2008.11.04

International News Digest

Venice Biennale Announces Titles and Themes; Deutsche Bank Backs Out of Art Cologne and Venice Biennale; Hezbollah Protests Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem; Christoph Schlingensief Plans African Festival Hall; Seller Removes Picasso from Auction; Koons’s Vision of the Market

“MAKING WORLDS” AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

What can we expect at the next Venice Biennale? Daniel Birnbaum, artistic director of the fifty-third edition, unveiled some details at a meeting last week in Venice with representatives of countries participating in the event. According to a press release, the next Biennale will be called “Making Worlds” and appears in the official title in seven languages: “Fare Mondi // Making Worlds // Bantin Duniyan // 制造世界 // Weltenmachen // Construire des Mondes // Fazer Mundos.”

In his statement, Birnbaum noted that the exhibition will not be divided into sections,

2008.10.13

International News Digest

Surveying Art Markets Around the World: Reports from London, Paris, Beijing, Hong Kong, Moscow, Kiev, Zurich, Berlin, and New York

SURVEYING ART MARKETS AROUND THE WORLD: CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

LONDON

This week the Süddeutsche Zeitung took a world tour to test attitudes in the art market toward the global financial crisis. Alexander Menden reports from London, where the Frieze Art Fair opens on Wednesday. Rebecca Wilson, director of the newly-opened Saatchi Gallery near Sloane Square in London, doesn’t believe that the credit crunch will squeeze the private museum. “There’s no sign for that,” Wilson told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The most important thing is that we can finally open.” After testing the waters, Menden finds

2008.10.06

International News Digest

Zidane at Bargain Prices; More Art Deals in Vienna and Graz; Hirst Engravings for Sale; Italian Architecture, Past and Future; Artist’s Model Scouting at Primary School Sparks Outrage

ZIDANE AT BARGAIN BASEMENT PRICES

Works by star artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno are usually not for collectors on a tight budget. But the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Catrin Lorch reports on a supersaver price for Gordon and Parreno’s collaboration Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, 2006. The pair’s epic film on the French soccer player Zinedine Zidane is now being sold by the German soccer fan magazine 11 Freunde for a mere $13.47. Zidane—which features ninety-three minutes of Zidane playing for Real Madrid in an April 2005 match against FC Villareal—is one of eleven film soccer “classics”

2008.10.01

International News Digest

How Will Crash Affect Art Market?; Poor Turnout for Banksy Sale; Kate Moss at Auction; Art Relations Strained Between Liechtenstein and Germany

GALLERIES FEELING THE SQUEEZE?

The Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Jörg Häntzschel looks at the impact of the bank crash on the art market in New York. Although he suspects that galleries and auction houses will be hit hard, no one has yet issued a statement about the financial crisis. “No comment from the three big auction houses, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips de Pury,” writes Häntzschel. The city’s most important galleries—Gagosian, Zwirner & Wirth, Marian Goodman, Deitch Projects, and Gladstone—have also remained silent. “And who wants to talk down a nervous market with bad news? No one could

2008.09.24

International News Digest

Will Arts Funding Suffer Under the Financial Crisis?; Palais de Tokyo Discusses Concerns over New Arrangement; Protestors Steal Goya to Protest Art Bureaucracy; Chávez Hits the Auction Block

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SPONSOR GOES BROKE?

_Die Welt_’s Hannes Stein takes a look at the possible repercussions of the financial crisis on arts funding. “The bank crash in the United States will have a wide-reaching impact,” writes Stein, who is writing principally on the arts in New York. “When a giant collapses, it often crushes little ones standing in its shadow.” Except in this case, two financial giants—Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch—have fallen. In New York, the crisis could not have come at a worse time, since the city recently made cuts across the board to arts funding, from theaters

2008.09.17

International News Digest

Worldwide Reactions to Hirst Sale; Garage Aims to Be the “MoMA of Moscow”; Shanghai’s Highs and Lows; Venice Architecture Biennale Prizes; Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie in Need of Repairs

WORLDWIDE REACTIONS TO HIRST SALE

The success of Damien Hirst’s sale at Sotheby’s—held as financial markets began a downward spiral after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other trouble on Wall Street—seemed to confirm at least one theory. Writing the weekend before the sale, the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Holger Liebs qualified Hirst as a “modern Midas” whose oeuvre was effectively “the art market” itself, not pickled cows and sharks. While Hirst’s decision to bypass his galleries and to sell directly through an auction house constituted a major art-market statement, the sale’s coincidence with

2008.09.09

International News Digest

Feeding an Executed Prisoner to Fish; Conflict of Interest Around Koons?; Palais de Tokyo at Fontainebleau; US Patron for Berlin Castle

FEEDING AN EXECUTED PRISONER TO FISH

The Danish artist Marco Evaristti has made headlines in Germany with a provocative project: transforming the corpse of an executed prisoner into fish food. _Die Tageszeitung_’s Joerg Sundermeier is not impressed. “Dumb, dumber, dumbest art,” writes Sundemeier. “It’s an intervention that shows how undertalented artists can get attention. Does it get any any dopier?” It certainly gets more complicated. Although the reports vary from one source to another, Evaristti hopes to obtain the corpse of a prisoner executed in the United States, ship the body to Germany,

2008.09.04

International News Digest

Protection for Berlin's Gay Memorial; Pope Did Not Speak Against Kippenberger Sculpture; Delvoye Sells the Skin Off a Man's Back; Neo Rauch's Hidden Painting

BERLIN’S GAY MEMORIAL GETS PROTECTION

Berlin’s Memorial for the Nazi’s homosexual victims will be guarded after the public installation was vandalized last month. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, the memorial, which was designed by artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, suffered damage by unknown vandals for the first time since its inauguration last May. According to the German cultural state secretary, André Schmitz, the site will maintain its character as “an open memorial place” despite the new protection. The security service that protects the neighboring Memorial to the Murdered

2008.08.28

International News Digest

Katharina Fritsch Awarded Piepenbrock Prize; Saving Szeemann's Archive; Arts Cuts in Canada; Shifts in International Power in the Art Market; Andrei Sakharov Museum Director Quits;

FRITSCH AWARDED PIEPENBROCK PRIZE

Katharina Fritsch, who made a name for herself with large-scale sculptures, has been awarded this year's Piepenbrock Prize. The annual award for sculpture, which comes with a cash prize of $73,700, will be presented to Fritsch in a ceremony at Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof museum this week. The Piepenbrock Prize for upcoming artists has been awarded to Alicja Kwade.

SAVING SZEEMANN'S ARCHIVE

The Süddeutsche Zeitung's Holger Liebs traveled to Tessin, Switzerland, to check out the state of Harald Szeemann's personal archive. Since the legendary Szeemann—the

2008.08.19

International News Digest

Berlin Gay Memorial Vandalized; Jean-Hubert Martin Reveals Problems with Private-Public Partnership at Kunst Palast; Christo Marx Monument Damaged; Rosemarie Trockel and Vija Celmins Win Awards

JEAN-HUBERT MARTIN DISCUSSES PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS

Do museums benefit from private-public partnerships with companies? It seems not always. Speaking with the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Kia Vahland, Jean-Hubert Martin breaks his silence regarding his term as the director of the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf, which entered into a partnership with the energy company Eon. Martin, who will be curating the next Moscow Biennial in 2009, directed the Kunst Palast from its opening in 2001 and abruptly quit his position in 2006 following conflicts with Eon. According to Martin, the company’s cultural

2008.08.14

International News Digest

Changes at Hamburg and Frankfurt Kunstvereins; Writers Association Complains About “Jeff Koons Versailles”; Exploring the “Taschen Principle”; Karl Lagerfeld to Join Dubai

CHANGES AT HAMBURG AND FRANKFURT KUNSTVEREINS

Florian Waldvogel has been named the new director of the Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany’s oldest institution of its kind. As Der Standard reports, the thirty-nine-year-old Waldvogel will be taking over next year from Yilmaz Dziewior, who has run the institution for eight years. Currently, Waldvogel is chief curator at Rotterdam’s Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. He was also one of the three curators for the ill-fated Manifesta 6, which was to take place in the divided city of Nicosia, Cyprus. The event was canceled by municipal officials

2008.07.28

International News Digest

Vatican at the Venice Biennale?; Tensions Rise over Kippenberger in South Tyrol; French Artists Raise Issues about Palais de Tokyo; Documenta 12 Chef Gets Cooked by Critic

VATICAN AT THE NEXT BIENNALE?

Could the Vatican get its own pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2009? If Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican’s new minister of culture, has his way, we may be seeing more than a new national pavilion for the sovereign state at the biennial’s next iteration. In an interview, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Ute Diehl spoke with Ravasi, who regrets the Roman Catholic Church’s general disinterest in contemporary art. “The discussion with contemporary art has not even begun,” Ravasi told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “I dream that the Holy City will find a place

2008.07.21

International News Digest

Former Art Forum Director Heads to Hamburger Kunsthalle; ABC, Art Forum Berlin, and Another Gallery Weekend; Pompidou Cooperates with Frieder Burda; Lichtensteins and Warhols Stolen in Sweden

FORMER ART FORUM DIRECTOR TO HEAD HAMBURGER KUNSTHALLE’S GALLERY OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Sabrina van der Ley, the former artistic director of Berlin’s Art Forum fair, has been appointed director of the Galerie der Gegenwart (Gallery of the Present) at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Till Briegleb reports, van der Ley replaces Christoph Heinrich, who has moved on to the Denver Art Museum. According to Briegleb, candidates included Stephan Berg from the Kunstmuseum Bonn and Julian Heynen from K21 in Düsseldorf. Van der Ley will be working for kunsthalle director Hubertus

2008.07.15

International News Digest

New Plans for Ile Seguin; Abu Dhabi Project Pays for Paris Flood Preparation; Kippenberger’s Frog Hidden for Pope’s Visit; New Russian Culture Minister; Have Bloggers Killed the Critics?

NEW PLANS FOR ILE SEGUIN

Ever since François Pinault abandoned his plan to build a museum on Ile Seguin, the fate of the island just outside Paris has been a source of speculation. As Le Monde’s Emmanuel de Roux reports, Pierre-Christophe Baguet, the freshly elected conservative mayor of the municipality Boulogne-Billancourt, which controls the island, has unveiled another set of plans for the site. The area where a Renault car factory once flourished will be replaced with a mixture of housing and offices, which will welcome occupants by 2009.

As for the remaining twenty-seven acres, Baguet

2008.07.08

International News Digest

Meschede Joins Martinez at MACBA; Kitty Kraus Wins Blauorange; Daniel Hug's Plans to Revive Art Cologne; No Immunity for Cattelan Art Vandal; New Paris Cultural Center in the Old Municipal Morgue; Hagia Sophia to Remain Museum; Library of Congress on Flickr

MESCHEDE JOINS MARTINEZ AT MACBA

There seems to be a curatorial contingent moving from Germany to the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Following the recent announcement that Frankfurter Kunstverein director Chus Martinez has been named chief curator at MACBA, Friedrich Meschede will become the director of MACBA’s exhibitions. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, Meschede has been responsible for the Berlin artist-residency program of the German academic-exchange program DAAD.

KITTY KRAUS WINS BLAUORANGE 2008

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that the Berlin artist Kitty Kraus has been

2008.07.02

International News Digest

“Sots Art” Curator Fired in Moscow; Orhan Pamuk Cancels “Museum of Innocence”; Art in American Schools; More Lists and Rankings

“SOTS ART” CURATOR FIRED IN MOSCOW

While Russian billionaires are being feted as the new heroes of the contemporary art market, the situation for the Russian art-going public tells a less celebratory story. As the Berliner Zeitung’s Christian Esch reports, the State Tretyakov Gallery has just fired Andrei Yerofeyev, the museum’s curator for contemporary art.

“The exhibition ‘Sots-Art’ about political art since 1972 at the Tretyakov Gallery was condemned six months ago by then-minister of culture Alexander Sokolov as a ‘disgrace for Russia,’” writes Esch. “The verdict concerned ironic, obscene,

2008.06.16

International News Digest

Conflicts over Pompidou's Place at Palais de Tokyo; Fake Immendorffs in Circulation?; Patti Smith on Art and Art Basel; Philip Glass Performs for Richard Serra, while Amy Winehouse Sings for Collector Roman Abramovich

CONFLICTS OVER PALAIS DE TOKYO

Opening a branch of Paris’s Centre Pompidou in the Palais de Tokyo is proving a difficult task. As Le Monde’s Clarisse Fabre reports, the original date for the opening, slated for 2009, has been pushed back, twice, to the end of 2010. The national museum was supposed to expand into the empty sections of the vast Palais de Toyko building, which houses the Palais de Tokyo: Site de Création Contemporaine, headed by Marc-Olivier Wahler. While the existing institution highlights contemporary art, the Pompidou's wing was to be dedicated to both established and midcareer

2008.06.10

International News Digest

Rem Koolhaas Defends Architecture Projects in China; Report from Basel Conference on Dubai's Status as a Cultural Center; Italian Ruling May Threaten German Cultural Institutions in the Country; Artist Makes a Landmark of a Landfill

KOOLHAAS DEFENDS CHINA PROJECTS

In an interview with Die Zeit’s Hanno Rauterberg, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas responds to the mounting criticism against Western architects working for China, which has been especially heavy in the light of revelations of the nation’s human rights abuses in Tibet. Most recently, the Vrij Nederland’s Ko Colijn railed against the “Viagra architecture” of star architects like Koolhaas, who is building the massive state-television headquarters, and the Swiss duo Herzog & de Meuron, who designed the stadium for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing. For Koolhaas,

2008.05.26

Export and Eiblmayer to Curate Austrian Pavilion; Pinault Sells Shares in Piasa; Controversy over Kippenberger Sculpture in Bolzano

Two Women, the Artist Valie Export and Curator Silvia Eiblmayer, Have Been Selected to Curate the Austrian Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale; François Pinault and Artemis Sell Majority of their Shares in the Auction House Piasa; Martin Kippenberger’s Frog Sparks Controversy in Bolzano, Italy

TWO WOMEN TO CURATE AUSTRIAN PAVILION

For the first time in the country’s history, two women—the artist Valie Export and the curator Silvia Eiblmayr—have been appointed to curate the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. As Der Standard reports, Austria’s culture minister, Claudia Schmied, who made the decision, said that the pair would make “an excellent team” for the country’s pavilion at the fifty-third edition of the biennial, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, which is set to open June 7, 2009. Export, who has been celebrated for such key feminist works as Genitalpanik (Genital Panic),

2008.05.20

Russian Billionaire Bought Freud and Bacon; Breton's "Surrealist Manifesto" Goes to Auction; Monuments Considered in Czech Republic and Romania

Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich Purchased the Freud and the Bacon at Last Week's Contemporary Art Evening Sales; André Breton's "Surrealist Manifesto" Goes on the Block at Sotheby's France; Fate of Historical Monuments Debated in the Czech Republic and Romania

ABRAMOVICH TAKES FREUD AND BACON

The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is the mystery buyer who walked away with the top prizes—Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995, and Francis Bacon's Triptych, 1976—at the auctions last week. As the Art Newspaper reports, "sources close to the market confirm that Abramovich . . . purchased both lots, apparently for display in his London home." The Bacon triptych went for $86.3 million during Sotheby's evening sale while Freud's painting went for a record $33.6 million at Christie's. (The latter sale makes Freud the most expensive living

Jennifer Allen