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• The Belvedere Museum in Vienna To Show "Hans Makart" Retrospective
• The Art Antiques London Fair Comes to Kensington Gardens in June
• The University of Wyoming Art Museum Shows "American Regionalism"
• Bruce Earles Exhibition on View at SOHO Gallery in Sydney, Australia
• The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art Presents "Deep" A Juried Show
• The Wolfsonian in Miami Beach Shows British Transport Art Posters
• Christie's NY Announces Post-War and Contemporary Day Sale May 12
• Guggenheim in Bilbao exhibits "All the Histories of Art ~ Kunsthistorisches Museum"
• The Romanian Academy hosts the 7th Edition of Spazi Aperti ~ The Annual Collaborative Exhibition
• Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert to show Early Works from 1939-1954 by Lucian Freud
• Grand Palais Showcases Artwork from the Second Half of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Career
• Gibbes Museum of Art to Feature Modern Masters from the Ferguson Collection
• National Museum Cardiff will show Diane Arbus's Legendary Photographs
• Forum Gallery will showcase Important New Acquistions of Contemporary Masters
• The Contemporary Jewish Museum honors "Jews on Vinyl"
• Kunsthaus Bregenz presents Carsten Höller's ~ " Carrousel "
• Friedrich Petzel Presents Prints Made in Collaboration with Jorge Pardo
• Robert Mapplethorpe Not Obscene in Japan
• Martin Maloney featured at Timothy Taylor Gallery
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Belvedere Museum in Vienna To Show "Hans Makart" Retrospective Posted: 07 May 2011 09:39 PM PDT Vienna.- From 9 June until 9 October, the Belvedere Museum in Vienna will be showing a retrospective collection of works by Hans Makart at the Lower Belveder and Orangery. Like no other artist of the nineteenth century, Hans Makart influenced an era whose embodiment he became and which went down in the annals of history as the 'Makart period'. The Belvedere devotes a comprehensive exhibition to this exceptional artist, which is being compiled in cooperation with the Wien Museum and is going to investigate the myth of Makart. Called to Vienna's imperial court when still a young talent, the artist quickly climbed the ladder of success. His paintings were popular among the rising bourgeoisie and were eventually considered an indicator of social recognition and repute. Makart knew how to take advantage of the new possibilities of the emerging industrial age to market his works and use them for his own aesthetic language. His pictures and subjects became emblematic mirror images of his time and attracted attention both at home and abroad. Makart's international recognition and appreciation, but also his painterly approach to colour, which relied on Delacroix, invite comparison with the international art of his period. His intense painterly treatment of Richard Wagner's operas attests to his keen sense of innovative artistic developments. The designs by Gottfried Semper, who was a friend of Richard Wagner's, inspired Makart to conceive his own architectural fantasies, which reflects his interest in the Gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art. Held in great esteem, Markat died in 1884 at the young age of forty-four years. Makart was the son of a chamberlain at the Mirabell Palace, born in the former residence of the prince-archbishops of Salzburg. Initially, he received his training in painting at the Vienna Academy between 1850 and 1851 from Johann Fischbach. While in the Academy, German art was under the rule of a classicism, which was entirely intellectual and academic—clear and precise drawing, sculpturesque modelling, and pictorial erudition were esteemed above all. Makart, who was a poor draughtsman, but who had a passionate and sensual love of color, was impatient to escape the routine of art school drawing. For his fortune, he was found by his instructors to be devoid of all talent and forced to leave the Vienna Academy. He went to Munich, and after two years of independent study attracted the attention of Karl Theodor von Piloty, under whose guidance, between 1861 and 1865 he developed his painting style. During these years, Makart also travelled to London, Paris and Rome to further his studies. The first picture he painted under Piloty, "Lavoisier in Prison", though it was considered timid and conventional, attracted attention by its sense of color. In his next work, "The Knight and the Water Nymphs", he first displayed the decorative qualities to which he afterwards sacrificed everything else in his work. His fame became established in the next year, with two works, Modern Amoretti and The Plague in Florence. His painting Romeo and Juliet was soon after bought by the Austrian emperor for the Vienna Museum, and Makart was invited to come to Vienna by the aristocracy. The He gradually turned it into an impressive place full of sculptures, flowers, musical instruments, requisites and jewellery that he used to create classical settings for his portraits, mainly of women. Eventually his studio looked like a salon and became a social meeting point in Vienna. Cosima Wagner described it as a "wonder of decorative beauty, a sublime lumber-room". His luxurious studio served as a model for a great many upper middle-class living rooms. The opulent, semi-public spaces of the Makart atelier were the scene of a recurring rendezvous between the artist and his public. The artist became the mediator between different levels of society: he created a socially ambiguous sphere in which nobility and bourgeoisie could encounter one another in mutual veneration of the master, and aestheticized the burgeoning self-awareness of the bourgeoisie by means of historical models drawn from the world of the aristocracy. Makart is considered by many as being the first art star, referred to by contemporaries an "artist prince" (Malerfürst) in the tradition of Rubens. Makart became the acknowledged leader of the artistic life of the Vienna, which in the 1870s passed through a period of feverish activity, the chief results of which are the sumptuously decorated public buildings of the Ringstraße. He not only practised painting, but was also an interior designer, costume designer, furniture designer, and decorator, and his work decorated most of the public spaces of the era. His work engendered the term "Makartstil", or "Makart style", which completely characterized the era. In 1879, Makart had designed a pageant organised to celebrate the Silver Wedding Anniversary of the Imperial couple, emperor Franz Josef and his wife Elisabeth of Bavaria —he designed, single-handed, the costumes, scenic setting, and triumphal cars. This became known as the "Makart-parade", and had given the people of Vienna the chance to dress up in historical costumes and be transported back into the past for a few hours. At the head of the parade was a float for artists, led by Makart on a white horse. His festivals became an institution in Vienna which lasted up until the 1960s. In the same year as the first parade he became a Professor at the Vienna Academy. Makart's painting "The Entry of Charles V into Antwerp" caused some controversy, because Charles V was depicted arriving in a procession surrounded by nude virgins; the offense was the mistaken idea that the nudes had no place in the modern scene. In the United States, the painting fell under the proscription of Anthony Comstock, which secured Makart's fame there. The American public desired at once to see what Comstock was persecuting, so they could tell whether he was acting correctly or in error. In 1882 emperor Franz Josef ordered the building of the Villa Hermes at Lainz (near Vienna) for his empress and specified the bedroom decoration to be inspired from Shakespeare's Midsummernight's Dream. Makart designed for him a fascinating dreamworld that still exists at the Villa Hermes as a large painting (1882). Unfortunately his design was never executed after his early death in 1884. His collection of antiques and art consisted of 1083 pieces and was put up for auction by art-dealer H.O. Miethke. The Belvedere Palaces, have harbored treasures of art ever since their beginnings, at first the collections of Prince Eugene and, from 1781, extensive parts of the imperial collection, which were also open to the public. Around 1900, since no measures were being taken to build the planned new museum for the state collection of contemporary art, Austrian artists were urging an improvised accommodation of works in the Lower Belvedere. In 1903, the Moderne Galerie was indeed opened there, thus laying the foundation for today's collection. In 1923, the baroque museum was opened in the Lower Belvedere as the first part of the museum's "restructuring". The Galerie des XIX Jahrhunderts (Gallery of the XIXth Century) was set up in 1924 in the Upper Belvedere, with works by international and Austrian artists, meanwhile the Moderne Galerie was accommodated in the Orangerie, where the monumental sculpture found an ideal setting in the adjacent large landscaped garden. During the National-Socialist regime the Moderne Galerie remained closed, which meant that the inventory of so-called "degenerate" works was untouched. Museum operations during the post-Second World War period have been characterized by numerous new acquisitions, extensions and modernization measures. From 1991 to 1996, the Upper Belvedere underwent general refurbishment. The Lower Belvedere and the Orangery are used as the Belvedere's exhibition forum. Medieval at the Upper Belvedere: The Belvedere owns internationally outstanding works of Late Gothic sculpture and panel painting. They offer an overview of the major artistic developments in the International Style from around 1400 to the early sixteenth century. The Baroque Collection of the Belvedere left the Lower Belvedere in 2007 and the most important works of Austrian Baroque are now shown in the east wing of the Upper Belvedere. The 19th century collection encompasses a wide range of masterpieces, including classicism, romanticism and Biedermeier, realism and historicism, and the art of impressionism. Classicism and romanticism are pre-eminently represented in portraits and mood landscapes, especially by Caspar David Friedrich. Besides examples of Austrian mood impressionism, there is a remarkable and exclusive selection of international art with works by Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet. Visit the museum's website at : http://www.belvedere.at

The Art Antiques London Fair Comes to Kensington Gardens in June Posted: 07 May 2011 08:01 PM PDT London.- From June 9th until June 15th, the Art Antiques London fair will be held at Kensington Gardens, offering a dazzling array of works, from the ancient to the contemporary and a true "collectors" experience. Art Antiques London has been very successful in recruiting overseas dealers. Amongst those who will be taking part for the first time this year are Erik Thomsen Asian Art, New York, who specializes in Japanese screens and scrolls, early Japanese tea ceramics from the medieval through the Edo periods, masterpieces of ikebana bamboo baskets and gold lacquer objects.

The University of Wyoming Art Museum Shows "American Regionalism" Posted: 07 May 2011 07:27 PM PDT Laramie, WY - The University of Wyoming Art Museum presents "American Regionalism: Selections from the Art Museum Collection" until December 22nd. After World War I many American artists rejected the Modernist trends emanating from city life and rapidly developing technological advances, and instead, chose to adopt realism to depict American rural scenes. Partially due to the Great Depression, Regionalism became one of the dominant art movements of the 1930s. Their depictions of rural and daily life subject matter represented a reassuring view of American life in the Heartland that people could easily identify with.

Bruce Earles Exhibition on View at SOHO Gallery in Sydney, Australia Posted: 07 May 2011 07:26 PM PDT Sydney, AU - The SOHO Gallery is pleased to present "Bruce Earles: Contemporary Paintings" from May 7th to 24th. Melbourne-based Bruce Earles creates joyous and infectious images that turn the urban environment on its head. With elegant complexity and playful sentiment, his crowded canvases present a radically different response to the urban environment. Creating busy, toy-like worlds that are filled with light and color, Earles' paintings express life rather than describing it. As well as extensive showings throughout Australia, Earles has exhibited Internationally at the Australian National Pavilion, Shanghai Art Fair 2007; Star Gallery, Chicago 2007; Beijing, 2005; Maska Gallery Seattle 1991; Emerging Collector, New York 1997; Gallery 212 Tokyo, 1985 and 1986. In 2000 he won the prestigious Pollock Krasner Award to undertake study in New York City where his work received mention in the Art in America publication.

The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art Presents "Deep" A Juried Show Posted: 07 May 2011 07:03 PM PDT Orange County, CA.- From May 5th until June 25th, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art is showing "Deep", a juried show of new contemporary art. Deep is an exhibition by artists who persist in trying to express the intangible, creating work for which no simple explanation suffices. With existential landscapes, angst-filled portraits, feverish abstractions, arcane conceptual constructions, philosophical photographs, seductive ceramics and sculptures, self-reflexive videos, heady performances, esoteric installations, and internet-based New Media explorations, the artists in Deep are fearless in the face of the infinite, unafraid of introspection. And sometimes Deep is funny! Deep is a riddle, an enigma, a plunge into the unknown.

The Wolfsonian in Miami Beach Shows British Transport Art Posters Posted: 07 May 2011 07:02 PM PDT Miami Beach, FL.- "Art for British Posters For Transport" is on view at the Wolfsonian in Miami Beach, Florida until August 14th. This Wolfsonian–Florida International University exhibition explores the evolution of transport posters in twentieth-century Britain, and features outstanding examples executed for both the London Underground and the British railways. The exhibition, on view from April 15, through August 14, is organized by the Yale Center for British Art. The title of the show, Art for All, is taken from an exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1948 (organized by the V&A and London Transport), which featured original works of art, the maquettes for the posters. This exhibition contains the art truly seen by all: the posters themselves. Art for All presents more than eighty masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, many of them donated to the Yale Center by Henry S. Hacker, Yale College, Class of 1965. In addition, the installation will include works from The Wolfsonian collection that complement the exhibition.

Christie's NY Announces Post-War and Contemporary Day Sale May 12 Posted: 07 May 2011 06:37 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Christie's announces the auction of a finely honed private collection of important Contemporary art, with works from marquee artists such as Damien Hirst, Robert Indiana, Andy Warhol and Takashi Murakami. The Private European Collection represents work from each major artist's response to centuries of tradition, underscored with themes of loss, longing and desire. Comprised exclusively of cornerstone works from the 1960s to the present, the collection will be offered in afternoon session of Christie's May 12 Day Sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art. The collection is estimated to realize upwards of $8 million. The collection's top lot is Robert Indiana's international icon, LOVE (Red/Blue) 1990 (estimate: $2,000,000-3,000,000). The sculpture acts as both an abstract configuration and a shaped poem with verbal and visual elements harmoniously juxtaposed. Damien Hirst's All You Need Is Love, 2006 (estimate: $1,000,000- 1,500,000), a heart-shaped, monochrome butterfly painting, is exceptionally rare. The work created under the aegis of the waning 20th Century by the Beatles' Paul McCartney and John Lennon, All You Need is Love makes bedfellows of hope, love and death with melancholic nostalgia with butterfly wings. Takashi Murakami's Kiki, 2000-2005 (estimate: $900,000-1,200,000) is another key highlight. Kiki, the Japanese warrior was originally conceived as one of two "acolytes" or guardians of the artist's Oval Buddha, but she has become a celebrated character in her own right. In creating the work, Murakami played with the associations of the prodigious Kano style of the 16th Century Japanese painter Kano Eitoku and the legacy of Japanese culture. Delicate yet bold, with an ebullient smile revealing sharp fangs, the subversive Kiki is rife with dichotomies. Andrew Massad, International Specialist, Head of Afternoon Session, comments: "Selected with a discriminating eye these exceptional works capture the zeitgeist of several decades. Each work of art reimagines traditional materials and images in a dialogue with art history. Christie's is pleased to present this exceptionally cultivated collection." Additional highlights include: Marc Quinn Myth Venus painted bronze, 2006 Estimate: $ 800,000 – 1,200,000 Mark Tansey Study for Columbus Discovers Spain oil on canvas, 1995 Estimate: $1,000,000 – 1,500,000 Andy Warhol Beatle Boots (Negative) synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas, 1986 Estimate: $600,000 – 800,000 Tom Wesselmann Still Life #13 oil and printed paper collage on board, 1962 Estimate: $300,000 – 400,000 Gimhongsok Love enamel on steel, 2010 Estimate: $40,000 – 60,000 Auction: Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session Christie's New York May 12, 2011 at 2 pm Viewing: Christie's Rockefeller Center Galleries, May 7- 11

Guggenheim in Bilbao exhibits "All the Histories of Art ~ Kunsthistorisches Museum" Posted: 07 May 2011 06:31 PM PDT   BILBAO, SPAIN - The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents All the Histories of Art: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna , the first and most comprehensive and innovative show ever presented in Spain about the collection of Kunsthistorisches Museum , one of the oldest museums in the world. The close relationship between the history of Austria and Spain, which for centuries shared the same dynasty, the Hapsburgs, underscores the relevancy of this exhibition and the cooperation between these two institutions, both of which are aware of the major cultural and artistic mark that the Austrians left in Spain.

The Romanian Academy hosts the 7th Edition of Spazi Aperti ~ The Annual Collaborative Exhibition Posted: 07 May 2011 06:30 PM PDT ROME - The Romanian Academy announced the 7th edition of Spazi Aperti, the annual collaborative exhibition in a continuous expansion, opening on Wednesday, 27th May 2009. The exhibition is curated by Mirela Pribac and will take place in the alternative spaces of the Romanian Academy in Rome, opened for site-specific installations. As in previous editions, Spazi Aperti is the largest collaboration between the artists in residence at foreign academies and institutes in Rome, this year including: the American Academy, the Belgian Academy, the Danish Academy, Académie de France à Rome – Villa Medici, the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo, the Hungarian Academy, the British School at Rome, the Scandinavian Circle, the Swedish Institute, the Swiss Institute, the Royal Spanish Academy and Temple University.

Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert to show Early Works from 1939-1954 by Lucian Freud Posted: 07 May 2011 06:29 PM PDT LONDON - A major loan exhibition of early works by Lucian Freud (born 1922) will be held at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, 38 Bury Street, St James's, London SW1 from 9th October through 12th December 2008. The earliest paintings, from 1939, were completed when the artist was only 16. Many of the paintings in the exhibition are from private collections and not normally available to be seen by the public. With the support of the artist, the exhibition will be curated by the artist's assistant and model for the past fifteen years, the painter David Dawson, with help from Catherine Lampert, who most recently selected the Freud retrospective which opened in Dublin in June 2007.

Grand Palais Showcases Artwork from the Second Half of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Career Posted: 07 May 2011 06:28 PM PDT PARIS.- "I'm starting to know how to paint. It has taken me over fifty years' work to get this far and it's not finished yet," declared the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) in 1913, at a time when a major exhibition of his work, including the large nudes painted at the turn of the twentieth century, was on show at the Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris. It was a revelation. Guillaume Apollinaire was lavish in his praise for the man he considered "the greatest living painter": "Renoir grows greater all the time. His latest paintings are always the most beautiful. And the most youthful." Exhibition running from Sept. 23 until Jan. 4, 2010 at the Grand Palais, Paris.

Gibbes Museum of Art to Feature Modern Masters from the Ferguson Collection Posted: 07 May 2011 06:27 PM PDT Charleston, South Carolina – The Gibbes Museum of Art will present the exclusive exhibition Modern Masters from the Ferguson Collection in the Main Gallery from April 30 through August 22, 2010.  Selected from the private collection of prominent art enthusiasts Esther and James Ferguson, this exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by significant twentieth-century artists such as Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, and Christo.

National Museum Cardiff will show Diane Arbus's Legendary Photographs Posted: 07 May 2011 06:26 PM PDT CARDIFF, WALES - One of National Museum Cardiff's main art exhibitions in 2009 will reveal the work of legendary New York photographer Diane Arbus (1923 -1971), who transformed the art of photography. Diane Arbus, which comprises 69 photographs including the rare and important portfolio of ten vintage prints: Box of Ten, 1971, is one of the best collections of Arbus's work in existence and will be on display at the Museum from 9 May until 31 August 2009.

Forum Gallery will showcase Important New Acquistions of Contemporary Masters Posted: 07 May 2011 06:25 PM PDT New York City  - New Acquisitions, Forum Gallery will showcase thirty works new to the gallery in the last year, and will include large and small-scale paintings, dramatic sculpture and important drawings by Forum Gallery roster artists and twentieth century and contemporary masters. Featured artists include: Steven Assael, Ilya Bolotwsky, Eli Bornstein, Charles Burchfield, Robert Cottingham, Philip Evergood, Paul Fenniak, Sam Francis, Linden Frederick, Gregory Gillespie, Robert Gwathmey, Edward Hopper, Holly Lane, Michael Leonard, Alan Magee, G. Daniel Massad, Odd Nerdrum, Larry Rivers, Brian Rutenberg, Raphael Soyer, Tula Telfair, Bill Vuksanovich, Max Weber, Tom Wesselmann, Francisco Zúñiga, Cybèle Young, and Lisa Bartolozzi. On exhibition 10 July through 22 August, 2009.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum honors "Jews on Vinyl" Posted: 07 May 2011 06:24 PM PDT   SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- What do Bagels and Bongos, Israeli Disco Fever, and When You are in Love the Whole World is Jewish have in common? They are just a few of the vintage record titles featured in the Contemporary Jewish Museum's exhibition, 'Jews on Vinyl'. On view through June 9, 2009, Jews on Vinyl is a unique exhibition based on the new book by Roger Bennett and Josh Kun-And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost (Crown Press, 2008), which spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Kunsthaus Bregenz presents Carsten Höller's ~ " Carrousel " Posted: 07 May 2011 06:23 PM PDT   Bregenz, Austria -  Carrousel, at Kunsthaus Bregenz, is an exhibition of rotations and endless repetitions. Though works of the most differing types of construction and effects by artist Carsten Höller are assembled on the various floors and the roof, all retain rotation and repetition in common. In the similarity of their movements, the works echo the building's architecture, which repeats itself throughout every floor, but they simultaneously defy it by their erratic, unsteady character and their almost antithetic formal languages.

Friedrich Petzel Presents Prints Made in Collaboration with Jorge Pardo Posted: 07 May 2011 06:22 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Friedrich Petzel Gallery presents the group exhibition, Jorge Pardo Sculpture Ink. This summer Friedrich Petzel Gallery will exhibit a set of prints made in collaboration with Jorge Pardo, shown for the first time since it debuted in the Guggenheim's exhibition "theanyspacewhatever". In the original museum exhibition, Pardo transformed a section of the museum's infamous ramp with an interlocking system of intricately-patterned screens that were illuminated by anthropomorphic sculptural lamps. This installation blocked and then demarcated an alternative circulation route for visitors while it also functioned as an inventive display system for a series of silk-screened prints created by the artists in the exhibition.

Robert Mapplethorpe Not Obscene in Japan Posted: 07 May 2011 06:21 PM PDT   Tokyo, Japan - The Supreme Court of Japan on Tuesday overruled a 2003 Tokyo High Court decision and decided that "Mapplethorpe," a book of erotic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-89),  did not violate obscenity laws, The Associated Press reported. The decision should pave the way for sale of the book in Japan for the first time in eight years.

Martin Maloney featured at Timothy Taylor Gallery Posted: 07 May 2011 06:20 PM PDT   LONDON - Timothy Taylor Gallery is delighted to present a series of new works by Martin Maloney. Taking as a starting point the banal, semi-nude female models that appear daily in British tabloid newspapers, Maloney reconstructs their playful poses in large-scale collages and works on paper to be shown in both the Carlos Place and Dering Street galleries.

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 07 May 2011 06:18 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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