| The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Saturday, April 2, 2016 |
| | | Priceless tomes at Lincean Academy Library in Rome hold key to European identity | |
|
|
A picture shows the Laudario of the disciples of S. Croce in Urbino, on March 30, 2016 during a press preview of the exhibition "The books that have made Europe. Latin manuscripts and novels by Charlemagne to the invention of printing". With 186 incunabula on show, including the first printed edition of the Divine Comedy of Dante and several editions of the Bible, Rome narrates the birth of European culture and its plurality. ALBERTO PIZZOLI / AFP.
By: Kelly Velasquez
ROME (AFP).- As Europe struggles with an identity crisis, a new exhibition in Rome looks at the birth of European culture through ancient manuscripts and the earliest printed books, including a first edition of Dante's Divine Comedy. While mass migrant arrivals have fuelled xenophobia and threatened to undermine the EU's core values, the exhibition extols the melting pot of cultures which shaped Europe -- beginning with the 13th century Italian poet, himself a political exile and migrant. "The exhibition was designed to show that Europe means plurality of cultures because, with the Mediterranean Sea, it was at the junction of three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe)," curator Roberto Antonelli told AFP. "It is no coincidence that so many cultures and languages crossed here," he said at a presentation to the press ahead of the show's opening on Thursday. Nearly 190 works are ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day PALMYRA.- A picture taken on March 31, 2016 shows pieces of beheaded and mutilated sculptures on the ground at the museum of the ancient city of Palmyra, some 215 kilometres northeast of Damascus. Syrian troops backed by Russian forces recaptured Palmyra on March 27, 2016, after a fierce offensive to rescue the city from jihadists who view the UNESCO-listed site's magnificent ruins as idolatrous. JOSEPH EID / AFP
| Hauser & Wirth announces worldwide representation of Lygia Pape and first exhibition devoted to the artist | | Rothko's Seminal 'No. 17' leads Christie's New York Evening Sale of Post-War & Contemporary Art | | New evidence pushes back the time of disappearance of the Indonesian "Hobbits" |
Lygia Pape. © Projeto Lygia Pape. Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth.
LONDON.- Hauser & Wirth announced worldwide exclusive representation of Lygia Pape, the celebrated Brazilian artist central to the Neo-Concrete movement, who pioneered a unique approach to abstraction. Papes experimental practice spanned drawing, sculpture, engraving, installation, choreography, and filmmaking as she moved between mediums to explore geometric form, positive and negative space, the intellectual and physical participation of the spectator, and above all arts potential to ignite social change. Many of Papes works were created in response to rampant political repression in Brazil in the late 1960s, and reflected the artists strongly critical views of the governments social and political hierarchies. Initially inspired by the formal geometric abstraction of Concrete art, which emerged in Brazil in the early 1950s, Pape started out by making geometric constructions. She ... More | |
Mark Rothko (1903-1970), No. 17, oil on canvas, 91 1/2 x 69 1/2 in. (232.5 x 176.5 cm.). Painted in 1957. $30-40million. ©1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- Leading Christies Evening Sale of Post-War & Contemporary Art on May 10, is Mark Rothkos pivotal 1957 canvas, No. 17 (estimate: $30-40million). With its vibrant, verdant hues, No. 17 is emblematic of the experiential nature of Rothkos arta manifestation of what one critic called the immediate radiance of the paintings from this period of the artists career. One of the artists rare blue canvases, this work belongs to a select group that marked the culmination of a short period during which he executed a number of brightly hued works and just a few months before he embarked on a series of paintings that have become widely regarded as the pinnacle of his career, the Seagram Murals (Tate Gallery, London). This painting was featured in the vital 1961-1963 ... More | |
Archaeological excavations at Liang Bua can reach depths of more than 8 meters. Photo: Liang Bua team.
WASHINGTON, DC.- Eight years of further excavations and study at the Indonesian cave site of Liang Bua have pushed back the time of disappearance of the hobbits of Flores (Homo floresiensis) from as recently as 12,000 years ago to about 50,000 years agoaround the same time that modern humans first dispersed through the wider region and reached Australia. The new findings are reported by Smithsonian scientist Matt Tocheri and an international team of researchers in the journal Nature. In 2003, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a human skeleton roughly 6 meters (20 feet) beneath the present-day surface of Liang Bua. The skull revealed an extremely small, chimpanzee-sized brain (about 400 centimeters, cubed) and the limb bones showed that this fully grown adult would have stood about 106 centimeters (3.5 feet) tall. In overall appearance, it was most similar to fossil human species that lived in Africa ... More |
|
| American artist Spencer Finch's third solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery opens in London | | Selling exhibition at Sotheby's celebrates the new wave of Asian decorative art and design | | Exhibition at Kayne Griffin Corcoran brings together work by three cross-generational artists |
Spencer Finch, Still Life (Tulips) noon effect, 2016. Watercolour on paper. 43 x 56 cm (each) © Spencer Finch. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.
LONDON.- The edge of perception is explored in Spencer Finchs third solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery London. The American artist tests the limits of objectivity, pursuing poetic ends with scientific clarity. Through a new installation, light-boxes, watercolours and pastels, Finch analyses the points at which conventional vision vanishes to become something else and examines the subjective lens of each individual through discrete bodies of work. Finch holds up an enchanted prism between the outer world and inner thought. Artworks on display consider a variety of instances in which perception is challenged and transformed: the peripheries of vision, the obfuscations of fog and the fall of darkness, camera distortions, the view of the world experienced by different species, in this case bees. Inspired by Emily Dickinsons poetry and by the movement of bees, Finch has attempted to track and map the complex paths ... More | |
Nendo (Oki Sato) Cabbage Chair (Mixed) 2008, this work is from an edition of 14 Unwoven fabric. Photo: Sotheby's.
HONG KONG.- In recent years, Asian decorative art and design has carved out a position on the international art stage with its own unique design dialect spanning a broad range of style and themes. Celebrating this new wave of Asian decorative art and design, Sothebys presents the selling exhibition of Asian Design: China, Japan, Korea, which launching alongside the Hong Kong Spring sale series from 1 6 April 2016 at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Featuring nearly 50 works by important designers from Asia, Asian Design responds to the mounting interest in this category not only in Asia, but internationally. This exhibition includes a special section dedicated to KANJIAN, a contemporary brand founded by celebrated Chinese singer Dadawa that is reviving craft traditions in new ways. Kevin Ching, CEO of Sothebys Asia, said: In 2012, Sotheby's pioneered the sale of international ... More | |
Alex Olson, Circuit, 2016. Oil and modeling paste on linen, 71 x 50 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles. Photo Credit: Brian Forrest
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Kayne Griffin Corcoran presents The Ocular Bowl , featuring works by Alex Olson, Agnes Pelton, and Linda Stark. The show brings together work by three cross-generational artists concentrating on ideas of vision and how it occurs beyond the eyes alone. Each artist brings a specific perspective to ideas of sight, from the physical act of seeing to inward and metaphysical explorations of mind and memory. The exhibition begins with historical works from the 1920s by painter Agnes Pelton and traverses through contemporary works by Alex Olson and Linda Stark. This will be the first time each artist has exhibited with the gallery. The Ocular Bowl examines vision through physical manifestations of light and sight lines, metaphorical symbolism, and transcendental themes. The title of the exhibition is culled from a sentence in Jacques Lacans essay, ... More |
|
| Quinn's to auction long-held private collections of advertising, toys, biscuit and tobacco tins in no-reserve sale | | Works by Tom Marioni and Elsa Hansen on view at Carl Solway Gallery in Cincinnati | | 'The Divine Part of the Face': Powerful portraits lead Bonhams Greek Art Sale in London |
Gray, Dunn & Co. figural biscuit tin motor truck. circa 1920, est. $600-$800. All images courtesy of Quinns Auction Galleries.
FALLS CHURCH, VA.- While Boyd Matson and June Hechinger led very different lives, each shared the enjoyment of collecting advertising-related memorabilia. On April 6, 2016 Quinns Auctions will offer 300 lots, including Matsons 40-year collection of advertising signs, memorabilia and toys; and Hechingers 40-year collection of British biscuit and American tobacco tins from her estate. All lots will be auctioned without reserve. Matson, a former NBC and National Geographic correspondent, made his name as the Indiana Jones of the media world. His adventures have included riding in a 100-mile horseback race in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro three times, flying with Operation Migration to teach captive-bred whooping cranes migration routes, and competing in the Race of No Return and Marathon ... More | |
Tom Marioni, 55 Million Year Old Nest, 2015. Graphite on plaster mounted on wood, 33.5 x 30 inches.
CINCINNATI, OH.- Tom Marioni is a San Francisco first generation conceptual artist and sculptor originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. His exhibition at Carl Solway Gallery includes new dry frescos, two site-specific wall drawings, a blown glass cigar ashtray and a selection of bronze sculptures. Marioni created the dry frescos by attaching graphite to a piece of bamboo and using it as a drawing instrument. In tapping against the fresco surface, he uses the graphite as a percussion instrument, much as he has done since 1972 with his ongoing series of drum brush drawings. In this work, he leaves metal marks by drumming with jazz drummers steel wire brushes against large sheets of sandpaper. The visual record of this action results in a marriage of visual art and music. His new fresco drawings, a departure for Marioni, are figurative in nature and relate to San Franciscos figurative movement ... More | |
Portrait of Despina wearing a rose dress by Yannis Tsarouchis (estimated £20,000-30,000). Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- Three powerful works in Bonhams sale of Greek Art in London on 26th April highlight the importance of portraiture in the national artistic tradition. Entitled Winter (£120,000-180,000), Mother and Child (£30,000-50,000) and Portrait of Despina wearing a rose dress (£20,000-30,000) they were painted by one of the leading artists of the Thirties Generation, Yannis Tsarouchis. Winter was painted in Paris in 1968 and forms part of the Four Seasons collection completed in 1969. Another work from the series Autumn was sold by Bonhams in April 2013 for more than £270,000. The imposing male figure at the centre of Winter can be seen as a symbol of the modern Greek spirit a constant theme in Tsarouchiss work. The painting demonstrates not only the artists deep knowledge of Greek mythology ... More |
|
| deCordova presents exhibition of mid-century photography masters, Lotte Jacobi, Lisette Model | | Whitney Museum of American Art among group of leading museums to publish teen study | | Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, PEM's Chief Curator, steps into higher leadership role |
Lisette Model, Coney Island Bather, New York, c. 1939-41, silver gelatin print, 19 7/8 x 15 15/16 in., Gift of Jean A. Mooney.
LINCOLN, MASS.- DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is presenting Lotte Jacobi, Lisette Model: Urban Camera. This exhibition showcases street photography, portraits, and experimental work by émigré photographers Lotte Jacobi and Lisette Model, created while they lived in Berlin, Paris, and New York from the 1930s to 1950s. On view in the James and Audrey Foster Galleries, these artists' works exemplify the breadth of the revitalization of portraiture and innovations in photographic techniques in the early- to mid-twentieth century. Urban Camera opened to the public on April 1, 2016 and will be on view through September 11, 2016. Lotte Jacobi (1896-1990) was an ambitious innovator, expanding her work from refined portraiture of cultural elites to experimental abstract images. She grew up working in the family business of Atelier Jacobi, a commercial photography studio in Germany (then-Prussia). In 1927, Jacobi left ... More | |
Programs that allow young people to go behind the scenes in museums change teen participants lives in lasting ways. Photograph by Eric Gardner, courtesy of the Walker Art Center.
NEW YORK, NY.- A national consortium of leading contemporary art museums today released results from a groundbreaking research and evaluation initiative exploring the long-term impacts of museum programs for teens. Drawing on reflections and input from hundreds of program alumni across the United States, this study documents powerful effects for participants, including lasting engagement with arts and culture, significant personal and professional development, and increased leadership skills and civic engagement. As practitioners, we had an intuitive understanding that these programs were benefiting teens, but we lacked rigorous research about what was happening long-term, says Danielle Linzer, Director of Access and Community Programs at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Project Director for the research initiative. Now, with this study, we can finally show that these experiences really do change lives. ... More | |
Appointed as PEMs first chief curator in 2003, Hartigan has led an innovative, ambitious and award-winning curatorial program. Photo: Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum.
SALEM, MASS.- The Peabody Essex Museum announces the appointment of Lynda Roscoe Hartigan as its new James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Deputy Director, following the departure of Josh Basseches to lead Torontos Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Appointed as PEMs first chief curator in 2003, Hartigan has led an innovative, ambitious and award-winning curatorial program. She has successfully developed a strategic plan for reimagining the museums curatorial practice and creating its first comprehensive exhibition, publishing and collection initiatives. "Lynda Hartigan brings exceptional leadership, talent, experience and creativity to her new position as deputy director, said Dan Monroe, PEM's Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Director and CEO. "Her new role will help assure that PEM continues to celebrate art and creative expression in new and innovative ways for ever-growing audiences worldwide." During her ... More |
|
href='
Artist Mark Cooper talks about his installation at Kemper Museum
| More News |
Solo exhibition of new work by artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum on view at Tiwani Contemporary
LONDON.- Tiwani Contemporary announces Polyhedra, a solo exhibition of new work by Johannesburg-based artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum. This is Sunstrum's first solo exhibition in the UK, following the group exhibition Mythopoeia at Tiwani Contemporary in April 2015. Sunstrum's multidisciplinary work alludes to mythology, geology and theories on the nature of the universe. The exhibition includes a number of new drawings, a large window drawing and a new, previously unseen video animation. Several of these works were born of a study of 18th-century European philosophers' preoccupation with the sublime. Sunstrum embeds elements of geometry within her works as a meditation on the scale of the universe and the geometric laws that govern all objects. The goddess-like female figures in Panthea, a series of six monumental drawings, were inspired by the ... More
Georgia Museum of Art shows electronic installation art
ATHENS, GA.- For the third year in a row, the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is taking part in the Slingshot festival of music, technology and electronic art, which runs March 31April 2, primarily in downtown Athens. The museum hosted the free kick-off party for Slingshot during which it revealed Refining Realities, a work of electronic installation art created by VolvoxLabs (VVOX). Refining Realities has been installed on the museums Patsy Dudley Pate Balcony through June 19. Digital visualizations and light projections activated by real-time data create an immersive architectural landscape on a trio of 3D panels mounted to the wall. The museums Pierre Daura Curator of European Art Lynn Boland, who has worked with Slingshot annually, said, VVOXs past projects have been astounding examples of cutting-edge digital art at the intersection ... More
Aspen Art Museum presents "Mickalene Thomas: Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities" featuring new works
ASPEN, CO.- As the Aspen Art Museums 201516 Gabriela and Ramiro Garza Distinguished Artist in Residence, New Yorkbased Mickalene Thomas has developed a new body of work in film, video, and photography entitled Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities and curated by AAM Curator Courtenay Finn. Focusing on the roles that mentors, muses, and celebrities play in her own life, Thomas uses the copy-and-paste sensibility of her paintings and collages to edit together portraits of women with her own image, creating a larger narrative of what it means to be a woman in the world today. The new work builds on Thomass previous research by considering who we look up to, who inspires us, who we find in the world at large, as well as who we feel represents us, looks like us, and shows us what we could be or want. The women in the AAM show, who span visual culture ... More
Exhibition of works by British artist Jonathan Monk on view at Blondeau & Cie
GENEVA.- Blondeau & Cie is presenting The Life Sized Black (a Porsche for RH), an exhibition by Jonathan Monk. The British artist revisits and reinterprets works from contemporary art with a mixture of wit, ingenuity and irreverence, appropriating and reorganising elements from a vast collection of images in a manner that is ironic but may also contain autobiographical allusions. Monk considers the written concept for his works as of equal importance to the physical realisations themselves, much as Sol LeWitt conceived the instructions for his Wall Drawings from 1968 on. In his 2011 show for the gallery, Dear Painter, paint for me one last time, Jonathan Monk questioned the role of the contemporary painter, just as Martin Kippenberger did in 1981. He describes his new show in Geneva, The Life Sized Black (a Porsche for RH), as follows Some time ago I accidentally acquired ... More
Cy Gavin's second solo exhibition with Sargent's Daughters on view in New York
NEW YORK, NY.- Sargents Daughters is presenting Cy Gavins second solo exhibition with the gallery, entitled At Heavens Command. The exhibition consists of new paintings and presents a video work by Gavin for the first time. The exhibition is on view from Friday, April 1st through Sunday, May 15th, 2016. Gavin takes the title of the exhibition from the first stanza of Rule, Britannia!, a well-known British patriotic song which rose to fame in the mid-eighteenth century and is still performed today. When Britain first, at Heaven's command Arose from out the azure main; This was the charter of the land. And guardian angels sang this strain: Rule, Britannia! rule the waves: Britons never will be slaves. Bermuda, the homeland of Gavins father, has been a lens through which Gavin considers the African Diaspora; one that has influenced this body of new work. Bermuda ... More
Skidmore College to lead four-college collaboration in museum-based learning
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY.- Skidmore College will lead an innovative collaboration on teaching and learning with on-campus museums through a joint exhibition with Colgate University, Hamilton College, and the University at Albany that has been made possible by the generosity of a three-year, $222,500 grant from The Teagle Foundation. Project director Mimi Hellman, Associate Professor and Chair of Skidmore College's Art History Department, will lead this initiative by guiding museum staff and faculty members across disciplines at each institution in the development of courses, assignments, and curriculum that consider how subject matter, medium, authorship, physical and institutional setting, display and labeling strategies, audience, and museum programming shape learning experiences. The catalyst for the development of new pedagogical modalities ... More
Thousands flock to screening of provocative Hong Kong film
HONG KONG.- Thousands of moviegoers on Friday flocked to mass screenings of Hong Kong film "Ten Years", a provocative futuristic portrayal of the city that has riled China. Released at the end of last year, it has been a box office hit locally -- despite only getting a short run in cinemas -- and has raised hackles on the mainland amid increasing fears in Hong Kong over Beijing's tightening grip. The series of five short films, each by a different Hong Kong director, depicts the city in 2025 where young children in military uniform prowl the streets, the local language of Cantonese is disappearing and one protester goes as far as self-immolation. The filmmakers say they feel it was only given short sporadic runs at cinemas across Hong Kong after its release in December due to political reasons, as it was commercially a runaway hit, selling out at the cinemas where it was ... More
Syria's Palmyra scarred forever by IS jihadists
PALMYRA (AFP).- Jihadists have reduced several temples, columns and other treasures to heaps of stone in Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, which archaeologists fear will never be fully restored to its former glory. On the rocks at the entrance to the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, jihadists have written in black: "The Islamic State. No entry for civilians or brothers (fighters)." While the temple's outer walls, main entrance and courtyard have survived, the main cella or prayer chamber has been destroyed, according to AFP journalists who visited the world heritage site. Ochre and beige-coloured blocks of stone that once formed the cella walls, rooftop and eight 16-metre (52-foot) tall fluted columns now lie on the ground. Syria's antiquities director Maamoun Abdulkarim says he is hopeful that part of the temple can be restored now that the jihadists have fled. "Of course the Temple ... More
Oil on canvas by noted Ghanaian artist Ablade Glover will lead Crescent City's April 16-17 auction
NEW ORLEANS, LA.- An exceptional pair of 19th century gilt and patinated bronze and marble ewers (narrow-neck jugs with wide, bulbous bodies), a stunning Lalique clear and frosted crystal swan centerpiece on a mirrored plateau, and an oil on canvas painting by noted Ghanaian artist Ablade Glover (b. 1934) will all come up for bid April 16-17 at Crescent City Auction Gallery. The two-day estates auction will be held in the firms gallery at 1330 St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. More than 1,100 lots will come up for bid, starting at 9 a.m. Central time Saturday, and 10 a.m. Central time Sunday. Offered will be items to benefit Holmes Community College in Goodman, Miss.; plus merchandise from prominent local estates and collections in the region. Categories will include period French furniture, original artwork (some of it by renowned New Orleans artists and other artists ... More
Michael Brown's second solo show with Mike Weiss Gallery on view in New York
NEW YORK, NY.- Mike Weiss Gallery is presenting Michael Browns second solo show with the gallery, in the meantime . For this body of work, the thirty-three year old artist hand-cuts and polishes stainless steel until he has recreated a broken mirror. Brown embarked on the series in 2006 and began exhibiting the works internationally in 2007 with Yvon Lambert Gallery. The exhibition will feature eight works all in stainless steel with artist's frames and measuring 84 inches in height and 48 inches in width. Brown begins abruptly, striking the surface of actual mirrors and surveying the cracks for appealing patterns to recreate. Beyond this initial stage, however, the process is arduous and painstaking. For each work, Brown must cut and polish hundreds of pieces of stainless steel. Yet the imagery is still defined by immediacy it conjures frustration and angst but also seems ... More
Rod Barton exhibits the work of Koen Delaere
BRUSSELS.- one plus one equals anything you want For Koen Delaere the possibility of 1 + 1 giving the answer F, or C, or i don't know, maybe H, is not only inherently important to the reading of his work but vital to a full understanding of what the painter is trying to achieve. Delaere's paintings play with the idea that each work's constitute parts can be seen together in myriad ways, and by grouping works together new combinations of readings can be found. In doing so creating whole new levels of thought which are completely different to the sum of their individual parts. This layering of concepts leaves a real liveliness to Koen Delaere's work; when you stand in front of his large scale paintings you are confronted with an ordered chaos, a feeling that if you look away you'll somehow miss something forever. Wipe that Simile off your Aphasia pops with a performative energy comparable ... More
|
|
href='
Flashback On a day like today, German painter Max Ernst was born April 02, 1891. Max Ernst (2 April 1891 - 1 April 1976) was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism. In this image: The work of art 'petales et jardin de la nymphe Ancolie' (1934) by Max Ernst (1891-1976) is on display as (L-R) Werner Spies, a Max Ernst specialist, Guido Magnaguagno, director of the museum and Annja Mueller-Alsbach, the exhibition curator, present the exhibition 'Max Ernst- In The Garden Of Nymph Ancolie' during a press conference at the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland on 11 September 2007. The exhibition 'Max Ernst - In The Garden Of Nymph Ancolie' can be seen from 12 September 2007, until 27 January 2008. In the heart of the Basel exhibition will be the monumental painting 'petales et jardin de la nymphe Ancolie' which is to be restored in a special show workshop.
|
|
|
