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

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• The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Exhibits Edgar Degas' Nudes
• L.A. Louver Shows New Paintings by Gajin Fujita
• Corrigan Gallery Hosts New Works by Mary Walker in "Dreams and Nightmares"
• The University of San Diego's Galleries Presents Whistler's "The Etching Revival"
• The Modern Artists Gallery to Exhibit "Stuart Buchanan: Works on Water"
• The Farnsworth Art Museum Extends Paul Caponigro's Photo Exhibition
• The Morris Museum to Show "Bold Strokes ~ The Paintings of Chris Kappmeier"
• The Malmö Konsthall Presents Chris Johanson's Playful & Humorous Works
• First Retrospective honoring the work of Sheila Hicks at the Mint Museum
• Waterhouse & Dodd Present Dylan Graham's Exquisite Cut Paper & Installation Works
• The National Museum of China Reopens with "The Art of the Enlightenment"
• Jakub Julian Ziolkowski’s Phantasmagorical Paintings at Hauser & Wirth
• Cedar Rapids Museum of Art (CRMA) features Grant Wood is Back!
• Rolf Harris Exhibitions At Two Newcastle Art Galleries ~ "Britain's Beloved Artist"
• Tate Movie Project "The Itch of the Golden Nit" Seen Across the UK
• St Ives and the International Avant-Garde Opens at Tate
• Exhibition of Prints by Jacob Lawrence at the Hudson River Museum
• The Clark Art Institute Exhibits Rarely Seen Italian Drawings
• The Kunstmuseum in Bern (Switzerland) ~ and The Zentrum Paul Klee Receive Our Editor
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Exhibits Edgar Degas' Nudes Posted: 10 Oct 2011 12:35 AM PDT Boston, Massachusetts.- The first museum exhibition devoted exclusively to the extraordinary range of nudes by Edgar Degas — tracing their evolution from the artist's early years, through the private and public images of brothels and bathers in the 1870s and 1880s, to the post-Impressionist nudes of the end of his career—will be presented by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. "Degas and the Nude", on view from October 9th through February 5th 2012, at the MFA, will offer a groundbreaking examination of Degas's concept of the human body during the course of 50 years by showing his work within the broader context of his forebears, contemporaries, and followers in 19th century France, among them Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Assembled from the collections of more than 50 lenders from around the world are approximately 165  works—145 by Degas—including paintings, pastels, drawings, monotypes, etchings, lithographs, and sculptures, many of which have never been on view in the United States. After its debut in the MFA's Ann and Graham Gund Gallery—its only US venue—Degas and the Nude will be shown at the Musée d'Orsay from March 12th through July 1st 2012. The 19th century French artist Edgar Degas (1834–1917), a founding member of the Impressionist group who gravitated toward realism, is acclaimed for his mastery of a wide range of genres, which he executed in all media using a variety of techniques.  In addition to his famous depictions of ballet dancers or racing subjects, Degas's work also included history paintings, portraits, landscapes, and scenes of urban leisure.  This exhibition, however, will focus entirely on his nudes, illustrating the transformation of Degas's treatment of the human form throughout half a century—from early life drawings in the 1850s, to overtly sexual imagery, to gritty realist nudes, and beyond to the lyrical and dynamic bodies of the last decade of his working life when the theme dominated his artistic production in all media. "Degas and the Nude" draws from some of the finest collections in the world. In addition to the MFA and Musée d'Orsay—the single largest lender, with more than 60 works—these include the National Gallery and Courtauld Gallery, London; the Musée Andre Malraux, Le Havre; museums and private collections in Germany, Japan, and Switzerland; as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among many other museums and private collections in North America. The exhibition will feature such masterpieces as "Young Spartans Exercising" and "Scene of War in the Middle Ages", two of Degas's greatest history paintings; and "The Tub", a pastel completed at the height of his career and presented at the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886.  It will also offer context to this exploration of the artist's nudes by juxtaposing his works with those created by major artists who influenced—or were influenced by—Degas, including Ingres's "Angelica Saved by Ruggiero", Caillebotte's "Man at his Bath" and Picasso's "Nude on a Red Background". The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is recognized for the quality and scope of its encyclopedic collection, which includes an estimated 450,000 objects.  The Museum's collection is made up of: Art of the Americas; Art of Europe; Contemporary Art; Art of Asia, Oceania, and Africa; Art of the Ancient World; Prints, Drawings, and Photographs; Textile and Fashion Arts; and Musical Instruments. The original MFA opened its doors to the public on July 4, 1876, the nation's centennial. Built in Copley Square, the MFA was then home to 5,600 works of art. Over the next several years, the collection and number of visitors grew exponentially, and in 1909 the Museum moved to its current home on Huntington Avenue. Today the MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 450,000 works of art. We welcome more than one million visitors each year to experience art from ancient Egyptian to contemporary, special exhibitions, and innovative educational programs. November 2010 marked the opening of The New MFA. Designed by the world-renowned Foster and Partners architects, The New MFA comprises a new wing for Art of the Americas; renovated art of Europe galleries; improved conservation and education facilities; The Linde Family Wing devoted entirely to contemporary art; and a new, larger public space—the Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard. Established in 1876, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is one of the oldest and most distinguished art schools in the United States. Through an affiliation with Tufts University established in 1945, the SMFA offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, providing students with a full range of academic resources. Some highlights of the MFA's collection include, Egyptian artifacts, a major collections of French impressionist and post-impressionist works including Paul Gauguin's "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" as well as works by Édouard Manet, Renoir, Degas, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and many others. The 18th and 19th century American art collection includes many works by John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. Visit  the museum's website at ... www.mfa.org

L.A. Louver Shows New Paintings by Gajin Fujita Posted: 09 Oct 2011 11:10 PM PDT Venice, California.- L.A. Louver is pleased to present twelve new paintings by Gajin Fujita. "Made in L.A." is Fujita's first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in five years and is on view at the gallery from October 13th through November 12th. In his paintings, Fujita blends a rich diversity of cultural influences that range from traditional Japanese ukiyo-e to contemporary manga; from American pop culture, to East L.A. street-life iconography and graffiti. Fujita also combines a variety of process techniques and media. He begins with wood panels that he covers with platinum, white and yellow gold leaf in graphic patterns. Fujita then tags the panels, sometimes inviting members of his longtime graffiti crew, K2S ("Kill to Succeed") to tag larger-scale paintings. (These invited hands are identifiable by their tags as well as their signatures on the verso of the paintings.)

Corrigan Gallery Hosts New Works by Mary Walker in "Dreams and Nightmares" Posted: 09 Oct 2011 11:09 PM PDT Charleston, SC.- The Corrigan Gallery is pleased to present "Dreams and Nightmares: New Works by Mary Walker", on view through October 31st. There was an opening reception on October 7th. Walker has been a constant figure in the Charleston art scene since the 1980s. Series of thoughts, images and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep and those that turn frightening or unpleasant are "such stuff as dreams are made on." Nightmares are those dreams that have turned towards disturbing, uncomfortable imagery and sensations. The unconscious mind puts characters together and sets a theater stage where the bits and pieces of one's life experiences come together in odd ways and bizarre juxtapositions occur. In these new paintings, Walker puts images from her ballad series together with some of her favorite characters – Pinocchio, her dancers, figures from New Mexican petroglyphes and her more recent harpies. Harpies are the winged beast, with the head and breasts of a woman but the body of a bird of Greek mythology.  They are considered to be noisy, filthy and hungry whereas dear Italian Pinocchio was of good intention but always led astray. Nightmares were occurring to the artist and she decided that painting was a way "get them out."

The University of San Diego's Galleries Presents Whistler's "The Etching Revival" Posted: 09 Oct 2011 10:35 PM PDT San Diego, California.- The University of San Diego's Robert and Karen Hoehn Family Galleries are pleased to present "Atmospheres in Ink: Whistler and the Etching Revival" on view until December 11th. Drawing from public institutions in California and selected private collections elsewhere, this exhibition of more than sixty prints investigates how Whistler and his contemporaries exploited the etching medium to evoke the elusive qualities of atmosphere. The span of James Abbott McNeill Whistler's career as an etcher will be represented with some of his most canonical compositions—including prints from his Thames set, French set and two Venetian series.

The Modern Artists Gallery to Exhibit "Stuart Buchanan: Works on Water" Posted: 09 Oct 2011 09:02 PM PDT Reading, Berkshire, UK - The Modern Artists Gallery is showing "Stuart Buchanan: Works on Water" from October 17th through November 19th. The contemporary Scottish artist is returning to Modern Artists Gallery, Berkshire with a new collection of paintings this October. Following the success of previous shows at the gallery, the artist has firmly established himself as a major force within the Contemporary Scottish field and the new work bears testament to his growing importance. Buchanan's work is immediately identifiable and many of his popular themes are re-visited. The title of the show 'Works on Water' sets the tone of the show with a selection of the artist's characters mesmerised by their watery surroundings. The paintings share the common theme of solitude. It is not a lonely or forlorn solitude but rather a celebration ofpeace and serenity. In a world filled with tumultuous noise, mayhem and disorder, Stuart Buchanan has found a very comfortable refuge where the viewercan ignore the havoc of the outside world. The paintings depict mostly single figures,and sometimes pairs and all share an enviable meditative state.

The Farnsworth Art Museum Extends Paul Caponigro's Photo Exhibition Posted: 09 Oct 2011 09:01 PM PDT Rockland, Maine.- The Farnsworth Art Museum has announced that the exhibition "Paul Caponigro: The Hidden Presence of Places" has been extended and will now remain on display through January 15th. Paul Caponigro is one of America's foremost landscape photographers. Emerging from an earlier generation of photographers that included Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, and his early mentor Minor White, over his fifty-year career Caponigro has successfully wedded his reverence for nature with a profound commitment to portray in his work the spiritual dimensions of the natural world – what Caponigro himself has described as "the hidden presence of places." He has spent much of his nearly fifty-year career exploring and depicting scenes of nature and our place in it, often in places he has come to know well.

The Morris Museum to Show "Bold Strokes ~ The Paintings of Chris Kappmeier" Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:49 PM PDT Morristown, NJ.- The Morris Museum is pleased to present "Bold Strokes: The Paintings of Chris Kappmeier", on view at the museum from October 20th through March 25th, 2012. New Jersey artist Chris Kappmeier's paintings burst with tiny expressionistic specks and dashes of paint that build to capture city vistas and landscapes in their splendor. An artist with a modern take on the traditions of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Kappmeier says his paintings "call to mind the work of artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, who were also obsessed with visions of vibrant colors." An opening reception will be held on October 27th between 6 and 8 p.m. New Jersey artist Chris Kappmeier is often seen outdoors in his local surroundings, painting arresting landscapes and cityscapes that are a tribute to the raw authenticity of his surroundings.

The Malmö Konsthall Presents Chris Johanson's Playful & Humorous Works Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:22 PM PDT Malmö, Sweden.-  The Malmö Konsthall is pleased to present "Chris Johanson – Alright Alright", on view through November 27th. The American artist Chris Johanson (born 1968) is a self-taught product of San Francisco's skateboard and graffiti culture. In his playful and humorous works he comments on what it is like to be human and live in today's society. He works in widely varying media such as painting, film, installation and music. Johanson grew up in a suburb of San José in California and began his artistic career as a teenager. He painted skateboards and made posters and flyers for his friends, and then gradually began using public space to comment on American society. Even his early drawings show a spontaneous and slightly naïve imagery. He still likes to work in public spaces such as department stores and bookshops or directly in the street environment while also exhibiting at established galleries and museums.

First Retrospective honoring the work of Sheila Hicks at the Mint Museum Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:21 PM PDT CHARLOTTE, N.C.- The Mint Museum Uptown at Levine Center for the Arts presents Sheila Hicks: 50 Years, an exhibition organized by The Addison Gallery of American Art, the art museum of Phillips Academy.This comprehensive exhibition, on view through 29th January, marks the first museum retrospective devoted to this pioneering figure. Sheila Hicks is an artist who builds with color and thinks with line. From her earliest work of the late 1950s to the present, she has crossed the boundaries of painting, sculpture, design, drawing, and woven form, and has been a critical force in redefining the domains of contemporary art-making. While challenging the relationship of fine arts to commercial arts and studio practice to site-specific commissions, Hicks has, above all, re-imagined the profound, vital connection of artist to artisan.

Waterhouse & Dodd Present Dylan Graham's Exquisite Cut Paper & Installation Works Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:20 PM PDT New York City.- Waterhouse & Dodd New York is pleased to present "Ad Astra Per Asper" by Dutch artist Dylan Graham. The exhibition marks Graham's first solo show with the gallery, comprised of exquisite cut paper and installation works. "Ad Astra Per Aspera" will be on view at the gallery from October 6th through November 9th. 'Ad astra per aspera' is a Latin phrase, which translates as 'through adversity to the stars'. Dylan Graham looks directly to the pageant of history for inspiration. The political content of his work addresses the social aspects and repercussions of colonialism and the historic and modern cultural context of immigration and forced migration. His work comments on the movements from the revolutionary missions of discovery dating back to Cortez and the Dutch East/West India Companies, to the modern day realities of the new colonialists - refugees, adventure seekers and multi-national corporations. The paper cutouts are monochromatic works made by intricately cutting a single sheet of paper down to minute details. The imagery is rendered in a complex silhouette;  the whole then decoratively embellished, taking inspiration from folk traditions from around the world. The place of art in culture and the genre of folk art is an important concern in the artist's oeuvre. Before the first settlers came to New Zealand the Maori had no written records, their mythology and culture were recorded in stories and visual art. Graham witnessed first hand the effect of colonialism on Maori culture. In examining the icons and enduring symbols of these subjects and by juxtaposing the perspectives, from the conquered to the conquerors, from the empowered citizen to the rootless newcomer, Graham presents a subtle analysis of these historical events from the perspective of an individual living in seemingly very different times; Dramatic global events seen from both a personal and historic-cultural context. Graham is acutely aware of his own reverse migration to Europe; it is a modern conundrum that many old Western nations are now facing. Formally Graham's work deals with the same concerns as architects and sculptors. His aim is to achieve an inherent natural balance and harmony in every work, resulting from a struggle between what to leave in and what to take out. Working meticulously and minimally, each piece exhibits a light and decorative delicateness that stands in stark contrast to the heavy burden of its content. The installation entitled "A Geocentric Model" takes it's inspiration from the life and mythology surrounding Coenraad van Beuningen (1622-1693).  Graham wanted to create an installation that depicted a group of lost  artifacts, items strewn about, caught in a moment of being packed or unpacked for transport, lost in time. Van Beuningen wrote extensively on the consequences of the tropical winds and currents and was interested in the ideas of Descartes. He combined this with an interest for mysticism, astrology, Millennialism dream-interpretation and supernatural wonders. In his last years Van Beuningen wrote letters to the ecclesiastical authorities about the coming apocalypse, painting Hebrew and Kabbalistic signs on his house at the Amstel, supposedly written in his own blood. These drawings and words are still visible today despite attempts by many different generations to remove them and it is unknown from what substance they are made. Graham considers the role of the artifact, the links that they provide between the present and the past and how history repeats and manifests itself. Dylan Graham was born in Otautahi, New Zealand. He lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He was awarded an MFA from Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam and a BFA from Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. His work can be found in leading international private and public collections such as the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, the DhondtDhaenens Museum, Deurle, Belgium, the West Collection, Philadelphia, USA  and the Herbert F Johnson Museum, Ithaca, New York. Ray Waterouse and Jonathan started working together in 1982 and formed Waterhouse & Dodd  five years later. In 1989 they opened a first-floor gallery in Bond Street and in 2001 moved nearby to 26 Cork Street. Their gallery at Cork Street is now dedicated to a program of contemporary art exhibitions, whilst their Impressionist and Modern art has recently relocated to new premises at 16 Savile Row. Waterhouse & Dodd are also proud to announce the opening of their first gallery outside the UK, at Greene Street in the heart of New York's Soho district. The gallery will exhibit international contemporary art. Eleanor Cheetham has joined the company as gallery manager in New York. For more than 25 years Waterhouse and Dodd have dealt in paintings from the late 19th and 20th centuries, combining great paintings by both major and minor artists. During the 1990s they increasingly offered professional advice to collectors, a service that became formalised into one of the most respected art advisory services in the world, Fine Art Brokers. In 2008 they curated ArtRoutes, a major show of contemporary Middle Eastern and Arab Art that was the first in a series of such annual exhibitions. As well as publishing up to ten catalogues a year, their newsletter The Fine Art File is now up to issue 36. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.waterhousedodd.com

The National Museum of China Reopens with "The Art of the Enlightenment" Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:19 PM PDT BEIJING.- Liu Yandong, State Councillor of Culture of the People's Republic of China and Guido Westerwelle, Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, opened 'The Art of the Enlightenment' exhibition at the National Museum of China. The exhibition, jointly organized by Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Munich, together with the National Museum of China, is the first international exhibition to be hosted at the venue after its refurbishment and spectacular expansion. Falling under the joint auspices of Chinese President Hu Jintao and the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Christian Wulff, the exhibition will be on show at the National Museum of China for twelve months, from 2 April 2011 to 31 March 2012. The Exhibition's Chapters The prologue, 'Court Life in the Age of the Enlightenment', invites visitors to explore the world of Baroque palaces and the enlightened nobility and depicts all facets of court art from the 18th century. The palaces of Berlin, Dresden and Munich, whose collections went on to form the basis of the three museum bodies participating in today's show, are presented as examples for the court art of Europe as a whole. The periods depicted range from the late absolutist monarchy up to Frederick the Great, the first enlightened ruler to occupy a German throne. The 'Perspectives of Knowledge' chapter tells of the birth of modern sciences and their immense influence on the arts. Knowledge was acquired, systematized and disseminated publicly from all areas of learning; knowledge gained social prestige to a degree unheard of before. Not only had knowledge become fashionable, it was now a worthy subject for art in its own right. The 'Birth of History' highlights the new historical consciousness in the 18th century. The age saw the rise of such scholarly disciplines as archaeology and the founding of the first public museums. In the arts, the enthusiasm for antiquity was expressed in all manner of ways, seen, for example, in the sudden zeal for architectural ruins or the Neoclassicism of the age. However, a concern with the past also brought with it a heightened sense of the value of the here and now. The chapter 'Far and Near', turns our attention to the eagerness in the Enlightenment to investigate beyond the immediate sphere, the fascination in distant epochs and cultures, as well as their subsequent aesthetic impact on European art. Numerous expeditions, documented by artists taken along on the voyage, allowed new discoveries to be made on foreign peoples, animals and plants. China was one of the age's exotic idealized worlds and for many artists, writers and philosophers right up to the late 18th century it was the projection of an ideal, enlightened state that served as a counterpoint to Europe. However, the focus at the time was not merely placed on distant lands; people's immediate surroundings were also deemed a valid place of discovery. The example of the Sächsische Schweiz, or the 'Switzerland of Saxony', illustrates the invention of tourism and art's role in the early marketing of one such region. The chapter 'Love and Sensibility' illustrates how the 18th century also developed into the 'Age of Sensibility'. The socially critical and emancipatory tendencies of the age were complemented by the virtue of feeling. Even before it became firmly rooted as a concept, empathy evolved into a cultural technique that set new standards for humane coexistence between citizens. The way marriage and family were perceived changed and increasingly became defined by the concept of love as the base for relationships. This new image of the family was propagated in paintings, drawings and prints and craft objects. Friendship between like-minded people became the subject of art, be it in paintings, commemorative albums or decorative art objects. In the chapter 'Back to Nature' Arcadian landscapes, idylls and flights of imagination in 18th century sculpted gardens bring to life the Enlightenment's great dream of a new society. Rousseau's postulation 'back to nature' applied to humankind's nature and had a sweeping impact on the educational ideals and moral perceptions of the time. The recognition that, despite many technical achievements, nature remained indomitable was reflected in countless pictures of natural disasters (volcanic eruptions, storm scenes) and formed an important part in the development of one of the most fundamental philosophical ideas: the aesthetic of the sublime. 'Shadows' lifts the veil on the Enlightenment's interest in the human psyche and its emotional depths. The dark, irrational side to our being is depicted here in numerous drawings and prints, such as Goya's 'Caprichos', and appears as the reverse to the enlightened, intelligible world guided by reason. The loss of the kind of social and natural hierarchies traditionally propagated by the church and the emphasis on the self-responsibility of the individual also gave rise to uncertainty and fears. The chapter on 'Emancipation and the Public Sphere' depicts the Enlightenment as the epoch that spawned a kind of public sphere in which the individual was actively involved. The principal medium in the Enlightenment was initially the word; political and cultural topics were increasingly rapidly disseminated in a flood of books, periodicals, pamphlets and plays. However, like the word, the image also underwent a change in function, not least thanks to the opportunities that advances in technology opened up, and it developed into a visual mass medium that served the fervent dissemination of knowledge in the form of booklets, caricatures and popular literature.

Jakub Julian Ziolkowski’s Phantasmagorical Paintings at Hauser & Wirth Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:18 PM PDT New York, NY - Jakub Julian Ziolkowski's phantasmagorical paintings roil with colorful mutant life: plants sprout eyeballs, bodies go about their business while sloughing off limbs and disgorging organs, and dense vegetal landscapes transform into visceral surgical tableaux. Vibrant and perverse, anthropomorphic and surreal, Ziolkowski's private language is the symbolic expression of a highly concerted imagination that also was shaped by life in a very small town: Zamosc, where the artist was born in 1980, is a remote Renaissance city that began as a fortress in the middle of the lush Roztocze plateau in southeast Poland. Here wild nature penetrates the edges of an idealized urban microcosm that was once a center of intellectual life and seat of Eastern Europe's Chasidic Jewish community, later stained by Nazi atrocities, and today is home to a concentration of food factories.

Cedar Rapids Museum of Art (CRMA) features Grant Wood is Back! Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:17 PM PDT CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA - The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art (CRMA) is excited to announce that the entire Museum will be open once again on Saturday, June 20 and admission will be free all day! With that in mind, we have many things planned to celebrate this special day… Help us welcome back Grant Wood in the exhibition Grant Wood: In Focus. Culled from the CRMA's extensive collection of work by Grant Wood, this single-gallery installation will serve as an introductory overview of the artistic achievements of this important American painter.

Rolf Harris Exhibitions At Two Newcastle Art Galleries ~ "Britain's Beloved Artist" Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:16 PM PDT Newcastle, U.K. (Journal Live).- His gentle Ausstralian tone is unmistakable. Generations of youngsters have grown up with Rolf Harris on British TV as the man with the big smile who gave an insight into drawing and art, while many remember him for his music, with hits like 'Two Little Boys', 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' and cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to heaven'. On Friday 26th March and Saturday 27th March 2011, Rolf will visit two art galleries in Newcastle to unveil some of his new original paintings. These will be exhibited alongside a complete range of his available limited editions. What these will be, however, is sometimes even a mystery to the man himself. "I never really know until I get there which paintings I've got on the walls – they keep changing them," he chuckles. "I tend to get there and see this new exhibition on the walls, and think 'Oh, OK then, that looks nice'." It's no surprise that he often doesn't know what will be on the walls when you consider the sheer amount of work he has created over the past half century. Rolf Harris CBE will be at the Whitewall Gallery, Grey Street, on Friday, from 6-7.30pm and at The Art Room in Fenwick, both Newcastle, on Saturday from 10.30am-12.30pm.

Tate Movie Project "The Itch of the Golden Nit" Seen Across the UK Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:15 PM PDT LONDON.- The Tate Movie Project's The Itch of the Golden Nit premiered Wednesday 29 June in Leicester Square. The film is the first of its kind – an animation made by and for children. Thousands of drawings, sound effects and story ideas by children from across the UK make up the action-packed, half hour animation as part of the Cultural Olympiad. David Walliams, Miranda Hart, Catherine Tate and Rik Mayall lead the stellar cast providing the voices for the children's characters from Evil Stella to Captain Iron Ears. Funded by Legacy Trust UK and BP, with additional support and resources from the BBC, the film has been brought together by Tate and the creative magic of Aardman Animations.The film recently won Best Content Partnership Award at the Broadcast Digital Awards.

St Ives and the International Avant-Garde Opens at Tate Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:14 PM PDT CORNWALL, UK - Post-Second World War art in St Ives is the starting point for this new display, exploring some of the common characteristics of Modern Art and the shared visual language of artists working in Europe and America from the 1930s to the late 1970s. Drawing on key British and international works in the Tate Collection, this is the largest and most extensive Collection display at Tate St Ives for over ten years. Highlights include important works by British and international artists such as Mark Rothko, Carl Andre, Maggi Hambling, Willem de Kooning, Barbara Hepworth, Sol LeWitt, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Sandra Blow, Jackson Pollock and Peter Lanyon. On view through 26 September.

Exhibition of Prints by Jacob Lawrence at the Hudson River Museum Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:13 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Jacob Lawrence, born in 1917, became one of the most important African American artists of the twentieth century, renowned for his paintings of African Americans and black people of other lands who struggled for freedom. Jacob Lawrence Prints, 1963 – 2000, at the Hudson River Museum through June 6, 2010, include 81 of Lawrence's brilliantly-colored individual prints as well as three series of prints that show his versatility as an artist and storyteller. The Legend of John Brown series depicts a deeply religious and passionately anti-slavery John Brown, who felt called to violent insurrection to dismantle the institution of slavery in the United States; the Eight Studies for the Book of Genesis series is based on Lawrence's memories of the Baptist ministers of his youth, whose sermons contained stories of Creation; and the series on Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture focuses on the Haitian slave who became the commander of the revolutionary army that fought France and England for Haiti's freedom.

The Clark Art Institute Exhibits Rarely Seen Italian Drawings Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:12 PM PDT   WILLIAMSTOWN, MA -  A magnificent group of rarely seen and unpublished sixteenth- through eighteenth-century Italian drawings will be highlighted in Drawn to Drama: Italian Works on Paper, 1500 - 1800, an exhibition on view the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute October 12, 2008 to January 4, 2009. Selected from the Clark's impressive collection of Old Master drawings and the private collection of Robert Loper, Drawn to Drama  will offer a unique opportunity to view this special group of Italian drawings that are dramatic in subject, composition, and execution. Sixty-five drawings including those by Giorgio Vasari, Guercino, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Salvator Rosa, Luca Giordano, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo are featured in the exhibition.

The Kunstmuseum in Bern (Switzerland) ~ and The Zentrum Paul Klee Receive Our Editor Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:10 PM PDT Outstanding works by Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Hodler and Meret Oppenheim have made the Museum of Fine Arts Bern an institution with an international reputation and well worth a visit. At the present time, the constantly growing and evolving collection consists of over 3,000 paintings and sculptures as well as 48,000 drawings, prints, photographs, videos and films. The roots of the museum's history reach back to the revolutionary ideas proliferating in Europe towards the end of the 18th century which, in 1809, led to the founding of the National Art Collection in Bern and, in 1879, to the opening of the first museum building. The Museum of Fine Arts Bern is the oldest art museum in Switzerland with a permanent collection and houses works covering eight centuries, making it not only one of the most important and variegated collections in Switzerland but, due to its substantial collection of works from the classical modern period, also one of international significance. The present building in the Hodlerstrasse was built between 1876 and1879 under the guidance of architect Eugen Stettler. Between 1932 and1936 under the guidance of the architect Karl Indermühle (from the firm of Salvisberg & Brechbühl), the museum was extended. In 1983, the local Bern architects Atelier 5 designed a further extension. Currently the museum are planning yet another expansion, to improve the facilities available for displaying its expanding collection of contemporary art. The museum has close ties to the nearby Paul Klee Center, and hosted the Paul Klee Foundation's collection until they moved to their own, new building. The Paul Klee Cultural Centre, Bern was designed by Ptitzker award winning architect Renzo Piano, and opened in 2005. Around 4,200 of Paul Klee's paintings, watercolours and drawings as well as archives and biographical material, have been brought together at the Centre, which also hosts exhibitions and cultural events. It is currently jointly hosting "Lust and Vice: The Seven Deadly Sins from Dürer to Nauman" with the Kunstmuseum Bern. The exhibition provides a fascinating record of artistic preoccupation with this theme from medieval times to the present day. "Lust and Vice: The Seven Deadly Sins from Dürer to Nauman" also addresses the relevance of the notion of sin in contemporary society and how our culture justifies changes in values. The exhibition is split between the two venues, with pride, avarice, envy and anger at the Kunstmuseum, lust, gluttony and sloth displayed at the Paul Klee Centre. Visitors to Bern should not miss visiting both of these oustanding museums. Visit both museum's websites : http://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch ; and the Paul Klee Cultural Centre (Zentrum Paul Klee) at: www.zpk.org/ Highlights of the museum's collection include a unique group of 14th and 15th century Italian paintings featuring works by the Sienese painter Duccio di Buoninsegna. The early modern period is represented by outstanding works of local Berne artists from the late Gothic through to the realism of the 19th Century, including paintings by Niklaus Manuel, Joseph Heintz , Joseph Plepp , Kauw Albrecht and Joseph Werner. The museum also contains a significant collection of works by Albert Anker (often referred to as Switzerland's "National Painter" for his popular depictions of 19th-century Swiss village life). The growth of modern art from the mid-19th Century onwards is well represented with an international quality collection, including individual works by Manet, Cézanne, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec. Significant groups of works representing cubism, the "Blue Rider" group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich), "Die Brücke" (The Bridge) - Dresden group, Bauhaus and Surrealism are held by the museum and presented in coherent groupings. Local Swiss artists are very well represented with multiple works by Ferdinand Hodler, Cuno Amiet and Giovanni Giacometti from all their creative periods. A major focus for the museum is "outsider art", and one of world's most prominent representatives, the former Bernese farmhand Wölfli (1864-1930). In conjunction with the Adolf Wolfli Foundation, the museum contains a large collection of his works. The Kunstmuseum Bern is also one of the few public collections in Switzerland, which have long been explicitly collecting and promoting the work of female artists. Artists including; Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Louise Bourgeois, Meret Oppenheim and Marina Abramovic are therefore well represented in the collection. Contemporary works include extensive groups of works by Bernhard Luginbuhl, Franz Gertsch, James Lee Byars, Markus Raetz, Urs Lüthi, Dieter Roth and Sigmar Polke. The Graphic Collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern consists of around 48,000 drawings, prints and photographs. The 16th Century is represented by a large number of prints from various periods including works by Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Sebald Beham, Hans Burgkmair Ae. and Albrecht Dürer. From the 17th Century, the collection contains prints by Jacques Callot, Van Dyck, Rembrandt van Rijn and Hendrik Goltzius. A significant part of the collection is the art of the Bernese minor masters of the 18th Century. These small-scale landscape views and traditional representations of Swiss life helped made the Bernese Oberland (and other parts of Switzerland) famous as early tourist destinations. 19th Century works include the Swiss artists, Ferdinand Hodler, Albert Anker, Karl Stauffer-Bern and Rudolf Friedrich Kurz and international works by of Camille Corot, Edgar Degas, Adolf von Menzel, Hans von Marées and Max Liebermann. Important 20th century artists represented include, Otto Meyer-Amden, Otto Nebel, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Wassily Kandinsky, Louis Moilliet, Pablo Picasso, Andre Masson and Salvador Dali. Visitors currently are able to enjoy "Chinese Window: Big Draft Shanghai - Contemporary Art from the Sigg Collection". The latest in a series of exhibitions of work by the Chinese artists from the Uli Sigg collection which unifies more than 1,200 Chinese contemporary art pieces, ranging from canvases to videos, photos and installations. "Big Draft Shanghai" features a number of artists from China's artistic powerhouse, presenting a broad panorama of Chinese contemporary art including Shi Guorui's futuristic view of the city with his urban silhouettes of Shanghai, Jin Jiangbo's focus on the life of a day laborer in an interactive installation, Zhang Qing brings taxis to dance in his video, Jin Feng's "Flying Angels" and Shi Yong evokes the anonymity of urban life with small plaster-of-Paris figures. In contrast, Ni Youyu designs geometrical experimental spaces on canvas in which bizarre landscapes have been inscribed. In conjunction with the exhibition, and also until 6 February, a 2008 video installation with the title "Chinesisch von Vorteil" (Chinese is an Advantage) by the artist couple Sylvie Boisseau and Frank Westermeyer is taking place at the nearby PROGR building. Exploring language barriers, this is an ideal counterpoint to the art on show in the main museum building. The museum is also exhibiting (until 27 February 2011) "Yves Netzhammer. A Refuge for Drawbacks". Swiss artist Yves Netzhammer's first large solo exhibition in his native country provides a retrospective of his art, and includes drawings, room installations, murals, and computer-generated videos which fascinate with their corporeal impact and formal clarity while they probe the dark side of our existence. Complementing the Netzhammer exhibition, until the end of 2014, the museum has (on loan from Dr. H.C. Hansjörg) Yves Netzhammer's monumental installation "The Subjectification of the Repetition. Project B" consists of pulsating images, projections and sound within a room-sized, wedge-shaped construction. The final exhibition currently being held at the Kunstmuseum (until 20 March 2011) is "Don't Look Now – The Collection of Contemporary Art, Part 1". This exhibition is the first of a series of themed presentations of works from the collection of the museum, in conjunction with those of the Kunsthalle Bern, Kunst Heute, GegenwART and the Bernische Stiftung für Fotografie, Film und Video. The title is borrowed from Nicolas Roeg's (1973) film classic with the same title and refers to the central role that visual perception plays in the fine arts and the transformation of corporeal and sensory perception into knowledge. It also ironically refers to the "hidden" nature of much of the museum's contemporary art collection, which has been in storage or limited display awaiting the new extension to be properly displayed. The starting point for the exhibition is James Lee Bryars' The Looking Glass (1978), a pane of glass larger than man-size with a viewing hole cut into it at about 1.8 meters from the base.

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