Waiting

Waiting to call Hein in Copenhagen
Waiting for email from Torres
Waiting to meet de Cock in Brussels
Waiting to meet Moller in Basel
Waiting for a reply from Cantor
Waiting for the contact of Golia
Waiting for Abdessemed to return to Paris

Waiting waiting waiting..........
Stress Stress Stress........

ArtBabble

This is another great initiative of liberating art from the museum and let art goes to the internet.

ArtBabble(artbabble.org), a Web site created by the Indianapolis Museum of Art that offers videos from sources including the Museum of Modern Art and the PBS series “Art:21.”

ArtBabble which goes live to the public on Tuesday, invited a handful of institutions, including the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, to take part. In the long run, it hopes to add more institutions, so that ArtBabble becomes “the destination for art content online.”

On ArtBabble the majority of videos are in high definition. The design of the home page is clean and is clearly meant to draw in nonspecialists, with speech bubbles featuring punchy quotations that, when clicked on, jump to the relevant videos. (A mock dictionary entry defines “ArtBabble” as “a place where everyone is invited to join an open, ongoing discussion — no art degree required.”)

The most unusual feature of the site is the “notes” that accompany each video. The notes run down a window to the right of the screen, offering links to related material on the Web. For example, in an interview with the artist Robert Irwin, when Mr. Irwin mentions the sculptors Mark di Suvero and Richard Serra, the notes offer links to the Wikipedia entries for each artist. A reference to the gardens that Mr. Irwin designed at the Getty Center in Los Angeles provides links to the Getty Center’s Web site (getty.edu) and a YouTube video of the gardens. Representatives of several of the partner institutions said that they were most excited about the notes feature and its potential.

Check it out, you will see how the museums install exhibitions... I really love watching this behind the scene part!!

Tate liberates art - art on iTunes

It has been 3 years that Tate Modern is doing this... firstly as an audience building strategy to attract young audience. They even worked with Playstation to launch some interactive work.
Now, more than soely for audience building, they are normalising art, making it widely available in the internet and for free. Youtube is another partner of Tate to meet the same end.

More than 400 files are now on iTunes U - a section of the online store which features educational content. Projects include a series of films that use social networking site Twitter to bring the audience's questions directly to artists like David Hockney. There are also recent interviews with contemporary artists including Jeff Koons and Louise Bourgeois. Clips of Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed and his band performing at the Tate Modern are featured alongside debates about his work. (Personally, I love watching the artists interviews, to listen to them first-hand and to recognise their face. In case one day you bump into Jeff Koons, you have to realise who the hell is blocking your way.)

Another part is the educational. As we are now infected with reading-disability, we need visual aids. So here you are audio recordings of leading academics, teaching resources and multimedia guides for the latest Tate exhibitions, which will also be made available in iTunes.

The question is, when vast data is available in the net, you feel the dismay of swimming in a enormous sea and seeing no end... remember what Nineteen Hundreds (Legend of 1900) says of NY City? "You rolled out in front of me a keyboard of millions of keys, millions and billions of keys that never end. That they never end. That keyboard is infinite... and if that keyboard is infinite, then on that keyboard there is no music you can play. You're sitting on the wrong bench... That is God's piano." Should we zap between Tate iTunes, MoMA Youtubes, Artbabble, Artnet, etc. etc.?

任你砌的Habitadule

文字/ 丁燕燕
相片提供 ©mariecompagnon

集遊戲及實用於一身的Habitadule為三十三歲法籍設計師Marie Compagnon的最新力作。它由十六塊邊長四十六厘米的正方形硬卡板及六十四件接駁零件組成，可讓小朋友及大朋友發揮建築師精神，隨意組合出不同的形狀及用途，如小密室、屏風、牀案、立方形櫃子，甚至是純粹的裝飾物、拱門、小劇院等，變化層出不窮。板塊平面上有大小不一的洞口，不單能把光線引進內部，還可以形成不同的影子，製造迷幻的感覺，同時加強內、外的區別。

Habitadule共有藍和紅兩個顏色可供選擇，由Mon Petit Art發行，於巴黎Bon Marché百貨公司有售，定價為75歐羅。四月始於日本有售。

查詢︰http://www.monpetitart.com/

Andy Warhol大世界

(相片提供︰RMN / © 2009 Andy Warhol )

文字 / 丁燕燕

有說Andy Warhol在成為著名藝術家之前，是一個追星族。成名之後，他為他喜歡的明星、名人繪製畫像。1962年他先後為多位名人創作畫像，包括瑪麗蓮夢露和她的死敵依利莎白泰萊、猫王皮利士及重新演繹達芬奇的名作蒙娜˙麗莎。從1967至1987年間，他的名人畫像已足夠創造一個叫人眩目的花花世界。除了電影明星及搖滾歌手如Brigitte Bardot、Jane Fonda、Mick Jagger外，還有藝術家Man Ray、David Hockney、Joseph Beuys、Keith Haring；政客如Willy Brandt、Edward Kennedy；時裝設計師如Yves Saint-Laurent、Sonia Rykiel、Hélène Rochas等。Warhol曾經說過，他的人像作品必須尺寸統一，這樣它們才能全部合併在一起，成為一幅社會浮生圖。

此期間，Warhol在他名為「工廠」的工作室裡開始了史無前例的工業式生產。他以Polaroid相機為模特兒拍下人像，小心篩選後用最理想的相片加工，並以絲網印刷技巧大量生產。這批相片現藏於Pittsburgh的Warhol Museum，部份更罕有地外借，於巴黎大皇宮的「Andy Warhol大世界」中展出。是次展覽在Warhol上千件作品中精挑二百多件，以多個主題展出︰自畫像、絲網印刷、毛主席、錢、天災、最後的晚餐等。自1979年Whitney Museum展出過Warhol的五十件人像後，這次的巴黎展出是最大型的Warhol回顧展，將藝術家一直以來強調的「重覆」性創作呈現觀眾眼前。

Warhol’s Wide world
3月18日至7月13日
Galeries nationales Grand Palais

Ethel Scull 36 times, 1963, 202,6 x 363,2 cm, 亞克力膠、金屬油、絲網、畫布© Whitney Museum of American Art / Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © 2009 Andy Warhol Foundation for the visuals arts inc. / Adagp, Paris, 2009
Brigitte Bardot, 1974, 120 x 120 cm 亞克力膠、絲網、畫布。私人收藏 © 2009 Andy Warhol Foundation for the visuals arts inc. / Adagp, Paris, 2009