Friday, March 12, 2004

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Oh, and they are showing at the Saachti Gallery. How odd ...

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/chapman_brothers.htm
This is a wicked article. Get out your dictionary.

Dinos & Jake Chapman

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

There is a bill being debated in the HOC this month on child pornography. This link will take you through the press coverage of Eli Langer, who was charged in 1993. The discussion is valuable, and perhaps the point of his show? I have to say it makes me incredibly uncomfortable, mostly because it is the same law that will govern both artists and sex offenders. But one quote rings for me:

'Meanwhile, censorship continues. But, as Marcia Pally writes her book, Sex And Sensibility (Ecco Press, 1994): "age-blaming, sexual and non-sexual, will not prevent rape or drug wars, nor will it fell sexism. It has no business being the basis for legislative or judicial remedies .... "Image-blaming, which casts women as victims of words and pictures, is another manipulation of the powerless. Like female frailty, it identifies many things from which women must be guarded and lays claim to make protection."'
AGO's Gehry redesign is 'needless destruction': Tanenbaum

TORONTO - One of Canada's leading arts patrons has resigned his seat on board of directors of the Art Gallery of Ontario in protest over its $194-million renovation plans.

Joey Tanenbaum, who's donated more than $90 million to the gallery over the past 35 years, sent a letter to gallery CEO Matthew Teitelbaum Friday. In the letter, Tanenbaum described the renovation project as "needless destruction" and "a blatant attempt to eradicate the recent history of the gallery."

The new glass and titanium design, created by acclaimed Canadian architect Frank Gehry, calls for the elimination of several spaces created during renovations in 1993, including the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Atrium, the Max and Anne Tanenbaum Gallery of 20th-century art and the Tanenbaum Centre of European Art.
.....................
This is not shocking that he would be upset. I think I would be a bit angry too. I wonder if not touching these buildings was part of the original creative brief, or if such a thing would exist for a Frank Gehry project. No, they must have discussed some parameters with the architect. Clearly Tanenbaum feels ownership of the gallery, for certain. And I would agree that leveling structutes that were only built 16 years ago is wasteful. But I have looked at the designs yet ...

And then I read this story: Sleek new look unveiled for AGO which discusses the reason for the expansion: Kenneth Thomson has donated 2,000 works of art and the $$ to expand the gallery. Ouch! Bit of a turf war, perhaps??


Monday, March 08, 2004

Neoism

And the Wikipedia link for less confusion. If you like it that way.