Newslinks

Richard Robinson, If you were to work here: the mood in the museum, 2013. performance view at the Auckland Triennial. Courtesy Auckland Museum

■ Just before the opening of the 55th Venice Biennale, Massimiliaono Gioni, arguably the busiest man in the art world right now, discusses his grand show themed “The Encyclopaedic Palace” [The Art Newspaper], and frankly admits to his nervousness in an interview with the New York Times. [NYT]

■ Prior to the start of the Venice Biennale, Art Basel HK grabbed our attention as one of the biggest events in this year’s cultural calendar. The inaugural event made waves and wooed many Asian collectors, amid some ambivalence amongst the locals about the internationalization of Hong Kong art scene. [The Guardian]

â–  Paul Schimmel, a former curator of LA MOCA will join Hauser & Wirth in managing a new space in LA, scheduled for 2015. The gallery will be named Hauser Wirth & Schimmel. [LA Times]

■ The art collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts is under threat, possibly sold to help cover the city’s multibillion-dollar debt. [Detroit Free Press] Vehemently opposing this initiative, DIA Director Graham W. J. Beal, states that the collection should remain “in the public trust”. [NYT]

■ The 5th Auckland Triennial opened to the public on 10 May, adding New Zealand on the international art map thanks in part to curator Hou Hanru’s (semi)utopian vision. [Artforum]

■ Toronto’s Nuit Blanche is scheduled for 5 October 2013, going big this year by featuring Ai Weiwei’s Bicycle Sculpture alongside many more art projects by Kim Adams (Toronto), Michel de Broin (Montreal), Tadashi Kawamata (Japan) and Pascale Marthine Tayou (Belgium), and curated by Ami Barak (France). [Canadian Art]

■ Ai Weiwei released a heavy metal music video entitled “Dumbass” as a self-prescribed therapy, to help him deal with the trauma of his 81 day detention by the Chinese government in 2011. [The Guardian]

■ “If I sold every single thing in my whole show, it is still not as much as one painting of my male contemporaries.” – Tracy Emin argues about price inequalities between the artworks of male and female, in her most recent interview with the New York Times. [NYT]

â–  The London art audit recently conducted by the East London Fawcett Group revealed that all of the 100 most expensive art works, sold at auction in 2012 were produced by a man. [The Guardian]

â–  Czech-Russian artist Petro Wadkins replaced one of the most beloved and fawned over statues in Belgium, the Mannekin Pis, with a large golden statue of himself, to spice things up a bit. [Animal]

■ Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina went on hunger strike a few days ago. Two months prior to her action, Alyokhina held a Skype interview conducted by Inessa Tsulimova and Fiona Cook via the Russian jail’s webcam decribing her imprisonment and hopes for the future. [Dazed digital]

â–  As many suspected, Maurizio Cattelan has now come out of retirement, despite declaring at the press conference of his retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in 2011, that he would stop all art production. [NYT]