Oh, that Istvan! Part VII
Aug. 3rd, 2005 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ltmurnauControversial artist plans blood donation to AGO reno
Last Updated Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:47:32 EDT
CBC Arts
Controversial performance artist Istvan Kantor is vowing to participate in the current renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario – whether it's wanted or not.
The award-winning performance and video artist has offered to mix 250 ml of his blood into the concrete being used in the renovation of the downtown Toronto gallery.
At a media conference in Toronto Tuesday, Kantor demonstrated his infamous Blood Campaign performance piece: he splashed an "x" in blood onto a cardboard canvas and showed video footage of past blood splattering attempts that have led to his being banned from galleries worldwide.
He then presented his plan to introduce his blood into the AGO renovation, which has been designed by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry.
"The blood will be infused officially into the walls and foundation of the new AGO," Kantor said. He also wants the gallery to host a retrospective of his artistic career, hold a symposium and publish an accompanying book.
Kantor met with David Moos, the gallery's curator of contemporary art last Friday. While the artist came away thinking that the AGO had approved the artistic statement, Moos disagreed, saying gallery officials are still considering his proposal.
"As I understood it after that meeting, I had agreed that I thought his work looked interesting and that I should learn more about it," Moos told CBC News, adding that what he has agreed to is a visit to Kantor's studio.
Born in Hungary in 1949, Kantor is considered the father of Neoism – an international anarchist art movement that has been compared to Dadaism.
His X-shaped blood splatterings and subsequent speeches "donating" the blood paintings to the museums' permanent collections are part of Blood Campaign, his 25-year-long performance series that has seen him arrested and barred from such art institutions as New York's Museum of Modern Art and Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada.
In March 2004, Kantor was named a recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for his body of work. The jury praised him for being a "no-holds-barred, neo-Dada" artist whose work ventured into music, kinetic sculpture, multimedia installations and performance art.
Most recently, Kantor served as an artist-in-residence at Berlin's Podewil Center for Contemporary Arts. He was arrested in the German city in late November after he threw a vial of his own blood onto the wall behind contemporary artist Jeff Koons's gold ceramic sculpture of pop star Michael Jackson.
The sculpture was part of an exhibit from the art collection of German businessman Friedrich Christian Flick. Kantor later said he was making a statement about the notorious history of the Flick family: Flick is the grandson of a Nazi industrialist convicted at the Nuremberg Trials of exploiting slave labour during the Second World War.
An account of my first meeting with Istvan, in Montreal in the summer of 1987: http://www.livejournal.com/users/ltmurnau/29584.html
Last Updated Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:47:32 EDT
CBC Arts
Controversial performance artist Istvan Kantor is vowing to participate in the current renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario – whether it's wanted or not.
The award-winning performance and video artist has offered to mix 250 ml of his blood into the concrete being used in the renovation of the downtown Toronto gallery.
At a media conference in Toronto Tuesday, Kantor demonstrated his infamous Blood Campaign performance piece: he splashed an "x" in blood onto a cardboard canvas and showed video footage of past blood splattering attempts that have led to his being banned from galleries worldwide.
He then presented his plan to introduce his blood into the AGO renovation, which has been designed by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry.
"The blood will be infused officially into the walls and foundation of the new AGO," Kantor said. He also wants the gallery to host a retrospective of his artistic career, hold a symposium and publish an accompanying book.
Kantor met with David Moos, the gallery's curator of contemporary art last Friday. While the artist came away thinking that the AGO had approved the artistic statement, Moos disagreed, saying gallery officials are still considering his proposal.
"As I understood it after that meeting, I had agreed that I thought his work looked interesting and that I should learn more about it," Moos told CBC News, adding that what he has agreed to is a visit to Kantor's studio.
Born in Hungary in 1949, Kantor is considered the father of Neoism – an international anarchist art movement that has been compared to Dadaism.
His X-shaped blood splatterings and subsequent speeches "donating" the blood paintings to the museums' permanent collections are part of Blood Campaign, his 25-year-long performance series that has seen him arrested and barred from such art institutions as New York's Museum of Modern Art and Ottawa's National Gallery of Canada.
In March 2004, Kantor was named a recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for his body of work. The jury praised him for being a "no-holds-barred, neo-Dada" artist whose work ventured into music, kinetic sculpture, multimedia installations and performance art.
Most recently, Kantor served as an artist-in-residence at Berlin's Podewil Center for Contemporary Arts. He was arrested in the German city in late November after he threw a vial of his own blood onto the wall behind contemporary artist Jeff Koons's gold ceramic sculpture of pop star Michael Jackson.
The sculpture was part of an exhibit from the art collection of German businessman Friedrich Christian Flick. Kantor later said he was making a statement about the notorious history of the Flick family: Flick is the grandson of a Nazi industrialist convicted at the Nuremberg Trials of exploiting slave labour during the Second World War.
An account of my first meeting with Istvan, in Montreal in the summer of 1987: http://www.livejournal.com/users/ltmurnau/29584.html
