The Tank space in the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photography by Jenni Carter…
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SANAA’s expansion of Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales opens this weekend.
“Banners outside Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, one of Australia’s premier art museums, declare the institution’s democratic goals. They announce “art for all” and advertise that entry is free of charge. Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, of Pritzker Prize-winning SANAA, took this vision to heart with their expansion to AGNSW—a 180,000-square-foot standalone building, set to open to the public on Dec. 3. Comprising a series of interlocking pavilions, the volumes fan down a site that slopes from the city’s Royal Botanic Garden toward its world-famous harbor. The expansion is not completely new construction, however. One of the most striking interior spaces is a 24,000-square-foot “Tank” gallery which has been adapted from one of the bunkers. The vast space, with walls still stained from the fuel it once held, is reached by descending a spiral stair.” [H/T Architectural Record]
Criticism mounts of Herzog & de Meuron’s concrete “climate killer” museum in Berlin.
“A vast modern art museum under construction in Berlin has been castigated by conservation experts and architecture critics for its poor environmental credentials, as the energy crisis intensifies scrutiny of the efficiency of new buildings. The Museum of the 20th Century, designed by Herzog and de Meuron, is intended to propel the German capital into the top tier of world cities for modern art. Variously nicknamed “the barn” and “the beer tent” due to its sprawling A-frame shape and low-hanging roof, the museum was hailed as a “building of the future” when its plans were first made public. But there has been growing criticism of its main construction material, concrete—one of the highest contributors to carbon emissions—and of its open and transparent internal structure, which will require a highly sophisticated ventilation system to maintain temperature and humidity levels.” [H/T The Guardian]
“ATM Leaderboard” (2022) by MSCHF at Perrotin’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. Image coutesy of Perrotin and MSCHF…
MSCHF’S installation puts the bank accounts of Art Basel fairgoers on full display.
“Crowds were hesitant as they gathered at Perrotin’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. They’ve been drawn to ATM Leaderboard (2022), the latest interactive piece from the provocative art collective MSCHF—but they aren’t necessarily interested in participating in the work, which will publicize their bank account balance, and their photo, in a scrolling leaderboard display. ATM Leaderboard is a real, legal, working ATM, customized by MSCHF engineers to add the leaderboard display. Dip your card and inquire about your balance, and the machine triumphantly announces your wealth relative to others on the list. The bank accounts on view at the time ranged from $2.9 million all the way down to zero, from a man in a blue button-down happily flashing a peace sign at the camera.” [H/T Artnet News]
Latin America’s first high-rise building in cross-laminated timber is rising in Chile.
“The Tamango Project by Tallwood Architects is an example of the challenges and opportunities of wood construction in [Chile] and the region, as it might potentially be the first 12-story building with an engineered timber structure. Changing the traditional construction paradigms of the area, Tamango represents a step into sustainable solutions that follow an integrated design process through all the stages of a project.” [H/T ArchDaily]
A century of Chicago’s design history is being projected on the side of theMART.
“Dubbed Art on theMART, the ongoing free public art exhibition transforms the southern face of the Art Deco landmark into the world’s largest digital projection screen—a seasonally activated blank canvas that spans two city blocks and is brought alive by 34 projectors built into the Riverwalk. Art on theMART’s newest projection, “Chicago Design Through the Decades,” which debuted Nov. 18 and can be viewed through Dec. 30, isn’t the work of a single artist but a century-spanning celebration-slash-compendium of Chicago design, starting with the city’s Art Deco heyday and ending in contemporary digital portraiture produced using neural networks, a subset of deep learning technology with roots at the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of Chicago.” [H/T The Architect’s Newspaper]
“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Image courtesy of Netflix…
A new film predicts exactly which artworks a “rich jerk” would have in his collection.
“According to the “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” he’d have two Basquiats, a Mark Rothko, a David Hockney, some Matisses, a Degas, a Twombly. Oh, and the Mona Lisa. Art abounds in the new movie which opened in theaters last week and hits Netflix Dec. 23. In the film, entrepreneur Miles Bron, played by Edward Norton, has a collection featuring the most expensive artworks in the world. His private island includes what the audience is told is a Banksy-designed dock that emerges from the sea when boats arrive. One of his friends compares his not-so-humble abode, which includes a menagerie of glass sculptures teetering precariously in the living room, to the Tate Modern.” [H/T The Wall Street Journal]
Despite scorn from locals, a dog and cat sculpture park will soon open in Miami.
“A dog and cat sculpture garden that provoked debate—and the scorn of Franklin Sirmans, the director of Pérez Art Museum Miami, which neighbors the garden—when it was announced earlier this year, will open during Miami Art Week. Officially known as the Dogs and Cats Walkway Sculpture Garden, the project will be unveiled on Saturday 3 December in Maurice A. Ferré Park. The sculpture garden will feature 52 statues of dogs and cats (26 of each) of different breeds by 50 local artists.” [H/T The Art Newspaper]
A Spencer Tunick artwork on Bondi Beach. Photography by Dean Lewins/AAP…
