Hasta La Ideas

Following last week’s release of a statement and the start of a boycott by more than 100 artists against the Guggenheim, claiming the labor practices at the foundation’s ongoing construction of a new, Frank Gehry-designed museum in Abu Dhabi, the organization has issued a letter in an attempt to do some damage control and win the protestors back. In the letter, signed by Guggenheim’s director, Richard Armstrong and its chief curator, Nancy Spector, the letter spells out all the work the foundation has done to try and maintain safe and fair working conditions, and promising to do more and include the artists into the process. It sounds like a genuine plea, that the Guggenheim is worried about the damage the boycott will do, but now that the ball is in the protester’s court, as of this writing, they’ve yet to respond. Here’s a bit from the letter:

We believe that the statements that were made last week by Human Rights Watch have painted an inaccurate picture of the substantial progress in safeguarding workers’ rights that has been made to date. Clearly, the Guggenheim shares the goals expressed by you, the signatories of your petition, and Human Rights Watch to protect worker’s rights in Abu Dhabi. We believe that the progress made thus far is more than ceremonial. In fact, it signals fundamental changes in the emirates’ decades-long labor practices. It is important to us that you understand this was achieved through persistent and sustained effort on our part working in tandem with TDIC. We recognize that there is still much to strive for but know from past experience that change such as this is incremental around the world. It is very troubling to us that your statement portrays the Guggenheim as a passive agent with little consciousness of the issues at hand. That is the exact opposite of the truth.

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Photographer Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre has sent us his photos of the Centro Niemeyer by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, which opens tomorrow in Avilés, Spain.

An auditorium for 1000 spectators spills onto a public plaza, which also contains a viewing tower and three-storey dome-shaped museum.

A spiral staircase inside the museum leads to a mezzanine where light and sound installations will be on show for the inaugural exhibition, featuring work by film director Carlo Saura.

A separate building houses a cinema, rehearsal rooms, meeting areas and conference halls.

Photographs are by Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre/View.

The information below is from the Centro Cultural Internacional:

In 1989, the now one hundred year old Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, was awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts Award. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Awards in 2006, the Prince of Asturias Foundation (FPA) invited all the award winners to participate in the celebrations.

“I am an architect and, as such, what I do is design buildings and that is just what I am going to do; design a building.” And so, on a blank piece of paper, Oscar Niemeyer began sketching curves, a skill in which he excels. With this, Niemeyer offered one of the best possible gifts ever.

Those first sketches, drawn with a thick black marker, formed the foundations of an ambitious cultural project which will be housed in what Niemeyer himself has called his most important project in Europe and his only project in Spain.

Programme

The Niemeyer Center is an open door to culture in all its shapes, forms, traditions and styles. Music, theatre, cinema, expositions, conferences and outdoor and educational news will be the main focus of a multidisciplinary cultural programme of which the only common denominator is excellence.

The Niemeyer Center was created to attract talent, knowledge and creativity. From this point of view, not only will it be a gateway to the best of the world’s culture, but also a producer of contents. Since the celebration of the First World Forum of Cultural Centres in Avilés the Niemeyer Center has worked in connection with some of the most prestigious cultural centres throughout the world, such as the Carnegie Hall, the Old Vic Theatre and Cannes Film Festival, among others.

Facilities and Spaces The Niemeyer Center is the only piece of work created by Oscar Niemeyer to be built in Spain and, in his own words, it will be the most important of all his European designs.

Driven by the same healthy ambition, the Niemeyer Center aims to become an international reference point in the production of cultural content; a space associated with excellence dedicated to education and culture. In order to accomplish this, the cultural complex will consist of five areas which are both separate yet complementary to each other:

• An auditorium with capacity for 1,000 spectators.
• An almost 4,000 square meter open-plan exhibition site.
• Viewing point over the estuary and the city.
• Multi-use building that will house a cinema, rehearsal areas and meeting and conference halls.
• An open square, where entertainment and cultural activities will be programmed on a continuous basis, which will form a point of union between the Center and the city.

See also:

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International Fair of Tripoli by Oscar Niemeyer	More photographs by Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre	More about Spain

Eadweard Muybridge, Cockatoo; flying. Plate 759, 1887; collotype; Corcoran Gallery of Art

Two of our favorite things—Moluccan cockatoos and the pioneering photographs of Eadweard Muybridge—come together in today’s Friday Photo, an 1887 collotype that is on view through June 7 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of “Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change.” The blockbuster exhibition, which takes its name from the sunny pseudonym that Muybridge used in the late 1860s, includes more than 300 objects created between 1857 and 1893, including his only surviving zoopraxiscope—an apparatus he designed to project motion pictures. Curator Philip Brookman of the Corcoran Gallery of Art brought together works from 38 different collections, ranging from Muybridge’s photographs of Yosemite Valley and images of Alaska and the Pacific coast to his 1869 survey of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads and breathtaking pictures from Panama and Guatemala that reveal his architectural and landscape photography chops (a successful survey photographer, he also worked as a war correspondent). In this doozy from his Animal Locomotion series of stop-motion photographs, Muybridge captured 24 frames worth of a cockatoo in flight. It’s up to you to imagine the bird’s peachy feathers and jaunty salmon crest.

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Last fall when former Guggenheim director Thomas Krens quickly resigned from the foundation’s ongoing development of a new museum in Abu Dhabi, perhaps it was because he was either angered by the labor practices or saw the writing on the wall that trouble was soon on its way. It’s difficult to judge, given that his exit was handled with silence from all parties. However, with or without him, the news of abusive labor demands has gone widespread this week, with more than 130 artists, curators, and writers (many of them internationally-known) issuing a damning statement against the building efforts and signing a boycott “to end all cooperation with the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.” Labor issues, which the group of protesters claim “leaves migrant workers deeply indebted, poorly paid, and unable to defend their rights or even quit their jobs,” have been a hurdle for the organization since late last summer, when the Guggenheim announced a partnership with the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) to help oversee the development and make sure workers were treated fairly. A nice PR effort, for sure, but the group feels that it hasn’t done nearly enough to stop the widespread abuse:

On March 10, 2011, TDIC announced that it “is broadening its existing independent monitoring programme” and that it had revised its Employment Practices Policy (EPP) to provide that contractors “shall reimburse Employees for any Recruitment Fees paid by them, without deductions being imposed on their remuneration.” However, TDIC also stated that the monitor will examine only [United Arab Emirates] and EPP violations, which of course exclude significant labor law and human rights protections guaranteed under international law. Furthermore, it has not indicated whether the monitor’s findings will be made public. With respect to the EPP statement that contractors will reimburse workers for fees, without enforcement mechanisms and a guarantee from TDIC and the Guggenheim, it remains nothing more than an unenforceable promise for which only workers bear the risk of loss.

These problems now providing the Guggenheim with some very negative press are unfortunately larger than just this particular development, as labor issues have long plagued the area, ever since both western companies and wealthy locals started building like there’s no tomorrow all around the UAE. If no one paid much attention to workers’ plights during the building of the Burj Khalifa, perhaps this walkout of such a large number of high-profile artists will provide more awareness.

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From left, David Durante, Chellsie Memmel, and Dan O’Brien will perform at the U.S. Pavilion during the preview of the Venice Biennale.

Ready your tracksuits, art and design lovers! Fresh off their exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, where they dispensed with the bench and had their pianist play Beethoven‘s “Ode to Joy” from inside the instrument, artistic duo Allora & Calzadilla have outlined their plans for this summer’s Venice Biennale. The San Juan, Puerto Rico-based collaborators were chosen to represent the United States by the Indianapolis Museum of Art‘s Lisa Freiman, the commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion. It’s shaping up to be a sporty space: Allora & Calzadilla will be importing American gymnasts and track stars (courtesy of USA Gymnastics and USA Track & Field) to perform as part of three of the six new works commissioned for the exhibition.

Visitors to the U.S. Pavilion will be greeted by “Track and Field,” which will feature a massive overturned military tank. A functional treadmill will be grafted to the tank’s right track, and runners will go nowhere fast on it at regularly scheduled intervals throughout the exhibition. Two other installations, “Body in Flight (Delta)” and “Body in Flight (American),” will consist of realistically painted scale reproductions of the latest industrial designs for business-class airline seats. The wooden structures will stand in for the balance beam and pommel horse, and gymnasts and dancers will perform routines developed by Allora & Calzadilla. “These performative sculptures will use poetic shock and unexpected juxtaposition to raise questions about the relationship between the human body and art, militarism, commerce, sports, and international identity,” said Freiman, in a statement issued by the museum. Meanwhile, 1996 Olympic gold medalist Dan O’Brien, 2008 Olympic silver medalist Chellsie Memmel, and 2007 U.S. All-Around champion David Durante have signed on to perform at the pavilion during the three-day Biennale preview, which begins June 1.

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