| | Treasures from the National Museum of Afghanistan on View at the British Museum
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An enamelled glass goblet circa first century AD depicting figures harvesting dates and found in Begram, is pictured during a preview of the exhibition "Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World" at the British Museum in London March 1, 2011. The exhibition, which displays precious and unique pieces on loan from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, opens on March 3 and runs until July 3. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett.
By: Jill Lawless, Associated Press
LONDON (AP).- The British Museum's latest exhibition displays ancient artifacts in gold, glass, stone and ivory from Afghanistan, a country whose fortune, and curse, has long been to lie at a crossroads of cultures, traders, artists and armies. That these objects have survived for thousands of years is remarkable. That they have survived the last three decades of Soviet invasion, civil war, Taliban vandalism and continuing conflict seems little short of a miracle. The items in this touring show, whose London leg was being opened Tuesday by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, were thought lost in the destruction of the National Museum of Afghanistan in the 1990s. In fact, they had gone underground, hidden away just before the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 by museum staff, who kept the secret, despite personal risk, during the years of Taliban rule. "Many times they brought forces to the National Museum (to ask) 'Where are these ar ... More |
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Nevada Museum of Art Presents Internationally-Renowned Artist Leo Villareal 'Animating Light'
Leo Villareal, Untitled, 2007. LEDs, custom software, diffusion material, wood, electrical wiring, and hardware, 84 x 288 x 15 inches. Collection of Javier López, Madrid. Image courtesy of the artist and the San Jose Museum of Art.
RENO, NV.- Nevada Museum of Art presents internationally-renowned artist Leo Villareal, who will lead participants through the nature of light and the unique experience of his dynamic, immersive light sculptures and installations. On view from March 5, 2011 through May 22, 2011. Leo Villareal is the most prominent light sculptor of his generation. In 1997, he abandoned his work with interactive television and began creating sculptures in which he combined strobe lights, neon, and most recently, LED bulbs activated by the artist’s own custom-made software. The magic of Villareal’s work lies in its sequencing. Thousands of tiny white LEDs may resemble a starry night as seen in a planetarium, while tubes of colored LEDs masked ... More | | Select Offering of Fine Photographs at Auction this Month at Swann Galleries in N.Y.
Robert Rauschenberg, "Untitled," silver print, 1983. Estimate: $5,000 to $7,500. Photo: Courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- On Thursday, March 24, Swann Galleries will conduct an auction of Fine Photographs that features early photographic images and photobooks, classic modern images and examples of contemporary art. A selection of 19th-century albums kicks off the sale with Linnaeus Tripe’s Photographs of the Elliot Marbles; and Other Subjects; In the Central Museum Madras, a spectacular complete album with 75 photographs, featuring a group of sculptures from the ruined Buddhist stupa at Amaravati, salted paper prints from the dry collodion process, 1858-9 (estimate: $35,000 to $45,000); and Adam Clark Vroman’s Arizona and New Mexico, Volume II, a lavish album with more than 165 platinum prints depicting the famous Snake Dance of the Moqui people, dynamic portraits, images of Native American dwellings, landscapes, and ... More | | Presidential Humanities Medalist Donates Collection to George Washington University
Alexander Gardner, Bust portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner. 18 Nov 1863, albumen print taken from original glass negative, limited edition of 75 copies #49.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- The George Washington University announced today that Albert H. Small, a 2009 recipient of the Presidential Humanities Medal, will donate his unparalleled collection on the history of Washington , D.C. , to the university. Small’s Washingtoniana Collection will be permanently displayed in the 156-year-old Woodhull House and in a to-be-constructed adjacent museum on the George Washington University campus. The museum will include galleries and space for academic and scholarly activity. The $5 million gift will support the renovation of the Woodhull House and construction of the new museum. “Albert Small, a native Washingtonian, has methodically assembled the single most significant and extensive collection in private hands ... More |
 | Iran Auctions Leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Peugeot for $2.5 Million in Charity Auction
A girl poses next to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 1977 Peugeot 504 which has been auctioned for charity. REUTERS/Mohammadreza Dehdari.
TEHRAN (REUTERS).- A 1977 Peugeot sedan belonging to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sold for $2.5 million on Tuesday in a charity auction, Iranian media reported. Ahmadinejad announced last year he would put up the vehicle for auction and donate the money to a housing project for low-income families. A multilingual website was designed to receive the bids. "President Ahmadinejad's Peugeot 504 was sold for 2.5 billion tomans ($2.5 million) to an Iranian who took part in the auction," Isna news agency reported. "After Iran, most visitors of the website were from America," it quoted the head of Iran's Welfare Organization as saying at a ceremony to hand the car key to its new owner. Ahmadinejad, a blacksmith's son, has championed Iran's devout poor, especially those in rural areas, who felt neglected ... More | | Exhibition Traces a Century of Commemorations of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911
Firefighters spray water on the Asch Building, trying to put out the Triangle factory fire blaze, March 25, 1911. Photo attributed to Brown Brothers. International Ladies Garment Workers Union Archives, Kheel Center, Cornell University.
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y.- Marking the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Factory Fire—New York City’s largest workplace disaster before 9/11—New York University’s Grey Art Gallery presents an exhibition tracing 100 years of the fire’s memorializations. Art/Memory/Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire opened on January 11, 2011, and explores both historic and contemporary efforts to document the tragedy in which 146 garment workers—mostly young women from Jewish and Italian families living on the nearby Lower East Side—lost their lives. The fire broke out on March 25, 1911, in the Asch Building, now named the Brown Building and part of NYU’s Silver Center complex (which is also ... More | | America's Third Largest Art Market Announces the First Houston Fine Art Fair
The Houston Fine Art Fair will offer a broad spectrum of artworks from 1950 to the present.
HOUSTON, TX.- Houston, America's third largest art market, will be home to the first annual Houston Fine Art Fair September 15 – 18, 2011. Approximately 80+ international, national and Texas galleries will all be available under one roof, inside the George R. Brown Convention Center. The Houston Fine Art Fair will offer a broad spectrum of artworks from 1950 to the present, with paintings, drawing, print editions, installation, sculpture, and photography. International in scope, the fair will also showcase the "best of the best" in Latin American, South American and Mexican art. Thousands of significant artworks from 500 respected artists will be presented. Events planned in Houston, for both novice and experienced collectors, will include seminars, artist and collector interviews and roundtable discussions in an on-site theater. "The City of ... More |
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Sotheby's in New York to Offer Property from Palm Beach Private Collector in Dedicated Sale
Property of a Palm Beach Private Collector features approximately 80 lots of Chinese porcelain and works of art, encompassing a range of style and media and with estimates ranging from $1,000 to $700,000. Photo: Sotheby's.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- On 29 March 2011, Sotheby’s will offer Imperial Chinese and Chinese porcelain and works of art and English and Continental furniture in the dedicated sale of Property of a Palm Beach Private Collector. The worldly collection was assembled in the 1950s and 60s, with an eclectic combination of works that reflects a sophisticated and classic American taste from that period. The sale is led by A Rare Large Chinese ‘Famille- Rose’ ‘Millefleurs’ Altar Garniture bearing six character Qianlong marks and of the period (est. $500/700,000*), as well as an group of six Rare Chinese ‘Famille-Rose’ ‘Soldier’ Vases. The sale will be exhibited in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning 23 March, alongside the auctions of Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art and European Furniture. Property ... More | | Telescope Belonging to William "The Sailor King" to Be Offered in Maritime Sale
Estimated at £3,000-5,000, the fascinating album is believed to date from between 1904-10 and comprises approximately 400 private views taken by and of Turner.
LONDON.- An important sailing telescope that belonged to H.R.H King William IV – known as ‘The Sailor King’ - will be offered by Charles Miller Ltd on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 in his sale of Maritime & Scientific Models, Instruments & Art in London (25, Blythe Road, W14). Signed J&W Watkins/Charing Crofs/LONDON, the telescope is further inscribed This glafs belonged to/His Majesty William the 4th/when he was at Sea/was given by him/to Lord Adolphus Fitz Clarence/who gave it to/Berkley Paget/1831. Jeremiah and Walter Watkins only worked between 1794 and 1798 from 5 Charring Cross, London and were telescope makers by Royal Appointment to the Duke and Duchess of York and the Duke of Clarence, later William IV. The lot offered here bears a striking resemblance to the instrument held by the Duke while wearing his full dress naval uniform in the famous portrait painted by Sir Martin Archer Shee, circa 1800 ... More | | Art in Focus on Drawings and Etchings by Augustus John at National Museum Cardiff
Augustus John, Dorelia in Eastern Dress (detail). Photo: Estate of Augustus John / Bridgeman Art Library.
CARDIFF.- The work of one of Wales’ most renowned artists, Augustus John, is celebrated in a new exhibition Lyrical Lines: Drawings and Etchings by Augustus John (1878-1961) at National Museum Cardiff until 5 June 2011. This display, of over fifty drawings, marks fifty years since the artist’s death. The drawings are taken from the Museum’s fine holdings of work by Augustus John, with the addition of loans from an important private collection. The special display is part of Museum’s changing programme which explore aspects of the work of 20th century artists from Wales, and those that made their home here. One of the most flamboyant and talented artists of his generation, John was born in Tenby and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. The teaching there emphasised skill in drawing and John’s talent soon stood out. As well as studies for paintings, John produced life drawings and por ... More |
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Valencian Institute of Modern Art Presents Exhibition by Chinese Artist Pang Xunqin
With this exhibition, twenty-five years after Xunqi's death, we reveal some of the keys to the success of an artist who studied fine arts in Paris back in the twenties.
VALENCIA.- The artist Pang Xunqin (1906-1995) is a precursory example in tackling modernity from points of view and ways of living very different from his own without betraying his solid oriental roots. Xunqin, as we can see in this ample exhibition organised by the IVAM in collaboration with the Changshu Art Museum, is a creator ahead of his time who has been a clear referent for the new generations that have emerged in the neuralgic centres of China since the nineteen eighties. Thus, by means of a particular observation of the aesthetics and thinking of Xunqin, we can appreciate the richness of the eighty-four pieces that comprise this group of artworks that has come to Valencia. They were all made in 1939, and represent a laboratory for the study and analysis of the globalised trends that arose in China over seventy years ago. In this sense I think it is interesting to point out that systematic modernity, speaking in both econ ... More | | LABoral Launches New Strategy Converting Its Web into a Platform for Artistic Experimentation
LABoral sees its website as an element of communication and a far-reaching tool for disseminating information to the public and all its audiences on its different activity area.
GIJON.- LABoral has set in motion a new online strategy which, at the same time, has converted its web into a platform for artistic experimentation. The new site http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org of the Gijón-based Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial has been equipped with greater functions to include more content and to facilitate its use as an extension of the Centre’s exhibition rooms, in addition to presenting artistic works created specifically for display on the Internet. LABoral sees its website as an element of communication and a far-reaching tool for disseminating information to the public and all its audiences on its different activity areas: Exhibitions, Education_Training and Public Programmes, Research and Creation-production. Designed as a service and access platform to information on the Centre and its programmes, ... More | | New Sculpture and Drawings by Berlinde De Bruyckere Go on View at Hauser & Wirth
'Into One-Another To P.P.P' will remain on view at Hauser & Wirth New York through April 23rd.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- Hauser & Wirth New York presents ‘Into One-Another To P.P.P.,’ an exhibition of new sculptures and works on paper by internationally admired artist Berlinde De Bruyckere, dedicated by the artist to legendary Italian filmmaker, poet, painter, and journalist Pier Paolo Pasolini. The show serves as a foretaste of De Bruyckere’s traveling solo museum exhibition, which will debut in April at the Moritzburg Foundation in Halle, Germany, and present her work in juxtaposition with that of Pasolini and Renaissance master Lucas Cranach. 'Into One-Another To P.P.P' will remain on view at Hauser & Wirth New York through April 23rd. In Pasolini, De Bruyckere has located an artistic kindred spirit who, before his violent murder in 1975, drew upon Catholic ritual, landmark European literature, Renaissance painting, and the political events of his time to create such films as ‘The Gospel According to ... More |
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 Photography Show Examines Changing Visions Before, During and After Tragic 2005 StormsNEW ORLEANS, LA.- Before During After, a collection of extraordinary images illustrating the impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the vision and work of 12 Louisiana photographers, opened at the Louisiana State Museum’s Presbytere on Jackson Square. Scheduled to run through August 31, the show compliments the Museum’s new $7.5 million permanent exhibition Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond, also at the Presbytere. “Louisiana’s recovery from the 2005 storms has been marked by a spirit of creativity and resilience,” said Tony Lewis, Louisiana State Museum Curator of Visual Arts. “The artists represented in Before During After saw what happened here, captured it vividly, and were forever changed by the experience.” Lewis served as co-curator with Diane Barber of DiverseWorks in Houston, where Before During After premiered last September. Selected for the ... More New-York Historical Society Organizes the First Full Retrospective of the Sculpture of John RogersNEW YORK, NY.- By far the most popular American sculptor of his eventful era, John Rogers (1829-1904) was unprecedented in the United States as an astute and tireless maker and marketer of artworks for a broad audience. From the beginning of the Civil War to the end of the Gilded Age, he sold more than 80,000 narrative figural groups in plaster, reaching the American public en masse and addressing the issues that most touched their lives. His arresting and memorable subjects included scenes from the front lines and the home front of the Civil War, insightful commentaries on domestic life and dramatic episodes from the stage and literature. Often selling for $15 apiece, Rogers’s works became commonplace in the homes of middle- and upper-class Americans in the later 19th century. Now, drawing on its premier collection of Rogers’s work, the New-York Historical Society has ... More "A Debt to Pleasure": Allegory and Realism in Contemporary Painting at Montserrat College of ArtBEVERLY, MA.- Montserrat College of Art Galleries presents the works of Julie Heffernan, David Ording, Shelley Reed, Erik Thor Sandberg, and Anne Siems in a provocative exhibition of contemporary painting, “A Debt to Pleasure,” curated by Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury. Inspired by the visual and symbolic richness of such diverse painting practices as 17th-century Dutch still lifes, Italian Renaissance master paintings and American folk art, the participating artists integrate the sensual and the sinister, the vulgar and the mysterious to question meaning-making in contemporary art. The exhibition is on view through April 2 in the Montserrat Gallery. An exhibition of technical skill, visual indulgence, and timelessness, “A Debt to Pleasure” presents a series of works that question their place in history. Beyond their flawlessly rendered surfaces, each artist explicitly references stylistic techniques ... More Voice from History Exposed by New Zealand QuakeCHRISTCHURCH (AP).- The New Zealand earthquake has exposed potentially historic documents hidden inside a 19th century statue that toppled in the disaster. Christchurch Major Bob Parker said Tuesday that a handwritten parchment in a bottle and a sealed copper cylinder believed to contain documents were discovered inside the statue of the city's founder. The statue is in the city's main square near its historic cathedral. It fell during the Feb. 22 earthquake that killed at least 155 people. Museum experts were examining the items. They appeared to contain a message from the city's founders expressing their vision for it. Parker said, "It seems almost providential that they have come to light now to provide the inspiration we need in this most difficult time." ... More Esther Woerdehoff Gallery Presents Spanish Photographer Chema MadozPARIS.- Esther Woerdehoff gallery presents Spanish photographer Chema Madoz's recent work. The exhibition comes with the publication of his last monograph Obras Maestras by the edition “La Fabrica”. Like a poet assembles words, Chema Madoz realizes his photographs based on a vocabulary of objects that he combines, reprocesses, and opposes to finally obtain unexpected conjunctions where surrealism and absurdity aren’t far away from each other. By setting the everyday objects free from their usual destiny, he makes us pass behind the mirror. This poetic vision is the issue of his imagination that questions our perception of reality and its representation. Chema Madoz was born in Madrid in 1958. At the beginning of the 80’s he discovered cinema and photography in the creative effervescence of the “Movida”. He worked at first outdoors, exploring the relations ... More Mike Nelson to Make History at the British Pavilion for 2011 Venice BiennaleLONDON.- Mike Nelson is the first installation artist to be invited by the British Council to conceive and create a new work in the British Pavilion for the 54th Venice Biennale. Nelson will be working in Venice for a period of three months, and the completed work will be launched during the official Biennale press days on 1st , 2nd and 3rd June, and open to the public for the duration of the exhibition from 4th June – 27th November 2011. "The attention to detail, historical accuracy and physical nature of Mike Nelson's sculptural practice guarantee that his new installation for the British Pavilion will be one of the most challenging solo presentations ever mounted in over 70 years of exhibitions organised by the British Council in Venice." - Richard Riley, Curator of the British Pavilion, 2011 As the UK's leading cultural relations organisation, the British Council has been responsible for the presentation of the ... More |
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