Tuesday, June 1, 2011

Outside Florians

Hurrying to meet Cape Town artist Andrew Putter outside Florians on the Piazza San Marco, I pass the pair without whom any Venice Biennale would be incomplete – the fairies, dressed as always in matching delicately pink outfits.

Andrew is on the prestigious ‘Personal Structures’ at the Palazzo Bembo, and has been checking his remarkable singing portrait installation – we will end up at the Palazzo Bembo party at the end of the night - but now it is time to see some ART.

Yesterday was the day before the previews begin, the best possible time to have a look at work before the art mob descends. We wander through the beautiful long spaces of the Arsenale with their crumbling brick columns and are stopped short by what is clearly Nicholas Hlobo’s work.

Nicholas Hlobo’s Iimpundulu Zonke Ziyandilandela in the Arsenale at Venice

A fantastical creature is suspended from the ceiling of the Arsenale, Iimpundulu Zonke Ziyandiilandela, the rainbird that occurs in myths around the world. Nicholas’ trademark materials, black rubber, ribbons, printed cloth, found objects have here been fabricated into a menacingly powerful, hovering, sexually ambiguous presence with extraordinary detail, For me, It’s his strongest work yet.

Nicholas Hlobo in Venice

Monday, May 30

I am typing this on the Eurostar flying through the countryside from Milan to Venice. I have started my residency in Bellagio, on Lake Como, and in between the hours of work, have been wandering around this small town, drawn by the ever changing light on the silver and black Lake Como, and the enormous charm of the ochre and red buildings which line the steep narrow cobbled streets.

Evening light on Lake Como

A visit to the graveyard reveals the genealogical history of the families of this town. Almost every gravestone has photographs, dating back to the earliest days of photography, austere sepia portraits in oval frames which gaze out into eternity. It’s also a history of photographic portraiture itself – family members who died in recent years appear in colour, set in modernistic glass frames.

The grave of the family Sala-Grossi

But now it’s on to Venice, and the mad four days as the entire art world descends upon this tiny island to look, to party, to gossip, and occasionally , one hopes to stand in awe, as the 54th Biennale, entitled ILLUMInations, opens to the world.

Entering Venice by train

Tomorrow night I will go to a cocktail party at the magnificent recently restored Ca’ Giustinian , hosted by chief curator Bice Curiger and director of the Biennale, Paolo Baratta to honour the artists, lenders and supporters of the Biennale.

Let the party begin.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Krakow, Poland. A city with an Old Town dominated by the monolithic Wawel Castle on the hill, dating from the 11th century and occupied by a succession of monarchs and emperors until the Nazis took possession in World War 11.

Krakow Old Town

On Friday, May 13, I flew into the city as an observer of the 2011 edition of Krakow PhotoMonth, and also to do a Krakow version of my ‘Other Voices Other Cities’ series. The theme of PhotoMonth, devised by the curatorial team of photographers Olly Chanarin and Adam Broomberg, was Alias, a theme which seemed particularly appropriate to this city with its layers of dubious history. We are staying in the old Jewish district, Kazimierz, now a hip part of the city, with numerous clubs and small restaurants.

Not an artwork, but tokens of love – padlocks on a city bridge

With Alias, the curators’ unique idea was to create a series of exhibitions by a hybrid team of writers and artists. First, a writer was asked to write a story. Next, an artist made a piece of work based on the protagonist of the story. Finally, another writer invented a name and an artist’s biography based on the story and the artwork.

This invented name was the one that appeared in the catalogue. The exhibition openings, then, are a series of investigations into who did what with whom, and what came out of that collaboration.

The opening of ‘Ivan P’’s exhibition

And of course, there is time for parties, catching up, and good Polish food.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Life has been totally crazy for the past two weeks between returning from New York and London and leaving for Poland and Italy.

I did get to see ArtThrob’s editorial assistant Natasha Norman’s masters show, up for one night at the Michaelis Gallery. Her large scale linocuts are printed with shifting veils of colour viewed through grids, which hover between classic engravings and early television screens. Images are sourced from the movie Apocalyse Now and have something of the same hallucinogenic quality.

Natasha Norman in front of her work.

I also couldn’t miss Paul Edmunds’ obssessive line drawings in graphite at the Stevenson gallery, and Penny Siopis’ brilliant video on the story of a nun who was attacked and killed in the Transkei, many years ago. Siopis writes scripts based on careful research and cuts and pastes found random home movie and other footage to create films which seem truer in spirit than a straight documentary could ever be.

But mainly I worked on the photoshoot we did in New York for my Other Voices Other Cities series. In the workshop to decide on a statement of what it means to New Yorkers to live where they do, the group came up with, I MEAN, WHERE ELSE ARE YOU GONNA GO? Such a perfect expression of New York attitude.

Detail from the Other Voices Other Cities: New York shoot

We shot on a late afternoon on the silvery roof of an East Village squat, with the Empire State building floating in the background. I’m really happy with it.

Friday, April 22, 2011

I arrive in London the day before the South African photographic show, ‘Figures and Fictions’, opens at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The show has had terrific pre publicity, with an eight page spread in the London Sunday Times. On Monday April 11, Lisa Brice and I head for the opening. Some of the artists are here – Terry Kurgan, Lolo Veleko and Pieter Hugo – and it is good to catch up with locals art historian Annie Coombes and artist Joy Gregory. ArtThrob’s international editor Amy Halliday is there, and so, of course, is curator Tamar Garb. The show has great energy.

Zwelethu Mthethwa’s Untitled from The Brave Ones series at the V&A

Across town, dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has filled the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern with more than 100,000,000 porcelain sunflower seeds, each handformed and painted by 1600 porcelain workers in the town of Jingdizhen over a two year period.

Ai Weiwei with Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern

Simply called ‘Sunflower Seeds’ the piece has many layers of meaning, During Mao’s cultural revolution, sunflower seeds were often the only food available, so they are both a symbol of repression, and of a small way of sharing in those austere times.

On April 3, Ai Weiwei was arrested at the airport as he attempted to leave mainland China for Hong Kong. An international outcry has followed. The Chinese authorities refuse to release him and have said he was arrested for tax evasion.

Earlier this week, I signed a petition calling for his release. Today Good Friday, comes the news that the change.org site is under cyber attack from within China, evidence that the petition is working. Here is the link. Please sign, http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei

Sunday, April 17, 2011

My last Thursday in New York is even busier than usual, trying to catch up with as many people as I can before heading for JFK.

Breakfast is at Le Pain Quotidien on Broadway at 91st with artist friend Michael Waugh whose exhibition at Romero Schroeder & Shredder I visited last week. His installation, The Accumulation of Capital, takes on the task of turning this economic concept into art. Over a period of six months, Waugh filmed himself packing up the varied and eclectic contents of nine generations of his family’s china and glassware cabinets now spread out on the floor of the gallery. The video voiceover discusses theories of capitalist accumulation.

More at www.michaelwaugh.com.

Michael Waugh’s The Accumulation of Capital.

Lunch is with Linda Marston-Reid at the elegant Maya Lin designed headquarters of the Rockfeller Foundation, floating above the city. Linda is the coordinator of the Bellagio Center in Italy, and the purpose of the lunch is to discuss my upcoming residency at Bellagio, due to start in May.

At 4 p.m. I have a date with acclaimed film maker Susan Vogel who is waiting for me next to an Urs Fischer sculpture of a yellow teddy bear merged with a desk lamp, made by the artist with the aid of a 3D laser scanner. Teddy has been installed that very day outside the classic Seagram Building on Park Avenue, prior to a September auction date.

Susan Vogel and the Urs Fischer teddy bear

Susan has just completed a remarkable film on the artist El Anatsui, Fold Crumple Crush, a tribute to the Ghanaian artist whose intricate wall hangings fashioned from discarded bottle tops have made this late career artist an international art star. View the trailer online at vimeo.com/16874224

Monday, April 11. 2011

Monday, April 11. 2011

New York, I love it.

The subway system. Rushing you express from 96th Street way downtown to the Village in about 15 minutes, providing a series of small performances along the way that the residents of the city mostly ignore.

On the subway

Central Park. When I arrived towards the end of March, signs of spring were just beginning and the weather was snowy, but now brilliant yellow forsythia is coming into full bloom and lighting the way towards summer.

Dusk in Central Park

The theatres. Entering the Lincoln Center one night with friends Joe and Anne Bacal to see War Horse , a play they had booked for us and I knew nothing about, I encountered the remarkable artistry of Cape Town puppet maestros Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler. The play concerns a beloved horse who is shipped to France to play a role on the battlefield in WW1. The cast was brilliant, but undoubtedly the stars of the play were the life size horses, quivering and snorting, pawing and rearing, more real, more sensitive than the human cast.

War Horse

New York. I was there for almost three weeks, but the days were so full of incident, of events, of people, of me trying to get a New York version of my art project Other Voices Other Cities done, there was no time to stop and blog. Over the next week, I will be looking back at some of the best moments.