Art Media Agency Articles & Interviews

Architecture, A more sustAinAble future for 2015

Top storiespage 7

InterviewMichael Hansmeyer

page 9

Museumspage 12

ReportGlobal Chinese Art

Auction Market page 15

Galleriespage 18

InterviewAssemble Architects

page 22

Artistspage 25

InterviewGaspar Libedinsky

page 26

DataLuc Tuymans

page 33

Auctionspage 38

Fairs & festivalspage 40

ReportUnseen Photo Fair 2014

page 42

InterviewMargaux Fritz

page 44

Interior design for Mexico City airport image : Foster + Partners

From Frank Gehry's mesmerising Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne to the checkered wood of Aspen Art Museum, 2014's architec-tural highlights have been both numerous and artistically compelling. AMA's article of the week looks at the future of sustainable architec-ture, movements that support the process, and innovators for 2015.

Cultural openings around the globe

This year has seen a slew of big industry players — Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid — and firms — Diller Scofidio + Renfro, OMA Of-fice for Metropolitan Architecture, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) — domi-nating the scene. Festivals, fairs and biennales are thriving in number, attendance and duration; this year's edition of the Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Rem Koolhaas, takes place over four mon-ths and sees 65 countries taking part. With festival participation at this size, it goes without saying that architectural projects are still influenced by the course of cultural events. Rio de Janiero was the global destination of 2014 — with the FIFA World Cup — and will be again in 2016 for the Summer Olympics, for which a plethora of cultural landmarks have been designed. For instance, Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Museum of Image and Design, nestled into the hillside above Coco-pabana Beach, marks the way in which architects are having to utilise space to their advantage. Amongst the firm's other ongoing projects are The Broad Museum in Los Angeles; the expansion of MoMA in New York; and the Culture Shed, a six-story development which will sit adjacent to the High Line and host a wide range of cultural activities.

Across the pond, British design firm Assemble was chosen to design the new Goldsmiths art gallery in London; Rem Koolhaas' OMA is cur-rently creating Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris; and Renzo Pia-no's armadillo-shelled structure, for Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pa-thé, has just been unveiled in Paris' 13th arrondissement. Another big coup was David Chipperfield Architects beating two Swedish archi-tects in a competition to design Stockholm's new Nobel Prize Centre.

This documenT is for The exclusive use of ArT mediA Agency’s clienTs. do noT disTribuTe. www.artmediaagency.com

AmA neWsletter

17018 september 2014


In the Middle East, Abu Dhabi continues to be the seat of cultural and touristic prosperity with the development of Saadiyat Island. The Louvre's outpost is set completion next year and the Guggenheim — designed by Frank Gehry — to open at the later date of 2017. Further across the globe, in China, the Shanghai Tower — currently the world's second tallest building, at 632 metres — is expected to be open to the public in 2015.

With this unrelenting architectural progress, especially when there is often only space to go upwards, concerns on the impact of over-developed cities and the amount of materials being used for these pro-jects are putting pressure on architects to offer long-lasting, environmentally considerate alternatives, while incorporating the same level of industrial prowess.

Sustainable Solutions

In order to promote awareness around sustainable forms of architecture, the presence of conferences, fairs and competitions is augmenting around the world as a constant reminder that we have a global responsibility to create buildings which are environmentally sustainable.

Rio+20 to 2015: a New Architecture for a Sustainable New World — hosted in 2013, in collaboration with National Defence Resources Council (NRDC) and Yale University — is part of the Rio+20 plan to encourage a discussion of mobility in this genre. Quoted from amongst their visions, the Conference aimed to “further the development of a new architecture that can stimulate the transformative changes we need to realize a sustainable future.” While the development of cities was once considered the cen-tral obstacle in the fight against pollution, now, as the urban population shows no signs of decreasing (by 2050, 7 out of 10 people will be living in cities), strategies are now taking shape to make these me-tropolis' part of the solution. At the forefront of this plan is Communitas Coalition — in partnership with the UN Development Agenda —, an organisation which seeks to “advance sustainable urbanization”; to adapt cities to include sustainable development goals (SGDs). Their seven-step trajectory includes tar-gets to improve the “living and working conditions of both rural and urban dwellers by promoting the social, environmental and economic synergies between urban and rural areas” and aims to “reduce the environmental impacts of cities and improve urban environmental conditions”. Evidently, these types of organisations are offering an international strategy to change urbanisation for the better.

Aerial view of Mexico City airportImage : Foster + Partners


AMA Newsletter 170 2 18 septeMber 2014


Fairs of the Future

Fairs promoting sustainable architecture are now as plentiful and thriving as traditional biennials. Eco-build — the world's largest sustainability trade fair — hosts an annual event dedicated to every part of green building, where architects and surveyors gather to see what's new in the industry. Next year's edition — from 3 to 5 March 2015 — looks set to draw in double the amount of attendees than it did in 2014, as relayed by Ecobuild's Group Director of Sustainability & Construction, Alison Jackson, who commented: “Over the past ten years Ecobuild has cemented its position as the sustainable design and construction marketplace for new build, refurb, commercial and domestic buildings.”

Next year also brings the World's Fair: Expo Milan 2015; to be held from 1 May to 31 October 2015. The theme, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, has seen some of the specially-designed pavilions for the event incorporate this energy-efficient ethos. A prime example is Italy's pavilion, designed by Studio Nemesi & Partners Srl, which features a lattice skin built from “i.active BIODYNAMIC”, capable of capturing pollutants and turning them into salts. Likewise is the winning model for the Austrian pavi-lion, which promotes a healthier bond between the urban and natural environment. Entitled “breathe”, the enclosed space will be planted with an abundance of native Austrian vegetation and will produce, hourly, enough oxygen to sustain 18,000 people.

By incorporating ecological messages into technologically-advanced design, these projects — seen by mil-lions on a global level — go a long way to encouraging a conversation about sustainable architecture, far beyond the industrial sphere.

Museum of Image and SoundRio de Janeiro

Image : Diller Scofidio + Renfro



Putting objectives into practice

By taking this research into the practical field, many architectural firms are showcasing increasingly sustai-nable plans to further their global enterprise. On 3 September 2014 it was announced that Foster + Partners — in collaboration with FR-EE (Fernando Romero Enterprise) and NACO (Netherlands Airport Consultants) —, had won the bid to design Mexico City's new international airport. At 470,000 m2, this project aims to be the world's largest and most sustainable airport. Instead of the typical multi-building structure, the design is comprised of one lightweight gridshell — thereby expending less materials and energy; while also harnessing the power of the sun and collecting rainwater. In addition, the LEED Platinum design har-monises with the natural surroundings to create a self-regulating temperature for a large proportion of the year. Speaking in a press release, Lord Norman Foster said of the project: “Stansted Airport’s reinvention of the conventional terminal in the 1990s was emulated worldwide – this breaks with that model for the first time. It pioneers a new concept for a large-span, single airport enclosure, which will achieve new levels of efficiency and flexibility – and it will be beautiful. The experience for passengers will be unique. Its design provides the most flexible enclosure possible to accommodate internal change and an increase in capacity. Mexico has really seized the initiative in investing in its national airport, understanding its social and eco-nomic importance and planning for the future. There will be nothing else like it in the world.”

However, far from just a passing trend, sustainability has been practiced and commended for many years. The American Institute of Architects' Top Ten Green Projects scheme, now in its 17th year, bes-tows the title on buildings with an exceptional use of sustainable architecture. Amongst this year's chosen ten is the Sustainability Treehouse — an interactive and educational facility designed by Seatt-le-based firm Mithun. Commissioned by Boy Scouts of America, the building sits in the forest of Summit Bechtel Reserve, in West Virginia, America, and harmonises environmental education with fantastical adventure. With an 85% reduction on the National Median Energy Use Intensity (EUI) the structure uses photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, a large cistern and water cleansing systems, the canopy's natural light permeating the Treehouse on all levels.

Ones to Watch

Who are the next pioneers of sustainable architecture? Frank Murk, Associate Dean of the New York Institute of Technology, in conversation with AMA, suggests his key innovators for 2015.

An alumnus of Rem Koolhaas and founder of his own firm, FR-EE, Fernando Romero is a Mexican archi-tect, internationally acclaimed for his work on the Soumaya Museum. A towering 46-metres-high and covered with 16,000 hexagonal aluminum squares, the amorphorous design dramatically challenged the a-typical museum space. This year sees him collaborate on the aforementioned sustainable airport in Mexico City with Foster + Partners. FR-EE has also implemented various initiatives to promote Mexi-can architecture, including a scholarship award - FR-EE Time. Dedicated to emerging Mexican architects under 35, the programme gives them the opportunity to travel and research an in-depth topic.


Museum of Image and SoundRio de Janeiro Image : Diller Scofidio + Renfro



Mithun Sustainability Treehouse Exhibit

Image: Joe Fletcher


Another is Brooks + Scarpa; well-regarded as trailblazers in the sustainable design field, their Colorado Court project in Santa Monica was the first Multifamily project in America to be LEED certified. The Solar Umbrella House in California, — a now iconic design for the couple's family residence — was a “contemporary reinvention of the solar canopy”, which used photovoltaic panels to provide 100% of the home’s energy. The comprehen-sive design and careful environmental consideration behind the project, earned them their second AIA Top Green Project award in 2006; just one of the design's many accreditations. This year they were awarded the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum Award, and continue their efforts towards sustainability with The SIX — an affordable housing scheme for veterans in Los Angeles' MacArthur Park. Aiming to be 50% more energy efficient than the conventionally designed structure, The SIX is projected to be finished next year.

Michael Loverich is a UCLA Masters graduate, who co-founded an experimental ’design farm‘, Bittertang, with fellow architect Antonio Torres. Seeking to bring a sense of humour into the urban environment, their work explores “biological matter, animal posturing, and babies all unified together”. Their inventive and thought-provoking projects include a Captive Bird's Microcosm — a cage built from two interlocking ‘U’ shapes whose interior provides the habitat for the captive bird and exterior attracts wild birds —; Bucky Puff — an adaptable inflatable structure —; and a house of wax for a designer's pop-up shop in New York. Before setting up Bittertang, Loverich worked for firms Reiser + Umemoto and Snohetta.

Demonstrated by just these few, the industry is vibrating with dynamic and modern architects, ready to lead the way in the sustainable revolution. With the rise in commissions, and the rapidity with which projects can now be completed, thanks to hefty cash influxes and advanced technology; the global demand for architec-ture — be it for cultural, residential or industrial purposes — shows no sign of slowing. To this end, factoring in the strain on resources and limitations of space, it is crucial that architects continue to use lasting forms of sustainable architecture, but implement them throughout the industry — as demonstrated by some of the examples here. Thankfully, at an impressive rate, the sustainable movement looks to be becoming less of an alternative, and more of an expectation.



interviewredefining PorTraiTure:

an inTervieW WiTh ben QuiLTy

Ben Quilty in his studioPhoto: Andre de Borde

your “Rorschach“ series forms a large part of the exhibition at Saatchi Gallery — what was your aim with these?It seemed like a natural progression from where I was at with my painting, which had become very ges-tural and fast. For a visual language to be interesting it needs to develop; becoming more nuanced, more in depth and more intelligent. The “Rorschach“ series started off as an experiment, but as as soon as I did it, I knew there was a lot of potential in them as a visual language. The act of making literal childhood Rorschach paintings — what we call a ‘squashie’ in Australia —, is innately child-like, yet there’s also something very destructive about ruining something you’ve spent a lot of time working on. Especially when they’re really big, you do expend a lot of energy and materials. You essentially destroy it, but ulti-mately, to make something more beautiful.

The paintings are literally folded together, which in a sense makes them a monoprint — the original is still there, just altered. It was only after I started using this simplistic method that I then looked deeper into the meaning behind Rorschach tests and psychoanalysis; reflecting upon why I was doing this, and how it would be read. They’ve been critiqued as my exploration of masculine identity; about glorifying decline and accelerating destruction. To create a visual language, you have to understand how people will perceive your statement. you have to be armed with the knowledge, in order to move forward.

Ben Quilty is an Australian painter whose gestural, often Abstract, and social-specific pieces have en-thralled art lovers all over the southern hemisphere. His success at the Prudential Eye Awards — the prize’s first edition — garnered him his first solo show at London’s Saatchi Gallery and further international ac-claim. Currently in Paris, staying at Montmartre’s famed artist’s residence — Cité des Arts—, AMA went to talk to Ben about how he hones his craft, investigates Australian identity and the state of portraiture today.


AMA Newsletter 164 19 7 August 2014



The original idea behind the ink blot tests was totally abstract: if you saw something in them, you were showing signs of paranoid or delusional behaviour; which in a way is a very poetic and beautiful pun on the audience, because you’re not really meant to see anything in them. So with these big landscapes, and some of the works that are at Saatchi Gallery, they are very literal, and if you walk up close it’s just a mess, but as you go further back it becomes quite obvious that it’s about something else.

Lucian Freud, whose style you’ve been associated with, was famed for taking a long time to complete paintings – do you work in the same way?No, the paintings are really fast. Everything is made in a day. There’s a lot more at stake when you work that quickly, but often the mistakes — the gestural errors — are the exciting parts, if they can be used for the benefit of the painting. And as well it’s just my personality; I’m impulsive, I never feel like I’ve got a lot of time. I guess that’s why I make an effort to reinvent my own practice, because the worst thing that could happen is that I become bored. Painting is like my church — the most spiritual place for me is inside my studio so I intuitively protect and care for it. I focus on adapting my message — the dynamics and theatrics of having an audience is really important for me; particularly coming from Australia, where the whole art thing is quite contested. We’re so fanatical about being outside and playing sport that aspects of the art world just aren’t really supported in Australia.Self Portrait Smashed

© Ben Quilty





What part does your Australian identity play in your work?It seems like such an obvious thing that any creative person, particularly if they are Australian, would question their own sense of identity. I have Irish blood; but I live in a country that calls itself an inde-pendent nation of original people, which is so far from the truth. Most of the white people have Irish roots, there’s a huge Asian population and we’ve settled on the land of people who have inhabited it for 40,000 years. In terms of human identity, it doesn’t get much more complex than that.

You’re the first Australian artist to host an exhibition at Saatchi Gallery, what does that mean to you?Saatchi do their best to represent international artists, but yes, it’s a great honour. Prudential Eye Awards is an amazing thing to be involved in, as it includes all of Asian art: Australian, New Zealand, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Korean — a huge swathe of the world that’s very underrepresented here in Europe. Most of my exhibition history has been in Seoul, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. I’m now represented by Pearl Lam, who has a gallery in Singapore. I think the award, if it’s done in the right way, will only grow, especially if Saatchi stays involved. Prudential really supports representing Asian artists; the judg-ing panel is formed of professionals from all over South East Asia, as well as Nigel Hurst, the director of Saatchi.

in 2012 you were chosen as the official Australian War Artist for Afghanistan – how did this affect your painting?It was the first time I didn’t use humour in my work — I think most great art has a sense of humour; with a full, independent language — but there was nothing funny about my time there. It was dark and I’m still dealing with those people; making work with them and about them. The Vietnam War ended the year before I was born, and as a nation, we grew up not knowing anything about those people, not talk-ing to them about their experiences. They were this silent minority within the community. I’ve become very interested in those men because, in a way, their reality could be the future of what’s happening to these men now who are coming back from Afghanistan. Of course it has a lasting effect. It’s so outside of your comfort zone it’s insane.

View of Ben Quilty's studio

Photo : Mim Stirling





A lot of your work is autobiographical and has been described to have an element of brutal masculin-ity – can you tell us about this?A lot of things that happen to young men in today’s societies go unquestioned, which is bizarre. I really wanted to understand why men behave the way they do. Some women do the same thing, but my story is about my own masculinity, and I’m intrigued by that. My work is autobiographical because I’m always there. As long as you’ve got a mirror, you’ve always got a subject. It's funny; often people suggest that there’s an inherent vanity in self-portraiture, but anyone who has spent an hour looking at themselves in a mirror would know that there’s nothing vain about it. you become really, profoundly ugly. And you start to grasp what humanity is about, by observing yourself that closely. In fact it’s the opposite of van-ity; you can’t help but start to peel away the layers of pride, of all things that are associated with fashion.

I’m not trying to make ugly paintings about myself, it’s just coming back to a practice — like yoga, like football — where if you do it enough, you build up a visual language and a conceptual framework in a very organic way. And by having that subject there – yourself — it means you always have something to make work about.

Your portraits of family and friends are quite menacing and distorted — why do you present them in this way?When I play with portraiture it’s in order to try and understand the psychology and emotions behind a human being’s face, and in order to do that you have to play with the physicality, but you have to have people trust you. If someone has a big ego then they’re generally not going to like the portrait that I make of them; to enjoy them you have to be self-deprecating. My son Joey thinks it’s hilarious, my dad loves them — it’s an extension of self-portraiture because they are part of who I am. I come from a close family, where there’s always been a discourse around the dinner table about politics, society and the environment; and that dialogue is part of a group of people, so my portraits of them are very directly autobiographical.

Do you do anything to the canvas: cut it, carve into it?With some of the big works, you can see I cut back a lot. There’s a sense you’re wrestling with the square — it’s about breaking the rules about what you can do to that surface.

how do you view the stance of portraiture today?In a sense I feel like portraiture is dying out — there seems to be a lack of inventiveness —, although some prizes, like the Archibald Prize, show the strength of what’s happening in Australia at the moment.Using materials to capture a likeness is an inherently human behaviour — it’s part of having a con-science, looking at ourselves. I think it’s sad that some of the bigger contemporary artists aren’t pushing the boundaries, because even though the word portraiture isn’t fashionable, it is an act of capturing an essence of what it means to be human.My landscapes are often about how the psychology of a place has been altered by humans. They all have this physical beauty, but the human history is often very dark. Fairy Bower Rorschach (2012) depicts the site of a very vicious massacre of aboriginals by two white Irishmen in 1834. In fact, the whole of Australia is covered in these very brutal and sad histories and that’s why I make those big landscapes; it is equally why I turn the mirror on myself — to look at my own European ancestry and what it means in relation to the world. Often these arguments are very idealistic but I think it is necessary to look at those things.There’s a complex meaning behind anyone looking at themself; anywhere in the world, your history, your ancestry — it’s the whole point of being alive. The history is an essential part of my practice.

Who do you include among your inspirations?I saw Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhaïlov’s show, about 12 years ago at Tate Modern and it had this brutal honesty that really made me think. He received quite a lot of criticism saying he was taking advantage of his subjects, because they’re really brazen images of real people in poverty in Ukraine. But if you look at those photos in the context of the last few months, it’s such a cry for help. He inspired me to make the work I felt I needed to make; rather than try and follow fashion.It’s only with time that some are considered great artists — like Mikhaïlov —, where you can see that it comes from a very heartfelt, powerful and socially important place. I’m driven by painting, but I look less at other artists now. The world is such a massive, intricate place, with a lot of dark paths, but the experi-ence of being alive makes me feel lucky to have this experience. Being alive is the biggest inspiration of all really.



interviewiNvEstigatiNg acquavElla:

aN iNtErviEW With MichaEl fiNdlay

Michael Findlay

Michael Findlay is one of the four directors at Acquavella Galleries, one of New York's best known and esta-blished art galleries. Opened in 1921, the Galleries specialised in Italian Renaissance, before turning towards Impression, Cubism and Surrealism; and today represent some of the most iconic names in art — Monet, Gia-cometti, Miró, Braque, and Freud —, to name a few. Transferring his knowledge from Christie's auction house to the world of dealing, AMA talked to Michael about making this career change, how Acquavella operates and the Galleries' plans for the future.

You officially retired from Christie’s as Head of impressionist and Modernist Paintings in 2000. Why did Acquavella Galleries appeal to you?It was while I was on a long-haul flight, reading through some material from human resources, that I discovered you could retire at 55, which I didn’t really forget! I’m not someone that’s planned their life; things just seem to happen at the right time, or at least this did.

I was with Christie's for about 15 years — it was an experience that broadened my outlook and brought me in touch with artists and genres that I wouldn’t have necessarily have known anything about as a dealer. But it is a very demanding, 24/7 kind of life, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for much else. I was recently remarried, and although the gallery business is busy and exciting, it allows one to have a reasonable personal life as well — which was what I was looking for.

I’ve known the Acquavella family for a very long time. When I came to New York aged 18, I was aware of the gallery and knew the father of the current owner. My first job was at Richard Feigen's gallery which is literally two blocks from where I’m sitting today, so in 50 years I’ve managed to come two blocks! It’s a small world and I’ve been in it for a long time...


AMA Newsletter 162 19 24 July 2014



Where are the majority of Acquavella’s collectors buying from?The majority from America, after that Europe, and then Asia. That’s a general comment, I don’t know what people’s passports are — they may have homes in several places. Unlike auction houses we don’t keep track!

Acquavella sells pieces by artists who are regularly present in auction houses – what kind of relationship do you have with sellers like Christie's and Sotheby's?The gallery has sold a great many Impressionist and 20th century works in its 90 years of existence and many of them are bound to — during their lives as second hand paintings — go through auction. A lot come back around to us as well.

One of the problems about having a media that looks at the obvious, is that they mostly take their cues from auctions that represent less than half of the art market, it counts for something like 47% of a global art market at any price level. So, there are great paintings and expensive paintings, and paintings that aren’t so expensive or great, which are sold every day by galleries like ours.

How does the gallery obtain most of its works? [laughs] Well, certain things have to remain secret! We still have some living artists, so we get our works from them — James Rosenquest, Enoc Perez, Wayne Thiebaud, Nigel Boselo — and private collectors who sell pieces with us, in the same way that auction houses get their works. Sellers they have a choice of going with an auction house or privately; and I think it's about who you feel comfor-table with, who you have a good track record with; and it's whether you want to something in public, or more privately.

in your opinion, what is the gallery's strength?As a family business with a 90-year history Acquavella incorporates an unrivalled experience and expertise in the fields of Impressionist and Twentieth Century art and sources great works of art from long-time private clients in the U.S. and Europe. Moving forward with the third generation into contemporary art, we can offer our international clients top quality works by Monet and Degas, Pi-casso and Matisse, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Freud, as well as the living artists we represent. Another strength has to be our team: in addition to the four members of the Acquavella family; there are four directors — two European-born, one Japanese and one Chinese —, so our backgrounds are very diverse.

Acquavella Galleries began specialising in Renaissance painting – how has its taste developed since then?Shortly after William Acquavella started working with his father Nicholas, the founder, in the early 1960s, the focus shifted from Old Masters works to Impressionist, post-Impressionist and Modern. Over thirty years ago the gallery was devoting exhibitions to artists such as Anthony Caro and Robert Rauschenberg, while more recently we have invited guest curators like Dieter Buchhart, Judith Gold-man and Vito Schnabel to work with us on high-profile exhibitions — designed just as much for the general public as for our collecting clients.

in your career, you've worked predominantly with more traditional media — painting and sculp-ture. How do you feel about performance art and other experimental practices?Personally I do not believe that what is traditionally conceived as "fine art" should simply mean painting, drawing and sculpture.

Since the 1960s I have attended and sometimes participated in many performance events by pioneers of the unconventional, like Ray Johnson. In my book, The Value of Art, I describe a fire event by John Van Saun that I “produced” in SoHo in 1969.





Acquavella host four to five exhibitions per year: what are your criteria?Other than shows by the artists we represent, we seek to innovate either by showing the work of artists we think deserve attention (Manolo Millares, Zeng Fanzhi, Miguel Barceló, Fausto Melotti) or by way of exhibitions that illuminate and educate by examining groups of works that have significant affinities, such as “Robert and Ethel Scull: Portrait of a Collection” and “The Pop Object—The Still life Tradition in Pop Art”.

Some of these exhibitions are loans from museums and private collections, and many works may not be for sale.

With the current trend for relocation and expansion among galleries and museums, do you see Acquavella staying in the same place?I know of just a handful of galleries today following what one might call the Marlborough Gallery model of satellites, but this seems to be very much the exception, rather than the rule. For almost 50 years we have had generous space in a high-traffic area, close to major museums and this continues to serve us well. Obviously, I can't rule out any kind of future expansion but where we are and how we are seems to be working, for us.

What are Acquavella's plans going forward?Helping serious collectors build great private collections takes time and patience. This is our core business and although our clients' tastes may develop and change, we will continue to work hard to find top quality works for them, whether they are putting together Impres-sionist or Minimalist collections. We also get new clients through our reputation and friendships with existing clients, as well as the art fairs that we participate in — Frieze Masters, ArtBasel, ArtBasel Miami, ArtBasel Hong Kong and our do-mestic Art Dealer’s of America art fair in New York City.

We want to continue to offer ex-citing and unusual exhibitions to the public such as our most recent, “Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing - From the Schorr Family Collection” — which was a loan exhibition of extremely high quality works still owned by the artist’s first private patrons.



interviewSuperSizing public art:

an intervieW With florentijn hofman

HippopoThames Florentijn Hofman

In situ at Nine Elms on the South Bank

credit : Steve Stills

How would describe your artistic mission?That's a hard one to start with! I think firstly, I want to show people beautiful things; in shape, in construction, quantity of work, labour intensity; and secondly to let people see things in a fresh perspective in their own public domain — their world. Within this concept you have people meeting at the feet of one of my pieces; they are part of the installation, and I like to encourage them to commu-nicate. Not only about the work itself, but how they are part of the work and why they're intrigued by it.

What role do animals play in your pieces and how do you transform them into public art?There are only two works that are really inspired by animals — Musk Rat and Partyaardvark. Most of my others are inspired by objects found at flea markets, ceramics from second hand shops, or mass-produced toys which are produced in China or Asia. These objects are so present in our col-lective minds that they bring back many memories for people. They are beautiful in that sense, and I chose them because of this fact.

Florentjn Hofman has made his name building his colossal creations onto public landscapes all over the world. His best-known work, Rubber Duck (2007), has traversed the globe — from Auckland and São Paulo to Osaka; provoking viewers around the world to look at their surroundings in a different light. Shortly before his latest installation, Hippopothames, was unveiled to the crowds of London for Totally Thames festival, AMA spoke to the Dutch artist about this new piece, how he uses memory and size to level the viewer, and the specific 'cocktail' that builds his work.





I try to capture that essence, while enlarging them and giving them a new skin, so that the beauty of the object comes out in a totally different way — you might not even recognise it from what you have seen before. These aesthetics are also what I love about working in a public space; I believe that this domain has the right to play the role of a museum or gallery. It's a world where people cross stories, cross lives; and whilst people come together, there are also collisions. This perception of public space — be it sculpture or painting — should be as connected as possible to a simple aesthetic, so that it is easy to grasp from the first glance.

There are layers in all of the works. They are made on site-specific locations for a reason; because of history, or social demographics. I choose where the works go for a reason, but I believe that this should be the third layer, and not the second or the first. People don't need this cultural baggage. The guy who works at the gym, or the politician, or the banker, or the policeman; they are able to level with each other at the same time, and then the art comes in. There are no rules or formula to describe the way in which we relate to art.

There's a cocktail mix for every new work I make, every one with new ingredients. There's the base, which is my view on the world, the things I've found out in my studies; and then there's the scale of the pieces — against their size, everyone is rendered equal. There are no egos in public art, because everyone is small compared to my work! So you have to readdress your attitude and be playful again, return to a child's level. And people enjoy communicating this once they've found that the perspective has changed. I'm not necessarily trying to take people back to childhood; more to stop people feeling ignorant around art. And to be amazed! I want the piece to align with your daily life, but also change it.

Colour plays a large part in your work — what kind of dimension does that give your projects?In the beginning it was very much a practical thing. I find it gives the eye a sense of ease and quietness for people that work in cities with lots of lights and signs. The work needs a simple aes-thetic, and within this it creates its own space — which is necessary because you'll end up shouting within your own work.

Signpost 5Credit : Ilja Zonneveld





How big is your construction team and how long on average do the works take to complete?Right now, we're working in London and Taiwan and each construction team is around seven people. But then when you factor in port authority and transport, projects naturally augment while they're unfolding, sometimes including up 20 people or more. Often it can be just one or two people. As for the length of time, it varies sculpture to sculpture. From a week to three months.

Once you have an idea, can you explain the process from seed to fruition?The projects quickly turn from a creative moment to a practical one; like I said, it's a cocktail. Within the research phase we would have already made material investigation, so that brings you directly to constructors or metal workers, to see if it will be feasible; and if not, the concept changes. But I have this problem less and less. The budgets are getting bigger; but that is because I've proven my work; or rather, the work has proven itself!

Can you explain the funding process?The commissioner is totally responsible for the funding. All my pieces, bar a few projects, have been commissioned. How they get their funding is not my role; which, as you can imagine, gives me a lot of breathing space — to not have to deal with the technical issues like paperwork or licencing. I like the commissioner to be involved for both practical and social reasons. In the past, patrons gave the money and then handed back all the problems to the artist — I think this is really old fashioned. I believe they should be really involved and attached to the project. So by creating this responsibility you end up working together, which is a far healthier way of having a commissioner. He adopts it and breathes it, as I would.

Stor Gul Kanin/Big Yellow Rabbit

Credit : Lasse Person





What role does art education plays in your creations?A very big one. We get a lot of emails from students who are writing papers on my projects and we always reply. But education is about using your eye — to have this magic moment where you've been inspired at the feet of my work. I always say that if I can get close to the greatest artwork that there is in the world — the four seasons — then I'd be happy. As humans, the changing seasons are very influential, and if I can highlight but a fraction of this power, then that in a sense, is an educa-tion. To give people another view of their daily subjects, routines etc. Likewise I want to show the labour behind my work, as they're very intensive and demand methodical practice. With The Giant of Vlaardingen, I must have screwed on about 70,000 screws! And that's what I love about repetition, it really allows you to get inside the skin of a project — you get so involved in the process that it gives you a freedom. It is also a trick I use to inspire people: so that perhaps they go home with the feeling that no mountain is too high if you want to reach it.

Courtesy of Studio Florentijn Hofman





Can you tell us about your installation for Totally Thames?Totally Thames asked me to go to a site visit last October to Nine Elms on the Southbank, where they showed me the foreshore. Every 12 hours the Thames dries up and for four hours you can walk on the foreshore, which is amazing — to be able to walk on the bottom of a river and have a new pers-pective of your city. You can find archaeology, toys, bikes, rubbish; I love to search for these found objects. Totally Thames is about the river, but I didn't want to do a Rubber Duck — not that they asked for one. If you can imagine having to do a follow up to that and in London as well! This is my first UK commission, so I was thrilled and honoured but very aware that whatever I made had to be spot on. But every work has the same pressure and I think an artist has to embrace that uncertainty. So I came up with a hippo: the work is called Hippopothames.

I saw an illustration of a hippo in one of my daughter's books, just before I left for the site visit, and I took it with me. I already knew it would be a hippo at that point! It is a beautiful wooden construction; using long, thin pieces. The problem with the Thames is that I couldn't make a tall sculpture because of the restriction of the bridges — the lowest is six metres high —, so I had to create an object that was greater in length than in height. There's a sense that the hippo is swimming; the most important parts are on the surface of the water. I painted on very brightly coloured eyes and ears — so there's a toy-ish element to it —, and the rest is natural wood. The piece is 24 metres in length. It launches on 2 September and it will have a two-and-a-half hour journey from east to west, to its home in Nine Elms.

Despite the installation being in water, I've created an installation that people could par-ticipate in; there's a staircase so they can walk down onto the Foreshore and try to touch the Hippopothames. It will be a bit strange to see people 'moon-walking' on this space! I really wanted to encourage people making the most of this part of the city.

Most of your pieces are temporary: what hap-pens to them afterwards?Well with Macaco Gordo (Fat Monkey) in São Paulo we recycled the flipflops that it was made out of to the audience and they were really happy with that. People had fun finding a left to match the right! Also in Signpost 5, the three wooden pianos on Schiermonnikoog island, in the Netherlands, we gave all the wood to the farmers. To islanders, wood is like gold. So, of course, I'm very aware of the responsibility that comes with each installation.

Anything else coming up in the future?I'm working in Taiwan on a piece called Moon Rabbit, and together with the audience I will open it on the night of 7 September, and we will all lie next to the rabbit and look at the moon. I'm also working on several commissions that I can't talk about yet. Also we've just mo-ved house, and we're in the process of setting up the new studio. And besides that, I'm also a father of four children so I'm kept very busy!

credit : Alexey Snetkov



interviewthE Art of EditioNs:

AN iNtErviEW With AlAN CristEA

Installation view Michael Craig-Martin Objects

of our Time, 2012. Image courtesy Alan Cristea

Gallery, London. Photo Peter White

Can you present the gallery to us?For as long as I've been doing this, the core business has been publishing original prints by living artists. I work with between 30-40 different artists, underwriting all sorts of projects that they want to do — etchings, lithography, screenprints, computers, LCDs — basically anything that’s in edition form. Sometimes we showcase an artist's unique work — as I get older I’m more likely to branch out into other things!

For instance in December we’re presenting the artist Mark Neville, who currently has a show on at the Imperial War Museum, and previously we did an exhibition called "Conflicted Memory" which concen-trated on much younger artists working on political themes, and we’re planning a similar show in a couple of years' time called "Protest". A few years ago I went to see the ceramicist Edmund de Waal because I liked his work — we did two exhibitions with him and that relationship still continues.

So, whereas the prints and working with living artists are the core business, I do wander off into diffe-rent territory, without in any way cutting back on the fundamentals. We still publish a huge amount of editions every year — which is what I wanted to do ever since I was a student, because I liked the idea of papering the world with original prints.

As the largest publisher of contemporary prints and editions in Europe, the Alan Cristea Gallery in Lon-don has thrived with the eponymous founder's 40 years of industry expertise. Comprised of two spaces — 31 and 34 Cork Street — the gallery represents international artists including Howard Hodgkin, David Hockney, Bridget Riley and Ian Davenport, to name a few. AMA chatted to Alan Cristea to find out more.





How does working in editions affect your audience?I attract a much wider audience than galleries normally would do; particularly as our price range tends to be lower. Certain prints can be over £100,000, but generally we’re selling things from anything between £500 and £20,000. Equally I never want to be seen as exclusive. We’re not the kind of gallery where all of the works are reserved for museums — that’s the antithesis of what I do. So, in an elitist world, I’m rather anti-elitist.

When I first started in the 60s, there was a very different atmosphere — and I know people can overgeneralise about these things —, it just seemed like there were more opportunities for more people. In art today, I find there’s a tendency for people to want things that no one else has. But des-pite that, I’m still here, so something must be working!

How does your acquiring and curation process differ from a conventional gallery?Well if you think of an art dealer as someone who buys work at one price and sells it at another, I’m not really in that category. I do deal in wonderful prints from the past 100 years — Matisse, Picasso, Miró — in order to subsidise our publishing. It’s more a making process because I’m the catalyst for the produc-tion of new work. If you’re working on artists' projects all the time, that requires an enormous amount of research, development and funding — because obviously, you’re spending a lot of money upfront before you know exactly what you’re going to get. People tend to forget, but if you’re making editions of prints, there can be hundreds of thousands of pounds out at any one time on production costs.

Often, when you have an ongoing dia-logue with somebody, the ideas – to a certain extent – come from both sides, but I wouldn’t want to exaggerate that because really all the ideas are the ar-tists’. They might have ideas but they might not know how to put them into practice, so I can facilitate that.

What’s coming up for the gallery?In September we’re hosting a Jim Dine exhibition, who is an artist I’ve worked with for the best part of 35 years and he is one of the greatest print makers of the last 100 years, who covers just about every conceivable medium. There are going to be two exhibitions, one in each of our galleries. One is his new series of prints called the "Histo-ry of Communism, a series of 45 litho-graphs; and the other gallery will be more of a historical survey of prints that he’s made during his lifetime. It's going to be announced shortly that he’s going to give a gift of 150-160 prints to The British Museum — which will coincide with the exhibition that we’re doing. I’m working closely with the Museum on that, because slight-ly embarrassingly Jim has decided to make the gift on the condition that its called "A Gift to the British Museum in Honour of Alan Cristea", which is very sweet of him, and very flattering.





After that we’ve got Howard Hodgkin, "Green Thoughts" which will also be displayed across both galle-ries, and that represents a whole new body of work.

Do you have quite a personal relationship with your artists?It has to be personal because we are communicating day-in, day-out. There have been a few occa-sions where I’ve wanted to work with an artist but we didn’t get on. It’s simply not worth working with someone if something doesn’t feel right.

Can you explain your representation process?Well it's twofold really. If you take Richard Hamilton for example, I worked with him for almost 40 years. When he died in September 2011, I was very involved in the preparation of the exhibitions at the Natio-nal Gallery and Tate and I distribute existing prints in order to bring income to the estate. Worldwide, we also represent the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Naum Gabo, and Tom Wesselmann.

I also had a relationship with Lichtenstein, albeit under a different aegis, because I ran the print side of Waddington Galleries for over 20 years, and during that time I worked directly with him on a series of prints. I don’t have any affiliation with his estate, so in that way I’m in exactly the same position as eve-ryone else, in as much as I buy and sell Lichtenstein prints when I find them at the right price.

With deceased artists that I haven't had a relationship with, I put on exhibitions of their work in what I hope is a concentrated and intelligent way. But that isn’t the same as having a relationship with a living

Installation view Michael Craig-Martin Drawings

1967 - 2002, 2011. Image courtesy Alan Cristea

Gallery, London. Photo Peter White





artist or someone’s estate; it doesn’t have the same degree of responsibility.Do you take risks when it comes to selecting your artists?Yes, for instance the exhibition I discussed earlier called "Conflicted Memory" was mostly artists that nobody had ever heard of. It was commercially indulgent, because I knew I couldn’t possibly make any money out of it, but it was really enjoyable to do. And occasionally I will see an artist at a student show and I begin to work them. Our age range is really broad, it spans 20s through to 80s.

What’s your take on the online market?For us, the Internet is an unbelievably useful tool in the promotion and illustration of our editions. There are various companies who have tried to sell only online, and being of an older generation I am skeptical about that, because even though the prices are lower, we’re still talking about works of art. I’ve this old fashioned idea that people should physically see what they are buying — it’s an essential part of the process. I suppose it’s slightly more possible with prints than with paintings, but I find the whole idea quite strange.

How do you view the market for contemporary art?I find it difficult to generalise about this, but judging by my recent experiences, every time we do an art fair in America it seems that the market is very buoyant. But it can be very deceptive: it's always the soa-ringly high prices or the disastrously low ones that grab the headlines, and I think in terms of pricing, the art world is far less extreme than it would appear to be. And obviously, every time we do a new edition of works, I have to set the prices. Granted, it's always nice when some of those prices are bettered when the work comes back on the secondary market but my real interest is in the art and its promotion on be-half of the gallery. I never think of the art as a commodity, it’s a creative act. That sounds a bit pompous but it’s pompously true!

you attended Art Basel this year – what did you get out of the experience?It was bloody awful! It’s been a year of extremes, as one or two of the art fairs we’ve done have been really successful, Art Basel just wasn’t. Chiefly because they moved the whole of the editions section to a new area of the fair, and the space was more restricted, which was very frustrating because a lot of the artists I’m working with are doing large-scale prints. So it was galling for me because even though there was the physical space to hang them, there weren't the sightlines from which to view them. I first did Art Basel in 1973, and I’ve been every year since. Lots of people pretend that they’ve done extremely well, we didn’t. Every dealer goes to a fair hoping that they're going to sell a lot of work, but often it’s not necessarily the branded fairs at which one does best, although they do bring kudos.

Any plans for expansion?While I've always wanted the space to meet the requirements of the artists, I’ve never wanted to open up internationally because the moment you do that, the ethos and philosophy of the gallery become lost. And also I never wanted to run a big business — I wanted to run a business where I knew everybody and where there was a good feeling, where I hope that people enjoy coming to work. I want to make the gallery really personal; I don’t really want to empire-build, I just want to do the job as well as I can, and I want it to be containable. Small and efficient.

Installation view, Howard Hodgkin Acquainted with the Night, 2012. Image courtesy Alan Cristea Gallery, London. Photo Peter White



The new heighTs of phoTography: drones for beTTer or worse

Top storiespage 5

Museumspage 7

Galleriespage 11

Artistspage 14

InterviewBetween creation and destruction

with Amélie Chabannespage 16

DataSophie Calle

page 21

Auctionspage 26

InterviewA pan-African focused fair : Silvia Pillon, curator of FNB

Joburg Art Fairpage 27

Fairs & festivalspage 30

InterviewThe international art conference: an interview with the founders

of ARTFIpage 32

From the once humble occupation of a photographer and their camera, pho-tography today is reaching much greater heights. Drone photography, where artists use drones installed with cameras to capture an expansive view of the ground below, is currently dominating the art scene. From aerial views of Mar-tha Stewart’s 3,000-square-metre estate, to live videos of fireworks and the plummeting Niagara Falls, the use of drones in both videography and photo-graphy is fast becoming its own genre. However, the equipment used for this kind of photography makes us consider the original purpose of the drone as an instrument of warfare. Equally it makes us re-evaluate the role of the pho-tographer — how it is changed, extended or even compromised. Capturing images up to 150 metres in the air, the relationship between photographer and subject is undoubtedly altered — an unaware participant. While the mar-ket is teeming with enthusiasts, the rise of drone photography highlights an unsettling relationship between the symbol of the drone and how media is used to document surveillance. To what extent does drone art cross the boun-dary between photography and an invasion of privacy?

Drone Shadow 003, Brighton, 2013 by Jamie BridlePhoto Credit: Roberta Mataityte / Lighthouse


aMa newsLeTTer

16621 august 2014


Drones and the FAA

Drone photography has developed largely due to its wider availability. Today on Amazon.co.uk you can buy a ready-to-use camera drone from as little as £24.99, with higher-end models reaching £785; namely the DJ Phantom 2 model, the same that was used to film the fireworks on West Palm Beach. The relative ease with which they can be set up is prompting more and more amateurs to try out the technology for themselves. Classed as an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) by the Federal Aviation Ad-ministration (FAA), the legalities regarding the use of drones for photography remains murky. According to current guidelines, they can be used for personal intent but are prohibited commercially, although what exactly constitutes the term 'commercial' is up for debate. For instance, several American real estate agents are currently under investigation by the authorities for using the drones to enhance the sales of their properties. Their increased use at weddings is also causing controversy. Democratic congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, who sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Subcommittee, recently came under scrutiny by the opposition for using a drone to film his June wed-ding; in a possible violation of the FAA's ruling. As reported by The New York Times, Huma Abedin, an aide to Hilary Clinton, was heard to say; "That thing is going to kill somebody."

However, until the FAA can negotiate more stringent laws on the use of drones for commercial profit, the boundary between private and public continues to be blurred.

Blue Sky Days Tomas van Houtryve




An evolving breed

In spite of legislation for and against the genre, drone photography continues to prosper, with the first international award — Dronestagr.am Photo Contest — launched this year. With 15,000 entries sub-mitted, it seems the market is ripe with young drone photographers. When asked about the evolution of this genre, Dronestagr.am founder Éric Dupin explained to AMA, that it, "represents an intermediary layer. It is a new photographic language and a new way of discovering [..] landscapes that we know, or that we thought we knew. No other device is able to take such pictures." The winning entry was a view of Bali Barat National Park in Indonesia, with a spectacularly timed eagle, scouring the ground below; proving that drones really do offer a bird's eye view of the world. Éric Dupin plans another prize for 2015, aiming to promote the growth of drone art for photographers of all levels. Subjects are global and diverse, from husband-and-wife team Terry and Belinda Kilby who have compiled images of their hometown in the book Drone Art: Baltimore; to Rus Turner's sweeping views of the English countryside.

Instruments of warfare

While the artwork is indeed impressive and opens a view to unimaginable sites, other photographers are choosing to follow a different path, investigating what the device represents in our political cli-mate. Various projects have been carried out using the accessibility of drones to document their effect in areas of conflict.

The use of drones dates back to the First World War, where pilotless aircrafts would be installed with a bomb, set to a preprogrammed trajectory and deployed upon reaching their target. In more recent times, the use of drones in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, and beyond, has seen an upsurge in the number of anti-drone protests, increasingly invading the art world in a very raw and confrontational way; either using photography to depict a sense of surveillance, or directly confronting the issues sur-rounding the use of drones in warfare.

Writer and artist Jamie Bridle launched Dronestagram in 2012. Differing from Dronestagr.am, Drones-tagram is an Instagram account that takes images from Google Maps Satellite, including Palestine, Ye-men and Somalia, thereby documenting areas targeted by drones. In another project, "Drone Shadows", he drew life-size silhouettes of drones on the ground in London and Istanbul. Speaking to AMA, Jamie Bridle explained that the project, “draw[s] associations between the civilian, 'social' uses of technology and the military, often covert, uses of technology, to explore the ways in which technology drives poli-tical and social processes. Whilst often awe-inspiring, the increased pervasiveness of aerial photogra-phy and digital mapping also serves to normalise a militarised top-down view of the world, allowing us to become accustomised to seeing it from the gods-eye view of the military planner, obscuring political realities on the ground." Through both projects Bridle aims to highlight the military use of drones to send a message on today's Big Brother state, rather than through photographic art.

A surveillance state

Photojournalist Tomas van Houtryve aims to bridge the two concepts: his series Blue Sky Days — re-cently on the cover of The Sunday Telegraph Seven Magazine — offers a drone’s-eye-view of the United States and features pictures of children playing, weddings, mass yoga lessons in parks; all oblivious to his presence. In conversation with AMA, we asked him how the drone alters his role as a photographer: "You get new perspectives, but there’s a cost […], in that you put a lot more distance in between you and your subject. Normally subjects can tell when you’re photographing them […], but with the drone you can sneak up on people or places, unexpectedly, hop over fences, behind factory walls, and all of a sudden you have the upper hand on controlling what is seen."

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AnnecyDrone-cs

An eery sense of surveillance exudes from his black and white photographs; he chooses settings re-miniscent of the targets pinpointed by drones in Palestine and Israel. As explained by van Houtryve: "there’s dual tracks of how we’re seeing one with an artistic or ethical or journalistic conscience behind the camera and then there’s a whole, wide and expanding genre where images are just used to track and target and record, and for aerial photography, the drone is the symbol that takes it out of the hands of the photographer and puts the camera to darker and less artistic uses."

Likewise, other artists use the concept of the drone to portray their thoughts on the war on terror. Ins-pired by French street photographer JR, #NotABugSplat is a collective project, made in collaboration with the Foundation for Fundamental Rights (FFR). Installing a giant portrait of a child's face in the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, where drone attacks are frequent, the project takes its name from the military slang 'bug splat' — a term used by drone operators to denote kills. Although name-less, according to the FFR, the child featured lost both her parents and two siblings in a drone attack. Created with help from local communities, the aim of #NotABugSplat is to "create empathy and intros-pection amongst drone operators, and will create dialogue amongst policy makers, eventually leading to decisions that will save innocent lives."

While the ascent of the drone and its technology looks like it is here to stay as a photographic medium, it is hard to detach oneself from the story which inspired Tomas van Houtryve's Blue Sky Days, calling into question our justification of the practice as an artistic genre. In October 2012, a 67-year-old wo-man was struck down by a drone while picking okra in her garden in north-eastern Pakistan. During an investigation into the incident the following year, the woman's grandson, Zubair Rehman, told US officials: "I no longer love blue skies [..]. In fact, I now prefer grey skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are grey."




interviewthe soCiaL gaLLery gathering:

an intervieW With sabina anDron of i knoW What i Like

Courtesy of I Know What I LikeHow did the company begin?It was originally conceived as a book club, something João did with his friends, where they'd read art books and then get together and talk about them. It grew from there really; they got more members and started art debates. They would get together once a month and every member would have to present a small talk about their favourite artist. I lived in Manchester before I moved to Lon-don and that was how I got involved in the group. That's where things started growing and changing.

Can you present the concept to us?I would say we are art facilitators, which is a term I like because it encompasses many of the things that we do. I'm very interested in the educational side, because I think that people should be ex-posed to art in all its different environments; that's why we do visits to galleries, street art walks and studio visits. Allowing people to express their opinions is a large part of the group's mission, which is why it's called I Know What I Like. I want to get people to be able to say just that; to have an argument for it. Often people tend to shy away from expressing their opinions about art and in fear of thinking they'll say something clumsy, they don't say anything. So I wanted to get people over that.

I Know What I Like is an organisation which offers free social events for art lovers. Hosting gallery tours, art walks and artists' talks across the London art scene, it aims to open up a discussion about art on a social level. Founded by João Correia, an art consultant based in São Paulo; the organisa-tion is run from London by Sabina Andron, a PhD researcher at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. I Know What I Like has just reached 200 events, and in October they plan their first Group Show — 3 to 9 October 2014 — featuring artists from their membership. AMA spoke to Sabina to talk about the organisation's beginnings and its alternative gallery experience.





Then there's also the side which allows people to present their art, so that's really where the term ‘art facilitator’ comes in, because we want to facilitate art access from all sides. Our aim is to help the artists in our group have a platform on which to show their work, and make it visible.

Which aspects of I Know What I Like make it different from a traditional museum/gallery tour or workshop?First of all, I would say our range of facilities is something that makes us stand out, because we do tend to go to very different galleries. We're interested in the West End galleries but then we also go to smaller galleries in the East. We do street art and graffiti walks, which I think is my personal input as I'm doing a PhD on that subject, so that feeds into the activity of the group. It is also the fact that we encourage people to talk; I want the members to talk more than I do, or more than a gallery tour guide would. The format is more that of a seminar, and therefore the atmosphere is quite casual and engaging, as opposed to going to a gallery and being talked at.

What kind of topics are up for discussion?This depends a lot on the kind of show we're visiting; I normally ask the gallery if they want to give us a brief introduction of the exhibition. I select these exhibitions with a variety of topics in mind, and their relevance in terms of exposing the group to different styles of art, so I'm quite particular about what I present to the group. If the gallery owner is willing, then we will start with them giving us a presentation; and if not, I will do some research in advance and explain to the group what it is that we're seeing, and then we'll try and make sense of it together! One of the fun things we do is try to guess how much the art is worth before they see the price list. We often reach very different conclusions!

Are your members quite varied in terms of their art knowledge?Some of them are bankers, professionally non-creative types; and then we will have artists or desi-gners, so it's interesting to see the dialogue that is generated out of this mix. There are different things that attract people to the group; some join because they're interested in having a social after-work ac-tivity, and they want it to be something completely different from their daily routine; and then others see it more as networking and are interested in meeting other artists and forming connections. So I trying to consider each of these categories and make it worth everyone's time!

Sabina Andron Photo: Sonia Sanchez



Courtesy of I Know What I Like



How do you choose which galleries or artists to focus on?It depends on several things: firstly on the time I have, as documenting and putting everything online does take quite a bit of time. I have a few favourite galleries that I keep an eye on; we don't do big galleries like Tate or Saatchi, because I think its important to keep the group experience and when you go to a big gallery people have their own rhythms and they get lost! So we tend to stick to smaller ones. We also attend a few opening nights, but not too many because it's more about socia-lising and there's not much art involved! When I am really interested in an exhibition I'll schedule a visit by myself and have a thorough look. I try to balance north and south of the river; and look at up and coming art. These are the priorities but I don't have fixed rules. We'll post reviews of the events online — my members are quite frank if they don't like what they see!

What is your capacity for each event?There are occasions where I limit the amount; sometimes the galleries ask us to do that, or if it's a private event. But in principal I try to leave it open. For each event we get an average of 8-10 people, with a maximum of 30; which gets a little difficult as I like to get to know each of them, and put them in contact with each other if there's something that they have a particular interest in.

October marks your first Group Show — can you tell us about that?The Group Show has been in the pipeline for a while now; there were so many artists in the group whose work I started learning about, and I wanted to do something for them; seeing so many shows, so many galleries, it gave us a pretty good insight into where and how we could do this. It's the first time I have organised something like this, in terms of curation, but I'm really happy with how it has turned out. I put out an open call to ask for artists to send examples and a description of their work; I got quite a few entries, which was great. I've decided to host the event in a gallery in Old Street called Curious Duke; a space run by Eleni Duke, who I met through repeated group visits, decided that she wanted to support the project. The group show will be with 15 artists that I chose from the submissions, featuring 2D work — paintings, collages, photography, mixed media, but no sculpture. There's no theme to the show; I did that purposely because I want the work to be eclectic and to respond to different interests. It's a good mix, and I think we're finally ready! It's opening on 2 October and will run until 9 October.

Will this art be available to buy?Yes it will. It's in the range of affordable art, so prices so far are between £70 and £3,500. Most of them are originals, we have a few limited edition prints, but I was keen to not do a print show. I do plan to have some events while the exhibition is happening; some of the artists will be around, either for the opening night or over the course of the week. I can't specify exactly right now, we're still finalising.

Given your PhD and the genre of art that you work with, how do you view the London urban art scene today?In terms of street art and graffiti which is made on the street, I think its been evolving in quite a particular way, in that there are an increasing number of commissions and murals that get put up, which makes eve-rything bigger, more attractive in a way, and it gives the artist plenty of time to create the work. People can watch the process, photograph them; everything is done in broad daylight. So it's quite different from the subversive, illegal aspect we're used to. But in terms of artistic value, I think we need to be challenged a lot more by street artists and because of this, I think the whole street art genre bubble is about to burst, be-cause it has to innovate. I don't think it is coming to an end as a cultural phenomenon — people will keep painting on the street — but in terms of artistic value, I don't think it will last for much longer as an aesthe-tic movement. Especially when it comes off the street, onto a canvas and into a museum. There are a lot of people, mostly old-school graffiti writers, who are dissatisfied with this evolution. It's a complicated topic!

I Know What I Like is helping to organise a three-day conference in December called Graffiti Ses-sions, which will address these issues. It's a collaboration between UCL, Central Saint Martins, Glo-bal Street Art and the Southbank Centre and will bring together artists, academics, photographers and amateurs around one table and try to figure some of these questions out!

What are I Know What I Like's plans for the future?I want to start focusing on exhibiting artists more than I have been, starting with the group show in Octo-ber, which I hope will be the first of many. The events side will keep going as they are, because this is really popular, and I'm interested in the social aspect. I'm doing my PhD alongside, so there's a lot to juggle, but hopefully once I finish I will be able to invest in this full time and take it far.



interviewthe Value of art:

an interVieW With miChael findlay

Michael FindlayYour book is about the commercial value of art but also installs an understanding of its social worth — was this your intention?Well, I think that one of the revealing things to me now is how people get a different sense of it. I just spent a week as a dealer at Art Basel and people would come up to me and tell me they'd read my book. Each person might say something different, depending on their personal focus: "It’s all about how you price paintings"; "it’s about art world gossip"; or "how people show off by buying art." I sup-pose it includes all of these! I think that the reason it initially got published was because it led off with a discussion about money, because when it comes to art, money seems to be the easiest subject to write about and unfortunately it is also the easiest subject for people to absorb.

Michael Findlay’s curriculum vitae is as high calibre as the works of art he has sold over the decades. Starting out at the Richard Feigen Gallery in New York aged 18, his keen eye and love of art has seen him meet some of the industry’s greatest names, and work at institutions including Christie’s and Acquavella Galleries, where he is currently a Director. His book The Value of Art displays his knowledgeable and enigmatic view on the art world, and gives insight into the nature of collecting, and art's social value. In an interview with AMA, Michael speaks about "blockbuster" exhibitions, the art market and art for art’s sake.





This is one of the problems I have with the culture that we live in: in the book I try to balance the pendulum with discussions of intrinsic value and social value. Firstly, a lot of collectors and let’s say 'civilians' — who go to look at art in museums, but who would never buy it —, are not obsessed with the commercial value and investment potential. I think that — and I respectfully exclude you — the media in our culture emphasises the commercial value of art, almost to the exclusion of everything else. This limits a public discussion to that level, educating young people who might enter the world of collecting with the notion that it’s only about that — which I think is a very sad thing.

I began the book with a reference to a great collector and client of mine, Emily Tremaine, who was very forthright about the fact that she was influenced by three things: the investment potential, social promise, but also art for art’s sake. Enjoying it, looking at it, living with it. I wanted to put the discussion back into that perspective.

So to what extent do you think that "art for art's sake" has been diminished by the art world today?I don’t think it’s completely diminished. I think that there’s this highly publicised layer of million-dol-lar, celebrity and gossip headlines that disguise the fact that probably 95% or more of the entire art market worldwide consists of people who are spending relatively modest sums of money. But that is not discussed because in our tabloid world it is much more interesting to talk about very high-profile collectors, dealers and auction houses, duelling for a work by a promising young artist or an established one, for several million dollars. I mean it’s very sexy! [laughs] But it’s really not the art business; it’s a tiny, tiny slither of it, but it’s not representative. We exist in a monetised culture, and money seems to be the barometer by which quality is described.

You mention that “the art world fell in line behind the language of commerce”: when do you identify this slide into commercialism taking place?It’s difficult to say — it could actually be a PhD thesis! — but probably in the 1980s to 90s. I think certainly by the turn of the century we were well into "art as money" in the world of communication. Peter Schjeldahl from The New Yorker is one of the last literary reviewers who still goes to exhibitions, reports how he feels and what he sees in generally understandable language. We certainly have good art journals, magazines and online media that discuss exhibitions, but it all tends to be fairly incestuous. I also think the media fosters an idea that there is something of a secretive in-wor-ld with a we-know-what-it-means language, which creates false intimidation. Both dealers and auction houses should go out of their way to be down to earth and welcoming to people, whether they’re going to be buyers or not.

Often, this elitism stops people taking an active interest in art – what do you suggest to counteract this?If you asked someone: “What kind of music do you like?” they’d say this or that, without necessarily knowing anything technical about music, because they’re not musicians. I don’t believe art is any different. I don't think you have to know a lot about it, you just have to stand in front of it! It may sound awfully ordinary, to clear your mind and say: "Do I think this is wonderful, terrible, boring..?" or whatever, but it's about forgetting what anyone has said it is or isn't worth and just making up your own mind.

The art that hangs on 50 or 100 years after its production has survived this process: art that perhaps wasn't well-marketed, exhibited, or bought for a lot of money at the time. It may have gone up in va-lue, but it’s not kept because it was worth a lot of money when it was made. A lot of what is expensive today may not survive historically. It’s almost impossible at the time that an artist is working to make an educated guess at how deep their historical footprint is going to be. Look at how deep van Gogh’s historical footprint is now and how very, very light it was at the time.

You talk about museums over-commercialising art; how do you see the current trend of "super-exhibitions" progressing? Are they here to stay?That’s a really good question. The fact that museums compete on the basis of traffic is a very sad thing. It’s this idea that you’ve got to shuffle along on a moving platform, three feet away from the walls with your ears plugged into an audio guide telling you which paintings are more important than others. This seems to be the way that museums with blockbuster shows are organising it.





The idea of going to a museum without a specific agenda, other than to find something that might inspire awe and wonder is lost today. And yet, for a long time this is what people did. They didn’t just go because there was a Picasso show — they wandered around until something caught their eye. That’s how people develop a taste for art.

I think the only thing, sadly, that may stop this blockbuster culture lasting is some kind of economic upset. Museums seem to be taken over by a corporate and marketing mentality; they know that donors would like to see a return, and if they can say there were 50,000 more visitors this year, that’s a good return on investment. If, on the other hand, a director says: "Thanks to your donation we had exactly the same amount of visitors this year, but 50% of them stayed longer looking at paintings"; that is a success that cannot be measured.

You can measure the number of people who bought a meal in the cafeteria or a book in the gift shop, but you can’t ascertain how much they liked it. Especially as many of them are doing it camera-in-hand, collecting an experience, rather than having an experience. Maybe I’m just too old, maybe this is just the way a new generation is absorbing the world, communicating instantly and the art will follow! Perhaps you don’t need more than five seconds. I definitely do, but that’s because I can’t multitask when it comes to culture.

It’s a scientific fact that when you look at a painting, what you think you’re seeing immediately is actually coming from your brain, so you have to spend more time processing it and eliminating all the baggage that you’re bringing to it.

If you’re standing in front of a work of art which has authority, power, sincerity and feeling, it shouldn’t be about decoding it or describing it in terms of dates. It wasn’t created for academic discussion or a financial cheque, I hope. Over my lifetime I've spoken to enough artists to have an inkling of why they do it, and what they expect — I think that the viewer has to come halfway to them for the work to exist.

You describe fortuitous collectors such as Emily Tremaine, whose words take the foreword in your book: what is your best tip for novice collectors?Emily benefited from the fact that the world was smaller and there weren’t many collectors buying the cutting edge at the time. Today, fewer collectors will visit galle-ries just to say "What’s new?" and that’s way that people build great collections. The way it seems to be done more and more, is that the wannabe collector hires a consultant who then works on a shopping list. They may be looking for Picassos and Mirós or Koons and Hirsts, but they’re not particularly open to stumbling across people who aren’t on the list and saying "Who did that? I kind of like it."

I’m not knocking consultants or advisors at all, but it is undeniable that by going to gal-leries you develop a good chemistry with people that work there. If you see something that you can afford to buy, you shouldn't be afraid to ask basic questions such as "How do I know it’s real?" or "How did you come up with that price?" Often people don’t ask those questions, because they fear that they'll seem ignorant, when actually I think it’s a very smart thing to do.





People like me should be able to answer those questions. If somebody asks: "Who used to own this?", that’s an okay question but it doesn’t really have anything to do with the piece itself. If I said "von Ribbentrop" or "David Rockefeller", is it going to make any difference to the work of art?

Some critics have highlighted your views on commercialism as being controversial to your position in the art world – what do you think about this?I’m in denial on that issue because it’s a projection of what people think I should think, rather than what I’ve always thought. If people look back to the art world I was born into, they wouldn’t be surprised at all. I’ve moved with the times, but I also have a bird’s eye view, so whilst I’m very positive and admiring of the art business, I have no qualms with being proud of the fact that I’ve made a good living, buying and selling works of art. It’s a commercial activity, but I don’t make money by implying that it’s going to be worth more tomorrow than it is today. That’s not part of our job.

I don’t think it’s a contradiction at all to say that my judging works of art by their commercial value is against my 50-odd years as an art dealer. If I want you to buy one of my artists, first of all you’ve got to like them. I should be able to justify the value of something, but I’m not going to sell you something and make you swear that you’re never going to put it up for auction, which is what I think is what some dealers do. I would hope that I’d be the person you brought it back to for resale, but also that it would be something you would not be buying as a financial chip. Art should be something that you can afford, that you like and that you expect to keep.

Using your genie fable from The Value of Art: if you could have one piece that you could not sell for profit, show or discuss with anyone, what would you pick?Oh, what a rotten question to ask me! Can I take the Rothko Chapel at The Menil Collection in Houston? I first saw it when it was empty, just before the dedication in 1971 and it was the most profound experience of my life involving a work of art. Well over thirty years later and full of people, it still had the same effect. Perhaps that is too selfish a choice. If it had to be just one work it would have to be Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait at the Age of 63 at The National Gallery in London. It started to mesmerise me when I got close to that age and now — quite a bit beyond — the work still speaks volumes to me. Plus he seems like the sort of chap I would get along with, even if we were just fishing silently side by side. It is a soul’s mirror for me.

Douglas Cooper Dinner Party At the Château de Castille,

c. 1965 From left to right: Zette Leiris;

unknown; Lauretta Hope-Nicholson; John Richardson;

Douglas Cooper; Pablo Picasso; Francine Weisweiller; Jean Cocteau; Michael Leiris; unknown woman; Jean Hugo

Unknown photographer



InterviewTuRNING fOOD INTO ART:

AN INTERvIEW WITH cHARLOTTE OMNèS

Texture Pepper balsamic © Charlotte Omnès

With 20 years of experience in the culinary industry, Charlotte Omnès has become the go-to name in food styling. Working with industry giants — Starbucks, Kraft, Häagen Dazs to name a few — it's Charlotte's artistic pieces in the series Textures and Cut in Half that are garnering attention from the art world. Art Media Agency spoke to Charlotte, to talk to her about her journey, inspirations, and her culinary and creative palette.

Tell us how you came to be in the food styling profession? Did you have any formal training?There isn’t really any formal training in food styling, a few classes here and there – I fell into it, as most people do. I think the one requirement is that you have to be a very visual person.

I began in the culinary school direction and worked in restaurants, on a cruise ship, and in catering — the typical things that one might do. Then in my twenties I lucked out in finding a job doing recipe and restaurant development which gave me a really broad look at the culinary field. I had this job for about six and a half years and I realised that food styling was probably the best fit for me.

I’ve always been very creative, even beyond food; I like costuming and for me, there’s no happier place than in a museum. From the beginning it was important for me to make a statement — to use food in a creative way beyond the business side of things.





Which factors propelled you to do things differently with food?It was the obvious changeability of food that appealed to me: you can take something and turn it into so-mething that people will enjoy. The thing that’s so interesting about using food as a medium is it only has a moment – it melts, it changes colour, and then it’s gone. To be able to create that moment and capture it is what I love to do.

When I started out, I was working with a lot of photographers who were beginning their career as I was, and I took the opportunity to ask people to take pictures of things that I’d created. Sometimes people didn’t really understand what I was trying to do, but then others just got it. This really allowed me to go off the grid in terms of food styling.

I get the chance to work with people who are open to creativity, and I think that energy is translated into the excitement that’s in our photographs.

Is there a fine line between what transcends food into art and do you see yourself straddling that?I think people really enjoy it as a medium when it’s approached from an artistic aspect because everyone eats! My objective is to offer people another way of looking at the foods they know and can relate to. It is not to force a certain reaction but offer up an object that will leave some sort of impression. The reaction is left to the viewer as a response to their personal experience with the food and the image. This is why the same image can produce reactions from delight to disgust depending on the viewer and that viewer's relationship to the food. How I manipulate the medium is where my experience in advertising and artistic sensibilities come into play. By using foods that everyone can relate to, I'm using an artistic medium that is sure to get a reaction. © Charlotte Omnès





In Textures (2012), your series of paintings made with food, what did you hope to achieve in your work and what inspired you?It stemmed from a Robert Ryman exhibition I went to see at the DIA:Beacon Museum in New York. His work, along with other artists in the Minimalism and Abstract movements, really resonated with me. They weren’t trying to conceive something in particular in their paintings, the focus was purely on the experience of the medium. All of my work is about my relationship with the medium of food — how I can control it or let it do what its going to do; to capture the beauty and find that moment where you can say, "Yes, now its perfect. Take the picture!"

So that’s really what spurred the whole series. I took the idea to Beth Galton, a photographer I work with a lot, who thought it was a really good idea, and unbeknownst to me had been to see the exhibition around the same time. I really enjoy working with Beth because we speak the same creative language.

So for Textures we started to look at other work that we could take a cue from, for instance Rothko. Really what I wanted to do was to take food, create a canvas it could react on and use ingredients that made sense as a combination. I didn't set out to create a deeper meaning to it; people were attracted to them because they think its an interesting idea and they can relate to it. So for instance the mustard and ketchup paintings, it was first meant to make you wonder what it was before you realised that it really is just sauces. And that’s the thing that’s so fun, because I can show them my work and it will hopefully change their perspective.

Were the ingredients paired together in terms of colour combinations or was it more focused on the taste palette?A bit of both! The ones we did which look like Rothko, there’s the bowl of the ingredients used in the same shot to distinguish that we were using food. The whole experience was to just take food, use it as paint and see what happens. I bought all these colourful ingredients, started puréeing them to create the ‘paint’ and paired them together to make the best colour and flavour combinations.

textures beet cabbage onion© Charlotte Omnès





These would all go together to make a good dish — like the red pepper and balsamic, or beetroot, red cabbage and red onion —, they were compelling both in colour and in taste. You could literally scrape it off the canvas and eat it! [laughs]

And can you tell us about your aim for the ink paintings within the same series?We really wanted people to understand that it was food we were using and not paint. With these particular paintings, if I had not put the octopus on the canvas, it just would have been a normal painting. But if you look closely at those I actually used cuttlefish ink and applied puréed squid over the ink to give it a grainy-effect and used it to paint white on top of white, which was a method used by my inspiration artist, Franz Klein.

I really tried to stay true to the techniques that he was using but also create something that was my own. In those paintings one was the Brooklyn Bridge and another was the New York World's Fair Pavilion; abstract renditions of really iconic structures. That’s what Klein was doing, painting something known but in dynamic, abstract ways, and that’s what I wanted to do, but with food.

The series that preceded Textures, Cut In Half (2012), also caused a lot of media attention. How did the idea start?This was a project that Beth initiated – it stemmed from a project she’d worked on for a client where she’d cut a burrito lengthways as opposed to the typical in half, which gave it a completely new perspective and more information as to what was inside it.

So the two of us put together a list of things that could be cut in half to expose a surprise within. Then as we were making the list I started thinking how interesting would it be to take the package and cut the whole thing in half. And that’s where it got clever.

One that was most successful was the cereal. As photographers and food stylists, our job is to create a picture of what’s inside the box, so it was almost a play on our industry to say lets just cut the whole thing in half and show you more. Some weren't particularly appealing — like the soup — but it’s recognisable.

Each one had had a different approach to it, for instance the iced coffee was the only one where we used Pho-toshop. We took two photos, one with just the coffee and another with the milk and sugar being poured into it, where we captured the swirling. Then we layered it onto the original. For the liquid shots — the coffee, noodles, soup — we used gelatin to create the illusion. We really wanted to provoke a ‘How did they do that?’ reaction.

To be able to do that series I had to think technically as well as creatively, using all sorts of different crafting, supplies etc. to make it work. I took a turkey to my boyfriend’s workshop and cut it in half on a ban saw, which goes beyond the role of a food stylist and more into the realm of model-maker or butcher!

Is this, like your Fast Food (2013) series, making a statement about the fast food culture?It’s certainly a statement on the moment we’re in, as these are global foods which everyone can identify. There’s never been a time in our history where everyone can recognise soda or popcorn. Which in a sense is quite sad, but equally interesting, in that no matter where you are, what language you speak, you know what those items are. Again in Fast Food I wanted to play with commonplace things (grilled cheese, tomato soup) but create the illusion of movement.

For Textures and Fast Food, what kind of equipment are you using to photograph these shots?It depends on the photographer that I'm working with, but its usually a strobe, which captures the sprinkling or splashes.

Client-side, you’ve worked with corporate fast food brands including Starbucks, Häagen Dazs, Target and American express – do you feel that your artistic belief is compromised by this?Not really because I’m staying very relevant in terms of understanding what consumers want and what they buy. I can tell you my thoughts on food and what motivates me as an artist, but essentially it doesn't matter — I have to take the perspective of a viewer. Starbucks sells what they sell because they know what their audience wants and I'm just trying to put that in a context. I'm not changing anything. Whether you were a big foodie who never goes to Starbucks, or likewise the typical consumer of one of my clients, they will both look at my artwork and appreciate it. I don't think there's a deeper statement to it, I'm just taking the ordinary and trying to make them beautiful. And while not all companies are ready for my level of experimentation, some see my work and think it looks great!





What do you think of molecular gastronomy and chefs such as Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adrià, in terms of what they do with their food?I think its absolute genius. They’ve created a new approach of which I am in absolute admiration and awe. There have been these waves of time where people have found a new way of eating. I was sad to hear WD-50 [the Michelin-starred New York restaurant] was closing, which might be an indication that that wave has been ridden.

Chefs or artists - is there anyone that inspires you when you come to creating something new?My work in the kitchen has been inspired by greats such as Julia Child and author Harold Magee, but for the most part, I’m doing my own thing and I don’t get involved too much with the latest superstar chefs. What I do is so different from the culinary world. I’m more inspired by photographers who create amazing imagery, who make me see things differently.

Tell us about your latest Lichtenstein-inspired project.This is was inspired and directed towards one of my clients who owns a lot of different condiments! I thought about writing with the sauces, which then turned to comic book thought bubbles, and then we arrived at put-ting them on comic book backgrounds, which became something very Lichtenstein-esque.

And what's coming up in the future?I have three really big projects coming up, with different groups of people. I’m working on something that I would like to have a gallery show with pieces people can buy as well. And another series that I’m doing is more video-based – which I hope people will enjoy on many different levels. It basically another play on the industry and myself saying, “Isn’t it funny what you do?!”

Eggs © Charlotte Omnès



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