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

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• "Public Property" exhibition at the Walters Museum ~ Invited Community Participation
• The Art & Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany hosts 25 Years of PIXAR Animation
• The Crocker Art Museum Exhibits Survey of Acclaimed Artist Mel Ramos
• New York's Annual Museum Mile Festival returns on June 12th
• The Kunst Haus Wien to host Elliott Erwitt's Photography
• The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art Presents the First Major William Blake Exhibition in Russia
• Rare Cabinet by Emile Bernard Acquired by the Indianapolis Museum of Art
• Cincinnati Art Museum presents Major Exhibition of Jiří Anderle’s Prints
• The Weatherspoon Art Museum Presents Fritz Janschka's Works Inspired by James Joyce
• Guggenheim Museum in New York opens Catherine Opie ~ American Photographer
• Aldrich museum Shows native american-influenced contemporary art
• Whitechapel Gallery Presents the D. Daskalopoulos Collection From Greece
• Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum presents Solo of Brazilian artist Barrão
• Indianapolis Museum of Art Exhibition to Examine Material Culture Through Luxurious Textiles
• John Everett Millais major exhibition at Tate Britain
• Ronald Feldman Fine Arts displays 'Manifest Destination' by David Opdyke
• LewAllen Galleries Presents Works By Jeanette Pasin Sloan & Steve Smulka
• Major Retrospective of British Artist J. M. W. Turner at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

"Public Property" exhibition at the Walters Museum ~ Invited Community Participation Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:11 PM PDT Baltimore, Maryland.— This summer, the Walters Art Museum will present "Public Property", an exhibition collectively created by the public. In 1931, the museum's founder Henry Walters bequeathed the core collection of the Walters to the City of Baltimore "for the benefit of the public." The Walters' art is owned by the public, and it is the public who will determine what this exhibition will be. From December 2011 through this March, a series of public choices were made, from deciding the exhibition title and theme, to selecting artworks. While on view from June 17th through August 19th, visitors will continue to contribute to, and change, this exhibition. "At a time of increasing concern about equity and democracy within society, from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Arab Spring, I've been thinking more about the role of museums not only to act as expert but also to encourage civic participation in our exhibition process," said Walters Director Gary Vikan. "This exhibition aims to be socially engaging and work with the public in a collaborative manner as an experiment and experience for both the participants and the museum itself." The first stage of the planning process ran from Dec.1–18, 2011. The public used the Walters' works of art site to curate collections of artworks and tag them with keywords. The Walters' exhibition team analyzed collection tags to determine some popular themes that emerged from the online collections, including adornment, military, creatures and death. A vote was held, both online and at the museum, from Dec. 23, 2011–Jan. 8, 2012, to determine the exhibition theme. "Creatures" was the theme that received the most votes, ultimately becoming the publically determined theme for the exhibition. The team then selected a large group of artworks for the public to vote on related to creatures. The public selected a total of 106 artworks to be part of the exhibition, including Antoine-Louis Barye's watercolor, Running Jaguar, and an Indian work on paper ca.1675, A Wild Boar Hunt. A selection of the 23 most admired paintings will be displayed within the exhibition. Other artworks, including manuscripts and three-dimensional objects, will be featured on a "wall of fame," which will display images of the artworks along with labels and information about their popularity. Due to conservation concerns about the fragility of certain objects, the "wall of fame" enables the Walters to honor public choices and feature artworks chosen by the public, even if the objects cannot be physically exhibited. "Once the exhibition is open, there will be a variety of interactive elements to complement the chosen artworks," said Walters Manager of Web and Social Media and exhibition team leader, Dylan Kinnett. "For example, a computer kiosk will provide a voting mechanism to allow visitors to vote and view how their decisions affect results in real time, as well as up-to-the-minute trends." At each stage of the exhibition process, the museum is encouraging and supporting public contribution and decision-making. Responsive elements in the exhibition itself will ask visitors to make choices that may impact future museum decisions, as well as give greater insight into public preference. "The exhibition vision, process and design are critical to changing perceptions and attitudes regarding museums by inviting civic participation in an intentional manner," stated Manager of Family Programs and exhibition team leader, Emily Blumenthal. "We will also have a series of programs and events associated with the exhibition to invite visitors to become further involved with their community, their museum and their exhibition." The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is internationally renowned for its collection of art. The collection presents an overview of world art from pre-dynastic Egypt to 20th-century Europe, and counts among its many treasures Greek sculpture and Roman sarcophagi; medieval ivories and Old Master paintings; Art Nouveau jewelry and 19th-century European and American masterpieces. The Walters Museum of Art was born of the artistic interest and public mindedness of just two men: William T. Walters and his son, Henry. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, driven by their interest in art and history, the two Baltimoreans assembled a diverse range of artwork from around the world including everything from European master paintings and decorative arts to Greek and Roman antiquities and Far Eastern ceramics. Together, they collected nearly 22,000 works of art, and in doing so, they built the foundation for a museum that offers a one-of-a-kind survey of 55 centuries of art. Today, the collection has grown to more than 28,000 objects. From ancient Egyptian mummy masks and medieval armor, to 19th-century French impressionism and turn-of-the-century art deco, you will see significant works of art from around the world. The Walters' redesigned galleries present the museum's world-class collections to their fullest potential. Their installations evoke the original manner in which the art was displayed, and in turn, provide greater insights into the art and a more personal and rewarding viewer experience. Highlights include Hugo van der Goes' "Donor with Saint John the Baptist", Heemskerck's "Panorama with the Abduction of Helen Amidst the Wonders of the Ancient World", the "Madonna of the Candelabra", from the studio of Raphael, Veronese's "Portrait Of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene and her Daughter Porzia", El Greco's "Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata", Bernini's "Bozzetto of Risen Christ", Tiepolo's "Scipio Africanus Freeing Massiva", and "The Ideal City" attributed to Fra Carnavale. From the first half of the 19th century come major paintings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Théodore Géricault, and Eugène Delacroix. As a result of his stay in Paris with his family during the Civil War, William Walters developed a keen interest in contemporary European painting. He either commissioned directly from the artists or purchased at auctions major works by the Barbizon masters, including Jean-François Millet and Henri Rousseau, the academic masters Jean-Léon Gérôme and Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and the modernists Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, and Alfred Sisley.Visit the museum's website at ... http://thewalters.org

The Art & Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany hosts 25 Years of PIXAR Animation Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:46 PM PDT Bonn, Germany.- The Art & Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany is proud to present "PIXAR 25 Years of Animation", on view from July 6th through January 6th. Famous for movies including Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Cars and Ratatouille - featuring intelligent humor, a keen sense of character and state of the art animation technology, the Pixar film-makers have produced one film highlight after another. The studio has already received 14 Oscars and been nominated for 40 more. The exhibition at the Art and Exhibition Hall delves into the worlds of the films of global popularity and also provides a deep insight into the workings of the Walt Disney Company owned studios. Paintings, drawings, works on paper, maquettes, movie clips, documentaries and features show the creative and artistic work that is behind the increasingly innovative, fully computer-animated films. Pixar is a company specializing in computer-animated film, which owes its success to the procedures they have developed and which are now used throughout the entire film industry. In addition, Pixar was the first company to develop the technology for 3D cinema and 3D animation. Amongst its 14 Oscar winners, Pixar numbers Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, and Ratatouille. Originally founded as part of George Lucas'  Lucasfilm, Pixar achieved its first movie successes under the ownership of the late Steve Jobs, before becoming part of Walt Disney. In the 1920s, California became the center of animated film, with the San Francisco Bay area today being the world's leading animation center and home to the most well known studios. The exhibition is the first time that Germany will have been provided a glimpse into the Pixar studios in California and the way they work. Paintings, drawings, works on paper, maquettes, movie clips, documentaries, features and much more will show the creative work of Pixar, which is behind the highly successful, fully computer-animated films. When people think of Pixar, they generally think of our films and how much they enjoy the stories we tell. They think about cutting-edge technology and stunning computer graphics. However, people aren't necessarily aware of the essential role that traditional art and design plays in our process. As a classically trained animator, John Lasseter has always had a deep appreciation for the traditional medium artwork behind the visual storytelling of filmmaking. When, in 2004, the Museum of Modern Art in New York asked if the Art & Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany would be interested in exhibiting the art of Pixar, the answer was a resounding "yes". John Lasseter frequently speaks of the three essential aspects of making a Pixar film: story, character, and world. At Pixar they spend an enormous amount of time on story. It's an iterative process that can continue through a significant portion of the four to five years it takes to make one of their films. Within that story you must have compelling characters that an audience cares about. Additionally, those characters must exist in a world that is unique to the story. As a result, the majority of the art in the exhibit comes from the design process of these elements of the films. To see the Pixar objects in a museum setting has provoked a dialogue about whether they are fine art. What is the relationship of these objects to the art world? It is easy to confuse issues of distribution and audience with what constitutes fine art, losing sight of the thing itself and its inherent artistic qualities. It is interesting for a studio like Pixar, which is a successful company known worldwide, to be part of a dialogue with the museum world about what is art and what's appropriate to have within a museum. Pixar artists are exceptionally humble when they speak about what they do. In fact, most are incapable of imagining their work framed and matted, let alone displayed in a museum. This is partially because they are designing and creating concept art in collaboration with the director and the production designer to realize their vision for the film. However, to see these skillfully crafted objects pulled out of the filmmaking process and looked at individually can shift our perspective. As long as art has existed there have been debates about "what is art." If we define art as either a process or a product of organizing and assembling objects to create something that initiates an emotion or response, then it is clear that all of the objects in the Pixar exhibition do just that and, as a result, fit the definition of art. Artists make our films, and our artists, like any others, choose tools that allow them to express their ideas and emotions most effectively. A wide variety of media and techniques are represented in the exhibit: marker and pencil drawings; paintings in acrylic, gouache, and watercolor; digital paintings; cast sculpture; handmade models; and digital media pieces. Some of our traditionally trained artists have added digital painting to their toolboxes in order to express something that they could not with another medium. In addition to the artwork in the exhibit, two very special installations were created specifically for the 20 Years of Animation exhibition at MoMA and continue to tour with the 25 Years exhibition. Artscape is a wide-screen, high-resolution media installation created using concept and development artwork. Using digital technology, two-dimensional art is explored in simulated three-dimensional motion. The viewer is given the experience of entering into and seeing the exquisite details of the artwork. As the images shift, it becomes an immersive experience. The installation is a metaphor for the experience our filmmakers have when looking at concept work and imagining what it could be in the film and where the images could take the viewer. The amazing visuals are accompanied by an astounding soundscape, which integrates the visual and auditory nature of our work. The Pixar Toy Story Zoetrope is a three-dimensional version of an early invention that demonstrated and explained visually how a repeated image creates the illusion of motion. This extraordinary object exemplifies the artistic and technical collaboration that is integral to the work at Pixar. It was developed by Pixar scientists, animators, and artists all working together. As you watch it spin, it magically conveys how animation works. The Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Art and exhibition hall of the Federal Republic of Germany) is a museum in Bonn, Germany. Located on the Museum Mile in Bonn it has exhibitions of art treasures and important cultural objects from around the world. It has an exhibition area of 5600 square meters and is one of the most visited museums in Germany. 2-4 exhibitions are an view at the museum at any one time and the museum also hosted the World Chess Championship in 2008. Visit the museum's website at ... www.kah-bonn.de

The Crocker Art Museum Exhibits Survey of Acclaimed Artist Mel Ramos Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:32 PM PDT Sacramento, California.- The Crocker Art Museum is proud to present "Mel Ramos: 50 Years of Superheroes, Nudes, and Other Pop Delights", on view at the museum through October 21st. The exhibition will present a survey of the work of internationally acclaimed artist and Sacramento native Mel Ramos. This is the first American museum survey of his work in 35 years, the first major exhibition of his work in his hometown, and it follows his recent solo show at the Albertina in Vienna, Austria. The exhibition features 70 paintings, drawings, and sculptures spanning Ramos' 50-year career. This survey showcases each of Ramos' creative phases, including his early Abstract Expressionist paintings, his renderings of superheroes from the 1960s, and the commercially inspired nudes that made him famous. The latter, which Ramos started painting in the mid-1960s and continues to produce today, feature nude female figures wrapped around giant soda bottles, popping out of candy wrappers, and lounging on fresh fruit and other consumer products. Also included are paintings from the artist's series of art-historical tributes, in which he combines master works with sex appeal, as well as his lesser-known paintings of the California landscape and recent figurative sculptures.

New York's Annual Museum Mile Festival returns on June 12th Posted: 05 Jun 2012 07:51 PM PDT New York City.- The annual Museum Mile Festival traditionally takes place the second Tuesday in June from 6-9pm. In the past two decades, well over one million people have taken part in this annual celebration. Festival attendees can walk the Mile from 82nd Street to 104th Street and visit nine of New York City's finest cultural institutions open free that evening to the public. Several of the participating museums will offer outdoor art activities for children. This year's opening ceremony on June 12th will be hosted by Paul Thompson, the new director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and will take place at 5:45pm in their Garden at 91st Sreet. Fifth Avenue will be closed to traffic and become a strollers' haven. Special exhibitions and works from permanent collections will be on view inside the institutions and live music from jazz to Broadway tunes to string quartets will be featured in front of each museum. Additional street entertainers will perform along Fifth Avenue all evening. Established in 1978 to increase public awareness of its member institutions and promote public support of the arts, the festival has served as a model for similar events across the country. Museum participants and a selection of exhibitions this year include, the debut of "Caribbean: Crossroads of the World" at El Museo del Barrio, "Capital of Capital: New York's Banks and the Creation of a Global Economy" and "The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011" at the Museum of the City of New York, "Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940", "Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel" and "Sanford Biggers and Jennifer Zackin: a small world..." at the Jewish Museum, "Women's Work", "Colleen Browning: Urban Dweller, Exotic Traveler", "May Stevens: The Big Daddy Series", "Women Sculptors of the National Academy", "From Protest to Process: Recent Gifts by Women Academicians", "White: The Anatomy of a Color" and the second rotation of An American Collection at the National Academy Museum and School, "Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960", "Francesca Woodman; From the Archives", "Artist Awards and Acquisitions, 1956-1987", "The Thannhauser Collection" and "A Year with Children 2012" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, "Heinrich Kuehn and His American Circle: Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen" at the Neue Galerie and "Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations" at the Metropolan Museum of Art. The National Design Museum is currently closed for renovation and exhibitions will take place at satellite locations. The Goethe-Institut New York will also be present to give information about its new location at 72 Spring Street at its former building on 1014 Fifth Avenue. Begun as an initiative to spur the development of new museum audiences and to increase support for the arts during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, Museum Mile was formed as a consortium by the museums that share the Fifth Avenue address. The first festival, held in June of 1978, was an instant success. Not only did it expose New Yorkers and NYC visitors to an incredible collection of New York's artistic riches, it also brought together disparate New Yorkers. From the barrios of East Harlem and the townhouses lining the Upper East Side, to the winding streets of the Village and the clustered neighborhoods of the outer-boroughs, people came to celebrate their shared pride in their city. Museum Mile Festival promoted public awareness through increased visibility, accessibility and attendance at all the museums, and brought many New Yorkers to upper Fifth Avenue for the first time. Museum Mile Festival's reach now goes far beyond New York City. Thousands of tourists from around the country and world make their trip to Museum Mile Festival a yearly vacation tradition. Total attendance records over its twenty-six years have surpassed one million visitors, and because of the success of the festival and the work of consortium, the City of New York officially designated Fifth Avenue from 82nd to 105th streets as "Museum Mile"­ further cementing the area as one of the city¹s major cultural resources. Visit the festival's website at ... http://museummilefestival.org/

The Kunst Haus Wien to host Elliott Erwitt's Photography Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:48 PM PDT Vienna.- The Kunst Haus Wien is proud to present "Elliott Erwitt: Retrospective", opening with Elliott Erwitt in attendance on Wednesday, June 13th and remaining on view through September 30th. Elliott Erwitt, the "Woody Allen of photography", who views his subjects with his heart as much as with his eye, captures human – sometimes all-too-human – situations in his oeuvre. Kunst Haus Wien presents pieces of the mosaic that is Erwitt's reality, taken from over half a century of his photographic work. This comprehensive retrospective includes about 150 works by a highly active photographer. Erwitt is one of the leading photographers of his generation. Extremely versatile, with a broad spectrum of interests, he points his camera at human – sometimes all-too-human – situations: Some of them involve animals, others are political, still others capture a touching moment. Photography, for Erwitt, is above all an "art of observation" that depends first and foremost on the special way in which one views the world. His photographs reflect the irony of life, which perhaps explains why he is sometimes fondly called the "Woody Allen of photography".

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art Presents the First Major William Blake Exhibition in Russia Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:44 PM PDT Moscow.- The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art is proud to present "William Blake and British Visionary Art" on view at the museum from November 29th through February 19th 2012. This is the first major exhibition to present Blake's visual art in Russia as well as being the first exhibition to explore Blake and his legacy. The exhibition is a collaborative project between the Tate and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art in partnership with the British Council.Drawn mainly from Tate's Collection alongside works generously lent from other British collections, the exhibition consists of approximately 110 of Blake's works, including many of his best known images such as The Ghost of a Flea c.1819-20. It also includes the recently discovered hand-coloured etchings from the major prophetic work The First Book of Urizen 1796 c.1818. Although mainly overlooked during his lifetime, Blake's impact and influence on later generations of artists, writers and musicians has been enormous. His visionary ideas, and his ability to convey these in both poetry and painting, remain a major reference point in British culture today and this show aims to reveal his remarkable art and its visual legacy to a Russian audience. The expression of spiritual values through bodily form is the hallmark of Blake's visionary art and came to influence both the Symbolist art of the later nineteenth century and the neo-romantic revival of the 1930s. Many of the artists associated with these movements saw Blake as a pioneer in imagining infinite possibilities for sensory and spiritual experience. His work has been a reference point for artists nationally and internationally and this exhibition will include over twenty works by British artists who have been influenced by Blake including Samuel Palmer, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Piper and Francis Bacon. As part of the Blake in Russia project a new Russian translation of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience has been jointly published by the British Council and the State Library of Foreign Literature. Blake was not so much a poet, printmaker and artist but rather that his chosen form allowed all these things to come together on one page. His illustrations were never set along aside the poems, and the poems were not typeset.  Rather he actually made prints of his poems and pictures together. This is the first time that Blake's illustrations have ever been published alongside his poetry in Russia. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The museum's name is misleading, as it has nothing to do with the famous Russian poet. It was founded by professor Ivan Tsvetaev (father of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva). Tsvetaev persuaded the millionaire and philanthropist Yuriy Nechaev-Maltsov and the fashionable architect Roman Klein of the urgent need to give Moscow a fine arts museum. The museum building was designed by Roman Klein and Vladimir Shukhov and financed primarily by Yury Nechaev-Maltsov. Construction work began in 1898 and continued till 1912. Ivan Rerberg headed structural engineering effort on the museum site for 12 years, till 1909. Tsvetaev's dream was realised in May 1912, when the museum opened its doors to the public. The museum was originally named after Alexander III, although the government provided only 200,000 rubles toward its construction, in comparison with over 2 million from Nechaev-Maltsev. Its first exhibits were copies of ancient statuary, thought indispensable for the education of art students. The only genuinely ancient items - Moscow Mathematical Papyrus and Story of Wenamun - had been contributed by Vladimir Golenishchev three years earlier. After the Russian capital was moved to Moscow in 1918, the Soviet government decided to transfer thousands of works from St Petersburg's Hermitage Museum to the new capital. The entire collection of Western art from the Museum Roumjantsev was added too. These paintings formed a nucleus of the Pushkin museum's collections of Western art. But the most important paintings were added later from the State Museum of New Western Art. These comprised Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artwork, including top works by Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Georges Dufrénoy and Henri Matisse. Among them Van Goghs "Le Vigne Rouge" apparently the only painting sold during the artist's lifetime. In 1937, Pushkin's name was appended to the museum, because the Soviet Union marked the centenary of the poet's death that year. The Pushkin Museum is still a main depositary of Troy's fabulous gold looted from Troy by the German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann and taken by the Soviet Army (Red Army) from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The International musical festival Svyatoslav Richter's December nights has been held in the Pushkin museum since 1981. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.museum.ru/M296

Rare Cabinet by Emile Bernard Acquired by the Indianapolis Museum of Art Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:42 PM PDT INDIANAPOLIS, IN.- The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced today the acquisition of a rare corner cabinet with scenes of Breton life, carved and painted by Pont-Aven School artist Emile Bernard. One of only four known examples of important wood furniture produced by the Pont-Aven School, this cabinet further enhances the IMA's renowned Pont-Aven School collection—the most distinguished in North America.

Cincinnati Art Museum presents Major Exhibition of Jiří Anderle’s Prints Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:39 PM PDT CINCINNATI, OH - The Cincinnati Art Museum presents the first major U.S. retrospective exhibition of the work of esteemed living Czech artist Jiří Anderle. Working in spite of political oppression and censorship behind the iron curtain, Anderle has created a varied body of work that explores fundamental issues facing mankind. The exhibition Illusion and Reality: Prints by Jiří Anderle, organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum and on view Sept. 27 through Jan. 4, 2009, features four decades of his gripping work.

The Weatherspoon Art Museum Presents Fritz Janschka's Works Inspired by James Joyce Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:37 PM PDT Greensboro, NC.- The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is pleased to present "Fritz Janschka: My Choice: Joyce". Fritz Janschka has been fascinated with the work of James Joyce throughout his artistic career. Likely one of the few people who have read the bulk of Joyce's work, Janschka has drawn inspiration from it to create paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture that are as fantastical, witty, and filled with sly social commentary as Joyce's writings are. Featured in this exhibition are selections from two series of artworks, Finnegans Wake and Chamber Music. "My Choice: Joyce" is on view at the museum through November 20th. Born in 1919 in Vienna, Fritz Janschka entered the Academy of Fine Arts in 1943. He developed an affinity for the dream imagery and meticulous detail of the Surrealists. Whereas his style and craft are deeply seated in past traditions, his imagination is in a perpetual state of fast-forward. Visually seductive, his works delight the eye, even as they retain the capacity to challenge, puzzle, and even provoke. He, together with six other young artists, have been recognized as the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism: Ernst Fuchs (1930-), Rudolf Hausner (1914-1995), Wolfgang Hutter (1928-), Edgar Jené (1904-1984), Anton Lehmden (1929-) and Arik Brauer (1929-). After achieving critical acclaim in Europe, he was eager to expand his horizons and accepted an opportunity to work in America. He arrived in 1949 without any knowledge of English and with the intent of staying only one year. This short visit grew to more than half a century of successful creative exploration. Motivated by an insatiable curiosity, Fritz Janschka has pursued his own course through the constantly changing landscape of 20th century American culture. He carefully avoided fads as well as repetitive formulas. During the 1960s he constructed icons for fallout shelters, transforming the familiar imagery of Pop Art into ironic icons for a nuclear age. Mr. Janschka's current work continues to focus on the pictorial possibilities of transformation. In his multiple variations on the recurring theme of metamorphosis, viewers invariably experience both surprise and recognition. Mr. Janschka is an artist who prefers the light of his studio in Greensboro, North Carolina, to the glare of media exposure. Although he has had his share of success, his reputation is based not on celebrity status but on a sustained presence in the international art scene. His work is represented in prestigious public and private collections the world over, and he regularly exhibits in venues ranging from small galleries to major museums. At this point in his career he could afford to rest on his laurels and savor the recognition already accorded him in the many books and catalogues that feature his art. But as anyone who knows Fritz Janschka and is familiar with his innate modesty, realizes that this would be completely out of character. Founded in 1941 by Gregory Ivy, first head of the Art Department at Woman's College (now UNCG), the Weatherspoon Art Museum has grown from a university teaching gallery to a fully professional museum that is nationally recognized for its excellent collections and dynamic exhibition program. The Museum serves a broad audience of over 32,000 visitors annually, including UNCG students, faculty and staff; the Triad communities; and visitors from across the state, region, and nation; and an additional 24,000 students who take art history classes in the building. In addition to a schedule of more than fifteen exhibitions each year, the Museum maintains a full roster of educational activities, publications, and outreach efforts as integral components of its overall program. The Weatherspoon was accredited by the American Association of Museums in 1995 and earned reaccreditation status in 2005. From its inception, the museum has focused on building a permanent collection of modern and contemporary American art that is now considered one of the best in the Southeast. Numbering close to 6,000 works, the collection represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Willem de Kooning, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Rauschenberg, John Marin, Alexander Calder, Robert Henri, Cindy Sherman, Sol Le Witt, Louise Nevelson, Eva Hesse, and Andy Warhol are just a few of the major artists represented. Other highlights include the Dillard Collection of Art on Paper; the Etta and Claribel Cone Collection, which includes prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse; and the Lenoir C. Wright Collection of Japanese Prints. The Weatherspoon's exhibition calendar offers visitors the opportunity to see and learn directly from significant examples of modern and contemporary art. The schedule includes work by outstanding artists of national and international reputation; thematic exhibitions on timely aesthetic, cultural, and social issues; small focused exhibitions of emerging artists; selections from the permanent collection; UNCG MFA thesis shows and faculty biennials; and Falk Visiting Artist exhibitions, a collaborative program with the UNCG Department of Art. The Museum's educational offerings include docent-led tours; gallery talks, lectures, and panel discussions; film and video series; after-hour social events; hands-on workshops; and Community Days. The Museum has enjoyed strong regional and national reviews, including those in Art Papers, Artforum, Art on Paper, and Art in America. Visit the museum's website at ... http://weatherspoon.uncg.ed

Guggenheim Museum in New York opens Catherine Opie ~ American Photographer Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:35 PM PDT   NEW YORK CITY - Since the early 1990s, Catherine Opie has produced a complex body of photographic work, creating series of images that explore notions of communal, sexual, and cultural identity. From her early portraits of queer subcultures to her expansive urban landscapes, Opie has offered profound insights into the conditions in which communities form and the terms in which they are defined. All the while she has maintained a strict formal rigor, working in lush and provocative color as well as richly toned black and white. On view 26 September through 7 January, 2009 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Aldrich museum Shows native american-influenced contemporary art Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:31 PM PDT Ridgefield, CT - In the first decade of the twenty-first century, census figures attest that more and more Americans are identifying themselves as Native American.  With the populace claiming Native ancestry growing three times as fast as the population as a whole, Native people are one of the fastest-growing minority groups in the United States.

Whitechapel Gallery Presents the D. Daskalopoulos Collection From Greece Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:27 PM PDT LONDON.- As part of its programme to open up important art collections to the public the Whitechapel Gallery presents a series of four displays drawn from the D. Daskalopoulos Collection, Greece, one of the foremost European collections of contemporary art. Jointly titled, Keeping it Real, these displays go on view from 10 June 2010 – 22 May 2011 in the dedicated Collections Gallery. The D. Daskalopoulos Collection consists of over 400 major works with a particular focus on the last 30 years and key works from earlier periods. Important artists represented in the Collection include Louise Bourgeois, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Gober, David Hammons, Mona Hatoum, Mike Kelley, Nikos Kessanlis, Martin Kippenberger, Sherrie Levine, Sarah Lucas, Cady Noland, Dieter Roth, Kiki Smith, and Rosemarie Trockel. Rivane Neuenschwander, Seth Price and Kelley Walker are but some of a younger generation of artists on show. Devised by Achim Borchardt-Hume, Chief Curator, Whitechapel Gallery, Keeping it Real is conceived as a sequence of four micro-exhibitions, with each one building on the memory of its predecessor. They bring together a selection of works whose meaning is deeply rooted in the materials employed by the artists; from Duchamp's readymade and Gober's wax sculptures to Arturo Herrera's collages and Sam Durant's mirror painting. The Corporeal, 10 June – 5 September 2010, foregrounds works which examine the human body as a site of psychological, social and ideological struggle. Gender identity and desire are frequent themes as are intimations of mortality. This display includes two emblematic works from the Collection: Louise Bourgeois' Fillette (Sweeter Version) (1968 -99) and Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917 - 64), as well as key works by Marina Abramovic, Robert Gober, David Hammons, Alice Neel, Sherrie Levine and Sarah Lucas. Subversive Abstraction, 17 September – 5 December, focuses on works that use the language of abstraction to probe the medium of painting beyond the conventional confines of paint on canvas. An installation by David Hammons enters into dialogue with works by artists as diverse as Lynda Benglis, Robert Gober, Kori Newkirk, Dieter Roth and Daniel Subkoff. Current Disturbance, 17 December 2010 – 6 March 2011, is a single installation by Mona Hatoum of the same title dating from 1996. The work's physical presence is amplified by the sound of electric current feeding the flashing lightbulbs trapped in a grid of metal cages. This is the first presentation in London of this landmark work by Mona Hatoum. Material Intelligence, 18 March – 22 May 2011 presents artists whose work draws on readily available images for a more playful engagement with the notion of materiality. These range from a series of collages by Martin Kippenberger to the wall-mounted silhouettes of Seth Price and Kelley Walker's digitally manipulated brick paintings. Achim Borchardt-Hume, Chief Curator, Whitechapel Gallery, said, 'Collectors have always played a vital role in securing and sustaining a lively and diverse artistic landscape. Having unrestricted access to a collection as significant as the D. Daskalopoulos Collection has enabled the Whitechapel Gallery to trace a particular sensibility in art of the past three decades while bringing rarely seen artworks into the public domain.' The presentation of the D. Daskalopoulos Collection is part of the Whitechapel Gallery's ongoing programme of opening up collections that are rarely seen by the public. Exhibitions are displayed in the dedicated Collections Gallery, one of the new spaces in the recently expanded building which opened in April 2009. It follows the presentation of 5 displays from the British Council Collection from April 2009 – May 2010.  Visit : www.whitechapelgallery.org/

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum presents Solo of Brazilian artist Barrão Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:24 PM PDT RIDGEFIELD, CT.- Brazilian artist Barrão re-purposes popular ceramics he finds at second-hand stores, flea markets, and dumpsters by clustering them all together for the production of his large-scale, whimsical sculptures. Mashups, the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States, will open at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum on January 29th. It will present three works built from fragments of preexisting objects, including an exotic five-foot-tall tree made from glued-together decorative porcelains. Instead of producing tropical fruits, the tree sprouts a diversity of creatures, including roosters, elephants, dogs, and swans.

Indianapolis Museum of Art Exhibition to Examine Material Culture Through Luxurious Textiles Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:22 PM PDT INDIANAPOLIS, IN.- From court dress to couture, the objects in Material World, on view from April 22 to February 5, 2012 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, IMA features extravagant ornamentation of textiles and personal adornment from cultures around the world while highlighting the significance of textiles in displaying wealth, status and power. The exhibition showcases items adorned with luxurious materials including gold and metallic threads, beads, shells, mirrors, semi-precious stones, bones, fur and feathers, ranging from a Buddhist bone apron to Dior and Chanel couture pieces, spanning several centuries to the present day.

John Everett Millais major exhibition at Tate Britain Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:12 PM PDT   LONDON - John Everett Millais (1829- 1896) was the greatest painter of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Perhaps best known for his iconic painting Ophelia 1851-52 (Tate), Millais was the most successful painter in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century with a reputation across Europe and America. He spearheaded the most radically modern artistic group in the history of English art with fellow Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. On exhibition 26 September 2007 – 13 January 2008. Millais at Tate Britain will be the first major monographic survey of his art since the Royal Academy retrospective of 1967, and the first exhibition since 1898 to examine the entirety of the artist's career. Traditionally, Millais has been presented as an establishment figure who swapped artistic innovation for commercial gain. For the first time, this exhibition allows us to see Millais in the context of his whole career, from his beginnings as the youngest ever pupil at the Royal Academy to his late landscapes. Millais will reveal a complex and innovative artist whose work encompassed every genre. He was as interested in Realism as Aestheticism, and as much engaged with modern developments in art as he was with the Old Masters. This exhibition will explore his modern approach to the dynamics of human relationships and his portrayal of women as strong individuals. It will also argue that his late works are as dramatic in their freshness of vision as those of his Pre-Raphaelite period. Millais will bring together many significant loans from around the world including Blow, blow thou winter wind 1892 (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki), The Ransom 1860-2 (Getty Collection, Los Angeles), and works from private collections which have not been exhibited in public for many years, such as Christmas Eve 1887 and Sophie Gray 1857. The exhibition will include around 140 paintings and works on paper. From Millais's popular nostalgic fancy pictures such as Bubbles 1885-6 (Unilever) through to a magnificent survey of his great Scottish landscapes – twelve of which will be shown here, the largest grouping since 1898. Displayed chronologically the exhibition follows the development of Millais's practice from Old Master conventions through to 'primitivising' works such as Isabella 1849 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), in which he deliberately rejected contrived compositional devices. It will examine paintings from Millais's mature Pre-Raphaelite phase and also present his pioneering role in the Aesthetic movement which focused on a new subjectless type of painting based on mood above narrative and moral meaning. A series of portraits including Portrait of Henry Irving, 1883 (The Garrick Club) will show how Millais negotiated a prominent position in British society, while a recreation of his studio at Palace Gate - used from 1877 until his death in 1896 – will convey how his working environment helped to establish his social status. The exhibition is curated by Alison Smith, Curator, Tate Britain, and Jason Rosenfeld, Associate Professor at Marymount Manhattan College, New York. They are undertaking new research for the exhibition catalogue and to complement existing scholarship in the area. Millais will tour to the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (15 February – 13 May 2008), Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Kitakyushu, Japan (7 June - 17 August 2008) and Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan (30 August - 26 October 2008) Visit Tate Britain at : www.tate.org.uk/britain/

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts displays 'Manifest Destination' by David Opdyke Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:10 PM PDT New York City - Ronald Feldman Fine Arts is pleased to announce Manifest Destination, an exhibition of recent sculptures and drawings by David Opdyke. A self-proclaimed "NPR junkie," Opdyke deftly engages a wide range of contemporary themes with subtle humor and controlled chaos. On exhibition from 6 September through 11 October, 2008.

LewAllen Galleries Presents Works By Jeanette Pasin Sloan & Steve Smulka Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:09 PM PDT Santa Fe, NM.- LewAllen Galleries is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, "Bending Light: Jeanette Pasin Sloan & Steve Smulka". On view at LewAllen Galleries Downtown from August 5th through September 5th, the exhibition presents works by two leading artists who actively blur traditional genre distinctions to expand the range of contemporary representational painting.

Major Retrospective of British Artist J. M. W. Turner at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:06 PM PDT NEW YORK CITY - The first major retrospective of the work of celebrated British artist J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) to be presented in the United States in more than 40 years will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning July 1, 2008. The exhibition J. M. W. Turner will represent the artist's extensive iconographic range, from seascapes and topographical views to historical subjects and scenes from his imagination. More than half of the approximately 140 paintings and watercolors on view will be on loan from Tate Britain, which houses the Turner Bequest, the most comprehensive collection of the artist's work in the world. These will be complemented by works from other collections in Europe and North America. The retrospective will provide a rich overview of the artistic achievement of Joseph Mallord William Turner as it documents the evolution of his unique style. In a career that spanned more than six decades, Turner essayed a wide range of subjects, from landscapes—a genre that he dominated during the first half of the 19th century in Britain—to historical and modern scenes and subjects of his own invention. A fascination with light and color characterizes his work in all media. In addition, his technical innovations, notably in watercolor, had a profound impact on subsequent artistic developments across the Channel in France, as well as in the United States.  Born in London in 1775, Turner spent his early childhood in Covent Garden, where his father had a barber shop. At a very young age he showed talent in sketching and became a draftsman with an architect. When he was fourteen, Turner enrolled in London's Royal Academy of Arts Schools and in 1802 became the youngest artist to be elected as a full Academician. As a student, Turner studied with Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), who was in his last years as president of the Royal Academy. Reynolds encouraged his students to study the techniques of the Old Masters. The idealized landscapes of Claude Lorrain (c.1604/5-82) served as a touchstone for Turner throughout his career. The exhibition will feature many of the remarkable canvases that Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy—works that established his reputation—from his first exhibited oil, Fishermen at Sea (1796, Tate), to the luminous paintings The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 (1835, Philadelphia Museum of Art) and Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (1835, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C). The iconic Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812, Tate) will be on view in the United States for the first time during this exhibition tour. J. M. W. Turner will also include the artist's "color beginnings," or watercolor studies for subsequently developed images, along with his finished watercolors. Works exclusive to the Metropolitan Museum's presentation of the exhibition include the painting Staffa, Fingal's Cave (1832, Yale Center for British Art) and a number of Turner's extraordinary late watercolors, such as Bamborough Castle (1837, private collection) and Goldau (1843, private collection).  The exhibition will be organized both thematically and chronologically, beginning with his earliest Sublime and historical landscapes and culminating with his late seascapes and light-filled canvases. JMW Turner (1775 – 1851) is considered to be one of the greatest painters Britain has ever produced.  The Turner Bequest, left to the nation by the artist following his death in 1851, is the largest and finest collection of his work and comprises hundreds of oils and thousands of watercolours and other works on paper, providing a profound insight into his creative evolution.  Prior to its showing at the Metropolitan, J. M. W. Turner was on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Dallas Museum of Art. The Trustees of the Tate have made a special exception to allow the works from the Turner Bequest to be out of England for the duration of the U.S. tour. The exhibition will be featured on the website of the Metropolitan Museum (www.metmuseum.org ).

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:05 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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