Tracey gets “her” tent back
Not content with re-making their epic Hell sculpture after the original went up in smoke in the 2004 Momart fire, it emerged last month that the Chapman brothers (above) have been indulging in a touch of needlecraft to recreate fellow White Cube artist Tracey Emin’s tent Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995, which also perished in the conflagration. The brothers have been as faithful as possible to Emin’s original: their recreation only differs in that they have left blank spaces corresponding to the areas of Emin’s tent which do not show up in the documentary photographs which they used as their source. Apparently Emin was none too delighted to learn of this new version of one of her most iconic pieces—there were even mutterings of legal action—but Jetsam can now reveal that she is apparently much mollified by the fact that the brothers have decided to present her with their recreation as a gift. “It seemed the appropriate thing to do,” Dinos declared, adding that—despite the fact that Emin always declared that she would never re-do the piece—she is “very happy” to accept their conciliatory gesture. As the Chapmans’ “defaced” Goyas are now worth rather more than the untouched originals, so this new version of Tracey’s tent may also carry a greater market value than its predecessor…
Stephen Daldry or Tim Marlow?
Dashing White Cube director Tim Marlow was delighted to receive an effusive and affectionate greeting from mature but still highly toothsome actress Diana Quick when they both attended this year’s Hay Literary festival. However joy soon turned to disappointment when it emerged that Ms Quick had in fact mistaken Marlow (lower) for film and theatre director Stephen Daldry (upper), to whom the galleristo bears a passing resemblance. News of this case of mistaken identity was the source of great hilarity to the ever-mischievous Chapman brothers who had just performed an “in conversation” with Marlow at the fest. The duo immediately vowed that the next time they made one of their frequent podium appearances with their telegenic exhibitions director, it would be they who would be interviewing him in his new directorial incarnation about his penchant for ballet-dancing boys and book-loving Nazis…
Gavin cleans up at art car boot fair
Gavin Turk may have shifted a substantial amount of work on the stands of Ms Krinzinger and Mr Kelly at Art Basel, but just a few days later he was also enjoying some very healthy sales at the other end of the commercial spectrum when he, along with Sir Peter Blake, Bob and Roberta Smith, and a host of other art luminaries, took part in the Art Car Boot Fair, situated in the car park of the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane. Not only did the canny artist manage to shift nearly 200 of his “boot” prints for £200 apiece as well as the actual boot soles used in their production, but he also managed to offload, for a most satisfactory £1,000, the humble gazebo provided by the management. All in all a most pleasing and profitable outcome, especially considering that the Art Car Boot Fair organisers had purchased the canopy from Tesco Direct for a mere £7.35—which Turk is promising to reimburse, with a little extra on top. Yet another example, even in these hard times, of the alchemy of art and its ability to turn base materials into (car) booty.
Gormley draws for Camden
Antony Gormley was in fine spirits during the fundraising dinner hosted by Anita Zabludowicz at Camden Arts Centre, where works donated by gallery supporters including Jay Jopling, Sadie Coles and Cerith Wyn Evans were auctioned to the assembled company by La Zab herself, raising a total of £25,000–not bad for a 60-guest event. The bidding was in full swing when Gormley rushed to the side of his gavel-wielding hostess to introduce an unexpected and rather racy new lot, namely an afternoon in his palatial King’s Cross studio and the chance to make a somewhat intimate collaborative work involving the purchaser drawing directly onto paper the sensation of the artist tracing lines all over their body. The sight of Gormley staging an impromptu demonstration of this new combined venture over the curvaceous form of Mrs Z whipped up a bidding frenzy, with an artistic session at the hands of Mr G finally being acquired for a certain Ms Nicola Heller, head of the Young British Friends of the Art Museums of Israel, whose fiancé, once he was reassured that no clothing would be removed in the process, purchased the Gormley-grope as an early wedding gift for his bride to be…
The show that dare not speak its name
What’s in a name? A great deal it seems, if you are Tate Modern trying to find a title for your Autumn blockbuster. The exhibition in question deals with the business of art, a valid and time-honoured topic but one which perhaps sat a tad more comfortably in a time when everything in the art market seemed rosy. In the brash, booming and now bygone glory days of the exhibition’s early inception, the show—which includes Haring, Hirst, Emin, Kippenberger, Murakami and Koons—was given the magnificently irreverent title of “Sold Out”. But as the climate began to chill, the parties involved started to fret about the negative implications of the name and it was swiftly jettisoned. Its substitute was the safe but somewhat pedestrian “The Warhol Effect” but this in turn was also withdrawn, as was “The Sweet Smell of Success”, which was perhaps wisely rejected as being rather too self-serving. As we go to press, the title “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” (1 October-17 January 2010) seems to have won the day, but let’s wait until the catalogues are printed…
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Chapmans’ peace offering to Tracey Emin'