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

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• Yue Minjun's Recent Works at The Pace Gallery in Beijing
• Martin-Gropius-Bau Displays Retrospective of Over 300 Photographs by André Kertész
• Cantor Arts Center Gives Two 19th-Century Paintings to the Crocker Art Museum
• Phillips Collection Features Works by Pioneering Abstract Artist Wassily Kandinsky
• A Fellini Season in Switzerland Opens with Exhibition at Musée de l'Elysée
• The de Young Museum Hosts Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso
• Andrea de Chirico Exhibits "The Commedia dell’Arte”, in The Royal Palace of Milan, Italy
• Nassau County Museum of Art Showcases the Romantic Fascination of the Sea
• Discursive Painting from Albers to Zobernig at the MUMOK
• Marrakech Art Fair to be Held at Es Saadi Palace in October
• Andreas Feininger ~ New York in the Forties ~ at the Bauhaus Archive
• The Art of Italy in the British Royal Collection Opens in Edinburgh
• Phoenix Art Museum Hosts Major Retrospective of Ernest L. Blumenschein
• Market Surges Upward for Works by 20th-Century Prague Artists
• The BBC and British Museum Announce "A History of the World" Partnership
• Our Editor Views Many Of Max Ernst Masterpieces at The Max Ernst Museum Brühl, Germany
• Fenimore Art Museum presents a Retrospective ~ Earl Cunningham's "America"
• Pop Artist James Gill presented by Lanning Gallery
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

Yue Minjun's Recent Works at The Pace Gallery in Beijing Posted: 12 Jun 2011 10:08 PM PDT BEIJING.- The Pace Gallery, Beijing presents an exhibition of Yue Minjun's recent works in cooperation with Robb Report. The exhibition, entitled The Road, is the leading Chinese contemporary artist's first solo exhibition in the Pace Gallery, Beijing. The exhibition is on from June 11th through July 16th. More than two decades into his artistic career, Yue is still smiling at the world as he sees it. His trademark "Smile" symbol, the playful, mocking hallmark of the artist's cynical realist style, conceals within it a spirit that's sometimes stubborn and fragile. On exhibition until July 16th at the Pace Gallery in Beijing, China. By mocking his subject's nihility, he stands apart from - and in judgment of - it in a unique way. Despite the world changing around him, Yue's distinctive style hasn't changed much. So should our understanding of his work change? If the object of the "Smile" has changed, should there be some shift in the feel of the "Smile" itself? Or could it be that nothing changed at all? In his newest exhibition, Yue's work takes on Christian forms. The strength of Western culture has pushed more than a few Chinese people into an existence stripped of its cultural core, making them into nomads, wandering in the space between two cultures. By altering the semantic relationships between the people and space in the original works, the works seem almost to dissolve away, neatly avoiding the contradictions and embarrassment inherent to any collision between two cultures. As the curator Leng Lin stated, "Confronted with something you don't completely understand, a smile can mean rejection, or confusion. But it can also mean inclusion and acceptance." Yue Minjun Yue Minjun (b. 1962, Heilongjiang, China) has been quoted as saying he "always found laughter irresistible." Best known for his oil paintings depicting himself with his trademark smile, Yue is a leading figure in the Chinese contemporary art scene. He has exhibited widely and is recognized as one of the breakout stars of his generation. The artist currently lives and works in Beijing. In his earlier work, surrealism had an especially strong influence on him. His self-portraits from the 1990s were the first to depict his easy, automatic smile, but the figures warmth masked underlying emotions. The smile became a mask as the paintings' complexities were played out in the figures' arrangements or poses. His work became further influenced by western art history as he began arranging his figures in poses or settings reminiscent of the masterpieces. Yue has also been continuing his Scene series in which his removes figures from historical Chinese socialist paintings and well-known western paintings. "In typical socialist paintings in China looked very realistic but were indeed surreal. They served for heroic fantasies, and the images of great people or the heroes in the paintings could well justify the fabricated scenes." Yue Minjun has shown internationally including The Archeological Discovery in AD3009 at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus; Half-life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; solo museum exhibition Yue Minjun and the Symbolic Smile (2007 – 2008) at Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York; The Reproduction of Idols: Yue Minjun Works, 2004-2006 (2006) at the He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China. He has also been included in the 2008 and 2004 Shanghai Biennales, and the 48th Venice Biennale, Venice (1999). Visit The Pace Gallery at : http://www.pacebeijing.com/

Martin-Gropius-Bau Displays Retrospective of Over 300 Photographs by André Kertész Posted: 12 Jun 2011 09:49 PM PDT BERLIN.- As the creator of images like Underwater Swimmer (1917), Chez Mondrian (1926) or Gabel (1929) André Kertész has a firm place in 20th century photographic history. It is not only his formally outstanding compositions which won him great esteem, but the surreally inspired poetry with which he captures such apparently simple things and situations. His innovative photographic instinct inspired many of his colleagues: Brassaï learned from him and Henri Cartier-Bresson betrays his influence. Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau is showing a grand retrospective of over 300 photographs by André Kertész, who was born in Hungary and lived in Budapest, Paris and New York. On view until 11 September.

Cantor Arts Center Gives Two 19th-Century Paintings to the Crocker Art Museum Posted: 12 Jun 2011 09:32 PM PDT STANFORD, CA.- The Cantor Arts Center has deaccessioned two 19th-century American paintings from its collection: Charles Christian Nahl's Saturday Night in the Mines, 1856, and Crossing the Plains,1856. Both works are oil on canvas. Ownership of the paintings has been transferred to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California.

Phillips Collection Features Works by Pioneering Abstract Artist Wassily Kandinsky Posted: 12 Jun 2011 09:21 PM PDT WASHINGTON, DC.- After a visit to his native Moscow in 1912, Wassily Kandinsky (1866−1944) sought to record the "extremely powerful impressions" that lingered in his memory. Working tirelessly through numerous drawings, watercolors, and oil studies over a five-month period, Kandinsky eventually arrived at his 1913 masterpiece, Painting with White Border. This exhibition, co-organized with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, reunites Painting with White Border with 11 preparatory studies in oil, watercolor, ink, and pencil from international collections. By examining this singular masterpiece within the context of Kandinsky's artistic production, the exhibition sheds light on a defining moment in his career. It coincides with the centennial anniversary of Kandinsky's seminal publication, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911), a breakthrough treatise of profound significance to generations of artists and the international development of abstract art.

A Fellini Season in Switzerland Opens with Exhibition at Musée de l'Elysée Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:23 PM PDT LAUSANNE.- Tutto Fellini, a Fellini season in Switzerland with the Fellini, la Grande parade exhibition at Musée de l'Elysée, a complete retrospective of Federico Fellini's films at the Cinémathèque Suisse and an exhibition dedicated to the colour photographs of the film 8 ½ launch the Fellini Foundation for film's new exhibition space, in Sion.

The de Young Museum Hosts Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:22 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The de Young Museum presents a major exhibition by the seminal artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso. The exhibition Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, opens on Saturday, June 11, in the Herbst Special Exhibition Galleries and runs through October 9th. This exhibition of 150 important paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings created by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) is drawn from the permanent collection of the Musée National Picasso, Paris, the largest and most significant repository of the artist's work in the world, and comes to the de Young as part of an international tour. The artwork is touring because the Musée is currently closed and undergoing a multi-year renovation expected to last through 2012. Ranging from informal sketchbooks to finished iconic masterpieces, this unique collection of "Picasso's Picassos" provides significant proof of the artist's assertion that "I am the greatest collector of Picassos in the world." "This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition comprises works from every phase of Picasso's extraordinary career, including masterpieces from his Blue, Rose, Expressionist, Cubist, Neoclassical and Surrealist periods," describes John E. Buchanan, Jr., director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "These works present eloquent testimony to his role as a protean figure who not only created and contributed to new art forms and movements, but also forever transformed the very definition of art itself. Following on the heels of our recent exhibitions of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, this exhibition represents a natural progression forward to the masterworks of the 20th century." "The exhibition Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris lifts the curtain on the first act of a groundbreaking partnership between the Musée Picasso and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, with the intention of deepening our institutional, artistic and scientific links over the coming decade," says Anne Baldassari, general commissioner and president of the Musée National Picasso. The exhibition, co-organized by the Musée National Picasso and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, is part of a world tour that began in 2008 with stops at museums in Madrid, Helsinki, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Seattle, Richmond (VA), San Francisco and Sydney. The Musée National Picasso's collection preserves the highly personal works that Pablo Picasso kept for himself with the intention of shaping his own artistic legacy. Exhibited chronologically, covering all the phases of the modern master's expansive eight-decade-long career and featuring the various media in which he worked, this meticulously assembled presentation includes: • One of his earliest Paris works—The Death of Casagemas (1901) • The Blue period—La Célestine (1904) • The Rose period—The Two Brothers (1906) • African-inspired proto-Cubist work —studies for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Three Figures Under a Tree (1907) • Analytic Cubism—Man with a Guitar (1911) • Synthetic Cubism—Violin (1915) • The Neoclassical period—Two Women Running on the Beach (1922) • Surrealism—The Kiss (1925) • The war years—The Weeping Woman (1937), and the sculptures Bull's Head (1942) and Death's Head (1943) Picasso developed a unique personal style for each new woman in his life, and remarked, "How awful for a woman to realize from my work that she is being supplanted." The exhibition chronicles Picasso's tempestuous relationships with three of the significant women in his life and demonstrates how his work changed with each relationship: • His first wife Olga Khokhlova, realistically depicted in Portrait of Olga in an Armchair (1918) • Mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, whose affair with Picasso began when she was 17, portrayed in voluptuous curves, pastel colors and soft sinuous volumes in Reclining Nude (1932) and a series of five bronze busts created in 1931 that range from recognizable representations to the nearly abstract. • Mistress Dora Maar, the photographer whose passionate and emotionally charged relationship with Picasso was represented in works characterized by hard-edged, jagged lines, angular forms and acidic colors, such as Portrait of Dora Maar (1937). Sculpture plays an important part in the exhibition, demonstrating Picasso's aesthetic three-dimensionally and featuring work that spans Picasso's career, including an early bust, The Jester (1905); Figure (1907), a roughly hewn wooden piece inspired by Picasso's fascination with African tribal art; Head of a Woman (1909), widely considered the first Cubist sculpture; the relief construction Guitar and Bottle of Bass (1913); a multimedia assemblage, The Violin (1915); the Bull's Head (1942), constructed from a cast-off bicycle seat and handlebars; the iconic bronze The Goat (1950); and the life-sized, six-piece figurative series created during a summer in Cannes, The Bathers (1956). "I haven't got a style," Picasso claimed, but over the course of his long and prolific career, he created revolutionary works that laid the foundations of modern art.

Andrea de Chirico Exhibits "The Commedia dell’Arte”, in The Royal Palace of Milan, Italy Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:12 PM PDT Milan, Italy.- Alberto Savinio - real name Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico - (1891-1952) was an Italian writer, painter, musician, journalist, essayist, playwright, set designer and composer. He was the younger brother of 'metaphysical' painter Giorgio De Chirico. His work often dealt with philosophical and psychological themes, and he also was heavily concerned with the philosophy of art. Early in their lives, Andrea and his brother, Giorgio were nearly inseparable, even referring to themselves as Castor and Pollux, the warrior twins. As children, there was tremendous collaboration between the brothers that led to strong overlap of themes later in life. The most well noted of these overlapping themes was that of the mythical Greek Argonauts, as a metaphor for their development and journey as artists.

Nassau County Museum of Art Showcases the Romantic Fascination of the Sea Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:11 PM PDT ROSLYN HARBOR.- Nassau County Museum of Art's (NCMA) newest exhibition portrays the magnetism we feel for bodies of water alongside the dangers, even the terror, that seas often present. This exhibition examines the romantic fascination artists have always had for expanses of water through American and European artists working in many styles from the mid-19th century to the present. Organized by Director Emerita Constance Schwartz, the exhibition opens on Saturday, June 5 and remains on view through Sunday, September 12. The Sea Around Us is sponsored by David Lerner Associates with additional sponsorship by Astoria Federal Savings.

Discursive Painting from Albers to Zobernig at the MUMOK Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:10 PM PDT VIENNA.- "Pictures about Pictures. Discursive Painting" is the title of the exhibition of the Daimler Art Collection in the MUMOK. Around 130 works will be presented ranging from classical modernity and post-war avantgarde through European Zero and minimalism to international contemporary art. In addition to paintings and drawings the presentation in the MUMOK also includes installations and video art. Together, the selection of works represents the main focus of the Daimler Art Collection in the area of abstract avantgarde and reduced/conceptual tendencies from the Bauhaus on up to current international, contemporary art.

Marrakech Art Fair to be Held at Es Saadi Palace in October Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:09 PM PDT MARRAKECH, MOROCCO - The first edition of the Marrakech Art Fair will be held from October 9 to 11, 2010 (with a preview on October 8) at the Es Saadi Palace. Galleries from Europe, Morocco and the Arab world are pleased to invite art amateurs and collectors to present their recent discoveries during a four-day event. Modern art, contemporary art, and emerging scenes will be high on the agenda, during an ephemeral leisure staged between patio and garden through art works and creations from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Andreas Feininger ~ New York in the Forties ~ at the Bauhaus Archive Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:08 PM PDT Berlin, Germany - Andreas Feininger (1906-1999), a Bauhaus student and the eldest son of Lyonel Feininger, regarded this as the most important prerequisite for good photography. He belonged to a generation of artists who, during the period after the First World War, discovered photography as an artistic medium that utilized an unbiased apparatus-the camera-to represent reality objectively. In the process, they developed a new mode of photographic perception. Clarity, simplicity and organisation were basic principles of Andreas Feininger's work. In a way that was almost unparalleled, he successfully combined thematic content with rigorous formal criteria and the demands of perspective and composition.

The Art of Italy in the British Royal Collection Opens in Edinburgh Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:07 PM PDT   EDINBURGH - The drama of the Baroque just opened in Edinburgh in part two of The Art of Italy in the British Royal Collection. The 31 paintings and 43 drawings selected for the exhibition reflect the great stylistic diversity of the period, which gave birth to the powerful realism of Caravaggio, the revolutionary naturalism of the Carracci and the cool classicism of Poussin and Domenichino. Highlights of the exhibition include two works by Caravaggio, The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew and Boy Peeling Fruit, both previously thought to be copies of lost originals.

Phoenix Art Museum Hosts Major Retrospective of Ernest L. Blumenschein Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:06 PM PDT Phoenix, AZ – Phoenix Art Museum celebrates the career of one of the most successful American artists of the early 20th century with the opening of In Contemporary Rhythm: The Art of Ernest L. Blumenschein. A founder of the famed Taos Society of Artists, Blumenschein rocketed into the spotlight with his modernist approach to capturing the American West.  This major retrospective, on view March 15 through June 14, 2009, covers every aspect of the artist's career and is the first Blumenschein exhibition in 30 years and the first in Arizona.

Market Surges Upward for Works by 20th-Century Prague Artists Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:05 PM PDT Paris, France - In 1983, Marcel Fleiss, owner of the Galerie 1900-2000 here, mounted an exhibition of Czech art titled "Surréalisme en Tchécoslovaquie" after a harrowing buying trip to Prague the previous year, at a time when art and artists were viewed with hostility and suspicion. "Artists were watched closely by police," said Mr. Fleiss, who still owns and operates the gallery. "It was nearly impossible for artworks to leave the country even though the state disdained its own artists."  "The Paris show was sold out at prices that would seem ludicrous today," he added, because they were so low.  These days, acquiring Czech modern art proves more expensive than dangerous. Ever since the fall of communism in 1989, demand for artworks by 20th-century artists from Prague has been steadily rising, with prices climbing in the Czech Republic and elsewhere, especially in the past 5 to 10 years. Works by the most prominent Czech modern artists now sell at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The BBC and British Museum Announce "A History of the World" Partnership Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:04 PM PDT LONDON.- The BBC and the British Museum have joined forces in an original and unprecedented public service partnership, focusing on world history. At its heart is a landmark series on BBC Radio 4, 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' which will broadcast from 18th January 2010. This series is a narrative global history told through the British Museum's unparalleled world collection. The series will tap in to the unique power of objects to tell stories and make connections across the globe. To produce the series the BBC and the British Museum have come together in an ambitious partnership to ensure the widest possible access and engagement across radio, television and online.

Our Editor Views Many Of Max Ernst Masterpieces at The Max Ernst Museum Brühl, Germany Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:03 PM PDT The Max Ernst Museum Brühl of LVR is the world's first and only museum that is the work of this seminal artist and world citizen Max Ernst (1891-1976) dedicated. It shows an overview of the extensive work of the Dadaists and Surrealists, whose imagery - as with almost any other artist of the 20th Century - are distinguished by astonishing creativity and inspiring genius. Max Ernst not only created a large number of paintings, collages, graphics, sculptures and assemblages, and his boundless creativity was reflected in numerous books, artist portfolios and poems. In his world of images we encounter poetic landscapes, fantastic compositions and bizarre creatures whose powers of invention and clever wit and fascinating at the same time and cause confusion in the viewer inexorably lead an effeminate wake of the suggestion. The painter, sculptor, graphic artist and poet Max Ernst is one of the most important representatives of the Dadaism and Surrealism. Early in his life he breaks with conventional painting and turns towards the use of indirect techniques such as over-paintings, collage, frottage (rubbing technique), grattage (scrapping technique) and decalcomania (tracing technique with oil colours). These techniques serve the systematic survey of the realms „Beyond Painting" (Max Ernst). By exploiting his hallucinatory capabilities Max Ernst reinterprets objects and structures of his environment to then fix his visionary perception of the world. The alienation of the ordinary as well as the irritating orchestration of the inexplicable and the dreamlike are consistently broken up by irony and humor in his many works of art. During the summer of 1934, German-born artist Max Ernst executed a mural for the Dancing Mascotte, the bar at Zürich's Corso Theatre. One of the largest painted works of the artist's seven-decade career, Pétales et jardin de la nymphe Ancolie (Petals and Garden of Nymph Ancolie) adorned a wall of the popular nightspot in Zurich. Based on an illustration found in a Victorian-era botanical encyclopedia, the surrealist imagery features a dancing bird-like figure emerging from a lush backdrop of red and gold flower petals. This amazing huge nightclub mural has been full restored and on display until March, 2011. The Max Ernst Museum Brühl of LVR also presents five major works by Max Ernst from the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, makes for a whole year under the "collection on display in the change." The Menil Collection is one of the world's largest private art collections. Given the Menil's preeminent Ernst holdings – the result of a lifelong friendship between the artist and John and Dominque de Menil – the Houston museum was the ideal venue for the debut of the fully restored Pétales et jardin de la nymphe Ancolie. The de Menils met the artist for the first time, in Paris, in 1934 – the year Ernst completed the Zürich mural.

Fenimore Art Museum presents a Retrospective ~ Earl Cunningham's "America" Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:02 PM PDT COOPERSTOWN, NY - The Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, presents Earl Cunningham's America, an exhibition featuring the paintings of one of the premier folk artists of the 20th century, Earl Cunningham (1893-1977). The exhibition and the fully illustrated catalog trace the story of Cunningham's life and place his work in the context of the folk art revival that brought Edward Hicks, Grandma Moses, Horace Pippin and other folk masters to national attention. This national traveling exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., will be on view through December 31, 2008.

Pop Artist James Gill presented by Lanning Gallery Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:01 PM PDT SCOTTSDALE, AZ – The reemergence of legendary Pop Artist James Gill continues with a second Arizona exhibition.  During the weekend of February 20-22, 2009, Cattle Track Arts Compound will be the setting for a two-night artist's reception presented by Lanning Gallery on Friday and Saturday evenings, from 5-9 p.m.  On Sunday morning a 'Coffee with the Artist' will be held from 9-10:30 a.m. at the Hotel Valley Ho ballroom, a site that's been famous since its opening in the 1950s when regular sightings of Hollywood's greats were common.

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:01 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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