Posts Tagged ‘art museums’
Posted by artradar on October 19, 2010
ART AUCTION FUNDRAISER HONG KONG CURATOR INTERVIEW
Para/Site Art Space, a non-profit organisation located in Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, will hold its annual Para/Site Fundraising Auction in early November this year. It will take place in the Kee Club, who also support the event, and is one of the most important fund-generators for the space. Para/Site is devoted to the exhibition of local and international contemporary art. It is also a space where seminars, talks and workshops take place regularly.
We had the opportunity to talk with the Para/Site Director and Curator Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya who has been working for the space for one-and-a-half-years, half of his contracted commitment. We wanted to know more about him, Para/Site Art Space and what special surprises the upcoming auction will have for attendees.
Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya, director and curator of Hong Kong's non-profit Para/Site Art Space. Image courtesy of Para/Site Art Space.
Fominaya and Para/Site: small scale projects with international interaction
How long has Para/Site Art Space been running for?
Para/Site was founded in 1996. It was one of the first organisations of its kind to be created in Hong Kong. In 1997, other organisations like 1Artspace were created. Para/Site started as an artists’ collective, providing a space for member artists to exhibit. Very soon it became a space for other artists coming from abroad to show their work. Para/Site started an international programme and this has continued until now. Para/Site, in a way, was a pioneer in inviting curators to work full time. I am the second curator who has joined the space. (Editor’s note: Before Fominaya, Para/Site employed Tobias Berger, a German curator who worked for the space for three years from 2006 to 2008.)
Why did you decide to join Para/Site Art Space?
Several reasons made me want to join this space: I wanted to distance myself somewhat from the European gallery/art space model. I wanted also to be able to curate all major parts of a project. In Europe, the scale of the projects I was working on was very different. I was used to working on big projects within a large team. I wanted to experiment with small scale projects, as they give me a much closer relationship with the artist. But, we also have a minor budget here! It is very challenging (smiles). The logic of culture working in a large scale organisation or in a small one is very different. I have to say that it was very shocking for me at first! I had to adapt to a different scale of project and to a different culture.
What has changed since you first joined Para/Site Art Space?
We have worked harder to develop our facilities for our Hong Kong artists and also to increase our public programme by developing some workshops…. [We are] promoting local art abroad and making dialogue between the art and artists possible in and outside Hong Kong. An example of a workshop has been the participation of the director of education at MoMA, Philip Yenawine, who talked about museums and education. [Past] workshops weren’t that much focused on artists but more on art administrators, curators, etc..
Zhang Dali, 'AK-47 (V.7)', 2010, acrylic on canvas, 102 x 82 cm, unique edition. Image courtesy of Para/Site Art Space.
What have you been doing before you joined Para/Site Art Space?
Before coming to Para/Site I worked in a very different type of environment. I was working as a curator in a contemporary and modern art museum in Spain for six years. It was a different type of organisation; it was much larger and we covered all the twentieth century. At Para/Site Art Space … it’s a totally different type of environment, being a micro non-profit organisation with only four people working on our projects. Most of those projects are commissioned works that the artists develop for us. We have a very active international programme, which is very different from [the programme we had in] my previous job. That’s one of the challenges.
How is it funded?
The money raised in the auction covers almost half of our annual budget. That’s why it’s a very important event for us. We want to fundraise approximately HKD1,000,000 during this event. [We have organised] this kind of event for almost ten years now and we always had a very successful response. The rest of the budget is covered by the government, a French petrol group and smaller sponsors like corporate entities.
Rem Koolhaas, 'Lagos', 2007, photographic paper, 112 x 84 cm, special edition for Para/Site Art Space. Image courtesy of Para/Site Art Space.
Para/Site Fundraising Auction to sell one-off and special edition works
Can you explain the fundraising event to me in a few words. How do you get the artwork? What happens on the night? How did you select the artists?
The event is basically a fundraising auction. We are very cheeky and we ask the artists to donate their work to Para/Site. Some of the participating artists have worked with us and the others just want to support us in a generous way. During the event, the idea is to sell all the works in a pleasant atmosphere. From the 28 artists that participate in the events, around ten of them will attend the event. Those ten artists are based in Hong Kong. Unfortunately we don’t have the budget to fly all the artist here but we’ll have a very good representation of the selection we made. This night is very special, because it gathers different kinds of personalities together: curators, art gallery owners, artists and art lovers. Make sure to RSVP to attend to the auction as the event, with 100 people expected, will have limited places.
For this fundraising auction, 28 artists will participate. This selection of artists is a good representation of what we do. It is a mix of local Chinese, Asian and international artists. Some are very established and others not so. We’ll have secured the participation of a very established artist, Rem Koolhaas, who is donating a photograph titled Lagos. He has never sold his work before. You know what to do if you want to get it: Come to the Kee Club and it’s yours! We also have Ai Weiwei, a very interesting artist who we already exhibited last April and May. [We have] Zhang Dali, one of the pioneers of the Chinese avant-guarde and a very established artist. We have also a good representation of artists from Hong Kong. This event is a great opportunity to get artworks of a very good quality. I want to highlight also the big support from some galleries and foundations that have donated works to Para/Site, such as Cat Street Gallery. All the works that will be part of the auction will be shown here in Para/Site space.
It’s a big challenge as we curate a large number of art works and deal with artists from all over the world,… almost thirty artists, most of whom do not live in Hong Kong. The process is really like curating a show, the only difference is that the artists donate their work instead of selling it. Surprisingly, most of the artists we approached, even those who didn’t have any past relationship with Para/Site, had heard about this space and wanted to help and support us. It is a big responsibility; it has to go well for us, but it is at the same time a celebration.
Ai Weiwei, 'Swatter', 2007, brass gilded, 0.5 x 50 x 7cm.
Fominaya on running a non-profit art organisation
How do you choose which artists to represent Para/Site Art Space’s regular exhibition?
For the most part I invite the artists I want to work with. I do review the portfolios that we receive but the process I follow is mostly by invitation. I generally focus in the region, working with Hong Kong artists on international projects as a mission. I’m really focussing on Chinese, Asian and South Asian artists. We use the fact that Hong Kong is a door between the West, China and the south of Asia to get our inspiration for creating our programme. We want to show what Hong Kong means in a political, geographical and economic sense. At the same time, I try to stay away from what you can find in a commercial gallery. Actually, that’s one of the reasons why we don’t work that much with painters. Most of the work [we show] is installation and moving image. Personally, I’m very interested in moving image art.
Has the mission of Para/Site Art Space changed over time?
We continue with the same philosophy as before my arrival. In these two years, we have been developing more international projects with Hong Kong artists. We have also done a few projects with artists from outside Hong Kong, creating a dialogue between all of them. An example is the exhibition we curated with Joseph Kosuth and Tsang Kin Wah in 2009.
Has Para/Site Art Space always been in Po Yan Street? Or has the gallery been in another location before?
In April 1997, Para/Site Art Space was located in Kennedy Town before moving to its present location in Sheung Wan District, but it looks like we will have to emigrate. Sheung Wan is an area of Hong Kong that is getting very expensive. Next door, a luxurious apartment building is being built. The prices in the area are getting as expensive as the Peak. I think we need to move to a larger space to develop different types of projects with different scales. For the moment, the space that Para/Site has suits the type of exhibitions shown, but also the human resources and the budget we have available.
Sometimes you can find very famous artists in Para/Site. They don’t do the same kind of work they usually do in big museums as they have to adapt their work to the space. They also don’t have so much pressure and they tend to use this space to experiment, trying out different types of work.
How would you like to see Para/Site Art Space grow?
The artist community in Hong Kong is very active and developed. There are many commercial galleries but most of them are small and Hong Kong needs powerful galleries that can support its artists. What we would need in Hong Kong would be a larger number of non-commercial art spaces. A bit like Para/Site but on an even larger scale in order to allow the local art community to develop their projects.
The desire we have for Para/Site is to have a larger budget and a bigger venue that will help us achieve our larger goals. We want to make possible more dialogue with other art spaces around the world in order to develop projects. But this is not a short-term idea. This needs to be done over time to assure its sustainability.
SB/KN/HH
Related Topics: non-profit, art spaces, events, curators, Hong Kong venues
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Posted in Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya, Art spaces, Curators, Events, From Art Radar, Funding, Hong Kong, Interviews, Nonprofit, Professionals, Venues | Tagged: Ai Weiwei, AK-47 (V.7), Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya, art administrators, art auctions, art collectors, art foundations, art funding, art museums, art seminars, Asian art, Cat Street Gallery, contemporary art, contemporary Chinese art, corporate funding, curator, exhibition, funding, fundraising, fundraising events, gallery director, government funding, hong kong, Hong Kong art, installation art, international contemporary art, Joseph Kosuth, Kee Club, Kennedy Town, Lagos, MOMA, Nadim Abbas, non-profit, non-profit art organisation, Painting, Para/Site Art Space, Para/Site Fundraising Auction, Philip Yenawine, Po Yan Street, Rem Koolhaas, Sheung Wan District, Swatter, Talks, Tobias Berger, Tsang Kin Wah, Video, Video art, workshops, Zhang Dali | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on September 20, 2010
SOUTH KOREA CONTEMPORARY ART INTERVIEW CURATOR
Art Radar Asia recently spoke with German-born curator Tobias Berger, who currently holds the position of Chief Curator at the Nam June Paik Art Center, about the Center’s exhibition “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain“. During this interview, Berger also revealed a few of his observations on living and working in the Korean art environment.
Korean art has always been in the shadow of Japanese and Chinese artistic success, often “dismissed as a mere conduit between the two mega cultures.” This may be because few of the local magazines, exhibition catalogues and other art texts produced on Korean contemporary art are available in English. As Berger states, “There are none. They’re all in Korean. There’s nothing really good in English.” And while the local art scene is perhaps not on par with what can be experienced in these neighbouring countries, Berger notes that the art that is being produced in Korea is of a very high quality, due to good art schools, a diversity of art spaces, talented pioneers and governmental support.
'Shamoralta Shamoratha' (2007) by Inbai Kim was shown at "Korean Eye: Moon Generation" in 2009. Korean Eye was founded in 2009 as a way to support emerging Korean artists by providing international exhibition opportunities.
As a European who formerly lived and worked in the Hong Kong art scene, how do you find the South Korean art scene compares?
“The Seoul art scene is probably the most sophisticated art scene in Asia. It has really good independent spaces, good commercial galleries, interesting art schools and good museums. It has this whole pyramid of different art spaces, exhibition possibilities, and it has a lot of really good and wonderful artists. That level of depth and the level of different kinds of art spaces is incomparable. Certainly in Beijing [you] have galleries, but you don’t have any independent spaces, and in Tokyo it’s also very different.”
How do you keep up to date with the Korean art scene?
That is a problem because it’s all in Korean and it’s very difficult to keep up [with]. I mean, you just go to the 10-15 [art] spaces once a month … and you talk to your friends and your colleagues that go to the big exhibitions…. You just have to look at how it is. There was a [recent] survey show called “Bright Future” but it only had twelve artists.
Tell us about the art school system in Korea? How does it differ from other places?
It’s the most sophisticated [system] because it had some good pioneers [and] a lot of governmental help. [South Korea] has some good art schools and it has a lot of good artists that have studied overseas and come back. This allowed a lot of critical discourse and [there were] a lot of magazines. That allowed the art scene to grow well and in the right way.
Korean art is becoming popular with international collectors. “Korean Eye“, for example, was shown at The Saatchi Gallery in London earlier this year. Can you tell us why you think this is happening now?
“Here in South Korea you don’t feel that there’s much happening. The Korean scene is nothing compared to what’s happening in China…. On the one side, these shows, where this is popular or that is popular, don’t really mean a thing. There is a lot of good art in South Korea and the quality of the art is really on a high level, because art education has been good for 15-20 years. A lot of people are educated in Europe and America and have very good support and certainly output good quality art…. I mean, you don’t want to buy or you don’t want to show an artist because he’s Korean, you want to show an artist because he’s a good artist.”
JAS/KN/HH
Related topics: Korean artists, interviews, Tobias Berger, curators
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Posted in Art spaces, Artist-run, Asia expands, Curators, From Art Radar, Generation art, Globalization of art, Interviews, Korean, Museums, Tobias Berger | Tagged: America, art dealers, art exhibitions, art history, art magazines, art market, art museums, art school, art schools, art space, art spaces, art trends, artist-run spaces, artistic expression, Beijing, Bright Future, Chinese contemporary art, Collectors, commercial galleries, critical discourse, cultures, curators, dealers as curators, Emerging artists, emerging Korean artists, Europe, European, gallery art, Globalisation, Hong Kong art scene, independent art spaces, international art, international collectors, international visual language, Julie Anne Sjaastad, Korea, Korean art, Korean art scene, Korean artist, Korean artists, Korean contemporary art, Korean Eye, Lee Ufan, Nam June Paik, Nam June Paik Art Center, publications, Saatchi Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, South Korean art scene, Suh Se-ok, The Saatchi Gallery, Tobias Berger, Tokyo, traditional painting, Transition, urbanism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on September 9, 2010
PHOTOGRAPHY INSTALLATION LIGHT BOXES MUSEUM SHOWS RUSSIA ISRAEL ITALY
Artist Lena Liv takes her shots in the early morning, capturing various Moscow subway stations before people crowd the architecture. Her interest in these Stalin-era “palaces for the Proletariat” may stem from a need to capture examples of the city’s “show architecture”, remnants of a building style that once mirrored state ideologies.
Russian-born, Liv has returned to her homeland after many years living and working in Italy and Israel. Her photographic installations, capturing as they do the extraordinary in the everyday, are now on show at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in an exhibition titled “Cathedrals for the Masses | Lena Liv: Moscow Metro“.
Lena Liv, 'Taganskaya', 2006-2009, transparency on glass, fluorescent light, wood and metal construction. This station was opened on 1 January, 1950 and is themed on medieval architecture. Image courtesy of Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
The museum summarises the exhibition on its website:
“Lena Liv’s lens exposes a paradox in the metro’s heroic building work: on the one hand, the buildings were meant to contain within their monumental dimensions a human body in search of domestication; on the other hand, this is building whose far-reaching ideology sought to turn Moscow from an ancient capital to the center of world Proletariat—to sow the “seeds of the new, socialist Moscow,” in the words of the journalists of the time. Above all, it seems that Lena Liv’s works testify that this show architecture was the first sprouts of a city that never materialized.”
Cathedrals for the Masses | Lena Liv: Moscow Metro is curated by Prof. Mordechai Omer and runs in collaboration with Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy. The exhibition runs until 9 October this year.
Lena Liv 'Grand Mayakovskaya', 2006-2009, transparency on glass, fluorescent light, wood and metal construction. This station was opened on 11 September, 1938 and is considered a masterpiece of Soviet Art Deco. It won the 1939 Grand Prize at the New York World's Fair. Image courtesy of Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Lena Liv, 'Elektrovodskaya 1 and 2', 2005-2006, transparency on glass, fluorescent light, wood and metal construction. This station was opened on 15 May, 1944 and is themed on the home front struggle of the Great Patriotic War. It was the winner of the 1946 Stalin Prize. Image courtesy of Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Lena Liv, 'Novokuznetskaya', 2006-2009, transparency on glass, fluorescent light, wood and metal construction. This station was opened on 20 November, 1943 and is themed on WWII. It was built as a monument to Soviet military valor. Image courtesy of Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
KN/HH
Related Topics: Russian artists, Israeli artists, European artists, photography, light art, museum shows
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Posted in Art spaces, Artist Nationality, Buildings, Cultural Revolution, Events, International, Israel, Lena Liv, Medium, Museum shows, Museums, Nationalism, Photography, Russian, Social, Venues | Tagged: 1946 Stalin Prize, architecture, art museum, art museums, art photography, Cathedrals for the Masses, Cathedrals for the Masses | Lena Liv: Moscow Metro, Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Communism, Elektrovodskaya 1 and 2, European artists, fluorescent light, Grand Mayakovskaya, Grand Prize New York World's Fair, Great Patriotic War, installation, installations, Israel, Israeli art, Israeli artist, Italian art, Italian artists, Italy, Kate Nicholson, Lena Liv, light boxes, medieval architecture, monument, Mordechai Omer, Moscow metro, Moscow subway stations, museum exhibitions, Museum shows, New York World's Fair, Novokuznetskaya, palaces for the Proletariat, photographic installations, photography, Prato, Prof. Mordechai Omer, Proletariat, Russia, Russian, Russian art, Russian artist, Russian artists, Russian-born, show architecture, Soviet Art Deco, Soviet military valor, Stalin, Stalin-era, state ideologies, Taganskaya, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, transparency on glass, wood and metal construction, WWII | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on August 25, 2010
JAPANESE KOREAN ARTIST MUSEUM OPENINGS MODERNISM
An article by The Japan Times covers the opening of a brand new art museum in Japan dedicated to the Korean-born artist Lee Ufan. The article features an extensive interview in which the artist reminisces on his youth in a Japanese-occupied Korea and his early years as an artist in Japan.
Located on the island of Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea, the Lee Ufan Museum is part of the Benesse Art Site, which has been listed as one of Japan’s must-see tourist destinations. In the article, Lee explains why the museum is unconventionally half underground:
Lee Ufan's painting 'From Line (1974) is on display at the newly-created Lee Ufan Museum in Japan.
For some people, it won’t look like a museum. Some people might think it’s a mosque, or a grave. That’s fine. I wanted it to feel far removed from everyday life.
The article also discusses Lee’s unique role in the Japanese art scene. Being both a resident of Japan and an outsider, due to his status as a Korean-born Japanese artist, he has interesting insights into the history of Japan and Korea and the art scene in Japan.
His aesthetic style consists mostly of simple constructions and has often been compared to Asian philosophy by Western critics. He says that he is indebted to the Western Modernist tradition for his simple style more than the traditional Asian aesthetic. Despite being influenced by Modernist art, he asks viewers to find a deeper meaning in the process of looking at art:
These days, when we think of art, we immediately think of it being something that you look at. But it is actually only in the Modern period that this act of looking has been given such emphasis. Before then, there was more to it: myths, religion, social issues. People would know these stories and they would read them into the art. In other words, the act of appreciating art was completed in the mind.
One way in which he is thoroughly Asian, he says, is his belief in the strong connection between individuals and the universe, a concept which he explores in his paintings:
After all, Asia has a monsoon climate, so there is a lot of rain. There’s always things rotting and new life sprouting and, in the past, this gave rise to strong tendencies toward animistic beliefs. Asians are more likely to see themselves as living with nature, with the rest of the universe.
The museum will hold many of Lee Ufan’s canvases and sculptures, created since he began his artistic career in the 1970s.
Read the full article here.
MM/KN
Related Topics: museums, Korean artists, Japanese artists, Japanese venues
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Posted in Art spaces, Collectors, Japan, Japanese, Korean, Museum collectors, Museums | Tagged: animistic, art and culture, art and nature, art museums, artist, artist interview, Asian aesthetic, asian identity, Asian philosophy, Benesse Art Site, climate, installation art, Japan, Japan and Korea, Japanese, Japanese art museums, Japanese art scene, Japanese artist, Japanese museums, Korea, Korean, Korean artist, Korean born Japanese, Lee Ufan, Lee Ufan Museum, Maya McOmie, modernism, Modernist painters, museum collection, museum collections, Naoshima, Painting, Seto Inland Sea, The Japan Times, War, Western art, World War II | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on August 11, 2010
ART TOURS TIPS AND RESOURCES MUSEUMS TOUR GUIDES
In a recent blog post, Nina Simon, author of The Participatory Museum, a book that talks about practical innovations to enhance community and visitor participation in the museum experience, looks at the simple yet effective model of a “customised” tour guide employed at the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle.
Nina Simon, author of 'The Participatory Museum'.
Like the majority of museum-goers, Simon’s disdain for historic building tours supplied by worn out verbal drone machines is unabashed. For Simon however, this necessary component was made special by what she calls a “customised” tour guide.
What made it so special? The guide, Vi Mar, was an incredible facilitator. She did several things over the course of the tour to make it participatory, and she did so in a natural, delightful way.
Simon notes four distinct points that made her experience special. First on her list is creating a friendly and participatory environment. Here’s how Simon says Mar did it:
There were eleven of us on the tour, all adults, mostly couples. Vi started joking with us about our relationships and hometowns while making sure we all remembered each other’s names. She made it clear from the start that we were expected to address each other by name and have fun with each other.
Next, Mar repeatedly drew on personal stories and anecdotes, encouraging friendly interaction between the visitors and the tour guide. Her own relationship with the museum objects was part of the tour. Simon says,
We walked into her (Vi Mar’s) family’s historic association hall and a replica of her uncle’s dry goods store. She showed us her name on a donor wall in the museum. Again and again, she told personal stories of her interactions with the historic and monumental people and events she described. She was political. She told family stories. It felt like she was letting us into her world in a generous, funny way – and that encouraged us to relate and share as well.
Simon claims that these tools could be employed by any museum. She says,
Participatory facilitation can be taught. Passion, confidence, and personal connections to the content – those are the hard things to teach.
Four ways a museum can improve their tour experience
- Create a friendly and participatory environment at the beginning of the tour
- Encourage open interaction between visitors and tour guide
- The tour guide should draw on personal stories and anecdotes and should encourage visitors to share their views
- Keep the tour light and humorous
AM/KN
Related Topics: museums, promoting art, resources
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Posted in Business of art, Lists, Museums, Nonprofit, Promoting art, Resources, USA | Tagged: Ananya Mukherjee, art museums, art promotion, art tours, Chinatown, Community Initiative, facilitators, gallery resources, gallery tours, museum resources, museum tips, Museum Tools, museum tours, new art museums, Nina Simon, non-profit, Promoting art, Resources, Seattle, The Participatory Museum, tips, tips for selling art, Vi Mar, Visitor participation in museums, Wing Luke Asian Museum | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on November 11, 2009
QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE TO SINGAPORE’S CULTURAL TREASURES
Singapore is home to a diverse offering of heritage attractions ranging from arts, history, culture, lifestyle, science, to healthcare. According to the Renaissance City Plan III developed by the National Heritage Board, as of 2007 there are 52 museums located in Singapore including both private and public institutions. The focus of this guide will center on the public arts related museums including the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and its extension gallery 8Q, the National Museum of Singapore, Asian Civilisations Museum, NUS Museum, Peranakan Museum, and Red Dot Design Museum.
Singapore Art Museum (SAM): opened in 1996, with the mission to preserve and present the art histories and contemporary art practices of Singapore and the Southeast Asian region. SAM has amassed the largest public collection of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artworks comprising of over 7,000 artworks from mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, drawing, print, and photography.
8Q hosted the highly publicized "Masriadi: Black is My Last Weapon" exhibition in August 2008.
8Q at SAM: is an extension gallery to the main museum space showcases fresh, multi-disciplinary, interactive and community oriented programming by living artists. 8Q aims to offer visitors a diverse sampling of contemporary art practices ranging from painting and sculpture, to installation, film and video, new media, performance art and sound art.
National Museum of Singapore: Housed in its current location since 2006, the National Museum of Singapore is Singapore’s oldest museum. Designed to be the people’s museum, the National Museum is a custodian of the 11 National Treasures, and its Singapore History and Living Galleries adopt cutting-edge and varied ways of presenting history and culture to redefine conventional museum experience.
The National Museum of Singapore hosted "Christian Lacroix the costumier" exhibition in March 2009.
Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM): is the first museum in the region to present a broad yet integrated perspective of pan-Asian cultures and civilisations. Spread over 11 galleries and three levels, ACM presents the story of Asia showcased in themed galleries (Singapore River, Southeast Asia, West Asia, China, and South Asia). Virtual hosts, in-gallery videos and interactive ExplorAsian zones are incorporated in the galleries as guideposts which help visitors learn more about the multi-faceted aspects of Asian cultures.
NUS Museum: The National University of Singapore established the museum in 1997 to create an enriching experience of the social history and the art of Asia to NUS and the nation. The museum hold three separate permanent collections (Lee Kong Chian Collection, Ng Eng Teng Collection, and South & Southeast Asian Collection) as well as hosts special exhibitions like “Mapping the Corporeal: Ronald Ventura” exhibition in September 2008 and “Jendela – A Play of the Ordinary” in February 2009.
The Peranakan Museum
Peranakan Museum: explores the culture of Peranakan communities in the former Straits Settlements of Singapore, Malacca and Penang and their links with other communities in Southeast Asia. Three floors of permanent galleries illustrate important rituals, practices and the material culture of the Peranakans, as well as how this unique fusion culture is viewed today.
The museum’s mission is to explore and present the cultures and civilisations of Asia, so as to promote awareness and appreciation of the ancestral cultures of Singaporeans and their links to Southeast Asia and the world.
Red Dot Design Museum
Red Dot Museum: The museum engages, excites and inspires its visitors with interactive installations and interesting exhibitions on design. It is the focal point of design and creative activities such as design conferences, exhibitions and parties.
Progressively, these efforts will transform Singapore into a global city of arts and culture. Indeed, the world is noticing– media articles and analyst reports are describing how vibrant Singapore has become, and what an attractive place it is to live in….more importantly, it will provide Singaporeans with a rich cultural life, nurture the sense of pride in our heritage and history, and strengthen our identity as a nation.
~ Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, at the Official Opening of the New Peranakan Museum on 25 April 2008
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SF
Posted in Art districts, Museum collectors, Museum shows, Museums, Profiles, Resources, Singapore, Uncategorised | Tagged: art museums, art museums Singapore, country guide, heritage, Museums, singapore, Singapore Art Museum | 1 Comment »
Posted by artradar on September 12, 2009
RUSSIAN ART MUSEUMS
Two new contemporary art museums are planned for Moscow reports Artinfo.
National Centre for Contemporary Art
Facade of National Centre for Contemporary Art
Mikhail Mindlin and Leonid Bazhanov, directors of the National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, initiated the plan to establish a new contemporary art museum in the region. The $100 million proposal, although not government-funded, is approved by the Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev.
Mindlin and Bazhanov face two options: “either wait until the crisis is over or form a partnership with gallerists and local businessmen who show an interest in contemporary art.”
On July 24, the Ministry of Culture invited a number of gallerists and businessmen to its private session.
According to ARTINFO, attendees included:
Gary Tatintsian, owner of Tatintsian Gallery (which recently sold a small Jake and Dinos Chapman sculpture to the center at a discounted price after no one stepped up to buy it following its debut at a group show there four years ago), and Alexey Tsarevsky, head of Horizont Finance Company. Horizont is owned by Valery Nosov, who also owns ArtMedia Group, a publishing house that puts out two art magazines — Art+Auction Russia (a publishing partner of ARTINFO sister publication Art+Auction) and Blacksquare — and an arts and culture Web site, openspace.ru. Tsarevsky promised help from Horizont, including “consulting with the center on the predevelopment level and financial administration of the project.
The goal is to complete the project by 2015.
While in the process of developing a new museum, Mindlin and Bazhanov hope to expand their current museum too:
The two, who would lead the new institution, plan to expand the center’s current home to include 25,000 additional square meters (269,100 square feet) of new exhibition space, as well as a café, storage facilities, and a cinema, among other amenities. Essentially, the center would transition from a small, state-funded institution to a large and complex one, with the new museum inheriting its management and resources.
Their plan is not exactly new. The center already expanded once, in 2004, adding a three-story building as part of a larger redevelopment plan that would have included a large hotel and financed the center’s activities with money from developers. The current proposal adapts the earlier plan to the realities of the current economic situation. For example, with most of Moscow’s building projects on hold, no commercial spaces are planned to accompany the future museum, and it’s unclear if the new project will be subject to an architectural competition.
Stella Art Foundation
That Obscure Object of Art. Collections of Stella Art Foundation. Displayed at the Venice Biennale.
In tandem, Stella and Igor Kesaev, respectively the director and the funder of the Stella Art Foundation, have recently purchased a Constructivist garage in the centre of Moscow for a planned museum to house their foundation’s collections.
The couple showed their private collection of postwar art in Vienna a year ago, and the foundation financed an Ilya and Emilia Kabakov exhibition at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum(www.hermitagemuseum.org) in 2005, as well as Culture Minister Alexander Avdeev’s trip to the Venice Biennale for the opening of the Russian Pavilion this year.
Despite the state’s inability and reluctance to provide financial aid, the Ministry of Culture may still provide funds by drawing on Russian businesses.
Russian oligarchs invest in art to rehabilitate their image with the Kremlin, buying works abroad and bringing them (or “returning” them, in patriotic terms) to Russia.
Read full article at ARTINFO
Contributed by Wendy Ma
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Posted in Art districts, Art Funds, Funding, Moscow, Museums, Russia, Russian | Tagged: Art Moscow, art museum Moscow, art museums, ArtMedia Group, Gary Tatintsian, moscow, Museums, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Russian art, Stella Art Foundation, Valery Nosov | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on November 7, 2008
MUSEUM NEWS RECESSION
The economy’s swoon is taking a particularly tough toll on art museums, according to artintern.net and the Wall Street Journal.The art boom of the past two decades, and the resulting skyrocketing costs of acquisitions and insurance, led museums to staff their boards with more than a few deep-pocketed executives from real estate firms, financial institutions, and hedge funds-industries that are now among the hardest hit.
Plus, the tough times come at the tail end of a boom in museum expansions, and many of those glamorous buildings and new wings are not yet paid for. A handful of major institutions financed those expansions with bond issues that face the same climbing adjustable interest rates that are plaguing homeowners.
For some time, most museums have been betting that a golden age of giving was soon to end. But even institutions that braced for a downturn say the stock market’s decline, the bankruptcy or disappearance of major investment banks, and the liquidity crisis have made this one unique. “We know from history the bell curve of support goes down,” says Emily Rafferty, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “But as far as the corporate world is concerned, we’ve never seen anything like this current climate,” she says. “We need to navigate a very, very difficult time.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
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Posted in Museum collectors, Museums | Tagged: art museums, art recession, financial ciris art, museum expansion, museum funding | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on September 21, 2008
SURVEY NEW MEDIA ART RUSSIAN ARTISTS to 19 October 2008
CRITI-POP
Dates: September 19 – October 19, 2008
Location: Moscow Museum of Modern Art at Ermolaevsky lane, 17 (floors 2-5)
“It seems incredible, but interactive and communicative art in Russia is practiced only by Chernyshev, Shulgin and Efimov, working together or individually” says curator and gallerist Elena Selina. “Recently, interest in new media art has increased in Moscow. Not only professionals, but also collectors and the public, have overcome inner barriers that prevented (their acceptance) of the new media language”.
Presented by the Moscow Department of Culture, Russian Acacademy of Arts, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art with XL Gallery, the CRITI-POP exhibition showcases three artists, two creative groups, forty works and plenty of themes including information overflow, reconstruction of identity, genetic pop-engineering, the poetry of stock-exchange deals and news broadcasts, aesthetics of data transmission and science art.
Interactive installations by Vladislav Efimov and Aristarkh Chernyshev, who worked together from 1996 to 2005, bring us art that deals with genetic engineering, statistical modeling of processes, computer games and robotics. The viewer becomes a hero of the work — a colleague of an insane scientist modeling DNA, a creator of 3-D avatars, a conqueror of robots or a terminator hunting for artists.
Electroboutique (Aristarkh Chernyshev and Alexei Shulgin since 2003) is a unique art group that unites artists, developers of electronics, programmers and designers. Using techniques taken from social psychology and perception theory, the artists transmit their critical message directly into the unconscious of the viewers and entertain them with bright colors and garish forms. In his solo projects, Aristarkh Chernyshev creates art from information streams like TV-channels, Internet-news or stock-exchange tapes while the solo work of Alexei Shulgin looks at our addiction to technologies and gives variants of creative rescue. One of the historic exhibits is a legendary rock band 386 DX, made of an outdated computer playing ever-young hits of British-American and Russian rock.
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Posted in Curators, Electronic art, Gallery shows, Interactive art, Museum shows, New Media, Pop Art, Russian, Video, Virtual, West Asian | Tagged: 3D art, Alexei Shulgin, Aristarkh Chernyshev, art, art groups, art museums, art museums in Russia, Asian art, Avatars, computer game art, computer games, DNA art, electric art, Electroboutique, Electronic art, Elena Selina, gene art, Interactive art, internet art, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, New Media, New Media Art, robotics art, Russian contemporary art, Russian contemporary artists, Russian curator, Russian galleries, Vladislav Efimov, XL Gallery | Leave a Comment »
Posted by artradar on September 20, 2008
Anupam Poddar and his mother Lekha
MUSEUM INDIAN ART NEW MEDIA EXHIBITION to 30 September 2008
Spread over two floors and 7,500 square feet in an office tower in the Gurgaon suburb of New Delhi , the Devi Art Foundation, as it is called opened in August 2008 with an inaugural show of photography and video called “Still Moving Image.” It features the work of 25 artists, a fraction of the roughly 2,000 contemporary pieces that make up the collection of 34 year old hotel magnate and leading art collector Anupam Poddar, along with an estimated 5,000 folk and tribal pieces, which are his mother’s passion.Devi is India’s first noncommercial, nonprofit exhibition space for contemporary art from India and the subcontinent. Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at Christie’s auction house in London, described it as “a truly groundbreaking first for India.”
The New York Times says “the birth of the Devi Art Foundation signals a sort of turning point in the Indian art scene, in that it opens up a private family trove to the public and is devoted entirely to contemporary art.””The Poddars are known in the art world here for their daring eye, for seeking out artists before they start fetching high prices or become recognizable names at fashionable Delhi dinner parties. Mr. Poddar scouts art college graduations for new talent, though it must be said that many of the artists he sought out years ago, like Subodh Gupta and Sudarshan Shetty, are now among the most recognizable names at those fashionable parties.”
The post-Indian-independence generation of artists known as the Progressives collected by his mother did not resonate with the son. He gravitated toward artists of his own generation. “Their vision of India was similar to mine,” he said. “It was being part of this – I hate this word – global world. It wasn’t just India. It wasn’t so isolated. They were working with sculpture, installation, with new media.”His first acquisition, in 1999, was a life-size pink fiberglass cow by Mr. Gupta. “It was quintessentially Indian but modern in its essence,” he said. “That’s what spoke to me.”
The inaugural exhibition of contemporary photography and video brings together the works of Aastha Chauhan, Baptist Coelho, Atul Bhalla, Avinash Veeraghavan, Bharti Kher, Kiran Subbaiah, Mithu Sen, Nalini Malani, Navin Thomas, Pushpamala N., Ram Rahman, Rameshwar Broota, Ranbir Kaleka, Ravi Agarwal, Sheba Chhachhi, Shilpa Gupta, Sonia Khurana, Sudarshan Shetty, Surekha, Susanta Mandal, Tejal Shah, Tushar Joag, Valay Shende, Varsha Nair and Vivan Sundaram.
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Posted in Anupam Poddar, Art spaces, Collectors, India, Indian, New Media, Nonprofit, Photography, Video | Tagged: Aastha Chauhan, Anupam Poddar, art museums, Atul Bhalla, Avinash Veeraghavan, Baptist Coelho, Bharti Kher, Devi, Devi Art Foundation, Indian art collectors, Kiran Subbaiah, Lekha Poddar, Mithu Sen, Nalini Malani, Navin Thomas, nonprofit museum, Poddar, Progressive Artists Group, Pushpamala N, Ram Rahman, Rameshwar Broota, Ranbir Kaleka, Ravi Agarwal, Sheba Chhachni, Subodh Gupta, Sudarshan Shetty, Surekha Anand, Susanta Mandal, Tejal Shah, Tushar Joag, Valay Shende, Varha Nair, Vivan Sundaram, Yamini Mehta | Leave a Comment »
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