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

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• Tate Modern presents a Comprehensive Retrospective of Yayoi Kusama
• The Kunstverein Hannover features Solo Exhibition by the American painter Hernan Bas
• The Museum Folkwang to Show Works From its Photographic Collection
• The Bridge Gallery shows "Iteration: The Work of Gerri Davis"
• The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm Hosts MARKET Art Fair
• Marc Straus Presents New Works by Sculptor Chris Jones
• Rarely seen photographs on view at drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles
• Retrospective of American artist William N. Copley opens at Museum Frieder Burda
• MOCA to Present Feathered Edge ~ A New Installation by Ball-Nogues Studio
• LACMA Announces First Exhibition Devoted to Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Late Work
• Salvador Dali Foundation Presents Recently Acquired Paintings Made in the 1920s
• Allegory and Realism in Contemporary Painting at Montserrat College of Art
• Stuart Pearson Wright's 'I Remember You' at Riflemaker in London
• Walker Art Gallery to Feature 'Aubrey Williams: Atlantic Fire' Exhibition
• Tom Murray’s Photos from the Beatles Last Group Publicity Shoot
• Hong Kong Museum of Art opens The Exhibition "Louis Vuitton : A Passion for Creation"
• The 'Out of this World' Art of Josh Kirby at Walker Art Gallery
• Pennsylvania Police: Artist's Son Steals $20 Million of Frank Frazetta Paintings
• The Natural History Museum in London Hosts Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011 Images
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

Tate Modern presents a Comprehensive Retrospective of Yayoi Kusama Posted: 17 Feb 2012 10:00 PM PST London.- The Tate Modern is proud to present "Yayoi Kusama" on view at the museum from February 9th through June 5th. Yayoi Kusama's (b.1929) pioneering work spans over six decades and this exhibition will highlight the artist's moments of most intense innovation. Kusama is one of Japan's best-known living artists and since the 1940s she has developed an extensive body of work. From her earliest explorations of painting in provincial Japan to new unseen works, the exhibition will reveal a history of successive developments and daring advances, demonstrating why Kusama remains one of the most engaging practitioners today. Conceived as a series of immersive environments, the exhibition will unfold in a sequence of rooms, each devoted to the emergence of a new artistic stance. Much of Kusama's art has an almost hallucinatory intensity that reflects her unique vision of the world, whether through a teeming accumulation of detail or the dense patterns of nets and polka dots that have become her signature. She is renowned for her 'environments', large-scale installations of dazzling power that immerse the viewer. A highlight of the exhibition will be a new installation conceived especially for the show, "Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life" 2011, Kusama's largest mirrored room to date. Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929. In her early career she immersed herself in the study of art, integrating a wide range of Eastern and Western influences, training in traditional Japanese painting while also exploring the European and American avant-garde. In the late 1950s, Kusama moved to the United States and during her time there worked tirelessly to position herself at the epicentre of the New York art scene. The exhibition will include a group of Kusama's first 'Infinity Net' paintings from her early years in New York, canvases covered in endlessly-repeated, scalloped brushstrokes of a single colour. Kusama forged her own direction in sculpture and installation, adopting techniques of montage and soft sculpture which historians have seen as influencing artists such as Andy Warhol and Claus Oldenburg. The exhibition will include "Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show" 1963, her first room installation, and a significant selection of her classic 'Sex Obsession' and 'Food Obsession' Accumulation Sculptures dating from 1962-68. As the 1960s progressed, Kusama moved from painting, sculpture and collage to installations, films, performances and 'happenings' as well as political actions, counter-cultural events, fashion design and publishing. The exhibition will include Kusama's iconic film "Kusama's Self-Obliteration" 1968, capturing this period of performative experimentation, and an extensive selection of archive material that reveal how Kusama's artistic activity extended beyond the bounds of the gallery. In 1973 Kusama returned to Japan where she continues to live and work today. The exhibition will include vibrant and evocative collages she created on her return, during a period in which she was also forging a parallel career as a poet and novelist. Major sculptural installations will be featured including The Clouds 1984, comprising one hundred unique black and white sprayed sewed stuffed cushions, and Heaven and Earth 1991, which features snake-like forms emerging from forty boxes. The exhibition will conclude with a series of works from the last decade including "I'm Here, but Nothing" 2000, in which a darkened domestic space is covered with fluorescent polka dots. Located in central London on the banks of the river Thames, the Tate Modern is one of the family of four Tate galleries which display selections from the Tate Collection (named for Sir Henry Tate, a Victorian sugar merchant, whose donation formed the basis of the modern collection). Created in 2000 from a disused power station, the Tate Modern displays the national collection of international modern art, defined as art since 1900. By about 1990 it was clear that the Tate Collection had hugely outgrown the original Tate Gallery on Millbank. It was decided to create a new gallery in London to display the international modern component of the Tate Collection. For the first time London would have a dedicated museum of modern art. The Bankside power station had closed in 1982 and was available, a striking and distinguished building in its own right, it was in an amazing location on the south bank of the River Thames opposite St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London. An international architectural competition was held attracting entries from practices all over the world. The final choice was Herzog and De Meuron, a relatively small and then little known Swiss firm (who have subsequently won the Pritzker Prize). A key factor in this choice was that their proposal retained much of the essential character of the building. The power station was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also created Liverpool's Anglican cathedral, University libraries in Oxford and Cambridge, Waterloo Bridge, and the design of the famous British red telephone box. The Tate Modern opened in 2000 and became an instant hit with visitors from worldwide. Designed to handle up to 2 million visitors a year, it rapidly became the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 5 million visitors every year. Further expansion of the gallery has been a priority for some time, and a new extension is scheduled to open in 2012. Also designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the new extension will take the form of a ziggurat or pyramid with a sloping brick facade to match the original building. When completed, this will include galleries dedicated to photography, video, exhibitions and the community. The Tate collection of modern and contemporary art represents all the major movements from Fauvism onward. It includes important masterpieces by both Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse and one of the world's finest museum collections of Surrealism, including works by Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte and Joan Mirò. Its substantial holdings of American Abstract Expressionism include major works by Jackson Pollock as well as the nine Seagram Murals by Mark Rothko. There is an in depth collection of the Russian pioneer of abstract art Naum Gabo, and an important group of sculpture and paintings by Giacometti. Tate has significant collections of Pop Art, including major works by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, also great examples of Minimal and Conceptual art. Tate also has particularly rich holdings of contemporary art since the 1980's. Visit the museum's website at … http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/

The Kunstverein Hannover features Solo Exhibition by the American painter Hernan Bas Posted: 17 Feb 2012 09:07 PM PST Hannover, Germany - The Kunstverein Hannover presents the first institutional solo exhibition in Europe by the American painter Hernan Bas (born 1978 in Miami, lives in Detroit). The son of Cuban parents, he grew up in Miami and developed in part large-format paintings depicting fantastic, dreamlike landscapes whose protagonists convey a melancholic romanticism. Hernan Bas, whose work is already represented in numerous public and private collections in the United States and Europe, has evolved a wide-ranging oeuvre within the course of only a few years. His paintings are marked by an exciting combination of fictional landscapes, abstract elements and religious or mythological set pieces. On exhibition 18th of February through 29th of April.

The Museum Folkwang to Show Works From its Photographic Collection Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:47 PM PST Essen, Germany.- The Museum Folkswang is pleased to present "Man and His Objects : The Photographic Collection" on view at the museum from February 25th through April 29th. There is doubtless no other field of photographic practice as fascinating as the depiction of people. In them our history can be read at many levels: In individuals and types, we recognize social conventions and body language, we discover a bygone world of living beings and rituals and make guesses about the identity of the depicted and the individuality of the photographer when confronted with the stagings of various role plays. The exhibition "Man and His Objects" is not limited the portrait-makers' ways of depiction since the 19th century. It also confronts those photographed with their world of objects, as witness to their everyday experience and as representative of human productivity.

The Bridge Gallery shows "Iteration: The Work of Gerri Davis" Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:27 PM PST New York City.- The Bridge Gallery is pleased to present "Iteration: The Work of Gerri Davis", on view at the gallery through March 15th. Gerri Davis's talent has nothing to do with her masterful technique and everything to do with energy. There is a certain surety that is as much Davis's raw intellectual material as paint. It is not just the sheer, mesmerizing layering of paint that keeps the eye lingering for so long. Despite the impression of bravura in its initial impact, a closer exploration of the work counters the first sensation of fluency and ease. The works possesses a complex, energy that registers the effort and commitment on the part of the painter that lends the work extra vitality.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm Hosts MARKET Art Fair Posted: 17 Feb 2012 07:10 PM PST Stockholm.- The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts is hosting the MARKET contemporary art fair from February 17th through February 19th. In addition to the main fair, MARKET also offers "MARKET Emerging" feauring newly established galleries with a distinctly young profile who are agiven the spotlight,  "MARKET Editions & Multiples", geared towards galleries working with high-quality editions and multiples and "MARKET At Large" offering participating galleries the opportunity to display art work that may be difficult to show in a regular stand such as installations and large format sculptures placed throughout the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. MARKET took place for the first time in February 2006 at the initiative of a group of gallerists looking to create a high-quality fair in central Stockholm. Since the summer of 2007, the organisation of the fair has been managed by Konstmässan Market i Stockholm AB, owned by a group of Nordic gallerists. The fair highlights Swedish and Nordic galleries and participants show a wide selection of the most exciting international contemporary art. There has been tremendous interest in MARKET and the fair has been very well received by gallerists, collectors, visitors and the press alike. Through its cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, MARKET has anchored the forward-looking arts scene in a rich artistic tradition. For over 270 years the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts has promoted the role of art and architecture in Swedish society. The choice of location gives the fair a unique character. MARKET's vision is to be the Nordic art scene's premier fair in terms of quality, and a meeting place for everyone interested in the contemporary art world. The list of galleries that will participate at MARKET 2012 has been finalized. The number of exhibitors has never been so great. A total of 42 leading galleries from the Nordic region, including 17 from Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland will participate when the MARKET opens on February 17th. This year the MARKET emerging section will present Galleri Anna Thulin, Johan Berggren Gallery, Galleri Jonas Kleerup and the Kant Gallery. As part of the fair, the collector's program is being organized for international art collectors.On Saturday evening, a number of Stockholm galleries will also participate in gallery night, with extended hours, special exhibits and openings. The MARKET art fair invites you to join talks with experts and artists who will discuss their views on the Nordic region as an art scene. Interest in Nordic art is greater than ever before. MARKET Talks explores the art landscape, investigates the forces behind the trends and examines what the future holds. MARKET is delighted to present the Georgina Adam, Sune Nordgren and the artists, Jacob Dahlgren, Hyun Jin Kwak, Lars Breuer and Johanna Billing, in discussions with Niclas Östlind. Georgina Adam has worked as an art writer for more than 25 years. She currently works as an editor for The Art Newspaper and she is also a correspondent for the Financial Times. Together with MARKET Talks, Adam will give a lecture, The Global Art Market Today, in which she will discuss globalization and the growth of new economies and their impact on the art market, the importance of contemporary art and the proliferation of art fairs. Sune Nordgren, Project Manager, who has a background as a head of a museum, artist, designer, art critic and programme manager, will join MARKET Talks to discuss the Nordic art scene. The seminar programme will be concluded with artist talks with some of the artists participating at the fair, Hyun Jin Kwak, Lars Breuer and Johanna Billing. MARKET Talks will be held on 18th February, from 13:00 until 16:00, in the library on the first floor of the Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Parts of the program will be held in English. The moderator is Niclas Östlind. Visit the art fair's website at ... http://www.market-art.se

Marc Straus Presents New Works by Sculptor Chris Jones Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:32 PM PST New York City.- Marc Straus is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by British sculptor Chris Jones , on view at the gallery until March 18th. Jones creates sculptures composed of fragmented images from magazines and used books that are beautiful, frightening, and exquisitely detailed: a macabre headless horse, a 19th century stagecoach, a disheveled TV. For this, his first one-person gallery exhibit in the US, Jones worked in New York and was interested in the history of the Lower Eastside and this specific gallery space. Based on his impressions, he created a fantastical trading post replete with sundry items such as shovels, bear heads, and lamps echoing this area's early 19th century and this building's evolution from a tenement to a store for varied immigrant trades.

Rarely seen photographs on view at drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:31 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA.- drkrm presents Ansel Adams Los Angeles, rarely seen photographs that reveal the lost landscape and lifestyle of a prewar Los Angeles. These nostalgic images from the archives of The Los Angeles Public Library Ansel Adams Collection, represent Ansel Adams as a photojournalist on assignment for Fortune Magazine in 1940. Ansel Adams Los Angeles, and other rare photographs, will be on display from February 18th through March 17th. In 1940 Los Angeles had a population of 1.5 million. The cost of gas was 10 cents and a new car was $700. The U.S. began rearming for World War II and the prestigious Ansel Adams was commissioned by Fortune Magazine to photograph a series of images for an article covering the aviation industry in the Los Angeles area. For the project, Adams took over 200 black & white photographs showing everyday life, businesses, street scenes and a variety of other subjects. But when the article, City of the Angels, appeared in the March 1941 issue, only a few of the images were included.

Retrospective of American artist William N. Copley opens at Museum Frieder Burda Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:27 PM PST BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY - Stripes, rhombuses, flags, chequers or hearts are the shapes William N. Copley uses to humorously depict the battle of sexes. He cryptically sets his figures in an environment of lush decoration. From 18th February to 10th June the Museum Frieder Burda presents a comprehensive retrospective of the American artist (1919 to 1996). More than 80 works by the artist are shown. From the mid 40ies on, as a gallery owner, artist, author and editor, Copley acted as an important mediator between surrealists and the pop art movement and certainly was one of the most unconventional celebrities of the arts scene. A poet should work visually, Copley thought, and a painter poetically. He had deleted the melodious vowels from his name and from then on made the unutterable CPLY his brand and signed his pictures with it. In the tradition of dada, surrealism and American pop art, William N. Copley ironically deals with the erotic game between man and woman in all its facets. When asked whether he had a theory on his style, he answered in a 1968 interview: "No, it just seems as if I were doomed to explore the tragedy of man and woman. That probably is chaplinesque." Just as the solo exhibitions Polke, Richter and Baselitz, previously shown at the Museum Frieder Burda, this special exhibition is based on the works from the collection Frieder Burda. Frieder Burda started collecting works by Copley at a very early stage and now owns a considerable number of works that are shown together for the first time. The exhibition is completed by international loans and works from the estate of the artist some of which are publicly exhibited for the first time. Copley's life was not a straight line: his parents passed away early, Copley himself was found on the threshold of a New York hospice in 1919. Two years later, he was adopted by Ira and Edith Copley, wealthy news paper publishers from Illinois. Between 1932 and 1936, Copley was at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then two years at Yale University. In 1940 he joined the US Army, went to Italy and Africa as a soldier, returned home as a reporter and grew fond of surrealism. In 1947 he taught himself to paint. First, simply to enhance his writing skills, as he wanted to become an author. In Los Angeles he founded a gallery to promote surrealist artists, but failed financially. Copley bought some of his works himself and thus laid the foundations for his art collection which later became one of the most important surrealist collections with works by Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, René Magritte and Yves Tanguy. The dashing free spirit Copley traveled frequently: from 1951 in Paris, he rated Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and René Magritte among his friends before he returned to the US ten years later and became part of the New York arts scene. He maintained relations with Christo, Roy Lichtenstein and later also with Andy Warhol. Götz Adriani is the curator of this comprehensive retrospective that paints a new picture of the artist's various facets, especially through a series of aquarelles never before publicly exhibited. Adriani describes Copley as follows: "A minimalist with baroque features who remained faithful not only to his peculiar subjects, but also to his cunningly steered artlessness during all his artist life. Mostly, he stuck to clear-cut picture punch-lines and a rather graphical approach. He achieved a remarkable variety in composition and color with his combination of contextual standards and highly abstract abbreviations." Copley spent the last ten years of his life rather isolated. He used the living room of his house for painting and sailed around in a boat. In 1996 he died at the age of 77 from a stroke. What remains is his work: a keen and entertaining picture of the attraction between men and women. By presenting these contemporary positions the Museum Frieder Burda is taking part in the current discourse on art, which continues to raise questions about the foundations and essence of painting. The collection will continue to develop in this direction in the future. In order to maintain the integral nature of the Collection and make it accessible to the public, a museum was built in Frieder Burda's home city of Baden-Baden. The plans for the 25 million euro project have been drafted by the New York architect Richard Meier. The Museum Frieder Burda was inaugurated in the autumn of 2004 and will be fully financed and run by the Foundation Frieder Burda which was established in 1998. The Museum will show the Collection to the public in varying presentations and taking ever-changing factors and new contexts into consideration. A fundamental part of the alternating exhibitions will also relate to the Collection, so that with the museum a place will be created for animated reflection and discussion on the works of art of the Collection. Visit : http://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/

MOCA to Present Feathered Edge ~ A New Installation by Ball-Nogues Studio Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:20 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), presents Feathered Edge: A New Installation by Ball-Nogues Studio, on view July 26 through November 15, 2009, at MOCA Pacific Design Center. In this site-specific installation by the innovative Los Angeles–based design and fabrication firm led by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, 17 miles of colored strings configured in catenary curves span the gallery space to form a dynamic sculptural environment. Initiated by Brooke Hodge and coordinated by MOCA Curator Alma Ruiz, Feathered Edge underscores the artists' continuing investigation of the convergence of digital technology and hand-craft techniques, as well as their interests in the processes and fabrication of automation and in affecting space using unconventional methods and materials. The third in a series of projects that the designers loosely refer to as "Suspensions," Feathered Edge is a sitespecific installation comprised of colored strings suspended as catenaries from the gallery's double-height skylight. Each string is calculated to a slightly different length and is attached by hand to an ink jet printed mesh using a method inspired by the craft of latch-hook rug making. The Suspension installations evolved out of a desire to modulate space without utilizing solid forms. To accomplish this, the artists design both the artwork and the means to produce that artwork in an approach that they call "designing the production." Recognizing the limitations of conventional architectural design software, they enlisted Pylon Technical to help develop custom parametric software that enables the designers to explore spatial configurations utilizing catenaries. The software simultaneously calculates the length and location for each string that is required to construct their desired form in a specific space. In the previous two Suspension installations, Echoes Converge (2008) and Unseen Current (2008), each string was cut by hand in preparation for hanging. For Feathered Edge, the artists mechanized the process of coloring and cutting the lengths of string by designing, fabricating, and programming a machine that precisely air brushes and quickly cuts each string to the prescribed length. In the artists' own words, "We can now make something more intricate and larger. We can work faster and more efficiently in the fabrication phase so we can spend more time refining and studying the design, insuring it produces the right feeling." Ball-Nogues Studio is an integrated design and fabrication practice that creates experimental built environments to enhance and celebrate the potential for social interaction through sensation, spectacle, and physical engagement. To achieve these results, principals Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues work with unusual materials, develop new digital tools, and apply architectural techniques in unorthodox ways. The partners share an enthusiasm for the fabrication process as it relates to the built object both physically and poetically—they let the properties, limitations, and economic scenarios associated with a material guide a structure's ultimate form while developing methods to extend the intertwined boundaries of a material's aesthetics, physical potential, and lifecycle. Ball-Nogues Studio's past projects include Echoes Converge, an installation created for the Venice Architecture Biennale (2008); the competition-winning Liquid Sky installation for P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center's Young Architects Program (2007); the exhibition Rip Curl Canyon for Rice Gallery (2007); a commissioned environment for MOCA's Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture Opening Night Fête (2006); Maximilian's Schell at Materials & Applications in Los Angeles's Silver Lake neighborhood (2006) and an installation for the launch of Frank Gehry's collection for Tiffany & Co. (2006). Recently they completed the interior of Edward Cella Art + Architecture in Los Angeles. Current projects include a wildlife observation pavilion in New York as well as art projects for the City of Santa Monica; Los Angeles County; and Mercy Housing, San Francisco. Their work will be included in the exhibition Contemplating the Void at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in February 2010, and in an installation at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in spring/summer 2010.

LACMA Announces First Exhibition Devoted to Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Late Work Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:19 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Renoir in the 20th Century, an exhibition focusing on the last three decades of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's career, until his death in 1919. The exhibition presents approximately 80 paintings, sculptures, and drawings by Renoir, interspersed with select works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Aristide Maillol, and Pierre Bonnard, to illustrate the developing avantgarde's debt to the older master. Curated by LACMA curator Claudia Einecke and Chief Curator of European Art J.Patrice Marandel, the show offers an unprecedented look at Renoir through the lens of modernism, bridging the perceived divide between the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Co-organized by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Musée d'Orsay, and LACMA, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the exhibition will be on view from February 14 to May 9, 2010.

Salvador Dali Foundation Presents Recently Acquired Paintings Made in the 1920s Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:18 PM PST FIGUERES, SPAIN - The Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí has presented its latest acquisition, an oil painted on both sides titled "Figure from Behind" (front) and "Nymphs and Young Ladies in a Garden Fountain" (back). The provenance of the painting is from a private collector and since 1925, with the exception of the Retrospective during the Year of Dalí, had not been seen in public. In the painter's view, we cannot forget the work of Ismael Smith, Marià Andreu or Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre, all of them friends of Salvador Dalí, with whom he had a relationship, especially with the latter, also a friend of Federico García Lorca.

Allegory and Realism in Contemporary Painting at Montserrat College of Art Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:17 PM PST BEVERLY, MA.- Montserrat College of Art Galleries presents the works of Julie Heffernan, David Ording, Shelley Reed, Erik Thor Sandberg, and Anne Siems in a provocative exhibition of contemporary painting, "A Debt to Pleasure," curated by Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury. Inspired by the visual and symbolic richness of such diverse painting practices as 17th-century Dutch still lifes, Italian Renaissance master paintings and American folk art, the participating artists integrate the sensual and the sinister, the vulgar and the mysterious to question meaning-making in contemporary art. The exhibition is on view through April 2 in the Montserrat Gallery. An exhibition of technical skill, visual indulgence, and timelessness, "A Debt to Pleasure" presents a series of works that question their place in history. Beyond their flawlessly rendered surfaces, each artist explicitly references stylistic techniques and aesthetics of the past to create a provocative body of work. Allegory and realism are employed to investigate symbolism in painting (past and present), cultural history and the art world's insistence on originality and obsession with everything new. By adopting 17th and 18th-century American folk motifs, Seattle-based Anne Siems' portraits and still-lifes emit a haunting awkwardness. With rosy cheeks, haunted gaze and flattened features, Siems' highly stylized figures inhabit a dreamy colonial landscape. As the world itself seems frozen in time, the transparent figures float in the foreground, forever youthful and mysterious. The delicate patterning found in traditional embroidery is the main element used to define their clothing. A thick application of paint, at times intentionally crackled to create the effect of an aged surface, emphasizes folk painting and faux antiquity. Siems' paintings 'borrow backwards' with a refreshing whimsy and off kilter grace, participating in the current revival of 'old, weird America.' Based in Washington DC, Erik Thor Sandberg's subjects, primarily female nudes, pose in allegorical gesture amidst nature. These large figurative paintings are rich in detail, the physicality of folds in flesh and surrounding fabric. Flesh and futility run rampant as figures exercise dramatic, mindless acts of folly that, more often than not, result in pain or suffering. Resembling Breughel's parables and Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, the figures are caught in the moment before or after immeasurable torture or in the midst of acts of sin. There is a dark humor to Erik Sandberg's archaic sense of mortality and symbolism as we look back at our evolving interpretation of the female figure, its corporal nature, and how we covet our displays of beauty, forever indebted to pleasure. Boston-based painter Shelley Reed is known for her lavishly painted still lifes of spectacular flora and fauna that echo the extravagance of the 17th-century Dutch Baroque. Monkeys, tigers, deer, and various birds of paradise are set against a background of Romanesque courtyards, puti are surrounded by exotic fruit and wild flowers painted with the utmost eloquence. Yet, what would be so vivid in color is ironically painted in grey scale. Evoking the black and white representations of works in art historical texts, Reed's works silently reference the explosion of color in 17th-century painting. The animals, petrified in mid-movement, seem captured in a time and place infinitely removed from our own, patiently waiting for the moment Reed's vision comes to life. New York based painter David Ording actively rejects contemporary painting practice by referencing art history directly. Reinventing master works, pulling bits and pieces of original Courbet's, Rubens' and Degas'; by cropping their canonical works Ording emphasizes certain ideas, details or stylistic techniques. This appropriation gives new context to the original work, emphasizing the nature of Sergeant's technique by assimilating a number of his images, or painting only the often overlooked blank page in Velasquez's The Surrender of Breda. Ording poses a constant historical inquiry, asking the viewer to step back, question how we arrived at the art historical canon we have, and see what has gone overlooked in past master paintings. "A Debt to Pleasure" finds its opus in New York based painter Julie Heffernan's "Self Portrait as Tender Mercenary." In the center of the massive painting, is a life-sized nude figure, clad in flora, a great chandelier sprouting from her head and rising upwards. At the god-like figure's feet is calamitous wildlife, frolicking amidst a crumbling 18th-century tower. The image is filled with symbolism and exhibits an awareness of hundreds of years of classical painting. Heffernan is not only paying an homage to the intricacies and metaphors of grand history painting, but intentionally reacting against the starkness of Modernist formalism. The artist's self portrait can be read as a response to the bleakness of today's conceptual world and a simultaneous reveling in the richness of paintings past.

Stuart Pearson Wright's 'I Remember You' at Riflemaker in London Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:16 PM PST LONDON.- The work of Stuart Pearson Wright (b. Northampton 1975) reflects a search for lost identity. One of the first children born in the UK by artificial insemination the artist feels that the process has created an 'identity void' which his work attempts to deal with. Wright's new series of paintings at Riflemaker - shown alongside a film installation featuring Keira Knightley - explore and dispel the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity as depicted in films, books and comics; specifically in the stories and myths of the American West. Choosing portraiture in an era when it was not always seen as a legitimate part of contemporary art, and a winner the BP Portrait Award aged just 26, Wright has spent much of his career attempting to subvert traditional portrait painting. He distorts his subjects, employing his own features and those of his fiancée in meticulously painted and stylised characters set in pulpy, fictional situations.  On view until 26 June.

Walker Art Gallery to Feature 'Aubrey Williams: Atlantic Fire' Exhibition Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:15 PM PST LIVERPOOL.- The Walker Art Gallery launches its 2010 exhibition programme with a fresh look at the powerful work of international artist Aubrey Williams (1926 – 1990). From the early 1960s, Williams exhibited widely, winning awards and garnering high acclaim from the London art circuit. He won the only prize at the First Commonwealth Biennale of Abstract Art (1963) and the Commonwealth Prize for Painting (1965). The exhibition has been produced in partnership with the October Gallery, London and runs parallel with their exhibition, 'Aubrey Williams: Now and Coming Time' from 4 February to 3 April 2010.

Tom Murray’s Photos from the Beatles Last Group Publicity Shoot Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:14 PM PST LONDON.- For almost 30 years, renowned photographer Tom Murray's images from the Beatles last group publicity shoot were stored in the back of a drawer. And now for the first time ever, these rarely seen images will be available for public purchase on an international art site. Rock Paper Photo, which launches this week in New York, will be the most comprehensive online gallery of pop culture fine art photography. Founded by Guy Oseary (Madonna's manager) and with investment from Live Nation, the site deals exclusively in largely unpublished hand signed limited edition images. Why Tom? Why These Photos? Here are some of the facts: Tom Murray is a world-renowned photographer, having worked alongside some of the biggest names in fashion, music, art and even Royalty. His subjects include Elizabeth Taylor, Dustin Hoffman, HRH Princess Margaret, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren (just to name a few). He was the youngest photographer to ever be commissioned by the Royal Family Tom had no idea that he would be shooting the Beatles on that legendary summer day in 1968. All he knew was that he was attending a publicity shoot for an unnamed rock and roll group. The collection of photos from Tom's impromptu and iconic shoot with the Beatles is known as "The Mad Day: Summer of '68" Consisting of the 23 best images taken during the shoot, each picture provides an intimate look at the Beatles and their individual personalities. These images have been hailed by the media as some of the best photographs ever taken of the Beatles and have helped to raise over 6 million dollars for charities worldwide. Tom was the first person to capture the death of John Lennon, 12 years before it happened! At one point during the shoot, John Lennon spontaneously dropped to the ground and decided to play dead. The whole incident was over in seconds, yet somehow captured by Tom. Years later, when Lennon was shot, Time Magazine considered this photo for its cover, yet ultimately deemed it too spooky. All 23 images from the "Mad Day" series will be available for purchase on Rock Paper Photo. These signed and limited edition prints come in a 20 x 24 inch size and/or a 30 x 40 inch size. Tom Murray is an award-winning photographer whose work spans portraiture, theater, fashion, advertising, newspapers and magazines. He perfected his craft working for newspapers, becoming the head of photography for The Sunday Times Colour Magazine, London's first Sunday magazine. He then worked alongside master photographers Helmut Newton and Lord Snowdon. At 25, he received a commission from the Royal Family, becoming the youngest person to receive this honor, and has since immortalized subjects such as Angelica Huston. In the summer of 1968, Mr. Murray was invited to a publicity photo shoot for a popular rock and roll group by a fellow photographer. As it turned out, the band that they were shooting was The Beatles. From two rolls of film, Mr. Murray kept 23 negatives which are considered the most important color photographs of the group from that period of their career. The impromptu shoot took Tom and the band on a mad dash around London; the collection of photographs has become known as The Mad Day: Summer Of '68. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world and has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers like GQ, Vogue, The New York Times, and The London Times. Tom is a dedicated fund-raiser who now devotes much of his time to charities around the world and in his own community where he regularly donates to a local association for the blind. He began in 1969 when he photographed HRH Princess Margaret and chose to donate a portion of those earnings to her favorite charities. Since then, he has been involved with the Make a Wish Foundation (In the US, UK and Sweden), Project Angel Food, Friends in Need and the Caron Foundation, personally helping to raise over 2 million dollars. Through auctioning his prints for charities or donating them outright, he has raised an additional 6 million. Realizing the importance of local charities, wherever his work is exhibited, he generously donates a photographic print to a charity of the gallery's choice. A three time World Press Photo award winner, Tom has received numerous international awards for his work on newspaper and magazine assignments, theatre and advertising commissions as well as specialist portrait commissions in Europe, Africa and The United States of America.

Hong Kong Museum of Art opens The Exhibition "Louis Vuitton : A Passion for Creation" Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:13 PM PST HONG KONG.- Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr. Henry Tang, at the opening ceremony of "Louis Vuitton: A Passion for Creation" exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art said, "During my visit to Paris last year, we reached an agreement with LVMH to bring the "Louis Vuitton: A Passion for Creation" Exhibition to Hong Kong. I am delighted to be here tonight for the opening ceremony." In a developing open-minded spirit, the Foundation was eager to invite 'emerging' Hong Kong artists to take part in this exhibition with the help of a young art critic and curator who lives in China.

The 'Out of this World' Art of Josh Kirby at Walker Art Gallery Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:12 PM PST Liverpool - Explore a colorful world teeming with other-worldly characters, creatures, fantasy cities and landscapes in Out of this World: the Art of Josh Kirby.  The first major retrospective of the Liverpool-born artist opens at the Walker Art Gallery from 15 June to 30 September 2007.  Out of this World: the Art of Josh Kirby spans Kirby's artistic career from his early days as a freelance artist to his famous cover illustrations for Terry Pratchett's Discworld and Eric/Faust fantasy series.  Kirby's work has adorned the covers of some of the most iconic science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as famous film posters such as Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Monty Python's Life of Brian. The exhibition displays his best-known work alongside the less familiar, including his stylish illustrations for Corgi and Panther publishers in the 1950s and 60s.  The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to view Kirby's often highly complex paintings un-cropped and in their original format. Ann Bukantas, curator of fine art says: "Josh Kirby possessed one of the most creative visual imaginations to come out of Liverpool in the 20th century.  People may be familiar with some of his more commercial work, but may not be aware of the incredible talent and the long, wide-ranging career of the artist who created them.  Whether making a painting for a book cover, a film poster or even a jigsaw box, Kirby's exceptional skills in figure drawing, perspective, composition and the rich use of color - and frequently a wicked sense of humor - are always to the fore". Kirby named Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the elder as key influences on his work, and the covers for Terry Pratchett's novels in particular reflect this.  Featured in the exhibition is Kirby's first Pratchett cover painting for The Colour of Magic (1984) – at this point Kirby was unclear whether further commissions would follow.  The rest is history. Other highlights from this section include the painting Discworld I (c.1990) which shows Pratchett's legendary giant space turtle, The Great A'Tuin, carrying an entire civilization through a cosmic landscape of stars and swirling clouds, and is typical of Kirby's approach in combining vast, panoramic views with minute detail.  Another painting, Maskerade (1995), an extremely complex composition, shows a wild theatre full of memorable characters. Kirby's name is now synonymous with illustrating fantasy and science fiction, yet from the 1950s and into the 1980s he worked on a variety of publishing genres, from romance through to westerns including covers of books Moby Dick and The Vikings. But it was from the late 1950s onwards, with the rise in popularity of science fiction literature, that Kirby found his true vocation, gradually making his mark as a leading science fiction artist.  From his early covers for the seminal Authentic Science Fiction Magazine, and throughout his long career, Kirby produced endlessly imaginative works for many renowned science fiction authors including Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.  The exhibition features surreal paintings of grotesque aliens, gleaming cyborgs and eerie scenes of a scientific utopia. Another section features portraits of the film director Alfred Hitchcock from the late 1960s and early 70s.  The portraits, used as cover illustrations for a series of horror anthologies, capture Hitchcock's dark imagination and some, having skulls and other sinister forms covering Hitchcock's face, are inspired by Kirby's fascination with the Ray Bradbury classic, The Illustrated Man. The exhibition also includes some of Kirby's more personal work, most notably his paintings for the Voyage of the Ayeguy series.  These paintings, a selection of which were published as a portfolio in 1981, pursue a spiritual, biblical theme and reflect an interest in renaissance art.  The images feature scenes of crucifixion and ascension in an extraterrestrial world populated with spacemen and aliens. Born Ronald William Kirby in 1928, he was educated at Liverpool City School of Art during the late 1940s where he earned the nickname "Josh" after fellow students deemed his work to resemble the portraits of 18th century artist Joshua Reynolds.  For a short time Kirby pursued a career as a portrait painter, and was gifted enough to be the youngest artist commissioned to paint the Lord Mayor of Liverpool's portrait in 1950.  However, feeling cramped by the formality of portraiture, Kirby moved south and found work as a freelance illustrator. Kirby lived most of his working life in an old rectory in Norfolk.  Out of this World: the Art of Josh Kirby at the Walker Art Gallery is the first time his work has been shown at a national gallery.  He died on 23 October 2001, aged 72 years old. Visit Walker Art Gallery ( a National Gallery ) - William Brown Street - Liverpool : thewalker.org.uk

Pennsylvania Police: Artist's Son Steals $20 Million of Frank Frazetta Paintings Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:11 PM PST ALLENTOWN, PA (AP).- A Pennsylvania man used a backhoe to break into a museum owned by his father — the pioneering fantasy artist Frank Frazetta — in an attempt to steal 90 paintings valued at $20 million, police said Thursday. State police charged Alfonso Frank Frazetta, 52, of Marshalls Creek, with theft, burglary and trespass after they say he was caught loading the artwork into his trailer and SUV. The elder Frazetta, 81, is renowned for his work on characters including Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan and Vampirella. He was in Florida at the time of the theft.

The Natural History Museum in London Hosts Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011 Images Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:10 PM PST London (BBC).- The Natural History Museum is proud to host the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011 exhibition. The winners were announced on October 19th, and more than 100 prize-winning photographs from the competition's 17 categories are on show in the exhibition at the Natural History Museum from October 21st through March 11th 2012. Now in its 47th year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is an international showcase for the very best nature photography. The competition is owned by two UK institutions that pride themselves on revealing and championing the diversity of life on Earth - the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine. Being accepted into this competition is something to which wildlife photographers across the world aspire. Professionals win many of the prizes but amateurs succeed too. Each year, tens of thousands of entries are received and judged by an international jury of photography experts. An image of brown pelicans smothered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill has earned Daniel Beltra the title of Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPY) 2011. "They are so afraid, and yet they still seem so elegant," Daniel told BBC News. Daniel Beltra, who hails from Spain, entered an exceptional portfolio of pictures entitled The Price of Oil into the WPY's photojournalist category, which he also won. Most were aerial shots of the Gulf of Mexico slick and the desperate efforts made following the blow-out to clean up the mess; but it is the pelican portrait that stands out. The birds are seen clustered in a box at a rescue facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. At that moment, the animals had just gone through the first stage of cleaning, which involved spraying them with a light oil to break up the heavy crude trapped in their feathers. The resulting smelly, mucky residue dripped from the birds' plumage on to a white sheet. "The problem with birds is that as soon as they get dirty, they try to clean themselves, which means they swallow a lot of oil. By November 2010, I think they had recovered over 6,000 dead birds," Daniel said. "There was a closed door on the box. Every so often it would be opened and a bird would be taken out to be cleaned properly. I had a 35mm lens and when that door was opened, I would look in and grab three or four shots. The intent was not to disturb them any more than was necessary." Judge Rosamund Kidman Cox said the image would make people sit up. "It is an 'oil painting'," she said. "The colours really make you think you are looking at a painting and then it hits you, what it is you're actually looking at. It has a very strong environmental message; it says everything," she told BBC News. The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition tours the world annually. It celebrates the drama and splendour of the natural world, with astonishing, creative and sometimes humorous wildlife photography. It is suitable for an audience of all ages. The 2010 exhibition can currently be seen at the Australian Museum, Sydney, Bourges Muséum d'Historie Naturelle, Tourmalin in Oberammergau, Pas Events in Torino, Agencja Zegart in Bydgoszcz Poland, Crescent Initiativas in Madrid and the Museon den Haag in the Netherlands. The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England (the others are the Science Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum). Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road. The museum is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. The museum is a world-renowned centre of research, specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Darwin. The Natural History Museum Library contains extensive books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork collections linked to the work and research of the scientific departments. Access to the library is by appointment only. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons, and ornate architecture — sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature — both exemplified by the large Diplodocus cast which dominates the vaulted central hall. Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881, and later incorporated the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History Museum does not levy an admission charge. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nhm.ac.uk

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 17 Feb 2012 06:09 PM PST 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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