October, 2015

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I promise Vasconcelos, a cross between Jeff Koons and Louise Bourgeois, does not do boring. This is the woman behind ‘The Bride’, the 2005 Venice Biennale 20′ high chandelier made  from over 25,000 tampons. Johnson & Johnson love her.

She’s the third artist (and the youngest and only female) after Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami to be given free reign at Versailles. Vasconcelos wanted to put that  infamous chandelier in Marie-Antoinette’s room but the top chiens at Versailles rejected the idea.

At least she was able to get the pink feathered helicopter approved for landing in one of the state rooms. Her 2012 Versailles show became the most visited show in France in fifty years.

So if you happen to be in London in August (I know, fat chance of that) and sent your hang glider to the dry cleaners, may I suggest you drop into Phillips on Berkeley Square and check out her exuberant show, ‘Material World’.

Vasconcelos typically takes everyday objects or materials with a feminist theme (lace, crochet, ceramics, and of course, tampons) and creates something beautiful and surprising out of them. She takes masculine subjects and feminises them, removes the sting. She blends visual delight with the conceptual.

Quite a pretty urinal, if I do say so.

Vasconcelos’s London-based agent Michael Hue Williams is pictured here with his daughter Lucca in front of the Valkyrie, ‘Material Girl’.

 She’s the real deal. If we don’t mess up she’s going the whole way. Like Jeff Koons. She’s going to be a superstar, says Hue-Williams.

She combines craft quite unashamedly, brazenly in high art. Materials are her paint.” 

Interesting fact: Vasconcelos started out as a karate expert. At one point she ran a karate-groomed, female posse of nightclub bouncers in Lisbon.

Today she has 55 people working flat out, alongside her, in her vast Lisbon studio, getting ready for upcoming shows in Korea, Rio and Rome (latter  is a group show in May with Koons and other art heavy weights).

I want to see her go to America. We have had phenomenal success all over for her, but not yet in America’, says Hue-Williams.

Julia and like-minded readers, I sincerely hope this blog didn’t put you to…

July, 2015 

The post More Art – Short, Sweet and NOT Boring appeared first on Elena Bowes.

(Image courtesy Phillips)

Phillips has also hired big gun curator Francesco Bonami to put together ‘A Very Short History of Contemporary Sculpture’, a ground floor exhibition where only two of the 33 works on show are for sale. In a back-breaking two months Bonami and his support team got a hold of pieces by  Carl Andre, Lygia Clark, Anthony Caro, Maurizio Cattalan, Urs Fischer, Robert Gober, Duane Hanson, Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons to name just a few. Bonami said he wished they could have included a Richard Serra.

“The function of an auction house is to work more and more with museums, there’s an inevitable blurring of the boundaries,”

said the Italian art expert. Bonami (on the right) is telling Phillips staff including its new Chairman and Chief Executive Ed Dolman (on the left) about the eye-catching exhibition. Bonami’s impressive CV includes a lengthy stint at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, as well as curating top international shows such as the Venice and Whitney Biennales.

The ‘Left Handed Drummer’ above by Barry Flanagan is one of the two works for sale in Bonami’s show (estimate at £400,000-600,000).

My favourite piece is this Gustav Klimpt-esque hanging tapestry made from copper wire and sliced aluminium bottle caps by Ghana artist El Anatsui. It’s called ‘Earth Developing More Roots’.

“This is one of the most important works here,” says Bonami about the disconcerting 1992 Charles Ray sculpture of a boy above (with a Donald Judd to the right). “To explain to someone that this is more important (historically) than Koons is not easy.”

The pricier works will be auctioned off at the inaugural Evening Sale next Wednesday, October 15th. Check them out downstairs on the lower ground floor. Street artist Banksy mourns the death of the traditional red phone box, a piece of street art if there ever was one.

Less expensive works – like this pumpkin chess board by Kusama – are on the 6th floor, as is the energy boosting ‘Windows on the Square’ cappucino bar and views, glorious views of London.

Above is a colourful Chris Ofili hanging on the 1st floor.  The Turner Prize-winning British artist is having a show at the New Museum in NYC later this month.

Last week many of you know that I made a new BFF.

Well, sorry Victoria, but I am a fair weather friend. This week’s new BFF’s are Sara Tayeb-Khalifa and Philae Knight, Phillips’ client services dynamic duo, standing alongside a witty Harland Miller oil painting. They’re smart, funny, knowledgeable and give me free cappuccinos.

October, 2014

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