Entries Tagged 'ARCHITECTURE' ↓

As a footnote to a previous post (The Rhetoric of the Frame) I’ve only just noticed that the new extension of the National Gallery of Australia is itself framed by the ugly basalt rubble known in the trade as Nimmitabel Blue. In the symbolic gap between the old and new, there is this window which marks the transition from the old children’s gallery to the new Indigenous galleries. And there, hey presto, you may see find a box gutter full of the stuff. It beggars the imagination to think that it’s OK to use the same material to re-frame the Gallery’s most sacred and significant work of Indigenous art, The Aboriginal Memorial, and at the same time use it to mark the transition between the old and new buildings. Or just to improve the look of a gutter visible from the galleries inside…

ArtObserved reports on the the demolition of Ai Weiwei’s Shanghai studios.

Do curators have “rights” which supersede an artist’s Intellectual Property rights?  It’s one thing to criticise a curator’s thesis, or the complex decisions that are made in order to mount an exhibition or hang a collection. And sure, of course there is a particular mode of creativity involved in the curatorial process. But are these activities defensible as a higher form of Intellectual Property over that which is embodied in works of art? Some curatorial practices seem to assume this is the case. To open the question for critical debate, here is Iconophilia’s list of the eleven common ways in which curators may interfere with the Intellectual Property inherent in a work of art. As we witnessed in 2010, curators may/do:

1. redesign integral elements of a work of art

2. rearrange the elements of a work of art

3. frame it in a way that’s inconsistent with its original manifestation

4. hang it on a wall that’s painted in a dominating colour

5. locate it amongst competing architectural forms (for example, hang flat art on a curved wall)

6. exhibit the work in dynamic lighting conditions

7. subject the work to intense spotlighting

8. exhibit a work of art without giving attribution to the artist(s) (names)

9. vary the orientation of a work of art

10. ignore the artist’s instructions

11. use fragments of artworks as logotypes

Iconophilia seeks readers’ contributions of examples of the ways in which public institutions interfere with the integrity of works of art. If you wish to contribute to the Iconophilia database of the following kinds of curatorial actions which appear to infringe the integrity of a work of art which is currently on public display in a museum or art gallery, please download this pdf checklist.

One of the architectural features of the new National Gallery of Australia extension that has not attracted much attention (and was missed by Robert Bevan in his review) is the moat and drawbridge, the symbolic function of which, I suggest, is to repel critics (and anthropologists, apparently). Now read on…

Two months ago, I wrote the following letter to the Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Ron Radford. Apparently, Citizen Lendon does not merit a reply. While you might assume that the Director of a major public institution has some kind of obligation to respond to a perfectly legitimate enquiry from any member of the public, apparently this is not the case with respect to the National Gallery of Australia.

I therefore provide the following points of reference – not to blow my own trumpet, but to provide a sense of how difficult it must be to get across the moat. As well as being the author of Iconophilia, readers may know that I also write about art and its histories in a number of contexts. Among other things, I have a longstanding interest in (and a trail of curatorial projects and publications concerned with) Australian Indigenous art. I have been a guest curator at the NGA. I am also a Fellow of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation.

Now, as regular readers of Iconophilia will know, recently I have been thinking out loud about the re-design and relocation of The Aboriginal Memorial at the NGA.  And so I have been considering writing a more substantial account of its recent history. However there are some facts I would need to have clarified for the sake of accuracy. Two months seemed a reasonable time to wait for a reply to this letter before sharing it with you-all:

12^th October, 2010

Ron Radford, AM

Director,

National Gallery of Australia

GPO Box 1150, Canberra, ACT, 2601

Dear Ron,

May I ask of you a couple of questions? I’m writing a piece on the new installation of The Aboriginal Memorial, and I would like to be sure I have my facts straight.

1. Whose idea was it, and who approved the introduction of the new material as a groundbase for the Memorial?

2. What was the consultation process with the artists and their heirs, at what stage of the design development, and with whom?

3. Has there been a “singing-in” ceremony, as with all the other relocations and rearrangements, (with the exception, I understand, of St Petersburg)? If so, by whom, and when?

Your reply will be much appreciated

With best wishes

Nigel Lendon

As of this date, I have received no reply.

Optimistically, this is the kind of draft response that I imagine is languishing in some hypothetical NGA Ignorebox:

Draft

12th November, 2010

<insert address>

Dear Nigel

I do apologise for the lateness of this reply to your letter of 12th October. No doubt you will understand that the first months of the reopening of the Gallery has been a very busy time for us all.

Your questions concerning the redesign of The Aboriginal Memorial are indeed pertinent. I am pleased to tell you that I have reviewed the design of the Memorial, and agree with you that the inclusion of the black basalt rocks as a plinth is indeed an inappropriate and alien material.

I have decided that we will review the decisions of the installation designers, and intitiate a comprehensive process of input concerning alternative options in consultation with the surviving artists and their heirs and representatives.

I agree that the installation is spatially compromised by the design of the wheelchair access ramp, and we will look into alternative design options going forward. At the same time we will investigate alternative modes of installing the airconditioning vents to redress the unfortunate formal association between the hollow log poles and the ring of circular vents which surround them.

In reply to your specific questions:

1. Ultimately the decisions concerning the design were mine.  However I was advised by the installation design group appointed by the architects, in consultation with my staff.

2. Indeed, I do now realize that the consultation process left something to be desired. I intend to initiate an appropriate process in the future, and to seek advice and assistance from the eminent anthropologists of art who are knowledgeable in this area.

3. A “singing-in ceremony” was conducted subsequent to the opening of the new galleries, involving both Richard Birrinbirrin, the son of the late Dr David Malangi, and Djon Mundine, the original conceptual producer of the Memorial.

I should add that we are in the process of producing a pamphlet which explains the original intent of the Aboriginal Memorial, and that we will redesign the wall plaques so that the artists who produced the work are formally named, in accordance with moral rights protocols.

Such critical commentary and feedback as yours is much appreciated and encouraged by the Gallery.

Yours faithfully

<insert name and signature>

P.S. On 6th November the “conceptual producer” of the Aboriginal Memorial Djon Mundine gave a talk at the NGA. The only new and relevant piece of information was that he showed a brief video clip of Richard Birrinbirrin and himself “singing in” the Memorial in its new location on (presumably) the day after the gala opening of the new wing of the NGA. For all its personalised austerity, it was quite a moving record of what actually occurred.  The audience for this apparently impromptu event appeared to be the thirty or so people who happened to be passing by, visitors to the Gallery at that moment. From what we were shown, there appeared to be no other members of the Gallery hierarchy present, or taking part. We were shown no reciprocal ceremony. Unlike every previous occasion, when the “singing in” ceremony has been quite an event.

“I saw Cubism in a different light” says I.M. Pei. As you would… Two Cities, Four Architects: interviews with I M Pei, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel at the NYT, as they talk to Nicolai Ouroussoff about their experiences (“universal principles” among other things) that they found in Doha and Abu Dhabi.

“Westfield”, “municipal”, “truly awful”, “ungainly” are just some of the expressions Robert Bevan uses in The Oz here.

from Artforum (in 2007)

Do architects have a sense of humour? They must have. Yet when an architect puns, it’s a private joke at the public expense. When is a column not a column? When it’s a pun, stupid. The primary architectural feature of the National Gallery of Australia’s new facelift is this singular column. Judging by my photograph of their photograph, above, the purpose is to assert its status as an icon, signifying the character of the new building. There’s certainly nothing like it in the old building – although admittedly the Nolans are now shown in a new gallery shaped like a spa-bath. Now let’s think this through. Like a temple, a proper museum needs columns to signal its entrance, right? Maybe we can make do with just one column? That appears to support nothing? Except maybe a plastic dome? Get it?

Here’s the approach…

There’s no word in the architectural lexicon for a thing like this. So maybe this virtual column can be interpreted as both an oh-so-cautious nod towards postmodernism, while at the same time it reinforces the sphere and dome theme, to the left and right of the entrance, and inside as well. The problem is, like much of postmodernity, it’s a one-liner. So every time you swing by, you’ll be reminded of the same visual pun thing.

But wait! There’s more… Just beside the front door there’s a broken column, a modest little neocubist artefact, reminiscent of the style of the late Mari Funaki, but with no apparent attribution. It stands on a base inscribed to commemorate the opening of the new galleries. It’s about life-size, and it leans as if it wants to have a rest against the glass wall.  In its ambiguous anonymity it carries a certain mysterious status. As an artefact without the authority of an author, it somehow suggests a subversive purpose, loitering with intent, seemingly condemned never to reach the status of a work of art… Perhaps there is a prize for guessing its identity?

Methinks someone’s lost control of their signifiers… Want more? The thread continues here.

Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios makes an interesting connection between the treatment of Indigenous art at the NGA and the Musee du quai Branly on her blog Art Matters. There’s a thread in the ArtWranglers archives which discusses similar issues.

Iconophilia is pleased to welcome Quentin Sprague as a contributor. Here he is writing about a recent visit to Beijing. Amid much Chinese contemporary art which is flashy and over-scaled lies some truly fantastic art practice. Visiting a country with such a rich and ever present cultural history, it’s hard not to be a bit jealous of the wealth of material available for artists and other cultural producers to draw on, and also of the opportunities presented by a dynamic, entrepreneurial art scene and an international appetite for things Chinese. Here the ‘contemporary’ often presents as a particularly dense proposition. Ai Weiwei is perhaps currently the best-known contemporary Chinese artist internationally. His current Turbine Hall commission at the Tate Modern has occupied the space with 100 million hand–painted sunflower seeds in a work which comments on Chinese history, globalisation and the human labour that fuels China’s transition into a contemporary world power.

Zhao Zhao’s “EURO” (2008), a set of eight “Euro coins” made of lead sheath taken from Anselm Kiefer’s “Volkszählung” (1991)

Maybe most interesting is not only the relationship an artist like Ai Weiwei displays to his country’s cultural history, but to the position he now occupies in China’s cultural landscape.  For instance, a work by the younger generation artist Zhao Zhao (b.1982) presents a group of thirty toothpicks tooled from wooden shards taken from one of Ai Weiwei’s reconfigured temple sculptures, itself made from pieces of Qing dynasty temples salvaged from the wreckers ball in ever modernising Beijing. As well as completing a material transition from the sacred to the mundane Zhao’s work highlights a complex intergenerational exchange, one that I read as particularly Chinese in character and lacking the attendant irony one might expect of a similar work in an Australian context. Illustrated here is a 2008 work – a series of replica Euro coins pressed from lead stolen from Anslem Keifer’s “Volkszählung” (1991) similarly presenting a riff on value and the role of the young artist in existing networks.

View of courtyard 104, Caochangdi, Beijing, designed by Ai Weiwei for Fake Design, 2006

In July this year Zhao attended an artist’s residency in the Gija community of Warmun in WA along with a small group of curators and Australian and Chinese artists as part of the No Name Station project (I took part as a curator). During the presentation of an exhibition in Beijing resulting from this exchange the project group attended a BBQ at Zhao’s apartment in the Caochangdi district of Beijing. This was notable for a number of reasons, but is relevant here because of the architecture of the compound-style network of privately funded galleries, studios and apartments where it was held. The compound itself seems to architecturally embody some of the density of contemporary art in China, representing some of the framework against which its production and engagement plays out. Designed by Ai Weiwei for his own architectural firm Fake Design , it is in a style that effortlessly blends new Chinese modernism with its ancient antecedents. Walled like a commune, the various buildings are linked by a network of alleys linking larger communal areas to smaller internal and external spaces, just like a traditional Chinese courtyard house or the hutongs (alleyways) which used to be a major part of Beijing’s urban space but which have largely been destroyed in the lead up to (and following) the 2008 Olympics. Ironically, at the time of our visit it was unclear whether this development, and others like it in the area, would survive proposed demolition. Fingers crossed it does.

Postscript: the demolition of Ai Weiwei’s studios is reported here at ArtObserved.

Quentin Sprague has a background as a practising artist, arts administrator and curator and has held positions with a number of organisations including Jilamara Arts, NT and Artspace, Sydney. From 2009-2010 he worked directly with a number of senior artists in the East Kimberley region of WA. He is currently developing a curatorial project, Groundwork, for the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne in 2011.