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

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• The Charlie Smith Gallery Presents John Stark's Apiculture Paintings
• Traveling Art Show Brings Masterpieces to Cuban Provincial Masses
• Connor Contemporary Art . . Asks 'Is Realism Relevant?'
• The Chrysler Museum Displays Works From Local Private Collections
• The South African Jewish Museum Shows Zapiro's Nelson Mandela Cartoons
• The L.A. Mart Hosts the Art Platform Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair
• Galerie Barbara Thumm Presents New Works by Martin Dammann
• Vereshchagin Painting to Highlight Sotheby's Auction of Russian Art
• The Kunstverein Medienturm Presents "The Hauntings" in Art, Media & Pop
• PULSE Contemporary Art Fair Opens in Los Angeles
• The Jewish Museum Recaptures the Brilliance of a Vanguard Theater, Cut Short
• Rivals Christie's and Sotheby's ~ Each Aims for New Heights in London Sales
• Street Art Uses Iconic River Facade for Exhibit at Tate Modern
• 'W' Magazine Looks into Live Nudity at the Museum of Modern Art in NY
• Baltimore Museum of Art debuts Comprehensive Survey of Austrian Artist Franz West
• The Museum of Fine Arts Boston & National Gallery of Canada Join LACMA in "Clock-Watching"
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) to showcase "Café and Cabaret" the Avant-Garde
• FIAC ~ France's Most Prestigious Art Fair Will Feature 194 Galleries of Art
• LACMA Presents 150 Years of American Masterpieces
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

The Charlie Smith Gallery Presents John Stark's Apiculture Paintings Posted: 30 Sep 2011 11:32 PM PDT London.- Charlie Smith Gallery is delighted to present "John Stark: Apiculture", on view at the gallery from October 7th through November 12th. In this exhibition, the artist's second one person exhibition at the gallery, Stark has created a body of work that gravitates towards the centre of his preoccupations of the last three years. Rendered with masterly technique in oil on panel, Stark's paintings transcend time by navigating the historical, the contemporary and the futuristic. At once his content recalls the Flemish landscape painting of Patinir; the figure work of Zurbarán and Sassoferrato; and the minimal Modernism of Donald Judd. We are invited to assume that these depictions are posited at some point in an imagined future. Figures bustle amongst sporadic buildings in verdant foregrounds and backgrounds made of ever receding waterways and rocky out-crops. However, on further consideration it becomes unclear as to whether these vistas are a futuristic wondering or rather a rendition of some eternally recurring cycle. Central to this creation of non (but all encompassing) time and place are the endeavours of the populace within. Colonies of beekeepers tend to their colonies of bees. Hooded and masked figures labour in the landscape in a collaborative enterprise to create liquid gold. Analogous to the intensive work of the artist, all are toiling here, all creating. Stark has also begun to provide more information. There is no doubt that we are exploring a utilitarian society consisting of communities inhabiting historic towers and fortifications; postmodern and prototype dwellings and units; and everyone and everything has its function. We are not being directed however. These paintings are a virtuoso display of artist as vessel. They are depictions from an internal world but which also touch upon universal aspects of existence, traversing expansive leitmotifs that embrace philosophy, spirituality, and the histories of art and thought (and feeling). Operating as a collection of paintings that work together as a group, the whole refers to each individual part and in turn each part serves to provide an understanding of the whole. There is only one more component required to interpret the circle of endeavour of artist and subjects in these allegorical paintings and that is the psychology of the viewer. John Stark was born in 1979 and after obtaining his BA in Fine Art from the University of West England in 2001, earned an MA in Fine Art from the Royal Academy Schools in 2004. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK and Europe and he is in private collections in Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. Having curated exhibitions and represented artists since 2006, Charlie Smith London established its gallery space in Old Street in October 2009 with the objective of running an exceptional exhibition programme of dedicated one person exhibitions and dynamic curated group shows. Their approach is collaborative and curatorial with an emphasis on work that challenges, seduces, confronts and consoles. Beauty, death, horror, sexuality, the historical and mythological are their common interests. The gallery's aim is to discover and promote vital artists, and introduce them to local and international markets, creating a global synergy for like-minded and progressive artists, collectors, galleries and curators. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.charliesmithlondon.com

Traveling Art Show Brings Masterpieces to Cuban Provincial Masses Posted: 30 Sep 2011 10:50 PM PDT PINAR DEL RIO , CUBA - A traveling exhibition of art donated by a U.S. philanthropist Gilbert Brownstone, is giving Cubans outside the capital a rare chance to see works from masters such as Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol that would normally hang in world-class galleries instead of sleepy provincial cities. Selections from the 120-piece collection have already toured Camaguey and Holguin in the island's far-flung east and recently went on display in the western city of Pinar del Rio, known more for tobacco farms than art museums. More than a dozen works by Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, Camille Pissarro, Georges Rouault, Roy Lichtenstein and others went up in the glassed lobby of a local TV station, watched over by just a few police and guards and prompting curious passers-by to pop in to see what all the fuss was about.

Connor Contemporary Art . . Asks 'Is Realism Relevant?' Posted: 30 Sep 2011 10:33 PM PDT Washington, DC.- Is Realism Relevant? Conner Contemporary Art enthusiastically says 'YES' with three concurrent solo exhibitions featuring new works by Erik Thor Sandberg, Nathaniel Rogers and Katie Miller. All three aexhibitions are on view at the gallery from September 10th through October 22nd. Six centuries after Flemish oil painting branded the early modern age, each of these DC area artists maximizes his or her command of the realist technique to express the human condition in contemporary life. Engagement with current issues imbues these painters' works with the relevance of their own time, while their informed references to artistic precedents casts present situations within a historical perspective. With its world class Old Master museum collections, Washington is a natural home for realism. Representational painting began to make a resurgence here in the 1970s, in the wake of the prominent Washington Color abstractionists. Today, Sandberg, Rogers and Miller are at the leading edge of contemporary realism in DC.

The Chrysler Museum Displays Works From Local Private Collections Posted: 30 Sep 2011 10:11 PM PDT Norfolk, VA.– The Chrysler Museum of Art is proud to present "Our Community Collects: From Durer to Warhol and Beyond" on view through January 29th 2012. Featuring 163 works of art from 42 private collections, this new exhibition feels like a museum within a museum, progressing from Old Masters to cutting-edge contemporary art in one leisurely stroll. The overall strength of the show reflects the sophistication of the collectors and there are almost too many highlights to list. These exceptional pieces include work by Ansel Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, Albert Bierstadt, Dale Chihuly, Winslow Homer, Roy Lichtenstein, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lino Tagliapietra, Grant Wood and more.

The South African Jewish Museum Shows Zapiro's Nelson Mandela Cartoons Posted: 30 Sep 2011 09:57 PM PDT Cape Town, South Africa.- The South African Jewish Museum is proud to present "Zapiro: Jiving with Madiba", on view until November 18th. Not just another tribute to Nelson Mandela, this exhibition, the largest ever of Zapiro's work, celebrates the life and contributions of South Africa's greatest citizen, his struggle, successes and shortcomings, as portrayed by our country's leading political cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, better known as Zapiro. With over 130 of Jonathan Shapiro's cartoons on display, "Zapiro: Jiving with Madiba" traces the life of Nelson Mandela from Prisoner to President to Pensioner.  "This exhibition is truly an inspiring romp through the first two decades of the New South Africa, as serialised in our media, by our greatest cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro" says Andrew Goldman, the Jewish Museum's Director.  "It is not possible to leave untouched by the contributions of Mandela and Shapiro, endowed with very different talents and yet both hugely influential in the shaping of the New South Africa."

The L.A. Mart Hosts the Art Platform Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair Posted: 30 Sep 2011 09:42 PM PDT Los Angeles, CA.- The 724,000 square feeet L. A. Mart® will be home to Art Platform - Los Angeles from October 1st through October 3rd. Open to the public will be several floors and thousands of square feet dedicated to the exhibition, exploration, and discovery of contemporary art from Southern California. The building is situated at the perimeter of Los Angeles' downtown residential redevelopment, Staples Center, L.A. Live!, Los Angeles Convention Center, Museum of Contemporary Art, Music Center, as well as other numerous world-class civic and cultural institutions. The Art Platform - Los Angeles art fair will demonstrate the rich and diverse cultural landscape of Southern California and underscore Los Angeles' influential position within the contemporary art world.

Galerie Barbara Thumm Presents New Works by Martin Dammann Posted: 30 Sep 2011 09:42 PM PDT Berlin.- The Barbara Thumm Gallery is pleased to present "Martin Dammann: Gegen Uber" a series of new works by the Berlin based artist until October 29th. An essential topic of Martin Dammanns' work is the correlation of photography and painting with regards to the topics, which are depicted. Dammann chooses to translate the photographic image into painting when he is "captured by an unexpected, vague and yet poignant feeling that something is in the photo, though not visibly. As if the moments when these photos were taken had a special meaning and despite the inability of  traces of light to translate this into a photochemical process, an echo of that meaning somehow remains (Martin Dammann)." By transcribing such photos into a different medium Dammann seeks to understand and to master that described phenomena.

Vereshchagin Painting to Highlight Sotheby's Auction of Russian Art Posted: 30 Sep 2011 09:26 PM PDT NEW YORK, N.Y.- Sotheby's auction of Important Russian Art on 1 November will be led by Vasili Vasilievich Vereshchagin's Pearl Mosque at Delhi, the most accomplished painting from the artist's famed Indian series and his most significant canvas to appear at auction in over a century (est. $3/5 million*). The monumental work – measuring approximately 13 by 16 feet – is on offer from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), along with seven works in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale the following night. Pearl Mosque at Delhi will be on view in Sotheby's York Avenue galleries beginning 26 October, alongside the full sale exhibition.

The Kunstverein Medienturm Presents "The Hauntings" in Art, Media & Pop Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:50 PM PDT Graz, Austria.- The Kunstverein Medienturm is pleased to present "Hauntings - Ghost Box Media" on view at the museum until December 17th. For as long as the mediums have been in existence, people have believed that these media maintain a special connection to the beyond. Writing, photography, the sound recording, the film image – each one is the placeholder for an absent presence, for a past - or future - elsewhere whose after-effects linger in the here and now. Under the current conditions of open and electronicall y available archives, these symptoms are growing more radical : there is virtually no media artefact in existence today that is not haunted by – or, even, that does not explicitly invoke – a "spectre" or "ghost" from the past.

PULSE Contemporary Art Fair Opens in Los Angeles Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:49 PM PDT Los Angeles, CA - PULSE Contemporary Art Fair is proud to announce its first edition of PULSE Los Angeles from September 30th through October 3rd. Taking place at the Event Deck at L.A. LIVE - a 100,000 square foot, rooftop venue - PULSE Los Angeles is modeled on its flagship Miami fair, offering a comfortably scaled and dynamic event indoors and out. The fair's signature series of original programming will make its return with an ambitious slate of sculptures, murals, performances and multimedia works, with this edition placing a strong emphasis on the contemporary art and culture of Los Angeles. PULSE Los Angeles, the newest addition to PULSE Contemporary Art Fairs, celebrates the creative energy and growing art market of the West Coast. The newest edition of the leading series of PULSE Contemporary Art Fairs brings sixty exhibitors from Asia, Europe, and the Americas to Los Angeles' spectacular rooftop venue, The Event Deck at L.A. LIVE, where its more than 100,000 square feet of exhibition space will be surrounded by vistas of the Downtown area. In recognition of its launch to coinciding with the Getty Foundation's Pacific Standard Time - a collection of exhibitions by more than 60 leading Southern California institutions - the new fair features a special offering of local non-profit and alternative exhibition spaces. Galleries from diverse locales such as Tel Aviv's Zemack Contemporary Art, Mexico  City's ANTENA ESTUDIO, Habana's Factoría, and Tokyo's Megumi Ogita Gallery; along with leading New York galleries such as Mixed Greens, P•P•O•W, SCHROEDER ROMERO & SHREDDER and Von Lintel Gallery will bring the works of pioneering artists to Los Angeles. Local leaders such as Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, and Mark Moore Gallery will join a special presentation of nearby nonprofits to present the vanguard of Angelino artists while highlighting emerging young talents. While browsing the sixty exhibitors guests are encouraged to visit the Studios GO-designed Air Lounge, and relax within the VIP lounge created by Openhouse Gallery. Once there they will be treated to over 15 special projects including Daniela Comani's It Was Me: Diary 1900-1999, recently on view at the 54th Venice Biennale and presented by Los Angeles' Charlie James Gallery; the Martin Durazo installation MAX-NIGMATIX courtesy of Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; and Ted Riederer's The Resurrectionists, courtesy of New Orleans' Jonathan Ferrara Gallery and PULSE Official Shipping Company Elizabeth Stevens. PULSE Play , the fair's ongoing series of curated video exhibitions brings Industry of Fetish, curated by Dossier Journal and Skylight Projects, New York; along with "I'll leave the stones here, but I'm taking the dream with me", (from Fischli and Weiss' film The Right Way) curated by Stanya Kahn for Artists Curated Projects, Los Angeles.  Further afield, a special presentation of three projects will be on view at Hotel Partner The Standard's  Downtown and Hollywood hotels, including Brice Brown's Service Everyday (Dish Queens) courtesy of Schroeder Romero & Shredder, New York; Dave Kinsey's mural Prospects of Despair II, courtesy of Joshua Liner Gallery, New York; and the Noemi Lafrance short dance film Melt, courtesy of Black & White Gallery/Project Space, Brooklyn, and Sens Production. The fair will open with a private press and VIP preview on Friday, September 30 from 12 pm - 2 pm. Access is limited to registered guests. PULSE Contemporary Art Fair is the leading US art fair dedicated solely to contemporary art. Through its annual editions in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, PULSE provides a unique platform for diverse galleries to present a progressive blend of renowned and pioneering contemporary artists, alongside an evolving series of original programming. The fair's distinctive commitment to the art community and visitor experience makes PULSE unique among art fairs and creates an art market experience that is both dynamic and inviting. The Fair is divided into two sections and is comprised of a mix of established and emerging galleries vetted by a committee of prominent international dealers. The IMPULSE section presents galleries invited by the Committee to present solo exhibitions of artist's work created in the past two years. Through its annual editions in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, PULSE provides a unique platform for diverse galleries to present a progressive blend of renowned and pioneering contemporary artists, alongside an evolving series of original programming. The fair's distinctive commitment to the art community and visitor experience makes PULSE unique among art fairs and creates an experience that is both dynamic and inviting. PULSE Contemporary Art Fairs are a division of Ramsay Fairs. The world's largest producer of contemporary art fairs, Ramsay Fairs is co-founder of Art HK, Asia's largest fair; co-owner of the India Art Fair; and owner of the Affordable Art Fair, held in ten cities internationally. Visit the fair's website at ... http://www.pulse-art.com

The Jewish Museum Recaptures the Brilliance of a Vanguard Theater, Cut Short Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:38 PM PDT   NEW YORK, NY.- During the artistic ferment following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, major artists joined actors, choreographers, writers, and musicians in creating a daring new theater. This collaboration gave rise to extraordinary productions with highly original stage designs that redefined the concept of theater itself, attracting large, diverse audiences and garnering international critical praise. In Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949, on view from through March 22, 2009, The Jewish Museum tells the little-known and tumultuous story of this vanguard artistic flowering, which thrived on the stage for thirty years before being brutally extinguished during the Stalinist era. More than 200 works of art and ephemera, the majority never before exhibited, have been drawn from collections in Russia, France, Israel, and the United States for the showing. Marc Chagall's celebrated, monumental murals are featured, in addition to more than 100 watercolor, gouache and crayon drawings of costume and set designs, executed in the experimental modes of Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism by such artists as Natan Altman, Robert Falk, Ignaty Nivinsky, Isaac Rabinovich, and Aleksandr Tyshler. Rare film footage of early performances transports viewers back to another time. Fascinating archival materials such as music, posters, prints, programs, and period photographs of productions and actors in character help recapture extraordinary moments. Many items in the exhibition survived a 1953 blaze at Moscow's Bakhrushin State Central Theater Museum, the premier repository for archives of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET), and a major lender to the exhibition. The fire, almost certainly intentional, was an attempt by the Soviets to stamp out the legacy of the Russian Jewish theater. Following its showing in New York, Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949 travels to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco where it will be on view from April 25 through September 7, 2009. The exhibition has been organized by Susan Tumarkin Goodman, Senior Curator at The Jewish Museum. She first learned of the Bakhrushin's trove while researching another exhibition in Moscow nearly a decade and a half ago: "I became aware of the achievement of artists who, in the heady days after the revolution, embraced the avant-garde and the potential of a people's theater." "These artists created a uniquely new theater, one that combined visual art and music with stylized expressionist performances. They also had an affinity for the grotesque and the comedic melodrama of Yiddish folklore," continues Goodman. The Jewish theater movement in Russia was represented by two companies based in Moscow with very different approaches. Habima's productions, performed in Hebrew, emphasized the ideas of Zionism and Jewish national rebirth. Soviet ideologues soon deemed the theater's policies at odds with socialist ideals. In 1926, Habima left the Soviet Union to settle in Palestine, eventually becoming Israel's national theater. In contrast to Habima, GOSET, which performed in Yiddish, presented daring expressionistic dramas. With its innovative blending of Jewish folklore and literature, Constructivist-inspired sets, and expressionist acting techniques, GOSET was wildly popular with Jews and non-Jews alike. The legendary murals created by Marc Chagall in 1920 to adorn the GOSET theater will be displayed in a gallery that replicates its original intimate size. Painted by the artist in a little over a month, Chagall's murals will cover the Museum's walls with engaging representations of GOSET's performers using vibrant color and geometric forms that dance across the surfaces. Natan Altman's faux-naïve, yet sophisticated color drawings for the sets and costumes of one of Habima's most acclaimed productions, Solomon An-sky's The Dybbuk (1922) are another highlight. Already a leading avant-garde artist, Altman transformed familiar folkloric characters into a visual feast of exaggerated, distorted, and twisted forms. Rare photographs of the original production, directed by Evgeny Vakhtangov, a protégé of the renowned Konstantin Stanislavsky, will be shown on video, and the production's Constructivist set model (reconstructed), poster, handwritten score, and program also will be on view. Costume design drawings by the artist Robert Falk for GOSET's production of At Night in the Old Marketplace are animated with an angular visual vitality in portrayals of prostitutes and the walking dead. In 1932 Stalin issued a decree stating that all artistic endeavors must conform to the goals of the Revolution. The only approved form of artistic expression was Socialist Realism. Thereafter, the avant-garde fell out of favor. Many in Russia's theatrical avant-garde feared for their lives and began to opt for "safe" works. In 1935 GOSET mounted Shakespeare's King Lear, which, rather ironically, became the company's greatest success due in large measure to the acclaimed performance of the brilliant actor Solomon Mikhoels. Helping to convey the gravitas of the production are emotive watercolors by set designer Aleksandr Tyshler and photographs of Mikhoels, by then GOSET's director, as Lear. In 1948, Solomon Mikhoels was murdered at Stalin's direction, his brutal death staged as a truck accident. More than ten thousand people attended his funeral. GOSET was liquidated the following year. Exhibition visitors will be able to see the actor's broken eyeglasses, retrieved when his body was found on a snowy road, as well as film footage from Mikhoels's funeral. Other productions to be featured in Chagall and the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949 include Habima's The Golem (1925), and GOSET's The Sorceress: An Eccentric Jewish Play (1922), 200,000: A Musical Comedy (1923), and At Night in the Old Marketplace: Tragic Carnival (1925). The catalogue was funded through the Dorot Foundation publications endowment. About The Jewish Museum The Jewish Museum was established on January 20, 1904 when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. Today, The Jewish Museum maintains an important collection of 26,000 objects—paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media. Widely admired for its exhibitions and educational programs that inspire people of all backgrounds, The Jewish Museum is the preeminent institution exploring the intersection of 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture. General Information Museum hours are Saturday through Wednesday, 11am to 5:45pm; and Thursday, 11am to 8pm. Museum admission is $12.00 for adults, $10.00 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, free for children under 12 and Jewish Museum members. Admission is free on Saturdays. For general information on The Jewish Museum, the public may visit the Museum's Web site at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org or call 212.423.3200. The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan.

Rivals Christie's and Sotheby's ~ Each Aims for New Heights in London Sales Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:37 PM PDT LONDON (REUTERS).- Rivals Christie's and Sotheby's are expecting to hold their biggest ever London sales later this month, reflecting growing confidence in the art market boom. Christie's announced on Thursday it was offering a 1906 Monet water-lily painting worth an estimated 30 to 40 million pounds ($44-59 million), the same price as a Blue Period portrait by Pablo Picasso. The pair, plus 61 other works on offer, are expected to take the tally on June 23 to 164-231 million pounds, which, if realized, would be well above the London record of 147 million pounds set at Sotheby's in February.

Street Art Uses Iconic River Facade for Exhibit at Tate Modern Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:36 PM PDT LONDON - In the first commission to use the iconic river façade of Tate Modern, the gallery will present the work of six internationally acclaimed artists, whose work is intricately linked to the urban environment. Street Art at Tate Modern, sponsored by Nissan QASHQAI, opens on 23 May and is the first major public museum display of Street Art in London.

'W' Magazine Looks into Live Nudity at the Museum of Modern Art in NY Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:35 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- The human form, disrobed and displayed in all its glory, is arguably the most enduring motif in the history of Western art. Museums dedicated to art both ancient and modern are filled with nudes rendered every which way: painted, chiseled, molded, sketched and photographed. They're just usually not living and breathing. But New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)  will host daily performances of five seminal works by Marina Abramović, three of which feature performers in the altogether. In Imponderabilia (1977), two players stand opposite each other, au naturel, in a narrow doorway. Visitors must brush past them to enter the exhibition—an early, if awkward, example of interactive art. On exhibition 14 March through 31 May, 2010.

Baltimore Museum of Art debuts Comprehensive Survey of Austrian Artist Franz West Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:34 PM PDT   BALTIMORE, MD.- The Baltimore Museum of Art has organized the first comprehensive survey in the United States of Franz West, an internationally acclaimed Austrian artist whose singular vision has resulted in one of the most remarkable bodies of work produced since the 1960s. On view at the BMA October 12, 2008 – January 4, 2009, Franz West, To Build a House You Start with the Roof: Work, 1972-2008 includes 117 objects that reflect West's extraordinary innovations in sculpture, design, and on paper—ranging from early interactive works from the 1970s to two enormous brightly colored objects created for this exhibition.

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston & National Gallery of Canada Join LACMA in "Clock-Watching" Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:33 PM PDT Boston, MA.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the National Gallery of Canada announced this week that they have jointly acquired a copy of "The Clock" by Christian Marclay. The Los Angeles Museum of Art (LACMA) purchased an edition of Marclay's masterpiece in April for $467,500 and MOMA in New York is also rumored to be considering buying a copy. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston is currently undergoing refurbishment, and will unveil the new Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art in September. Marclay's work will have its Boston premiere on September 17 and 18, when the MFA hosts a 24-hour celebration of the new wing.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) to showcase "Café and Cabaret" the Avant-Garde Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:32 PM PDT BOSTON, MA.- More than 30 bold and subtle posters, prints, and paintings representative of the bohemian nightlife of late 19th-century Paris are presented in "Café and Cabaret: Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). The French aristocrat Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), one of the most famous artists of the Post-Impressionist period, is known for his striking images of performers in the centers of Parisian entertainment in the 1880s and 1890s, specifically the café-concerts and cabaret nightclubs in the neighborhood of Montmartre. Toulouse-Lautrec spent most of his time in this lively section of the city—where women danced the Cancan at places such as the Moulin Rouge—and chronicled in his canvases and lithographs the extravagant nightlife of Parisian dance halls and nightclubs. "Café and Cabaret" will be on view from November 21, 2009, through August 8, 2010, in the Mary Stamas Gallery.

FIAC ~ France's Most Prestigious Art Fair Will Feature 194 Galleries of Art Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:31 PM PDT PARIS.- The 37th edition of FIAC will be held from 21st to 24th October 2010 at the Grand Palais, the Cour Carrée du Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries, outstanding sites that are emblematic of Paris, imbued with its history and cultural life. Because of the high standards it sets and constantly renews and the synergies it has developed with the major Parisian institutions, FIAC occupies a position as one of the not-to-be-missed international events relating to artistic creativity.

LACMA Presents 150 Years of American Masterpieces Posted: 30 Sep 2011 08:30 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." 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 encompass a broad array of subjects and styles. Excluding images based on history, myth, or literature, American Stories emphasizes instead those derived from artists' firsthand observation, documentation, and interaction with clients. Recurring themes such as childhood, marriage, family, and community; the notion of citizenship; attitudes toward race; the frontier as reality and myth; and the process and meaning of making art illuminate the evolution of American artists' approach to narrative. 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 large shark and a fourteen-year-old boy swimming in Havana harbor, 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 despite 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 who were grappling with the 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 tastes of American viewers and patrons had changed in response to the expanded opportunities for travel. They were as likely to paint people enjoying everyday life in Paris or the French countryside as they were 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 their entertainments rather than ignoring or condemning them. George Bellows and John Sloan in particular delighted in the raucous qualities of working-class culture, as seen for instance in Bellows's spectacularly aggressive Club Night (1907) or his vivid Cliff Dwellers (1913, LACMA). But even as they championed the ability of painters to capture life itself, other artists were exploring abstraction. While storytelling 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, 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 region's 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. Visit The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) at : http://www.lacma.org/

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