Beating up photographs / some unlikely geriatrics in cyberspace (Tuesday 16 October 2007)
Serrano gets some unexpected stick
compiled by Solenne Schmit
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This video of art gallery vandalism was posted on YouTube; image held here |
What is it with Swedes, art and trouble? We've reported in previous artnews items on a death threat (here), damaged art (here), and dodgy taxidermy (here). Now we're told that on Friday 5 October, in Kulturen Gallery in Lund, a small town in southern Sweden, an unusual attack happened.
The gallery was displaying an exhibition of photographs, The History of Sex by Andres Serrano, a New York artist famous of old for his Piss Christ image. These photographs from 1995 and 1996, are of various sex acts, including an image of a naked woman fondling a stallion. The show was divided into two rooms, one with white walls, the other black.
On 5 October, four vandals entered Kulturen Gallery and in the black room, where the photographs were a bit racier, they smashed sexually explicit depictions with crowbars and axes while shouting in Swedish "This is art? We don't support this!" The men left behind leaflets reading (without name or organization), "Against decadence and for a healthier culture."
Half the show has been destroyed: seven 50-by-60 inch photographs, some $200,000 worth in all. Though it's not the first time Serrano's work has been attacked physically or in words, the artist is apparently really shocked and horrified by this act. The vandals have not been caught but they are believed to be a part of a neo-nazi group.
Kulturen Gallery will display The History of Sex till December with bolstered security. The attack was filmed with a hand-held camera by someone who ran into the gallery with the vandals. Moreover, this grainy video was posted on YouTube Friday night and the group threatened to attack the show again (video since removed by YouTube).
Museums in cyberspace
compiled by Marthe Leach
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| Screengrab of part of the Myspace page for the Guggenheim Museum; more here |
Online blogging spaces such as Facebook and Myspace were formerly just for college students and disgruntled teens looking to rant about how their parents don't understand them. However, since Facebook opened its doors to all and sundry, and even fifty-year-olds have fully functional Myspace pages, everyone has been jumping on the cyber bandwagon, including museums, galleries, and individual artists.
These websites are now being used as a cheap marketing tool that can access a large community with the click of a mouse. Most are free to sign up for and a member can search through the profiles of hundreds of buisnesses, artists, and venues that have their own pages. Many of these pages identify themselves as if they were people. On Myspace, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, PA is a 79-year-old man who is looking for networking, serious relationships, and friends. The Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon is a 99-year-old woman whoes heroes are every artists in the museum's collection. The Guggenheim in New York is apparently a hefty, single, 70-year-old woman. Even small galleries all around the world have Myspace pages that advertise new shows and events. Ireland seems to be slightly behind on this trend, as no galleries in the country show up in a Myspace search.
Additionally, artists are using blogging sites to augment their visibility. Although many have personal sites as well, Myspace, Flickr, the Saatchi gallery's website, and Circa's own website - through the Young Circa link - provide space to display one's artwork online. Because many websites, such as Facebook, allow anyone to start their own 'group' or post an event which they can then send out 'invites' to, artists and venues can advertise their works or shows to specific people as well as the masses - and they can do it for free. Circa and the Saatchi gallery's sites focus on posting students' portfolios and not on the networking aspects of the other sites, but still provide another space to share art.
But does it work? It does, and surprisingly well. Last spring, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis advertised a Sunn O concert - a band with a large art-orld following - using only cyber means to do so. The concert completely sold out, without having posted a single tangible flyer. It is doubtful that this will eventually be the way in which all art is advertised, but it seems to be working for the moment.
Sources:http://www.facebook.com; http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2366; http://www.myspace.com
Most recent news items:
• Conor Fallon passes / OBG Director sought / snaps (Tuesday 9 October 2007)
• Graffiti and crime / somewhere to park their trolleys (Friday 5 October 2007)
• Keeping what Hopper saw / paintings track dimming (Thursday 4 October 2007)
• Duffy takes over RUA / Dennett to Arts Council and Kelly to VAI / Hirst drips / Fonz in bronze (Friday 28 September 2007)
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