Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

New Publication Shows That Ai Weiwei Knows How To Irritate

China’s best-known artist has struck again: in another manifestation of Ai Weiwei’s many talents , fertile mind and ability to annoy the Chinese government, he has issued a “little black book” — Weiwei-isms parrots the form of “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung,” which was short-handed as the “little red book.”

Ai’s book, too, consists of short, sharp thoughts and sayings. Drawn from his tweets, interviews and articles, the maxims have been organized by the editor, Larry Warsh, into six sections: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power and moral choices; the digital world; history, the historical moment, and the future; and personal reflections. Princeton University Press, no less, is the publisher.

Samples:

  • My favorite word? It’s “act.”
  • Liberty is about our rights to question everything.
  • Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what’s on his mind. A fairy tale has come true.
  • My work has always been political, because the choice of being an artist is political in China.
  • The government computer has one button: delete.
  • I wouldn’t say I’ve become more radical: I was born radical.
  • The Chinese [government] only superficially speaks the language of the international community.
  • Cover-ups and deception are the nature of this society. Without lies, it won’t exist.
  • I came to art because I wanted to escape the other regulations of the society. The whole society is so political. But the irony is that my art becomes more and more political.

The publication date is today, Dec. 12, and the books costs $12.95. It’s a very handsome little book.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Princeton University Press

Zurich and Art: Not Working Like A Swiss Watch

This seems so far-fetched it’s almost a tall tale: The Swiss city of Zurich, the country’s largest, recently carried out an inventory of the art it owns and discovered that it has misplaced 15% of them — some 5,000 works of art. Doesn’t know where they are. The “misplaced” works include at least one painting by Le Corbusier (pictured) and who knows what else.

According to Agence-France Press, the city’s collection has been valued at 121 million Swiss francs, or $130 million. If 15% of that is missing… bye-bye $6.5 million.

The city says the situation is not so dire. The collection, which is spread among some 500 schools, hospitals, offices and other locations “moves about,” Urs Spinner, a spokesman for Zurich’s construction department, told the ATS news agency.

But the news item also said the missing works had been insured for about $1 million.

ARIS, the art-title insurer, sent out an alert about this — without commentary, but essentially warning buyers to beware.

The other lesson, though, is about the importance of having a current inventory — some victims of Hurricane Sandy also learned that one.

Speaking of Hurricane Sandy, I’ve learned  that a temporary facility to provide volunteer assistance and work space to museums, libraries, archives, historic sites, galleries, collectors, and artists has opened in Brooklyn this week, thanks to the American Institute for Conservation – Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT). This “Cultural Recovery Center” will provide space and expertise to help owners stabilize their collections.

AIC-CERT has posted a PDF of resources available to those with damaged art here.

 

 

 

 Photo Credit: © Willy Rizzo via Arch Daily 

Does “Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master” Need Help?

In the past few weeks, a couple of people have contacted me about Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master, an exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum — asking me to shine a light on it. I usually have to ignore such pleas — there are simply too many.

But the other day, one of the people who’d written changed my mind about this one. When she first wrote, saying that  it was “sad that this show only has two venues — the Saint Louis Art Museum and the National Gallery in London,” I replied with the opposite view: “Isn’t it great that people in and around St. Louis get to see great art and don’t have to travel to do that? And the art-spoiled coasts do, if they want to see it. We need more geographical balance to these big exhibitions.”

Then came her reply:

Yes, you are right. St. Louis is fortunate to have this kind of show. [But] I am concerned that in order to do these labor intensive shows, museums need a bigger visitorship than a St. Louis can offer. People might travel to Chicago or New York to see a show– St. Louis? Someday museums may not lend these large, impressive works of art ( insurance, damage possibilities etc,) [unless there’s a bigger audience]. I guess I hate to see a show like this not viewed by a larger audience.

Well, yes. I’d like it to be viewed by as many people as possible. The exhibition took nine years of work — with curator Judith Mann reviewing Barocci paintings and drawings around the world. She was able to obtain 16 paintings and 111 drawings, and the show is organized to demonstrate how Barocci used his drawings to make the paintings. Viewers are supposed to envision his thought process and the revisions he made to complete each of the painted works.

The St. Louis museum tells me that the exhibit is doing well. It has had “a tremendous reception from our members, visitors, and the local/regional press. And, we have many weeks to go, including what we expect to be a busy holiday season – which is when we projected our highest attendance,” write Jennifer Stoffel, director of marketing. She said, in response to another question about special marketing, that the museum supported this with the same effort it does for all its major exhibitions.

Which is pretty substantial. Take a look here and you will see the gallery talks, lecture, symposium, performances, adult drawing classes, family workshops and programs, member previews and parties, and online videos.

SLAM is a free museum, but special exhibitions like this one carry a charge — $10 for general admission at a timed, 15-minute intervals. That’s not prohibitive.

Museum directors and curators tend to make lending decisions on the scholarly content of the exhibition, of course, but variables like whether the museum is on par with the lender and has proper climate controls and security are part of the equation. Friendships among curators and directors enter into the decision, too.

But what if my reader is right? What if museums start factoring in attendance? That would unfortunately increase the tendency toward blockbusters in the largest cities, and less great art for the rest of the nation.

So take a look at the SLAM offering — both the contents of the exhibition and the programs accompanying it. What else could it do to turn this wonderful, scholarly show about a too-little-known artist into an even bigger draw?

Photo Credit: Portrait of Francesco Maria II della Rovere, c.1571–72, Courtesy of SLAM

There’s News — And New — In This Corporate Sponsorship

Davidoff makes cigars and “luxury tobacco products.” Not something I usually want to promote. However, this past week, in connection with Art Basel Miami Beach, the company did something admirable. (Interestingly, when I went to its website, I had to enter my birthdate and affirm that I was a smoker before being allowed to enter — since I am not a smoker, I could not make the affirmation, and I left.)

Many companies take sponsorship roles at art fairs, or run their own events simultaneously, and Davidoff does that, too. Now, however, the company wants to do something more; it has created the Davidoff Art Initiative, and — here’s the good part — [it] “will be closely linked to the Dominican Republic, where Davidoff products are crafted, enriching the company’s engagement with the local culture and community of the country.”

Davidoff will encourage art-making in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, but it is nowhere near as poor. In fact, according to the CIA Factbook,  it has the ninth largest economy in Latin America and the second largest economy in the Caribbean and Central American region.

According to the press release issued at ABMB:

The centerpiece of the Initiative will be the annual Davidoff Residency, which will bring five international artists to the Dominican Republic and send five artists from the Dominican Republic to major art centers of the world. As of now, locations in New York City and Berlin have been confirmed.

Slated to begin in fall 2013, the New York City Residency will be based at Brooklyn’s International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP). It will provide an artist with resources for three months, including funds for domestic travel. The German Residency, which will begin in late spring 2014, will be housed in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin. It will also provide an artist with resources for three months, including funds to travel to Switzerland during Art Basel. Other Residency Programs under consideration include sites in Spain, China, South America, and Switzerland.

The Dominican Republic Residency will provide five artists with resources for two months and is currently being finalized. First details should be available during Art Basel in June 2013.

More information, including details about the residencies and the other art-world people who have been tapped as advisors/curators, is in that release or on the Initiative’s website.

I know next to nothing about contemporary art in the Dominican Republic, though the country does have a Museum of Modern Art, a visual arts school and — what else? — a biennial, as the illustration shows. I’d bet, though, that that world could use support from a Swiss company, and Davidoff is filling that role.

 

Raphael — That Old Master — Can Still Exceed Living Artist Record

When I wrote about Getty Museum’s purchase yesterday of Roman de Gillion de Trazegnies, by Lieven van Lathem, at Sotheby’s, I’d forgotten that a magnificent Raphael drawing was in the same sale. It scored a record in British pounds – £29.7 million or $47,869,045. That is almost three times the low estimate (which of course does not include the premium) of £10 million and double the high, £15 million.

The work, Head of an Apostle, came from Chatsworth and according to various analysts is probably headed to Russia. “The buyer was not identified but the winning bid went to a member of Sotheby’s staff who often represents Russian clients,” wrote The Independent. It also reported:

… the 16th century “Head of an Apostle”, a study for Raphael’s last painting “Transfiguration” which is on display at the Vatican Museum in Rome. When the artist died in 1520, his body was laid out in state in his studio with the Transfiguration hanging at his head.

…According to Sotheby’s, only two other Raphael drawings of the same calibre have been auctioned in the last 50 years – in 2009, Raphael’s black chalk “Head of a Muse” sold for 29.2 million pounds at Christie’s in London.

In dollar terms, that picture narrowly trumped Head of an Apostle due to fluctuating exchange rates, but since both were sold in pounds in London, Sotheby’s is claiming the crown.

Sotheby’s reported that four bidders in the salesroom and on the phone vied for 17 minutes for the drawing. The total sale brought £58,061,500 (or $93,513,852) against a presale estimate of £35.6-52.9 million. Seven additional records were set in the evening sale, and it was 74.5% sold by lot and 86.8% by value, Nine works fetched more than £1 million and 11 works sold for more than $1 million. “Of the lots sold, half achieved prices over their pre-sale high estimate.”

ArtFixDaily, meanwhile, also reported that the rival drawing, Head of a Muse, was purchases by Leon Black for £29,161,250 million pounds (then reportedly $47,941,095) at Christie’s in London three years ago.

That was good night. Regular followers know that I like the work of Gerard Richter, but I am still pleased that Raphael beat out his recent record, set in London in October, for the most expensive work by a living artist — an abstract work for £21.3 million or  $34.2 million.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sotheby’s