Jennifer Allen

  • news November 16, 2010

    International News Digest

    Klara Lidén Wins Blauorange Prize; Haubrok Foundation Loans Works to Berlin’s Nationalgalerie; Basquiat Painting Damaged; Louvre Seeks Donations Online

    KLARA LIDÉN’S WINNING EXHIBITION AT BONN’S KUNSTVEREIN

    As the winner of this year’s blauorange (blueorange) prize, this week the Swedish artist Klara Lidén will be picking up the award and unveiling her exhibition at Bonn’s Kunstverein. According to a press release from the blauorange foundation, “Rumpfflächen und Plündererbanden” (Peneplains and Plunderers), curated by Christiane Rekade, addresses the city of Bonn through both landscape and history. “A part of me is this poor architect, arguing with questions about the existing structures in the city,” said the Berlin-based Lidén. “A part of me

  • news November 08, 2010

    International News Digest

    Italy to Close Museums in Protest; Ai Weiwei’s House Arrest Ends; Santiago Sierra Turns Down Prize; Austrian Culture Budget Frozen for 2011.

    ITALY TO CLOSE MUSEUMS IN PROTEST

    Museums will be closing down across Italy on November 12 in order to protest the government’s cuts to the cultural budget. As Agence France-Presse reports, archeological sites, parks, and libraries in the main tourist cities join the museums by closing down for the day in protest. Only institutions run by the cities and communes, not by the state, will be affected by the closure. Therefore, the Ducal Palace in Venice and the MAXXI museum in Rome will be closed, but not the Coliseum.

    “Art is the main core of business in Italy,” said Andrea Ranieri, a member of the

  • news November 02, 2010

    International News Digest

    Berlin’s Kunsthalle Project Revived; Anish Kapoor Chosen for “Monumenta” in Grand Palais; Wildenstein Investigation; Qatar Shows Interest in Christie’s

    BERLIN’S KUNSTHALLE PROJECT REVIVED

    Berlin can look forward to another attempt at establishing a Kunsthalle. As Monopol’s Sebastian Frenzel reports, Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit revived the faltering project last week with a brand new proposal for an exhibition next summer. As Frenzel notes, Wowereit’s latest move comes after the temporary Kunsthalle Berlin closed in August and after funding, investors, and government support had all but evaporated. Under the latest plan, artists living in the city will be asked to submit portfolios for the exhibition, which will be curated by Angelique Campens,

  • news October 25, 2010

    International News Digest

    Details on the Next Venice Biennale; German Pavilion at Venice Biennale to “Thematize” Late Schlingensief; Cyprien Gaillard Wins Marcel Duchamp Prize; Two Winners for Ricard Prize; Pompidou Coins?

    NEXT VENICE BIENNALE: “ILLUMINATIONS” AND TINTORETTO

    Curator and critic Bice Curiger has revealed more details about the upcoming fifty-fourth Venice Biennale in 2011. As Agence France-Presse reports, the show will be called “ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations” and will run from June 4 to November 27 next year at the Giardini, the Arsenale, and other venues in the Venice; the professional preview is slated for June 1–3.

    According to a press release from the Venice Biennale, the title, which includes a play on the word “nations,” draws attention to the importance of developments in international art in

  • news October 19, 2010

    International News Digest

    Association Calls for “Ban” on Larry Clark Retrospective; Clark Works Removed from Exhibition; Legal Action Against Murakami Show; Works with Israeli Flag Removed from Exhibition; Police End Acropolis Blockade

    ASSOCIATION CALLS FOR “BAN” ON LARRY CLARK RETROSPECTIVE

    Although the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris has banned visitors under eighteen years of age from seeing the current Larry Clark retrospective, some believe that the X-rating does not go far enough. As Le Monde’s Clarisse Fabre reports, an association has called for the entire show to be banned. Alliance Générale contre le Racisme et pour le Respect de l’Identité Française et Chrétienne (AGRIF) (General Alliance against Racism and for the Respect of French and Christian Identity) addressed a letter to the Paris police and the mayor

  • Left: Art historian Isabelle Moffat and Udo Kittelmann, director of Berlin's Nationalgalerie. Right: Dealers Esther Schipper and Martin Klosterfelde. (All photos: Maureen Jeram)
    diary October 12, 2010

    Married Life

    LAST WEEK, Art Forum Berlin (AFB) and Art Berlin Contemporary (ABC) decided to try cohabitation—but at a distance. AFB took up its traditional space in the Palais am Funkturm, albeit about twenty galleries lighter this year, with 110 stands. In a conciliatory gesture, the younger rival ABC presented the exhibition “light, camera, action,” focusing on art and cinema, in the Marshall-Haus located in the garden behind the Palais.

    “It didn’t work out for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton either,” quipped one patron, heard grumbling in the golf carts shuttling visitors between the two sites. Unlike

  • news October 11, 2010

    International News Digest

    Moscow Curators Lose Appeal; Kiesler Prize for Heimo Zobernig; Berlusconi Coming Clean––or Going Down the Drain; Green Light for German Arts Academy in Istanbul; Strong European Presence at Morocco’s First Art Fair

    MOSCOW CURATORS LOSE APPEAL

    There’s bad legal news for Andrej Jerofejev and Jurij Samodurov, the two Moscow curators who were taken to court after organizing the controversial exhibition “Forbidden Art” at the city’s Tretjakov gallery. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Frank Nienhuysen reports, a Moscow judge in the appeals court ruled against the curators and has upheld an earlier charge against the pair for “inciting religious hatred.”

    The exhibition included, among other works, a black Madonna made from caviar and Mickey Mouse on traditional religious icons. Due to the scandal surrounding the show,

  • Left: Artist Joep van Lieshout. Right: A visitor to the show. (All photos: Natalie Kovacs)
    diary October 06, 2010

    Twist and Lieshout

    TALK ABOUT UNDERWORLD MEETS UNDERWATER. Atelier Van Lieshout’s “Infernopolis” was recently organized by the Boijmans van Beuningen museum inside the cavernous halls of the Submarine Wharf in the Rotterdam harbor. The industrial building—54,000 square feet and five empty stories tall—was once used to construct submarines. The AVL collective, founded by Joep van Lieshout at a (more modest) warehouse just across the Nieuwe Maas, used the show’s finissage last Sunday to also celebrate its fifteenth anniversary with an urbane take on Dante’s Divine Comedy.

    Instead of nine circles of sin, AVL’s Inferno

  • news October 04, 2010

    International News Digest

    Judge Sides with Beuys Estate in Landmark Ruling; Larry Clark “Shocked” Over Exhibition Restriction; Takashi Murakami on Versailles Criticism; Problems in Prague; Moscow Accepts Critical Work in Louvre Exhibition; Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev on Documenta 13.

    A LEGAL END TO EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHS OF A BEUYS PERFORMANCE

    A German court has made a landmark decision, which could have consequences for the future documentation and exhibition of bygone performance-art works. Heard in a Düsseldorf court, the case pitted the German artist copyright collecting agency VG Bild-Kunst against the Stiftung Museum Schloss Moyland, the Moyland castle museum foundation that holds the world’s largest collection of works by Joseph Beuys. The court decided in favor of VG Bild-Kunst: Documentary photographs of a Beuys performance can no longer be exhibited.

    As the Süddeutsche

  • news September 27, 2010

    International News Digest

    Russian Painters Threaten to Boycott Louvre; Controversy at São Paulo Bienal; Olafur Eliasson Wins Quadriga Prize; Numbers Spell Success for MAXXI

    RUSSIAN PAINTERS TO BOYCOTT LOUVRE

    A group of Russian painters are threatening to boycott an exhibition of contemporary Russian art planned for October at the Louvre. As Agence France-Presse reports, the move comes after works by one of the participating artists were censored for being too provocative with respect to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin. “Seven artists declared that they would not participate in the exhibition out of solidarity with Avdeï Ter-Oganian, whose works were censored by the ministry of culture,” the Russian curator Marat Guelman told the AFP.

    One of Ter-Oganian’s works—a

  • news September 20, 2010

    International News Digest

    Larry Clark Rated-X; Schöllhammer Heads to Viennafair; Schulze Wins Prize at Cologne Fine Art and Antiquities Fair; Giacometti Auction Sale to Help Museums; Italy’s Cultural Minister Criticizes Tarantino.

    LARRY CLARK RATED-X

    Movies, not art exhibitions, usually get rated. But a retrospective about the photographer and filmmaker Larry Clark at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris has led to an exception. As Agence France-Presse reports, the retrospective, which opens on October 8, will be interdicted for visitors under eighteen years of age. The interdiction, a rarity for French museums, hits Clark’s first retrospective in the country. The exhibition will cover fifty years of Clark’s work through more than two hundred photographs, many of which have never been shown before. According to

  • news September 14, 2010

    International News Digest

    Joseph Beuys: Legacy and Litigation; Prince Claus Awards Announced; Cultural Capitals and Capital Woes; Hendrix and Handel

    JOSEPH BEUYS: LEGACY AND LITIGATION

    The latest exhibition of Joseph Beuys’s work, Parallelprozesse (Parallel Processes) at Düsseldorf’s K20 state museum, seems to refer obliquely to a legal process that has just begun in the city to decide the status of photographs of a Beuys performance. The decision could not only have an impact on future Beuys exhibitions around the world, but could also set a precedent about documentary photographs of artists’ performances taken by other parties. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Catrin Lorch reports, widow Eva Beuys has been taking care of the estate since Beuys’s