Cai Guo Qiang and Head On

Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 08:54AM by Registered Commenterrachel | Comments3 Comments

Cai Guo Qiang's solo exhibition - I Want to Believe - at the Guggenheim Museum in New York includes his spectacular "Head On," depicted 90 wolves suspended in an aerial arc of forward propulsion which abruptly collides with a glass wall.
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The Bloody Beautiful Show

Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 at 01:33PM by Registered Commenterrachel | CommentsPost a Comment

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I don't read Dutch, so you're on your own here, but check out the images from a group exhibition The Bloody Beautiful Show held at Historical museum Schielandhuis in Rotterdam from October 2007-March 2008. 

If it's any help, I pasted the first paragraph into a free online translator and got this:

"Cities men have a strange relation with animals.  We love zielsveel our pet, but stand rather not quietly by the origin of our shoes and meal.  A Party for the Animals sit in the Second Chamber, but the Netherlands accommodates also many nertsenfokkerijen.  For Gorilla Bokito appeared the faithful visitor a provocative plague mind.  Bloedmooi confronts the visitor without batting an eye with the role of the animal in a men world."

I'm sure I could be more helpful if I tried, but really, the images speak for themselves. I did have one sentence translated though: "Bloedmooi [BloodyBeautiful] is quite attractive, quite repulsive, but especially intriguing."  Artists include: Afke Goldstein, Katinka Simonse, Koen Hauser, Cindy Wright, Karen Knorr, Wim Delvoye, Jan Fabre, Edward Lipsky, Ari Versluis & Ellie Uittenbroek.

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Mounted: The Unraveling of a Craft

Posted on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 11:56AM by Registered Commenterrachel | CommentsPost a Comment

mounted.gifMounted: The Unraveling of a Craft is a documentary showcasing taxidermist Karen Hart by Anna Malsberger from Cambridge, Mass.  A good introduction to the hows and a few whys of taxidermy.  The film was shown at the 2007 Curiosity Film and Video Festival held in Toronto. Highlights include stories about a portable skunk.

View the film: http://www.curiosityfestival.com/mv_Mounted.asp

 

Børre Sæthre's Bambi

Posted on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 09:41AM by Registered Commenterrachel | CommentsPost a Comment

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Installations by Børre Sæthre at the Loevenbruck Gallery in Paris in 2005.  The work was entitled "Untitled 1, Powdered by Zero (end of the Bambi Cycle)."  The gallery describes Sæthre's work as cinemagraphic dream scenes filled with hidden fantasies and secrets:

"At once austere and saturated with concealed fantasies, his spaces (sculptural and reconstructed environments, light, soundscapes and moving images) comprise confessions, secrets, and voyeuristic longings that linger within seemingly impermeable interiors."  

I'll let you decide about the ethics of exhibiting dead bambis - does it matter where they came from? See more of Sæthre's work at:

http://www.loevenbruck.com/artist.php?id=saethre&view=gallery

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Cattelan's Hanging Horse

Posted on Sunday, April 1, 2007 at 05:52PM by Registered Commenterrachel | Comments1 Comment

cattelan_horse.jpgNever a dull moment with Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan: his stuffed racehorse was bought for £619,750 at Christie's London auction house to a mystery bidder in 2001.  After Tiramisu - the racehorse - died of natural causes, Cattelan had her stuffed, but only partially: the pelt was stretched over a frame to keep the mare from weighing too much since Cattelan had the plan of hanging the horse from the ceiling. The legs were deliberately elongated, to add to the pathos. The work entitled La Ballata di Trotsky first went on display in the Museum of Modern Art in Castello di Rivoli, Turin, in 1997.  It was also included in the Tate's controversial Abracadabra show along with Cattelan's suicide squirrel.

In an article for the Independent, Louise Jury writes that Cattelan claims he doesn't mean to shock: a highly suspect claim.  As Jury quotes, when Cattelan started using animals in his art, he wasn't interested in "the morbid relationships that seem to tie people to animals. My animals were intended to be characters, images, things. But the more I work with animals, the more perverse the relationships between animals and human beings seem to be. People seem to be really intrigued, disturbed and charmed by my animals."  [read article +] 

 

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