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

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• Asian Art Museum Launches New Brand to Engage Broader Audience
• Ketterer Kunst German Auction To Offer a Rare Painting by Willem I van de Velde
• Early Italian Masters through Botticelli at Bucerius Kunstforum
• The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art Hosts its 31st Annual Art Exhibition and Auction
• Artist Oliviero Rainaldi, Creator of the Much Criticized Pope Sculpture, Given Second Chance
• The Stibbert Museum Shows "The Renaissance of Italian Majolica"
• The Nelson-Atkins Museum Hosts Rodin Sculptures From the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to host American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life
• Moscow Museum of Modern Art exhibits Avant-garde Renaissance of Vladimir Dubossarsky & Alexander Vinogradov
• Cincinnati Art Museum features Masterpieces of Dada and Surrealist Art
• Artists Represent Most Powerful Emotion / LOVE at the National Gallery in London
• Super Rich Collectors Ready to Spend Again at Auctions of Rare Art
• Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) Shows Selections from Collection
• Kunsthalle Wien Examines the Photographic Portrait from Mapplethorpe to Goldin
• Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia opens Nancy Spero Exhibition
• Art Now Follows The Money . . At Sea
• Google Celebrates 110th Birthday of Rene Magritte with a Magritte Doodle
• Continuum of Jewish Heritage
• Guggenheim in Bilbao exhibits "All the Histories of Art ~ Kunsthistorisches Museum"
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

Asian Art Museum Launches New Brand to Engage Broader Audience Posted: 28 Sep 2011 10:52 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Asian Art Museum, one of the City of San Francisco's premier arts institutions and home to a world-renowned collection, announced today that it is reinventing itself with a new brand to engage a broader audience. The brand aims to deliver on the museum's new artistic vision to spark connections across cultures and through time, making Asian art and culture more relevant and meaningful for all. Contemporary expressions will play a large role in two of the museum's upcoming exhibitions, Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts, opening October 21, and Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past, opening in spring 2012. "The Asian Art Museum is a portal to worlds of unbound imagination, creativity and beauty. We explore these themes in a global context and invite all to discover their connections to Asian art and culture," said Jay Xu, Director of the Asian Art Museum, also officially known as the Asian Art Museum -- Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture. "Our new brand promises to awaken the past and inspire the next. It means we'll unlock the past for visitors and bring it to life by sparking connections. We'll also be a catalyst for new art, new creativity and new thinking."  Maharaja is the first exhibition to comprehensively explore the rich culture of India's great kings and their artistic patronage. It features 200 spectacular works of art including elaborate jewelry, ornate weaponry, royal costumes, and exquisite paintings. For a contemporary perspective, the Asian Art Museum is partnering with local Bay Area artist and Pixar animator Sanjay Patel. Maharaja inspired Patel, who has published three books featuring his vibrant illustrations of Hindu deities, to create his own joyful and striking interpretations, which will be displayed inside the museum as well as in exhibition promotional material. This commissioning of contemporary works to add a new dimension to a primarily historical art exhibition is a first for the museum. Phantoms of Asia will feature a pan-Asian collection of contemporary works and will be shown in tandem with historic works from the museum's collection to spark imaginations beyond space and time. International brand consultancy Wolff Olins helped to redefine the brand and designed a new logo to directly reflect the museum's bold vision and new perspective. Its graphic, upside down A mark, accompanied by the word "Asian," also communicates the museum's desire to engage all: in mathematics, an upside down A denotes "for all."  The launch of the museum's new brand is well-timed. The Asian Art Museum, which successfully restructured its long-term debt earlier this year, is on sound financial footing and eager to expand its reach and impact. Moreover, the growing global influence of Asia makes the museum's mission -- to lead a diverse, global audience in discovering the unique material, aesthetic, and intellectual achievements of Asian art and culture -- ever more relevant. "More than half of the world lives in Asia," said Xu. "Here in San Francisco, one-third of the population identify themselves as Asian. Opening our minds and hearts to the arts and cultures of this part of the world is an important step in better understanding the people, politics and influences that drive this vast, dynamic region of diverse cultures." "We're on a life-long journey to raise the bar in delivering stimulating, relevant and inspiring experiences," added Xu. "There are many stories to tell, important artworks to reveal, and new ideas to be developed and shared. We're ready to lead the discussion." Visit : http://www.asianart.org/

Ketterer Kunst German Auction To Offer a Rare Painting by Willem I van de Velde Posted: 28 Sep 2011 09:32 PM PDT MUNICH.- With Willem I van de Velde's grisaille-work "Englische Kriegsschiffe" (English Warships) a masterpiece of marine painting will be called up at Ketterer Kunst in Munich on 27 October. "This means that a painting by the presumably most renowned 17th century marine painter will be offered on the German auction market for the first time*", said company owner Robert Ketterer. Besides the work's rareness - similar works can be found in the Louvre in Paris and in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - it is particularly the grisaille technique, which van de Velde executed with great poise, that makes it so exceptional. Taking the graphic details into account, he attained a high level of plasticity and depth effect by means of subtle hatchures and a soft wash. The estimate for the work from the 1680s is at € 70.000-90.000.

Early Italian Masters through Botticelli at Bucerius Kunstforum Posted: 28 Sep 2011 08:13 PM PDT HAMBURG, GERMANY- Around the year 1300, artistic developments occurred in Italy which led to a new understanding of painting. An enjoyment of narration, decorative details and the discovery of space and landscape led to a departure from Medieval Gothic austerity, particularly in Siena and Florence. By 1500, the traditional solemn paintings on gold-leaf ground had been transformed into the lifelike depictions of people and nature prevalent in Renaissance art.

The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art Hosts its 31st Annual Art Exhibition and Auction Posted: 28 Sep 2011 08:07 PM PDT San Jose, CA.- The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to present "Connect and Collect" at its 31st Annual Art Exhibition and Auction through October 22nd. Two auctions will be held during the exhibition, a silent auction on October 8th and a live auction at the end of the exhibition on October 22nd. The Annual Art Exhibition and Auction at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)  provides a unique opportunity for art enthusiasts and collectors to view and purchase artwork by the Bay Area's rising stars and celebrated artists whose work reflects the scope of the region's vibrant and eclectic styles and interests.

Artist Oliviero Rainaldi, Creator of the Much Criticized Pope Sculpture, Given Second Chance Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:50 PM PDT ROME (AP).- He was pilloried by the Vatican for creating a sculpture of Pope John Paul II that some mockingly say looks more like Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini than the beloved late pontiff. Now artist Oliviero Rainaldi has a chance at redemption. The sculptor recently agreed to carry out changes decided upon by a committee of art experts, culture officials and scholars. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Holy See's usually restrained chronicle, critic Sandro Barbagallo lamented after the statue's unveiling that it looked like a "bomb" had landed and likened the cloak the pope is depicted as holding open to a "sentry box." That few could recognize it as honoring John Paul was a "sin," Barbagallo declared.

The Stibbert Museum Shows "The Renaissance of Italian Majolica" Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:39 PM PDT Florence, Italy. The Stibbert Museum is proud to present "The Renaissance of Italian Majolica", on view at the museum from September 30th through April 15th 2012. The splendor of the enamels, the iridescent luster, the pictorial quality and eclecticism of the forms that dazzled visitors to the World's Fair will be the protagonists of this exhibition dedicated to the art of ceramics in Florence after the unification of Italy. A selection of nineteenth-century ceramics from the Museum of Bath, alongside the Museum's collection of majolica Cantagalli Stibbert, form the core of the exhibition, around which will be shown important loan items from such prestigious institutions as the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London , the Museum of Ceramics in Sevres, by William De Morgan Foundation, London, as well as previously unseen pieces from private collections.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum Hosts Rodin Sculptures From the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:38 PM PDT Kansas City, Missori. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is pleased to present "Rodin: Sculptures from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation", on view in the Bloch Lobby from October 1st through June 3rd 2012. Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) was arguably the most celebrated sculptor of the 19th century, and his innovative modeling technique and unconventional subject matter earned him praise as the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo. More than 40 of his powerful bronze sculptures will be exhibited in "Rodin: Sculptures from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation". Avid Rodin collectors, B. Gerald and Iris Cantor amassed more than 750 bronzes, marbles, plasters, prints, drawings and ephemera by and about the artist over the years. Their foundation includes among its aims the promotion, understanding and appreciation of Rodin's achievements. "This exhibition is a celebration of the importance of sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins," said Director & CEO Julián Zugazagoitia. "We have modern Henry Moore and Roxy Paine works in the Sculpture Park, and the Museum has several sculptures from the Nasher Collection, all generously donated by the Hall Family Foundation. And now we recognize the birth of Modernism with these dynamic sculptures by Rodin."The sculptures are divided into three thematic groups: the Gates of Hell section, which contains figures relating to the massive bronze portal that was Rodin's most important commission; a group dedicated to sculptures of historical and cultural heroes commissioned as public monuments; and a series of isolated hands that express different states of being. Rodin pioneered many studio practices, creating models in wax, clay and plaster that he would fragment, multiply, recombine, enlarge and reduce. This unorthodox working method allowed the artist to produce a startling range of sculptural effects, examples of which will be on display. B. Gerald Cantor (1916–1996), along with his wife, Iris Cantor, built the largest and most comprehensive private collection of works by Rodin in the world. More than 450 works from the Cantor Collection have been given to more than 90 museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Cantor Foundation's philanthropy and commitment to art institutions has deepened the public's education and understanding of Rodin. There are several special programs in conjunction with this exhibition. In the Nelson-Atkins Museum Café, visitors will tap into Rodin's expressive sculptures and techniques through a digital "hands-on" touch-screen activity. Visitors can also touch and explore materials demonstrating bronze casting processes. When the massive Beaux Art Nelson-Atkins' Building opened in 1933, newspapers nationwide reported visitors "amazed," "gasping at its innovations and marveling at its luxury."  Still, times being what they were in the Great Depression, operations were modest: only three telephones serviced the entire building; lights in the galleries were turned off when people left a room; at opening and closing times, a huge bell was rung manually. Though the Museum has grown its collection, its audience (and its telephones), just as in 1933, bringing people together with art is central to all current Museum endeavors. And that goes for the major campus transformation project, the new Bloch Building as its jewel. The Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City is recognized nationally and internationally as one of America's finest art museums. The Nelson-Atkins serves the community by providing access and insight into its renowned collection of more than 33,500 art objects and is best known for its Asian art, European and American paintings, photography, modern sculpture, and new American Indian and Egyptian galleries. Housing a major art research library and the Ford Learning Center, the Museum is a key educational resource for the region. The institution-wide transformation of the Nelson-Atkins has included the 165,000-square-foot Bloch Building expansion and renovation of the original 1933 Nelson-Atkins Building. The museum's European painting collection is also highly-prized. It include works by Caravaggio, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Petrus Christus, El Greco, Guercino, Alessandro Magnasco, Giuseppe Bazzani, Corrado Giaquinto, Cavaliere d'Arpino, Gaspare Traversi, Giuliano Bugiardini, Titian, Rembrandt, and Peter Paul Rubens, as well as Impressionists Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Vincent van Gogh, among others. It also has fine Late Gothic and Early Italian Renaissance paintings by; Jacopo del Casentino (The Presentation of Christ in the Temple), Giovanni di Paolo and Workshop, Bernardo Daddi and Workshop, Lorenzo Monaco, Gherardo Starnina (The Adoration of the Magi), and Lorenzo di Credi. It has German and Austrian Expressionist paintings by Max Beckmann, Karl Hofer (Record Player), Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Oskar Kokoschka (Pyramids of Egypt). The museum is distinguished (and widely celebrated) for its extensive collection of Asian art, especially that of Imperial China. Most of it was purchased for the museum in the early 20th century by Laurence Sickman, then a Harvard fellow in China. The museum has one of the best collections of Chinese antique furniture in the country. In addition to Chinese art, the collection includes pieces from Japan, India, Iran, Indonesia, Korea, and Southeast, and South Asia. The American painting collection includes the largest collection open to the public of works by Thomas Hart Benton, who lived in Kansas City. Among its collection are masterpieces by George Bellows, George Caleb Bingham, Frederic Church, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent. It also has fine Contemporary Paintings and Creations in the Bloch Building by; Willem de Kooning, Fairfield Porter ("Mirror"), Wayne Thiebaud ("Bikini Girl"), Richard Diebenkorn, Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley, and Alfred Jensen. In 2006, Hallmark Cards chairman Donald J. Hall, Sr., donated to the museum the entire Hallmark Photographic Collection, spanning the history of photography from 1839 to the present day. It is primarily American in focus, and includes works from photographers such as Southworth & Hawes, Carleton Watkins, Timothy O'Sullivan, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, Homer Page, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Andy Warhol, Todd Webb, and Cindy Sherman, among others. Outside on the museum's immense lawn, the Kansas City Sculpture Park contains the largest collection of monumental bronzes by Henry Moore in the United States. The park also includes works by Alexander Calder, Auguste Rodin, George Segal and Mark di Suvero, among others. Beyond these, the park (and the museum itself) is well known for Shuttlecocks, a four-part outdoor sculpture of oversize badminton shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. In addition, the museum also has collections of European and American sculpture, decorative arts and works on paper, Egyptian art, Greek and Roman art, modern and contemporary paintings and sculpture, pre-Columbian art, and the art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. As well, the museum houses a major collection of English pottery and another of miniature paintings. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nelson-atkins.org

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to host American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:31 PM PDT LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915, a major exhibition highlighting the variety and strength of American artistic achievement during an epochal century and a half, from the colonial era through the period leading to World War I. American Stories—the first survey of American narrative painting in more than thirty-five years—features over seventy works, including loans from leading museums and private collections, as well as key works from LACMA's collection. LACMA's presentation—the exhibition's only West Coast showing—will be on view in the museum's Art of the Americas building from February 28 through May 23, 2010. "American Stories features many of America's most celebrated artists, represented by some of their best works—iconic examples that have appeared in American textbooks for generations," says Bruce Robertson, Consulting Curator of American Art at LACMA. "These images reflect their times, but they also actively develop and shape what we know about the past, as great works often do." Exhibition overview Between the American Revolution and World War I, a group of British colonies became states, the frontier pushed westward until the new nation spanned the continent, a rural and agricultural society became urban and industrial, and the United States—reunified after the Civil War under an increasingly powerful federal government—emerged as a leading participant in world affairs. Throughout this complicated, transformative period, artists recorded American life as it changed around them. The exhibition concentrates on a core group of major painters: John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, Richard Caton Woodville, Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and George Bellows. In addition to selections of these artists' works, the exhibition features key examples by lesser known artists that also exhibit a broad array of subjects and styles. American Stories opens with a thematically organized gallery that illustrates the continuity of stories through the full extent of the exhibition, as well as the different ways in which artists told these stories. These range from John Singleton Copley's dramatic Watson and the Shark (1778) to William McGregor Paxton's The Breakfast (1911). Copley portrays an encounter between a fourteen-year-old boy swimming in Havana harbor and a large shark, but also tells a story of the community of sailors who save him, while Paxton depicts the unraveling of another kind of community—marriage. LACMA's presentation of American Stories is arranged in five broad chronological sections and includes a supplemental section devoted to stories unique to California. Inventing American Stories, 1765–1830 Many early American artists focused on individuals, specific locales, and relationships, but the cleverest among them responded to broader narrative agendas, telling stories within the bounds of portraiture. Although portraiture dominated artistic enterprise into the post-Revolutionary era, patrons gradually learned to read paintings as more than mere likenesses. Affected by shifts in society, artistic practices, and clientele, portraitists began to reveal their sitters' desired social positions and to delight them with more elaborate compositions. Charles Willson Peale's painting Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming (1788) portrays his married patrons as if they were still courting. Stories for the Public, 1830–1860 In the early 1830s, artists began to paint more scenes of everyday life, filled with recognizable types: the good mother, the old Revolutionary War veteran, the canny Yankee, and other stock characters. Artists avoided subjects that might be melodramatic or unpleasant, unless they took place far away, in the new frontiers of the West. Audiences enjoyed the chance to see themselves, their neighbors, and a full range of Americans on the stages of these canvases, and to do so in the safety of their own homes. These scenes celebrate self-consciously the distinctive strengths and peccadilloes of a new nation. A few artists, however, did hint at the darker side of American experience—the danger of luxury, the taint of slavery, and the violence that lurked under the bustling, go-getting surface of American society—as in Eastman Johnson's Negro Life at the South (1859), a subtle allegory of the strength of black Americans' family bonds under the pressure of poverty and slavery. Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860–1877 The unique and overwhelming circumstances of the Civil War and the years of Reconstruction challenged American artists. The confluence of charged political and economic events as well as profound social change created such turmoil that many artists chose to examine only small, reassuring slices of the human experience in subtle, open-ended narratives. Seeking to assuage the sorrow of the war and heal the nation's fractured spirit, painters turned away from military and political content. Artists depicted women in new roles and grappling with the new responsibilities left to them after the loss of so many men in combat. And, as the agrarian basis of American life yielded to urbanization and industrialization, artists who lived, studied, worked, and exhibited their paintings in cities looked to the countryside for subject matter. Winslow Homer's masterpiece The Cotton Pickers (1876, LACMA) addresses all of these issues in a monumental study of two black women picking cotton in Virginia after the War. Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories, 1877–1900 By the mid-1870s the taste of American viewers and patrons had changed in response to their expanded opportunities for travel. They were as likely to paint people enjoying everyday life in Paris or the French countryside as in New York or New England. Their works evade the harsh realities of urban existence, and compared to earlier genre scenes, their stories are ambiguous and at times elusive. Mary Cassatt's study of a bored young sitter in Little Girl in a Blue Armchair (1878) touches on these issues. Many painters recorded the lives of women as devoted mothers, dedicated household managers, participants in genteel feminine rituals, and resolute keepers of culture. A few artists told tales about men at work and leisure while celebrating new American heroes. The cowboy emerged as an icon of American masculinity and the shrinking frontier, as is seen in Frederic Remington's Fight for the Water Hole (1903). Stories of the City 1900–1915 By 1900, the city had become a significant theme for artists, a place of pleasure and excitement rather than danger. The artists of the Ashcan School (so-called because they were accused of painting ash cans, or garbage, rather than higher-class subjects) were known for celebrating the immigrant neighborhoods of the city and its entertainments, rather than ignoring or condemning them. George Bellows and John Sloan in particular delighted in the raucous qualities of working-class culture, as is seen for instance in Bellows's spectacularly aggressive Club Night (1907) or vivid Cliff Dwellers (1913, LACMA). But even as they championed the ability of painters to capture life itself, other artists were exploring abstraction. While story-telling painting would continue, it would now share the stage with radically different artistic forms. California Stories Exclusive to LACMA's presentation is an additional section dedicated to California Stories, curated by Ilene Susan Fort, the Gail and John Liebes Curator of American Art at LACMA. Drawn from local collections, a selection of a half dozen paintings focuses on themes of mining, tourism, and ethnicity unique to California, illustrating stories of the Gold Rush, the extraordinary natural beauty, and the Hispanic and Asian heritage of the state. Among the artists represented will be Albertus Browere, William Hahn, and Ernest Narjot.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art exhibits Avant-garde Renaissance of Vladimir Dubossarsky & Alexander Vinogradov Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:30 PM PDT MOSCOW.- As an institution, the art museum accumulates a large amount of powerful energy from various dynamic and creative spirits, which it then shares with the audience. Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov reveal the secret life of an imaginary museum hidden from the viewer's eye. Renaissance, avant-garde and mass- media images are synthesized in the monumental paintings created for this project. The texture of large canvases and the smell of oil are still regarded as essential attributes of the Old Masters, which refer to the heritage of Raphael, Tintoretto, Durer, Veronese, daVinci, Titian, Rembrandt and many other great masters.

Cincinnati Art Museum features Masterpieces of Dada and Surrealist Art Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:29 PM PDT CINCINNATI, OHIO - The Cincinnati Art Museum  is the sole U.S. venue for an exhibition that features works by the greatest masters of Dada and Surrealist art, including Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Jean (Hans) Arp, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch and Paul Delvaux. Surrealism and Beyond: In the Israel Museum, Jerusalem provides a comprehensive survey of Surrealist art from its roots in the beginnings of the Dada movement in 1916, through recent manifestations in international contemporary art. The exhibition—on view from February 15 through May 17, 2009—will showcase over 200 works.

Artists Represent Most Powerful Emotion / LOVE at the National Gallery in London Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:28 PM PDT LONDON.- The National Gallery will present LOVE, on view 24 July – 5 October 2008. Arguably the inspiration for great art more than any other human emotion, love nevertheless presents a challenge to the visual artist. How do you depict love? How do you convey its complexity and intensity? Comprising works of art from the 15th century to the present day, this exhibition explores how artists have represented this most powerful of emotions.

Super Rich Collectors Ready to Spend Again at Auctions of Rare Art Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:27 PM PDT NEW YORK, (REUTERS).- Fueled by international collectors and Wall Street investors reaping soaring profits, the beaten-down art market appears poised for a remarkable comeback after an 18-month stumble. Rare buying opportunities to buy works by such modern masters as Jasper Johns and Mark Rothko will spur stiff competition and hefty spending by deep-pocketed collectors at the critical spring sales hosted by auction powerhouses Sotheby's and Christie's, art experts predict. "You're going to see records set," said Baird Ryan, managing director of the private financial and consulting services firm Art Capital Group.

Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) Shows Selections from Collection Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:26 PM PDT BEAUMONT , Texas - This summer, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) continues its series of summer exhibitions examining portions of the permanent collection with different themes or points of view. On view July 25 through Sept. 27, 2009 will be two exhibitions: Cityscapes: Works of the Photorealists and Late 19th – Early 20th Century Paintings and Prints.   "These exhibitions provide the community with a great opportunity to view a sampling of the wide diversity contained in the museum's permanent collection," said AMSET Curator of Exhibitions and Collections Sarah Hamilton.

Kunsthalle Wien Examines the Photographic Portrait from Mapplethorpe to Goldin Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:25 PM PDT VIENNA.- When the history of photography began to unfold with portraiture, one's own image was cause for astonishment and rapture. Since its discovery, beginning with early daguerreotypes and nineteenth century studio portraits, photography has satisfied people's desire for their likeness and largely replaced the more costly and demanding painting. The image of the face, as the constitutive element of the portrait, is traditionally regarded as a mirror of the soul and a medium of identification. "The face is where we are," says photographer Jonathan Miller: "We kiss, eat, breathe and speak through it. It's where we think of ourselves as being finally and conclusively on show. It's the part we hide when we are ashamed and the bit we think we lose when we are in disgrace."

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia opens Nancy Spero Exhibition Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:24 PM PDT MADRID.- Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1926, Spero is a pioneer of feminist art and a key figure in the New York protest scene in the 1960s and 70s. She can be placed among other feminist artists such as Martha Rosler and Adrian Piper. With a career as an artist and activist that spans more than 50 years, Spero continues even today to be an example of engagement in our current political, social and cultural scene, which she always questions and defies. On exhibition 15 October through 5 January, 2009.

Art Now Follows The Money . . At Sea Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:23 PM PDT Greenwich, CT - Strolling through the galleries on the SeaFair's Grand Luxe, a lavish new yacht selling fine art, antiques and jewelry, Deborah and Chuck Royce looked at paintings by Marc Chagall and Fernando Botero and were "seriously distracted," Ms. Royce said, by a glittery butterfly pin of colored gemstones.

Google Celebrates 110th Birthday of Rene Magritte with a Magritte Doodle Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:22 PM PDT MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - Google is celebrating the 110th birthday of Rene Magritte by incorporating some of Magritte's masterpieces with the Google logo. Ever so often, Google does a "doodle", or a "decoration" they make to their logo. Over the years doodles have become one of the most beloved parts of Google. The doodle selection process aims to celebrate interesting events and anniversaries around the world that reflect Google's personality and love of innovation.

Continuum of Jewish Heritage Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:21 PM PDT MILWAUKEE, WI - The Jewish Museum Milwaukee, Wisconsin's only museum dedicated to the history of the Jewish people in this region, opened on April 28, 2008. The Museum is located in the historic Helfaer Community Service Building, designed by Edward Durell Stone on Prospect Avenue, immediately north of downtown Milwaukee. The chief artifact of the Museum is a one-of-a-kind tapestry specially created by artist Marc Chagall to mark the building's opening in 1973.

Guggenheim in Bilbao exhibits "All the Histories of Art ~ Kunsthistorisches Museum" Posted: 28 Sep 2011 07:20 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. With a selection of almost 200 works and around one hundred artists ranging from Egypt and the ancient world to the 18th century, the show, which has been generously sponsored by Iberdrola, is divided into six major sections that correspond to the main artistic genres in art history. However, these genres are not limited solely to the examples provided by what are traditionally called the "major arts", as they also include samples of the art dubbed "industrial", "sumptuary" or "decorative". Curated by Carmen Giménez, 20th Century Art Conservator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and Francisco Calvo Serraller, Professor of Art History at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the exhibition features works by great masters such as Arcimboldo, Dürer, Holbein, Tintoretto, Titian, Rubens, Velázquez and others. It is especially relevant given the common shared history between Austria and Spain and the cultural and artistic mark that the Habsburg dynasty left on both countries. All the Histories of Art presents such disparate works as paintings, works from the ancient world, coins, armour, sculptures and objects from what were called cabinets of curiosities (Kunstkammern), which give insight into the taste of the Hapsburg emperors and archdukes, avid collectors and sponsors of the arts for over five centuries. The entire third floor of the museum will house a painstakingly culled selection of 197 works, which revolve around the main artistic genres in art history according to a more up-to-date discourse: portraiture; history, religion and mythology; the nude; everyday scenes; still lifes; and landscapes. All of these genres are illustrated with a fascinating juxtaposition of paintings and objects. The first section of the exhibition is devoted to the genre of portraiture, which over the centuries has been represented in a vast variety of media and supports. The museum's halls give spectators the chance to admire everything from sculptures from ancient Egypt and the classical world to canvases by the great painting masters including Holbein, Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens, Van Dyck and Velázquez. This section also includes sculptures, armour, decorative objects and an extensive array of commemorative medals and coins. In all these works, the different schools, periods and disciplines blend and contrast with each other, forging a dialogue that highlights the unique nature of each of them. Sculptures from the Early, Middle and Late Kingdoms of ancient Egypt and the classical world are displayed alongside portraits as famous as Holbein's Jane Seymour (1508/9–1537) (ca. 1536/37), Tintoretto's Portrait of a White-bearded Man (ca. 1570/78) and Velázquez's Infanta Margarita Teresa (1651–1673) in a Blue Gown (1659). Along with Foot-Combat Helmet of Maximilian I and Philip the Handsome (ca. 1500), the sculptures of Charles V and Mary of Hungary crafted by Leoni, and the decorative objects, coins and medallions, together they are clear examples of the quality of the collections presented in the genre of portraiture. The second section, devoted to the "painting of history", is one of the most outstanding in the exhibition, not just because of the sheer number of works but also because of their quality and the dialogue that is forged among them. Examples of some of the most acclaimed paintings in this section are Dürer's Madonna Nursing the Child (1503), Titian's Christ and the Adulterous Woman (ca. 1512/15), Cranach the Elder's Lot and his Daughters (1528), Carracci's Pietà (ca. 1603), Rubens' The lamentation over Christ (1614) and Penitent Mary Magdalene and her Sister Martha (ca. 1620), and Gentileschi's Penitent Magdalene (ca. 1621/23). These paintings are accompanied by bronze sculptures such as Leone Leoni's The Man called "Chained Barbarian" (1550–60), precious ivories from the Kunstkammer such as the Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1650) crafted by an anonymous artist who drew his inspiration from one of Rubens' works, and two magnificent tapestries from the late 17th century. The nude, the focal point of the third section in this exhibition, complements and culminates the "painting of history" through such illustrious artists as Palma il Vecchio, Titian, Bartholomeus Spranger, and Veronese. Their paintings are joined by wonderful sculptures and decorative objects coming from both the private cabinets of the Hapsburgs, the Kunstkammer and Wunderkammer, and the collections of the different emperors and archdukes from the dynasty. The most outstanding works in this section include Palma il Vecchio's Nymphs at their Bath (ca. 1525–28) about the subject of bathing, along with Giambologna's Venus after Bathing (ca. 1580–85?), Titian's Mars, Venus and Cupid (after 1546) and a sumptuous ivory jug cover dating from the mid-17th century. Popular everyday and costumbrist scenes are represented by the magnificent works of Adriaen van Ostade, Bernardo Strozzi, David Teniers the Younger and Alessandro Magnasco. Villages and streets, markets, taverns and popular festivities are reflected in such outstanding works as Adriaen van Ostade's Village Barber (ca. 1637), Bernardo Strozzi's Lute Player (ca. 1640–44) and Alessandro Magnasco's Interrogation in Jail (ca. 1710–20), as well as a small funerary limestone statue crafted during the 6th dynasty of the Old Kingdom and discovered in Giza, which portrays a Servant Grinding Grain. To illustrate the subject of still lifes, Hall 302 will house works by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan Davidsz. de Heem, alongside objects from the Kunstkammer or cabinets of art. This section is where the taste for collecting and the objects housed in the Kunstkammer are best represented. The scientific and decorative objects shed light on the universe that remained concealed inside these tiny cabinets of curiosities for the emperors' private pleasure. Along with them, you can also see Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Fire (1566), part of a series that the artist rendered about the four elements: fire, water, air and earth, only three of which remain today (two in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna). The tour around All the Histories of Art: Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna comes to an end in the sixth section, which houses views of country life, seascapes and cityscapes by such prominent painters and Patinir, Bril, Van Goyen, Van Ruisdael, Gainsborough and Bellotto. This section also showcases three magnificent commessi in pietre dure (hard rock mosaics) by Castrucci and three small objects dating from the 16th century showing animal shapes that accompany Savery's painting entitled Landscape with Birds (dated 1628). This selection of works illustrates the evolution of this genre from the 16th century until the second half of the 18th century. With this varied assembly of subjects from historical works, which stand in striking contrast to the singular contemporary space of Frank Gehry's building, the goal of this exhibition is to showcase the diversity of the encyclopaedic collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna in an effort to provide visitors with a unique chance to enjoy its extraordinary collections. The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna houses the royal collections amassed by the Hapsburg dynasty, avid collectors and sponsors of the arts for more than five centuries. The current museum was officially opened by Emperor Franz Josef (1830-1916) in 1891. The core of this collection are the Kunstkammer (Collection of Sculpture and the Decorative Arts) and Wunderkammer (Cabinet of Curiosities) of Archiduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol and Emperor Rudolph II, both of which are represented in this show. Furthermore, the museum's collection also includes exquisite samples of Egyptian, Greek and Roman art and antiques, mediaeval art, and Renaissance and Baroque art. The museum has eight different collections, some of which are housed in the Hofburg and Schönbrunn palaces in Vienna. Under the reign of Charles VI (1685-1740), the collection was united in Vienna and organised into a detailed presentation of the works. Later on, under the influence of the leading figures from the Enlightenment, the collection was catalogued in the 18th century, systematising its organisation according to the different schools. At that time, too, the collections were opened to the public for the first time three days a week. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated publication that includes essays by Francisco Calvo Serraller and Franz Pichorner (Deputy Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna), as well as overview commentaries on the works on display written by the conservators and researchers at the Kunsthistorisches.

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