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

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• The Art Institute of Chicago presents "Roy Lichtenstein ~ A Major Retrospective"
• The Mint Museum spotlights the Unique Art of Matthew Weinstein
• The Toledo Museum of Art celebrates the Birth of the American Studio Glass Movement
• The Orlando Museum of Art presents "Reflections ~ Paintings of Florida 1865-1965"
• The Allentown Art Museum shows "At the Edge ~ Art of the Fantastic"
• The Butler Institute of American Art Hosts the 75th National Midyear Exhibition
• "Bertien van Manen: Let's sit down before we go" Now on view at Foam
• The Israel Museum now showcased in Google Art Project
• Our Editor Tours The Saatchi Gallery In London ~ Always Controversial - Always Cutting Edge Fine Art
• The Louvre Presents 'The Art of Paper' ~ an Exhibition of 70 Works on Paper
• The National Gallery London ~ One Of The Best Collections Of European Art In The World
• Bruce Museum to feature Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce
• The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago shows Art, Love & Politics in the 1980's
• Giorgio Armani hosts “ Richard Hambleton – New York ” in Milan, Italy
• Peter Paul Rubens Banqueting House Sketch Saved for the Nation
• IAP Fine Arts Exhibits "Chris Gollon ~ Love"
• Getty Museum Celebrates Italy by Showcasing Objects in Its Collection
• The Tricycle Theatre to Raise Funds by Exhibiting & Auctioning Donated Works of Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

The Art Institute of Chicago presents "Roy Lichtenstein ~ A Major Retrospective" Posted: 04 Jun 2012 10:41 PM PDT Chicago, Illinois.- The Art Institute of Chicago explodes this summer with the energy of Roy Lichtenstein in the largest exhibition of the seminal Pop artist to date. More than 160 of Lichtenstein's works, from the familiar to the completely unexpected, will be on view in the first of only two American venues for Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective. Bringing together never-before-seen drawings, paintings, and sculpture, this exhibition presents the deepest exploration of Lichtenstein's signature style and its myriad applications across one of the most prolific careers in 20th-century art. The result is a dazzling array of color and dynamism, traversing art historical movements, magazine advertisements and comics, nudes and heroes, sea and sky. Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective is slated to be a monumental exhibition that captures the power of Pop with works of art as fresh and revolutionary as they were 50 years ago. Bank of America is the Global Sponsor of the exhibition. Following its presentation at the Art Institute, is through September 3rd, "Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" will travel to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (October 14th  through January 6th) before being displayed at the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2013. "The Art Institute of Chicago has several important works by Roy Lichtenstein in its permanent collection, including Brushstroke with Spatter (1966) and Mirror #3 (Six Panels) (1971)," said James Rondeau, Frances and Thomas Dittmer Chair and Curator, Department of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute. "But it has long been an ambition of mine to present these works in the context of Lichtenstein's rich and impressive career. Lichtenstein is rightly recognized for being a foundational Pop artist who created some of the most iconic works of the 20th century. But these works--the comic strips, the war imagery--represent only part of Lichtenstein's decades-long career. Our aim with this exhibition is to explore the full range of absorbing contradictions at the heart of Lichtenstein's work--starting with the paradox that Lichtenstein systematically dismantled the history of modern art while becoming a fixture in that canon. Lichtenstein, we hope to show, was a profoundly radical artist with a lasting impact on the history of 20th-century art." Roy Lichtenstein (1923­-1997) was born in New York City and grew up immersed in the heady cultural life of that metropolis, showing an early interest in art, design, and music. But the long arc of Lichtenstein's artistic career did not begin until his formal training at Ohio State University continuing through his graduate years following his service in World War II. His early art hewed closely to a playful figurative style that included Cubist-inspired renderings of fairytales and medieval subjects along with subjects from American history to engineer parts. He briefly turned to the gestural style of the Abstract Expressionist in the late 1950s and continued in that vein while teaching in New York and at Douglass College, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. During that era he came into contact with ambitious artists and teachers--including Allan Kaprow, Jim Dine, and Claes Oldenburg--who advocated art rooted in everyday life. Beginning in 1961, while still teaching design courses at Douglass, he made a major departure from his previous Cubist and Abstract Expressionist styles by channeling the seemingly "artless" medium of cartoons. His painting Look Mickey (1961) and similar works--rendered in the lines and colors of flat-looking cartoons or comics--posed a new challenge to the world of fine art and won the artist attention for his groundbreaking new genus of Pop art. But, as this exhibition makes clear, the mass media imagery with which he was engaged during this time would prove to be only a vehicle for Lichtenstein's deeper exploration of the processes of painting, the question of "style," and a fluid approach to subject matter that he would retain until his death. His immediately recognizable signature--the hand-painted Ben-Day "dots" derived from commercial printing processes--was critical to his act of blurring the boundaries between "low art" and traditional artistic genres. His seemingly mechanical technique also masked the effort and preparation he put into each painting--drawing, transposition, enlargement, editing, and meticulous labor. It was a technique that he would use to explore a wide variety of subjects from the eminently art historical (Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse) to the commercial (comic books, newspaper advertisements). Ranging so variously through such source material, Lichtenstein's work emerges as fundamentally concerned with compositional order and the integrity of the two-dimensional image, or, as he described it in 1952, "My purpose in painting is to create an integrated organization of visual elements." Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective traces this "integrated organization" throughout all periods of the artist's career, grouping together nearly all of his series with rarely seen preparatory studies. The exhibition begins with his early (1950s) and late (1990s) explorations of brushstrokes, perhaps no better introduction to his lifelong inquiry into technique and the paradox of the artist's hand in an age of commercial printing. From this introductory section, viewers then immerse themselves in the treatments of various domestic subjects such as spray cans, washing machines, and engagement rings that Lichtenstein was using to develop his signature style, most fully fleshed out in Look Mickey from 1961. During this same period, Lichtenstein was experimenting with his palette, rendering images in a stark graphic style in a series of black and white paintings produced in the early 1960s. "War and Romance" and the following "Explosions and Brushstrokes" feature some of Lichtenstein's most iconic works, including many of his cartoon panels and his broad, expansive depictions of explosions with titles such as Varoom! (1963). From the mid 1960s onward, Lichtenstein began working more abstractly and engaging directly with art historical pictorial traditions, starting with "Landscapes" and moving into reworkings of recognizable themes and subjects such as Haystack and Cubist Still Life. He also devoted himself, at the same time, to the representation of mirrors--emphatically flat and conceptually enigmatic. Many of these strains came together in his series of "Artist's Studio" paintings, which drew upon his own oeuvre as well as landmark paintings such as The Dance by Henri Matisse and further references to pop culture. The 1980s and 1990s found Lichtenstein creating his "Perfect/Imperfect" abstractions, a series of nudes, and, near the end of his life, luminous Chinese landscapes. The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) was originally founded as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in1879 to be both a museum and school. Today, the museum is most famous for its collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and American paintings. Considered one of the finest in the world, the collection of European painting contains more than 3,500 works dating from the 12th through the mid-20th century. Holdings include a rare group of 15th-century Spanish, Italian and Northern European paintings, highlights of European sculpture, and an important selection of 17th- and 18th-century paintings. Major Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and classic Modern works are among its most significant holdings. Included in the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection are more than 30 paintings by Claude Monet including six of his Haystacks and a number of Water Lilies. Also in the collection are important works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir such as "Two Sisters (On the Terrace)" and Henri Matisse's "The Bathers", Paul Cézanne's "The Basket of Apples", and "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair". "At the Moulin Rouge" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is another highlight, as are Georges Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" and Gustave Caillebotte's "Paris Street; Rainy Day". Non-French paintings of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection include Vincent Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles" and "Self-portrait, 1887". The Department of American Art includes more than 1,500 paintings and sculptures from the 18th century to 1950 and nearly 2,500 decorative art objects from the 17th century to the present. Strengths in the collection include the Alfred Stieglitz Collection and significant groups of work by John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt and Winslow Homer. Modernist holdings include iconic images by Grant Wood, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper and the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Visit the museum's website at … http://www.artic.edu/aic/

The Mint Museum spotlights the Unique Art of Matthew Weinstein Posted: 04 Jun 2012 09:52 PM PDT Charlotte, North Carolina.- The Mint Museum Uptown is proud to present "Matthew Weinstein", on view through August 19th. Matthew Weinstein, a visual artist currently living and working in Brooklyn, N.Y., has achieved notoriety in the art world as the first artist to focus exclusively on 3D animation. Beginning with a self-written dialogue or lyrics, Weinstein uses musical scores and written text to develop characters which he then renders by means of the animation program MAYA. Weinstein then casts actors to vocalize the dialogue, and musicians to create an auditory backdrop for the already visually-developed environments. Using precision airbrush techniques and single-hair paintbrushes, Weinstein also creates paintings, essentially abstractions of his animated worlds. These paintings accompany the digital installations and enable the artist to explore the often-tenuous boundary between the real and the virtual in contemporary culture. The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra commissioned Weinstein to create a digital accompaniment to debut with their performance of Maurice Ravel's Bolero on May 4th. The Mint Museum has organized a spotlight exhibition of Weinstein's art, including four paintings and a video. Weinstein's Chariots of the Gods features a mechanized female koi, voiced by Tony-award winning actress Natasha Richardson, who dangles from a golden chain in an empty restaurant. While she seems to carelessly meander through her environment with a smiling disposition, she offers discourse on such weighty subjects as the future, devolution, technology, aliens, and the impossibility of progress. Matthew Weinstein's early works throughout the 1990s focused on gestural abstraction, cartoon drawing, photographic-based imagery of ghostly images, and a fascination with blood, death, skulls and bones. Currently, Weinstein's primary medium is 3D animation and 3D rendering. As Weinstein's cast of virtual singing characters expands, a digital repertory company begins to exist, with characters from one project appearing in another, or in a painting or a sculpture. Weinstein's digitalized drawings and videos explore the often ambiguous line between reality and unreality in an American culture that increasingly experiences reality through the filter of a virtual world. In contrast to the precision-like rendering of his constructed and sculptural compositions, the overall impact of this work is one of unreality, or rather "hyperclarity", in which reality and unreality merge, becoming indistinguishable. Drawing on a number of influences, most notably early Japanese animation and the ancient aesthetic discipline of Ikebana floral arrangement to futuristic science fiction, Weinstein sets up a balance between the real and the abstract as well as nature and artifice. For the animated video installation entitled "SIAM", a computer animation of a couple of Siamese fighting fish, Weinstein wrote both the music and choreographed the performance. Matthew Weinstein grew up in New York City with his father, I. Bernard Weinstein, who headed the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University and has been credited with helping create the field of molecular epidemiology, and his mother, the former Joan Anker; and his sisters Claudia, of Manhattan, and Tamara, of Atlanta, Georgia. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1987. Weinstein's primary gallery is the Sonnabend Gallery in New York. He is also represented by the Baldwin Gallery in Aspen, Colorado and exhibits nationally and internationally. In 2004 alone, his work was the subject of a major installation at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany, and his films were projected in the Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria and screened at The Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. Weinstein is the recipient of many awards, including a Wexner Center for the Arts grant and his works of art are in private and public collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn, NY, the Sammlung Goetz and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich, Germany. The Mint Museum in Charolotte, North Carolina is housed in two separate buildings. The Mint Museum Uptown houses the internationally-renowned Mint Museum of Craft + Design, as well as outstanding collections of American, contemporary, and European art. Designed by Machado and Silvetti Associates of Boston, the five-story, 145,000-square-foot facility combines inspiring architecture with groundbreaking exhibitions to provide visitors with unparalleled educational and cultural experiences. Located in the heart of Charlotte's burgeoning uptown, the Mint Museum Uptown is an integral part of the Levine Center for the Arts, a cultural campus that includes the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, the Knight Theater, and the Duke Energy Center, and features a range of visitor amenities, including a 240-seat Auditorium, Family Gallery, studios, Café, and Museum Shop. Housed in what was the original branch of the United States Mint, the Mint Museum Randolph opened in 1936 in Charlotte's historic Eastover neighborhood as the first art museum in North Carolina. Today the Mint features collections that span more than 4,500 years of human creativity from all over the world. Intimate galleries invite visitors to engage with the art of the ancient Americas, ceramics and decorative arts, historic costume and fashionable dress, and European, African, and Asian art, among other collections. Resources include a reference library with over 15,000 volumes, a theater featuring lectures and performances, and a Museum Shop offering merchandise that complements both the permanent collection and special exhibitions. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mintmuseum.org

The Toledo Museum of Art celebrates the Birth of the American Studio Glass Movement Posted: 04 Jun 2012 09:17 PM PDT Toledo, Ohio.- This year there is no better place to see studio art glass than at the Toledo Museum of Art. The Museum is renowned for its extensive glass collection and for being the site of the historic 1962 Toledo Workshops. Those workshops, led by Harvey Littleton at the invitation of then-Museum Director Otto Wittmann, nurtured the artists now considered pioneers of the American Studio Glass movement and, through extension, helped to rejuvenate studio glass in post-war Europe. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of those workshops, TMA is presenting "Color Ignited: Glass 1962–2012", an enticing "coming of age" look at the medium. The free exhibition is on display from June 13th through September 9th. International in scope, "Color Ignited" showcases studio glass created during the past half-century, spotlighting pivotal work by Toledo Workshop participants as well as by the major artists working in the medium since then. The exhibition focuses on the role of color—from the conceptual to the political to the metaphoric—in artistic expression. Approximately 80 objects from private collections, galleries, other museums and TMA's own collection are shown, including works by Harvey Littleton, Dominick Labino, Marvin Lipofsky, Dale Chihuly, Dan Dailey, Judith Schaechter, Ginny Ruffner and Klaus Moje.

The Orlando Museum of Art presents "Reflections ~ Paintings of Florida 1865-1965" Posted: 04 Jun 2012 08:48 PM PDT Orlando, Florida.- The Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) is pleased to present "Reflections: Paintings of Florida 1865-1965 - From the Collection of Cici and Hyatt Brown" on view at the museum through July 15th. "Reflections: Paintings of Florida 1865-1965" demonstrates the importance of Florida as a location where artists drew inspiration over a sustained period. Dubbed the "Florida School," these artists - like the painters associated with other unique geographic regions - make us aware that America's core identity is closely linked to its landscape and social history. These paintings of old Florida comprise an essential part of our nation's artistic heritage. Drawn from the largest known private collection of Florida-based art, Reflections includes masterworks of many significant artists who worked in the state over a period of 100 years, including Herman Herzog, George Inness, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Albert Ernest "Beanie" Backus, Thomas Hart Benton, Martin Johnson Heade, and N.C. Wyeth. "Florida's enchanting natural beauty influenced many prominent artists," said Marena Grant Morrisey, executive director for the OMA. "The exhibition includes 70 paintings which depict the evolution of Florida's landscape while offering a new perspective of the works of these renowned artists." The earlier painters in Reflections share a particularly close tie to the Hudson River School. The movement rose to prominence during the first half of the nineteenth century when the United States was creating its identity. Developing a body of work that was distinctively American, they saw the nation's landscape, especially its wilderness, as a sublime (awe-inspiring) reflection of God's glory. The value of documenting unique wild places became increasingly obvious by the turn of the twentieth century. By 1916, a system of forty national parks and monuments had been established. (Everglades National Park was not added to the system until 1947.) As America gained power and wealth after the Civil War, prosperous collectors sought to emulate the nobility of Europe, and artists increasingly sought opportunities to study with European masters. While abroad, American artists became aware of new trends, especially Impressionism. However, stylistic labels can be misleading. Some American painters blended elements of Impressionism with Realism to produce a hybrid style, adopting Impressionist color without "dissolving" the edges of their forms. Others utilized gestural, unblended brush work to communicate the transient effects of light in the rural landscape, but did not adopt the chromatic palette of the Impressionists. Reflections also includes important examples of American scene painting and modernist realism, later representational styles that incorporated some elements of modernism. Whatever their specific style or subject matter, the distinguished paintings presented in Reflections offer visitors a unique opportunity to travel back in time to old Florida's golden age. Reflections: Paintings of Florida 1865 - 1965 from the Collection of Cici and Hyatt Brown will be accompanied by Picturing My Florida, a collection of photographs representing Florida today. Curated with the assistance of over five thousand votes on Facebook, the images selected for this exhibition were captured and submitted by the public. The juxtaposing of these exhibitions is designed to illustrate the continuing attraction of Florida as an inspiration for artists. Both exhibitions will be on display at the OMA through July 15. Reflections: Paintings of Florida 1865 - 1965 from the Collection of Cici and Hyatt Brown is presented as part of the museum's Made in Florida project celebrating Florida art and artists. The 2012 project features three engaging temporary exhibitions and the photography gallery display as well as special events and educational programs offering visitors a new perspective on Florida. Founded in 1924, the Orlando Museum of Art is a 501(c)(3) educational institution whose mission reflects the continued growth of Florida, ardent community support for the arts and the OMA's role as a leading cultural institution in the region. Since its inception, the Museum's purpose has been to enrich the cultural life of Florida by providing excellence in the visual arts. To meet this objective, the Museum has dedicated itself to collecting, preserving and interpreting notable works of art; to presenting exhibitions of local, regional, national and international significance; to developing first-rate educational programs; and to presenting creative and inclusive programs to reach every segment of a diverse community. Annually, the Museum presents 10-12 exhibitions on-site and 13 exhibitions off-site, award-winning art enrichment programs, unlimited gallery tours, teacher in-service training programs, video programs, distinguished lectures, art appreciation lectures, studio classes, lecture/luncheon programs and outreach services in its facility and through outreach services. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.omart.org

The Allentown Art Museum shows "At the Edge ~ Art of the Fantastic" Posted: 04 Jun 2012 08:08 PM PDT Allentown, Pennsylvania.- "All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy.  What right have we then to depreciate imagination?". .  Carl Jung. The Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley is pleased to showcase an exhibition that will introduce contemporary fantastic art to the museum setting. "At the Edge: Art of the Fantastic" is not only the most comprehensive exhibition of fantastic art to date, it is also the first time that this discipline has been presented on such a large scale.  Sometimes labeled as science fiction or fantasy art, such imaginative realism distinguishes itself from other forms by portraying ancient myths and legends, modern day fantasies in the form of divine interventions, the imagination, the dream state, the grotesque visions and the uncanny as common objects. "At the Edge" is on view at the museum through September 9th. Fantastic art is not a new invention.  According to the exhibition's guest curators, Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire, fantastic art has been around since man has "been able to make meaningful marks on permanent materials."

The Butler Institute of American Art Hosts the 75th National Midyear Exhibition Posted: 04 Jun 2012 08:04 PM PDT Youngstown, OH.- Now on exhibit at the Butler Institute of American Art are 100 works of art selected to be included in the 75th National Midyear Exhibition from over 1000 entries. This annual juried exhibition is open to artists over 18 years of age who reside within the United States and/or its territories, artists from 24 States are represented in the exhibition. The 2011 show has now been judged and visitors can the results for themselves. The exhibition runs through August 28th. The Butler is located in Youngstown, Ohio, in Mahoning County, and receives no revenues from the city or county. The Butler charges no admission fee at the main location or at its branch museums, and relies on contributions from the community and the nation to meet its cultural mission. The Beecher Center, housed in the south wing of the Butler's Youngstown location, is the first museum addition dedicated solely to new media and electronic art. The facility regularly displays works of art that utilize computers, holography, lasers and other digital media. The Beecher Center houses the Zona Auditorium, a digital media theater designed for performance art and high-definition film presentations. The Butler also operates two satellite facilities in nearby Columbiana and Trumbull Counties. The Salem branch, funded by The Salem Community Foundation, presents selections from the Butler's permanent collection, exhibitions by nationally-known contemporary and historic artists, and the best of regional art talent. The Butler's Trumbull branch, funded in part by Foundation Medici, focuses on important international artists whose works have profoundly influenced America, as well as exhibitions of works by contemporary master painters and sculptors. It was the first museum in the world to focus exclusively on American Art. Founded in 1919, the museum's centerpiece in its permanent collection is "Crack the Whip" by Winslow Homer, called by some the American Mona Lisa. The museum also features works by John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, Mary Cassatt, Romare Bearden, and Robert Rauschenberg, among others. The Museum recently acquired Norman Rockwell's "Lincoln, the Railspliter". "Roadside Meeting", by Albert Pynkam Ryder, "After the Hunt" by William Michael Harnett, and two magnificent portraits by American realist Thomas Eakins are a part of the Butler's 19th century holdings. Hudson River School painters are well represented in the Butler's collection with works by Seth Eastman, Thomas Cole, Asher Brown Durand and Thomas Doughty. All pay poetic tribute to a beloved American region. The Butler's Marine Collection spans four American decades, and includes paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, Martin Johnson Heade, Edward Moran, John Marin and Arthur G. Dove. American Impressionism is well represented in the Butler's collection with "In Flanders Field-Where Soldiers Sleep and Poppies Grow" by Robert Vonnoh taking center stage. Other American Impressionist works on view are by Edward Potthast, Theodore Robinson, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt and Gari Melchers. The Institute's American Western collection includes prized works in this genre. With the Native American portraits and sensitive canvases depicting Hopi life by Elbridge Ayer Burbank, and the beautiful "Oregon Trail" by Albert Bierstadt as its core, this collection has become an historical record of the American experience. Butler paintings by members of The Eight  include "Cafe Francis" by George Luks, as well as important works by John Sloan, Robert Henri, Maurice Prendergast and Everett Shinn. Early twentieth century works by Kenneth Hayes Miller, Charles Sheeler, and Georgia O'Keeffe are also featured in this collection. Other important twentieth century works include "Pennsylvania Coal Town", a masterpiece by Edward Hopper that pays tribute to the common man, and "September Wind and Rain" a fantastic landscape by modernist master Charles Burchfield. Contemporary masters including Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, and George Segal are also represented in Butler collection galleries.A tour of the Butler Institute would not be complete without a visit to the Donnell Gallery of American Sports Art. From boxing subjects by George Bellows to an Andy Warhol portrait of baseball great Pete Rose, virtually every sport can be seen in this gallery. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.butlerart.com

"Bertien van Manen: Let's sit down before we go" Now on view at Foam Posted: 04 Jun 2012 08:03 PM PDT AMSTERDAM.- This spring Foam presents the solo exhibition Let's Sit Down Before We Go by Bertien van Manen (1942). More than 60 photos are on show, created between 1991 and 2009. During that time, Van Manen regularly and extensively travelled with a small 35mm camera through Russia, Moldavia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Tatarstan and Georgia. She stayed for long periods with the people she met on her travels, learned their language and usually became friends with them. This produced intimate and sometimes tender photos resulting from a personal and sincere relationship. In Bertien van Manen's humanistic approach, photographer and subject are equals and the mutual respect is palpable. Let sit down before we go, by Bertien van Manen can be seen from 19 March to 24 June at Foam.

The Israel Museum now showcased in Google Art Project Posted: 04 Jun 2012 08:02 PM PDT JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Until Tuesday, if history buffs wanted a glimpse of the Israel Museum's vast collection — including a 9,000-year-old carved human face found in the Judean Desert — they would have to travel to Jerusalem to see it. Now, through a joint venture with Google Inc., people from around the world can examine the ancient Neolithic artifact, which the museum says is the oldest in the world, in greater detail than ever before with a simple click of a mouse from the comfort of their own home. The mask is just one of 520 objects made available as part of the museum's partnership with the Google Art Project, an online compilation of high-resolution images of artwork from galleries worldwide, as well as a virtual tour of the museums using the high-tech giant's Google Street technology. The project is just the latest in a long line of collaborations between Google and Israel. The tech giant has a large R&D center in Israel, has purchased several Israeli startups.

Our Editor Tours The Saatchi Gallery In London ~ Always Controversial - Always Cutting Edge Fine Art Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:59 PM PDT The Saatchi Gallery is the product of one man's devotion to contemporary art. Charles Saatchi, one of the wealthiest advertising moguls in the world, started to collect contemporary art in 1969, amassing a huge collection over the years that followed. When the Saatchi Gallery first allowed Charles Saatchi's personal collection to be seen by the public in 1985, it occupied a disused paint factory in St John's Wood, North London with 30,000 square feet (2,800 m2) of space. Dedicated to providing an innovative forum for contemporary art, presenting work by largely unseen young artists or by international artists whose work had rarely or never been exhibited in the UK, the gallery made an immediate impact, the first exhibition featuring works by American minimalist Donald Judd, American abstract painters Brice Marden and Cy Twombly and American pop artist Andy Warhol. This was the first U.K. exhibition for Twombly and Marden. In April 2003, the gallery moved to County Hall, the Greater London Council's former headquarters on the South Bank of the Thames, occupying 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of the ground floor. 1,000 guests attended the launch, which included a "nude happening" of 200 naked people staged by artist Spencer Tunick. The opening exhibition included a retrospective by Damien Hirst, alongside work by other young British artists, such as Jake and Dinos Chapman and Tracey Emin alongside some longer-established artists including John Bratby, Paula Rego and Patrick Caulfield. In October 2008 the gallery moved to its current location, the 70,000 sq. ft. Duke of York Headquarters building on King's Road, Chelsea. The Duke of York's Headquarters was built in 1801 to the designs of John Sanders (architect), who also designed the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In 1969 it was a declared a Listed building, due to its outstanding historic or architectural special interest. The building was originally called the Royal Military Asylum and was a school for the children of soldiers' widows. In 1892 it was renamed the Duke of York's Royal Military School. In 1909, the school moved to new premises in Dover, and the Asylum building was renamed the Duke of York's Barracks. After being sold, the site was redeveloped to plans from Paul Davis and Partners as the Duke of York Square. The development includes a public square, upmarket housing and retail outlets, and part of it is the new premises for the Saatchi Gallery. The new site opened with an exhibition dedicated to new art from China. Free admission to all shows, including temporary, curated exhibitions has been enabled through the Gallery's corporate partnership with the leading contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury & Company. You must visit the museum's website at: … http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk The Gallery also includes a dedicated space for Saatchi Online artists to exhibit and sell their work commission free. Corporate sponsorship and Charles Satchi's vested interest in the artworks has caused controversy over the years, the gallery (and travelling exhibitions) courted publicity and never backed away from negative publicity, if it produced headlines and promoted the art, whilst some artists complained about the (private) collection selling works that formed part of public exhibitions. However, it has certainly been extremely successful in promoting new artists and their works, with names such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin now extremely well known and collectable. In 2010, Charles Saatchi announced that the 70,000 sq ft gallery would be renamed MOCA London (Museum of Contemporary Art, London) when he retires, and would feature "a strong, rotating permanent collection of major installations", including 200 works (worth an estimated £25m) that would be donated to the nation. Since there is already a "Museum of Contemporary Art" in London (who are not best pleased about the appropriation of their name), this announcement continued the gallery's headline-grabbing traditions. Another news making affair was the "Sensation Show" in New York which offended Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, because of Chris Ofili's painting, Holy Virgin Mary, which incorporates elephant dung.Giuliani, who had seen the work in the catalog but not in the show, called it "sick stuff" and threatened to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the Brooklyn Museum hosting the show, because "You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion." John O'Connor, the Cardinal of New York, said, "one must ask if it is an attack on religion itself," and the president of America's biggest group of Orthodox Jews, Mandell Ganchrow, called it "deeply offensive". However, even without the spice of controversy, a visit to the Saatchi gallery will astonish, confound and delight, with an ever-changing selection of the best works from cutting-edge artists from around the world, as the 1.25 million visitors annually will attest to. Since the gallery exhibits work from a private collection, and the owner's tastes have changed with time, the exhibitions have changed accordingly. Initially, the gallery had a strong focus on US artists, including, Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella, Richard Serra, Jeff Koons, Philip Guston and Cindy Sherman amongst others. However, in the 1990's the focus changed to new, young British artists, and this focus has remained ever since, complimented with works by international artists. The permanent collection includes a large number of works from young British artists, including, Damien Hirst's iconic "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (the famous "shark in formaldehyde"), Mark Quinn's "Self", Richard Wilson's "20:50" (the "Oil Room" installation), "Tragic Anatomies" by Jake and Dinos Chapman as well as works by Tracey Emin, Emily Prince, Jitish Kallat and Kader Attia. Works from the permanent collection have always featured in themed gallery shows. In 1998 Saatchi launched a two part exhibition entitled Neurotic Realism. Though widely attacked by critics, the exhibition included many future international stars including; Cecily Brown, Ron Mueck, Noble and Webster, Dexter Dalwood, Martin Maloney, Chantal Joffe, Michael Raedecker and David Thorpe. In 2000 Ant Noises (an anagram of "sensation"), also in two parts, tried surer ground with work by Hirst, Lucas, Saville, Whiteread, the Chapmans, Turk, Emin and Chris Ofili. During this period the Collection was based at '30 Underwood St' an artist Collective of 50 studios and four galleries, the gallery made several large philanthropic donations including 100 artworks in 1999 to the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection, which operates a "lending library" to museums and galleries around the country, with the aim of increasing awareness and promoting interest in younger artists; 40 works by young British artists through the National Arts Collection Fund, now known as The Art Fund, to eight museum collections across Britain in 2000; and 50 artworks to the Paintings in Hospitals program which provides a lending library of over 3,000 original works of art to NHS hospitals, hospices and health centers throughout England, Wales and Ireland in 2002. On view until 17 April 2011, the gallery is exhibiting "Newspeak: British Art Now, Part II". This is the second installment of the Gallery's museum-scale survey of emergent British contemporary art, providing an expansive insight into the art being made in the UK today. Far from manifesting a visual language in decline, which the Orwellian title might suggest, the exhibition celebrates a new generation of artists for whom the stimulus of our hyper-intensified, codified, contemporary world provides a radical pathway to a host of new forms and images. From sculpture and painting, to installation and photography, artists here employ a hybrid of traditional and contemporary techniques and materials to create a new language with which to articulate the wikified world around them. In this melting pot, east merges with west, celebrity with classicism, fantasy with obsessive formalism. This explosion of new and vigorous forms is an exciting indicator of the ongoing and future strength of contemporary art in Britain. The exhibition includes works by Alan Brooks, Alexander Hoda, Anna Barriball, Anne Hardy, Ansel Krut, Anthea Hamilton, Arif Ozakca, Caragh Thuring, Carla Busuttil, Caroline Achaintre, Clarisse D'Arcimoles, Dan Perfect, Dean Hughes, Dick Evans, Edward Kay, Gabriel Hartley, Gareth Cadwallader, Graham Durward, Graham Hudson, Henrijs Preiss, Idris Khan, Jaime Gili, James Howard, Jonathan Wateridge, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, Kate Groobey, Luke Gottelier, Luke Rudolf, Maaike Schoorel, Marcus Foster, Maurizio Anzeri, Mustafa Hulusi, Nicholas Hatfull, Nicholas Byrne, Nick Goss, Olivia Plender, Paul Johnson, Peter Linde Busk, Renee So, Robert Fry, Spartacus Chetwynd, Steve Bishop, Systems House, Tasha Amini, Tessa Farmer, Toby Ziegler, Tom Ellis and Ximena Garrido-Lecca. On display from 27 May until 16 October 2011, the main exhibition will be "Shape of things to come: New sculpture" and will feature works by artists David Altmejd, John Baldessari, David Batchelor, Matthew Brannon, Peter Buggenhout, Bjorn Dahlem, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Folkert De Jong. Martin Honert, Thomas Houseago, Joanna Malinowska, Kris Martin, Matthew Monahan, Anselm Reyle, Sterling Ruby, Dirk Skreber, David Thorpe, Oscar Tuazon, Rebecca Warren and Yeesookyung amongst others.

The Louvre Presents 'The Art of Paper' ~ an Exhibition of 70 Works on Paper Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:58 PM PDT PARIS.- For this exhibition, seventy works on paper by some fifty artists active between the fifteenth century and the present day have been selected from the print and drawing collections of three museums in Paris—the Musée du Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, and the Centre Pompidou—as well as from a number of other French collections.

The National Gallery London ~ One Of The Best Collections Of European Art In The World Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:55 PM PDT Unlike comparable art museums such as the Louvre in Paris or the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the National Gallery in London was not formed by nationalizing an existing royal or princely art collection. The History of London's National Gallery dates back to April 1824 when the House of Commons agreed to pay £57,000 for the picture collection of the banker John Julius Angerstein. His 38 pictures were intended to form the core of a new national collection, for the enjoyment and education of all. The pictures were displayed at Angerstein's house at 100 Pall Mall until a dedicated gallery building could be constructed. Angerstein's house was small and unsuited to becoming an art gallery (it had to close for a while due to subsidence) and was compared unfavorably with other national art galleries, such as the Louvre in Paris, and ridiculed in the press. So, in 1831 Parliament agreed to construct a dedicated building for the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. There had been lengthy discussion about the best site for the Gallery, and Trafalgar Square (at the time being constructed on the site of the King's Mews in the Charing Cross district) was eventually chosen as it was considered to be at the very centre of London. Trafalgar Square could be reached by the rich driving in their carriages from the west of London, and on foot by the poor from the East End. It was felt that in this location the paintings could be enjoyed by all classes in society. The new building designed by William Wilkins finally opened in 1838. There was a lot of public criticism of the Wilkins' building, King William IV (in his last recorded utterance) thought the building a "nasty little pokey hole", while the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray called it "a little gin shop of a building". Some of these criticisms were addressed through the landscaping of Trafalgar Square, the steps in front of the National Gallery serving to increase its height and prominence, but in 1869 the architect E.M. Barry was asked to submit designs for rebuilding the entire Gallery. After much discussion, it was decided that the existing building should remain, and instead, a new wing should be added. This was completed in 1876, and added seven new exhibition rooms at the east end, including the impressive dome. The Royal Academy of Arts which had also been housed in the National Gallery building moved out in 1869, leaving extra space for the National Gallery. Continuing expansion of the collection led the trustees to campaign long and hard for additional space. Eventually, in 1907, barracks at the rear of the Gallery were cleared and work began to construct five new galleries. Further expansion was carried out in 1975, when the 'Northern Extension' was completed, providing 9 large rooms and 3 smaller 'cabinet' rooms of additional exhibition space. In 1985 Lord Sainsbury and his brothers agreed to finance the construction of a new wing on a site next to the Gallery which had been vacant since the Second World War, when a furniture shop was destroyed by bombing. The new Sainsbury Wing, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Robert Venturi and his wife, Denise Scott Brown, was opened in 1991, to display the entire early Renaissance collection. With a commitment to free admission, a central and accessible site, and extended opening hours the Gallery has ensured that its collection can be enjoyed by the widest public possible, and not become the exclusive preserve of the privileged. From the outset the National Gallery has been committed to education. Students have always been admitted to the Gallery to study the collection, and to make copies of the pictures. A vibrant education program continues today for school children, students, and the general public. The program includes free public lectures, tours and seminars. Following the completion of the Sainsbury Wing, the Gallery has a total floor area of 46,396 metres squared and is visited by more than 4 million people every year. Visit the National Gallery's website at … http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/ The first paintings in the National Gallery collection came from the banker and collector John Julius Angerstein. They consisted of Italian works, including a large altarpiece by Sebastiano del Piombo, "The Raising of Lazarus", and fine examples of the Dutch, Flemish and English Schools. In 1823 the landscape painter and art collector, Sir George Beaumont, promised his collection of pictures to the nation, on the condition that suitable accommodation could be provided for their display and conservation. In 1826, they went on display alongside Angerstein's pictures in Pall Mall until the whole collection was moved to Trafalgar Square in 1838. Initially, the Gallery had no formal collection policy, and new pictures were acquired according to the personal tastes of the Trustees. By the 1850s the Trustees were being criticised for neglecting to purchase works of the earlier Italian Schools, then known as the Primitives. Following the reform of Gallery administration in 1855, the new Director travelled throughout Europe to purchase works for the Gallery. In the 10 years that he was Director, Sir Charles Eastlake ensured that the Gallery's collection of Italian painting expanded and widened in scope to become one of the best in the world. Eastlake's purchases included Botticelli's "Adoration of the Kings" and Uccello's "The Battle of San Romano". In 1871 the Gallery's collection was broadened yet further, when 77 paintings were bought from the collection of the late Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. These consisted mainly of Dutch and Flemish paintings, and included Meindert Hobbema's "The Avenue at Middleharnis". From the very beginning, the National Gallery's collection had included works by British artists. By the mid-1840s, the rooms of the National Gallery had become overcrowded. When Robert Vernon presented a large gift of British works to the Gallery in 1847, they had to be displayed elsewhere, first at Vernon's private house, and later at Marlborough House. Not long afterwards, the artist Joseph Mallord William Turner bequeathed over 1,000 paintings, drawings and watercolors. When they came into the collection in 1856, they had to be displayed at South Kensington, along with the Vernon collection, which was moved from Marlborough House. In 1876 the National Gallery was enlarged, and the paintings were returned to Trafalgar Square. However, by this time a precedent had been set for exhibiting British works in separate premises. In 1889 the wealthy industrialist, Henry Tate, offered his collection to the nation and subsequently offered to fund the construction of a separate Gallery for British works of art. After lengthy negotiations, a site was selected a mile away from Trafalgar Square, at Millbank, and the Gallery opened in 1897. The new gallery was officially known the National Gallery of British Art, changing its name to the National Gallery, Millbank in 1917. However, it soon became known as the Tate Gallery. The majority of the British pictures were transferred to the Tate Gallery, and only a selection of works remained at Trafalgar Square. Amongst some of the highlights of the collection of French painting are 15 paintings by Edgar Degas, 19 works by Claude Monet and famous works by Philippe de Champaigne ("Cardinal de Richelieu), Claude Lorrain ("Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula"), Nicolas Poussin ("A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term"), Pierre-Auguste Renoir ("The Umbrellas") and Edouard Manet. The Italian collection includes 12 paintings by Canaletto (including "The Stonemason's Yard"), 10 by Raphael (including "Portrait of Julius II"), 10 Titians (including "Bacchus and Ariadne") and works by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio ("The Supper at Emmaus" and others), Giovanni Bellini ("The Doge Leonardo Loredan"), Sandro Botticelli ("Venus and Mars", Leonardo da Vinci ("The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist"), Michelangelo ("The Virgin and Child with Saint John and Angels"), Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ("An Allegory with Venus and Time"), Tintoretto ("The Origin of the Milky Way") and Paolo Veronese ("The Family of Darius before Alexander"). Amongst the Spanish works held by the National Gallery are paintings by El Greco ("Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple "), Francisco Goya ("Doña Isabel de Porcel"), Bartolomé Esteban Murillo ("The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities"), Diego Velázquez ("Christ in the House of Martha and Mary") and Francisco Zurbarán "Saint Francis in Meditation". Dutch and Flemish artworks include a selection of 20 Rembrandt works (including "Belshazzar's Feast") alongside works by Aelbert Cuyp ("Peasants and Cattle by the River Merwede"), Meyndert Hobbema ("The Avenue at Middelharnis"), Pieter de Hooch ("The Courtyard of a House in Delft"), Jan Steen ("Skittle Players outside an Inn"), Johannes Vermeer ("A Young Woman seated at a Virginal"), Anthony van Dyck ("The Emperor Theodosius is Forbidden by Saint Ambrose to enter Milan Cathedral"), Jan van Eyck ("The Arnolfini Portrait"), Peter Paul Rubens ("The Judgement of Paris") and David Teniers the Younger ("Peasants at Archery"). The majority of the British pictures in the national collection were transferred to the Tate Gallery (originally under the administration of the National Gallery), and only a selection of works remained at Trafalgar Square. However, the remaining works include some of the most famous British paintings, such as John Constable's "The Hay Wain", J. M. W. Turner's "The Fighting Temeraire", Thomas Gainsborough's "Mr and Mrs Andrews" and William Hogarth's six pictures of "Marriage à-la-mode", pointedly skewering upper class 18th century society. "An American Experiment: George Bellows and The Ashcan Painters" until 30th May 2011, features 12 paintings never before seen in the UK. This exhibition introduces visitors to the American artist George Bellows and his artist friends, the Ashcan Painters: William Glackens, George Luks, John Sloan and their teacher Robert Henri. The Ashcan School was formed at the beginning of the 20th century, when American painters, principally in New York City and Philadelphia, began to develop a uniquely American view on the beauty, violence and velocity of the modern world. 'An American Experiment' contains seven paintings by the most prominent member of the group, George Bellows. He is largely known as a painter of urban scenes. The exhibition includes 'Excavation at Night', one of a series of images Bellows made of the building work at the site of Pennsylvania Station. However, Bellows and his contemporaries also enjoyed painting landscapes away from the metropolis. 'The Palisades', 1909 shows his engagement with the natural world as its main subject. It also reveals Bellows as a master of snow, alongside his work in 'Blue Snow, The Battery'. Later works such as the 'Big Dory', 1913 see him absorbing avant-garde influences from Europe and anticipating the Art Deco style. The Ashcan painters were part of a widespread interest in the quality of life in modern cities during the early 20th century. Along with British artists like Walter Sickert, they represent a strong analysis of their contemporary urban experience while owing much to Old Masters such as Velázquez and Manet. Also currently showing at the National Gallery are "Jan Gossaert's Renaissance" (until 30 May 2011), featuring over 80 works, including works on loan from the Prado in Madrid and Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham. It also features drawings and contemporaneous sculptures of the Northern Renaissance. "Bridget Riley: Paintings and Related Work" (until 22 May 2011) focuses upon Bridget Riley's most recent paintings. Two of Riley's works have been made directly on to the walls of the exhibition space. Riley and her studio have created a new wall drawing, 'Composition with Circles 7', especially for the longest wall of the Sunley Room. In addition a version of the wall-painting, 'Arcadia' (last seen at the major 2008 retrospective in Paris) has been recreated on a larger scale.

Bruce Museum to feature Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:54 PM PDT GREENWICH, CT - The Bruce Museum presents Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce, opening on Saturday, June 13, 2009, and on view through Sunday, September 6, 2009. This exhibition, which is the Bruce Museum's major summer show, features selected works from the Museo de Arte de Ponce (MAP), located in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Museo de Arte de Ponce is widely recognized as a premier institution of Italian Baroque, French Academic, and British 19th-century art. It began less than fifty years ago as a collection of fine but unfashionable European art acquired by philanthropist Luis A. Ferré "for all Puerto Ricans" to enjoy.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago shows Art, Love & Politics in the 1980's Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:51 PM PDT Chicago, Illinois.- The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is proud to present "This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1980s", on view at the museum through June 3rd. The 1980s - from the election of Ronald Reagan to the fall of the Berlin Wall - were a transformative decade for art, music, and politics. The exhibition, "This Will Have Been: Art, Love, & Politics in the 1980s", with over 150 works that represent the diversity and complexity of art produced during this tumultuous decade when the art world shifted between radical and conservative, lighthearted and political, sincere and irreverent. "This Will Have Been" offers an overview of the artistic production in the 1980s, divided into thematic sections, while situating the contemporary moment within the history of art of the recent past. At the deepest level, "This Will Have Been" is shaped by two phenomena that frame the 1980s: feminism and the AIDS crisis. Within these larger outlines, the exhibition finds desire – rather than cynicism or irony – to be the real tenor of the decade. Desire is not reserved for only bodies and objects; one also finds the desire for a break with the past, for a principled and just government, and for the greater acceptance of difference. Through it all, the exhibition shows artists striving to articulate their wants, needs, and desires, in an increasingly material world. The exhibition re-examines this influential decade nearly 30 years later, contending that during this time the art world navigated a series of ruptures that permanently changed its character. For example, Reaganomics led to a dramatic expansion of art as a luxury commodity; while conversely, the rise of postmodernism shifted artists' sense of their role in society and further questioned the very status of representation. People of color, women, and gay artists actively sought an end to cultural hegemony; photography challenged the primacy of painting and sculpture; the toll of the AIDS/HIV crisis politicized a broad cross-section of the art community; and the rise of globalism sounded the death knell of New York's status as the sole "center" of the art world. The exhibition is further divided into four thematic sections: 'The End Is Near' looks at discourses about the end of painting, the end of the counter culture, and the end of history. Artists include: Dotty Attie, Robert Colescott, Robert Gober, Jack Goldstein, Peter Halley, Mary Heilmann, Candy Jernigan, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Louise  Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Christian Marclay, Allan McCollum, Matt Mullican, Peter Nagy, Raymond Pettibon, Stephen Prina, Martin Puryear, Gerhard Richter, David Salle, Doug + Mike Starns, Tony Tasset, James Welling, and Christopher Wool. 'Democracy' shows artists investigating the dynamics of the street and the mass media in works such as Gran Fury's "Kissing Doesn't Kill". This section also notes the pervasive commitment to the political that shaped the art of the era, and the increasing prominence of artists of color. Artists include: Charlie Ahearn, John Ahearn, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Black Audio Film Collective, Jennifer Bolande, Gregg Bordowitz, Eugenio Dittborn, General Idea, Leon Golub, Gran Fury, Group Material, Guerrilla Girls, Hans Haacke, David Hammons, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Cildo Meireles, Donald Moffett, Lorraine O'Grady, Paper Tiger Television, Adrian Piper, Lari Pittman, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Christy Rupp, Doris Salcedo, Juan Sanchez, Tseng Kwong Chi and Keith Haring, Carrie Mae Weems, Christopher Williams, and Krzysztof Wodiczko. 'Gender Trouble' elaborates on the implications of the feminist movement. While posing new ideas about sexuality and the body, the work in this section expands gender roles or questions their construction. Artists include: Charles Atlas, Leigh Bowery, Tony Cragg, Jimmy De Sana, Carroll Dunham, Jimmy Durham, Eric Fischl, Alex Gerry, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Mike  Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Annette Messager, Cady Noland, Albert Oehlen, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Julian Schnabel, Rosemarie Trockel, and Jeff Wall. 'Desire and Longing' re-examines how artists use appropriation techniques by viewing them in light of notions of desire. Contextualized by the AIDS crisis and the emergence of queer visibility, these works ultimately link desire to longing – and to feelings of loss. Artists include: Judith Barry, Ashley Bickerton, Deborah Bright, Sophie Calle, Marlene Dumas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Peter Hujar, G. B. Jones, Isaac Julian, Rotimi Fani Kayode, Mary Kelly, Silvia Kolbowski, Jeff Koons, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Jac Leirner, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Prince, Marlon Riggs, David Robbins, Laurie Simmons, Haim Steinbach, and David Wojnarowicz. One of the nation's largest facilities devoted to the art of our time, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) offers exhibitions of the most thought-provoking art created since 1945. The MCA documents contemporary visual culture through painting, sculpture, photography, video and film, and performance. Located in the heart of downtown Chicago, the MCA boasts a gift store, bookstore, restaurant, 300-seat theater, and a terraced sculpture garden with a great view of Lake Michigan. The mission of the MCA is to be an innovative and compelling center of contemporary art where the public can directly experience the work and ideas of living artists, and understand the historical, social, and cultural context of the art of our time. The Museum boldly interweaves exhibitions, performances, collections, and educational programs to excite, challenge, and illuminate our visitors and to provide insight into the creative process. The MCA aspires to engage a broad and diverse audience, create a sense of community and be a place for contemplation, stimulation, and discussion about contemporary art and culture. The Museum of Contemporary Art Collection has outstanding examples of visual art from 1945 to the present with a strong focus on surrealism, minimalism, conceptual photography, and work by Chicago-based artists. At the time of its opening, the Museum claimed 7,000 objects, including works by Marcel Duchamp, Bruce Nauman, and Alfredo Jaar. Today, the museum's collection consists of 2,345 objects, as well as about 2,500 artist's books. The collection features visual art from 1945 to the present, including work by artists from Lee Bontecou to Robert Smithson. Notable works in the museum's collection include, "Polychrome and Horizontal Bluebird" by Alexander Calder, "Cindy" by Chuck Close, "In Memory of My Feelings - Frank O'Hara" by Jasper Johns, "Study for a Portrait" by Francis Bacon and "Campbell's Soup Cans II" by Andy Warhol. During the 2008 fiscal year the MCA Celebrated its 40th anniversary, which inspired gifts of works from artists such as Dan Flavin, Alfredo Jaar, and Thomas Ruff. Additionally, the museum expanded its collection by acquiring the work of some of the artists it presented during its anniversary celebration such as Carlos Amorales, Tony Oursler, and Adam Pendleton. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mcachicago.org

Giorgio Armani hosts “ Richard Hambleton – New York ” in Milan, Italy Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:50 PM PDT New York, NY – Elusive New York artist Richard Hambleton will be the subject of an exhibition featuring 45 works, 15 never before seen, by Hambleton at the Armani/ Teatro in Milan, following the highly successful New York exhibition in September 2009. The exhibition will be curated by Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Andy Valmorbida with an opening reception on Thursday, February 25th, in collaboration with Giorgio Armani. Giorgio Armani says: "I have long been a fan of Richard Hambleton, so when the opportunity to host this exhibition presented itself, I felt I simply had to find a home for it in my hometown. Richard's work is of the streets, and for me stands as a reminder that art in all its forms is first and foremost driven by individual passion and creativity." The Richard Hambleton Exhibition will be open to the public for two weeks, from March 1st to March 12th, following the opening night reception on February 25th, 2010. During that time the gallery at the Armani/ Teatro in Milan will be open Monday to Friday from 10am to 7pm. Of the 45 pieces, 30 works (including 15 never before seen works).

Peter Paul Rubens Banqueting House Sketch Saved for the Nation Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:48 PM PDT   LONDON.- Tate announced that the first preparatory sketch made by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) for his magnificent scheme of ceiling paintings in the Banqueting House, Whitehall, has been saved, thanks to the last-minute intervention of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Tate Members and The Art Fund, all of whom increased their original pledges on the day of the final deadline, 30 September 2008. The vendor of The Apotheosis of James I and other studies: sketch for the ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall 1628-30, whose family has owned the work for over two centuries, also generously agreed to waive £300,000 from the asking price of £6M and accept £5.7M net of tax. The work was valued at £11.5M.

IAP Fine Arts Exhibits "Chris Gollon ~ Love" Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:42 PM PDT London.- Taking Tamsin Pickeral's recent book, "Chris Gollon: Humanity in Art", as a starting point, Gollon's latest work reflects on his 20-year journey as an artist. Pickeral's illuminating appraisal inspired the artist to pull everything together from the past, including scratching in, scumbling and techniques using printmakers' rollers and experiments with soft matt blacks in what is arguably Gollon's most experimental period to date. Gollon's expressly unique and imaginative approach to painting the human form is still present in these latest works, many addressing the subject of "LOVE" in its many forms, from friendship, to unconditional, unrequited or fulfilled. The exhibition opened from April 15th until June 15th 2011.

Getty Museum Celebrates Italy by Showcasing Objects in Its Collection Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:32 PM PDT LOS ANGELES, CA.- Highlighting Italy's rich cultural heritage, the J. Paul Getty Museum is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Italian unification with the Italian Showcase, a presentation of objects from its permanent collection that draws visitors' attention to the many fine examples of Italian art on view at both the Getty Center and Getty Villa.

The Tricycle Theatre to Raise Funds by Exhibiting & Auctioning Donated Works of Hercules Brabazon Brabazon Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:30 PM PDT London.- The Tricycle Theatre will present " Hercules Brabazon Brabazon " from Wednesday December 14th through Friday January 7th 2012. This exhibition consists of works by Victorian watercolourist Brabazon, donated by local philanthropist Al Weil to raise funds for the theatre. Brabazon was considered one of the most important watercolourists of his era, judged by Ruskin , a notoriously harsh critic, to be the only natural heir to Turner. His paintings are held in key national collections such as Tate, the V&A and the National Gallery of Wales . The paintings on show at the Tricycle include landscapes made during the artist's travels around the world, flower studies and sketches of his friends and contemporaries. After being shown in the Tricycle's own gallery, the exhibition will move to Pyms Gallery , where it can be seen from January 11th through February 8th. Weil is giving around 35 paintings by the renowned Victorian watercolourist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon to the theatre, to exhibit and auction, using the proceeds to support its activities. The Tricycle was a victim of the latest round of government cuts, losing £350,000 funding per year. As a direct result, Tricycle's Nicolas Kent, one of the UK's longest serving and most respected artistic directors, announced that he would be standing down from the theatre he has run for 27 years. "Ideally, I want Kent to stay on, but the main thing is to keep the theatre alive and kicking as vigorously as it ever has", says Weil, now 89 years old and a keen supporter of the Tricycle. Weil was introduced to Kent and the theatre's challenging political programme by his wife Joan Brown, the well-known casting director. He has been collecting Brabazon paintings since the 1960s and now has a core group of 35 watercolours . A culture enthusiast since frequenting New York's jazz clubs in the 60s, Weil's interest in the visual arts began during his career in the labour unions: he represented the employers of New York's cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and botanic gardens. His interest in Brabazon was kick-started by discovering the work when browsing the antiques stalls at Portobello Market shortly after he arrived in London. He bought two Brabazon paintings for £10 each on his first visit to the market and then began actively looking out for them, researching the life and work of this artist who the critic DS MacColl suggested rivalled J. M. W. Turner as a colourist and of whom Ruskin said "Brabazon is the only person since Turner at whose feet I can sit and worship and learn about colour". Weil began to immerse himself in the British art scene, joining the Turner Society in 1975 to campaign for a better home for the Turner bequest. As the Assistant General Secretary of Public Services International (part of International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) Weil was used to battling for rights and the Turner Society ultimately claimed victory with the allocation of the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain for the Turner collection in 1980. This same tenacious spirit has seen him collect and write on Brabazon for some forty years, and now his efforts will create two exhibitions of the artist's work, as well as a generous gift to the Tricycle, one of London's great arts institutions. Hercules Brabazon Brabazon was a largley self-taught Victorian artist who has produced some of the most personal, fervent and instinctive watercolours of the 19th-Century. The youngest son of an aristocratic Irish family, Brabazon travelled widely and spent much of his time capturing stunning, foreign landscapes. Brabazon favoured the use of tinted, pre-wetted paper, which allowed his vivid colours to diffuse and mingle on the page. His economical use of rapid and unedited brush strokes highlight the brevity of his process. No Brabazon is ever laboured, and his works were usually completed in under an hour. However, his paintings require careful study to appreciate the suggestiveness of his technique. His broad style is closest to early 19th-Century plein-air painters but he made remarkable advances in this field by combining minimal palettes and strongly abstracted designs, linking him as well to the more progressive English artists of the late 19th-Century. Now hailed as Turner's rival as a colourist, Brabazon didn't exhibit his work until the age of 71, when he shot to fame with his highly effective and innovative style. The Tricycle Theatre has established a unique reputation for presenting plays that reflect the cultural diversity of its community, in particular by Black, Irish, Jewish, Asian and South African writers, as well as for responding to contemporary issues and events with its ground-breaking 'tribunal plays' and political work. As well as the award-winning theatre, the Tricycle also has a cinema and art gallery. Visit the theatre's website at ... http://www.tricycle.co.uk

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:29 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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