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• 'Manet ~ The Man Who Invented Modern Art' at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris
• 'George Condon: Mental States' at the New Museum in New York
• 'Visible/Invisible' a Group Show at the Flinders Gallery in Melbourne
• Michael Kessler ~ New Works at Butters Gallery in Portland
• The Swiss Julius Baer Bank’s Art Collection is Made Accessible Online
• The 14th Annual International SOFA Exposition Coming To New York
• Forum Gallery NYC to feature New Works of Steven Assael
• Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Presents a New Body of Work by Emile Clark
• Foam_Fotgrafiemuseum Amsterdam shows " Flamboya " by Viviane Sassen
• London's Natural History Museum to Open "Giant Cocoon" to House Darwin Centre
• Williams College Museum of Art Presents Gregory Crewdson/Edward Hopper
• Exhibition at Fundació Suñol of 27 Works ~ Dating from 1924-1998 ~ One Of A Kind Collection
• The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum to exhibit " Modernists in New Mexico "
• The Currier Museum of Art presents Brett Weston ~ Out of the Shadow
• MoMA Pays Tribute to Iris Barry ~ Its First Curator of Film
• Philbrook Museum and OU Receive Adkins Art Collection
• Brazilian Cildo Meireles Major Survey coming to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer
• Utah Museum of Fine Arts to show A Survey of Shauna Cook Clinger’s Artwork
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

'Manet ~ The Man Who Invented Modern Art' at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:35 AM PDT Paris.- The Musee d'Orsay presents "Manet, The man Who Invented Modern Art" from 5th April 2011 - 3rd July 2011. More than a one man retrospective for Edouard Manet (1832-1883), the exhibition explores and highlights the historical situation around him, including the reaffirmed legacy of Romanticism, the impact of his contemporaries and the changes in the media at the time. The exhibtion includes a reconstruction of his exhibition at the Gallery La Vie moderne, organised in March-April 1880 at the start of the Salon, and raises the question finally of what "the freedom to create" meant to him. As well as works from the Musee d'Orsay's own collection, the exhibtion features numerous loans from other museums and private collectors. There has been no exhibition exclusively devoted to Édouard Manet in France since 1983, the date of the memorable retrospective produced by Françoise Cachin and Charles S. Moffett. In the ensuing twenty-five years, however, there has been much valuable research and fruitful reflection. A rejection of formalism and a return to history, personal as well as collective, characterise the best of this work, whether documenting Manet's life story or analysing his work, how it was exhibited and received. Our understanding of French painting from the period 1840 to 1880 has at the same time become more refined and freed from over-Manicheistic interpretations. From these two developments, in which the Musée d'Orsay continues to be involved, a new image of Manet and his generation has appeared. This exhibition aims to demonstrate this in a most clear and attractive way. More than just a strictly linear, monographic retrospective, it constructs its premise around some twelve questions, each one closely related to the historical process from which Manet cannot be separated. Simplifying his modernity to an iconographic register or bringing it down to a few stylistic elements, comes, as we know, from a reductive approach. Manet is modern primarily because he embraces, as much as Courbet yet differently, the changes in the media that marked his era, and the unregulated circulation of images; secondly because imperial France, the backdrop to his developing career, was modern. And finally because the manner in which he challenged the masters of the Louvre was modern, extending beyond his militant Hispanism. It is clear that the aesthetic he forged after 1860 demands a broader definition of realism than is normally ascribed to him.With this objective in mind, the exhibition aims to revisit the many links, visual, literary or political, between Manet's art and Romantic culture. It will focus on the teaching of Thomas Couture, Baudelaire's support and encouragement, the reform of religious art, erotic imagery and its unresolved issues, etc. But the originality of an artist as unpredictable as Manet cannot be reduced to the sum of the sources from which he distils his art. Other sections of the exhibition try to throw light on the art of the fragment(ed), his relationship with women painters (Berthe Morisot, Eva Gonzalès), his decision to remain outside the main Impressionist movement and his complicity with Mallarmé at his darkest. The final reminder of the exhibition at the Gallery de la Vie Moderne, the last one-man show, in 1880, of a painter obsessed by the Salon, raises the question of what "the freedom to create" meant to him. This means that "Manet, the Man who Invented Modernity" highlights later works that are less well known and, more importantly, little understood if regarded as simply a stage in the process towards "pure painting" The history of the Musee d'Orsay and its building is quite unusual. In the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens, the museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. So the building itself could be seen as the first "work of art" in the Musee d'Orsay, which displays collections of art from the period 1848 to 1914. The station is superb and looks like a Palais des beaux-arts..." wrote the painter Edouard Detaille in 1900. Eighty-six years later, his prophecy was fulfilled when the Musee d'Orsay opened in 1986. The transformation of the station into a museum was accomplished by ACT architecture group, made up of M. Bardon, M. Colboc and M. Philippon. Their project was chosen in 1979 out of six propositions, and would respect Laloux's architecture while nonetheless reinterpreting it according to its new function. The project highlighted the great hall, using it as the main artery of the visit, and transformed the magnificent glass awning into the museum's entrance. The museum has been organised on three levels: on the ground floor, galleries are distributed on either side of the central nave, which is overlooked by the terraces of the median level, these in turn opening up into additional exhibition galleries. The top floor is installed above the lobby, which covers the length of the Quai, and continues into the highest elevations of the former hotel, over the rue de la Légion d'Honneur (formerly rue de Bellechasse). The museum's specific exhibition spaces and different facilities are distributed throughout the three levels: the pavilion Amont, the glass walkway of the former station's western pinion, the museum restaurant (installed in the dining hall of the former hotel), the Café des Hauteurs, the bookshop and the auditorium. The museum has 57,400 square metres of floorspace of which almost 22,000 is used to exhibit art. Almost 3 million people visit the Musee d'Orsay every year. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.musee-orsay.fr

'George Condon: Mental States' at the New Museum in New York Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:34 AM PDT New York, NY - In conjunction with the Hayward Gallery in London, the New Museum in New York presents "George Condo: Mental States" until 15th May 2011. The exhibition is the first conceptual survey of twenty five years of work by the American artist George Condo. Concentrating on painting, but including sculpture as well, the exhibition will offer a comprehensive survey of a career that has been innovative in his assimilation and appropriation of elements of the greatest Western artists of the past five hundred years, from Velasquez to Picasso to Arshile Gorky. Condo's career has been most prolific as a portraitist, but one who has devised a wholly unique way to interpret this genre. Beginning in the mid 1980s he developed the idea of "artificial realism" an idea that spawned a race of entirely imagined entities. Conventionally, a portrait depicts a individual who exists, or once existed. Condo's portraits do not. Painted with a highly detailed naturalism that gives old masterish attention to every detail of figure, costume and attribute, Condo's portraits remain recognizable as types, butlers, businessmen, saints or cleaning ladies, despite their often fantastic, or humorously grotesque features.

'Visible/Invisible' a Group Show at the Flinders Gallery in Melbourne Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:33 AM PDT Melbourne, AU - 'Visible/Invisible' at the Flinders Lane Gallery from April 5th to 23rd 2011 features works by a group of contemporary artists. Visible/Invisible enters the space between the seen and the unseen, the conscious and the unconscious, testing and exploring boundaries on a visual, spatial, and material level. In this arena of half light, the everyday meets with the wondrous and the strange, and memory, myth, and dreams intermingle with the visible world. This exhibition attempts to highlight the infinite layers of veils that we all see through in engaging with 'reality'. The everyday meets with the fantastic, the wondrous and the strange. In this arena of half light, memories, myths, and dreams intermingle with the visible world. What the eye sees in this space, from the infinite possibilities in every view, functions as a mirror on the self. Everything we see is viewed through our own personal layers of dreams, experiences, & beliefs. Through examining the gaze, and what it seeks, the imaginings that overlay the material substance of our visible world become clearer.

Michael Kessler ~ New Works at Butters Gallery in Portland Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:31 AM PDT Portland, OR.- Butters Gallery in Portland presents new works by Michael Kessler from April 7th to 30th 2011. Rome Prize and Pollock/Krasner Award recipient Michael Kessler interweaves organic motifs and rectilinear structure in "New Works," his virtuoso suite of mixed-media paintings.  The organic forms are reminiscent of vines, plants, lichen, and the splattery ooze of raindrops and lava flow. They sprawl across, over, and under squares and rectangles that seem intent on containing them but prove unable to halt their Manifest Destiny. The paintings call to mind Alan Weisman's cautionary 2007 book, The World Without Us, which outlines the gradual decay that could befall great metropolises if human beings died en masse or were forced to flee urban centers for the country:  an inevitable crumbling of city life as nature encroaches upon once-pristine geometric grids.

The Swiss Julius Baer Bank’s Art Collection is Made Accessible Online Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:30 AM PDT Zurich.- Julius Baer, the leading Swiss private banking group, owns one of the largest corporate collections of Swiss contemporary art. As the artworks are not accessible to the public outside exhibitions, the bank decided to present a selection of works from the collection in a virtual museum. There are currently some 150 artworks accessible on http://museum.juliusbaer.com. Amongst them are the latest acquisitions as well as pieces that have been shown in two exhibitions. Visitors to the virtual museum can view the selected artworks in an interactive slideshow. They can 'move' through virtual exhibitions and, by a simple mouse click, get additional information and open more detailed views of the different artworks.

The 14th Annual International SOFA Exposition Coming To New York Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:29 AM PDT New York.- The 14th International Exposition of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art (SOFA) is a gallery-presented, international art exposition dedicated to bridging the worlds of design, decorative and fine art. Works by emerging and established artists and designers will be presented by international galleries and dealers. SOFA will be held at the Park Avenue Armory from April 14th to 17th 2011. A defining characteristic of the artworks offered by 55 dealers from 12 countries at SOFA New York 2011 is their synthesis-of past and present, personal and collective expression, traditional and new media, regional and global culture, and even, the real and the virtual.  New this year, The Museum of Arts & Design (MAD) in New York will present a video lounge on the SOFA show floor, designed by New York architect David Ling, featuring interviews with artists in MAD's exhibition The Global Africa Project, and conceptual videos from its upcoming exhibition Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities. At SOFA expositions, prominent international galleries and dealers present masterworks bridging the worlds of design, decorative and fine arts, showcasing the rich visual heritage of the decorative arts alongside new, innovative expressions. The works presented bridge historical periods, art movements and cultures, from ethnographica, Asian arts and mid-twentieth century modern to the most cutting-edge contemporary arts and design. The expositions also feature an acclaimed Lecture Series and educational Special Exhibits. In 2005, Expressions of Culture, Inc., producer of SOFA CHICAGO and SOFA NEW YORK, joined dmg world media company (dmgworldmedia.com), an international exhibition and publishing company that produces more than 300 market-leading trade exhibitions, consumer shows and fairs, in addition to 45 related magazines, newspapers, directories and market reports. In 2009 Michael Franks, Chief Operating Officer, dmg world media, along with Mark Lyman, former Vice-President, dmg world media's Art & Antiques Fairs and SOFA Founding Director have purchased the three internationally renowned Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fairs, SOFA Chicago, SOFA New York and SOFA West: Santa Fe from dmg world media creating a new jointly owned firm, The Art Fair Company, Inc. The Art Fair Company has recently launched The Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art alongside SOFA Chicago and SOFA Santa Fe, and has been contracted to produce The Art and Antique Dealers League of America's new Spring Show at the New York Armory. The company's warehouse and Head Office are in Sawyer Michigan where most of it's employees are based. There are two smaller satellite offices, a marketing office in Chicago and an administrative office in West Palm Beach. Roberta Smith, art critic, The New York Times wrote of the fair, "Presence is what counts, and it can be found in almost every booth." In its inaugural year, 1998, SOFA New York sold every square foot of available exhibitor space in the prestigious Park Avenue Armory (formerly Seventh Regiment Armory) on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and enjoyed 9,000 visitors. By 2006, attendance had increased over 55% to 13,500. SOFA New York has been increasingly embraced by the New York fine art establishment. Visit the SOFA website at ... http://www.sofaexpo.com

Forum Gallery NYC to feature New Works of Steven Assael Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:23 AM PDT New York, NY – Steven Assael, the New York artist hailed by The Art Newspaper as "the foremost figurative painter of his generation", will exhibit his latest paintings and drawings at Forum Gallery, New York, from March 19 through May 2, 2009. The exhibition, Assael's seventh since joining the Gallery in 1998, focuses on public and private aspects of urban life and explores issues of intimacy, gender and personal identity. The portraits and narratives the artist paints touch on contact, isolation, sexuality and the journey through life.

Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Presents a New Body of Work by Emile Clark Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:22 AM PDT BROOKLYN, NY.- A series of lush, fluid watercolor and graphite amalgamations of flora and fauna are at the heart of My Garden Pets, a major new installation by New York-based artist Emilie Clark at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden (BBG). In the exhibition—on view from March 6 through May 23, 2010 as a featured presentation of BBG's 2010 Centennial Celebration—Clark explores the work of the 19th-century American naturalist, Mary Treat, and the concept of 'the beneficial insect.' To create this body of work, Clark spent four months on site at the Garden as its first artist-in-residence, researching in its libraries and talking to BBG horticulturalists, scientists, and other staff members.

Foam_Fotgrafiemuseum Amsterdam shows " Flamboya " by Viviane Sassen Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:20 AM PDT   AMSTERDAM, NL - Foam presents an extensive survey of recent photos taken by Viviane Sassen while travelling through various parts of Africa. On one level these photos are an attempt by Sassen to recapture her childhood years in Africa, yet they also pose implicit fundamental questions about image, bias and the constraints of the photographic medium. Many of the portraits that Sassen made in countries like Zambia, Kenya and Tanzania were realised in intuitive collaboration with the subject. They are remarkable for their use of colour, for the idiosyncratic use of shade and their slightly surreal atmosphere. Sassen's work contrasts sharply with Western stereotypes of Africa and its inhabitants. The exhibition features work for which Viviane Sassen won the 2007 Prix de Rome, together with new and previously un-shown work.

London's Natural History Museum to Open "Giant Cocoon" to House Darwin Centre Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:18 AM PDT LONDON.- Get ready to experience the Natural History Museum's metamorphosis when the landmark new Darwin Centre opens to the public on 15 September 2009. The new Darwin Centre is a state-of-the-art science and collections facility and the building is the most significant expansion at the Museum. 'The Darwin Centre will show the public more of our vital research and our internationally important collections. I hope the centre will inspire people to think about the natural environment differently and in turn inspire them to take better care of our planet.' . . Dr Michael Dixon - Director

Williams College Museum of Art Presents Gregory Crewdson/Edward Hopper Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:16 AM PDT Williamstown, MA - The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) presents Drawing on Hopper: Gregory Crewdson/Edward Hopper, an intimate glimpse inside the creative process of two artists separated by time but connected through a single subject: the psychological landscape of American culture.  This exhibition will feature Edward Hopper's Morning in a City, which has recently been treated by the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, along with several of the painting's preparatory sketches, on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art.  Additionally, three enigmatic photographs by contemporary photographer Gregory Crewdson will be on view with their accompanying documentary stills. On exhibition until 15 April, 2007.

Exhibition at Fundació Suñol of 27 Works ~ Dating from 1924-1998 ~ One Of A Kind Collection Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:12 AM PDT BARCELONA, SPAIN - The Fundació Suñol has put together an exhibition of 27 pieces from the Josep Suñol Collection to help expand visitors' knowledge of 20th-century art. It comprises work by 18 artists who played a key role in the field of visual arts in recent years, marked by a shift away from previous conventions of representation. The 27 pieces – which date from 1924 to 1998 – reflect the visions of 18 artists who use different interpretations, intensities and media to reveal their inner thoughts and forms of expression and give us an insight into the collector's vision and decision to include them in his collection.

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum to exhibit " Modernists in New Mexico " Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:10 AM PDT SANTA FE, NM - The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum presents an exhibition that includes a number of paintings designated as partial gifts to the Museum by an anonymous New Mexico collector. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is delighted to be able to exhibit this superb selection, which demonstrates the richly productive encounter between some of America 's most innovative twentieth-century painters and one of their favorite sources of inspiration – New Mexico . The exhibition includes works by various modern artists, most of whom arrived in the southwest after 1912, when New Mexico, which had been a territory, attained statehood: George Wesley Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Robert Henri, Edward Hopper, Raymond Jonson, John Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, and John Sloan. On exhibition 13 February through 10 May, 2009.

The Currier Museum of Art presents Brett Weston ~ Out of the Shadow Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:08 AM PDT MANCHESTER, NH.- Brett Weston (1911-1993) was considered by many to be brilliant, visionary, prodigious, and among the most important photographers of the twentieth century. Yet, his achievements have often been overshadowed by those of his renowned father, Edward Weston. In the first major exhibition in 30 years to be dedicated to Brett's prolific body of work, "Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow" concentrates on the photographer's distinct creative spirit. Currently on view at the Currier Museum of Art through January 3, 2010, this exhibition shows how Weston captured the magic of black and white prints through more than 100 exquisitely printed vintage photographs from the 1920s through the 1980s, all handcrafted by the artist.

MoMA Pays Tribute to Iris Barry ~ Its First Curator of Film Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:07 AM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- The establishment of The Museum of Modern Art's Department of Film, founded as the Film Library, began in 1933, when Iris Barry, the Museum's first film curator, was challenged to organize a series of film programs to "test the waters" of public consumption. From May 10 through 24, 2010, MoMA honors Barry with Iris Barry: Re-View, an exhibition comprising films that Barry selected for a historic series of screenings at The Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, Connecticut) from October 28 through December 30, 1934, many of which were later shown at MoMA. The exhibition, which also marks the 75th anniversary of the June 1935 founding of the Film Library, is organized by Anne Morra, Associate Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.

Philbrook Museum and OU Receive Adkins Art Collection Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:05 AM PDT   TULSA, OK - Ted M. Riseling, Chairman of the Adkins foundation Board, announced today that the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma have been jointly selected to receive the Eugene B. Adkins collection of art. The joint partnership by Philbrook and OU was among many proposals submitted by leading museums across the country. The Adkins Collection, valued at approximately $50 million, is among the most important private collections in the nation of works by the Taos artists as well as Native American works of art.

Brazilian Cildo Meireles Major Survey coming to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:02 AM PDT HOUSTON, TX - Among the most important figures of the Brazilian avant-garde, and widely recognized as one of the leaders in the international development of Conceptual art, Cildo Meireles (b. 1948) is best known for his absorbing, politically charged sensory environments that are by turns elegant and disorienting. This June, the most ambitious and comprehensive exhibition to date of Meireles' work will have its North American premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, following presentations in London and Barcelona.

Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer Posted: 05 Apr 2011 12:00 AM PDT Kansas City, MO - Upon meeting the celebrated Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev in 1974, American artist James Wyeth was captivated by the beauty and intricacy of the art of dance, as well as Nureyev's charismatic personality and exceptional talent.  The two artists developed a close friendship, and a fruitful collaboration resulted, inspiring Wyeth to produce over 35 paintings and drawings of Nureyev.  Capturing Nureyev: James Wyeth Paints the Dancer is organized by the Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine.  On exhibit at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art until 20 August.

Utah Museum of Fine Arts to show A Survey of Shauna Cook Clinger’s Artwork Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:58 PM PDT   Salt Lake City, Utah - Remarkable artistic skill, deep-rooted passion and personal revelation fuse to create the body of art in this new exhibition. A survey of Shauna Cook Clinger's artwork, An Innermost Journey showcases many of the artists' large scale paintings created over the last thirty years. The exhibition is comprised of two parts: the "outer focus" of commissioned portraits and the "inner focus" of symbolic self-portraits. Clinger's emotionally honest imagery and powerful rendering of the human form challenge the conventional nature of portraiture, stretching the limits in order to generate dialogue and produce an innovative exhibition of creative pieces. On view 29 October through 15 February, 2009 at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:57 PM PDT This is a new feature for the subscribers and visitors to Art Knowledge News (AKN), that will enable you to see "thumbnail descriptions" of the last ninety (90) articles and art images that we published. This will allow you to visit any article that you may have missed ; or re-visit any article or image of particular interest. Every day the article "thumbnail images" will change. For you to see the entire last ninety images just click : here . When opened that also will allow you to change the language from English to anyone of 54 other languages, by clicking your language choice on the upper left corner of our Home Page.  You can share any article we publish with the eleven (11) social websites we offer like Twitter, Flicker, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. by one click on the image shown at the end of each opened article.  Last, but not least, you can email or print any entire article by using an icon visible to the right side of an article's headline.

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