Anita Z: Art Diary

January - April 2008

Gerry Fox’s opening at 176 was a great success. There had been only 2OO guests invited and over 700 guests turned up. Beer was served from Dinos Chapman’s ice cream van which was incredibly theatrical as the bar tender happened to be the Shah of Iran’s grandson.

Melvin Bragg and whoever was lucky to be in the right place at the right time was royally entertained by Will Self.

A double-decker bus turned up and transferred the lucky 300 to Gerry and Josie’s home in Notting Hill where they gave an amazing party. By that time my shoes hurt so much I had turned into a Geisha.

Lovely Tracey came to support Gerry and 176 and Marc Quinn’s dad designed some of the technical opticals. Show awesome.

I never got to the Armory or the biennale opening in Berlin, but Lizzie had it covered.

Instead I went to Japan and South Korea, which was totally bonkers. My hosts were the International Council at the Tate and our trip was incredibly interesting even if my hubbie and I had a habit of wondering off most days we managed to enjoy a large chunk of the program. Our first visit was the Prada shop designed by Herzog and De Meuron strange really, visiting a shop with no shopping, we were all quite disappointed! By listening to Roger and his amazing vocabulary which was beyond entertaining? “Undulating Diaphragm” to describe a Building was the best for me.

The Home of Obaya built by Tadao Ando and Olafur Eliasson was the most beautiful site in Tokyo.

Then we were off to some island called Norashima with all this amazing art and architecture. I can only describe it really as James Bond Island. We saw two Museums and stayed in a hotel by Tadao Ando. One museum had only seven works, including Monet’s Water Lilies.

All surreal one minute we are eating in a building site called leasuriland and we are wondering if anything there is to do with art? Then we are in another amazing building which is not built by Tadao Ando and there is no Concrete!

We did manage to buy some art once in Korea, and discovered the South Korean Banksy.

After visiting so many museums I question: Japan and S Korea - what comes first the art or the architecture? For me: definitely the art. I believe good architecture needs good art but:

Does good art need good architecture?

03 - 07 December 2007
Miami Art Basel

Sunny Miami WOW warm blue sky, blue sea and art fair after art fair, 22 to be exact!
Is the art fair becoming the Disney Mecca for the adult?
I have to say I did feel like a child let loose in a never-ending toy shop.

However, on a more serious note Lizzie and I were not too overwhelmed by it all and managed very well. We stayed focused and managed to work methodically. We also partied really well too. The best moment was sitting on the skate board platform by the beach eating our hamburgers after six hours of art fair, sitting with my guru Marc Foxx and having the proud pleasure of introducing him to Neil Hamon, Damien Roach and Meredith Sparks. We bought a cool Meredith Sparks poster installation at NADA and a wonderful Elliot Hundley hanging sculpture in Miami Art Basal.

We went to a most colourful party with white Cube and Jay Jopling where Soho House set up the whole extravaganza on the beach. Everyone was showing off what they bought. One man got very offended because he would not tell … he said something about client privacy so I told him jokingly he should go home. He did. I felt quite guilty but he really had no sense of humour. I missed Javier Peres’ after party featuring naked woman and bagfuls of dollar bills.

Sadly we had to say goodbye after just a few days and left the Miami sunshine for the snow and a short stop off in New York. We visited Richard Floods New Museum. The art was spectacular and the space was interesting. Then we went to the American Girl Doll shop which was wow a MUST GO art installation in itself!

We got back to freezing cold London and to the warm refuge of 176 where many visitors were still flocking to see the last days of An Archaeology. We all celebrated our first leg of 176 with a wonderful evening at Soho House in the East End, it felt like we had taken a day trip back to New York.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY CHANAKAH 2007

21st October - 5th November

It never stops thank goodness.
October 21st we went to Paris and I managed to visit FIAC which was great but things were put into perspective when everyone was looking at the new stretch Mini at the fair and the cost was the same as a young up and coming artist from Mexico.

FIAC was an energetic art fair and felt very fresh.

WATCH OUT LONDON ART FAIRS WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!

We went to Geordie Land and I had to give a talk about our Installation curated by Jerome Sans and put together by Mustafa Hulusi with his Expander poster installation. I could not have asked for anything more inspiring. The best thing was seeing our name on the building, I felt very proud.

It is already November now and I have just returned from New York as a Tate Patron and we were royally entertained by the Tate Team inc. the wonderful Richard Hamilton and John Nixon, even Sir Nicholas Serota joined us a few times. We were taken to see the best collections in New York. The highlight was the visit to Jeff Koons’ studio and he personally gave us the whole tour. He is a true master and the feeling (even though contemporary), was of history in the making and history of the past, it was like being in an old masters studio. I even had time to tramp through Chelsea and visit a few Galleries and the Asian Contemporary Art Fair which was full of curiosities.

There is so much available and just too attractive I hold back

“ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD!”

8th-14th October

This week was crazzzy, but incredibly rewarding. We were so proud to see an incredible buzz in 176, even Alan Yentob (we found him flat on his back as he had nearly impaled himself on a wooden box, a scary sight I thought he was a dead man) was interviewing us for his Imagine programme for the BBC. Frieze was awesome and we made a commitment to two artists both married to each other, Alex Heim and Nicole Wermers (a very exciting moment). The 176 team completed the most amazing project in the RA with Zoo, I was totally in heaven when I saw all that had been achieved. Everybody wanted to know who is Dan Attoe and who is Jimmy Baker?! I bought yet another Graham Dolphin with Seventeen and a bronze shovel in some dirt by Kon Trubkovich with Museum 52. In PULSE we bought an amazing cardboard sculpture of Queen Victoria sitting on her throne, which I could not resist.

There were some amazing parties but alas we were just too tired to visit them all, we managed only to stop by at Larry Gagosian and Simon and Carrie Lee. We dropped by to see Simon de Pury in action. It was amazingly glamorous watching this handsome man in action yielding his hammer followed by a huge party with 500 people queuing to get in (one poor guy shouting at security “I buy in your auctions and you will not let my wife in!!”). Lizzie and I were on our knees, we had gone through colds, bronchitis and exhaustion but it was worth every minute.