And The Beat Goes On…

It seems there are still issues at the ICA despite people being generally supportive of the new boss, Gregor Muir.

Apparently the VAT bill for hires is huge and the VAT wasn’t charged back to the clients leaving the ICA’s finances in a very poor state, though not that this is anything new. Apparently it’s a little like groundhog day in the accounts department.

Staff are being culled but those at the top are not taking any cuts to their substantial salaries, which is great news for Karen Turner who after working as a consultant for the ICA and being responsible for the first wave of redundancies, is now the MD and responsible for a second wave.

Soon there will be no one left to sack and the ICA will be a nice building on The Mall that you can hire for weddings and Conservative Party events, without any VAT to pay at all.

And so it goes…

Calling Budding Artists!

There you go, for years no-one in the airline industry gives a fig about the dear world of contemporary art (no, we have no idea where this is going either) and then suddenly two airplanes turn up at once! Like the congested flight-paths over Heathrow, like the frantic jostling of art-lovers at the Stansted oyster-bar en route to the Ryanair flight to Venice (Treviso), our airspace is suddenly totally rammed up!

Okay, we realise this isn’t that interesting but its summer and stories are slow. But here’s our Tracey launching her thing with British Airways.

We love the bit about art being “the new church” – presumably Tracey means chronically under-funded, poorly-attended and filled with dubious middle-aged chaps who like to “teach youngsters”.

And Emirates are also launching some competition called the “Skywards Future Artists Competition” where young artists get the chance to serve canapes buck-naked to new Middle-Eastern collectors in business class en route to Art Dubai (or something like that, we didn’t bother to read the strangely aggressive press release in too much detail).

Are you a young artist “just entering the field”? Or are you are old artist who has never shown their work? If so, this is just the “ticket” (geddit?)

We told you it was dull. Let’s get back to talking about Picture This!

Picture This

Claire Hooper has just been announced as the winner of the sea-change residency at Picture This. Is it just us, or has someone else noticed that this is the second time this year that a publicly-funded institution (which has just lost its ACE funding – we wonder why) whose director Lisa Panting is also running the commercial gallery – Hollybush Gardens – that represents this artist. Earlier in the year their artist Falke Pisano also had an exhibition at Picture This. Nepotism, conflict of interest or just clever to have your artist’s work produced and funded by an institution you run so that you can then sell it through the gallery you also run?

Pleasant WInd

ERM.
Would that be from Galeria Continua who flog Chinese artists by any chance?
And, FYI, he’s not free. He’s on bail. Don’t get carried away.

Begin forwarded message:

From: GALLERIACONTINUA
Date: 23 June 2011 12:58:14 BDT
Subject: AI WEIWEI IS FREE

A new bridge, a colourful rainbow
connects again China and the rest of the world.
Ai Weiwei is free, Ai Weiwei is well!
The spring was dark but in
the summer a pleasant wind of freedom is
blowing and we hope it will cross every
season.

GALLERIACONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin

Making Statements

Its degree show time again: forests have been felled and fast food fliers have been put on hold as paper makers and printers have been busy with another crop of pitiful catalogue/year books filled with pixelated pics and ‘artist’s statements’.

One year out of college, after continuing their studies at the University of Life, they post on YouTube.

If you need to write you’re own artist’s statement, this website will do it for you.

“We’re part of a new generation” (of idiots).

or

How To Let The World Know You Are Stupid.

Time Gentlemen, Please

Christian Marclay’s 24 hour pyscho-pathogen “The Clock’ is becoming a real bore. The other night in Basel Dascha ‘Pop’bitch Abramovich and media monster Elizabeth Murdoch (yup, daughter of) co-hosted a ridiculous dinner for the smug artist at the Beyeler Foundation. It wasn’t enough that this stupidly tedious work used up half the budget for the British Art Show (especially given that he’s Swiss and has no real engagement with Britain other than his Mrs works here). And then White Cube decided that not enough people had been bored by seen it already and clogged up Mason’s Yard with it. Then it won Best in Show at Crufts Venice (a Swiss clock awarded a prize for a show sponsored by Swiss watchmaker-Swatch – PR dream!). Now all the museums of the world (Tate included) have discovered that the footage is all nicked… You’d think this would put them off as, because of this, it can’t actually be shown, but no. He’s expecting them to aquire the rights for him as well. Cue thousands of Tate man-hours calling unhelpful movie houses…

Bold indeed.

COS favourite art muppet Hannah Barry is currently looking for patrons for her next car park thing.. Bold Tendencies has gone all “non profit” and she is looking for support.. We at COS urge each and everyone one of our readers to support the cause. We don’t think there has been a more just and needy cause since Parasol Unit’s ‘curator’/founder Ziba de Weck (and wife of Pierre de Weck, Head of Private Wealth Management at Deutsche Bank) started asking people to support her folly leading institution.

This year, Barry is taking the same curatorial approach of shipping in artists nominated by a “curatorial council” rather than using her own artists as in previous years. Presumably someone advised her that she can’t tell her arse from her elbow when it comes to art.

Eye on the Prize…

In a desperate attempt by the Tate empire for the Turner Prize to reach even wider audiences they have commissioned some informative videos to help the general public understand this years line up. It has taken a crack team of over 38 ‘Interpretation Curators’ and at least 30 specialist consultants, but we think the results are well worth it.
Here at COS we certainly have a better understanding now..

Karla Black

Hilary Lloyd

Martin Boyce

George Shaw

Venice is Now in Hackney

Anyone miss Andrew Nairne’s tweets from yesterday.? They are just fucking brilliant!

You are on the edge, arms outstretched, heart beating – a wholeworld. River below. Indigo reflections. A Venetian Baroque sky in Hackney

Standing still in Tavistock Square. Postcard sky with puffy white clouds, a bus goes by

Ryan Giggs. Shagged his missus’s sister. Oo-er missus. Oo-er Ryan. His terrible beauty makes me weep. Passing cloud looks like a huge penis

Okay, we made one of these up. 25k from ACE’s foreign trip expense account for the lucky reader who guesses which one. Follow Andrew on twitter @totalarse