MILLIONS SIGN PETITION AGAINST ARTIST USING STARVING DOG IN EXHIBITION
The Times reports on the worldwide outrage sparked by an art exhibition featuring a seemingly starving stray dog tied up in a gallery has sparked outrage across the world. Online anger has reached epic proportions. Millions of animal lovers have signed petitions, made video responses and created a Facebook group to prevent an artist from repeating an ethically questionable "art installation". According to a report in The Observer newspaper, Costa Rican artist Guillermo "Habacuc" Vargas has been called an animal abuser, killer and worse because of claims that a stray dog named Natividad died of starvation after he displayed it at an exhibition last year at the Codice Gallery in Managua, Nicaragua. Vargas reportedly tied the animal up in a gallery without food and water. On the wall above the stray dog the words "Eres Lo Que Lees" ("You Are What You Read") made out of dog biscuits challenged the audience, while the Sandinista anthem was played backwards. To complete the mayhem, he set 175 pieces of crack cocaine alight in a huge incense burner. More than a million people have signed an online petition urging the organisers of this year's event to stop Vargas taking part in the Visual Arts Biennial of the Central Americas. The organisers invited the artist to repeat his installation for the 2008 biennial. According to the artist, he wanted to test the public's reaction, and insisted none of the exhibition visitors intervened to stop the animal's suffering. He refused to say whether the animal had survived the show, but said he had received dozens of death threats.
PUBLIC ARTWORK BY IDRIS KHAN UNVEILED THIS MONTH
A specially commissioned permanent public artwork, entitled 'Fragile' by Idris Khan, will be unveiled on 30 May at 7 Howick Place in London's Westminster. Curated by Artwise Curators, 'Fragile' is artist Idris Khan's first permanent public artwork and is sited in the entrance to 7 Howick Place, a former Royal Mail Sorting office that has been newly converted into a space dedicated to art, fashion and design in London's Victoria. Those familiar with Khan's work will know his signature practice of layering images of photographs, paintings and film. This inherent process of repetition to reinforce a statement, sentiment or written word is here transformed into a collection of films inspired by the history of the building. Comprising four individual films, 'Fragile' will be played across a set of plasma screens embedded into
the pavement outside the entrance to 7 Howick Place. This is the first ever outdoor installation of floor-
mounted plasma screens in the UK, developed especially for the project by Flasma. By installing the
screens in the ground, Khan encourages the viewer to look down and even walk over them; this action
adding a unique sculptural feeling and a strange potency to what is seen.
YALE STUDENT'S WORK MAY BE BANNED FROM SHOW
Yale University has said that it will not allow one of its students to participate in a campus art exhibition unless she made a written statement that her "performance," in which she repeatedly inseminated herself and then induced miscarriages, was a fiction that she had concocted. Aliza Shvarts told the Yale Daily News that she had inseminated herself "as often as possible" over nine months and then taken herbal abortifacients to end the multiple pregnancies. She said she had made videos of herself miscarrying that she planned to show in a student exhibition next week along with her own blood. The university responded in a statement that the performance art piece "includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. [Shvarts] stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages." The university says that since learning about the project, it has disciplined two anonymous faculty members for their roles, according to the Yale Daily News her thesis adviser, lecturer Pia Lindman, and the director of undergraduate studies at the School of Art, Henk van Assen. Dean of Yale's school of art, Robert Storr said in a written statement, "If I had known about this, I would not have permitted it to go forward...This is not an acceptable project in a community where the consequences go beyond the individual who initiates the project and may even endanger that individual."
CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST PROFESSOR USING DNA FOR AN EXHIBITION
A judge on Monday dismissed charges against a college professor accused of illegally obtaining biological materials for an art exhibit protesting US government food policies, reports Associated Press. US District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that a mail and wire fraud indictment brought nearly four years ago against Steven Kurtz, a University at Buffalo professor, was "insufficient on its face." Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which has used human DNA and other biological materials in works meant to draw attention to political and social issues. His arrest drew international attention, with artists in several countries protesting the charges as an intrusion on artistic freedom. He became the target of a federal terrorism investigation in May 2004 when firefighters found the materials - two kinds of bacteria - and equipment they deemed suspicious after a 911 call to his home. Kurtz had called to report that his wife was dead from an apparent heart attack.
CY TWOMBLY: A BIRTHDAY PRESENT FROM THE TATE
On the eve of the artist's 80th birthday - Cy Twombly is 80 today, 25 April 2008 - the Tate in London has announced that it will bring together, for the first time, two of Twombly's great painting series from the 1990s as part of a major exhibition of his work at Tate Modern which will open on 19 June 2008. Comprising two sets of four enormous canvases, Tate will unite 'The Four Seasons' 1994-5, from the Tate Collection and 'The Four Seasons' 1993-4, from The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
NIKE LAUNCHES NEW ART PRIZE
Nike has announced the launch of a new annual programme to support and reward street-inspired artists in Europe. Devised by AKQA, 1/1 (one of one) invites artists to submit work to an online gallery that will be judged by Nick Knight's SHOWstudio and challenges the continent's top talent to create the ultimate limited edition to the brief, 'ART OF FOOTBALL'. The programme is open to anyone, from filmmakers and photographers to graf artists and illustrators - students or upcoming pros. Entrants will compete for a life-changing accolade: to exhibit in a unique ART OF FOOTBALL show alongside 11 of the world's most respected creative talents. The show takes place in Basel, Switzerland, and coincides with the world's leading contemporary art fair, Art Basel and the start of the European Football Championships 2008. One winner will be chosen to have their work immortalised on a limited edition series of Nike Dunks, the legendary shoes, set to tour the sneaker-temples of Europe. The best work from the whole programme will also feature in a hardcover 1/1 design book distributed through premium design outlets. For more information visit www.nike1-1.com.
ART FAIR NEWS
While Art Cologne saw its visitor figures slump this year with sales also down, Michael Neff, currently in charge of Gallery Weekend Berlin, is feeling bullish enough to be launching a new art fair in the city this September. The fair, which will be called ABC - Art Contemporary Berlin - will be modelled on Neff's former fair project in Frankfurt in which galleries were invited to exhibit just one work. That fair didn't survive beyond two editions - will ABC be fare better? Neff insists ABC won't be in competition with Art Forum Berlin, and is clearly not concerned about the potential overkill of launching the fair in the same month as Art Forum Berlin.
PRIZES AND AWARDS
The 36-year-old Israeli-born artist Omer Fast has won this year's Bucksbaum Award from the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Lightbox Gallery and Museum in Woking, the Shetland Museum and Archive in Lerwick, the Wellcome Collection and an anti-slavery exhibition at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol have all been shortlisted for the Art Fund Prize, which recognises Britain's best new or renovated galleries and shows in the past 12 months with an award, for the winner, of £100,000.
The American Academy in Rome has given its 2008-2009 Rome Prize Winners for visual arts to Hisham Bizri, David Humphrey, Marie Lorenz and Matthew Monteith.
Suzanne Pagé, director of the Fondation Louis-Vuitton Pour la Création in Paris, has been awarded the Art Cologne Prize of $16,000. The judges praised Pagé "for her outstanding achievement as a mediator of the classics from modern and contemporary art." Until 2006, Pagé was director of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
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