Art News

The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt features "Edvard Munch ~ The Modern Eye"

jcvcms@gmail.com (Arne Westermann) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:05:00 +0000

Frankfurt, Germany.- The Schirn Kunsthalle is pleased to present "Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye", on view at the museum from February 9th through May 6th. Edvard Munch is acclaimed for his vivid Symbolist painting and regarded as a pioneer of Expressionism. Prepared together with the Centre Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, the exhibition in the Schirn offers a novel view of his work. It is for the first time that Munch’s interest in modern techniques of creating pictures such as photography and film and modern stage designs is the focus of attention. His works reveal to what degree he adopted specifically photographic or filmic forms of composition and narration, poses, or even effects in his painting.

Supplementing the presentation of about sixty paintings and twenty works on paper, one chapter of the show is dedicated to Munch’s own attempts in the field of photography and film. A further dimension of the exhibition reveals how the artist dealt with one and the same subject in drawing, photography, painting, graphic art, and sculpture. The artist’s frequent return to already rendered motifs provides a crucial key to the understanding of Munch’s work. Edvard Munch is celebrated for his expressive symbolist painting and is considered a pioneer of Expressionism. The exhibition originated at the Schirn, in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, offers a new perspective on his work.

For the first time Munch is made dealing with modern recording techniques such as photography and film to contemporary stage designs in the focus of attention. His works reveal the extent to which he does specifically photographic or filmic construction and narrative forms, postures, and even effects in his paintings. In addition to the approximately 60 paintings and 20 works on paper, a chapter of Munch's own experiments in the fields of photography and film is dedicated. Shown are 50 photographs and four movies in contemporary prints of Munch. Another aspect of the exhibition shows how the artist has processed one and the same subject in drawings, photography, painting, graphics and even sculpture. The frequent recovery of motives is an important key to the understanding of Munch's work.

The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is one of Germany’s most renowned exhibition institutions. Since its founding in 1986, the Schirn has mounted approximately 180 exhibitions, including major survey shows devoted to the Vienna Jugendstil, Expressionism, Dada, and Surrealism, to women Impressionists, to subjects such as “shopping — a century of art and consumer culture,” the visual art of the Stalin era, new Romanticism in contemporary art, and the influence of Charles Darwin’s theories on the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Large solo exhibitions have featured artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Julian Schnabel, James Ensor, James Lee Byars, Yves Klein, Peter Doig, Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, and Georges Seurat. And artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Ayse Erkmen, Carsten Nicolai, Jan De Cock, Jonathan Meese, John Bock, Michael Sailstorfer, Terence Koh, Aleksandra Mir, Eberhard Havekost, and Mike Bouchet have developed new exhibitions for the Schirn. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt showcases highly charged themes and topical aspects of artists’ oeuvres with an incisive voice and from a contemporary standpoint. As a site of discoveries, the Schirn offers its visitors an original, sensory exhibition experience as well as active participation in cultural discourse. Visit the kunsthalle's website at ... http://www.schirn.de

Paintings by Sarah Kurz on view at Allegra LaViola Gallery

jcvcms@gmail.com (William Rheingold) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:47:51 +0000

NEW YORK, NY.- Allegra LaViola Gallery presents Sarah Kurz: Made For Love, an exhibition of paintings, on view from February 8th – March 11th.. In her first solo exhibition, Sarah Kurz turns her attention to a traditional subject: the portrait. Much as John Singer Sargent painted beautiful women and scenery of his day while exploring the ability of paint to convey light and texture, Kurz also chooses these as her focus. The women of Kurz’s paintings are a combination of myth and reality—they close their eyes to us and seem to dream of someone else, or gaze into a distance beyond our field of vision. When they do confront us, as in Tight Fit, their look reveals only more mystery.

The Queensland Art Gallery acquires rare Yayoi Kusama flower

jcvcms@gmail.com (Dorothy Carpenter) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:25:24 +0000

BRISBANE, AU- The Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art is set to take ownership of a rare flower sculpture created by leading international contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama, thanks to a very generous benefactor. Flowers that Bloom at Midnight finds direct precedence in a series of outdoor sculptures Kusama has executed over the past decade. Monumental in scale, these works consist of floral forms that are at once simplified and fantastical, and finished in polka-dotted planes of vivid colour. Their scale and alien appearance evokes a strange and overwhelming power. ‘The flower is one of a series of eighteen works, each of which is a unique edition. Opportunities to purchase a new work by Yayoi Kusama are extremely rare, and all other flowers to date have been acquired for collections.’

The Kinetica Art Fair Returns to London's Ambika P3

jcvcms@gmail.com (Eleanor Biscette) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:06:36 +0000

London.- Living artwork, creations that come to life and experiential installations will be on show for the fourth Kinetica Art Fair - the UK's only art fair dedicated to kinetic, robotic, sound, light and time-based art. This hugely popular event – regularly attracting over 10,000 visitors – takes place from February 9th through February 12th at Ambika P3, Marylebone Road, London NW1. Kinetica provides an opportunity for serious buyers and collectors of art (previous collectors have included Damien Hirst and David Roberts), whilst remaining accessible to new buyers interested in the field. Leading artists and galleries from around the globe will gather to exhibit work that converges science, technology, nature and new media to present astonishing and often breathtaking creations.

The International Museum of Women Presents a Global Online Exhibition Examining Motherhood

jcvcms@gmail.com (Virginia Hightower) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:48:17 +0000

San Francisco, California.- The International Museum of Women ( IMOW ) is hosting the global online exhibition "MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe", which explores emerging issues, unique challenges, and changing perspectives of motherhood throughout the world. The newly launched exhibition can be found at www.imow.org or directly at mama.imow.org and expects to attract more than 100,000 visitors over the next nine months. The exhibition will showcase original creative works, including art, film, music, photography, essays and interviews, reflecting the stories, visions and voices of motherhood from more than 60 countries—with more than 200 works to be rolled out by September.

The Brandywine Museum Showcases WIlliam Steig's Cartoons & Childrens Books

jcvcms@gmail.com (Charles Gartside) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:47:17 +0000

Chadds Ford, PA.- The Brandywine Museum is pleased to present "Comic Catharsis: A Gift of Cartoons by William Steig" on view at the museum through March 11th. Although best known today as the creator of Shrek, William Steig (1907-2003) first achieved fame for his cartoons and covers for The New Yorker and his published books of drawings such as The Lonely Ones (1942), Small Fry (1944), and Dreams of Glory and Other Drawings. (1953). His situational gags are humorous and offer keen observations on various aspects of human relationships. Steig’s drawing style in early works show emphatic, incisive lines and tonal washes. Gradually he moved to simpler contour line drawings of figures inspired by the art of Pablo Picasso and the free-flowing dream-like images of Marc Chagall. Late in Steig’s career he began creating children’s books that explore, in a lighter vein, many of the same themes as his cartoons for adults.

Steig wrote and illustrated over 30 acclaimed works for children, including the Caldecott-winning Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969) and Shrek (1990). The exhibition will feature over 100 works donated to the Brandywine River Museum in 2010 by Jeanne Steig from the artist’s estate, as well as selected works for children on loan from the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and private collections.

William Steig (November 14, 1907 – October 3, 2003) was most noted for the books 'Sylvester and the Magic Pebble', 'Abel's Island' and 'Doctor De Soto', as well as for having created the character Shrek, who inspired the popular movie series. Steig was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish-Jewish immigrants from Austria, both socialists. His father was a house painter, and his mother was a seamstress who encouraged his artistic leanings. As a child, he dabbled in painting and was an avid reader of literature. Among other works, he was said to have been especially fascinated by Pinocchio. In addition to his artistic endeavors, he also did well at athletics, being a member of the collegiate All-American water polo team. He graduated from Townsend Harris High School at 15 but never completed college, though he attended three, spending two years at City College of New York, three years at the National Academy of Design and a mere five days at the Yale School of Fine Arts before dropping out of each.

His brother Irwin was a journalist and painter, and his brother Henry was a writer who played the saxophone and painted. His brother Arthur was a writer and poet, who, according to Steig, read The Nation in the cradle, was telepathic and "drew as well as Picasso or Matisse." When his family had financial problems during the Great Depression, he began drawing cartoons as a freelance artist and sold his first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1930. Living in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, he soon became successful.

Over decades, he contributed more than 1600 cartoons to the magazine, including 117 covers, leading Newsweek to dub him the "King of Cartoons." Steig was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949. Steig was a patient of the psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich and illustrated Reich's polemic, Listen, Little Man. In 1968, he wrote his first children's book. He excelled here as well, and his third book, 'Sylvester and the Magic Pebble' (1969), won the Caldecott Medal. He went on to write more than 30 children's books, including the Doctor DeSoto series, and he continued to write into his nineties. Among his other well-known works, the picture book Shrek! (1990) formed the basis for the Dreamworks Animation popular film Shrek.

In the mid-1960s, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania in the historic Brandywine Valley, faced possible massive industrial development. The impact would have dramatically changed the character and future of a community that was then largely rural. At the same time, and for decades thereafter, development proposed throughout the region, particularly in floodplain areas, threatened to devastate water supplies for numerous communities in southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware, including the City of Wilmington. Appreciating the need for rapid action, a group of local residents bought endangered land and founded the Brandywine Conservancy in 1967. The first conservation easements, protecting more than five and one-half miles along the Brandywine, were granted in 1969. Today, the Conservancy holds more than 430 conservation easements and has protected more than 44,000 acres in Chester and Delaware counties, Pennsylvania, and in New Castle County, Delaware. In 1971, the Conservancy opened the Brandywine River Museum in the renovated Hoffman’s Mill, a former gristmill built in 1864 that was part of the Conservancy’s first preservation efforts. With nearly six million visitors to date, the museum has established an international reputation for its unparalleled collection and its dedication to American art with primary emphasis on the art of the Brandywine region, American illustration, still life and landscape painting, and the work of the Wyeth family. Among the hundreds of artists represented are Howard Pyle, many students of Pyle who affected the course of American illustration, N. C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, and Jamie Wyeth. There is work by hundreds of famous illustrators. Landscape, still life, portrait and genre painting includes work by Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, Asher Durand, W. T. Richards, William Harnett, John Haberle, J. D. Chalfant, Horace Pippin, and many others, while the major still life collection includes paintings by William Harnett, John Peto, George Cope, John Haberle, Horace Pippin, and many more artists. Nearly 300 special exhibitions have been shown in the museum’s six galleries, along with constant installations of work from the collection. Visit the museum's website at ... www.brandywinemuseum.org

Property of Hollywood Star Tony Curtis to be Offered by Julien's Auctions

jcvcms@gmail.com (Gregory Canfield) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:22:18 +0000

BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- Julien’s Auctions, the world’s premier entertainment and celebrity auction house will offer a rare glimpse into the life of one of Hollywood’s most colorful stars, Tony Curtis. The rare Hollywood star whose off-screen character was often more sensational than his on-screen one, lived a life that could be its own movie or television series. Curtis’ career spanned six decades with popularity during the 1950s and 1960s enabling him to transpose his good looks into super movie stardom. He acted in over 100 films ranging from light comedy to serious drama and he also made numerous television appearances. In addition to being a popular actor, Curtis was a fine art connossiuer. Collectors will have the opportunity to purchase some of his impressive art collection along with items from his illustrious career at Julien's Auctions Gallery in Beverly Hills on September 17th, 2011. A portion of the proceeds from the auction will benefit Shiloh Horse Rescue, a charitable organization founded by Jill and Tony Curtis that rescues and rehabilitates abused, neglected and slaughter-bound horses of all types

Among Curtis’ most memorable films were 1959’s “Some Like It Hot” 1960’s “Spartacus,” 1953’s “Houdini” 1952’s “Son of Ali Baba”, 1957’s “Sweet Smell of Success,” 1965’s The Great Race and of course 1968’s “The Boston Strangler,” often noted as his most serious part. He earned an Oscar nomination for the 1958 crime drama “The Defiant Ones.” The film “Some Like It Hot” in which he acted with icon Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon has been called the funniest film in history by the American Film Institute.

He also acted with such greats as Burt Lancaster in “Sweet Smell of Success” and Cary Grant in “Operation Petticoat.” Curtis was often noted for his impeccable comedic timing. Off screen Curtis earned even more attention for his personal life which was filled with great turmoil and change. He married five times, his first and most famous to actress Janet Leigh.

The Curtis Estate auction features property spanning from his World War II Naval stint through the first decade of the 21st century. Fine art highlights coming to the block include the Andy Warhol Some Like it Hot Shoe, given to Curtis as a gift by the artist, (est $20,000/30,000), three drawings by Balthus (two est $25,000/35,000 and one est $30,000/40,000), a Maurice Denis oil on canvas study for the Baptism of Christ Mosaic at the Church of Saint Paul in Geneva, Les Ondes, (est $20,000/30,000), ceramics and prints by Picasso, Braque, and Chagall, a fine collection of 20th century American, British, and European paintings, and many selections from Tony Curtis's own secondary career as an artist, including paintings, drawings, prints, ceramic vases, and a tapestry. Also available for the first time are a selection of assemblage shadowboxes, a type of artwork very personal to Curtis and never before exhibited or sold to the public, although these items were occasionally bestowed as gifts upon friends and family.

Tony Curtis was an inveterate collector with a discerning eye. His treasures, collected from his travels all over the world, range from Faberge objets de vertu ( a 14k gold cigarette case, est $4,500/$6,500; and a trefoil dish inset with Russian coin, est $3,000/5,000), to fine watches (including an 18k gold Audemars Piguet Chronograoh wristwatch, est $6,000/8,000), to fine furniture (a Chinese Chippendale expanding writing desk, est $4,000/6,000), to boxes that he personalized with found objects, trinkets and mementos, preserved as he left them (numerous lots with estimates between $200 and $1,000).

Choice memorabilia items from Curtis’ acting career include a yachtsman’s jacket from the famous shipboard kissing scene with Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot (est $10,000/15,000), a beautiful rosewood Rudall and Carte flute given to Curtis by Frank Sinatra (est $3,000/4,000), his Photoplay 14k gold medal award for Most Popular Male Star won in 1958 (est $3,500/4,500), and Hanna/Barbera’s own depiction of Stoney Curtis in an animated cel from an appearance on the Flintstones (est $1,200/1,800).

This auction also proudly showcases awards, mementos, photographs, letters, clothing, and personal effects from all phases of Curtis’ life and career and reflecting his many interests and talents. A full list of items for auction can be viewed at the Julien Auctions website. This is indeed a unique opportunity to see the lifestyle of one of the world’s most talked about actors whose iconic twists beyond his roles still talked about in many circles.

The Exhibition of The Estate of Tony Curtis presented by Julien’s Auctions, Beverly Hills is designed by Rush Jenkins and Klaus Baer of WRJ Design Associates, who have designed exhibits for The Collection of Michael Jackson, The Estate of Johnny Cash, The Collection of Cher and more recently The Collection of Barbra Streisand.

Whisper Gallery Opens in London With a Group Show

jcvcms@gmail.com (Ewan McPherson) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:20:48 +0000

London.- Jamie Wood’s Whisper Gallery opened on June 9th with with a group show of limited edition prints and original works by artists including, Bruce French, Pakpoom Silaphan, Marco Bettoni, Patrick Hughes, Lyle Owerko, Russell Young, D*Face, Sarah Woodfine, Mark Hayward, Stuart Semple, Nick Gentry and George Morton-Clark.

Vinyl Factory Exclusive Art Edition by Grace Jones & Chris Levine

jcvcms@gmail.com (Heather Grooms) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:19:12 +0000

LONDON.- The collaboration between pop icon Grace Jones and light artist Chris Levine continues with a stunning art & vinyl edition and a series of limited edition prints, which will be released by The Vinyl Factory. The Vinyl Factory, which is hosting Grace’s first ever London art exhibition, will be taking preorders for the bespoke art & vinyl edition, which includes the Hurricane LP, Grace’s first album of new material in nineteen years. 'Stillness at the Speed of Light,' which opens to the public at The Vinyl Factory in Soho on 30th April, will showcase the extraordinary alchemy between this iconic individual and leading cutting-edge artist.

Kunsthalle Bielefeld Revisits the 80s with Exhibition from Bischofberger Collection

jcvcms@gmail.com (Kristine Gruber) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:17:43 +0000

BIELEFELD, GERMANY - “Of course, the 1980s was an important period in art history—something that we are just beginning to realize. It is only now that we are really starting to understand the beauty, power, and special aspects of these paintings. This kind of art juggles a great deal, all at once, being oriented toward a variety of things. Many artists referred to earlier epochs, not merely to so-called Modernism alone. Suddenly, there were long traditions again. Minimalism and Conceptual art foresaw that painting would come to an end at some point, so from this viewpoint, it was quite astonishing for something like this to happen around 1980.” The exhibition 'The 80s Revisited' will run from 21 March to 20 June 2010.

KLEE AND AMERICA at THE MENIL COLLECTION

jcvcms@gmail.com (Jessica Farrell) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:15:44 +0000

HOUSTON, TX - The Menil Collection presents Klee and America, an exhibition that addresses the enthusiastic reception for Paul Klee in the United States, especially during the 1930s and 1940s, when the artist’s fortunes were collapsing under fascism in Europe.

The exhibition features more than 80 paintings and drawings by Klee, on loan from private and public collections in the United States and abroad. Josef Helfenstein, director of The Menil Collection, curated the exhibition and co-edited its catalogue with Elizabeth Hutton Turner, senior curator at The Phillips Collection. “The influence of Paul Klee in America has never been fully investigated,” noted Helfenstein. “This exhibition seeks to document and analyze the reception and study of Klee, and to restore an influential but often overlooked chapter in the history of modern art.” On View at The Menil Collection October 6, 2006 – January 28, 2007.

Paul Klee (1879-1940) was by the 1910s one of the leading figures within the European modernist movement. His acclaim in Europe was quickly paralleled in the United States, where both private collectors and major museums sought out his works. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s American collectors pursued Klee’s art with increasing vigor.

Though Klee gained a foothold in America through exhibition and promotion in the early 1920s, significant critical discourse or context in this country was slow to come. Celebrated in Paris as one of the fathers of Dada and Surrealism, in America Klee was described in 1924 by critic Henry McBride in the New York Herald as “that strange meteor from Switzerland.” If asked in January 1930, Klee would have predicted with good reason that the future of his success lay in Europe: René Crevel had recently published a monograph in France, and many important German museums had begun acquiring important examples of his work. However, as Helfenstein writes in the exhibition catalogue, “just as Klee was receiving his most significant international recognition to date, political and socioeconomic developments in Germany were emerging that would steadily undermine and eventually destroy his standing as an artist.” Klee was among those targeted in Hitler’s campaign against Entartete Kunst (“degenerate art”). He was removed from his teaching post in 1933, and the market for his work in Germany and Austria collapsed. Fortunately, as Helfenstein writes, “even as Klee’s critical foundation crumbled in Europe, his reputation began spreading quickly in America.”

aMore so than any other modern master’s, the fortunes of Paul Klee parallel America’s coming of age in the modern world. Diego Rivera easily recognized an analogous sensibility at once ancient and childlike that united Klee with the “New World.” Perhaps it was Klee’s lack of a single style or the sheer range of his experiments that made him so compelling, as Marcel Duchamp once suggested. Certainly Klee appealed to young Americans wanting to free themselves from the limitations of geometric abstraction and surrealist narrative. Without doubt Klee’s cryptic marks—the possibilities he raised concerning almost every type of composition and every formal problem imaginable—had a liberating influence upon the Abstract Expressionist generation of the 1940s and 1950s. Ultimately this was the moment when the audience was with Klee, when they, too, dared to believe in the universal language of art.

Klee and America draws together some of the finest examples of Klee’s work that have remained in the United States, loaned from both major museums and private collections. Many of these pieces have rarely, if ever, been seen by the public. The works have been carefully selected for their American provenances, which include major collectors like Katherine Dreier and Walter and Louise Arensberg; artists such as Alexander Calder, Mark Tobey, and Andy Warhol; author Ernest Hemingway; and architects Walter Gropius and Philip Johnson.

The Menil Collection is a natural venue for this groundbreaking exhibition. Works by Klee have long figured in the Surrealist galleries of the museum, and Menil director Helfenstein served from 1988-2000 as chief curator of the Kunstmuseum Bern’s Paul Klee Foundation, where he was the project head of the nine-volume catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated color catalogue, edited by Josef Helfenstein and Elizabeth Hutton Turner, containing essays by Micheal Baumgartner, Charles W. Haxthausen, Jenny Anger, and other leading international Klee scholars.

The Menil Collection, located within Houston’s Museum District. Visit : www.menil.org

EXCEPTIONAL PORTRAITURE SHOWN AT CHEEKWOOD MUSEUM OF ART

jcvcms@gmail.com (Jill Lawless) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:14:11 +0000

NASHVILLE, TN – Cheekwood’s holdings in portraiture, whether oil on canvas, photography, or sculpture, have become a major aspect of Cheekwood’s art collection. Portraiture: Private Lives/Public Faces: highlights this special collection at Cheekwood through December 31., 2006.

Art, Commerce, and Bewilderment at Frieze Art Fair

jcvcms@gmail.com (Charlene Fellingham) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:12:25 +0000

LONDON - “I thought it was some kind of strange feminist piece,” said Jessica Stockdale, a 21-year-old photography student, pondering “Untitled (Original)” by the American artist Richard Prince at the Frieze Art Fair. “But I do like her boots.” The boots in question were adorning the shapely legs of a young woman in the installation, whose job is to rub Mr. Prince’s bright yellow, souped-up 1970 Dodge Challenger provocatively with a cloth while the whole thing rotates on a silver disk.

Tony Rosenthal ~ Sculptor of Public Art ~ Dies at 94

jcvcms@gmail.com (William Griffin) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:11:28 +0000

New York, NY - Tony Rosenthal, who created “Alamo,” the eternally popular revolving black cube in Astor Place in the East Village, and many other public sculptures, died on Tuesday in Southampton, N.Y. He was 94 years.The cause was a stroke, said his wife, Cynthia Rosenthal. In sheer visibility, Mr. Rosenthal occupied a leading place among contemporary artists. His five works of public sculpture in Manhattan, and dozens of similar works in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities, guaranteed him a vast audience every week, yet he remained, if not obscure, much less than famous.

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth hosts a Comprehensive Survey of Works by William Kentridge

jcvcms@gmail.com (Ian Patrick) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:09:25 +0000

FORT WORTH, TX.- William Kentridge: Five Themes, a comprehensive survey of the contemporary South African artist's work, opened at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Featuring more than 75 works in a range of media—including animated films, drawings, prints, theater models, sculptures, and books—the exhibition is co-organized by SFMOMA and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. Curated by Mark Rosenthal, adjunct curator of contemporary art at the Norton Museum of Art, in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition explores five primary themes that have engaged Kentridge over the past three decades. Although the exhibition highlights projects completed since 2000 (many of which have not been seen in the United States), it will also present, for the first time, Kentridge's most recent work alongside his earlier projects from the 1980s and 1990s—revealing as never before the full arc of his distinguished career. On view 12 July through 27 September, 2009.

Following its presentation at The Modern, the survey will travel to the Norton Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Plans for the European tour—which will tentatively include Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem—are being finalized. Accompanying the exhibition is a richly illustrated catalogue, complete with a DVD produced by the artist for this special occasion.

Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, where he continues to live and work, Kentridge has earned international acclaim for his interdisciplinary practice, which often fuses drawing, film, and theater. Known for engaging with the social landscape and political background of his native South Africa, he has produced a searing body of work that explores themes of colonial oppression and social conflict, loss and reconciliation, and the ephemeral nature of both personal and cultural memory.

Kentridge first gained recognition in 1997, when his work was included in Documenta X in Kassel, Germany, and in the Johannesburg and Havana Biennials, which were followed by prominent solo exhibitions internationally. His art was widely introduced to American audiences in 2001 through a traveling retrospective—cocurated by Neal Benezra when he served as deputy director of the Art Institute of Chicago—which primarily included works made before 2000. William Kentridge: Five Themes brings viewers up to date on the artist's work over the past decade, exploring how his subject matter has evolved from the specific context of South Africa to more universal stories. In recent years, Kentridge has dramatically expanded both the scope of his projects (such as recent full-scale opera productions) and their thematic concerns, which now include his own studio practice, colonialism in Namibia and Ethiopia, and the cultural history of postrevolutionary Russia. His newer work is based on an intensive exploration of themes connected to his own life experience, as well as the political and social issues that most concern him.

Although his hand-drawn animations are often described as films, Kentridge himself prefers to call them "drawings for projection." He makes them using a distinctive technique in which he painstakingly creates, erases, and reworks charcoal drawings that are photographed and projected as moving image. Movement is generated within the image, by the artist's hand; the camera serves merely to record its progression. As such, the animations explore a tension between material object and time-based performance, uniquely capturing the artist's working process while telling poignant and politically urgent stories.

Concerning the artist's innovative film installations of the past ten years, Rudolf Frieling adds: "Kentridge has been considered primarily as an artist who draws for projections. Yet his recent installation-based films explore an expanded cinema space and question the very foundation of what it means to produce and perceive a moving image."

The Five Themes
"Parcours d'Atelier: Artist in the Studio"
The first section of the exhibition examines a crucial turning point in Kentridge's work, one in which his own art practice became a subject. According to the artist, many of these projects are meant to reflect the "invisible work that must be done" before beginning a drawing, film, or sculpture. This theme is epitomized by the large-scale multiscreen projection 7 Fragments for Georges Méliès (2003), an homage to the early French film director, who, like Kentridge, often combined performance with drawing. The suite of seven films—each depicting Kentridge at work in his studio or interacting with his creations—has only been shown once before in the United States and will be accompanied by a rarely seen group of related drawings, forming an intimate portrayal of the artist's process.

"Thick Time: Soho and Felix"
A second section of the exhibition is dedicated to Kentridge's best-known fictional characters, Soho Eckstein, a domineering industrialist and real estate developer whose troubled conscience reflects certain miens of contemporary South Africa, and his sensitive alter ego, Felix Teitlebaum, who pines for Soho's wife and often functions as a surrogate for the artist himself. The centerpiece of this section, an ongoing work entitled 9 Drawings for Projection, comprises nine short animated films: Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City after Paris (1989), Monument (1990), Sobriety, Obesity & Growing Old (1991), Mine (1991), Felix in Exile (1994), History of the Main Complaint (1996), WEIGHING . . . and WANTING (1998), Stereoscope (1999), and Tide Table (2003). These projections, along with a key selection of related drawings, follow the lives of Soho and Felix as they struggle to navigate the political and social climate of Johannesburg during the final decade of apartheid. According to Kentridge, the Soho and Felix films were made without a script or storyboards and are largely about his own process of discovery.

"Occasional and Residual Hope: Ubu and the Procession"
In 1975 Kentridge acted in Ubu Rex (an adaptation of Ubu Roi, Alfred Jarry's satire about a corrupt and cowardly despot), and he subsequently devoted a large body of work to the play. He began with a series of eight etchings, collectively entitled Ubu Tells the Truth (1996), and in 1997 made an animated film of the same name, as well as a number of related drawings. These works also deal with the South African experience, specifically addressing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings set up by the nation's government in 1995 to investigate human rights abuses during apartheid. Other highlights in this grouping include the film Shadow Procession (1999), in which Kentridge first utilizes techniques of shadow theater and jointed-paper figures; the multipanel collage Portage (2000); a large charcoal-and-pastel-on-paper work entitled Arc Procession (Smoke, Ashes, Fable) (1990); and some of the artist's rough-hewn bronze sculptures.

"Sarastro and the Master's Voice: The Magic Flute"
A selection of Kentridge's drawings, films, and theater models inspired by his 2005 production of the Mozart opera The Magic Flute for La Monnaie, the leading opera house in Belgium, will be a highlight of the exhibition. The artist's video projection Learning the Flute (2003), which started the Flute project, shifts between images of black charcoal drawings on white paper and white chalk drawings projected onto a blackboard, forming a meditation on darkness and light. Preparing the Flute (2005) was created as a large-scale maquette within which to test projections central to the production of the opera. Another theater model, Black Box/Chambre Noire (2006), which has never been seen in the United States, addresses the opera's themes, specifically through an examination of the colonial war of 1904 in German South-West Africa, and of the genocide of the Herero people. What Will Come (has already come) (2007), a consideration of colonialism in Ethiopia, presents an anamorphic film installation in which intentionally distorted images projected onto a tabletop right themselves only when reflected in a cylindrical mirror. This work was recently acquired, under the guidance of Rosenthal, by the Norton Museum of Art.

"Learning from the Absurd: The Nose"
The fifth section comprises a multichannel projection made in preparation for Kentridge's forthcoming staging of The Nose, a Metropolitan Opera production that will premiere in New York in March 2010. The Nose—a 1930 Dmitri Shostakovich opera based on Nikolai Gogol's absurdist short story of 1836—concerns a Russian official whose nose disappears from his face, only to turn up, in uniform, as a higher-ranking official moving in more respected circles. Kentridge's related work, I am not me, the horse is not mine (2008), on view in the United States for the first time, is a room-size installation of projected films that use Gogol's story as the basis for examining Russian modernism and the suppression of the Russian avant-garde in the 1920s and 1930s.

Visit the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth at : http://www.themodern.org/

Tate Modern presents 'UBS Openings: Paintings from the 1980's'

jcvcms@gmail.com (Wallace Savan) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:07:57 +0000

LONDON - A new display at Tate Modern, UBS Openings: Paintings from the 1980s, will offer an opportunity to re-appraise Neo-Expressionist painting a quarter of a century after its emergence. Drawing on the collections of UBS and Tate, Paintings from the 1980s, will bring together eleven large-scale works by the key international painters who were at the forefront of this new form of figurative painting. On exhibition 12 November 2008 through 13 April 2009.

James Siena Exhibition at the Pace Gallery In NYC

jcvcms@gmail.com (Taylor Danielson) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:05:56 +0000

NEW YORK, NY.- The Pace Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings, drawings, and prints by James Siena, featuring new works created by the artist over the past three years. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s methodology, from his use of repeated systems to figurative drawings that explore alternate means of creating an image. The show is on view at 510 West 25th Street from March 25 through April 30, 2011. James Siena lives and works in New York City. He has been represented by The Pace Gallery since 2004.

The BMW Art Car Collection on the Internet ~ Legendary Collection Virtual Video Tour

jcvcms@gmail.com (Kendell Youngerman) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:04:02 +0000

MUNICH.- Just in time to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the BMW Group’s international cultural commitment, the legendary BMW Art Car Collection can now be seen for the first time within a virtual video tour on the Internet. For the first time, an extensive virtual overview of the origin, history and development of the collection is available on the Internet. In addition to extensive photographic material, a film has been devoted to every single one of the 17 “works of art on wheels”, each of which was designed by an internationally well-known artist. Historic racing footage and artists’ statements as well as renowned representatives from art and culture are to be seen.

Major Outdoor Florida Exhibition by Internationally Acclaimed Artist Yayoi Kusama

jcvcms@gmail.com (Casper Benning) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:02:20 +0000

CORAL GABLES, FL.- This December, the world famous Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will present Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild as part of its annual visual art program. The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, known for her distinctive sculptures and paintings that involve hand-worked repetition and bold patterning, will be exhibiting works from the exuberant new sculptural ensemble Flowers that Bloom at Midnight (2009), a group of her classic Pumpkins, as well as Guidepost to the New Space, a multi-part floating work specifically conceived for Fairchild’s Panandus Lake.

This will be the first time anywhere in the world that all these sculptures have been shown together in an outdoor setting. “Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild” will open on December 5, 2009, to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach, and will be on view through May 30, 2010.

“Fairchild is absolutely thrilled to bring Yayoi Kusama’s enchanting art works to South Florida,” said Bruce Greer, Fairchild’s board of trustees’ President. “Her surreal, botanically inspired monumental sculptures, brought together with Fairchild’s world-famous tropical garden landscape, are sure to provide a magical experience for visitors of all ages.”

Flowers that Bloom at Midnight consists of vividly painted, giant cast flowers measuring between five and sixteen feet in height. These sinuous baroque forms will provide a lively contrast with the monolithic Pumpkins. The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, a series of rounded “humps” in fire-engine red with white polka dots, will protrude enigmatically from the water in a pond on the 83-acre garden. Thus Kusama’s artificial garden will unfold in all its psychedelic glory, against the exotic backdrop of Fairchild’s gardens with their equally rare and wondrous tropical vegetation. All sculptures in the exhibition are on loan from Gagosian Gallery.

Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s leading artists and a living legend of the international art avant-garde. Flamboyant yet profound, her oeuvre encompasses unique masterpieces in painting, sculpture, and installation, as well as mass production and popular culture. Kusama also produces playful sculpture on a monumental scale. Her first large-scale sculpture appeared in 1994, a huge, vivid yellow pumpkin covered with an optical spot pattern, which was installed at the end of a jetty on the island of Naoshima in the Seto Sea, Japan.

She has since completed several major sculptural commissions—ensembles of huge, brightly hued, triffid-like plants and flowers—for public institutions in Japan and abroad including The Visionary Flowers (2002), Matsumoto City Museum of Art, Nagano, Japan; Tulipes de Shangri-La (2003), Eurolille, Lille, France; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) Matsudai-machi Higashikubiki-gun, Niigata, Japan; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007), Beverly Hills City Council, Los Angeles.

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto City, Japan in 1929. Her work is in the collections of leading museums throughout the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; LACMA, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Major exhibitions of her work include Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Fukuoka, Japan (1987); Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York (1989); “Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1969,” LACMA, 1998 (traveling to Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), 1998–99; Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000 (traveling to selected venues in Europe and Korea), 2001–2003; “KUSAMATRIX”, Mori Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2004 (traveling to Art Park Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo Art Park, Hokkaido); “Eternity – Modernity”, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (touring Japan), 2004–2005; and “The Mirrored Years,” Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2008,which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and will open at the City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand later in 2009.

“Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild” is part of an annual exhibition series in support of the Garden’s conservation work, educational outreach programs and commitment to cultural enhancement in South Florida. Fairchild houses internationally important collections of rare tropical fruit and cycads as well as the largest palm collection in the U.S. The Garden maintains an international conservation program, which works with more than 20 countries to preserve some of the worlds’ rarest species and tropical habitats. Fairchild’s major art exhibitions have included world-renowned artists such as Mark di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, and Dale Chihuly. Visit : http://www.fairchildgarden.org/

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

jcvcms@gmail.com (Editor, Art Knowledge News) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:01:20 +0000

This is a new feature for the subscribers and visitors to Art Knowledge News (AKN), that will enable you to see "thumbnail descriptions" of the last ninety (90) articles and art images that we published. This will allow you to visit any article that you may have missed ; or re-visit any article or image of particular interest. Every day the article "thumbnail images" will change. For you to see the entire last ninety images just click : here .

When opened that also will allow you to change the language from English to anyone of 54 other languages, by clicking your language choice on the upper left corner of our Home Page. You can share any article we publish with the eleven (11) social websites we offer like Twitter, Flicker, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. by one click on the image shown at the end of each opened article. Last, but not least, you can email or print any entire article by using an icon visible to the right side of an article's headline.