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

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• Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents the work of Brooklyn-based artist KAWS
• The National Museum of Australia is Showing "A New Horizon" from the National Museum of China
• Southampton Solent University Shows Peter Jarvis' Architectural Art
• LewAllen Galleries Presented Michael Roque Collins in "Tides of Memory"
• The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery to Survey Works by Filmmaker Vincent Ward
• The Agial Art Gallery in Beirut Features Unique Art by Tagreed Darghouth
• Paul McCarthy Takes Over Both Hauser & Wirth London Galleries
• The Tricycle Theatre to Raise Funds by Exhibiting & Auctioning Donated Works of Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
• RISD Museum Shows Nancy Chunn's "The Sky Is Falling"
• Amon Carter Museum shows Modernist Landscape Paintings of Marsden Hartley
• Columbia Museum of Art shows Its Collection of Art Spanning 1000 Years
• Wassily Kandinsky’s Epic "Battle" at The National Gallery in Prague
• Icons of Photography ~ Treasures from the Karin & Lars Hall Collection Opens in Oslo
• The De la Warr Pavilion Showcases Major Art Innovators
• Musée Maillol Announces Exhibition of Treasures of the Medicis
• The Knoxville Museum of Art Presents Jane South ~ "Shifting Structures"
• T-Rex Roams World Museum
• Knoxville Museum of Art presents 'Josh Simpson ~ A Visionary Journey in Glass'
• The Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao Shows "Daniel Tamayo ~ Fables"
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents the work of Brooklyn-based artist KAWS Posted: 11 Dec 2011 09:29 PM PST FORT WORTH, TX.- The FOCUS series is organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and Curator Andrea Karnes for the Museum's Director's Council, a group that supports acquisitions at the Museum. Each FOCUS exhibition presents work by an emerging contemporary artist. FOCUS exhibitions are open to the public and are included in general Museum admission: free for children 12 and under. The work of Brooklyn-based artist Brian Donnelly, who makes his art under the moniker "KAWS" is the subject of the first Focus exhibition for the 2011–2012 season. KAWS began his career as a graffiti writer in his hometown of Jersey City. By the time he entered the School of Visual Arts in New York to study illustration he had already developed an underground following. His painted-on interventions to ads in and around Manhattan were widely collected by aficionados of "street art." His moniker, KAWS, also became well known through his street tags and explosive murals on billboards and trains. "KAWS was a name I started using when I was painting on the street," the artist explains. "At first I chose it for the way the letters balanced with each other, but later I realized that by working under this name it becomes harder for people to form opinions about who is making the work and leaves them with just the work." Throughout his career, he has looked to and borrowed from cartoon figures, advertisements, posters, television, and film to inform his imagery—from the Michelin Man to the Simpsons, the Smurfs, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Mickey Mouse. KAWS's work follows the continuum of Pop art, particularly the legacy of Andy Warhol, not only in its investigation of pop-culture imagery, but also in its thrust toward art as commodity with the artist as self-promoter. This method of trade is not without precedent and includes Claes Oldenburg's The Store (1961), which introduced a new model for marketing art and products; and Keith Haring's Pop Shop (1986), where he sold his memorabilia to everyone from graffiti kids to Madonna. More recently, Japanese artist Takashi Murakami examines this notion of artist as dealer and makes the sale of highly sought-after fine and commercial art products part of his practice. Like them, KAWS has forged alternative paths and built a vast global network for selling his work. In 2006, he opened a boutique, OriginalFake, in Tokyo, Japan. Blurring the lines between high and low art, and selling on all levels of the market, KAWS has been wildly successful. His signature Xs appear in his paintings and sculpture, as well as on apparel and special-edition toys. These Xs can be read in several ways. They serve as a simple, globally recognized branding device. Xs are used in some form in almost every field—math, science, media, language, computers, and video games—and can have multiple meanings. When written in a letter, an X symbolizes a kiss. In quick secession, XXX demarcates pornography. And when something is Xed-out, it is removed or negated. Read this way, KAWS's Xed-out eyes and hands represent the virtual deaths of the characters he portrays. FOCUS: KAWS will feature new work by the artist, including several new paintings from his ongoing KAWSBob series, and two new sculptures: Accomplice and Companion (OriginalFake). KAWS was born in 1974 in Jersey City, New Jersey, and received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1996. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, both in the United States and abroad.

The National Museum of Australia is Showing "A New Horizon" from the National Museum of China Posted: 11 Dec 2011 08:35 PM PST Canberra, Australia.- The National Museum of Australia is proud to be the exclusive Australian venue for "A New Horizon", on view through January 29th 2012. "A New Horizon" is a powerful and important exhibition of contemporary Chinese art from the National Art Museum of China. The exhibition features more than 70 paintings, sculptures and new media installations created since the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Some of China's leading contemporary artists are represented, including Qian Songyan, Shen Jiawei and Liu Xiaodong, with works divided into three sections. the first, 'New China (1949–1977)' explores art created after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Chinese artists embraced the construction of New China. They took Mao's dictum, 'Serving the people, serving the politics' as their motto, and their works reveal proud and happy workers and farmers.

Southampton Solent University Shows Peter Jarvis' Architectural Art Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:43 PM PST Southampton, UK.- The Southampton Solent University Concourse Gallery is currently showing "Peter Jarvis: A Point of View" on display until January 7th 2012. The exhibition presents historic architecture and intimate scenic studies from in and around Southampton. Artist and Solent University lecturer, Peter Jarvis, has taken a keen interest in buildings and landscape since writing his dissertation on JMW Turner at Ravensbourne College of Art in the early '70s. Peter's latest exhibition - featuring historic sites from Southampton and the surrounding area - melds together his love of architecture and the more secret and hidden corners of the urban landscape.

LewAllen Galleries Presented Michael Roque Collins in "Tides of Memory" Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:33 PM PST Santa Fe, New Mexico.- LewAllen Galleries are proud to present "Michael Roque Collins: Tides of Memory", that was on view at the Railyard Gallery from November 4th through December 11th. Michael Roque Collins's art is equally lauded for its visual and allegorical intensities. Dually portentous and promising, his works navigate between literal and symbolic landscapes that propose a dynamic plurality of possible meanings informed by both ancient and modern modes of transcendentalism. Michael Roque Collins produces some of the most deeply affecting figurative expressionism seen today in contemporary art. His lush oil paintings rip deep meaning from thick paint and bold line. Layering and slicing with his brush and palette knife, he mines the metaphorical mysteries of archetypal symbols—especially those of regeneration and renewal.

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery to Survey Works by Filmmaker Vincent Ward Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:24 PM PST New Plymouth, New Zealand.- The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is proud to present "Vincent Ward: Breath - The Fleeting Intensity of Life" on view at the gallery from December 10th through Feburary 26th 2012. Vincent Ward's memorable filmic work has long offered a powerful and unique contribution to Aotearoa New Zealand's visual experience.This new exhibition Breath – the fleeting intensity of life draws together Ward's career as a feature filmmaker and his early training in fine arts. His recent exploration of the still image presents works that coalesce photography, painting and digital imaging alongside filmic vignettes and sound. Ward's ongoing concerns with metamorphosis, light, darkness and immersive experience has led him to create a series of physically imposing works that delve into otherworldly landscapes and transcendent states, seeking elusive 'transformational moments' that connect with the human psyche. This exhibition is the first survey of filmmaker Vincent Ward's work within an art museum context.

The Agial Art Gallery in Beirut Features Unique Art by Tagreed Darghouth Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:23 PM PST Beirut, Lebanon.- The Agial Art Gallery is pleased to present "Tagreed Darghouth: Canticle of Death" now on view at the gallery. When words such as "Green Parrot", "Blue Bunny", "Red Rose", "Green Flax", "Yellow Sun", and so on are heard, one might think that they are words picked out from children's storybooks or perhaps names of toys. Shockingly enough, these pretty colour mixings with living beings are nothing but nicknames given to some of the British nuclear weapon project disguised under the code name Rainbow! "Canticle of Death" explores the nomenclature of the British and the American nuclear arsenal since World War 2, searching for reasons behind naming bombs after animals, plants, human beings, sonatas and so forth. Why personify a weapon that destroys cities?  Could it be true what Howard Zinn, the American historian and pacifist, once proclaimed, "the use of nuclear weapons was made possible through years of dehumanizing the enemy...."?

Paul McCarthy Takes Over Both Hauser & Wirth London Galleries Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:22 PM PST London. Hauser & Wirth are proud to present "Paul McCarthy The King, The Island, The Dwarves, The Train..." on view at botht eh companiy's London galleries (Savile Row and Piccadilly) through January 14th 2012. This exhibition features major new works and some of the most significant sculptures and installations by Los Angeles based artist Paul McCarthy, including the ambitious 'Pig Island'. Spanning both the Savile Row and Piccadilly galleries, this exhibition showcases the highly developed themes and interrelationships coursing through McCarthy's complex practice. Combining political figures and pop culture, 'Pig Island', on view at Savile Row, is a morally deviant world populated by pirates, cowboys, the likenesses of George W. Bush and Angelina Jolie, an assortment of Disney characters and the artist himself, all carousing in a state of wild and reckless abandon.

The Tricycle Theatre to Raise Funds by Exhibiting & Auctioning Donated Works of Hercules Brabazon Brabazon Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:08 PM PST London.- The Tricycle Theatre will present " Hercules Brabazon Brabazon " from Wednesday December 14th through Friday January 7th 2012. This exhibition consists of works by Victorian watercolourist Brabazon, donated by local philanthropist Al Weil to raise funds for the theatre. Brabazon was considered one of the most important watercolourists of his era, judged by Ruskin , a notoriously harsh critic, to be the only natural heir to Turner. His paintings are held in key national collections such as Tate, the V&A and the National Gallery of Wales . The paintings on show at the Tricycle include landscapes made during the artist's travels around the world, flower studies and sketches of his friends and contemporaries. After being shown in the Tricycle's own gallery, the exhibition will move to Pyms Gallery , where it can be seen from January 11th through February 8th.

RISD Museum Shows Nancy Chunn's "The Sky Is Falling" Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:07 PM PST Providence, Rhode Island.- Inspired by the fear and panic engendered by the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design's exhibition, "Nancy Chunn: Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear", is a series of paintings that represents the media sensationalism infecting our current political and cultural landscape, feeding our fears, and inducing feelings of powerlessness. The exhibition remains on view through April 15th 2012. Chunn's allegorical narrative features 339 cartoon-like paintings that reimagine the folk fable of Chicken Little. Chunn portrays Chicken Little's exaggerated fears, ("The sky is falling!"), in a graphic style—adapting found clip art images to represent a Kafkaesque world in which danger seems to lurk around every corner. Mapped out in 2004 as a 10-year project, her 11-scene cycle—six of which will be on view at the RISD Museum of Art—takes on such contemporary issues as environmental disasters, road rage, healthcare, poverty, and crime, and shows how coverage by print and broadcast media exacerbate our fears. Despite the seriousness of her concerns, Chunn's cultural critique is infused with a remarkable sense of humor and visual invention. "A self-proclaimed 'news junkie,' Chunn's reworking of the Chicken Little fable makes us keenly aware of the foibles of our own time," says Judith Tannenbaum, Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art. "Infusing visual invention with great wit, she enables us to gain new insights about what makes our society tick, for better or worse—from everyday domestic incidents to the grand political themes of the day." Chunn's previous works explore historical and current geopolitical scenes on well-researched topics, inventing a variety of new pictorial vocabularies that provide a relationship between each subject and its presentation. For her version of Chicken Little, which is based on found images from different decades, Chunn appropriates imagery generated by the culture she is critiquing. The format of dozens of small canvases mimics the frame-by-frame channeling of the 24-hour news cycles. Each scene is comprised of numerous canvases in different sizes, grouped on top of a colorful amoeba shape painted directly on the wall. The scenes on view in the Museum's Lower Farago Gallery are "The Bathroom (Scene II)", with its products and accidents; "The Bedroom (Scene IV)", with the booby traps of the contemporary home; "The Road (Scene VI)", with its portrayal of road rage; "The ER (Scene VII)" and all its chaos; "The Main Hospital (VIII)", where, instead of safety, Chicken Little finds new fears related to the uncertainties of healthcare and medical research; and "Poor Town (Scene X)", a poverty-stricken mirror of middle America's worst fears. Nancy Chunn was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and received her BFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1969. She moved to New York in the late 1970s. Chunn received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009, An Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2005, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1985 and 1995. She has been represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts since 1985. Southeastern New England's only comprehensive art museum, the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design (also known as the RISD Museum) was established in 1877. Its permanent collection of more than 86,000 objects includes paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, costume, furniture, and other works of art from every part of the world—including objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and art of all periods from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, up to the latest in contemporary art. The Museum also offers a wide array of educational and public programs to more than 100,000 visitors annually. Visit the museum's website at  ... http://www.risdmuseum.org

Amon Carter Museum shows Modernist Landscape Paintings of Marsden Hartley Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:49 PM PST FORT WORTH, Texas - A group of paintings by one of the most brilliant and complicated of all of the American modernists will be on view June 14–August 24 at the Amon Carter Museum in the special exhibition Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism. The exhibition brings together 38 works from Hartley's New Mexico years, perhaps the most overlooked and least understood period of his career.  Visitors will experience one artist's personal journey to find something authentically American in the landscape of the West. The exhibition was organized by Heather Hole, formerly a curator at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and now a curator of American art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "We are especially pleased to present the extraordinarily powerful landscapes that Hartley painted of New Mexico," said Rebecca Lawton, curator of paintings and sculpture at the Carter. "He was a restless and experimental artist, continually traveling throughout his career on aesthetic explorations. By going to the Southwest in 1918, he intended to experience nature directly, to work exclusively from his own first-hand experiences, but his ulterior motive was more ambitious: to redefine American art through the depiction of the American landscape. This exhibition provides a rare opportunity to look closely at this complex artist and chart, through the works he created during a six-year period, his progress in achieving his goal." Marsden Hartley (l877–1943) was a member of the circle of artists around photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, who married Georgia O'Keeffe in 1924. He first became known to Stieglitz and the New York art world in 1909 for his innovative depictions of his home state of Maine. Later, when he was traveling in Europe, Hartley rose to the forefront of the revolutionary experimentations in abstraction taking place in Germany in 1913 and 1914, becoming one of the first American artists to produce avant-garde modernist art on a par with European work. His masterful American Indian Symbols, painted at this time, is a part of the Amon Carter Museum's collection. World War I forced Hartley to return home in 1915, however, and he began to question European-style modernism because he saw it as the product of a culture that had produced the massive devastation of the war. Back in New York, Hartley embarked on a mission to create an independent, American modern art that did not draw on European tradition, and he decided to seek this new vision in the West. He arrived in Taos in June 1918 at the invitation of arts patron Mabel Dodge, and began creating spontaneous and naturalistic pastels of the area. Bright and engaging, Hartley's Taos pastels are some of the most representational works of his entire career. He was ultimately dissatisfied with the artist community he found there and moved to Santa Fe, where his work became less descriptive and more schematic. Hartley also began to experiment with oil paintings based on the pastels. He was still defining a style with which to depict New Mexico in oil paint when he returned to New York in the fall of 1919. It was there, between 1919 and 1921, that Hartley painted bright, forceful oils of New Mexico. More vigorous than the paintings he executed in New Mexico, these works grew increasingly stylized and imaginative. Although Hartley left the United States again for Europe in 1921, he somehow could not leave New Mexico behind. He began work on the powerful New Mexico Recollections series in Berlin in 1923. These extraordinary pictures are among the most complex and multilayered depictions of the American landscape produced between the wars. When taken as a whole, the tumultuous Recollections depict a landscape of memory and fantasy, closer to a dreamscape than the kind of concrete landscape depicted in the early New Mexico pastels. "We are excited to be able to present the Hartley New Mexico paintings to the community," said Amon Carter Museum Director Ron Tyler. "This museum has excellent landscape and modern American collections, and seeing Hartley's work in this context will enhance the understanding of our collections as well as this special exhibition. Here at the Carter, we also like to present focused exhibitions that allow our visitors to view a particular series of works in depth. Hartley was in New Mexico before Georgia O'Keeffe, and it is fascinating to see how he interpreted the same landscapes that she later made so famous." Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism is accompanied by a publication of the same name that was written by Heather Hole and published by Yale University Press. Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism was organized by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. It has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of its American Masterpieces program, The Burnett Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, and The Kerr Foundation. The Fort Worth presentation of the exhibition is made possible in part by an anonymous gift. Admission to the exhibition is free. At the Amon Carter Museum, visitors can learn about America's fascinating social and cultural history through great works of art. Visit : www.cartermuseum.org

Columbia Museum of Art shows Its Collection of Art Spanning 1000 Years Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:48 PM PST COLUMBIA, SC.- Highlights from the Collection opens on Saturday, January 10 and runs through June 7. The exhibition includes approximately 80 works of art spanning 1000 years pulled from the Columbia Museum of Art's galleries and storage. The exhibition encompasses the breadth of the collection from Ancient art to Contemporary and from paintings to silver.

Wassily Kandinsky’s Epic "Battle" at The National Gallery in Prague Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:47 PM PST Prague, Czech Republic.- Wassily Kandinsky's painting "Battle (The Cossacks)" is now on display at the Czech National Gallery's collection of modern art at Veletržní palác. The painting is a loan from London's Tate Modern gallery and will be exhibited in Prague until June 12. Normally, the loan of a single painting does not garner much attention, but 'Battle' is a milestone not only in the Russian painter's development, but in the emergence of abstract art in the early 20th Century. Painted in 1910 or 1911, just around the time Kandinsky experienced a breakthrough after having heard the atonal music of his contemporary Arnold Schoenberg, it shows him coming to the verge of pure abstraction, with only traces of the figural elements such as Cossacks hats and birds, being visible in the painting.

Icons of Photography ~ Treasures from the Karin & Lars Hall Collection Opens in Oslo Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:46 PM PST OSLO, NORWAY - It is a great pleasure and honor for us to present such a unique collection of artists that have shaped the development of photography as an art form, says Jens R Jenssen, senior vice president of human resources and leader of the Statoil art programme. And he continues: This exhibition will make a difference. The exhibition consists of approximately 180 works of photography, spanning from the 1842 to 2002. With a unique collection of original Irving Penn's as a basis, the diversity of the collection is presented in a wide number of small exhibitions within the main concept, says Arnt N Fredheim, curator, the Statoil art programme.

The De la Warr Pavilion Showcases Major Art Innovators Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:45 PM PST EAST SUSSEX., UK - This spectacular exhibition comprises drawings, prints and experimental films, and explores the recurring tension between figuration and abstraction throughout the 20th century and the ways by which ideas and concepts evolve. Presented non-chronologically, it encompasses movements such as Russian Constructivism, Futurism and Vorticism, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, and comprises works by key artists, as well as works of artists who have been sidelined in the mainstream of art history. The exhibition will be on view at De la Warr Pavilion through June 13, 2010.

Musée Maillol Announces Exhibition of Treasures of the Medicis Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:44 PM PST PARIS.- Men of wealth and influence, the Medicis were not just Florentine pharmacists enriched by trade who turned into the bankers of Europe, before becoming its princes. Subtle politicians, these business men were above all fervent humanists. Their enlightened patronage revealed a culture as deep as it was widespread from the 15th through the 18th centuries. The family clan, nearly always united — whether in power or removed from it —, never ceased to surround itself with artists, painters, sculptors, jewelers, musicians, poets and scientists, which they protected rather than just commissioning them. Wishing to renew life via aesthetics and science, the outstanding Florentine family did not quite, in fact, launch the movement of sumptuous patronage that gripped Florence during the Renaissance. But it favored the avant-garde like no other before them, turning art into an extraordinary instrument of power, setting up forever the image of the magnificent patron. Wherever the Medicis were installed, they reigned more thanks to the splendor of their taste than through the power of their bank. Inventors, in the archeological definition of the word, the Medicis « invented » modern Western art, by encouraging Fra Angelico's art of perspective and Botticelli's humanism, by conferring a nobility on Italian language literature, by supporting the early classicism of Michel-Angelo and Raphaël, by displaying Bronzino's Florentine mannerism, by carrying the minor arts to their apotheosis, by always being at the forefront of new geographic and scientific discoveries, by creating the first operas in history with Peri's and Caccini's two "Eurydices", as well as by underwriting Galileo's astronomical discoveries. To find once more the world's harmonies while pretending to be its organizers, such was the Medicis' overweening ambition. A treasury in the musée Maillol It was that personal and modern taste for new spaces, whether in the world of decorative arts, in painting, in music, in science or in poetry, that the exhibition « Trésor des Médicis », (The Medicis' Treasures) emphasizes by regrouping nearly 150 works and objects, all of which were seen, coveted or touched by the magnificent Florentines, since all of them come from the Medici collections. The exhibition in the Musée Maillol invites one to enter into the very heart of the Medici palace, by recalling, among these very rarely loaned masterpieces, a history of the Medici taste, as exemplified over time and with the various heads of the Medici family, through various rooms, whether grandiose or intimate: reception room, studiolo, or cabinet of marvels, workshops for the hard stones, the library , the Medici theatre, a mathematics study-room and the chapel. From Cosmo to Lorenzo : the glory of the Lords of Florence in the 15th century If it was Giovanni di Bicci who founded the Medici bank at the very end of the 14th century, it was Cosmo the Elder who marked the advent of the future dynasty by becoming the wealthiest man in Europe. Henceforth, the banker of Popes and of Kings after his return from exile to Florence in 1434, it was the subtle and wise Cosmo, who is at the start of the treasure and of the almost limitless reign of the Medicis. He started by using his considerable financial resources to collect antiques – and even Islamic objects – as was the custom in the leading families during the Renaissance. But he also surrounded himself with works of art of every kind, commissioning the most adventurous artists like Fra Angelico, as is clear from a predella panel representing sepulchers of the Saints Cosmo and Damian. His grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent , a talented poet and subtle political strategist, even if an ineffectual banker, became « the first citizen of Florence » without bearing that title. He carried that « Republic of the Arts» to its first peak. Lorenzo devoted outlandish sums to purchasing hard-stone vases and admitted to a passion for antique cameos, like that of Poseidon and Athena, then attributed to Pyrgotele, the only artist allowed by Alexander the Great to engrave his portrait. It was the Magnificent who invited the young Michelangelo to share his table and to sculpt in the garden in San Marco. He also corresponded with Amerigo Vespucci, the sailor who gave his name to America, and he collected exotic objects, like Chinese celadons. Lorenzo also believed in Botticelli's brilliant talent : employing an exacerbated chromatism In revolutionary Adoration of the Magi, Sandro did not hesitate to position, no longer in a family chapel, but this time in the heart of Florence, the Medici family in its entirety, Cosmo the Elder, Piero the First, Lorenzo and Julian de Medici, surrounded by their court, headed by Pic de la Mirandole and Politian, like the Muses gathered together around a new Apollonian Holy Family. The irruption of Charles VIII's French troops put a temporary end to the absolute power of the Medicis and to their aesthetic ascendancy: their palace in the Larga — which Apollonio di Giovanni did not hesitate to represent as Priam's palace in an illuminated manuscript devoted to Virgil — was wrecked, their collections sold at auction. By conferring on Alexander de Medici the title of duke in 1532, Charles the Fifth restored the absolute power of the family over Florence. From Rome to Paris : two Popes for two queens An aesthete and a cultured man , John de Medici, second son of Lorenzo, became Pope under the name of Leo X, and he did his best to buy back many of the goods that had been scattered. He provided the Medicis' patronage with a new Roman dimension, henceforth considering Florence as his private property, even sending there, with some arrogance, a rebellious Michelangelo. A great organizer of festivities and a great collector of manuscripts, Leo X, following the example of the Magnificent, turned Rome into a paradise for artists and intellectuals. As well as Pontormo and Andrea del Sarto, he overburdened Raphaël with work. A new visual acuity, almost Flemish in its hyperrealism, appeared in 1515 in the outstanding «Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami », Leo X's librarian, completely dressed in a symphonic red, casting his eyes heavenwards. Gazing in awe at that painting, Bonaparte and his followers did not hesitate to borrow it momentarily from the Medici collections. Julius de Medici, illegitimate son of Julian, Lorenzo's brother, became Pope in his turn, after his cousin Leo X, under the name Clement VII. If that tragic Pope saw the sacking of Rome and the break with Henry VIII of England, he nonetheless remained a sensitive patron. Popes behaving like kings, the Medicis undertook a far-seeing matrimonial policy, which led two women to the throne of France. Placed under the direct protection of Clement VII, Catherine de Medici married the future king Henri II in 1533, bringing with her a dowry of 28000 écus in jewelry. Very attentive to art forms, the new queen was above all very fond of portraits : she gathered together over 700, including a portrait of herself that she sent to Florence, as a dowry for her grand-daughter Christine de Lorraine. A gifted draughtswoman, an outstanding ballet dancer, fascinated by jewelry and endowed with a huge fortune, Marie de Medici, daughter of Francis the First, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in her turn married the king of France Henri IV in 1600. Her marriage having inspired the birth of the opera in Florence, she begged her uncle Ferdinand de Medici to allow the composer Giulio Caccini to come to Paris with his daughter Francesca, a singer but also a composer. She loved to call upon the baroque opulence of two Flemish artists, Frans Pourbus, who painted her portrait wearing all her pearls , and Rubens, who had attended her wedding in Florence. From Cosmo II to Cosmo III : the twilight of the Medicean starts in the 17th and 18th centuries Open minded and curious – maybe because he benefited from having had Galileo as a tutor -, Cosmo II, during his brief reign at the very start of the 17th century , put up new buildings to receive more and more important collections. If he provided the minor arts with a new impulse, he was the only one in Florence to encourage the Caravegesque realism that had come to light in Rome and in Naples. Cosmo II also encouraged his brother, cardinal Leopold de Medici, in his initiative of collecting self-portraits by prestigious artists in the Vasari corridor — self-portraits signed Luca Giordano or Carlo Dolci— or his re-organisation of the Palatine Library and of its 14000 manuscripts and 20 000 printed volumes. The Grand-Duke also supported his brother in his creation in 1657 of the Academia del Cimento (Academy for experimentation), which promoted Galileo's experimental science. An important collector of scientific instruments and of weapons, his son the Grand Duke Ferdinand II was opposed to the Holy See's decree which had obliged Galileo to retract his Copernican discoveries before the Inquisition. The Medicis, godfathers of the Renaissance, were also the forebears of the Century of Enlightenment. The last descendant of the Medicis, prince Jean-Gaston remembered that, who undertook, 95 years after the astronomer's death, to provide a tomb for Galileo in Florence, picking up along the way two of the great man's fingers to enclose them inside a henceforth sacred reliquary: the genius' finger points to the Medicis. Leaving Florence and enjoying, in his villa in Poggio in Caiano, at the heart of his Gabinetto, the contemplation « of small works by all the most famous painters!», he had a theatre built in another villa in Pratolino, where he supported the new aesthetic concept of baroque opera embodied by Alessandro Scarlatti. He died of syphilis and madness in 1713 aged 50, without having ever reigned. Libertine and liberal unlike the rigid Cosmo III, but drunk and nearly always in bed, living confined to his apartments while carrying out a ceaseless and melancholy debauchery, his young brother, Jean-Gaston de Medici marked the end of the dynasty in the night. On his death in 1737, without successors, the Grand-Duchy left the Medici family to return into the demesne of Lorraine and of the future Emperor of the Holy Roman German Empire, Francis Ist of Austria. The last survivor of the line, Jean-Gaston's sister, Anne-Marie Louise, princess Palatine – whose jewel in the shape of a cradle offered by her husband on hearing of her long awaited pregnancy , was not sufficient to give him a living heir – handed over all the Medici collections to the city of Florence, so they could remain « at the disposal of all nations». A testament of gold and fire, a fantastic spectacle of works and masterpieces which relate the world's beauty, a world re-organized for the mind and feelings of the Medici family.

The Knoxville Museum of Art Presents Jane South ~ "Shifting Structures" Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:43 PM PST Knoxville, TN – The Knoxville Museum of Art, KMA,  presents Jane South: Shifting Structures from August 7 through November 7, 2010.  South has achieved international attention for her innovative mixed-media constructions that blur the lines between drawing, sculpture, installation art, and architecture.  Born in Manchester, England, she draws inspiration from the industrial urban character of her hometown and of her adopted home in Brooklyn, New York, where she has resided since 1989.

T-Rex Roams World Museum Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:42 PM PST LIVERPOOL,  UK - Visitors can meet Rex the juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex for days of free prehistoric hysterics at World Museum in Liverpool, UK. The animated dinosaur has been a sensation in the United States and Australia where it has given thousands of people the opportunity to see a walking, moving T. Rex. Now he's at the UK for the first time. This is well worth a visit (unless you or your children are easily scared). The Tyrannosaurus Rex at World Museum Liverpool is very fast on his feet and looks and sounds scary. T Rex will be wandering around the museum at various times, Rex even braved the icy pavement outside and shocked some pedestrians and motorists. You will see there are plenty of Dinosaur-related items in the Museum shop too. The animated dinosaur has been a sensation in the United States and Australia where it has given thousands of people the opportunity to see a walking, moving T. Rex. Now he's visiting the UK for the first time.

Knoxville Museum of Art presents 'Josh Simpson ~ A Visionary Journey in Glass' Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:42 PM PST   KNOXVILLE, TN - The Knoxville Museum of Art presents Josh Simpson: A Visionary Journey in Glass February 6-April 19, 2009. This major exhibition highlights three decades of achievements by one of America's most acclaimed glass artists. More than 100 works trace Simpson's journey from his early goblets and vessels to the spectacular multi-layered sculptures of the present.

The Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao Shows "Daniel Tamayo ~ Fables" Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:40 PM PST Bilbao, Spain - The Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao is presenting a solo exhibiton of recent works by contemporary Basque painter Daniel Tamayo. "Daniel Tamayo: Fables" is on view until June 12th. Daniel Tamayo (Bilbao, 1951) was one of the original group of students at the University of the Basque Country's Fine Arts Faculty, where he now teaches. Beginning his career in the late seventies, Tamayo was influenced by the Pop movement and several leading names in the contemporary Spanish art world, such as Luis Gordillo. What we might call his figurative code has been marked by a taste for geometric drawing, "objectual" form and intense colours in smooth, flat inks. The exhibition includes 20-plus medium and large-scale paintings the artist produced between the year 2000 and 2010, most of which have not been seen in public before. Favouring theatrical and stage themes, and despite the scale of the paintings and the use of oils, the works are perhaps most closely related to Tamayo's fantasy watercolours. The origins of the present Museum lie in the first Fine Arts Museum that was founded in 1908 and which opened its doors in 1914 and the Modern Art Museum that opened in 1924. Both museums and their respective collections became one to all effects in 1945, which was when the first, original building was built. The modern, new wing was added in 1970 and major renovations and improvements in 2001 have given the Museum its current appearance. With the slogan of "100 Years of History, 10 Centuries of Art", the Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao celebrated its first Centennial in 2008. Over its entire life, the Museum has developed an exemplary model in which the general public, local artists and public institutions have all determined its configuration and growth thanks to important purchases and donations of works of art that have made up the main nuclei and later growth of the Museum Collection. The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum's Collection is made up of more than eight thousand works, amongst which are paintings, sculptures, works on paper and applied arts that collectively represent an outstanding heritage that covers different chronological periods from the XII century to the present. The Collection, which contains several outstanding examples of old, modern and contemporary art, has a particularly interesting collection of paintings from Spanish and Flemish schools as well as an abundant collection of works by Basque artists. Not only does the Museum house the most important collection of works by Basque artists, but it is also the most important institution as far as the gathering of documents, research tradition and its close ties with the artists themselves are concerned. Not in vain was the Bilbao painter Manuel Losada one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the Museum and indeed its first Director.  After a past lasting 100 years, both institutions were amalgamated together to make up the actual Museum with which all the most important Basque artists from Zuloaga to Chillida have had a special relationship from the very first moment it opened. Artists have contributed greatly to the consolidation and growth of the Museum not only by participating in its administration, but also by their generous donations of works of art. Strolling through the different museum exhibition halls, visitors have the opportunity of seeing outstanding works by such artists as Bermejo, Benson, Mandijn, Vredeman de Vries, De Vos, Moro, Sánchez Coello, El Greco, Pourbus, Gentileschi, Ribera, Zurbarán, Anthony Van Dyck, Murillo, Arellano, Meléndez, Bellotto, Francisco Goya, Paret, Villaamil, Ribot, Zamacois, Madrazo, Paul Gauguin, Mary Cassatt, Sorolla, Guiard, Ensor, Regoyos, Romero de Torres, Zuloaga, Sunyer, Arteta, Gutiérrez Solana, Vázquez Díaz, Lipchitz, Delaunay, González, Gargallo, Francis Bacon, Palazuelo, Oteiza, Chillida, Caro, Millares, Antoni Tàpies, Saura, Lüpertz, Kitaj, Blake, Arroyo, and Barceló, amongst others.

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 11 Dec 2011 06:39 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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