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• The Very Surprising & Enlightening Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town
• Japan Society Gallery to Show Utagawa Kuniyoshi the Forerunner to Today's Manga Artists
• Hammer Museum Shows First Major U.S. Presentation of Paintings by Tomma Abts
• Tate Britain to Re-stage William Blake's May 1809 Solo Exhibition
• The Bowes Museum to feature "Damien Hirst ~ Print Maker"
• Singapore Art Museum (SAM) presents ~ Masriadi: Black is My Last Weapon
• "Merchant Posters" ~ Collage Series by Mark Bradford Published in New Book
• Mark Wallinger Retrospective at Kunstverein Braunschweig
• New Presentation of the Modern Collection at the Centre Pompidou
• Noyes Museum of Art presents 'Awakenings ~ Art & Healing'
• British Museum Announces Major Touring Exhibition on Chinese History & Culture
• Miami Art Museum features New Acquisitions of its Permanent Collection
• Famous Chinese Modernist Painter Wu Guanzhong Dies at 90
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Very Surprising & Enlightening Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:50 PM PST 'Iziko' is an isiXhosa word, meaning "a hearth". Since the hearth of a typical African homestead usually occupies the central space, Iziko symbolizes both a hub of cultural activity, and a central place for gathering together South Africa's diverse heritage. The Iziko Museums of Cape Town include The South African Museum of Natural History, Planetarium, Maritime Center, SAS Somerset (an ex-South African Navy Boom Defense Vessel – the last such vessel left in the world), the Wine Museum at Groot Constantia, the Slave Lodge, Bo-Kaap Cultural Museum and a number of historic houses alongside the Iziko South African National Gallery. The National Gallery is South Africa's premier art museum, housing outstanding collections of South African, British, French, Dutch, Flemish and wider African art. With a permanent collection of almost 10,000 items, selections from the Permanent Collection change regularly to enable the museum to have a full program of temporary exhibitions of paintings, works on paper, photography, sculpture, beadwork, textiles and architecture. These provide insight into the extraordinary range of aesthetic production in South Africa, the African continent and further afield. From an initial bequest of 45 paintings presented in 1871 by Thomas Butterworth Bayley, the collection of the Iziko South African National Gallery has grown to one of international stature, encompassing substantial holdings of South African, African and Western European art. The richness of the foreign collection is almost entirely due to the munificence of the early patrons of the Gallery. The main building, designed by Clelland & Mullins (Public Works Department) and F K Kendall, was completed in 1930, with funds from the Government, the City Council and the Hyman Liberman Estate. Since then various improvements have been made to the building, including the introduction of climate control and an upgraded lighting system in 1991. The art collections library provides an extensive art research and reference resource covering South African and international art, with books, journals, exhibition catalogues (some are available for sale), sales/auction catalogues, newspaper clippings since 1904, artist files and art boxes, pamphlets, DVDs, CDs and videos. In line with museum policy, the Library develops projects to make its resources available to as many people in the community as possible. As well as the National Gallery itself, art from the Michaelis Collection (which also forms part of the Art Division of Iziko Museums of Cape Town) is housed in the Old Town House on Greenmarket Square, built in 1755 in Cape Rococo style. Donated by Sir Max Michaelis in 1914, it comprises a world-renowned collection of Netherlandish art from the 17th century, including paintings and works on paper by Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Jacob Ruisdael, Anthony van Dyck and Rembrandt. The historic Rust en Vreugd house contains the William Fehr donation of works of art on paper (watercolours, prints and drawings), whilst paintings from the same donation are displayed at the Castle of Good Hope. Visit the museums websites at … http://www.iziko.org.za/iziko/izihome.html The permanent collection contains particularly fine examples of British art and many leading artists of the early 20th century are represented, including members of the New English Art Club and those of the Bloomsbury Group. Works by John Walker, Michael Porter, Gary Wragg, Alan Davie and Ronald Kitaj were acquired in the 1980s. Limited funds and the prohibitive prices of Western art have limited any significant additions to these collections recently, but the collection is sufficiently broad to provide a lot of interest, whilst also serving to set the more recent African art in an international context. The extraordinary vitality and significance of the art that began to emerge in South Africa in the 1980s, brought about a shift in acquisition policy, which now concentrates on contemporary South African art. Serious attempts are also being made to fill the gaps in the collection resulting from the apartheid past. Since 1990 one of the major tasks has been to establish a collection that acknowledges and celebrates the expressive cultures of the African continent, particularly its southern regions. An authoritative collection of beadwork has been established and the permanent collection has been enriched with the addition of indigenous sculpture, as well as the repatriation of artifacts that were removed from the country over the last two hundred years. A comprehensive database contains information on the artists and works in the permanent collection and over the years a series of excellent catalogues has been published. Selections from the permanent collection change regularly and temporary exhibitions of paintings, works on paper, photography, new media, sculpture, beadwork and textiles are hosted. They provide insight into the range of aesthetic production in South Africa, the African continent and further afield. Numbering over 400 items including paintings, prints and drawings, the Sir Abe Bailey Bequest is the largest bequest held at the SA National Gallery to this day. It also constitutes one of the largest collections of British sporting art held by any public art museum in the world. The Sir Abe Bailey Trust has remained actively involved in its maintenance, and in more recent years has made substantial contributions to ongoing conservation work on the collection. This provides funding for the conservation work to be carried out on the paintings, frames and work on paper. The Michaelis collection boasts works by acknowledged Dutch masters such as Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan van Goyen, Pieter de Hoogh, Abraham van Beyeren and Willem van Aelst, as well as Flemish artists such as Anthony van Dyck, David Teniers, Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Frans Snijders. Containing portraits and group portraits, still-lifes and interiors, landscapes, townscapes and marines, genre scenes and church interiors, it can now be regarded as one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind outside the Netherlands and a few of the major world capitals. Temporary exhibitions are regularly held at many of the Iziko museums sites. Currently on show at the National Gallery are two photography exhibitions. Until 30th April 2011, "Ernest Cole, Photographer" shows the work of South Africa's first black photographer, a man who went to extraordinary lengths to show the suffering under apartheid. So passionately did Ernest Cole believe in his mission to tell the world, in photographs of unsurpassed strength and gravitas, what it meant to be black under apartheid, that he had himself reclassified as "colored" so that he could legally travel to New York. However, with the publication of his book, 'House of Bondage' (which was immediately banned in South Africa) in 1967, his exile became permanent. Tio fotografer, an association of Swedish photographers with whom Cole worked from 1969 to 1975 when he lived in Stockholm, received a collection of his prints, and these were later donated to the Hasselblad Foundation. Never before internationally exhibited, these extremely rare photographs are now to be seen publicly for the first time in a major exhibition. The Hasselblad Foundation chose South Africa as the first venue for this unique world tour in honor of Ernest Cole and his family. A second photography exhibition, "Roger Ballen and Boarding House" (until 17th April 2011) features works that stand apart from those of his contemporaries in their intensity and beauty, their enigmatic quality and sense of impending violence. Born in the United States, Roger Ballen grew up with the work of great modern photographers, through his mother's work with Magnum and her gallery in New York. Ballen's photography in South Africa began when he started travelling through 'dorps' (small rural towns), where rural white communities showed evidence of poverty and social collapse. Although continuing to use many of the same people as subjects, in the late 1990s he began to work less in a documentary style and more like a choreographer or director. In Ballen's most recent body of work, 'Boarding House', his photographs evince a sense of the theatrical, a tension between the fictional and constructed, and that which is absolutely real and present at the moment he exposes the photograph. In the imaginative worlds that Ballen creates, puppies, rats, wire, drawings and old furniture perform roles within the claustrophobic confines of a door-less stage that are part-tragic, part-comedic, and wholly disturbing. The Iziko SA National Gallery is showing 'Boarding House' together with photographs from earlier bodies of work, including'Dorps', 'Outland'and 'Shadow Chamber'. A third exhibition "Imagining Beauty: Body Adornment from the Iziko Collections and Young South African Designers" is on show until 30th April 2011. It features the works of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Awards winning designers, Black Coffee, Darkie, Maya Prass and others that were shown in Berlin in 2010. These modern designs are presented alongside traditional South African beadwork and other treasures from the collection, including a rare Rwandan crown, worn by the royalty of the Great Lakes region shortly before its collapse, as depicted in Irma Stern's famous portrait of Queen Gicanda in 1942. 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

Japan Society Gallery to Show Utagawa Kuniyoshi the Forerunner to Today's Manga Artists Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:49 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Thrashing sea creatures, samurai warriors, and a giant, looming skeleton are among the distinguishing subjects of the brashest of Japan's Ukiyo-e masters, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, whose populist oeuvre is to be presented by Japan Society Gallery from March 12 to June 13, 2010. Fresh from its spring 2009 showing at London's Royal Academy of Arts, where it was the surprise smash hit of the season, Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection marks the first major exhibition of Kuniyoshi's work in the United States in nearly 30 years.

Hammer Museum Shows First Major U.S. Presentation of Paintings by Tomma Abts Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:48 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA- The first major U.S. solo exhibition of paintings by London-based artist Tomma Abts (born Kiel, Germany, 1967)  at the Hammer Museum. The exhibition originated at the New Museum in New York and is organized by Laura Hoptman, Kraus Family Senior Curator. The exhibition includes roughly fifteen paintings created over the past ten years, as well as a selection of colored pencil drawings. Abts' works might be modest in size—18 7/8 by 15 inches (48 x 38 cm), but actually they are extremely ambitious undertakings. On view through 9th November, 2008.

Tate Britain to Re-stage William Blake's May 1809 Solo Exhibition Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:39 PM PST LONDON - In April 2009, Tate Britain will unveil the first display devoted to William Blake's only one-man exhibition, reuniting nine of the surviving works two hundred years after they went on display in May 1809. The original exhibition was Blake's most significant attempt to create a public reputation for himself as a painter and provided a vital insight into the artist's self-image and ambitions. A new edition of Blake's Descriptive Catalogue (1809) will be published by Tate Publishing to coincide with the display.

The Bowes Museum to feature "Damien Hirst ~ Print Maker" Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:37 PM PST COUNTY DURHAM. UK - Following a £12m refurbishment, The Bowes Museum brings a global name to the Barnard Castle treasure house this autumn with the opening of Damien Hirst: Print Maker. As the first exhibition devoted to Hirst's prints in a public gallery, this striking show of more than 50 works, many unseen by the public, is one not to miss.This world class exhibition, curated by former Turner Prize judge Greville Worthington, will explore this foremost British contemporary artist through his renowned print works.This exhibition, which opens on Saturday 6 November 2010, incorporates themes of opposites such as life and death, necessity and luxury & black and white; examining the complications and frailties of human existence.

Singapore Art Museum (SAM) presents ~ Masriadi: Black is My Last Weapon Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:36 PM PST Singapore - Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is proud to present Masriadi: Black is My Last Weapon, the celebrated contemporary Indonesian artist I Nyoman Masriadi's first regional and international solo exhibition. This show forms part of SAM's exhibition programme in showcasing works of key modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artists, continuing on from solo exhibitions such as Affandi and Widayat in 2007. This new exhibition highlights Masriadi's unique visual language of painting – striking visual vocabulary and visual imageries strongly influenced by anime, cyber-gaming and comics. The exhibition features over 30 selected works from private collections in Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong, including early works from 1998 to latest works.

"Merchant Posters" ~ Collage Series by Mark Bradford Published in New Book Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:34 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Since 2006, acclaimed Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford has been erasing, obscuring and reconfiguring the text and graphics of advertising posters he collects from the South Central neighborhood where he was raised. His "Merchant Poster" series reveals narratives of economic struggle and cultural discord as they are telegraphed by the street advertisements of an underground economy.

Mark Wallinger Retrospective at Kunstverein Braunschweig Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:33 PM PST   BRAUNSCHWEIG, GERMANY - Kunstverein Braunschweig presents a Mark Wallinger retrospective, on view through November 11, 2007. Mark Wallinger (b. 1959) is one of the circle of artists who, under the rubric "Young British Art", caused a stir in the art world in the 1990s.

New Presentation of the Modern Collection at the Centre Pompidou Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:32 PM PST PARIS.- The National Museum of Modern Art (Centre Pompidou) opened, on level 5, the new presentation of its collections from 1905 to 1960. The exhibition is entirely dedicated to artists, movements and themes of the founding history of modern art of the twentieth century. There are so many landmarks for visitors which illuminate the journey throughout a century of creation. Centre Pompidou has dedicated over 7000 m² to a thematic and chronological dialogue between works emblematic of all disciplines: visual arts, photography, architecture, design and film.

Noyes Museum of Art presents 'Awakenings ~ Art & Healing' Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:30 PM PST OCEANVILLE, N.J. – The Noyes Museum of Art presents Awakenings: Art & Healing, an exhibition of contemporary Outsider Art through November 2, 2008. Awakenings explores the power of art as a tool for healing, hope and communication for people with mental and physical challenges. The featured artists are associated with Hospital Audiences, Inc. (HAI) in New York City, an organization that is devoted to using professional artists to reach individuals in group residences and treatment programs for chronically mentally ill adults.

British Museum Announces Major Touring Exhibition on Chinese History & Culture Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:29 PM PST   LONDON.- 250 years ago, the British Museum opened its doors to the public for the first time. From the very beginning the Museum has always sought to make its collection as accessible as possible to a world public. Continuing this tradition, China: Journey to the East, supported by BP a China now legacy project, is a unique touring exhibition of over 100 objects from the British Museum's collection, which offers visitors the chance to experience one of the world's most important and influential civilizations. The exhibition will tour to six venues across the country and is the largest UK loan of Chinese material the British Museum has yet undertaken.

Miami Art Museum features New Acquisitions of its Permanent Collection Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:28 PM PST MIAMI, FLORIDA -  A reinstallation showcasing both "old favorites" and new acquisitions from the permanent collection of Miami Art Museum opens to the public Friday. The reinstallation will be on view in MAM's Plaza-level gallery through November 2, 2008. In November 2004, Miami-Dade County voters overwhelmingly approved a bond that includes $100 million for the construction of a new home for MAM. MAM has selected Pritzker Prize and Royal Gold Medal-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron as designers of the Museum's new and expanded facility.

Famous Chinese Modernist Painter Wu Guanzhong Dies at 90 Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:26 PM PST BEIJING, CHINA -  Wu Guanzhong, known as one of the fathers of modern Chinese art for combining western and Chinese elements in black and white oil paintings, has died. He was 90. He died in Beijing on Friday. Wu's works have become very valuable in recent years. Earlier this month, his oil painting from 1974 depicting the Yangtze River sold for $8.4 million at a Beijing auction. For decades he had been exploring ways of reconciling the two traditions, and in his work shows a mutual influence of Chinese and Western styles. He was a most respected artist and played an important role in contemporary art history, as an artist, a teacher, and an essayist.

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 08 Mar 2011 08:25 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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