| The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Wednesday, December 28, 2016 |
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Chilean anthropologist Veronica Silva shows one of the mummies from the ancient Chinchorro culture at the National Museum of Natural History in Santiago, on December 16, 2016. Chilean researchers are seeking special UNESCO world heritage status for the Chinchorro mummies, the most ancient in the world according to Chilean physical anthropologist Bernardo Arriaza. Martin BERNETTI / AFP.
by Giovanna Fleitas
SANTIAGO (AFP).- The world's oldest mummies have just had an unusual check-up. More than 7,000 years after they were embalmed by the Chinchorro people, an ancient civilization in modern-day Chile and Peru, 15 mummies were taken to a Santiago clinic last week to undergo DNA analysis and computerized tomography scans. The Chinchorro were a hunting and fishing people who lived from 10,000 to 3,400 BC on the Pacific coast of South America, at the edge of the Atacama desert. They were among the first people in the world to mummify their dead. Their mummies date back some 7,400 years -- at least 2,000 years older than Egypt's. Now, researchers are hoping to use modern medical technology to reconstruct what they looked like in life, decode their genes and better understand the mysteries of this ancient civilization. The 15 Chinchorro mummies, mostly children and unborn babies, were put through a CT scanner at the Los Condes clinic in the Chilean capital. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A person opens a "book menu" of the celebration by the Shah of Iran for the 2500 years of the Perse empire in 1971 during an exhibition at the MADD (Musee des Arts Decoratifs et du Design) of Bordeaux, southwestern France, on November 17, 2016 as part of the annual gastronomy festival "SO Good". GEORGES GOBET / AFP
| French art experts blast Seoul over 'fake' painting | | Germany says had to cancel show of Iran shah's art trove | | Hollywood's 'princess' Carrie Fisher dead at 60 |
Members of the prosecutors' team hold a copy of the painting "Beautiful Woman" by Chun Kyung-Ja. YONHAP / AFP.
SEOUL (AFP).- French art experts on Tuesday lambasted South Korean state prosecutors for declaring a "fake" painting to be genuine despite its own scientific findings that supported the artist's disavowal of the work. The painting "Beautiful Woman" by one of South Korea's most renowned artists, Chun Kyung-Ja, has been the focus of a bizarre and decades-long dispute over its authenticity. Before her death last year at the age of 91, Chun had repeatedly insisted that the 1971 portrait owned by the country's National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) was not one of hers. "Parents can recognise their children. That is not my painting," she insisted. The museum is adamant that it is genuine, and in April a prosecutorial investigation was launched after one of Chun's daughters filed a complaint. She accused former and current MMCA officials of hurting the artist's reputation by promoting the painting as authentic. State prosecutors last week found in favour of the ... More | |
File photo of one of the Gemäldegalerie's exhibiton rooms, showing medieval sacred art in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
BERLIN (AFP).- German cultural officials said Tuesday they had to cancel a planned Berlin exhibition of an Iranian treasure trove of Western modern art after Tehran refused to provide an export permit. The show of paintings collected by the wife of Iran's late shah, featuring masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Andy Warhol, had been billed as a symbol of a diplomatic thaw since Iran's nuclear deal with western powers. But controversy flared after the Tehran museum chief this year handed out an award for a Holocaust cartoon, and the loan project was reportedly further complicated by fears in the Islamic republic about legal claims if the pictures travel abroad. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), which manages Berlin's main museums, said Iran's refusal to issue the necessary paperwork forced it to cancel the exhibition that had been agreed with the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Foundation president Hermann Parzinger said the decision had been taken "with great regret" becaus ... More | |
This file photo taken on December 16, 2015 shows US actress Carrie Fisher attending the opening of the European Premiere of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP.
LOS ANGELES (AFP).- After decades of fast living that her fearless "Star Wars" character Princess Leia would have struggled to keep up with, Carrie Fisher died Tuesday, days after suffering a heart attack. She was 60. The American actress, best-selling author and screenwriter -- who suffered from numerous addictions and later turned that into writing gold -- was a member of Hollywood royalty, both on screen and off. Born in Los Angeles in October 1956, the daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher became an international star overnight with the release of ''Star Wars" in 1977. Leia was the tough rebel princess in a white dress with a strange hairdo and blaster guns, who was unafraid to stare down the villainous Darth Vader. Six years later in "Return of the Jedi," she became a sex symbol in a barely-there metal bikini -- but remained the tough heroine, killing her slug-like gangster jailer Jabba the Hutt by choking him with the chain he used to ... More |
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| National Gallery of Denmark releases digital casts of sculptures | | Cantor Arts Center exhibition presents exquisite Dutch Golden Age prints by Rembrandt van Rijn and his peers | | Winnipeg Art Gallery opens exhibition of works by Rodin |
Digital cast of discus thrower, Roman copy with modern head. Photo: Magnus Kaslov / SMK.
COPENHAGEN.- The SMK collections include thousands of plaster casts of everything from heroes and goddesses to warriors and athletes. Recently SMK released a number of the most prominent and high-profile figures from the Royal Cast Collection in the form of 3D images, inviting everyone to reuse, upcycle, share and remix these digital casts. In recent years SMK has relinquished its copyright to more than 25,000 works, making photographic images of them freely available to all via smk.dk. Those pictures can be shared, remixed and used exactly as you wish. Now, SMK takes the next step by progressing from 2D photographs to 3D images. Under the common heading SMK², the museum releases 3D images of six selected plaster casts from the Royal Cast Collection. Works that are considered highlights of Western art history. From 11 November, all interested parties such as schools, students, artists and designers can download ... More | |
Rembrandt van Rijn (the Netherlands, 16061669), Self-Portrait with Saskia, 1636. Etching. Cantor Arts Center Collection, Gift of Honor Spitz and Ellen Berger, 1988.256.
STANFORD, CA.- The Cantor Arts Center is presenting The Wonder of Everyday Life: Dutch Golden Age Prints, a major exhibition running through March 20. The approximately 55 works on view, by Rembrandt van Rijn and his Dutch peers, were created during an extraordinary moment in the history of prints, when unprecedented economic prosperity and patronage elevated printmaking in the Dutch Republic during the 17th century, an era known as the Golden Age. While art imported from southern Europe and Dutch colonial outposts in Asia saturated the burgeoning market, newly wealthy collectors also demanded contemporary Dutch prints. Rembrandt and his peers responded with traditional biblical and mythological subjects, but also familiar landscapes and character studies inspired by daily life. Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, Burton and Deedee McMurtry Curator ... More | |
Auguste Rodin. Danaïd, 1889. Bronze, 30.5 x 61.6 x 44.5 cm. Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Gift from The Salgo Trust for Education, 2015-179 Photo: Ernest Mayer.
WINNIPEG.- The Winnipeg Art Gallery is celebrating Auguste Rodin with an exhibition of work by the 19th-century French sculptor and other artists he inspired. Starting with Rodin brings together nearly 30 works of art from the WAGs permanent collection to reflect on the significant presence of Rodin in art history, his adaptation of earlier classical themes, and impact on later modernists. The exhibit runs until Spring 2017. Starting with Rodin highlights several recent donations to the WAG, chiefly the major bronze Danaïd (1889-90) from the Salgo Trust for Education, New York. Danaïd was initially modeled for inclusion in Rodins monumental Gates of Hell (1880-1917), but ultimately was left freestanding and unincorporated. The bronze depicts, with a frank eroticism that is still shocking, a femme fatal who, according to Greek mythology, murders her husband. Auguste ... More |
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| Photographs, paintings and sculpture, on view in exhibition honoring centenary of Thomas Eakins' death | | Retrospective of the work of Tancredi Parmeggiani on view at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection | | Exhibition of works made by Frank Stella in collaboration with Kenneth Tyler on view in Australia |
Thomas Eakins, in frontal view, in Chestnut Street studio, 1891-92. Gelatin silver print, 6 3/8 x 4 1/2 in. (16.1925 x 11.43 cm.) 1985.68.2.42.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is presenting Thomas Eakins: Photographer, an exhibition honoring the centenary of Eakins' death and presenting over 60 rarely-seen photographs as well as sculptures and paintings by Eakins and his circle. The exhibition is on view through January 29, 2017 at PAFA, 118 North Broad Street in Philadelphia. Known primarily as a painter, Eakins (1844-1916) taught and exhibited at PAFA and is inextricably linked with its history -- and with innovative artistic practices in 19th-century America that squarely confronted codes of gender and propriety in teaching and art making. Thomas Eakins: Photographer touches upon issues of representation, gender, and sexuality that are as relevant today as they were provocative when they were made. "The exhibition will allow the public to examine in detail the depth of Eakins' involvement with photography: as collector of a wide range of formal ... More | |
Tancredi Parmeggiani, Untitled (Flowers 101% Painted by Me and by Others No. 5), 1962. Mixed media and collage on canvas, with pencil and watercolor on paper, 81 x 65 cm. Matteo Lampertico, Milan.
VENICE.- The Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents the exhibition My Weapon Against the Atom Bomb is a Blade of Grass. Tancredi. A Retrospective, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, Associate Curator of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. With over ninety works, this much-awaited retrospective marks the return to Venice of Tancredi Parmeggiani (Feltre 1927 Rome 1964), among the most original and prolific Italian painters of the second half of the twentieth century. Tancredi was the only artist, after Jackson Pollock, whom Peggy Guggenheim placed under contract, promoting his work, making it known to museums and collectors in the USA, and organizing shows, including one in her own home, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, in 1954. More than sixty years later, Tancredi returns to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, his reputation now beyond question, with ... More | |
Frank Stella, Pergusa three 1982, from the 'Circuits' series 1982‑84. Colour relief and woodcut. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Kenneth Tyler, 2002.
CANBERRA.- The National Gallery of Australia is presenting an exhibition of works made by the major American abstract artist Frank Stella in collaboration with master printmaker Kenneth Tyler. Tracing their long history of groundbreaking prints, Frank Stella: The Kenneth Tyler Print Collection showcases works created by the duo, who contributed significantly to the major developments of twentieth-century printmaking. New York based Frank Stella first pushed the boundaries of abstraction with the Minimalist forms of his Black paintings in 1959, gaining instant notoriety. Since then his work has continually striven to validate and renew the genre, inventing new ways to save abstraction from a dead end. Frank Stella was an unstoppable risk-taker, a constant adventurer and highwire act, said curator Jane Kinsman. His constant search for new ways to give life to the art of abstraction is explored in ... More |
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| Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill brings a family legacy to Miami | | "Transformative, moving" sound sculpture first of its kind in Kansas City | | Norman Rockwell Museum presents "Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning" |
Ricardo Bofill Taller Arquitectura, Muralla Roja Calpe, Spain.
MIAMI, FLA.- A legacy has landed in Miami. Catalonia, the autonomous nationality between France and Spain, has for centuries spawned a crop of highly idiosyncratic artists and architects such as Gaudi, Dali, Miró The story begins with a local builder Emilio Bofill, a progressive spirit who vehemently opposed Francos regime, and his son Ricardo Bofill, whose reaction to the modernist movement led him to develop a singular and unique architecture. Ricardos first project La Fabrica, an abandoned cement factory, dates to the late 19th century when the first signs of industrialization appeared in Catalonia. Converting the factorys formal remains into his residence and studio in 1973, modifying its original Brutality and incorporating Catalan Civic Gothic style with Surrealist elements, the architect began what would become, much like Gaudis Sagrada FamÃlia, a lifelong project that would evolve with time, technology, politics and family. From La Fabrica, the now ... More | |
The 14-minute work continuously plays, and visitors are encouraged to walk among the speakers to hear the individual voices or sit in the center to experience the choral effect of the combined singers.
KANSAS CITY, MO.- The pure, ethereal sound of a choir singing a 16th-century piece of music begins quietly, gliding around visitors like ripples in a river before it builds to a glorious harmony that is transportive and achingly beautiful. Janet Cardiff: FortyPart Motet is on view at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. It is a sound installation by artist Janet Cardiff of 40 high-fidelity speakers arranged in an oval. Each speaker emits the recorded voice of a member of the Salisbury Cathedral Choir singing English composer Thomas Talliss most famous composition, Spem in Alium, which translates as "In No Other Is My Hope," composed in 1556 and sung a cappella and in Latin. It is breathtaking in both its simplicity and its complexity. This intimate exhibition is a surprise, because it is music as sculpture and sculpture as music, said Julián ... More | |
Hanna Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning focuses primarily on the golden years of the studio.
STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.- Before the rise of basic cable, Saturday mornings for many children in America were spent watching cartoons on one of three available television channels. From 1958 through the 1980s, a majority of those cartoons bore the imprint of Hanna-Barbera. Creating scores of popular series such as The Yogi Bear Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, and Scooby-Doo, Hanna-Barbera was an animation powerhouse and its bountiful creativity is beloved to this day. Norman Rockwell Museum is paying tribute to the art of the award-winning studio with the exhibition Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning, on view through May 29, 2017. "We are thrilled to present the first museum exhibition on the work of Hanna-Barbera, notes Jesse Kowalski, the Museums Curator of Exhibitions. This show will provide a comprehensive look into the animation team that collaborated for more than 60 years. William Hanna and ... More |
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Treasures from Chatsworth, Episode 11: The Devonshire Parure
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A special exhibition offering glimpses into wintertime daily life in 18th and 19th century New England
HARVARD, MASS.- The Trustees announced that Fruitlands Museum, its newest property, is presenting Comforts, Cures, and Distractions: Winter at Fruitlands Museum, running through March 26, 2017. The exhibition brings wintry New England into vivid focus with an assortment of art and artifacts from the museums diverse Transcendentalist, Shaker, Native American, and landscape painting collection. As daylight hours shorten and temperatures plummet, snow transforms the landscape, blanketing it with hushed beauty, says Fruitlands Curator Shana Dumont Garr who joined The Trustees in September. During this season of winter wonder it becomes difficult to imagine how people made it through the cold weather in past centuries, before central heating and other modern conveniences. The objects assembled in Comforts, Cures and Distractions will connect visitors ... More
Manchester Museum challenges species survival in exhibition
MANCHESTER.- While extinctions have happened since life first evolved, we are at a point in the Earths history where humans are present to document these changes, and to realize our own involvement in the unfolding story. Manchester Museums exhibition Extinction or Survival? Brings these issues to the fore by focussing on examples where humans are known to have influenced the survival of animal and plant species. With iconic species such as the dodo, along with lesser-known stories such as the giant earwig, the Extinction or Survival? exhibition uses extinct animals and plants to demonstrate why species are pushed to extinction, from over-exploitation to habitat fragmentation. However, human action isnt always negative. Rare and endangered species are monitored and conservation efforts can bring species back from the brink of extinction. With support ... More
Corning Museum of Glass to present Tiffany's glass mosaics
CORNING, NY.- The first exhibition to explore Louis C. Tiffanys glass mosaicsan extraordinary but little-known aspect of his artistic productionwill be presented by The Corning Museum of Glass from May 20, 2017, through January 7, 2018. Tiffanys Glass Mosaics, organized jointly by CMoG and The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, will combine works from both collections with important loans and specially designed digital displays to reveal how Tiffanys mosaics reflect this aspect of his studios artistry and innovation in glass. The exhibition will feature nearly 50 works dating from the 1890s to the 1920s, from intimately scaled mosaic fancy goods designed for use in the home to large-scale mosaic panels and architectural elements composed of thousands of individual pieces of glass. Examples of Tiffany mosaics of such wide-ranging scope and scale have never ... More
Works by Anna Althea Hills, Phillip K. Smith III, and Kristin Leachman on view at the Laguna Art Museum
LAGUNA BEACH, CA.- Laguna Art Museum is presenting three exhibitions to the public; Miss Hills of Laguna Beach, Anna Althea Hills: Art, Education, Community; Phillip K. Smith III: Bent Parallel; and Kristin Leachman: Xylem Rays. The exhibitions will close January 15, 2017. Laguna Art Museum is presenting the work of landscape painter Anna Althea Hills (18821930). Hills was one of the highly talented artists whose presence in the community helped put Laguna Beach on the map as a premier art colony during the first decades of the twentieth century. Born in Ravenna, Ohio, she studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cooper Union Art School in New York City. In New York she also studied under Arthur Wesley Dow, one of the most influential art teachers of the period, who played a prominent role in the American Arts & Crafts Movement. ... More
Chatsworth announces largest exhibition to date: House Style
CHATSWORTH.- Next spring, Chatsworth will present its most ambitious exhibition to date, exploring the history of fashion and adornment: House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth. Hamish Bowles, International Editor-at-Large at American Vogue, will curate this landmark show with creative direction and design by Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda, the duo behind some of the most memorable fashion exhibitions of recent years. House Style will give unprecedented insight into the depth of the Devonshire Collection and the lives of renowned style icons from Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire to Stella Tennant. The exhibition will bring to life the captivating individuals from the Cavendish family, including Bess of Hardwick, one of the most powerful women of the 16th century; the 18th century Empress of Fashion Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; ... More
Light-filled Oregon landscapes on view at Tacoma Art Museum
TACOMA, WA.- Impressionism is one of the most beloved painting styles among museum-goers, and Northwesterners can get their fill at Tacoma Art Museum. The remarkable survey Coast to Cascades: C. C. McKims Impressionist Vision is the collaborative product of Margaret Bullock, Curator of Collections and Special Exhibitions at TAM, and Mark Humpal, an art scholar and gallerist from Portland, Oregon. McKim (1862-1939) was a notable and essential figure in Northwestern art history. Along with the exhibition, the curators co-authored a beautiful catalogue featuring color images of all of the works in the exhibition and furthering the scholarship of this important Northwest painter. Coast to Cascades is the latest installment in the museums Northwest Perspective Series. It continues TAMs tradition of highlighting the careers of significant Northwest ... More
Solo exhibition by painter and printmaker Angela Harding opens at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
WAKEFIELD.- This winter, Yorkshire Sculpture Park presents Flights of Memory by painter and printmaker Angela Harding. The artists largest ever solo exhibition presents a striking collection of prints and paintings inspired by the thriving wildlife of Britain. The exhibition runs at YSP, near Wakefield, from 19 November 2016 to 26 February 2017. Flights of Memory transforms YSP Centre into a map of Britain, showcasing the islands birds and animals in their natural landscapes, from countryside to coast, hedgerow to heath. A series of six North Yorkshire-inspired prints, including Cherry Tree in Richmond and Curlew at Whitby Harbour, hark back to Hardings childhood spent in the region. The artist has revisited locations reminiscent of that time to produce new works which are observational and also rely on a combination of imagination and memory. The exhibition premieres ... More
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum presents "A Colorful Dream: Photography by Adrien Broom"
NEW LONDON, CONN.- The Lyman Allyn Art Museum announced A Colorful Dream, Photography by Adrien Broom, on view through January 8, 2017. This exhibition, an exhilarating holiday season experience for the whole family, features the bold and colorful work of local artist, Adrien Broom. A Colorful Dream is the latest exhibition in the Lyman Allyns Near :: New contemporary series. This family-friendly, interactive exhibition highlights the work of contemporary fine art and commercial photographer, Adrien Broom. The culmination of a three-year studio project, A Colorful Dream features a colorful and evocative threedimensional installation and large-scale photographs detailing a young girls journey as she rediscovers all the colors of the rainbow. While working in her studio, Broom designed and constructed individual sets composed of everything that ... More
Ned Smyth's "Moments of Matter" on view at Grounds For Sculpture
HAMILTON, NJ.- Grounds For Sculpture is presenting Ned Smyth, Moments of Matter, a retrospective of his monumental sculptures and photographs created in the past decade. I like to believe that our attention to these stones adds to their energy and links us to a reverence that was once a part of our relationship to the Earth. - Ned Smyth From a childhood spent in Italy exploring ancient Roman ruins, to his current home and studio on the rocky shore of Shelter Island, New York, Ned Smyth has invested his artistic practice into an exploration of man and nature and humanitys relationship to the passing of time, and channeling this investigation into sculptures and monumental photographs that straddle both classical and post-minimalist tradition. This exhibition focuses on Smyths large-scale sculptural works that appear as large rock formations milled in dense ... More
Fantasy-inspired art exhibition on view at the Canton Museum of Art
CANTON, OH.- Dream Worlds: The Art of Imaginative Realism assembles award-winning artists from around the country who play a pivotal role in the art of cinema, television, set design, 3D animation, gaming, and costume designpushing the boundaries of contemporary realism through the guise of surrealism. The exhibition is on view through March 12, 2017. Many of the works on display have a fundamental component of both the fine art world and the commercial art industry. This exhibition is certain to entertain and educate all ages with a journey through the art of imaginative realism a journey that may inspire viewers to explore their own creativity and storytelling ability through art. Dream Worlds is produced with Canton Museum of Art guest-curator and Canton native, Chris Seaman, an award-winning artist-illustrator. Imaginative Realism takes viewers ... More
Outsider Art Fair announces exhibitors for 25th anniversary edition of New York fair
NEW YORK, NY.- The Outsider Art Fair, the singular fair dedicated to Art Brut, Folk and Outsider Art, is pleased to announce its exhibitors for the 25th Anniversary Edition, which will run from January 19-22 at The Metropolitan Pavilion in New York. The fair will showcase 60 galleries, representing 29 cities from 9 countries, with 8 first-time exhibitors. On the heels of a strong 4th year of OAF Paris, which shined a light on historical Art Brut, the 25th edition of the New York fair will celebrate the diverse nationalities and backgrounds of its presented artists, from Macaulay & Cos roster of First Nation artists to the Japanese creators at Yukiko Koide Presents; tribal art from India at Hervé Perdriolle, and Rebecca Hossacks display of Aboriginal art. New Yorks Cuban Art Center will make its OAF debut and Mariposa Unusual Art will be returning with a dazzling array of Brazilian ex-votos. ... More
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Flashback On a day like today, The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience December 28, 1895. The Lumière (Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas (19 October 1862, Besançon, France - 10 April 1954, Lyon) and Louis Jean (5 October 1864, Besançon, France - 6 June 1948, Bandol) Brothers, were the earliest filmmakers in history. (Appropriately, "lumière" translates as "light" in English.) In this image: In 1895, French pioneer Louis Lumiere presented his first motion picture. Camera operator Pierre ERE checks the projector on March 23, 1955, used by Louis Lumiere 60 years ago. At center, an unidentified cameraman.
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