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

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• Our Editor Visits The Tate Modern In London ~ The World’s Favorite Modern Art Museum
• Sotheby's May Auction Sale of American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture
• Cai Guo-Qiang presents A Retrospective at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum
• Joan Miró ~ Evoking the Female Image ~ at Bancaja Cultural Center in Valencia
• A Tribute To Dalí
• Adelson Galleries Featues the Paintings of Self-Taught Artist Winfred Rembert
• Gino Severini Retrospective at The Orangerie Museum in Paris
• York Art Gallery in England Shows William Etty's Controversial Paintings
• Pablo Picasso 1936: Traces of an Exhibition at Museu Picasso in Barcelona
• Phillips de Pury & Company Offers a Major Auction of Photographs in October
• Spring Show in New York City Offers Diverse Array of Treasures
• The Telfair Museums Features Leo Villareal's Light Sculptures
• Bonhams Announces October Sale of Fine Prints in San Francisco
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

Our Editor Visits The Tate Modern In London ~ The World’s Favorite Modern Art Museum Posted: 24 Apr 2012 09:00 PM PDT Located in central London on the banks of the river Thames, the Tate Modern is one of the family of four Tate galleries which display selections from the Tate Collection (named for Sir Henry Tate, a Victorian sugar merchant, whose donation formed the basis of the modern collection). The Collection comprises the national collection of British art from the year 1500 to the present day, and of international modern art. The other three galleries are Tate Britain, also in London, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, in Cornwall. Created in 2000 from a disused power station, the Tate Modern displays the national collection of international modern art, defined as art since 1900. The international modern art was formerly displayed alongside the British art at what was previously the Tate Gallery and is now Tate Britain. By about 1990 it was clear that the Tate Collection had hugely outgrown the original Tate Gallery on Millbank. It was decided to create a new gallery in London to display the international modern component of the Tate Collection. For the first time London would have a dedicated museum of modern art. At the same time, the Tate building on Millbank ( now the Tate Britain) would neatly revert to its original intended function as the national gallery of British art. The Bankside power station had closed in 1982 and was available, a striking and distinguished building in its own right, it was in an amazing location on the south bank of the River Thames opposite St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London. The fact that the original Tate Gallery was also on the river meant that the two could be linked by a riverboat service while a new footbridge (the Millennium Bridge) would connect the Tate Modern to St Paul's cathedral. An international architectural competition was held attracting entries from practices all over the world. The final choice was Herzog and De Meuron, a relatively small and then little known Swiss firm (who have subsequently won the Pritzker Prize and become world famous on the back of this, and other works). A key factor in this choice was that their proposal retained much of the essential character of the building. The power station (originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also created Liverpool's Anglican cathedral, University libraries in Oxford and Cambridge, Waterloo Bridge, and the design of the famous British red telephone box) consisted of a huge turbine hall, thirty-five metres high and 152 metres long, with, parallel to it, the huge boiler house. The turbine hall became a dramatic entrance area, with ramped access, as well as a display space for very large sculptural projects. The boiler house became many of the galleries. These galleries are on three levels running the full length of the building. The galleries are disposed in separate but linked blocks, on either side of the central escalators. Above the original roofline of the power station Herzog and De Meuron added a two-storey glass penthouse, known as "the lightbeam". The top level of this "lightbeam" houses a café-restaurant with stunning views of the river and the City, and the lower room with terraces on both sides of the building. In total, the Tate Modern has 34,500 square meters of floorspace, including over 9,800 m2 of display and exhibition space, plus 3,300 m2 for specific installations in the turbine hall. The Tate Modern opened in 2000 and became an instant hit with visitors from worldwide. Designed to handle up to 2 million visitors a year, it rapidly became the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 5 million visitors every year. Further expansion of the gallery has been a priority for some time, and a new extension is scheduled to open in 2012. Also designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the new extension will take the form of a ziggurat or pyramid with a sloping brick facade to match the original building. When completed, this will include galleries dedicated to photography, video, exhibitions and the community. Be sure to visit the museum's website at: … http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/ The Tate collection of modern and contemporary art represents all the major movements from Fauvism onward. It includes important masterpieces by both Picasso and Matisse and one of the world's finest museum collections of Surrealism, including works by Dalí, Ernst, Magritte and Mirò. Its substantial holdings of American Abstract Expressionism include major works by Pollock as well as the nine Seagram Murals by Mark Rothko. There is an in depth collection of the Russian pioneer of abstract art Naum Gabo, and an important group of sculpture and paintings by Giacometti. Tate has significant collections of Pop Art, including major works by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, also great examples of Minimal and Conceptual art. Tate also has particularly rich holdings of contemporary art since the 1980's. The Tate Modern Collection consists of four wings on Levels 3 and 5 of the gallery. At the heart of each wing is a large central display, or 'hub', which focuses on one of the pivotal moments of twentieth-century art history. Around a focal points, a range of displays move backwards and forwards in time, showing the predecessors and sometimes the opponents of each movement, as well as how they shaped and informed subsequent developments and contemporary art. The introductory room in each wing brings together work by artists from different generations, to reflect this ongoing dialogue between past and present. On the 3rd level, three exhibition areas are devoted to the permanent collection. "Material gestures", focuses on abstraction, expressionism and abstract expressionism, featuring work by Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse and Tacita Dean. "Poetry and Dream", shows how contemporary art grows from, reconnects with, and can provide fresh insights into the art of the past. The large room at the heart of the wing is devoted to Surrealism, while the surrounding displays look at other artists who, in different ways, have responded to or diverged from Surrealism, or explored related themes such as the world of dreams, the unconscious and archetypal myth. Artists include: Giorgio de Chirico and Jannis Kounellis, Jean Painlevé, Fréderic Bruly Bouabré, Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso, Joseph Beuys, Julião Sarmento and Mona Hatoum. The third, smaller, section on this level is "Chromatic Structures", bringing together artists from the early and mid-twentieth century who explored the use of colour and geometric structures to create abstract art. Featured artists include Piet Mondrian, Victor Pasmore, Mary Martin, Charles Biederman, Ben Nicholson, Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, Gego, Helio Oiticica and Mira Schendel. The thematic displays continue on the 5th level. "Energy and Process", looks at artists' interest in transformation and natural forces. A central room focuses on sculpture of the late 1960s made from a diverse range of everyday objects rather than those associated with fine art. The Italian artists of Arte Povera produced work that explored changing physical states, while in Japan and the United State the Mono Ha and Post-Minimalism movements looked for alternatives to a sleek technological aesthetic. Adjacent rooms show pioneering uses of commonplace things and activities. More recent work on display blurs the boundary between art and daily life in photography, film and installation. Artists featured include; Kasimir Malevich and Richard Serra, Ana Mendieta, Marisa Merz, Luciano Fabro, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Lucia Nogueira, Juan Downey, Peter Fischli & David Weiss. "States of Flux" is devoted to the early twentieth-century movements of Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism. These avant-garde artists broke with traditional ideas of picture making, seeking a more dynamic and fractured visual language to represent the complex reality of modern life and the machine age. Surrounding displays show how these developments influenced experimental film, photography and design, sometimes with a more pointed political agenda. Another room shows the post-Impressionist art from which the younger generation were breaking away. Cubist innovations such as collage were central to the emergence of Pop Art which combined high and low culture, art and commerce into forceful, celebratory and sometimes critical visions of the post-war consumer era. More recently, techniques such as collage, appropriation and assemblage have been reinvented and transformed by younger artists to reflect the multi-layered texture of urban life. New digital technologies have enabled contemporary artists to adopt methods of sampling, mixing and montaging associated with alternative music and club cultures. Artists include: Umberto Boccioni, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Frank, Bridget Riley, Eduardo Paolozzi, Marcel Duchamp and Richard Hamilton. "Photographic Typologies" gathers a range of artists who use photography to approach a topic or theme systematically, creating multiple images of similar subjects. This typological method was pioneered by the German photographer August Sander, whose work can be seen in the central gallery. Sander's People of the Twentieth Century is a vast series of photographic portraits classified according to the profession or role of their subjects. Sander's process of analyzing and ordering his images was matched by the rigorous, objective style of the photographs themselves. All of his subjects are observed by the photographer with the same neutral distance. Sander's methodology has influenced subsequent generations of artists. The photographic portraits of Thomas Ruff, Rineke Dijkstra and Paul Graham view their sitters in series, presenting them as individuals but also as part of a related group. A similar technique is applied to spaces and architectural structures in the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Struth and Hiroshi Sugimoto. Again, these sequences depend on the accumulation of images, allowing contrasts or similarities to emerge between them. Contemporary practitioners such as Simryn Gill and Alexander Apóstol continue to work in this tradition, producing sequences of images that can be read as themes and variations on their chosen subjects. The Tate is perhaps best known for the massive installations in the main turbine hall. These annual commissions (Sponsored by Unilver) invite artists to make a work of art especially for Tate Modern's vast Turbine Hall. The Series has resulted in some of the most innovative and significant sculptures of recent years. Currently, and until 2 May 2011, the turbine hall is the site for Ai Weiwei's "Sunflower Seeds". Consisting of 100 million individually crafted, porcelain sunflower seeds (made in small scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen), the seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape. The landscape of sunflower seeds can be looked upon from the Turbine Hall bridge, or seen up-close at the east end of the Turbine Hall on Level 1. The work poses challenging questions: What does it mean to be an individual in today's society? Are we insignificant or powerless unless we act together? What do our increasing desires, materialism and number mean for society, the environment and the future? Until 30 June 2011, visitors to the restaurant can see James Aldridge's "Cold Mouth Prayer", specially commissioned for the Tate Modern's Restaurant. Influenced by Renaissance landscape painting and nineteenth-century French scenic wallpaper, the artist explores his interest in the natural world as well as the ideas and imagery surrounding extreme heavy metal music. In this seductive landscape, crows exhale smoke in a scene rich in decorative flowers, yet loaded with sinister overtones. The major exhibition in the 4th floor gallery is a retrospective featuring the works of Gabriel Orozco (until 25 April 2011). Creative, playful and inventive, Orozco creates art in the streets or wherever he is inspired. Born in Mexico but working around the globe, Orozco is renowned for his endless experimentation with found objects, which he subtly alters. His sculptures, often made of everyday things that have interested him, reveal new ways of looking at something familiar. A skull with a geometric pattern carefully drawn onto it, a classic Citroën DS car which the artist sliced into thirds, removing the central part to exaggerate its streamlined design, and a scroll filled with numbers cut out of a phone book are just some of his unique sculptures. Orozco's photos are also on display, capturing the beauty of fleeting moments: water collecting in a punctured football, tins of cat food arranged on top of watermelons in a supermarket, or condensed breath disappearing from the surface of a piano show Orozco's eye for simple but surprising and powerful images. His art also shows his fascination with game-playing, for example a billiard table with no pockets and a pendulum-like hanging ball, or Knights Running Endlessly, an extended chess board filled with an army of horses, both of which are well-known games to which he has added an element of futility. This kind of unexpected twist makes Orozco's work interesting to both contemporary art lovers and also anyone who wants an unusual and captivating art experience.

Sotheby's May Auction Sale of American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:59 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby's auction of American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture on 19 May 2010 will offer collectors a rich array of works by American artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. The auction contains a strong selection of modern pictures, with many paintings that are both rare and fresh to the market. Works from the sale will be exhibited at Sotheby's New York galleries beginning 15 May.

Cai Guo-Qiang presents A Retrospective at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:56 PM PDT TAIPEI.- The Taipei Fine Arts Museum presents a retrospective exhibition for the artist called "indispensable to this world" by The New York Times. Cai Guo-Qiang has left his mark on various cities and countries, from Fujian to Shanghai, from China to Japan, and from New York to the world. His work expresses a kind of metaphysical thinking derived from Eastern philosophy and modern cosmology. Known worldwide for his gunpowder-based works and large-scale installations, Cai became the first Chinese artist to hold a solo exhibition, I Want to Believe, at the Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2008. This Taipei retrospective is on view until 21 February, 2010.

Joan Miró ~ Evoking the Female Image ~ at Bancaja Cultural Center in Valencia Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:53 PM PDT Valencia, Spain -The Bancaja Cultural Center presents Joan Miró. Evoking the Female Image, on view through June 21, 2009. The exhibition was organized together with the Joan and Pilar Miro Foundation. Women as a theme run through all Miró's work. It was an early allure that began during his training as an artist. It was a constant obsession that persisted into his maturity. Miró equated the female figure with the universe. Nonetheless, his portrayals tend to avoid idealization or praise. Miró observed women and his multiple visions reveal rigour, humour, tenderness, eroticism, drama, poetry or everyday life. Miró's work features nudes, dancers, portraits, imaginary portraits, maternities, lovers, women bathed by water, the sun or the moon, women courted by birds or stars, and hybrid creatures that can be confused with men, stars, animals or plants. His fascination with the female image started out with descriptive figurative portrayals that later turned into ideograms, with elliptic poetical images evoking women through one of their identifying features, or into barely legible signs. Decade by decade, this exhibition traces his obsession from 1917 up to 1981, through paintings, drawings, sculptures, graphic work, photographs, and images and objects from his studios: the Sert Studio and Son Boter. The exhibition begins with two female nudes (1917-1918), sketched using real-life models when he attended classes at the Sant Lluc Art Circle in Barcelona. When he came out of class, Miró used to draw dancers from the Paralelo district or other protagonists of the city's nightlife. Even during this period, his first female nudes shunned the prevailing academic style, and their bodies underwent a metamorphosis, transformed by the harsh colours of Fauve or the facets of Cubism. In parallel, the musicality of Delaunay's Orphism transformed the surrounding space of the woman with a fan portrayed on the poster designed for the Franco-Catalan magazine L'Instant (1919). After his first trip to Paris in 1920, his detailed style of painting gradually became more diluted. Even his most realistic of female portraits started to acquire an unusual beauty. Miró's growing interest in poetry and contact with Dadaist and Surrealist artists and writers introduced him to new creative methods and more conceptual, metaphorical forms of representation. From 1924, the female figure became more stylized and schematic. Subtle and incorporeal, it could only be identified by her breasts, her sex or other characteristic features. She became a sign or an ideogram. A hint of the female figure's objectification can be observed: setsquares, inspired by Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical painting, occupy the pubis. Additionally, under the influence of Duchamp's irony or the mechanistic aesthetics of Picabia, Miró's dancers were transformed into "toys" activated by clockwork or by a wheel mechanism, as in Danseuse (1924). This simplification and stripping back to basics led to his dream paintings (1925-1927) whose modulated, ethereal backgrounds also contain women, as in Peinture (1925). Later, his Imaginary Portraits of 1929 allowed him to freely interpret paintings by other artists from other periods, a field that Miró assiduously explored. From 1927, his desire to "assassinate painting" and his questioning of conventional painting and technical virtuosity led him to create collages, painting-objects, poetic objects or other three-dimensional works in which women continued to play an important role. From 1931, he became reconciled once again with painting, creating a series of oils on Ingres paper, like Femme assise, where women are increasingly the protagonists. Contemporary or period women abound in the postcards and other images from popular culture stuck on his drawing-collage of the 1930s. This carefree, often idealized image of women contrasts with the disturbing women of his savage paintings (1934-1938), like Peinture (1935), and with the distorted bodies sketched at the Grande Chaumière in 1937, during his exile in Paris as a consequence of the Spanish Civil War. Transformed now into a sign, the female image continued to feature in his 1940s work, beginning with the Constellations series. The meticulous delicate work of this series, still perceptible in Femmes, oiseau, étoiles (1944), coexisted or competed with a sketchy handling of paint from the middle of the decade, as is the case of Femme dans la nuit (1944). From this point onwards, women were portrayed in paintings in a decreasingly descriptive, more abstract way, although they still tended to be relatively figurative in his sculptures. From the mid 1950s, his more or less elliptical portrayals of women gave way to imprecise, evanescent images, as in the drawing Trois femmes (1960) On occasions, Miró appropriated female images present in the work of other artists, as occurs with the tapestry La Partie de pêche des amoureux (1965). The female image finally ended up by taking on any form, as in the painting Femmes et oiseaux (1968), becoming hard to decipher. Sometimes the title is the only clue in helping to identify the female theme, as is the case of Femme espagnole and Femme, oiseau, both produced in 1972. Women are omnipresent in his sculptures from the 1960s and 70s, and also in his assemblage sculptures, constructed with diverse objects. These widely assorted bits and pieces of reality (pumpkins, tins, spoons, balls) were subjected to a process of anthropomorphization which metamorphosed them into women, maternities, hybrid beings or young girls dreaming of escape. Women also occupied a privileged place in projects for monumental sculptures and public art. The magic appeal of the female figure persisted during the final stage of Miró's work. His sketchbooks or graphic work from the 1980s explore recurrent female themes and motifs, like Jeune-fille or Danseuse espagnole, or extend the repertoire by adding new images, like those of the Gens de la Mer or the Marchande de Couleurs.

A Tribute To Dalí Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:52 PM PDT PARIS.- In tribute to the 20th anniversary of Salvador Dalí's disappearance, from the 16th of October 2009 until the 20th of January 2010, Espace Dalí in Paris will become a showcase for gold pieces that the artist designed during the 1960s. The exhibition is curated by Mr. Alex Doppia and Mr. Beniamino Levi, major art collector and Dali' world expert.

Adelson Galleries Featues the Paintings of Self-Taught Artist Winfred Rembert Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:50 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- In a special event, Adelson Galleries and Peter Tillou Works of Art present the paintings of Winfred Rembert this spring. The exhibition, taking place April 7 through May 28, 2010, will be Rembert's first major solo exhibition in New York. A self-taught artist, Rembert grew up working in the cotton fields of Cuthbert, Georgia, in the 1950's. He was arrested after a 1960's civil rights march and survived a near-lynching before serving seven years in jail. It was in jail, creating wallets next to another inmate, that he first learned to hand-tool leather. Years later, at the suggestion of his wife, Rembert integrated storytelling and the tales of his youth into tableaux on sheets of tanned leather.

Gino Severini Retrospective at The Orangerie Museum in Paris Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:49 PM PDT Paris.- The Orangerie Museum in Paris presents "Gino Severini (1883 - 1966): Futurist and Neoclassicist" until July 25th. This is the first retrospective of the work of the Italian painter Gino Severini since that organised in 1967 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris. It brings together some 70 works from private collections, European and American museums including the Triton Foundation Netherlands, Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice, Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, Estorick Collection in London, Thyssen Foundation in Madrid and MOMA, New York. As Severini said, "Cortona and Paris are the cities I am most bound to : I was physically born in the first, intellectually and spiritually in the second", Paris is therefore a particularly fitting home for this retrospective. Severini originally trained under pointillist painter Giacomo Balla and at first remained close to his style, with an emphasis on Luminist effects and the contrast of light and shade. He arrived in Paris in 1906 keen to find out more about the work of Seurat. In 1910, Raoul Dufy, who had the neighbouring studio, introduced him to scientific Divisionism. His urban views, painted in quite a free Pointillist style, are reminiscent of Signac but also seem quite close to the landscapes painted by Van Gogh in Paris in 1887 with their broken brushwork and lighter palette. His few pastel portraits are closer in style to Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. He continued the Divisionist experiments in his early Futurist works by integrating coloured planes and adding sequins to his dancers. In 1911, Gino Severini joined the Futurist movement, having already signed the Manifesto in 1910. His large painting, The Dance of the Pan Pan at the Monico, was the highlight of the 1912 Futurist exhibition. He acted as mediator between the artists from Milan and those of the Parisian avant-garde, and joined the Futurists on their European tour. His preferred subjects at this time were crowds, urban scenes and places of entertainment, very different from the themes of his artist friends (The Boulevard, Estorick Collection, London). He also represented movement in his series of dancers produced in 1912-1913. In 1914 - 1915, at the invitation of Marinetti, Severini produced a series of paintings on the war ("Train Blindé (Armoured Train)", MOMA, New York). In 1916, after abandoning Futurism, he became part of the Cubist movement until 1919. He rubbed shoulders with Cocteau and Matisse, and met Juan Gris to whom he was very close both personally and stylistically. During this period, he painted still lifes that included real fragments of wallpaper, newspapers, musical scores, etc., basing them on a set of complicated calculations. His Cubism stood out for the subtlety of colour harmonies. It was at this time that he produced many theoretical works on geometry, the Golden Section and harmonic lines, resulting in the publication in 1921 of his book From Cubism to Classicism on the relationship between art and mathematics. He sought a return to the traditional values of painting by concentrating on "construction". From 1920 to 1943, his art entered a new phase with the "Return to the Figure". With his Portrait de Jeanne et sa Maternité, dating from 1916 and representative of a classical and realist style, he became part of the "Return to Order" movement. Just like other artists of the time, Picasso, Gris and Derain, Severini was fascinated by the characters of Harlequin and by the Commedia dell' Arte. His still lifes at this point became more decorative. This new transformation in his painting style, so far removed from Cubism, is evident in the decorations he created for the Sitwel family at Montefugoni in Tuscany. In the 1930s, he also worked on a number of religious mosaic murals for the churches of Tavannes and Saint Pierre de Fribourg in Switzerland. Severini painted relatively few easel paintings at that time. His subjects were more intimate and family-orientated. He alternated between hieratic portraits and still lifes (musical instruments, pigeons, ducks and fish) inspired by the decorations in Pompeii and by Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna. Along with other artists like De Chirico, Picabia, and Ernst, he was involved with the decoration of Rosenberg's house. Between 1928 and 1930, he exhibited with the Italian artists in Paris. His "Harlequin" from 1938 completes an exhibition that presents the many different aspects of an artist who was much more multi-facetted than his fame as a Futurist painter would have us believe. His work fits perfectly with the Musée de l'Orangerie collections, particularly in his desire for a classic "return to order" and his numerous representations of Harlequin that unquestionably bring him closer to André Derain. The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Chaim Soutine, Alfred Sisley and Maurice Utrillo, among others. As its name suggests, the Orangerie Museum is housed in a former orangery, built in 1852 by architect Firmin Bourgeois and completed by his successor, Ludovico Visconti to house the orange trees of the Tuileries Gardens. Used by the Third Republic as a depository for materials, examination room, accommodation for mobilized soldiers, versatile arena for sporting events, musical or patriotic concerts, industrial exhibitions, dog-shows, horticultural and rare art exhibitions, it was finally devoted to the administration of Fine Arts in 1921. A cycle of Monet's water-lily paintings, known as the Nymphéas, was arranged on the ground floor of the Orangerie in 1927. The museum has housed the Paul Guillaume collection of impressionist paintings since 1965. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.musee-orangerie.fr

York Art Gallery in England Shows William Etty's Controversial Paintings Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:48 PM PDT York, England.- The York Art Gallery is pleased to present "William Etty: Art and Controversy", on view through to January 22nd 2012. This major exhibition takes a fresh look at the works of York-born artist William Etty RA (1787-1849) and uncovers the reasons for his controversial reputation. It is the first comprehensive reassessment of his art for more than 50 years. This exhibition includes more than 100 of Etty's works from Tate, the Royal Academy, the Royal Collection, Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Southampton Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery, as well as many works from York Art Gallery.

Pablo Picasso 1936: Traces of an Exhibition at Museu Picasso in Barcelona Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:47 PM PDT BARCELONA.- Within the lines of actuation resulting from the creation of its new Knowledge and Research Centre, the Museu Picasso presents the exhibition Picasso 1936. Traces of an Exhibition. The basis of the show is the acquisition by the Museum during 2009 and 2010 of a fonds of original documents relating to the organization of the Picasso Exhibition at the Sala Esteva in Barcelona in January 1936. This fonds was in the possession of Claudio Hoyos, grandson of one of the gallery owners. The present exhibition is the result of research and interpretation of this documentary fonds, which, although partial, contains information crucial to understanding Picasso's relationship with Barcelona and, by extension, Spain.

Phillips de Pury & Company Offers a Major Auction of Photographs in October Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:46 PM PDT New York City.- Phillips de Pury & Company is pleased to announce its upcomiong auction of photographs at 450 Park Avenue in New York on October 4th. "The Arc of Photography: A Private East Coast Collection" is consistently buttressed by outstanding works depicting touchstones in the field of photography over 150 years, especially in the genre of identity and performance. Indeed, the strength of the collection lies in its breadth, providing a cohesive, chronological narrative addressing the various permutations the field has undergone while consistently addressing the topic of self-presentation, be it that of the photographer or the sitter. Amassed since 1997, the collection reflects a keen observational eye, supported by a strong scholastic acumen, which has meticulously secured the foundations that have provided inspiration for countless photographers on both sides of the Atlantic. Upon careful inspection, the dialogue between classic and contemporary photographers in the presentation of identity and its performative underpinnings becomes more evident. The rare, satirical portrait of the beloved clown prototype, Pierrot, by the French fraternal duo Nadar and Adrien Tournachon in the mid 1850's is an exceptional remnant of the prevailing popularity of parodying portraits, in all of their exaggerated poses, as favored by the French literati of that era. The heavy-handed expressiveness of the work resonates with Edward Weston's "Tina with Tear", taken almost 70 years later, in its facile emotional legibility. Similarly, Nic Aluf's portrait of Sophie Taeubur-Arp, 1920, which captures the Dadaist interest in the seemingly random assemblage of symbols in which the famed Swiss artist engaged, bears a strong parallel to Irving Penn's portrait of the famed The New Yorker cartoonist, Saul Steinberg, in which he is reduced to a vaguely absurdist sketch that readily identifies his comical, sketchy style. And Gertrude Käsebier's portrait of Auguste Rodin, 1905, somber and deeply meditative, is careful in highlighting the famed sculptor's majestic presence and heavy hands, just as Gerard Richter's portrait of the famed collaborative Brit couple, Gilbert & George, 1975, captures their interchangeable personalities and strong dynamism. Additional examples also abound in self-portraiture, where the photographers carefully cull an aspect within that they feel strongly denotes the performative role of the photographer in creating an image and presenting a self. André Kertész's self-portrait from 1926, taken a mere year after the progressive Hungarian artist made the leap to the center of the avant-garde, Paris, presents the artist as a modern sophisticate amidst a Modigliani-inspired setting that aligned him with one of the leading artists of his day. The self-conscious undertone of the work resonates with Andy Warhol's Self Portrait in Drag, created almost half a century later, which likewise employs a playful undertone, rife in humor and alignment with an alternate personality to comment on social roles and selfhood. Similarly, Man Ray's self-portrait, 1933, is comprised of disparate elements, fragments of his Surrealist imagination that derive their strength and narrative from their convergence within the image. This is redolent of Bruce Nauman's own presentation of 5 images, in each of which the artist alters his mouth and skin, which collectively attest to Nauman's innovative, corporeal engagements. And Edgar Degas' 1895 reverential and noble self-portrait shown as a dignified savant within the confines of his library is as controlled and deliberate as Cindy Sherman's Untitled # 382/The Actress, 1976-2000, in which she successfully staged her own self-presentation to assume a role that highlights the theatrical nature in self-portraiture. The Arc of Photography, therefore, stretches far past the chronological evolution that is readily discernible. Rather, it spans over the endless, groundbreaking ways in which photographers and their sitters have successfully collaborated in capturing their sense of self, be it real or invented, latent or explicit, proactively shaping their image and legacy. Phillips was founded in London in 1796 by Harry Phillips, formerly senior clerk to James Christie. During his first year of business, Phillips conducted twelve successful auctions and soon the business was holding sales for some of the most distinguished collectors of the day including Marie Antoinette, Beau Brummel and Napoleon Bonaparte. To win business, Phillips combined business acumen with a flair for showmanship, introducing new ways to promote his sales such as elaborate evening receptions before auctions - an essential part of the auction business today. Phillips quickly gained the confidence of British society and remains the only auction house ever to have held a sale inside Buckingham Palace. When he died in 1840, Harry Phillips' son, William Augustus, inherited a strong and successful legacy and business. In 1879, William changed the firm's name to Messrs Phillips & Son.  In1882, William brought his son-in-law, Frederick Neale into the business, the company was renamed again as Phillips, Son & Neale. This name remained through the 1970s, when the company became Phillips. The company had a reputation for strong regional salerooms dotted throughout The British Isles, selling everything from furniture to art and estates. In 1999, the company was bought by Bernard Arnault, the chairman of the French luxury-goods brand, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH). Shortly after the transaction, Mr. Arnault merged with the esteemed private art dealers, Simon de Pury and Daniela Luxembourg who were operating the Impressionist and Modern art gallery, de Pury & Luxembourg in Zurich. The new team at Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg with headquarters on East 57th street held sales in Impressionist, American and Modern works of art in addition to watches and jewelry and design. In 2002, de Pury & Luxembourg took majority control of the company and in 2003, Simon de Pury moved the headquarters to the Meatpacking District in Chelsea, which at the time was just beginning to sprout as an international art district. With a new remit to focus solely on the sale of the best works of Contemporary Art, Design, Jewelry, Photography, and Editions, Phillips de Pury & Company began business in a spectacular and spacious gallery setting on 15th Street, overlooking the celebrated Highline and The Hudson River. It is in this space today where Simon de Pury, his partners, and team of specialists are dedicated to the company's unique approach to the auction market. In October 2008, Mercury Group, the Russian luxury retail company, acquired majority share of Phillips de Pury & Company to further enable the company's expansion, including the opening of our flagship galleries at 450 Park Avenue. Visit the auction house's website at ... http://phillipsdepury.com

Spring Show in New York City Offers Diverse Array of Treasures Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:41 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Decisions, decisions. When the Spring Show NYC, opens its doors on April 28 to May 2 at the Park Avenue Armory, a diverse array of fine and decorative arts from 65 members of the Art and Antique Dealers League of America will greet collectors and art aficionados of all tastes. From ancient artifacts to fine furniture to modern masterworks on canvas and mid-century decorative arts, fairgoers can count on finding a stellar piece to suit their style. Budding enthusiasts are also welcomed with a selection of exceptional and accessibly-priced items. Most importantly, all works on display have been carefully vetted for authenticity in accordance with the strict standards of the AADLA. Here we present a brief survey of some of the show's most extraordinary pieces, spanning more than 2500 years in age.

The Telfair Museums Features Leo Villareal's Light Sculptures Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:40 PM PDT Savannah, Georgia.- The Telfair Museums are proud to present "Leo Villareal", on view at the museum through June 3rd. Organized by the San Jose Museum of Art and opening there in the summer of 2010, the show has travelled to Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas, and now, the Telfair Museum of Art. Another venue has recently been added which will bring the exhibition to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, Wisconsin from September 8th through December 30th. Leo Villareal is a pioneer in the use of LEDs and computer-driven imagery and known both for his light sculptures and architectural, site-specific works. This exhibition, his first major traveling museum survey, seeks to place Villareal's body of work within the continuum of contemporary art.

Bonhams Announces October Sale of Fine Prints in San Francisco Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:39 PM PDT San Francisco, California.- Bonhams is excited to announce its sale of Fine Prints on October 25th in San Francisco, and simulcast to Los Angeles, will feature a wide range of lithographs, woodcuts, etchings and screenprints spanning myriad centuries. The sale is led by a brightly-colored lithograph of "Ambassadeurs, Aristide Bruant," 1892, by French Post Impressionist artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (est. $30,000-40,000). The piece depicts Parisian singer and restaurateur Aristide Bruant, and demonstrates the unique style that Toulouse-Lautrec introduced to the art world at the time. Also of the same period is a poster of Fernand Toussaint's "Cafe Jacqmotte," 1894 (est. $20,000-40,000). Not far prior to the creation of these works, James Abbott McNeill Whistler created "Little Venice, from Twelve Etchings," in 1880. At the opposite end of the color spectrum, this print was done in dark brown ink on antique cream laid paper (est. $12,000-18,000). Moving farther backward in time, significant 17th century highlights of the sale will include an etching with drypoint and engraving of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn's "Christ Healing the Sick: 'The Hundred Guilder Print'," 1649, (est. $12,000-20,000), and Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn's "A Beggar Seated on a Bank," 1630, etching (est. $12,000-18,000). The sale will also feature the 15th century work of an engraved "The Prodigal Son," 1496, by Albrecht Dürer ($15,000-25,000). Bonhams' Fine Prints Department Director Judith Eurich said of the sale, "There are a number of fine and important examples by some of the most important artists from the Renaissance to the Present including Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Marc Chagall, Picasso, Frankenthaler and Warhol." Works of Pop Art, which are prominent in the sale, will include Andy Warhol's offset color lithograph of "Liz," 1964 (est. $25,000-30,000); a color screenprint of "Mick Jagger," 1975 (est. $20,000-30,000); a color screenprint of "One Plate, from Flowers," 1970 (est. $20,000-25,000); and a color screenprint of "Jane Fonda," 1982 (est. $15,000-20,000). There will also be highlights by David Hockney, including a color paper pulp of "Sunflower," 1978 (est. $15,000-25,000) that is Property from the Collection of Lauren Bacall, and "An image of Gregory, from Moving Focus Series," 1984-85, color lithograph with collage on two sheets (est. $14,000-16,000); as well as James Rosenquist's "Crosshatch and Mutations," 1986, a unique color monoprint with lithographic collage (est. $12,000-18,000). Famous for his Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism "combines," Robert Rauschenberg's work is also represented in the sale with his "Plus Fours, from Hoarfrost Editions," 1974, which features offset color lithograph and screenprint transfers on silk chiffon and two silk satin panels (est. $25,000-35,000). Additional Abstract Expressionism highlights include "Tales of Genji I," 1998, by Helen Frankenthaler, a color woodcut on handmade paper (est. $25,000- 35,000). A range of works by Pablo Picasso also stand out. Works of note include "Femme Endormie," 1962, a color linocut (est. $20,000-30,000); "Grand Nu de Femme," 1962, a tonal linocut in brown and black (est. $10,000-15,000); and "Les Danseurs au Hibou," 1959, color linocut (est. $15,000-25,000). Earlier pieces, during a period when he embraced surrealism, include an etching of his "Sculpteur, Modèle accroupi et Tête sculptée, from La Suite Vollard," 1933 (est. $10,000-15,000); "Rembrandt et Femme au Voile Pl. 36, from La Suite Vollard," 1933, etching, watermarked 'Picasso' (est. $10,000-15,000); and "Femme et Enfant," 1923, lithograph on wove paper (est. $10,000-15,000). Also included in the sale is a "Nature Morte au Citron et au Pichet Rouge," 1960, color aquatint, after Pablo Picasso (est. $10,000-12,000). Marc Chagall is a great mentionable of the October sale, with "The Sky," 1984, color lithograph (est. $12,000-18,000); "Le Square de Paris," 1969, color lithograph (est. $15,000-20,000); "Daphnis et Lycénion, from Daphnis and Chloé," 1961, color lithograph (est. $10,000-15,000); and "Les Coquelicots," 1949, color lithograph (est. $12,000-16,000). Additional highlights will include Emil Nolde's "Unterhaltung," 1917, woodcut on heavy cream wove paper (est. $20,000-30,000) and "Nadia au Regard sérieux," 1948, aquatint by Henri Matisse (est. $18,000-25,000). During 2005, Bonhams continued to expand its presence in the USA and acquired a new saleroom on Madison Avenue in New York. The company also expanded further in Europe with the opening of the Paris office in June 2005. In October 2005, Bonhams gained full independence after buying back a 49.9% stake held by French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. In 2005 Bonhams magazine was launched. Published quarterly, the magazine feature articles written by curators, dealers, valuers, and also art critics such as Matthew Collings and Brian Sewell. In 2007 Bonhams opened an office in Dubai as part of a joint venture with the family of former Ambassador to the UK Mohammed Madhi Al Tajir. The first sale held in Dubai on 3rd March 2008 was of Modern & Contemporary Arab, Iranian, Indian & Pakistani Art, and achieved total sales of over US$13million – almost three times the expected amount. Bonhams opened a new office in Hong Kong in 2007, to further support its expansion into the Asian market. The business in Hong Kong works with clients in mainland China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia and Singapore. In March 2008, Bonhams New York moved to new salerooms on the corner of 57th Street and Madison Avenue - formerly the home of the respected Dahesh Museum. The inaugural sale featured 20th century furniture and decorative arts. By 2007 Bonhams sales totalled US $600million. In 2009 Bonhams announced that it has taken market leadership in ten key areas of the UK art market for the first time. The company now dominates the following specialist areas in the UK: Antiquities, Arms & Armour, Design Prior to 1945, Ceramics, Clocks, Glass, Jewellery, Japanese Art, Miniatures and Watches. During 2009 these departments all sold more by value in the UK than any competing auction house. With Christie's, Bonhams is a shareholder in the London-based Art Loss Register, a privately-owned database used by law enforcement services worldwide to trace and recover stolen art. Visit the auction house's website at ... http://www.bonhams.com

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 24 Apr 2012 08:38 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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