Sunday is the last day for visiting the Art Barter exhibition at the Rag Factory in Whitechapel, east London. The works are anonymous, so you can’t be lured by a Big Name in the art market. You put your offer of barter on a card. So far, a Ferrari Enzo (shown) and “one of my kidneys” are the top bids. As most of the art looks like dreadful rubbish – click the title link for a video – and the Ferrari is a supremely beautiful car, I reckon it must need some serious mechanical work, like a new engine.
Remember that neurotic, bespectacled secretary in the BBC TV series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, played by Anika Noni Rose? If not, CLICK. Anika is a Tony Award-winning singer as well as an actress. She is also the voice of heroine Tania in the latest Walt Disney Studio’s animated movie The Princess And The Frog (2009), which is gaining huge publicity for being Disney’s first movie with an Afro-American heroine. Of more interest to an art blog is the fact that Disney has temporarily abandoned modern computer-generated imagery in favour of its traditional method of animation: hand-drawn characters with hand-painted backgrounds. (Note: since I first mentioned this movie two years ago, both the title and the heroine’s name have been changed; she looks different too: more Manga (CLICK).
In case you missed this picture in the newspapers a few weeks ago, here is the world’s largest reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. It was created by Katy Webster, using 82 different vinyl squares, and laid with the help of hundreds of volunteers, including local schoolchildren. It graced the Eagles Meadow shopping centre in Wrexham, Wales; then the tiles were sold to raise money for Hope House charity, which cares for terminally ill children.
The New English Annual Open Exhibition 2009 opens at The Mall Galleries in London on Friday 27 November and continues until 7 December. About 400 works of contemporary British figurative painting will be shown, including many landscapes. Bob Brown’s atmospheric oil painting Sunrise at Lens (2009) will set you back £3,700. Admission is £2.50, concessions £1.50. Click the title link for an online gallery of paintings that will be on display.
This painting by Paul Delaroche, depicting Charles I Insulted (1836) by Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers, was damaged in a bomb attack on London during the blitz. It was then sent back to Scotland. After 70 years, restorers unfurled the damaged painting this summer and found about 200 tears in the canvas and fragments of plaster from the bomb blast. It will be on display in the National Gallery in London from 24 February until 23 May. (Note: I’ve tweaked the contrast and gamma settings of this graphic to improve clarity.)
The editorial staff of the Italian edition of Rolling Stone magazine unanimously selected spaghetti PM Silvio Berlusconi as Rock Star Of The Year, due to his allegedly debauched lifestyle “worthy of the greatest rock star”. The cover of the December issue sports this cartoon depicting the ever-smirking rocker tearing up the Italian flag. Allegations of corruption, of wild parties, of infidelity with prostitute Patrizia D’Addario and possibly with 18-year-old underwear model Noemi Letizia (right) have all dogged the old boy’s steps as he smirked his way though 2009. But he’s as popular as ever, except with his wife Veronica Lario (left) who wants a divorce. If only British politics were this enthralling. All we get are dodgy expense claims, the usual forced smiles and ex-public schoolboys pretending to be green by peddling about on bicycles. It’s pathetic. Give us some juicy scandal with young models, you Westminster plonkers.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, the high-kicking actress who starred as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, has a nice line in dry humour. “Basically, I only like to choose films I don’t understand … I figure I gotta be doing something artful, right? Isn’t that what makes something art, when you don’t understand it?”
Nice one, Sarah, and congratulations on the baby. For those of you still puzzled by the modern-art confidence trick, School of Saatchi on BBC2 tonight at 9pm promises to bamboozle you further. I shall be watching Life on BBC1 at 9pm for truly wonderful contemporary art.
2010 sees the 70th anniversary of the introduction of wartime food rationing, which lasted for 14 years! To mark this occasion the Imperial War Museum London will open a year-long exhibition on 12 February: The Ministry of Food. The slogan “Lend a hand on the land” encouraged Britons to do their bit “Digging for victory”. This poster is one of the exhibits: Lend a hand on the land at a farming holiday camp. Some holiday camp! Yet many Londoners too poor to afford an annual holiday went hop-picking in Kent long after World War II. Now they gorge themselves on paella and chips in Spain and flop around like beached whales. Bring back rationing and get Brits fit. Admission: adults £4.95, children £2.50. It should be free.
I know you’re all bored with that standing joke the Turner Prize. So here’s the alternative: the Turnip Prize for bad art. This prize is awarded by residents of the Somerset village of Wedmore. Sue She’s Knickerless Cage, a collection of naked Barbie dolls in a wire cage, is one of the entries. (Note the double meanings.) Another entry is Wallace and Vomit. Judging takes place next Monday. The winner will receive his or her prize at The New Inn pub on 7 December. Cheers!
How’s this for getting the message across? The eye-deceiving combination of a giant catapult and a billboard bearing the message “The Back Seat’s No Safer. Belt Up.” delivers a punch to make you wince. This one is from the USA. Click the title link for more 3D adverts from around the world.
Sunday is the last day for visiting the Art Barter exhibition at the Rag Factory in Whitechapel, east London. The works are anonymous, so you can’t be lured by a Big Name in the art market. You put your offer of barter on a card. So far, a Ferrari Enzo (shown) and “one of my kidneys” are the top bids. As most of the art looks like dreadful rubbish – click the title link for a video – and the Ferrari is a supremely beautiful car, I reckon it must need some serious mechanical work, like a new engine.
