Chinese Avant-Garde Artist Ai Weiwei Under House Arrest, Not Allowed to Travel to Shanghai

BEIJING (AP).- Chinese avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei said Saturday that he has been placed under house arrest to prevent him from attending a party commemorating the forced demolition of his newly built studio in Shanghai. Ai, who has become known as much for his social activism as his art in recent years, was planning to fly to the Chinese financial hub for Sunday’s celebration, but people he suspects were police told him Friday that he would not be permitted to [...]

Tate Modern’s “Sunflower Seed” Exhibit by Ai Weiwei Closed to Visitors as Health Risk

LONDON (AP).- An art exhibition involving 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds has been closed to visitors because it is generating dust that is a potential health hazard, the Tate Modern gallery said Friday. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei filled a giant hall at the London gallery with a 1,000 sq. meter (10,000 sq. foot) carpet of the imitation seeds, hand-crafted by thousands of artisans in China over a two-year period. Visitors were invited to walk across the surface when the show [...]

U.S. Collector and Gallery Owner Larry Gagosian Tops 2010 Art Review Power List

LONDON (REUTERS).- U.S. collector and gallery owner Larry Gagosian has been named the art world’s most powerful figure in the annual ArtReview ranking, dominated this year by established commercial galleries. File photo of US art dealer Larry Gagosian (R) and Rome’s Mayor Walter Veltroni Gagosian has nine galleries around the world after opening a new space in Paris, as well as an office in Hong Kong and a shop in New York. He reclaims the position he held in 2004, [...]

Ai Weiwei Presents New Commission in The Unilever Series at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall

LONDON.- Tate and Unilever today presented Chinese artist Ai Weiwei´s commission in The Unilever Series for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern (12 October 2010 – 25 April 2011). He is the first artist living and working in the Asia-Pacific region to be commissioned for the series. Born in Beijing in 1957, Ai Weiwei is one of the most prominent and influential figures in Chinese art today. In his many roles as conceptual artist, curator, critic, designer and architect, his [...]

“Show of the Year” at Tate Modern is UK’s First on French Painter Paul Gauguin in 50 Years

LONDON (REUTERS).- French painter Paul Gauguin gets his first major exhibition in Britain for over 50 years this week, and early reviews suggest it was worth the wait. Two newspapers have given the show five stars, including the Times’ Rachel Campbell-Johnston who described “Gauguin: Maker of Myth” at London’s Tate Modern gallery “the show of the year.” Organizers say they have come up with a “fresh and compelling” look at the master of modern art, concentrating on his approach to [...]

Artists Protest Looming Cuts to United Kingdom Culture Budget

LONDON (AP).-Some of Britain’s best-known artists launched a campaign Friday to oppose planned government cuts that could slash arts funding by 25 percent. More than 100 artists including David Hockney, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tracey Emin say they fear deep cuts could hobble the country’s creative economy. Artists including Mark Wallinger and Jeremy Deller rallied outside London’s Tate Modern gallery as part of a campaign that includes an online petition and a video by cartoonist David Shrigley [...]

Pop Life at Hamburger Kunsthalle Proves that Good Business is the Best Art

HAMBURG.- The exhibition Pop Life takes Andy Warhol’s famously provocative claim that “good business is the best art” as the starting point for a completely new interpretation of the legacy of Pop art and the influence of its chief protagonists. Pop Life shows the various ways in which artists since the 1980s have engaged with the mass media, often involving the deliberate creation and cultivation of an artistic persona as a ‘brand’. The exhibition features works by Andy Warhol alongside [...]