Front Page of the Art World: What’s Hot & What’s Not — 5 August 2022
Artforum is opening its vaults, Leibovitz's controversial portrait of Ukraine’s first lady prompts much discussion, a tribute to Claes Oldenburg - radical Pop art sculptor
This week, Lady Gaga set the stage on fire (literally and metaphorically) at her Chromatica Ball. Meanwhile in NZ, we’ve been celebrating winter. Lady Gaga may be lighting it up in Europe during the northern hemisphere summer, but I’ve been providing the performance on the antipodean slopes.
Whether you are battling a heatwave or braving the crowds on the ski fields, do take care, and have a great weekend.
Now onto this week’s top art world headlines.
Artforum is opening its vaults
For the month of August, Artforum is putting hundreds of articles from the archives in front of their paywall.
An international monthly magazine, Artforum has been the defining voice of the contemporary art world from the 1960s to today. It is one of the most prestigious, trusted and reliable publications in the art world. The cover of the magazine has always represented the most innovative art being made, many created by famous artists who have marked their time.
These essays, reviews, and projects represent an encyclopaedic history of contemporary art, tracing the rise of some of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The magazine, published by Anthony Korner, a wonderful friend, began in 1962, becoming a highly respected publication due to its academic discourse and cultural theory approach to the art market. The magazine’s focus on minimal art, conceptual art, body art, land art and performance art provided a platform for artists such as Sol LeWitt.
A new era of Artforum emerged under new leadership in 2018 and began publishing texts and accounts that encouraged us to engage more deeply in the issues surrounding art and the art world, and to continue looking and thinking critically (such as Nan Goldin’s piece on OxyContin, or the essay ‘The Tear Gas Biennial’ which exposed former Whitney Museum vice chairman Warren Kanders).
I love this piece by Tony Korner from the summer 2019 print edition, coinciding with his eightieth birthday. In it, he tells the wonderful story of how he landed in the art world, and the ‘top 10’ of his bio.
Artforum’s editor in chief, David Velasco, has given me this special occasion to remember some of the art and experiences that were exceptional. In addition to the pleasure of working with my brilliant colleagues over the decades, and the friendships that have made so many of these experiences possible, these are a few of the places and works of art that have meant so much to me.
In 2019, Sotheby's New York celebrated six decades of Artforum with an exhibition featuring all 573 Artforum to date.
The entirety of Artforum’s archives, going back to their first issue in 1962, have been fully digitised and can be accessed on the website here.
Vogue’s ‘Portrait of Bravery: Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska’
A series of portraits of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and first lady Olena Zelenska shot by renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz for a digital issue of Vogue have sparked debate around the world. A torrent of ired remarks on social media, from Republicans (“While we send Ukraine $60 billion in aid Zelensky is doing photoshoots for Vogue Magazine. These people think we are nothing but a bunch of suckers,” tweeted Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado) as well as figures in the arts (“This is everything that is wrong with the world and how dangerously photography can intersect with it. The idea of a conflict zone as a backdrop for an @annieleibovitz shoot for @voguemagazine is vile,” wrote artist Adam Broomberg in a viral Instagram post).
Others have responded that Zelensky’s appearance in celebrity-focused magazines “is the only way to keep the crisis in his country at the forefront of the American public’s mind” (Sonny Bunch for the Washington Post). People have also being pointing out that war-time photoshoots aren’t a novelty:
Indeed, it looks like Leibovitz’s photos of Zelenska in her cover pose have spurred a trend amongst Ukrainian women. The allegedly "unfeminine" pose in which Zelenska adopted in the photo faced criticism on social networks. In a matter of three days, however, thousands of women joined the #sitlikeagirl initiative - including Leibovitz, who shared her support for it by posting the hashtag on her Instagram stories. Artnews also covered this story.
Claes Oldenburg, Pop artist who monumentalised the everyday, has died at 93
Claes Oldenburg, whose oversize sculptures of everyday objects made him one of the leading artists of the Pop art movement, often worked in collaboration with his late wife Coosje van Bruggen, made sculptures that raised objects as diverse as a nondescript light switch, a hamburger topped with a pickle, and a shuttlecock standing on end to the status of high art.
“I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top,” Oldenburg wrote in a manifesto-like 1961 essay. “I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary. I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and rips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.”
Read the tribute in ARTnews, BBC and NY Times. View Oldenburg’s most incredible sculptures in pictures - from the Guardian.
Oldenburg’s legacy certainly lives on…
Flung pickle token: artist asks $10,000 for McDonald’s burger ingredient
A NZ$10,000 artwork by Australian artist Matt Griffin, consisting of a single slice of pickle plucked from a McDonald’s cheeseburger and flung on to the ceiling of Michael Lett gallery in Auckland is a deliberately “provocative gesture” designed to question what has value, according to the Guardian and Newshub. Tomorrow I will be publishing a special piece from arts journalist Nadine Rubin Nathan - look out for it in your inboxes tomorrow.
This brand of pointed reflection on “what is art” or “what is good art” also is not new - three years ago Maurizio Cattelan taped bananas to a wall with duct tape at Art Basel Miami Beach and sold them for US$120,000 each. The banana prompted so much buzz and commotion that it was removed on Sunday before the end of the fair.
How Peter Oundjian went from the violin bow to the conductor’s baton
Violin soloists occasionally turn to conducting, as a way of complementing their solo work. When my dear friend Peter Oundjian made the switch in 1995, however, he had no choice. He was diagnosed with focal dystonia, a neurological disorder that made it impossible for him to continue as first violinist of the Tokyo String Quartet, one of the world's premier ensembles. Fortunately, he has gone on to a second career as impressive as his first - heading the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra then the Colorado Music Festival. Read about Peter in this excellent piece from CSO which dives into his earlier work as a major chamber musician.
Other news
Bernard Marson, a Catalyst for SoHo’s Renaissance, Dies at 91. An architect and developer, he helped pioneer the neighbourhood’s transition from manufacturing into lofts where artists could work and live. Read the story from the NY Times.
The Role of Art in a Time of War. Painting will not stop missiles. Music will not end suffering. But culture is not powerless — and a visit to Ukraine reaffirmed what it can do at its best. Read the story from the NY Times.
New York: 1962-1964, Jewish Museum review — revisiting Manhattan’s unmatched burst of creativity. Read the story from the Financial Times.
From Zelda to the Proms, gaming music is reaching new heights. Read the story from the Financial Times.
Helen Klisser During is recognised by Kea as a World Class New Zealander, is a Global Woman, and Ambassador of Auckland University of Technology.
The ArtCafé blog is put together with the help of Laura Cheftel.