Biggest Kusama show opens in Manchester
'You, Me and the Balloons' inaugurates controversial Aviva Studios
Also in this edition: Record-breaking Klimt, sculpture arrives in the City, Tristram Hunt’s schools warning, six days of strikes at BM, Banksy hoaxers
Happy Friday.
Here’s a turn up for the books. Instead of talking, writing, and I guess looking at art, recently I actually made some for myself. For the first time since of my god-awful Year 9 ‘artworks’ anyway. This was a much more successful endeavour, as I was taking part in a one-day beginner’s workshop in screen printing at Print Club London. We learnt how to set up your screen, prep your image, and how to PUSH PUSH PUSH the ink onto the paper to create your masterpiece. We were also told how screen printing works which I confess I’m still none the wiser about. Something about substrates and stencils. But it works, and the results are fab. I was a guest of Print Club but I would definitely recommend it as a fun, inky day out. And who knows, you could flog your 10 prints you come home with to make your money back. Now that reminds me: what do I do with mine?
Tomorrow a major exhibition on the Little Black Dress opens in Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland. But you already knew that as you read my interview with the show’s curator Georgina Ripley, right? Of course, if you have no idea what I’m talking about then I suggest that you catch up on our excellent chat on curating the LBD here.
Now onto the news!
Maxwell
Need To Know
Crowd-pleasing Kusama
Like her mirror rooms, the appetite for Yayoi Kusama exhibitions goes on for infinity. No wonder what is billed as her “largest and most ambitious immersive environment to date” has therefore been picked to inaugurate Manchesters new multi-million-pound new arts centre.
The just-opened You, Me and the Balloons invites visitors to immerse themselves in Kusama’s psychedelic universe of large-scale inflatable sculptures, many standing over 10-meters-tall or suspended from the 21-metre-high ceiling. Pumpkins, inflatable dolls, mirrored spaces and polka-dot spheres are among the well-known motifs featured.
It’s hosted at the newly-named Aviva Studios, the new home of Factory International in Manchester. But the building isn’t actually finished, so the Kusama show is the centrepiece of the two-week Manchester International Festival in a building site that is not due to officially open until October. A ‘preview’ I think is the PR term.
The exhibition is undoubtedly going to be a crowd-pleaser. But questions remain over Aviva Studios and its history of spiralling costs. Joshi Herrmann, founder of Manchester newsletter The Mill told the BBC that "There are a lot of people who wonder how on earth the council can afford to put that much money in,” adding “most people want to know what this thing actually is.” (Read more)
REVIEW: Yayoi Kusama at Aviva Studios: polka-dot inflatables keep the real world at bay — ⭐⭐⭐ Daily Telegraph
Klimt smashes Europe record
The hammer went down this week on the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in Europe. Gustav Klimt’s Lady With a Fan — his final ever portrait — sold at Sotheby’s in London for £85.3 million pounds with fees. It marked a global record sale for the artist too.
The painting saw 10 minutes of competitive bidding (which is all available to watch on Sotheby’s Instagram account) from three bidders in Asia, before success for a guest in the room on behalf of a Hong Kong-based art collector. The work has been kept in the same unnamed family collection since 1994, when it was acquired at a New York auction.
The sale ran counter to recent market trends. Since the Brexit vote, major auction houses have struggled to attract top-quality works to London. “Since 2016, sales have significantly shrunk” one observer said. But another noted that this record Klimt sale provided a much-needed “shot in the arm.” (Read more)
Skyscrapers and sculpture
The 12th edition of the brilliant Sculpture in the City art trail has opened in London. The celebrated annual free exhibition of public art weaved amongst the glass and steel of some of the most recognisable buildings in London’s Square Mile sees 18 artworks from 17 artists go on show.
Leading the pack is Phyllida Barlow’s untitled: megaphone, a towering six metres high sculpture at 22 Bishopsgate whose presence implies the announcement of a performance that has yet to begin. Barlow herself described it as an approximation or substitution for the actual object. Its position amongst the City’s very tallest towers does inspire vertigo, even from the pavement.
There were 447 submissions for this year’s trail, and it’s the most international edition yet, with 10 countries represented. Other highlights include Simeon Barclay’s Pittu Pithu Pitoo, which “considers the complexity of negotiating barriers, whether structural, psychological, or both” (apparently). But essentially it’s a cockerel on a big rock. Weird can be wonderful. (Read more)
News from the UK
Hunt’s warning | Young V&A reopens tomorrow after a £13 million revamp. But V&A Director Tristram Hunt has warned this week that a “horrible disparity” is opening between state and private schools in the provision of creative education. He believes that creative education is being downgraded or excluded in many state schools, in a total contrast to private schools. (Read more)
🔗 REVIEW: The Young V&A is the best museum for children that my family has ever seen — ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Daily Telegraph
Sobering words | A new, permanent message from Sir David Attenborough has been unveiled at the Natural History Museum (NHM). Cast in bronze at the museum’s entrance, it reads “The future of the natural world, on which we all depend, is in our hands” and is taken from Sir David’s 2018 speech at COP24. He unveiled it in person today, and it forms part of NHM’s major garden transformation. (Read more)
Flying in | It’s one of the most famous red carpet looks in history, and now it’s going on public display in Britain for the very first time. Bjork’s ‘swan dress’ from the 2001 Oscars has only ever been shown in New York, but it will go on show at London’s Design Museum in September as part of a major exhibition on rebellious contemporary fashion. (Read more)
Strikes coming | There’s going to be a six-day strike at the British Museum next month over the institution’s refusal to pay a government-recommended lump sum of £1,500 to staff. The museum says it has “has not refused” but as a so-called “Freedom Body” they do not have to follow the pay guidance. It insists it wants to negotiate with unions, including over a potential lump-sum, but leaked emails from the Head of HR say that the “BM are not in a position to be able to make the one-off payment.” (Read more)
Back home | It’s been absent from Leighton House Museum for a century, but a major painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema is back where it was originally displayed thanks to a $1 million fundraising campaign. In My Studio has been reinstalled in the exact location that Leighton chose for it when he received it as a gift in 1893. The acquisition from US private collectors was aided by Art Fund. (Read more)
News from around the world
Netherlands | Amsterdam’s Hermitage museum is cutting the final remaining tie to its St. Petersburg partner by renaming itself. From September, it will be known as H’ART Museum (terrible name) and follows the cutting of links following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s also announced new partnerships with the British Museum, Centre Pompidou and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to fill its galleries. (Read more)
Ireland | The Irish government has announced a new expert committee will prepare national guidelines for institutions in how to handle items of unknown provenance in collections, and to advise government policy on restitution and repatriation. Committee members will include museum workers, members of the civil service, legal and ethical experts and members of claimant communities. (Read more)
Spain | Madrid has opened its long-awaited multi-million-dollar gallery that brings together masterpieces from the royal collection. The new Royal Collections Gallery has united works by Caravaggio, Velazquez and Goya under one roof after previously being dispersed across the country. It’s hoped the £146 million venue will boost tourism revenues. (Read more)
USA | Activists have staged a demonstration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to protest against what they say are excessive charges handed to two climate protesters who attacked an Edgar Degas work in Washington DC earlier this year, and who now face up to five years in prison. 20 activists staged a demonstration around a bronze edition of the same work in the NYC museum to argue there is suppression facing climate activists. (Read more)
Best of the rest
🔗 The Wellcome Collection and the charity behind it is thinking of moving from its current home as its building doesn’t allow it to hit net-zero targets.
🔗 Online art platform Artsy has axed 15 percent of its workforce blaming economic headwinds which was “pushing profitability out of reach.”
🔗 Architect and artist David Adjaye has unveiled his first-ever permanent public sculpture, outside the Griot Museum of Black History in Missouri.
🔗 The Harvard Art Museums have scrapped their admission fees permanently. Before this decision, the venues were outliers as rare paid-for university museums.
🔗 Rumours had circulated that an image of drumming rodents that appeared in Glasgow was a Banksy. Now two street artists have revealed they were behind the hoax.
🔗 Places of worship should look to museums and galleries to see how they’ve embraced digital technologies to allow them to engage visitors on a deeper level. Here are some ideas.*
*This is sponsored content
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