McGuggenheim Boycott

Some time ago, 130 artists called for a boycott of the Guggenheim if the abuse of migrant workers on the construction site of McGuggenheim's new franchise on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi would continue.

While the threat of a boycott obviously can only hope to be effective if those who do the threatening have a relatively high profile and hence plenty of symbolic capital in the US cultural field and/or that of the Middle East, there is an online petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/gulflabor/ that anyone can sign if they want to register their support and contribute to showing how widespread the rejection of these practices is.

This initiative is an interesting case in a number of respects. It counters one form of globalization with another; it opposes to art as circulation of image-commodities an investigation into the conditions of arts seemingly magical apparition in yet another place or nonplace.I hope to write more about this boycott at some point in the future. For the time being, more information is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/arts/design/guggenheim-threatened-with-boycott-over-abu-dhabi-project.html

And (in German) here:

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/globaler-kunststreik-guggenheim-in-abu-dhabi-nicht-um-jeden-preis-1.1074215

The Marx Lounge

Idols of the Market is among the books in the Dutch version of Alfredo Jaar's The Marx Lounge, which is on view at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam until 5 June. The project involves a great number of lectures, seminars and other events - including a screening of Allan Sekula and Noël Burch's film The Forgotten Space on the 19th of May, which I will introduce. [Edit: the screening has been moved to May 24, and co-director Noël Burch will participate.]

http://www.smba.nl/

An Image from Wendelien van Oldenborgh

In lieu of publication news: a production still of Wendelien van Oldenborgh's current work-in-progress, which has been commissioned for the Danish Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale.