your Saturday fall evening!
Please see below the press release by Sherrie Berger
For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Sherrie Berger
310.503.4455
press@sherrieberger.com
www.photoawards.com
IPA ANNOUNCES BEST of SHOW exhibit
Curated by Bill Hunt of Hasted Hunt Gallery
Saturday, October 18th, 7:00-10:00 p.m., Splashlight Studios, Soho
Open to the public
Please see below the press release by Sherrie Berger
For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Sherrie Berger
310.503.4455
press@sherrieberger.com
www.photoawards.com
IPA ANNOUNCES BEST of SHOW exhibit
Curated by Bill Hunt of Hasted Hunt Gallery
Saturday, October 18th, 7:00-10:00 p.m., Splashlight Studios, Soho
Open to the public
T. 212 268 7247 http://www.splashlight.com/
Los Angeles, Calif. (September 24, 2008) - The International Photography Awards (IPA) announced that Bill Hunt, avid collector and co-founder of the Hasted Hunt Gallery, has curated the IPA Best of Show, 2008 for the Pilsner Urquell International Photography Awards Competition. The exhibition, open to the public, debuts on Saturday, October 18, 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. at Splashlight Studios, Soho. Making this announcement, Hossein Farmani, founder of the IPA, commented, “We are so fortunate to have Bill curate this year’s Best of Show exhibition. He was the clear choice for the task at hand given his experience not only as a curator but also as an esteemed educator around the process of curating. I am delighted that Bill has curated this show, culled from over 350 winners’ works.”
Describing the selection process, Mr. Hunt added, “I am drawn to fresh ways of seeing. I want to be taken to unfamiliar places, to look with another’s eyes. As a curator, what I can then do is to lead you then as audience to those works, and to put them together so that any commonality gives that added weight.”
The 2008 Best of Show photographers are: Beata Bajno, Robin Bowman, Kate Brooks, James Campbell, Tim Clayton, Dylan Collard, Livia Corona, Antony Crossfield, Michael Crouser, Richard Daniels, Roy Dayan, John Delaney, Mitch Dobrowner, Oleg Dou (Duryagin), Julia Fullerton-Batten, Malcolm Gilbert, Maciej Grzegorzek, Jessica Todd Harper, Simon Harsent, Mark Holthusen, Chase Jarvis, Nadav Kander, Suthep Kritsanavarin, Murphy Kuhn, Markku Lahdesmaki, Jimmy Lam, Lung Liu, Pawel Mlodkowski, Wojtek Moskwa, Nigel Parry, Scott Peck, Paolo Pellegrin, Murat Sayginer, Howard Schatz, Brent Stirton, Simon Stock, Alex Telfer, Christian Vium and Vikki Wilson.
The images in this exhibition were printed by master printer Richard Jackson and his staff at Hance Partners, Inc., Flagstaff, AZ. www.hancepartners.com Hance Partners printed last year’s Best of Show receiving high acclaim and the IPA is thrilled to once again have their participation in this important Lucie Foundation event.
Aperture Foundation will have a table at the Best of Show at Splashlight where they will have for sale an assortment of its acclaimed books as well as offer attendees the chance to subscribe to the award-winning Aperture magazine, (winner of last year’s Lucie Award) at a special one-night only offer. Titles will include recently published books featuring work of this year’s honorees: Invasion 68 Prague, photographs by Josef Koudelka, Nicaragua: June 1978-July 1979, photographs by Susan Meiselas, Golden Gate, photographs by Richard Misrach.
The 2008 Best of Show exhibition debuts at the Splashlight Studio in Soho on October 18, in New York before traveling to 8 cities internationally.
The 6th Lucie Awards, presented by Pilsner Urquell, will be held at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Monday, October 20, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. Honorees and top winners from the 2008 competition will be recognized. The Lucie Awards (produced by the Lucie Foundation, a non-profit, charitable foundation,) salutes the achievements of the world’s finest photographers, discovers emerging talent through the International Photography Awards and promotes the appreciation of photography worldwide.
The Lucie Awards official media partner is PDN and Photo Plus International. In addition to title sponsor Pilsner Urquell, support is provided by Amvona, AtEDGE, Blurb, Canon, and Splashlight Studios. For more information regarding the Best of Show exhibit debut at the Splashlight Studios, Saturday, October 18, please email sarah@photoawards.com
Tickets for the Lucie Awards are available at http://www.lincolncenter.org/
About the International Photography Awards/ Lucie Foundation
About Pilsner Urquell
Pilsner Urquell is the first clear golden beer, created in 1842. Pilsner Urquell means ‘pilsner from the original source’. Pilsner Urquell is the flagship brand of SABMiller’s international brand portfolio and is a contender in the premium status segment of the market. The brand states its global vision as being ‘To be the most rewarding beer choice amongst premium status beer consumers’.
The brand has made it its mission to support and promote photography as a contemporary art form that inspires people around the world and took on title sponsorship of the International Photography Awards and Lucie Awards in 2005.
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