SPACE- VISUAL ART

The Age

Wednesday March 3, 2010

By PENNY MODRA

West Space wings it IN THE most unlikely meeting of minds since Dali designed the Chupa Chups logo, the West Space artist-run initiative will soon open an off-site project space in Melbourne Central. With a working title of ��The West Wing��, the 50- square-metre former retail space will be offered free to artists. West Space director Phip Murray says it��s an opportunity to engage passersby: ��The reactions will be diverse: interest, bafflement, delight, surprise, confusion and enjoyment. And, maybe occasionally, hostility, which is still an emotion that contemporary art manages to periodically evoke in Australia.��www.westspace.org.au Bearing fruit AFTER months of controversy, New York��s New Museum will finally open Skin Fruit today.It��s an exhibition of works owned by Greek Cypriot billionaire Dakis Joannou �� a trustee of the museum �� who has amassed the world��s largest collection of European contemporary art. Jeff Koons curated the show, which includes works by Richard Prince, Paul McCarthy, Tauba Auerbach and Koons himself, as well as previously unseen versions of works by Jenny Holzer, Charles Ray and Robert Cuoghi. The exhibition has drawn criticism, particularly from art bloggers (though not from New York��s most prominent critic, Jerry Saltz), who believe it will �� as museum shows generally do �� increase the value of Joannou��s collection. Both sides of the argument agree they want an invitation to the opening.Rodent rage PENTHOUSE Mouse has emerged as an annual visual arts highlight of L��Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival��s cultural program. Moth Design, which puts the Mouse together in a different unused building each year, is working with 18 installation artists this time. Expect an oversized tepee from Joseph Griffi ths and Joshua Longmore, a room-sized ball by Simon Boucher, and a mechanical man (pictured) by Jem Freeman and Laura Woodward, which will repeatedly smash its head against the building��s unused squash courts.Opens March 6.www.penthousemouse.com.au Life lessons IN 1930 Bertolt Brecht asked the question ��What keeps man alive?�� (via song) in his Threepenny Opera. Tom Waits and even the Pet Shop Boys have echoed the question since then, and the Zagreb-based curatorial collective (pictured) What, How & for Whom (WHW) chose it as the title for 2009��s 11th International Istanbul Biennial. Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), in association with NGV public programs, presents a WHW public lecture about life at 6pm tonight at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. It��s free but bookings are essential.Phone: 9905 4217.Williamstown prize THE Williamstown Festival Contemporary Art Prize exhibition opens tomorrow evening at Newport��s Substation Art Centre. If you didn��t even know Williamstown was having a festival, this will come as a surprise, but the exhibition promises works by more than 100 Australian and international artists competing for $15,000 in non-acquisitive prizes, including a major award of $10,000. It��s a curated show, rather than open-entry. This award tends to attract high-profile judges (Rick Amor in 2009) and the 2010 prizes will be decided by TarraWarra Museum of Art director Jane Scott.Local stars include Kate Daw, Robbie Rowlands, and Julie Shiels.djprojects.net/williamstownartprize10

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