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

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• The Philadelphia Museum of Art Explores "Van Gogh Up Close"
• The Haus der Kunst to Show Major Exhibition of Polish Artist Wilhelm Sasnal
• University Museums at the University of Delaware Showcases 3 Varied Exhibitions
• Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's legacy opens at the National Gallery of Art
• The 1500 Gallery Presents Japanese/Brazilian Photographer Hirosuke Kitamura
• The Clark explores the art of copying ~ "Copycat: Reproducing Works of Art"
• The Dixon Gallery features European masterpieces from The Speed Art Museum
• "American Vanguards" ~ Graham, Gorky, de Kooning, and their circle opens at the Neuberger Museum
• New Major Exhibition Highlights the Collection Frieder Burda
• MoMA Presents the Theatrical Premiere of Emily Hubley's film 'The Toe TacTic'
• The Barnsdall Art Park Exhibits Nazim M. Nazim's Paintings & Michael Todd's Sculptures
• The Famous Magnum Gallery to Open in Saint Germain des Prés in Paris
• The Oakland Museum to Show PIXAR-25 Years of Animation
• Tate Liverpool presents "Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today"
• "Compass" Drawings from The Museum of Modern Art on View at Martin-Gropius-Bau
• Heckscher Museum Identity Crisis in Art
• The Saatchi Gallery Brings "British Art Now" to the Art Gallery of South Australia
• Legendary Painter Grace Hartigan Bequeaths More Than $1 Million to Maryland Institutions
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to show 'Selections from the Cheech Marin Collection'
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Philadelphia Museum of Art Explores "Van Gogh Up Close" Posted: 29 Jan 2012 10:07 PM PST Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.- The Philadelphia Museum of Art is proud to be the only U.S. venue for A major traveling exhibition of work by Vincent van Gogh. "Van Gogh Up Close" will be on view at the museum from February 1st through May 6th. "I … am always obliged to go and gaze at a blade of grass, a pine-tree branch, an ear of wheat, to calm myself," Vincent van Gogh wrote in a letter to his sister, Wilhemina, in July of 1889. An artist of exceptional intensity, not only in his use of color and exuberant application of paint but also in his personal life, van Gogh was powerfully and passionately drawn to nature. From 1886, when van Gogh left Antwerp for Paris, to 1890 when he ended his own life in Auvers, van Gogh's feverish artistic experimentation and zeal for the natural world propelled him to radically refashion his still lifes and landscapes. With an ardent desire to engage the viewer with the strength of the emotions he experienced before nature, van Gogh radically altered and at times even abandoned traditional pictorial strategies in order to create still lifes and landscapes the likes of which had never before been seen. Van Gogh Up Close, a major exhibition organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Canada, presents a group of the artist's most daring and innovative works that broke with the past and dramatically altered the course of modern painting. Made between 1886 and 1890 in Paris, Arles, Saint-Rémy, and Auvers, the works in the exhibition concentrate on an important and previously overlooked aspect of van Gogh's work: "close-ups" that bring familiar subjects such as landscape elements, still lifes, and flowers into the extreme foreground of the composition or focus on them in ways that are entirely unexpected and without precedent. The exhibition includes more than 40 landscapes and still lifes, which have not been seen together or identified before as critical to our understanding of van Gogh's artistic achievement. Van Gogh Up Close, including major loans from museums and private collections in Europe, North America, and Japan, will be seen in the United States only in Philadelphia before traveling to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, its only Canadian venue, in the summer of 2012. After unsuccessfully pursuing careers as an art dealer, teacher, and pastor, Vincent van Gogh (1853 –1890), prompted by his brother Theo, began to study art in 1880. In the Netherlands in 1885, he completed his first major works using a palette of browns, greens, grays, and blacks. A year later, his work underwent a striking shift when, arriving in Paris, he was confronted for the first time by the Impressionist paintings of Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and by the new pointillist works of Georges Seurat and others. These progressive artists inspired him to lighten his palette and modernize his brushstroke. At roughly the same time, van Gogh began to collect Japanese woodblock prints, fascinated by their vibrant color, high horizon lines, tilting perspectives, and truncated or unusually cropped edges. These influences encouraged van Gogh to experiment with a radical treatment of field and space, flattening and compressing the picture plane in his paintings in order to create a sense of shifting perspective and tension. Working initially in the apartment he shared with Theo in Montmartre, van Gogh painted a series of still lifes of flowers and fruit such as Still Life with Pears (1888, Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister, Dresden) and Sunflowers (1887, Metropolitan Museum of Art). In these works, objects are often seen from above yet are placed very close to the picture plane in a tightly cropped space which provides no clues to their context or setting. Pieces of fruit appear to tip forward and threaten to roll out of the picture. Van Gogh's landscapes such as Undergrowth (1887, Centraal Museum, Utrecht) stress the abundance of grasses and flowers by cropping out the horizon. By the spring of 1888, troubled by intense personal anxieties, van Gogh sought refuge from city life and moved to Arles in the south of France. There he hoped to emulate Japanese artists, working in close communion with nature and studying "a single blade of grass" in order to better comprehend nature as a whole. Landscapes such as Field with Flowers Near Arles (1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) reflect a Japanese influence in their high horizon lines and bold colors. Here van Gogh began to adopt a more structured, deliberate treatment of his subjects. The open compositions that van Gogh created in Arles gave way to a series of landscapes painted in Saint-Rémy, where van Gogh had committed himself to an asylum late in 1888 after his break with Gauguin, and continued in Auvers outside Paris, where van Gogh ultimately took his life in 1890. In these densely packed compositions, the artist evoked the immediacy and closeness of his surroundings as he continued to develop an intimate, close up focus. The exhibition culminates in an audacious series of still lifes which were painted outdoors and take as their subject an extremely close view of a clump of iris, an upward gaze through a tangle of almond branches, or the vibrant patterning of a Death's-head moth. In these works van Gogh closes in on his subject, dramatically reducing the depth of field and maximizing the expressive impact of his brushwork and color. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States, showcasing more than 2,000 years of exceptional human creativity in masterpieces of painting, sculpture, works on paper, decorative arts and architectural settings from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. The Museum began as a legacy of the great Centennial Exhibition of 1876, held in Fairmount Park. At the conclusion of the celebrations, Memorial Hall--which had been constructed as the Exhibition's art gallery-- remained open as a Museum of Art and Industry "for the improvement and enjoyment of the people of the Commonwealth". In the first few decades, the collections consisted of objects of an industrial nature, as well as fine and decorative art objects such as European ceramics. Books were also among the Museum's earliest acquisitions, as were antique furniture, enamels, carved ivories, jewelry, metalwork, glass, pottery, porcelain, textiles, and paintings. In the early 1900s, the Museum published its first collection handbook and initiated an Education program for the general public. It wasn't long before a Membership program was in place, and plans for a new building gained momentum in the following decade. Director Fiske Kimball set the tone for a new era in the 1920s, and the opening of the new building on Fairmount--what is now the Main Building--opened with an attendance record of one million visitors in its first year. Valiant marketing efforts and the skillful leadership of President J. Stogdell Stokes helped to keep the Museum vital during the Great Depression of the 1930s, while the 1940s witnessed extraordinary growth in the collections with a number of important gifts--including the John D. McIlhenny Collection and the George Grey Barnard Collection. Acquisitions of the 1950s, such as the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection and the A.E. Gallation Collection, assured the Museum's prominence as a place in which to see masterpieces of early modern art. A number of period rooms were opened to the public as well, and the decade even saw the gift of Grace Kelly's wedding dress following her royal 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Conservation of objects and the renovation of the building were themes of the 1960s, with major gifts including The Mr. and Mrs. Carroll S. Tyson, Jr. Collection, The Samuel S. White III and Vera White Collection, 71 objects from designer Elsa Schiaparelli, and Marcel Duchamp's enigmatic Étant donnés. Renovation was a continued theme in the 1970s, as the institution prepared for grand celebrations in honor of the Museum's Centennial and the nation's Bicentennial. The 1980s witnessed still more growth, with acquisitions ranging from Edgar Degas's After the Bath to Cy Twombly's Fifty Days at Iliam. During the 1990s, the Museum made great technological strides as it prepared to leap into the 21st century. The Museum transitioned into the new millennium with ease, and continued to navigate the changes that the first decade would bring with grace and strength. Now, with an astonishing history behind it, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is poised to meet the decades to come as one of the nation's foremost destinations in which to see world-class art. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.philamuseum.org

The Haus der Kunst to Show Major Exhibition of Polish Artist Wilhelm Sasnal Posted: 29 Jan 2012 09:57 PM PST Munich, Germany  - The Haus der Kunst is proud to present "Wilhelm Sasnal", on view at the museum from February 3rd through May 13th. The exhibition provides insight into Sasnal's work from 1999 to the present. It shows more than 60 paintings and a selection of his films. The exhibition is organised by Whitechapel Gallery, London, in collaboration with Haus der Kunst, Munich. Wilhelm Sasnal (b. 1972 in Tarnow, Poland), has already attracted international attention with a series of solo exhibitions. His paintings chronicle the complex experience of life today.

University Museums at the University of Delaware Showcases 3 Varied Exhibitions Posted: 29 Jan 2012 09:44 PM PST Newark, Delaware.- The University Museums at the University of Delaware are presenting three special exhibitions this spring. "Stone Carvings by Gerd Dreher from the Herb and Monika Obodda Collection" has now been extended through July 20th 2012, and will be accompanied by "New Art at UD", opening on February 1st and also running through July 20th and "Magical Visions: Ten Contemporary African American Artists" also opening February 1st, and remaining on view through June 30th. "Magical Visions: Ten Contemporary African American Artists" brings together the work of artists who have pioneered significant changes in media including assemblage, fiber, painting, photography, printmaking, quilt making, and sculpture to video with performance. Through their own magical visions, these artists give birth to works that challenge traditions and open new vistas.

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione's legacy opens at the National Gallery of Art Posted: 29 Jan 2012 08:56 PM PST WASHINGTON, DC - An exhibition at the National Gallery of Art will showcase its rich holdings of works on paper by the Italian baroque master Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609–1664), as well as works by his contemporaries and followers. On view in the Gallery's West Building from January 29th to July 8th, The Baroque Genius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione suggests, for the first time, the complex sources of his style such as Rembrandt van Rijn and Claude Lorrain, as well as its importance for later artists, from Giambattista Piranesi and the Tiepolo family to Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The exhibition includes approximately 80 works, most from the Gallery's collection; many recently acquired and never before exhibited. The last exhibition in the United States to survey Castiglione's works on paper took place at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1971.

The 1500 Gallery Presents Japanese/Brazilian Photographer Hirosuke Kitamura Posted: 29 Jan 2012 08:55 PM PST New York City.- 1500 Gallery is pleased to present "Hidra", an exhibition of color photographs by the Japanese/Brazilian artist Hirosuke Kitamura, curated by the celebrated Brazilian artist Miguel Rio Branco. "Hidra" consists of 11 works, including a diptych and a triptych, and will be on view from February 1st through April 28th 2012. There will be a reception for the artist at 1500 Gallery on Wednesday, February 1st from 6-8 pm. The title Hidra is in Brazilian portuguese and refers to the many-headed Lernaean Hydra of Greek mythology.  These works were for the most part made in bregas (inexpensive brothels) in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), where Hirosuke, or "Oske" as he is known, has been making photographs regularly for over ten years. In the words of Miguel Rio Branco: "Something quietly emerges at every moment throughout these images: ghosts halfway between sex and death; fragments of seduction that wander in-between lost worlds.

The Clark explores the art of copying ~ "Copycat: Reproducing Works of Art" Posted: 29 Jan 2012 08:31 PM PST WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.- The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute opened its latest exhibition, Copycat: Reproducing Works of Art, on January 29. Exploring the line between innovation and imitation, the exhibition features 50 prints and photographs that are both original works of art and repetitions of drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures, and architecture created by other artists. The exhibition highlights the complex process of copying by studying replications of many rarely seen works from the Clark's permanent collection, including those by Albrecht Dürer, Paul Cézanne, Eugène Delacroix, Rembrandt van Rijn, Roger Fenton, and Édouard Manet, among others. The exhibition also marks the first public presentation of one of the Clark's recent acquisitions, Jean Dughet's series The Seven Sacraments. Copycat will be on view in the Clark's Manton Research Center building through April 1st.

The Dixon Gallery features European masterpieces from The Speed Art Museum Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:27 PM PST MEMPHIS, TN.- The Dixon Gallery and Gardens is presenting an exhibition of more than 70 major works by master painters Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo , Gainsborough, Hogarth and others from the renowned collection of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. On view through April 15th, Rembrandt, Rubens, and the Golden Age of Painting illustrates how the tremendous changes in religion, science, and politics coupled with economic growth in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave way to a golden age of painting. The exhibition is comprised of brilliant portraits, religious paintings, landscapes, scenes of everyday life, still lifes, and interpretations of classical antiquity.

"American Vanguards" ~ Graham, Gorky, de Kooning, and their circle opens at the Neuberger Museum Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:26 PM PST PURCHASE, NY.- From the late 1920s to the early 1940s, many of America's most inventive and important artists, including Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Adolph Gottlieb, forged their identities, dramatically transforming conceptions of what a painting or sculpture could be. A group linked by friendship and common aspirations, many had shared experiences in the classes of influential Czech Cubist Jan Matulka at the Art Students League and in the Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. Most significantly, they were all closely associated with John Graham (1887-1961), the enigmatic Russian-born artist, connoisseur, and theorist. They, along with others such as Jackson Pollock and David Smith, all drawn together by their common commitment to modernism and their eagerness to exchange ideas, played a critical role in developing and defining American modernism. American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927-1942, an exhibition opening on January 29th at the Neuberger Museum of Art of Purchase College, showcases more than sixty works of art from these vital years by Graham and the members of his circle, providing compelling testimony to the dialogue and cross-fertilization that existed during this period in the history of American art. The high level of the work these artists made not only points ahead to their future accomplishments, but also demonstrates that the decade of the thirties, far from being solely a period of depression and retrenchment, was a time of exciting and important innovation. The exhibition sheds new light on the New York School, abstract Expressionism and the vitality of American modernism between the two world wars, providing a long overdue examination of an important and little-studied period in American art. American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927-1942 was organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. The exhibition will be presented from June 9 - August 19 at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, then travel to the Addison where it will be on view from September 21st-December 31st. Generous support for this exhibition and publication was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and The Dedalus Foundation, Inc., and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, co-published by the Addison and Yale University Press, and was curated by scholars William C. Agee, Irving Sandler, and Karen Wilkin. AMERICAN VANGUARDS: BACKGROUND Graham, Gorky and Davis were together so constantly that they were known as the "Three Musketeers." The young de Kooning, who met the trio not long after arriving in New York, joined them as d'Artagnan did Dumas' fictional heroes. De Kooning always credited the "Three Musketeers" with developing his understanding of modernism; "I was lucky enough when I came to this country," he said, "to meet the smartest guys on the scene: Gorky, Stuart Davis, and John Graham, David Smith, his wife Dorthy Dehner, Adolph Gottlieb, David Burliuk, Edgar Levy, and Matulka -- were also part of the inner circle -- a cross-section of some of the most remarkable American artists of the period. This inner sanctum of New York modernism was notably diverse. Some were European born. Others were irreducibly American, but they were all drawn together by their common commitment to modernism, their hunger for the information that Graham, who traveled frequently to Europe, could provide, and their eagerness to exchange ideas. Graham's System and Dialectics of Art, first published in 1937, seems to echo their conversations, in the form of a Socratic dialogue probing the origins of creativity, the nature of abstraction, the aims of modernism, and much more. Graham believed that the best of his American friends could hold their own with anyone and in System and Dialects of Art, he listed those he declared to be as good as their European counterparts, including Jan Matulka, David Smith, Stuart Davis, de Kooning, and Edgar Levy. Despite Graham's close links with so many key figures during the seminal years of American abstraction, little attention has been paid to these important relationships. American Vanguards assembles works by Graham and the members of his circle from the years of their association, providing compelling testimony to the dialogue and cross-fertilization, the common sources and stimuli, that existed during this vital period in the history of American art. The high level of the work these artists made during these formative years not only points ahead to their future accomplishments but also gives the lie to the persistent rumor that American art was provincial during the 1930s. It also demonstrates that the decade of the thirties, far from being solely a period of depression and retrenchment, was a time of exciting and important innovation. JOHN GRAHAM Graham seems an unlikely central figure in the history of twentieth century American modernism. Born in Kiev, Ukraine (then Russia), in 1887, he was an art lover, trained as a lawyer, who served in the czar's army, before coming to the United States in 1920. In America, he became a serious, full time painter, as well as a connoisseur, aesthete, collector, advisor to collectors, art theorist, occasional poet, and full time mystic. Graham had a wide-ranging, idiosyncratic command of the history of art, and expertise in African sculpture. He was most informed about current advanced European art, not only as an intelligent observer, but also as a friend of many of the Parisian vanguard. Graham's frequent trips to Europe and his familiarity with European modernists made him a catalytic figure for aspiring New York painters and sculptors, most of them much younger than he. He was a source of news, gossip, and influential publications. Many of the most gifted young artists of the period were associated with Graham and affected by that contact, in an intricate web of shifting connections. Alliances were multiple and sometimes shifted. Among the "Three Musketeers," Stuart Davis and Archile Gorky's once very close friendship cooled during the difficult years of the Depression, largely because Gorky did not share Davis's enthusiasm for social activism and preferred to stay in the studio. Gorky's studio relationship with de Kooning, however, intensified. Smith, Dehner, Levy, and Gottlieb were neighbors as well as colleagues, but they may have been introduced originally by Graham, who knew Gottlieb from their early years at the Art Students League. When Davis went to Paris for an extended stay, he and Graham made prints at the same atelier. Davis wrote home from Paris about attending the opening of an exhibition by the expatriate sculptor Alexander Calder, who did a portrait in wire of Graham. Everywhere we turn, we find Graham as the connecting thread among these diverse personalities. JOHN GRAHAM AND DAVID SMITH David Smith's history illustrates how important Graham could be to the artistic evolution of his young American artist friends. Smith and his wife, Dorothy Dehner, first met Graham, who was two decades older, at the Art Students League in 1930, and through him met Stuart Davis, Archile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning. In New York, Graham showed Smith magazine photos of the first welded sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Joan Gonzàlez. The images provoked Smith, who still considered himself primarily a painter, into constructing with metal, essentially changing Smith's future direction. Later, Davis saw several Gonzàlez sculptures, probably the first in the United States, that were in Graham's possession. Graham welcomed Smith and Dehner to Paris on their first European trip and introduced them to artists and writers. Dehner recalled, "Matulka was the great influence on David's painting; but John Graham was a perfectly tremendous influence on his life and philosophic attitude. He introduced David to a wider world." JOHN GRAHAM AND STUART DAVIS The friendship between John Graham and Stuart Davis solidified in 1928 when they were both on extended sojourns in Paris. The two worked in nearby studios (Davis rented his from Graham's friend Matulka), and they made prints in the same studio. Graham arranged for Fernand Léger and Davis to exchange studio visits. While the similar subject matter and robust surfaces of Graham's and Davis's Paris pictures bear witness to their friendship, the pragmatic Davis never shared Graham's interest in surrealist notions about taping the unconscious mind in creating art, just as he failed to share his friend Gorky's fascination with these ideas. Davis remained faithful to his own vernacular Cubist idiom. What was more important, all of the Musketeers had ambitions independent of existing European-inspired approaches. In 1930, Graham wrote, "Stuart Davis, Gorky, and myself have formed a group and something original, purely American is coming out from under our brushes." THE FOURTH MUSKETEER If, as Willem de Kooning teasingly claimed, John Graham, Stuart Davis, and Archile Gorky were the Athos, Porthos, and Aramis of the New York art world before World War II, he himself quickly assumed the role of d'Artagnan. Each of the Musketeers was significant to the young Dutchman's evolution as an artist, but the most important was Gorky, de Kooning's near-contemporary and fellow immigrant, albeit a far less recent one and a more sophisticated modernist. De Kooning always acknowledged his debt to Gorky, cryptically giving the address of Gorky's Union Square studio as the place he "came from." Although there is ample evidence that the two painters shared an interest in biomorphic abstraction, the clearest evidence of their closeness can be found in their exquisitely crafted figure paintings, which both continued to make in the late 1930s and 1940s, while also investigating the possibilities of abstraction. Graham also made intermittent forays into figure painting at this time. Gorky, de Kooning, and Graham all had complicated responses to the presumed need to choose between image and abstraction. Gorky worked for years on two portraits of himself as a child with his mother, even while painting the abstract images that established his reputation. De Kooning regularly returned to figural references for the rest of his life, most notoriously, in the series of grinning Women that he began in the late 1940s. Graham abandoned abstraction after the early 1940s to make eerie, carefully rendered figures. Graham's own work and his views were changing at this time. He seemed to lose faith with modernism and take refuge in mysticism and the values of Old Master art. He deleted the names of the progressive American artists he once championed when he revised System and Dialectics of Art his text on art theory and, in his painting, he concentrated on carefully drawn and modeled figurative works, such as this exhibition's Poussin m'instruit, for the rest of his life. Graham's meticulous figures suggest that he had paid close attention to Gorky and de Kooning's portraits, but the close relationship among the Three Musketeers, Graham, Gorky, Davis, and their faithful d'Artagnan, de Kooning, was over. Visit The Neuberger Museum of Art of Purchase College at : http://www.neuberger.org/index.php

New Major Exhibition Highlights the Collection Frieder Burda Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:20 PM PST BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY- From March 25, 2010 to June 20, 2010, a selection of works from the Collection Frieder Burda will be on display at the Museum Frieder Burda, making for an inspiring encounter with important works from its inventory, as well as with recently acquired paintings. The exhibition, entitled "There is something about these pictures…", will comprise more than 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and art installations by Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Isa Genzken, Neo Rauch, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmar Polke, Willem de Kooning, Gregory Crewdson, Anton Henning, Nedko Solakov, Axel Hütte, Max Beckmann, as well as by Johannes Hüppi, John Chamberlain and William N. Copley. The title "There is something about these pictures…" refers to a quotation by the collector Frieder Burda, while talking about his passion for art and the intuitive way in which he built his collection. The Collection Frieder Burda numbers among Europe's major private art collections. It is so multifaceted that every new encounter offers a wide range of new perceptions and perspectives. The exhibition will be co-curated by the young art historian Patricia Kamp and Jean-Christophe Ammann, the former director of the Museum for Modern Art (Museum für Moderne Kunst) in Frankfurt. The presentation takes risks by boldly relating works in such a way that emphasis is placed on both the qualitative potential of the collection as well as the willingness, so to speak, of the works to respond to one another. What the two curators have developed is a statement of faith in the ability of the pictures to enter into a direct dialogue. Yet they first and foremost take up the collector's vision that the pictures not only do something to him, the collector, but that they also have something to do with each other. Multifaceted Collection The Frieder Burda Collection has its roots in German expressionism, and currently comprises more than 850 paintings, sculptures and works on paper. The fascination of colour and the emotional expressive qualities of painting are at the centre of the collector's interest in art. This perspective has given rise to a Collection with a personal style, bringing together pioneering positions of painting in the 20th and 21st century. In so doing, the Collection concentrates on a select number of artists whose works are acquired with determination, assembling a comprehensive range of the oeuvre of some artists Light and space installations One of the highlights of the exhibition will be an installation by the painter Anton Henning, who will travel to Baden-Baden to personally create a spatial situation specifically for this exhibition. Another highlight will be a light installation by US artist James Turrell, one of the best-known contemporary light artists: a room flooded with a mysterious and sublime light that is embracing the visitor like a shell. Thus, Turrell provides an entirely new definition to the perception of surface and colour. Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov will treat the walls of the Museum Frieder Burda as a giant canvas, scrawling his doodle-like, narrative drawings along a sequence of rooms. Solakov studied mural painting at the Academy of Arts in Sophia. He has created an oeuvre of funny, sarcastic and sometimes melancholic drawings, texts or installations that invite not only to laughter but reflection as well. Frieder Burda: "I am curious about how James Turell's light installation will look and, of course, I long to see Anton Henning's and Nedko Solakov's art interventions in Richard Meier's building." Previous exhibitions have focused on Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, and American painting, among others. This time, however, owing to the emotional and expressionist qualities of the chosen works, the accent will be placed on new, surprising dialogue situations, thus providing a particularly individual insight into the collection's development and its basic character. Visit the Museum Frieder Burda at : http://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/

MoMA Presents the Theatrical Premiere of Emily Hubley's film 'The Toe TacTic' Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:19 PM PST   NEW YORK, NY - The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents the theatrical premiere of Emily Hubley's feature debut, The Toe Tactic, a nimbly creative film that brings to life a layered world of reality and imagination through the combination of Hubley's distinctive, handdrawn animation and live action. Hubley, who has been making animated shorts for 30 years, unspools the whimsical story of a young woman engulfed by loss and the mystical events she encounters over the course of a problematic but magical weekend. By juxtaposing different views of reality, The Toe Tactic addresses themes of memory, loss, and renewal.

The Barnsdall Art Park Exhibits Nazim M. Nazim's Paintings & Michael Todd's Sculptures Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:18 PM PST Hollywood, CA.-  The Barnsdall Art Park is pleased to announce two exhibitions, "Nazim M. Nazim: Power Animals" and "Michael Todd: Bronze and Steel", both on view until October 1st. Both exhibits are curated by Jeff Phillips of The Art Art Project and feature new works by these contemporary artists. The exhibits celebrate of both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art creation, featuring the masterly painting skills and content of the work of Nazim M. Nazim, and the exuberance and epic-scale of Michael Todd's most recent sculptures.

The Famous Magnum Gallery to Open in Saint Germain des Prés in Paris Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:17 PM PST PARIS.- On November 20, 2009, Magnum, the legendary photo collective, will open a gallery in the heart of Saint Germain des Prés, in the former exhibition spaces of Robert Delpire, one of France's most distinguished publishers and photography connoisseurs. The opening exhibition, "Demain/Hier" (tomorrow/yesterday) will be curated by Robert Delpire himself and will focus on the 'new generation' of Magnum photographers, set against the backdrop of those who founded the photographers' collective decennia ago. With one existing gallery in Montmartre, the opening of a space at the whirling core of Saint Germain not only positions Magnum in the epicenter of an illustrious and vivifying arts neighborhood, it also takes the collective right back to its origins which were deeply rooted in Paris's Left Bank. This history will be the background against which an engaging program of commercial exhibitions, lectures and events will be set, aimed at revealing the personality as much as the work of all eighty Magnum members.

The Oakland Museum to Show PIXAR-25 Years of Animation Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:16 PM PST OAKLAND, CA - The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) will present PIXAR: 25 Years of Animation, a major exhibition of over 500 works by the artists at Pixar Animation Studios, including drawings, paintings, and sculptures that illustrate the creative process and craftsmanship behind Pixar's wildly successful computer-animated films. This will be a significantly enhanced presentation of the exhibition, which is returning home to Oakland after a successful worldwide tour that began at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2005. A number of significant works will be on public display for the first time, including art from Ratatouille, WALL•E, Up, and Pixar's latest feature film, Toy Story 3.   PIXAR will also include an updated, awe-inspiring version of the Pixar Artscape, a widescreen media installation. On view from July 31, 2010 through January 9, 2011, the exhibition will be accompanied by screenings of Pixar's feature and short films; a special program of lectures, talks and workshops with Pixar artists; and a new and expanded exhibition catalogue. "The Bay Area, has emerged as the global center for animation today, making OMCA an ideal venue for this comprehensive exhibition of Pixar's achievements," said Lori Fogarty, Executive Director of the Oakland Museum of California. "This Museum's mission is to connect communities to the natural and cultural heritage of California, and we believe that Pixar is in many ways a quintessential California enterprise. Not only does Pixar carry on the extraordinary legacy of animation in California-and particularly the pioneering creativity of the Walt Disney Studios-but it represents the dynamic marriage of art and technology that is a hallmark of California innovation." "We're thrilled to see this greatly enhanced version of the exhibition come to the newly reopened Oakland Museum of California, our hometown museum and practically a neighbor," adds John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. "Most people don't realize that many Pixar artists work in traditional media-drawing, painting, pastels, and sculpture-as well as in digital media. This artwork plays a particularly important role in the process of concept design, story, and character development. OMCA celebrates the breadth of California creativity through its collections and it is wonderful to revisit the craftsmanship of Pixar artists in this context." About the Exhibition At the heart of PIXAR are the concept drawings, sketches, paintings, and maquettes created by Pixar artists over the past 25 years to bring to life the compelling characters and stories that have enchanted moviegoers of all ages around the world. Drawing on work from Pixar's eleven feature films and many of its short films, the exhibition spans some of the studio's first short films created in the 1980s; its first feature-length film, Toy Story, the first fully computer-animated feature film ever produced; Pixar's recent Academy Award-winning feature Up; and its latest film, Toy Story 3, to be released this summer. PIXARwill showcase more than 500 artifacts, including many of the pencil drawings; paintings in acrylic, gouache, and watercolor; and sculptures that form the backbone of the computer-generated images (CGIs) for which Pixar has become internationally recognized. The exhibition also includes video interviews with artists and behind-the-scenes footage of Pixar's creative process. Walt Disney's arrival in Los Angeles in the 1920s established California as a magnet and training ground for future generations of animation artists. Home to a number of leading studios, the San Francisco Bay Area has today emerged as a creative hub and global center for computer-animated film. PIXAR provides an unprecedented look at the artistry, creative process, and technical advances pioneered by the renowned Emeryville-based studio, located just a few miles from the Oakland Museum of California. From its founding in 1986, Pixar has been at the forefront of a revolution in animation by creating films that have pushed the limits of traditional animation artistry and groundbreaking computer applications. PIXAR invites visitors to trace different stages in animation production, from early concept design and character, scene, and story development to finished film sequences that transport the viewer into the world of the imagination. Pixar Animation Studios, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, A highlight of the exhibition will be two special media installations-Artscape, an immersive, wide-screen projection of digitally processed images that gives the viewer the sensation of entering into and exploring the exquisite details of the original artworks; and the Pixar Zoetrope, a three-dimensional device that displays a rapid succession of images, creating the illusion of motion. PIXAR will feature storyboards, a tool to guide scene-by-scene narrative progression, from several of the studio's short films. The exhibition will also showcase colorscripts created during the making of many Pixar feature films. Colorscripts are used to express the production designer's vision of the story through color and emotion. They can be produced in a variety of mediums, from marker to pastel to paint and collage. PIXAR will be installed in approximately 11,000 square feet of temporary exhibition galleries and expand into common spaces such as hallways and the museum store. Mural size graphics and video projections will be used throughout OMCA's newly renovated landmark facility-linking the exhibition to the Museum's collections and encouraging visitors to explore the work of Pixar artists as part of a continuum of creativity and innovation in California. "One of our goals is to connect PIXAR to the legacy of California's pioneering role in imaging technology, including early photography by artists such as Eadweard Muybridge, who was instrumental in developing the moving picture," says René de Guzman, senior curator of art at OMCA. "We also have amazing collections of daguerreotypes, albumen stereographs, nineteenth-century photographic panoramas, and new media that illustrate how California has been at the frontier of how images are created." A publication entitled Pixar: 25 Years of Animation, published by Chronicle Books for OMCA, will accompany the exhibition. The book greatly enhances and updates the original exhibition catalogue, featuring an additional 32 pages including art from Ratatouille, WALL•E, Up, and Pixar's latest film, Toy Story 3. Also included in the book is a conversation between Rene de Guzman, senior curator of art at the Oakland Museum of California, and Elyse Klaidman, director of the Pixar University and Archives, focusing on the creative process behind Pixar's computer-animated films and the making of this exhibition. The book will be released on June 18. It will be available for purchase exclusively at the new OMCA Store and through the Museum's website. Visit the  Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) at :   www.museumca.org

Tate Liverpool presents "Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today" Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:15 PM PST LIVERPOOL - At a time of unprecedented interest in the role of colour in graphic design, fashion and interior design, Tate Liverpool will be presenting Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today. The exhibition looks at the moment in twentieth-century art, when a group of artists began to perceive colour as 'readymade' rather than as scientific or expressive. The exhibition has been created by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collaboration with Tate Liverpool. On exhibition 29 May through 13 September, 2009.

"Compass" Drawings from The Museum of Modern Art on View at Martin-Gropius-Bau Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:14 PM PST BERLIN.- "Compass" presents an extensive selection from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection, an extraordinary treasure trove of nearly 2.600 works on paper by over 600 artists, acquired by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in may 2005. The collection was amassed between 2003 and 2005 with the intention to give a broad overview over the medium of drawing in all its material manifestations at that time. It includes studies and sketches as well as monumental finished works; works painstakingly produced with the help of technical tools such as rulers and spontaneous scribbles with no special regard for finish; narrative and figurative works and a broad range of abstractions; works in traditional media such as pencil, watercolours and gouache, and various print techniques, as well as rubbings and transfers of soil, pigments, plant extracts, soot, foodstuffs, and body fluids; it incorporates assemblage, collage, and found objects.

Heckscher Museum Identity Crisis in Art Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:13 PM PST HUNTINGTON, NY .- The Heckscher Museum of Art presents Identity Crisis: Authenticity, Attribution and Appropriation. This exceptional exhibition which opened on January 15, 2011 and runs through March 27, 2011, explores issues relating to the artistic use of other artists' styles and images in historical and contemporary works. Historically popular artists had followers, imitators and forgers, while more recent artists openly adopt well-known images and styles to comment on originality, authorship and culture. This exhibition presents old master and nineteenth-century works from The Heckscher Museum Permanent Collection, providing a framework for connoisseurship issues, such as authenticity and attribution. Artists to be considered include Canaletto, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-Desire-Gustave Courbet, and George Inness, among others. Contemporary appropriation artists add a new dimension to the use of adopted images, as seen in the work of such artists as Mike Bidlo, David Bierk, George Deem, Audrey Flack, Kathleen Gilje, Paul Giovanopoulos, Deborah Kass, Jiri Kolar, Sherrie Levine, Carlo Mariani, Yasumasa Morimura, Vik Muniz, Richard Pettibone, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and others, providing an instructive and stimulating counterpoint to the issues raised by the historical works in the show. The Heckscher Museum of Art, founded in 1920 by August Heckscher, is dedicated to furthering the appreciation and understanding of art by conserving, interpreting, refining and expanding its Permanent Collection, fostering scholarship, and presenting stimulating and inspiring exhibitions and educational programs for this and future generations. The Museum Permanent Collection contains more than 2,200 works from the early 16th century to present. The Heckscher Museum of Art's collection spans 500 years of Western art with particular emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Established in 1920 with a gift from August Heckscher of 185 works, the collection now numbers more than 2100 pieces by American and European artists.  American landscape painting and work by Long Island artists, past and present, are particular strengths, as is American and European modernism.  Photography is a growing part of the collection. American modernism is the focus of the Baker-Pisano Collection, which includes Georgia O'Keeffe's watercolor Machu Picchu (Peruvian Landscape), 1956 (shown in sidebar), as well as works by Oscar Bluemner, Charles Burchfield, Arthur B. Carles, Charles Demuth, Guy Pène du Bois, Rockwell Kent, Paul Manship, John Marin, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Stella, and Max Weber. The earliest major work in the collection is Lucas Cranach the Elder's Virgin, Child, St. John the Baptist and Angels, 1534 (shown in sidebar),  which was painted in the artist's native Germany.  Other old master works include seventeenth-century Dutch and Italian paintings and English portraiture, including works by Beechey, D'Hondecoeter, Girardon, Largillierre, Raeburn, Verbeeck, and Verstraelen.  Nineteenth-century European holdings include works by Eugène Louis Boudin, Gustave Courbet, and Jean Léon Gérôme. Nineteenth century American landscape painting in The Heckscher collection includes Frederic Church's Autumn, 1845, Asher B. Durand's Keene Valley, 1860s (shown in sidebar), George Inness's, The Pasture, Durham, Connecticut, c. 1879, and Albert Bierstadt's, Autumn Landscape, undated, as well as works by Ralph Albert Blakelock, Alfred Thompson Bricher, and Samuel Colman.  The Moran family of landscape painters, many of whom lived on Long Island, is well-represented with works by Thomas Moran, Edward Moran, E. Percy Moran, Leon John Moran, Mary Nimmo Moran, and Peter Moran.  Thomas Moran's Bluebeard's Castle, 1915, is a visitor favorite.  The museum also owns a rare Winslow Homer tile painting, The Resting Shepherdess, 1878, and Thomas Eakins's, sketch for The Cello Player, 1896. The Museum has significant holdings in the work of three important Huntington artists:  the American modernists Arthur Dove and his wife Helen Torr, and the Berlin Dadaist George Grosz.  Except for five years spent in Dove's hometown of Geneva, N.Y., Dove and Torr lived in Huntington from 1924 until their respective deaths:  Dove in 1946 and Torr in 1967.  Prime examples of their work here include Dove's watercolor Boat, 1932, his oil painting Indian Summer, 1941, and Helen Torr's oil Oyster Stakes, 1929.  George Grosz lived in Huntington from 1947 to 1959, the year he died.  His influence was significant in the full-time reopening of The Heckscher Museum after World War II; and he taught art at the Museum through the Huntington Township Art League.  The Museum's Grosz holdings comprise fifteen paintings and works on paper, including his large masterpiece Eclipse of the Sun, 1926 (shown in sidebar),  an allegory about greed, power, and corruption in Germany's military-industrial complex of the 1920s. Many consider this painting to be one of the most important art works of the twentieth-century. In photography, the Museum has extensive holdings of the work of Berenice Abbott, Larry Fink, and Eadweard Muybridge. The collection recently received an important gift of Man Ray's Electricité portfolio of 1931, consisting of ten rayographs commissioned by a Parisian electric company, the Compagnie Parisienne de Distribution d'Electricité (CPDE), to promote the domestic uses of electricity. The most significant contemporary work recently acquired by the Museum is Your House, 2006 by the Scandinavian artist Olafur Eliasson. This specially designed book of laser-cut sheets presents a progression of  views of the interior of a house as one leafs through the pages.

The Saatchi Gallery Brings "British Art Now" to the Art Gallery of South Australia Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:12 PM PST Adelaide, AU.- "Saatchi Gallery in Adelaide: British Art Now" will bring together the audacious best of contemporary art straight from London's internationally acclaimed Saatchi Gallery – arguably the biggest influence on contemporary British art over the past 25 years. It features groundbreaking works that challenge conventional artistic sensibilities, created by more than forty of the new generation of daring British contemporary artists. "Saatchi Gallery in Adelaide: British Art Now" will be on view at the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide from 30th July until 23rd October.

Legendary Painter Grace Hartigan Bequeaths More Than $1 Million to Maryland Institutions Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:11 PM PST BALTIMORE, MD.- The late Grace Hartigan, a celebrated Abstract Expressionist painter who served as director of MICA's Hoffberger School of Painting since its inception in 1965, has left more than $1 million in paintings combined to the College and Maryland Art Place (MAP), according to both institutions' Boards of Trustees. Hartigan, who died on Nov. 15, 2008 at the age of 86, had deep connections to MICA and MAP for many years, said MICA faculty Rex Stevens, Hartigan's former student, longtime friend, studio assistant and personal representative. Hartigan's gift will provide funds for Maryland Art Place's future projects, said Cathy Byrd, executive director of MAP.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to show 'Selections from the Cheech Marin Collection' Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:10 PM PST Los Angeles, CA - Nearly fifty paintings by Los Angeles-based artists represented in Cheech Marin's noted collection of Chicano art will be presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), from June 15 through November 2, 2008. Marin, the entertainer well known for his work in movies, television, and stand-up comedy, has been collecting art for more than twenty years, and has amassed one of the largest private collections of Chicano art. The exhibition, Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections from the Cheech Marin Collection, includes a number of widely-exhibited works by such first-generation Chicano artists as Carlos Almaraz, Margaret Garcia, Gilbert "Magu" Luján, Frank Romero, John Valadez, and Patssi Valdez, whose artistic careers began during the Chicano civil rights movement in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, as well as works by such younger artists as Vincent Valdez and David Flury. Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A. is a Los Angeles-focused selection of Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge, an exhibition of the Marin collection that toured nationally between 2001 and 2007.   The Chicano art movement arose in California in response to the political, cultural, and labor causes of the period. Inspired by the struggles of migrant farm workers led by the late labor organizer Cesar Chavez, Chicanismo evolved into a general political and cultural revolution, stressing political self-empowerment, an assertion of cultural identity, and an affirmation of ethnic pride among Americans of Mexican heritage. Many first-generation Chicano artists were political activists creating posters, graphics, and murals in the monumental tradition. Others, including most of the artists in Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A., revealed Chicano experience through scenes of daily life in barrio neighborhoods, expressive portraiture, and surrealist-influenced "dreamscapes" with a keen psychological edge.   Among the highlights of the exhibition are: Carlos Almaraz's panoramic views of Los Angeles, such as California Natives (1988) in which the city is depicted as a paradise, suffused with a radiant magical aura, yet with danger and cataclysm always lurking; Gilbert "Magu" Luján's depictions of car culture and its devotees, as in Blue Dog (1990), which are often surrounded by figures with contemporary updates of characters drawn from pre-Colombian mythology, such as Trickster the Coyote; and the intimately-scaled and deeply personal paintings of Patssi Valdez, like Little Girl With Yellow Dress (1995), which suggest memories of childhood or the haunting images of dreams. The exhibition's title wall will also prove exceptional—LACMA has commissioned Charles "Chaz" Bojórquez, widely recognized as the first graffiti artist to bring the act of tagging from the street into the studio, to create the title wall at the entrance to the exhibition and to inscribe the participating artists' names on two architectural columns within the galleries.   Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A will be supplemented with select works from LACMA's own holdings, as well as several significant works from other area collectors. "Many historians acknowledge Southern California as the birthplace of Chicano art, and we are pleased to present these works at LACMA, where we have a special focus on Southern California art in both our exhibition and acquisition program," said Michael Govan, Wallis Annenberg Director and CEO of LACMA.   Cheech Marin said "It is especially gratifying to bring this collection to LACMA's large and diverse audience. Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A. provides an opportunity for the public to become better acquainted with numerous artists whose achievement enriches Chicano art, as well as the cultural life of Los Angeles."   Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A. will be presented as part of LACMA's ongoing Latino Arts Initiative established in conjunction with the Chicano Studies Research Center of the University of California (CRSC), Los Angeles. The collaborative effort capitalizes on the strengths of both institutions to create a greater understanding of Chicano and Latino arts and cultures for the wider public. The initiative began in 2004 with a five-year agreement between LACMA and CSRC that includes development of exhibitions, publications, educational activities, research projects, artistic collections, and community relations. This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.   LACMA, the largest art museum in the Western United States, leads the field in devoting a greater share of its space and programming to contemporary art than any other encyclopedic museum. With a recently expanded modern collection and a new contemporary art museum, BCAM, on its campus, LACMA offers visitors a unique lens through which to view its renowned and established collections, including particular strengths in Asian, Latin American, European, and American art.   LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90036. For more information about LACMA and its programming, call 323 857-6000 or visit www.lacma.org .

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 29 Jan 2012 06:09 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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