Blog Kunstjaar 2009 Art International

Old Masters, New Interest

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:19:00 +0000

'Portrait of Baron de Robeck Riding a Bay Hunter' (1791), by George Stubbs; estimate: £2 million-£3 million.

Old Masters, New Interest

(Source Wallstreet Journal) Old master dealers and auctioneers have joined forces to launch Master Paintings Week (July 4-10), a new event on London's art-collecting calendar.

Some 23 of the city's top international galleries will stage special painting exhibitions. Auction houses will hold a series of sales featuring works of European art from the 14th to the mid-19th century.
Running parallel will be Master Drawings London, now in its ninth year, where international dealers will offer hundreds of years of art-on-paper up to the present day.

Seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painting specialist Johnny Van Haeften says that old-master paintings have an image problem in that many people think of them as "dark and dreary, but in fact I think they would be surprised at just how vibrant and fascinating they can be." Among his offerings will be Jan Brueghel the Elder's "Still Life of Flowers in a Blue and White Vase," full of dancing blooms and priced in the region of $5 million.

Old Bond Street's Colnaghi Gallery will focus on the German Renaissance master Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), an artist who has had tremendous influence into the present day. His milk-white, virtuous-yet-dangerous nudes have inspired everything from German expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's colorful sirens to contemporary American artist John Currin's strangely twisted female portraits. Not least, Cranach's Garden-of-Eden painting "Temptation" became known to global TV viewers as the frontispiece for credit lines in the series "Desperate Housewives."

Among the highlights at Sotheby's evening sale on July 8 will be two major equestrian paintings: Goya's 1794 portrait of Spain's Duke of Alcudia seated on a prancing horse with a threatening sky in the background (estimate: £2.5 million-£3.5 million); and star British equestrian artist George Stubbs's delightful 1791 painting of Baron de Robeck on his proud hunter (estimate: £2 million-£3 million).
Another highlight at Sotheby's will be a portrait from 1628 by Dutch master Anthony Van Dyck of his friend Endymion Porter dressed in a rich, satin doublet and a flowing red cap. The work illustrates the artist's incredible ability to capture the essence of his sitter, and has never been offered at auction before (estimate: £1 million-£1.5 million).

A major Van Dyck at Christie's on July 7 will be a portrait of a richly dressed, pregnant "Mrs. Oliver St. John later Lady Poulett" (1636), which was last seen in public at a Detroit Institute of Fine Arts exhibition in 1929 (estimate: £800,000-£1.2 million).

Exhibition: 1609

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:33:00 +0000

1609

Friday, July 3, 2009 - Sunday, March 7, 2010
New York State Museum

Two worlds collided in 1609 when Henry Hudson and the Dutch sailed up the “great river” and met the Native People of New York. This exhibition
introduces visitors to information about Henry
Hudson, Native People of New York, and the Dutch period in New York state by dispelling some commonly held myths and showing the legacy these groups left to the residents of the state and the nation. The New York State Museum collaborated with the State Archives, State Library, and Office of Educational Television and Public Broadcasting on 1609, and these institutions provided additional expertise, documents, and artifacts for the exhibition. Archaeologist James Bradley, an expert on Native Americans, Russell Shorto, an authority on colonial Dutch history, and Steven Comer, a Mohican Indian living within the original territory of the Mohican people, consulted on the project. The exhibition also features paintings by Capital District historical artist L. F. Tantillo.

Zondag 20 september vindt op de Albert Cuypmarkt de KunstCuyp plaats

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:26:00 +0000

Op zondag 20 september vindt voor de vijfde achtereenvolgende keer op de Albert Cuypmarkt de KunstCuyp plaats. Deze ‘laagdrempelige kunstmarkt van hoog niveau’, maakt onderdeel uit van het jaarlijkse Nazomerfestival, met onder meer een participatiemarkt, een proeverij, buurtbrunch, kinderactiviteiten, straattheater, dans en veel live muziek. De algemene coördinatie is in handen van het wijkcentrum Ceintuur in De Pijp.

Wat heeft de Kunst&CultuurCuyp te bieden? Tientallen stands in de vorm van marktkramen op de plek waar dagelijks de Albert Cuyp markt wordt gehouden. Op een stand kunt u uw kunstwerken te koop aanbieden, interesse opwekken voor een project waar u aan werkt, een speciaal voor de gelegenheid ontworpen project uitvoeren, etcetera. Op de diverse terrassen kunnen bezoekers even uitpuffen en genieten van muziek- en theateroptredens.

Prix d’Albert. De best verzorgde en/of meest origineel ingerichte kraam ontvangt de jaarlijkse Prix d’Albert, bestaande uit een solotentoonstelling in wijkcentrum Ceintuur met begeleidende publicatie in De Pijp Krant. De stands worden beoordeeld door een deskundige jury.

Voor wie is de Kunst&CultuurCuyp bedoeld? Professionele beeldend kunstenaars uit alle disciplines worden uitgenodigd zich in te schrijven. De KunstCuyp werkt dit jaar voor de tweede keer samen met ‘Open Ateliers De Pijp’ dat op 3 en 4 oktober plaats vindt. Deelnemers aan die route roepen wij specifiek op zich voor de KunstCuyp in te schrijven, zodat tevens een representatief voorproefje van de route kan ontstaan. Een stand van de organisatie van de route zal extra aandacht aan dit evenement schenken.

Speerpunt: Het Nazomerfestival werkt dit jaar aan het thema duurzaamheid. U als mogelijke deelnemer aan het festival roepen we op om na te denken over dit thema en het op enigerlei wijze weer te geven in uw stand.

Publiciteit. Het programma van de KunstCuyp wordt gepubliceerd in De Pijpkrant, die voorafgaand aan de KunstCuyp in een oplage van 15.000 huis aan huis in De Pijp bezorgd wordt. De website www.nazomerfestival-depijp.nl bevat het programma en onder meer gegevens van de deelnemende kunstenaars (afbeelding, kort statement en een link naar een website naar keuze). De organisatie verspreidt persberichten, aankondigingen in de vorm van posters en flyers en realiseert free publicity.

Grotere kaart weergeven

PLOT is a new public art quadrennial, produced and presented by Creative Time.

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:21:00 +0000

Judi Werthein

To create La Tierra de los Libres, Judi Werthein chose to collaborate with itinerant agricultural workers from Colombia's Pacific Coast who were driven to inland cities by conflict surrounding the drug trade. To make a living in their new, urban environment, this group drew on a cultural tradition of singing while they worked and began performing in local restaurants and bars. Werthein gave the musicians a literal Spanish translation of The Star-Spangled Banner and asked them to play the song in their own style.

PLOT is a new public art quadrennial, produced and presented by Creative Time. This World & Nearer Ones is the first edition of PLOT, and will be held this summer on Governors Island. 19 artworks by international contemporary artists will be presented. The exhibition is free and open to the public Friday-Sunday.

Featuring work by Edgar Arceneaux, AA Bronson and Peter Hobbs, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Adam Chodzko, Tue Greenfort, Jill Magid, Teresa Margolles, Anthony McCall, Nils Norman, Susan Philipsz, Patti Smith and Jesse Smith, Tercerunquinto, Tris Vonna-Michell, Mark Wallinger, Klaus Weber, Lawrence Weiner, Judi Werthein, Guido van der Werve, and Krzysztof Wodiczko. Curated by Mark Beasley.

Curatorial Statement (Excerpt)
It could be stated that many of the works of This World & Nearer Ones seem enveloped in a pall of darkness, to be read either as a persistence of the irrational and the obscure or a reflection of the spirit of the age. It was the Impressionists that chose to employ dark mirrors, in order to refresh their eyes and see color anew; to stare into dark glass before turning back again to the world. This, then, is the exhibition as dark mirror. It seeks, through materially slight and ephemeral means, to present works that eschew the spectacular and absolute and, employing more than a little dark humour, invite open speculation. Avoiding easy succour—there is no vividly coloured, lime green, depression-era glass by which to forget oneself—the artists present a world in which certainty and the future are in question. For certainty without critical thought has been the crowning tragedy of the age. What we are being asked to consider is the sureness of our beliefs, from the invocation of spirits both scientific and ritually summoned; fictional architecture and neo-liberal urban planning; the ghosts of counterculture and culturally-sanctioned agit-prop to the spoken testimony of army veterans and science fiction narratives. It, as with the island, is in a state of becoming, caught between worlds and open to all, a moment to consider without fixity the times in which we live.
Mark Beasley, May, 2009
http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2009/plot09/artworks.php

Knights and Hunters: Ken Garduno, Jason Hernandez, Michael Hsiung and Sam Saghatelian

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 05:30:00 +0000

Knights and Hunters: Ken Garduno, Jason Hernandez, Michael Hsiung and Sam Saghatelian

13 June – 11 July, 2009

Los Angeles – Black Maria Gallery announced “Knights and Hunters,” a new group exhibition that will open on Saturday, June 13, at 7 PM. The show will feature new drawings and paintings by Los Angeles artists Ken Garduno, Jason Hernandez, Michael C. Hsiung and Sam Saghatelian.

The exhibited works share a common theme in that they explore the complex interconnectedness of chivalry and machismo, according to Zara Zeitountsian, the director of Black Maria Gallery.

“Against the backdrop of gender politics, the ever-evolving roles of men and women, and particularly the cultural underpinnings that inform tradition and change, the ‘Knights and Hunters’ exhibition examines our understanding of what could be described as the gentleman’s ethos on the one hand, and the Don Juan complex on the other,” Zeitountsian explained.

“As the works included in the exhibition shed light on the many ironies of what it might mean to be a man in the contemporary world, they reveal the comical, the shocking and not-so-shocking, and sometimes the downright grotesque,” Saghatelian continued. “So it is that many of the works are tongue-in-cheek and unabashedly over the top. But perhaps the most important thread running through these works is that of a certain loving curiosity, and ultimately an insistence on pointing at a common humanity beyond the politics and stereotypes.”

Foundry to Finish: The Making of a Bronze Sculpture

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:31:00 +0000

In a process still relatively unchanged from Adriaen de Vries' time, "Juggling Man" is replicated in the direct lost-wax method. A foundry worker scoops slag from molten bronze.

Foundry to Finish: The Making of a Bronze Sculpture June 23 - July 11 2010 at The Getty Center

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/foundry_finish/index.html?cid=egetty093

Dutch artist Adriaen De Vries became renowned in his lifetime for the innovative compositions and technical virtuosity of his bronze sculpture. He made Juggling Man around 1610, at a time when technical innovations in casting would have offered a safer approach than the method he chose.

De Vries practiced the more traditional direct lost-wax approach, in which the original model sculpted of clay and wax becomes encased in a mold. If the artist ran into a problem during the next stage of casting with molten bronze, he would have had to start the creative process all over again. The model would have been destroyed.

This exhibition and accompanying photographs and videos demonstrate the process of bronze casting as de Vries practiced it for Juggling Man. It is explained in three stages: modeling, casting, and finishing. Read all, modelling, casting, finishing and more...http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/foundry_finish/index.html?cid=egetty093

MOMA presents James Ensor

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:11:00 +0000

James Ensor (Belgian, 1860–1949), The Intrigue. 1890. Oil on canvas, 35 7/16 x 59 1/16" (90 x 150 cm) Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SABAM, Brussels.

MOMA presents James Ensor
June 28, 2009–September 21, 2009

James Ensor (1860–1949) was a major figure in the Belgian avant-garde of the late nineteenth century and an important precursor to the development of Expressionism in the early twentieth. In both respects he has influenced generations of later artists. This exhibition presents approximately 120 works, examining Ensor's contribution to modernity, his innovative and allegorical use of light, his prominent use of satire, his deep interest in carnival and performance, and his own self-fashioning and use of masking, travesty, and role-playing. Examples of Ensor's paintings, prints, and drawings are installed in an overlapping network of themes and images to produce a complete picture of this daring, experiential body of work. Ultimately, this exhibition presents James Ensor as a socially engaged and self-critical artist involved with the issues of his times and with contemporary debates on the very nature of modernism. The exhibition, which is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, will travel to the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, October 2009–February 2010.

James Ensor (Belgian, 1860–1949), The Intrigue. 1890. Oil on canvas, 35 7/16 x 59 1/16" (90 x 150 cm) Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SABAM, Brussels.

Employing Art Along With Ambassadors

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Sol Lewitt's Wall Drawing #1256: Five Pointed Stars was installed in Berlin in 2008.

Photo: Werner Huthmacher

Arts / Art & Design
Employing Art Along With Ambassadors
By PATRICIA COHEN Published: June 27, 2009 (New York Times Pernmalink)
Hundreds of prominent and accomplished artists have either donated or been commissioned to create art for the scores of new American embassies, consulates and residences worldwide.

Richard Long at Tate Britain

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:19:00 +0000

‘A Line in Scotland’, a sculpture by Richard Long

Richard Long at Tate Britain

(Source Financial Times,Visual Arts) Landscape as a site for artistic pleasure began in the late Middle Ages, reached its apogee with the romantics – Constable, Turner, Caspar David Friedrich – and petered out with the end of modernism. It was alien to classical civilisation and is anathema to most contemporary art. So the great revelation of Richard Long’s retrospective at Tate Britain is that here is an artist who, since the 1960s, has been quietly, radically reclaiming landscape as a source of delight, both sensual and intellectual.
This is a sweeping, joyful, dramatically alive show. Long’s seminal idea – that walking became art when he said it was – is demonstrated in different ways: slate circles arranged on specific sites or imported into the gallery; sticks or stones marking intervals on a walk; photographs; text pieces noting times, places and thoughts on his journeys. The idea gains seriousness, credence, occasionally humour, from the repetition and variety of its manifestations. And even if you leave, as I did, unconvinced by every element, the show coheres room by room into a persuasive exploration of man’s relationship with and place in the abstract entity we call nature.

“Heaven” and “Earth”, the mud-and-water frescoes opening the show and providing its title, evoke both the visceral, spontaneous primitivism of cave-painting and a highly ordered vocabulary of abstraction. Derived from ancient Chinese symbols, Long’s marks include signs for mountains, river, wind, tranquillity. “Heaven” is based on six solid lines; “Earth” on six broken ones, denoting the basic sky/earth, cerebral/physical duality at the heart of his work. It is a delicately rendered metaphysical piece, answered by the concluding work, a wall painting in Cornish china clay which, Long says, “represents the force of my hand speed, and the forces of water, chance and gravity”. The clay courses down like summer rain, shaping patterns that suggest cosmic variety, life-giving energy, lyrical affirmation.

Both pieces are rooted in the personal and gestural, with the mud in “Heaven” and “Earth” coming from the Avon in Long’s native Bristol. Throughout the show, the city’s contours of oozing river, mud banks, spring tides, caves, limestone cliffs, together with the flat expanse of nearby Dartmoor, leave an imprint on Long’s work that is as pronounced as Suffolk’s Stour is on Constable. A photograph of a Somerset beach, a text work denoting “A Straight Northward Walk Across Dartmoor”, an Exmoor Ordnance Survey map marked with the route of “A Ten Mile Walk”, as well as photographs recording treks across treeless plateaus in the Alaskan tundra, the Mongolian steppes, the Argentine pampas – all echo or reference these landscapes of Long’s childhood.

Standing out radiantly from them all is “A Line Made By Walking”. In 1967, aged 22, Long took a train from London’s Waterloo, got off at the first station in open countryside, found a field, walked back and forth until he had made a flattened line, waited for sunlight, took a photograph and went home. The rough, grainy image of that sunbeamed line is direct, luminous, mysterious, but also earthy, heavy with the weight of feet trampling grass. Read Article...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e10c617c-61de-11de-9e03-00144feabdc0.html

‘Richard Long, Heaven and Earth’, Tate Britain, London, to September 6. www.tate.org

Futurism in Tate Modern

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:59:00 +0000

Luigi Russolo
The Revolt 1911
Collection: Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague © The Estate of Luigi Russolo

Futurism in Tate Modern
Exhibition 12 June - 20 September 2009

Tate Modern celebrates the centenary of this dramatic art movement with a ground-breaking exhibition. Futurism was launched by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909 with the publication of the Manifesto of Futurism on the front page of Paris newspaper Le Figaro. Drawing upon elements of Divisionism and Cubism, the Futurists created a new style that broke with old traditions and expressed the dynamism, energy and movement of their modern life.

This exhibition both showcases the work of key Futurists such as Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini and explores art movements reacting to Futurism. Highlights include Boccioni's dynamic bronze Unique Forms of Continuity in Space 1913 and Picasso's Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 as well as major works by artists such as Braque, Malevich and Duchamp.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/futurism/default.shtm

Luigi Russolo
The Revolt 1911
Collection: Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague © The Estate of Luigi Russolo

Vivons-nous une belle époque ?

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:44:00 +0000

Réception des maires à l’Elysée en 1900… le siècle commençait bien. Peut-on dire la même chose bientôt dix ans après ?

25 juin 2009
26 juin 1909 : Vivons-nous une belle époque ?

(Source: Le Monde Blog) « Je suis persuadé que le XXème siècle verra luire un peu plus de fraternité et moins de misère » s’exclamait l’ancien Président de la république Loubet au moment d’inaugurer l’Exposition universelle et de commencer le siècle.
L’activité économique est effectivement repartie, réduisant les écarts de richesse, donnant plus de travail à tous.
Les foules se passionnent pour les progrès en matière de transport : les automobiles plus rapides, les aéroplanes qui volent plus loin et plus haut.
La République, même fatiguée, paraît indestructible. Aucun roi, aucun Bonaparte ne la menace. Elle dispense ses bienfaits sur les colonies qui ne cessent de s’agrandir.
Les Français savent lire, écrire, compter, comme en témoignent les informations transmises par le ministère de la guerre sur les appelés du service militaire.
Nos pourrions donc croire que nous vivons une époque heureuse, une belle époque.

D’où vient donc ce climat social qui s’alourdit ? Les postiers, les cheminots, les enseignants, les mineurs, les vignerons, les carriers, protestent tour à tour et souvent violemment. Il faut souvent la troupe pour ramener le calme.
D’où vient cette volonté de contestation des artistes ? Le cubisme, la recherche de formes nouvelles et incompréhensibles par le grand public, le rejet des académies et des salons officiels sont le signe d’un bouillonnement des idées neuves, d’un refus de la société telle qu’elle est.
A nos frontières, nous entendons parfois le cliquetis des armes que l’on prépare et affute. Les armées allemande, française, anglaise, russe, austro-hongroise, n’ont jamais eu autant de canons, de navires de guerre et de fusils à tir rapide.

Nous vivons une belle époque mais… pour combien de temps ?
http://ilyaunsiecle.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/06/25/26-juin-1909-vivons-nous-une-belle-epoque/

A creative life that blossomed in the asylum

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:40:00 +0000

Visual escape: "Cleopatra's Bed Flowers" by Aloise Corbaz, one of the inspirations for the Art Brut movement. STECK COLLECTION, SWITZERLAND; WATARIUM MUSEUM OF ART

A creative life that blossomed in the asylum After going from Switzerland to the periphery of the German court, Aloise Corbaz's artist talent was discovered in a sanitarium
By JEFF MICHAEL HAMMOND
Special to The Japan Times

(Source Japan Times) To view the pictures of Aloise Corbaz is to enter a fantastic, colorful world of a beautiful young woman with her handsome suitor, filled with carriages and crowns, roses and nights at the opera. The belle is Aloise herself, or, perhaps more precisely, Aloise's ideal self, center stage in a theatrical production far from her routine existence in a Swiss home for the mentally ill.
A new exhibition of more than 80 pictures by this remarkable artist is on show at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art (aka Watarium), in a new exhibition simply titled "Aloise," which is being held in Japan only. One of many striking features of her work is its vibrant coloring. Leaving the black and brown pencils virtually untouched in their box, Aloise structured her pictures around flaming reds and soft pinks, supported by hues of yellow, orange, green and blue.

Since her death in 1964, Aloise has become one of the most celebrated artists in the field of Art Brut, a term coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-85), who found in the untutored and unrefined artistic output of the mentally ill an immediacy and power he thought lacking in academic art. Dubuffet collected Aloise's works, visiting her from time to time and encouraging her creativity.

Aloise was born in 1886 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her mother died when she was 11 years old, leaving Aloise in the care of her eldest sister, whose tyrannical control left an indelible mark on Aloise's psyche and on the family. This sister, discovering Aloise's love for a priest who lived nearby, put an early and cruel end to the affair by sending her off to work as a governess in Germany in 1911, when Aloise was about 25. At first, Aloise worked for a family in Leipzig and then for a chaplain in the service of Emperor Wilhelm II in Potsdam. How involved Aloise was in court life is unclear, but coaches, thrones and jewels were recurring motifs in her vibrant pictures.

In 1913 Aloise returned to Switzerland, but her mental health soon deteriorated. She spent the rest of her life in institutions, at first with no opportunities for her creative inclinations, but from 1920 she started secretly drawing on scraps of paper with toothpaste and juice squeezed from leaves. When her activities were discovered, they were encouraged and, given colored pencils, she would draw on larger pieces of paper or in notebooks, often ripping out the pages and sewing them together into large sheets or scrolls. With similar resourcefulness, Aloise frequently used both sides of the paper she worked on and when no clean sheets of paper were available, used newspaper or pages ripped from magazines or books, including one on display in the exhibition drawn over a page from an art book on Japonisme.
Read Article... http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fa20090626a2.html
Visual escape: "Cleopatra's Bed Flowers" by Aloise Corbaz, one of the inspirations for the Art Brut movement. STECK COLLECTION, SWITZERLAND; WATARIUM MUSEUM OF ART

Heirs race to find Nazi-looted art before time runs out

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:49:00 +0000

Thomas Selldorff looks at the painting dyptich Altar wings “the Donors” by Marten Jakobszoon Van Heemskerk van Veen (Dutch 1498-1574) at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna June 2003. The painting, that was confiscated by the Nazis from his grandfather's collection, will hopefully be restituted to him soon.

Heirs race to find Nazi-looted art before time runs out
VIENNA (Reuters) - Eighty-one-year old Thomas Selldorff, who fled Austria with his family before it was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, hopes an upcoming international conference will bolster efforts to return Nazi-looted art.

The Nazi's seized over 200 artworks owned by his grandfather, an avid art collector, as part of a policy of seizing Jewish property. So far, Selldorff has been able to retrieve only two of the lost paintings.

"I want to be able to pass these things on to my family ... I want them to have the link and an appreciation for some of the things my grandfather was involved with," said Selldorff, who lives in the United States and wants to exhibit the altar pieces by Austrian baroque artist Kremser Schmidt in a museum.

Some 65 years after World War Two, experts say thousands of artworks confiscated by the Nazis, including masterpieces by art nouveau master Gustav Klimt and expressionist Egon Schiele, still need to be restituted to their rightful owners.

Government officials from around 49 countries, dozens of non-governmental groups and Jewish representatives will meet in Prague this week to review current practices. They are likely to sign a new agreement to step up restitution efforts.

Some participants hope the conference will lead to the creation of a central body responsible for publishing updates on countries' progress, which could prompt them to do more.

The task of restituting Nazi-looted works is an epic one. The Nazis formed a bureaucracy devoted to looting and they plundered a total of 650,000 art and religious objects from Jews and other victims, the Jewish Claims Conference estimates.

Artworks were auctioned off, handed over to national museums or top Nazi officials, or stashed away for a Fuehrer museum Adolf Hitler was planning to build in the Austrian town of Linz, where he spent a part of his youth. Read on... http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSTRE55M03A20090623

‘Bevroren billen’ Roemeens surrealisme 1928-1947 in De Kunsthal

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:18:00 +0000

‘Bevroren billen’ Roemeens surrealisme 1928-1947 in De Kunsthal
20 juni tot en met 13 september 2009

‘Bevroren billen’ is de vierde tentoonstelling op rij waarmee de Kunsthal een licht werpt op de Roemeense avant-garde. Na de Eerste Wereldoorlog zoeken kunstenaars naar een nieuwe internationale beeldtaal. In Roemenië groeperen kunstenaars zich rondom tijdschriften om hun ideeën vast te leggen. Een van de meest bekende tijdschriften is UNU, waar zowel bekende als onbekende kunstenaars uit de surrealistische geschiedenis aan meewerken. In de tentoonstelling is werk te zien van grote Roemeense namen als Victor Brauner, Jacques Hérold, Gherasim Luca en Jules Perahim en van internationaal gerenommeerde kunstenaars als Man Ray, Yves Tanguy en Tristan Tzara die via UNU hun artistieke gedachtegoed uitwisselen. Met ruim 100 werken waaronder tekeningen, teksten, fotocollages, boeken, schilderijen en objecten presenteert de tentoonstelling een aaneenschakeling van taalspelletjes, zwarte humor, erotische gedachten en revolutionaire ideeën.

Roemeens Surrealisme 1928-1947
Onder leiding van André Breton groeit in 1924 het surrealisme uit tot een invloedrijke Europese beweging die de menselijke geest en het onderbewuste voorop stelt. Door de in Parijs wonende Roemeense kunstenaars Tristan Tzara en Constantin Brancusi komen kunstenaars in Roemenië in contact met het surrealisme. Zij raken geïnteresseerd in theorieën over het onderbewustzijn en de droom (Sigmund Freud). Met de oprichting van het tijdschrift UNU door Saşa Panã in 1928 ontstaat het eerste Roemeense platform voor surrealistische experimenten. Het zijn vooral Gherasim Luca en Dolfi Trost die nieuwe beeldtechnieken onderzoeken zoals het automatisch tekenen, blind schilderen en blazen van verf. Van Trost, wiens hele oeuvre tot nu toe als verloren werd beschouwd is een serie tekeningen te zien. De tentoonstelling besteedt bijzondere aandacht aan de fotografie van de in vergetelheid geraakte Aurel Bauh.

De tentoonstelling vormt het sluitstuk van een reeks over de Roemeense avant-garde. Eerder kwam in de Kunsthal aan bod het dadaïsme, kubisme en constructivisme in de tentoonstellingen ‘Brancusi, Tzara en de Roemeense avant-garde’ (1997), ‘Marcel Janco, Dadaïst in hart en nieren’ (2003) en ‘ M.H.M. Maxy, Roemeens avant-gardist’ (2006).

Sharjah – the cultural emirate

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:31:00 +0000

Sharjah – the cultural emirate
(Source ArtRadar Asia Blog)
Sharjah is just one of seven of the emirates which make up the United Arab Emirates and is often called the ‘cultural emirate’ because its leading position in arts infrastructure. It has a well-respected biennial and three museums devoted to art:

* Museum of Islamic Civilisation
* Sharjah Art Museum and Contemporary Arab Art
* Sharjah Calligraphy Museum

His Highness the Emir’s passion and vision

Sharjah’s pre-eminent position in the Middle Eastern art scene is largely due to the energy and vision of His Highness the Emir of Sharjah and in this video Manal Ataya gives us an intriguing insight into the progressive and enlightened principles which he communicates to his museum staff.

For example, she explains that His Highness encourages staff to thirst after knowledge and he encourages extensive and continual reading.

He believes that culture and museums encourage flexibility of thinking which can help to promote openness and understanding between people and, ultimately, bring peace. He also believes that a developed sensitivity to aesthetics spills over into other facets of human endeavour, for example an appreciation of the arts can help a teacher teach and a politician polemicise and a doctor practise.

Islam prohibits the figurative in art? Not true

Manal Ataya also points out and clears up some misconceptions about the Islamic prohibition of the figure in art. She explains that there is a tradition of portraiture in the Middle East and Islamic rules are more nuanced than is commonly understood.

Islam does allow human representation and it is only forbidden in a religious context or space. She explains that there are some sects which do not allow representation of the human figure in any context but these are not Islamic rules per se.

Youthful demographics – 70% under 30 years – shaping museum plans. Read Article...
http://artradarasia.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/where-is-the-sharjah-art-museum-heading-manal-ataya-sharjah-museums-director/

In Athens, Museum Is an Olympian Feat

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:09:00 +0000

Arts / Art & Design
In Athens, Museum Is an Olympian Feat (NYT Permalink)
By ANTHEE CARASSAVA Published: June 20, 2009
The New Acropolis Museum, one of the highest-profile cultural projects undertaken in Europe in a decade, opens this weekend.

Moda Ilustrada – Estilo e tendência.

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:58:00 +0000

DAVIS LISBOA

Exposição Coletiva de Ilustração
26 de junho a 26 de julho de 2009

Galeria Olido
Av. São João, 473 – Sobreloja - Centro - São Paulo - SP - Brasil
Coquetel: 25/06/09, das 19:00 às 22:00 hs

Moda Ilustrada – Estilo e tendência.

A cultura globalizada das grandes metrópoles que valoriza a diversidade e promove a mixagem de gêneros de expressão, está estimulando o renascimento da ilustração de moda, que foi impulsionada, sobretudo, por importantes mostras exibidas em galerias de arte e museus em todo o mundo, como as retrospectivas de Versace, Armani e Westwood.

Fazendo um contraponto com o desenho de moda - que é utilizado como padrão para a correta confecção de uma roupa – vamos reconhecer que a ilustração, com forte influência na arte urbana, é uma vibrante explosão artística direcionada mais ao coração que a mente. Arte emocional, que através de um look expressa estilo de vida e tendência, a ilustração de moda atual está sinalizando que as metrópoles tornaram-se grandes laboratórios de idéias e vibrantes passarelas urbanas.

No entanto, avaliando à atual situação da ilustração de moda no Brasil, notaremos que grande parte dos ilustradores, sobretudo os recém graduados em moda, permanecem desconhecidos ou, em alguns casos, ilustram esporadicamente editoriais muito específicos, atingindo um público restrito, se considerarmos seu real potencial de impacto junto à cultura de massa.

Atuando neste contexto e reunindo mostra coletiva de arte, debates e workshops, “Moda Ilustrada” tem a missão de fomentar o mercado de ilustração de moda no Brasil e promover rupturas com estereótipos deste segmento. Através de experimentações dinâmicas e concretas envolvendo estilistas e ilustradores, esta ação visa, sobretudo, a produção de ilustração para serem exibidas na mostra coletiva em questão.

“Moda Ilustrada”, que irá estimular o uso de novas tecnologias para a produção das obras, deverá contribuir para a revitalização da imagem do consumidor no atual panorama da moda brasileira, além de fomentar a difusão e a democratização da cultura de moda contemporânea, reunindo nomes consagrados, talentos emergentes do ambiente acadêmico e o protagonismo juvenil urbano.

Fernando Zelman e Danilo Blanco

Realização: Galeria Central
Curadoria para estilistas: Danilo Blanco e Fernando Zelman
Curadoria para ilustradores: Roberto Santana
Ilustradores: Zé Otavio, Luis Catani, Chicão, Cris Burger, Silvia Rocha, Marcelo Gomes, Alexandre Orsetti, Davis Lisboa, Suppa, Roberto Santana, Josivan, Orlando Pedroso, Isabelle Ribot e Miranda.

Davis Lisboa
http://www.davislisboa.com

Galeria Olido
http://www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/cidade/secretarias/cultura/galeria_olido/
http://galeriaolido.blogspot.com

Hermitage Amsterdam opent 20 juni 2009

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:48:00 +0000

A man contemplates some of the paintings at the Hermitage Amsterdam museum. EFE/Koen Suyk.

Hermitage Amsterdam opent 20 juni 2009 Eerste weekend dag en nacht geopend
http://www.hermitage.nl/nl/

De Hermitage Amsterdam zal op zaterdag 20 juni om 10.00 uur ’s morgens in het geheel verbouwde en gerenoveerde Amstelhof haar deuren openen voor het publiek. Het 17de-eeuwse ‘landmark’ aan de Amstel verandert tussen juni 2007 en juni 2009 van een verpleeghuis in een spectaculair multifunctioneel museum met tentoonstellingszalen, café-restaurant, winkels, studiecentrum, auditorium en Hermitage voor Kinderen. De Hermitage Amsterdam opent met de tentoonstelling Aan het Russische hof. Paleis en protocol in de 19de eeuw die met ruim 1800 objecten van het moedermuseum in St.-Petersburg een van de grootste tentoonstellingen ooit in Nederland belooft te worden.

De Hermitage Amsterdam viert de opening groots op de laatste dag van het voorjaar met het Witte Nacht Festival, waarop het museum 31 uur lang aaneen geopend is voor het publiek. De hele dag, avond én nacht van 20/21 juni vinden tal van feestelijke activiteiten en concerten plaats in het gebouw, in de binnentuin en langs de Amstel.

Dutch Queen and Russian President to Open New Hermitage Amsterdam Museum
(Source ArtDaily)
AMSTERDAM.- Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the President of the Russian Federation, Mr. Dmitry Medvedev, will attend opening celebrations of the Hermitage Amsterdam museum on the evening of Friday, June 19, one day prior to the public opening of the museum on June 20, 2009. Other members of the Dutch Royal family expected to attend include Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima. The Hermitage Amsterdam opens with the dazzling exhibition, “At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th Century.”

The Hermitage Amsterdam is the first branch of the magnificent Russian State Museum Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Hermitage Amsterdam will organize temporary exhibitions chosen from the collections of the Hermitage and other Russian museums. The opening exhibition will feature more than 1,800 objects to tell the story about the court life of Russian tsars, including the Romanov throne, jewelry by Fabergé, gala dresses and the last tsarina’s grand piano.

The museum is housed in the monumental 17th-century building Amstelhof, a historic building off the Amstel River in Amsterdam which has undergone nearly $50 million in renovations in preparation of the opening of the museum. The Hermitage Amsterdam’s 9,000 m2 (nearly 96,000 square feet) consists of two large galleries, cabinets, an old chapel, regents’ rooms and an enclosed garden. The building also contains a study centre, a restaurant, shops and the Hermitage for Children center.

From June 20th 2009, 10 a.m., a major new European cultural destination, the greatly expanded Hermitage Amsterdam, will welcome visitors to its elegantly restored 17th-century building in the historic heart of Amsterdam. Founded to bring the richness and grandeur of Russia’s artistic heritage to one of the West’s most charming capitals, this independent cultural institution will inaugurate its spacious new home — ten times the size of the previous building — with the exhibition At the Russian Court, a dazzling display of more than 1,800 treasures from the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

New Hermitage Museum Amsterdam
Nieuwe Herengracht 14, 1018 DP Amsterdam‎ - 020 5308755‎

Grotere kaart weergeven

Musée du Quai Branly Explores the Myth Embodied by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:50:00 +0000

Tarzan et la femme léopard. © 1946 Sol Lesser Productions, Tous droits réservés. © Tarzan TM and Edgar Rice Burroughs TM owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and Used by Permission. Archives Stanislas Choko.

Musée du Quai Branly Explores the Myth Embodied by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan

(Source ArtDaily)
PARIS.- Tarzan was a literary phenomenon from the very first book published in 1912, and soon appeared in comic strips, radio programmes, television series and films. The character, who features in many media such as posters, figurines, CDs and even games, continues to fascinate and fuel our vision of an imaginary, fantasy Africa.

In the exhibition Tarzan! or Rousseau and the Waziri, the Musée du Quai Branly, in collaboration with the Centre International de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image (International Centre for Comic Books and Image), explores the myth embodied by this popular icon.

Through a series of objects from the collections of several French museums, as well as original comic strips, photos, excerpts of films, etc., the exhibition allows the public to discover the legend of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous character in the collective images and representations he embodies, which are the cornerstones of some of the greatest legends of our age.

Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in 1875 in Chicago. At first he wanted to enter the military, but gave up after failing the entrance exam for West Point. He then had a string of jobs that gave him his taste for adventure: train conductor and gold miner, among others. He then began writing, and published his first novel Under the Moons of Mars in 1912 in the “All Story” magazine. In October of the same year, Tarzan of the Apes was published, the first of the 26 novels about the famous “Ape-man”. Edgar Rice Burroughs died in 1950, having published more than 90 volumes in his lifetime, and having created other legendary characters found in the tales of Venus, the Pellucidar cycle and the adventures of John Carter.

The Myth of Tarzan
Edgar Rice Burroughs had never been to Africa, but in creating Tarzan, he was inspired by many legends, characters such as Mowgli the jungle boy in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, the noble savage, the lost Eden, the myth of the Great Ape (King Kong) and even the ancient Greek hero Hercules. He made Tarzan a real modern Western superhero/superman living in an imaginary and idealised Africa in which he accomplishes increasingly incredible exploits in adventure after adventure.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was quick to understand that the art of story telling in the 20th century was not limited to literature. He very quickly sold the rights to his novels to the Hollywood studios, and actively participated in the film adaptations. Since then, the Tarzan character has directly inspired around fifty films (including the famous performances by Johnny Weissmuller as a statuesque Tarzan, and by Christopher Lambert, cast as a romantic hero) as well as comic strips (particularly those by Burne Hogarth, whose talent, inspiration and fascination with the body in movement made him the master of the comic strip renewal and the forefather of many later artists), video games, CDs, games, as well as numerous imitations of the character (Tarou, Akim, Zembla and even Rahan). Nowadays, Tarzan remains an instantly recognisable figure through the characteristics that contribute to his iconic status: the vines, the leopard skin loincloth and his unique cry.

The Exhibition
The exhibition Tarzan! or Rousseau with the Waziri is built on several themes, representative of the universe of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ character, enriched by many objects from the collections of the Musée du Quai Branly, as well as the Louvre, the musée d’Orsay and the museums of Fontainebleau, Poissy and the Cité Internationale de la Bande dessinée in Angoulême.

The exhibition opens with an object showing Hercules shooting a bow and arrow, reminding visitors of the parallel between the two heroes who had to use strength and courage to overthrow evil in an imaginary and reconstructed universe. Throughout the exhibition, visitors are immersed in an atmosphere that mirrors Tarzan’s world, thanks to a specially created original soundtrack, a collection of comic strip images (including Burne Hogarth’s original plates), stuffed wild animals and excerpts from Hollywood films.

Visitors discover Tarzan’s universe through several themes, including Film and Tarzan, The Jungle, Tarzan’s Africa (with the Zulu, Masai, Kikuyu and leopard-men wearing the skins of big cats, Lego-like characters reflecting colonial imagery), the son of Mother Nature (in parallel with the myth of Romulus and Remus), the twelve labours of Tarzan (evoking the mythical hero Hercules), the saviour of the jungle (a pro-ecology anti-hunting figure who was against the ivory traffickers and other slave traders who were popular at the time), as well as numerous parodies making light of Tarzan.

The exhibition ends with the robot from Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), symbol of the mechanical hero who invades the urban landscape. Tarzan represents the anti-robot, the naked man faced with the decadence of modern cities.
---------------------------
http://www.quaibranly.fr/fr/programmation/expositions/prochainement/tarzan/index.html
-----------------------------------
Roger Boulay est anthropologue, spécialiste de l’art océanien et commissaire d’exposition. Il était en particulier le commissaire de l'exposition "L'aristocrate et ses cannibales : le voyage en Océanie du comte Festetics de Tolna, 1893 - 1896" présentée en 2007 au musée du quai Branly.

« Je suis venu à travers les âges, jaillissant du passé vague et distant, de la caverne de l’homme primitif… »

« Tarzan pensait à la fragilité de la frontière entre le primitif et le civilisé ».

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Cette exposition, consacrée à une icône de l’imagerie populaire, propose au public de découvrir les voies de la création du héros, et le décryptage du mythe qu’il incarne.

Si Edgar Rice Burroughs est le père absolu du personnage de Tarzan, tous ceux qui le mirent en scène - dans la bande dessinée, le cinéma, l’affiche, la figurine, le disque, le jeu…- se réfèrent à des imageries et des représentations collectives qui fondent quelques unes des mythologies les plus fortes de notre siècle.

L’exposition parcourt les origines et la nature de Tarzan, en tant que personnage et en tant que mythe (de Saturnin Farandoul, documentaire de 1914, à Greystoke en 1983), et réhabilite le personnage en tant que héros contemporain de défense de la nature.

Fewer lots and lower prices in London's sale rooms

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:21:00 +0000

Pablo Picasso's “Homme à l’épée” is part of Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Evening sale in London on June 23rd.

Fewer lots and lower prices in London's sale rooms
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13849543

(Source The Economist)Giovanna Bertazzoni has observed a change in the culture of the sale rooms in the year between Christie’s grand summer sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in 2008 and this year’s more subdued version. She runs these evening sales, and she tells a tale of fewer lots and generally lower prices. “There are fewer parties, fewer tours of the paintings before they go on sale,” she says. “Finding paintings to sell now depends on relationships, conversations and trust. It’s a lot more work.”

The end of the speculative bubble means that fewer collections are coming onto the market. Days when sellers were tempted by generous guarantees are over. Curators such as Miss Bertazzoni did not have to be told by management to stop offering them. They no longer make commercial sense.
There are 46 lots in her June evening sale this year, compared with 72 last year. Total estimates vary from £39.25m ($64.60m) on the low end to an optimistic £53.65m at the top. Last year's sale raised £144.5m, which included a £40m Monet.

Yet prospects in London look slightly more promising than in New York. According to Artprice.com, sales in New York were down 35% by the end of the first quarter of 2009 compared with 2008. One way of measuring this is the number of sales above $1m in the contemporary art market: 40 this year, compared with 132 in 2008. The market for Impressionists is less volatile than for contemporary painting, but it is also hurting. Sotheby’s May sale of Impressionist and Modern art in New York fetched $52.9m, far less than the forecast $81.5m. Last year Roman Abramovich purchased a Francis Bacon “Triptych” for $77m, which was only $3.9m less than the total Christie’s made from the sale of 49 contemporary art lots in New York in May.
Contrary to pessimistic pundits, Miss Bertazzoni declares that prices fetched by some painters have still to reach their peak. She identifies Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso's later works as being under-priced. But in Picasso's case this is a relative judgement. His late work may be under-priced compared with the rest of his oeuvre, but he is not cheap. Christie’s top lot in the summer sale is a late Picasso titled “Homme à l’épée” (pictured). It is a colourful piece painted with simple decorative lines that apparently appeal to contemporary art collectors. The painting sold for £2.7m in February 2005. The estimate this summer has risen to £5m-7m.

Looking at this Picasso, it is not astonishing to learn that it was painted in a day; July 26th 1969, to be precise. Picasso liked the image and repeated it four times. Indeed, another “Man with a sword” appears in Sotheby’s summer sale a day after the Christie’s sale, though it comes with an estimate of £6m-8m. This display of optimism is based partly on a success in Christie’s May sale in New York of Picasso’s “Mousquetaire à la pipe”—a more carefully considered piece than the men with their swords—which fetched $14.6m. A remarkable performance by the prolific and versatile old goat. Read Article...
Contrary to pessimistic pundits, Miss Bertazzoni declares that prices fetched by some painters have still to reach their peak. She identifies Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso's later works as being under-priced. But in Picasso's case this is a relative judgement. His late work may be under-priced compared with the rest of his oeuvre, but he is not cheap. Christie’s top lot in the summer sale is a late Picasso titled “Homme à l’épée” (pictured). It is a colourful piece painted with simple decorative lines that apparently appeal to contemporary art collectors. The painting sold for £2.7m in February 2005. The estimate this summer has risen to £5m-7m.

Looking at this Picasso, it is not astonishing to learn that it was painted in a day; July 26th 1969, to be precise. Picasso liked the image and repeated it four times. Indeed, another “Man with a sword” appears in Sotheby’s summer sale a day after the Christie’s sale, though it comes with an estimate of £6m-8m. This display of optimism is based partly on a success in Christie’s May sale in New York of Picasso’s “Mousquetaire à la pipe”—a more carefully considered piece than the men with their swords—which fetched $14.6m. A remarkable performance by the prolific and versatile old goat.

Pablo Picasso's “Homme à l’épée” is part of Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Evening sale in London on June 23rd.

Exhibition on the Infinite in the Finite, the Indefinite, and the Unfinished at Palazzo Fortuny

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:01:00 +0000

Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), Piazza d’Italia, 1955/60. Olio su tela/ Oil on canvas. Galleria d’Arte Maggiore, GAM, Bologna.

Exhibition on the Infinite in the Finite, the Indefinite, and the Unfinished at Palazzo Fortuny
http://www.museiciviciveneziani.it/frame.asp?pid=1709&musid=196&sezione=mostre

Venice – The Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and the Vervoordt Foundation announce In-finitum, taking place in the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice from 6 June until 15 November, 2009. With In-finitum, the trilogy which started with Artempo: Where Time Becomes Art (Venice, 2007) and continued with Academia: Qui es-tu? (Paris, 2008) will come full circle. Once again set in the magnificent surroundings of the Palazzo Fortuny, In-finitum will guide the visitor from the soul of the unfinished to the border of the infinite, a spiritual journey along works of art abundant with energy.

The trilogy as conceived by Axel Vervoordt establishes a perfect balance through the natural time-flow between its three chapters. Artempo: Where Time Becomes Art dealt with the beauty of passing time touching the world, with the mysteriousness of patina and the magical osmosis which exists where cosmos and matière interact. In Academia: Qui es-tu?, the transmission of knowledge and wisdom held center stage, a fixed focal point gently rocked however by the continuous perpetuum mobile of questions and answers. The finale, In-finitum, will traverse into the other realm as it reaches into the universe of the unfinished and the infinite.

The infinite
Questioning ‘infinity’ is a spiritual journey. The human condition strives for perfection, hungers to be in pursuit of completion. On this quest for the imperceptible, the unimaginable, the incomprehensible, man gets confronted with his boundaries and struggles with what is unachievable. It is in this part of incompleteness that the infinite resides, the void, the recipient and source of the all and everything, of the none and nothing. The infinite as a never-ending road to completion, knowledge and enlightenment has inspired intellectuals, artists, scientists and literati since the beginning of reasoning times. Their discoveries and writings, artistic impressions and thoughts will shape another segment of the In-finitum exhibition.

Artists
In-finitum will present works by Giovanni Anselmo, Natvar Bhavsar, Pierre Bonnard, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Michael Borremans, Alberto Burri, Alexander Calder, Paul Cézanne, Antonio Canova, Eugène Delacroix, Ray & Charles Eames, Lucio Fontana, Adam Fuss, Giuseppe Gabellone, Francesco Hayez, Ann-Veronica Janssens, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Kimsooja, Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Brice Marden, Fausto Melotti, Mario Merz, Joan Mirò, Tatsuo Miyajima, Vic Muniz, Renato Nicolodi, Roman Opalka, Palagio Pelagi, Pablo Picasso, Otto Piene, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Guido Reni, Gerhard Richter, George Romney, Thomas Ruff, Kazuo Shiraga, Ettore Spaletti, Vassilikis Takis, Diana Thater, Dirk Van De Len, Jef Verheyen, Rik Wouters, Gilberto Zorio … and many others.

Kunstmuseum Bern presents today Ricco. New works in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern, on view through October 18, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:58:00 +0000

Ricco Wassmer (1915–1972) ist in Bern kein Unbekannter mehr. Vor sieben Jahren bot das Kunstmuseum die Gelegenheit, die idealisierenden Traumwelten dieses beinahe vergessenen Aussenseiters jenseits der Avantgarde in einer umfassenden Retrospektive kennen zu lernen.
Die verschlüsselten, meist nach fotografischen Vorlagen ausgeführten Inszenierungen zwischen Peinture naïve, Neuer Sachlichkeit und verspieltem Surrealismus haben damals das Interesse eines breiteren Publikums geweckt.

Seither konnte das Kunstmuseum Bern durch das Legat des Sammlers Emanuel Martin sowie weitere Schenkungen, Dauerleihgaben und Erwerbungen eine repräsentative Werkgruppe ansammeln.

Riccos Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier aus den hauseigenen Beständen werden nun erstmals in einer kleinen Ausstellung gezeigt. Die Schau wird organisiert im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts für einen Œuvrekatalog, der 2010 erscheinen soll.
http://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/index.cfm?nav=567,1343&SID=1&DID=9&aID=256
Kunstmuseum Bern http://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch/index.cfm?nav=567,1333&SID=1&DID=9

Ricco. New Works in the Collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern Opens Today

(Source ArtDaily)
BERN.- Kunstmuseum Bern presents today Ricco. New works in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern, on view through October 18, 2009. Ricco Wassmer (1915-1972) is no longer an unknown in Berne. Seven years ago an extensive retrospective exhibition at the Kunstmuseum provided the opportunity to become acquainted with the idealising dream worlds of this almost forgotten outsider, whose work can be located beyond the avant-garde.

At that time, the interest of a broad public was roused by the encoded scenes, usually done after photographic model and combining peinture naive, new objectivity and playful surrealism. Since then, the Kunstmuseum Bern has been able to put together a representative work group thanks to the legacy of the collector Emanuel Martin and to further donations, works on permanent loan and acquisitions.

This is the first time Ricco's paintings and works on paper from the museum's own stocks are being shown in a small exhibition. The show is taking place within the framework of the research project related to a catalogue of works which is scheduled for publication in 2010. Curator and work catalogue project leader: Marc-Joachim Wasmer.

Window Shoppers. Seasoned collectors spend carefully at Art Basel, the leading contemporary fair

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 09:10:00 +0000

Window Shoppers
Seasoned collectors spend carefully at Art Basel, the leading contemporary fair
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124475192106507443.html

(Source Wall Street Journal)
BASEL -- This week art lovers from the around the world have descended on this small industrial city in northwestern Switzerland for Art Basel, the world's preeminent fair for contemporary art. The turnout has been as strong as ever, but seasoned collectors are spending carefully and brand-new buyers are scarce, dealers say. The fair ends Sunday.

Signs of the economic downturn were still evident: Several smaller satellite fairs like Red Dot and Bridge canceled plans to join this round because of recession fears. Zurich dealer Bruno Bischofberger is still seeking a big spender for his lone offering, Andy Warhol's "Big Retrospective Painting." The 11-meter-wide work is a highlight reel of Marilyn Monroes, Chairman Maos and soup cans and is priced at €53 million. "It's a lot for a painting," Mr. Bischofberger concedes, "but it's a lot of painting."
Other highlights include new Old Master-style portraits by Kerry James Marshall, better known for his idyllic scenes of African-American suburbia, at the booth of New York dealer Jack Shainman. Mr. Marshall's untitled depiction of a woman holding a palette sold for $350,000, the gallery confirmed.

Zurich gallery Hauser & Wirth, meanwhile, placed Subodh Gupta's €650,000 creamy table laden with unmovable stone cutlery, "Marble utensils on table," next to Louise Bourgeois' untitled 2006 quilt-like wall hanging, which sold for an undisclosed price. The pairing feels equally haunting and homey.

Standouts among the satellite fairs like Liste include Israeli artist Elad Lassry's untitled high-concept film, in which actor Eric Stoltz assumes the persona of a Jerome Robbins-style choreographer directing a blonde in a red unitard. (The blonde evokes Mary Martin, star of Robbins's 1955 hit, "Peter Pan.") The work at David Kordansky Gallery is priced at $30,000.

Basel's organizers imported an extra dose of pageantry this year by paying to reproduce an updated version of "Il Tempo del Postino," an avant-garde theater hit curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno at the Manchester International Festival two summers ago. In this so-called "visual arts opera," a group of artists including Doug Aitken and Anri Sala are each given up to 15 minutes on a theater stage to present a performance piece. (Mr. Aitken's segment involves speed-talking American auctioneers; Mr. Sala's segment features opera singers in geisha costumes who pass an aria between them, lip-synching whenever it's not their turn.) Read Article... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124475192106507443.html

Small World Crammed on Biennale’s Grand Stage

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0000

The French billionaire François Pinault has transformed the old Customs House into a museum for his collection. Left, a painting by Cindy Sherman and a sculpture by Jeff Koons.
Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Small World Crammed on Biennale’s Grand Stage
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN Published: June 11, 2009(New York Times Permalink)
The 53rd Venice Biennale is tidy, disciplined, cautious and unremarkable, suggesting a somewhat dull, deflated contemporary art world, professionalized to a fault, in search of a fresh consensus.

Bijzondere lezing bij de tentoonstelling van Terry Rodgers; socioloog Dick Pels spreekt over Het succes van de leegte.

noreply@blogger.com (TrendsBridge) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:19:00 +0000

Bijzondere lezing bij de tentoonstelling van Terry Rodgers;
socioloog Dick Pels spreekt over Het succes van de leegte.
zaterdag 27 juni 2009, aanvang 15.00 u

De celebrity-cultuur dringt steeds verder door in onze leefwereld. Programma's als Big Brother en X-Factor, en een icoon als Paris Hilton getuigen hiervan. Beroemd-heid die op niets anders berust dan op het feit dat iemand bekend is. Leven als kitsch: waarop is dit eigenlijk gebaseerd?

Socioloog Dick Pels bespreekt dit fenomeen aan de hand van het werk van de Amerikaanse schilder Terry Rodgers en geeft zijn visie op een hedendaagse maatschappij die zich steeds meer lijkt te kenmerken door individualisering, seksualisering en consumptief gedrag.

Het Scheringa Museum voor Realisme organiseert deze zomer de eerste museale solotentoonstelling in Europa van de Amerikaanse schilder Terry Rodgers (1947). Rodgers is een talentvolle, maar eveneens controversiële schilder die wereldwijd tentoonstelt. Zijn zeer realistisch en dynamisch geschilderde figuurstukken tonen een wereld waarin de 'young and beautiful' prominent in beeld zijn gebracht. Weelde, schoonheid en promiscuïteit kunnen de leegte echter niet verhullen.
Scheringa Museum voor Magisch Realisme.