5,000 Free Limited Edition Artworks To Celebrate Elmgreen & Dragset’s Trafalgar Square Sculpture Unveiling

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LONDON, Feb. 23, 2012 —  In collaboration with s[edition], a digital platform for collecting contemporary art, Elmgreen & Dragset invite visitors to experience ‘Powerless Structures, Fig. 101’, the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square in the virtual world using augmented reality.

For the first time, visitors can further engage with the Fourth Plinth commission, which is funded by the Mayor of London with support from Arts Council England. They will be able to access exclusive content via the s[edition] iPhone app. When devices are pointed at the sculpture’s plaque, users will receive a three-dimensional rendering of the sculpture, along with unique footage of Elmgreen & Dragset presenting their work.

The artists have also collaborated with s[edition] to create a digital limited edition artwork celebrating the commissioned sculpture. Designed to be viewed on digital devices from iPhones to televisions, the limited edition features a unique digital rendition of the bronze sculpture on the plinth. To commemorate the unveiling, s[edition] will offer members of the public the chance to own one of 5,000 limited editions, worth £35 each ($55US), for free before 5pm GMT on Friday 24 February 2012.  The editions are limited to one per person and can be accessed via here.

Michael Elmgreen said: “The internet has created possibilities for experiencing artworks in a totally different way. You do not need to be there in a physical sense at the location to actually get an impression of the work. So it broadens the possibilities to reach other audiences apart from the people in Trafalgar Square.”

Ingar Dragset stated: “When we developed the sculpture itself in a 3D format, we used the computer as well as a tool. It is a big part of most artists’ working process. What you see with our s[edition] limited edition is the computer manipulated sculpture turning around, with the blue sky in the background, and it loops endlessly.”

Martina King, Managing Director of Aurasma, said: “This ground breaking collaboration with s[edition] brings digital art to 3D life, augmented into the real world.  People will be able to use the simple tools in the app to add a 3D model of the artwork to their homes, offices gardens – even the street.  We’re delighted to see Aurasma’s unique technology being used to change the way people see and interact with art using their mobile devices.”

Commissioned by the Mayor of London and supported by the Arts Council England, Elmgreen & Dragset’s new sculpture for the Fourth Plinth was unveiled on 23 February 2012 in Trafalgar Square, London. Entitled Powerless Structures, Fig 101, the artwork features a 4.1m high golden bronze sculpture portraying a boy on a rocking horse with his right arm thrust high in the air.

Available for iPhone and Android smartphones, Aurasma uses advanced image and pattern recognition technology to seamlessly blend the real world with interactive digital content called “Auras”.  Auras can be created for images, objects and physical places. Users can even use the simple tools in the app to create and add their own Auras to the world. A 3D version of Powerless Structures, Fig 101 will be available on the Aurasma platform for users to place into the real world, view and share.

The Sacramento Bee

Thursday, February 23, 2012

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UPDATE, February 24, 2012: As it is now past 5pm GMT on Friday 24 February 2012 Limited edition art work is now priced at $56USD.

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Visual AIDS, Postcards From the Edge, NYC

I am in such good company here – who doesn’t  recognize a Marilyn Minter when they see one?

Visual AIDS utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a legacy, because AIDS is not over. Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness through producing and presenting visual art projects, while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS.

Postcards From the Edge is a unique fundraiser where each of the 1,500+ postcard-sized artworks are uniformly priced at only $85.00. All works are displayed anonymously, with the artis’s identity revealed only after the work is purchased. Featuring artworks by Jeff Koons, Yoko Ono, John Waters, Donald Baechler, Marilyn Minter, Ed Ruscha, Polly Apfelbaum, Adam Fuss, Kiki Smith, John Baldessari, Louise Fishman, Ross Bleckner, Barry McGee, Kay Rosen, Marcel Dzama, Jonathan Lasker, Mary Heilmann, Louise Lawler, Bill Jensen, Jane Hammond, Ann Hamilton, Hans Haacke, William Wegman, Kate Shepherd, Zoe Leonard, Jack Pierson, Lawrence Weiner, Pat Steir, Thomas Woodruff and over 1450 others.

There will be a Preview Party Friday, January 6 from 6 – 8 p.m. The Benefit Sale of postcard-sized art begins on Saturday, January 7th from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and continues through Sunday, January 8th from Noon until 4 p.m.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit VisualAIDS.

Help a poor girl out…

The artwork, entitled When It Starts Dripping From The Ceiling, consists of a trough under a wooden tower of slats. Photograph: Bernd Thissen/EPA

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An overzealous cleaner in Germany has ruined a piece of modern art worth over $1,000,000 after mistaking it for an eyesore that needed a good scrub.

The sculpture by the German artist Martin Kippenberger, widely regarded as one of the most talented artists of his generation until his death in 1997, had been on loan to the Ostwall Museum in Dortmund when it fell prey to the cleaner’s scouring pad.

The work, called When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling (Wenn’s anfängt durch die Decke zu tropfen), comprised a rubber trough placed underneath a rickety wooden tower made from slats. Inside the trough, Kippenberger had spread a layer of paint representing dried rainwater. He thought it was art: the cleaner saw it as a challenge, and set about making the bucket look like new.

A spokeswoman for the museum told German media that the female cleaner “removed the patina from the four walls of the trough”.

“It is now impossible to return it to its original state,” she said, adding that it had been on loan to the museum from a private collector and was valued by insurers at €800,000 (1,103,400.00 USD).

She said that cleaning crews had been told to keep 20cm (8in) away from artworks, but it was unclear if the woman – who worked for a company to which cleaning had been outsourced – had received the memo. After reading the above in The Guardian, I was reminded of an article I’d read a couple of years ago about an ‘in demand’ contemporary art restorer.

The Ostwall Museum spokeswoman needn’t get her knickers in a knot, it just so happens that the 2nd sentence into The Art Doctor, an article that appeared in the May 11, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, there is mention of another damaged artwork by Martin Kippenberger and after further reading, its repair. Christian Scheidemann, a conservator of contemporary art who runs a company called Contemporary Conservation has repaired contemporary works by artist as diverse and challenging as Takashi Murakami, Rudolf Stingel, Wifredo Lam, and Paul McCarthy. A few years ago, Scheidemann had to trim a new piece of elephant dung to fill a gap in a Chris Ofili painting.

Dear overzealous (and no-less traumatized) outsourced cleaner, refer the museum to Christian Scheidemann at www.contemporaryconservation.com 

Readers, if you’ve time enough, give the lowly cleaning woman some slack and forward this post to mo@stadtdo.de with ‘Seien Sie gütig zur Dame der macht das Reinigen‘ in the subject line. 

Samuel M. Steward’s Neatly Organized Stud File

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Back in February The New York Times wrote about a website called Things Organized Neatly, a Tumblr site that features a piece of my art. On any given day the site may feature an image of white socks on a blue background, on another, a patterned stack of tires or a careful arrangement of baseball bats. The site is overseen by a young Indianapolis designer named Austin Radcliffe, who seems less intent on collecting objects than on collecting images of collections. His site started less than a year ago, but since being written about in The Guardian and elsewhere, it has gained a following in the tens of thousands.

In 2010, The New York Times Books section featured “Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade”. The book by Justin Spring, examines the life of Samuel Steward, left, an English professor, novelist and tattoo artist who documented gay life in the middle decades of the 20th century. During his research, Mr. Spring discovered that Steward, who died in 1993, left behind 80 boxes full of drawings, letters, photographs, sexual paraphernalia,  manuscripts and other items. Among the artifacts was “a green metal card catalog (above photo) labeled ‘Stud File,’ which contained a meticulously documented record on index cards of every sexual experience and partner — Rock Hudson, Thornton Wilder, ‘One-eyed Sadist’ — that Steward said he had had over 50 years.”

A month or so ago I submitted the above photo to thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com. Sadly, it appears that the joke was lost on Austin Radcliffe. 

Credit: The Estate of Samuel M. Steward