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• The Scuderie del Qurinale presents a Major Monographic Exhibition Devoted to Tintoretto
• The Peabody Essex Museum of Art shows A History of Jerry Uelsmann's Photography
• Fabergé Notebook in which Queen Victoria recorded her Diamond Jubilee celebrations displayed
• J. Paul Getty Museum aquires Jean-Antoine Watteau's "The Italian Comedians"
• The CaixaForum Barcelona Shows "Goya ~ Lights and Shadows"
• Serge Diaghilev's Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929 Announced by the V&A
• Ilana Raviv solo exhibition at Moscow Museum of Modern Art
• ' Vincent van Gogh's Friendship in Letters and Paint ' at the Morgan Library
• The Austin Museum of Art presents " Modern Art / Modern Lives / Then + Now "
• The State Russian Museum displays the “Neoclassicism in Russia ~ 1900-1932"
• State Russian Museum Exhibits Yury Hrzhanovsky (1905 - 1987)
• The Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao Shows "Daniel Tamayo ~ Fables"
• Mark Wallinger Retrospective at Kunstverein Braunschweig
• The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art Welcomes Our Editor
• Yoko Ono Japanese Musician & Artist Awarded the 8th Hiroshima Art Prize
• The Contemporary Jewish Museum Announces "Topping Out"
• Pioneering "Soul i-D" Exhibition Tours to Christie's in South Kensington
• " Venus Sovietica " at The State Russian Museum
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Scuderie del Qurinale presents a Major Monographic Exhibition Devoted to Tintoretto Posted: 16 Mar 2012 11:15 PM PDT Rome.- Jacopo Robusti, better known as Tintoretto (1519-1594), is the only key Italian 16th century painter not to have had a major monographic exhibition devoted to his work to date. If we ignore the thematic exhibition of his portraits held in Venice in 1994, the last exhibition of the great Venetian master's work was held in 1937, due among other reasons to the sheer physical impossibility of shifting the large canvases that he painted in Venice. A new exhibition at the Scuderie del Qurinale through June 10th now allows visitors to see the full extent of the artist's oevre. The exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale is part of a broader programme designed to explore the work of those artists who have helped to make the story of art in our country so unique and so grandiose, ranging from Botticelli to Antonello da Messina, from Bellini to Caravaggio and, more recently, to Lorenzo Lotto and Filippino Lippi. This exhibition, focusing on the three main themes that distinguish Tintoretto's work: religion, mythology and portraiture, is strictly monographic and will be divided into sections comprising a handful of carefully selected and unquestioned masterpieces, beginning and ending with his two celebrated self-portraits of himself as a young man, from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and as an old man, from the Louvre. Even though he was in competition with Titian, his contemporaries yet recognized his "utterly exquisite eye in portraiture", and some of his most famous portraits from leading international collections will be on display here in Rome. Also on display will be the spectacular "Miracle of the Slave" painted in 1548 for the Scuola Grande di San Marco, a work that allowed him to grab the limelight as one of leading lights of the Venetian art scene, while the exhibition closes with "The Deposition" (1594) from the Monastry of San Giorgio Maggiore, possibly the last work in which it is possible to identify the hand of the master. Other famous works on show will include what is considered to be one of his first acknowledged paintings, "Jesus Among the Doctors" (1542) lent by the Milan Cathedral's Diocesan Museum, and such celebrated masterpieces as the "Madonna of the Treasurers" and the "Stealing of the Dead Body of St. Mark", both from the Gallerie dell'Accademia, and the "St Mary of Egypt" and the "St Mary Magdalen" from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Visitors will also have the privilege of being able to witness the unprecedented and spectacular juxtaposition of the Last Supper from the Venetian church of San Trovaso with another version of the same subject, from the church of San Polo, painted five years later to celebrate one of the Scuole del Sacramento's favorite themes. Alongside the large canvases with their dramatic impact and their tense, rapid brushwork, visitors will also be able to inspect the artist's intense historical and mythological works, charged with emotion, including, for example, the octagonal panels depicting "Apollo and Daphne" and "Deucalion and Pyrrha", two of the fourteen made in 1541 for the ceiling of Casa Pisani and now in the Galleria Estense in Modena, or the splendid "Susanna and the Elders" from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. A major innovation at this exhibition is the commentary in the shape of texts in each room penned by Melania Mazzucco, a writer who has devoted numerous novels to, and written unforgettable pages on, Tintoretto and his circle. Her narrative will accompany visitors step by step, room by room, from the beginning to the end of the show. This deliberately small exhibition comprises some 40 paintings (accompanied by a section devoted to the artistic environment contemporary with the Venetian master), all of the highest quality and on loan from leading international museums and collections, offering visitors a tight but extremely significant overview of the artistic career of Jacopo Tintoretto: that 'tireless manual labourer' as his fellow Venetian and art critic Boschin called him once and for all, 'but without intending in any way to demean him', as the great art critic Roberto Longhi pointed out, describing him in his turn as 'a natural genius, a great inventor of dramatic tales that unfold in a choreography of vibrant light and shade... an endlessly entertaining performance.' The Scuderie, together with the Palazzo del Quirinale (Quirinal Palace – official residence of the President of the Italian Republic) and the Palazzo della Consulta (Constitutional Court – originally a villa built upon the ruins of the Baths of Constantine and adapted by Sixtus V as a civil and criminal court), make up a stunning urban space. At the center of the spacious piazza between these three buildings stands an obelisk – moved from nearby the Mausoleum of Augustus in the eighteenth century – atop a fountain and the famous statues of the Dioscuri (the two gigantic Roman marble "Horse Tamers", Castor and Pollux). The Scuderie stands next to the Colonna gardens and on top of the archeological remains of the great Roman Temple of Serapide – some of which are still visible. The building covers approximately 3000 square meters, over several floors. Wide-open spaces on the second and third floors house the exhibitions. A cafeteria is situated on the mezzanine level and a bookstore, a giftshop and special areas dedicated to exhibition-related initiatives are all on the ground floor. Visit the Scuderie's website at ... http://www.scuderiequirinale.it

The Peabody Essex Museum of Art shows A History of Jerry Uelsmann's Photography Posted: 16 Mar 2012 10:50 PM PDT Salem, Massachusetts.- Beautiful and surreal, funny and provocative, the photographs of Jerry Uelsmann are icons of American photo history. The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents the first retrospective of Uelsmann's work in over 30 years. "The Mind's Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann" features 90 works spanning the artist's celebrated and wide-ranging career, with well-known works shown alongside never-before-seen recent images. As a pioneer of contemporary photography and master of experimental darkroom technique, Uelsmann has continuously pushed the creative and technical boundaries of photography, revealing new visual possibilities and critical considerations for the medium. In the late 1950s, Uelsmann began experimenting with multiple enlargers and advanced masking, diffusing, burning and dodging techniques, to create imaginary images in the darkroom decades before the advent of Photoshop. "The Mind's Eye" is on view at the museum through May 13th.

Fabergé Notebook in which Queen Victoria recorded her Diamond Jubilee celebrations displayed Posted: 16 Mar 2012 10:30 PM PDT LONDON.- A Fabergé notebook in which Queen Victoria recorded guests who attended her Diamond Jubilee celebrations is to go on display in the exhibition Treasures from The Queen's Palaces at The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse from 16th March. The Queen signed and dated the notebook herself. On every other page are the signatures of her guests, who included crowned heads of Europe. Many had attended the dinner at Buckingham Palace on the evening before the official Jubilee commemoration on 22 June 1897. Queen Victoria later described that evening in her journal. She wrote, 'The dinner was in the Supper Room…All the family, foreign Royalties, special Ambassadors & Envoys were invited. I sat between the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand & the Pce of Naples.' The exhibition Treasures from The Queen's Palaces reflects the tastes of monarchs and other members of the royal family who have shaped the Royal Collection over the past five centuries. The selection of 100 outstanding works has been made across the entire breadth of the Collection and from nine royal residences. It includes paintings, drawings, miniatures, watercolours, manuscripts, furniture, sculpture, ceramics and jewellery.

J. Paul Getty Museum aquires Jean-Antoine Watteau's "The Italian Comedians" Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:50 PM PDT LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today the acquisition of The Italian Comedians (ca. 1720) by Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684–1721). The large oil painting (50 7/8" x 36 3/4") was painted at the height of Watteau's fame, shortly before his early death at age 36. "The Italian Comedians" joins 18th century French paintings already in the Getty Museum's collection by artists such as Nicolas Lancret (1690 –1743), Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), and Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789), all of which have been acquired in the last decade."This major, little-known painting is extraordinary. It shows Watteau at the height of his creative genius," said James Cuno, President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. "Not only will it enhance our paintings collection, but it complements the Museum's collection of French decorative arts, which is amongst the finest in the world." The Italian Comedians will go on view in late spring.

The CaixaForum Barcelona Shows "Goya ~ Lights and Shadows" Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:33 PM PDT Barcelona, Spain.- The CaixaForum Barcelona is proud to present "Goya" Lights and Shadows", which opened today and remains on view through June 24th. Comprising nearly one hundred works, the exhibition offers a chronological journey through the work of the great master. A large and important selection without being exhaustive, is divided into small visual stories that examine major issues addressed by the artist throughout his life. The exhibition was previously on view at the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. The exhibition is presented in Barcelona as part of the collaboration agreement between the Obra Social "la Caixa" and the Prado Museum , and includes such prominent pieces and appreciated by the public as "The Clothed Maja", "The Umbrella", "Flying witches" and "Still Learning". Different microstories raised reflect the social reality of the time when Goya lived, starring both royalty and the privileged classes and the intellectuals, friends of the artist and the people. It is evident, thus, the thematic richness and impressive technique of Goya and the simultaneity of the compositions of commission and those freer and criticism, born of desire itself expressive of the artist. An important part of the exhibition is focused on showing the surprising dominance of the different techniques used by the painter, who advanced the path to liberation modern art. Along the proposed route are discovered further links with artists, both technically and ideologically, and own a unique path that has made Goya "the first modern artist." Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) - the Old Master from Spain whose acutely critical eye and intellectual acumen grasped the many diverse aspects of society and human psychology, all helping pave the path for modern painting. Goya's works stand as testament to Europe's age of great social upheavals, as they move us even today, two centuries later. Goya rose from his humble beginnings as the son of a regional artisan to become court painter to King Charles IV of Spain. Goya's portraits of the royal family and members of their court won him great acclaim. As peace in Spain crumbled in the face of Napoleon's invasion, the elderly Goya came face to face with the suffering of the ordinary people caught up in war and chaos. His gaze then turned beyond reality, to the realm of dreams and visions, which led him to create unique works that can be said to herald the beginnings of modern painting. Goya's creative activities, supported by an unquenchable curiosity about the human condition, continued undiminished throughout his 82 years of life. One of Spain's top tourist attractions, the CaixaForum has a fascinating history. Inaugurated in February 2002, CaixaForum is the Barcelona headquarters of "La Caixa" Foundation, a social and cultural foundation created by "La Caixa" savings bank. The "La Caixa" Foundation is a non-profit institution, created at the beginning of the 1980s to supervise the bank's charitable works (which had been part of their philosophy since being established at the start of the twentieth century). The foundation is active in a wide range of cultural areas, including providing public libraries, organizing music festivals, the provision of social services and medical research. However, it is for its museums that it is best known. As well as 2 large science museums (in Barcelona and Madrid), the foundation has art museums and exhibition spaces in Madrid, Mallorca, Palma, Lleida, Tarragona and Barcelona, under the "CaixaForum" banner. The Foundation started collecting contemporary art in 1985 and since then it has accumulated over 950 works. CaixaForum Barcelona is based in a former textile factory in Barcelona that serves both as the foundation's headquarters and also as the main art exhibition space. Commissioned by the industrialist Casimir Casaramona i Puigcercós as a textile factory, this art-nouveau style building was designed by the famous Barcelona architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch and opened in 1911. A triumph of modern, enlightened working conditions and stunning architecture, the building immediately became a design icon for the city, winning local design awards and with many locals refusing to believe that behind the fabulous exterior, it hid a mundane textile factory. The bare brickwork is topped by Catalan vaults resting on cast-iron columns and enclosing light-filled, spacious workshops. By necessity, a long and low building, the architect broke its silhouette with battlements and two slender towers. Unfortunately, it only survived as a factory for a few years before becoming first a warehouse and then stables and garages for the National Police Force. "La Caixa" acquired the building in 1963, and in 1992 it was decided to return this building to the people of Barcelona, and the country as a whole, while giving it a new function with social, cultural and educational aims, it thus became the CaixaForum. Local and international architects, including the RIBA gold medal winning Japanese architect, Arata Isozaki , who designed the main entrance (a sculpted structure in the form of metal trees covered by panes of glass) and visitors' reception area in the Centre, contributed to the refurbishment and extension work. The building now provides 3,600 m2 of exhibition space (in 5 exhibition galleries), a 350-seat auditorium, a kids' art workshop, café-restaurant and gallery shop. It has become one of Barcelona's most dynamic, active and lively cultural centers. From the entrance, escalators and the lift run from Isozaki's sculpture down to the open-air English courtyard below, which gives onto the foyer. This part of the building also houses the "Secret garden", a minimalist, intimate, closed-off area that allows the visitor to clear their mind before encountering more of the artworks. Visit the museum's website at ... http://obrasocial.lacaixa.es/nuestroscentros/caixaforumbarcelona/caixaforumbarcelona_es.html

Serge Diaghilev's Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929 Announced by the V&A Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:22 PM PDT LONDON.- The V&A's major autumn exhibition, "Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929", will explore the world of the influential artistic director Serge Diaghilev and the most exciting dance company of the 20th century. Diaghilev combined dance, music and art in bold ways to create 'total theatre'. A consummate collaborator, he worked with Stravinsky, Chanel, Picasso, Matisse and Nijinsky. Diaghilev and The Golden Age of the Ballets Russes will be at the V&A from 25 September 2010 until 9 January 2011 Diaghilev's dramatic performances transformed dance, reawakening interest in ballet across Europe and America. This major retrospective will celebrate his enduring influence on 20th-century art and design and will include more than 300 objects from the V&A's own unrivalled collection and from a variety of lenders. The energy of the Ballets Russes' performances will be brought to life through giant backcloths, costumes, art, film and sound. Specially created films will be on show throughout including footage of composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall explaining the development of music that accompanied the Ballets Russes. Treasures on show will include Picasso's huge front cloth for Le Train Bleu, as well as original costumes and set designs, props and posters by artists and designers like Léon Bakst, Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau and Natalia Goncharova. These will tell the story of a company which began in the social and political upheaval of prerevolutionary Russia and went on to cause a sensation with exotic performances that had never been seen before. The exhibition begins with Diaghilev's life in St Petersburg. With an overview of the dance scene he was set to transform, it will explore his early work in Paris, displaying the magnificent costume for Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godonov worn by Feodor Chaliapin. This gallery will include a rich array of costumes designed by Bakst and tell the story of the Ballets Russes up to the outbreak of War in 1914. The turban for Le Pavillon d'Armide and the gold and pearl tunic from Le Festin, both worn by charismatic dancer Vaslav Nijinsky at the dazzling opening performance of the 1909 Saison Russe will be displayed along with sculptures of him by Auguste Rodin and by Una Troubridge. Radically choreographed by Nijinsky and scored by Igor Stravinsky, the Ballets Russes' 1913 production of The Rite of Spring sensationalised Paris, causing a riot in the aisles of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées at its first performance. The first gallery will conclude with a group of nine costumes designed by Nicolas Roerich for this very performance. The second gallery will take visitors behind the scenes of the Ballets Russes' productions - their inspiration, choreography, music and creation of the sets. Nijinsky's notation for L'Après-midi d'un faune will be displayed for the first time as it was intended to be read, as will the musical score for Pulcinella by Stravinsky. Another highlight will be a presentation of The Firebird, examined through a series of designs for Goncharova's coronation scene, concluding dramatically with the actual backcloth. Pablo Picasso became an integral member of the Ballets Russes during the War. His enormous front cloth for Le Train Bleu, dedicated and signed, will be on show as well as a costume he designed for Parade. The exhibition will look at how the Ballets Russes survived during the War having been cut off from their roots in Russia with little access to the cities they performed in before 1914. The final gallery will present Diaghilev and his company in the 1920s - a period when he had achieved great status in European culture. The works of artists, authors and musicians he knew or was associated with will be shown - including manuscripts by Joyce, Proust and Eliot. There will be a large selection of costumes in this gallery from the exotic - Léon Bakst's The Sleeping Princess and Henri Matisse's Le Chant du rossignol, and the wacky - Mikhail Larionov's Chout and Giorgio de Chirico's Le Bal, and the chic - Coco Chanel's bathing costumes for Le Train Bleu, Georges Braque's Zephyr and Flore and Marie Laurencin's Les Biches. Mark Jones, Director of the V&A said: "Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes redefined ballet. Our exhibition will tell the story of this groundbreaking entrepreneur and artist. Diaghilev's dedication to pushing boundaries and collaborating with the best designers, choreographers and artists of his time left an inspiring legacy. The V&A is delighted to be showing its unrivalled collection of Diaghilev and Ballets Russes' objects in this timely exhibition." The V&A is the greatest museum of art and design, a world treasure house with collections of fabulous scope and diversity. The Museum holds over 3000 years worth of artefacts from many of the world's richest cultures. Choose one of the collections below to explore further. Visit : http://www.vam.ac.uk/

Ilana Raviv solo exhibition at Moscow Museum of Modern Art Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:21 PM PDT MOSCOW - The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents " Reflections ", a solo exhibition of Ilana Raviv showcasing different periods of her oeuvre — from the early 1980s to the present. This exhibition is the logical continuation of the artist's monumental large-scale retrospective that took place at the State Russian Museum in Saint-Petersburg in 2007-2008. In this show, Raviv's works will be on view, and will include works on paper made in different techniques, including acrylic, watercolor, pencil, Indian ink, and bamboo pen and brush. On view through 18 January, 2009.

' Vincent van Gogh's Friendship in Letters and Paint ' at the Morgan Library Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:20 PM PDT New York City - "My God, if only I had known this country at 25, instead of coming here at 35." That was Vincent van Gogh, freshly arrived in southern France, with its aromatic fields and star-spilling skies, in 1888. He was writing to his artist-friend Émile Bernard, 15 years his junior.

The Austin Museum of Art presents " Modern Art / Modern Lives / Then + Now " Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:19 PM PDT AUSTIN, TX.- The Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) presents Modern Art. Modern Lives. Then + Now. This two-part exhibition, organized by the Austin Museum of Art, draws from AMOA's permanent collection and local collections to explore how modern and contemporary artists merge art and life. It focuses on two distinct periods and areas: the start of modern art in the late 19th and early 20th century in Europe, and the late 20th and early 21st century from diverse cultures and art centers around the world. On exhibit 30 August through 7 December, 2008.

The State Russian Museum displays the “Neoclassicism in Russia ~ 1900-1932" Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:18 PM PDT   St. Petersburg, Russia - "Neoclassicism in Russia" is the first monographic exhibition in the country, chronologically limited to the years 1900-1932. It has a composite character to reflect synthetic nature of neoclassical quest that has penetrated all spheres of national culture at that time. This quest was especially notable in architecture, painting, decorative and applied arts and influenced literature, theatre, music, fashion and lifestyle of Russian people. The exhibition will be on display till January 12, 2009 at the State Russian Museum. Neoclassicism was a retrospective movement in the culture of Europe and the USA at the beginning of 20th century. Striving to create "Le Grand Manière" the representatives of this movement resorted to lofty ideals of antiquity, the Renaissance and Classicism. Neoclassicism has given the world the architecture, decorative and visual arts of everlasting value and introduced the names of Auguste Perret, Peter Behrens, Adolf Loos, Pierre Puvis De Chavannes, Maurice Denis, Franz von Stuck, Ferdinand Hodler, Aristide Maillol, Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, Gustav Vigeland, Ivan Meštrovic and others. During the years of rapid evolution of avant-garde art neoclassicists saw their mission in preserving the traditions of classical art, threatened by 'none-objectivity' leading (as it seemed in the 1910s) to arts extermination. At different times neoclassical ideas nourished such artists as Andre Derain, Pablo Picasso, Gino Severini, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Kazimir Malevich and others. The exhibition features paintings, graphics and sculptures from the Russian Museum collection – works in different genres by Valentin Serov, Léon Bakst, Konstantin Somov, Boris Kustodiev, Zinaida Serebryakova, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Georgy Narbut, Sergei Chekhonin, Alexander Yakovlev, Vasily Shukhayev, Sergei Konenkov, Alexander Matveyev, Ivan Fomin, Alexander Samokhvalov, Kazimir Malevich and others. Those who want to see grandiose allegories or pompous, "normative" art at the exposition will be disappointed. Such art could not originate in Russia early in the 20th century, when the ruling ideas in the country were the cult of individualism, weariness from ideological "fetters" of the narodnik movement (populism), skepsis about "authorities" and all kinds of didactics, theatre-centrism and the ideas of dramatization of life. The art of neoclassicism calls up to spiritual heights, nevertheless remaining adequate to human. Full of humanistic ideas, neoclassicism is a warm, delicate and intellectual art, sometimes intimate and exquisite, but always filled with classical symbolism. Those symbols were easily "read" by educated people of that time, but were later forgotten, while many achievements of neoclassicism assimilated into some other movements (mainly social realism). The Russian Museum collection contains over 400,000 exhibits. The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art. Visit The State Russian Museum at : http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/museum/

State Russian Museum Exhibits Yury Hrzhanovsky (1905 - 1987) Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:17 PM PDT   St. Petersburg, Russia - The exhibition of Yury Hrzhanovsky (1905 - 1987), disciple of Pavel Filonov, will be on view through 12 May  in the State Russian Museum. About 50 paintings and more than 150 graphic works by the artist will be presented. Among them there is "The Siberian Partisans", big pictorial panel that was shown on the well-known exhibition of Filonov's disciples in the Print House in 1927. The artist's drawings from the period of working in the Filonov's studio and his earlier artworks that were created in the years of studying in Irkutsk will be presented for the first time.

The Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao Shows "Daniel Tamayo ~ Fables" Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:16 PM PDT Bilbao, Spain - The Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao is presenting a solo exhibiton of recent works by contemporary Basque painter Daniel Tamayo. "Daniel Tamayo: Fables" is on view until June 12th. Daniel Tamayo (Bilbao, 1951) was one of the original group of students at the University of the Basque Country's Fine Arts Faculty, where he now teaches. Beginning his career in the late seventies, Tamayo was influenced by the Pop movement and several leading names in the contemporary Spanish art world, such as Luis Gordillo. What we might call his figurative code has been marked by a taste for geometric drawing, "objectual" form and intense colours in smooth, flat inks.

Mark Wallinger Retrospective at Kunstverein Braunschweig Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:15 PM PDT   BRAUNSCHWEIG, GERMANY - Kunstverein Braunschweig presents a Mark Wallinger retrospective, on view through November 11, 2007. Mark Wallinger (b. 1959) is one of the circle of artists who, under the rubric "Young British Art", caused a stir in the art world in the 1990s.

The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art Welcomes Our Editor Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:14 PM PDT The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is a private art museum founded in October 9, 1993. Located in Oslo, Norway the museum is based on an exquisite collection of international contemporary art. The collections main focus is the American appropriation artists from the 1980s, but it is currently developing towards the international contemporary art scene, with artists like Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Matthew Barney, Tom Sachs, Doug Aitken, Olafur Eliasson and Cai Guo-Qiang. At the museum one can find a Jeff Koons' gigantic piece of kitsch in fragile, gilt porcelain – a sculpture portraying the pop star Michael Jackson with his favorite chimpanzee, Bubbles. The museum gives 6-7 temporary exhibitions each year. Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is very much an international museum of high quality. The museum collaborates with international institutions, and produces exhibitions that travels worldwide. The museum is also very much preoccupied with relations between the museum and the public, and have recently been able to offer free admission. The museum is working towards new communication structures with information via mobile telephone and highly trained museum guides. The museum collection was originally based on a private collection that goes back thirty years, and has significantly developed with the many changes in modern/contemporary art. There has been an interest in German Abstract Expressionism, English modern painting, and the "Young British Artists" to mention a few areas. Presently the collection is orientated towards the young American art scene. It also encompasses works pertaining to the steadily increasing global art community. The main areas of curatorial expertise in the museum are art from the 1960s to the present, including American and European pop-art, post-modern appropriation art of the 1980's and international contemporary art. Much needed additional space will be provided by 2012 when the museum moves into two new buildings designed by Renzo Piano that will be located in a sculpture park also designed by Piano. The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art should be on every art lover's radar screen. Website: _ www.afmuseet.no/ The Astrup Fearnley Collection is vast and expanding. For the next two years, its works will go on a temporary rotating display within the museum. The concept of rotation enables them to work with the collection as a whole but not at the same time. It presents a way to create constellations of works 'on the move', and facilitates surprising and unique assemblages of art across a large, diverse conceptual and thematic spectrum. Famous artists like Allora & Calzadilla, Frank Benson, Cao Fei, Gilbert & George, Douglas Gordon, Shilpa Gupta, Guyton Walker, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Ann Lislegaard, Liu Wei, Bjarne Melgaard, and Yang Fudong can be found in their permanent collection. The museum has confirmed its position as an important institution for the presentation of contemporary art, both through mounting prestigious exhibitions, but also through the large holdings of Norwegian and international contemporary art, which include the greatest names in the international arena of art. The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art is an independent part of the Astrup Fearnley building complex, which covers approximately one half of a city block. Designed by LPO architects and designers, the museum opened in the autumn of 1993 and encloses an area of about 4500 sqm.The main entrance is marked with monumentally large steel doors; when the doors are open, one can see from a great distance that the museum is open. The exhibition spaces cover two floors. The height of the galleries varies from 3,5 to 10,5 meters. In the design of the gallery spaces, emphasis is upon the rooms expressing humility in relation to the artworks; simultaneously they provide the works with a beautiful and functional frame. Emphasis is also laid upon the entryway and exhibition spaces being airy and pleasant to move about in. The floor-design provides great flexibility for temporary constructions and installations. The choice of materials expresses quality but with limited means—here the artworks are the main focus. The concrete wall, like a circular movement in the museum, establishes a powerful but nevertheless subdued backdrop; the stairway to the main gallery, formed in steel with steps of smoked oak, shows an unambiguous connection between the floors that is greatly admired by visitors.

Yoko Ono Japanese Musician & Artist Awarded the 8th Hiroshima Art Prize Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:13 PM PDT HIROSHIMA, JAPAN - In 1989 the city of Hiroshima, first place in the world to suffer a nuclear attack, established the Hiroshima Art Prize with the object of promoting through art the "spirit of Hiroshima" that yearns for permanent world peace and prosperity for all humanity. The Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art is to stage an exhibition showcasing the work of the eighth prize winner, Yoko Ono. Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art was established on May 3, 1989. The first public art museum in Japan devoted exclusively to contemporary art, it is located in the Hijiyama Park which has a splendid view of Hiroshima and is famous for its cherry blossoms.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum Announces "Topping Out" Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:12 PM PDT San Francisco, CA - The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) announced the "topping out" of its new facility in San Francisco's Yerba Buena cultural district.  "Topping out" is a construction term that refers to the moment when workers raise the highest beam into place at the top of the structure. Plant Construction Company, LLP and Olson Steel, along with members of The Contemporary Jewish Museum staff and Board of Trustees as well as the building team celebrated the occasion with a BBQ lunch and tour of the construction site.  The CJM's new facility, designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, is an adaptive reuse of the historic Jessie Street Power Substation.  The Museum will open in the Spring of 2008.

Pioneering "Soul i-D" Exhibition Tours to Christie's in South Kensington Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:11 PM PDT LONDON - In collaboration with i-D Magazine, Christie's South Kensington is delighted to announce that it will host a pioneering exhibition, supported by Diesel, celebrating the recent publication of a 600 page book entitled SOUL i-D. From Monday 2 March until Tuesday 10 March 2009, Christie's South Kensington will showcase the UK leg of a three year international exhibition tour debuting the highlights of this highly laudable visual anthology.

" Venus Sovietica " at The State Russian Museum Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:10 PM PDT   St. Petersburg, Russia - The State Russian Museum opened the Venus Sovietica exhibition in the Benois Wing of the Mikhailovsky Palace. The exhibition comprises circa 120 paintings, works of easel and printed graphic art, posters, sculptures, objects of decorative and applied art from the collection of the Russian Museum as well as photographs from private collections of Moscow and St Petersburg. The exhibition will be on display till March 10, 2008. In the title of the Venus Sovietica exhibition both words are equally important. On the one hand, it implies "goddess of love and beauty", on the other hand, refers to the Soviet period of Russian history from the Great October Socialist Revolution to 1991. One pole is a radically changed social status of a woman; the antipole is a traditional artistic concept of her as of a muse, source of inspiration and voluptuous beauty. Both poles have intricately intertwined. Proclaimed by the revolution and the Civil War status of an emancipated woman, equal in rights to a man in work and family life, is represented most fully and diversely in the posters. It was not infrequent that, resorting to this form of art to fulfill an important social order some artists deliberately deprived their heroines of corporal, gender and even aesthetic essence. Some other forms of art, such as painting, sculpture and drawing, offered an incomparably wider spectrum of senses, conveyed in the female nudes. Painters, sculptors and graphic artists accentuate poesy and feminine fragility, sensuality or crude earthliness and even grotesque and humor. Different stages of the Soviet epoch dictated different aims. Thus, in the 1930s the ideal of beauty was equated with corporal beauty of a body, demonstrating robust health and strength. Nevertheless, even in the oeuvre of Alexander Samokhvalov and Alexander Deineka two types of representation and two types of beauty coexist. Their paintings, devoted to sport and work, the Metrostroi girls and athletes seemingly deprived of intimacy, secrecy and mystique, are, nevertheless, tinted with lyrical and sensual author's attitude. How voluptuous, refined and piquant are the wonderful miniatures by Alexander Samokhvalov (sketches for the unrealized Joy of Life)! And how masterfully Alexander Deineka conveyed the captivating magic of a woman at a toilet table, tête-à-tête with a mirror in his Night! Needless to say for the nudes, the eternal theme with every artist. Notwithstanding the changeability of the ideal of beauty, the curves of a female body, femininity of pose and gold glimmer of skin remain important and dear to the artists. The artist's models by Yury Pimenov, Vladimir Lebedev and Alexander Shevchenko were, certainly, painted by the artists all for themselves, since they could never leave the artists' studios. Possibly, these paintings are too personal and biographic. The more surprising is Vladimir Malagis's model painted traditionally, against drapery, in a classical pose and with a slightly gloomy unfriendly face bearing individual, but, by no means, aristocratic "beauty". The iconography of the Venus Sovietica corresponds to its historical progenitrixes in full. The types of the lying Venus (Venus pudica) and Venus at toilet will ever be classical. The myth of the birth of Venus corresponds to the beauties at full length, as if offering themselves for the judgment of the Gods and the viewers. Even the evidently sinful and dissipated female images originate from the Venus sinister, vulgar, woman of easy virtue (Aphrodite Pandemos, associated with mere physical love, according to Plato). Venus had another hypostasis of mother (Venus Genetrix). All these types of Venus existed in Soviet Art though transformed under ideological and aesthetical influence, limited or forbidden for exhibiting in those days. Quoting Sigmund Freud: "if you want to known more about femininity, than ask your own experience, or turn to poets, or wait for the science to give you a more profound and concordant information." This exhibition about the 20th century woman is just another answer to a still unsolved enigma of her beauty. The State Russian Museum today is a unique depository of artistic treasures, a leading restoration center, an authoritative institute of academic research, a major educational center and the nucleus of a network of national museums of art. The Russian Museum collection contains circa 400.000 exhibits. The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art. Visit The State Russian Museum at : http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/museum/

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 16 Mar 2012 09:09 PM PDT 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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