ARTISTS CREATE LIMITED EDITIONS TO RAISE FUNDS FOR BARACK OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN
Gemini has invited a number of artists to create limited edition prints to raise funds for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. John Baldessari, Jonathan Borofsky, Frank Gehry, Ann Hamilton, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Julie Mehretu, Ken Price, Susan Rothenberg, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra and Richard Tuttle have all created works in of the Democratic National Committee. A portfolio of all their works are being given in exchange for a donation of $20,000. For more information visit: www.geminigel.com
NEW MUSEUM ANNOUNCES STUART REGEN VISIONARIES FUND
Lisa Phillips, the director of the New Museum in New York, has announced the formation of the Stuart Regen Visionaries Fund, established to support a new series of public lectures and presentations by cultural visionaries. The series will focus on the fields of art, architecture, design, and related disciplines of contemporary culture, to promote the innovations shaping intellectual life and defining the future now. The Stuart Regen Visionaries Fund has been established with a major gift from Barbara Gladstone, in honour of her son, Stuart Regen, who died ten years ago at the age of thirty-nine. Regen was founder of the Los Angeles gallery Regen Projects, and the first to champion and exhibit work by artists such as Lari Pittman, Charles Ray, Raymond Pettibon, Mathew Barney, and Catherine Opie.
JAMES HYMAN ACQUIRES COLONY ROOM MURAL
James Hyman of James Hyman Gallery in London has bought the famous Soho Colony Room mural painted by Michael Andrews for £38,400 at Lyon & Turnbull's recent auction of contemporary art. Hyman commented on the importance of purchasing the work from an historical point of view: 'The Colony Room is a part of London's cultural history and the mural was the centrepiece. At this stage I am not sure what will happen to it. I am just pleased to have secured it for future generations to enjoy.' Hyman would like to see the work in a museum, and expressed surprise that neither the Tate nor the Museum of London bid for the work. Hyman, who represents the Michael Andrews estate, hopes that by 'saving' the mural he will be enable British museums to have a second opportunity to purchase the work.
DEUTSCHE BANK LOANS 600 WORKS TO FRANKFURT MUSEUM
Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, has permanently loaned 600 works by artists including Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, and Sigmar Polke to Frankfurt's Staedel Museum, reports Bloomberg. Other artists whose works are included in the permanent loan are Georg Baselitz, Martin Kippenberger, Markus Luepertz, Guenther Foerg, and Guenther Uecker. The bank has one of the world's biggest corporate art collections, with more than 53,000 works. The loan comprises 370 graphic works, 161 works on paper, and sixty paintings and sculptures. "This trove from the Deutsche Bank collection allows the Staedel to boost its stock of top-quality postwar art and live up to its task of showing visitors important developments in art history," said Max Hollein, director of the museum. The loan to the Staedel will eventually be exhibited in the museum's planned extension, scheduled for completion by early 2011. Some of the works will be on public display at the Staedel until 9 November.
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON, HOPES TO ACQUIRE QUINN BLOOD HEAD
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has been accused of trashing its remit to record individuals of "status" who have contributed to "British history and culture", reports the London Times. The state-funded gallery announced that it wants to acquire a controversial work in which a relatively little-known artist made a cast of his head from his own frozen blood. If the NPG can raise £350,000 by the end of the year, it will display Marc Quinn's refrigerated 'Blood Head' alongside portraits of kings and queens, statesmen and scientists who made their mark on the nation's history. Quinn's only major commission so far is the Trafalgar Square plinth. He has yet to be nominated for the Tate's high-profile Turner Prize. Julian Spalding, former director of public galleries and museums in Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow, said that, quite apart from the art, one cannot say that this artist has the necessary status. "The NPG's remit is to collect images of people who have made a contribution to British life," he said. "I can't see what contribution Marc Quinn has made to anyone -- except to himself in making money. I'm horrified. This is not a work of art. It's a cast. A cast isn't a work of art. It's not created. It's meaningless." 'Blood Head' or 'Self' was made in 2006 with ten pints of Quinn's blood. It is the latest in a series that began in 1991.
One of them was bought for a reported £13,000 by the advertising millionaire Charles Saatchi who caused a furore in 1997 by lending it to the Royal Academy's Sensation exhibition, along with other bloody works from his collection. Since then the artist has made a new cast every five years, claiming that he is documenting his own transformation and ageing. He is said to be planning a final one after his death, when he wants his blood to be drained out of his body. The NPG hailed the Blood Head as "unconventional, innovative and challenging" and said that it would complement its extensive collection of artists' self-portraits made over the past 500 years. 'Self' is now on offer to the NPG through the artist's gallery, White Cube. The deadline is December 31. The fund-raising appeal was kick-started by The Art Fund, the independent art charity, which has given £100,000 towards the purchase.
PRIZES
Mark Dion is the 2008 winner of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Lucelia Artist Award. He was selected by an independent panel of jurors for his prolific creativity and impressively varied body of work, which includes mixed-media installations, sculptures and public projects that explore the relationship between art, science and history through pseudo-scientific methods of investigation and display. Dion is the eighth annual winner of the $25,000 award, which is intended to encourage the artist's future development and experimentation.
British Council offices around the world have selected nine finalists for the inaugural International Young Visual Entrepreneur Award. The candidates work in the visual-arts business in emerging markets, in both public-sector and commercial galleries, as well as auction houses, publishing companies, and other communications agencies that are advocates for visual arts in their countries. The nine finalists will participate in a two-week tour of the London, Newcastle/Gateshead, and Liverpool visual-arts scenes. This year's finalists are Juan Pablo Fajardo, cocreative director and manager of La Silueta Ediciones in Columbia; curator Himanshu Verma from India; Shereen Diab, local director of Lens on Lebanon; Paulina Wroclawska of Raster Gallery in Poland; Amal Saud Mohammed Alkhamisi, a digital painter and teacher based in Saudi Arabia; Abir Boukhari, founder of All Art Now in Syria; Fred Halla, chairman and project coordinator of Rafiki Arts Trust in Tanzania; Khalil Abdul Wahid, manager, Visual Arts Dubai Culture and Arts Authority in the United Arab Emirates; and Suwon Lee, of Oficina #1 and Fulgar magazine, in Venezuela.
The Sonning Prize, Denmark's largest cultural award in the order of DKK 1 million, has been awarded to the architect Renzo Piano. The prize is given every other year by the University of Copenhagen for "commendable work that benefits European culture".
Tim Lee has been awarded the prestigious 2008 Sobey Art Award, Canada's pre-eminent prize for a young Canadian artist. The award of $50.000 is presented every year to an artist 40 years old or younger.
COMINGS AND GOINGS
Catherine David has been appointed director of the Lyon Biennale 2009. David directed Documenta 10 in Kassel in 1994-97, and was based at the Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam in 2002-04. In 2008 she received the Bard College Award for Curatorial Excellence. She is currently chief curator at the Direction des Musées de France (French Museum Board).
Javier Peres is opening a new gallery in Culver City in the space formerly occupied by Anna Helwing's gallery.
Eric Shiner has been appointed curator of art at the Andy Warhol Museum.
Victor Pinchuk has named Eckhard Schneider director of the Pinchuk Center, the steel billionaire's Kiev art museum. Schneider is a former director of the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria,
The Miami Art Museum has appointed Roger M. Buergel as chief curator and deputy director of programs at the museum. Buergel is an independent curator, a former professor of art history at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts, and a scholar of visual theory who has lectured at the University of Lüneburg, both in Germany. He also served as artistic director of Documenta 12.
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