Summer 2007 Europe

The Grand Tour 2007
Venice Biennale, Art Basel, Documenta 12, Skulptur Projekte Münster 07
Summer 2007, Europe
www.grandtour2007.com

Network, whisper, jet-set. This is a once in a lifetime (well once in a decade) chance to experience four of Europe's most major contemporary art exhibitions all at once.

Venice Biennale Film, music, dance, theater... and the international art scene's most famous contemporary review. June 10 - November 21.
Art Basel The world's premier modern and contemporary fair. June 13-17.
Skulptur Projekte Münster 07 We've all heard of sculpture gardens, but sculpture cities? Every ten years the city of Münster invites artists from all over the world to install new works of sculpture throughout the urban environment creating what could almost be called a museum city. June 16 - September 30.
Documenta 12 Now held in Kassel, Germany, Documenta is another of the world's most important exhibitions of contemporary art in a variety of media. June 16 - September 23.

[A good number of local art spaces, galleries, etc., were closed for the regular June openings because they travelled to Europe for all the art events. This is a rare, once in a decade occurance that they all are taking place at the same time.]

   IN OTHER NEWS...

The Damien Hirst story is getting lots of press. You don't have to like him or his work. For what it's worth, read it.

A Multimillion-Dollar Head Case
Alan Riding, The New York Times

Presumably it was pure coincidence. On June 4 the former Liberian gangster and strongman Charles G. Taylor went on trial in The Hague for war crimes in which diamond trafficking played a major role. Just days earlier the British artist Damien Hirst unveiled a platinum human skull covered in 8,601 diamonds and offered it for sale for £50 million, or close to $100 million... if sold, Mr. Hirst’s skull will be the most expensive new work of art ever made... It is no secret that the art market has become drunk with money lately, with major auctions routinely raising record prices for artists old and new. Never before have contemporary artists, from London to Leipzig, New York to Shanghai, been at the center of such speculative fever. But $100 million for a diamond skull that cost $23.6 million (£12 million) to make? Even Russian oligarchs and hedge-fund billionaires might think twice. The work, by the way, is called “For the Love of God.” Indeed. Still, along with chutzpah, it shows that Mr. Hirst is a shining symbol of our times, a man who perhaps more than any artist since Andy Warhol has used marketing to turn his fertile imagination into an extraordinary business.

Additional reading: The Iceman Cometh

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