Damien Hirst Parts From Financial Manager Frank Dunphy

Frank Dunphy, the man behind Damien Hirst’s art world domination, is stepping down as his business manager. Dunphy was active during Hirst’s most prolific period of output and helped mastermind his most ambitious and lucrative projects......Read More Click Here

Fourth Plinth Designs Latest Photos Trafalgar Square London

Fourth Plinth Designs Unveiled for London's Trafalgar Square

As promised ArtLyst, is nearly first to reveal the latest designs for the Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square by the Artists Brian Griffiths, Allora & Calzadilla, Hew Locke Elmgreen & Dragset, Katharina Fritsch, and Mariele Neudecker. The maquettes ( scaled model) of the proposed work was released this morning at 9:00 am in an exhibition which is open to the public (across from the plinth) in the crypt of St Martin in the Fields from 19 August 2010.The chosen artist will be announced by the Mayor Boris Johnson early next year, with the artwork they installed after the current work, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle by Yinka Shonibare MBE has been removed at the end of 2011.The Fourth Plinth Programme is funded by the Arts Council England and the Mayor of London who  sees new artworks being selected for the vacant plinth in a rolling programme of new commissions. A key element of the Fourth Plinth Programme is to involve people in the debate about public art. The public will have the opportunity to comment on the shortlisted proposals on cards at the exhibition and via the website following the unveiling of the proposals... read more

Elmgreen & Dragset

Brass sculpture of a boy astride his rocking horse celebrates the heroism of growing up.

Hew Locke

Sikandar Is a play on a traditional equestrian statue of Field Marshal Sir George White, situated on Portland Place, decorated with charms, medals and horse-brasses.

Brian Griffiths' Battenberg

An oversized representation of the sponge cake made from household bricks

Mariele Neudecker

Presents two images of Britain: the flipped and reversed shape of the peninsula when seen from above, and its more familiar outline when viewed from below.

Allora and Calzadilla

Their work features a working cash machine embedded within the plinth which, when accessed, will trigger a functioning pipe organ set on top of the plinth, to play throughout Trafalgar Square.

Katharina Fritsch

This submission depicts an ultramarine blue cockerel symbolizing regeneration, awakening and strength.







For More Of The Latest London Art Exhibitions, Events and Galleries. Your London Contemporary Art Guide. Find New Cutting-Edge Art in London and Beyond. http://www.artlyst.com

Banksy Film Pops Up At London's Waterloo

Banksy has popped up again this time in the role of filmmaker. The film titled, "Exit Through The Gift Shop" had it's premiere at a pop up cinema in Waterloo tonight in a disused railway arch. The festivities came complete with a painted red carpet and salvaged arm chairs. The film tells the story of how a mad French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.
Named after one of the pieces at Banksy's exhibition at the Bristol Museum last summer,which drew an astounding 350,000 people through the doors in nine weeks. The film will be released from March 5 in British cinemas and is narrated by Welsh actor Rhys Ifans.
Banksy has described the film as “the story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed”, but for John Cooper - director of the Festival say, "it is an unqualified success".
The quazi- doc will contain footage of Banksy, Shephard Fairey, Invader and many of the world's most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interview.
The film is slated for bigger and better venues and will be shown at The Sundance Film Festival later this year.
Banksy is clandestine and never officially photographed. He has decorated spaces from the West Bank to New York, all while keeping his identity a mystery. He has also avoided prosecution. It remains an open question as to whether the artist will appear at the festival, and in what guise. ArtLyst Reports:

See the video trailer on ArtLyst

Henry Moore Tate Britain Virtual Tour YouTube 2010

ArtLyst has posted an excellent virtual tour of the new Henry Moore exhibition in London on YouTube.

This includes a gallery talk by curator Chris Stephens, head of displays.
This exhibition runs 24th February until 8th August 2010

See link below.
Henry Moore Exhibition Tate Britain Virtual Tour 2010

U.S. Embassy London New Building Unveiled

Kieran Timberlake Wins Design Competition to design the new United States' high-security embassy in London. See The First Photo Below:

The design for the new London embassy at Nine Elms was finally confirmed today 23 February 2010
It will be a fortress,known as The Crystal  but there's not a fence in sight.
U.S. officials announced Tuesday that a light-filled cube by Philadelphia-based architecture firm Kieran Timberlake has won the competition to design the new United States embassy in London - billed as the greenest and one of the most expensive U.S. diplomatic buildings in the world.
Kieran Timberlake was chosen over other American architectural firms for its design of a 12-story building surrounded by natural defenses of meadow, woodland and a pond.
Here is the first view of the new billion dollar building.
Project Lennox: the new US Embassy
in Ponton Road, Nine Elms Lane, Vauxhall / Battersea, London, SW8
The old embassy in Grosvenor Square - designed by the Finnish-American, Eero Saarinen in 1955 - will continue to function until then. The lease was sold to Diar Real Estate Investment of Qatar in November 2009.
The Department is committed to creating an Embassy building which is not only iconic in appearance and a leader in sustainability, but is also welcoming to all its visitors and makes a positive contribution to the local community and the urban environment. The challenge is to design a building which fulfills all these criteria and provides enough space for all its functions to be carried out in a secure working environment.

In order to ensure that the design of the new Embassy is of the highest possible quality, the Department of State had launched a competition to find an architectural practice and lead team to design the new Embassy.
The competition was managed by a jury comprised of eight American and British leaders in the fields of architecture, diplomacy, sustainable building, urban design and regeneration.
Four architectural firms were shortlisted for the final phase of the competition to design the new Embassy.

The firms were:
Kieran Timberlake
Morphosis Architects
PEI Cobb Freed & Partners
Richard Meier & Partners

The Philadelphia-based practice was selected ahead of three Pritzker-Prize winners - Richard Meier (Richard Meier & Partners), Tom Mayne (Morphosis Architects) and IM Pei (PEI Cobb Freed & Partners). The firm’s ‘environmentally friendly’ scheme will be built in Nine Elms close to Battersea Power station. See more on : ArtLyst

Arshile Gorky Retrospective Exhibition London

Arshile Gorky (c.1904-1948) was a seminal American painter who is  celebrated as the godfather of Abstract Expressionism. In his short career he bridged the gap between surrealism and what was later dubbed Abstract Expressionism, His unique  style was highly regarded by the younger generation of New York painters notably Pollock, Rothko, and de Kooning.
Gorky was born in Armenia he first arrived in the US in 1920 fleeing persecution and starvation in his home country. He adopted the name Arshile Gorky with reference to the Russian writer Maxim Gorky and settled in Boston with his stepsister, gaining exposure to the Modern European masters through books and galleries while attending art classes at the now defunct Boston School of Design.
In 1924 Gorky moved to New York. His early still-lives show his reliance upon popular examples of Cezanne, Picasso and Leger, however his portraits in the 1920s and 1930s, especially the two versions of The Artist and His Mother, show how Gorky was able to evoke his personal experiences and studies in realism, and apply it to canvas. Although he is still clearly paying homage to Picasso's rose period in these works, they are now stamped with his own identifiable traits. In 1942 Gorky began to interpret landscape. Energized by the Connecticut and Virginia countryside he created a series of Kandinsky inspired paintings and drawings using bright colour washes with black outlines. At this crossroad, Gorky began to clearly separate himself from his predecessors. He linked up with the Exiled surrealists Breton and Matta and pushed the boundaries of his work to new and original heights. Gorky’s troubled personal life was in constant conflict with his artistic accomplishments and he sadly took his own life in 1948 age 44.
The Tate exhibition includes paintings, drawings and also a few examples of rarely seen sculptures, spanning the extraordinary career of this great modern master.
Paul Carter Robinson Photo/Text ©ArtLyst

Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective 10 February  – 3 May 2010 Tate Modern London

See More on ArtLyst

See video on: ArtLyst Virtual Tour

Kinetica Art Fair London

Kinetica Art Fair 2010 - Fair 04 Feb-07 Feb 2010

Take a virtual tour of the exhibition on ArtLyst  click here

Over 25 galleries and organisations specialising in kinetic, electronic and new media art are taking part and over 150 artists exhibiting. Tickets start at £8. Work ranges in price from £50 - £40,000. The UK's first Kinetica Art Fair, run by Kinetica Museum in 2009, attracted over 9,000 people with work sold to visitors, collectors and galleries around the world.
Exhibitors and artists include:
Jason Bruges, Nik Ramage, Balint Bolygo, Margaret Michel, Peter Sedgley, Kumi Yamashita, Raday Gallery, A22 Gallery, Goldsmiths MFA, Squidsoup, Interactive Agents, Ben Parry, Bruce Lacey, Edward Ihnatowicz, Jean Tinguely, Takis, Yaacov Agam, Peter Sedgley, David Medalla, Peter Logan, Harry Bertoia, Roger Vilder, Jesus Raphael Soto, DAM Berlin, Di Mainstone, Andrew Stonyer, Dennis Da Silva, Kathy Taylor, Michael Zeltner, Patrick Tresset, Paul Friedlander, Rosaline De Thelin, Hans Kooi, Davide Angheleddu, Thames Valley University Masters, Esther Polack, Kitchen Budapest and Kinetica Museum.
see more on ArtLyst