"The Great Expectations", by Charles Dickens

«He went to the furthest reaches of the earth in his quest for the purest specimen of beauty. And when he found it, he stuck a pin through its heart. He’s dead now. Cholera. In the tropics. Struck down in his relentless pursuit of beauty. Perhaps it was beauty’s revenge, to stop his heart when he had stopped so many others.
Do you think beauty is a destroyer of men, Pip?»

in "The Great Expectations", by Charles Dickens

Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus, 2004

Johnny Cash - Personal Jesus, 2002

Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus, 2001

newsfromnevereverland201112

VIP Art Fair 2.0

Exhibitors for VIP 2.0
(list in Formation, as of December 2011)

By Hall:

VIP Premier Large: ALEXANDER AND BONIN (New York), LUHRING AUGUSTINE (New York), PETER BLUM GALLERY (New York), JAMES COHAN GALLERY (New York, Shanghai), GALLERIA CONTINUA (San Gimignano, Beijing, Le Moulin), CORKIN GALLERY (Toronto), ALAN CRISTEA GALLERY (London), GALERIE EIGEN + ART (Leipzig, Berlin), FRAENKEL GALLERY (SAn Francisco), STEPHEN FRIEDMAN GALLERY (London), GAGOSIAN GALLERY (New York, Beverly Hills, London, Rome, Paris, Geneva, Hong Kong, Athens), GALERIE GMURZYNSKA (Zurich, St. Moritz, Zug), MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY (New York, Paris), HAUSER & WIRTH (Zurich, London, New York), LEILA HELLER GALLERY (New York), GALERIE MAX HETZLER (Berlin), XAVIER HUFKENS (Brussels), GALLERY HYUNDAI (Seoul), GALERIE KRINZINGER (Vienna), YVON LAMBERT (Paris), GALERIE LELONG (New York, Paris), VICTORIA MIRO (London), ROSLYN OXLEY GALLERY (Sydney), THE PACE GALLERY (New York, Beijing), PACE/MACGILL GALLERY (New York), GALERIE THADDAEUS ROPAC (Paris, Salzburg), SHANGHART (Shanghai, Beijing), VAN DE WEGHE FINE ART (New York), WHITE CUBE (London), DAVID ZWIRNER (New York);

VIP Premier Medium: Brooke Alexander Gallery (New York), Galeria Raquel Arnaud (São Paulo), ARNDT (Berlin), Bernier/Eliades (Athens), Barbara Krakow Gallery (Boston), Galería Elba Benítez (Madrid), Marianne Boesky (New York), Ben Brown Fine Arts (London, Hong Kong), Chemould Prescott Road (Mumbai), Dirimart (Istanbul), Fortes Vilaça (São Paulo), Galeria Filomena Soares (Lisboa), Goodman Gallery (Johannesburg, Cape Town), Greenberg Van Doren Galler (New York, St. Louis), The Guild (Mumbai), Haines Gallery (San Francisco), i8 (Reykjavik), John Berggruen Gallery (San Francisco), John Szoke Editions (New York), Paul Kasmin Gallery (New York), Lehmann Maupin Gallery (New York), Leo Castelli Gallery (New York), Lombard Freid Projects (New York), Luis Adelantado (Mexico City, Valencia), Galerie Urs Meile (Beijing, Lucerne), Moeller Fine Art Ltd (New York, Berlin), Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris, Brussels), Ota Fine Arts (Tokyo), Pékin Fine Arts (Beijing), Galeria Nara Roesler (São Paulo), Anna Schwartz Gallery (Melbourne, Sydney), Galeria Luisa Strina (São Paulo), Galerie Daniel Templon (Paris), Galerie Thomas Modern (Munich), Tucci Russo (Torre Pellice (Turin)), Van de Weghe Fine Art (New York);

VIP Premier Small: Bischoff/Weiss (London), Casa Triângulo (São Paulo), Chambers Fine Art (New York, Beijing), Elizabeth Dee Gallery (New York), Annet Gelink Gallery (Amsterdam), A Gentil Carioca (Rio de Janeiro), IBID Projects (London), Galerie Michael Janssen (Berlin), kaufmann repetto (Milan), Leo Koenig Inc. (New York), Johann König (Berlin), Kate MacGarry (London), Galería OMR (Mexico City), One and J. Gallery (Seoul), PKM Gallery (Seoul), Yancey Richardson Gallery (New York), The Third Line (Dubai), Winkleman Gallery (New York), x-ist (Istanbul);

Emerging: Artmia Gallery (Beijing), Brand New Gallery (Milan), Carbon 12 (Dubai), Lisa Cooley (New York), Eleven Rivington (New York), James Fuentes LLC (New York), Gonzalez y Gonzalez (Santiago), Labor (Mexico City), Limoncello (London), Ignacio Liprandi Arte Contemporaneo (Buenos Aires), ltd los angeles (Los Angeles), Gallery Maskara (Mumbai), Mendes Wood (São Paulo), Rawson Projects (New York), Untitled (New York), Rachel Uffner Gallery (New York);

Focus: Ruth Benzacar Galería De Arte (Buenos Aires), Christine Koenig Galerie (Vienna), Galleria Raffaella Cortese (Milan), Dvir Gallery (Tel Aviv), Richard L. Feigen & Co. (New York), Rhona Hoffman Gallery (Chicago), Mai 36 Galerie (Zurich), Galerie Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder (Vienna), Galerie Bob van Orsouw (Zurich), Postmasters (New York), Galería Joan Prats (Barcelona), Rossi & Rossi (London), STPI (Singapore), Salon 94 (New York), Galerie Thomas Schulte (Berlin), Galerie Tschudi (Glarus, Zuoz), Galerie Thomas Zander (Cologne);

Editions and Multiples: Barbican Art Gallery (London), Eikon (Vienna), The Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh), Independent Curators International (New York), Parkett (New York, Zurich), The Renaissance Society (Chicago), Rhizome (New York), Serpentine Gallery (London), Texte zur Kunst (Berlin), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Whitechapel Gallery (London).

VIP Art Fair 2.0

VIP Art Fair 2.0: Galleries and main fair details
The world’s first online contemporary art event launches its second edition, following heavy investment in web platform and format.

VIP Art Fair 2.0
Preview – 2nd February
3‐8h February 2012
The unique cultural destination on the web, the VIP Art Fair, provides unrivaled access to key works from leading artists to a truly global audience.

From 3‐8th February, work from over 2,000 artists will be on view through presentations by 115 carefully selected galleries invited to participate. VIP connects all audiences in real time to experience the art works and share what they’ve seen. Scale has no bounds in the VIP Art Fair as galleries can present intimate drawings to giant museum scale works in their booth, allowing art enthusiasts from more than 30 countries to view them in larger than life resolution.

Increasingly, art fairs are changing the way in which art is sold. Demographics from the inaugural fair show that there is a proven platform for galleries to interact with their clients in the digital pace; the week‐long event drew an audience of over 40,000 visitors from 196 countries who spent ore than an hour on the site viewing over 200 unique artworks.

As a portal to the world’s premiere contemporary art galleries, VIP Art Fair builds technology for dealers to connect with existing clients, for would‐be collectors to discover the art world, and for students, educators, critics and curators to access contemporary artists.

VIP Art Fair builds new technologies for the world's most prominent contemporary art galleries to showcase available works by the artists they represent, for sophisticated collectors to connect with these galleries, and for the international art community to experience this cultural destination on the web.

newsfromnevereverland201112

The line of green and brown trees are being thrown back by a body or surface of cold blueish water without being absorbed by it.

Review: Lygia Pape: Magnetized Space

Serpentine Gallery (London)
Lygia Pape: Magnetized Space

A linha orientadora de Magnetized Space, uma exposição retrospectiva da obra de uma das mais importantes artista brasileiras, Lygia Pape (1927-2004), na Serpentine Galley, em Londres, é o poema e o livro.

A exposição apresenta-nos inicialmente a um conjunto de performances registadas em filme: O ovo (1967), Roda dos Prazeres (1968), Trio do embalo maluco (1968), ou Catiti catiti: Na terra dos brasis (1978), e desvenda-nos a natureza da obra de Lygia Pape, a relação entre o espaço e a experiência.

Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica e Lygia Pape lideraram, na década de 50, um pensamento estético, o Neo-Concretismo, que marcou toda a arte brasileira concebida durante a segunda metade do século XX. O movimento neo-concreto teve as suas raízes nos principais movimentos artísticos internacionais. Mas, ao invés de procurar uma linguagem utópica, como a que era perseguida pelos artistas europeus em termos de símbolos e forma, os brasileiros procuraram adaptar a arte à realidade do Brasil – uma realidade política muito semelhante à de tantas outras realidades apresentadas em outros países dispersos pelo globo governados por generais – e transportar a arte para outro nível, o das aspirações cósmicas e ideias poéticas.

Posteriormente, numa segunda sala, uma das paredes está completamente ocupada pelo Livro do Tempo (1961-63). 365 páginas em vermelho, azul, amarelo, branco ou preto. Uma instalação linear de objectos a representar os dias de um ano. Há dias de com triângulos em confronto, outros assemelham-se a plantas de uma casa. O Livro do Tempo cria uma linguagem imaginária que nos pode transportar a lugares e tempos distintos como se estivéssemos a folhear um diário pessoal. O observador é convidado a inserir-se no trabalho e a fazer e conceber a sua própria e única agenda durante um ano.
A sala está ainda preenchida com várias construções em papel para o Livro da Arquitectura (1959-60) instaladas dentro de uma vitrina. O conjunto de pequenos objectos, frágeis construções sobre pequenas plataformas, momentaneamente a reportar à arte paleolítica ou à arquitectura clássica, servem de indicador de algo mais; modelos para a construção de um espaço relacional entre a obra e o observador.

Uma das características principais no movimento Neo-concreto é a procura pela sensibilidade sensorial. A subjectividade e a expressividade do contacto com o objecto artístico pelo observador é uma constante. Clark concebeu objectos que deveríamos manipular; Oiticica apresentava obras que se podiam usar; Pape performances que envolviam o público. O convite à participação, e à interactividade entre o objecto e o observador, tornado participante, atribui à obra o seu sublime senso transformativo, poético e individual.

A incorporação e participação do observador na construção do objecto, em clara ruptura com um cânon modernista – caracterizado pela rigidez das forma e do pensamento, que teve o seu melhor exemplo na concepção e construção da cidade de Brasília – é vista como uma nova atitude para com a vida.

O trabalho poético de Lygia Pape transcende a sua mera condição semântica quando transmitida para o corpo e para o sujeito.
A exposição, que esteve anteriormente no Reina Sofia, de Madrid, traz-nos ainda um conjunto de obras: filmes, gravuras, pinturas, instalações. Mas é na última sala que podemos encontrar um dos mais emblemático trabalhos de Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1,C (1976-2011), a preencher um espaço negro. As Ttieas são a expressão última do espaço poético. A luz, imaterial e intangível, expande a relação entre o espaço e a experiencia, dos livros do tempo e da arquitectura, para uma escala onde o observador está completamente submergido e absorvido sobre um quadrado escuro. Esta exposição deixa-nos espaço para a imaginação!

Published at Molduras: as artes plásticas na antena 2: Lygia Pape - "Magnetized Space".

Mais sobre a exposição de Lygia Pape na Serpentine Gallery na secção 'Culture', The Sunday Times, January, 15th 2012 (p.?!), por Waldemar Januszczak.

Imagens: Lygia Pape, Installations view, Magnetized Space, Serpentine Gallery, London (7 December 2011 - 19 February 2012) © 2011 Jerry Hardman-Jones.

The Tale of Two Animals

The Tale of Two Animals
LONDON: the first thing that comes to my mind is rats and peacocks; rats that want to be peacocks; peacocks that want to look like rats.

To write is like to recreate live experiences that I had at a particular moment in time. Is to “put” these “images” together and create a fantasy narrative about a place. If in one instance people come to a quiet place to have a drink, see a movie, to talk or just to wait; on the other, they can also walk and travel along streets, roads, cultures and experiences while looking to find whatever they looking for. But, in both cases, a sense of sharing, of community, belonging is the ultimate aim and drive. In the XIX century the Open Salons pictured that rarefied sense. Nowadays, it is through films and movies.

Meanwhile, we all share a universal sensation that we all want to be singular. Definitely, or God hates us all, or He is just playing around with us all, for His own amusement! The other day three people got together, at the same place, with three different Apple computers; in the 80s there was IBM, and the others; in the 90’s there was Windows, and the others; in the 00’s there was the general proliferation of laptops. Labels’ change whereas, meanwhile, the content stays the same – an illusion that we are all unique. But we are or rats or peacocks. In the end everyone want's to feel special; not unique!

8th BB funded with 2,5 Million Euros

Kulturstiftung des Bundes funds 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art with 2,5 Million Euro

KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin is very happy that the Board of Trustees of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) decided to extend the funding of the Berlin Biennale until 2014 thus allowing for a reliable planning of the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Since 2004 the Kulturstiftung des Bundes funds the Berlin Biennale as “cultural institution of excellence” with 2.5 Million Euro per issue for its national importance and international reputation.

The 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art takes place from April 27 until July 1, 2012, and is curated by Artur Żmijewski and the Associate Curators Joanna Warsza and the Russian Voina group.

The Berlin Biennale is organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).

KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
D-10117 Berlin

newsfromlondon201112

«... an unconscious collective reaction to all the profound nonstop newness we’re experiencing on the tech and geopolitical and economic fronts. People have a limited capacity to embrace flux and strangeness and dissatisfaction, and right now we’re maxed out. So as the Web and artificially intelligent smartphones and the rise of China and 9/11 and the winners-take-all American economy and the Great Recession disrupt and transform our lives and hopes and dreams, we are clinging as never before to the familiar in matters of style and culture. [...] these two prime cultural phenomena, the quarter-century-long freezing of stylistic innovation and the pandemic obsession with style, have happened concurrently—which appears to be a contradiction, the Second Great Paradox of Contemporary Cultural History. Because you’d think that style and other cultural expressions would be most exciting and riveting when they are unmistakably innovating and evolving [...]»

[more at How Britain got its patriotism back]

newsfromlondon201112

«For most of the last century, ... [the cultural landscape] changed dramatically every 20 years or so. But these days, even as technological and scientific leaps have continued to revolutionize life, popular style has been stuck on repeat, consuming the past instead of creating the new. [...] The past is a foreign country, but the recent past—the 00s, the 90s, even a lot of the 80s—looks almost identical to the present. This is the First Great Paradox of Contemporary Cultural History.»

[more at How Britain got its patriotism back]

newsfromlondon201112

It is an event,
thing's like this just had to happen.

Sometimes we get in the right train.

Sometimes we get their too early and get into a different train.

Wandering Comma: a fantastic world that does not exist

The subject and the technique. These are photography main objects. They have been reinvented, redrawn, and recreated since the very begin, when the history of photograph began to be written. In contemporary photography Ryan McGinley images resemble to that of Robert Frank, travelling across the United State and the American society; that of Nan Goldin documentation of America’s subcultures; or that of Larry Clark’s daydreaming about the summer that has gone.

“I put these images together and it creates this fantasy narrative about America. (…) My photographs are not the truth at all. It’s a fantastic world that does not exist.” [p. 34-5]

Scale is one of the central variable in McGinley’s practice, The seven photographs (280x180cm) shown at Alison Jacques Gallery, in London, were “initially printed in an array of sizes in order to fix the exact dimension that allow the image to speak most effectively to the viewer.” Which bring us, as observers, more close to Richard’s Prince work – selected details from everyday life ads about cowboys and cigarettes that were un-contextualised, fragmented and augmented.

However, McGinley photographs are about movement and suppressed desires – we all know that certain spheres in American’ society want to have a serious purity and righteousness image; we all also know that life is not so straightforward as we wish; while the naked body depose every image from its preconception possibility about class or social stratum – we are all equal in the eyes of God! It is on the first variable - movement – that McGinley works’ start to diverge from the others.

Orchestrated scenarios, where the sensation of disorder exists; of spontaneity. An illusion of chance; of life happening. “Doing repetitive acts to find one moment when everything is perfect. The composition is right. The light is right. The color is right. (…) I try to create these photos, which are like a fantasy, and show this world that does not exist.” [p. 18] In here we are already more close to Jeff Wall practice rather than to the work from the other photographers.

In the photographic context it is in this specific point in where photography main objects meet that Ryan McGinley’s can be find. The combination of subject – movement – with technique – an almost cinematic tekhnē - bring us something fresh to our sight. It is where McGinley’s practice obtains better means to communicate its content, making it easier to engage in a dialogue with us, the observers about things that you can’t control and are spontaneous. As life is! That is why these are great ad-pictures.

Photos: Ryan McGinley, Brandee (Midnight_Flight), 2011; and Wandering Comma Installation View. Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, 2011.

newsfromlondon201112

«Patriotism is a powerful force, and it is hard to replace its vitality in bonding societies. Not only that, but the new British cultural patriotism is in many ways justified by results. I like and admire the art of Hirst, the imagination of McQueen and Blumenthal, and I can't get enough of Starkey's history books. This really has been a strong period of British creativity. But where has it left us? Britain, it seems, has never been more cocksure or xenophobic. Many people would be happy to see us float away from Europe and go it alone. This confidence has been fed by years of cultural boosting. The British have entered a world of their own, staring together at that champagne supernova in the sky.» [...]

[more at You Say You Want a Devolution?]

newsfromlondon201112

Cool Britannia «...surfing the wave of the new British cultural nationalism. This is a good time to look deep into the tides of cultural history, and take the pulse of nations. ... styles have not changed in 20 years. Fundamentally, pop culture is the same now as it was in 1990, with the same basic values and meanings. Madonna morphed into Lady Gaga, but in cultural terms they are the same, ...»

[more at You Say You Want a Devolution?]

newsfromlondon201112

A dialogue between a brown rectangle with a black triangle on a white surface

newsfromlondon201112

A three dimensional drawing of lines meeting somewhere in an empty white space - Mafalda Santos at The Mews Project Space

newsfromlondon201112

"Light, space and time. Those are the classic ingredients for photography, which have been reinvented, rediscovered and rearranged again and again", since the beginning of the nineteen century - Ryan McGinley at Alison Jacques Gallery

US$38.000 each (Ed. 3)

Smells Like ... Horses

Smells Like ... Horses
LONDON: Ten o'clock in the evening. It is cold. I'm sitting outside the coffee shop, which I normally go to when in never ever land, drinking a sweetish Porto vintage. The company is also cold. No wonder that my relationship with all who live in this land is comparable to that of an undead. With few exception, it's all so without life! boring!

- ...put thorns in the path we want or do not want to walk...
- ...there are times when a person is not well, is being carried away by the hype, and is not seeing...
- So this is how things are, or we accept reality as it is, and life becomes difficult. It doesn't allows us to be completely happy. Or was someone in the other life that made something, and now I'm suffering for it...

These spiritualist conversations are so lifeless! For instance, how do you know that you are in Portugal? When for five dreadful days Lisbon was the stage for the only unexciting, uninspiring, unstimulating national contemporary art fair. OK!, it is always a success to the fair institutional governance body, but no one bothers to fucking show up. Including art dealers (CG, GB, PC, QA, VC, ...), collectors (...), and, worse, not event the organisers?! they are hidden in the VIP lounge - Oh! my apologies, this is not true! The VIP lounge doesn't exist as well as it doesn't exist any hype, or excitement. The Port is the only tasty thing that I can taste during the evening. Everything else is so insipid.
Anyhow, during some months my entertainment was to get out from one house and get in to another. What I've like to call SDP - Serviço ao Domicílio Personalizado (PHS - Personalised Home Service, in English). Sometime I got out with my back scratched! But that is life, and it doesn't become difficult. Just gets better, and better! My mind is in one place, and my heart in the same.
The interesting thing is that with all the migration there wasn't a woman who had been born on never ever land. All came from other lands. Because I'm exceptional good in everything I do they all came with the same sentence, "You were the first person with whom I had sex that I was able to reach orgasm." Maybe they had really bad companions, without the minimum idea in how to take the best out of any situation; or they are looking for and are use to have men smelling like horses; or, maybe, it is just me! To let you understand better my last thought, the other day, the excitement from someone was in that a mutual friend was going out with a woman with less than thirty years old! Hummm! I was going out with one until last month - well at least in the way her thoughts were built.
Definitely not the same wavelength...