Happy Famous Artists

Congratulation to “golden boy” Filip Gilissen on his fantastic show Knowing Me Knowing You @ Wilfried Lentz gallery in Rotterdam. We take the liberty to “steal” the wording of the press release, explaining well & clearly concept behind Filip’s installation, that also made part of this year’s Art Rotterdam: For his new installation Filip Gilissen takes the gallery as main subject and transforms it into an ironic vehicle during Art Rotterdam. “Knowing Me Knowing You” is a set of 10 golden flickering digits hanging from a 3 x 4 meter steel frame and appearing mysteriously in the public entries to the VIP-openings during the art fair. The advertised number, reminiscent of a prank call hotline, is in fact the private phone number of Wilfried Lentz, and is connected to a synthetic golden phone displayed in the darkened gallery space. Gilissen hereby alludes to the solid golden phone that appears as a relationship gift in the Havana episode of The Godfather: Part II. Hence, in the gallery set up, the golden ‘non-dial’ phone equipped with a blank-off plate in place of a dial, can only receive messages from outside callers who respond to the teaser, or from relatives and close friends of the gallery owner who would naturally call him.

Alongside “Knowing Me Knowing You”, two other works are displayed in the gallery: “We Have Met Before Haven’t We?”, a small metal golden phone index containing all professional gallery contacts, presented tantalizingly half-open under the protection of gold leaf and glass vitrine, and “I’ve Been Waiting For You”, a delicate crystal and gold door handle, that might have provided the longed for means to get a ‘foot in the door’, if they weren’t so delicately fragile that they would likely shatter if touched.

Using the language of commerce, marketing and media representation, Gilissen gives a diabolic comment on the more cynical aspects of globalization and consumer driven politics. He explores through events, performances, and installations, the one-liners of the spectacle industry. 

(all photos courtesy of the artist)

If you plan a trip to the West Coast before May 31st this year and will be passing near Tucson, Arizona, make sure to drop @ Pima Art and Space Museum to see The Boneyard Project: Return Trip, an amazing show involving disused military airplanes that have been transformed into gigantic art installations by Faile, Andrew Schoultz, Retna, How & Nosm and Nunca, with Bast’s & Saner’s cockpits joining the lot. The idea for the project was conceived in 2010 by Eric Firestone, and the show – organized with curator Carlo Mccormick – has opened to public just couple of weeks ago.

While Tucson is not immediately the most obvious holiday/cultural destination, the chance of experiencing art in these settings in unforgettable (as we can witness from our own road trip through Nevada and The Goldwell Open Air Museum). So go see if you can!

Also on display are pieces from last year’s Nose Job show @ Eric Firestone, featuring Aiko, Crash, Daze, El Mac, Ron English, Shepard Fairey, Futura, Erik Foss, Tara Mcpherson, Richard Prince, Lee Quinones, Kenny Scharf, and many more.

All photos via Juxtapoz, courtesy of The Flop Box

h/t This is Crap

‘People who see a drawing in the New Yorker will think automatically thats it’s funny because it is a cartoon. If they see it in a museum, they think it’s artistic; if they find it in a fortune cookie they think it’s a prediction.’ – this Saul Steinberg’s quote introduces A Perfect Day, a group show that started last week @ Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. Presenting 50 international artists which use drawing (with texts) as their main medium and artistic form of expression, it includes stars as Saul Steinberg, Raymond Pettibon, David Shrigley, Ian Stevenson or Dan Perjovschi, as well as number of great Dutch artists such as Han Hoogerbrugge, Bert Mebius, Martyn F. Overweel, Koen Taselaar, Claudie de Cleen and many others.

A Perfect Day is a continuation of an exhibit called ‘Lots of Things Like This‘ which was organized by Apexart in NY in 2008 and curated by Dave Eggers, founder of the publishing house McSweeney’s.

The exhibition runs February 24 and seems like it’s definitely worth a trip to Amsterdam!

Fans of Walter Van Beirendonck, next week is your last chance to see his fantastic retrospective, Dream The World Awake, in the Fashion Museum (MoMu) in Antwerp. Besides Walter’s own creations you’ll be able to see pieces from some of his (art) soul mates, including the Chapman brothers, Mike Kelly, Robert Mapplethorpe or Erwin Wurm (Wurm & Van Beirendonck also collaborated last year on series of amazing Performative Sculptures during Wurm’s solo @ Middleheim). And don’t miss the spectacular dark room with Walter’s finest pieces immortalized on film by director Nick Knight and stylist Simon Foxton.

A group show with a great name Cultural Production opens tomorrow @ 6pm @ Andrea Rosen Gallery in NY, bringing together 4 conceptual artists of different generations: Josephine Meckseper, Alexandre Singh, Hanne Darboven and Allen Ruppersberg. Meckseper – whose installations resembling shiny shopping window displays always catch our attention on art fairs - is since couple of months represented by Andrea Rosen, so the gallery website announces. Great addition to the stable, and now maybe also time to redesign that 80s web interface? The show runs till March 24 and promises to be one not to miss.

Daan Samson, a “prosperity artist” and guru of shameless self-promotion (blog category usually reserved solely for our own production) never ceases to entertain and to astonish. The idea for his latest project was born out of intense intellectual & creative struggle… and some urgent material needs. In order to pimp up his Rotterdam HQ, Daan approached numerous producers of luxury domestic appliances, finding plenty who were willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of the arts, the economy and the artist’s personal welfare.

And so the Parade of Exchange and Gain, with plenty of desirable lifestyle goods (including enormous leaf blowers, sleek red kitchen, sexy fitness equipment or bright winter-sport roof cases) will proceed this Saturday through the Dutch city of Groningen, starting @ 5pm in the city centre and following the attached itinerary. After the parade and a short exhibition, all luxury items will find a permanent place within the artist’s residence in Rotterdam.

Opening this Thursday @ Tate Modern is a retrospective of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, showing a wide range of her work since the 1940s till today. Kusama, which is especially known for her playful polka-dots sculptures & installations (if Hirst is the King of dots, then she’s the Queen), is also an accomplished painter, writer and poet. This exhibition will highlight the moments of most intense innovation from the almost seven decades of her career – starting with early series of oil paintings and works on paper, through the minimalist and almost monochrome Infinity Net Paintings (late 50s and early 60s), followed by series of so-called Accumulation sculptures and later on large sculptures and paintings from the 80s and 90s.

Probably the most fascinating and visually striking pieces are 2 room-size installations: I’m Here, but Nothing (2000/2012) – a darkened living room, where all objects, including walls, floor & ceiling have been covered with fluorescent polka-dots; and Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life - a 3-dimensional depiction of infinite space, using mirrors, LED- lights and water. Before you enter this space, a sign on the wall warns you that the effect might have a disturbing to some visitors. We can confirm that experiencing it is indeed hallucinatory – in the best sense!

The exhibition runs till 5 June and is most definitely worth the trip (pun totally meant). After Tate, the exhibition will travel to Whitney Museum in NY.

As a teaser, see our photos from today’s preview.

Might also be of interest:
on Saturday 24th of March, from 1 to 6pm, you can visit Infinite Kusama – a special event organized by Tate Modern, which specifically targets young audience (& is free if u’re aged between 15-25). The event will include fashion and sound workshops, a silent disco and most importantly an online competition of which the lucky winner will have the opportunity to travel to Japan & visit Kusama’s studio.

Lucky, lucky New Yorkers get a pretty comprehensive showing (running from February 11–April 14) of films by innovative & award winning documentarist/polemicist Adam Curtis curated by e-flux and Hans Ulrich Obrist, with Curtis in conversation with Obrist on Saturday, April 14, 5pm. Programme of films.

Brain Activity, a solo exhibition of David Shrigley, opens on Feb 1st @ Hayward Gallery. It will be the artist’s first major survey show in London, covering full range of his diverse practice (besides drawing also photography, books, sculpture, animation, painting and music) and including new pieces and site specific installations. Besides the show itself, you’ll have a great opportunity hear Shrigley discuss his inspirations and influences during Artist Talk on April 23rd (book in advance).

The exhibition will run till May 13 2012.

Valentine Uhovski, a former Russian child star and co-creator of the controversial high-society-skewering Socialite Rank site and contemporary art platform ArtRuby, has been the first one to collect all 11 spots in the Hirst Spot Challenge pilgrimage! Starting in New York on January 12th and ending @ Gagosian’s Davies Street space in London @ 2:30 p.m this Friday, Uhovski did the 11 Gagosian galleries (3x New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Athens, Rome Geneva, Paris, 2x London) in mere 8 days, beating the 2nd winner – journalist Jeff Chu – by couple of minutes. Tan Wong from Arrested Motion finished as 3rd in Gagosian Hong Kong. Respect! to all 3 insane spot enthusiasts.

Btw: The Complete Spot Challenge continues till March 17, so still some time to win your personalized Hirst spot painting print and make an art-trip around the world.

(via ArtInfo)

One city’s loss is another city’s gain: Olek – the artist known above all for crocheting a christmas coat for the Wall Street’s iconic bull statue – is residing in London since couple of months & the city streets are getting brighter! Moreover, her first solo show opens @ Tony’s gallery next week. Drop by at the opening reception on Thursday 26th January from 6 to 9 pm, dressed to the occasion. Don’t have any sharp objects on you. And if you bring some Polish vodka, Olek might even reveal couple of crochet secrets in exchange for a bottle… or two ;-).

The exhibition will run till 23rd of March 2012.

An exhibition of Iranian-born & Berlin-based artist Maryam Najd, opens on 19th January 2012 in Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Maryam will present new works from the ‘Non Existence Flag Project’, dealing with the symbolic and semiotics employed in the formation of national identities. Mostly abstract paintings are also accompanied by some figurative works, such as Happy New Year My Love, depicted here, a painting of various country’s national flowers, arranged into a bouquet that nods to Jan Breughel.

With Jake & Dinos Chapman’s installation gracing their shop windows, Dover Street Market – a “must” on London’s to-do list - has presented their new spring/summer 2012 selection this weekend. We’ve browsed through the 6 floors & took some quick snapshots of the stuff that shall rule every fashion victim’s life in the coming months. Warning: ‘bankrupt danger’ price tags unfortunately accopany the ‘desire hazard’ tag.

Note: Dover Street Market is since recently open also on Sundays and the Rose Bakery on the top floor is a great destination for Sunday brunch, mixing culinary treat with great crowd watching!

La Grande Fête des Voyeurs, first big retrospective of Han Hoogerbrugge, alias The Flash God, opens in TENT Rotterdam on the 26th of January. And we’re pretty damn sure that if there’s one show which should not be missed, it’s this one! Transforming the exhibition space into a Hoogerbrugge-universe, it will present Han’s works of the last 15 years in form of drawings, projections, video- and interactive installations plus life performances.

If you can make it to Rotterdam on the day of the opening, don’t hesitate. It promises to be quite a party, with live bunnys, Karl (Lagerfeld), The Young Punx and Han’s new spectacular video installation in an international premiere.
The exhibition will run till March 18.

We have placed Thomas Heatherwick in the Design category (he studied three-dimensional design) but his activities reach far beyond one practice. His studio has given birth to the remarkable British Seed pavilion @ last years’ Shanghai expo, a Velopark for the 2012 year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games and several award winning furniture prototypes. He has collaborated with Longchamps to launch an expandable, zip-wrapped line handbags and his redesigned version of the iconic red double-deckers have just started to cruise the streets of London. The Heatherwick studio website proudly states in its ‘about’ section: we exist to make extraordinary projects happen – a claim which they have proven to validate more than once.

Might be of interest:

> In 2012 Victoria & Albert Museum will host a solo exhibition of Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary will run from May 31st to September 30th.

> The current issue of Intelligent Life magazine (free downloadable iPad version) features an in-depth interview with Thomas Heatherwick, in which he describes his background and philosophy as well as many of his projects.

> Thomas Heatherwick’s speech @ this years’ TED conference, where he shows five of his recent bio-inspired designs, is also definitely worth watching.

> 600-pages monograph  Thomas Heatherwick: Making Ideas will be published in May 2012 by Thames & Hudson.

Photos:

1/ Heatherwick’s sleek double-decker bus in London (via Inhabitat)

2/ Building the British Pavilion, a.k.a.Seed Cathedral in Shanghai (via Heatherwick studio)

3/ The Extrusion Bench formed from one single piece of aluminium exhibited on Brit Insurance Design Awards 2010 @ the Design Museum  (see more photos from this show on our Flickr)

4/ Trying out the Spun Chair @ this year’s Brit Insurance Design Awards @ the Design Museum (see more photos from this show on our Flickr)