Hirst and money? here's Deller and Joy in People

Jeremy Deller opens at the Hayward today with a show entitled Jeremy Deller: Joy in People.The exhibition incorporates almost all of his major works to date including installations, photographs, videos, posters, banners, performance works and sound pieces and is curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director, Hayward Gallery.
Jeremy Deller  won the Turner prize in 2004 without having taken even O-level art at his London public school. He emerged after the Young British Artists, who began exhibiting together in 1988, many of them wrapped up in the rising art market and collected by figures such as Charles Saatchi.
Sometimes his work – a re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave in 1984, one of the fiercest clashes of the miners' strike, or organising the ladies of the Women's Institute to show flower arrangements at the Tate – did not look like art at all.

His mum said "I tried to explain his work to the Queen when Jeremy took me to a reception at Buckingham Palace. I don't think she quite understood, but she was too polite to say."
Rugoff declares of Deller that he , "brought up questions of value" in his work. “ He has rarely made work that can be bought or sold straightforwardly. He has, said Rugoff, "heralded a new chapter when artists work as catalysts, producers, curators and collaborators … and with his interest in folk art and the creativity of everyday life he has brought attention to what other people have done".
There are some great events planned to accompany the exhibition including a David Shrigley and Jeremy Deller DJ Night on Friday 4 May 2012. Jeremy Deller’s interest in the social character of pop music is far ranging. The enthusiasms, rituals and passionate loyalty of fans have all provided the artist with inspiration. Our Hobby is Depeche Mode reflects on how people intimately embrace pop culture and embed it in the fabric of their everyday lives.The exhibition  runs until 13^th May

Damien Hirst, (eco-) property developer

ARTIST Damien Hirst who has been valued at £215 million has unveiled plans to build more than 500 landmark eco-homes in Ilfracombe, which he hopes will regenerate the town and provide a national blueprint for environmental housing.
The plans involve utilising land at Winsham Farm, which has been owned by Hirst for the past ten years, as well as nearby Channel Farm and Bowden Farm.
Mr Rundell said the houses would be modern in design and could incorporate state of the art environmental features such as photovoltaic panels, concealed wind turbines in the roofs and increased insulation.
"If we are committed to doing this as Damien wants it, it will happen. Damien is a man who gets things done."

Damien Hirst's latest exhibition, The Complete Spot Paintings, will be held at all 11 Gagosian Galleries across the world. Here's a selection of the works, which the Guardian has provided in a slideshow here

Post Modern work of art or Copyright Violation? Richard Prince in court

Richard Prince sometimes takes photos and changes them. The original is usually easily recognizable. This activity tends to break Copyright (if the creator of the original has not been dead for 70 years) and infringe the Moral Right that dictates an artist has the moral right to be recognized as the author of their work (Prince never acknowledges his sources) . In fact in a recent court case versus the photographer of the Rastafarian above Prince declared himself positively un-interested in any original that he takes and changes. His defence was that he needs other people’s works as raw material to "critique, dismantle, [and] transform..."  

Read more here

Save the Wedgwood Museum

The Wedgwood Museum has been listed by UNESCO as one of world's top 20 cultural assets. In the Unesco register, the museum's archive now sits alongside objects such as the Bill of Rights, which is the closest document that Britain has to a written constitution as well as a copy of King Charles I's death warrant.

But the Museum is due to be broken up and sold off to pay £134m pension deficit after a high court judgment in December. As well as thousands of ceramics produced by Josiah Wedgwood, the museum, which opened in 2008, boasts an archive of more than 100,000 documents and manuscripts, and masterpieces by Stubbs, Romney and Reynolds. Such is the collection's historic significance that questions will be asked in parliament this month.

The high court ruled that the collection was an asset of Waterford Wedgwood Potteries, which went bust in 2009, and could therefore be sold to pay off their creditors, the largest of which is the Pension Protection Fund.

Members of the Wedgwood family wrote a letter to the Telegraph this weekend they write:

"....We will now have to raise money to buy the very pieces of history that our family, together with employees and museum supporters worldwide, donated with the intention that they would be on display for the nation…"

Last month John Caudwell, the billionaire founder of Phones4U, the mobile phone retailer, said he would act as a lender of last resort to the museum.
He warned the act would not be “pure philanthropy” and would have “strings”.

The case is being reviewed by Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, who is expected to decide before the end of the month whether to seek leave to appeal in the case. Tristram Hunt, the television historian and a MP for Stoke, the home of the museum, is meeting with Mr Grieve this week to discuss the case.
Campaign to save the Museum is here