Hasta La Ideas

Hot off the heals of last year’s fun “watch them restore The Bedroom live” online project and the recent news that a once-though self-portrait is now believed to be a painting of his brother, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is closing up shop. We could very nearly hear your audible gasps at that news, but rest easy (and stop gasping so loudly), the museum will just be closing temporarily, as their building is renovated, largely “to meet the heightened security requirements for the visitors and the art” (we think that means that they’re going to re-do all the eyes, so it looks even more like the paintings are looking at you no matter where you are in a gallery — that’s always spooky). What’s more, the Van Gogh is giving everyone plenty of notice, as they won’t close down until September 15th of next year, then hoping to re-open on March 15th of 2013. In the interim, if you’d like to still see a bevy of paintings by the artist, you’ll only need take the short hike over to the Amsterdam arm of the Hermitage, the aptly named Hermitage Amsterdam. The fellow museum will take a reportedly large collection from the rehabbing museum, both for safe keeping and to mount a special exhibition. So now that you know all the details and understand that you have a whole year to prep for its closure and that, on your next trip to Amsterdam, you can still swim in a sea of Van Gogh’s, hopefully you’re back to being calm and relaxed. It’s at this point that we wouldn’t even dare tell you another piece of museum news: that plans for a Bruce Lee Museum in Hong Kong have fallen apart and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be built. Oh, wait… Sorry. Please feel free to take another Xanax.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

What do a Florida state park, a young dandy tap dancing in the rain, and two lovestruck bunnies have in common? All can now be seen on televisions at The Standards in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles as part of the 2011 StandART in-room video art series, which launched this week. Curated by the sharp-eyed folks at nonprofit Creative Time, the public art project includes Terence Koh‘s “Rabbit Holy Days,” a new work conceived and commissioned for the program. The six-minute video, originally shot in 16mm under Koh’s direction by filmmaker Jake Yuzna, follows the love story of two bunnies navigating the corridors, rooms, and public spaces of The Standard, New York. Also on view are videos by Slater Bradley (“The Abandonments”), Kalup Linzy (“Labisha’s Bonus Track and Sit Down Child”), Allison Schulnik (“Forest”), Andrew Cross (“Prelude from The Solo”), Naomi Fisher (“Myakka”), and Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza (“Sans Titre Paysaye”). Here’s tiny pieces of all seven films, in a video collage featuring the percussive wizardry of drummer Carl Palmer, who stars in Cross’ work.

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Clearly the biggest news of the week, after just over three months spent detained by Chinese authorities for alleged financial crimes, artist Ai Weiwei was finally released late last night in Beijing. Weiwei’s detainment had quickly become a hot button issue worldwide, with a countless supply of other countries, protestors and supports, and museums across the world calling for his release, and most recently fellow high-profile artists boycotting planned exhibitions in China as a show of solidarity. However, while the press was waiting for him upon learning of his release, it doesn’t appear that Weiwei will be speaking about the experience anytime soon, given that an apparent media ban was a condition of his release. Here’s a bit from the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Ai said his health was fine and thanked reporters for their support as he returned to his studio late Wednesday with his mother and his wife, according to witnesses, but added that he wasn’t able to say more under the conditions of his bail.

“I can’t say much. I can say I’m out. I’m on bail. But I can’t say anything more under the conditions of my release,” he told The Wall Street Journal by telephone.

Asked how long the media ban was in place, he said: “One year, at least.”

However, given how frequently Weiwei seems to like to irk the Chinese authorities, hence this latest effort to silence him, who knows if he will actually keep quiet for the next year.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Next stop: not Brooklyn. The much-buzzed about “Art in the Streets” exhibition (Banksy-subsidized admission! Limited-edition Nike sneakers designed by Geoff McFetridge!) won’t be coming to the Brooklyn Museum after all, the institution announced today. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, where it is on view at the Geffen Contemporary through August 8, the first major U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art had been scheduled to move to the Brooklyn Museum—its only other venue—from March 30 through July 8 of next year.

“This is an exhibition about which we were tremendously enthusiastic, and which would follow appropriately in the path of our Basquiat and graffiti exhibitions in 2005 and 2006, respectively,” said Arnold L. Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum, in a statement released this afternoon. “It is with regret, therefore, that the cancellation became necessary due to the current financial climate. As with most arts organizations throughout the country, we have had to make several difficult choices since the beginning of the economic downturn three years ago.” Curated by MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch and associate curators Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose, “Art in the Streets” traces the development of graffiti and street art from the 1970s to the global movement it has become today, concentrating on key cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Sao Paulo. No word as to whether MOCA will seek an alternate 2012 venue for the show—a mix of paintings, mixed media sculptures, and interactive installations—at this late date.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In an attempt to re-engage design with social and political issues, new exhibition Information is Currency looks set to articulate some true 21st century concerns within the gallery space…

The exhibition’s title is a contraction of third US President Thomas Jefferson’s phrase – “Information is the currency of democracy” – updated, say the show’s curators, for the internet age. The exhibition opens at The Book Club in east London next week.

A theme that unites the work in the show is the rise of WikiLeaks and its cable releases and exposés of recent years.

One of the works in fact plays on a chilling line of dialogue taken from a now infamous film from July 2007 that saw American Apache helicopters opening fire on a group of people in Baghdad, killing around a dozen, including two Iraqi employees of the Reuters news agency.

As one of the helicopters circles a wounded man, one of the crew is heard saying, “Come on buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon.” The US military had claimed that all the dead were insurgents killed in battle engagement and the film of the incident was surpressed until it was obtained and decrypted by WikiLeaks.

“Whatever one’s personal opinion of WikiLeaks, it has brought to the surface issues of freedom of speech, privacy, transparency and power,” says UP^’s Jamie Balliu who curated the show with Jeff Knowles of Planning Unit.

The show aims to open up debate about the role of the designer in relation to these issues. “Everyday we are handed briefs requesting us to reach a particular market and tap into their desires using our creative noses and skills,” he continues. “This represents a challenge to a much more difficult terrain, one that investigates our relationship to society and requires us to look within to find our own opinions and positions.”

Some of the works in the show are direct visual responses to a particular cable release, whereas others will “explore the scandals and media circus surrounding the figurehead of WikiLeaks”, namely Julian Assange.

The exhibition features work from designers and artists including Barnbrook, We Buy Your Kids, Erkut Terliksiz, David Shillinglaw, Apropos, Marco Ammannati, Suki Dhanda, Nic Zoids, 10-collective, 21-19, OWNI, and UP^.

Information is Currency, directed and produced by UP^ and Liat Chen of Chimera Productions, launches at The Book Club, 100 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4RH on June 29 and runs until July 31. More information on UP^ Creatives at upcreatives.com.

Above: a limited edition print, left, and litho-print poster for the show

Above: a lithoprint poster, left, and limited edition print for the show. Below: various print series that will be exhibited at Information is Currency

CR in Print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog but if you’re not also reading Creative Review in print, you’re missing out.

The June issue of CR features a major retrospective on BBH and a profile piece on the agency’s founder, Sir John Hegarty. Plus, we have a beautiful photographic project from Jenny van Sommers, a discussion on how illustrators can maintain a long-term career, all the usual discussion and debate in Crit plus our Graduate Guide packed with advice for this year’s college leavers.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30%.