DARA BIRNBAUM

Dara Birnbaum (1946), is a pioneering video artist and subject of a pivotal retrospective next month at SMAK in Ghent, Belgium. An architect and urban planner by training, Birnbaum began using video in 1978 while teaching at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where she worked with Dan Graham. Recognized as one of the first video artists to employ the appropriation of television images as a subversive strategy, Birnbaum recontextualizes pop cultural icons (Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, 1978-79), and TV genres (Kiss the Girls: Make them Cry, 1979) to reveal their subtexts. Birnbaum describes her tapes as new "ready-mades" for the late 20th century—works that "manipulate a medium which is itself highly manipulative." "I initially avoided galleries like the plague. I didn't want to translate popular imagery from television and film into painting and photography. I wanted to use video on video; I wanted to use television on television." Dara Birnbaum

FACTUALITY #4

FIFTY ARTISTS FROM TWENTY-FIVE COUNTRIES-ALL BORN AFTER 1976-WILL EXHIBIT SOME ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY WORKS IN THE NEW MUSEUM'S MUCH ANTICIPATED INAUGURAL TRIENNIAL, "YOUNGER THAN JESUS."
APRIL 8-JUNE 14

GOLDLESS

The Los Angeles-based conceptual artist Chris Burden is known for topicality. During the Vietnam War, he had a friend shoot him in the arm with a .22-calibre rifle. After Watergate, he bought airtime on local TV and, he says, “became the first artist to make a full public financial disclosure” (net income: a thousand and fifty-four dollars). In keeping with the current economic mood, he recently started planning a show about weights and measures and the real value of things. For one of the pieces, he told his art dealer, Larry Gagosian, that he would need a hundred one-kilo bars of pure gold. The gallery looked into renting the gold (for two previous exhibitions of the piece, in museums, it had come on loan from banks),but in the end Gagosian decided to buy it, for around three million dollars, from Stanford Coins & Bullion, in Houston. The gallery wired the money in early February, and, for security reasons, requested that shipment be delayed until just before the opening. Two weeks later, R. Allen Stanford, the cricket-loving financier who owns the bullion company, was charged by the S.E.C. with an alleged eight-billion-dollar fraud, and all of Stanford’s assets were placed in receivership by court order. There is no word yet on when or if Gagosian will get his gold. The show, “One Ton One Kilo,” was scheduled to open at the Beverly Hills branch of Gagosian on the first Saturday in March. That morning, there was a sign taped to the gallery’s door: party cancelled, show indefinitely postponed. Burden was inside: a compact, thickset man in his early sixties, wearing a no-nonsense blue button-down, and looking a little stunned. He paced around the base of a 1964 Ford farm truck painted the color of grocery-store pumpkin pie, on which was mounted a crane holding a two-thousand-pound block of cast iron: “One Ton.” (Burden lives in Topanga Canyon, and maintains a fleet that includes a fire truck, a forklift, a brush-chipper, and a bulldozer; the Ford was one of his own.) Even he, the master of the high-art gag, was having a hard time coming to terms with what had just happened. “This is such a simple trade,” he said. “I have six goats and you have two gold coins. It’s five thousand years ago, and I say, ‘Can we make a deal?’ It’s the most traditional, conservative transaction. That it can go wrong is kind of shocking.” Burden climbed a short flight of stairs to a second-floor gallery. In the center of the room stood a glass vitrine on a black pedestal, like the aftermath of a magic trick. The gold was to have been arranged inside, in the form of a low ziggurat, and illuminated with a spotlight. (The room would have been dark.) “The empty case, waiting!” he said, shaking his head. The idea of working with gold bars first occurred to Burden in the seventies, during another prolonged economic downturn. Back then, he envisaged a sculpture consisting of four gold bars, watched over by a security guard. “I figured most people would think I was putting the guard there to make them think it was real when it was fake,” he said. “The point was to make people think you were faking when it was actually real gold.” Commodities fraud, in reverse. One of the things that fascinated Burden about gold was its fluctuating value. Case in point: not long after Gagosian struck his deal with Stanford, investors, panicked by the falling stock market, made a so-called “flight to safety,” driving up the price of gold. “I got a call from a curator friend, who ran into Larry,” Burden said. “He said, ‘Larry loves you! He just made two to three hundred thousand dollars on the gold he bought you.’ ” (In the weeks since Gagosian had placed the order, the price of gold had risen about ten per cent.) The volatility made pricing the sculpture risky. The gallery settled on five million dollars, but, Burden said, “I told them, ‘You should be very careful. If during the exhibition the price of gold doubles, you’ll be selling six million dollars’ worth of gold for five million dollars. I’ll sign up to buy that right away.’”Burden gazed at the case. “I don’t know,” he said. “Is it going to be here next week, or the week after, or never?” He mentioned that the golden ziggurat would be surrounded by tiny figures made from paper matches, which he called “a symbol of the transience of human life versus the lasting power of gold.” They were being stored in a balsa-wood cake box, which he opened. Some were dancing; others saluted or stood guard with straight-pin swords drawn. One was on its knees, cardboard hands clutching a red match-tip head. Burden held it up. “Mamma mia, right?” he said. “We should put this one in the case.”
Dana Goodyear
The New Yorker, March, 2009

Shepard Fairey’s Obama Poster Wins 2009 Brit Insurance Design of the Year

The “Hope” series of Barack Obama campaign posters, created by Shepard Fairey, was voted winner of the Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2009 contest organized by London’s Design Museum, reports Bloomberg’s Farah Nayeri. The poster beat ninety runners-up. The panel judges said in an emailed release today that the poster “breathed new life into a form that had lost its purpose,” and that it “came not from a marketing campaign, but as a self-initiated fundraising campaign.” Fairey, the poster’s designer, is being sued by the Associated Press over claims that the stylized image copied an AP photograph. The complaint was filed earlier this month in federal court in New York.

THE WORLD OF ANDY WARHOL

(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Paris Grand Palais

A large exhibition of Andy Warhol's iconic celebrity portraits and commissioned canvases has opened at the Grand Palais in Paris through July 13th. will be presented Warhol produced an estimated 1,000 portraits, the majority of them commissions. "He used to say, 'I have to pay the rent; I have to bring home the bacon,'" says the exhibit's curator, Alain Cueff. Most of the portraits are 40 inches by 40 inches: “They have to be the same size,” Warhol insisted, “so that they all fit together and make one big painting called Portraits of Society.” The society that emerges at the Grand Palais looks suspiciously like the one you would have found in glossy magazines of the period. The show arranges the portraits of some 130 subjects by profession, so Mick Jagger, his famous lips a delicate baby pink, shares a room with Blondie's Debbie Harry. There is a portrait of a green-faced Richard Nixon, interspersed among the Maos, a 1972 series of paintings of the Chinese leader that includes a monumental-size canvas in blue and military drab. The hall dedicated to movie stars brings together portraits of Marlon Brando — made from a still from his 1953 motorcycle movie "The Wild One" — Dennis Hopper, Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda and Sylvester Stallone. A 1974 portrait of Brigitte Bardot was commissioned by her husband of three years, German playboy, Gunther Sachs, who also had himself painted, Cueff said. "I always thought of it as gesture of gentlemanliness and panache, giving them to her after their separation," Cueff said. "But in fact, he didn't give them to her at all. He kept them." In 1985, movie star Lana Turner commissioned a pair of portraits in a bid to jump-start her lagging career. The exhibition catalog quotes Warhol as complaining about the difficulty of "transforming a 60-year-old woman into a 25-year-old girl." Warhol's iconic, 1962 portraits of Marilyn Monroe smile out from another wall. "Twenty Marilyns" shows the same image with similar coloring repeated over and over, like on book of stamps. Warhol was fascinated with Monroe and had collected images of her. After her 1962 suicide, he chose one to paint, with dead eyes and a pasted-on smile that convey her inner sadness. It was Monroe paintings that launched Warhol into the lucrative business of commissioned portraits. Upon seeing the Marilyns, New York cab company owner and art collector Robert Scull thought of having his wife done, Cueff said. The result, "Ethel Scull 36 Times," features three dozen photo booth pictures of Ethel Scull — laughing, pursing her lips, donning sunglasses — in a rainbow of colors. By the early 1970s, Warhol's atelier, known as the Factory, had developed a systematic technique for mass producing the portraits. The process started with Polaroid Big Shot camera snapshots, often taken by assistants. The chosen image was then transferred to a large-scale sheet of acetate, which Warhol used as a guide in painting the canvas. Finally, he silkscreened over the color-blocked canvas, a process he developed as a commercial photographer. Warhol charged $25,000 for the first painting and another $15,000 for every additional canvas. Most subjects bought diptychs. One client, wealthy Colorado businessman John Powers, bought 25 paintings of his Japanese-born wife, Kimiko, wearing a kimono. People tend to think of Warhol, a fixture of New York's party scene, as "someone frivolous, superficial," said Cueff. "But when you look at these portraits, it's impossible not to see his humanity, his generosity in the way he treats his subjects." Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent’s heir, canceled a loan of four portraits of his late partner after he learned that they would share a wall with pictures of other fashion designers. He insisted on the portraits being hung in the artists’ section. Not all of the 130 portraits at the Grand Palais are grouped by profession. Among the artists, you find Man Ray, David Hockney, Joseph Beuys and Keith Haring; among the show- business people there are Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Mick Jagger and Sylvester Stallone. There are art dealers, collectors, politicians and jet-set glitterati such as Princess Diana and Princess Caroline of Monaco. After the success of the Mao pictures -- some of which are in the show -- there was no lack of candidates who yearned for stardom to be conferred by the man with the silver wig. In the 1970s and 1980s, up to his sudden death in 1987, Warhol churned out some 1,000 portraits. Alain Cueff, the curator of the exhibition, thinks that Warhol was inspired by the icons of the Orthodox Eastern Church. Cueff also likens Warhol to a plastic surgeon: Each of the sitters could be certain that he or she would look more glamorous on canvas than they were in real life. Some critics argue that Warhol was parodying the U.S. cult of celebrity the better to deflate it. The gushing tone of “Interview” -- his gossip magazine, 40 covers of which are on view at the Grand Palais -- tells a different story. In the last room, you find a couple of morbid paintings that have nothing to do with the portraits -- skulls and the electric chair from Sing Sing prison in upstate New York. Are they hinting at some dark mystery surrounding Warhol’s death? Paul Warhola, Andy's brother, has suggested to people that he believed his brother had been murdered.

LET THEM DRINK WINE

Bruce Nauman with U.S. Commissioner Carlos Basualdo at the U.S. Pavilion, Venice, Italy in June, 2008. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art © Michele Lamanna 2008.

Carol Vogel reports from the New York Times that officials at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, commissioners of the United States pavilion at the Venice Biennale this year, are scrambling to raise the money to cover the costs of their ambitious Bruce Nauman exhibition. Last week the museum sent out a letter to a group of national and international contemporary-art collectors asking for help. Donors were invited to join Friends of Bruce Nauman and, as with museum memberships, receive special perks depending on the amount of the contribution. A check for $5,000, for instance, will be reciprocated with an invitation for two to drinks on June 5 and a free exhibition catalog. “There’s no question this is an ambitious project to do in a challenging economic climate,” said Gail Harrity, the museum’s interim chief executive, who estimated the cost of the exhibition at $1.8 million. “We’re 80 percent of the way there, and I’m encouraged and hopeful that we will close the gap soon.” The plan for the show, “Bruce Nauman: Topological Garden,” is particularly large in scale. Besides the national pavilion, which will survey four decades of his work, including video, installation, performance, and neon pieces, there will be two versions of a new sound installation by Nauman that is too big to fit in the pavilion. One will be on view in the Università Iuav di Venezia at Tolentini and the other on two floors of a fifteenth-century gothic palace that houses the Università Ca’ Foscari. Harrity said there were no plans to truncate the show if the needed funds were not raised. In addition to individual donors, she said, the project has received support from the Pew Charitable Trust, the Henry Luce Foundation, the State Department and the Philadelphia Museum’s home state, Pennsylvania.

YVON LAMBERT TO CLOSE NEW LONDON GALLERY

Art dealer Yvon Lambert, who has galleries in Paris, New York and London, will close his London gallery at the end of March reports Bloomberg News. It’s the first major gallery to close in London as the global art market slows. “In this period of tightening of the market what you want is to consolidate what is crucial for you,” said Olivier Belot, general director at Yvon Lambert. “Paris and New York are the two crucial centers for the gallery.” The renovated 7,000-square-foot London industrial building opened during the Frieze Art Fair last October in London’s Hoxton Square. Half a dozen smaller New York galleries have folded since October, when the art market started to slow, and large galleries such as PaceWildenstein and Matthew Marks have let staff go to cut costs. Belot said the gallery chose to locate in London because of its fantastic museums, important art curators and access to new collectors from Russia, as well as, the financial sector. “The timing was very bad,” Belot said. "Also, producing ambitious exhibitions for three outlets has become extremely expensive."

COHEN'S EXHIBITION "WOMEN"

Willem de Kooning’s painting “Woman III,” from 1952-53.

SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK
April 2-14, 2009

The hedge-fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen. and his wife, Alexandra, for the past decade, have been among the highest profile collectors in the art world. They have bought works like Damien Hirst’s “Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,” the 14-foot tiger shark submerged in a tank of formaldehyde, for $8 million, and de Kooning’s seminal painting “Woman III,” which Mr. Cohen bought privately in 2006 from the entertainment mogul David Geffen for a reported $137.5 million. Although Mr. Cohen has lent works to museums occasionally (the shark is on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art), most of his collection has never been publicly exhibited. But next month Sotheby’s will show a group of 20 works that the couple have collected over the past decade. The exhibition, from April 2 to 14, is a carefully selected group of paintings, sculptures, works on paper and photographs that all depict women. The idea for the theme show arose one recent evening during a dinner at the Cohens’ home. Tobias Meyer of Sotheby's recalls sitting in the dining room staring at “Le Repos,” Picasso’s 1932 depiction of his wife Olga (a canvas Mr. Cohen bought at Christie’s in 2006 for $34.7 million) while in the background he could see Warhol’s 1964 “Turquoise Marilyn” hanging over the living-room fireplace. Mr. Cohen was quick to add that nothing was for sale. “This is not a way of selling my pictures,” Mr. Cohen emphasized. The earliest work in the show will be van Gogh’s “Peasant Girl With Yellow Straw Hat” (1890), which Mr. Cohen bought from the Las Vegas casino owner Stephen A. Wynn in 2005. It also includes two Matisse sculptures, three Picassos paintings, a Modigliani canvas, Edvard Munch’s Madonna, an early Rauschenberg blueprint and a Lucian Freud painting, and Pablo Picasso’s Le Repos along with examples by contemporary artists, like Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman.

Robert Mangold X, Plus and Frame Paintings Works from the 1980s

All images © 2009 Robert Mangold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / DACS, London

Parasol unit
Foundation for contemporary art
London
February 24 – May 8, 2009

Parasol unit is presenting a new exhibition by American artist Robert Mangold. The exhibition will concentrate on three dynamic groups of painting that Mangold executed between 1980 and 1986, entitled X, Plus and Frame Painting series. These outstanding and rarely exhibited works continue to express Mangold’s central concern in painting, namely the relationship between plane and figure and mark a pivotal point in his artistic career. The x and + series', as their titles suggest, refer to mathematical operations. Their overall shape is composed of several rectangular and square canvases of varying lengths and widths put together according to specific rules. In each case a hand drawn x or + in pencil forms the figure that moves the eyes from the center to the edges of the work. Of particular importance is Mangold’s use of vivid and intense color combination which highlights the interplay of scale and perception. The concept is taken one step further in Mangold’s Frame Paintings, in which usually four, but in a few cases three, rectangular canvases are arranged to form a frame. An irregular hand-drawn ellipse in pencil runs across the surface of the paintings touches variably the inner corners of the frame or the inner and outer edges of the rectangles. One of the most significant elements of these works is the relationship between the work and the gallery wall, which is encapsulated by the frame, but also surrounds the work, creating a three-dimensional space that resonates with the works of some of Mangold’s contemporaries, such as Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt.

Robert Mangold (b.1937) held his first solo show in 1964 and since then he has exhibited extensively internationally. Solo exhibitions include Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1971; Kunsthalle, Basel in 1977 and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1982. Mangold has exhibited as part of group exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York; Grand Palais, Paris; and Kunsthaus, Zurich. His work has been exhibited at both Documenta (1972, 1977, 1982) and the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial (1979, 1983, 1985), and at the Venice Biennale in 1993. His work is held in collections worldwide including Tate, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. This is his first solo exhibition in a British institution.

This exhibition will be accompanied by a new publication on the artist's work, co-published by Parasol unit and Koenig Books, London.

Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait: Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno:

Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno
Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait, 2006
Palomar Pictures & Anna Lena Films

PLUG IN # 48
ZIDANE, A 21st CENTURY PORTRAIT
VAN ABBEMUSEUM
Eindhoven - The Netherlands
02/28/09 - ongoing

On February 28, 2009, the Van Abbemuseum opened the installation Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait by the artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, episode #48 of Plug In. Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait (2006), is a portrait on film of Zinédine Zidane, one of the most famous soccer players in the world. During a match between Spanish football club Real Madrid (for whom Zidane played at the time) and Villarreal F.C. in Madrid on April 23, 2005, 17 synchronised cameras were focused on Zidane. The 2-channel video installation at the Van Abbemuseum has the same duration as the football match and consists of two video screens, one showing the edited version of the match, the other a synchronized edit of the footage from the cameras that were focused on Zidane. Viewers will be plunged into all facets of the universe of an athlete in action and will have the sensation of 'moving alongside' Zidane throughout the entire game. Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait, produced by Palomar Pictures and Anna Lena Films, was shown at the Cannes film festival in 2006, which is rather unusual for a work of art. The music for the film was composed by Mogwai, the international rock band from Glasgow.
For the artists it was in many ways Zidane's personality that made the portrait necessary. The elegance of his game and his charisma made the decision for the two artists slash football fans an obvious one. The video made by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno is a unique collaboration of two artists in creating this portrait. Throughout the history of art, artists have painted portraits because it was the most direct way of depicting humanity. A portrait brings to life moments in time. Inspired by the film portraits made by Andy Warhol in the 1960's, the artists chose film as their medium. "Photography and film correspond to the attempts in our time to depict the face of humanity on the scale of time. Our lives take place within a protocol of time. It was for this reason in particular that we chose to create a portrait using cameras instead of canvas or paper. While drawing and painting create two-dimensional works, a portrait on film inexorably becomes a multidimensional work. You see things in this film you never see on TV, like his hands, his gestures. That comes from painting techniques: watching out for gestures, moving fingers. These things offer us information about a person." For Zidane, the portrait was a unique opportunity to have a game commemorated for all time. He is very satisfied with the result "I recognize myself, it's really me, and that's exactly what I live every Sunday. With more emotion in some parts and less in others. That's it. All I hope now is that the film captivates the public the way it captivated me."

THE ARMORY SHOW, NYC

The Armory Show this past weekend in New York City has reported that there is still life in the art scene.  The show surpassed expectations, especially in this depressed art market, with a report of solid sales and better attendance than last year. At the invitation only opening day, March 4th, sales were happening. Within the first hour transactions ranged from a Sigmar Polke selling for $340,000, a Tom Wesselman selling for $40,000  and a Louise Bourgeois selling for $ 1 million. And to encourage us even more.....some booths sold out their entire contents. Reports say that most sales occurred during the first day but steady sales continued through the entire fair. As reported in Bloomberg, Warren Eisenberg, co-chairman of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc, stated, “We are probably going to buy fewer pieces this year than we did last year. It’s like an alcoholic who says he’s stopped drinking.” Could this be an indication that the art market carries on??? Let's hope so.
Barbara Fosco

THE SAGA CONTINUES: CHINESE BRONZE BIDDER HAS ONE MONTH TO PAY

Artforum reports that Agence France-Presse and Le Monde deliverd an update on the fate of the two Chinese bronzes, which were not quite sold at Christie’s Yves Saint Laurent/Pierre Bergé auction at the Grand Palais in Paris. The successful Chinese bidder, collector and auction-house owner Cai Mingchao, initially refused to pay for the works. His press conference, shared with a rep from the National Heritage Fund of China, suggested that Cai and the semigovernmental agency had worked together to sabotage the auction. According to Le Monde’s Harry Bellet, Christie’s has extended its normal payment deadline from one week to one month. Now, Cai has until March 25 to come up with over forty million dollars for the two pieces, which adorned the Summer Palace at Beijing until they were looted in 1860 by French and English troops. As Bellet writes, such a deadline extension is apparently not unusual at Christie’s when large sums of cash are due.

Cai might want to reconsider his refusal to pay, which he first likened to a patriotic act. As Agence France-Presse reports, the Chinese government has twice denied any link with Cai. “This auction was a strictly personal affair,” Shan Jixiang, the director of the state administration for vestiges and monuments, told the news agency New China. “The administration has nothing to do with that,” he noted, adding that China is still pursuing its efforts to obtain the bronzes “through all means in agreement with international conventions and Chinese laws.” While some fellow Chinese have celebrated Cai, others have criticized his methods, which might endanger the credibility of Chinese bidders at future auctions. In an editorial published last week, China Daily criticized the conventions and laws that prevent pillaged heritage objects from being returned to their countries of origin. Pierre Bergé has stated that he would keep the bronzes in a case of nonpayment.

FACTUALITY #3

"The true artist helps the World by revealing mystic truths" was the opinion of Bruce Nauman – in jest or not, it does not even matter – in the late 1960s, when all the certainties actually seemed to evaporate once again. We might update this audacious statement by suggesting that the true artist is lending the world a helping hand by asking the Great Questions again and again, without hesitation or fear – and by providing many small answers.

AGATHE SNOW

Installation view from the SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY

"Enter the Armory Show, NYC, this past weekend and you wonder why am I here? The stock market is plummeting, the art market is precarious and the overall atmosphere is gloomy. The discovery of Agathe Snow is why. She is a young, exciting NY artist who has brought to this fair a magical installation of mixed media assemblages. These assemblages "Wreath" are hoola hoops adorned with a systematized paraphernalia. Experience them, walk around them, walk through them.... is it fiction or reality....you be the judge."
Barbara Fosco

CHRISTIE’S DEBACLE WITH CHINA

Christie’s Paris sale of the Collection Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Bergé on Feb. 23-25, 2009, has now the become political, clouded by disputes over colonialism and human rights, and what appears to have been a calculated attempt to embarrass the auction house. As has been widely reported, Cai Mingchao, the collector and auctioneer who submitted the pair of $18-million winning bids for the two Qing dynasty bronze heads, was making a political gesture, and never in fact intended to pay for the lots. "I did this on behalf of all Chinese people," he said at a press conference in Beijing on Mar. 2. Cai serves as an advisor to the National Treasure Funds of China (NTFC), an organization that works to repatriate looted Chinese artifacts. According to a report by China’s Xinhua news service, Cai had specifically sought to disrupt the sale of the two bronzes. It was "an extraordinary method taken in an extraordinary situation," the news service stated, "which successfully stopped the auction." Cai had solid standing in the auction world, having purchased a for a Ming dynasty bronze Buddha for close to $15 million at a Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale in 2006. He had registered as a bidder on the same day of the Saint Laurent auction, and made the winning bids by phone. It seems unlikely, however, that either major auction house will welcome Cai at future sales.
The disputed works were part of a set of bronze heads based on the Chinese zodiac from an antique water clock, ca. 1750. As for their history, the heads disappeared during the Second Opium War, when the Summer Palace was looted by British and French troops in 1860, an unpleasant fact that makes the two objects particularly volatile symbols.
A Christie’s spokesman said that the house had offered to sell the works to the Chinese government in advance at a discount, but had been rejected because the price was "too high." The colonial provenance led to sharp rhetoric leading up to the sale. A group of Chinese lawyers sued to try to stop the sale, calling the plunder of the Summer Palace an "unhealed scar, still bleeding and aching." China has little claim to the objects under international law, however, and the legal efforts failed. Following the auction, Chinese authorities vowed to make it more difficult for the auction house to operate in China.
Meanwhile, Pierre Bergé has done little to calm the situation, stating that he will now keep the two sculptures. Before the sale, he had offered to return the heads to China if the People’s Republic would "observe human rights and give liberty to the Tibetan people and welcome the Dalai Lama.
In recent years, China has been aggressively trying to repatriate looted objects. According to the New York Times, the state-run China Poly Group acquired tiger, ox and monkey heads from the zodiac fountain in 2000, while the NTFC brokered a deal to buy a bronze pig from the set in 2003, with a $1 million donation from Macao's Stanley Ho. The whereabouts of the remaining five zodiac heads from the Summer Palace are not known.

Agathe Snow, "Views From the Top, Vertigo and Constellations"

Constellations, 2009
Agathe Snow
57 photocopies noir et blanc
27,9 x 21,6 cm chaque
Collection de l’artiste
© Agathe Snow

JEU DE PAUME
PARIS
ApriL 7 until JUNE 7 2009

Based on narratives relating environmental problems, sexual dysfunction, religious and moral decadence and physical disorientation, the work of Agathe Snow, who was born in Corsica in 1976 and lives in New York, evokes the hell of decaying worlds but also suggests deliverance, celebration and survival.

Her installations generally comprise one or two monumental sculptures together with smaller pieces and performances. Her work featured recently in the Whitney Biennial in New York.

BRUCE NAUMAN: BOUNCING IN THE CORNER, NO. 1

Bouncing in the Corner, No. 1
00:59:48 1968

Nauman is seen standing and leaning back in a corner of his studio. Just as he bounces back to a standing position, his body falls again, momentarily collapsing, only to spring forward once more. This action places his body in an intermittent space, occupying a position halfway between standing and leaning, halfway between the wall and the room.

This title was in the original Castelli-Sonnabend video art collection.-

VIDEO DATA BANK

LOUISE BOURGEOIS AT HIRSHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN

Louise Bourgeois with Spider IV in 1996
Photo by Peter Bellamy

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Presents Major Retrospective
of Louise Bourgeois
Feb. 26 - May 17 2009

The Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present a major retrospective of the works of Louise Bourgeois from Feb. 26 through May 17. Bourgeois, a leading figure in 20th century art, was born in Paris in 1911 and has lived in New York since 1938. The exhibition will fill the museum's second-level galleries with over 120 works, primarily sculptural pieces, along with paintings and drawings.
Throughout her 70-year career, Bourgeois has drawn upon personal memories to develop complex meditations on such universal themes as personal identity, family relationships and the power of art to express deeply felt emotions. Her materials range from traditional plaster, bronze, marble and wood to resin, latex, glass, rubber and electric lights, along with found objects such as toy dolls and old furniture and clothes. Bourgeois has an idiosyncratic aesthetic and has adapted and interpreted diverse ideas and styles from Europe and America, notably Surrealism, primitivism, psychoanalysis, conceptualism and feminism.
The exhibition begins with Bourgeois' early drawings and paintings, notably the "Femme Maison" (1945-47) laced with figurative and symbolic content, images that would recur and evolve in sculptures made decades later. The first significant sculptures on view will be the nearly abstract, totemic standing figures known as the "Personages." The series culminates in "Blind Leading the Blind" (1947–49) from the Hirshhorn's collection.
Subsequent galleries present organic compositions suggesting embryonic growth, fertility and the flux of nature, as in "Torso, Self-Portrait" (1963–64) and the exquisitely carved marble "Cloud" (1969). Throughout the exhibition, a number of sculptures are suspended from the ceiling, in one of Bourgeois' preferred means of suggesting "states of ambivalence and doubt." The tiny "Spiral Woman" (1984) suggests a vertiginous state of constant yet pointless motion in a vast empty space. The life-size "Arch of Hysteria" (1993) alludes not only to a state of mind but to gender as well: The term "hysteria" was coined in the 19th century to refer to the emotionality of women, but Bourgeois made this figure male because "men are hysterical too." The eerie "Legs" (1986), also from the Hirshhorn's collection, dangles from the ceiling with the feet hovering just inches from the floor.
Bourgeois' first sculpture of an enclosed environment, "The Destruction of the Father" (1974), is visible only from the front, like a stage in a theater. This work is a precursor to the large structured environments of the 1990s known as the "Cell" series, which the artist has explained "represent different types of pain: the physical, the emotional and psychological, and the mental and intellectual." The "Cell" sculptures originated in the artist's memories of emotional experiences in her own life, yet ultimately they express shared perceptions of the human condition.