July 2011
1 post
cultural. bloody. hero!
http://www.ayearinmuseums.com/
One man aims to visit every museum in London in one year.
June 2011
1 post
March 2011
6 posts
2 tags
The lot of the struggling artist: Lucian Freud
We do a couple of day trips every now and again. William’s got his wonderful private jet, and we make use of that. In the spring we went to Paris for the Pompidou opening and then on to Madrid for the Prado, which was closed on the Monday, but it was arranged that we could go in and walk around on our own. William sets up things like that. You drive on the runway right to the plane,...
3 tags
The case for core funding
Theatres, museums and orchestras say they need core funding on either a three, four or five year contact, to enable them to plan and run their businesses. Any additional money provided by philanthropic gifts or a one-off lottery grant is extremely helpful, but doesn’t compare. It is the difference between an employee earning a wage and then receiving the occasional bonus, you can plan...
3 tags
Ballet Bullies?
The head of Russia’s world-famous Bolshoi Theatre ballet troupe has resigned after erotic photographs purporting to be him appeared on the internet.
Rebekah Cavanagh, ‘Bolshoi Ballet Boss Quits Over Porn Scandal’, Sky News online, 17 March 2011....
2 tags
AW Track changes: Michael Joo
Michael Joo, ‘Sculpture Interrogated/ Deflected’, 2011. http://www.othercriteria.com/blog/2011/03/08/sculpture-interrogateddeflected/ with AW track changes.
AW: we’ve proof read Michael Joo’s statement about his sculpture and made some comments in track changes.
2 tags
Slap down for Koons
As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain.
Jedediah Wakefield, lawyer, quoted in Cat Weaver, ‘Is a Cease and Desist About Irony, Hypocrisy or Legal Strategy?’, 10 March 2011, Hyperallergic, < http://hyperallergic.com/20398/cease-and-desist-strategy/>.
...
7 tags
The last word on light bulbs. Or is it?
I don’t think any of the judges feel this is the dernier cri in terms of what will be done with the low-energy light bulb
Will Self, Brit Insurance design of the year award jury member, ‘Plumen Lightbulb wins Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2011’, <http://www.designsoftheyear.com/2011/03/15/plumen-lightbulb-wins-brit-insurance-design-of-the-year-2011/>
AW: Presumably...
February 2011
4 posts
5 tags
6 tags
12 tags
Sewellisms # 23: Cliché counter
1 panjandrums
1 jabberwocky
1 piffle
3 feminist
1 feminism
Brian Sewell, ‘Away with the fairies with Susan Hiller’, Evening Standard, 3 February 2011, <http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/review-23920219-away-with-the-fairies-with-susan-hiller.do>.
AW: Sometime I think he puts in the Sewellisms and then writes the article around them. As ever in his review of Susan Hiller...
9 tags
A complexity it excludes or muffles
Hayley Tompkins; Days Series 2007 Courtesy The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd © Hayley Tompkins Gouache on wood, spoon 3x13.1x2.1cm
Hayley’s work is risky. Perhaps, you think, this is just a piece of stick with some silver gouache and photographic trimmings on it? Well, that’s exactly what it is. But at the same time it’s a perfect index of a set of lost decisions, the shadow of a...
December 2010
1 post
Jim Naughtie Legend
November 2010
1 post
4 tags
Questioning the rhetoric of cuts
What, I asked, does that mean?
Will Gompertz, ‘Looking forward to Transparency in Arts Funding’, 9 November 2010, Gomp/Arts, BBC, accessed 15 November, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/willgompertz/2010/11/looking_forward_to_transparenc.html>.
AW: That, Will, is exactly what we are always asking. Check out this blog post. It expresses exactly how we feel about...
October 2010
1 post
8 tags
Turner trouble
Turner Prize bosses made an exhibition of themselves yesterday, by trying to ban any bad publicity.
[…]
The row blew up after members of the Press were asked to sign a form which said journalists could not publish any images or words which would “result in any adverse publicity” for the exhibition.
Tom Pettifor, ‘Turner Prize in another mess as art bosses try to ban...
September 2010
3 posts
9 tags
Sewellisms # 22: Muybridge
Had Muybridge been able to record the movements of Lady Hamilton’s Attitudes we might have understood the erotic charge that so fascinated Nelson and led to his seduction, but for this his ingenious camera was a long half-century too late.
Brian Sewell, ‘Motion Pictures from Edward Muybridge’, The Evening Standard, 9 September 2010,...
5 tags
Painting penis
All you Gauguin enthusiasts will know that he often signed his works ‘P GO’. Sometime last year, when we were throwing around ideas about merchandising during the exhibition, someone came up with the lovely idea of commissioning a children’s book, featuring Gauguin’s animals, birds and etc, with the title ‘P GO’.
No doubt it conjured up images of cute little penguins or the like (‘Pingu’...
Tory Lunacy: Libraries
So there will be some re-shaping of library services but I do think it is important that we think imaginatively about where libraries could be. I wouldn’t even have a problem, for example, if there was a library in a pub.
Ed Vaizey, Minster for Culture, quoted here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/willgompertz/2010/08/what_next_for_the_local_librar.html
AW: This is a...
July 2010
3 posts
7 tags
Sewellisms # 21: Ultimate put down
Born in 1946, Jamie is unashamedly a borrower, a crass incompetent incapable of drawing and able to paint only in the idiom of either father or grandfather — corny is the word that comes to mind, closely followed by naive, stale, uncomprehending, vulgar and inane. At his inept attempt to portray Nureyev as a dancer waiting in the wings, mocking laughter is the only reasonable response. As...
5 tags
Conceptual art wrecked by yobs
An art exhibit designed to show what can happen when tearaways get hold of powerful cars has been wrecked… by yobs.
‘It’s a joyhiding’. The Sun, 25 June 2010, <http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3029056/Art-exhibit-takes-a-joyhiding.html>.
AW: The Sun can barely disguise the note of triumph. Conceptual art? Bollaaaarks! Yobs? Booo! Conceptual...
6 tags
King Tut: Egyptian Ladyboy?
I smelled a conspiracy. Could ancient Egyptian embalmers have replaced the royal member to hide the fact that their king’s manhood was somewhat lacking? What’s more, the front of Tut’s chest is missing, so it’s impossible to check whether he did indeed have breasts.
Jo Marchant, ‘On the trail of Tutankhamen’s penis’, New Scientist, 25 June 2010, <...
June 2010
3 posts
11 tags
Sewellisms # 20: Pricks, dicks, bums and bosoms
The pricks, dicks, bums and bosoms of the saucy postcard mingle with the riotous rumpy-pumpy episodes of Rowlandson; the silken elegance of Beardsley’s tumescent penises puts to shame Grayson Perry’s monstrous strutting phalluses, veinous with over-use, masquerading as Hans Andersen.
Brian Sewell, ‘A stick of rock, cock? Tate Britain gets smutty’, The Evening Standard, 24...
5 tags
Marc sculpts Michael
From the Guardian website, accessed 2 June 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/01/marc-quinn-interview
AW: Everyone is making paintings and sculpture of Michael Jackson right now. He’s the new Marilyn Monroe. Is this Quinn’s bid to be the next Jeff Koons?
More recent Michael Jackson portraits:
...
11 tags
Sewellisms # 19: Bronzed Bodies
‘nude women bathed, nude boys drew swords from scabbards, and nude Nubians stood guard. The small bronze was, it seems, a genre of art in which the nude, male and female, could abandon modesty and its futile wisps of drapery and stand full frontal at eye-level on the mantelpiece.’
‘it is at its best with nude male figures, either singly or performing some ghastly ritual of...
May 2010
9 posts
6 tags
Phillip Allen: When is a painting more than the...
‘A parallel contrast arises between the dollops of inactive paint on the edges and the paint rendered deliberately in the centre by the artist’s brush – raising the fundamental question, when is a painting more than the sum of its parts?’
PRESS RELEASE, ‘Phillip Allen, The urgent hang around’, 3 June - 10 July, Bernier/ Eliades Gallery, Athens....
5 tags
Questioning the very existence of images
‘Introducing a disruptive element that twists or changes reality, without ever neglecting the aesthetic value, he creates a movement of attraction and repulsion, which poses the problem of the very existence of images and their meanings.’
Press Release: ‘Superveilance – Mat Collishaw’, Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Naples 14 May - 16 July 2010
AW: Ambitious much?
4 tags
Wacky Art: Another pile of dog doo
‘last year a swan was alleged to have choked to death on cotton hanging from an artwork in the lake.’
‘Wacky art show at Pally’, Muswell Hill Journal, 27 May 2010, <http://tinyurl.com/2v8mh35>.
AW: Art exhibitions don’t get much more controversial than that. We’re looking forward to this year’s controversy, ‘pimp my poo’, yet another...
5 tags
Boris with... Yinka Shonibare
Image from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/willgompertz/2010/05/yinka_shonibare_1.html
AW: Incidentally, the work (Yinka Shonibare’s, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, 2010, Trafalgar Square, London) is fantastic.
2 tags
No soul for sale
It was like an afternoon with Bob and Roberta Smith’s less gifted mates.
Jonathan Jones, ‘Tate Modern’s birthday was a soulless celebration’, The Guardian online, 17 May 2010, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/may/17/tate-modern-birthday-soulless>
AW: For us JJ usually hits the nail on the head, though we didn’t go this time so...
10 tags
Sewellisms #18: Pseuds, panjandrums and penises
I fell to wondering what French critics have made of it, but long ago, translating for the Arts Council, I learned that French art criticism is what David Lee, editor of Jackdaw, might dub high octane artbollocks — the self-indulgent blethering of pseuds in the obscure jabberwocky that has developed among cod-philosophers who pretend an interest in art.
Brian Sewell, ‘Ooh la la,...
10 tags
Tracey Emin's Shiner
Alistair Foster, ‘Who gave Tracey Emin a multicoloured shiner? Another artist, of course’, The Evening Standard, 20 May 2010, <http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/article-23833669-who-gave-tracey-emin-a-multicoloured-shiner-another-artist-of-course.do>
2 tags
Charmed I'm sure
The British artist Charming Baker has caused a sensation in New York where Damien Hirst has been buying up his work in bulk.
Colin Gleadell, ‘Art Sales: the British artist charming his way to the top’, Telegraph.co.uk, 18 May 2010, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artsales/7736004/Art-Sales-the-British-artist-charming-his-way-to-the-top.html>
AW: Presumably this...
6 tags
'The worst art exhibition in Britain'
With a broom propped up against a wall and pieces of wood strewn across the floor, it looks like the builders have clocked off or taken a lunch break.
But thr [sic] scene is actually a display in a gallery and some angry punters have branded it “the worst art exhibition in Britain”.
‘Punters call art show “the worst art exhibition in Britain”.’ The Daily...
April 2010
11 posts
5 tags
Sewellisms # 17: On drawing
‘it is in drawing that the sperm penetrates the egg, so to speak, and the conception of a work of art begins (it is tempting to suppose that pen, pencil and penis come from the same root, but they do not)’
Brian Sewell, ‘Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings’, Evening Standard, 22 April 2010,...
10 tags
Nick Serota hedges his bets on the election
Interestingly, the commitment to Tate Modern was made not by the Labour government but by a Conservative government, in 1995, when Virginia Bottomley supported the creation of Tate Modern. So Tate Modern has, in a sense, been a crossparty invention.
Nicholas Serota in interview, ‘Artists, critics and readers on 10 years of Tate Modern’, The Observer, 25 April 2010,...
3 tags
Most ridiculous name for an art centre ever?
The pavilion of post contemporary curating
http://www.thecentreofattention.org/exhibitions/sutton1.html
AW: Despite the silly name, this does look like an interesting use for the ruins of a stately home, and we at Art Wank wish the ‘Centre of Attention’ (sigh!) the best of luck with this project.
4 tags
The worst of Hirst: Film Star
Damien Hirst is to star as a fictional curator in a film about the YBAs. Oh dear: http://artcollc.blogspot.com/2010/04/damien-hirst-curates-boogie-woogie.html
9 tags
Life drawling class
Adult Drawing A Zoppa Brothers Production Recorded April 18th, 2009
The Zoppa Brothers’ Adult Drawing event features a collection of eclectic and exotic models posing for artists in a hip setting with excellent house music. This is not your grandmother’s Art Student’s League sketch class! Featuring the Girls of Burning Angel & Special Guests!
www.thegreatnude.tv
AW:...
6 tags
Shoplifting in the name of art
“Being an artist and a single mum, you became very creative in what’s available to you. It can be very expensive spending money on materials, paying rent and fees. I just need to think on my feet. Stealing or robbing or appropriating — that’s what I do.”
Roisin Byrne, quoted in ‘Goldsmiths star’s shoplifting in the name of art’, Evening Standard, 13 April 2010
...
5 tags
HR Wank: Visitor Experience
Tate are advertising for a Senior Visitor Experience Manager (their new name for visitor services). As a visitor, I’d like to manage my own experience thank you very much.
9 tags
Am I completely alone in thinking that this is...
Anish Kapoor, ArcelorMittal Orbit (model), 2010. Images from: http://agmetalminer.com/2010/04/06/arcelormittal-orbit-tower-to-dominate-london-2012-skyline/
AW: Also is a tower that ‘looks as if it’s going to fall over’ according to Kapoor, really the best symbol for London’s Olympic Games? Maybe another quote by the artist will explain why the monument is particularly...
4 tags
Boris Johnson on the Tate Modern extension
[Boris Johnson explained how Tate are going to take the Bankside power station and] “shove onto it an incredible space-age Isaac Asimov trapezoid thing”
‘Boris Johnson officially begins the Tate Modern extension: “an incredible space-age Isaac Asimov trapezoid thing”’, Art Review, 6 January 2010,...
7 tags
Cataloguing Quiz: the answer
Man Homo sapiens sapiens a) Pending, cf. Letter of Donation.
The answer to our cataloguing quiz, what object is being described?, is… a human penis. I bet the Icelandic Phallologigal Museum can’t wait to get its hands on that specimen.
4 tags
Cataloguers of the museum world stand up and be...
“With his flowing white beard and donnish, almost magical air, Irving Finkel looks every inch the learned scholar.”
Ed Davey, ‘The 99% of the British Museum not on show’, BBC London, 31 march 2010, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8595000/8595594.stm>
AW: Yep that’s curators for you. Hobbity little wizards every...
March 2010
15 posts
3 tags
Cataloguing quiz
Here at Art Wank we love a bit of cataloguing. For a fun quiz can you guess? (i) which museum this catalogue entry could have come from?
and
(ii) what the object is?
Man Homo sapiens sapiens a) Pending, cf. Letter of Donation.
6 tags
Another Michael Jackon Painting
Ginger Adams Otis, Michael Jackson’s weird art revealed: Jacko art’s a Michaelangelo’, New York Post, 6 December 2010, <http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/king_of_pop_creepy_portraits_revealed_pNtYZqjFjzxzgfx8gIU3nK#ixzz0jYcqBADi>
3 tags
Badly written press release of the week
By creating a new world with new borders and conditions, each sculpture in this group exhibition embraces both the viewer and the object, using the relationship between the two to recreate the definitions of reality, invention, and representation.
Press Release: ‘The World We Live In, The Worlds We Create’, Like the Spice Gallery, New York, March 12th - April 11th 2010.
AW: Yes,...
5 tags
The Last Stuffer: Jesus gets greedy
Experts have analysed more than 50 paintings of the meal Jesus took with his disciples before his betrayal and crucifixion. And they have concluded that the amount of food on the table has grown by Biblical proportions over the centuries.
Jane Wharton, ‘Da Vinci’s Last Supper Gets Bigger by Biblical Proportions’, The Express, 24 March 2010,...
13 tags
Sewellisms # 16: The Prince and the Pudding
In his review of ‘Victoria and Albert: Art and Love’ at the Queens Gallery, Brian Sewell continues to criticise the appearance of British queens. Having described Lady Jane Grey as ‘plain Jane’ last week in his review of the Delaroche exhibition at the National Gallery, he now turns to Queen Victoria, taking up a position of sympathy with Prince Albert, who he speculates must have been a long...
4 tags
Artof Hitler
It is thought Hitler’s anti-semitism was fuelled by the fact that a Jewish professor snubbed him.
‘Nazi Bit of Work’, The Sun, 25 March 2010, <http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2906370/Sketches-by-Adolf-Hitler-show-why-he-was-rejected-by-Vienna-Academy-of-Art.html>
AW: Historians at the Sun answer the big questions: what makes a tyrant?