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• The National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana Presents Carravaggio in Cuba
• The Peggy Guggenheim Collection to Feature "Themes & Variations: Script and Space"
• The Art Institute of Chicago Presents Timothy H. O'Sullivan Vintage Photographs
• The American Visionary Art Museum displays "All Things Round"
• The Hunterdon Art Museum Presents Interpretations of "Deconstructing Nature"
• Gallery150 Presents a Solo Show of Works by Caroline Gatehouse
• The Niemeyer Center in Spain Opened in March to Close After 6 Months
• THEMUSEUM Presents "RAM - Rethinking Art & Machine"
• Anselm Kiefer ~ Selected Works from the Grothe Collection at the Museum Frieder Burda
• New Mexico Museum of Art Unveils Recently Donated Works
• Chronological Survey of Le Corbusier's 60-year Oeuvre Opens at Martin Gropius Bau
• Moscow Museum of Modern Art opens Rena Tsuzmer Solo Exhibition
• Kunsthaus Zürich announces " Alberto Giacometti & Egyptian Philosophy " Exhibition
• California is Celebrating the 100th Birthday of Iconic Architect John Lautner
• Stolen Klimt Worth At Least $27 Million Returned After 70 Years To Jewish Heir
• Museum Kunst Palast opens Exhibition of Abstract Expressionism, 1946-1964
• Old Master Paintings Auction Sales Soar Despite Global Woes
• Knopf Publishes "Painting Below Zero" by Pop Artist James Rosenquist
• Hauser & Wirth announces the First UK Exhibition of the Berlin-based Artist Martin Eder
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana Presents Carravaggio in Cuba Posted: 05 Oct 2011 11:48 PM PDT Havana, Cuba.- The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana (National Museum of Fine Arts) is proud to present "Carravaggio in Cuba", on view until November 27th. The exhibit seeks to illustrate and deepen understanding of a fundamental period in Italian art that saw the city of Rome as the protagonist of a deep transformation that occurred in the course of the three first decades of the 17th century. With the Lutherian reformation sweeping Europe and the Trento Council (1545-1563), which marked the new path for the Vatican, it is possible to appreciate the dawn of the 17th century as being a real artistic revolution that made Rome the artistic capital of Europe. The exhibition is an event of great significance for Cuba, marking the first time that a Carravaggio painting has been put on public view. Accompanying Carravaggio's "The Narcissus" are 12 works by his followers, both from Italy and the rest of Europe. Carravaggio's soujourn in Rome lasted from his arrival "naked and penniless" in 1592 until 1606, when his already notorious behaviour culminated in his killing a youth during a brawl and he fled the city with a price on his head. However, during those years he had a profound influence. Chiaroscuro was practiced long before he came on the scene, but it was Caravaggio who made the technique definitive, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft of light. With this came the acute observation of physical and psychological reality which formed the ground both for his immense popularity and for his frequent problems with his religious commissions. He worked at great speed, from live models, scoring basic guides directly onto the canvas with the end of the brush handle; very few of Caravaggio's drawings appear to have survived, and it is likely that he preferred to work directly on the canvas. The approach was anathema to the skilled artists of his day, who decried his refusal to work from drawings and to idealise his figures. The installation of his St. Matthew paintings in the Contarelli Chapel had an immediate impact among the younger artists in Rome, and Caravaggism became the cutting edge for every ambitious young painter. The first Caravaggisti included Orazio Gentileschi and Giovanni Baglione. Baglione went on to write the first biography of Caravaggio. In the next generation of Caravaggisti there were Carlo Saraceni, Bartolomeo Manfredi and Orazio Borgianni. Gentileschi, despite being considerably older, was the only one of these artists to live much beyond 1620, and ended up as court painter to Charles I of England. Caravaggio's brief stay in Naples produced a notable school of Neapolitan Caravaggisti, including Battistello Caracciolo and Carlo Sellitto. The Caravaggisti movement there ended with a terrible outbreak of plague in 1656, but the Spanish connection – Naples was a possession of Spain – was instrumental in forming the important Spanish branch of his influence. A group of Catholic artists from Utrecht, the "Utrecht Caravaggisti", travelled to Rome as students in the first years of the 17th century and were profoundly influenced by the work of Caravaggio. On their return to the north this trend had a short-lived but influential flowering in the 1620s among painters like Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, Andries Both and Dirck van Baburen. In the following generation the effects of Caravaggio, although attenuated, are to be seen in the work of Rubens (who purchased one of his paintings for the Gonzaga of Mantua and painted a copy of the Entombment of Christ), Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Velázquez, the last of whom presumably saw his work during his various sojourns in Italy. Many of these artists are represented in the works which have travelled from italy to Cuba for this exhibition. The National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana) in Havana, Cuba is a museum of Fine Arts that exhibits Cuban art collections from the colonial times up to contemporary generations. It was founded on February 23, 1913 due to the efforts of its first director, Emilio Heredia, a well-known architect. After frequent moves it was finally placed on the block once occupied by the old Colon Market. In 1954, a new Palacio of Bellas Artes was opened, designed by the architect Rodriguez Pichardo. The original 1954 Palacio was recently reconstructed by the architect Jose Linares and a second building was taken over for the museum. There are now two impressive buildings belonging to the Museum, one dedicated to Cuban Arts in the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) and one dedicated to the Universal Arts, in the Palacio del Centro Asturiano (Palace of the Asturian Center). The Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) is dedicated exclusively to housing Cuba Art collections. Spanning the 17th and 19th centuries has rooms devoted to landscape, religious subjects and the Costumbrismo narrative scenes of Cuban life. Gallery devoted to the 1970s is marked by a preponderance of Hyperrealism and the latest generation of Cuban artists whose works all reflect the strong symbolic imagery that has been prevalent in recent decades. The most notable works are those of René Portocarrero and Wifredo Lam. A modernist sculpture by noted Cuban artist Rita Lonja stands outside the main entrance. In the Palacio del Centro Asturiano (Palace of the Asturian Center) built in 1927 by the architect Manuel Bustos European paintings and sculptures, along with a collection of ancient art are on displayed there. Originally, it was a club for natives of the Spanish Province of Asturias and after the 1959 Revolution it housed the Supreme Court of Justice.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection to Feature "Themes & Variations: Script and Space" Posted: 05 Oct 2011 11:32 PM PDT Venice.- The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is pleased to present "Themes & Variations: Script and Space", on view at the museum from October 15th through January 1st 2012. First conceived in 2002 by Luca Massimo Barbero, this is the third edition of an innovative exhibition formula that offers visitors fresh perceptions of the museum's collections, whether known or less known, by means of a dialogue with works by more contemporary artists from other collections, thus opening up new, multiple possible interpretations. Hung in the same galleries, works from the early 20th c. avant-garde connect thematically in a confrontation and comparison with post war and contemporary works, tracing the evolution of forms of visual expression as they change with time. Each gallery narrates its own story, its own theme, a curiosity or a variation, sometimes self-evident and sometimes purposefully obscured by the artist.

The Art Institute of Chicago Presents Timothy H. O'Sullivan Vintage Photographs Posted: 05 Oct 2011 11:00 PM PDT Chicago, IL.- The King Survey of the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains, from 1867 to 1872, was the model for the other "great surveys" of the American West. Rare and iconic works by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, the King Survey's official photographer, will be featured in "Timothy O'Sullivan: The King Survey Photography" an exhibition opening at the Art Institute of Chicago on October 22nd, and remaining on view through January 15th 2012. There are 60 photographs in the exhibition, nine of which were borrowed from the American Geographical Society in Milwaukee, WI, all the rest are from the holdings of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.  Keith F. Davis and Jane A. Aspinwall, respectively senior and assistant curators of photography at The Nelson-Atkins, organized the exhibition and co-authored a major book that will accompany the exhibition.

The American Visionary Art Museum displays "All Things Round" Posted: 05 Oct 2011 09:14 PM PDT Baltimore, Maryland.- The American Visionary Art Museum is proud to present its 17th annual 'mega-exhibition', "All Things Round: Galaxies, Eyeballs & Karma" on view from Cctober 7th through September 2nd 2012. The exhibition is a celebration and call to awareness of the circular and voluptuous nature of life. From the micro-atomic spin of electrons encircling a nucleus, to the macro orbit of planets rounding our sun, the show delights in the curves, spirals, orbs, and bubbles of full-bodied beauty that playfully manifest throughout art, science, and beyond. The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is America's official national museum and education center for self-taught, intuitive artistry.

The Hunterdon Art Museum Presents Interpretations of "Deconstructing Nature" Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:53 PM PDT Clinton, New Jersey.- The Hunterdon Art Museum presents "Deconstructing Nature", works by Chris Ballantyne, Gregory Euclide, Kim Keever, Dean Monogenis and Voshardt & Humphrey, on view at the museum until January 29th 2012. Deconstructing Nature is a contemporary interpretation of the modern landscape. By examining the essential qualities of nature through an updated lens, new possibilities emerge. The contemporary landscape is less concerned with a strict portrayal of a beach or a mountain and more concerned with a narrative about nature, regardless of the format. Deconstructing Nature features five artists; all with unique points of view on what happens when nature is dissected in order to return it in a different form.

Gallery150 Presents a Solo Show of Works by Caroline Gatehouse Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:52 PM PDT Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK.- Gallery150 is pleased to present "Caroline Gatehouse:Dichotomy" a solo show of the artist's paintings, on view from October 11th through October 23rd. Caroline, whose interest in art began at a very early age, went on to study at Cheltenham and Gloucester Art College, leaving with a distinction in design and display. On completion of her course, she went on to work for The English National Opera House, but, although she had been trained as a designer, it was not long before she realised that her real passion lay in Fine Art.

The Niemeyer Center in Spain Opened in March to Close After 6 Months Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:19 PM PDT London (The Guardian).- The Niemeyer Centre in Avilés, northern Spain, had been compared to the Guggenheim in Bilbao. A dazzling €44 million arts centre in the northern Spanish city of Avilés is to close after six months amid political squabbling as the country asks itself what to do with a glut of glittering new museums. The Niemeyer Centre, which was designed by the celebrated 103-year-old Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, was intended to have the same impact on the industrial Cantabrian sea port as the Guggenheim Museum has had on Bilbao, 150 miles to the east.

THEMUSEUM Presents "RAM - Rethinking Art & Machine" Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:01 PM PDT Kitchener, Ontario.- THEMUSEUM in downtown Kitchener is pleased to present "RAM | Rethinking Art & Machine", on view until January 22nd 2012. The exhibit showcases pioneer artists who address the relationship between art and electronic technology, light, graphics, robots and virtual reality dating back to the 1960's. Working with international galleries, THEMUSEUM and curator Marla Wasser will bring sixty fascinating interactive works from seven artists, including two from Canada and some Canadian premieres. "RAM has been a passionate two-year research project, where I selected each artist based on their very individual relationship with technology, and the meaningful way they use the machine as a tool to express their artistic message," explains Wasser.

Anselm Kiefer ~ Selected Works from the Grothe Collection at the Museum Frieder Burda Posted: 05 Oct 2011 08:00 PM PDT BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY - Anselm Kiefer is known to be one of the most important contemporary artists nationwide as well as worldwide. Through January 15, 2012, selected works by Kiefer from the Grothe collection can be seen at the Museum Frieder Burda. The curator Walter Smerling has selected 33 large format pictures from 30 years, focussing on the decade 2000. For the first time, the work "Essence" from the current series of alpine landscapes are being publicly exhibited. From the collection Frieder Burda, the work „Böhmen liegt am Meer" from 1995 is shown. The exhibition was developed in close cooperation between the Museum Frieder Burda and the Foundation for Art and Culture in Bonn. A catalog is available from the editorial Wienand Verlag. The focus of the exhibition is on the monumental picture „Der fruchtbare Halbmond" The fertile half moon (460 x 760 cm), a work from the year 2009. It refers to the consolidation of the occident and orient and is being exhibited in Germany for the first time. Kiefer's theme is the tower of Babel and the cradle of our culture, situated in the fertile Mesopotamia. The tower divided religions and languages, but Kiefer believes in the originally uniting aspects: the foundations are no longer simply destroyed, but also under construction. The former power of the fertile land can be regenerated, the solidarity of the different cultures becomes possible. When selling his substantial collection, Hans Grothe did not sell his works by Anselm Kiefer. He acquired his first pictures by Kiefer out of mere fascination and because he was emotionally touched; since at first, the rational contents did not really become accessible to him. The collection includes works from three decades that fascinate due to their unique materials, the compelling density of their messages and the intensity of their aura, becoming especially visible when contrasting the different works. In the works selected for the exhibition, the German past is not so much at the center of attention as it is characteristic for several other works. The curator Walter Smerling explains: "It is rather the christian-jewish or mythological themes that dominate. And the often described emotionalism of Kiefer's works seems to be strangely altered, reduced or even neutralized. The works are impressive, without being overwhelming, and they invite you to analyze and reflect on them". Right from the beginning, Kiefer's paintings were located between abstraction and figuration. Symbolic combinations are created from lead, concrete, dried plants, glass, barbed wire and other heterogeneous materials. Due to numerous pastose, not too colorful layers, the surface of the picture receives a relief structure, leading to a plasticity of the pictures nearly resembling a sculpture. Anselm Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen/Baden-Württemberg in 1945. He attended school in Rastatt, where today you can see a monumental installation by him, made from carved wood. He studied arts at the art academies in Freiburg, Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf. From 1993 to 2006, he lived and worked in Barjac, in the Département Gard in Southern France. Since 2007, Anselm Kiefer has lived in Paris, where in 2010 he was called to the Collège de France as a professor. In 1999 in Tokio, he was awarded the prestigious Praemium Imperiale Prize. In 2008, he was awarded the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels. The Museum Frieder Burda is an art museum in Baden-Baden , which after a design by architect Richard Meier was built and opened in October 2004. The private collector's museum adjoins the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden in Baden Baden light on. In addition to works of classical modernism and contemporary art from the collection of builders Frieder Burda regular special exhibitions. The American architect Richard Meier has designed a bright, open building with two large rooms, two smaller rooms and a basement. The three floors are accessible in older museum Meier's walk-ramps. With the older by 100 years building the Staatliche Kunsthalle by Hermann Billing , whose sequence of smaller and larger rooms up today as a particularly successful example is well-proportioned and functional museum architecture, the museum through a glass bridge is connected, and content is the bridge program: held joint exhibitions, which extend over both museums. The new building with approximately 1,000 square feet of exhibition space has cost approximately € 15 million and was entirely funded by the Frieder Burda Foundation. For the two-year construction no public funds were used. Visit the Museum Frieder Burda at : http://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/

New Mexico Museum of Art Unveils Recently Donated Works Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:49 PM PDT SANTA FE, NM.- New Arrivals: Works from the Collection is an exhibition of recent acquisitions to the Museum's permanent collection. New Arrivals highlights the important role the art patron plays in developing a Museum's collection-either through an outright donation or partnering with the Museum in a purchase. The works in New Arrivals: Works from the Collection will be on view for the first time featuring favorite New Mexico artists such as Susan Rothenberg and Gunnar Plake, among others, to the internationally recognized Francis Bacon and Roy Lichtenstein. Approximately twenty-five works will be exhibited in nearly all media (including a skateboard by Artemio Rodriguez). New Arrivals: Works from the Collection opens at the New Mexico Museum of Art, Friday, February 12, 2010 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. A reception will be hosted by the Women's Board of the Museum of New Mexico. Exhibition curator Katherine Ware, curator of photography at the Museum, said; "The permanent collection is at the core of everything we do here at the Museum. It is especially wonderful, through the generosity of our community of donors, to share these treasures with the public for whom we hold these works in trust." The focus of New Arrivals: Works from the Collection will be contemporary works donated to the permanent collection. Work from other eras will be shown, such as Milton Rogovin's photographs of New York City's Lower East Side and a William Lumpkins landscape, Untitled (Red Butte), 1933. Museums rely primarily on donations of artwork from various sources as acquisition funds are always limited. A highlight of this exhibition and these donations is that these works deepen the Museum's collection of art of the Southwest and more specifically art by New Mexico artists while broadening the permanent collection with works by artists such as Francis Bacon and Dali. The New Mexico Museum of Art building dates only to 1917, but its architects looked to the past, and based the design on the 300 year-old mission churches at Acoma and other pueblos. It shares the graceful simplicity of pueblo architecture and the sense of being created from the earth. In turn, the building established the Pueblo Spanish Revival style of architecture, for which Santa Fe is known. The architects, Rapp and Rapp, had built the wildly successful New Mexico pavilion for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. They enlarged and modified that design and proposed it for the new art gallery. The Art Gallery of the Museum of New Mexico opened in 1917, and many of the works that were exhibited at the opening remain in the collection today. The early Art Gallery's "open door" policy encouraged artists working in New Mexico to exhibit their work, since Santa Fe's commercial gallery network was years away. That welcome, mixed with the excitement about New Mexico that was generated by the tourism industry, enticed artists with formal training from other parts of the country. The resulting blending and cross-influences of Native American, Hispanic, and European-based cultures created a unique body of work that is the basis of the New Mexico Museum of Art collection. The museum changed its name over the years, as it grew and redefined its mission. The current name, The New Mexico Museum of Art, was adopted in 2007 to reflect the breadth of New Mexico art.  Its previous name, "The Museum of Fine Arts" had been adopted in 1962.  Visit : http://www.nmartmuseum.org/

Chronological Survey of Le Corbusier's 60-year Oeuvre Opens at Martin Gropius Bau Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:48 PM PDT BERLIN.- Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau is presenting the first comprehensive exhibition since 1987 of the wide-ranging work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965). The architect's links to Germany and Berlin will also be stressed. There will be a total of about 380 exhibits to be seen in the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Taking account of the latest research and critical scholarship, the exhibition takes an explicitly contemporary look at Le Corbusier, while also serving as an introduction to the work of the architect. On exhibition 9 July through 5 October, 2009.

Moscow Museum of Modern Art opens Rena Tsuzmer Solo Exhibition Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:47 PM PDT   MOSCOW - Moscow Museum of Modern Art opens a solo show of Rena Tsuzmer — an artist who has managed to put a new spin on the antique art of ceramics and painting. For over 40 years she has been fighting the stereotyped vision of ceramics as a craft, rather than art. Tsuzmer frees her works from their habitual functionality, supposing that they should bring beauty into the house. On exhibition 23 December through 18 January, 2009.

Kunsthaus Zürich announces " Alberto Giacometti & Egyptian Philosophy " Exhibition Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:46 PM PDT   ZURICH -  The Kunsthaus Zürich to exhibit masterpieces from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin – including busts of Akhenaton and Nefertiti, the block statue of Senemut, and the so-called Berlin Green Head – together with sculptures, paintings and drawings by Alberto Giacometti, who was profoundly influenced by ancient Egyptian art. On view from 27 February to 24 May 2009.

California is Celebrating the 100th Birthday of Iconic Architect John Lautner Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:45 PM PDT LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Californian landscape wouldn't be the same without the photogenic, iconic buildings of architect John Lautner; his soaring glass and concrete mansions, imbued with playfulness and optimism of the mid-century spirit, are as much a part of the state's architectural heritage as the Golden Gate bridge. The celebrated designer, who lived from 1911 to 1994, would have turned 100 this week, and to mark this milestone, the John Lautner Foundation is organizing a series of film screening, tours, and exhibitions, on his actual birthday, July 16.

Stolen Klimt Worth At Least $27 Million Returned After 70 Years To Jewish Heir Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:44 PM PDT Vienna - A stolen Gustav Klimt painting worth £26m plus that was confiscated by the Nazis must be returned to the heirs of a Canadian Jewish family. It has been in the collection of a well known Austrian museum (the Museum of Modern Arts in Saltburg) for decades but under restitution laws is set to return to the grandson of its original owner Amalie Redlich, who died in the Holocaust.  Georges Jorisch is an 81 year old man living in Montreal and the only surviving member of the family. The painting will most likely end up at auction at either Sotheby's or Christie's.

Museum Kunst Palast opens Exhibition of Abstract Expressionism, 1946-1964 Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:43 PM PDT DUSSELDORF, GERMANY - The 1959 documenta II in Kassel marked a peak in gestural abstract painting. Here, fourteen years after the end of World War II a central tendency of painting was celebrated, which presented itself as an international phenomenon spanning the entire Western world. Following this documenta and a major tour of American Abstract Expressionism to several European capitals in the preceding year, the so-called genre of informal painting received, in a sense, official status. The significance of 'abstraction as a world language' had asserted and established itself, even though new developments, for instance a tendency towards intermediality, had begun to emerge. On view 10 April through 1 August.

Old Master Paintings Auction Sales Soar Despite Global Woes Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:42 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY (REUTERS).- Sotheby's hopes that the fervent mood at an auction this week in London of important Old Master paintings will travel overseas when several rare art works will be auctioned next month. The fragile state of the world economy didn't influence the few deep-pocketed art collectors who vied for rare 17th century masterpieces in the British capital on Wednesday. Sotheby's sale of Old Master & British Paintings in London saw a new auction record set for Anthony van Dyck when his last self portrait soared above expectations and sold for$13,521,704. The portrait, hotly pursued by nine bidders, was the top-selling lot in a sale which raised $24,510,499, within pre-sale expectations.

Knopf Publishes "Painting Below Zero" by Pop Artist James Rosenquist Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:41 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- From James Rosenquist, one of our most iconic pop artists—along with Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein—comes this candid and fascinating memoir. Unlike these artists, Rosenquist often works in three-dimensional forms, with highly dramatic shifts in scale and a far more complex palette, including grisaille and Day-Glo colors. A skilled traditional painter, he avoided the stencils and silk screens of Warhol and Lichtenstein. His vast canvases full of brilliant, surreally juxtaposed images would influence both many of his contemporaries and younger generations, as well as revolutionize twentieth-century painting.

Hauser & Wirth announces the First UK Exhibition of the Berlin-based Artist Martin Eder Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:40 PM PDT LONDON.- Hauser & Wirth presents the first UK exhibition of the Berlin-based artist Martin Eder. Populated by naked young women and saccharine fluffy cats, Eder's semi-surrealistic paintings exude an engaging perversity. His scenarios have a nightmarish feeling and explore the uneasy interdependence of culture, kitsch and commerce in contemporary art. 'My paintings are actually battle scenes,' Eder has said. 'They are filled with murder and they are incredibly bloodthirsty.' To coincide with the exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, there will be a concert given by Martin Eder's alter-ego Richard Ruin at midnight on 12 September 2009 at The Bathhouse. The Old Bond Street gallery will host a suite of new paintings that although conceived as individual works, relate to and cross-reference one another, collectively revealing the parallel world that they describe. The viewer beholds three protagonists, each under the sinister protectorate of a 'guardian'; their common situations suggest collusion, perhaps even telepathic communication between the characters. Rendered in muted tones, the canvases convey an ominous feeling and encroaching danger. Eder paints the twin emotions of fear and desire that reach out to the viewer. The loaded sexuality of the girls in his paintings and the feeling of exploitation these inspire, come coupled with the painterly dexterity of their making. Eder's surfaces are complicated and compelling. Different modes of expression are assembled, ranging from realistic descriptive passages to marbled backdrops and high-toned graphic flourishes, all the while toying with depth and flatness. Eder paints from photographs that he has taken, which together with his deployment of technique and illusory devices positions his persona at the centre of the narratives. Brought up in Catholic Bavaria, he has spoken of a 'fundamentalist form of dedication' that drives the dark symbolism and fervor of his works. His women are painted in styles that variously recall Botticelli, Cranach, Renoir and Manet, yet his subjects are undressed rather than nude. Their hairstyles, preened and made-up faces and soft-core poses parade a very contemporary attitude; their hallucinatory and claustrophobic predicaments are akin to those of the films of David Lynch. Eder's works comment on the current health of society and of art, their fetishistic imaginary worlds reflecting the writings of Marx and Freud on the painted canvas. 'I'm deliberately exposing myself to criticism that it is exploitation,' the artist explains. 'But on the other hand, isn't arousal, if it's present at all, a rebellion against death?' Martin Eder was born in 1968 in Augsburg, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include 'Der dunkle Grund', at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden,  Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden (2009); Mönchehaus Museum für Moderne Kunst, Goslar (2008); 'Fotografie: Die Armen' at Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, and Gemeentemuseum, The Haag (both 2008); and Galerie Eigen + Art, Leipzig (2007). He is represented by Eigen + Art. Visit Hauser & Wirth at : http://www.hauserwirth.com/

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:39 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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