Sol LeWitt Work at Josef Albers Museum

Wednesday, 07 September 2005 10:13

BOTTROP, GERMANY.-The Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop, Germany is delighted to announce the unveiling of a newly commissioned wall mural by the internationally renowned conceptual artist Sol LeWitt. The work titled Seven Basic Colors And All Their Combinations In A Square Within A Square. Walldrawing For Josef Albers. is an homage to the painter and color theorist Josef Albers. The artist Sol LeWitt has designed this walldrawing to work in concert with the spatial arrangement of the Albers Museum, itself constructed as an architectural reflection of Albers's most famous painting motif the Homage to the Square series.This innovative new work comes as the second project in a series titled "Albers in Context" highlighting important American artists whose own work has been influenced by the revolutionary oeuvre of the German-born Josef Albers. Director of the Josef Albers Museum Dr. Heinz Leisbrock commented, "The importance of Albers's art and theory for opening a new field for American art after Abstract Expressionism still remains to be fully understood.

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Naturaleza Muerta: Latin American Still Life

Wednesday, 07 September 2005 10:16

BOCA RATON, FLORIDA.-The Boca Raton Museum of Art presents Naturaleza Muerta: Latin American Still Life from South Florida Collections. Still life can be a humble arrangement of everyday forms or it can stand as an allegory of an entire culture. The exceptionally rich and complex art of still life has maintained a continuing popularity within Latin American visual art. The strong traditions of realism and expressionism so prominent in Latin American literature are employed by the visual artist as formal concepts through which the interaction of politics, society and art may dialogue. This exhibition presents a broad spectrum of contemporary Latin American masters whose work explores the symbolism and metaphor implicit within the still life tradition. Artists such as Colombia’s Fernando Botero, Cuban-American Julio Larraz, Chilean Claudio Bravo, São Paulo-based installation artist Jac Leirner, Panamanian Olga Sinclair, and Cuban artist Ana Mendieta, are among the masters who employ complex references in their work, both visual and psychological that seamlessly interweave real life with moral and political issues, poetry, and metaphor.

Origins of European Printmaking in Washington

Friday, 09 September 2005 11:05

WASHINGTON, DC.-Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public is the first major international exhibition to be devoted to the earliest images printed on paper in the Western world. On view in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. This exhibition of 146 early woodcuts, books, printed textiles, and other related objects examines the role of replicated images in late medieval culture. After Washington, the exhibition will travel to Nuremberg, where it will be on view at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum . “Origins of European Printmaking provides a basis for rethinking a remarkable phenomenon in the history of Western culture, the replication of printed images, which actually predates Gutenberg’s replication of printed texts,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “We believe the exhibition sets a new standard of scholarship in the field, and we are grateful to the many distinguished museums, libraries, and private lenders who have contributed to this effort.” The Exhibition - The exhibition centers on the “single-leaf” woodcut, a relief print made to circulate on its own rather than one designed for a specific purpose or location, such as a book illustration. Relief prints were the earliest efficient means of reproducing a complex image in large numbers, and a major objective of this exhibition is to demonstrate the many ways in which individuals made use of this new technology: how they adapted replicated images for particular purposes, inscribed them with prayers, incorporated them into objects of daily use, and turned to them to satisfy both personal and spiritual needs.

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Ernest Hemingway : Three Weeks in Cuba

Friday, 09 September 2005 11:44

BOCA RATON, FLORIDA.-The Boca Raton Museum of Art presents Ernest Hemingway and Walker Evans: Three Weeks in Cuba, 1933. Through a combination of 50 never-before-exhibited photographs by American master Walker Evans, and 20 newly found Hemingway letters, photographs and artifacts, this exhibition will expand our understanding of the relationship between Hemingway and Evans and the influence these remarkable men had on each other's creative styles. “I have some pictures tonight, and will have more tomorrow…” These cryptic words, in a handwritten note to Hemingway from Evans, are part of a mystery that is only now coming to light. Their friendship began in Havana in May 1933. Hemingway had arrived in Cuba to fish and work on manuscripts. Evans came to take photographs for The Crime of Cuba, which was severely critical of the Cuban dictator Machado.

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Forgotten Empire: the world of Ancient Persia

Friday, 09 September 2005 11:51

LONDON, ENGLAND.-The British Museum presents today Forgotten Empire: the world of Ancient Persia. Ancient Persia was the largest and wealthiest state in the Ancient Near East, eclipsing Assyria and Babylonia and overshadowing Greece in the west. This exhibition reveals the splendour of this vast empire (550BC to 330BC) through the art and archaeology of its rulers. The impact of its capital cities, such as Susa, Pasargadae and Persepolis and the legacy of its kings - Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes - will be assessed through its sumptuous material culture and magnificent architecture. The display will include some of the finest pieces from the collections of The National Museum of Iran, many of which have not been seen outside Tehran before, as well as key pieces from the Louvre in Paris, the Vorderasiatisches (Ancient Near East Antiquities) Museum in Berlin and the British Museum’s own significant collections.

L'Art Nouveau. The Legacy of Siegfried Bing

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:03

BARCELONA, SPAIN.-Caixa Forum presents L'Art Nouveau. The Legacy of Siegfried Bing. Bing started as a collector of Chinese and Japanese art. He played a key role as a promoter of Asian art, which was to have an enormous influence on many nineteenth-century artists, including Vincent van Gogh. In fact it was from Bing that Van Gogh bought the many Japanese prints he owned. The presentation reveals how significant the influence of Japanese art was on the development of Art Nouveau, featuring beautiful examples of kimonos, fans and masks as well as ceramics and prints. One of the highlights of the show is a reconstruction of the Art Nouveau pavilion Bing presented at the Paris World Exposition of 1900. In an attempt to create a Gesamtkunstwerk Bing brought together three promising although relatively unknown designers: Georges de Feure, Edward Colonna and Eugène Gaillard. Striking examples of their remarkably elegant designs are presented in the Van Gogh Museum in period rooms. Screens, sofas, showcases and a complete bedroom interior, together with porcelain, glass and textile provide an authentic idea of what the pavilion must have looked like.

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The Modern Acquires a 'Lost' Matisse

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:14

New York - A rich and hypnotic interior by Matisse whose whereabouts had been unknown to scholars in recent decades has been purchased for the Museum of Modern Art by its new president, Marie-Josée Kravis, and her husband, the financier Henry Kravis. The 1948 work, "The Plum Blossoms," is part of the last series of paintings created by Matisse before he died in 1954. It has not been on public view since 1970, when it was lent for an exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris. Measuring nearly 3 by 4 feet, the painting depicts a woman, her face left blank and featureless, sitting at a table against a heavily saturated rust-red and ocher background, with a tall vase of blooming flowers dominating the foreground. It is among seven interiors that Matisse painted in 1947 and 1948 in his studio in Vence, in the south of France. As an ensemble, the canvases form a panorama of the artist's work environment in his final years.

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Franz von Stuck - The Artist's Family

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:16

MUNICH, GERMANY.-Museum Villa Stuck presents Franz von Stuck - The Artist's Family, an exhibition in collaboration with the family of Franz von Stuck, a series of exhibitions will be presented in cooperation with the family of Franz von Stuck in the newly restored Old Atelier in the Villa Stuck. The first exhibition is dedicated to the artist's family and includes representative portraits by Stuck of his wife, daughter and stepdaughter. Among the works is a double-portrait of the artist and his wife Mary in the Old Atelier. Visible behind the couple is the infamous Sin Altar, the relief Dancers and the Red Chair, designed by Stuck himself. Thus, a unique comparison-son is possible between the recently restored Old Atelier of today and Stuck's representation of more than a hundred years ago. The portrait of Stuck´s American wife Mary (1865-1929) reflects his reverence for one of the most beautiful and impressive women of Munich society.

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Julio González: Sculpture and Drawings at USC

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:20

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.-The USC Fisher Gallery presents today Julio González: Sculpture and Drawings from the IVAM Collection. Julio González—one of the foremost modernist artists in Europe during the first part of the twentieth century—pioneered the use of welded iron as an artistic material. González had a significant influence on Pablo Picasso and other renowned sculptors who came after, such as David Smith, Mark di Suvero, and Anthony Caro. And yet González, whose work is so respected in Europe , is one of the least known masters of the twentieth century in the United States. Fisher Gallery—by exhibiting his work in Los Angeles , forty years after his last show here—will proudly host an exhibition of his sculptures. “Julio González: Sculpture and Drawings from the IVAM Collection” is co-curated by Dr. Selma Holo, director of Fisher Gallery, and Dr. Ángel Kalenberg, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Montevideo, Uruguay. It showcases 43 rarely-seen works, all from the important collections of IVAM (Valencia Institute of Modern Art). Although bronze and iron sculpture prevails, the show also includes reliefs, jewelry and drawings.

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Jeppe Hein - Neonwall - New Contemporary Art

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:24

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.-From the artist who destroyed the Johann Konig Gallery with a steel sphere hurtling uncontrollably around the exhibition space, to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, is the latest International contemporary art exhibition Neonwall by Jeppe Hein. Hein's installation is a wall of neon lights that switch off as the viewer approaches. One side of the wall is interactive. If you walk along the wall, the neon modules turn off - one after the other. As they turn on and off the light modules change from a live, healthy, humming luminescence to a dull, cloudy object but the moment the visitor leaves, all of the neon lights are restored again. Hein's works contest the accepted conventions of viewing with their energy and playfully antagonistic dialogue between the artwork and the gallery audience. Other works, such as Bear the Consequences (2003), of a gas flame that expands as the gallery visitor gets closer, initially evoke fear and embarrassment but ultimately they fulfill Hein’s aim to directly engage the spectator with his work.

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Akio Takamori at ASU Art Museum

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:27

TEMPE, ARIZONA.-The Arizona State University Art Museum’s Ceramics Research Center (CRC) presents a major mid-career exhibition on the innovative ceramic art work of Akio Takamori. Born and raised in Japan, Takamori has spent the majority of his artistic career in the U.S. and is regarded as one of the most inventive and expressive contemporary artists to emerge from American ceramics. Between Clouds of Memory: Akio Takamori, A Mid-Career Survey is the first in-depth analysis of Takamori’s ceramic and graphic art work created between 1976 and the present. This hallmark exhibition of 42 ceramic sculptures and nine prints is drawn from the artist’s personal holding, the CRC permanent collection and private and public collections nationwide, shows the artist’s ongoing search for personal and cultural identity in an era of increasingly global influences and contradictions.

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Design Made in Africa at Brunei Gallery

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:30

LONDON, ENGLAND.-As part of Africa 05, the Brunei Gallery is presenting Design Made in Africa, a selection of 45 objects by 30 designers from 14 African countries. The first major exhibition of contemporary African design ever shown in the UK. A call was made, inviting African designers or those practicing on the continent to submit some of their work in view of a major exhibition that would: promote African design to local and international editors and distributors, initiate or strengthen links between designers, groups of craftsmen, and small businesses, confirm or reveal existing talents in Africa, introduce the international audience to African creativeness and contemporaneousness. With the help of a panel, presided by Samuel Sidibé, Director of the National Museum of Mali in Bamako, the curators Céline Savoye and Michel Buisson gathered a unique selection of interior and urban objects addressing and responding to present day lifestyles in Africa.

Exhibition of Color Photographs of America

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:33

WASHINGTON, DC.-“ Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943 ” is the first major exhibition of the little-known color images taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI). Featuring 70 digital prints made from color transparencies taken between 1939 and 1943, this exhibition provides an unusual record of a period in American history previously seen only in black and white. These vivid full-color portraits capture the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small-town populations, the nation’s tireless efforts to overcome economic challenges and its patriotic response to mobilization for World War II. The photographs in “Bound for Glory,” many by famed photographers such as John Vachon, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, and Marion Post Wolcott, document not only the subjects in the pictures, but also the dawn of a new era—the Kodachrome era. These colorful images mark a historic divide in visual presentation between the monochrome world of the pre-modern age and the brilliant hues of the present.

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Equipo Crónica at the IVAM Collection Opens

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:37

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA.-The Centro Cultural Recoleta presents Equipo Crónica at the IVAM Collection.. The collection of works by Equipo Crónica owned by the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (Valencian Institute of Modern Art - IVAM) is the one of the most important in existence, both with regards to its quality and in the broad scope it represents. This exhibition is comprised of 59 pieces, including canvases, acrylics, graphics and sculpture, chosen to embody the work done by this team of artists. The Equipo Crónica (1964-1981) was a significant example of Spanish pop art, which not only participated in this movement so characteristic of the sixties, but did so with its own, internationally recognized individual stamp. The group was comprised of painters Rafael Solbes (1940-1981) and Manuel Valdés (born in 1942) and it was disbanded on Solbes’ untimely death.

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' The Fighting Temeraire ' Voted ' Greatest Painting in GB '

Friday, 09 September 2005 12:40

LONDON, ENGLAND.-After six weeks of voting, the British public has chosen 'The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up, 1838' by J.M.W Turner as the winner of 'The Greatest Painting in Britain' poll. The BBC Radio 4 Today programme, in partnership with the National Gallery, launched the hunt to find the Greatest Painting in Britain. The purpose was to stimulate a national debate about painting and focus attention on the great art that the nation holds. That 118,877 votes were cast, more than any other Radio 4 poll ever, seems to indicate this aim was achieved.

Read more: [[' The Fighting Temeraire ' Voted ' Greatest Painting in GB ']]

John Huddleston: Killing Ground, Photographs

Saturday, 10 September 2005 10:41

LINCOLN, MA.-Vermont photographer John Huddleston has spent many years photographing famous and forgotten Civil War battlefields. In John Huddleston: Killing Ground, Photographs of the Civil War and the Changing American Landscape, he juxtaposes his contemporary color images with black-and-white copies of historical photographs of the very same places. These pairings are sometimes poignant, and sometimes disturbing, but always rich with meaning. T They explore the legacy of the War Between the States, which left 620,000 soldiers dead and over 500,000 wounded, as expressed or concealed by the shifts in land use, culture, and commemoration over the last century and a half. Some battlefields, like Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, or Bull Run (Manassas), Virginia, are maintained as sacred precincts, and are visited by thousands of tourists annually. Others, less known and left unmarked, are now the sites of strip malls and tract housing. And remote and rural locations appear uncannily unchanged over the intervening decades.

Read more: [[John Huddleston: Killing Ground, Photographs]]