Mar. 4, 2008 

PULSE LONDON, PHOTO-LONDON CANCELLED
Two more art fairs have bitten the dust, this time across the pond in London. Pulse London has been cancelled for 2008. The fair debuted last year opposite the Frieze Art Fair, Oct. 11-14, 2007, at the Mary Ward House near Regent’s Park, with 40 galleries, including Freight + Volume, Max Protetch and PPOW from New York, moniquemeloche from Chicago, Bank from L.A. and Alexander Ochs from Berlin. But according to the organizers, the cancellation has nothing to do with any hesitation on the part of art dealers about taking part in Pulse 2008; rather, the fair has been called off because no suitable venue could be found. Pulse says that it is refocusing efforts on its successful New York and Miami incarnations. Pulse New York goes up later this month, opposite the Armory Show, Mar. 26-30, 2008.

Also cancelled for 2008 is Photo-London, the U.K. photo fair which had been set for Old Billingsgate, May 15-18, 2008. The event attracted 55 dealers in 2007, and was purchased by Reed Expositions, the giant trade-fair company that also puts on the annual Paris-Photo show. A Reed spokesman told the British Journal of Photography that the company hoped to expand the event and bring it back in 2009 in a form that would be more competitive in an already packed London art fair calendar, plans that were too ambitious to be realized for this year. However, the spokesman also admitted that economic troubles in the United States meant that only a single U.S. gallery had signed up for the 2008 Photo-London, and that it was "a bit ridiculous to have an international fair without the Americans."

Photo-London artistic director Daniel Newburg, who originated the fair in 2005 and had been retained after Reed acquired the franchise, has also parted ways with the fair as part of the restructuring.

GEISAI MUSEUM 2 IN TOKYO
Kaikai Kiki, the art production company headed by Takashi Murakami, has announced the second incarnation of its Geisai Museum exhibition, scheduled for May 11, 2008, at the Tokyo International Exhibition Center (aka Tokyo Big Sight) in the Japanese megalopolis. Following up on Murakami’s successful series of producer-centered fairs -- artists rent booths themselves and sell directly to visitors -- Geisei Museum offers participants the chance to be judged by a team of museum professionals, vying for gold, silver and bronze medals. One further peculiarity of the event is that it has no restriction on medium, promising fashion designers, musicians and other performers along with visual artists. The 2008 judging panel consists of Fram Kitagawa, Yutaka Mine, Yoshiko Mori and Victor Pinchuk. More than 600 artists are expected to take part in the one-day affair.

"DARK FAIR" AT SWISS INSTITUTE
The Swiss Institute in SoHo in New York, in collaboration with the Milwaukee International art fair, is presenting Dark Fair, Mar. 28-29, 2008, a "subversive and experimental miniature art fair" installed "without the use of natural or electric light" at the Swiss Institute. Illumination by candlelight, oil lamps, flashlights and battery power, not to mention "unplugged performances," are expected from approximately 30 galleries, including Angstrom, Gavin Brown, Canada, Jack Hanley, Maureen Paley, PictureBox and the Suburban. Also promised: Ara Peterson’s pinball arcade and glow-in-the-dark basketball by Sara Clendening. 

ARTEAHORA FOR CHICAGO
Chicago is getting its first Latin-American art fair this spring, coinciding with Art Chicago and attendant other events. ARTEahora, Apr. 24-28, 2008, is not really a fair per se but rather an exhibition of Latin American artists presented at the River East Art Center, organized by curator Aldo Castillo and private dealer Thomas Monahan in consultation with Hernan Carrara, the director of Miami Art Project in Miami Beach. About 70 artists are listed as being featured in the event, including Wifredo Lam, Matta and Rufino Tamayo. An exhibition titled "10 Years of Cuban Photography" is also on the agenda. The event is free to the public. For more details, see www.chicagoarteahora.com

LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL GETS "MADE UP"
The fifth edition of the Liverpool Biennial, Sept. 20-Nov. 30, 2008, features "Made Up," an exhibition of 30-40 new art commissions at various sites across the city. The show’s theme is generally defined as "an exploration of the power of the artistic imagination," and includes "utopias and dystopias, narrative fiction, fantasy, myths, lies, prophesies, subversion and spectacle." Venues include Tate Liverpool, the Open Eye Gallery, Bluecoat and FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology).

Artists in the show are Ai Weiwei (China), Atelier Bow Wow (Japan), Guy Ben-Ner (Israel), Manfredi Beninati (Italy), David Blandy (UK), U-Ram Choe (Korea), Adam Cvijanovic (USA), Nancy Davenport (Canada), Diller Scofidio + Renfro (USA), Leandro Erlich (Argentina), Rodney Graham (Canada), Tue Greenfort (Denmark), Hubbard & Birchler (Ireland/Switzerland), Jesper Just (Denmark), Otto Karvonen (Finland), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Ulf Langheinrich (Germany), Gabriel Lester (Netherlands), Annette Messager (France), Tracey Moffatt (Australia), Khalil Rabah (Palestine), Royal Art Lodge (Canada), Sarah Sze (USA), Tomas Saraceno (Argentina) and Richard Woods (UK).

The biennial curators are Lewis Biggs and Sorcha Carey in collaboration with Bryan Biggs and Sara-Jayne Parsons of the Bluecoat, Mike Stubbs and Karen Allen of FACT, Patrick Henry of Open Eye and Laurence Sillars of Tate Liverpool.

SPACE ARTISTS IN PITTSBURGH
The 2008 Carnegie International, May 3, 2008-Jan. 11, 2009, at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, has been given the rather whimsical title of "Life on Mars" by curator Douglas Fogle, who plans an investigation into "what it means to be human today." The museum recently announced the lineup for the show, a total of 40 artists from 17 countries. Participants are Doug Aitken, Kai Althoff, Mark Bradford, Cao Fei, Vija Celmins, Phil Collins, Bruce Conner, Peter Fischli, Ryan Gander, Daniel Guzmán, Thomas Hirschhorn, Richard Hughes, Mike Kelley, Friedrich Kunath, Maria Lassnig, Sharon Lockhart, Mark Manders, Barry McGee, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Matthew Monahan, Rivane Neuenschwander, Rika Noguchi, Manfred Pernice, Susan Philipsz, Wilhelm Sasnal, Thomas Schütte, Ranjani Shettar, David Shrigley, Paul Sietsema, Rudolf Stingel, Katja Strunz, Paul Thek, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Andro Wekua, Richard Wright and Haegue Yang.

RICHTER IN DENVER
First the Denver Art Museum (DAM) builds itself a wacky new building -- Daniel Liebeskind’s avant-garde, Fortress of Solitude-like structure -- and now they fill it with wacky art. DAM has announced that in fall 2008, they are launching the first major museum survey of German painter Daniel Richter (b. 1962), whose works are infused with a free-wheeling rock-and-roll spirit, and who was a one-time colleague of Albert Oehlen and Werner Büttner. The show is organized by DAM’s Christoph Heinrich, who recently migrated to Denver from the Hamburg Kunsthalle, where he curated a successful 2007 survey of Richter’s work. Those who can’t make it to the Mile High City get their chance to appraise Richter’s accomplishments when David Zwirner in New York also hosts a survey, Mar. 25-May 3, 2008.

CLOEPFIL DESIGN FOR STILL MUSEUM
Speaking of Denver, the city’s nascent Clyfford Still Museum has unveiled architect Brad Cloepfil’s design for its planned $33 million, 31,500-square-foot structure. Sited next to DAM, the new museum is a boxy, two-story structure made of textured concrete with a series of 11 tall second-floor galleries for the artist’s works -- some 2,400 in all. Groundbreaking is due in early 2009.

ALDRICH AWARD TO HUMA BHABHA
Neo-primitivist sculptor Huma Bhabha is winner of the 2008 Emerging Artist Award from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Conn. The award comes with a $5,000 prize and an exhibition at the museum, which is set for Sept. 14, 2008-Feb. 8, 2009. The Karachi-born artist, who now lives in Poughkeepsie, is represented by Salon 94 and ATM Gallery.

WEISS OUT AT DIA
Building a major new museum in Manhattan is easier said than done, or so it seems. Dia Art Foundation director Jeffrey Weiss has announced his resignation after about nine months on the job, saying that he intends to "return to a curatorial and scholarly career." A former top curator of contemporary and modern art at the National Gallery of Art, Weiss came to Dia during a time of transition for the organization, which recently abandoned its Manhattan facility and lost its dominant and deep-pocketed boardmember, Barnes & Noble book mogul Leonard Riggio. Efforts to establish a new Dia Center in the Meatpacking District were scrapped in 2006 (the Whitney Museum later took over the site). At present, Dia runs a satellite museum in Beacon, N.Y., and is overseeing installations at the Hispanic Society of America at Audubon Terrace at 155th Street and Broadway in Washington Heights. 

RICHARD DUPONT AT LEVER HOUSE
Real estate mogul and supercollector Aby Rosen may have no taste (as claimed in last week’s New York magazine story by Phoebe Eaton), but he clearly gets good advice. Next up at Rosen’s Lever House lobby on Park Avenue -- previously home to major installations by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons -- is Richard Dupont, whose "Terminal Stage" installation presents nine polyurethane resin "clones" of the naked artist, slightly distorted on their horizontal axes. The show opens Mar. 13-May 3, 2008.

ART FROM CLIVE BARKER, KIM GORDON
Does great talent in an individual artist travel from one discipline to another? Julian Schnabel would certainly have us think so! Now, Manhattan gallery goers can check the proposition out for themselves at upcoming exhibitions of artworks by Kim Gordon of the No Wave band Sonic Youth and by the horror novelist and filmmaker Clive Barker. Gordon’s show of abstract watercolor portraits (recalling the faces of audience members as seen by a performer), plus a sound work made in collaboration with Thurston Moore, are presented at KS Art at 73 Leonard Street, Mar. 8-Apr. 9, 2008. Barker’s exhibition of fantasy landscape painting goes on view at Sloan Fine Art at 128 Rivington Street, Apr. 17-May 10, 2008.

EVA DIAZ TO ART IN GENERAL
Trusty Tribeca alternative space Art in General has appointed Eva Diaz as its new curator. A critic and art historian, Diaz previously was on the faculty of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, and also served as curatorial fellow at the New Museum. She succeeds Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, who is pursuing independent curatorial projects.

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