Art News

The Museum Folkwang To Display Donations to the German Poster Museum

jcvcms@gmail.com (Richard Kemmling) — Mon, 28 May 2012 03:09:20 +0000

Essen, Germany.- The Museum Folkswang is pleased to present "Donations to the German Poster Museum (2005 - 2011)" on view from November 12th through January 22nd 2012. As with all museums, the Folkswang Museum - and the German Poster Museum within it - obtain works through exchange, purchase and donation. This new exhibition highlights a number of the generous donations that have been made to the German Poster Museum in the past few years.The German Poster Museum is unique in Germany and has one of the largest specialized collections in the world. Today the collection holds more than 340,000 covering the fields of politics, the economy and culture. They range from the earliest posters to those of today. Its thematic focus is a documentation of the development of German posters in a European context.

The reasons for donating posters to the German Poster Museum may vary, but the expectations remain the same: the work should be well conserved, should be dealt with, should be available to the public and the name of the donor shouldn’t be forgotten. And indeed, the exhibitions by the German Poster Museum in the Museum Folkwang organized since 2005 would not have been possible without these donations, at least not with the same quality. Thus the taking becomes a giving, this is our duty which we wish to fulfil and show that the donations do not simply disappear into the depths of the storeroom, but that they are valued, also beyond the exhibitions – through an intensive formal and scholarly study of them. The exhibition will show around 60 posters selected from the almost 12,500 works donated to the museum between 1910 an today. Geographically they come mostly from Europe, with the majority of those from Germany. Even if this can only provide a brief insight, this presentation is naturally also intended to encourage, to persuade the hesitant to give their posters to the German Poster Museum or to support an acquisition.

The Museum Folkwang – in the old North German epic poem Edda, the term Folkvanger (People’s Hall) was given to the palace of the goddess Freya – was founded by Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874-1921) in 1902 in the Westphalian industrial city of Hagen. This former student of art history, literature and philosophy had inherited enough money to finance the project. From its origins as an art collection with natural history and crafts sections, it soon developed into a pioneering museum of modern art in Germany. The museum was the first public collection in Germany to acquire and show works by forerunners of Modernism – Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse.

Following the death of its founder in 1921, the Osthaus collection was acquired for the City of Essen by the newly created Folkwang-Museumsverein, a progressive initiative of Essen art enthusiasts, and in 1922 it merged with the existing municipal art museum, open since 1906. Osthaus’s support for what was, at that time, the Avant-garde of art, and that of his friend Ernst Gosebruch, director of the Essen art collection and later director of the Museum Folkwang in Essen, was an expression of a reform movement touching all facets of life, which sought to give the “western industrial region” a new aesthetic appearance by linking art and life. A site for collecting and conveying modern and contemporary art, within a few decades the museum had gained an international reputation, one reason for the malicious campaign against it during the Third Reich. A considerable loss of irreplaceable paintings and the destruction of the two museum buildings in the rain of bombs during the Second World War so ravaged the Museum Folkwang that only ruins remained in 1945.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the museum directors of the day, Heinz Köhn and Paul Vogt, succeeded in filling the most painful gaps by buying back some works and acquiring others oriented on those lost. With the collection’s extension into contemporary art, by the 1970’s it had become bigger than ever before. The Museum Folkwang is today one of Germany’s best-known art museums with an excellent collection of 19th century and classical modern paintings and sculpture, post-1945 art, and photography, which has had its own department since 1979. The museum sees it as an opportunity to continue to develop along these lines and to revive the tradition of a range of media and a combination of fine and applied arts for which the Museum Folkwang was so famous before 1933 and which earned it the title of the “loveliest museum in the world”. An international architectural competition to desogn a new museum building was won by David Chipperfeld Architects in March 2007. The new museum opened in January 2010, when Essen and the Ruhr Area became Europe’s Capital of Culture. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.museum-folkwang.de

Essl Museum Invites Ten International Museums to Take Part in Exhibition

jcvcms@gmail.com (Morris Winchester) — Mon, 28 May 2012 03:08:19 +0000

VIENNA.- On the occasion of its 10th anniversary in 2009, the Essl Museum has invited ten international museums to take part in the exhibition project "ASPECTS OF COLLECTING". All participating institutions and museums received a certain budget and were asked to acquire works of art they considered interesting and significant. The selection was made by the respective museum directors or curators. There were no conditions imposed, there was only the recommendation to focus on contemporary art. The Essl Museum also contributed its own acquisition scheme. The selected sets of works are being presented in an exhibition at the Essl Museum and will then be made available to the individual museums as permanent loans.

Dave White Presents 'Americana' at The Coningsby Gallery in London

jcvcms@gmail.com (Garfield Winston) — Mon, 28 May 2012 03:06:20 +0000

LONDON.- Internationally acclaimed artist Dave White explores American heritage and the spirit of the West in his latest solo show. Entitled Americana, the exhibition will feature a series of large scale oil paintings in White’s trademark expressive style, alongside limited edition prints and works on paper. Taking place at The Coningsby Gallery, London from April 11th through April 30th, 2011, this exhibition highlights White’s ability to capture dynamic scenes with his distinctive impasto style, while presenting a pioneering approach to documenting the legacy of this era.

Nice Cindy Sherman Print For Only $2,800,000 – $3,800,000 at Christies

jcvcms@gmail.com (Ralph Binkerton) — Mon, 28 May 2012 03:03:53 +0000

AKRON, OH.- Coinciding with the retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Christie’s will offer an acclaimed masterpiece by Cindy Sherman consigned by the Akron Art Museum, Ohio. All proceeds from the sale will be directed to the museum’s acquisition fund to allow for future strategic purchases that will augment the core of the Akron Art Museum’s strong Contemporary collection. Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #96 is recognized as an icon within her career to date. Another example of this image was sold at Christie’s in May 2011 for $3,890,500, which represents not only a world auction record for Sherman, but also a world record price for any photograph at the time. The work from the Akron Art Museum is a vintage print in excellent condition and will have a pre-sale estimate of $2,800,000 – $3,800,000.

Compton Verney Presents Sir Stanley Spencer and the English Garden

jcvcms@gmail.com (Laurence Armstrong) — Mon, 28 May 2012 03:01:27 +0000

Kineton, Warwickshire, UK.- Compton Verney’s unique blend of art expertise, Georgian architecture and breathtaking historic landscape makes it the ideal setting for an important new exhibition on one of Britain’s best-loved artists: the eccentric, quintessentially English genius Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959). "Stanley Spencer and the English Garden", will focus on Spencer’s gorgeous garden views and landscapes of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. The exhibition will be on view from June 25th through October 2nd. Spencer’s luscious garden pictures, which have often been overlooked by critics in favour of his more visionary subjects, are not just beautiful oils. Spencer’s virtuoso treatment of this highly accessible and enormously attractive subject demonstrates the artist’s immense feeling for, and understanding of, the way the English landscape and the traditional English garden were changing during the twentieth century, and how contemporary building development was redefining or even eradicating familiar environments. They also chart his personal vision of the garden as ‘private heaven’.

Spencer was born and spent much of his life in Cookham in Berkshire. His father, William Spencer, was a music teacher. His younger brother, Gilbert Spencer (1892–1979), was a talented painter of landscapes. From 1908 to 1912, Spencer studied at the Slade School of Art at University College, London under Henry Tonks and others. His contemporaries at the Slade included Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Isaac Rosenberg and David Bomberg. So profound was his attachment to the village of his birth that most days he would take the train back home in time for tea. It even became his nickname: his fellow student C.R.W. Nevinson dubbed him Cookham, a name which Spencer himself took to using for a time. After a long period of agonising whether or not to join up, in 1915 Spencer volunteered with the Royal Army Medical Corps and worked as an orderly at the Beaufort War Hospital. In 1916, the 24-year-old Spencer volunteered for service with the RAMC in Macedonia, and served with the 68th Field Ambulance unit. He subsequently volunteered to be transferred to the Berkshire Regiment. His survival of the devastation and torment that killed so many of his fellows indelibly marked Spencer's attitude to life and death.

Such preoccupations come through time and again in his religious works. Towards the end of the war he was commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee to paint what became "Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing Station at Smol, Macedonia, September 1916" (now in the Imperial War Museum). It was visibly the consequence of Spencer's experience in the medical corps. A further major commission was to paint murals for the Sandham Memorial Chapel in Burghclere dedicated to the war dead. The altarpiece depicts the Resurrection of the Soldiers. Spencer's work as a war artist in the Second World War included his epic depiction of shipbuilding workers and their families at Port Glasgow on the Clyde. When the war ended he again took up, as did certain other British neo-romantic artists of the time, his visionary preoccupations — in Spencer's case with a sometimes apocalyptic tinge.

Until the early twentieth century Compton Verney was home to the Verney or Willoughby de Broke family for almost 500 years. It has now been transformed from a derelict eighteenth-century mansion into a gallery of international standing, offering a combination of high quality attractions and facilities. The project took ten years to complete and over twenty gallery spaces have been created. Compton Verney is unique in that it is a place where art, architecture, landscape and learning fuse, to offer the visitor an experience that is completely integrated and accessible. The Georgian mansion and adjacent service buildings have been conserved and extended in a contemporary idiom, a transformation executed by two architectural practices: Stanton Williams and Leamington-based Rodney Melville & Partners. The sensitive combination of restored Grade I-listed buildings and new spaces has been realised in construction and craftsmanship of outstanding quality. Attention to detail in the use of appropriate materials, natural lighting and works of art on open display complement the collections and the site itself. The qualities of the materials chosen - handmade bricks, hand-tooled stone, glass and steel - reflect the spirit of the original buildings, while bringing a new dynamic to the architectural composition. The buildings are linked from a single point of entry and the family of service buildings have been developed to incorporate a Learning Centre and offices. The historic importance of the site meant extensive consultations with English Heritage, Stratford District Council and the local Parish Council were required, resulting in a careful restoration of the core fabric of the building, with the contemporary extension providing an added dimension and focus. Inside the mansion, restored eighteenth-century rooms on the ground floor lead to progressively more abstract and flexible spaces on the upper floors, where new galleries have been created within the existing shell of the historic building.

The galleries at Compton Verney are of an international standard enabling the hosting of loaned works of art from all over the world. Compton Verney houses six permanent collections, focusing on areas currently under-represented in British museums and galleries, including paintings and objects from Naples during the ‘Golden Age’ of Baroque Art (1600-1800), exquisitely carved sculptures by artists such as Tilman Riemenschneider seen alongside panel paintings by Lucas Cranach and Martin Schongauer in the collection of Northern European art from 1450-1650, the British Portraits collection which features portraits of well-known Tudor Royals and important figures from the Georgian period. It also includes a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and two views of London by Venetian artist Canaletto who worked in Britain in the mid 1700s, bronzes and pottery in the Chinese collection, dating from between the Neolithic period (about 4500-2000 BC) and Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the UK’s largest collection of British Folk Art objects and paintings, made as everyday objects by everyday people and objects of inspiration and original textile designs by Enid Marx in the Marx-Lambert collection. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.comptonverney.org.uk

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery To Show Landmark New Media Exhibition

jcvcms@gmail.com (Elias Cutterman) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:59:31 +0000

Buffalo, NY.- "Videosphere: A New Generation" is the first-ever exhibition of works in new media drawn exclusively from the Gallery’s Collection. Featuring twenty-six works by twenty-four artists, it highlights the Gallery’s recent acquisition of new media works with various styles and approaches. The featured artists represent both emerging talent and pioneers in the field, including Cory Arcangel, Jeremy Blake, Phil Collins, Brody Condon, James Drake, Isaac Julien, Bruce Nauman, João Onofre, Kelly Richardson, and Peter Sarkisian, each working in video, film, computer animation, and/or the repurposing and modification of old technology. "Videosphere: A New Generation" will be on view at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo from July 1st through October 9th.

Woman Attacks Paul Gauguin Painting at National Gallery in Washington

jcvcms@gmail.com (Deborah Ziska) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:54:51 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP).- Officials at the National Gallery of Art say a painting by Paul Gauguin is being inspected for damage after it was attacked by a visitor. The unusual incident happened late Friday afternoon. Museum visitors tell The Washington Post that a woman tried to pull Gauguin's "Two Tahitian Women" off the wall and banged on its clear plastic covering. Witnesses say the woman was screaming, "This is evil." The painting is on loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in NY

Museum of Karsten Klingbeil Treasures to be Offered at Two Auctions

jcvcms@gmail.com (Simone Yellerstein) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:50:11 +0000

MUNICH.- The private museum of the famous Berlin sculptor, philanthropist and former construction mogul Karsten Klingbeil is going to be offered in two parts. The first auction will take place in December 2011 at Pierre Bergé & Associés in Brussels, the second half of the collection is going to be offered for bidding in June 2012 at Hermann Historica oHG in Munich. Those dates provide the unique opportunity to buy a total number of 600 significant objects that have been collected over fifty years with a lot of passion, commitment and expertise to compile this sensational collection. 40 complete suits of armour from the 15 th to the 17 th century, 120 helmets as well as pole arms, swords, daggers and shields from twelve centuries form the core of the collection. Since the legendary Hever Castle auction at Sotheby's, London, in 1983 this is going to be the most important private collection of antique arms and armours brought to market.

Breathtaking Dale Chihuly Exhibition Among Frederik Meijer Gardens

jcvcms@gmail.com (Carson Greenwald) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:44:45 +0000

GRAND RAPIDS, MI.- Few American artists can capture the attention of millions the way Dale Chihuly can, and Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, one of the nation’s most significant sculpture and botanic experiences, will celebrate the masterwork of Chihuly with a breathtaking and exclusive outdoor sculpture exhibition, “Chihuly at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park: A New Eden” will include thousands of pieces of glass in 15 different settings across the 132-acre grounds. Each site-specific sculpture will harmonize with the surrounding natural environment, and bright, bold horticulture designs will change with the seasons. April 30 through September 30, 2010.

“This exhibition celebrates one of the world’s foremost glass artist and his much-anticipated return to Meijer Gardens,” said Joseph Becherer, chief curator and vice president. “Specifically created for this exhibition, Chihuly’s sculptural glass infuses his expression of nature with the stunning landscape of our grounds.”

For “A New Eden,” Chihuly and his team are working with the Meijer Gardens Horticultural team to celebrate the duality of art and nature. Chosen sites span the grounds of Meijer Gardens including the English Perennial Garden, Woodland Shade Garden, Lena Meijer Children’s Garden, wetland areas and the 30-acre Sculpture Park.

Citron Green and Red Tower, an explosive, 16-foot-tall sculpture set in the stately English Perennial Garden, greets Meijer Gardens’ guests as they enter. Throughout the indoor gardens, Neon Tumbleweed Chandeliers cascade light into the Arid Garden and Polyvitro Chandeliers, Ikebana, Baskets, Macchia and Persians highlight the Lena Meijer Conservatory.

The outdoor galleries of the Sculpture Park provide a seasonal experience for the mind and eye. Even before entering the Sculpture Park, the majestic Rose Crystal Tower, invites visitors to explore the wonders of the Meijer Gardens’ outdoor masterpiece. Visitors will the see The Sun and all its glory in the Cultural Commons and The Moon in the neighboring Groves.

“Horticulture and sculpture are fully unified in this exhibition. The landscaping incorporates our natural terrain in addition to large-scale expression of bold colors, textures and patterns complimentary to Chihuly’s work,” said Steve LaWarre, director of horticulture at Meijer Gardens. “Among the most beautiful discoveries that visitors will find is how ‘A New Eden’ will change between April and September. Color, light, and shadows will delicately evolve with plants and glass as we move from spring and summer into autumn.”

“’A New Eden’ is a highlight of our 15-year anniversary,” said David Hooker, president and CEO. “It is significant to showcase an artist who portrays our dual mission so magnificently.”

Meijer Gardens has a long and rewarding relationship with Dale Chihuly. ‘A New Eden’ is the sculptor’s second exhibition at Meijer Gardens. “Color & Light: Chihuly at the Gardens” was an indoor exhibition held in 2003. The exhibition saw more than a half-million visitors in four months.

World-renowned artist Dale Chihuly (b. 1941) was first introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. He continued his studies at Rhode Island School of Design, where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade. Through the Fulbright Fellowship, Chihuly studied in Venice, which exposed him to the team approach to glass blowing. Later, he returned to Washington State and founded the Pilchuck Glass School, where he continues to lead the way in fine art glass blowing. He has since been awarded eight honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Chihuly’s well-known series of works include Baskets, Persians and Seaforms. His work is included in more than two hundred museum collections worldwide. Chihuly’s lifelong affinity for glass houses has grown into a series of exhibitions with botanical settings. Visit : http://www.meijergardens.org/

The Kestnergesellschaft Presents New Drawings & Paintings by Daniel Richter

jcvcms@gmail.com (Alfred Shroeder) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:41:57 +0000

Hanover, Germany - The Kestnergesellschaft is proud to present "Daniel Richter: 1001 Nights", on view at the museum through November 6th. Daniel Richter (born 1962 in Eutin, now lives and works in Berlin) is one of Germany’s most important contemporary painters and has made his name with a hybrid of abstraction and figuration. The Kestnergesellschaft now presents a collection of Rickter's new paintings and drawings from 2008 to 2011 which deal with conflictual narrations and the vocabulary of the line. The starting point for these works is the collection of fantastical tales known as the "1001 Nights". Richter transforms these Arabic stories into menacing, fairytale-like scenarios that allude to an orientalism which has changed since 9/11. As the title indicates, Richter’s works contain an extra zero – a Ground Zero – that gives the fantastical element an eerie and at the same time very concrete touch.

Christie's Announces Prints & Multiples Sale in New York

jcvcms@gmail.com (Henry Clements) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:39:20 +0000

NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s New York announces the Prints & Multiples Sale on April 26 and 27. The auction features 482 lots including an impressive variety of American, Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary prints estimated in the region of $7 million. Highlights in the sale include works by Edvard Munch, as well as Works from the Collection of Michael Crichton — best-selling author, screenwriter, film director and producer — and Pop Art prints by artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Roy Lichtenstein.

18th Street Arts Center presents "Post-American L.A."

jcvcms@gmail.com (Ronald Lopez) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:31:27 +0000

Santa Monica, CA – 18th Street continues its 2009 exhibition season Almost Utopia LA 2019, with the exhibition Post-American L.A. curated by Pilar Tompkins for our main gallery and project room. The exhibition features artists that question the scope and impact of American predominance, from the international stage to municipal politics, including how this might manifest on a local level in the next 10 years, Post-American LA features artists Carolina Caycedo, Sandra de la Loza, Hugo Hopping, Ashley Hunt, Vincent Johnson, Glenn Ligon, Adrian Paci, Vincent Ramos, and Chen Shaoxiong. On view through 26 September, 2009.

Tarble Arts Center Showcases Art Collection for 25th Anniversary

jcvcms@gmail.com (Glenn Paterson) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:27:56 +0000

CHARLESTON, IL - As part of its silver anniversary year the Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University is presenting the exhibition The Tarble at 25 - Celebrating the Collection. The exhibition is on view through October 14 in the main galleries. Tarble volunteer docents will be available to talk about some of the works in the exhibition at The Tarble at 25 – Community Celebration on Saturday, September 30, 2-4pm. Admission is free and the public is invited.

The exhibition surveys significant holdings in the Tarble’s collection of art. Tarble director Michael Watts organized the exhibition. Says Watts, “In selecting art for this exhibition I looked to show art that is significant to our region or artists who are art historically significant – a sort of ‘greatest hits.’”

The art presented represents the major areas of the Tarble’s collection – paintings by Paul T. Sargent, American Scene/Regionalist art, east-central and southeastern Illinois folk arts, and contemporary art on paper by Midwestern artists. Art that falls outside of these categories are also included in the exhibition.

Featured are six recently restored landscape paintings by Paul T. Sargent, dating from 1927 and the early 1940s, plus photographs to illustrate the “before and after” of conservation treatment to one of the paintings. “Some of the Sargents on exhibit predate the formation of an organized art collection at Eastern,” said Watts. “Most of the Sargent paintings came to the Tarble from the Paul T. Sargent Gallery collection when that program was absorbed by the Tarble Arts Center. But at least two of the Sargents being shown were owned by Eastern before the Sargent Gallery started its collection program.” The Sargent Gallery opened in 1951 and served as Eastern’s art gallery until the opening of the Tarble Arts Center in 1982.

Also passed to the Tarble’s collection from the Sargent Gallery were American Scene/Regionalist art works. These are represented in the exhibition by original prints by Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton and Charles Turzak, and watercolors by David McCosh and Umberto Romano. In 2006 the Mildred Grush Timmons American Regionalist Acquisitions Endowment was established in the EIU Foundation. The funding from this foundation is being used to build the Tarble’s American Scene/Regionalist collection. The lithograph portrait of Burl Ives by Benton in the exhibit is the first purchase made with Timmons Endowment funding. These artists are represented in most major United States art museums’ collections.

The Illinois Folk Arts Collection was created specifically with the Tarble in mind, and the Tarble’s 500 or so works of folk art represent about half of the total permanent collection. From the folk arts collection are quilts by Sarah Dollar (c. 1845), Elvia Tarble (c. 1932), Cora Meek (c. 1985), and an Amish quilt by Katie Kauffman (c. 1910). There are also carvings and constructions by Ferd Metten and Arthur Walker, and paintings by Jennie Cell. Although many of the artists are only know in this region, Meek and Cell are represented in the American art collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Tarble’s holdings of Midwestern art on paper is represented with original prints by John Himmelfarb, James Butler and Fred Jones, and by previous EIU Art faculty members Lynn Trank (drawings) and Walter Sorge (a watercolor and an intagio). From the Tarble’s biennial Drawing/Watercolor: Illinois exhibition purchase awards are watercolors by Ed Shay and Jeffrey Little.

Some unique but significant pieces exhibited include a Villion/Duchamp aquatint, a suite of etchings by Jamie Wyeth, an oil painting by Alice Baber, an etching by Stanley William Hayter, two small bronze sculptures by Charles M. Russell, plus a long-term loan from Roger and Ramona Roberson of a glass work by Dale Chihuly. Marcell Duchamp was one of the creators of Dada and Surrealism, and the print was made with his brother, Jacques Villon. Jamie Wyeth is part of the “first family” of American art, the son of Andrew Wyeth and the grandson of N.C. Wyeth. Baber, an east-central Illinois native, achieved national recognition as a colorist in the 1960s. Hayter is known for helping start the 20^th century renaissance in printmaking. Russell is the first or second best known of American’s cowboy artists (along with Charles Remington). And Chihuly is currently the premiere glass artist in the U.S.

A sculpture maquette (or model) by Michael Dunbar and a small bronze by Cary Knoop serve to reference the Tarble’s outdoor sculpture collection. The most contemporary works exhibited, in terms of concepts, is a selection from the Peter Norton Christmas Commissions, with works by Kara Walker, and others. And from the Tarble’s study collection is a Oaxacan woodcarving from Mexico.

For more information about the exhibition or to arrange a group tour, please contact the Tarble at 217-581-ARTS (-2787) or mwatts@eiu.edu. Admission is free and the public is invited. The Tarble is located on 9th Street at Cleveland Avenue on the EIU campus in Charleston. Open hours are 10am-5pm Tues.-Fri., 10am-4pm Sat. and 1-4pm Sun.; closed Mondays. Visit The Tarble Arts Center at : www.eiu.edu/~tarble/

artnet Auctions Launches Prints Masterworks Auction

jcvcms@gmail.com (Barney Ebbsworth) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:25:41 +0000

NEW YORK, NY.- Now through September 29, artnet Auctions is featuring the Prints Masterworks Auction, a special online auction of prints and multiples by some of the most influential artists of the 20th-21st century. The sale comprises 150 works by 50 artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Pablo Picasso with estimates from $1,000-$150,000.

Sotheby's Auction for Kolkata Museum of Modern Art

jcvcms@gmail.com (Mallory Manske) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:16:42 +0000

Kolkata, India - Kolkata will now have its own modern art museum. Auction giant Sotheby's will hold a benefit sale in New York to support the mega art project. The auction for the Kolkata Museum of Modern Art (KMOMA) will be held July 17. On sale will be modern and contemporary Indian art works. Important works including paintings, sculptures and photographs by Tyeb Mehta, Jehangir Sabavala, Somnath Hore, Sakti Burman, Ram Kumar, F.N Souza, Akbar Padamsee, Jogen Chowdhury, Ganesh Pyne, Arpita Singh, Rameshwar Broota, Paresh Maity, Subodh Gupta, Chintan Upadhyay, Baiju Parthan and Dayanita Singh among others will be part of the auction highlights.

Latin American Sales in the USA Have Best Year Since 2008 Financial Crisis

jcvcms@gmail.com (Walker Simon) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:13:59 +0000

NEW YORK, NY - Latin American art sales, which totaled nearly $90 million in New York in 2011, scored their best year since the 2008 financial crisis, aided by a boom in Brazilian art and demand from Asia. The sales at Christie's and Sotheby's were second only to the 2008 Latin American market total of $96 million, according to the auction houses. While they primarily attribute the success to the selective quality of the works, collectors and gallery owners said a bigger factor is the global emergence from recession and demand from countries with strong economic expansion. "Botero is the best known living artist in the world," said Sotheby's Latin American chief Carmen Melian.

"Andrew Rogers: Time and Space" on View at the 18th Street Arts Center

jcvcms@gmail.com (Geoffrey Henderson) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:11:26 +0000

Santa Monica, CA.- From May 7 through 28 May , the 18th Street Arts Center will present "Andrew Rogers: Time and Space", a selection of 68 large-scale photographs of Rogers’s ground-breaking outdoor art project. The exhibition will showcase aerial and satellite photographs of 47 sculptures created over a period of 13 years, making it the first time these images will be publicly displayed together. Also on view will be a looped, 40-minute film that documents the artist’s extraordinary process. Rogers has spent the last 13 years engaging over 6,700 people in 13 countries on seven continents to create stone sculptures in deserts, fjords, gorges, national parks and on mountainous slopes. By building structures with local significance, and providing sustaining support to maintain the mammoth artworks, Rogers engages the communities where his works are created.

Following each project’s completion, Rogers photographs the work himself either from a hot air balloon, a helicopter 500 feet aloft or from a satellite stationed 480 miles above ground. Rhythms of Life forms a chain of 47 stone sculptures, or geoglyphs, positioned at 13 sites around the world. Constructed of earth and rocks, and following the contours of the natural landscape, Rogers’s land sculptures each measure up to 430,000 square feet in area up to 14 feet tall. Designed in conjunction with select architects and a team of local workers, the structures refer to the physical building blocks of history and civilization, while addressing the cycle of life and the interconnection of humanity throughout time and space. Rogers began the project in Israel’s Arava Desert in 1998 and has since created artworks on five continents: in Israel, Chile, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Australia, Iceland, China, India, Turkey, Nepal, Slovakia, the United States, Kenya and Antarctica.

At each site, the project is initiated with a celebration that draws on local customs, such as traditional dancing and singing in China, sharing of wine and coca in Chile or the sacrifice of a llama in Bolivia. To create the land sculptures, Rogers and his crews battle the elements, including freezing snow in Iceland, 110-degree heat in an Israeli desert and altitudes of 14,000 feet in the Bolivian Andes. The project in Turkey is the world’s largest contemporary land art park. It includes twelve massive stone structures, most built by hand. The lines of these structures measure approximately 4 miles in length and are comprised of over 10,500 tons of stone. The park spans a mountain valley over a distance of 1.5miles.

Andrew Rogers is one of Australia’s most distinguished and internationally recognized contemporary artists. He exhibits internationally and his critically acclaimed sculptures are in numerous private and prominent public collections in Australia, South East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States of America. The Australian sculptor began his personal artistic journey almost 30 years ago as a painter. But in the late 1980s, after numerous visits to the Musee Rodin, in Paris, he decided to give up painting to take up sculpture. "With sculpture we learn to perceive, to recognize differences, to clarify, to make a decision, and eventually one can see what it is that matters to create a form." Andrew Rogers specialises in monumental and landmark sculptures both figurative and abstract and has carried out an impressive number of commissions and has major works not only in Australia, but also in San Francisco, New Jersey, Dallas, Vienna, Kobe, Osaka, Singapore, Athens, Jerusalem, Taipei, Berkshire UK, and Machu Picchu in Peru. They range from a small intimate bronze, Resistance, presented to Simon Wiesenthal in Vienna, to Evolution a huge complex work 43 metres high. He has received many international commissions and his works are included in private and public collections throughout in Australia, South East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S. Rhythms of Life is his most ambitious project to date. Visit the artist's website at ... www.andrewrogers.com

The 18th Street Arts Center came into existence in 1988 as a complex of artist live-work spaces and the headquarters of High Performance magazine. High Performance magazine, ceased publication in 1998 and folded into API’s new Community Arts Network on the Internet, supporting artists working with communities. Over the next 15 years, 18th Street formalized its Residency Program, developed an International Artist-in-Residence Exchange Program, a Presenting Program to curate and produce exhibitions, and an Arts Education Program. In 2003, 18th Street changed its name to 18th Street Arts Center and today is a respected destination for national and international artists wishing to publish, perform, work and/or exhibit in Los Angeles County. 18th Street’s prominent arts programs have hosted and sponsored over 150 group and solo exhibitions serving 700 artists since 1988. They have featured many of Los Angeles’s most interesting emerging and mid-career artists at crucial points when such recognition made a real difference in their careers. The roster is a cross section of the multicultural population of artists in Los Angeles and includes Lita Albuquerque, Alex Donis, Lisa Adams, Robbie Conal, Charles Karubian, Michael Horse, Alex Gray, Francisco Letelier, Judy Baca, Barabara T. Smith, Ron Athey, Diane Gamboa, John Outterbridge, Catherine Opie, Denise Uehara, Mark Spencer, Mark Greenfield, Sheila Pinkel, and Hirokazu Kosaka, to name just a few. Artists and organizations in residence at 18th Street have been recognized for their outstanding work by the Guggenheim Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Getty Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. 18th Street Arts Center’s International Program is also a worldwide leader in artist exchange programs and provides one of the few international artist exchange programs in Los Angeles. 18th Street has hosted artists from two dozen countries. Through 18th Street’s exhibitions, workshops, and community festivals, the organization encourages and supports the creation of cutting-edge contemporary art, and fosters collaboration and interaction between artists and arts organizations locally, nationally and internationally. The curatorial focus of 18th Street has remained constant throughout the last fifteen years, with a unique mandate to concentrate on encouraging the careers of emerging and under-represented mid-career artists. Visit the art center's website at ... http://18thstreet.org

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

jcvcms@gmail.com (Editor, Art Knowledge News) — Mon, 28 May 2012 02:10:26 +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.

The 54th Venice Biennale & International Art Exhibition Opens June 4th

jcvcms@gmail.com (Salvatore Gastaldello) — Sun, 27 May 2012 06:16:02 +0000

Venice.- The 54th International Art Exhibition, with the title of "ILLUMInazioni (ILLUMInations)", directed by Bice Curiger and organized by la Biennale di Venezia under the presidency of Paolo Baratta, will be opening on Friday, June 3rd, and will be accessible to the public from Saturday, June 4th to November 27th in the Giardini and the Arsenale. The preview will take place on June 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Bice Curiger is an art historian, critic and curator of international exhibitions. Her curatorial activity at Kunsthaus Zurich parallels her important work in the publishing sector. In 1984, she cofounded the prestigious art magazine “Parkett”, of which she is editor-in-chief. She has been publishing director of London Tate Gallery magazine “Tate etc” since 2004.

The exhibition "ILLUMInazioni" will be laid out in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini and in the Arsenale, forming a single itinerary, featuring 82 artists from all over the world, including 32 young artists born after 1975, as well as 32 women artists. The director asked four participating artists to create “parapavilions”, architectural and sculptural structures erected in the Giardini and the Arsenale to house the works of other artists. As usual, the Exhibition will be paralleled by 89 National Participations, a record for the Art Biennale, housed in the historical Pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, as well as in other locations around the city. The Padiglione Italia in the Arsenale, organized by the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities together with PaBAAC – General Direction for landscape, fine arts, architecture and contemporary art, will be curated by Vittorio Sgarbi.

The countries that will be participating for the first time will be Andorra, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Haiti. Other countries will be participating after a long period of absence: India (1982), Congo (1968), Iraq (1990), Zimbabwe (1990), South Africa (1995), Costa Rica (1993, afterwards with IILA), Cuba (1995, afterwards with IILA). More than 40 Collateral Events will be arranged by international organizations and institutions, which will set up their exhibitions and initiatives in various locations around the city on the occasion of the Biennale.

Biennale Sessions is a programme addressed at institutions, operating in the field of research and education in the domain of arts or similar. The objective is to promote the Exhibition visit among groups of at least 50 students and teachers, who will be given support to organize their trip and stay. They will also be given the possibility to organize seminars in venues we offer them free of charge. We have contacted more than 2,000 international institutions so far, who have been invited to take part in the programme. Meetings on Art stands for a number of meetings and seminars with artists, curators, philosophers and theologians scheduled in the month of June and early in autumn. As Paolo Baratta explains, the purpose of both these projects is to “confirm the role played by la Biennale di Venezia as an institution open to knowledge and to the spirit of research”.

Educational activity is also planned for 2011, addressing individuals as well as groups of students belonging to schools (regardless of any level and kind), universities and academies of fine arts, professionals, companies, experts, art lovers and families alike. Such initiatives, guided by selected operators trained by la Biennale di Venezia, aim at actively involving participants, and are divided into Guided visits and Lab Activities. The 54th Exhibition opening and award ceremony will be taking place on Friday, June 3rd in the Giardini, with the presentation of the official awards by the International Jury. Visit the biennale's website at ... http://www.labiennale.org

Stanley Spencer at Laning

jcvcms@gmail.com (Yung Ho) — Sun, 27 May 2012 06:12:58 +0000

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK - The Stanley Spencer exhibition has previously been on show at Tate Liverpool. A major exhibition of work by one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century is to go on show at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle. On exhibition through 11 January, 2009.