| | International Artists Deal with Unsharpness in "Blur After Richter" at Hamburger Kunsthalle
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A visitor stands in front of a work, entitled SECHSTER FEBRUAR ZWEITAUSENDZEHN, by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone during a preview of an exhibition, entitled Blur after Gerhard Richter, at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. Besides works by German artist Gerhard Richter, the exhibition features art pieces of 23 national and international artists that deal with unsharpness. It opened to the public on 11 February to 22 May. EPA/ANGELIKA WARMUTH.
HAMBURG.- Blurred surfaces, dissolving contours, hazy appearances and indistinct motifs: More and more often images that are out of focus appear in both contemporary painting and photography. Like no other artist, Gerhard Richter (*1932) has been employing the effect of blurring in his art since the 1960s. Apart from selected figural and abstract paintings the exhibition presents photographs and a film by Richter (Volker Bradke, 1966), to reveal that the phenomenon of the out-of-focus appearance, mostly generated by the painterly treatment of photographic models, is a central theme throughout his entire career. In the process of (un-)finishing his paintings, Richter raises questions about what a picture is able to reflect at all, whether it carries a signification or if it merely represents its own, seductively beautiful surface. For quite some time, the theme of the blurred image is no longer exclusive to Gerhard Richter. As the many, differing works in the exhibition show, th ... More |
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Exhibition at Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Incites Questions About the Act of Dreaming
René Magritte, The Invisible World, 1954. Oil on canvas, 77 x 51 5/8 in. (195.6 x 130.8 cm) The Menil Collection, Houston (V 615) © 2010 C. Herscovici, London / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
ST. LOUIS, MO.- The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts presents Dreamscapes, on view February 11–August 13, 2011. This exhibition incites questions about the act of dreaming—a succession of thoughts, images, sounds or emotions, which the mind experiences during sleep. The artworks on view and their juxtaposition with Tadao Ando's architecture offer new ways to think about the content and purpose of dreams on numerous levels: physiological, psychological, cultural and spiritual. The concept behind the exhibition began with the Pulitzer’s Watercourt. Its meditative reflecting pool and hewed boulder - Scott Burton’s Rock Settee (1988-89) - create an insular dreamscape in the middle of our city. A glass wall divides the Watercourt from the rest of the Pulitzer ... More | | 18 Photographic Prints by Alex Van Gelder of Louise Bourgeois's Hands at Hauser & Wirth
Louise Bourgeois 2010 by Alex Van Gelder © Alex Van Gelder. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth.
ZURICH.- Gnarled, sinewy and wrinkled with age, Louise Bourgeois’s hands were fascinating. Her hands are the subjects of portraits taken by the artist Alex Van Gelder, who, at Bourgeois’s invitation, photographed her at her New York townhouse during the last year of her life. The resulting portfolio of eighteen photographic prints will be on display at Hauser & Wirth Zürich from 12 February. More than purely a portrait project, Bourgeois considered this collaboration to be an extension of her work. Through this series, she put forth her own physicality to be viewed as an element of her art, focusing on her hands as her tools. Clenched or cradling, her hands recall many of her works, from the entwined finger-like forms of ‘Clutching’ (1962), to the skein of lines of her ‘Insomnia Drawings’ and the poised spiders of her ‘Maman’ series. Van Gelder’s images are stark, showing just t ... More | | AAMD and AAM Statement Regarding Pollock and University of Iowa Museum of Art
Jackson Pollock, "Mural," 1943 (detail), oil on canvas, 8' 1 1/4" x 19' 10". University of Iowa Museum of Art, gift of Peggy Guggenheim.
NEW YORK, NY.- In response to the recent call to sell Jackson Pollock’s Mural from the collection of The University of Iowa Museum of Art, the Association of Art Museum Directors and the American Association of Museums released the following joint statement: The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and the American Association of Museums (AAM) are alarmed to learn of the recent proposal to sell the Jackson Pollock painting Mural to underwrite costs at The University of Iowa. Such a sale would violate a fundamental ethical principle of the museum field, one which all accredited museums are bound to respect: that an accessioned work of art may not be treated as a disposable financial asset. University of Iowa President Sally Mason has forcefully spoken out against such an ... More |
 | Exhibition by American Master Philip Guston Opens at the Phillips Collection
Philip Guston. Rome, 1971. Oil on paper. Collection of Joan and Sanford Krotenberg. © Estate of Philip Guston; image courtesy McKee Gallery, New York, NY.
WASHINGTON, DC.- This winter, The Phillips Collection showcases the work of modern master Philip Guston (1913–1980). The exhibition shines a spotlight on a pivotal moment in the artist’s illustrious career, revealing the evolution of his personal aesthetic. The exhibition open on Feb. 12, 2011, and remain on view through May 15. “From acquiring Guston’s powerfully abstract Native’s Return in 1958 to exhibiting his most recent works on paper in 1981, the Phillips has a long history of supporting this complex artist’s periods of exploration and breakthrough,” said Dorothy Kosinski, director of The Phillips Collection. “This exhibition focuses on an important moment of transition in Guston’s career.” From the films of Federico Fellini to the vestiges of ancient Rome and the works of Italian masters, Philip Guston drew inspiration throughout his career from Italian art ... More | | Two Thousand Year Old Cat Still Looks Cool in Gold Earrings at Bonhams' Sale of Antiquities
This charming hollow cast bronze cat is shown alert, sitting upright with the tail curled to the right side. Estimate: £15,000 to £20,000. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- Bonhams sale of Antiquities on April 13 includes a beautiful but inscrutable Egyptian cat cast in bronze, with gold earrings, that dates from circa 664-32BC estimated to sell for £15,000 to £20,000. This charming hollow cast bronze cat is shown alert, sitting upright with the tail curled to the right side, the body with stippled surface, wearing a Bes-headed pectoral suspended on a cord and original gold earrings. It has beautiful well-defined features with recessed eyes and incised whiskers. The feline comes from a private Swiss collection. Bought in New York in 1958. With copies of accompanying collection notes. Such cats are images of the cat goddess Bastet and were often placed on the top of bronze boxes containing mummified cats. Madeleine Perridge, Head of Antiquities at Bonhams comments: “This is a wonderfully striking cat with beautifully defined features, particularly the finely incised ... More | | Scottish Artist Douglas Gordon's New Film k.364 at Gagosian on Britannia Street
Douglas Gordon, k.364, 2010 Stills from HD video © 2011 lost but found Film Limited. Images courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.
LONDON.- Gagosian Gallery presents “k.364,” an exhibition by Douglas Gordon. Gordon is a conjurer of collective memory and perceptual surprise whose tools include the everyday commodities of popular culture: Hollywood films, found scientific footage, photographs of rock stars, or poetic and ambiguous phrases. Into a diverse body of work - which spans video and film, sound, photographic objects, and texts both as installation and printed matter - he infuses a combination of humor and trepidation to manipulate reactions to the familiar. An early example, 24 Hour Psycho (1993), slowed down Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary 1960 film into a full day’s duration, drawing out the horror until any sensation of suspense ceased to exist. In 2006, he collaborated with Philippe Parreno on the feature film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, which used multiple cameras to ... More |
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University of Virginia Art Museum Opens Excavating New Ground: American Art in the 1970s
Power Boothe (American, b.1945), Diagonal Transference, 1973 (detail). Acrylic on canvas, 60 in x 60 in. Gift of the Artist, 2010.16.
RICHMOND, VA.- The 1970s featured the announcement of the break-up of the Beatles, the Kent State shooting, the meltdown of Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station and the $1.5 billion bailout of Chrysler Corporation. These tumultuous times also witnessed the maturity of the second wave of the women's movement, the student movement and the black-nationalist movement, which together irrevocably changed the fabric of the country. Where would modern art go? The 1970s was a decade of aesthetic open-endedness and exploration. Artists looked in many directions for styles and images relevant to this era of social change. An University of Virginia Art Museum exhibition, Excavating New Ground: American Art in the 1970s, celebrates the art of 1970s with 14 representative works drawn from the museum’s permanent collection. Produced by artists who resided primarily on the East Coast, these works exemplif ... More | | Akron Art Museum, One of Only Two Venues in the U.S., to Host M.C. Escher: Impossible Realities
M.C. Escher, Belvedere, 1958, Lithograph, 18 ¼ x 11 5/8 in. © the M.C. Escher Company B.V. – Baarn – the Netherlands. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.mcescher.com
AKRON, OH.- You’ve seen the posters, now see the originals. As the last of only two venues in the United States to show this once-in-a-lifetime loan from Athens, Greece, M.C. Escher: Impossible Realities, on view at the Akron Art Museum February 12 – May 29, 2011, presents the rare and thrilling privilege of examining first-hand the masterworks of Maurits Cornelis Escher. One of the most brilliant yet enigmatic artists of the 20th century, Escher delighted in creating visual puzzles that challenge our perception of reality. “Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?” asked Escher. “Are you definitely convinced that you will be on a higher plane when you walk up a staircase?” Such musings led to “mind-bending” qualities in his spatial illusions and have lent his imagery an enduring place in pop culture iconography. “We are so excited to offer viewers the c ... More | | British Artist Lindsay Seers Exhibits "It has to Be this Way" at BALTIC Centre in Gateshead
Lindsay Seers, It has to be this way² (Book Cover) 2010 © Lindsay Seers and Matt’s Gallery, London.
GATESHEAD.- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art presents It has to be this way² by British artist and Derek Jarman Award winner Lindsay Seers from Saturday 12 February to Sunday 12 June 2011. “I was her mother but she was never my daughter and now she has gone missing, I can honestly say that I never loved her” This short, opening sentence of It has to be this way² characterises the ambiguities of a work in which a camera lens rather than a scientific recorder of events, becomes a crystal ball that makes no distinction between the imagined, the past, the present or future. In Seers’ photographic explorations history is constantly reconfigured, as if it contains an infinite, virtual potential for different outcomes already embedded in one another. It has to be this way² represents these complexities and uncertainties. The film, presented within an installation, resumes the story of the artist’s step-sister ... More |
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Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science Reopens After $9 Million Renovation
a variety of planets are displayed in the waiting area outside the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science. AP Photo/Charles Krupa.
By: Bob Salsberg, Associated Press
BOSTON (AP).- The skyline of Boston shrinks away and before long is replaced by the blue-green orb that is planet Earth. As Earth itself moves into the rearview mirror, the moon appears, gray and foreboding, but it, too, quickly recedes into a tiny pinpoint of light. Soon visitors to the newly-renovated Charles Hayden Planetarium are leaving the solar system on their virtual spaceship, traveling at faster-than-light speeds in search of other planets in the Milky Way. And they are doing it, of course, without ever leaving their seats. The 52-year-old planetarium at Boston's Museum of Science has staked its future on the success of a $9 million facelift the museum hopes will instill in a new generation a sense of awe for the beauty of the cosmos and the mysteries it holds. After ... More | | Gemeentemuseum Den Haag Releases App Featuring László Moholy-Nagy Exhibition
The App of the current show in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag tells you more about the exhibits on display now, as well as Moholy-Nagy’s life and work.
THE HAGUE.- On January 29th the exhibit 'László Moholy-Nagy - The Art of Light' opened at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. For the first time in the museum's history an iPhone app has been launched alongside the exhibition. László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) made photography and film – the essential ingredient of which was light – the leading artistic media of his time. Through photography and film, art suddenly became accessible to all. This democratisation of the arts was entirely consistent with Moholy-Nagy’s utopian ideas. To him, art was part of an attitude to life, a collective mentality in which art and all other aspects of life merge in a Gesamtkunstwerk (‘integrated artwork’) or, better still, a Gesamtwerk (‘integrated work’), leading to shared progress. He was convinced of art’s ability to educate. ‘Art sharpens one’s senses, one’s view, one’s mind and one ... More | | The Artist Up Close: Portraits of Scottish Artists from the Prints and Drawings Collection
Helen Paxton Brown, Portrait of Jessie M. King. Watercolour, ink and black chalk on paper: 50.10 x 40.50 cm. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
EDINBURGH.- This spring The Artist Up Close brings together a broad range of portraits of some of Scotland’s most admired artists created by themselves, their friends or family. The display includes prints and drawings from the National collection spanning the last 300 years. Portraits of Sir Henry Raeburn, Allan Ramsay and Sir David Wilkie are shown alongside modern artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi, Anne Redpath, and Alan Davie. Whilst these artists’ names and work may be familiar, this display will put their faces and personalities in the picture. The exhibition contains many insightful self portraits. A striking image of Allan Ramsay (1713 – 1784) at the age of 20 already depicts a young, confident man who went on to become one of the most successful portrait painters in the 18th century. Another fascinating sketch is possibly the earliest surviving work ... More |
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Shh! - Bianca Maria Barmen Exhibits at Kunsthallen Brandts
ODENSE, DENMARK.- Bianca Maria Barmen is showing a major solo exhibition at Kunsthallen Brandts. The Swedish artist has a personal and philosophical approach to sculpture that is all her own—it is as if she creates haiku poems in plaster of Paris. Contemporary sculpture today is multi-faceted: there is no limit to the range of sculptural materials being used. Sculpture has long since descended from its base and crept out into the room, while at the same time becoming conceptually tied to its material. Some visual artists also choose to work in sculptural materials previously considered traditional: plaster, bronze and marble. Bianca Maria Barmen's primarily white world is inhabited by animals that may have human qualities and by people with heads emerging from or sinking into strange, organic substances or architectonic tableaux. In and around Bianca Maria Barmen's works a hypnotic sense of silence or loneliness reigns. Ro ... More
Move: Art and Dance Since the 1960s at Haus der Kunst
MUNICH.- Choreography – meaning the proposition for a sequence of movements – is the common denominator between art and dance in the exhibition "Move". The works brought together here choreograph the visitor: They guide his or her movements and invite to physical experiences that transform the viewer into an active participant. Some works are also activated by a group of dancers or performers for the exhibition’s entire duration. An obvious example of the combination of installation and visitor participation is William Forsythe’s "The Fact of Matter" (2009), a choreographic object composed of 200 gymnastic rings that hang at various heights from the ceiling. The visitor can move across the room using these rings without touching the floor, thereby putting his strength and flexibility to the test. Forsythe thus provides a structure for a variety of possible movements. Christian Jankowski pursues the same playful approach with his invitation to hula hoop in the ... More
Walters Art Museum Curator Named to Head Major German Museum
BALTIMORE, MD.- Director Gary Vikan of the Walters Art Museum announced that Dr. Regine Schulz, director of international curatorial affairs and curator of ancient art at the Walters since 2000, has been named executive director of the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum (RPM) in Hildesheim, Germany. Schulz, who will assume her duties in the fall, will succeed Dr. Katja Lembke, who was recently named director of the Landesmuseum of Lower Saxony in Hannover. “While Regine’s loss to the Walters and Baltimore will be keenly felt,” Vikan said, “I know that we all feel enormous joy and pride in this extraordinary step in her professional life—a step that I’m confident will open up important collaborations between the Walters and the RPM. Moreover, we can all take comfort in the fact that during her years here, Regine has put the Walters’ superb Egyptian collection on the map, worldwide.” Schulz ar ... More
Art Gallery of Alberta Launches New Series of Alberta-Focused Exhibitions
EDOMONTON, AB.- The Art Gallery of Alberta has partnered with ATB Financial to launch a new series of exhibitions designed to tell the stories of Alberta’s artistic heritage. The Alberta Early Masters Series, presented by ATB Financial commence on February 12, 2011 with the opening of Walter J. Phillips: Water and Woods, which will remain on view until June 5, 2011. “The Alberta Early Masters Series, presented by ATB Financial allows us to connect with all Albertans through a shared history of art in our province” says AGA Executive Director Gilles Hébert. “We’re proud to be able to spotlight some of our province’s most historically significant artists; it’s ATB’s commitment to telling Alberta stories that really made this new series possible.” The inaugural exhibition of the series, Walter J. Phillips: Water and Woods comprises over 70 works by one of Alberta’s most influential ... More
International Center of Photography Awarded "Save America's Treasures" Grant
NEW YORK, NY.- The International Center of Photography (ICP) has been awarded a "Save America's Treasures" grant from the National Park Service (NPS) and the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). It is one of 61 grants awarded from a pool of 338 total applicants nationwide and one of only ten made in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The grant of $57,425 will support the systematic organization and preservation of negatives, personal papers, and film materials in The Robert Capa and Cornell Capa Archive at ICP. The archive reflects the comprehensive creative work of the brothers, who were dedicated to documenting social issues and current events around the world. "We are grateful to the NEA and its partners for providing ICP with the opportunity to safeguard these extensive archives. The preservation will help future generations understand the social, political, and cultural hist ... More
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