Art Knowledge News - Keeping You in Touch with the World of Art... |
- The Frist Center for the Visual Arts to Show Masterworks From the Phillips Collection
- The Zimmerli Art Museum To Show a Mid-Career Survey of Rachel Perry Welty
- The Museum Würth Exhibition by artist Emil Wachter On His 90th Birthday
- Yale Center for British Art Shows Depictions of Shakespeare's Comedies
- The Third Annual Changing the World through Art Gala & Auction
- Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) Features MEX/LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s)
- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Opens the First International Exhibition Devoted to Jean Paul Gaultier
- Sony World Photography Awards Winners Showcased at Somerset House
- OCMA presents "Illumination"an Exhibition of Four Important American Modernist Painters
- The National Gallery of Canada (NGC) opens "From Raphael to Carracci / The Art of Papal Rome"
- Fifteen Years of Collecting at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg ~ Against the Grain
- Art Gallery of New South Wales Opens "Paths to Abstraction"
- Israel Museum Searches for Owners of Stolen Paintings
- San Jose ICA presents Neon Signs by Ray Beldner
- Tate Liverpool Announces a major Picasso: Peace and Freedom Exhibition
- Photos by Tseng Kwong Chi with Keith Haring at Paul Kasmin Gallery
- The Columbia Museum of Art Opens "An Artist’s Eye"
- SAMO Is Reborn In Paris Show
- The Museum Of Contemporary Art Sydney (MCA) ~ Twenty Years Young ~ With Many Highly Regarded Art Collections
- This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News
| The Frist Center for the Visual Arts to Show Masterworks From the Phillips Collection Posted: 03 Jan 2012 10:44 PM PST  Nashville, Tennessee.- The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is proud to present "To See as Artists See: American Art from the Phillips Collection " on view in the museum's Ingram Gallery from February 3rd through May 6th 2012. Founded by Duncan Phillips in 1918, The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., opened to the public in 1921 as America's first museum of modern art. "To See as Artists See" is the first large-scale, traveling presentation of The Phillips' celebrated collection of American art, chronicling the broad scope and richness of its holdings from 1850 to 1960. "To See as Artists See: American Art from The Phillips Collection" features more than 100 works by 75 important artists, including outstanding paintings by Winslow Homer , Childe Hassam , Maurice Prendergast , John Sloan , Edward Hopper , Arthur Dove , Georgia O'Keeffe , Charles Sheeler, Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence , Adolf Gottlieb and Robert Motherwell . The paintings in the exhibition range in date from 1845–1965 and represent a magnificent survey of American painters and their work. The exhibition begins with great heroes of nineteenth-century American art, including Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins whose works set the course for modern art in the U.S. The exhibition concludes with works by the Abstract Expressionists whose efforts to create a new visual language in the 1940s caused the art world to turn its attention from Paris to New York and made American art a significant global force.  The paintings will be arranged in 10 thematic groups: Romanticism and Realism (with works by Edward Hicks , George Inness , Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Albert Pinkham Ryder); Impressionism (Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, John Henry Twachtman, William Merritt Chase , Maurice Prendergast); Forces in Nature (Marsden Hartley, Rockwell Kent , John Marin , Harold Weston); Nature and Abstraction (Arthur Dove, Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Kent, Marin, Max Weber ); Modern Life (Robert Henri, George Luks, Walt Kuhn, Edward Hopper, Guy Pène du Bois); The City (John Sloan, John Marin, Charles Sheeler, Ralston Crawford, Edward Hopper,); Memory and Identity (Grandma Moses, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Jacob Lawrence, Horace Pippin, Rufino Tamayo ); Legacy of Cubism (John Marin, Karl Knaths, Stuart Davis, John Graham, Ilya Bolotowsky); Transition to Abstract Expressionism (Morris Graves, Jackson Pollock , Milton Avery , Alexander Calder ); and Abstract Expressionism (Adolf Gottlieb, Mark Rothko , Clyfford Still, Helen Frankenthaler , Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston ). The Phillips Collection, America's first museum of modern art, was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1921, nearly a decade before the Museum of Modern Art (est. in 1929) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (est. 1930) opened in New York. From its inception, The Phillips Collection championed the very best in American art and artists. Its in-depth holdings of American paintings are broad in scope, yet cannot be characterized as either encyclopedic or strictly historical. Rather, The Phillips Collection is a reflection of the tastes and friendships of collector Duncan Phillips (1886–1966) who purchased many of the works from the artists while they were still actively exhibiting. Many of the artists became Phillips' good friends. A well-regarded art critic in addition to being a collector and museum director, Phillips believed we benefit by giving ourselves over to the direct experience of the work of art. In this way one enters the artist's world, learning to see as artists see. In his extensive critical writings, Phillips made it clear that he sought "artists of creative originality and of sincere independence."  The Frist Center opened in April 2001, and since that time has hosted a spectacular array of art from the region, the country, and around the world. Unlike any traditional museum you've ever visited, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts has become a magnet for Nashville's rapidly expanding visual arts scene. With an exhibitions schedule that has new art flowing through the magnificent Art Deco building every 6 to 8 weeks, no matter how often you visit, there is always something new and exciting to see in the spacious galleries. See a list of current and upcoming exhibitions. The Frist Center was conceived as a family-friendly place and one of the most popular locations in the center is the innovative Martin ArtQuest Gallery. It's a colorful space alive with the sounds of learning through making art! ArtQuest activities abound for people of all ages. With 30 interactive stations, and the assistance of knowledgeable staff and volunteers, ArtQuest teaches through activity. Make a print, paint your own original watercolor, create your own colorful sculpture! It's all there in ArtQuest, and it's free with gallery admission for adults and always free for youth 18 and under. Visit the center's website at ... http://fristcenter.org  |
| The Zimmerli Art Museum To Show a Mid-Career Survey of Rachel Perry Welty Posted: 03 Jan 2012 10:16 PM PST  New Brunswick, New Jersey.- The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum is pleased to present "Rachel Perry Welty 24/7" on view at the museum from January 28th through July 8th 2012. Two years ago, the artist Rachel Perry Welty famously transformed Facebook into a performance space by updating her status every minute of her waking day while continuing her normal activities. The obsessive, repetitive, and process-based character of her artistic output so evident in "Rachel Is" (2009) animate this mid-career survey. "Rachel Perry Welty takes daily life as her subject," says Suzanne Delehanty, director of the Zimmerli. "These works raise questions about how we live today, whether it be to comment on the effects of consumerism, suburban living, and information overload or to point to the underlying anxiety at the heart of American popular culture." 24/7 features 25 works created over the course of the last decade, from documentation of performance and social media projects, photographs, drawings, installations made with fruit stickers and twist ties, sculptures, and collages.  |
| The Museum Würth Exhibition by artist Emil Wachter On His 90th Birthday Posted: 03 Jan 2012 09:18 PM PST  KUNZELSAU, GERMANY - The Museum Würth in Künzelsau is devoting an extensive exhibition of more than 100 works to the Karlsruhe artist Emil Wachter. The main focus of the exhibition will be the considerable holdings of paintings and drawings by Wachter in the Würth Collection; these will be complemented by selected works on loan. The exhibits range from delicate watercolours and cycles of drawings to colourfully dense oil paintings to large triptychs. Wachter's sacred art, which plays an important role in his oeuvre, and in particular his many stained-glass windows, will also be taken into consideration, as will his sculptures. The painter, graphic artist, sculptor and theologian Emil Wachter was born in 1921. Although his art diverged from the established standards of his time from the very start, he was nevertheless firmly rooted in the European cultural heritage.  |
| Yale Center for British Art Shows Depictions of Shakespeare's Comedies Posted: 03 Jan 2012 09:07 PM PST NEW HAVEN, CT.- In spring 2012 Shakespeare at Yale, a campus-wide, term-long series of exhibitions, plays, concerts, films, and lectures will celebrate the university's wealth of resources for the study and enjoyment of the works of William Shakespeare. At the Yale Center for British Art, "While these visions did appear": Shakespeare on Canvas will feature works from the Center's permanent collection of paintings to explore historic representations of Shakespeare's scenes and characters by artists working in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On view January 3, 2012–June 3, 2012.  |
| The Third Annual Changing the World through Art Gala & Auction Posted: 03 Jan 2012 09:06 PM PST  NEW YORK, N.Y.- Haunch of Venison and HiArt! presents the Third Annual Changing the World through Art, a Gala and Art auction honoring two extraordinary artists - Ahmed Alsoudani and Leonardo Drew - and involving some of the world's leading artists. Works to be auctioned include paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints by Sarah Sze, Takashi Murakami, Nick Cave, Zefrey Throwell, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mel Kendrick, David Humphrey, Rachel Howard, Sebastiaan Bremer, Rosy Keyser, Ellen Berkenblit, Spencer Tunick, Jon Kessler, Raphael Vargas-Suarez, among a long list of others who have very generously donated to this cause.  |
| Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) Features MEX/LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:39 PM PST  LONG BEACH, CA.- MEX/LA: "Mexican" Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985 is part of Pacific Standard Time. This unprecedented collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together more than sixty cultural institutions from across Southern California for six months to tell the story of the birth of the LA art scene. MEX/LA: "Mexican" Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985 focuses on the construction of different notions of "Mexicanidad" within modernist and contemporary art created in Los Angeles. The period from 1945 to 1985 is attributed as the time when Los Angeles consolidated itself as an important cultural center, however, this time frame excludes the controversial and important presence of the Mexican muralists and the production of other artists who were influenced by them and responded to their ideas. It is often perceived that Los Angeles' Mexican culture is alien and comes from elsewhere when in fact it originated in the city—it was in Los Angeles and Southern California where José Vasconcelos, Ricardo Flores Magón, Octavio Paz and other intellectuals developed the idea of modern Mexico while Anglos and Chicanos were developing their own. This is the place where Siqueiros and Orozco made some of their first murals and Los Angeles is the capital of Chicano art .  |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:22 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  |
| Sony World Photography Awards Winners Showcased at Somerset House Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:21 PM PST  LONDON.- The Sony World Photography Awards Winners' Showcase is the flagship exhibition of the World Photography Festival. Showcase theme 'From Chaos into Order' mirrors the process by which we make sense of photographs in the world. All of the World Photography Organisation's Festival exhibitions run from April 26 through May 22, at the prestigious Somerset House, London.  |
| OCMA presents "Illumination"an Exhibition of Four Important American Modernist Painters Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:20 PM PST  |
| The National Gallery of Canada (NGC) opens "From Raphael to Carracci / The Art of Papal Rome" Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:19 PM PST
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| Fifteen Years of Collecting at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg ~ Against the Grain Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:18 PM PST
 With its specific focus on acquiring key pieces and groups of works by international artists, the collection of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg has set itself apart from those of other German museums since its inception. The year 1968 marks the starting point of the collection and, as it were, the emergence of the new avant-garde. A solid foundation of late modernist art was laid during the first years of the collection with the acquisition of pivotal works of Minimal art, conceptual art, Arte Povera, body art and media art. Artistic bridges have subsequently been built between positions such as Anselm Kiefer, Gary Hill, Gerhard Merz or the British artist duo Gilbert & George and artists of the late 1980s such as Cindy Sherman and Allan McCollum.The pieces in the collection by Nam June Paik and Gary Hill are remarkable pioneering works of media art. By mounting the first major retrospective of Douglas Gordon's work in 2007, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg recognized an artist whose sculptural elaboration of video art gave fresh impetus to the medium, while early exhibitions and acquisitions of works by artists of the 1990s who went on to become leading international figures – including Jeff Wall, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky and Neo Rauch – are further examples of the museum's pioneering achievements in the realm of contemporary art.  15 Years of Collecting – Against the Grain opens with the works that form the cornerstones of the collection and explores recent positions in relation to artists at the forefront of late modernism: Carl Andre, Mario Merz, Jan Dibbets and Bruce Nauman. The aim of juxtaposing these older and newer works is not only to highlight the specific character of the collection but also to identify and illustrate ruptures and developments in the history of art over the last forty years. For example, geometric abstract paintings by the American artist Sarah Morris are contrasted with Carl Andre's field of stereometric wooden blocks, whose serial structures respond in turn to Allan McCollum's Over 10,000 Individual Works laid out on a table. With the opening of the Zaha Hadid Lounge in one of the museum wings in 2001, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg ventured into the area between art and architecture/art and design, a line of approach that was also adopted in the exhibition Interieur/Exterieur. Living in Art. This show featured the monumental, space-within-a-space installation Visiona 2 by the Danish designer Verner Panton, which was purchased for the collection with the generous support of the Friends Association. Here it is presented opposite Tobias Rehberger's installation Decke Büroräume 1. Stock (Lévy, Schuppli, Hirsch, Ritschard, Pakesch) from 1998, extending and highlighting the interaction between art and design. This focus continued in 2007 with the opening of the Japan Garden, which forms part of the emerging dialogue on modernism in the 21st century and also reveals the close ties between the museum collection and the building itself. The main focus of the exhibition is on works that have been acquired since 2006. Among these is Gerhard Merz's temporary spatial installation An Etienne-Louis Boullée III. His glowing temple of light and four monumental colour panels are juxtaposed with Lawrence Weiner's word piece Bent & Broken Shafts of Light, which evokes light and colour purely through a spatial display of texts. The closing highlight of the exhibition is Lalibela Kabinett by Philip Taaffe, a pictorial tower of 384 ornamental leaves that was created in the context of the major retrospective of the American artist's work held here in 2008. Visit : http://www.kunstmuseum-  |
| Art Gallery of New South Wales Opens "Paths to Abstraction" Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:17 PM PST
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| Israel Museum Searches for Owners of Stolen Paintings Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:16 PM PST
JERUSALEM — In a remarkable feat of cooperation between France and Israel, requiring intensive negotiations and the passage of a law by the Israeli Parliament, the Israel Museum here has opened an exhibition of important art looted by the Nazis from France and then returned after the war. Some of it was never reclaimed, presumably because the owners were killed in the Holocaust.Running parallel to the show of French-held art is a companion exhibition: looted art, with no known owners, held in custody by the Israel Museum itself.  |
| San Jose ICA presents Neon Signs by Ray Beldner Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:15 PM PST
SAN JOSE, CA – The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) will showcase The Word on the Street, neon signs by Ray Beldner installed in the gallery's front windows at 560 South First Street. The Word on the Street is part of the ICA's "Night Moves" installation series, an innovative program that gives the ICA a nighttime presence and animates the downtown cultural landscape by showcasing after-dark programming in the gallery's windows. On view from March 28 – June 14, 2008.  |
| Tate Liverpool Announces a major Picasso: Peace and Freedom Exhibition Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:14 PM PST
 This is the first exhibition to explore the post-War period of the artist's life in depth, and will reflect a new Picasso for a new time. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the exhibition provides a timely look at Picasso's work in the Cold War era and how the artist transcended the ideological and aesthetic oppositions of East and West. The exhibition will bring together key paintings and drawings related to war and peace from 1944-1973, alongside a wide range of contextual materials and ephemera. The centrepiece will be the artist's masterpiece, The Charnel House 1944-45, marking 50 years since it was last seen in the UK. This remarkable work was Picasso's most explicitly political painting since Guernica 1937. Monument to the Spaniards who Died for France late 1945 to 31 January 1947 will also feature in the exhibition along with The Rape of the Sabine Women 1962, painted at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis on the verge of Third World War. Picasso's Dove of Peace became the emblem for the Peace Movement and universal symbol of hope during the Cold War. Picasso's lithograph of the fan-tailed pigeon, given to him by Matisse in 1948, was selected for the poster of the First International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1949. Picasso later provided variations on the dove for the Peace Congresses in Wroclaw, Stockholm, Sheffield, Vienna, Rome and Moscow. The dove also had a highly personal significance for Picasso going back to childhood memories of his father painting doves kept in the family home. In 1949 Picasso named his daughter 'Paloma' – Spanish for 'dove' – born in the same month as the Peace Congress in Paris. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was arguably the most influential and prolific artist of the 20th century. After 1944 Picasso, the greatest living artist, became a figurehead of left wing causes. He joined the Communist party in 1944 and it was during this period that the political content of his work came to the fore. His paintings frequently reference and comment upon key historical moments, chronicling human conflict and war, but also a desire for peace. The exhibition is organised by Tate Liverpool in collaboration with the Albertina, Vienna where it will be shown following its presentation in Liverpool. Vienna hosted the World Peace Congress in 1952, promoted by a poster featuring Picasso's drawing of a dove surrounded by a circle of interlocking hands.  |
| Photos by Tseng Kwong Chi with Keith Haring at Paul Kasmin Gallery Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:13 PM PST
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| The Columbia Museum of Art Opens "An Artist’s Eye" Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:12 PM PST  Columbia, SC.- The Columbia Museum of Art has invited guest curator Sigmund Abeles to bring a fresh eye and different perspective to the Museum's collection of modern and contemporary art. His selection of over 80 works is based on his personal taste, preferences and attitudes about contemporary art, which he developed over a 50-year career. The premise is that an artist brings a different 'eye' and set of criteria to the table in evaluating art than does a curator or an art historian, whose training tends toward historical context rather than artistic practice. This different viewpoint – born from a background of method, process, creation and materials – can yield a new and interesting perspective to the selection and display of modern and contemporary artwork from our collection. The exhibition "An Artist's Eye" remains on view at the museum until October 23rd.  |
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| Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:10 PM PST  The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia (MCA) is celebrating its 20th anniversary in November 2011. Originally established using a bequest left by Australian artist John Power to the University of Sydney to "inform and educate Australians in the contemporary visual arts", the museum was opened to the public in 1991. The Museum of Contemporary Art is Australia's only museum dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting and collecting contemporary art from across Australia and around the world. With a continually changing program of exhibitions there's always something new, exciting and inspiring to see at the MCA. The land on which the MCA building is situated has great historical significance, originally owned by the Eora people of the Gadigal nation, the site also marks the landing place of the First Fleet in Port Jackson in 1788. In 1802 Sydney's first hospital and wharf were built nearby, with commissariat stores built by Colonel Foveaux in 1812. In the 1930s the commissariat stores and taxation building were demolished to make way for a new Maritime Services Board (MSB) building (the previous MSB offices were displaced by the Cahill Express Way and Circular Quay railway development). Government architect W.H. Withers began work on the building plans in 1939. Work resumed in 1944 under government architect W D H Baxter after a postponement of four years from 1940 due to Australia's involvement in World War II. Builders were appointed in 1946 but difficulties in securing labor and material due to post war shortages delayed construction. The foundation stone was laid in 1949 and in 1952 the MSB building opened. With the relocation of the MSB to larger premises in 1989 the building was gifted by the NSW State Government to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Funded by the University of Sydney and the Power Bequest, restoration and refurbishment of the building commenced in 1990 under the direction of Andrew Andersons of Peddle Thorpe/John Holland Interiors and in November 1991 the Museum of Contemporary Art officially opened. The MCA is currently in the middle of building works to create a new northern wing, however, disruption is minimal and the potential visitor should not be put off. The museum hosts over 750,000 visitors annually. Be sure to visit the museum's website at . . http://www.mca.com.au/  The cornerstone of the current collection are the works donated by J W Power and those bought using his generous financial bequest. The J W Power Collection is the largest of the MCA's collections and was established through the 'Power Bequest to The University of Sydney'. The will of the late John Power stated that the Bequest should be"put towards the purchase of contemporary art ... so as to bring the people of Australia in more direct touch with the latest art developments in other countries." The Power Collection is a varied and eclectic collection of works by Australian and international artists from the late 1960s up until the constitution of the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1989. Within the Collection are 1,103 paintings, oil sketches and drawings by John Power himself, as well as a variety of works by other artists including kinetic work from the 1960s and 1970s, op art, performance pieces, pop art, minimalist works, and more recent works from 1980s. Artists featured in the Power Collection include Ulay and Marina Abramovic, Valerio Adami, Joseph Beuys, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Juan Davila, Neil Dawson, Gilbert and George, Richard Hamilton, Keith Haring, Edward Kienholz, Barbara Kruger, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Longo, Sidney Nolan, Ed Ruscha, Mike Parr, John Power, Cindy Sherman, Imants Tillers, Peter Tyndall, Andy Warhol, Jenny Watson, and John Young. The Loti and Victor Smorgon Collection of Contemporary Australian Art was gifted to the MCA in 1995 by private collectors Loti and Victor Smorgon, this collection of 154 works is a remarkable survey of work of the 1980s and 1990s by Australian artists spanning several generations. It represents paintings by artists who have emerged during one of the most lively and prolific periods in Australia's history, a time when artists had unprecedented representation in exhibitions and collections around the world. The collection focuses on three generations of artists working in Australia since the late 1960s. The first group comprises paintings from the 1980s by artists who exhibited in the landmark exhibition "The Field" in 1968. The second consists of a diverse group whose work was based in 1970s conceptual practice, and the third, a younger group of artists who emerged during the 1980s and 1990s. Artists represented in the Smorgon Collection include: Davida Allen, Howard Arkley, Peter Booth, Stephen Bush, Tony Clark, Juan Davila, Richard Dunn, Robert Hunter, Robert Jacks, Maria Kozic, Michael Johnson, Tim Johnson, Kerri Poliness, Vivienne Shark LeWitt, John Firth Smith, Imants Tillers, Dick Watkins, Jenny Watson and John Young. The MCA is also justifiably proud of its collections of Aboriginal art, including the Maningrida Collection of Aboriginal Art consisting of approximately 600 works created in and around the town of Maningrida. It includes works in fibre and other materials, including seeds, shells and feathers, mostly made by women. These beautiful objects reveal the ingenuity of the women and their ability to maintain strong links with the past, while at the same time incorporating new ideas and materials. The MCA's continue to develop their collections through acquisitions and loans.  Three temporary exhibitions are currently on view at the MCA, until July 19th 2011, "New Acquisitions in Context" celebrates five years of the MCA's successful "New Acquisitions" series of exhibitions. "New Acquisitions in Context" provides visitors with the opportunity to experience a diverse selection of Australian and international art as well as offering an insight into how the MCA Collection is developed. Spanning a range of media from sculpture and drawing to installation and video, the exhibition includes work by artists James Angus, Hany Armanious, John Barbour, Sophie Coombs, Juan Davila, Hayden Fowler, Simryn Gill, Matthew Griffin, Mary Gubriawuy, Patrick Hartigan, Mathew Jones, Peter Kennedy, Laith McGregor, James Morrison, Arlo Mountford, Dorota Mytych, Robert Rauschenberg, Sangeeta Sandrasegar, Tim Silver, Ken Thaiday, Imants Tillers, Günter Weseler and Simon Yates. "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life 1990 - 2005" (until 26th April) presents the work of legendary American photographer Annie Leibovitz to Australian audiences as part of the Sydney International Art Series. "Bardayal 'Lofty' Nadjamerrek AO" presents a retrospective of works by one of Australia's best loved Aboriginal artists until 20 March 2011. Born around 1926 in the Mann River region of Western Arnhem Land, Bardayal 'Lofty' Nadjamerrek AO (deceased), lived at Kabulwarnamyo outstation located on the upper Liverpool River, in the stone country of the Arnhem Land plateau. This exhibition traces the influence and development of the artist's practice and his legacy. Nadjamerrek's position on Western Arnhem Land art was unique. As a prominent elder he resided over clan estates with long links to cave painting sites, which trace some of the oldest forms of human expression. Nadjamerrek's earliest rock-art images are located at Karrmadjabdi, a shelter in his Mok clan estate on the Liverpool River, where he painted fish species, yam, rock possum and representations of Namorrodoh spirit beings by shaping bees wax and pressing them into the rock. In 1969, Bardayal began to paint on bark and paper remaining loyal to the natural pigments used for rock art. This exhibition explores the stories and places depicted in Nadjamerrek's work, providing visitors with a greater understanding and respect for the artist's unique traditions and origins. The Ramingining Collection of Aboriginal Art contains over 260 bark paintings and wood carved sculptural and functional objects. The works in the Collection centre on the Yolngu system of classification of the natural world. Groupings of works represent the mangroves, the forests, the freshwater swamps, the oceans and beaches, the jungles and the plains and the many creatures that inhabit them. A further collection of 285 bark paintings was donated to the MCA in June 1993 by Arnott's Biscuits Limited. Featuring work by artists from the late 1960s through to the early 1980s, it is one of the most significant and in-depth Aboriginal bark painting collections in the world.  |
| This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 03 Jan 2012 08:09 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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