News from the art world
Grayson Perry’s “dead wood”
“Has Grayson gone mad,” asked Artlyst. The cross-dressing celebrity potter is apparently pleased that the pandemic may clear away a bit of “dead wood” from the beleaguered art scene. “I think every part of life has probably got a bit of fat that needs trimming,” he told the Arts Society magazine in a recent interview. “It’s awful that the culture sector has been decimated, but I think some things needed to go.” With Covid, he said, “it’s been like turning a computer off and on again, and seeing which files reappear. Some of them we don’t really give a damn about.” His words provoked fury, in light of the “bleak picture” facing the art world, said Oliver Basciano in The Guardian. The Southbank Centre is cutting two-thirds of its staff; large-scale redundancies are planned at the Royal Academy and the Victoria and Albert; many smaller galleries may be forced to close for good. “His timing is disgraceful”, said one gallery director. “I’m not sure why he’s so out of touch and unempathetic.” Perry has since claimed that the quotes were taken out of context. “I’d like to clarify that I was CERTAINLY not referring to the loss of people’s jobs and opportunities in the arts, or to art galleries having to close due to the virus,” he tweeted.
A rival to the Tate’s Turbine Hall?
The “world’s largest digital canvas” is set to open in London next year, said Gareth Harris in The Art Newspaper. The artist Marco Brambilla will curate a programme of public art including works from the contemporary art star Marina Abramovic, which will be broadcast on “floor-to-ceiling 23,000 sq ft, 360° screens” near Tottenham Court Road Tube station in London. He hopes the venue, dubbed Outernet, will eventually rival the grand commissions staged in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. The idea comes courtesy of a billion-pound redevelopment of the area around Denmark Street in central London. Once known as “Tin Pan Alley”, due to its links with the UK music industry, the street is due to be given a makeover that will add flats, retail units, bars and a 2,000-capacity underground music venue. Its central point will be a “cube structure” with screens displaying “immersive” advertising, and Brambilla’s art programme. Abramovic’s contribution – a screening of her celebrated film 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, in which she re-enacts on-stage deaths of the legendary soprano – will be among the first commissions, scheduled to coincide with her much-anticipated show at the Royal Academy next autumn.