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

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• Sotheby's Hong Kong to Hold Contemporary Asian Autumn Sales
• Images from Marilyn Monroe's First Photo Shoot to be Sold in a Bankruptcy Auction
• The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art Presents California Art Selections
• The hpgrp Gallery Presents New Paintings by Adela Leibowitz
• Steel Sculptures by Jonathan Prince at The Sculpture Garden in NYC
• G Fine Art Begins its 10th Anniversary Season With Maggie Michael's New Paintings
• Paintings by Frank Stella show of “Geometric Variations” at Paul Kasmin Gallery
• The Portland Museum of Art Presents "John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury"
• The Beyeler Foundation Collection ~ Near Basel in Switzerland Receives Our Editor
• Hamburger Bahnhof Opens Major Exhibition of American Artist Bruce Nauman
• Richard Avedon’s Fashion Photographs Coming to Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)
• "The Broad" Coming To L.A.
• British-Born Surrealist Painter Leonora Carrington Dies at Age 94 in Mexico City
• National Gallery of Art exhibits " Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered "
• The Metropolitan Museum Announces Highest Attendance in 40 Years ~ 5.68 Million Visitors
• Pablo Picasso Graphics Museum in Münster Celebrates with Miró Exhibition
• The Flomenhaft Gallery in New York Presents 'John Henry: Poetic Builder'
• Milwaukee Art Museum Exhibits Outstanding European Photography
• Sotheby's To Sell the 'Pearl Carpet of Baroda' at an Auction in Doha
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

Sotheby's Hong Kong to Hold Contemporary Asian Autumn Sales Posted: 23 Sep 2011 10:03 PM PDT Hong Kong.- Sotheby's Hong Kong will hold its Contemporary Asian Art Autumn Sale 2011 on October 2nd and 3rd at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The first evening follows the record-breaking sale of 'The Ullens Collection – The Nascence of Avant-Garde China' last April, presenting the second instalment, 'The Ullens Collection: Experimentation and Evolution', comprising 90 lots estimated in excess of US$10 million. The Contemporary Asian Art sale will take place on 3 October, with 18 sale will take place on 3 October, with 180 lots estimated at approximately US$25 million. The works include important contemporary Chinese masterpieces, helmed by Zhang Xiaogang's "Bloodline: Big Family No. 1", a series of innovative and inspiring design by Korean artists, and works by Japan's Tomoko Konoike. In total, 270 lots will be on offer for the two sales, amounting to an estimate in excess of US$35 million. Zhang Xiaogang's iconic paintings have broken records in recent sales at Sotheby's Hong Kong, and this season they are proud to offer yet another significant piece from the 'Bloodline: Big Family' series. Drawing from those conventional black and white family photos taken during the Cultural Revolution, Zhang's series has become emblematic and ubiquitous, summoning the collective memories of an entire era. Among the earliest of the series, the present example - 'Bloodline: Big Family No. 1' depicts an intellectual-turned-worker and his two sober children wearing Mao pins on their chests. The minimal, refracted light source and the thin red line connecting them are important motifs in the Bloodline series; here they appear well-defined and well-crafted. The yellow and red colours on their faces symbolise the Chinese people, set against an expansive grey background that hovers like a shadow of historical memory. This work was painted in 1994, the year that marked the beginning of the Bloodline series. It was exhibited in the 22nd International Biennale of São Paulo that same year, marking the first time Zhang's art was shown outside China, one year before Zhang garnered international acclaim at the Venice Biennale. Zeng Fanzhi's Mask Series centres on the anxiety of urban living. It also attests to how Chinese artists discarded the idealism and passion of the 1980s and turned their focus toward everyday life. The man in the painting not only has perfectly coiffed hair but also wears a suit. Paired with the mask that hides his emotions, they make up the basic gear for urban survival. The red scarf and the badge on his shoulder not only symbolise how modern Chinese people shoulder the weight of the Cultural Revolution, but also represent the artist's youthful but unfulfilled desire to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party's Young Pioneers, and how he was not accepted in the mainstream. These alienating elements formed the basic premise for Zeng's Mask Series. On the canvas is also a fighter jet flying high in the sky, representing the inexorable force of modernisation. However, the toy plane clasped in the man's hand, symbolising the loss of ideals and the powerlessness of resistance, is destined not to fly on its own. Although tears flow from the protagonist's eyes, the mask holds back any emotional expression as if it were a restraining device. Filled with paradoxes and contradictions; this canvas is almost a tragedy. This work stands apart from the artist's other early pieces in its use of vivid colours and added metaphorical layers - "Mask Series 1998 No. 5" is a fine example of the middle period of Zeng's Mask Series. First created in 1991, Series 2 belongs to Fang Lijun's most mature series of his early period. Fang brought works from this series to the 1993 Venice Biennale and Series 2, No. 2 also made the cover of the  New York Times Magazine. That was a time of unparalleled success, marking the pinnacle of artist's early career. The present lot - "Series 2, No. 11" portrays a bald figure with his back to the viewer facing a young woman swimming in the distance. These two signature motifs are juxtaposed for the first time here: the self-mocking baldhead signifying the loss of ideals of the 1980s, and swimming as metaphor for the human struggle to survive in the 1990s – a theme that would proliferate and eventually gain widespread popularity.  This is one of the most important works in early contemporary Chinese art, a veritable treasure in any collection. Recently, art, architecture and design have become inextricably linked. Korea is a country distinguished by its active innovations and respect for tradition. It has exported many fine contemporary designers to the world, consolidating the importance of design in shaping the future of the country on cultural, social, political and philosophical realms. This sale features a collection of minimalist works by extremely appealing, resourceful and inspiring designers, among them Choi Byung Hoon, Studio Joon&Jung and Kim Baek Ki. Currently the Director of the Institute of Art & Design at Hongik University, Choi Byung Hoon is well-respected in Korea and abroad. "AfterImage" is one of the artist's most famous series. Other editions of this work are in the permanent collections of the Busan Museum of Art, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea and the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Silhouettes, materials, contours and forms from negligible aspects of daily phenomena are appropriated and subsequently reimagined by the artist, combining qualities of both the aesthetic and the functional.  In this work, the polished granite sits perfectly in balance with the lowest level of the stepped plank. The sculptural conversation between wood and stone, along with tensions between straight lines and curved, lightness and weight or positive and negative space, reveal an ultimate harmony of coexistence. Hailing from Eindhoven, design team Joonsoo Kim, Hyunwook Lee and Jungyou Choi received training in their native Korea and the Netherlands. Their works, as Studio Joon&Jung  weave together two vastly different visual cultures and their dogged  commitment toward integrating people with one another underlines each of their designs. In the wooden installation "Petals" that face downward bloom into a big flower in response to human presence underneath. The light itself also increases in luminosity, silently welcoming and interacting with the people as if having its own life.  It is a catalyst for social ambience. "Rocking on the Beach" consists of seemingly industrial moulded pipes that contain sand and gravel from the beach. As the chairs rock, a natural rhythm of the beach can be heard, bringing forth the tranquillity of the Dutch seas. Formerly a product designer, Kim Baek Ki is famous for his versatility; his Domestic Perspectives series links and conflates collective elements in the medium of furniture. The lacquered wooden "Positives=Negatives" adopts its flaring and elegant contours from the roof of a traditional Korean house. Kim declares that "Everything has two sides," of which this is a great example. This object can be a bench or a low desk that when flipped becomes a rack or a shelf. After the Japan earthquake on 11 March 2011, terror and fear of the nuclear crisis changed man's attitude toward the world. Tomoko Konoike is honest in expressing her own thoughts and emotions regarding this tumultuous event. The gold dust on the canvas, seemingly insinuating nuclear rays, looks like small knives – a signature motif in this artist's work, both of which are threatening and terrifying. While viewers often ask artists the question, "What are you creating?", Konoike's work poses the question in reverse "You Who Are Looking Who Are Looking  -  - -- What Are You Looking At After The   What Are You Looking At After The Tsunami", blurring the boundary  between viewer and creator, believing in "the viewer [finding] what should be seen beyond the creator's intentions."  Viewers inspired by the world will have a new understanding of it, and, therefore, contemplating the way they view creation. Other highlights includes works by Yu Youhan, among the first Chinese artists to delve into abstraction since the country's reopening in the 1980s.  "1990-5" was executed in 1990, the last year of the artist's abstract period. For the previous eight years, Yu had concentrated on monochromes. After 1988, he began to incorporate vibrant colours of the Pop aesthetic into his abstract works. "1990-5" is an exceptional sample from this period - a multicolour abstraction with each brushstroke applied in a host of warm colours against a blue background, disseminating gradually from the upper left to the lower right, as if they were currents of nature. One of the founding members of the Pond Society during the  '85 New Wave, Song Ling visited factories in Shanghai in the early 1980s, which clearly influenced his "People: Pipelines" series. In this work, Song Ling employs surrealist techniques to position a set of symbolic human figures with no facial features within the round mouth of a pipe. At first glance, it resembles the style and format of propaganda posters found in industrial areas throughout the 1980s, though that was clearly not the artist's intention. To him, the cold machinery reduces men into tools on an assembly line. This work reveals the anxiety and hopelessness of men in the face of industrialisation and urbanisation. When it was shown at the "'85 New Space" exhibition, Song Ling garnered a lot of attention Sotheby's was founded in London on March 11, 1744, when Samuel Baker auctioned "several Hundred scarce and valuable books" from the library of the Rt Hon Sir John Stanley for a few hundred pounds. The story of Sotheby's expansion beyond books to include the best in fine and decorative arts and jewellery is also the story of the global auction market, defined by extraordinary moments that continue to capture the world's attention. Since 1744, Sotheby's has distinguished itself as a leader in the auction world. Our auctions, conducted in the venerable salerooms in London and Paris, the museum-quality galleries of our headquarters in New York and the spirited environs of Hong Kong rivet audiences worldwide. Season after season, the depth and excellence of Sotheby's offerings have produced watershed, record-breaking sales. Sotheby's has been entrusted with the sale of many of the world's treasures, amongst them: Napoleon's St Helena library, the Duchess of Windsor's jewels, the Estate of Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, Rubens' Massacre of the Innocents, Pablo Picasso's Garçon à la Pipe, Francis Bacon's Triptych, 1976, The Grand Ducal Collections of Baden, the Qianlong Yellow-Ground Famille-Rose Double-Gourd Vase, the 5,000-year-old Guennol Lioness, Giacometti's L'Homme Qui Marche I, the Magna Carta, the first printing of the Declaration of Independence and The Martin Luther King Jr Collection. Sotheby's has long recognised that great works of art, as well as the collectors interested in consigning and acquiring them, inhabit the global sphere. We were the first international auction house to expand from London to New York in 1955, and the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong and the then–Soviet Union. Today they maintain 90 locations in 40 countries and we conduct 250 auctions each year in over 70 categories. In addition to their four principal salerooms, the company, recognising the potential in new markets, also conducts auctions in six other salerooms around the world, further expanding their global reach. Through BidNow, clients can also watch all Sotheby's auctions live online and place bids in real time, from anywhere in the world. And through the ever-enriching content on Sothebys.com, the oldest publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (BID) continues to be fresh and current, while always mindful of its historic roots. An unwavering commitment to the very highest level of quality remains the goal of one of the most storied names on the global business stage. Visit Sotheby's website at ... http://www.sothebys.com

Images from Marilyn Monroe's First Photo Shoot to be Sold in a Bankruptcy Auction Posted: 23 Sep 2011 08:57 PM PDT LOS ANGELES, CA .- A bankruptcy judge in Florida ruled earlier this week that photos taken in 1946 of born Norma Jeane Mortenson — who went on to become the iconic Marilyn Monroe — will be sold at auction to settle the debts of the photographer. The photos include a black-and-white headshot of the future Monroe wearing a jaunty beret, another of her in a halter top and a color picture of her smiling in a striped bikini on the sand. Julien said Jasgur was hired by the Blue Book modeling agency to shoot the then-unknown Norma Jeane. Joseph Jasgur's photos, negatives and image copyrights will be sold in December by Julien's Auctions. The collection also includes several model-release forms Dougherty signed for Jasgur in Hollywood.

The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art Presents California Art Selections Posted: 23 Sep 2011 08:34 PM PDT Malibu, California.- The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University is proud to present "California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation" on view at the museum until December 4th. This exhibition is part of Pacific Standard Time, an unprecedented collaboration of more than 60 cultural institutions across Southern California coming together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months beginning in October. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty Museum.

The hpgrp Gallery Presents New Paintings by Adela Leibowitz Posted: 23 Sep 2011 08:20 PM PDT New York City.- The hpgrp Gallery is pleased to present "Adela Leibowitz: The Untitled", a solo exhibition of new paintings by Adela Leibowitz. Defying easy categorization, the works—which utilize tropes of landscape and figurative painting while denying representation — are depictions of abstract notions of spirituality, mythology, and the elemental (and often invisible) fabric of life manifested in physical forms. "The Untitled" will be on view at the gallery from September 29th through October 29th.Inspired by a range of esoteric sources that include Egyptian objects of worship, the films of Alexander Jodorowsky, the color theories of Rudolf Steiner, music from the 1960s, and the practice of worldly Asceticism, Leibowitz's compositions are lush, spectral, and otherworldly. Rather than being reflections of objects as seen by the eye, the works are conduits that allow viewers to open themselves to higher powers - earth, wind, fire, water, and depending on one's own belief system, the deities that weave the web that connects everything, including our souls, to the natural world.

Steel Sculptures by Jonathan Prince at The Sculpture Garden in NYC Posted: 23 Sep 2011 08:19 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- The Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison Avenue is presenting Jonathan Prince: Torn Steel, the first public installation of the artist's large scale steel sculptures in New York, on view at the atrium of 590 Madison Avenue through November 18th. Jonathan Prince follows a long line of distinguished artists—Murakami, Calder, Chamberlain, Oldenburg and Judd – to take advantage of the unique surround afforded by the 590 Madison Avenue Atrium in New York. Its vast scale is a perfect site for Prince's large format works, a series that has been in development over two years at the artist's studio in western Massachusetts. "TORN STEEL" exploits the interruption of pure geometric form. The skin of the steel sculpture is ruptured, allowing Prince to introduce a wholly different surface, imbuing the work with a dynamic quality of evolving, of genesis. His intelligent use of the steel is key to the visual success of these works: the rusted steel form is incised to introduce an interplay of surface texture and patina that connotes an improbable plasticity of the material.

G Fine Art Begins its 10th Anniversary Season With Maggie Michael's New Paintings Posted: 23 Sep 2011 08:18 PM PDT Washington, DC.- G Fine Art begins its 10th anniversary season with "There is No Rising or Setting Sun", new paintings and works on paper by Maggie Michael.  An opening reception was be held Saturday, September 10th, and the exhibition will run through October 15th. Michael's fourth solo exhibition features a group of works on paper – the Danube Series – executed this summer in Cetate, Romania, following the artist's recent completion of a collaborative large scale mural for the US Embassy in Bucharest, a commission from the US Art in Embassies program. Paintings executed at the artist's studio in Washington, DC will also be featured. The new work sees a further evolution in Michael's oeuvre following the introduction of text-based works in her exhibition "All at Once" (2008).

Paintings by Frank Stella show of “Geometric Variations” at Paul Kasmin Gallery Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:22 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Paul Kasmin Gallery presents "Geometric Variations," the first New York gallery exhibition to explore the historical importance of Frank Stella's iconic square paintings from the 1960's and 1970's. The exhibition includes large single and double canvasses from Stella's Concentric Square and Mitered Mazes series, as well as the seminal "New Madrid" painting from his Benjamin Moore series. On exhibition 22 September through 29 October.

The Portland Museum of Art Presents "John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury" Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:21 PM PDT Portland, ME.- The Portland Museum of Art is proud to present "John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury", on view at the museum until October 10th. Later in the year, the exhibition can be seen at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth. John Marin sought Maine as a subject—its islands, mountains, beaches, and rocky shores—from 1917 onward. However, when he landed on Cape Split in 1933, he knew this remote and untamed northern locale would imprint his work, foregrounding the abstract properties that had always been a feature of his painting. Featuring 54 works, this exhibition will concentrate on the late period of John Marin's (1870–1953) career. It will explore the interrelationship between his watercolors, sketchbooks, and oil paintings from 1933 to 1953. Marin sensed the radical potential of painting on Cape Split, transforming the ephemeral patterns of waves in their alternative states of turbulence and calm into innovative compositions, forecasting, as it turns out, some of the primary features and preoccupations of mid-century American art. Marin grew up in Weehawken, New Jersey, and attended the Stevens Institute of Technology for a year. His experience with architecture might have contributed to the role played by architectural themes in his paintings and watercolors. Marin is often credited with influencing the Abstract Expressionists. He was among the first American artists to make abstract paintings, and his treatment of paint—handling oils almost like watercolors—his forays into abstraction, and his use of evocative stretches of bare canvas caught the eye of younger painters. From 1899 to 1901, Marin attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia he studied with Thomas Pollock Anshutz and William Merritt Chase. He also studied at the Art Students League of New York. In 1905 like many American artists Marin went to Europe, initially to Paris. He traveled through Europe for six years. Marin painted in Holland, Belgium, England, and Italy. In Europe he mastered a type of watercolor where he achieved an abstract ambience, almost a pure abstraction with color that ranges from transparency to translucency, accompanied by strong opacities, and linear elements, always with a sense of freedom, which became one of his trademarks. In 1909, Marin held his first one-man exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery, 291 in New York City. The photographer Edward Steichen, whom Marin had met through the painter Arthur B. Carles, introduced him to Stieglitz. Marin's and Stieglitz's association would last nearly forty years. Stieglitz's support, in both philosophical and financial respects, was essential to Marin. From 1909 until his death in 1946, Stieglitz showed Marin's work almost every year in one of his galleries. Marin spent his first summer in Maine in 1914 and, almost immediately, the rocky coast there became one of his favorite subjects. Over the rest of his life, Marin became intimately familiar with the many moods of the sea and sky in Maine. "In painting water make the hand move the way the water moves," Marin wrote in a 1933 letter to an admirer of his technique. In 1936, he had a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art. His paintings are represented in several important permanent collections and museums including: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and many others. Late in life Marin achieved tremendous prestige as an American painter, an elder statesman of American art. In 1950, he was honored by the University of Maine and Yale University with honorary degree's of Doctor of Fine Arts. A resident of Cliffside Park, New Jersey, he died at his summer home in Addison, Maine. In December of 2009, independent filmmaker Michael Maglaras of 217 Films released a feature length documentary about this American master titled "John Marin: Let the Paint be Paint!" The Portland Museum of Art, founded in 1882, is Maine's oldest and largest public art institution. The Museum's architecturally significant buildings unite three centuries that showcase the history of American art and culture. The Museum's collection of more than 17,000 objects includes decorative and fine arts dating from the 18th century to the present. The heart of the Museum's collection is the State of Maine Collection, which features works by artists such as Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, Rockwell Kent, John Marin, Louise Nevelson, and Andrew Wyeth. The Museum has the largest European art collection in Maine. The major European movements from Impressionism through Surrealism are represented by the Joan Whitney Payson, Albert Otten, and Scott M. Black Collections, which include works by Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, René Magritte, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Auguste Rodin. The Elizabeth B. Noyce Collection, a bequest of 66 paintings and sculptures, has transformed the scope and quality of the Museum's American collection, bringing to the Museum its first paintings by George Bellows, Alfred Thompson Bricher, and Jamie Wyeth, and adding masterpieces to the collection by Childe Hassam, Fitz Henry Lane, and N. C. Wyeth. In addition to exhibitions, the Museum has constantly changing educational programs, family festivals, lectures, art classes, musical concerts, bookgroups, art camps, gallery talks, and much more. Originally founded as the Portland Society of Art, the Museum used a variety of exhibition spaces until 1908. That year Mrs. Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat bequeathed her three-story mansion, now known as the McLellan House, and sufficient funds to create a gallery in memory of her late husband, Lorenzo de Medici Sweat. Noted New England architect John Calvin Stevens designed the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, which opened to the public in 1911. Over the next 65 years, as the size and scope of the exhibitions expanded, the limitations of the Museum's galleries, storage, and support areas became apparent. In 1976, Maine native Charles Shipman Payson promised the Museum his collection of 17 works by Winslow Homer. Recognizing the Museum's physical limitations, he also gave $8 million toward the building of an addition to be designed by Henry Nichols Cobb of I. M. Pei & Partners. Construction began on the Charles Shipman Payson Building in 1981, and within two years the $8.2 million facility was opened to the public. In January 2000, the Museum launched a $13.5 million capital campaign to raise funds for the preservation, educational interpretation, and reopening of its two historic structures: the McLellan House (1801) and L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries (1911). Completed in October 2002, the preservation project reunited these two buildings with the Payson building and returned the McLellan House to its original Neoclassical elegance and the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries to their original Beaux-Arts splendor. The L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries showcase the Museum's outstanding collection of 19th-century American art. The Museum purchased the Winslow Homer Studio in Prouts Neck, Maine, in January 2006. The Studio is where the great American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) lived and painted many of his masterpieces from 1883 until his death. The Museum is currently engaged in a major capital campaign to raise $8.3 million for the acquisition, preservation, and endowment of the Studio. A National Historic Landmark, the restored Winslow Homer Studio will be used to celebrate the artist's life, to encourage scholarship, and to educate audiences about the artistic heritage of Winslow Homer and Maine. The Studio and the surrounding grounds are closed to the public while construction and restoration projects take place. The Museum plans to complete this project in 2012. Recently, the Museum purchased two adjacent properties on Spring Street. In 2007, the Museum purchased 87 Spring Street to provide space for long-range expansion. In February 2008, the Charles Quincy Clapp House (1832), at 97 Spring Street, reverted back to the Museum from the Maine College of Art. Located next to the McLellan House, the Charles Q. Clapp House was built in 1832 by Portland businessman Charles Q. Clapp as a private residence. Cited as one of the America's finest examples of Greek Revival architecture, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Museum plans to restore this building to its original elegance and complete the Museum's campus. Currently the Museum is visited by 160,000 visitors a year, approximately 10,000 of whom are school children. Museum membership is at an all-time high of 8,000 members and continues to grow. Now and into the future, the Museum is committed to serving as a dynamic center for the visual arts and strives to be an essential resource for the people of Maine and New England. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.portlandmuseum.org

The Beyeler Foundation Collection ~ Near Basel in Switzerland Receives Our Editor Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:20 PM PDT The Fondation Beyeler (Beyeler Foundation) owns and oversees the art collection of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler that was built up by the couple over five decades and placed under the aegis of the foundation in 1982. The collection was first publicly exhibited in its entirety at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 1989. Seeking a permanent home, the Beyelers considered lending the collection to various existing museums, but none of the available spaces would have done justice to the collection. Impressed by the work of world-renowned architect Renzo Piano (the Pritzker prize winning architect who designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris amongst other well known works), the couple commissioned him to design a new purpose-built museum building to be built in Riehen near Basel. When the museum opened in 1997, the collection finally gained a permanent home where it could be made permanently accessible to the public. A masterpiece of contemporary architecture, the museum is airy and through the soft colors, large windows and outdoor park (with two ponds) creates different shades of light and color as they reflect on artworks on the walls of different rooms. Renzo Piano's building is designed to serve the arts and does not overwhelm the works on display with any architectural extravagances. Designed with simplicity in mind, the building blends into the landscape around it, large windows bring the outside into the building providing views which enhance the paintings on show (particularly effective in the room featuring Monet's waterlillies paintings, where the visitor can view the waterlillies in the room, but with a small movement and change of perspective, see the real thing in the pond outside the windows and perhaps even reflections of Monet's works in the water). The outer walls are constructed from red Patagonian porphyry, imported specifically for the museum, and it is topped with a lightweight glass roof which allows the museum to be flooded with natural light. The rooms are defined by their balanced proportions, materials and the special light. Set in an English landscape park with old trees, the gentle paths allow sculptural works by Alexander Calder and Ellsworth Kelly to be enjoyed. A late baroque villa is opposite the museum and houses the museum administration, and the splendid restaurant. The Beyelers always saw the museum as a place of living involvement and innovation, the resulting juxtapositions have provided surprising insights and experiences for a broad range of visitors. Visit the museum's website at: www.fondationbeyeler.ch When the museum opened in 1997, the collection comprised about 180 paintings and sculptures, supplemented by 25 selected pieces of tribal art from Africa, Alaska and Oceania. Since then, 38 further prize artworks have been added to the permanent collection. These range from Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh and Chagall, through Picasso, Léger, Klee, Arp, Dubuffet, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rothko, to Kiefer and Ellsworth Kelly. Works by the 40 artists featured in the collection provide an extensive overview of classic modern art. Starting with late and Post-Impressionist works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, it continues via Cubism with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque to other characteristic groups of works by Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Vasily Kandinsky, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso. American Expressionism is represented by artists like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman, pop-Art by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. The collection's time-frame ends with works by Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer and Luciano Fabro. Other artists to feature in the collection include Max Ernst, Francis Bacon and Jean Dubuffet. A number of sculptures from Africa, Alaska and Oceania provide an exciting counterpoint to the works of European and American origin. Most of the works in the Beyeler Collection are paintings but it also includes a few sculptures (both within the museum and in the grounds), including Rodin's intensely kinetic bronze - "Iris, Messenger of the Gods". It ends with works by Baselitz, Kiefer and Fabro. Conceptual art, the second main development in modern art, and more recent trends are intentionally not represented in the permanent collection, but featured in temporary exhibitions. The collection is presented thematically with, for example, sections devoted to portraits, nature, abstraction and the juxtaposing of landscapes and cityscapes. Almost the entire magnificent collection is always on view to local and worldwide visitors. Until 6 February 2011, the Beyeler Museum is showing "Vienna 1900 – Klimt, Schiele and their time". The exhibition includes about 200 oil paintings, watercolors and drawings are shown alongside architectural models, furniture, textile designs, glass and silver objects, artist posters and photographs. They paint a fascinating picture of Vienna in 1900, when it became one of the birthplaces of modern art. Works on show include, the famous ornamental portraits and landscapes by Gustav Klimt and the expressive body images of Egon Schiele, portraits by the young Oskar Kokoschka and the tragic self-portraits and works of the painter Richard Gerstl. Until 17 April 2011, "Segantini" shows the works of Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899), one of the great painters of the mountains and the life of the farmers and animals who lived in them. The exhibition celebrates Segantini as a pioneer of modern painting parallel to Monet, van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne or Klimt. His huge panels were painted in the open air as he steadily rose higher and higher up the mountains. He reached the summit with the legendary Alpine Triptych, which he prepared with large-scale studies. The increasing elevation of the painting led Segantini in a realm in which it appeared the mountains were an earthly paradise. His last words were "voglio vedere le mie montagne" (I want to see my mountains). The exhibition includes about seventy oil paintings and drawings from all periods of the artists life. Recently opened, and open through 25 April 2011, The Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes features in her first solo exhibition in Switzerland. One of the most respected artists of the international art scene, her oeuvre covers the diversity of tropical nature as well as the history and culture of her homeland, reflected in vibrant compositions with arabesques, floral and abstract ornamentation, geometric shapes and rhythmic patterns in bright colors. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a specially-made painting on which Milhazes been working for two years – "The four seasons".

Hamburger Bahnhof Opens Major Exhibition of American Artist Bruce Nauman Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:19 PM PDT BERLIN.- The Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof is presenting Bruce Nauman. "Dream Passage", the first major exhibition of the American artist Bruce Nauman in Berlin. The exhibition is being held on the occasion of the installation of the spectacular architectural sculpture Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care from 1984, which was recently donated to the Nationalgalerie by the collector Friedrich Christian Flick. Close cooperation with the artist meant that this work, extreme in every meaning of the word, could be installed on a permanent basis. The sculpture is made of three intersecting corridors, of a series of works called Dream Passage which was inspired by a dream of the artist.

Richard Avedon’s Fashion Photographs Coming to Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:18 PM PDT Detroit, MI - The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) celebrates fashion and photography with the work of Richard Avedon, one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. On view Oct. 18, 2009 Through Jan. 17, 2010, Avedon Fashion Photographs 1944-2000  features 181 works, including many vintage prints, magazines, contact sheets and other archival material from the Avedon estate. "This exhibition not only surprises through the scope of Avedon's work in fashion photography," said Graham W. J. Beal, DIA director. "It also dramatically demonstrates what a radically innovative force he was in this field."

"The Broad" Coming To L.A. Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:17 PM PDT LOS ANGELES.- Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad and architect Elizabeth Diller today unveiled the designs of The Broad Art Foundation, a contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by world-renowned architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the three-story museum features a unique porous honeycomb "veil" that wraps the building and is visible through an expansive, top floor sky-lit gallery that will be home to great works of contemporary art drawn from the 2,000-piece Broad Collections. The Broads also announced a 12-member board of governors and the inaugural programming for the contemporary art museum, to be called "The Broad." The total cost to construct the museum and parking garage will exceed $130 million.

British-Born Surrealist Painter Leonora Carrington Dies at Age 94 in Mexico City Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:16 PM PDT Mexico City - Leonora Carrington, the Lancashire-born former debutante who eloped with Max Ernst and became one the greatest – and last surviving – female surrealist artists has died in hospital in Mexico City at the age of 94.Carrington was also part of a famous wave of artistic and political emigres who arrived in Mexico in the 1930s and '40s. In the male-dominated realm of surrealism, she was a member of a rare trio of Mexico-based female surrealists along with Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo.

National Gallery of Art exhibits " Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered " Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:15 PM PDT WASHINGTON, DC.- The life and career of Jan Lievens (1607–1674), one of the greatest yet most enigmatic Dutch painters of the 17th century, is finally brought to light in the exhibition Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, on view at the National Gallery of Art in the West Building This exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will present an overview of the full range of Lievens' career. More than 130 of the artist's finest works will be presented, including 54 paintings, 39 drawings, and 39 prints. On view from October 26, 2008, through January 11, 2009.

The Metropolitan Museum Announces Highest Attendance in 40 Years ~ 5.68 Million Visitors Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:14 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that 5.68 million people visited the Met during the fiscal year that ended on June 30. The number, which includes attendance at The Cloisters museum and gardens, is the highest recorded in 40 years. The total was more than 400,000 greater than in Fiscal Year 2010. "We are delighted by this extraordinary response to our collections and programs, especially in the context of ongoing fiscal challenges faced by both the Museum and the public," said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO.

Pablo Picasso Graphics Museum in Münster Celebrates with Miró Exhibition Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:13 PM PDT MUNSTER, GERMANY - It will be a time to celebrate at the Pablo Picasso Graphics Museum in Münster in 2010. Germany's only Picasso Museum will be ten years old. To mark the event, the Museum will be presenting three huge special exhibitions, on Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee. The exhibition 'Joan Miro - Die Farbe seiner Traeume' (Joan Miro - The color of his dreams), running from 05 March to 06 June, 2010

The Flomenhaft Gallery in New York Presents 'John Henry: Poetic Builder' Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:12 PM PDT New York, NY - 'John Henry: Poetic Builder' opens at the Flomenhaft Gallery on April 28th 2011, with an opening Reception between 6 and 8 pm that day. The Flomenhaft Gallery is proud to exhibit the sculpture of John Henry, known world-wide for his boldly distinctive art.  Since the 1960's Henry's sculpture, both monumental and tabletop-size, has been defined by a minimalist and constructivist style, an incisive attitude toward composition united with an unerring harmony and grace. It is difficult to convey the magnitude of Henry's accomplishments.  His awards and commissions include the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation Educational Grant School of Art of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Alaska State Council on the Arts for the Anchorage International Airport, the Florida Art in State Buildings, and the Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art in Kyongju City, Korea, to mention just a few.  His works are in over fifty public collections and more than 200 private collections worldwide.

Milwaukee Art Museum Exhibits Outstanding European Photography Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:11 PM PDT   MILWAUKEE, WI - A golden age of photographic experimentation takes shape in the Milwaukee Art Museum's presentation of Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945, organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and on view in Milwaukee through May 4, 2008. Together with its accompanying film program, Foto explores photography in Germany, Austria, the former Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary as the ultimate modern art form: a democratic response to such hallmarks of modernity as the advent of industrialization and new technologies, the growth of cities and urban lifestyles, and the rise of nationalism.

Sotheby's To Sell the 'Pearl Carpet of Baroda' at an Auction in Doha Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:10 PM PDT   LONDON - Sotheby's announced that it is to sell the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, one of the most extraordinary masterpieces of its kind ever to come on the market. The carpet will form the centerpiece of Sotheby's inaugural series of sales in Doha and be sold alongside other objects in the Arts of the Islamic World auction on 19th March 2009. The carpet is traditionally believed to have been created as a gift for the tomb of the Prophet Mohammad in Medina and was commissioned by "Gaekwar" Kande Rao, the Maharaja of Baroda. The intended gift was clearly never delivered as the Maharaja died before he made the donation and the carpet therefore remained in his family. Bidding on this will start around US$5 million but is expected to rise considerably higher.

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 23 Sep 2011 07:09 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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