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

---

• The Art Institute of Chicago ~ A World-Class Collection at The 2nd Largest US Art Museum
• Yale University Art Gallery Features Superb Collection of Italian Paintings
• Nelson-Atkins Museum celebrating ~ Art Print Lovers at 30
• The Gardiner Museum hosts First Comprehensive Assessment of Viola Frey's Career
• The Library of Congress will feature “Molto Animato! Music and Animation”
• Lowe Art Museum to feature a Charles Biederman Retrospective
• The Menil Collection presents ' Face Off ' ~ A Selection of Old Masters
• Volker Hueller's Hand-Coloured Etchings at Timothy Taylor Gallery
• Artist Rigo 23 to Create Site-Specific Installation Inspired by Plight of Political Prisoners for the New Museum
• Berkeley Art Museum surveys Enrique Chagoya 'Borderlandia'
• Artexpo New York Showcases Exciting, Emerging and Established Artists
• The Vienna Secession exhibits "The Death of the Audience"
• Kori Newkirk to Solo at Country Club Los Angeles
• Tate Liverpool presents "Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today"
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Art Institute of Chicago ~ A World-Class Collection at The 2nd Largest US Art Museum Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:15 PM PST The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) was originally founded as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in1879 to be both a museum and school. The name was changed in 1882, and shortly after, the institution was already in need of a new home for its expanding collection and growing student body. It moved to its present site at Michigan Avenue and Adams Street in 1893. The design of the classical Beaux-Arts building, by the Boston firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, allowed for the institution's ambitious goals. The Art Institute officially opened at its new home on December 8, 1893. Two significant improvements to the building followed soon after, the Fullerton Auditorium was added in 1898 and the Ryerson Library in 1901. In 1913 the museum startled the city by hosting the Armory Show, a sprawling exhibition of avant-garde European painting and sculpture. Exceptional purchases from that controversial exhibition launched the museum's collection of modern art. Expansion of the museum was again required to suitably display a collection that now included nearly every artistic medium and the solution was to build over the Illinois Central Railroad tracks that bordered the Art Institute's east wall. The growth of the professional staff led to the completion of the first major new structure in more than 20 years, the B. F. Ferguson Memorial Building was added in the 1950s. This addition is situated to the north of the original structure, which was renamed in honor long-time trustee Robert Allerton. The Morton Wing, erected in 1962, to the south of the Allerton Building, was designed to house the expanding modern art collection and restore symmetry to the complex. The dramatic increase of the contemporary art collection and the popularity of large traveling exhibitions led to the construction of the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Building in 1988. In the 1990s, the Art Institute constructed a new suite of galleries to house its Asian collection. Here, famed architect Tadao Ando designed his first American space, a gallery for Japanese screens. In 1993, a totally reconstructed Kraft Education Center opened to serve students, teachers, and families. In 2006, the Art Institute began construction of "The Modern Wing", an addition situated on the southwest corner of Columbus and Monroe. The project, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Renzo Piano, was completed and officially opened to the public on May 16, 2009. The 264,000-square-foot (24,500 m2) building makes the Art Institute the second largest art museum in the United States with over a million square feet total. The building houses the museum's world-renowned collections of 20th and 21st century art, specifically modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography... Visit the museum's website at … http://www.artic.edu/aic/ The collection of the Art Institute of Chicago encompasses more than 5,000 years of human expression from cultures around the world and contains more than 260,000 works of art. Today, the museum is most famous for its collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and American paintings. Considered one of the finest in the world, the collection of European painting contains more than 3,500 works dating from the 12th through the mid-20th century. Holdings include a rare group of 15th-century Spanish, Italian and Northern European paintings, highlights of European sculpture, and an important selection of 17th- and 18th-century paintings. Major Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and classic Modern works are among its most significant holdings. Included in the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection are more than 30 paintings by Claude Monet including six of his Haystacks and a number of Water Lilies. Also in the collection are important works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir such as "Two Sisters (On the Terrace)" and Henri Matisse's "The Bathers", Paul Cézanne's "The Basket of Apples", and "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair". "At the Moulin Rouge" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is another highlight, as are Georges Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" and Gustave Caillebotte's "Paris Street; Rainy Day". Non-French paintings of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection include Vincent Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles" and "Self-portrait, 1887". The Department of American Art includes more than 1,500 paintings and sculptures from the 18th century to 1950 and nearly 2,500 decorative art objects from the 17th century to the present. Strengths in the collection include the Alfred Stieglitz Collection and significant groups of work by John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt and Winslow Homer. Modernist holdings include iconic images by Grant Wood, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper and the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Among the most important works are Grant Wood's "American Gothic", Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" and Mary Cassatt's "The Child's Bath". The foundation's collection of American works on paper are housed in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute. Institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago have assisted in creating a place for African American art to be explored freely without the restraints that once accompanied it. The pieces included in the Art Institute of Chicago's African American art collection provide a historical illustration of the progress made by African Americans as well as their continuing struggle. The American Decorative Arts galleries contain furniture pieces designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames. The Amerindian collection primarily focuses upon Mesoamerican and Andean ceramics, sculpture, textiles, and metalwork. Native North American Indian works, particularly from the Plains Indians, the Southwest, and California, are also on view. The Art Institute's distinguished Asian collection comprises works spanning nearly five millennia from China, Korea, Japan, India, southwest Asia, and the Near and Middle East. It includes 35,000 objects of great archaeological and artistic significance, including Chinese bronzes, ceramics, and archaic jades; Chinese and Japanese textiles; Japanese screens and paintings; Indian and Persian miniature paintings; and Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture. The collection of Japanese woodblock prints is one of the finest in the world. The African collection includes over 400 works that highlight the diversity of artistic expression on the continent south of the Sahara, with emphasis on the sculptural traditions of West and Central Africa. Included are masks and figural sculpture, beadwork, furniture, regalia, and textiles from countries including Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa. The Art Institute's collection of over 80 African ceramics is the largest in an American art museum. The Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman galleries hold the mummy and mummy case of Paankhenamun, as well as several gold and silver coins. Almost 20 exhibitions are currently showing at the Art Institute. Amongst the ongoing exhibitions highlighting particular items from the permanent collection, the return of Marc Chagall's America Windows should not be missed. The story began in the early 1970s, when Chagall came to the city for work related to his mosaic installed outside Chase Tower, "The Four Seasons". In response to the city's enthusiasm for his work and the Art Institute's great support, the artist offered to create a set of stained-glass windows for the museum. Over the course of three years, plans were clarified, and in the end, Chagall determined that the windows would commemorate America's 1976 bicentennial. The resulting six-panel work celebrates the country as a place of cultural and religious freedom, detailing the arts of music, painting, literature, theater, and dance. Because of his admiration for Chicago and its strong commitment to public art during the 1960s and 1970s, Chagall chose to dedicate the work to Mayor Richard J. Daley, a great supporter of public art projects. The windows were presented with much fanfare at a formal unveiling, hosted by the Auxiliary Board of the Art Institute, on May 15, 1977. Following an intensive period of conservation treatment and archival research, the windows returned in October 2010 as the stunning centerpiece of a new presentation at the east end of the museum's Arthur Rubloff building. A wide variety of temporary exhibitions rotate through the Art Institute, among those currently showing are "Real and Imaginary: Three Latin American Artists" (until May 29, 2011), showing the works of three Latin American artists who share the beauty and richness of their cultural heritage in an exhibition of art from picture books. In a book of Latin American folktales, Raúl Colón layers washes of paint and etched lines, finishing with colored pencils. David Diaz's brightly colored illustrations portray true stories of Mexican heroes and artists. And with a flair for humor, Yuyi Morales paints hauntingly beautiful, mystical pictures that resonate with the importance of family. "John Marin's Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism" on display until April 17th 2011 focuses on the watercolors of American modernist John Marin. His improvisational approach to color, paint handling, perspective, and movement situated him as a leading figure in modern art and helped influence the Abstract Expressionist movement. This exhibition, the first to present the Art Institute of Chicago's phenomenal collection of the artist's work in its entirety,ranges from early images rooted in traditional practice to more personal and experimental compositions, showcasing how Marin, in the process of reinventing watercolor, transformed American painting. ANNOUNCEMENT: Our Editor has been invited to visit Museums and cultural sites worldwide, and they are featured on our Home Page (center). Because of the Editor's travel we will be posting many interesting articles from our archives, some of the BEST Articles and Art Images that appeared in your magazine during the past six plus (6+) years . . and we are publishing current art news articles on the left hand side under RECENT NEWS .. Enjoy

Yale University Art Gallery Features Superb Collection of Italian Paintings Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:13 PM PST NEW HAVEN, CT.- Italian Paintings from the Richard L. Feigen Collection features some 60 paintings from one of the finest private collections of Italian art in existence. On view at the Yale University Art Gallery from May 28 through September 12, 2010, the exhibition includes major works from the 14th through the 17th century by celebrated artists such as Fra Angelico, Lorenzo Monaco, Annibale and Ludovico Carracci, Domenichino, Guercino, and Orazio Gentileschi. Organized by Laurence Kanter, the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of European Art, the exhibition draws from the wide-ranging collection assembled by noted author, collector, and dealer Richard L. Feigen, b.a. 1952. Feigen's outstanding collection of Italian paintings has never before been exhibited or catalogued in its entirety. The exhibition offers visitors the first and only opportunity to view these significant paintings, in concert with Yale's own noted collection of early Italian paintings.

Nelson-Atkins Museum celebrating ~ Art Print Lovers at 30 Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:12 PM PST KANSAS CITY.- The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will honor the Nelson-Atkins Print Society's 30th anniversary with the exhibition Print Lovers at 30: Celebrating Three Decades of Giving. On view through July 20 the exhibition, featuring 31 of the 79 prints donated by that group or its members, also acknowledges the extraordinary role played by the late Print Curator George McKenna, who infused the Print Society with his passion for works on paper and cultivated a collaborative method of acquisition.

The Gardiner Museum hosts First Comprehensive Assessment of Viola Frey's Career Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:11 PM PST TORONTO, ON.- California-based artist Viola Frey (1933 – 2004) broke new ground by creating monumental figurative sculptures in clay that served to elevate the status of ceramics as an art form in the second half of the 20th century. The Gardiner Museum presents Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey (September 10, 2009 to January 10, 2010), the first comprehensive assessment of Frey's career and legacy since her death in 2004.

The Library of Congress will feature “Molto Animato! Music and Animation” Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:10 PM PST Washington, DC - Since the infancy of the motion-picture art form, moving images have always appeared more fluid and expressive when accompanied by music. Whether accompanied by a lone piano player, a symphony orchestra or a record synced to the images on screen, music helps create pacing, carries emotion and makes the storyline soar. In particular, animated films or cartoons opened opportunities for composers wanting to enhance the visual images of the animators with music, sound effects and songs. A new Library of Congress exhibition, "Molto Animato! Music and Animation," opens on Thursday, Nov. 12, and will be on view through March 28, 2010.

Lowe Art Museum to feature a Charles Biederman Retrospective Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:04 PM PST Miami, FL - Charles Biederman: An American Idealist, a touring exhibition organized by the Frederick Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota will be on view at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, from November 22, 2008 through January 18, 2009.  The exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of the life and work of  Charles Biederman (1906-2004), an acclaimed American modernist, important in the Constructivist movement, who pioneered new directions in geometric abstract art. The exhibition features a broad array of paintings and sculptures created during a prolific and influential artistic career.

The Menil Collection presents ' Face Off ' ~ A Selection of Old Masters Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:02 PM PST HOUSTON, TX.- Face Off: A Selection of Old Masters and Others from The Menil Collection examines one of the most primary elements of human interaction: to look upon the face of another. Including prints from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, a few pre-Renaissance sculptures, and a small group of modern and contemporary paintings, Face Off mines seldom-seen areas of the museum's permanent collection to provide fresh insight into fundamental issues of likeness, memory, and identity. This selection of work illustrates that the tenets and strategies utilized in the creation of visual art today have been around for thousands of years, while simultaneously bearing witness to the multifaceted vision of art through time.

Volker Hueller's Hand-Coloured Etchings at Timothy Taylor Gallery Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:01 PM PST LONDON.- Timothy Taylor Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in London by Berlin-based artist Volker Hueller as part of the gallery's The Viewing Room programme. Hueller's hand-coloured etchings exploit all the associative power of the etched line: spidery trails mordantly tracing care-worn physiognomies and smoke-filled rooms. The atmospheric remains of a dark European history lurk within the cracks and crevices of these complex drawings, made up of interlocking fragments and planes. Jaundiced, cruel and complacent faces emerge from these jagged forms, drawing on numerous historical references, such as the élan of Beardsley's fin de siècle drawings or Klee's expressive poetics of line. On view 28 April through 21 May.

Artist Rigo 23 to Create Site-Specific Installation Inspired by Plight of Political Prisoners for the New Museum Posted: 20 Feb 2011 09:00 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- For nearly 20 years, Rigo 23 has created murals, paintings, drawings, and performances, conducted interventions, and published zines advocating for social and political change. His site-specific installation for the New Museum will be the newest in a series of works that take as their subject political prisoners such as Leonard Peltier, Geronimo ji-Jaga (Elmer Pratt), Mumia Abu-Jamal (Wesley Cook), and the Angola 3. Entitled The Deeper They Bury Me, The Louder My Voice Becomes, the work is inspired by the words of Herman Wallace, a member of the Angola 3. The project is on view in the New Museum's Shaft Project Space through October 11, 2009.

Berkeley Art Museum surveys Enrique Chagoya 'Borderlandia' Posted: 20 Feb 2011 08:59 PM PST BERKELEY, CA - The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is pleased to announce a major, twenty-five-year survey of work by Enrique Chagoya. The exhibition features more than seventy works—paintings, charcoal and pastel drawings, prints, and mixed-media codices (accordion-folded books)—that intermingle icons and cultural references spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles. Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia is on view at BAM/PFA through May 18, 2008.

Artexpo New York Showcases Exciting, Emerging and Established Artists Posted: 20 Feb 2011 08:58 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Artexpo New York is the premier fine and popular art show for avid collectors and first time buyers. Artexpo will showcase exciting, emerging and established artists, innovative artwork, and the latest trends in the art world. Visitors can purchase paintings, drawings, sculpture, mixed media, art books, and frames from hundreds exhibitors from across the globe.

The Vienna Secession exhibits "The Death of the Audience" Posted: 20 Feb 2011 08:57 PM PST VIENNA.- The exhibition The Death of Audience takes place in Vienna in one of the mythical sites that helped launch modernism, a site that is considered the first white cube. In this building, at the eve of the twentieth century, western art history marked a rupture with the past. This artist inspired and the defiant act engendered the conditions for a renewal of art in society by breaking down the boundaries separating the different institutional disciplines. As an artistic revolution it intervened in the developing industrial revolution, redistributing the values associated with the notion of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" (the total work of art) and gave its name to this site: the Secession. On exhibition through 30 August, 2009.

Kori Newkirk to Solo at Country Club Los Angeles Posted: 20 Feb 2011 08:56 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA.- Country Club Los Angeles presents Kori Newkirk as the next artist in the gallery's ongoing project series. Newkirk is presenting new works that touch upon fracture, abstraction, labor, the body, science and science fiction with this show while simultaneously ignoring, questioning and commenting on the modernist architectureof the gallery in Rudolf Schindler's 1934-Buck House. Celebrated multimedia artist Kori Newkirk transforms everyday materials into loaded signifiers, shifting and distilling preconceived cultural ideas. Newkirk, using an economy of means, explores culture as an alchemist might, using culture as a raw material to manipulate and shape, forging something new.

Tate Liverpool presents "Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today" Posted: 20 Feb 2011 08:54 PM PST LIVERPOOL - At a time of unprecedented interest in the role of colour in graphic design, fashion and interior design, Tate Liverpool will be presenting Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today. The exhibition looks at the moment in twentieth-century art, when a group of artists began to perceive colour as 'readymade' rather than as scientific or expressive. The exhibition has been created by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collaboration with Tate Liverpool. On exhibition 29 May through 13 September, 2009.

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 20 Feb 2011 08:53 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.

You are subscribed to email updates from Art News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610