Modern Art is Rubbish

In this news episode we talk of thefts, animal arty genetics, and present a couple of our favourite online arty places to visit….

A painting by Vincent Van Gogh was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands. It happend around 3.15am late March this year. Apparently thieves smashed a glass door and set off an alarm but were gone before anyone arrived on the scene. Painted in 1884 and called “The Spring garden”, it is a scene that features a vicarage garden. Currently police have been unable to trace those responsible.

An Australian arachnologist has discovered new species of peacock spiders. One clearly has been touched by the genius of Van Gogh. The patterns on the abdomen reminded the spider expert Joseph Shubert of Van Gogh’s starry night. In response he called it Maratus constellatus.

Meet Australia’s 7 newest species!

Last year I travelled the country collecting specimens of these new peacock spiders (some discovered by citizen scientists!) and spent countless hours in the lab studying them. The paper was published today!

Some welcome news in tough times. pic.twitter.com/sV1gURLqAi

A dog shelter in Texas called the Dallas Animal Services took in a stray that gave birth to a litter. One of the puppies looked to have been imbued with the spirit of a dead artistic genius, it has what looks like a Salvador Dali moustache. The puppy has been named salvador dolly.

We are obsessed! This is 5-week-old Salvador Dolly, who will soon be available for adoption…mustache and all. Click link in bio for info. • • • • • #mustachepuppy #salvadordolly #cleartheshelters #dogsofinstagram #puppiesofinstagram #petadoption #petrescue #dogrescue

A post shared by NBC DFW (@nbcdfw) on Aug 2, 2019 at 1:57pm PDT

On the Podcast we talked about some great online Galleries to visit, the links are below for you to enjoy!

You can check out the interactive Rijksmuseum Exhibit here

You can check out the interactive Dali Theatre Museum here

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Whilst we are all in Isolation thought we would take a moment to look at the art of John Lennon

John Lennon met Yoko Ono in 1966 at an exhibition of her work. The piece that caught his eye was her YES Painting. The work consisted of a stepladder that you climbed to look at a tiny word through magnifying glass attached to ceiling, the word read yes. You can find out more about Yoko Ono in our Fluxus Podcast.

In 1969 John and Yoko staged two week-long Bed-Ins for Peace, one was at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam and in a Montreal hotel.

In 1970 an exhibition of Lennons drawings was held, some of them were erotic images featuring her and Yoko. After a complaint the drawings were removed by the police. But the case got thrown out of court.

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Want to learn more about Petr you can check out our artists in danger podcast here.

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We profile the fun, controversial, trailblazing and Influential Italian Artist!

Piero Manzoni was born in 1933 into an aristocratic family. His full name was  Count Meroni Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo. He is an  artist that inspired many famous artists such as Gavin Turk, Marina Abramovich and Damien Hirst. He was a pioneering and fun humorous artist. He died in 1963 aged just 29.

His earliest important works were called Acromes. They were works about the material, and surface of the work, they were objects in themselves. They had little to do with the artist creating a narrative through the work..  One technique he created was dipping canvas into a liquid white china clay, it was then left to dry to create a wrinkled surface. This would mean that he had very little influence over the final outcome. He created over works using materials such as cotton, felt, fibreglass and polystyrene.

From 1959 – 1960 Manzoni produced a series of works called Corpo d’aria (“Body of Air”). They consisted of a mouthpiece, a tripod, a box and a deflated balloon 45 copies were made and sold at 30,000 lire each. If the purchaser wanted to get Manzoni to inflate the balloon for them they were charged by him an extra 200 lire per litre of air.

Also Manzoni produced several works  called the artist’s breath in which a balloon was filled with his  breath. Attached to the balloon was a piece of string and 2 lead seals. The works were very ephemeral. “When I blow up a balloon, I am breathing my soul into an object that becomes eternal,”  Manzoni said in 1960.

Manzoni was very good at self promoting and made humorous films to be shown before the main movie in  cinemas. One showed him, producing a balloon portrait of a live model. Simply by blowing up a balloon.

Manzoni printed a line on a long sheet of paper, this was then coiled up and placed inside a sealed container. A label on the outside guaranteed the date, the length and author of the work. There were many of these produced with different line lengths. They were sold under the condition they would never be opened. What was different about this work was that the artwork was no longer about the object, but instead about the idea and concept.

He also produced the longest line in the world as an art piece, it was on paper and was 7,200 meteres long. It was enclosed in a lead cylindrical container. He intended for a number of these to be placed in cities around the world, the total length of these works would stretch around the circumference of the Earth. Manzoni did state once that he had created a line of infinite length, but that it’s container must be kept closed, as soon as it was opened the line would disappear.

Wanting to create a work that was personal to the artist. Manzoni produced approximately 90 cans that stated on the label they contained his own excrement. The label “in Italian” read. Artist’s Sh**/ Contents 30gr net/ Freshly preserved/ Produced and tinned/ May 1961. In 1962 he sold one of his cans in exchange for 30 grams of 18 carat gold. To give his poo an equivalent value. Continuing in a tradition started by Duchamp, being like an Alchemist changing the valueless into something valuable

To transform people into art Manzoni signed models and declared them to be art, and issued them with a certificate of authenticity.

This work was an upside down plinth which made the whole world  a piece of art.

To learn more about Manzoni we recommend you check out the Manzoni Archive

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In this pod we talk about a traffic hacking artwork and an art theft confession!

Two men have owned up to stealing a Klimt painting whilst on trial for another crime. The work was stolen from the Ricci-Oddi Galleria in Italy in 1997. Apparently the thieves used a fishing road to hook the work off the wall and lift it through a skylight. The work missing for over 23 years was found hidden in a bag in an exterior wall cavity outside the museum, by Gardeners in December last year

An artist has set out to fool google maps by pulling a cart with 90 mobile phones in it. This caused google to register traffic jams. The Berlin based artist Simon Weckert work draws attention to the systems we take for granted—and how allow them shape us. He came up with the idea when he noticed that google showed massive traffic Jams on streets during a demonstration, despite there being no cars

We also talked about being reviewed on the news website Daily Business News. You can see the Article written by the Artist Anum Jamal here. You can also follow her on her Twitter page here.

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In today’s podcast, we talk about the great artist Rembrandt. He was a modernist painter before his time skilled in landscape, portraits, history painter, a great draughtsman and printmaker. A teacher whose pupils became famous in their own right. He was an artist who inspired greats like Picasso, Goya and Van Goch

A self portrait Painted of himself in his trademark beret Painted around aged 25, with a Gold Chain. This painting shows that he feels he has already arrived as an artist, and paints himself as if he is already wealthy and successful when just starting out in his career.

This painting was one of his first big commissions and one that greatly grew his reputation. The work was commissioned by the guild of surgeons. It shows several medical professionals all standing around a body. Dr Nicolas Tulp is holding forceps that grasp the tendons of the cadaver forearm. Each of the people in the painting would have paid to appear in the painting Dr Tulp would have paid the most….

The whole rebuilt Rijksmuseum is centred around this painting. It is such a central piece of Dutch history, that people lined the streets to witness it’s return to the museum after a major rebuild was completed. This is a painting of a Militia group from Amsterdam. It is a huge painting measuring 12 feet by 14 feet. It was commissioned by the Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of District II of Amsterdam. However rather show them as they were at the time, Rembrandt painted a more historical romantic notion of them as they would have been dressed several decades ago when they were the heroes and defenders of Amsterdam protecting it from enemies such as the Spanish.

This is an etching of Rembrandt’s friend and patron, looks almost like an informal snapshot taken on a camera

A couple commissioned Rembrandt to paint a portrait of them, but wanted to be portrayed as the biblical figures of Isaac and Rebecca. This picture shows them in a stolen moment being lover and tender. The painting is infused with a love and longing that Rembrandt could never possess. This is a painting that Van Gogh liked so much he wrote to his brother Theo, declaring “that he would gladly have given ten years of his life to have been able to sit for fourteen days in front of The Jewish Bride with barely a crust of dry bread to eat”.

In the portrait, Rembrandt is holding his brushes palette, and mahl stick. . The painting shows a confident Rembrandt aware of masterful abilities. So confident he does not even need to fully paint his hand holding his brushes in detail but just an impression of them.

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Today’s pod features a Billionaire who tried to take a Picasso out of Spain. Anthony Gormley gets upset about art selfies. We also talk about an Elizabeth Eade Exhibition.

A Spanish Billionaire has been fined £ 44million and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was on trial for trying to smuggle a Picasso out of Spain. Despite owning the work it was declared a national treasure and was not granted an export licence. The painting was Picasso’s 1906 painting “Head of a Woman” It is valued at $26 million Dollars. The ownership of the painting has now been transferred to the Spanish State. It was seized in 2015 on-board the billionaires yacht moored off the coast of Corsica.

Antony Gormley has spoken out about use of mobile phones… He has been forced to ask visitors to put away their phones when viewing his large 100 tonne sculpture called Cave. It is a giant steel sculpture which viewers can go inside of. Visitors have been ruining the effect by taking selfies and using lights from their phones to see their way around the dimly lit sculpture. Antony Gormley has suggested “it would be absolutely legitimate to ban mobiles inside galleries.”

We visited the Elizabeth Eade Show in London. We talked to Elizabeth about the works below. During the post interview recording we discussed (with some concern) why our names are not yet included in the artwork “People who’ve Pissed me off” (Some images produced by Lesley Burdett Photography)

• Net Realisable Value
• Net Realisable Value Detail

• Bound for Glory
• People who’ve Pissed me off

• One Piece of Silver
• CMYK Bomb (Original Graphic)

You can find out more about Elizabeth Eade on her website here

In the Pod we talked about two people who work in a major London Gallery, and the effects of spending a long periods with the same artworks. below are the links to find out more about their projects.

To learn more about Mary Sho, her Instagram is here and you can listen to her music and the soulful song OVA on this link

You can check out Jack Rooney‘s artwork on his website

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In this Episode we talk about the Stories behind the Episode Artwork.

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Featuring Yule Cats, stuck up bananas and Export Bans.

In December this year Maurizio Cattelan duct taped a banana to the wall at annual contemporary showcase Art Basel in Miami Beach, Florida. The banana and duct tape formed a piece Cattelan called Comedian. Comedian was to be sold at a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, with a second and third edition bringing the total sale price to half a million dollars.

At 2pm, Saturday the seventh December, performance artist David Datana ate the banana .Datana filmed himself eating the banana and posted the video on his Instagram account, calling it Hungry Artist. Datana said his consumption was a comment on the ‘silly’ pricing of the piece. 

Datana went on to say he wanted to bring the banana to ‘another level’ using comedy. He doesn’t actually like bananas. Cattelan seems unbothered, a banana being far easier to replace than a gold toilet.

To major artworks have been prevented from being exported. One is by the British artist Thomas Gainsborough it is called , “Going to Market, Early Morning” (1773) Another work that is being prevented from export by the French authorities, is by the artist Cimabue and is called “Mocking of Christ”

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It is Christmas Time! Join us on our seasonal podcast for Festive Theft, Murder , Phil Collins and More!

A Church in the Mexican town of  Zacatecas. Has just paid for a giant 22-foot long statue of Jesus, It was created by the artist Roman Salvador.  Dressed in white boxer shorts, with a receding baby hairline it bears more than a passing resemblance to the drummer 70s Phil Collins. They hope that it may be recognised as the biggest baby Jesus statue in the world.

Painted by the Netherlandish artist Gerard David (c. 1460 – 13 August 1523) The Three Legends of St Nicholas painted (1500-1520 Oil on Panel) Shows three legends of St Nicholas. We talk of these stories on the podcast.

Painted by the Italian Artist Caravaggio in 1609 Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence. This large painting shows a Nativity scene. It was stolen from a Oratory in Sicily in 1969. It still has not been recovered, we talk about it on the podcast.

We talked about the theft of the Mona Lisa in this episode, you can learn more from watching this Video we made about it.

We also in this Episode Talked about the tongue in cheek , Italian Art First party, you can learn more by listening to the episode here!

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