September 2013
FEATURE
Art & Politics: Which side is art on ask Dean Kenning and Margareta Kern
In the face of government austerity measures which have squeezed artists and public arts provision more than any other sector, an elite art world has continued to prosper. Isn’t it time that, in order to develop political agency in their work, artists begin to acknowledge this glaring dichotomy?
FEATURE
Art & Oil: Colin Perry on the greasing of the art industry
Today’s debates around the sponsorship of art by oil companies would benefit from a historical understanding of the long tradition of arts commissions by industries with pressing PR problems; an analysis of the results of this almost century-long practice reveals the pernicious, compromising effects of such greasing.
FEATURE
Prosumerism: Nick Warner on the phenomenon of the producer/consumer in online art
As the rapidly developing social aspects of the internet make producers of us all, how have artists such as Ed Fornieles and Iain Ball developed online projects that mask their status as artworks and undermine the traditional notion of the artist-maker?
EDITORIAL
Putting the PR in Press
The increasing professionalisation or outright outsourcing of PR departments in art galleries has led to a shift in power between the public-image controllers and the critical press, with access carefully gated for friendly media. But won’t this short-termist thinking simply undermine faith in the cultural discussion that is art’s lifeblood?
LETTERS
Michael Hampton wonders whether the curating behind Venice’s ‘The Encyclopedic Palace’ exhibition signals a new world order.
ARTNOTES
Tate chairman and the UK’s fracker-in-chief Lord Browne uses an Art Fund speech on philanthropy to outline an end to taxation as a wealth redistributor and the death of museums’ arm’s-length independence; local-government arts budgets are cut even as wider spending increases; The Public in West Bromwich finally meets an inglorious end; BMW abandons a high-profile Guggenheim sponsorship; the ICA launches an art rival to Twitter; galleries open, move and expand; the latest news on events, appointments, prizes and more.
Walter De Maria 1935–2013
Allan Sekula 1951–2013
PROFILE
Pratchaya Phinthong: Eliza Williams on the Bangkok-based artist
Pratchaya Phinthong’s seemingly straightforward interventions—displacing museum artefacts from one country to another, eschewing an art residency to work alongside migrant labourers—reveal a complex set of border-driven power relations and interdependencies.
EXHIBITIONS
IAIN BAXTER& and Adam Chodzko Raven Row, London – Martin Herbert
Haroon Mirza The Hepworth, Wakefield – Andrew Hunt
Misdirect Movies Standpoint, London – Christopher Townsend
Omer Fast: 5,000 Feet is the Best Imperial War Museum, London – Sophie J Williamson
Haris Epaminonda: Chapters Modern Art Oxford – Paul Carey-Kent
John Newling: Ecologies of Value The Exchange, Penzance – David Lillington
Roxy Walsh and Sally Underwood: Dependent Rational Animals Towner, Eastbourne – George Vasey
Manchester International Festival: do it 20 13 various venues – Bob Dickinson
Yorgos Sapountzis and Ian Hamilton Finlay Arnolfini, Bristol • If Not Always Permanently, Memorably Spike Island, Bristol – Martin Holman
Dublin Round-up Temple Bar Gallery • Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane • Douglas Hyde Gallery • Irish Museum of Modern Art – Chris Clarke
BOOKS
This is Not Art: Activism and Other ‘Not-Art’
John Douglas Millar on a provocation to the London art world
ARCHIVES
Digital v Paper
Mark Wilsher argues against digital archives.
ART SYNDICATE
V22
Sophia Phoca looks at a shared-ownership model for art organisations.
EVENTS
London Art Calendar
Art Monthly’s London event calendar can also be viewed online.
EXHIBITION
Exhibition Listings
Art Monthly’s exhibition listings can also be viewed online.
GET ART MONTHLY
Buy online: www.artmonthly.co.uk/buy
NEW: digital subscription only 8GBP / 12USD.
Art Monthly‘s free newsletter includes art jobs, residencies, competitions, exhibition opportunities, etc: www.artmonthly.co.uk/newsletter.