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• The Philadelphia Museum of Art Shows Product Designs by Zaha Hadid
• The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Features Contemporary Art From Germany
• The Jewish Museum Berlin Celebrates its 10th Anniversary With a Special Exhibition
• The École de Nancy Museum Presents the Art Nouveau Works of Jacques Gruber
• The Dennos Museum Center Hosts The Society of Animal Artists Annual Show
• Boris Kustodiev Masterpiece for Sale at MacDougall's Russian Art Auctions
• William Etty's Controversial Paintings at the York Art Gallery in England
• Banksyyy ~ Best of British now an American Arts Hero ?
• Albertina Museum Presents Masterpieces of Austrian Watercolour Painting
• The Walker Art Gallery features 'The Rise of Women Artists'
• Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico Presents René Magritte Exhibition
• Bonhams London Sale Hopes To Join to the Recovering Art Market
• Ordrupgaard Museum in Copenhagen to show Balke & Kirkeby "Distant Horizons"
• Keith Haring's 50th Anniversary
• Three Centuries of Alluring British Art on Paper at Christie's in December
• SFMOMA Selects Snøhetta to Work on Museum Expansion and Design
• National Institute of Anthropology & History Restored Rosete Aranda Marionettes of INBA
• Yes . . . There Is A Museum of Communism in Prague
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Philadelphia Museum of Art Shows Product Designs by Zaha Hadid Posted: 16 Sep 2011 12:11 AM PDT Philadelphia, PA.- The Philadelphia Museum of Art is proud to present "Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion" on view from September 17th through March 25th 2012. Zaha Hadid, one of the most innovative architects of the twenty-first century and the first woman to receive the renowned Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004, has advanced the language of contemporary architecture and design, exploring complex fluid geometries and using cutting-edge digital design and fabrication technologies. For "Form in Motion", Hadid will create an all-encompassing environment to display examples of the furniture, objects, and footwear she has designed in recent years as well as the prototype for her Z-Car I (2005). This exhibition will be the first in this country to feature Hadid's product designs in a setting of her own creation. On November 19th, Zaha Hadid will be honored with the Design Excellence Award given by Collab, a volunteer committee of design professionals and enthusiasts supporting the modern and contemporary design collection at the Museum. Combining architecture and design, "Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion" will display an undulating environment of finished polystyrene and vinyl structures based on curvilinear geometries. Exploiting a formal language of fluid movement, Hadid's exhibition design emphasizes the continuous nature of her work, and how the fields of architecture, urbanism, and design are closely interrelated in her practice. Sleekly curving sofas, tables, and chairs made of materials ranging from steel and aluminum to polyurethane will inhabit the gallery, while jewelry, shoes, and tableware installed together in small groups along a rippling wall represent the wide variety of new and unusual shapes Hadid has introduced into the language of design. The Mesa Table is supported by branching, lofted connectors, more void than solid, while a table made of polished aluminum appears to hover close to the floor supported only by the same invisible forces that generate the craters on its surface. The striated video wall, sinuous floor and wall graphics will transform the gallery and its contents into a singular, fluid, dynamic composition. Some works are disguised as micro-architecture, such as the Coffee & Tea Set (1997), nearly unidentifiable as a set of containers for tea, coffee, milk, and sugar. Others, including WMF Flatware and Crevasse Vases, are more transparent in function. Among the highlights are a collection of Swarovski crystal-encrusted necklaces and bracelets, and spiraling, strappy shoes made for Lacoste and Melissa. Hadid's three-wheeled Z-Car I, an aerodynamic prototype mimicking several of Hadid's sculptural forms, will be on view in the Perelman Atrium. In the nearby Collab Gallery, also located in the Perelman Building and named in recognition of a leadership gift from Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer, a selection of works of contemporary design from the Museum's collection will be on view. Collab: Four Decades of Giving commemorates the 40th anniversary of this support group and the many contributions it has made to the Museum's collections of modern and contemporary design. Zaha Hadid, founding director of Zaha Hadid Architects, has more than 30 years of revolutionary experimentation and research in the interrelated fields of urbanism, architecture and design. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1950, Zaha Hadid studied in Lebanon, Switzerland, and in England. Today, Hadid, a British citizen, is based in London and works on projects throughout the world. Recently completed projects include the Guangzhou Opera House in China; MAXXI: National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome; and the Riverside Museum of Transport in Glasgow. Currently, Hadid and her firm are working on a multitude of projects including the Aquatics Centre for the London 2012 Olympic Games. In conjunction with "Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion", Collab will present the 2011 Design Excellence Award to Zaha Hadid on the evening of November 19, 2011. The Design Excellence Award honors a renowned designer or manufacturer who has enriched the world with his or her unique creative vision. The award ceremony will take place in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Van Pelt Auditorium, and will include an illustrated lecture by Ms. Hadid. Rising majestically at the end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the Philadelphia Museum of Art stands as one of the great art institutions of the world. In the over 125 years since its founding, it has grown far beyond the limits originally set for it. Today, the Museum houses over 225,000 works of art encompassing some of the greatest achievements of human creativity, and offers a wealth of exhibitions and educational programs for a public of all ages. Historically, the Museum was a legacy of the great Centennial Exposition of 1876 held in Fairmount Park. The Museum's 225,000 objects span the creative achievements of the Western world since the first century AD and those of Asia since the third millennium BC. The European collections, dating from the medieval era to the present, encompass Italian and Flemish early-Renaissance masterworks including strong representations of later European paintings, featuring French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, sculpture (with a special concentration in the works of Auguste Rodin), decorative arts, tapestries, furniture and the second-largest collection of arms and armor in the United States. The museum's American collections, surveying three centuries of painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, are among the finest in the United States, with outstanding strengths in 18th- and 19th-century Philadelphia furniture and silver, rural Pennsylvania furniture and ceramics, and the paintings of Thomas Eakins. Modern artwork includes extraordinary concentrations of work by such artists as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Constantin Brâncusi, as well as American modernists, making the museum one of the best in the world in which to see modern art. The expanding collection of contemporary art includes major works by Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, and Sol LeWitt, among many others. In addition to these collections, the museum houses encyclopedic holdings of costume and textiles, as well as prints, drawings, and photographs that are displayed in rotation for reasons of preservation. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.philamuseum.org

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Features Contemporary Art From Germany Posted: 16 Sep 2011 12:10 AM PDT St. Louis, MS.- The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is pleased to present "Precarious Worlds: Contemporary Art From Germany", on view at the museum through January 9th 2012. This exhibition will feature the first five works acquired thanks to an extraordinary gift from the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation to support the acquisition of new works by artists living and working in Germany. "Over the last two decades, Germany has reemerged as an intellectual and creative center of the international art world," says Sabine Eckmann, the William T. Kemper Director and Chief Curator of the Kemper Art Museum. "These new acquisitions will strongly enhance the museum's outstanding collection of contemporary German art. They also provide a fresh opportunity to explore how artists have responded, both explicitly and implicitly, to the acceleration of globalization and its broad effects on culture, commerce and society."

The Jewish Museum Berlin Celebrates its 10th Anniversary With a Special Exhibition Posted: 15 Sep 2011 11:06 PM PDT Berlin.- The Jewish Museum Berlin is pleased to present "How German is it? 30 Artists' Notion of Home", a special exhibition marking the 10th Anniversary of the museum. The exhibition opens on September 16th and remains on view through January 29th 2012. The Jewish Museum Berlin is seizing the opportunity of its 10th anniversary to take a snapshot in time of the relationship that people living there have to Germany: A Germany that – through the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of the two German states, and the recognition that almost 20 % of its citizens have a so-called migration background – has visibly altered. The distance in time since the Holocaust and the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union have also brought about a radical shift in the self-image of Jews in Germany during the last 20 years.

The École de Nancy Museum Presents the Art Nouveau Works of Jacques Gruber Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:45 PM PDT Nancy, France.- The École de Nancy Museum is proud to present "Jacques Gruber and Art Nouveau: A Decorative Path", on view at the Galeries Poirel from September 16th through January 22nd 2012. The museum has assembed more than 150 of Gruber's works, including posters and paintings, decorative pieces and furniture, but pride of place goes to the magnificent stained-glass works for which Gruber became most famous. Works have come from museums and private collectors in the Nancy area (where Gruber lived and worked), but also from major museum collections further afield, including Musée d'Orsay, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Royal Art and History in Brussels.

The Dennos Museum Center Hosts The Society of Animal Artists Annual Show Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:22 PM PDT Traverse City, Michigan.- The Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College is proud to host the 2011 "Art and the Animal" origination exhibition which is the flagship exhibition of The Society of Animal Artists, an organization dedicated to maintaining the highest standards among painters and sculptors who specialize in animal subject matter. The exhibition will be presented at the Dennos in its entirety from September 17th to October 30th. at which time half of the exhibition will be placed on a national tour. The balance of the exhibition will remain through December 30th,  at which time these works will also begin a national tour.

Boris Kustodiev Masterpiece for Sale at MacDougall's Russian Art Auctions Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:22 PM PDT LONDON.- MacDougall's announces that its forthcoming Russian Art Auctions will be headlined by Merchant's Wife, an exceptional masterpiece by Boris Kustodiev. The painting is estimated at £1,200,000‐1,800,000, and will be among the top lots of London's fall 2011 Russian week. Merchants' wives, or Kupchikhas as they are known in Russian, are among the artist's most recognizable subjects. In these works, Kustodiev was looking for a distinctly Russian style using a wealth of rich and vibrant colours. He found inspiration in the merchant classes of provincial towns, vestiges of tradition at a time when Russia was going through dramatic changes.

William Etty's Controversial Paintings at the York Art Gallery in England Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:21 PM PDT York, England.- The York Art gallery is pleased to present "William Etty: Art and Controversy", on view through to January 22nd 2012. This major exhibition takes a fresh look at the works of York-born artist William Etty RA (1787-1849) and uncovers the reasons for his controversial reputation. It is the first comprehensive reassessment of his art for more than 50 years. This exhibition includes more than 100 of Etty's works from Tate, the Royal Academy, the Royal Collection, Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Southampton Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery, as well as many works from York Art Gallery. Etty's art divided public opinion during the first half of the nineteenth century more than that of any other British artist, with the possible exception of J. M. W. Turner. During his 40-year career he produced a wide variety of landscapes and portraits, but is most famous for his repeated use of the female nude. Many believed that the splendour of his richly coloured canvases was designed to disguise his underlying preoccupation with titillating forms of bodily display. Etty was repeatedly encouraged to 'turn from his wicked ways' and make his art 'fit for decent company'. At the same time, one critic declared Etty to be 'the greatest of all our history painters'. Another said the brilliancy of his colours were almost 'too much for human eyes to dwell upon'. He was described as the natural heir of the Old Masters; as 'rivalling Rubens and the great Venetians on their own ground'. York Art Gallery in York, North Yorkshire, England is a public art gallery with a collection of paintings, from 14th century to contemporary, and 20th-century ceramics. It is managed by York Museums Trust, along with York Castle Museum and the Yorkshire museum and gardens. The building was built for the second Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition in 1879, and it became the City Art Gallery in 1892. The main gallery was refurbished in 2005, and is used for special and visiting exhibitions. The building is Grade II listed and overlooks Exhibition Square, which has a 1911 statue of William Etty at its centre. It is said to have been founded with a bequest from John Burton, a local businessman. Burton's taste was for 19th-century painters such as Frederick Daniel Hardy. The gallery also inherited "Bustos and Images" from Kirkleatham Museum. Since 1911 the gallery has been collecting works by York-born painter William Etty. The collection of 1,000 paintings is exceptional for its range in covering the history of Western European painting. The gallery has continental paintings from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Strengths include gold-ground panels from 14th century Italy, painted as part of church altarpieces, 17th century Dutch morality paintings, and 19th century French painting by artists working before and at the same time as the Impressionists. The British paintings, dating from Elizabethan times to the present day, include a particularly good collection of 17th and 18th century portraits, a group of Victorian narrative paintings, and early 20th century paintings by the artists of the Camden Town Group working around Walter Sickert. The collection also includes works by York artist William Etty and York-born Victorian artist Albert Moore. The collection also contains over 17,000 drawings, watercolours and prints. About half of these are landscape views and more that 4,000 feature the city of York by local artists such as Henry Cave, John Harper and John Browne. The core of the collection was established in 1931 with the purchase of 1,200 works from Dr W A Evelyn. Some of the most famous names in watercolour painting are also featured - Thomas Rowlandson, John Varley, Thomas Girtin and JMW Turner - as well as more contemporary pieces by Edward Burra, John Piper and Julian Trevelyan. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.yorkartgallery.org.uk

Banksyyy ~ Best of British now an American Arts Hero ? Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:20 PM PDT   London - Banksy is the most exciting artist to come out of the UK for more than a decade - or so many people on both sides of the Atlantic will tell you. But is he really so much more than a prankster with a spray can? Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones gives his view. It's not often you hear someone roar the name of an artist as if they were cheering on a football player. In Bristol, however, I once heard a man scream out "Banksyyy!" as he walked past one of his murals. He was in good company. Hollywood, the New Yorker magazine, Sotheby's (which sells him), Damien Hirst (who collects him) and Glastonbury (where he recreated Stonehenge with a group of portable toilets) all concur that Banksy is the artist of our time, the rising star, the news. A poll of 18- to 25-year-olds recently named him an "arts hero" in third place behind Walt Disney and Peter Kay, and ahead of Leonardo da Vinci. America was originally just a great target for Banksy - but then it unexpectedly took him to heart when he put orange-clad sculptures of Guantánamo prisoners in Disneyland. That was a taster for last year's one-man exhibition in Los Angeles, the opening of which was attended by the likes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. There were massive queues to see the show's installation of a living room with 18th-century pictures on the walls, containing a live elephant with its body painted pink and gold. Suddenly Banksy was no longer a merely British obsession. A couple of months ago he got an accolade he could scarcely have dreamed of when he was spraying slogans on walls as a teenager - the New Yorker dedicated a seven-page feature to him. It makes funny reading if you're British: as if describing a journey into some Dickensian slum, the author evokes the seediness and sleaze of the Soho gallery owned by Banksy's dealer - on Greek Street, near some of London's most expensive restaurants. What are we to make of the Banksy phenomenon? Banksy, obviously, is not his name. You can't help thinking he might have chosen a better tag if he knew he would one day be taken seriously by the art world. I mean ... Banksy. Most people believe that Banksy - who has so far concealed his true name - comes from Bristol or its environs, and his surviving murals in that city have become objects of local pride. A couple of weeks ago it was announced that a new building development in Bristol, instead of destroying his street painting The Mild Mild West, will incorporate it and profit from the association. We may not know much about Banksy as a person, but we know he's ambitious. He went to Ramallah to paint on the dividing wall in the occupied West Bank, and this summer was booked to enliven the Glastonbury festival. Banksy makes open-air sculptures that are like gags from a Dom Jolyesque television show - he put shark fins in a pond in Victoria Park in east London - and this humour has translated easily into his indoor gallery installations. The resulting stardom must surely soon make anonymity impossible. One anecdote he does tell about his origins is how, when he was painting graffiti as a teenager, he was chased by the police: hiding under a van, he saw a stencil-like plate on its chassis and decided there and then to use stencils to design his street art. That way he could paint faster and elude the law; but this also meant he could paint better, becoming something far more like a proper artist. Banksy's stencil technique is now what makes his style so recognisable, like Andy Warhol's silkscreens. Banksy is not just a graffitist but a guerrilla conceptualist. His gags have included surreptitiously infiltrating his own works into museums - the British Museum took a full eight days to notice his chunk of "rock art" depicting a stone age hunter with a shopping trolley, together with the caption crediting it to "Banksyus Maximus" - and has also redone Monet's water garden with a supermarket trolley and bollards. I know you're laughing. Now you've stopped. My favourite is the parody of Andy Warhol he put in New York's MoMA, depicting a can of Tesco Value cream of tomato soup. What is it that constitutes Banksy's appeal? First of all, he is talented - for a graffiti artist. That's a big qualification. Banksy is fascinated by trompe l'oeil - the art of deceiving the eye - and has quoted from "a man in the pub" a story about art and illusion that in fact comes from the writings of Pliny the Elder. Two painters compete to fool the eye: one paints realistically enough to deceive birds, but the other fools humans. Banksy's TV set would only fool myopic birds. But you get the point: it's far more ambitious and lucid than the graffiti around it. Banksy's stencil method permits him to paint pictures where others just spray their names. It also encourages the use of icons and stereotypes, making his art a long series of variations on themes - and drawing comparison with Warhol from those who see him as a great modern iconographer. He deprives his art of the qualities that graffiti can offer modern art: its violence and chaos and paranoid mania. The French artist Jean Dubuffet argued 50 years ago that high art was exhausted, and acclaimed graffiti as art brut, raw art. While Dubuffet was admiring graffiti, Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly were being influenced by it. In 1980s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat was seen as a raw hero of authentic street art, revitalising American painting. But Basquiat's art exposes Banksy's. Where Basquiat's has the dirt and mystique of true graffiti, dredging something from Down There, even though Basquiat actually came from a middle-class background and briefly attended a school for gifted children, Banksy is merely one of the lads, having a laugh. And yet this isn't about talent or lack of talent. One of Banksy's most irritating attributes is his conservatism, as an artist who seems proud of the fact that he "draws", rather than just making "concepts". He appeals to people who hate the Turner prize. It's art for people who think that artists are charlatans. This is what most people think, so Banksy is truly a popular creation: a great British commonsense antidote to all that snobby pretentious art that real people can't understand. Yet to put your painting in a public place and make this demand on attention while putting so little thought into it reveals a laziness in the roots of your being. Actually, it's fine to like him so long as you don't kid yourself that this is "art" - and you don't believe that for one second, do you? Sotheby's well-educated connoisseurs surely don't believe it either. Collectors presumably do, so the joke's on them. Perhaps the rise of Banksy is the fall of Art - that is, the waning of art as the force it has been in recent culture. A decade ago, the art of the Damien Hirst generation pushed itself into anyone's view of what was happening in Britain. Probably the rise of Banksy means that moment is coming to an end; people care more about other things. Bansky is a background artist, as in background music: like all graffiti, his is essentially an accompaniment to other activities. The reason to admire Damien Hirst is that he makes art as if art mattered. In Banksy, the philistines are getting their revenge.

Albertina Museum Presents Masterpieces of Austrian Watercolour Painting Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:19 PM PDT VIENNA.- With its exhibition Jakob and Rudolf von Alt. At His Majesty's Service, on view through 24 May 2010, the Albertina Museum is presenting masterpieces from the heyday of Austrian watercolour painting. The townscapes and landscapes on display were meant to reveal to Ferdinand I the beauties of the Austrian Empire and some of its adjacent lands. This is the first time that an overview of this series, which consists of large-sized and highly finished watercolours and was made by order of His Majesty, is offered on such a comprehensive scale. With his oeuvre, Rudolf von Alt made a substantial contribution to Austrian art, his life and work spanning from the Biedermeier period to the Vienna Secession. The most splendid contributions to this topographical panorama from the pinnacle of Austrian watercolour painting were made by Jakob and Rudolf von Alt.

The Walker Art Gallery features 'The Rise of Women Artists' Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:18 PM PDT LIVERPOOL - Works by some of history's most celebrated women artists are featured in this compelling new exhibition. 'The Rise of Women Artists' charts the progress made by female artists from the 16th century up to the present day. The Walker was ahead of its time in collecting works by women artists, a fact that is reflected in the scope and diversity of the works on display. On exhibition through 14 March, 2010 at The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico Presents René Magritte Exhibition Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:17 PM PDT MEXICO CITY.-The Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes is presenting the exhibition about the Belgian painter René Magritte to be held from March 17 through July 11, 2010. The main purpose is to display for the first time in Latin America the work of such a unique artist.Being a landmark in the heart of Mexico City, the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes has been standing since 1934 as the greatest forum of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) housing the celebrated masterworks of the muralists —Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo.

Bonhams London Sale Hopes To Join to the Recovering Art Market Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:16 PM PDT LONDON.- Bonhams has announced an exciting line-up of works for its Impressionist and Modern Art sale to be held at New Bond Street on Thursday 3 December. Fighting for position as the sale's most valuable lot is 'Gladiatori nell'arena' by Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). An oil on canvas dated 1927, the painting is from Leonce Rosenberg's hugely important collection of the artist's Gladiator paintings which he housed in his Parisian apartment. Unsurprisingly, for such a significant piece, 'Gladiatori nell'arena' has attracted a pre-sale estimate of £600,000-800,000.

Ordrupgaard Museum in Copenhagen to show Balke & Kirkeby "Distant Horizons" Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:15 PM PDT   COPENHAGEN.- Ordrupgaard Museum will present the exhibition "Balke & Kirkeby. Distant horizons" from March 5 to June 21 2009, showing paintings by the Norwegian romantic landscape painter, Peder Balke, together with works by the Danish contemporary artist, Per Kirkeby. The exhibition will for the first time confront the Danish artist with one of the spiritual affinities he values the most. Both artists have each in their own time reached for the sublime, whether it was for the grand dramas of geology or for the landscapes of distant and desolate areas.

Keith Haring's 50th Anniversary Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:14 PM PDT NEW YORK CITY - The Keith Haring Foundation has announced several events happening around Keith Haring's 50th anniversary. "The creator of some of the most popular, enduring images of late 20th-century art, Keith Haring was also an iconic figure of the downtown New York scene in the '80s. Christina Clausen's documentary offers an affectionate, deeply personal glimpse into Haring's life, from his early years growing up in a small, conservative Pennsylvania town to his heyday as a world-renowned artist, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol."

Three Centuries of Alluring British Art on Paper at Christie's in December Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:13 PM PDT   LONDON.- Three centuries of British Art on Paper, exemplifying the dramatic power and also calm beauty captured in the best figure and landscape drawings, watercolours and rare pastels, are offered in Christie's sale on Wednesday, 10 December 2008. Kick starting British Art Week, this auction features a remarkable range of over 90 drawings, many of which come fresh to the market with superb provenance from private collections, by the greatest masters of the genre. With estimates ranging from £1,500 to £300,000, the sale as a whole is expected to realize in the region of £1.5 million.

SFMOMA Selects Snøhetta to Work on Museum Expansion and Design Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:12 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has selected the architecture firm Snøhetta to be its partner in developing an expansion that enhances the museum's services to the community and its educational, social, and economic role in the city. The decision follows a comprehensive international search and two-year planning process to address the enormous growth of SFMOMA's collections and of audience demand for programming since the museum's move to its current building in 1995. Initial design concepts for the project—Snøhetta's first building on the West Coast of the United States—will be unveiled in the spring of 2011. The current project budget of $480 million includes $250 million for the expansion and $230 million for SFMOMA's endowment to ensure the museum's long-term success.

National Institute of Anthropology & History Restored Rosete Aranda Marionettes of INBA Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:11 PM PDT MEXICO CITY, DF - More than 50 years ago, the 317 puppets of the Rosete Aranda Company were put away, some of them with their members apart. They "returned to life" thanks to the intervention of specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). Each puppet underwent cleaning and adhesive elimination, and their clothes were restored; the intervention lasted 7 months and in June 24th 2009 the collection returned to the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA). Marionettes' value consists in the testimony they represent of puppet tradition in Mexico, being the oldest ones 150 years old. The lot restored was found in archive boxes and rescued by INBA.

Yes . . . There Is A Museum of Communism in Prague Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:10 PM PDT PRAGUE (REUTERS).-Glitzy new shops, fast food restaurants and trendy bars have replaced Prague's former monochrome socialist-era landscape but a museum dedicated to the country's communist past offers glimpses of the uglier times.The Museum of Communism, which focuses on politics, history, sport and other aspects of daily life in socialist Czechoslovakia, touts itself as the first of its kind in Prague exclusively devoted to the system that dominated the country for more than four decades following World War II. For many Czechs who grew up under communism, there is little need of a reminder of how brutal the system was. But 20 years after the Velvet Revolution some wonder whether many have forgotten the past in a country where the communist party still attracts about 15 percent of the vote.

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 15 Sep 2011 10:09 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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