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

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• The Frist Center for the Visual Arts displays "Fairy Tales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination"
• Swann Galleries Photobooks & Photographs February Auction in New York
• P•P•O•W Gallery Shows Collaborative Work by Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz
• The New Orleans Museum of Art Shows Thornton Dial's "Hard Truths"
• The Scottish National Gallery Explores Artist's Medium of Red Chalk
• Photography 1966-2011 by Boris Mikhailov on view at Berlinische Galerie
• Imaging project funded by the Getty reveals master work Ghent Altarpiece in Minute Detail-Online
• August Macke Haus features Travels of Macke during his Brief Life
• New York City's Hispanic Society of America Seeks to Make Itself Known
• Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Exhibits the Collection of Entrepreneur Max Fischer
• ARCOmadrid 2010 to Showcase International Diversity in Contemporary Art
• Leslie Sacks Fine Art Presents David Hockney in Los Angeles
• Gibbes Museum of Art to Feature Modern Masters from the Ferguson Collection
• Bauhaus Archiv opens Amerika 1928 ~ Photos of a Study Trip by Walter Gropius
• Gino Severini Retrospective at The Orangerie Museum in Paris
• 'Gary Simmons: Shine' ~ Haunting New Works at The Simon Lee Gallery in London
• The Orlando Museum of Art Presents a Tony Robbin Retrospective
• The Kunsthaus Zürich shows a Retrospective Katharina Fritsch including Spatial Images
• The Moscow Museum of Modern Art Hosts Masterpieces from the Valencia Institute of Modern Art
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts displays "Fairy Tales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination" Posted: 26 Feb 2012 10:00 PM PST Nashville, Tennessee.- The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is proud to present "Fairy Tales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination", on view at the museum from February 24th through May 28th 2012. The exhibition includes approximately sixty works by contemporary artists from around the world who have conceived humanlike, animal, or hybrid creatures to symbolize life's mysteries, desires, and fears. The invented creatures and imaginary worlds featured in this exhibition have been inspired by oral and written sources as diverse as Aesop's Fables, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, science fiction, and the products of the genetic experimentation in actual science. The artists selected for the exhibition redirect the emotional associations implicit in their sources–pleasure, fear, wonder, curiosity, and longing–to works of seductive fantasy and uneasy intrigue. The exhibition is divided into three discrete sections The first section of the exhibition focuses on artists whose works adapt, interpret, or critique traditional fairy tales and nursery rhymes. While questioning the socializing functions of fairy tales that perpetuate sexual and racial stereotypes, these works also explore folklore as archetypal expressions of subliminal fears and desires. Artists artists in this section include: Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz, Tom Sachs, Paula Rego, and Cindy Sherman. The artists in Section II explore the depiction of the monster as a sign of the threatening "other" or of the uncontrollable forces of the psyche. The diversity of their imagery reflects the multiple associations of the word "monster," which comes from the Latin verb monere, "to warn." A self-described feminist artist Meghan Boody employs the syntax of the fairy tale to create psychosocial allegories of passage between the inner and outer realms. Featured in the exhibition are several series of extraordinary photos which place strange characters in worlds in which they do not fit. New York based artist Inka Essenhigh explores historical practice in light of contemporary events. Her Brush with Death (2004) infers the great Spanish Baroque painter Francisco de Goya's The Disasters of War (c. 1810-1820), but reincarnates the monster as an embodiment of contemporary horror, the recent war in Iraq. Her response has personal basis and speaks to the fear she experienced when her husband, artist Steve Mumford, embedded himself with American troops In Iraq to capture their stories in drawings and paintings. Work by Mark Hosford, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Andre Ethier, David Altmejd, Ashley Bickerton, Kate Clark, and Dinos and Jake Chapman are also featured in this section. As the exhibition moves from superstition to fantasy to potential reality, its final section features artists' depictions of new chimerae, which evoke the hybrid human/animals of old, while reflecting actual scientific developments toward the redefinition of life, especially in the field of genetic engineering. Australian artist, Patricia Piccinini investigates aspects of science, art and fantasy within her work, lending a bizarre yet charming quality to her creations fashioned out of silicone, fibreglass, hair, plywood and leather. Her Still Life with Stem Cells (2002) provides us with a cautionary note about our own unpreparedness in dealing ethically and humanely with the results of our scientific adventurism. Like Inka Essenhigh, Yinka Shonibare, is also inspired by the art of Francisco de Goya. Shonibare's photograph The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (America) (2008), responds to Goya's similarly titled painting from 1799, and reflects the monsters unleashed under the aegis of the Enlightenment: racism, slavery, war, economic exploitation, and other blights of Western history. Also representing this theme are works by Janaina Tschäpe, Saya Woolfalk, Aziz & Cucher, Suzanne Anker, Charlie White, Motohiko Odani, Allison Schulnik, and Amy Stein. Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination has been organized by the Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany this exhibition featuring an introduction and overview by Mark W. Scala, Chief Curator at the Frist Center, along with essays on the exhibition theme by distinguished scholars in the fields of art history, fairy tale and monster literature, and art's relationship to science. 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

Swann Galleries Photobooks & Photographs February Auction in New York Posted: 26 Feb 2012 09:19 PM PST New York City.— On Tuesday, February 28th Swann Galleries will conduct an auction of Fine Photographs & Photobooks that ranges from 19th century albums depicting exotic lands to classic views of New York City, to thought-provoking works by contemporary artists. The auction will begin at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 28th. The photographs and books will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries Thursday, February 23rd and Friday, February 24th, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, February 25th, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, February 27th, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Tuesday, February 28th, from 10 a.m. to noon.

P•P•O•W Gallery Shows Collaborative Work by Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz Posted: 26 Feb 2012 09:10 PM PST New York City.- P•P•O•W is pleased to announce "Night Falls", its eighth exhibition featuring the collaborative work of Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz, on view at the gallery through March 10th. Martin & Muñoz are an art team best known for their "Travelers" series of snow globes and photographs. In the world that they have developed, blizzard transformed landscapes often serve as backdrops for enigmatic narratives. These are in some instances angst-dream inspired. Others are hard times fables. There is a socio-political as well as a psychological aspect to these images and sculptures. As is often the case with this couple's work, the narratives have an unfinished open ended quality. Concurrent with the exhibition at P.P.O.W the artists are participating in the exhibition "Fairytales, Monsters and the Genetic Imagination" at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee.

The New Orleans Museum of Art Shows Thornton Dial's "Hard Truths" Posted: 26 Feb 2012 08:18 PM PST New Orleans, Louisiana.- The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) is proud to present "Hard Truths: The Art of Thorton Dial", on view at the museum from February 24th through May 20th. The exhibition highlights the artist's significant contribution to the field of American art and shows how Dial's work speaks to the most pressing issues of our time — including the war in Iraq, 9/11, and social issues like racism and homelessness. The exhibition presents over 40 of Dial's large-scale paintings, drawings and found-object sculptures, including new works. Spanning twenty years of his work as an artist, it is the most extensive showing of his art ever mounted and is organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Thornton Dial was born to Mattie Bell in 1928 in Emelle, Alabama. He lived with his mother until he was around three when Dial and his half-brother Arthur moved in with their second cousin, Buddy Jake Dial, who was a farmer. When Thornton moved in with Buddy Jake, he farmed and learned about the sculptures that Buddy Jake made from items lying around the yard, an experience that greatly influenced him. Dial grew up in poverty and without the presence of his father. This poverty led him and his siblings to create toys from the discarded objects around them. In 1940, Dial moved to Bessemer, Alabama. When he arrived in Bessemer, he noticed the art along the way in people's yard and was amazed at the level of craft exhibited. He married Clara Mae Murrow in 1951. They have five children, one of which died of cerebral palsy. He is cousins with the artist Ronald Lockett. His principal place of employment was the Pullman Company in Bessemer, Alabama, until the company closed its doors in 1981. After the Pullman factory shut down, Dial began to dedicate himself to his art for his own pleasure. In 1987, he was introduced to Bill Arnett, a local art collector of great influence who brought Dial's work to public attention. Dial has lived, worked, and created art in Alabama for his entire life. He continues to create works of art and shows them throughout the United States. Thornton Dial met another self-taught artist Lonnie Holley, who introduced Dial to Atlanta collector and art historian, William Arnett. Arnett, who focuses on African American vernacular art and artists, brought Dial's work to national prominence. The art historian has also brought Lonnie Holley and The Gee Bend Quilter's to the attention of the United States, among others citation needed. Arnett also helped to create the Tinwood publishing company in 1996, along with his sons Paul and Matt. There was some controversial coverage on Bill Arnett regarding the ethics of his dealings with Dial and other artists he represented. In an early 1990s 60 Minutes interview, Dial perceived host Morley Safer to be talking down to him as Safer portrayed Dial as an uneducated artist being manipulated by powerful white art elites, namely Arnett. In 2007, there was also a lawsuit from the quilters of Gee Bend, Alabama, which Arnett represents. The artist and collector remain in each others good graces despite the controversy. Dial's work addresses urgent issues in the realm of history and politics in the Unites States, such as war, racism, bigotry and homelessnes. He constructs large-scale assemblages using cast-away objects, anything from rope to bones to buckets. Combining paint and found materials Dial weaves together an interpretation of history and politics in the United States. David C. Driskell, an artist and art historian of African American art, points to one of Dial's symbolic creatures, the tiger. The Tiger represents the struggle to survive through difficult events and eventually the tiger symbolizes the African American struggle to obtain equal rights in the United States. In 2011, Dial's work was profiled in a 4-page story in Time Magazine, where art and architecture critic Richard Lacayo argued that Dial's work belongs to the category of art and should not be pigeon-holed into narrowly defined categories: "Dial's work has sometimes been described as "outsider art", a term that attempts to cover the product of everyone from naive painters like Grandma Moses to institutionalized lost souls like Martín Ramírez and full-bore obsessives like Henry Darger, the Chicago janitor who spent a lifetime secretly producing a private fantasia of little girls in peril. But if there's one lesson to take away from "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial," a triumphant new retrospective at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, it's that Dial, 82, doesn't belong within even the broad confines of that category...What he does can be discussed as art, just art, no surplus notions of outsiderness required....And not just that, but some of the most assured, delightful and powerful art around." Michael Kimmelman, from the New York Times, called Dial "preternaturally gifted," and said he looks "dumfoundingly adept to some of us because his energy and fluent line, abstracted in maelstroms of color, easily call to mind Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. In 1993, Dial's work was the subject of a large exhibition that was presented simultaneously at the New Museum of Contemporary Art and the American Folk Art Museum in New York. In 2000, the artist's work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and in 2005-06, the Museum of Fine Art Houston presented a major exhibition titled "Thornton Dial in the 21st Century." Dial's works can be found in many notable public and private collections, including those of, among other institutions, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the American Folk Art Museum, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), New Orleans' oldest fine arts institution, opened on December 16, 1911 with only 9 works of art. Today, the museum hosts an impressive permanent collection of almost 40,000 objects. The collection, noted for its extraordinary strengths in French and American art , photography, glass, and African and Japanese works , continues to expand and grow, making NOMA one of the top art museums in the south. The five-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA is one of the most important sculpture installations in the United States, with over 60 sculptures situated on a beautifully landscaped site amongst meandering footpaths, reflecting lagoons, Spanish moss-laden 200-year-old live oaks, mature pines, magnolias, camellias, and pedestrian bridges. The magnificent permanent collection, noted for its extraordinary strengths in French and American art, photography, glass, and African and Japanese works, continues to grow. The five-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA is one of the most important sculpture installations in the United States, with over 60 sculptures situated on a beautifully landscaped site amongst meandering footpaths, reflecting lagoons, Spanish moss-laden 200-year-old live oaks, mature pines, magnolias, camellias, and pedestrian bridges. NOMA continues to exhibit, interpret and preserve works of art from ancient to modern times. Paintings, drawings and prints, and decorative arts survey the development of Western Civilization from the pre-Christian era to the present. Reflecting its rich historic and cultural heritage in New Orleans, NOMA has formed a comprehensive survey of African and French art. Among its French treasures is a group of works by the French Impressionist Edgar Degas who visited maternal relatives in New Orleans in the early 1870s and painted just 20 blocks from the Museum. NOMA's collection of works by masters of the School of Paris includes paintings and sculptures by Pablo Picasso, George Braques, Raoul; Dufy and Joan Miro, among others. NOMA has developed a unique Arts of the Americas collection, surveying the cultural heritage of North, Central and South America from the pre-Columbian period through the Spanish Colonial era. This collection is especially rich in objects from the great Mayan culture of Mexico and Central America, and in painting and sculpture from Cuzco, the fabulous Spanish capital of Peru. An important part of the Museum's display of American art is a suite of period rooms featuring 18th and 19th century furniture and decorative arts. Visit the museum's website at ... http://noma.org

The Scottish National Gallery Explores Artist's Medium of Red Chalk Posted: 26 Feb 2012 08:08 PM PST Edinburgh, Scotland - This spring, a fascinating new exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery explores the versatile and beautiful drawing medium of red chalk. Comprising some 35 works from the Gallery's world-class collection, "Red Chalk: Raphael to Ramsay" will showcase a diverse range of exquisite drawings by distinguished artists, such as Peter Paul Rubens, Salvator Rosa, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher and David Allan. The display will feature works which, due to their delicate nature are rarely on show, as well as a number of drawings being exhibited for the first time. "Red Chalk" will be on view at the gallery from February 18th through June 10th. Red chalk was first used for drawing on paper in late-15th century Italy. Chalk is a naturally occurring mineral, quarried directly from the earth then cut into drawing sticks which can be hand-held or chipped into a point and set into a holder. Drawing chalk can also be made, using ground up natural chalk mixed with water to form a paste then rolled into drawing sticks.

Photography 1966-2011 by Boris Mikhailov on view at Berlinische Galerie Posted: 26 Feb 2012 07:51 PM PST BERLIN.- With a show of works by Boris Mikhailov, born in Ukraine in 1938, the Berlinische Galerie is acknowledging a major position in contemporary photography. Mikhailov establishes many links between documentation and conceptual art, and in so doing he has also made an important contribution to media theory in terms of the way we look at photography and the history of our responses to it. In the 1990s, "everyday" meant "existential", "threatening". When the Soviet Union collapsed, he turned his attention to the losers in this social transformation, taking portraits, displaying poverty and despair, and with that the consequences of the ruthless, repressive Soviet system. On view from 24 February until 28 May.

Imaging project funded by the Getty reveals master work Ghent Altarpiece in Minute Detail-Online Posted: 26 Feb 2012 06:17 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA.- It is now possible to zoom into the intricate, breathtaking details of one of the most important works of art in the world, thanks to a newly completed website focused on the Ghent Altarpiece. A stunning and highly complex painting composed of separate oak panels, The Mystic Lamb of 1432 by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, known as the Ghent Altarpiece, recently underwent much-needed emergency conservation within the Villa Chapel in St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent. As part of this work, the altarpiece was removed from its glass enclosure and temporarily dismantled—a rare event which also made it possible to undertake a comprehensive examination and documentation, supported by the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles. Each centimeter of the altarpiece was scrutinized and professionally photographed at extremely high resolution in both regular and infrared light. The photographs were then digitally "stitched" together to create highly detailed images which allow for study of the painting at unprecedented microscopic levels. The website itself contains 100 billion pixels. Thanks to a grant from the Getty Foundation, these high-definition digital images are now available on an interactive digital website, "Closer to Van Eyck: Rediscovering the Ghent Altarpiece" at http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be where, for the first time in the Ghent Altarpiece's history, viewers may peek under the work's paint surfaces by means of infrared reflectography (IRR) and x-radiography to study the van Eycks' genius in unparalleled microscopic magnification. Taken together, this body of documentation represents an invaluable archive for scholars, conservators, and art lovers worldwide. "This imaging project provides an amazing level of access to the wondrous painting of the Ghent Altarpiece," said Deborah Marrow, director of the Getty Foundation. "It has been a privilege to work with such a distinguished team of international colleagues on this important project." Led by Ron Spronk, a Professor of Art History at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, the website is a collaborative project of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK/IRPA), Lukasweb, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and is funded through support from the Getty Foundation and with support from the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, or NWO). "The images on the website will aid art historians studying the Ghent Altarpiece and Hubert and Jan van Eyck for many years to come," said Spronk. "The site gives scholars access to research materials of a unique and unprecedented quality, both on and below the paint surface of the polyptych. We deliberately chose an open-source approach to the images, with the hope that it will spur more projects using interactive, high-resolution imaging techniques for the technical study of works of art." The website features overall photographs of the polyptych in its opened and closed positions, and from there users can zoom closer into the details of individual panels of the altarpiece, down to a microscopic level. Scrolling and zooming features are guided by a thumbnail image to indicate the location and size of the detail on the altarpiece. Users are also able to open two windows simultaneously to compare any two images from the site, enabling viewers to interactively study the Ghent Altarpiece and the artists' techniques in ways that have never before been possible. Belgium's internationally recognized federal scientific institution KIK/IRPA, with core activities in the fields of technical documentation, conservation and restoration, scientific research, and archiving, will host the website on its high-capacity servers. "After L'Agneau Mystique au Laboratoire, the first important publication about the historical and technical research on the Ghent Altarpiece by our founding director Dr. Paul Coremans in 1953, this website is the next logical step in the dissemination of scientific information about the polyptych," KIK/IRPA's Interim Director Christina Ceulemans said. "It will also be an ideal instrument for the restorers during the comprehensive conservation/restoration campaign which will start in September 2012." The new website marks the culmination of several Foundation grants supporting conservation planning, examination and training related to the Ghent Altarpiece as part of the Getty's Panel Paintings Initiative. Paintings on wood panel from the late 12th through the 17th centuries are among the most significant works in American, European, and Russian museum collections, yet there are only a handful of experts fully qualified to conserve these paintings. The Getty Foundation, Getty Conservation Institute, and J. Paul Getty Museum together designed the Panel Paintings Initiative to ensure that the next generation of conservators is trained before the current experts retire. The Ghent Altarpiece documentation and website grants bring the total amount awarded by the Getty Foundation since 2008 through the Panel Paintings Initiative to more than $2.5 million. The initiative started with a needs assessment survey of significant collections of panel paintings and of professionals in the field, which the Foundation has used as a road map to develop training residencies. Recent projects in partnership with organizations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Prado Museum, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the University of Cambridge's Hamilton Kerr Institute, and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts Belgium have created training opportunities through the treatment of highly significant panel paintings, including a upcoming three-year Getty-funded training program at the Prado.

August Macke Haus features Travels of Macke during his Brief Life Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:48 PM PST BONN, GERMANY - To help mark the 125th birthday of August Macke (1887 – 1914) the August Macke Haus for the first time highlights his extensive travels. The fascination of the unknown and search for new creative impulses have for centuries caused artists to travel far and wide. August Macke was no exception and embarked on a number of trips to satisfy his curiosity and to experience at first hand beautiful regions and cities rich in culture. Although he only lived to the age of 27, he traveled to many different countries in his short life; beginning in 1904 he undertook at least one trip every year. His first study trips took the young student to the Rhine and into Germany's hilly Eifel region. He twice traveled to Italy, the classic destination of Europeans seeking to complete their education, and he engaged in an artistic discourse with masterpieces of past ages in several Northern Italian cities: in 1905 in the company of his friend and later brother-in-law Walter Gerhardt and in 1908 accompanied by his sweetheart Elisabeth and her uncle Bernhard Koehler. He traveled to the Netherlands and Belgium on several occasions to spend seaside vacations and, in particular, to further his art education. On exhibition 24th February until  28th May.

New York City's Hispanic Society of America Seeks to Make Itself Known Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:47 PM PST NEW YORK CITY.- Situated behind a wrought-iron gate on an attractive brick terrace in upper Manhattan, the Hispanic Society of America is an imposing museum and research library. It has a world-class collection of Iberian art that includes works from such masters as Goya, Velazquez and El Greco, and monumental sculptures by Anna Hyatt Huntington, the wife of the society's founder. Yet the 104-year-old institution in Washington Heights, just blocks from the Audubon Ballroom where Malcolm X was assassinated, is not high on the itinerary of many tourists — or even New Yorkers. Some don't even know it exists. The Society had briefly contemplated abandoning the area for more tourist-accessible locations downtown like some of its former neighbors: the American Numismatic Society and the Museum of the American Indian. But it has resolved to stay.

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Exhibits the Collection of Entrepreneur Max Fischer Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:29 PM PST STUTTGART.- To this day, the private collection of the entrepreneur Max Fischer (1886-1975) of Stuttgart is little known although it unites classical modern art of the highest quality. The generosity of the heirs in leaving the collection to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in the form of a permanent loan is now enabling the museum to pay tribute to this comprehensive collection for the first time, and to present a selection of 180 works - from a total of more than 250 - to the public. The significance of this collection will also become evident in the juxtaposition with individual works from the Staatsgalerie's holdings. On view through 20, June , 2010. The Collector Max Fischer Dr. Max Fischer was a collector who played a prominent role in the multifaceted Stuttgart art scene of the post-war period. In amassing his collection, Fischer relied on his own perusal of scholarly texts on art, with whose aid he acquired the ability to assess quality confidently. Apart from the societal circumstances which prevailed after World War II, this was a decisive criterion for the building of a collection concentrating primarily on Expressionism. The result was a superb collection with a clear profile, which - despite its private nature - increasingly received loan requests from all over the world. An Overview of the Holdings In addition to Expressionist works on paper by Max Beckmann, Heinrich Campendonk, Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller and Max Pechstein, the early acquisitions in the area of modern art also included paintings by the Stuttgart artist Oskar Schlemmer. Fischer purchased further important works in the 1920s primarily in the Kunsthaus Schaller in Stuttgart. Among them are the touching composition Two Girls (ca. 1923) by Carl Hofer, an interior by Oskar Kokoschka (ca. 1925) for which Fischer paid the considerable sum of 3,000 Reichsmarks, as well as the dream-world watercolour Two Female Nudes (1912) by Franz Marc. Fischer acquired the majority of his collection in the Stuttgart Kunstkabinett which - founded in 1946 by Roman Norbert Ketterer - was to become the most important auction house for art of the twentieth century. Outstanding Expressionist works at what were still very moderate prices convinced the collector to concentrate increasingly on Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde and Max Beckmann. Among the artists of the Bauhaus, he had a special predilection for Oskar Schlemmer and the Cubist-inspired Lyonel Feininger. The Brücke - Blauer Reiter - Bauhaus core of the inventory was enhanced by sculptures of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and a substantial number of works by friends of the collector: the Stuttgart artists Alfred Lörcher and Ida Kerkovius as well as their teacher Adolf Hölzel. The Heavyweight in the Collection: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner With nearly sixty prints, forty-eight drawings and a group of six paintings executed between 1908 and 1924, the artist most prominently featured in Fischer's holdings is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Max Fischer succeeded in assembling a Kirchner ensemble covering the entire development of the artist who died in Davos in 1938 and including all of the media in which the latter worked. A group of brush-and-ink and pastel drawings - some very large in scale - executed between 1912 and 1915 and depicting women in the studio or on the street constitute a highlight of Fischer's Kirchner collection. During a bidding battle at the Stuttgart Kunstkabinett, Max Fischer relinquished the prominent landscape painting Sailboats near Grünau of 1914, today in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, to then-director and confidant Erwin Petermann, and purchased the colour lithograph of the motif instead. Apart from Kirchner, Max Fischer also collected works by Brücke artist Erich Heckel. It is an indication of his expertise that he concentrated on the essential works of printmaking by this artist of the years 1907 to 1919. The latter include his early experiments with the painterly qualities of lithography (Cabaret Singer of 1907/1906?) and representative woodcuts which were groundbreaking for his further work (Two Women Resting; Fränzi Reclining, both of 1909, and the famous White Horses of 1912). Mavericks: Emil Nolde, Edvard Munch and Max Beckmann Among the forerunners to the Brücke artists, the simplified, planar art of the Norwegian Edvard Munch is particularly prominent. Fischer recognized its significance for the Expressionists and invested substantial funds in purchasing important early prints. One of the collection's very special works is the frottage Head by Head (1905), existing in only a few copies, for which Munch rubbed coloured chalk into the printing block. This work is juxtaposed in the show with a colour woodcut of the motif belonging to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart's Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs (Head by Head [Man and Woman Kissing]), 1905). Max Fischer sharpened the profile of his collection by selling works. In order to purchase an important painting of the 1940s by Max Beckmann (Akademie I, 1944) at a very high price, he disposed of works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as well as his entire Dürer and Altdorfer holdings. With a dynamic that virtually bursts the confines of the format, the studio painting executed by Beckmann in exile in Amsterdam is yet another highlight of the Fischer collection. The dialogue between the painter lost in gloomy contemplation and the oversize, heroically vibrant model mirrors the artist's depressive mood. Bauhaus: Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Klee Already before World War II, Fischer purchased two landscape paintings by Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer (In Front of the Cloister, 1914; Stuttgart Landscape, 1912). The Heroic Scene of 1935, in which the artist - prohibited from exhibiting his works in public - reacted to the political circumstances, was the last Schlemmer work to be acquired by Fischer. The confusion of the densely crowded figures contrasts strongly with earlier large-scale major works (Five Men in a Room, 1928; Scene at a Balustrade, 1931; Boy in Blue and White, 1931). In the works of Paul Klee, the collection strategy so carefully pursued by Max Fischer over decades is particularly convincing. In 1925, only one year after the Staatsgalerie had acquired the painting Rhythm of the Windows (1920), Fischer purchased the watercolour The Parlour Maid's Suicide (1923). The last Klee acquisition to enter the collection - in 1955 - was A Park and the Trespasser (1939), executed long after the artist's Bauhaus period. Alongside the filigree earlier compositions, this late work using elements of collage and paste paint has an almost frightening quality about it. As is also the case in the late works of Schlemmer and Beckmann, premonitions of death and the threats posed by the events of the time are starkly present here. The collector Max Fischer, who sought the "insight of truth" in his preoccupation with art, was moved precisely by intense works such as this one, and it was they who lend his collection its distinctive profile. Visit the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart at : http://www.staatsgalerie.de/

ARCOmadrid 2010 to Showcase International Diversity in Contemporary Art Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:28 PM PST MADRID.- As we have come to expect in the month of February, galleries, collectors and other players from the contemporary art world will be travelling to Madrid for ARCOmadrid_ 2010, the 29th edition of the International Contemporary Art Fair from February 17th through 21st. Given its growing influence, this annual fair is now one of the world's major art market events. Around two hundred galleries and almost three thousand top drawer artists will make the fair a good mirror of the latest tendencies in contemporary art. The work on view will undoubtedly reflect the existing plethora of languages, supports and expression, ranging from painting to performance, not forgetting sculpture, installation, digital art and more emerging creative expressions.

Leslie Sacks Fine Art Presents David Hockney in Los Angeles Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:27 PM PST Los Angeles, CA.- Leslie Sacks Fine Art is proud to present "Hockney in Los Angeles", a selection of the artists iconic prints from the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition is on view until October 20th. This exhibition at Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Brentwood, highlights a select group of David Hockney's prints made in Los Angeles during the 1970's and 1980's. Hockney's rise to fame took place after he moved to the U.S. from England, ensconced himself in Los Angeles and became the L.A. art scene's favorite adopted son. This period of time, the 1970's and 1980's, was concurrent with the print revival that began in L.A. before his arrival with June Wayne's founding of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in 1960, and the subsequent founding of Gemini G.E.L., one of L.A.'s most prominent publishers, where Hockney made many of his iconic prints. It seems Hockney made a concerted effort in the 1960s to reject the polished skills he'd acquired in art school, but in the 1970's he returned to a classic style of draftsmanship, as evidenced by Celia, 8365 Melrose Avenue (the address of the Gemini atelier). This print demonstrated to a wide audience beyond any possibility of doubt that Hockney was a major talent to be reckoned with by any art historical standard. Hockney's style shifted again in the 1980's as he moved away from a relatively classical style of rendering and toward a more expressionistic style in the manner of Henri Matisse. This transition is exemplified by Celia in an Armchair of 1980 wherein Celia's face is rendered rather realistically with fine lines while her figure and dress are expressed as a bold contour drawing. This exhibition includes a number of works in this latter, more  expressionistic style. The forgoing is a somewhat oversimplified discussion of Hockney's work in print media during the 1970's and 1980's. During the mid 1980s, a particularly fertile time for Hockney's graphics, he incorporated cubism and the occasional cartoonlike riff à la Pablo Picasso, and worked with several publishers outside of L.A. The most notable of these was Ken Tyler, who had trained in L.A. at Tamarind and then founded Gemini, with partners Sidney Felsen and Stanley Grinstein, before moving on to found Tyler Graphics Ltd. in Mt. Kisco, New York. So, albeit indirectly, Los Angeles played a role in most of Hockney's iconic prints published outside of Los Angeles. A number of these, installed discretely from those made in L.A., will also be presented in this show. Leslie Sacks established his first gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1981. Leslie Sacks Fine Art opened in the Los Angeles community of Brentwood in 1992 and has become an important American venue specializing in fine prints and rare works on paper by modern and contemporary European and American masters. Leslie Sacks Fine Art also represents a select roster of important mid-career contemporary artists including Shane Guffogg, Minjung Kim and Jon Krawczyk. Leslie Sacks Fine Art is a member of the California Art Dealers Association and the International Fine Print Dealers Association. While specializing in fine prints and unique works on paper, the gallery's collection also includes painting, sculpture and illustrated artists' books (livres d'artistes), impressionist and expressionist works, and a thoroughly vetted collection of African tribal art. In addition to holding a substantial owned inventory Leslie Sacks Fine Art works with dealers and collectors throughout Europe, Asia and the United States to source and discretely  sell important impressionist, post-impressionist and 20th century art. In 2007 Leslie Sacks Fine Art acquired Bobbie Greenfield Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, California. Now called Leslie Sacks Contemporary, this sister gallery specializes in prints, works on paper, paintings and sculpture by post-war and contemporary masters, and represents, in Los Angeles, the estate of Robert Motherwell (The Dedalus Foundation), and the Andy Warhol Foundation. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://lesliesacks.com

Gibbes Museum of Art to Feature Modern Masters from the Ferguson Collection Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:26 PM PST Charleston, South Carolina – The Gibbes Museum of Art will present the exclusive exhibition Modern Masters from the Ferguson Collection in the Main Gallery from April 30 through August 22, 2010.  Selected from the private collection of prominent art enthusiasts Esther and James Ferguson, this exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by significant twentieth-century artists such as Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, and Christo.  The Ferguson's remarkable collection reflects their personal tastes in art, but also offers an overview of European and American modernism.  Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art are among the many movements represented by this exhibition. Esther and James Ferguson have said, "We are delighted to share 25 years of collecting extraordinary art with the Gibbes." Christo – A Presentation and Dialogue The Fergusons befriended the artist Christo in the 1990s and have two mixed-media works by the artist in their collection. As the plans were getting underway for the Modern Masters exhibition at the Gibbes, the couple asked Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude to come to Charleston to discuss their projects in a public setting.  On Tuesday, April 13, Christo will discuss the artists' past and future monumental installations in a presentation and dialogue scheduled for 5:30pm at Memminger Auditorium, 56 Beaufain Street in downtown Charleston.  Christo will share images and stories of the famed large-scale art projects that use fabric in both urban and rural environments.  After the presentation, Christo will welcome questions from the audience and participate in a book signing.   "We are grateful to Esther and Jim for allowing us to share their impressive collection with visitors to the Gibbes. We are benefiting not only with this glorious exhibition, but also from their invitation to Christo to come to Charleston," said Gibbes Executive Director Angela Mack. Preview Party – Take it to the Street The opening of the exhibition Modern Masters from the Ferguson Collection will be celebrated with a street party on Thursday, April 29 from 7:30 – 10:30pm. The Beaux Arts façade of the Gibbes will serve as a backdrop for a street party inspired by Christo's monumental art installations. Guests will enjoy live entertainment, an open bar, and creative "street food" crafted by Charleston's most celebrated chefs from Caviar and Bananas, Charleston Grill, Fig, McCrady's, Palmetto Café, Slightly North of Broad, Trattoria Lucca, and Voysey's and Tides of Kiawah Island Club. Tickets, available online at www.gibbesmuseum.org/events, are $75 for museum members and $100 for non-members. This exhibition is sponsored by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, William Means Real Estate, US Trust, and Charleston Magazine. Gibbes Museum of Art Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858, the Gibbes Museum of Art opened its doors to the public in 1905.  Located in Charleston's historic district, the Gibbes houses a premier collection of over 10,000 works, principally American with a Charleston or Southern connection, and presents special exhibitions throughout the year. In addition, the museum offers an extensive complement of public programming and educational outreach initiatives that serve the community by stimulating creative expression and improving the region's superb quality of life. MUSEUM HOURS TUESDAY - SATURDAY: 10 A.M. - 5 P.M., SUNDAY: 1 P.M. - 5 P.M. ADMISSION: ADULTS: $9.00 · SENIORS, STUDENTS & MILITARY: $7.00 · CHILDREN (6-12): $5.00 ·MEMBERS AND CHILDREN UNDER 6: FREE. 135 Meeting Street * Charleston, SC * 29401 * www.gibbesmuseum.org

Bauhaus Archiv opens Amerika 1928 ~ Photos of a Study Trip by Walter Gropius Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:25 PM PST   BERLIN.- "Gropius praises efficiency here" runs the headline in the New York Times on May 27, 1928. The article relates that the architect Walter Gropius had been in America for several weeks to study the more efficient and timesaving methods of mass production. In the spring of 1928, Walter Gropius had resigned his post as director of the Bauhaus Dessau and, together with his wife Ise, embarked on a much longed-for study trip through the USA. There he would deal primarily with modern building techniques, particularly the steel-frame construction of New York skyscrapers. The trip is financed by Adolf Sommerfeld, the building contractor and longtime patron of the Bauhaus, with whom Gropius plans to carry out large building projects in Berlin that will make use of the state-of-the-art technology.

Gino Severini Retrospective at The Orangerie Museum in Paris Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:24 PM PST Paris.- The Orangerie Museum in Paris presents "Gino Severini (1883 - 1966): Futurist and Neoclassicist" until July 25th. This is the first retrospective of the work of the Italian painter Gino Severini since that organised in 1967 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris. It brings together some 70 works from private collections, European and American museums including the Triton Foundation Netherlands, Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice, Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, Estorick Collection in London, Thyssen Foundation in Madrid and MOMA, New York. As Severini said, "Cortona and Paris are the cities I am most bound to : I was physically born in the first, intellectually and spiritually in the second", Paris is therefore a particularly fitting home for this retrospective. Severini originally trained under pointillist painter Giacomo Balla and at first remained close to his style, with an emphasis on Luminist effects and the contrast of light and shade. He arrived in Paris in 1906 keen to find out more about the work of Seurat. In 1910, Raoul Dufy, who had the neighbouring studio, introduced him to scientific Divisionism. His urban views, painted in quite a free Pointillist style, are reminiscent of Signac but also seem quite close to the landscapes painted by Van Gogh in Paris in 1887 with their broken brushwork and lighter palette. His few pastel portraits are closer in style to Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. He continued the Divisionist experiments in his early Futurist works by integrating coloured planes and adding sequins to his dancers. In 1911, Gino Severini joined the Futurist movement, having already signed the Manifesto in 1910. His large painting, The Dance of the Pan Pan at the Monico, was the highlight of the 1912 Futurist exhibition. He acted as mediator between the artists from Milan and those of the Parisian avant-garde, and joined the Futurists on their European tour. His preferred subjects at this time were crowds, urban scenes and places of entertainment, very different from the themes of his artist friends (The Boulevard, Estorick Collection, London). He also represented movement in his series of dancers produced in 1912-1913. In 1914 - 1915, at the invitation of Marinetti, Severini produced a series of paintings on the war ("Train Blindé (Armoured Train)", MOMA, New York). In 1916, after abandoning Futurism, he became part of the Cubist movement until 1919. He rubbed shoulders with Cocteau and Matisse, and met Juan Gris to whom he was very close both personally and stylistically. During this period, he painted still lifes that included real fragments of wallpaper, newspapers, musical scores, etc., basing them on a set of complicated calculations. His Cubism stood out for the subtlety of colour harmonies. It was at this time that he produced many theoretical works on geometry, the Golden Section and harmonic lines, resulting in the publication in 1921 of his book From Cubism to Classicism on the relationship between art and mathematics. He sought a return to the traditional values of painting by concentrating on "construction". From 1920 to 1943, his art entered a new phase with the "Return to the Figure". With his Portrait de Jeanne et sa Maternité, dating from 1916 and representative of a classical and realist style, he became part of the "Return to Order" movement. Just like other artists of the time, Picasso, Gris and Derain, Severini was fascinated by the characters of Harlequin and by the Commedia dell' Arte. His still lifes at this point became more decorative. This new transformation in his painting style, so far removed from Cubism, is evident in the decorations he created for the Sitwel family at Montefugoni in Tuscany. In the 1930s, he also worked on a number of religious mosaic murals for the churches of Tavannes and Saint Pierre de Fribourg in Switzerland. Severini painted relatively few easel paintings at that time. His subjects were more intimate and family-orientated. He alternated between hieratic portraits and still lifes (musical instruments, pigeons, ducks and fish) inspired by the decorations in Pompeii and by Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna. Along with other artists like De Chirico, Picabia, and Ernst, he was involved with the decoration of Rosenberg's house. Between 1928 and 1930, he exhibited with the Italian artists in Paris. His "Harlequin" from 1938 completes an exhibition that presents the many different aspects of an artist who was much more multi-facetted than his fame as a Futurist painter would have us believe. His work fits perfectly with the Musée de l'Orangerie collections, particularly in his desire for a classic "return to order" and his numerous representations of Harlequin that unquestionably bring him closer to André Derain. The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Chaim Soutine, Alfred Sisley and Maurice Utrillo, among others. As its name suggests, the Orangerie Museum is housed in a former orangery, built in 1852 by architect Firmin Bourgeois and completed by his successor, Ludovico Visconti to house the orange trees of the Tuileries Gardens. Used by the Third Republic as a depository for materials, examination room, accommodation for mobilized soldiers, versatile arena for sporting events, musical or patriotic concerts, industrial exhibitions, dog-shows, horticultural and rare art exhibitions, it was finally devoted to the administration of Fine Arts in 1921. A cycle of Monet's water-lily paintings, known as the Nymphéas, was arranged on the ground floor of the Orangerie in 1927. The museum has housed the Paul Guillaume collection of impressionist paintings since 1965. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.musee-orangerie.fr

'Gary Simmons: Shine' ~ Haunting New Works at The Simon Lee Gallery in London Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:23 PM PST London.- The Simon Lee Gallery will be hosting its second solo exhibition of renowned American artist Gary Simmons' work from April 8 until June 2 2011. For Gary Simmons, the act of erasure has been a central theme in his work throughout his career. Referencing film, architecture, and white American popular culture, his new "erasure"drawings move away from the use of paint and canvas, and revert back to pastel and chalk on black or white paper, which is where his practice began. Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film 'The Shining', Simmons uses the iconic imagery of the overlook hotel for one of his new drawings, whose imposing architecture takes on a haunting personality of its own. The image also incorporates the structure of The Bryce Hospital in Alabama, an institution to house African Americans deemed "insane" in the early 20th century. This alludes to the root of the inspiration of this new body of work: haunted spaces; Structures containing traces of memories, people, and stories that are no longer there but continue to resonate in the collective consciousness of viewer. The combination of social history and cultural reference works here to create an image alive   with its ghostly past. By erasing only layers and fragments of these images, the artist demonstrates the impossibility of eradicating racial and cultural stereotypes from our collective identity.

The Orlando Museum of Art Presents a Tony Robbin Retrospective Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:22 PM PST Orlando, FL.- The Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) is pleased to present a retrospective exhibition of Tony Robbin's paintings and sculptures, which spans a period of forty years and reveals an artist whose focus and insight has produced an extraordinary body of work. "Tony Robbin: A Retrospective, Paintings and Drawings 1970-2010" is on view at the museum until October 30th. Robbin's central concern over this period was to explore strategies for representing four-dimensional space in two- and three-dimensional abstract art. The results were works that offer the viewer a dazzling visual experience grounded in the artist's rigorous understanding of the principles of higher-dimensional geometry. Robbin has noted: "Artists who are interested in four-dimensional space are not motivated by a desire to illustrate new physical theories. . . . We are motivated by a desire to complete our subjective experience by inventing new aesthetic and conceptual capabilities." His imaginative power to bring together the worlds of art and science successfully can be seen in this exhibition. Robbin has had over 25 solo exhibitions since his debut at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1974, and has been included in over 100 group exhibitions in 12 countries. He was an originator of the Pattern and Decoration movement in contemporary art. Robbin holds the patent for the application of Quasicrystal geometry to architecture, and has implemented this geometry for a large-scale architectural sculpture based on quasicrystal patterns at the Danish Technical University in Lyngby, Denmark, as well as one for the city of Jacksonville, Florida. He is a pioneer in the computer visualization of four-dimensional geometry. Since 1981, his realtime rotation programs of four-dimensional figures have been useful for obtaining an intuitive feel for four-dimensional space, and quasicrystal space. The OMA has long recognized Tony Robbin as an important and innovative artist and has demonstrated this through acquiring and exhibiting  his work. The OMA is grateful to the collectors who generously lent works for this exhibition, including Cindy and J. D. Alexander, Lisa and Joe Jensen, Linda and William Malzone, Eileen and David Peretz, Norma and William D. Roth and Marcia and Howard Zipser. The OMA also thanks fellow artists Joyce Kozloff and Robert Kushner, art historians Carter Ratcliff and Linda Dalrymple Henderson, mathematician George Francis and art collector Norma Roth for their essay contributions to the exhibition catalog. Founded in 1924, the Orlando Museum of Art is a 501(c)(3) educational institution whose mission reflects the continued growth of Florida, ardent community support for the arts and the OMA's role as a leading cultural institution in the region. Since its inception, the Museum's purpose has been to enrich the cultural life of Florida by providing excellence in the visual arts. To meet this objective, the Museum has dedicated itself to collecting, preserving and interpreting notable works of art; to presenting exhibitions of local, regional, national and international significance; to developing first-rate educational programs; and to presenting creative and inclusive programs to reach every segment of a diverse community. Annually, the Museum presents 10-12 exhibitions on-site and 13 exhibitions off-site, award-winning art enrichment programs, unlimited gallery tours, teacher in-service training programs, video programs, distinguished lectures, art appreciation lectures, studio classes, lecture/luncheon programs and outreach services in its facility and through outreach services. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.omart.org

The Kunsthaus Zürich shows a Retrospective Katharina Fritsch including Spatial Images Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:21 PM PST Zürich, Switzerland - The Kunsthaus Zürich will host a retrospective devoted to the work of Katharina Fritsch, one of the most significant artists of our day. The show will also include new pieces by the artist. Famed for her large-scale sculptures, whose hypnotic effect the viewer experiences in the blink of an eye, Fritsch plays with humanity's primeval ideas, desires and fears. Her most recent art ventures into fresh artistic territory, including erotica as seen from the female point of view. On exhibition from 3rd June to 30th August 2009.

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art Hosts Masterpieces from the Valencia Institute of Modern Art Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:20 PM PST Moscow.- The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is proud to present "Masterpieces of the 20th Century from the Collection of the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM)", on view at the museum until October 30th. The IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno) opened in 1989 and became the first museum of modern art in Spain. This marked the beginning of a new stage in Valencia art life and an event of universal importance in the sphere of modern art. Its collection of masterpieces of the 20th and 21st centuries is highly valued all over the world and attracts a lot of visitors every year. It is remarkable that the IVAM and the MMoMA collections are similar to each other in many respects. Each collection counts over 10,000 exhibits and tends to present a panoramic view of modern art in all its diversity, with special emphasis on the national heritage. So it comes as no surprise that the Moscow Museum of Modern Art hosts this important exhibition. The IVAM collection presents an overview of the avant-garde art of the first decades of the 20th century and all art tendencies of the postwar period. The art of Julio González, a pioneering Spanish artist and sculptor of the first half of the past century, occupies a special place in the IVAM holdings. The IVAM holds the richest collection of his artworks. The exhibition at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art opens with Julio González's oeuvre together with the works by Torres Garcia, a Uruguayan artist of the early 20th century. Also on view at the Museum, will be kinetic sculptures by Alexander Calder, installations by Kurt Schwitters and Man Ray, abstract works by František Kupka and works by classic Surrealist and Dadaist masters Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, André Masson, Jean Arp. The exhibition will show experimental tendencies of the postwar period, which reflected a newly formed worldview. These are works by European masters, i. e. Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Saura, Karel Appel, Ad Reinhardt, Pierre Soulages, and works by celebrated American artists, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Serra. Works by American Pop-art artists, such as Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist and European representatives of this tendency, such as Eduardo Arroyo, Equipo Crónica group and others will also be exhibited. Starting from the 1980s, artists have been actively using new media, new techniques and electronic devices. The IVAM responded to the new art trends early on and acquired for its collection works by Andreu Alfaro, Miquel Navarro, John Davies, Bruce Nauman, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Christian Boltanski, Eduardo Chillida and Juan Usle. Some of these artworks will be displayed at the exhibition "Masterpieces of the 20th century". Postwar Modern Art will be represented at the exhibition by the works by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Since the IVAM holds the most extensive and valuable collection of photography in Spain, a section of the exhibition is devoted to photography of the past century. Among other photo masterpieces of the 20th century, the show will feature a work by Alexander Rodchenko, one of the greatest Russian photographers. The Moscow Museum of Modern Art is the first state museum in Russia that concentrates its activities exclusively on the art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since its inauguration, the Museum has expanded its strategies and achieved a high level of public acknowledgement. Today the Museum is an energetic institution that plays an important part on the Moscow art scene. The Museum was unveiled on December 15, 1999, with the generous support of the Moscow City Government, Moscow City Department of Culture. Its founding director was Zurab Tsereteli, President of the Russian Academy of Arts. His private collection of more than 2.000 works by important 20th century masters was the core of the Museum's permanent display. Later on, the Museum's keepings were enriched considerably, and now this is one of the largest and most impressive collections of modern and contemporary Russian art, which continues to grow through acquisitions and donations. Today the Museum has five venues in the historic centre of Moscow. The main building is situated in Petrovka Street, in the former 18th-century mansion house of merchant Gubin, designed by the renowned neoclassical architect Matvey Kazakov. Apart from that, the Museum has three splendid exhibition venues: a vast five-storey building in Ermolaevsky Lane, a spacious gallery in Tverskoy Boulevard, the beautiful building of the State Museum of Modern Art of the Russian Academy of Arts, and Zurab Tsereteli Studio Museum. The Museum's permanent collection represents main stages in formation and development of the avant-garde. The majority of exhibits are by Russian artists, but the display also includes some works by renowned Western masters. For example, graphic pieces by Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró and Giorgio De Chirico are on view, along with sculptures by Salvador Dalí, Armand and Arnaldo Pomodoro, paintings by Henri Rousseau and Françoise Gilot, and installations by Yukinori Yanaga. Within the Museum's holdings, a special emphasis is put on the assembly of Russian avant-garde. Many works have been acquired in European and American galleries and auction houses, and thus returned from abroad to form an integral part of Russian cultural legacy. The highlights include paintings and objects by Kazimir Malevich, Marc Chagall, Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov, Pavel Filonov and Wassily Kandinsky, Vladimir Tatlin and David Burliuk, as well as sculptures by Alexander Archipenko and Ossip Zadkine. Besides that, the Museum owns a unique collection of works by the famous Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani. An extensive section of the permanent display is devoted to Non-Conformist art of the 1960s-1980s. The creative activity of these masters, now well-known in Russia and abroad, was then in opposition to the official Soviet ideology. Among them are Ilya Kabakov, Anatoly Zverev, Vladimir Yakovlev, Vladimir Nemukhin, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Oscar Rabin, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Leonid Schwartzman, Oleg Tselkov, and more. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mmoma.ru

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 26 Feb 2012 05:19 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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