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

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• SFMOMA Celebrates "Fifty Years of Bay Area Art ~ The SECA Awards"
• Art that tells the story of 900 years of Monarchy: A new eight-part Series from BBC
• The Delware Art Museum Shows Works by the Howard Pyle Studio Group
• Swann Galleries Photobooks & Photographs December Auction in New York
• Rediscovered Velazquez among Old Masters for sale at Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonhams
• The University of Arizona Museum of Art Exhibits a Celebration of Life on the Arizona/Sonora Border
• World Class Henri Matisse Exhibition Marks GoMA's 5th Anniversary
• Yue Minjun's Recent Works at The Pace Gallery in Beijing
• Whitney Museum announces John Baldessari in Conversation with Adam Weinberg
• Allegory and Realism in Contemporary Painting at Montserrat College of Art
• Denver Art Museum hosts Impressionist Plein-Air Landscape Paintings
• Aspen Art Museum Shows A Group Exhibition ~ "Restless Empathy"
• Marlborough Presents an Exhibition of New Works by Paul Hodgson
• Brooklyn-Based Artist José Parlá Solos at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
• Artist Jeff Koons Presents His 'Cracked Egg' Sculpture at the Pinchuk Art Centre
• Frey Norris Gallery Commemorates Leonora Carrington's 90th Year
• Calvert 22 Presents Contemporary Art From Central Asia
• National Museum of Singapore shows Classic and Contemporary Masterpieces
• The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Opens the First International Exhibition Devoted to Jean Paul Gaultier
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

SFMOMA Celebrates "Fifty Years of Bay Area Art ~ The SECA Awards" Posted: 06 Dec 2011 10:07 PM PST San Francisco, California.- Tracing the engagement of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) with the region's vital art community across the past five decades, the exhibition "Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards" marks the golden anniversary of the museum's art interest group SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) and surveys for the first time works by a range of artists who have won SECA's competitive award recognizing exceptional art made in the Bay Area. The exhibition is on view at the museum from December 9th through April 3rd 2012.  In 1961 a council of SFMOMA supporters founded a collector's club dedicated to educating its members about the most current art practices and helping the museum bring the newest art into the collection. Known as the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (or SECA), the group established its SECA Art Award in 1967. Since then, the award has become the group's most visible initiative and remains one of the few and longest-running award exhibition programs dedicated to local artists at a modern art museum in the United States. The biennial award honors Bay Area artists at a relatively early stage in their careers with an exhibition at SFMOMA, an accompanying catalogue, and a modest cash prize. Two SFMOMA curators select thirty finalists and then visit the artists' studios with the SECA group. The final section of up to four winners is made by SFMOMA curators. Since its formation, SECA has recognized more than 150 local artists—often bringing much broader critical attention to their work and introducing them to the museum's international audience. Further, the award and extensive selection process have provided a platform for hundreds more in the community to discuss and show their work not only to museum curators but also to a diverse group of arts professionals, collectors, and enthusiasts. SFMOMA's ongoing dedication to SECA award recipients can be seen in many ways throughout the museum's collection. From commissioning a mural by 2004 SECA award recipient Rosana Castrillo Díaz for the walkway to SFMOMA's Rooftop Garden, to selecting a painting by 2006 award winner Leslie Shows for the cover of the musem's 75th anniversary catalogue and prominently featuring an installation by 1996 award winner Barry McGee in the related 75th anniversary exhibition in 2010, SFMOMA has affirmed its long-term relationships with local artists in many ways through SECA, placing the group's efforts in the foreground of the museum's vision for the future. Coorganized by SFMOMA assistant curators Alison Gass and Tanya Zimbardo and assembling some 60 works in various media created between 1960 and the present, Fifty Years of Bay Area Art offers the first-ever major overview of past award recipients. Arranged thematically rather than unfolding chronologically, the presentation reflects on loose clusters of works, identifying affinities among the artists and throughlines over the last five decades of the program. The exhibition begins with a broad focus on place, marked by a narrower focus on this place. Works such as Bonnie Ora Sherk's and Howard Levine's temporary offsite portable parks (1970), Amy Franceschini's citywide victory garden program (2006) and Rigo 23's panoramic view of the redevelopment of South of Market area (1998) examine how SECA artists have responded to and intervened into the Bay Area's urban landscape. The genre of landscape is further explored in works by Leslie Shows (2006) and Trevor Paglen (2008). A gallery devoted to intimate-scaled works on paper includes documentation of Wayne E. Campbell's 1971 SECA exhibition, in which he invited another man by the same name to exhibit instruction-based paintings and drawings alongside his own. Minimalism in sculpture practice and the use of quotidian materials link sculptures by John Beech (1992), Gay Outlaw (1998), and Mitzi Pederson (2006). Abstract painting has been another core thread throughout the history of the program, from the pattern-based inquiries of Tauba Auerbach (2008) and the monochrome paintings of Anne Appleby (1996) and John Meyer (1990) to the meditative works of Laurie Reid (1998) and Kathryn Van Dyke (2000). Reflections on personal mythology and shared American cultural references arise in the work of William Allan (1969), John Bankston (2002), David Best (1977), and Desirée Holman (2008). And examinations of art-making in a digital era weave through works by Jim Campbell (1996), Kota Ezawa (2006), Chris Finley (1998), and Jordan Kantor (2008). From Funk to Mission School, SECA has responded to some of the most exciting Bay Area cultural and stylistic movements over the years through its focus on individual achievement while reflecting within any given award year various strands of contemporary production. Other featured artists in the exhibition include D-L Alvarez (1996), Nayland Blake (1990), Rebeca Bollinger (1996), Sarah Cain (2006), Squeak Carnwath (1980), Paul DeMarinis (1996), Rosana Castrillo Díaz (2004), Simon Evans (2004), Charles Garoian (1974), Mel Henderson (1967), Andrea Higgins (2002), Chris Johanson (2002), David Jones (1974), Hung Liu (1992), Barry McGee (1994), Rachael Neubauer (2000), Shaun O'Dell (2004), Maria Porges (1992), Will Rogan (2002), Bryan Rogers (1974), Josephine Taylor (2004), and Larry Thomas (1984), among others. Founded in 1935, SFMOMA was the first museum on the US West Coast devoted to modern and contemporary art. With strong holdings in photography, painting and sculpture, architecture and design, and media arts, SFMOMA strives to present key examples of Modernism as well as more recent works that reflect a variety of artistic developments occurring regionally, nationally, and around the world. Each year, in addition to organizing ongoing installations of permanent collection works, our curators develop a variety of collection-based presentations to complement the special traveling exhibitions hosted by the museum. Including both modern art masterworks and glimpses of contemporary art in the making, the permanent collection contributes to SFMOMA's standing as a dynamic art center where visitors can learn, reflect, and be inspired. Mario Botta's SFMOMA building is an iconic presence within the cityscape of San Francisco. Since it opened in 1995, the building has become a hub of the downtown South of Market (SoMa) area. It will soon be an even more dynamic destination: SFMOMA is developing a major expansion, designed in collaboration with the architecture firm Snøhetta, to accommodate the ongoing growth of the museum's programs and audiences and to showcase the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection of contemporary art. Visit the museum's website at … www.sfmoma.org

Art that tells the story of 900 years of Monarchy: A new eight-part Series from BBC Posted: 06 Dec 2011 10:00 PM PST LONDON.- A collaboration between BBC Radio 4 and the Royal Collection to mark Her Majesty The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, BBC Radio 4 illuminates the long history of the Monarchy in a new eight-part series, The Art of Monarchy (broadcast from February 2012). Presented by BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz, the programmes explore the monarchs who have ruled these islands through the works of art they have acquired. Traveling from Balmoral Castle in Scotland to the Royal Library at Windsor and from the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, Will speaks to historians, academics and Royal Collection curators, all of whom share their expertise and explain how the chosen objects illustrate the subjects examined in the programmes, including faith, progress, war and legacy.

The Delware Art Museum Shows Works by the Howard Pyle Studio Group Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:22 PM PST Wilmington, Delaware.- The Delaware Art Museum is pleased to present "In the Spirit of Tradition: The Studio Group", an exhibition featuring 36 works of art in various media by 36 members of the Studio Group, Inc., an association of artists who work in and maintain Howard Pyle's original Wilmington studio.  Part of the Museum's Outlooks Exhibition Series, which aims to encourage community involvement in the creation and exhibition of art, In the Spirit of Tradition: The Studio Group will be on display in the second floor Ammon Galleries through January 15, 2012. The exhibition coincides with Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered, a retrospective Howard Pyle exhibition that also serves to celebrate the Museum's 100th anniversary, which was founded in 1912 after Pyle's unexpected death. Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered is on view in the newly renamed Anthony N. and Catherine A. Fusco Gallery through March 4, 2012. In the Spirit of Tradition: The Studio Group is part of the Delaware Art Museum's Outlooks Exhibition Series, which encourages community involvement in the creation of exhibitions that will be hosted by the Museum.

Swann Galleries Photobooks & Photographs December Auction in New York Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:54 PM PST New York City.- Swann Galleries' auction of Important Photobooks & Photographs on Tuesday, December 13th features beautiful and poignant images and books ranging from the earliest photographs to works by artists living and working today. The photographs and books will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries from December 8th through to the auction date.The sale opens with a fine assortment of cased images and prints from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which includes Andrew J. Russell's magnificent United States Military Rail Road Photographic Album, with 107 albumen prints depicting the railroads, battlefields and landscapes of the Civil War, 1863-64 (estimate: $50,000 to $75,000); a group of 10 plates of birds from Eadweard Muybridge's Animal Locomotion, collotypes, 1887 ($5,000 to $7,500 for the set); and a first edition of Edwin Hale Lincoln's lavishly illustrated Wild Flowers of New England Photographed from Nature, a complete set with 400 platinum prints, and one of about 50 copies of the self-published work, 1910-14 ($40,000 to $60,000).

Rediscovered Velazquez among Old Masters for sale at Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonhams Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:53 PM PST LONDON - Booming art prices have produced plenty of "treasures in the attic" of late, and this week could see another when a painting first valued at 300 pounds is set to fetch up to three million after Bonhams discovered it was by Velazquez. The portrait of an unknown gentleman goes under the hammer on Wednesday, as London hosts a series of old master and British art auctions featuring works worth tens of millions of pounds. While the newly discovered Velazquez is not the most valuable lot on offer at Christie's, Sotheby's and Bonhams, its story is arguably the most arresting. The painting of a balding man in black tunic and white "golilla" collar was part of a small collection of works attributed to 19th century British painter Matthew Shepperson which was consigned for sale at Bonhams in Oxford.

The University of Arizona Museum of Art Exhibits a Celebration of Life on the Arizona/Sonora Border Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:13 PM PST Tucson, Arizona.- The University of Arizona Museum of Art is pleased to present "The Border Project: Soundscapes, Landscapes & Lifescapes" on view at the museum through March 11th 2012. In honor of Arizona's Statehood Centennial Celebration (1912 – 2012) The Border Project presents sound art, music, performance, painting, sculpture, installation, video, film, and photography that examine historical and contemporary life in the U.S./Mexico borderlands region. Unique in its range of focus, the exhibition treats Arizona, USA and Sonora, Mexico as partners with shared histories, dreams and political realities. It celebrates the rich cultural heritage of this region from Spanish colonization, to Mexican independence, to the Gadsden Purchase, through today. Building on these legacies, The Border Project acknowledges the complexities of border communities that encompass narratives of Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians, and Europeans.

World Class Henri Matisse Exhibition Marks GoMA's 5th Anniversary Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:51 PM PST BRISBANE, AU - Arts Minister Rachel Nolan opened Matisse: Drawing Life, an exclusive exhibition of Henri Matisse's drawings and prints, showing at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art until 4 March 2012. The highlight of GoMA' s fifth anniversary celebrations, the exhibition brings together more than 300 works from international museums, the National Gallery of Australia, and private collections, including works never previously shown or reproduced, Ms Nolan said. "This comprehensive survey explores the extraordinary range and depth of Matisse's graphic art, providing a new understanding of this great and influential artist. "Ms Nolan said the exhibition was curated especially for Brisbane by C-line Chicha-Castex, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Prints, Bibliothque nationale de France, and independent Paris-based curator Emilie Ovaere-Corthay in conjunction with Dr Miranda Wallace, the Queensland Art Gallery's Curatorial Manager of International Art, Exhibitions and Research. "Matisse: Drawing Life reveals how drawing was central to every aspect of the great artist's practice," she said. The works include early academic sketches and engravings that promise his later brilliance, through experiments with watercolour, ink and woodcuts to the vibrant paper cut-outs and simple brush-and-ink works of his final years. Ms Nolan said the seeds for Matisse: Drawing Life were planted following a major retrospective of the artist's paintings organised by the Queensland Art Gallery and Art Exhibitions Australia in 1995. It was the artist's grandson, Claude Duthuit, who at the time suggested an exhibition of Matisse's drawings would complete the story started with that exhibition, she said. "Sadly, Claude Duthuit passed away in May 2011, but the current exhibition stands as a testament to his vision." This inspirational show is complemented by The Drawing Room, a large-scale drawing studio for visitors, a program of film documentaries, panels, tours and conversations delving into many aspects of the artist's life and work. The popular Up Late program of evening viewings and live music will begin January 20. Events Queensland Chief Executive Officer John O'Sullivan said the exhibition was part of a dynamic and growing events calendar for Queensland. Queensland is cementing its reputation as an arts and cultural hub. Matisse: Drawing Life joins a number of exciting events for Brisbane, including the upcoming Mummy: Secrets of the Tomb at the Queensland Museum, the QPAC International Performance Series, Portrait of Spain: Masterpieces from the Prado at the Queensland Art Gallery , the World Theatre Festival and the Australian Performing Arts Market, said Mr. O'Sullivan. Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said the exhibition told the compelling story behind the artist regarded by many as having decisively changed the direction of art in the early 20th century. The exhibition is presented by the Queensland Art Gallery and Art Exhibitions Australia in partnership with the Bibliothque nationale de France , Paris, he said. Matisse: Drawing Life features over 100 works from the Bibliothque nationale de France and significant loans from the National Gallery of Australia , Canberra; St Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum ; the Musee Matisse, Nice; the Musee Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrsis; the Musee national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou , Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; and the Baltimore Museum of Art . In July 2002, Sydney-based company Architectus was commissioned by the Queensland Government following an Architect Selection Competition, to design the Gallery's second site, the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). The highly successful Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art series of exhibitions, which began in 1993, continues to be an important event for the Gallery, the region and beyond. This engagement has led to a significant collection of contemporary Asian and Pacific art, and the development of the Australian Centre of Asia-Pacific Art to foster alliances, scholarship and publishing. Similarly, the Gallery is committed to profiling the work of Indigenous Australian artists and strengthening relationships with Queensland's Indigenous communities. This is achieved through exhibitions, public programming and special initiatives, such as the groundbreaking 'Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest' exhibition in 2003, and the traineeship program for young Indigenous arts workers.

Yue Minjun's Recent Works at The Pace Gallery in Beijing Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:40 PM PST BEIJING.- The Pace Gallery, Beijing presents an exhibition of Yue Minjun's recent works in cooperation with Robb Report. The exhibition, entitled The Road, is the leading Chinese contemporary artist's first solo exhibition in the Pace Gallery, Beijing. The exhibition is on from June 11th through July 16th. More than two decades into his artistic career, Yue is still smiling at the world as he sees it. His trademark "Smile" symbol, the playful, mocking hallmark of the artist's cynical realist style, conceals within it a spirit that's sometimes stubborn and fragile. On exhibition until July 16th at the Pace Gallery in Beijing, China. By mocking his subject's nihility, he stands apart from - and in judgment of - it in a unique way. Despite the world changing around him, Yue's distinctive style hasn't changed much. So should our understanding of his work change? If the object of the "Smile" has changed, should there be some shift in the feel of the "Smile" itself? Or could it be that nothing changed at all? In his newest exhibition, Yue's work takes on Christian forms. The strength of Western culture has pushed more than a few Chinese people into an existence stripped of its cultural core, making them into nomads, wandering in the space between two cultures. By altering the semantic relationships between the people and space in the original works, the works seem almost to dissolve away, neatly avoiding the contradictions and embarrassment inherent to any collision between two cultures. As the curator Leng Lin stated, "Confronted with something you don't completely understand, a smile can mean rejection, or confusion. But it can also mean inclusion and acceptance." Yue Minjun Yue Minjun (b. 1962, Heilongjiang, China) has been quoted as saying he "always found laughter irresistible." Best known for his oil paintings depicting himself with his trademark smile, Yue is a leading figure in the Chinese contemporary art scene. He has exhibited widely and is recognized as one of the breakout stars of his generation. The artist currently lives and works in Beijing. In his earlier work, surrealism had an especially strong influence on him. His self-portraits from the 1990s were the first to depict his easy, automatic smile, but the figures warmth masked underlying emotions. The smile became a mask as the paintings' complexities were played out in the figures' arrangements or poses. His work became further influenced by western art history as he began arranging his figures in poses or settings reminiscent of the masterpieces. Yue has also been continuing his Scene series in which his removes figures from historical Chinese socialist paintings and well-known western paintings. "In typical socialist paintings in China looked very realistic but were indeed surreal. They served for heroic fantasies, and the images of great people or the heroes in the paintings could well justify the fabricated scenes." Yue Minjun has shown internationally including The Archeological Discovery in AD3009 at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus; Half-life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; solo museum exhibition Yue Minjun and the Symbolic Smile (2007 – 2008) at Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York; The Reproduction of Idols: Yue Minjun Works, 2004-2006 (2006) at the He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China. He has also been included in the 2008 and 2004 Shanghai Biennales, and the 48th Venice Biennale, Venice (1999). Visit The Pace Gallery at : http://www.pacebeijing.com/

Whitney Museum announces John Baldessari in Conversation with Adam Weinberg Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:39 PM PST NEW YORK, NY - In honor of the late Walter H. Annenberg, philanthropist, patron of the arts, and former ambassador, the Whitney Museum of American Art established the Walter Annenberg Annual Lecture to advance this country's understanding of its art and culture. In this fourth Annenberg Lecture, John Baldessari will speak about his work in conversation with Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney's Alice Pratt Brown Director. For more than fifty years, Baldessari has masterfully juxtaposed painting, photography, sculpture, and other media to probe how meaning is created through images, objects, and text.

Allegory and Realism in Contemporary Painting at Montserrat College of Art Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:38 PM PST BEVERLY, MA.- Montserrat College of Art Galleries presents the works of Julie Heffernan, David Ording, Shelley Reed, Erik Thor Sandberg, and Anne Siems in a provocative exhibition of contemporary painting, "A Debt to Pleasure," curated by Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury. Inspired by the visual and symbolic richness of such diverse painting practices as 17th-century Dutch still lifes, Italian Renaissance master paintings and American folk art, the participating artists integrate the sensual and the sinister, the vulgar and the mysterious to question meaning-making in contemporary art. The exhibition is on view through April 2 in the Montserrat Gallery.

Denver Art Museum hosts Impressionist Plein-Air Landscape Paintings Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:37 PM PST DENVER, CO - Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism celebrates the great outdoors with some of the finest examples of mid- and late-19th century French and American landscape paintings. Organized by the Brooklyn Museum of Art with works from its own collection, this traveling exhibition offers a broad survey of landscape painting as practiced by renowned artists including Monet, Courbet, Daubigny, Renoir, William Glackens,  and Sargent. Opening at the Denver Art Museum on June 13, 2008, Landscapes features 40 paintings and will continue through September 7, 2008.

Aspen Art Museum Shows A Group Exhibition ~ "Restless Empathy" Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:36 PM PST ASPEN, CO.- The Aspen Art Museum debuted a group exhibition, Restless Empathy, which will remain on view through Sunday, July 18, 2010. For Restless Empathy, the Aspen Art Museum has invited eight artists—Allora & Calzadilla, Pawel Althamer, Marc Bijl, Lara Favaretto, Geof Oppenheimer, Lars Ø. Ramberg, Frances Stark, and Mark Wallinger—to create new projects or rethink existing bodies of work throughout the museum and the town of Aspen itself. While representing a wide range of practices and frames of reference, these artists share a capacity for creating and exploring empathy in unexpected ways. Bringing together artists who approach the idea of the poetic, either through material, language, or gesture, Restless Empathy examines the complex process of entering the interior world of another—whether artist, viewer, or object—and seeking to make a connection. The notion of the viewer "completing" a work of art usually involves a demand placed upon the audience. Recently, with artworks often grouped under the term Relational Aesthetics, the viewer becomes instrumentalized within the work itself. Rather than use people as a medium, however, the artists in Restless Empathy make markedly generous gestures toward the public, creating a space for unexpected experience through work characterized by a deep sincerity and moments of intimate surprise.  Furthering the Aspen Art Museum's commitment to presenting art in unexpected places and removing barriers to contemporary art—cemented by its decision to admit all visitors free of charge—this exhibition challenges expectations of permanence and monumentality in art that addresses the public. In no way intended to be an exhibition of "public art" in any thematic sense, Restless Empathy broadly explores relationships between aesthetics, space, locality, and modes of address. Artists & Projects Pawel Althamer's sculpture Guma (2008) comes out of his experience teaching "Einstein Seminars," physics classes the artist taught for underprivileged youth in his hometown in Poland. The figure depicted in the sculpture is the so-called "town drunk," who was often a fixture outside the classroom and occasionally participated—becoming an unofficial mascot for class attendees. When the man died, Althamer created the sculpture as a non-traditional memorial—highlighting the processes by which we remember or eulogize the departed. Allora & Calzadilla have created a new version of their Hope Hippo (only exhibited once previously at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005) made from local materials. A volunteer will be seated atop the hippo at all times reading a newspaper and supplied with a whistle, which they will blow each time they come across a story that they feel exposes or illuminates an injustice. Marc Bijl's project involves two identical sculptural interventions, one placed on the grounds of the Aspen Art Museum and, one placed on the campus of the Aspen Institute. For both works, Bijl has constructed a six-foot-square corrugated aluminum fence on which the following Albert Schweitzer quote is spray-painted: "Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained." Schweitzer's only visit to the United States took place in July 1949 when he was featured as a guest speaker at the "Goethe Bicentennial Celebration" in Aspen. This event began the tradition of gathering great thinkers (as well as great musicians) together in Aspen, and directly resulted in both the founding of the Aspen Music Festival and the Aspen Institute. Bijl's choice relates to Schweitzer's empathetic understanding of philosophy. Rather than viewing philosophy as elitist and removed, Bijl proposes that the practice is accessible and immediate. For him, the quote refers to the idea that very big ideas begin with very small and basic ones, and are then expanded. It is this search for truth that unites us as humans. Lara Favaretto is exhibiting a canvas-covered merry-go-round in the AAM Lower Gallery. The merry-go-round is accepted as a symbol of youthful fun. Entitled Cominció ch'era Finite (It Began When It Was Over), [2006], Favaretto's version spins so rapidly that it appears out of control, causing the canvas flaps installed around its sides to repeatedly and disquietingly strike a column erected within the exhibition space. Favaretto's piece plays on the excitement one feels in seeing an active object in the gallery, the dismay one feels in not being able to participate with it as originally hoped, and the subsequent, yet altered, interest one experiences as a result of the interaction with the piece. Geof Oppenheimer presents two newly commissioned works. The first, Public Address (2010), is a series of nine slip-cast ceramic microphones on stands, recalling those typically found in press conferences and on speaker podiums. By casting the microphones in ceramic they become formally elegant, but ultimately un-functional, underscoring the finely crafted, but ultimately hollow, conditions that now surround public discourse. The second work, The Morally Ambiguous Precedent of Abstraction, Police press conference Chicago Illinois 2008 (2009), is a large photographic abstraction created from an image of a stage curtain from a Chicago Police press conference. Mark Wallinger presents a new site-specific photo-mural work at Aspen's Gondola Plaza featuring the ubiquitous Aspen Mountain landscape, over which the text "AMERIKA" is superimposed. The work recalls the famous "HOLLYWOOD" sign in Los Angeles's Hollywood Hills, as well as referencing Walter Paepcke's "body, mind, spirit" inspiration Goethe, and his 1827 poem, AMERIKA—penned in the shadow of the U.S.'s adoption of the Monroe Doctrine (1823). In AMERIKA, Goethe envisions a young nation possessing the potential of existing unfettered in relation to a Europe consumed with historical, political and cultural determinism, and mired in notions of autocratic power. Lars Ø. Ramberg's project uses the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson as a platform for addressing the concept of empathy. Thompson was a longtime Aspen resident who ran for Sheriff in 1970. He committed suicide at his home in nearby Woody Creek in 2005. Ramberg proposes to create memorial benches for Hunter S. Thompson based on the standardized memorial benches that are commonplace throughout town. The benches will be installed throughout Aspen, each including quotes from Thompson that will add up to a larger text that, characteristic of what Ramberg terms Thompson's "warm anarchism," upends the sentimentality associated with memorializing. Frances Stark's project for Restless Empathy I've Had It! and I've Also Had It! revolves around an Aspen-based musical comedy of 1951, I've Had It!, originally performed at the Wheeler Opera House. The musical is about people who work in the service industry in Aspen and pokes fun at the cultured audience of the music festival. In I've Had It!, a bellhop's potential bride gets a job working for a composer who has received a Guggenheim fellowship to compose a divertimento to be performed at the festival. She falls for the composer, annoying the bellhop, and with the help of his bartender friend, exposes the pretentious composer/girl-stealer as a fraud when the bartender, bellhop, and some bar musicians demonstrate that the divertimento is really a hit-parade song played backwards in front of a room full of important critics. Visit the Aspen Art Museum at : http://www.aspenartmuseum.org/

Marlborough Presents an Exhibition of New Works by Paul Hodgson Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:35 PM PST LONDON.- "Taken all together, Paul Hodgson's six new pictures make a powerful address to perennial questions about the self and its ability to articulate an identity, and about faith and its reasonable limits" – Andrew Motion. Hodgson's new works are concerned with exploring different kinds of uncertainty as a key to pictorial narrative; 'keys to narrative rather than narrative itself' he says.

Brooklyn-Based Artist José Parlá Solos at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:34 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery presents Walls, Diaries, and Paintings, a solo exhibition of the Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá. On view from March 3 through April 16, 2011. Walls, Diaries, and Paintings features fifteen new paintings, that chronicle Parlá's exploration of the diverse places and cultures he has traversed. From Istanbul to Havana, from Tokyo to New York, the colors and textures of the neighborhoods and alleyways have found a forceful and moving resolution in Parlá's works that are both inspirational and revealing.

Artist Jeff Koons Presents His 'Cracked Egg' Sculpture at the Pinchuk Art Centre Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:33 PM PST KIEV.- The Pinchuk Art Centre presents a major international group exhibition with 19 leading artists of our time, devoted to Sexuality and Transcendence as a central theme of contemporary art. On view from April 24, 2010 through September 16, 2010 the exhibition examines the diversity and complexity of the art produced on this theme today. The show displays the sparkling dialogue of various artistic approaches in the tension field between the two extremes of raw sexuality and a sublime transformation into transcendence. Featuring loans from both artists' studios and private collections the exhibition includes nineteen major work groups with a total of 150 individual works in twenty rooms on four floors of the PinchukArtCentre. Many works have never been shown publicly before. The staircases of the building are used as art spaces for the first time with installations by Jenny Holzer. In addition, for the first time ever, the PinchukArtCentre utilised the historical Bessarabskiy market hall located opposite for an eighty-meter-long frieze by AES+F. Inspired by the great affinity to the exhibition theme and for the PAC as a leading institution for contemporary art all of the artists created special contributions partly in the form of new productions, of a special reappraisal of existing works or the selection of rare most recent work groups that have never been displayed as part of a major international exhibition. Jeff Koons' Balloon Rabbit a monumental sculpture from his famous celebration series will has his world premier at the PAC together with other key works created over twenty years. 'Sexuality combines the idea of a world of subjective emotional references, a world of the instant, of anticipation, of desire and becoming and of orientation and disintegration as well as the extremes of destruction and violence. Sexuality is associated with an image of the real, of warmth and intimacy, whereas transcendence implies a world beyond reality. The concepts of spirituality and transformation predominate the latter, a sophisticated consciousness far from any purely subjective object-relatedness' — Eckhard Schneider, the General Director of the PinchukArtCentre and the curator of the show. The issue of sexuality and transcendence touches on a fundamental conflict in art in general because, beyond mere appearance, behind it hides the general question of the relationship between reality (life) and imagination (image). And so the relationship between form and vision becomes a crucial issue for any artist dealing with sexuality and transcendence. Which direction is a particular work going for? Does it answer the challenge with a praise of distance (form/transcendence) or with a demonstration of intimacy (life/sexuality)? The answers to these questions are so varied because, in addition to the paradigms inherent in the theme, the concept of desire is of central importance here. The general idea is kept open, both in respect of a desire for an ideal mental clarity, intellectual penetration and clarified form, and in respect of a desire for an ideal of realism, emotional directness and dissolution of form. Something Janus-like clinging to desire means that the two poles of sexuality and transcendence can be reflected within each other. The desire for the two things, sexuality and transcendence, dominates our existence; it is the driving force behind our earthly performance and, especially for artists, the search for an appropriate form. The exhibition presents nineteen work groups with a total of 150 individual works in twenty rooms on four floors of the PinchukArtCentre. The staircases of the building are used as art spaces for the first time with installations by Jenny Holzer; the central stairwell features an in-situ piece with her famous texts from the series Inflammatory Essays and a second staircase houses a work with LED. In addition, for the first time ever, the PinchukArtCentre utilised the historical Bessarabskiy market hall located opposite for an eighty-meter-long frieze by AES+F, a group of artists from Moscow. With its intense sociocultural flavour and distinctive architecture, this historical site, which is of great importance for Kiev, provides an ideal public counterpoint to the artistic message propagating a new hybrid aesthetic of fusion. Inspired by their great affinity for the exhibition theme and for the PinchukArtCentre as a leading institution in contemporary art, all of the artists decided to create some special pieces, partly in the form of new productions such as those by, amongst others, Anish Kapoor, AES+F, Cindy Sherman, Matthew Barney and Elmgreen & Dragset; of a special reappraisal of existing works by Paul McCarthy, Richard Prince, Boris Mikhailov, Suboda Gupta and Takashi Murakami; or the selection of rare or recent work groups that have never been displayed as part of a major international exhibition before. These last include pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Sarah Lucas, Annette Messager and Illia Chichkan. This allows the PinchukArtCentre exhibition to present arguments that are totally relevant to our own times. Jeff Koons takes a key role in the exhibition with a comprehensive presentation of works from the last twenty years. Spread over three different floors of the PAC building, they form the backbone of the exhibition. A total of ten key works, six sculptures and four paintings from the series Made in Heaven, Celebration, Popeye, Hulk Elvis are on display. Highlights of this selection are the early icon Rabbit, the sculptures Cracked Egg and Blue Diamond from the Celebration series and the world premiere of the first version of Balloon Rabbit, an astonishing new creation, surely becoming an icon like his key early work. Koons' contribution thus acts like a mini-retrospective on the theme that forms the core of his whole oeuvre, namely, the ambivalent relationship between sexuality and transcendence. This is where the driving force behind Koons' work has always been, especially when he transforms everyday objects into works of art by exaggerating brilliant surfaces, which then become both objects of trust and desire. This association of self-affirmation and acceptance in the reflection of one's own desire for beauty and perfection defines Koons' work as the perfect synonym for the ideal of a ubiquity of sexuality and transcendence. Visit The Pinchuk Art Centre at : http://pinchukartcentre.org/

Frey Norris Gallery Commemorates Leonora Carrington's 90th Year Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:32 PM PST   SAN FRANCISCO, CA. – Frey Norris Gallery presents "The Talismanic Lens," the result of a five year endeavor of collecting, studying and getting to know Leonora Carrington, one of the last surviving Surrealist artists and writers. It has been almost ten years since such a major collection of her work has been on display (her last solo exhibition in California was at the Mexican Museum in San Francisco in 1991). Our exhibition and its accompanying 54-page catalogue commemorate the 90th year since Carrington's birth and this nonagenarian plans to travel with her family to attend the exhibition opening.  On view through 30 March, 2008.

Calvert 22 Presents Contemporary Art From Central Asia Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:31 PM PST London.- Calvert 22 is proud to present "Between Heaven and Earth: Contemporary Art from the Centre of Asia", on view from September 14th through Novermber 13th. "Between Heaven and Earth" is a ground-breaking and timely exhibition which will bring to UK audiences a strong sense of the overlooked, yet exceptionally vibrant contemporary art that is being made in the former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as in Afghanistan and Mongolia. The persistent mythology of the Silk Road, as well as the 'Great Game' played out between the British and Russian Empires in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has dominated the Western view of these mysterious lands. More recently, however, these rich cultural and physical landscapes have been dismissed in the West as the 'Stans' and downgraded to theatres of environmental degradation, religious conflict and war. The result of such a reductive approach, is a perception radically different from the truth: one that is devoid of nuance and processed into inhuman clichés of a "Borat" style, post-Soviet wasteland. "Between Heaven and Earth" depicts a radically different 'landscape'.

National Museum of Singapore shows Classic and Contemporary Masterpieces Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:31 PM PST SINGAPORE.- The National Museum of Singapore presents A Story of the Image: Old & New Masters From Antwerp, showcasing an exclusive collection of 150 artworks from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp (KMSKA), the Museum Plantin-Moretus/Print room and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MuHKA).The exhibition also offers the opportunity for visitors to see original oil paintings by Flemish masters Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck, and contemporary works by award-winning artists such as David Claerbout, Francis Alÿs, and Luc Tuymans. The exhibition runs from 14 August to 4 October 2009.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Opens the First International Exhibition Devoted to Jean Paul Gaultier Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:30 PM PST Montreal.- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is proud to have developed and produced the first international exhibition devoted to the celebrated couturier Jean Paul Gaultier. "The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk" will be on view at the museum from June 17th through October 2nd. Gaultier launched his first prêt-à-porter collection in 1976 and founded his own couture house in 1997. Dubbed fashion's enfant terrible by the press from the time of his first runway shows in the 1970s, Jean Paul Gaultier is indisputably one of the most important fashion designers of recent decades. Very early, his avant-garde fashions reflected an understanding of a multicultural society's issues and preoccupations, shaking up – with invariable good humour – established societal and aesthetic codes. More of a contemporary installation than a fashion retrospective, this major exhibition, which features 140 ensembles and numerous documents, is particularly innovative in the theatrical mise en scène and multimedia approach provided by UBU/Compagnie de création's animated mannequins. "I think the way people dress today is a form of artistic expression. Saint Laurent, for instance, has made great art. Art lies in the way the whole outfit is put together. Take Jean Paul Gaultier. What he does is really art," said Andy Warhol (Mondo  Uomo, 1984). Initiated, developed, produced and circulated by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the designer's own label, this exploration of Jean Paul Gaultier's creative world has been organized in collaboration with the Maison Jean Paul Gaultier, which provided the Museum with exclusive access to its archives. Following its presentation in Montreal, the exhibition will embark on an international tour, with presentations at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young, the Fundación Mapfre – Instituto de Cultura, Madrid, and the Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The exhibition – which the couturier considers to be a creation in its own right rather than a retrospective – features approximately 140 ensembles, mainly from the designer's couture collections, but also from his prêt-à-porter line, along with their accessories. Created between the early 1970s and 2010, these pieces have, for the most part, never before been exhibited. Many other exhibits are also being presented for the first time. Sketches, stage costumes, excerpts from films, runway shows, concerts, videos, dance performances and even television programmes illustrate Jean Paul Gaultier's fashion world. The many artistic collaborations that have characterized Gaultier's world is examined: in film (Pedro Almodóvar, Peter Greenaway, Luc Besson, Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet) and contemporary dance (Angelin Preljocaj, Régine Chopinot and Maurice Béjart), not to mention the world of popular music, in France (Yvette Horner and Mylène Farmer…) and on the international scene (Kylie Minogue and especially Madonna, whose friendship with Gaultier has led her to graciously lend two iconic corsets from her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour). Fashion photography is also a major focus of attention, thanks to loans of, in many cases, never-before-seen prints from contemporary photographers and renowned contemporary artists (Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Erwin Wurm, David LaChapelle, Richard Avedon, Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Pierre et Gilles, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, Paolo Roversi and Robert Doisneau amongst others). Keenly interested in all the world's cultures and countercultures, Gaultier has picked up on the current trends and proclaimed the right to be different, and in the process conceived a new kind of fashion in both the way it is made and worn. Through twists, transformations, transgressions and reinterpretations, he not only erases the boundaries between cultures but also the sexes, creating a new androgyny or playing with subverting hypersexualized fashion codes. A celebration of Gaultier's daring inventiveness and humanist vision, this exhibition pays tribute to his cutting-edge fashion and explores the audaciously eclectic sources of his ideas. This multimedia installation is organized along six different thematic sections tracing the influences – from the streets of Paris to the world of science fiction – that have marked the couturier's creative development: The Odyssey of Jean Paul Gaultier; The Boudoir; Skin Deep; Punk Cancan; Urban Jungle; and Metropolis. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has one of the highest attendance rates among Canadian museums. Every year, its 600,000 visitors enjoy its encyclopedic collection, unique in Canada and free to all, and its original temporary exhibitions, which combine artistic disciplines (fine arts, music, film, fashion, design) and feature innovative exhibition design. The Museum designs, produces and circulates many of its exhibitions in Europe and North America. It is also one of Canada's leading publishers of bilingual art books, which are distributed worldwide. More than 100,000 families and schoolchildren take part in its educational, cultural and community programmes every year. In 2011, the Museum will open a fourth pavilion – the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art – and a 450 seat?concert hall housing a rare collection of Tiffany stained glass – Bourgie Hall. At the same time, the Museum's rich collections will be reinstalled in the three other pavilions devoted to world cultures, European and contemporary art, as well as the decorative arts and design. Music is now an integral part of the Museum, providing another perspective on the visual arts, through musical audioguides and other innovative activities organized in co-operation with the new Arte Musica Foundation. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a private, non-profit institution that must generate the funds for nearly 50% of its annual operating budget and nearly 100% of the acquisition of works for its collection. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mmfa.qc.ca

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:29 PM PST 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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