Art Knowledge News - Keeping You in Touch with the World of Art...

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• The Stux Gallery To Feature New Paintings by Aaron Johnson
• Tracey Emin Dazzles 10 Downing Street with "More Passion" Neon Light
• Contemporary Photographic Art from Iceland at Frankfurt's Kunstverein
• Detroit Institute of Arts to Present "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus"
• Musée du Quai Branly Announces 3rd Edition of the Photoquai Exhibition of World Images
• The Orange Coast College Art Center Gallery To Host Arthur Taussig Dante-Inspired Prints
• The Jonathan LeVine Gallery Presents 'Van Arno: The Minstrel Cycle'
• Photographs by Lalla Essaydi on View at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum
• Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) displays Contemporary Chinese Art
• Other People: Portraits from Grunwald and Hammer Museum Collections
• Berkeley Art Museum Explores the Logic of the Ghosts in Exhibition
• Indianapolis Museum of Art hosts "Sacred Spain: Art and Belief in the Spanish World"
• Our Editor Views The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design In Oslo
• Shelburne Museum hosts a Major Mary Cassatt Exhibit
• Gemeentemuseum Den Haag Presents an Exhibition of the Ideal Man
• The Pace Gallery In New York Presents a Large-Scale Installation by Tara Donovan
• Hammer Museum exhibits Epic Collages of Aaron Morse
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

The Stux Gallery To Feature New Paintings by Aaron Johnson Posted: 21 Aug 2011 10:56 PM PDT New York City.- The Stux Gallery is pleased to present "Freedom from Want", an exhibition of new paintings by Aaron Johnson. In paintings that are glimmering, seductive, and emanating light, Johnson's monsters are gruesome, sadistic, and spewing venom. This body of work is a bold reflection on the decaying excesses of our insatiable culture. "Freedom from Want" is on view at the gallery from September 15th through October 22nd. With obsessive enthusiasm, Johnson has delved deeper into his lexicon of Americana Grotesque and has plunged his fiendish monsters further into a theater of cosmic madness. These paintings invite us to binge upon an exquisitely detailed feast of severed heads, Uncle Sam monsters, sausage crucifixes, fried eagles, mashed guts, fuck-burgers, camel roast, mutant sea creatures, and oil oozing fresh from the rig. Lingering ghosts of a Rockwellian American idyll smile naively as the American dream boils over into an ecstatic hallucinatory nightmare. War machines, fueled by dog shit and the blood of Christ, churn across oil fields and battle fields, as the angel of death flies over with a cackle of furious laughter. As they reflect on the callous cruelty of war, the absurd intersection of religion and government, and the hell on earth that society thereby creates, these paintings come boldly forward from the artist's admiration of past masters such as Goya, Hieronymus Bosch, Dieric Bouts, and Otto Dix. These works expose a desiring machine monster that consumes perpetually until there is nothing left to do but devour itself. The color in these works emanates exuberant pleasure, if not maniacal laughter, creating a marriage of humor with the darkness of the content. The pristine surfaces resonate in glowing crystalline layers, the result of Johnson's enigmatic process. He paints in reverse on clear plastic, building up layers of acrylic that are ultimately peeled off the plastic and mounted on polyester net. The techniques combine tightly controlled meticulous details with misbehaving splashes of poured paint. The weirdness of his process and his distinctive painterly vocabulary have grown together over the years in a symbiotic relationship, where the methods and the monsters worked together to invent each other. Painting in reverse is the artist's metaphor for scrutinizing the world from the inside out to reveal what lurks beneath the surface. The peeled paint technique is like a ripping off of the skin, a cracking open of the head, a release of the demons. Aaron Johnson received his MFA from Hunter College, NY in 2005, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. His work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally at such venues as the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, NY; Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen; Gallery Brandstrup, Oslo; The Running Horse Contemporary Art Space, Beirut; Leo Koenig Projekte, New York; Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York; and Marlborough Gallery, New York. Johnson's exhibitions have been reviewed in many publications including Art News, Beautiful Decay, Kunst International, The Art Newspaper, The Village Voice, and The New York Times. His work is in the permanent collections of The Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. This is Johnson's second solo show at Stux Gallery and his fifth solo show in New York. Throughout the years the Gallery has fostered international relationships and collaborations over the years with an array of international galleries, such as Krinzinger Gallery (Vienna), Micheline Swajcer Gallery (Antwerp), Mayor Rowan Gallery (London), Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery (Australia), Seibu Gallery (Tokyo/Oasaka), Pilar Parra (Madrid), Jacob Karpio (Costa Rica), Galerie Christian Nagel (Köln/Berlin), Gallery Terra Tokyo (Japan), Kobayashi Gallery (Japan), and many others. The aesthetic vision that binds this broad array of artists together has more to do with their deep intelligence and commitment to innovation and conceptual art, than any particular formal characteristics.  The goal of the gallery is, ultimately, to present challenging work that rewards complex, multifaceted consideration by the viewer. At it's current location since 2004 in a newly refurbished, 4,000 sq. ft. ground floor space on 25th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea, the Gallery finds itself at the epicenter of New York's gallery scene. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.stuxgallery.com

Tracey Emin Dazzles 10 Downing Street with "More Passion" Neon Light Posted: 21 Aug 2011 10:40 PM PDT London - "More Passion", a neon installation by Tracey Emin now has pride of place in one of the most prestigious settings inside No 10, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. It now hangs outside the Terracotta Room, lighting up a dark hallway and making the entrance to the room, according to one insider, "look like a nightclub". Tracey Emin, who was in Downing Street last week putting the finishing touches to the installation, was invited to contribute a piece by David Cameron, a big fan of her work, last year. A No 10 spokeswoman confirmed that "More Passion" had been donated to the Government Art Collection by Emin, 48, a former enfant terrible of the art world who is now a Royal Academician. Similar Emin installations regularly fetch tens of thousands of pounds.

Contemporary Photographic Art from Iceland at Frankfurt's Kunstverein Posted: 21 Aug 2011 08:13 PM PDT FRANKFURT.- "Frontiers of Another Nature" is a unique selection of Icelandic photographic and multimedia artists who address landscape and man-made environments in their work. The exhibition explores how the photographic arts are an essential means for examining the undeniably complex relationship of Icelanders to their natural environment. "Frontiers of Another Nature" introduces ambiguous environments in which the photographers investigate and build visual narratives around the expanse of land, or the loss of it. Here, the landscape often acts as metaphor for desire, alienation, magnificence and awe, tradition, irony or rebellion. Some of the artists specifically work within the expansive borders of city life in regard to the extreme economic changes the country has seen in the last 10 years.

Detroit Institute of Arts to Present "Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus" Posted: 21 Aug 2011 08:12 PM PDT DETROIT, MI.- Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) from Nov. 20th, through February 12, 2012, brings together for the first time many of Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn's finest paintings, prints and drawings that portray Jesus and events described in the Bible. The exhibition has been organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Musée du Louvre and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The exhibition of 64 works includes approximately 52 small, intimate paintings, prints and drawings by Rembrandt and his students that illustrate how Rembrandt broke from traditional 17th-century representations of Jesus. In addition to the organizers, works come from more than 30 lenders, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Metropolitan Museum in New York, the British Museum, and the National Gallery in London.

Musée du Quai Branly Announces 3rd Edition of the Photoquai Exhibition of World Images Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:56 PM PDT PARIS.- Created in 2007 by the Musée du quai Branly and dedicated to non-Western photography, the 3rd edition of the PHOTOQUAI biennial exhibition of world images takes place on the quays of the Seine alongside the Musée du quai Branly, extending for the first time into the museum garden. Acclaimed since its first edition for its quality, originality, ambition and relevance, in PHOTOQUAI will continue to pursue its original mission: showcasing artists whose work is little known in Europe, stimulating communication and allowing for an exchange of world views. On exhibition 13 September through 11 November.

The Orange Coast College Art Center Gallery To Host Arthur Taussig Dante-Inspired Prints Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:55 PM PDT Costa Mesa, CA.- The Orange Coast College Art Center Gallery is proud to present "Alex's Abventures in the Five Rivers" or "A Year of Dreaming Dangerously", a new exhibit of 20 photographic prints by Arthur Taussig that will be on display in the Art Center from August 29th through October 10th. Inspired by Dante Alghieri, a 14th century Italian poet who wrote the epic poem "The Divine Comedy" Taussig takes the viewer on the journey through the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Taussig, a film and photography professor at OCC from 1971 to 2001, will host a reception on Monday, Oct. 3rd, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on the second floor of the Art Center, where the gallery is located. The exhibit will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free. Inspired by Dante Alghieri, a 14th century Italian poet who wrote the epic poem "The Divine Comedy," Taussig takes the viewer on the journey though the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. The exhibit features 20 prints created by Taussig as part of a five-volume series depicting the Five Rivers of the Underworld. Taussig is designing a boxed set that will be available for purchase on Blurb.com. The Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles, will handle sales of a limited edition that will be numbered and signed by the artist. "While beginning to make illustrations for the Divine Comedy, I became distracted by the idea of the five rivers," Taussig said. "Fire, anger, sorrow, lamentation, and oblivion seemed like the map of a psychological process. This process could be anything from normal growth, to dealing with disease, to working out a relationship, to facing death. "To explore this process, I invented my traveler – Alex – a man of the past and of the present, boldly striding forward, at once concerned and unconcerned," Taussig explained. "As he explores the Five Rivers he is an observer, a participant, and an instigator. At times he is firmly grounded in the landscapes of the Underworld; at times he seems to float through these worlds. Yet as he moves through these landscapes, observing, experiencing, he never moves – he is grounded in the frame of the image. Alex's experiences are internal. Thus 'abventure' seems to me more appropriate than 'adventure.' Alex ventures 'out' through the underworld while keeping his experiences internal – the nature of growth." While he was at OCC, Taussig served as acting head of the OCC Photography Department and assistant division dean of Fine Arts from 1974 to 1976. In addition, he was director of the OCC Photography Gallery for five years.  From 1992 to 2001, he was adjunct curator of film for the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach. Taussig earned a BS degree in physics from University of California, Berkeley; a Master's degree in biological chemistry from UCLA and a doctorate in biophysics from UCLA. He also completed private studies and workshops and photography and film with John Upton, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Jerry Uelsman, Robert Heinecken, Ansel Adams, Henry Holmes Smith, Paul Caponigro, William Parker and John Truby. Orange Coast College, founded in 1947, is one of the nation's top transfer schools. With a student population of 22,000, OCC provides exemplary programs leading to Associate in Arts degrees, Associate in Science degrees and 145 career programs. The college's 164-acre campus is located in the heart of Costa Mesa. OCC's new galleries are state-of-the-art, and rank among the finest in the nation. They consulted with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and five other museums on security, lighting and sound for our facility. The lights in the Doyle Arts Pavilion can be set in 2,700 different configurations. They have eight large north-facing skylights in the Pavilion that provide us with exceptional lighting all day long. The Arts Pavilion consists of a Main Art Gallery, and the Young Artists Gallery. The Arts Center also houses a performing space, the Robert B. Moore Theatre. This beautiful, recently renovated theatre was designed by the world famous architect, Richard Neutra. It is a 916 seat theatre capable of full scale Broadway type shows, dance concerts, and symphony orchestras. It is here the Theatre Department performs special productions, such as a yearly Shakespeare performance, sellout children's theatre productions and summer musicals. Visit the center's website at ... http://www.orangecoastcollege.edu/

The Jonathan LeVine Gallery Presents 'Van Arno: The Minstrel Cycle' Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:40 PM PDT New York.- The Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce 'The Minstrel Cycle', new works by Van Arno in what will be the Los Angeles-based artist's first solo exhibition at the gallery and most ambitious show, to date. The opening reception will be held on Saturday 16th April 2011, and the exhibition will then run through May 14th 2011. 'The Minstrel Cycle' features a series of seven large multi-figure oil paintings on canvas, reflecting themes of race and music, which the artist has explored and developed over the past several years. For this exhibition, Arno draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including real and imagined historical events, the surprising true lives of entertainers, blues and hip-hop lyrics, multi-cultural folklore and Afro-Caribbean mysticism. The show title references minstrelsy, a controversial form of entertainment from the 1800s, in which performers in blackface lampooned African-American culture through comic-musical variety acts loaded with racial stereotypes. Since the word minstrel is so culturally charged in discussions of race-relations in the United States and in the historical roots of contemporary musical influences, the artist thought it would be a fitting title for his new body of work. There is a broad range of subjects for the paintings in this show, including Lucifer and the blind fates (three prophetic witches who share one eye, also known as the Graeae in Greek mythology) along with historical figures such as the famous entertainer, Josephine Baker. Throughout his work, Arno consistently pushes the human figure into extremes of posture to emphasize his Baroque sensibility and approach to create tension, contrast, form and shadow. In the artist's words: "I attempt to paint the archetypical moment of clarity and passion. Imagery must be made exciting and alive. Rules of lighting, anatomy, gravity and physics must be bent or broken to make the picture LOUD. That is the ultimate goal of my work." Born in 1963 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Van Arno was raised in St. Louis, Missouri where he attended a Christian Science school from Kindergarten through High school. Arno studied at Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles, and by the early '90s, his illustration resume included skateboard deck designs for Powell Peralta, story-boarding for Robotech, box art for Bandai Games, as well as numerous clients in the music industry. When his focus shifted to fine art, Arno began to create figurative works featuring religious, folk, pop culture, and mythical heroes. His paintings have been exhibited across the country in galleries and institutions such as the Riverside Art Museum and Laguna Art Museum in California and the Hollywood Art and Culture Center in Florida. A book of the artist's collected works (2000-2008), entitled Volume: The Uber-Mannerist Work of Van Arno was published in 2009. visit the artists website at ... http://www.vanarno.com/ Jonathan LeVine Gallery exhibits a genre of work influenced by illustration, comic book art, graffiti, street art and pop culture imagery. We represent a mix of emerging and mid-career artists with an emphasis on cultivating new talent and creating an environment where artists can further develop their work. Since 2005, the first year established in New York, Jonathan LeVine Gallery has remained focused on maintaining its mission of community and commitment to providing our artists with a nurturing arena for experimentation and discussion. The gallery is located at 529 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm. Visit the gallery's website at ... www.jonathanlevinegallery.com

Photographs by Lalla Essaydi on View at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:39 PM PDT NEW BRUNSWICK.- Born in Morocco into a conservative Muslim family and educated in Europe and the United States, Lalla Essaydi is poised at the intersection of two cultures. She is one of several contemporary Islamic women artists whose subjects are informed by feminist perspectives and personal experience. Her work has garnered increasing acclaim in Europe and America; in 2011 she will be the subject of a mid-career survey at the North Carolina Museum of Art. On exhibition through 6 June, 2010.

Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) displays Contemporary Chinese Art Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:38 PM PDT SALEM, MA.- Today, an exhibition of works from the foremost collection of contemporary Chinese art comes to the Peabody Essex Museum February 21 through May 17, 2009. PEM is the exclusive East Coast venue for Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, an assemblage of provocative works organized by the Berkeley Art Museum. Featuring paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations and video, Mahjong reflects four decades of artistic exploration.

Other People: Portraits from Grunwald and Hammer Museum Collections Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:37 PM PDT   Los Angeles, CA - This exhibition presents a selection of portraits in a variety of media dating from the early sixteenth century to the present day. The works of art are drawn from two major collections housed at the Hammer Museum: the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts and the Hammer Contemporary Collection. The Grunwald Center collection comprises an extensive collection of works on paper, primarily European, American, and Japanese prints, drawings, and photographs dating from the Renaissance to the present. On view through 15 March, 2009.

Berkeley Art Museum Explores the Logic of the Ghosts in Exhibition Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:36 PM PDT BERKELEY, CA.- Hauntology, essentially the logic of the ghost, is a concept as ephemeral and abstract as the term implies. Since it was first used by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in a 1993 lecture delivered at UC Riverside concerning the state of Marxist thought in the post-Communist era, the term hauntology has been widely discussed in philosophical and political circles, as well as becoming a major influence in the development of various sub-genres of electronic music. On view at the Berkeley Art Museum through 5 December.

Indianapolis Museum of Art hosts "Sacred Spain: Art and Belief in the Spanish World" Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:35 PM PDT INDIANAPOLIS, IN.- The first exhibition to examine the religious visual culture of 17th-century Spain and Latin America will premiere at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on October 11, 2009. "Sacred Spain: Art and Belief in the Spanish World" brings to life the challenges faced by visual artists such as El Greco, Francisco Zurbarán, Alonso Cano, Franciso Ribalta, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Juan de Valdes Leal, Juan Correa, Cristobal Villalpando and others, who were charged with the creative task of making religious images that were useful, truthful and moving. The exhibition will feature 80 works of art, including paintings, polychrome sculpture, metalwork and books, many of which have never before been seen in the United States. Sacred Spain will be on view exclusively in Indianapolis from October 11, 2009 through January 3, 2010.

Our Editor Views The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design In Oslo Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:34 PM PDT The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Norwegian: Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design) in Oslo is the national museum of art of Norway. It was established on 1 July 2003 through a merger of the Norwegian Museum of Architecture, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery, and the National Touring Exhibitions. In 2003 the museum was established as a foundation, merging the former Norwegian Museum of Architecture, Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Museum of Contemporary Art and National Gallery. A new director, Sune Nordgren, was appointed, and the work of restructuring the National Museum from four separate museums began. This entailed the creation of one, split-function organization with four different exhibition venues. In April 2005, most of the staff of the National Museum moved to a new administration building in Kristian Augusts, close to Tullinløkka. On the 1 July 2005 the National Touring Exhibitions, Norway became part of the National Museum. The aims of the new museum are to 'raise the level of knowledge about and commitment to the visual arts, architecture, the decorative arts and design, develop critical faculties, stimulate new perceptions, increased historical consciousness and tolerance of diversity'. The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design lends a number of works from the Collections to exhibitions in Norway and abroad. Artworks from the National Museum are also on loan to State buildings in Norway and abroad. The National Museum is a forward-looking and innovative arena for the experience of the visual arts. At the same time it should be a safeguard for many of the nation's art treasures. With this project the nation will have a unifying and worthy National Museum, which is well- exposed, extrovert and easily accessible. The overall concept holds rationality and possesses openness that gives great opportunity for the flexibility of the different functions. At the same time the building contains of dramatic and challenging room sequences in a unique and very modern building. The experience of the project should be characterized by the interaction and synergy between the sites' distinctiveness, the different parts of the project and the overall architectural expression. The museum emerges as Norway's national icon.

Shelburne Museum hosts a Major Mary Cassatt Exhibit Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:33 PM PDT SHELBURNE, VT - Mary Cassatt: Friends and Family features more than 60 works by Cassatt and Edgar Degas, many of which are on loan from private collections and museums including, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Cassatt's signature monumental mother-and-child works figure prominently in the exhibit. Little known family portraits and Cassatt's personal correspondence add fresh insight into the artist's world.

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag Presents an Exhibition of the Ideal Man Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:32 PM PDT THE HAGUE.- Clothes maketh the man. At times it may seem as if men simply open the wardrobe and put on the first thing that comes to hand, or as if a frivolous tie to brighten up the standard grey three-piece suit is the most daring thing they ever put on, but this summer's exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag shows that nothing could be further from the truth. The Ideal Man, fashion for real men combines brightly coloured and extravagantly patterned eighteenth-century habits à la française with spectacular contemporary outfits from the latest collections of celebrated designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Bernhard Willhelm and Walter van Beirendonck. The evidence of the past and present reveals that men's fashion is anything but boring.

The Pace Gallery In New York Presents a Large-Scale Installation by Tara Donovan Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:31 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- In conjunction with Tara Donovan: Drawings (Pins) at 510 West 25th Street (February 12–March 19), The Pace Gallery presents Untitled (Mylar), 2011, a sprawling single large-scale installation on view for the first time at 545 West 22nd Street from March 4 through April 9, 2011. In Donovan's new installation, sheets of Mylar grow into towering organic structures of varying heights rising up to approximately 11 feet tall. As with the artist's pin drawings on view at 510 West 25th Street, light plays a pivotal role in the work as it catches the folds of Mylar and radiates off its undulating metallic surfaces. The installation relates to Untitled (Mylar), 2010, recently acquired by the Indianapolis Museum of Art for their permanent collection, and is the first of its kind to be shown in New York City.

Hammer Museum exhibits Epic Collages of Aaron Morse Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:30 PM PDT   Los Angeles, CA -  Aaron Morse is a Los Angeles-based artist whose paintings depict epic collages of imagery pulled from sources as divergent as 20th-century American politics, 19th-century Romantic literature, comics, art historical painting genres, and current events. For the Hammer Museum's lobby walls, Morse created Timeline, a monumental wallpaper design that has been printed and reworked by hand-painting. Timeline is a densely composed vertical collage that depicts events from the Big Bang to the imagined future. Disproportionate visual space is given to things here on earth, with groups of figures simultaneously ordered and chaotically jumbled.

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 21 Aug 2011 07:29 PM PDT 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.

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