Friday, September 13, 2013

Rumble in the jungle

Usually when two competing elephants go head to head it’s all trampled grass, broken trees, flattened fauna and general bad news for anyone in the neighborhood, but when Art + Object and Webb’s go at it there's nothing but good news for us all. The latest gift from the field of action is A+O’s new publication, the large format, 52-page magazine Content.

Of course it’s a Trojan Horse to smuggle good news and convincing stats into our living rooms but it also comes with some interesting stuff on Venice, Theo Schoon and, embarrassingly, the first solid public acknowledgement of Sue Crockford that we've seen. Maybe it was the suddenness of her gallery closing or the muddle that preceded it, but as far as we've noticed Crockford’s valuable and lengthy contribution to the arts has been overlooked (including by OTN). To go some way to redressing that omission A+O presents a long interview with Sue Crockford that covers the history of the gallery.

Also included in Content, in the stats section, are the top 10 sales that have gone through A+O in the seven years they have been trading. It’s a small pool : four works by Gordon Walters, three by Colin McCahon, two by Bill Hammond and one Hotere. If you don’t already have a copy of Content our bet is that an email to A+O would score you one.