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

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• Art Dubai Returns for its Sixth Edition March 21st
• UCCA to Show Major Retrospective of "Gu Dexin ~ The Important Thing is Not the Meat"
• The Bakersfield Museum of Art to show "Bay Area Figuration"
• The Leeds Art Fund celebrates 100 years of ‘Art in Our Time’
• Artexpo Returns to New York from March 22nd to March 25th
• The Musée d'Orsay shows Major Exhibition of Works by Akseli Gallen-Kallela
• The UB Anderson Gallery displays a "Print Review"
• The Chiostro Del Bramante Presents "Miró! ~ Poetry and Light"
• 'Strange Bodies ~ Figurative Works' from the Hirshhorn Museum Collection
• Waddington Galleries exhibits eight new paintings by Peter Halley
• Pop artist Romero Britto To Exhibit Royal Portrait Series at Imitate Modern Gallery
• The Grey Art Gallery in New York Shows Four Centuries of French Drawings
• The Nationalmuseum to present Caspar David Friedrich ~ "Nature Animated"
• Gagosian Gallery Publishes Definitive Survey of Jeff Koons's Hulk Elvis Paintings
• New Saatchi Gallery Opens at Duke of York's HQ Building, Chelsea
• The National Gallery of Art exhibition of Venetian Renaissance Sculptor Tullio Lombardo
• Yue Minjun Warriors Stand in Formation at the Milwaukee Art Museum
• Lichtenstein $10 Drawing Expected to Achieve over $1,000,000 at Christie's
• The Splendid Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts Greets Our AKN Editor On Tour
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

Art Dubai Returns for its Sixth Edition March 21st Posted: 18 Mar 2012 01:16 AM PDT Dubai.- Over the last five years, Art Dubai, the leading international art fair in the MENASA (Middle East/North Africa/South Asia), has become a cornerstone of the region's booming contemporary art community. In 2011, Art Dubai welcomed 20,000 visitors – including 60 international museums groups - and hosted over 70 galleries from 30 countries. The sixth edition of Art Dubai takes place from March 21st through March 24th, at Madinat Jumeirah, and features 75 galleries from 31 countries, in addition to a new programme of artists' and curators' residencies, commissioned projects, performative tours, workshops, the unveiling of the works by Abraaj Capital Art Prize winners and the critically acclaimed Global Art Forum. Art Dubai is part of Art Week, the umbrella initiative that includes Sikka Art Fair (organised by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, and taking place in Al Bastakiya, March 15-25), Design Days Dubai, and a range of contemporary art and design events, major museum shows, and new gallery exhibitions and artists' projects, taking place each March.  Art Week positions the Gulf as a place of artistic production and home to multiple cultural centres. The fair is held under the Patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, and is run as a joint venture between the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Middle East Fairs Ltd. Art Dubai Ladies' Day, Wednesday March 21, is held under the patronage of HRH Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Women's Establishment, Wife of HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs UAE. The Global Art Forum was launched by Art Dubai at its inaugural fair in 2007. Bringing together art world protagonists for a week of conversation, the Forum has become the region's leading platform for contemporary art discourse, with a particular emphasis on issues prevalent in the Middle East and Asia. In 2012 the Global Art Forum expands to six days and features commissioned projects and research, as well as live debates and presentations. Now in its sixth year, the Global Art Forum is directed by writer Shumon Basar and is characterized by a particularly innovative and dynamic approach. Entitled 'The Medium of Media', the Forum is re-inventing itself this year. Along with the familiar array of lectures, conversations, discussions, and workshops, it includes a new roster of commissioned projects that precede and succeed the live days. Thematically, the Global Art Forum_6 looks at the double meaning of the term 'media', both within the art world and referring to the world of publishing and reportage. Underpinning this is a look back at the past year in the Arab world, and how fundamental events have been both produced and consumed as media. The Forum is, effectively, a media production about media. Over 50 contributors to Global Art Forum_6 include: CEO and Wallis Annenberg director of LACMA Michael Govan; Serpentine Gallery co-director of exhibitions and programmes and director of international projects Hans Ulrich Obrist; novelists Douglas Coupland and Amin Maalouf; journalist/critics Josephine Bosma and Sukhdev Sandhu; art market reporter Georgina Adam; geo-strategist and author Parag Khanna; film-producer Anna Lena Vaney; artists Shezad Dawood, Constant Dullaart, Wael Shawky and Michael Rakowitz; curators Jack Persekian and Nat Muller; Demotix founder Turi Munthe; commentators Mishaal Al Gergawi and Yasmine El Rashidi; as well as filmmaker Sophie Fiennes with a special screening of Over Your Cities Grass will Grow. Commissioned projects include a series of PowerPointsTM by writers and artists, curated by Victoria Camblin, including Ayshay+Kari Altmann, Douglas Coupland, Goldin & Senneby, LuckyPDF and Alex Provan (Triple Canopy); a Dictionary of the Mediatized Gulf by Qatari artist-writer Sophia Al Maria; a publication entitled Some Medium Stories, edited by Michael Vazquez featuring Emily Dische-Becker, Tom Francis, Kristine Khouri; and a Media Archiving blog by Mariam Wissam Al Dabbagh. Two new collaborations between Art Dubai and Mathaf will be announced: an interactive Arabic Art Glossary, led by curator Lara Khaldi, and an Artist's Residency at Al Jazeera news network, Doha. These works will be made available, in both Doha and Dubai, at the new Forum-Forum resource space, which will include UAE research by Brusselssprout and blogger/photographer Hind Mezaina as well as works by artists Isak Berbic and Banu Cennetoglu. Art Dubai Projects is a programme of new works and performances that explores the fabric and economy of an art fair, embracing the theatrical nature of such an event. In 2012, this critically-acclaimed, interactive programme at Art Dubai (March 21-24, 2012) features dynamic new initiatives: artists' residencies and site-specific projects are joined by live, city-wide radio transmissions; a new Performance Night staged at the fair; plus a unique artist's project for children.  Artists commissioned to produce new site-specific and performative works for Art Dubai Projects include Fayçal Baghriche, Yto Barrada, Carlos Celdran, James Clar, Koken Ergun, Setu Legi, Magdi Mostafa, UBIK and Deniz Üster. In partnership with The Pavilion Downtown Dubai, The Curatorial Delegation -- a collective consisting of writer and curator Juan A. Gaitán and Rabat's L'Appartement 22 founder Abdellah Karroum -- presents Radio for Example (R22-Dubai), a live transmission of mobile conversations with leading artistic practitioners, recorded on the move, around Dubai. These interviews will be streamed on Radio Apartment 22 and presented at Art Dubai and The Pavilion. In keeping with the spirit of collaboration, Art Dubai hosts its inaugural Performance Night on March 22, in partnership with not-for-profit artspace Traffic. This special event features artists, poets, musicians, academics, curators, and collectors -- most of whom are based in the UAE -- including Hala Al Ali, Isak Berbic, Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Anahita Razmi, Lantian Xie and WolfPakistan, a self-styled "native-born Emirati Indian Slash Mexican dance rap group". Visit the fair's website at ... http://artdubai.ae

UCCA to Show Major Retrospective of "Gu Dexin ~ The Important Thing is Not the Meat" Posted: 18 Mar 2012 12:58 AM PDT Beijing.- The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) will present a major retrospective of work by Gu Dexin featuring more than 280 artworks and spanning three decades of the artist's vast output. Entitled "Gu Dexin: The Important Thing is Not the Meat", the exhibition will be on view from Sunday March 25th through May 27th, and marks the first comprehensive attempt to examine one of China's most original artistic voices. Gu Dexin was one of the pioneering presences of the generation that began making contemporary art during the 1980s. In 1989, he was one of the three Chinese artists to show in "Magiciens de la Terre" at the Pompidou Centre, the first time art from contemporary China had been inserted into a global context. Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s he continued to be a prominent participant in the wave of "China shows" that first brought contemporary Chinese art to an international public. The exhibition takes its title from a 2003 article by the artist and critic Qiu Zhijie, the title of which was itself a response to the 1996 article "The Important Thing is Not the Art" by the curator Li Xianting. In this article, Li wrote on behalf of a then-marginalized group of painters and sculptors (including Gu) whose significance he saw in terms as much social as aesthetic. Qiu wrote in defense of his own later generation, the "Post-Sense Sensibility" artists, a group which provoked public ire and official censure with their gory experiments involving animal and even human flesh around the turn of the 21st century. This title, like this exhibition, positions Gu as the missing link between these two generations and their respective concerns. Tracing the span of the artist's career, from his amateur paintings in the late 1970s through to his climactic final textual installation piece of 2009, the exhibition presents Gu Dexin's work as an alternative history of the development of contemporary art in China. His early paintings, watercolors, and embroideries open up a fantastic yet dystopian worlds of creatures, while the later visceral and performative installations of fruit, meat, and plastic, foreshadow wider debates over acceptable forms and materials within the Chinese art world and the emerging international community around it. Gu Dexin refused to work with the obviously Chinese symbols and elements favoured by his contemporaries. In fact, he disliked the idea of imposing a reading on his viewers so much that he titled his works first with serial numbers, and later simply with the date on which they were completed. His ultimate decision to end his career and return to "normal" life in the Beijing residential compound where he grew up has led to his practice being read by many commentators as more of a protest to society than a rejection of art. The exhibition has been conceived and curated by new UCCA Director Philip Tinari. It includes a special loan of 80 artworks from the collection of the Guy and Myriam Ullens Foundation alongside works from the Sigg Collection, DSL Collection, Guan Yi Collection, Yuz Foundation, and Tim & Ellen Kim Van Housen Collection and several other lenders, including many works that have not been seen since their original appearances at biennials and underground exhibitions. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major monograph, which will be published by UCCA's new publishing venture UCCA Books. It will be launched in early summer and will include documentation of a major conference that will accompany the opening on March 25th. The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art is a not-for-profit art center in Beijing, located at the heart of the 798 Art District. As a platform for contemporary art linking China and the world, UCCA offers around 15 exhibitions a year and over 500 public programmes including art talks, film screenings, performances, workshops and public festivals. The international center maintains a special focus on recent developments and historical movements in Chinese contemporary culture, showcasing the latest in art and design and fostering international exchange. This year, UCCA are producing major exhibitions of established and emerging Chinese artists, under the curatorial vision of the new Director, Philip Tinari. These include Gu Dexin, Yung Ho Chang, Yun-Fei Ji, Song Kun, Wang Mai, Jennifer Wen Ma, and Kan Xuan. The center is currently hosting an exhibition of limited edition works by artists produced by the art journal Parkett. The show, titled "Inside a Book a House of Gold," includes 212 works by 192 leading international artists including John Baldessari, Urs Fischer, Andreas Gursky, Christian Marclay, Richard Prince, Gerhardt Richter, Ed Ruscha and Cindy Sherman. The center will stage Indian Highway this summer, marking the first time a major touring exhibition is mounted at UCCA, as well as the largest exhibition of Indian art in China to date. Fall shows with artists including the Japanese sculptor Teppei Kaneuji and the first ever exhibition of Marcel Duchamp in China round out an international programme. Visit the center's website at ... http://www.ucca.org.cn

The Bakersfield Museum of Art to show "Bay Area Figuration" Posted: 18 Mar 2012 12:36 AM PDT Bakersfield, California. The Bakersfield Museum of Art kicks of its Spring Exhibition on March 22nd with three dynamic shows highlighting an influential and relevant-to-today artist movement, Mark Harrington, a German based artist with Bakersfield roots and a unique collection of hand-crafted vessels from Californian craftsmen. The artists in the first of these, "Legacy in Continuum: Bay Area Figuration", on view from March 22nd through May 27th are creative talents, past and present working in a style noted for its timing and importance to the art world.

The Leeds Art Fund celebrates 100 years of ‘Art in Our Time’ Posted: 18 Mar 2012 12:14 AM PDT Leeds, England.- The organisation responsible for some of the most significant works of art in the collections of Leeds Museums & Galleries this year celebrates 100 years of collecting avant-garde, progressive and contemporary art, with a new exhibition, entitled "Art in Our Time". At the Leeds Art Gallery from March 23rd through August 26th, the exhibition brings together for the first time paintings and sculpture acquired by one of the UK's oldest regional supporting agencies for the visual arts, that have made such a significant contribution to what is recognised as one of the best collections of fine and decorative arts in Britain. The Leeds Art Fund centenary is sponsored by private bank Brown Shipley.

Artexpo Returns to New York from March 22nd to March 25th Posted: 17 Mar 2012 11:53 PM PDT New York City.- Artexpo New York, the world's largest fine art trade show for over 33 years, will return to New York City, from March 22nd through March 25th for an extraordinary weekend featuring fine art from both established and emerging talent, art industry seminars and entertainment at Pier 92 on the Hudson River, New York City's renowned "Art & Design Pier." This year, the show will be located adjacent to the internationally acclaimed Architectural Digest Home Design Show, hosted at Pier 94!

The Musée d'Orsay shows Major Exhibition of Works by Akseli Gallen-Kallela Posted: 17 Mar 2012 11:20 PM PDT Paris.- The Musée d'Orsay is currently showing "Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931). A Passion for Finland", on view through May 6th. Although recognised as one of the most emblematic artists of the Finnish genius at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Akseli Gallen-Kallela has never been the subject of a monographic exhibition in France. Yet he was closely linked with Paris: a pupil of the Académie Julian in the 1880s, he triumphed at the 1900 World Fair with the frescoes of the Finnish Pavillion with themes drawn from the epic Kalevala, he exhibited his work again in Paris in 1908 before embarking for Africa from which he returned with a flamboyant series of paintings and watercolours. Naturalism, neo-romanticism, symbolism and expressionism are intermingled in his work, which also include decorative arts. The exhibition accounts for this brilliant career, showing together pieces usually conserved in prestigious Finnish institutions and private collections that constitute manifestos of an art too often reduced to the expression of a national identity. Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori, Finland in a Swedish-speaking family. His father Peter Gallén worked as police chief and lawyer. At the age of 11 he was sent to Helsinki to study at a grammar school, because his father opposed his ambition to become a painter. After his father's death in 1879, Gallen-Kallela attended drawing classes at the Finnish Art Society (1881-4) and studied privately under Adolf von Becker. In 1884 he moved to Paris, to study at the Académie Julian. In Paris he became friends with the Finnish painter Albert Edelfelt, the Norwegian painter Adam Dörnberger, and the Swedish writer August Strindberg. He married Mary Slöör in 1890. The couple had three children, Impi Marjatta, Kirsti and Jorma. On their honeymoon to East Karelia, Gallen-Kallela started collecting material for his depictions of the Kalevala. This period is characterized by romantic paintings of the Kalevala, like the Aino triptych, and by several landscape paintings. In December 1894, Gallen-Kallela moved to Berlin to oversee the joint exhibition of his works with the works of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. Here he became acquainted with the Symbolists. In March 1895, he received a telegram that his daughter Impi Marjatta had died from diphtheria. This would prove to be a turning point in his work. While his works had previously been romantic, after his daughter's death Gallen-Kallela painted more aggressive works like the 'Defense of the Sampo', 'Joukahainen's Revenge', and 'Lemminkäinen's Mother'. On his return from Germany, Gallen studied print-making and visited London to deepen his knowledge, and in 1898 studied fresco-painting in Italy. For the Paris World Fair in 1900, Gallen-Kallela painted frescoes for the Finnish Pavilion. In these frescoes, his political ideas became most apparent. One of the vipers in the fresco 'Ilmarinen Plowing the Field of Vipers' is wearing the Romanov crown, and the process of removing the vipers from the field was a clear reference to his wish for an independent Finland. The Paris Exposition secured Gallen-Kallela's stature as the leading Finnish artist. In 1901 he was commissioned to paint the fresco, 'Kullervo Goes to War', for the concert hall of the Helsinki Student's Union. Between 1901 and 1903 he painted the frescoes for the Jusélius Mausoleum in Pori, memorializing the 11-year-old daughter of the industrialist F.A. Jusélius. (The frescoes were soon damaged by damp, and were completely destroyed by fire in December 1931. Jusélius assigned the artist's son Jorma to repaint them from the original sketches. The reconstruction was completed just before Jorma's death in 1939.). Gallen-Kallela officially finnicized his name to the more Finnish-sounding Akseli Gallen-Kallela in 1907. In 1909, Gallen-Kallela moved to Nairobi in Kenya with his family, and there he painted over 150 expressionist oil-paintings and bought many east African artefacts. But he returned to Finland after a couple of years, because he realized Finland was his main inspiration. Between 1911 and 1913 he designed and built a studio and house at Tarvaspää, about 10 km north of the centre of Helsinki. In 1918, Gallen-Kallela and his son Jorma took part in the fighting at the front of the Finnish Civil War. When the regent, General Mannerheim, later heard about this, he invited Gallen-Kallela to design the flags, official decorations and uniforms for the newly independent Finland. In 1919 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Mannerheim. From December 1923 to May 1926, Gallen-Kallela lived in the United States, where an exhibition of his work toured several cities and where he visited the Taos art-colony in New Mexico to study indigenous American art. In 1925 he began the illustrations for his "Great Kalevala". This was still unfinished when he died of pneumonia in Stockholm on 7 March 1931, while returning from a lecture in Copenhagen, Denmark. His studio and house at Tarvaspää was opened as the Gallen-Kallela Museum in 1961; it houses some of his works and research facilities on Gallen-Kallela himself. The Musée d'Orsay was originally a railway station, Gare d'Orsay, constructed for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and finished in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle to the design of three architects: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. It was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939. By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services. After 1939 it was used for suburban services and part of it became a mailing centre during World War II. It was then used as a set for several films, such as Kafka's The Trial adapted by Orson Welles , and as a haven for the Renaud-Barrault Theatre Company and for auctioneers, while the Hôtel Drouot was being rebuilt. In 1970, permission was granted to demolish the station but Jacques Duhamel, the then Minister for Cultural Affairs, ruled against plans to build a new hotel in its stead. The station was then put on the supplementary list of Historic Monuments and finally listed in 1978. The suggestion to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museums of France. The idea was to build a museum which would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at the George Pompidou Centre. This plan was accepted by George Pompidou and a study was commissioned in 1974. In 1978, a competition was organized to design the new museum. ACT Architecture, a team of three young architects (Pierre Colboc, Renaud Bardon and Jean-Paul Philippon, were awarded the contract which involved creating 20,000 sq. m. of new floorspace on four floors. The construction work was carried out by Bouygues. In 1981, the Italian architect, Gae Aulenti was chosen to design the interior including the internal arrangement, decoration, furniture and fittings of the museum. Finally in July 1986, the museum was ready to receive it's exhibits. It took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works. The museum was officially opened in December 1986 by the then president of the Republique François Mitterand. One of the world's most-visited museums, the Musee d'Orsay houses the largest collection of painting, sculpture, and decorative objects produced between 1848-1914, showcasing many of the most remarkable works of the early modern era. Giving visitors a detailed and breathtaking look at the birth of modern painting, sculpture, design, and even photography, the Musee d'Orsay's permanent collection spans from neoclassicism and romanticism to impressionism, expressionism, and art nouveau design. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.musee-orsay.fr

The UB Anderson Gallery displays a "Print Review" Posted: 17 Mar 2012 10:27 PM PDT Buffalo, New York.- The UB Anderson Gallery is proud to present three exhibitions of traditional, experimental, and innovative printed art by three Buffalo-affiliated artists. "Print Review" opened on March 3rd and remains on view through May 27th. "Print Review" features traditional, experimental, and innovative printed art by three Buffalo-affiliated artists. It is fitting that UB Anderson Gallery has organized these three exhibitions of printed art because the Gallery is home to more than 800 prints in its collection of 1,200 works of Modern art that was donated to UB in 2000 by David Anderson, son of Martha Jackson. Recognized as one of the most influential art dealers who contributed to the shaping of the post-WWII American art scene, Jackson was one of the first dealers to provide separate gallery space for printed art by modern artists.

The Chiostro Del Bramante Presents "Miró! ~ Poetry and Light" Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:42 PM PDT Rome.- The Chiostro Del Bramante (Bramante Cloisters) is proud to presents "Miró! Poetry and Light", on view through June 10th. It has been many years since Rome hosted an exhaustive exhibition of the works of Joan Miró (1893–1983), the great Catalan artist who left his unmistakable mark on the European avant-garde art movements. This exhibition features over 80 works never before shown in Italy, including 50 surprisingly beautiful, large-format oil paintings, but also terracotta sculptures, bronzes and watercolours. Masterpieces featured in the exhibition include the oil paintings "Woman in the Street" (1973) and "Untitled" (1978), bronzes such as "Woman" (1967) and sketches including that for the mural for Harkness Commons-Harvard University, all from the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Palma de Mallorca, which owns many works by the artist and has granted them on extraordinary loan for their Italian debut. It is curated by María Luisa Lax Cacho, considered one of the world's leading experts on Miró, who has wished to illustrate the last stage of the production of the artist's long life, when he finally made one of his great dreams come true in Majorca in 1956: a huge space of his own in which to work, protected by the peace and silence that only nature could offer him. On occasion of the exhibition Miró's long-desired studio will be wholly reconstructed within the gallery space.

'Strange Bodies ~ Figurative Works' from the Hirshhorn Museum Collection Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:20 PM PDT WASHINGTON, DC.- Figurative art plays an important role in the Hirshorn's Museum collection. "Strange Bodies," on view from Dec. 11 to early 2010, brings together some of the most celebrated examples of figuration from the museum's holdings to examine how and why artists depict and distort the body. Organized by associate curator Kristen Hileman and located in the lower-level galleries, the installation comprises more than 40 works, with a rotation of works occurring midway through the show. The exhibition also includes a gallery devoted to a survey of the museum's unique, in-depth holdings of works on paper and paintings by George Grosz, which demonstrate a socially charged use of the figure. "Strange Bodies" provides an opportunity to examine the ways in which artists have exaggerated or altered the figure in order to explore cultural and personal experiences and psychology, as well as formal qualities such as color, shape and texture. The exhibition also traces the evolution of the museum's particular focus on collecting figuration. On view are early to mid-20th century works from the core collection Joseph H. Hirshhorn donated to the museum, including pieces by Francis Bacon, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Willem de Kooning and others, which reveal the artists' interests in dissolving or warping the human figure to heighten its expressive and emotional impact. Hirshhorn also acquired paintings by Balthus and René Magritte, which represent the human subject in a surreal way, locating the body (or its parts) in contexts that are outside of mundane occurrences, and in part, reflect the traumatic war-torn world in which their art developed. Building on Hirshhorn's legacy, former director James T. Demetrion brought important examples of figuration from more recent decades into the collection, including sculptures and paintings by Georg Baselitz, Sue Coe, Tony Cragg, Robert Gober, Philip Guston, Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, Julian Schnabel, Paul Thek and Franz West. These works, such as Thek's bloody, sandal-clad "Warrior's Leg" (1966–67) made during the Vietnam War era and Coe's "Malcolm X and the Slaughter House" (1985), often combine expressionistic and/or surrealistic impulses with social critique. The use of unorthodox materials also characterizes several of these works, as with Schnabel's "Portrait of Andy Warhol" (1982) on velvet and the Kienholzs' "In the Infield Was Patty Peccavi" (1981), an assemblage of found objects including furniture, a stuffed bird, photographs and electric lights. The museum has continued to collect figurative works by artists who both participate in and challenge the tradition of figuration, such as Matthew Barney, John Currin, Ron Mueck, Dario Robleto and Yinka Shonibare. Diverse contemporary approaches to representing the human form suggest that individual identity, as well as attributes like beauty, heroism and power, is multifaceted. In Currin's painting and Mueck's sculpture, fleshy nudes challenge ideals of beauty, while Barney creates photographs of part-human and part-otherworldy avatars that meld the biological wit the mythological. As if to collapse many moments in the evolution of the human race and culture into a single object, Robleto created the piece "She Can't Dream for Us All" (2005-06). He used bone dust, pulped letters written to soldiers during various wars and melted audio recordings of Sylvia Plath reading her poetry to construct a sculpturally encased cast of the archeological specimen known as "Lucy," a distant ancestor to "Homo sapiens." The Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is a leading voice for contemporary art and culture and provides a national platform for the art and artists of our time. We seek to share the transformative power of modern and contemporary art with audiences at all levels of awareness and understanding by creating meaningful, personal experiences in which art, artists, audiences and ideas converge. We enhance public understanding and appreciation of contemporary art through acquisition, exhibitions, education and public programs, conservation, and research. Visit :  http://www.hirshhorn.si.edu/

Waddington Galleries exhibits eight new paintings by Peter Halley Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:19 PM PDT London - Waddington Galleries are pleased to announce an exhibition of eight new paintings by Peter Halley. The components of each are: Background, Cell or Prison, Window, Bars, connecting Conduits. Each component is painted in a single solid vibrant colour. In Edukators two elongated prisons stand apart in their own solitary incarceration. Large and small, they resemble a family pairing of neon barcodes, linked only by arm-like channels. In association with Waddington Galleries, Peter Halley will also be exhibiting at Stuart Shave / Modern Art from 31st May – 1st July 2007.

Pop artist Romero Britto To Exhibit Royal Portrait Series at Imitate Modern Gallery Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:18 PM PDT LONDON.- An exhibition of work by celebrated Brazilian-born pop artist Romero Britto will open in the UK this November where the artist will unveil new work including a series of portraits of members of the British Royal family. The renowned Miami-based artist, who counts Elton John, Bill Clinton, Madonna, Whitney Houston, HRH Prince Charles, King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia, Lili and Howard Buffet, Carlos Slim, Eileen Guggenheim, Andre Agassi and Hilde and Klaus Schwab as fans and collectors, will fly into London for the opening of the Central London exhibition at Imitate Modern Gallery. Modern Icons will celebrate modern day pop culture icons, including The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and HM Queen Elizabeth II, alongside portraits of The Pope, Chairman Mao, Henry Matisse, Brigitte Bardot and Jesus. The three-part exhibition will feature four original oil-on-canvas Royal portraits as well as a further series of numbered, limited edition prints and other collectibles including Mixed media fine art sculptures, and collectibles.

The Grey Art Gallery in New York Shows Four Centuries of French Drawings Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:17 PM PDT New York, NY.- New York University's Grey Art Gallery is pleased to present "Storied Past: Four Centuries of French Drawings from the Blanton Museum of Art" until  July 14th. Organized by The Blanton, and comprising fifty-eight works drawn primarily from the museum's Suida-Manning Collection, the exhibition explores the expressive and technical range of French drawing through preliminary sketches, compositional studies, figure studies, and finished drawings from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Among the artists included are Jacques Callot, François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-Louis Forain, and Théophile Alexandre Steinlen.

The Nationalmuseum to present Caspar David Friedrich ~ "Nature Animated" Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:16 PM PDT Stockholm, Sweden - Caspar David Friedrich, the leading painter of the German Romantic era, is nowadays regarded as one of the greatest figures in the history of art. Nevertheless, he remains relatively unknown in Sweden outside art history circles. This October, Nationalmuseum will set out to change this by presenting Scandinavia's first monographic exhibition of works by Friedrich. In all, over 90 artworks will be on show, including some 40 paintings. In his paintings, Friedrich depicts the Romantic belief in an animated nature where the divine permeates everything. Nature Animated will be on show on the 2nd floor at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, from 2 October 2009 until 10 January 2010. Fairly small images lead the onlooker into suggestive landscapes of mountains, sea and land. Silent human figures are lost in their surroundings, and the images convey a contemplative mood charged with a spiritual presence below the surface. In Friedrich's view, the artist's emotions alone should determine the character of the work. Artists should paint not only what they saw in front of them, but especially what they saw inside themselves. Thus a landscape painting becomes a kind of self-portrait reflecting the artist's personality. A number of Scandinavian connections feature in Caspar David Friedrich's life and art. He was born 1774 in the port city of Greifswald in the north German province of Pomerania, which at the time belonged to Sweden. He attended the Copenhagen academy of fine art. During his many years in Dresden, he was close friends with the Norwegian painter Johan Christian Dahl. Friedrich's world of imagery also has some obvious Scandinavian features. But despite these links, not one work by Friedrich hangs in a Swedish gallery. "Obtaining loans of Friedrich's art is a laborious process", explains Torsten Gunnarsson, exhibition curator. "There is not one known work in a Swedish collection. So we are delighted to be able, thanks to our international contacts, to present a monographic exhibition to the Swedish public for the first time." When the Museum Folkwang in Essen and the Hamburger Kunsthalle staged a Friedrich exhibition three years ago, the response was hugely enthusiastic. The honorary patron of Nationalmuseum's exhibition is HM Queen Silvia, who, at the opening of the Essen exhibition, expressed a desire to present Friedrich's works to a Swedish audience. Friedrich has inspired many artists in our own time. In parallel with the main exhibition, The Gallery on the ground floor will be showing how eight Swedish contemporary artists have maintained and developed Friedrich's legacy. On display will be works by Karin Mamma Andersson, Ann Böttcher, Cecilia Edefalk, Denise Grünstein, Jan Håfström, Lars Nilsson, Håkan Rehnberg and Sigrid Sandström. The exhibits will show that interest in Friedrich is not confined to painting but also extends to other techniques: sculpture, drawing, photography, collage and film. Our activities are founded on the national collection of older art up to around 1900 and older applied art and design up to the present day. Nationalmuseum's mandate has three pillars: to preserve, make accessible and help build knowledge. Our activities are also intended to put social development in perspective and make us a player in contemporary society. Caspar David Friedrich – Nature Animated will be on show on the 2nd floor at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, from 2 October 2009 until 10 January 2010. During the same period Friedrich – Eight Contemporary Commentaries will be on show in The Gallery on the ground floor (admission free). Visit the Nationalmuseum  at : www.nationalmuseum.se/

Gagosian Gallery Publishes Definitive Survey of Jeff Koons's Hulk Elvis Paintings Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:15 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian Gallery has published a new book featuring the work by Jeff Koons. This recent publication features Jeff Koons' painting series, Hulk Elvis, in which he creates large works of the Incredible Hulk, inflatable monkeys, geishas, birds, and the Liberty Bell, all bursting with energy and precision. These spectacular pictorial inventions of brightly-colored silhouettes loom and recede in the swirling delirium of color and line, creating visceral manifestations that dazzle the eye and confound the senses. A text by Scott Rothkopf and an interview between the artist and Hans Ulrich Obrist are included in this fully illustrated catalogue.

New Saatchi Gallery Opens at Duke of York's HQ Building, Chelsea Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:14 PM PDT LONDON - The Saatchi Gallery is set to re-open in the 70,000 sq. ft. Duke of York HQ building on King's Road, Chelsea on October 9 2008 with an exhibition dedicated to new art from China. The new Gallery will also include a dedicated space for Saatchi Online artists to exhibit and sell their work commission free. The space will feature a rotating selection of artists chosen from Saatchi Online Magazine's weekly critics' picks.

The National Gallery of Art exhibition of Venetian Renaissance Sculptor Tullio Lombardo Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:13 PM PDT WASHINGTON, DC.- In the first exhibition dedicated to Venetian Renaissance sculptor Tullio Lombardo (c. 1455–1532), his romantic approach to portraiture is revealed in four of his greatest marble carvings, which are joined by eight related works from his closest circle. On view at the National Gallery of Art's Italian galleries in the West Building from July 4 through November 1, 2009, An Antiquity of Imagination: Tullio Lombardo and Venetian High Renaissance Sculpture celebrates the artist's pioneering talent. Although groundbreaking, Tullio's double-portrait busts drew on various ancient sources, including Roman funerary reliefs and cameo portraits, and expressive figures from the Hellenistic Greek world, with supple flesh and parted lips. In addition, Tullio seems to have been aware of northern European double portraits in painting and prints. "Tullio Lombardo's talent is considerably greater than his modern reputation, essentially because so many key works are part of monuments still in their original locations in Italy and cannot travel," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "The Gallery is delighted to offer visitors unprecedented access to this special Venetian Renaissance experience. We are indebted to the lenders, which include museums, churches and private collections in Europe and the United States, who have generously agreed to share their sculptures." Tullio Lombardo (c. 1455–1532) Tullio and his younger brother Antonio Lombardo, both gifted sculptors, worked with their father Pietro Lombardo in the family firm, a leading force in architecture and sculpture in Venice well into the 16th century. While traditional demand for sculpture in Renaissance Venice centered on projects for churches, public monuments, and architectural decoration, Tullio created new forms of private art. Like his far more famous contemporaries—Giovanni Bellini (1432–1516), Giorgione (1476/1477–1510), and Titian (c.1490–1576), whom he may have both emulated and influenced—Tullio crafted close-up treatments of secular subjects designed for an audience that could respond to their elusive, haunting character in an intimate setting. A type of sculpture never seen before, these portrait-like busts in exceptionally high relief represented figural types descended from ancient Greek and Roman art, given immediacy by their Renaissance hairstyles and costume details. They seem to belong simultaneously to two worlds: classical antiquity, as imagined in the 15th century, and contemporary Renaissance Venice. Exhibition Highlights An Antiquity of Imagination showcases Tullio's unprecedented masterpieces of Renaissance marble carving, never before seen in the United States. At the center of this focus exhibition are two double portraits carved in high relief from single blocks of marble: A Couple (c.1490/1495) and the so-called "Bacchus and Ariadne" (c.1505). The sensuously smooth flesh of these ideally beautiful young men and women, portrayed partially nude, contrasts with intricate detail carving in costume elements and in hair that surges with movement. Their restless expressions, with parted lips and wide-open eyes that seem to gaze into the distance, suggest states of reverie, anxiety, or yearning. They depart dramatically from conventions of late 15th-century Venetian portraiture, typically formal, reserved, and confined almost exclusively to painting. Whether Tullio's busts were really meant as portraits remains a mystery. The exhibition presents other close-up bust-length images, in relief and in the round, that display Tullio's sensuous and expressive qualities. They include his own soulful, curly haired Relief Bust of a Youth (c.1505) as well as Simone Bianco's Bust of a Woman (c.1515/1520), in a pleated gown that falls suggestively open, and Antonio Minello's Grieving Heroine (1520s), a delicate miniature bust with elaborately bound and loosened hair winding over her bare shoulders. The Tullio Lombardo exhibition occupies galleries adjoining the National Gallery of Art's extensive collection of Venetian Renaissance paintings, many of which invite comparison with Tullio's works. Two related paintings will be part of the exhibition. In Judith with the Head of Holofernes (c.1495/1500) by Andrea Mantegna (c.1431–1506) or follower, possibly Giulio Campagnola (1482–after 1514), Judith's tilted head and faraway gaze seems to share the expressive aims of Tullio and Antonio. Conversely, small marble reliefs from the Lombardo circle, such as Lucretia, reflect an appreciation of Mantegna's small paintings of ancient Also featured are sculptures from Venetian churches that develop the spiritual character of the mysterious emotions suggested by Tullio's work: Saint Sebastian (1520s), a bust-length relief with teeth bared in anguish, by a follower of Tullio and Antonio; Relief Bust of a Young Male Saint (c.1510–1516), by Tullio, carved nearly in the round; and Standing Angel (c.1495/1500), by a Venetian artist, possibly Giambattista Bregno. Reliefs of antique subjects became a specialty of Antonio Lombardo (c.1458–c.1516), a court sculptor to Duke Alfonso I d'Este of Ferrara, the patron who commissioned the celebrated Feast of the Gods, by Bellini and Titian, now in the National Gallery of Art. On view are examples of similar small reliefs, depicting full-length figures in action, perhaps designed for installation in private studies: Peace Establishing Her Reign (c.1512/1520), a bronze allegory from a model attributed to Antonio or to his follower Giammaria Mosca (c.1493/1495–c.1574), which was possibly designed as a pendant to the marble high relief of the god of war Mars (c.1515/1520), from the circle of Antonio. A marble with colored stone inlay depicts the tragic Roman heroine Lucretia (1520s), shown as an ideal nude figure, from the circle of Antonio and Giammaria Mosca. In Saint Helena (c. 1495) by the Venetian altarpiece painter Cima da Conegliano (c.1459–1517 or 1518), the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine appears in a classicizing breastplate, with a pensive gaze, a shifted-weight stance, and a cloak and skirt falling in rigid folds that indicate Cima's admiration for both ancient sculpture and Tullio's statuettes. Visit The National Gallery of Art at : http://www.nga.gov/

Yue Minjun Warriors Stand in Formation at the Milwaukee Art Museum Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:12 PM PDT MILWAUKEE, WIS.- The Milwaukee Art Museum presents the installation Chinese Contemporary Warriors by world-renowned contemporary artist Yue Minjun, in conjunction with its Summer of CHINA series of exhibitions. This latest addition to the ambitious CHINA lineup will be on view through December 2011. Yue Minjun, a leading contemporary artist based in Beijing, China, is best known for his self-portrait paintings. Yue casts himself in a variety of large-scale compositions, and always with a grotesquely wide-mouthed, laughing face. Referencing the utopian propaganda of earlier Chinese Social realist paintings, his work creates allegories critical of the Chinese government in works that are humorously laced with cynicism.

Lichtenstein $10 Drawing Expected to Achieve over $1,000,000 at Christie's Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:11 PM PDT NEW YORK (AP).- The invitation to a 1960s "happening" was intriguing: Pay $10 to enter a lottery for the chance to get a key to a Penn Station locker containing artwork. For one New Yorker who attended the 1965 event, the key revealed a Roy Lichtenstein drawing that Christie's auction house estimates will fetch around $1 million at its May 11 auction. "Kiss V" is a study for one of Lichtenstein's major paintings of the same name, which is in a private collection and belongs to his dream-girl series created between 1961 and 1965. Measuring 6 inches by 6 inches, the study is a comic book-inspired close-up of a man and woman, executed in graphite and wax crayon.

The Splendid Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts Greets Our AKN Editor On Tour Posted: 17 Mar 2012 09:10 PM PDT The Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 1837 by the arts association Leipziger Kunstverein. Donations by various foundations, private collectors and generous individuals facilitated the building of a collection of more than 3,500 paintings, 800 sculptures and 55000 drawings and graphic reproductions. The collection comprises works ranging from the Middle Ages to the present. In 2004 the museum moved to its new location in the historical centre of Leipzig. The paintings and sculptures in this museum include works by Dürer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Rodin, and van Eyck. In the museum's new home, designed like a glass cube, is one of eastern Germany's most impressive art collections. On exhibit is art ranging from the medieval period in Germany up to modern art in the United States of today. The most important art is the work of Lucas Cranach the Elder, including 16th-century portraits. Tintoretto weighs in with his Resurrection of Lazarus, and there are many paintings from the German schools of the 19th and 20th centuries. Impressive pieces of sculpture are by such older masters as Rodin as well as Berthel Thorvaldsen, the most famous sculptor to come out of Denmark. Through major donations including Maximilian Speck von Sternburg, Alfred Thieme and Adolf Heinrich Schletter the collection grew with time. In 1853, businessman and art collector Adolf Heinrich Schletter donated his collection under the condition that the city build a municipal museum within five years. Shortly before the deadline expired the museum was inaugurated on 18 December 1858. It was located on the Augustusplatz and was designed by Ludwig Lange in the style of the Italian Renaissance. From 1880 to 1886 the building had been for the ever-growing collection extended by Hugo Licht. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Fritz von Harck donated a part of his collection to the museum. In 1937 the Nazis confiscated 394 paintings and prints mainly of Expressionism in the propaganda campaign Degenerate art. In the night of 4 December 1943, the building was destroyed by a British air raid. Much of the inventory had previously been brought to safety. Today's collection includes approximately 3,500 paintings, 1,000 sculptures and 60,000 graphic sheets.OIt includes works from the Late Middle Ages to the present, focusing on Old German and Early Netherlandish art of the 15th and 16th Century, Italian art from the 15th to 18th Century, Dutch art of the 17th Century, French art of the 19th and German art from the 18th to 20th Century. Important parts of the collection are works by Dutch and German Old Masters like Frans Hals and Lucas Cranach the Elder, Romantics like Caspar David Friedrich, and representatives of the Düsseldorf school of painting such as Andreas Achenbach. The highlight of the sculpture collection presents the Beethoven sculpture by Max Klinger. For the comprehensive work of Max Klinger and Max Beckmann a separate floor is devoted. In the field of Modern Art, the museum primarily collects of the Leipzig School by artists such as Werner Tübke, Bernhard Heisig, and Wolfgang Mattheuer and larger stocks of the international currently very popular artists Neo Rauch and Daniel Richter. By the mid-1990s, the city decided to give the museum back their own building. On 4 December 2004, exactly 61 years after the destruction of the "Städtischen Museum" on Augustusplatz, opened the new museum at the former Sachsenplatz (Saxony Square). The rectangular building of the museum cost 74.5 million euros and was designed by the architect Karl Hufnagel, Peter Pütz and Michael Rafaelian. The art-historical library of the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig is one of nearly 100,000 volumes of the great museum libraries in Germany. The library of the Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig is a reference library and is available to everyone. In 1848 the Municipal Museum of the public was made available, were among the approximately 100 art works that the Council of the City of Leipzig had been appropriated by the Art Association, also 41 drawings and watercolors by contemporary artists and a small collection of old engravings and woodcuts. No one knew then that should be developed from these humble beginnings a collection of art, which has now grown to about 55 000 drawings and etchings. Are represented by numerous artists, only certain works or obese individual leaves in the Leipzig collection, by other masters kept almost the entire body of work. In addition to the "iconography" Anton van Dyck's the graphic work of William Hogarth, Daniel and Johann Friedrich Bause Chodowiecki are all in place. A special place in Leipzig, the work of Max Klinger, which enjoys the reputation of rare unity auszeichnet.Weltweites the collection of the drawings. Analogous to the art collection of the museum is the German draftsmanship of 18 to 20 Century represented an unusually rich and full. Outstanding is the collection of drawings by Max Beckmann. Many as 360 drawings from the estate of Mathilde Q. Beckmann are on permanent loan in the Prints Sammlung.In of drawing the second half of the 20th Century reflect the leaves of several generations, the dynamic variety of art-making of the GDR, which stand out in particular the work of the Leipzig artists through the span of their individual styles. Current exhibition Horst Janssen - "Playing With The Championship" - Through 6 February, 2011. Horst Janssen's vast oeuvre is estimated to be thousands of drawings, etchings, hundreds of watercolors, woodcuts, lithographs, leaflets, posters and some oil paintings. Given this abundance, the Leipzig exhibition does not claim to offer a representative overview. Rather, the central themes will be presented with high-quality leaves. Drawings from the Collection Brockstedt are also a testament to the long-standing friendship and ties of both men. It developed after the first exhibition in 1957 with woodblock prints in the gallery Janssens Brockstedt, such as the New Year's greeting to Janssens Brockstedt the year 1960/61 shows. In the 1960s, Janssen has developed into an outstanding artist, who also won international recognition as the graphics Price testified at the Biennale in Venice in 1968. The little-known, early pencil drawings Janssens are formally fascinating. They document a great wealth of expression, most are reluctant to put color display accents and black, brightness and white shades between.

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 17 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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