Resurfaced at Boston University Art Gallery

Saturday, 10 September 2005 10:46

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.- The Boston University Art Gallery exhibition Resurfaced, curated by Joshua Buckno with Stephanie Inagaki, asks: what happens when painting departs from the modernist square canvas format and extends into the third dimension, the realm traditionally reserved for sculpture? Like Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Ellsworth Kelly and other pioneering twentieth century artists, the seven artists included in Resurfaced -- Sam Cady, Sam Gilliam, Jennifer Riley, Gina Ruggeri, Katy Stone, Bill Thompson, and Roger Tibbetts --continue to blur the boundaries between painting and sculpture through their use of various materials and methods. By redefining the painting surface with the use of both flexible and rigid supports; employing unexpected materials, such as Mylar, resin, and epoxy; and developing new approaches to canvas structures, these artists create hybrid art objects located at the intersection of painting and sculpture. These works inhabit space in a manner unlike conventional square painting. Yet the presence of the painting surface remains a predominant characteristic so that the burden of defining the objects as either painting or sculpture is inevitable and unavoidable.

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"Hey, Listen to Me" . . . Writing Pictures

Saturday, 10 September 2005 10:54

HOUSTON, TEXAS.- Students from schools across Houston and Harris County reveal their thoughts about Self, Family, Community and Dreams in a special exhibit of their photographs and writing. Discussing, photographing, then writing about their own lives are the motivating forces for students working in FotoFest’s Literacy Through Photography (LTP) program in Houston and Harris County schools. FotoFest celebrates the start of the new fall semester and 15 years of the LTP program in Houston with a show of over 100 student works. The exhibit, “Hey, Listen To Me!” Writing Pictures is presents in conjunction with International Literacy Day at FotoFest’s downtown gallery and headquarters at Vine Street Studios. The show is a principal feature of the annual Downtown Stomp Around, a multi-gallery celebration of the opening of Houston's downtown arts season, co-sponsored by DiverseWorks. The FotoFest opening and exhibition are free to the public.

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Paths to Impressionism at Winterthur Museum

Saturday, 10 September 2005 11:04

WINTERTHUR, DELAWARE.- A new exhibition at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate traces the roots of Impressionism back to an earlier group of painters known as the Barbizon School, named for the rural French village of Barbizon, in and around which they worked. The exhibition features forty-one lush landscape paintings - depicting everything from expansive countrysides to peasants working in the fields to bustling towns - by such French and American luminaries as Claude Monet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Alfred Sisley, Childe Hassam and John Singer Sargent.

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Olafur Eliasson at Malmo Kosthall

Monday, 12 September 2005 10:30

MALMÖ, SWEDEN.-With a completely new work Olafur Eliasson transforms Malmö Konsthall into a gigantic experiment with light. The larger part of the exhibition space is divided up into different zones in which daylight is intermingled with artificial light. In these zones we can experience the shifts of colour and temperature in both forms of “white” light. The other portion of the gallery space is bathed in an intense yellow light which transports us into a black-and-white world. In the exhibition Eliasson uses light in a concrete form and provides us with experiences while simultaneously commenting on its history and mythology. A history and mythology that artists in particular have contributed to by trying to capture or portray light – especially our Nordic light. With this new work, Eliasson questions such fundamental issues as what is “real” and “unreal”. At Malmö Konsthall there is no longer anything that is real or unreal.

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Sarah Walker Wins Rappaport Prize

Thursday, 15 September 2005 10:04

LINCOLN, MA.- DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation announced this year’s recipient of the largest public annual award to an individual artist in Massachusetts, The Rappaport Prize. The $20,000 one-year stipend will be awarded to Sarah Walker—a 42-year-old Boston–based painter. Walker creates compositionally clear—yet dazzlingly complex—works that reference the cosmos and the ever-collapsing new conceptions of physical, mental, and virtual space. The artist’s non-objective paintings have appeared at DeCordova in The 2001 DeCordova Annual Exhibition. About Sarah Walker - Sarah Walker belongs to a new generation of artists who link their vision and practice with newly understood realities of the twenty-first century: genetic mapping and engineering, neurobiology, quantum mechanics, fractal geometry, information theory, and the virtual realms of the computer and the Internet. Her paintings consist of a central and vertical undulating feature set against broad modulated horizontal passages, or against a monochrome ground.

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Jeff Wall - Photographs 1978 - 2004 in Basel

Thursday, 15 September 2005 10:13

BASEL, SWITZERLAND.-Schaulager presents Jeff Wall. Photographs 1978 – 2004. The Schaulager exhibition features some seventy pictures and thus offers the first opportunity to appreciate the full range and diversity of the Canadian artist's work over the last 25 years. Jeff Wall (born 1946) has been making photographs since 1967. He first created his large-format colour transparencies in 1978; for the past ten years, he has also been making black and white photographs on paper. A feature of Jeff Wall's photographs is that they are neither part of series nor are they composed as groups of works. Each picture is an individual composition in its own right. Some of these pictures have become icons of contemporary photography, yet many others are little known. The exhibition shows how, apart from the technical and thematic innovations, a new pictorial concept has gradually taken shape in this œuvre. Echoing Baudelaire, Jeff Wall long ago referred to this pictorial concept as the "painting of modern life", but evolving a hundred years later under quite different conditions and using the language of photography.

Galerie f5,6 in Munich Presents Raghubir Singh

Thursday, 15 September 2005 10:15

MUNICH, GERMANY.-Galerie f5,6 proudly presents the first German solo show as well as a solo presentation at Paris Photo of world-renowned photographer Raghubir Singh. His pioneering work in the field of colour photography is currently being rediscovered. Museum shows at the Tate, London and the Whitechapel and in the US have recontextualised his work not only within American street photography but also in relationship to a wider contemporary art practice such as Sarah Lucas, Jeff Wall , Vito Acconci, Phillip Lorca DiCorcia and so forth Raghubir Singh (b. Jaipur, India, 1942- d. New York,USA, 1999) is considered one of the most important photographers of his generation. His name is synonymous with India. In his early 20's Singh was already working for the New York Times and Life Magazine. Close in spirit to Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom Singh first met in 1966, he was always interested in "catching life's entirety in a single glimpse of a moment."(Henri Cartier-Bresson). Raghubir Singh has been acknowledged in the US, along with William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, as one of the leading pioneers of colour photography. His highly sensitive use of colour and complex image structures span a bridge between Indian and western pictorial traditions, yet it always remains uniquely Indian. This makes Raghubir Singh's work incomparable.

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Sweet Talk at Museum of New Art (MONA)

Saturday, 17 September 2005 10:11

PONTIAC, MICHIGAN.-The Museum of New Art (MONA) is pleased to announce the launch and exhibition of ‘Sweet Talk’, a major new project by five artists curated by Hyun Jung Kim. The show consists of sculpture, painting, installation, fashion, drawing and photography, from artists who now live and work in New York, Chicago, London, Los Angeles and Detroit. During the nineties, the South Korean art market benefited from a protectionist currency policy aimed at keeping money at home by imposing stringent taxes on outgoing funds. This, along with a deeply ingrained respect for art and culture, has created a thriving market for contemporary Korean artists within the country. The downside, of course, is that it is virtually impossible to meet these prices in the West. According to artist Nam June Paik, the power structure of the Korean art world explained why major shows of Korean art were slow to happen in the West. Thus the most successful Korean artists rarely exhibited in Europe or the U.S.

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Margaret of York and Margaret of Austria

Saturday, 17 September 2005 10:16

MECHELEN, BELGIUM.-Two women held sway in Mechelen five hundred years ago: Margaret of York and Margaret of Austria. Both ladies were widowed at an early age and went on to play an active role in European political and cultural life. They lived on the cusp of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Old and the New World(s), bridging a whole host of seemingly incompatible human and world views, mentalities and realities. Two women held sway in Mechelen five hundred years ago: Margaret of York and Margaret of Austria. Both ladies were widowed at an early age and went on to play an active role in European political and cultural life. They lived on the cusp of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Old and the New World(s), bridging a whole host of seemingly incompatible human and world views, mentalities and realities. Their courts became halls of learning where young orphaned royals were prepared for ‘real’ life. For example, the youthful Charles, who later became emperor, grew up here under the care and protection of Margaret of Austria.

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Talisman Bids Farewell To Dorset

Saturday, 17 September 2005 10:37

LONDON.-For 25 years the most stylish store in Dorset has been Talisman. Crammed into the Old Brewery in Gillingham are antiques, statues, furniture and ceramics that give the impression of an elaborate opera set. They will sell the contents of the Old Brewery as Talisman's owner Ken Bolan is relocating to specially designed premises on London's King's Road next spring. The thousand lots in Sotheby's sale are expected to fetch in excess of £2 million with estimates ranging from a few hundred pounds up to £150,000. Ken Bolan has travelled extensively both buying for specific clients and to fill the vast space in the Old Brewery, sourcing pieces from all over Europe, Latin America and not least the West Country. The result is a mix of complementary styles and unique pieces. Fans of Ken's eagle eye will spot their own favourites among highly valuable garden statuary and the vast array of furniture. This will be the last chance to buy from Talisman in Dorset, which has attracted both a local and international clientele over the years with some frequently flying in for voracious buying sorties. Many celebrities are avowed fans of Ken's style and a generation of Dorset country houses bear witness to his taste.

Read more: [[Talisman Bids Farewell To Dorset]]

Tate Britain Presents John Latham in Focus

Saturday, 17 September 2005 11:41

LONDON, ENGLAND.-Tate Britain presents John Latham in Focus. This exhibition surveys the art of John Latham from 1954 to the present day. In the course of a career that spans more than fifty years, Latham has come to occupy an important and distinctive position in contemporary art. Working in a variety of media he belongs to no particular artistic tendency. Nevertheless the contribution he has made to painting, assemblage, performance, book art, conceptual art and film has been significant and influential. The basis for all his activities and ways of working is his world view – an outlook that explodes conventional systems of thought and is essentially visionary. Latham sees the ills and conflicts that beset mankind as the result of differences in ideology. He attributes these differences to the absence of a single theory capable of explaining the universe and man’s position within it. The theoretical framework he has evolved seeks to provide a unified explanation of existence.

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Exhibition of 75 Years of Revolutionary Poster Art

Saturday, 17 September 2005 11:59

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA.-The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University announces a major exhibition that examines the key role played by crowds in modern politics and society from World War I to the fall of the Berlin Wall . "Revolutionary Tides: The Art of the Political Poster, 1914–1989" focuses on the turbulent years of the first half of the 20th century, bringing together more than 100 of the most exceptional examples from the vast poster collections of the Hoover Institution at Stanford and The Wolfsonian–Florida International University in Miami Beach. "Revolutionary Tides" presents posters from such diverse settings as New Deal America, the Soviet Union of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans, China's Cultural Revolution, the protest movements of the 1960s, and Ayatollah Khomeni’s Iran. The exhibition features work by world renowned graphic artists such as John Heartfield, Gustav Klutsis, and Xanti Schawinsky and includes art ranging from an illustration depicting "Freedom of Speech" by Norman Rockwell to silkscreened portraits of communist leader Mao Tse-Tung by Andy Warhol.

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Stolen Rembrandt Self-Portrait Recovered

Monday, 19 September 2005 09:56

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK.-Danish police recovered a self-portrait by Rembrandt almost five years after it was stolen from Sweden's National Museum. The work was retrieved during an operation at a Copenhagen hotel that resulted in the arrest of four people. Police spokesman stated, "We heard that someone was trying to sell the painting and we decided to go for it." The work dates from 1630 and appears to be undamaged and still in its original frame. It was stolen by three armed and masked robbers who entered Sweden's National Museum in December 2000. The men took three paintings - the Rembrandt and two others by Renoir - they escaped on a small motor boat, spreading nails in front of the museum before they fled. In 2001 one of the Renoirs was recovered. Also eight men have been jailed for their part in the robbery.

Italian Renaissance Prints at UMMA

Monday, 19 September 2005 10:22

ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.-The University of Michigan Museum of Art presents Italian Renaissance Prints. Italian artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries embraced the emerging media of copper engraving and woodcuts as ways of creating multiple impressions of a single work of art. They often copied the masterpieces of prominent painters of the day, such as Raphael, Andrea Mantegna, and Giulio Romano. While the proliferation of such prints increased the fame of painters, the engraver's own virtuosity often turned the prints themselves into fascinating works of art in their own right, full of original and expressive detail and nuance. This exhibition looks at the practice of wood and copper engraving in Florence, Mantua, Venice, and Rome through twenty stellar examples by master printmakers such as Domenico Campagnola, Marcantonio Raimondi, and Diana Scultori.

Monika Weiss: at Lehman College Art Gallery

Monday, 19 September 2005 10:26

BRONX, NEW YORK.-Lehman College Art Gallery is pleased to announce a survey exhibition of Polish-born, New York based artist Monika Weiss. “Monika Weiss: Five Rivers” presents an overview of the artist’s works created between 1999-2005 with a specific focus on new performative installations and most recent drawing series. Complex in their subtle interplay of meaning and form, Weiss’ work is often site-specific, combining sculpture, live action, video projection and sound environment. During the last six years the artist has produced a large number of new works and has been widely shown in the United States and Europe. In her multi-media installations, combined with performance, Monika Weiss explores physical properties of the act of drawing, which she combines with references to the ancient and medieval symbols and concepts of the world and the human being. Weiss uses her own body directly in her art as both the maker and the inhabitant of the artistic object. In one of Weiss’ installation series Ennoia the artist immerses herself for several hours inside a water-filled chalice, while a projected image of the immersion and the underwater sounds mirror her action.

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In the American West: Richard Avedon Photos

Monday, 19 September 2005 10:29

FORT WORTH, TEXAS.-In 1985, the Amon Carter Museum presented In the American West: Photographs by Richard Avedon. It opened to widespread acclaim and was one of the most highly attended exhibitions in the museum’s history. Assertive, controversial, and graphically striking, the portraits in the exhibition generated extensive and at times heated discussion about the nature of portraiture, photography and the true identity of the American West. Avedon’s oversize portraits of working class westerners have become icons in photographic history, and the project still stands as a definitive expression of the power of photographic art. “The extraordinary images by Avedon for this project have become justifiably famous,” said Amon Carter Museum Director Rick Stewart. “Seeing them in reproduction is not enough; you have to confront them directly, on the walls, to realize their overwhelming power and exquisite quality.”

Read more: [[In the American West: Richard Avedon Photos]]