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

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• The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego surveys John Baldessari's Prints
• Princeton University Art Museum features John Constable's Oil Sketches
• The Nassau County Museum of Art to host Jim Dine's Sculpture & Pinocchio Illustrations
• Gallery One to show Artists Henry Isaacs & Craig Mooney
• The Zenith Gallery presents “In Loving Memory” 34th Anniversary Exhibition
• The Pinakothek der Moderne to celebrate "Women. Max Beckmann, Pablo Picasso, Willem de Koonig"
• Swann Galleries to offer Property from the Estate of filmmaker Gary Winick
• China overtakes the United States to become the World's Largest Art Market
• The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo Honors Taro Okamoto on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth
• FOUR WORLD RECORD PRICES FOR MODERN INDIAN AND PAKISTANI ART AT BONHAMS
• Daum Museum of Contemporary Art to host Androgyny: New Work by Sergei Isupov
• Pure Sixties, Pure Bailey, a Selling Exhibition at Bonhams in London
• The Legion of Honor Displays Bernini's Masterpiece ~ "The Medusa"
• The Vegas Gallery Presents Gemma Nelson's First London Solo Show
• Sotheby's to Sell Works from Neuberger Berman & Lehman Brothers Collections
• Experimental & Affordable Works of Art Shown at London Art Fair
• National Gallery of Victoria Celebrates the Work Artist John Davis
• UK Artists and Their Families Welcome Artist's Resale Right
• Enrico David exhibits at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego surveys John Baldessari's Prints Posted: 20 Mar 2012 10:46 PM PDT San Diego, California.- The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is proud to present "John Baldessari: A Print Retrospective From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation", on view at the museum through May 13th. John Baldessari is an internationally celebrated artist, yet southern California is and has always been his home. He began his art making in his birthplace, National City, located between San Diego and the U.S./Mexico border. In 1960, MCASD, then the La Jolla Art Center, gave Baldessari his first exhibition. His relationship with the Museum has continued, including the 1997 one-person show National City. Once again MCASD is honored to welcome Baldessari back to the Museum, this time with an expansive survey of his entire body of printmaking. Baldessari took on printmaking in the 1970s and has continued unabated. With laconic wit and visual restraint, he alters and crops photographic images to build a beguiling visual vocabulary. This current retrospective of Baldessari's prints, including more than 100 works made between 1973 and 2010 in media as diverse as lithography, etching, photogravure, aquatint, photo intaglio, embossing, silkscreen, and beyond, presents a beautiful and cacophonous example of the adventures in seeing and thinking he can conjure. Drawn from the impressively rich and deep holdings of contemporary prints assembled by collector, business man, and philanthropist Jordan Schnitzer, this exhibition represents the largest offering of Baldessari's graphic oeuvre ever assembled. In 1970, Baldessari moved away from painting and began to  work exclusively with photography and text to make his art more accessible. He was later identified with the Conceptual Art movement for his use of appropriated photographic images and text, to which he added colorful cutout shapes to create unique collage-based arrangements. He continued to employ photography in the 1980s, particularly movie stills, which he shaped, altered, framed, and rearranged without text in order to trigger new meanings. Baldessari's interest in stretching art world parameters to include photographs coincided in the 1970s with a similar interest on the part of many progressive American print workshops to introduce printmaking processes as vehicles for contemporary expression. Techniques such as photo-etching, photo-offset lithography, and photogravure were already beginning to be used in the production of contemporary prints but were not being used to produce prints that featured photographic images as Baldessari had desired. Baldessari once quipped that every artist should have a "cheap line," in reference to the affordability of prints relative to other art forms available in the marketplace, but his comment belies the serious commitment that he has made to printmaking over four decades. The hundreds of prints he has made in a variety of media with presses and publishers in California, New York, and Europe underscore the high value that Baldessari places on printmaking as an artistic form. John Baldessari, (b. 1931, National City, California) has been teaching art and making art since the 1950s after receiving his BA and MA from San Diego State College (now San Diego State University). He taught at California Institute of the Arts from its founding in 1970 to 1988, and has taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, since 1996. He lives in Los Angeles and is often credited with helping to make that city an internationally recognized center of contemporary art. In 1997 Baldessari received the California Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, followed in 2005 by the Lifetime Achievement Award from Americans for the Arts. As part of the 53rd International Venice Biennale 2009, Baldessari was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement With two locations, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is the region's foremost forum devoted to the exploration and presentation of the art of our time, presenting works across all media created since 1950. Located in the heart of downtown San Diego and in the coastal community of La Jolla, MCASD provides an unprecedented variety of exhibition spaces and experiences for the community, showcasing an internationally recognized collection and a dynamic schedule of exhibitions and public programs. At MCASD in Downtown, experience contemporary art in a historic setting - the Jacobs Building, formerly the Santa Fe Depot baggage building - and view site-specific installations by artists Jenny Holzer and Richard Serra. At MCASD in La Jolla, take in the fabulous ocean view from the Edwards Garden Gallery, or lunch on the patio at the Museum Cafe. The La Jolla location also houses the Museum's X Store, filled with a selection of contemporary art books, apparel, and innovative design objects. The collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego includes more than 4,000 works created after 1950, representing a variety of media and genres: painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, video, and installation. MCASD is known for collecting works by promising emerging artists and under-recognized, mid-career artists, as well as by major figures in international contemporary art. Among the greatest strengths of the MCASD collection are minimalism and Pop Art of the 1960s and 1970s, conceptual art from the 1960s to the present, installation art, art from Latin America, and art from California and the San Diego/Tijuana region. Many works in the collection are the result of artists' residencies or works commissioned for MCASD exhibitions. In response to new local, national, and international developments in art, the Museum continually seeks to enhance its strengths and to expand the representation of artistic trends in its collection. At the same time, MCASD preserves, presents, documents, and interprets its holdings for current and future audiences. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mcasd.org

Princeton University Art Museum features John Constable's Oil Sketches Posted: 20 Mar 2012 10:21 PM PDT Princeton, New Jersey.- The Princeton University Art Museum is proud to host "John Constable: Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum" from March 17th through June 10th. This exhibition presents a thoughtful look at one of the greatest landscape artists of all time and offers a rare opportunity to investigate the significance of John Constable's contributions to British art and ultimately to the rise of Romanticism across Europe and North America. The Princeton University Art Museum is one of only two North American venues for this insightful exploration of Constable's working process. Taking his easel into nature, Constable (1776–1837) was one of the first artists to work en plein air, "so as to note 'the day, the hour, the sunshine and the shade.'" The openness of his brushwork and his concern for passing light effects were enormously influential for subsequent generations of artists, including the Impressionists of late 19th-century France. The second son of a landowning miller and corn merchant in the village of East Bergholt, Suffolk, Constable was expected to succeed his father in the family business. Yet, while he loved the quiet countryside of his youth, Constable showed little agricultural aptitude and developed instead an interest in landscape painting. In 1798, at the age of twenty-two, he entered the recently established Royal Academy Schools in London. As a student, Constable rejected the traditional hierarchy of genres that ranked idealized historical and mythological landscapes above natural scenes and aspired to paint canvases that were "a pure and unaffected representation [of nature]." Beginning in 1802, Constable returned to his family home during the spring and summer months to draw and paint in the open air, producing studies of the local fields and farms that he incorporated into finished landscape paintings in his London studio, including Dedham Vale from the Coombs (1802). Constable turned to the medium of the oil sketch for his landscape studies in an effort to replicate the effervescent effects of light and color he experienced painting outdoors. Working rapidly on sheets of paper or scraps of old canvas pinned to the lid of a paint box held on his knees, Constable deftly recorded the fields, woods, and skies of favorite locations in the lush Suffolk countryside. With increasing confidence, he soon developed a strikingly fresh painting style in his oil sketches that captured the shimmering surfaces and shifting light of his surroundings. Beginning in the summer of 1817, due to his wife's delicate health, Constable rented a cottage in Hampstead, then a rural village four miles northwest of London, settling there with his family permanently in 1827. Hampstead Heath was situated on a hill high above the smoke of what was then, at the height of the British Empire, the world's most industrialized city. The natural beauty of the heath and the panoramic views provided Constable with ample opportunity to make detailed observations of clouds and atmospheric effects in lively oil sketches that are today some of the artist's most original contributions to the history of art. Although Hampstead would remain the artist's home, in the following years Constable also traveled to the plains of Salisbury and the Brighton shore, producing distinctive oil sketches and important exhibition paintings that further immortalized English landscape scenery. John Constable belonged to an age of profound political and scientific change. In the second half of the eighteenth century scientists and naturalists of the British Enlightenment began to redefine the natural world by closely observing and cataloguing nature as they saw it, drawing scientific conclusions based on deductive reasoning rather than accepted academic theory or the teachings of the church. The Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726–1797), the English naturalist and ornithologist Gilbert White (1720–1793), and the London-born meteorologist Luke Howard (1772–1864) all proposed groundbreaking scientific theories stressing that the natural world exists in a continual state of evolution. Constable was well aware of the importance of these scientific developments and declared that "painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why then, may not landscape be considered a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but the experiments?" As a result, he inscribed his oil sketches with the location, date, and specific weather conditions in which they were made. Ironically, the artist's subsequent fame was based on his full-sized studio paintings, and his fluid, rapidly painted plein-air sketches were seldom exhibited in his lifetime. Eighteenth-century artists also used oil sketch techniques to develop overall composition studies for complex painting projects. Likewise, Constable made elaborate full-scale oil studies for some of his exhibition paintings, including The Hay Wain in 1821 and The Leaping Horse in 1825. Although the artist never left England, his reputation blossomed quickly abroad—particularly in France, where his final version of "The Hay Wain", now in the National Gallery London, sensationalized Parisian audiences at the 1824 Salon, winning a gold medal and the praise of such luminaries as Stendhal (1783–1842) and Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). Constable's revolutionary working process and fluid painting techniques encouraged a younger generation of French painters to work en plein air. While the aesthetic and political aims differed greatly from those of Constable, these artists all profited from Constable's example of working out of doors. Troyon's support of the amateur marine painter Eugène Boudin (1824–1898)—who in turn encouraged the young Claude Monet to paint directly from nature—carried Constable's legacy into the 1870s and thereby helped to profoundly change the course of modern art. Founded in 1882, the Princeton University Art Museum is one of the nation's leading art museums. Its holdings of more than 72,000 works of art, ranging from ancient to contemporary, concentrate geographically on the Mediterranean regions, Western Europe, Asia and the Americas. The Museum's collections are particularly strong in Chinese painting and calligraphy, art of the ancient Americas and pictorial photography. Committed to advancing Princeton's teaching and research missions, the Art Museum serves as a gateway to the University for visitors from around the world. The Museum is intimate in scale yet expansive in scope, offering a respite from the rush of daily life, a revitalizing experience of extraordinary works of art and an opportunity to delve deeply into the study of art and culture. Visit the museum's website at ... http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/

The Nassau County Museum of Art to host Jim Dine's Sculpture & Pinocchio Illustrations Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:34 PM PDT Roslyn Harbor, NY.- The Nassau County Museum of Art is proud to present "Sculpture / Jim Dine / Pinocchio", on view at the museum from March 31st through July 8th. Within the galleries and on the sculpture grounds, this exhibition highlights Jim Dine's recent sculptural works. The museum's main galleries will be devoted to several themes – the artist's Heart and Venus works, Gardening and Carpentry Tool imagery, and recent Pinocchio sculptures. Several major sculptural works will be installed outdoors on the museum's expansive 145-acre sculpture park and nature preserve, including The Mountains in the Distance of 1987-88. This iconic bronze work places the Venus de Milo form on its side, abstracting the vertical of the figure to evoke a horizontal of a landscape.

Gallery One to show Artists Henry Isaacs & Craig Mooney Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:17 PM PDT Nashville, Tennessee.- Gallery One is proud to present "Northern Light", and new exhibition featuring two northern contemporary artists and close friends, Henry Isaacs and Craig Mooney. "Northern Light" will be on view at the gallery from March 27th through April 28th, with an opening reception for the artists on Saturday, March 31st, from 6-8 p.m. Henry Isaacs is a teacher, activist, plein-air painter, writer and curator... Henry Isaacs is a traveler. Whether capturing the verdant Tennessee hills or the rocky coast of Maine where his studio is based, Isaacs' signature plein air paintings explore the natural and inhabited landscape with a distinct and vibrant vision. Isaacs' 40-year career as a painter began with the study of human anatomy, or figurative work. While attending the Slade School of Fine Art at University College in London, Isaacs began taking long walks in the outdoors, and thus began a transition to painting landscapes en plein air. Today, the subjects for Henry's oil paintings are often reachable only by hiking or back country skiing. As a curator, Isaacs has overseen several notable exhibitions, including "Unforgettable Fire: Drawings from Hiroshima," which represented the first showing in the United States of the Hiroshima Peace Foundation's collection of 100 drawings by survivors of the atomic bomb. Isaacs also continues to serve as an activist in promoting understanding and research in health fields and uses his art to raise funds for a breast cancer cure. He lectures frequently on the use of visual imagery as a tool for coping with, and understanding tragedy.

The Zenith Gallery presents “In Loving Memory” 34th Anniversary Exhibition Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:03 PM PDT Washington DC.- The Zenith Gallery is currently showing "In Loving Memory" on view through April 28th. "In Loving Memory" is dedicated in loving tribute to Judith Keyserling. Throughout her career Judy served as executive vice president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, vice president of marketing and public relations at the Milwaukee Symphony and in the same capacity at The Washington Ballet. Judy began her career in the popular music business as a talent buyer, agent and manager, and produced the "Best Rock and Roll Record of 1982", awarded by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors & Producers. For the last 6 years Judy had done all the PR and writing for both Zenith Gallery and the Zenith Community Arts Foundation. Ten percent of the sales will go to the Zenith Community Arts Foundation, a fund in honor of Judy Keyserling, to continue the programs she worked on for the last 6 years.

The Pinakothek der Moderne to celebrate "Women. Max Beckmann, Pablo Picasso, Willem de Koonig" Posted: 20 Mar 2012 08:36 PM PDT Munich, Germany.- Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne will host the first major exhibition exploring the role of the female figure in the works of three of the most influential artists of the 20th century. "Women. Max Beckmann, Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning", on display from March 30th through July 15th, will bring together 92 works from international institutions such as the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, the Tate Gallery, London, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris as well as loans from private collections which have never been on public display before. The Pinakothek der Moderne, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2012, holds one of the most comprehensive collections of Max Beckmann works in the world. This landmark exhibition will shed new light on the work of Beckmann, Picasso and de Kooning by exploring the role attributed to women in their art. The show will set aside familiar clichés about the artists' private lives and their relationships to women to allow for a more dispassionate analysis of the female figure as a subject matter in their work. In doing so, women become more than mere projections of male fantasies and desires and instead gain an extraordinary significance of their own. In the work of Picasso, for instance, women often act as a mirror for the problems and turmoils of his time, whereas in Beckmann's work the female figure seems to represent otherworldly freedom which contrasts with the stark realities of the world around him. The exhibition will bring together some of the most exceptional portraits of women painted by the three artists and place them in dialogue with one another. Curator, Carla Schulz-Hoffmann explains, "Unlike common views and interpretations in art history, the works of Picasso, Beckmann and de Kooning represent free and emancipated women. Their works show the power of art: they still do provoke us today where pornographic images are part of our visual culture. This means that the works reach us on a deeper level and show the strength of art." This exhibition of 92 paintings consists of works from major international museums including The Metropolitan Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Saint Louis Art Museum, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Tate Gallery, London, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée d'Orsay, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Kunstmuseum Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, and private collections. A comprehensively illustrated, interdisciplinary catalogue in German and English will also be published, and will contain contributions by Siri Hustvedt, Richard Shiff, Feridun Zaimo?lu, Uwe M. Schneede, Michael Köhlmeier, Doris Dörrie and Carla Schulz-Hofmann. In support of the exhibition, there will be a extensive programme of events and art education. In presenting the "Women" exhibition and programme, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen has carved a new path. New and innovative concepts will be created in collaboration with the chair of Pedagogics of Art at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich. Under the supervision of academics from the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, students will not only take part in workshops, discussions and guided tours; they will also create an app to prepare visitors via iPhone and iPad. Visitors will be guided through the exhibition using a multimedia guide. Agents from the state art collection will collaborate with the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF) München and the Münchner Residenztheater. A series of movies in HFF, Pinakothek der Moderne and in the repertory theatre of our cooperating partners, Audi, in Ingolstadt, will examine the views of female directors and those who have directed women, in the history of sound film. Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, curator of the exhibition, will on the occasion of her last exhibition for the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, invite Martin Kušej, artistic director of the Residence Theatre, and his cast to two evening discussions regarding the roles of women in art and theatre. Additional guests are Juliane Köhler, Eva Mattes, Elisabeth Schwarz and Andrea Wenzl. The Pinakothek der Moderne is the modern art museum of Munich. Together with its two predecessors Alte Pinakothek and Neue Pinakothek, the Museum Brandhorst, the Antikensammlungen, the Glyptothek, the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and the new joint building of the Ägyptisches Museum and the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film, currently both scheduled to open in 2012, it forms part of Munich's "Kunstareal" (the "art district"). Since 1945, the collection, previously exhibited in the Haus der Kunst, has grown quickly by purchase, as well as donations by individuals and several foundations. Various art movements of the 20th century are represented in the collection, including Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, New Objectivity, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Minimal Art. The first floor of the west wing displays works of Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Umberto Boccioni, Robert Delaunay, Joan Miró and René Magritte as well as Lyonel Feininger, Oskar Kokoschka, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon. There are particularly comprehensive collections of works by Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann. The museum also displays masterpieces of German Expressionism: representing painters of two early 20th century German artist groups, Die Brücke (The bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The blue rider), whose members included, among others, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Emil Nolde and Franz Marc, August Macke, Paul Klee, Alexej von Jawlensky and Wassily Kandinsky. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.pinakothek.de

Swann Galleries to offer Property from the Estate of filmmaker Gary Winick Posted: 20 Mar 2012 08:16 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- On Wednesday, April 4, Swann Galleries will offer a two-part sale of Property from the Estate of Filmmaker Gary Winick and 19th & 20th Century Photographs & Photobooks. When accomplished film producer and director Gary Winick died last year at the age of 49, he left behind collections of photographs, fine art prints and drawings, movie posters, books and some film memorabilia. The material offered from his estate illustrates his impeccable taste and keen eye for detail. The photographs and other material will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries on Thursday, March 29 and Friday, March 30, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, March 31, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Monday, April 2 and Tuesday, April 3, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The auction will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 4.

China overtakes the United States to become the World's Largest Art Market Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:21 PM PDT MAASTRICHT.- China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest market for art and antiques ending decades of American domination. This historic turning point, which is also an important indicator of seismic shifts in the wider global economy, is revealed in a new report published Friday 16 March. The International Art Market in 2011: Observations on the Art Trade over 25 Years has been commissioned by The European Fine Art Foundation, organizers of The European Fine Art Fair ( TEFAF ), which opens to the public in the Dutch city of Maastricht tomorrow. TEFAF Maastricht, the world's best art and antiques fair, is being held from 16 to 25 March in the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre) and this year celebrates its Silver Jubilee. China's share of the global art market rose from 23% in 2010 to 30% last year, pushing the United States, with 29%, into second place.

The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo Honors Taro Okamoto on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:10 PM PDT Tokyo.- The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo presents an exhibition of works by Taro Okamoto on the 100th anniversary of his birth until May 8th 2011. Taro Okamoto (1911-1996) is probably one of the most well-known artists in Japan during the latter half of the 20th century. He created the 'Tower of the Sun' for Expo '70 held in Osaka, made comments full of impact such as "Art is explosion" and "Art is magic", and frequently appeared on television. Even after his death in 1996, more and more people, especially the young generation, are showing renewed interest in the artist. In 1998, the studio he worked in during his lifetime was opened to the public as the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum. Topics concerning Okamoto never cease to attract our attention. Furthermore, in recent years, his monumental mural Tomorrow's Mythology was rediscovered in Mexico and installed in Shibuya in 2008. Amidst the posthumous reevaluation of this artist, on the one hand, his positive energy is emphasized. However, on the other hand, the fact that he poignantly said "No" to a variety of existing values and occasionally bewildered the people around him seems to be on the verge of being forgotten. In order to re-appreciate Okamoto, we should not be satisfied simply by taking in his vitality with a passive attitude. Isn't it necessary to confront the arrows of criticism he shot head-on as arrows aimed at ourselves? Okamoto Taro's life was indeed a sequence of "confrontations." With "confrontation" as the keyword, in this exhibition, the opponents he confronted are divided into seven chapters. Approximately 130 works including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and designs produced through tough struggle are introduced. They will provide an opportunity for viewers to consider how we should interpret his "confrontations" today. As far back as the beginning of the Meiji period, there was a movement demanding the establishment of a museum to permanently display contemporary art. Although the petition was taken up several times in parliament, a national facility for the permanent display of modern art was never realized until the opening of this Museum. In 1952, the government purchased the premises of the former headquarters of Nikkatsu Corporation in Kyobashi, Chuo-ku. In June that year, The National Museum of Modern Art was established as an institution governed by the Ministry of Education. The architect Kunio Maekawa directed the refurbishment and the Museum was opened that December. On two later occasions, neighbouring premises were purchased and the Museum was further enlarged and reformed. Due to the growth of the museum collection and the expansion of special exhibitions, the display of works gradually became restricted. Just when the Museum was considering possibilities of moving, Mr.Shojiro Ishibashi,who was a trustee from the founding of the Museum, offered to donate a new building. Thanks to this donation, it was decided that a new wing would be constructed in Kitanomaru Koen. The new building was designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi and opened in June 1969. After 30 years since moving to the present building, it became necessary to update the facilities to meet social demand. For two and a half years from July 1999, the Museum was closed and underwent large-scale extension and renovation designed by Sakakura Associates. The exhibition galleries were enlarged, a library allowing access to the public, a restaurant and museum shop were newly established, and lounge space was increased. In addition to improving the environment for viewing the works of art,construction work to make the building more earthquake-proof was carried out. The renovation work was completed in August 2001 and, in January 2002, an exhibition entitled 'The Unfinished Century: Legacies of 20th Century Art' was held to commemorate the renewal and restart of activities anew. After the devastating earthquake of March 11th, the museum is operating as normally as possible and there are collection boxes for the victims in the lobby. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.momat.go.jp

FOUR WORLD RECORD PRICES FOR MODERN INDIAN AND PAKISTANI ART AT BONHAMS Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:09 PM PDT LONDON - The work of Indian and Pakistani artists made record prices at Bonhams, the international fine art auction house in London on May 21, 2007. A packed saleroom saw fierce bidding for work by Jamini Roy (India 1887 -1972), Sadequain (Pakistan 1937-87), Sakti Burman (India born 1935) and Jamil Naqsh (Pakistan born 1939). All broke their existing top prices to establish new world records for these artists.

Daum Museum of Contemporary Art to host Androgyny: New Work by Sergei Isupov Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:08 PM PDT SEDALIA, MISSOURI - The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art on the State Fair Community College campus will present the exhibition Androgyny: New Work by Sergei Isupov from Oct. 3rd through Dec. 6th, 2009. Isupov, a native of Russia, is internationally renowned as a technically accomplished ceramic sculptor. The exhibition will feature his latest body of work, including 14 large-scale painted and sculpted heads and related drawings. The facial expressions on each of the colorful pieces reveal individual character traits. The heads, about three feet high, also feature small, hand-painted vignettes, as well as hidden surrealist and dream-like vignettes on the bottoms of every piece.

Pure Sixties, Pure Bailey, a Selling Exhibition at Bonhams in London Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:07 PM PDT LONDON.- A selling exhibition of David Bailey's iconic images of the 1960s - the 50th anniversary of a decade that changed our cultural history - will be hosted by Bonhams in New Bond Street. The 'Pure Sixties. Pure Bailey.' exhibition will be on view at Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street, from 7th March – 7th April, 2010. David Bailey's name is an integral part of the 1960s, that dynamic period which created a melting pot of talent drawn from music, fashion, literature, design and cinema. He captured images which remain a pictorial reminder of all that was best about it – new, edgy, exciting, & beautiful.

The Legion of Honor Displays Bernini's Masterpiece ~ "The Medusa" Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:06 PM PDT San Francisco, California.- The Musei Capitolini in Rome lent San Francisco one of their greatest treasures, the Baroque masterpiece "The Medusa" by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of history's finest sculptors and a leading figure in 17th-century Italian art and architecture. This loan is part of the "Dream of Rome", a project initiated by the mayor of Rome to exhibit timeless masterpieces in the United States from 2011 through 2013.  The Medusa represents the inaugural object loaned as part of a joint venture signed recently between the Musei Capitolini and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco designed to share exhibitions, collections, curatorial and conservation knowledge and to collaborate on educational programs. "The Medusa" is on view at the Legion of Honor until February 19th 2012. Recent conservation efforts have restored the Medusa to its full glory and revealed previously hidden polish and patina. Believed to date from between1638 and 1648, this extraordinary work takes its subject from classical mythology, as cited in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It shows the beautiful Medusa, one of the Gorgon sisters, caught in the terrible process of transformation into a monster. Her hair is turning into writhing snakes, which, according to Ovid, was a punishment from Minerva for having had an affair with Neptune, god of the sea. The punishment also made Medusa an instrument of death by turning anyone who looked upon her to stone. Famously, Perseus overcame Medusa's curse by looking at her reflection in a shield to behead her. Bernini's depiction does not describe this incident but rather the agony of Medusa's initial dramatic transformation. Her face is contorted with pain and anxiety and her mouth is open as if crying out. What is remarkable about Bernini's interpretation of this ancient mythological creature is that it conveys passion, emotion and the humanity of the moment, rather than the monstrous and horrific aspects of Medusa treated by artists and sculptors hitherto. Created during a bleak period when the artist was out of favor at the papal court, the figure is thought to represent for Bernini the power of sculpture and the value of the sculptor. Recent research also indicates that the Medusa may well represent Costanza Bonarelli, Bernini's lover, whom he caught with his own brother, Luigi, ending the affair in a particularly bitter manner! Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was a virtuosic genius of the Roman Baroque in the 17th century. Not only the greatest sculptor of the age, he was also an internationally renowned architect, painter, playwright and theatrical designer. Living and working mainly in Rome until his death, he was the leader of that city's artistic scene for more than 50 years, far outshining his contemporaries as the major exponent of the Italian Baroque. Serving six popes, he left a permanent mark on the city of Rome with his designs for the colonnade and interior of Saint Peter's Basilica and with his famous public fountains. His ability to synthesize sculpture, architecture and painting into a conceptual entity was recognized by scholar Irving Lavin as a "unity of the visual arts." Born the son of a Tuscan sculptor in Naples in 1598, Bernini was a child prodigy and learned sculpting skills from his father, who worked for the great families in Rome starting in 1605. Even in his first works, the artist attempted to represent subjects and moods never before attempted, such as portraying the human soul. The Musei Capitolini (Capitoline Museums) are a complex of buildings located on the Capitoline Hill, one of the traditional Seven Hills of Rome. In antiquity the hill was the religious and political heart of the city, the site of many temples, including the massive Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, which overlooked the Forum. During the Middle Ages, the ancient buildings fell into disrepair. Rising from their ruins were new municipal structures: the Palace of the Senators, which was built largely in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and which turned away from the Forum, toward Papal Rome and the Old Saint Peter's Basilica; and the Palace of the Conservators (magistrates), constructed in the 15th century beside the Palace of the Senators. A donation made in 1471 marked the beginning of a new function for the buildings on the Capitoline Hill, reflecting a rising interest in the artistic legacy of Roman antiquity. In that year Pope Sixtus IV transferred to the Capitoline four ancient bronze sculptures from the Lateran Palace, then the principal papal residence. In 1537 Pope Paul III commissioned Michelangelo to relocate another sculpture from the Lateran to the plaza in front of the Palace of the Senators: the monumental bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, which had escaped destruction during the Middle Ages only because it was then believed to represent Constantine, the first Christian emperor. Michelangelo was also charged with reorganizing the area, known as the Piazza del Campidoglio. For the Palaces of the Senators and Conservators he designed new facades, which were completed after his death in 1564. To balance the Palace of the Conservators, he conceived a matching building, the New Palace, which was finished in 1667. Together, these buildings constitute the Musei Capitolini. The last element of Michelangelo's masterpiece of urban planning, the Piazza, was not completed until 1940 under Mussolini. Despite the centuries of construction, most of Michelangelo's plans for the site were implemented. In the 16th century the Capitoline collections increased dramatically through the acquisition of newly excavated works and donations such as the ancient works of art given by Pope Pius V with the intention of "purging the Vatican of pagan idols." The Palace of the Conservators became so crowded with sculpture that the magistrates found it difficult to carry out their official duties. In the late 17th century, many of the works were transferred to the recently completed New Palace. Since then, the Musei Capitolini have continued to expand their holdings, bringing together one of the world's great collections of Roman antiquities. High on the headlands above the Golden Gate stands the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels to the city of San Francisco. Located in Lincoln Park, this unique art museum is one of the great treasures in a city that boasts many riches. The museum's spectacular setting is made even more dramatic by the imposing French neoclassical building. In 1915 Alma Spreckels fell in love with the French Pavilion at San Francisco's Panama Pacific International Exposition. Alma Spreckels persuaded her husband, sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels, to recapture the beauty of the pavilion as a new art museum for San Francisco. At the close of the 1915 exposition, the French government granted them permission to construct a permanent replica, but World War I delayed the groundbreaking for this ambitious project until 1921. Constructed on a remote site known as Land's End, one of the most beautiful settings imaginable for any museum, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor was completed in 1924, and on Armistice Day of that year the doors opened to the public. Between March 1992 and November 1995—its seventy-first anniversary—the Legion underwent a major renovation that included seismic strengthening, building systems upgrades, restoration of historic architectural features, and an underground expansion that added 35,000 square feet. The architects chosen to accomplish this challenging feat were Edward Larrabee Barnes and Mark Cavagnero. The 1995 renovation realized a 42 percent increase in square footage, including six additional special exhibition galleries set around the pyramid skylight visible in the Legion courtyard. Today, the Legion of Honor's collection contains over 124,000 works of art and is recognized for its European decorative arts, sculpture and painting; Ancient art from throughout the Mediterranean and the Near East; and one of the largest collections of works on paper in the country.The Legion's permanent collection reflects a history of patronage by its founders, Adolph B. and Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, whose particular collecting focus was 18th- and 19th-century French art. Additional early donors of note include Archer M. Huntington, Mildred Anna Williams and Albert Campbell Hooper, whose generosity fashioned the present collection's particular character. The Roscoe and Margaret Oakes collection brought highlights in Dutch, Flemish and British art of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, including works by Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds and Henry Raeburn. A selection of important paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection brought with it major works by El Greco, Pieter de Hooch and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Visit the museum's website at ... http://legionofhonor.famsf.org

The Vegas Gallery Presents Gemma Nelson's First London Solo Show Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:05 PM PDT London.- The Vegas Gallery is delighted to present "Hello Carousel", the first London solo show of Young British artist Gemma Nelson. Since graduating the Slade School Of Fine Art in 2007, Nelson has received high acclaim. She was flagged as one of the most promising graduates of her year when featuring in the 2008 Bloomberg New Contemporaries Exhibition and since then has gone to be shortlisted for Four New Sensations by the Saatchi Gallery and nominated as a finalist for the Nationwide Mercury Art Prize. "Gemma Nelson: Hello Carousel" is on view at the gallery from July 15th through August 13th.

Sotheby's to Sell Works from Neuberger Berman & Lehman Brothers Collections Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:04 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby's announced that it has been appointed by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI) and Alvarez & Marsal, LLC, the professional services firm overseeing LBHI's restructuring, to sell selected works from the distinguished Neuberger Berman and Lehman Brothers Corporate Art Collections*, subject to bankruptcy court approval. After Lehman's acquisition in 2003 of Neuberger Berman, Lehman expanded its commitment to collecting fine art and embraced the enlightened vision of Roy Neuberger, who made contemporary art an integral part of the workplace for decades.

Experimental & Affordable Works of Art Shown at London Art Fair Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:03 PM PDT LONDON.- London Art Fair is the premier UK art fair for Modern British and Contemporary art. Now in its 22nd year, it features over 100 galleries presenting the great names of 20th Century British art and exceptional contemporary work from leading figures and emerging talent. This year the section featured large scale installation, mixed media and video work, photography, limited edition prints and multiples and contemporary painting. This year London Art Fair also welcomed 176/Zabludowicz Collection Editions. Art Projects Now in its 6th year, the Art Projects section expands into a new space with 25 projects featuring emerging artists and new work. Established as one of the most exciting sections of the Fair, Art Projects encompasses solo and curated group displays and large scale installation from an exciting forum of international galleries including Foley Gallery (New York), gallery baer (Dresden), Galerie f5,6 (Munich), Antena Estudio (Mexico City) , as well as BEAR SPACE (London), CHARLIE SMITH London, FOLD Gallery (London), Monika Bobinska (London), Rod Barton (London) and Sumarria Lunn (London). Galleries exhibiting in Art Projects: Antena Estudio (Mexico City), BEAR SPACE (London), CHARLIE SMITH London, FOLD Gallery (London), Foley Gallery (New York), galerie baer (Dresden), Galerie f5,6 (Munich), Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast), HF Contemporary Art (Welham Green), I-MYU Projects (London), James Hyman Gallery (London), L-13 LIW (London), Mauger Modern (Bath), Monika Bobinska (London), Open Gallery (London), ORDINARY-LIGHT Photography (London), Pavilion (Leeds), Rod Barton (London) Sarah Myerscough Fine Art (London), Sesame Gallery (London), Sumarria Lunn (London), The Catlin Guide (London), The Multiple Store (London), The Steps Gallery (London). Saatchi Gallery Bookshop, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and The Whitechapel, all selling limited edition prints and multiples. AXA Art, the Contemporary Art Society and Own Art will be leading tours of the Fair and there is also a programme of talks and discussion with partners including The Art Fund and Apollo Magazine. All talks, tours and discussions are FREE to attend with a Fair ticket or invitation. A limited number of places could be reserved in advance.

National Gallery of Victoria Celebrates the Work Artist John Davis Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:02 PM PDT MELBOURNE.- This August, the National Gallery of Victoria celebrates the work of influential Australian artist, John Davis (1936–1999). John Davis: Presence draws together over 40 works by the artist including sculpture, photography and installations. David Hurlston, Curator, Australian Art, NGV, said this important survey charts Davis's development as an artist, from his early works, produced during the 1960s, through to his critically acclaimed sculptures and installation works leading into the nineties. John Davis: Presence will be on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square from 6 August to 24 October 2010. The exhibition will be open 10am–5pm, closed Mondays. Entry is free.

UK Artists and Their Families Welcome Artist's Resale Right Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:01 PM PDT LONDON.- The families and beneficiaries of UK artists stand to benefit from millions in royalties from 1 January 2012 with the full implementation of the Artist's Resale Right. This important Right pays artists royalties each time their work is resold by an auction house or art dealer. The Right has applied to living artists since 2006, and DACS (the Design and Artists Copyright Society) has paid artists nearly £14 million in royalties in the last six years. Artist Damien Hirst explains why he thinks the Artist Resale Right is so important: 'I'm pleased that the Artist's Resale Right is finally be extended to heirs and beneficiaries as in most other EU states. We need to recognize financially their role in preserving art. They spend a lot of time and energy on this and they should have some support.'

Enrico David exhibits at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:00 PM PDT LONDON - This autumn, the Institute of Contemporary Arts is staging the first major public exhibition by artist Enrico David. David will present work from the last five years, including paintings, works on paper, sculptures and vitrines as well as two large-scale installations – one of which is specially conceived for this show at the ICA. Over the last decade, Enrico David, Italian by birth but based in London, has quietly established a reputation as one of Britain's most original artists. This is the first exhibition that demonstrates ongoing strands within his work, which often features stylised figures staged within erotic or tragic-comic scenarios. David's work borrows from craft techniques and modern design, and in the past the artist has employed textiles and embroidery in his work, as well as drawing on interior decoration. However in his practice craft and design are subject to both distortion and degradation. David's interest in the languages of design (as well as those of painting and sculpture) reflects a broader dynamic in his work, such languages giving him "an opportunity to explore discontinuity, disruption and misuse – as part of my interest in personal adaptation."  David's exhibition at the ICA is in two distinct parts. The lower gallery will feature a themed selection of painting, sculpture and vitrines from the last five years, specifically chosen by the artist. The sculptures include Sodulater (2005), a totem or fetish made from copper and wood, as well as a new sculpture made from a draughtsman's doll. These dolls and effigies are a recurring feature in David's work, and some of the figures introduced here will reappear elsewhere in the exhibition: the artist considers the group of works in the lower gallery as a kind of "casting session". The lower gallery will also feature a large painting, The History of the Fracturing of Hope (2004) and a group of twenty-three gouaches, Shitty Tantrum (2006-07), works which depict an array of characters in a series of tableaux. David has often worked with performance and text, and his art can be interpreted as a form of theatre, re-enactment or psychodrama: centring on episodes of trauma; shot through with desire, guilt and secrecy; and ultimately promoting the transformations of masquerade as an elaborate survival strategy. However, the work resists simple biographical readings, hovering instead between the specific and the archetypal. The two upper galleries will each contain a single autonomous installation. The first of these is Spring Session Men (2003), originally created for the Project Arts Centre in Dublin. Running down one wall will be a seven-metre long multi-panel painting, mimicking a piece of Art Deco marquetry and featuring a frieze or chorus line of twelve sharply-tailored men. Framed embroideries on canvas and a hanging medallion complete the scene, together with a large conference table covered in memos – the latter featuring the logo of a fictional company. The work is a kind of boardroom, but one shot through with a suppressed, hysterical homoeroticism. The second installation, created for the ICA, is in the form of a diorama. This scene, achieved through trompe-l'œil effects, is based in part on a Surrealist photo-collage from 1935 by Dora Maar. The latter image features a panelled room, mud strewn across its floor, inhabited by a matronly figure and a young boy who appears to rub himself against her. In David's version this image is combined with more personal material, as the room is crossed with a bedroom designed for the young David by his father in the early 1970s, and the figures are replaced by cut out images of a doll and of the artist himself. Enrico David was born in Ancona, Italy, in 1966. He moved to London in the late 1980s, and studied fine art at Central St Martin's in the early 1990s. David first became celebrated for a series of large-scale embroidered canvases, featured in a solo exhibition at The Approach, London (1999), and in the group exhibition New Labour, Saatchi Gallery, London (2001). However, 2001 marked a significant shift in David's practice, which has subsequently employed a wider range of media, including a significant sculptural component. David's solo exhibitions include projects at Cabinet Gallery, London, and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, as well as David, Project Art Centre, Dublin (2003), Douchethatdwarf, Transmission, Glasgow (2003) and Chicken Man Gong, Tate Britain, London and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2005 and 2007 respectively). His group exhibitions include The best book about pessimism I ever read, Kunstverein Braunschweig (2002), Clandestine, Venice Biennale (2003), Flesh at War with Enigma, Kunsthalle Basel (2004), British Art Show 6, Hayward Gallery, London and tour (2005), Tate Triennial 2006, Tate Britain, London (2006) and The Subversive Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Van Abbe Museum, Einhoven (2006). The exhibition will be accompanied by an artist's book, produced after the closure of the exhibition (details to be confirmed). David will also create a new limited edition work to accompany the exhibition, in association with Rococo Chocolates. Visit the Institute of Contemporary Arts at : www.ica.org.uk

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:18 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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