Art Resources

ShContemporary on Solid Footing, Despite Setbacks

Author: Andrew Yang

SHANGHAI—Even ShContemporary's new director, Colin Chinnery, says he was surprised at how well this year’s fair went off. After all, there were plenty of factors working against the Sept. 10–13 show, such as the economy, the recent departure of founding director Lorenzo Rudolf, competition from the sprightly and young Hong Kong fair Art HK, and the specter of last year’s rather moribund edition still giving dealers and buyers pause.

One of the major objectives for this year’s edition, Chinnery says, was simply adjusting people’s expectations, which were overblown by the exploding Chinese art market before being squashed by the recession. “The expectations are different now than before,” he said, “but they are based on solid reality. The hyper-commercial or expensive work is nowhere to be seen. There are a lot more experimental works, lots of younger work. People are going to realize that art doesn’t appreciate 100 times in five years.”

To give ShContemporary new energy, Chinnery, formerly of Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, reorganized the show with a revamped collector’s program, along with a curated portion put together by Anton Vidokle, Mami Kotaoka, and Wang Jianwei. While last year’s curated section focused on undiscovered artists from Asia, this year’s, titled “Discoveries,” had no regional boundaries and pulled in works from Anri Sala, Martha Rosler, and Marina Abramovic from such high-profile international galleries as Marian Goodman (New York and Paris), Christian Nagel (Cologne and Berlin), Sean Kelly (New York), and PMK (Seoul and Beijing). For the conference program, the curators were able to draw such speakers as critic Hal Foster, artist Martha Rosler, and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, who all lent the fair some much-needed critical heft.

One notable absence was that of Shanghai gallerist and social doyenne Pearl Lam, who in past years has almost single-handedly shepherded the fair’s collectors program. Her nightly dinners during the event — including one extravagant, 250-person affair each year — were always the most coveted invitations. This year, her absence — and the lack of openings at any of her four Contrasts galleries in the city — was strongly felt.

To make up for that loss, the fair mounted an ambitious Collectors Development Program, which hosted a major dinner at the Swissôtel in addition to organizing talks and programs that were geared toward attracting visitors. Some notable events outside of the fair included a show of Chinese and Belgian art, “Fantastic Illusions,” at the Museum of Contemporary Art and another show, “Stolen Treasures From Modern China,” which featured work by Zhou Tiehai, at ShangART’s new space in the Dunhill Villas, a pair of gorgeous 1930s mansions that the Richemont Group renovated as homes for two its brands, Dunhill and Constantin Vacheron. Still, there was a slight reduction in the number of events overall, although some people enjoyed the more relaxed tone.

In terms of the sales, ShContemporary seemed to have found a healthy lifeline this year, with firm if not spectacular activity reported, thanks to a strong showing of collectors from such countries as the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea. (The U.S. and Europe, meanwhile, had fewer to show for themselves.)

On fair floor, artworks and prices seemed to be more on the moderate side, with few galleries trotting out really expensive work. A few notable exceptions included Ota Fine Arts of Tokyo, which presented a solo offering of Yayoi Kusama, with works in the $200,000–$320,000 range, and sold on the third day one of her pumpkin sculptures. “We took the opportunity to understand the market for Kusama,” said Yoshiko Kogi, assistant curator at Ota. “We see potential in China.” Curiously, the gallery had sold mostly to female collectors from the Philippines and Taiwan.

Artists and academics fight animal rights activists in Supreme Court

Author: Martha Lufkin

Anti-censorship group believes law against images of cruelty limits artistic freedoms

BOSTON. US museums, art history departments and artists have joined together to fight a federal law which makes it illegal to sell depictions of cruelty to animals, arguing in the Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional.

Although the law is ten years old, the first prosecution—of Robert Stevens, a Virginia man who sold videos of fighting pit bull terriers—was in 2004. He was sentenced to 37 months in prison, but the case has dragged through a series of appeals. The cultural lobby fears that if the Supreme Court upholds the conviction, the law could render works by artists such as Adel Abdessemed and Hermann Nitsch illegal. In April, the Supreme Court decided to review the federal law. The first hearing will be next month, starting on 6 October.

"Basketball Diaries" author Jim Carroll dies

Author: Chris Michaud

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Punk-rock poet and musician Jim Carroll, who chronicled his wild teen years in "The Basketball Diaries," has died of a heart attack, his ex-wife told The New York Times.

Rosemary Klemfuss, who was married to Carroll in 1978 before they divorced in the mid-1980s, said he died on Friday at his Manhattan home. He was 60, the newspaper said on Sunday, although other biographical profiles listed his age as 59.

Carroll's most famous work, "The Basketball Diaries," was published in 1978. In it, he wrote of his wild youth as both a basketball star and a drug abuser during his teen years at Manhattan's private Trinity school, was made into a 1995 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Pioneering punk-rock singer Patti Smith told the newspaper "I met him in 1970, and already he was pretty much universally recognized as the best poet of his generation."

"The work was sophisticated and elegant," said Smith, who helped usher Carroll into a music career that included songs such as "People Who Died" and "Catholic Boy."

Carroll also worked with rockers from Lou Reed and The Doors to Pearl Jam and Rancid.

Thomas Campbell: “I am who I am. I’m not going to adopt a grand-style persona”

Author: Jason Edward Kaufman

The new director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art speaks in depth on his plans for the first time

new york. When Thomas Campbell was named director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art a year ago this month, the British-born curator became leader of the most important art museum in the western hemisphere, an institution that holds two million objects and attracts more than 4.5 million visitors a year. His predecessor Philippe de Montebello became something of an eminence during 31 years as director, and it was expected that a well-known figure would be chosen to replace him.

The selection of Campbell, 47, a tapestry specialist in the department of European sculpture and decorative arts, was a total surprise. Since joining the Met in 1995 he had organised international loan exhibitions—“Tapestry in the Renaissance” (2002) and “Tapestry in the Baroque” (2007)—that were widely praised for their scholarship and opulence, but he remains somewhat unknown even to many insiders. Since assuming the directorship on 1 January, Campbell has not spoken in depth about his plans for North America’s flagship art museum.

The Art Newspaper: How do you think your leadership of the Met may differ from Philippe de Montebello’s?

Thomas Campbell: I came to the museum because it was an incredibly exciting place to work as a scholar in my field. Philippe was a major contributor to the environment that made it such an exciting place and I have every intention of sustaining and developing the strengths of this institution: maintaining a dynamic exhibition programme, the award-winning publication programme, continuing to acquire masterpieces, but also to expand study collections where it’s appropriate, and continuing to place the emphasis on the encounter of our visitors with the objects, trying to really create the environment for that direct experience without bells and whistles. Will I be introducing change? I guess it’s evolution rather than revolution.

TAN: Will your leadership style be the same as his?

TC: Separate out manner and leadership style. Philippe has a grand manner. He is a very impressive presence, sonorous voiced, multilingual. I am who I am. I’m certainly not going to try and adopt a grand-style persona. That side of my presence I guess will evolve as I become more accustomed to being a spokesperson internally and externally.

In terms of actual leadership style, this institution is quite feudal. We have 17 curatorial departments, many of which are equivalent to medium-size museums. One reason we are a place bursting with ideas and initiatives is that Philippe allowed and encouraged ideas to bubble up through the departments and he was very supportive of initiatives brought to him from his curatorial staff. Having experienced the benefits of that myself, I very much intend to maintain it.

[But] there is a shift in that the economic circumstances have changed totally…Our endowment has dropped precipitously, around 25% [from $2.8bn in June 2008] and that is going to impact the funding we can draw for our operating budget. I’m going to have to be more discriminating in terms of the number of exhibitions we mount, the number of publications we produce.