| The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Monday, January 1, 2018 |
| | | A wonderful tradition and a welcome injection of colour: Turner in January 2018 | |
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J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), Harbour View, about 1826. Bodycolour on blue paper, 13.9 x 18.9 cm. Collection: Scottish National Gallery, Henry Vaughan Bequest 1900.
EDINBURGH.- 2018 will begin at the National Galleries of Scotland, as it does every year, with a wonderful tradition: the opening of Turner in January, an exhibition of the outstanding collection of Turner watercolours bequeathed in 1900 by Henry Vaughan (1809-1899) and supported by players of Peoples Postcode Lottery for the sixth year. The son of a London Quaker hat manufacturer, Vaughan inherited a fortune in 1828 and devoted his life to travel, philanthropy and amassing a rich and varied collection of fine and decorative art. His interests ranged from sculpture, Spanish clocks, ivories and bronzes to medieval stained glass, Old Master drawings and Rembrandt etchings, but he is best known as a collector of nineteenth-century British art, particularly Turner and Constable. Vaughan owned Constables The Hay-Wain for twenty years, which he presented to the National Gallery in London in 1886, and fifteen oil sketches by Cons ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day USO entertainers take part in New Year's Eve celebrations in Times Square on December 31, 2017 in New York. DON EMMERT / AFP
| Pioneer architect John Portman dead at 93 | | Berlin's Gemäldegalerie brings all fragments of diptych by Jean Fouquet together for the first time in 80 years | | Exhibition of major paintings and works on paper by Georg Baselitz on view at Michael Werner Gallery |
Atlanta Marriott Marquis. Atlanta, Georgia USA.
WASHINGTON (AFP).- John Portman, who pioneered modern hotel design and whose reach spanned from his native United States to Asia, has died aged 93, his firm said on Saturday. "A pioneering architect, entrepreneur, artist and philanthropist, Mr Portman changed the skylines of cities around the world and impacted the lives of many in Atlanta and abroad," John Portman & Associates said on its website. Portman made history in 1967 with the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, whose 22-storey sky-lit atrium marked a break from the "confining environment" of traditional city hotels, the firm's biographical website on the architect said. The hotel is one of three anchoring the convention district in his home city of Atlanta, Georgia, where Portman's 14-block Peachtree Center, which opened in 1961, helped establish Atlanta as one of the nation's leading convention cities, the site said. It added that he designed and developed the center without any public funds. "By acting as both architect and real estate developer ... More | |
Jean Fouquet, Diptych of Etienne Chevalier, c. 1455, right panel: Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, oak, 95 x 85.5 cm © Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten.
BERLIN.- Jean Fouquets diptych from the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Melun is one of the masterworks of French painting and of fifteenth century art in general. The former left panel, featuring a portrait of the donor Ãtienne Chevalier and a representation of Saint Stephen, came into the Gemäldegaleries collection in 1896. The right panel, depicting the Madonna, has belonged to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp since the early nineteenth century. In addition, there is the enamel medallion with a self-portrait of the artist, which once decorated the frame of the diptych and is now preserved in the Louvre. Curated by Stephan Kemperdick, the presentation at Berlins Gemäldegalerie brings all of these fragments together for the first time in 80 years, thereby briefly restoring the lost unity of a great work of art. Planned several times in the last decades but ... More | |
Georg Baselitz, Untitled, 1991. Gouache, pastel, watercolor on paper, 39 1/4 x 27 1/2 in. Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York and London.
NEW YORK, NY.- Michael Werner Gallery, New York, is presenting Georg Baselitz: 19771992, an exhibition of major paintings and works on paper by one of the most important German artists of the post-war period. Widely known for his inverted portraits, landscapes and still-lifes, Baselitz has long cultivated a subversive approach to figurative imagery. The artists debut exhibition in 1963 at Galerie Michael Werner in Berlin caused a scandal with its raw painterly style and disturbing content. In the following years Baselitz created the renowned Hero and Fracture paintings, and a radical change in the artists work occurred in 1969 with his first inverted pictures. Seeking to, in his own words, liberate representation from content, landscape, nude and still-life motifs were rendered upside-down, focusing the viewers attention foremost on the painterly and optical elements of the picture. The ... More |
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| From Stone to Silicone: Recasting Mesopotamian Monuments" at the Harvard Semitic Museum | | Exhibition investigates for the first time the great revolution in photography made possible by Leica cameras | | Exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler presents works by Jérémy Demester |
The king is shown hunting wild animals from his chariot. Here he takes aim at a lion, the king of beasts. The lion is depicted as a mighty, savage and proud beast. Though already struck by three arrows, it continues to threaten the king in his chariot.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.- The Harvard Semitic Museum is reimagining its grand third-floor atrium gallery, featuring the arts of ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). This first installment showcases newly fabricated casts from the ancient scenes that once adorned Mesopotamian palace walls. Meticulously created by museum curators and Harvard students, these relief sculptures show how the ancient kings commemorated their military triumphs and civic achievements. For ancient audiences, these scenes presented powerful royal propaganda. For modern audiences, they reveal great artistry and important glimpses into life in the ancient Near East. These stone reliefs are from the Throne Room of the North West Palace at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), near Mosul in modern Iraq. The ... More | |
Ur-Leica, built by Oskar Barnack, completed in 1914 © Leica Camera AG.
ROME.- Finally in Rome, in its sole Italian stop-over, the exhibition I Grandi Maestri. 100 Anni di fotografia Leica is taking place at the Complesso del Vittoriano - Ala Brasini until February 18th 2018. I Grandi Maestri. 100 Anni di fotografia Leica investigates for the first time the great revolution in the world of photography, and vision altogether, made possible by Leica cameras since the Twenties of the past century to date. More than 350 original vintage prints by renowned photographers, along with historical documents from the Leica archive, videos about photographers (such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Garry Winogrand), vintage advertising posters, historical magazines and first editions of books accompany the visitor in a journey through time and history, to discover those revolutionary changes allowed by such a technological innovation as the "Ur-Leica". The first successful 35mm camera not ... More | |
Jérémy Demester, Merlin, 2017. BMX bike, bronze, 95 x 145 x 67 cm.
BERLIN.- Galerie Max Hetzler is presenting a solo exhibition Fire Walk with Me by French artist Jérémy Demester in Goethestrasse 2/3. This is Demester's second solo exhibition with the gallery and his first solo presentation in Berlin. Jérémy Demester explores the nature of art and its relation with the founding myths of our world: symbolism, energies, alchemy, fate, sacred representations... His paintings and sculptures can thus never be taken at surface value as they are always layered with diverse, and sometimes cryptic, meaning. In reference to his nomadic roots, Demester describes himself a gypsy painter and a quest for identity underpins his work. This new series of works was completed during the artists ten almost monastic months spent in his studio in the south of France and marks a surprising turn in his practice. The works express a dialogue with figuration and natural elements, as well as with the personal history of the a ... More |
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| Survey from 1994 to the present of the work of Rodney Graham on view at the Irish Museum of Modern Art | | Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw explores Kinetic and Op Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America | | Exhibition presents highlights of the University of Applied Arts Vienna's 150-year history |
Rodney Graham, Dinner Break (Salisbury Steak), 2017. Painted aluminum lightbox with transmounted chromogenic transparency, 113.3 x 87.9 x 17.8 cm © Rodney Graham; Courtesy Lisson Gallery.
DUBLIN.- IMMA is presenting Thats Not Me, a survey from 1994 to the present, of the work of Canadian artist Rodney Graham. This is the first major presentation of Grahams work in Ireland, focusing on his illuminated light boxes and film works. Graham lives and works in Vancouver, Canada and is associated with the 1980s Vancouver School of post-conceptual photography alongside peers such as Jeff Wall and Stan Douglas (who so memorably exhibited in IMMA in 2014). The Vancouver School is a group defined by a style of photography in which moments from art history are replicated. Graham represented Canada at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and his work features in significant museum collections around the world including Tate Modern, MoMA and the Centre Pompidou. Rodney Graham is one of the most consistently inventive artists to have emerged in the last 40 years, ... More | |
Installation view. Photo: Bartosz Stawiarski.
WARSAW.- The Other Trans-Atlantic. Kinetic and Op art in Eastern Europe and Latin America 1950s 1970s examines a brief yet historically significant moment in the post-war era during which artists from Eastern Europe and Latin America cultivated a shared enthusiasm for Kinetic and Op art. This trend represented both an alternative and a challenge to the critical consensus of mainstream Northern-Atlantic art production: while in the established art centers of Paris, London and New York, abstract expressionism, informel and lyrical abstraction reigned supreme, another art history was being written linking the hubs of Warsaw, Budapest, Zagreb, Bucharest and Moscow together with Buenos Aires, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Here arose a network of artistic practices dedicated to an entirely different set of aesthetic questions situated in relation to various shared political and economic realities. The blossoming of Kinetic art and Op art in those regions was, among others, ... More | |
Maria Lassnig, Self-Portrait as a Blonde, 1981. Oil on cardboard © University of Applied Arts Vienna, Collection and Archive, inv.no. 2382/B; Maria Lassnig Foundation.
VIENNA.- On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the major exhibition Aesthetics of Change: 150 Years of the University of Applied Arts Vienna (15 December 2017 15 April 2018) delves into the cosmos of an Austrian cultural university that is at once one of the richest in tradition and among the most visionary. In two parts, the jubilee exhibition, a cooperation between the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the MAK, converges on the Angewandtes historically evolved position as the leading competence center for artistic and scientific education and research. In the lower MAK Exhibition Hall, around 400 exhibition objects reveal insights into the numerous highlights of its 150-year history. Speculative and occasionally provocative contemporary positions in the upper MAK Exhibition Hall sketch the future of art and ... More |
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| BFI launches landmark Jewish Britain on Film collection | | Solo exhibition of works by Olivier Mosset on view at the Jean-Paul Najar Foundation | | Thomas Dane Gallery presents exhibition of new works by Phillip King |
Some of My Best Friends. Jews (and Gentiles) muse on what it means to be Jewish in 1960s Britain. Documentary 1969 30 mins.
LONDON.- BFI released Jewish Britain on Film, a landmark collection of 60 newly digitised films, spanning over 100 years, with films dating back to 1905. Jewish Britain on Film uncovers insights, injustices and hidden histories across a century of Jewish heritage on British screens, bringing together records of Jewish life across the UK, from intimate home movies depicting family celebrations, to artists work confronting the 20th century Jewish experience in drama and documentary, charting changing attitudes both within and outside the community, exploring issues of observance, identity and assimilation in films such as Britains Jews (1965) Some of My Best Friends (1969) and Simcha (2000). Jewish Britain on Film is the latest instalment from the BFIs successful Britain on Film project. Having previously released online collections ... More | |
'Abstraction' by Olivier Mosset. Photo: Jean-Paul Najar Foundation.
DUBAI.- The Jean-Paul Najar Foundation is presenting a solo exhibition of works by Swiss-born, Tucson-based conceptual artist Olivier Mosset. Curated by Hervé Mikaeloff, Olivier Mosset: Abstraction showcases works that span over 50 years of Mossets prolific artistic career. Held in partnership with ADS Securities and The Embassy of Switzerland in the United Arab Emirates, Mossets works is on view at 45 Alserkal Avenue until February 28th 2018. Exhibiting in the Middle East for the first time, Olivier Mosset: Abstraction coincides with the anniversary of the founding of BMPT, an acronym for the Paris-based minimalist art collective formed in 1967 of which Mosset was a member along with Daniel Buren, Michel Parmentier and Niele Toroni. One of the leading representatives of minimalism in the 1960s, the BMPT movement opposed the new avant-garde in France, rejecting ... More | |
Installation view, Thomas Dane Gallery, London.
LONDON.- For his second show at Thomas Dane Gallery, Phillip King PPRA CBE (b. 1934 Tunis) presents an exhibition in two contrasting halves that explore some of the wide diversity of approach to materials the artist has adopted over the last 60 years. Steeped in both ancient tradition and modernist simplicity, these new works reveal the investigations of a peerless sculptor who continues to challenge materials and form. At 11 Duke Street St Jamess a crowd of solemn, statuesque, unglazed ceramic vessels populate the gallery spaces. From domestic to monumental scale these works suggest a utilitarian purpose, though each is cut open in some way revealing the volume behind their surfaces. The form of these ceramics chimes with Kings persistent desire to cut into the surface of his sculptures in order to open them up to understand their density and volume (for example Rosebud, 1962 and Through, 1965). Part Brancusian ... More |
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BYE BYE DE STIJL: Contemporary artists respond to De Stijl
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Contemporary art paired with Faberge Eggs at the Walters Art Museum
BALTIMORE, MD.- Fabergé eggs, some of the most exquisite objects ever created, continue to fascinate with their beauty and complexity. These royal treasures were designed by Peter Carl Fabergé, jeweler and goldsmith to the Russian imperial court, and made by his team of skilled craftsmen. The Walters Art Museum unveiled Fabergé and the Russian Crafts Tradition: An Empires Legacy, a stunning exhibition of more than 70 objects including the Walters two famed Fabergé eggs, alongside a dazzling array of gold and silver drinking vessels, intricate enamels, carved stones, luxurious jewelry, and icons that illuminate the beauty, technical sophistication and artistry of Russian crafts. The Walters Art Museum invites visitors to experience the beauty of these magnificent objects, and to explore the history and stories surrounding the Russian Romanov dynasty and ... More
New Yorker Lucy Raven wins art on the Bauhaus Museum building competition
DESSAU.- The "Kunst am Bau" competition for the Bauhaus Museum Dessau has been decided. The American artist Lucy Raven will install a large-scale work on the ground floor of the new museum building. Among eight concepts by contemporary, international artists, the jury of experts chose her mobile light installation "Light / Play / House". New York artist Lucy Raven has won the invitation competition "Kunst am Bau" for the Bauhaus Museum Dessau. The artist convinced the sevenmember jury with her concept of "Light / Play / House" - a dynamic lighting installation made of glass in different colours, which interacts with the architecture of the building by González Hinz Zabala (addenda architects). A new level is introduced through the work, a 'second curtain' made of coloured glass panels artistically picks up the architecture and develops the design and use possibilities ... More
Georgia Museum of Art Museum shows 19th-century weaponry
ATHENS, GA.- With guns dominating the news cycle, it may seem odd for an art museum to present an exhibition focused on them, but thats just what the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is doing. An exhibition largely consisting of longrifles and titled Artful Instruments: Georgia Gunsmiths and Their Craft opened at the museum December 2 and runs through February 25. The project of the museums curator of decorative arts, Dale Couch, and guest curator Sam Thomas, of the T. R. R. Cobb House, in Athens, the exhibition includes 18 19th-century longrifles as well as two pistols, powder horns and a miniature cannon on loan from private and public lenders. Decorative arts, as opposed to traditional fine arts like painting and sculpture, focus on functional objects. Most often, they include furniture, silver, pottery and the like, which ... More
Exhibition at German Cinematheque Museum of Film and Television celebrates Ufa's centennial anniversary
BERLIN.- Ufa these three letters embody a century of film and television history. Founded in December 1917, the Universum Film AG quickly became the most important film production company in Germany. Today, the UFA GmbH is the industry leader in German television production. In the special exhibition Ufa History of a Brand, the Deutsche Kinemathek is showing the strategies with which this commercial enterprise reacted to aesthetic and technical developments, as well as to the general social and political conditions of its times. Not surprisingly, this special exhibition is also an exemplary reflection of the development of audiovisual media from World War I to the present. The special exhibition Ufa History of a Brand is divided into six sections, representing the history of the Ufa film company and its well-known brand name. Additionally, it takes a look at the approaches of the prese ... More
Exhibition at 80WSE Gallery explores the relationship between aesthetics and politics in Central America
NEW YORK, NY.- In 1965, a spiritual, political, and artistic movement emerged on an archipelago of islands in the south of Nicaragua: Solentiname. Ernesto Cardenal, a leading poet and priest, established this community in its remote location on Lake Nicaragua. For over 50 years, Cardenal has been committed to social change, starting with Solentiname, which played a significant role in the Sandinista revolution over the U.S. backed Somoza regime. Dream of Solentiname looks at this key moment in the relationship between aesthetics and politics in Central America as well as its impact on artists working in New York City during the 1980s as the contra war against the new Sandinista government was underway. Correspondence between Ernesto Cardenal and fellow priest Thomas Merton document the founding ideas for Solentiname as a social and artistic ... More
Solo exhibition of prints and sculptures by Elizabeth Catlett on view at Burning in Water
NEW YORK, NY.- Burning in Water - New York is presenting Elizabeth Catlett: Wake Up in Glory. The exhibition focuses on the evolution of Catletts sculpture, featuring a diverse group of works drawn from across the seven-decade span of the artists career, including work in bronze, wood and marble. The show begins with Catletts stately Negro Woman bust. The most recent works in the show were created shortly before the artists death in 2012 at the age of 96. Born in Washington, DC in 1915, Elizabeth Catlett forged a singular artistic career as a sculptor and printmaker. During the course of her long life, Catlett was profoundly influenced by a broad array of artistic genres and traditions, including the Harlem Renaissance, European Modernism, African art, American Regionalism, the Chicago Renaissance, Pre-Columbian art, Mexican Muralism and PostRevolution ... More
GRIMM Gallery presents the politically charged exhibition 'Community Board'
AMSTERDAM.- GRIMM is presenting an exhibition by a group of artists presenting politically charged works that together form a contemporary community board. Community boards are the foundation of democratic, community-based planning in New York City. They are the first rung of city government, and a critical venue for public participation, consensus building and positive local change. Taking its title from Brad Kahlhamers (US, 1956) Community Board (2002-2004), an immersive eight-meter-wide installation that consists of hundreds of overlapping images that melt together cultural identity, visual artistry and social critique, all works in this exhibition derive from the same vantage point. By combining documents, drawings and posters, Kahlhamer depicts the history and structure of Native American communities within the US and presents an alternative ... More
Magali Reus' largest solo exhibition to date on view at Bergen Kunsthall
BERGEN.- Hot Cottons is Dutch artist Magali Reus first solo exhibition in Scandinavia, and her largest solo exhibition to date. The exhibition features a comprehensive group of new sculptures, presented within a bespoke exhibition architecture that reveals itself through a series of spatial chapters. Magali Reus creates sculptural objects through a working process of continual accumulation and erasure. She deliberately sets the idea of transitory status against what we claim to recognize, creating framing devices that ask new questions about the symbolic relevance of things we are so keen to define. In Hot Cottons, new sculptures make continual reference to the mutating qualities of the physical materials that surround us. Using smoke, fire and steam as metaphorical triggers, the implication is that each work might be a tool or agent for an active scenario yet to unfold. ... More
Vibeke Tandberg announced as winner of Lorck Schive Kunstpris 2017
TRONDHEIM.- Vibeke Tandberg has been announced as the winner of the Lorck Schive Kunstpris 2017, Norways biggest art prize and one of the largest in Europe. Norwegian Tandberg was chosen from a group of four shortlisted artists by an expert international jury for Candypool, 2017, consisting of a dismantled pooltable, plaster friezes and plaster sculptures. The work addresses issues such as recycling and conditons for artistic production. She received the prize of NOK 500,000 at a special awards ceremony at the Trondheim kunstmuseum where the finalist exhibition is on display until 28 January 2017. Vibeke Tandberg said: Lorck Schive Kunstpris is a prize I am very happy to receive because it is professionally grounded at all levels, from nomination process to jurying. Only funds without guidelines guarantee independent art, and there ... More
Florian Hecker transforms Kunsthalle Wien's exhibition space transforms into a resonating space
VIENNA.- Florian Hecker is an artist who creates acoustic works using synthetic sounds and the visitors auditory processes as material. His computer-generated, spatial, compositions dramatize questions of psychoacoustics, objective-physical stimuli, and their individual, psychological, and physical effects. A sculptural presence emerges from the complex multi-channel installations, disrupting the notion of a coherent, continuous world of identifiable coordinates and reference points. For Hallucination, Perspective, Synthesis, Kunsthalle Wiens exhibition space transforms into a resonating space, and a stage for sound events that exceed linguistic description and categorization. Positioned in the centre of the exhibition space, Resynthese FAVN is an extensive elaboration of FAVN, which was presented at Alte Oper in Frankfurt in 2016. FAVN is an abstract ... More
mumok exhibits works by the Kapsch Contemporary Art Prize 2017 winner: Julian Turner
VIENNA.- Julian Turner (born 1985 in Hamburg) is the second winner of the Kapsch Contemporary Art Prize, an award promoting young artists who live primarily in Austria. The prize was established in 2016 by the Kapsch Group and mumok and the winner receives 5,000 euro prize money and a solo exhibition at mumok, including a publication. In addition the Kapsch Group purchases a work or work group by the winner for the mumok collection. In his first museum exhibition entitled why not, Julian Turner takes a pointed and humorous look at the concept of the display, forms of presentation in museums and elsewhere, and also various collecting processes. In the clean white cube of the museum, Turner makes allustions to public spaces such as Brussels-North rail station or Berlins central Alexanderplatz square. His exhibition focuses on questions like what ... More
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Flashback On a day like today, Chinese painter Qi Baishi was born January 01, 1864. Qi Baishi (1 January 1864 - 16 September 1957) was a Chinese painter, noted for the whimsical, often playful style of his watercolor works. Born to a peasant family from Xiangtan, Hunan, Qi became a carpenter at 14, and learned to paint by himself. After he turned 40, he traveled, visiting various scenic spots in China. After 1917 he settled in Beijing. In this image: Qi Baishi, Crabs, circa 1930. Album leaf, ink on paper. University of Michigan Museum of Art. Gift of Sotokichi Katsuizumi, 1949/1.199.
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