Noted at Bukowski's

A few things worth noting about the results of Bukowski’s Modern Art Auction:

* Lena Cronqvist’s painting The Engagement from 1975 went through the roof, and was sold at more than half a million dollars, almost four times the calling price.

* Ola Billgren’s amazing Sevilla Morning from 1989 sold for double the calling price. Well deserved, in my opinion.

* This painting by Lucio Fontana was expected to break the record for highest selling price for a modern painting in Sweden, but apparently no one would cough up the one million dollars required to buy it.

Almost not words

If you are not already reading Art Fag City on a daily basis you are missing out on the best available information about the Chelsea gallery hot spots in New York. Today it inlcludes an interesting comment on fascinating artist and conceptualist Ed Ruscha. The artist himself explains his work: "They are almost not words, they are objects that become words."

Theory as Art

Antoher one of those hard-to-avoid Scandinavian artists is Lars Vilks. Though his level of international success has been no better than moderate, he remains an important figure, primarily on the Swedish art scene.

Vilks is unfortunately rather inaccessible unless you read Swedish, since a lot of his impact – not to say most of his impact – has been as a critic and a theorist. His essays and texts, published in abundance on vilks.net, are very much art in their own right – theory as art, so to speak. As a theorist he has one of the sharpest minds and wittiest pens. His How To Become A Contemporary Artist In Three Days is already a classic.

His most important work of art with a physical manifestation is Nimis, a collection of driftwood made into a strange construction with a hammer and nails. Vilks started building Nimis in 1980 and it continues to develop with each year.

Dan Flavin rocks!

Buy yourself this stunning work of art from the brilliant minimalist Dan Flavin. That is if you can cough up the expected 150.000-200.000 dollars, of course...

Please note that the piece was previously owned by Donald Judd, which makes it super-extra-cool. I just wish I was a millionaire.

The Magician

I mostly try to avoid writing about the real big shot artists on this blog, mainly because I rarely have anything to add to all that has already been said about them, but there is simply no way to write about contemporary Scandinavian art and avoid the magician of light, mist and colour, also known as Olafur Eliasson.

At Artfacts he is ranked among the top 50 artists of the world, above even Richard Serra and Cézanne. As a comparison, the highest ranking Swedish artist, Ann-Sofie Sidén, only reaches place no 458 on the same chart.

His art has grown increasingly monumental in recent years, with the Weather Project at Tate Modern in 2004 as a sort of end to all installations statement. The huge sun floating in mid air in the gigantic turbine hall was very literarily created with smoke and mirrors, and the mist in the hall even formed into cloud like shapes from the temperature changes.

But what really sets him apart from other artists making light installations is the way he incorporates the audience in his work. One commentator noted that people visiting the Weather Project often lied down on the floor, gazing up at themselves in the mirrors in the ceiling. Sometimes they banded together in small groups, forming signs and words (often naughty words, mind you…).

This is true for other works too. While visiting his exhibition in Århus this commentator found himself walking back and forth trough his Yellow Corridor just to look at how beautiful the other visitors became in the manipulated light.

Falling Down

Carl Hammoud has an almost manic obsession with details. His paintings sometimes remind me of the surrealists of the 1920s, but also of the American sentimentalists like Edward Hopper. The pictures are somehow busy and quiet at the same time.

And the colours… what can be said about those colours? On commentator suggested that they are "Disney-like", but to me they look like realism with a twist. Like if they were painted by Peter Tillberg with coloured shades on him. Whatever you say about the colours in Hammoud’s paintings, subtle they are not. They are as important to the visual expression of his work as ever the actual content.

Born in 1976 he is still a very young artist. That being said some of the most interesting questions are raised by the way his art has developed over the last few years. From the clear cold light and almost neon colours of, for example, his painting b (by the) from 2003, to a much darker world falling apart at the seems in The Spirit of Enterprise from 2005, leaving only ruins left in the recently produced Epilouge.

What is happening here? Is the artist falling apart, or is he saying that the world is falling apart. Is art falling apart? If so, what is next?

Sorry about the dog stuff!

I have to appologize to any feed readers for a few strange posts in the last few weeks. Either you think I'm crazy because you read Swedish, or you just scratched your head... I'll try to remember what login I'm on before posting extra cute puppy stories in Swedish on this blog again.

Getting Better All The Time

Street art is moving up a notch with each passing month right now. A few brilliant additions are Banksy and a Pick Axe from London, Plant More Native from New Zealand and Jesus Christ Superstars from Sweden.

All links are courtesy of the Wooster Collective.

Knitted Intestines

Perhaps this is more handicraft than art, but it's still one of the strangest things produced by human hands.

More money for Moderna?

The director of Moderna, Lars Nittve, is now asking for 50 million Swedish kronors (about 7-8 million dollars) in extra funding from the government. The money is to be used to buy art made by modern female artists, like Frida Kahlo, Joan Mitchell and Eva Hesse (here’s the entire wish list).

The initial response from the Ministry of Culture and Education has been vaguely positive to the effort from the museum to make a more complete collection, though carefully avoiding to promise any money.

Some criticism has come from a feminist direction about the fact that Moderna’s collections in their entirety is worth nearly one billion kronors and that it would be more proper to "sell off some surplus male art" and make use of that money instead of asking for more funds. The wittiest of the daily news culture commentators, at Aftonbladet, claims to be "…fine with that. Just don’t sell the goat." – referring to Rauschenberg’s Monogram.

Art news roundup

Last week was lazy for me, but apparantly pretty busy for the Scandinavian art scene.

Two of the big auction houses opened their modern art exhibitions. At Stockholms Auktionsverk the list of art perfectly in line with the current preferences of good taste is so long it makes me sick. Don’t get me wrong! There is an abundance of great Scandinavian art here, but when you put it all together like this and put it up for sale it looks an awful lot like a luxury yacht fair. Bukowski’s auction is even worse. - Look mommy, another Carl Kylberg going for $100.000!

And in other news Maria Lind once again fails to identify the root of the "crisis of Swedish art". As usual she isn’t actually wrong about anything specific, it’s just so cliché that it’s hard to identify what is actually being said here. I’ll try to get back to this issue promptly, since the questions raised in the article opens for some important discussions.

Oh... and I happened to find the only predominantly positive review of Louisiana’s big Baseltiz exhibition on omkonst.com. Well, it isn’t really that positive, but at least it states that even though there’s nothing radical about his art Baselitz "is still a damn good painter". And that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard anyone say about him since the exhibition opened.

The Easter Bunny says: Buh bye!

I'm taking some time off now. I'll be back after the Easter holiday.

Mind Over Body

I have a hard time with video installations. They are often badly manufactured and stereotypical. This is defiantly not the case with Lars Siltberg’s art. I do feel that his videos are sometimes a bit shallow in their concepts, but the brilliant finish more than well makes up for that.

The picture featured in this post is a still from his Single Head. Through very believable special effects the artist has created the illusion of a detached head trying to move across the grovel using only it’s mouth. Even more gruesome is the Alien like effects of Bowel Fountain.

At times Siltberg gets lost in the virtuosity of his own craftsmanship, and the train of thought gets lost in the process, but it looks so damn cool that I’m willing to forgive him almost anything.

Truthspeaker

Tyler Green explains why chosing Felix Gonzales Torrez to represent the US at the Venice Biennale is an important statement. A society that can't handle dissent is a society gone bad.

Life is a Roller Coaster

Very post modern. Very pretty. Illka Halso works with digitally manipulated photos depicting possible - though not always plausible - constructions situated in almost archetypical nature environments.

At first glance the questions concerning the nature of human civilization are the most obvious. Is society going down a path leading to environmental destruction to the degree of making museums of the last remaining forests, lakes and grasslands? At a deeper level Halso also seems to examine the foundations of what we consider to be "natural" and what kind of impact the human experience has to that concept. There is also a metadiscussion about photography and realism taking place.

Instead of an analysis of Realism

I sometimes envy the more professional art bloggers for the time and dedication they put into their blogs. I’m currently working more than full time as a Web Editor, and on top of that I do some free lance writing and I’m sitting on a couple of boards. I simply lack the time I would need to do the interviews I’d like to publish here, and the in depth analysis becomes short sarcastic comments instead.

I would really like to gather my thoughts on realism in art, for example. I know that I have an unhealthy obsession with beauty, but I do feel the need for art to examine reality by seeing and interpreting. But what is realism, as opposed to for example a conceptual examination of perception? And what makes it tick?

Is representation at the core a morality in itself, as can be seen in the art of Lucian Freud or Leonard McComb – the later of the two phrased it "In art it is easy to be personal; the real problem is to speak to strangers." - or is it an interactive examination where the artist try to figure out cause and effect? Is it a selective process, or - as the American photorealists would insist - purely mechanical?

And then there is the whole issue of beauty and dreams, and that of political vision. In January I made this post about up and coming painter Kris Knight. Since then I’ve learned a little more about him and come to realize that he might not be as much of a realist as my first impression made me think. But the featured painting still represents a branch of realism that is interested not only in what can be seen, but also what can be felt, asked and known about the subject. Perhaps even what can be done.

To further complicate the issue we have the problem of realist aesthetics. There are obviously trends dictating how a realist painting “should look”. But what happens if it looks right, but isn’t at all representative, as I believe is the case with the Swedish young painter Anna Finney’s art?

Some time I’ll really try to get to the bottom of at least one or two of these issues, but until then you will have to come up with your own answers.

You have to read this!

After reading this brilliant article about moronic all female art shows, over at Militant Art Bitch I almost feel like never reading any other art blog again. There's simply nothing to add to something like this:

I'm sorry if you and/or your friends are in any of these shows, but have some fucking integrity already. I don't care how much exposure you might need. Do not agree to be in a show called Little Women. Ever. Even if you live to be 95 and you never get a goddamn show.

One more time: you have to read this!

Nice Public Art

The Public Chair project is a nice piece of public art from Mathias Ries in New York. It's almost a year old, but hasn't stirred much attention, so I don't feel that stupid for not noticing before.

Also, the masters of public art, Rebar, recently announced their latest project Encanment. Starting May 19th they will begin canning parts of the Southern Exposure gallery in San Francisco. They will harvest parts of the wall, put it in metal cans, and sell them.

I Have My Poetry to Protect Me

This article about young artist Alex McQuilkin goes to show at least two things: 1. Just because it’s made by a woman - and just because it deals with sexuality and identity - it isn’t necessarily feminist art. 2. Just because the pictorial language is overwhelming to the viewer, it doesn’t mean that there is something important at stake.

From what I’ve seen I find McQuilkin’s art to be stereotypical, narcissistic and rather manipulative - the two later qualities enhancing the first, making it meta stereotypical, if there’s even such a concept?

Even more disturbing than the art is Ana Finel Honigan’s patronizing questions. It’s as if she hasn’t even bothered to grant McQuilkin the respect of a critical review:

AFH: What do you miss most about adolescence?
AM: I miss believing in things. I don’t miss the intensity; I miss really having faith in something. I miss believing something like rock stars will make things happen. I miss the inexplicable, naïve belief that. . .
AFH: Kurt Cobain will change everything?
AM: Exactly.

Exactly.

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Edit: I think I have to balance this post a little. McQuilkin certainly knows what she's doing, and does it fairly will in some pieces. I just don't like the approach. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's all crap.

Monthly Clean Up

It's that time of the month again. The Art, in the left column, has been replace with the following:

Since there's been a Michelangelo craze going around the web following the big British exhibition I had to add something by him - The Separation of Light from Darkness.

I've always been a great fan of American Gothic, by Grant Wood. It has a certain ghostliness to it, despite the realist approach to painting.

Ronald Moran is everyone's darling since his appearance at Pulse. And I have to agree. It's smart, it looks good, and it's a new twist to the old wrap-things-up-in-strange-materials-thing. Approach is perhaps not his best piece, but I had a hard time finding decent pictures on the web for this one.

The Music is also new this month. I really recommend listening to the first song by Jeffrey Foucault. It's not just a short sample, but the full song, which I hope he will forgive me for hotlinking from his web site.