2017-02-28

8498 - Asia Week New York spotlights contemporary art - 09.03.2017-18.03.2017

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Lee Ufan, Untitled, 2016. Photo: Pace Gallery.
 
When Asia Week New York launches its ten-day extravaganza, on March 9, many of the top-tier galleries will showcase contemporary work alongside classical objects, while others will be devoted solely to present-day works of art.

Among the stand-outs:

Stronger Together: Two Western Artists Who Embraced the Chinese Idiom at China 2000 Fine Art, focuses on two important western artists, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg, both of whom created their final projects by re-examining an earlier fascination with Chinese artistic expression and translating this affinity into their own unique idioms.

To celebrate her exhibition entitled ThenNow, Carol Davenport will honor the renowned Japanese sculptor, Hiroyuki Asano, who has generously allowed four pieces to be shown during Asia Week New York. Asano, known for his precise forms and circular voids, brings a refined life to the soul of the stone, representing time, space, and movement through the universe. He has recently surged in popularity in the East, using his classical training in Italy and uniquely Japanese style to win numerous international sculpting awards. His works are in public and private collections around the globe, including Japan, China, Korea, Germany and the U.S. Ms. Davenport welcomes him to her gallery during Asia Week.

In River of Stars, Kaikodo LLC features five contemporary works-three in the traditional format of ink on paper and two contemporary photographs mounted as hanging scrolls. Included among these is "Sandalwood Tree," 2013 by Luo Jianwu, a folding-fan-shaped painting, ink and color on paper. Mr. Luo Jianwu lives in Beijing and is famous for doing portraits of old trees as a way to honor their presence.

Laurence Miller Gallery presents the work of Toshio Shibata, whose signature focus is the ways in which contemporary municipal infrastructure is interwoven into the traditional Japanese landscape. Over the past thirty years Toshio Shibata has photographed man made structures in balance with nature. Elements of infrastructure were everywhere he travelled. Despite the ubiquity and commonality of the dams, sluices and irrigation canals, his pictures transform the ordinary into the lyrical, concrete and steel into abstraction, each with a uniquely Japanese perspective.

In Timeless Elegance in Japanese Art: Celebrating 40 Years, at Joan B. Mirviss Ltd., attention is given to contemporary ceramics with the major sculptural work by the master ceramist, Suzuki Osamu. Through exhaustive experimentation, Suzuki has developed his own modern take on the traditional shino (creamy white feldspathic glaze). With his noteworthy thicker walls, longer firing time and slow cooling periods his works possess an air of modernity and dynamism not found elsewhere. Works of this scale and importance by Suzuki are extremely rare to find on the market today. In 1994 he was designated as only the second Living National Treasure (LNT), for shino ware.

Hsu Kuohuang's recent work, "Waterfall Hidden," (Ink and colorwash on paper, 2016), will be among the contemporary works featured at M. Sutherland Fine Art, Kuohuang boldly uses splashed ink and color in an ambiguous "contemporary" view of mountains flattened out against the painting surface. It can be described as guo hua not just because of the traditional landscape theme but also because of the materials. Hsu's adept calligraphy inscriptions show his years of writing practice, something that his Mainland artistic contemporaries were not allowed to do openly until after the Cultural Revolution. (Beginning in the late 1970's, the ban on studying the past, such as ancient calligraphy scripts, was lifted after a hiatus of over 30 years).

At Pace Gallery, Lee Ufan:Ceramics, is the first exhibition that the artist has organized solely in this medium. With a career that spans over five decades, Lee Ufan's Untitled 2016 radiates the artist's mastery of the brush. Conceptual concerns that embrace philosophical theories of the East and West are expressed in the spatial play of mark making and their correspondence to the field in which they are situated. Ufan's work in sculpture, installation, painting and drawing was part of a retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 2008 and more recently a major exhibition at the Palace of Versailles in 2014, among many other international museum and gallery exhibitions throughout his renowned career.

Chung Seoyoung's large-scale sculpture East West North South, 2007 at the Tina Kim Gallery, amplifies the theatrical quality of a gallery space by confining a void territory by imposing spatial control using steel fences. Without any correspondence to the exact orientation of the gallery, the artwork distorts the viewer's geographic bearings and holds one's attention in a contained zone, causing us to question our own relationship with time.

Additional galleries not to be missed are: Dag Modern, Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd., FitzGerald Fine Arts, Robert Hall Asian Art,Ltd., HK Art & Antiques LLC, Kang Collection Korean Art, Onishi Gallery, Erik Thomsen, and YEWN.

Asia Week New York draws an international coterie of collectors, curators and enthusiasts from every corner of the globe. Says Lark Mason, Chairman of Asia Week New York 2017, "We are proud to present this annual event, which augments the city's already rich cultural holdings with world-class Asian art exhibitions, many of which might be worthy of display in any one of the city's top-tier museums."

Asia Week New York unites an illustrious roster of international Asian art specialists-the largest number to date-with five major auction houses: Bonhams, Christie's, Doyle, iGavel, and Sotheby's and 15 world-renowned museums and Asian cultural institutions. All work together towards a single purpose: that of weaving Asian art into the cultural fabric of New York and beyond. For discerning, in-the-know collectors, curators, scholars and Asian art enthusiasts from all around the world, it has become an essential destination in March."

Asia Week New York exhibitions, which are open and free to the public, will reveal the rarest and finest Asian examples of porcelain, jewelry, textiles, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, bronzes, prints, photographs and jades, representing artistry, ingenuity and imagination from every quarter and period of Asia.

To help visitors easily navigate the Asia Week New York's activities, a comprehensive guide with maps will be available at all participating galleries and auction houses, along with select museums and cultural institutions, and online at www.AsiaWeekNY.com.
 
 
 
 

2017-02-27

Discover FICEXPO 2

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presents the exhibitions from the following blogs
 
Blog I
 
Blog II
 
Blog III.
 
Blog IV
 
Blog V
 
Blog VI
 
Blog VIII


and auctions from
 
Blog IX
 
 
The items are publiched by exhibition closing date with a link.
 
You can also make a selection by blog.

 


8497 - Award-winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2017

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Serpentine Pavilion 2017, Designed by Francis Kéré, Design Render, Exterior ©Kéré Architecture.

Diébédo Francis Kéré, the award-winning architect from Gando, Burkino Faso, has been commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2017, responding to the brief with a bold, innovative structure that brings his characteristic sense of light and life to the lawns of Kensington Gardens.

Kéré, who leads the Berlin-based practice Kéré Architecture, is the seventeenth architect to accept the Serpentine Galleries’ invitation to design a temporary Pavilion in its grounds. Since its launch in 2000, this annual commission of an international architect to build his or her first structure in London at the time of invitation has become one of the most anticipated events in the global cultural calendar and a leading visitor attraction during London’s summer season. Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel made their selection of the architect, with advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.

Inspired by the tree that serves as a central meeting point for life in his home town of Gando, Francis Kéré has designed a responsive Pavilion that seeks to connect its visitors to nature – and each other. An expansive roof, supported by a central steel framework, mimics a tree’s canopy, allowing air to circulate freely while offering shelter against London rain and summer heat.

Kéré has positively embraced British climate in his design, creating a structure that engages with the ever-changing London weather in creative ways. The Pavilion has four separate entry points with an open air courtyard in the centre, where visitors can sit and relax during sunny days. In the case of rain, an oculus funnels any water that collects on the roof into a spectacular waterfall effect, before it is evacuated through a drainage system in the floor for later use in irrigating the park. Both the roof and wall system are made from wood. By day, they act as solar shading, creating pools of dappled shadows. By night, the walls become a source of illumination as small perforations twinkle with the movement and activity from inside.

As an architect, Kéré is committed to socially engaged and ecological design in his practice, as evidenced by his award-winning primary school in Burkina Faso, pioneering solo museum shows in Munich and Philadelphia, and his immersive installation in the 2014 exhibition Sensing Spaces at London’s Royal Academy.

Building on these ideas, Kéré’s Serpentine Pavilion will host a programme of events exploring questions of community and rights to the city, as well as the continuation of Park Nights, the Serpentine’s public performance series, supported by COS. Now in its third year, Build Your Own Pavilion, the digital platform and nationwide architecture campaign supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, will invite young people to consider the relationship between architecture and public space, to ask critical questions about the future of their cities and to design the cities in which they would like to live.

Kéré’s design follows Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), whose ‘unzipped wall’ structure was visited by more than 250,000 people in 2016, making it one of the most visited Pavilions to date. Four commissioned Summer Houses in 2016 by Kunlé Adeyemi – NLÉ (Amsterdam/Lagos), Barkow Leibinger (Berlin/New York), Yona Friedman (Paris) and Asif Khan (London), attracted almost 160,000 visitors.

Diébédo Francis Kéré, architect of the 17th Serpentine Pavilion, said: “As an architect, it is an honour to work in such a grand park, especially knowing the long history of how the gardens evolved and changed into what we see today. Every path and tree, and even the Serpentine lake, were all carefully designed. I am fascinated by how this artificial landscape offered a new way for people in the city to experience nature. In Burkina Faso, I am accustomed to being confronted with climate and natural landscape as a harsh reality. For this reason, I was interested in how my contribution to this Royal Park could not only enhance the visitor’s experience of nature, but also provoke a new way for people to connect with each other.”

Serpentine Galleries CEO, Yana Peel, and Artistic Director, Hans Ulrich Obrist, said: “We are thrilled to reveal the designs for Francis Kéré’s Pavilion, which highlight the power of simplicity by reducing architecture to its core elements, modelled in harmony with the natural context of Royal Kensington Gardens. This Pavilion will be a space of conversation, collaboration and exchange. We share Kéré’s belief that architecture, at its best, can enhance our collective creativity and push people to take the future into their own hands.”

Richard Gnodde, Vice Chairman of the Goldman Sacks Group Inc. and CEO of Goldman Sachs International, said: “We are delighted to support the Serpentine’s Summer Pavilion programme for a third year running. Francis Kéré’s design this year promises to celebrate the diversity, vibrancy and collaborative potential of communities, something we value deeply at Goldman Sachs.”

David Glover, Technical Advisor said: "The Serpentine Pavilion is about the opportunity of using everyday materials and techniques in innovative and creative ways that challenge our perception of architecture. Francis Kéré and his team have achieved this by creating a Pavilion that, through the use of colour and form, will continually morph under the influence of light, shadow, its users and the surrounding park to surprise and delight the visitor.”

The annual Serpentine Pavilion commission has become an international site for architectural experimentation, presenting projects by some of the world's greatest architects, from Zaha Hadid in 2000 to Bjarke Ingels Group in 2016.

The brief is to design a 300-square-metre Pavilion that is used as a community hub and café by day and a forum for learning, debate and entertainment at night. Each Pavilion is sited on the Serpentine Gallery's lawn for four months and the immediacy of the commission makes it a pioneering model worldwide.

The selection of an architect, someone who has consistently extended the boundaries of architectural practice but is yet to build a structure in London, is led by the curatorial approach that guides all Serpentine programming: introducing contemporary artists and architects to the widest public audience.

The Serpentine Pavilion is among the top ten most visited architectural and design exhibitions in the world. There is no budget for the project, which is realised through sponsorship, in-kind support and the sale of the Pavilion.


 
 

2017-02-24

8496 - Oxford's Bodleian launches seminal online catalogue of the complete works of William Henry Fox Talbot

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Nelson’s Column under Construction, Trafalgar Square, London, first week of April 1844. Photo: Hans P. Kraus, Jr. Fine Photographs.
 
The Bodleian Libraries have launched an innovative web-based resource that brings together the complete works of British photographic pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot, available to the public at foxtalbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. For the first time ever, users can discover and search through annotated digitized images of Talbot’s photographs gathered from collections around the world. The fascinating images show the emergence and development of photography while capturing moments of early Victorian life.

Importantly users can view surviving negatives alongside the prints that were made from them they are made from, making this the first online catalogue to make the connection between corresponding Talbot prints/images no matter where in the world the original print is held. This is critical since each negative and print was made by hand and each is unique. For example, users to the site can see an image of a negative held in the Smithsonian alongside salt prints made from it that are held in the J. Paul Getty Museum, the British Library and other private collections.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), among the greatest polymaths of the Victorian age, is regarded as the British ‘father of photography’. He created some of the first photographs ever made. He also recognised that negatives, with their ability to make multiple prints on paper, would define the central path of photography right through to the digital age. During his career Talbot and his collaborators created more than 4,500 unique or distinct images; approximately 25,000 of his original negatives and multiple prints from them are known to survive worldwide and are held across a range of international institutions and private collections. These are now brought together for the first time in one place – the Talbot Catalogue Raisonné.

‘There has been nothing like this before in the history of photography,’ said Professor Larry J Schaaf, Project Director for the Talbot Catalogue Raisonné and Visiting Professor of Art at the University of Oxford. ‘This catalogue raisonné of Talbot's work will help unlock the enormous artistic, documentary and technical information embodied in these images and allow researchers to find out even more about these works.’ Working closely with the Talbot family, Schaaf has been researching Talbot for more than four decades and has examined nearly all of Talbot’s originals held in collections worldwide.

Talbot was a scientist who then became an artist. Unlike the case with most of his peers, much of his archive survives; in addition to the 25,000 photographs there are more than 10,000 letters, hundreds of notebooks and many related physical objects. In the early 1980s, before digital projects in the humanities were common, Professor Schaaf developed the pioneering databases of Talbot's work on which the new online catalogue is based.

The Bodleian Libraries have spent the last two years translating these images into a modern online form. The catalogue integrates the holdings of more than 100 international public and private collections including items from the British Library, the National Media Museum, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as smaller but significant holdings in Russia, Estonia, South Africa, Canada, France and others worldwide.

Launching with more than 1,000 images, these will be added to weekly until the entire 25,000 negatives and prints known worldwide have been published. They include:

• Beautiful early cityscapes of Oxford, London and Paris and others,

• Numerous images taken on and around the grounds of Lacock Abbey, Talbot’s family home in Wiltshire,

• Some of Talbot’s best known images such as ‘The Open Door’ and ‘The Haystack’,

• Photographs by Talbot’s close circle of family and colleagues, with whom he collaborated – Nicolaas Henneman, Calvert R Jones, George Bridges and Henry Collen, along with Talbot’s wife Constance and his mother Lady Elisabeth Feilding.

In this new catalogue raisonné, images of prints and negatives are accompanied by notes, annotations and essays, with links to relevant publications and websites. Users can search images by photographer, title, collection, provenance, date, genre, geographic location and keywords then tag, save or compare images and create, annotate and store their own collections or search results, all free of charge. Since many of these primordial images survive in a faded state, they can be enhanced for study onscreen by simple tools that magnify the images and adjust the contrast and density. Negatives lacking a print will be accompanied by a digital positive.

Importantly users can view surviving negatives alongside the prints they are made from, making this the first online catalogue to make the connection between corresponding Talbot prints/images no matter where in the world the original print is held. For example, users to the site can see an image of a negative held in the Smithsonian alongside salt prints made from it that are held in the J. Paul Getty Museum, the British Library and other private collections.

The images are accompanied by extensive cross-referencing to other sources, such as Talbot’s notebooks held in the British Library and the 10,000 Talbot letters available online at foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk, a project at De Montfort University also directed by Professor Schaaf. In 2014, the Bodleian acquired the personal archive of Talbot, which includes original manuscripts, correspondence, family diaries and scientific instruments. The archive is also rich in physical objects depicted in Talbot’s photographs, for example the actual glassware depicted in his famous ‘Articles of Glass’ published in The Pencil of Nature.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian said ‘The Talbot Catalogue Raisonné exemplifies the important role of the Bodleian Libraries and cultural institutions in creating digital resources that allow unprecedented virtual access to collections. This project also demonstrates the value of working in partnership, bringing together items now dispersed from across numerous collections. We are extremely grateful to the many institutions who contributed to this exciting new research tool, without whom this project would not have been possible.’

The Talbot Catalogue Raisonné has been developed with the support of the William Talbott Hillman Foundation, The Polonsky Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund as well as numerous private donors.
 
 
 
 

2017-02-23

8495 - Tate offers new app to visitors - London

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Conceived with design agency Fabrique, the Tate app brings together everything visitors need to explore the galleries and learn more about the art they encounter.
 
Tate has launched a new app, designed to enable visitors to lead their own journey around the galleries on their smartphones. With support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the app is the latest development of the Bloomberg Connects offering at Tate and provides a more bespoke, behind-the-scenes and personalised experience than a traditional museum audio-guide. A trial version of the app was released for iOS mobile devices last year, with 13,000 downloads so far, and the full version is now available for free on both iOS and Android via the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It can be downloaded in advance of a visit or in the gallery on Tate’s free Wi-Fi.

Conceived with design agency Fabrique, the Tate app brings together everything visitors need to explore the galleries and learn more about the art they encounter at Tate Britain, Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool, with Tate St Ives to follow later this year when the gallery reopens. On opening the app, users are given three easy-to-navigate options – Art, Activity and Eat & Shop – each of which provides information about what can be seen, experienced and enjoyed in the museum that day. Over 600 iBeacons, installed throughout the buildings by digital wayfinding experts Movin, allow the app to tell visitors exactly where they are in real time. It can then help to direct them towards their favourite works of art, to a special event or performance, or simply to the nearest place to get a coffee.

Within the galleries, users are also able to access in-depth information about the collection displays through the app, including wider art movements and histories as well as individual artists and works. Over 350 audio clips from Tate’s digital archives, including specially-recorded interviews with curators and artists, are available in the palm of your hand. From modern masters like Agnes Martin and Jackson Pollock to contemporary figures like Meschac Gaba and Suzanne Lacy, visitors can now hear unique insights into Tate’s collection in the artists’ own words.

Bloomberg Philanthropies works with the museum to expand the ways in which Tate’s millions of visitors engage with arts and artists. Bloomberg Connects is Bloomberg Philanthropies programme designed to increase access to the arts. The support has enabled the Tate to create a host of ways for visitors to interact with, understand and discuss the things they see in Tate’s galleries. For exampleTate Shots, an online series of short films, has now received over 6.5 million views. Immersive ‘Explore’ spaces in Tate Modern’s Switch House provide information about the displays as part of an interactive experience, while the touchscreen Timeline of Modern Art and the Digital Drawing Bar allow visitors of all ages to learn about art and flex their creative muscles.

Kerstin Mogull, Managing Director of Tate, said ‘We are always looking for new ways to give our visitors the best experience possible. The Tate app is designed to be simple, useful and fun, putting the whole gallery in the palm of your hand for free. Our museums are becoming increasingly active spaces with even more diverse programmes, so it’s important for us to provide an easy way for everyone to get the most from Tate. This is just one of the projects we have created through the Bloomberg Connects partnership, all of which use new technologies to help people enjoy and engage with great art.’
 
 
 
 
 

2017-02-22

QR-CODE FIC123.BE

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8494 - Monumental Constable painting to return to Scotland to be shown alongside McTaggart masterpiece - Edinburgh

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John Constable (1776 – 1837), Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831. © Tate, London 2013. Purchased with assistance from the Heritage Lottery Fund, The Manton Foundation, Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation) and Tate Members.
 
One of the greatest masterpieces of British art will go on display in Scotland for the first time in over 15 years this spring. The monumental oil painting Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, painted in 1831 by the great English Romantic painter John Constable (1776-1837), will be shown alongside one of the most powerful and celebrated of all Scottish landscape paintings: The Storm (1890), by William McTaggart (1835-1910).

This display is part of Aspire, a partnership programme touring Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, exhibited 1831, across the UK. Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, was secured for the British public through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Manton Foundation, Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation) and Tate Members. Aspire is a five-year partnership project between five partner institutions supported by Art Fund, and by National Lottery players through the Heritage Lottery Fund. The tour is designed to share this remarkable painting with as wide an audience as possible and draws upon powerful connections to works in each of the five participating venues.

At 1.5m high and nearly 2m wide, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows is one of a series of monumental ‘six-footer’ canvases painted by the iconic artist – arguably the greatest of them all. Painted three years after the death of his beloved wife Maria, the spectacular painting is laden with personal meaning and is the work he regarded with the greatest pride, referring to it as the ‘Great Salisbury’.

The artist and his wife had visited Salisbury during their honeymoon, and it became a place of solace for Constable after Maria’s death. The painting depicts a turbulent landscape of raging, stormy clouds which reflect Constable’s state of mind: his grief at the death of Maria, as well as his concerns regarding contemporary political and social changes which he felt threatened the future of the Anglican Church and rural life. Yet a magnificent rainbow spanning the composition seems to offer a note of hope, promising that the storm will pass.

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831 but met with a mixed critical reception and never found a buyer. Constable’s use of white highlights and his dramatic treatment of the sky were particularly controversial. The work remained in the artist’s studio, where he continued to retouch it, until his death six years later.

Constable’s work was a source of profound inspiration for William McTaggart, both on an artistic and personal level, and seeing these two imposing canvases side by side demonstrates the transformative influence of Constable’s work and techniques on the younger artist.

Often dubbed “the Father of Scottish Painting”, McTaggart took the chance to see Constable’s work wherever he could. He would have seen Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows in 1857, when it was exhibited with six other Constables at the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition.

The 1880s provided McTaggart with more opportunities when 118 works by Constable went on show at the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art (later the Royal Museum of Scotland) between 1883 and 1887. McTaggart’s style changed around that time, and it is highly likely that this resulted from his close observation of Constable’s technique through the works on display in Edinburgh. He had first tackled the subject of The Storm on a smaller scale in 1883 but witnessing Constable’s large oil sketches may have influenced his decision to paint the larger version on show here, which was to become one of his greatest pictures.

McTaggart's energetic brush work and bold colour illustrate the elemental force of the thunderous sky, lashing wind and turbulent sea. A tiny fishing boat struggling at sea and the launching of a rescue boat from the shore poignantly convey man's vulnerability and courage in the face of Nature’s fury. McTaggart's depiction of the approaching storm closely recalls Constable’s ‘Great Salisbury’; like Constable, he varied his brushstrokes, in order to capture the different textures of sky, sea and land.

McTaggart certainly appreciated Constable’s insistence on painting outdoors and studying nature directly in the open air, the importance of skies in composition, of avoiding imitating other people’s work, and the value of wind, light, air, freshness and movement in landscape painting.

Tricia Allerston, Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Scottish National Gallery, commented: “We are delighted that Constable’s ‘Great Salisbury’ is coming to Scotland. It is a landmark painting which complements and enriches the permanent displays at the Scottish National Gallery. In addition, and most excitingly, its arrival also gives us an opportunity to explore the impact of one of the most influential artists of the nineteenth century on one of Scotland’s truly important artists.”
 
 
 
 

2017-02-21

8493 - Four films examine the lives of revered artists of the Renaissance and 20th century in theaters

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Four new feature-length films in the Exhibition on Screen series examine the lives, times, passions, practices, and creations of some of the best-known and most influential artists in the Western canon. The current season offerings examine the Renaissance masters Hieronymus Bosch and Michelangelo and modern luminaries Claude Monet and the American Impressionists. Presented in select U.S. theaters through June 2017, the films enable movie audiences to take dramatic virtual tours of blockbuster exhibitions—including the historic Bosch presentation in The Netherlands earlier this year— and major international collections, and reveal the artists’ life stories. The series is enriched by interviews with art-world experts, unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, and compelling biographical details about the artists.

The fourth season of EXHIBITION ON SCREEN comprises:

• “The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch” now in theaters, directed by David Bickerstaff

• “I, Claude Monet” in theaters from February 21, 2017, directed by Phil Grabsky

• “The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism” in theaters from March 21, 2017, directed by Phil Grabsky

• “Michelangelo: Love and Death” in theaters from June 13, 2017, directed by David Bickerstaff

These high-definition exhibitions on screen are being presented in select cinemas around the country through Seventh Art Productions. For a complete list of theater locations, visit the EXHIBITION ON SCREEN website (theaters and participants are subject to change). Tickets are available online here and at participating theater box offices.

Phil Grabsky, Executive Producer and Creative Director of Seventh Art Productions said, “We are delighted to present four new immersive documentary films that virtually place viewers inside blockbuster exhibitions and eminent museums around the globe. In addition to relaying fascinating stories about the artists’ lives, the films reveal the rarely seen process of conserving and displaying treasured artworks. This new season leads off with the wonderful Renaissance master Bosch whose brimming canvases have enchanted and mystified viewers for centuries. The exhibition on which the film is based was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will never be replicated.”

“The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch” is based on the critically acclaimed exhibition Jheronimus Bosch - Visions of Genius that was on view at Het Noordbrabants Museum in the Netherlands in spring 2016. Organized on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death, the exhibition brought an unprecedented grouping of 20 paintings and 19 drawings of Bosch’s 44 surviving paintings and drawings together for the first time to his home town of Den Bosch. The exhibition attracted almost half a million art-lovers from all over the world. The Guardian called it one of the most important exhibitions of the century.

The film allows the audience to see in detail Bosch’s extraordinary visions of saints and sinners, monstrous demons, and half-animal half-human creatures interspersed with human figures. With his unconventional and timeless creations depicting bizarre fantasies and elements of the grotesque, Surrealists considered Bosch a forerunner.

With advance filming, the documentary also offers close-up views of several of Bosch’s works that were not allowed to travel, including the spectacular Garden of Earthly Delights in the Prado’s collection in Madrid. Also chronicled is the story behind how the exhibition reprised the original form of Bosch’s famous altarpieces, long separated and divided between several museums, and new discoveries made by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project during preparations for the exhibition.

Contributors include filmmaker and artist Peter Greenway, The Times’ chief art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston, and Charles de Mooji, director of the Het Noordbrabants Museum.

Filmed on location in Paris, London, and Normandy, “I, Claude Monet” is a cinematic engagement with the artist—considered a father of French Impressionism—who created some of the most well-known scenes in Western art. Using over 2,500 letters exclusively for the narrative, the biographic documentary reveals new insight into the man who is among the most influential painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Despite a successful and prolific career, Monet’s letters reveal that he suffered from depression, loneliness, and thoughts of suicide. It was during his time at Giverny, where he created his celebrated garden and painted the iconic water lilies series, that his humor, artistic insights, and joie de vivre are expressed.

“The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism” is based on the acclaimed exhibition The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and presented at the Florence Griswold Museum, in Connecticut, its final venue in 2016.

The Artist's Garden exhibition told the story of American Impressionist artists and the growing popularity of gardening as a middle-class leisure pursuit at the turn of the 20th century through paintings, sculpture, books, and stained glass. Among the artists whose works were included are: Cecilia Beaux, William Merritt Chase, Charles C. Curran, Maria Oakey Dewing, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Childe Hassam, Violet Oakley, Jane Peterson, Jessie Willcox Smith, and John H. Twachtman. Filmed in studios, gardens, and museums throughout the Eastern United States, the United Kingdom, and France, the film is designed as a feast for the eyes.

“Michelangelo: Love and Death” presents a comprehensive examination of the man—an undisputed genius of the Renaissance—who created some of the most widely recognized and admired icons of Western civilization including the David and the Sistine Chapel. Its release coincides with the exhibition at the National Gallery of London, Michelangelo and Sebastiano (March 15‒June 25, 2017).

Michelangelo’s extraordinarily broad and prolific artistic practice included painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, and poetry and each is examined. The film chronicles the artist’s turbulent times and relationships with contemporaries like Leonardo da Vinci and his patron Lorenzo de Medici. It explores how his keen powers of observation, psychological insights, ambition, and personal intensity informed his extraordinary body of work. 


 
 
 

2017-02-20

8492 - The biggest street art museum in the world to open at NDSM in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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The former welding hangar (locally known as Lasloods) covers the surface of more than 7.000 m2 and is twice the size of the famous Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London.
 
The city of Amsterdam is getting a new museum! The biggest street art museum in the world will open its doors at the NDSM docks (From Dutch: Netherlands Dock and Shipbuilding Company) situated on the north side of the river IJ, in the summer of 2018. With its impressive size and art collection the museum will put NDSM on the map as an international cultural destination.

The former welding hangar (locally known as Lasloods) covers the surface of more than 7.000 m2 and is twice the size of the famous Turbine Hall of Tate Modern in London. Curator Peter Ernst Coolen from Street Art Today is currently working on setting up the future museum together with his team. “Street art has been an inseparable part of urban life for years now. Critics consider street art one of the most significant art movements of the moment. Being made on the street, however, it is also the most perishable. The museum’s collection will not only capture an era but will present the best street art works and artists in one place making it accessible to a wide audience.

The collection was started in 2015 and now includes more than 100 works by leading street artists from all over the world, such as David Walker (UK), Cranio (BRA) and Hoxxoh (USA). All the artworks have been especially created for the museum and in format worth mentioning. "The smallest painting we show is larger than the “Night Watch”, and the largest piece so far is one by Telmo Miel. Their artwork is five meters wide and twelve meters high. These local by origin and now international street art superstars have created two works for our collection, and are now working on the third canvas. Just imagine the size of these canvases: the size of a building facade three to four floors high. Once the renovation is done, the artworks will be hanging side by side with old cranes in a monumental industrial hall 24 meters high. Mighty impressive. "

“In the meanwhile we have signed a long-term lease agreement and are now closely working with property developer Biesterbos on defining the plan for the renovation and remodeling. The authorization request was submitted in 2016 and as soon as we get the green light, the renovation and refurbishment of this monumental building will start. We are expecting to open our doors to the public in the summer of 2018.”

The world-famous Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra has recently painted a 24-meter high portrait of Anne Frank on the facade of the future museum. The striking and colorful artwork entitled "Let Me Be Myself” has been picked up by media and spread all over the world. Its message and the story of Anne Frank continue to be very relevant today. "Street artists are urged to reflect on the contemporary society. They have a story to tell and insights on social issues to share. These messages form the core of the museum collection. We cannot wait to show everybody the beautiful pieces. "
 
 
 
 

2017-02-17

8491 - Christie's announces new Los Angeles flagship

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To design its LA arts space, located on North Camden Drive near the corner of Wilshire Boulevard, Christie’s engaged wHY, the interdisciplinary design team known for collaborating with important local cultural clients. ©wHY.

In April 2017, Christie’s, the world’s leading art business, will open a new 5,400 square foot, two-story flagship location in Beverly Hills, California. This exciting move is in response to growing demand among Los Angeles-area collectors for greater access to buying and selling opportunities, fine art advisory and appraisal services, private selling exhibitions, auction highlight tours, and art-related estate and wealth management services. A team of highly-respected specialists working across Christie’s major collecting categories will call this new flagship home, supplementing the company’s long-standing San Francisco presence, and dramatically increasing the company’s influence on the West Coast.

Guillaume Cerutti, Chief Executive Officer: “The expansion of our West Coast footprint is a key growth initiative for Christie’s in 2017. With its vibrant community of major collectors, artists, tastemakers and cultural institutions, Southern California has been an important market for Christie’s for nearly four decades and is now one of our most active regions for new buyers. With this new flagship, we are opening our doors to even greater engagement with LA’s vibrant arts community and creating a dynamic convening space for both emerging and established collectors.”

Brook Hazelton, President, Americas, added: “Between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Christie’s now leads the auction market in depth and breadth of local expertise and advisory services on the West Coast. Engaging our clients with fine art and objects  from Post-War and Contemporary art, Impressionist and Modern art, and Asian art to jewelry, watches, wine and more  is at the heart of what we do. We look forward to introducing new audiences and collectors to all that Christie’s has to offer.”

To design its LA arts space, located on North Camden Drive near the corner of Wilshire Boulevard, Christie’s engaged wHY, the interdisciplinary design team known for collaborating with important local cultural clients, such as the Marciano Art Foundation, CalArts, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as top artists and collectors. wHY’s design for Christie’s wraps the two-story, street-level space with an undulating curtain of pearlescent white aluminum, creating an elegant and timeless exterior that speaks to the history and quality of the company’s 250-year old brand.

Inside the new space, wHY designed a grand yet flexible layout for Christie’s to host exhibitions, social events, educational programming, and live-streams of auctions taking place in Christie’s salerooms worldwide. The upstairs has been designed to include private meeting areas and offices where clients and specialists can discuss appraisals, advisory projects, or buying and selling opportunities. A 1,400 square-foot addition on the second level creates a unique open space with greenery that can double as programmable outdoor event space.

The LA project mirrors Christie’s recent expansions in mainland China, where the company has been steadily increasing access to online and saleroom collecting opportunities, arts engagement and educational partnerships. In the fall of 2016, Christie’s opened a new multi-functional art space in Beijing on prestigious Jinbao Street; in 2014 Christie’s relocated its Shanghai presence to the historic Ampire building. Together, mainland China and the West Coast region of the United States account for the largest influx of new buyers at Christie’s in recent years.


 
 

2017-02-16

8490 - New digital resource puts Sir John Soane's Museum at the fingertips - London

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Explore Soane involves a ‘fly-through’ of the Museum’s rooms.
 
Sir John Soane’s Museum, one of London’s most unusual museums, is now more accessible than ever before thanks to a new digital resource which allows people from around the world to visit the Museum from the comfort of their own home.

The Soane, in partnership with UK-based creative studio ScanLAB Projects, have used the latest in 3D scanning technology to create a perfect online digital replica of the Museum. Through a newly-launched website – explore.soane.org - visitors can now virtually discover key rooms from the Museum, and learn more about a number of objects from the collection.

Currently two rooms can be discovered in detail on Explore Soane: the Model Room, which houses Soane’s collection of architectural models of ancient and contemporary buildings; and the Sepulchral Chamber, the centrepiece of which is a 3,500 year old sarcophagus of Egyptian King Seti I. The latest web technologies have been used to allow users to interact with these rooms in 3D, selecting objects for a closer inspection – such as cork and plaster models of the Temple of Vesta in Italy – which can be explored from all angles in unprecedented levels of detail.

Explore Soane, funded by National Lottery players through the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), builds upon the ethos and values of the Museum’s founder, who wanted his house and collection to inspire creativity and curiosity. This is now possible without having to physically visit the Museum. Visitors to the site are encouraged to download the 3D Models and hi-res images of objects, for their personal use - whether for academic research or to create their own artworks.

Sir John Soane’s Museum was built by distinguished 19th century architect Sir John Soane, it was a home, library and museum in one – housing his collection of artworks, sculptures, furniture and artefacts. At his death in 1837, Soane left his house and collection to the British nation, stipulating that it should be kept open and free for the public’s inspiration and education, and preserved exactly as he had arranged it. Explore Soane continues this ambition in a powerful new way.

Bruce Boucher, Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum says: “Soane built his Museum to inspire, to be an engine for the advancement of the arts and architecture. Visitors would come and see objects from around the world that they would never have been able to see otherwise. Now, thanks to the latest technology, we can extend this ethos as never before and take the Museum out to the world. Anyone with a computer or mobile device, even thousands of miles away, can explore this magnificent building and its collection for themselves. Soane would be thrilled.”

Schools worldwide are encouraged to get involved with the Soane by using the specially created online resources, allowing teachers to transport their classrooms to the London Museum.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2017-02-15

8489 - Gallery 19C - Los Angeles announces sale of Cabanel masterpiece to the Musée d'Orsay

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Alexandre Cabanel's Le Paradis Perdu, (Paradise Lost) is now in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay


Gallery 19C, a Los Angeles based gallery specializing in 19th Century European Paintings, announced today the sale of LE PARADIS PERDU, (Paradise Lost), by Alexandre Cabanel, to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Eric Weider, founder of Gallery 19C, said, “We are deeply honored that Alexandre Cabanel’s masterpiece is returning to Paris where it will be on public display at the Musée d’Orsay. The great Academic painters like Cabanel deserve renewed attention and reevaluation and there is no better place in the world for this than at the Musée d'Orsay where the paintings of the 19th Century can be seen in full context.”

Alice Thomine-Berrada, Chief Curator at the Musée d'Orsay, commented, “This painting is unique and is one of Cabanel’s most dynamic compositions. Furthermore, it represents a very rare German State commission of a French painter in the 19th Century - an important statement!”

Paul Perrin, Curator of Paintings at the Musée d'Orsay, added, “Le Paradis Perdu is a true masterpiece and I am very excited we will present it in our galleries soon. It gives a better idea of Cabanel’s art and I am sure this image will become one the favorite Academic paintings of our visitors.”

Polly Sartori, Director of Gallery 19C, commented, “We are seeing a resurgence of interest in 19th Century European painting and specifically in the great Academics like Bouguereau, Gérôme, Cabanel, and Baudry. Being a new gallery with the mission to handle the very best examples of 19th Century European paintings, when almost everyone is focusing on Contemporary Art, the Musée d'Orsay's purchase is a positive statement in support of our mission."

LE PARADIS PERDU (Paradise Lost)
In 1867, Alexandre Cabanel sent five of his most acclaimed pictures and the massive Le Paradis Perdu (Paradise Lost) to the Exposition Universelle in Paris. This work, a new painting depicting the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, immediately earned Cabanel the highest awards and honors and solidified his place as France’s leading Academic painter of the Second Empire. Its destruction in Münich during World War II might have been one of art history’s greatest losses were it not for the numerous preparatory sketches and detailed versions that Cabanel had made. The present painting, one of Gallery 19C’s masterpieces of the advent of the Belle Epoque, is the closest to the original in size and composition and the only documented répétition of the subject in Cabanel’s expansive oeuvre.

Intended for King Maximilian II of Bavaria as part of a larger tableau of thirty decorative historical canvases for his Foundation “for the gifted,” or Maximilianeum, Paradis Perdu was to be the artist’s most important and largest commission for an institution outside of France. Cabanel had already, by the 1860s, undertaken many mural schemes, complex iconographic programs, and decorative cycles in public buildings and private residences and his prowess as a religious painter, in the tradition of the great Italian Renaissance masters, had been noted by no less influential a figure than the critic Théophile Gautier. “One can see,” wrote Gautier in 1852, “how he has eaten the bread of angels [Psalm 78: 25] and nourished himself on the marrow of lions,” (Théophile Gautier, “Beaux-Arts, Salon de 1852,” in La Presse littéraire, 16 May 1852).

The training Cabanel would have received as a young Academic painter was based, above all else, on copying canonical works by Old Master painters from the Renaissance onward and classical sculptors from the ancient world. Upon completion of hundreds of such copies, students at the Ècole were allowed to make studies from life, producing works that, ideally, combined artistic convention with originality and innovation. In Paradis Perdu, many of the compositional details are drawn from these earlier masters, and from Cabanel’s own, historically-inspired paintings, creating a uniquely self-reflexive catalogue of Renaissance and Academic figurative art. (The origins of this work, with its hierarchical arrangement of muscular figures, inspired use of chiaroscuro, and overtly narrative qualities lie with Raphael, Michelangelo, and Milton, whose Paradise Lost should, some critics believed, be read alongside Cabanel’s highly literary canvas.) Even here, however, Cabanel’s originality could not be suppressed: Rather than burdening Eve with the strictures of past religious paintings or rendering her with the dreamlike and idealized qualities of his own, earlier female protagonists, the artist infuses her instead with an element of the odalisque, bringing her effectively down to earth. The incongruity of this maneuver did not seem to trouble nineteenth-century viewers: An oil study for the figure of Eve – one of at least 35 such individual figure studies for this single composition – entered the collection of the fairly conservative Hercules Louis Dousman II of St. Louis, MO in December 1879, and her comportment as a whole had a clear influence on at least one of Cabanel’s illustrious students, Fernand Pelez (1843-1913), whose own Adam et Éve (Moulins, Musée départemental Anne de Beaujeu) was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1876.

In Cabanel’s version of the provocative subject, Eve lies prostrate under the Tree of Life, shielding her face with her arm and contorting her body in the shameful agony of her expulsion from Eden. Such melodramatic gestures were typical of Cabanel, whose explorations into the expressive potential of body language through nineteenth-century theater and opera may be traced directly from this picture to his most famous work, The Birth of Venus of 1863, an ostensibly vastly different painting in theme and tone. (It is perhaps no coincidence, given this trajectory, that both pictures feature the same languishing model.) Adam slouches by her side, glowering outward, his hunched shoulders and darkened visage indicating his own dejection and contrition. His slightly elevated position and disengagement with Eve's grasping hand suggest the discordance that has grown between them. To the left of this pair, God the Father and a pair of vengeful angels cascade down from the heavens, their energy reflected in the wing-like locks of hair swirling around their heads. The glistening sword of one of the angels, with its undulating blade, underscores the figures’ dynamism; it also echoes the sinuous lines of Eve and her naked body, adding emphasis to her carnal sin. The retreating Satan, seen in the lower left, seems almost an afterthought in Cabanel’s composition; clearly, it is Eve’s story that he feels must be told.

The multiple studies, sketches, and versions of Paradis Perdu that Cabanel created in his efforts to “master the human figure,” as he wrote to his brother, were considered as valuable as the finished works themselves. In 1867, the same year that Paradis Perdu was completed and exhibited, the esteemed art dealer Knoedler bought reductions of several of Cabanel’s Salon paintings for Israel Corse of New York, for an average of 10,000 francs each. (Cabanel’s main market during his lifetime, but particularly at the height of Pardis Perdu’s fame, consisted of American collectors, including William Astor, Jay Gould, William T. Walters, and William H. Vanderbilt.) Reductions also entered the US collections of Henry Gibson and John Wolfe, who were already the satisfied owners of versions of Cabanel's Birth of Venus, H. W. Derby, Mrs. A. E. Kidd, and J. H. Warrant. (Decades later, the Dahesh and Metropolitan Museums in New York would add Cabanel reductions to their gallery walls.) So popular were these works that contemporaries noted that they were often “purchased before they leave the easel, or, indeed, before they are half finished,” (Lucy Hooper, “Art in Paris,” Art Journal [New York], n.s. 2, no. 3 [1876]: 90). That the Gallery 19C version of Paradis Perdu was not purchased before its paint had dried is evidenced by an 1889 inventory of Cabanel’s possessions at the time of his death (it is listed as no. 29), and by a contemporary photograph of Cabanel in his famed Paris studio. The painting hangs behind the artist’s desk, its prominent location on the wall suggesting the importance it held for Cabanel, and his reluctance to let it go.

The technical vocabulary surrounding the Gallery 19C version of Paradis Perdu is critical to understanding its importance. Different than a sketch, study, or reduction intended for engraving or immediate purchase, the present work is a later, nearly identical, version of the original painting, magnificent in scale and finish. As Patricia Mainardi has written: “The correct term for an artist's later version of his own theme … was … répétition, the same [value-neutral] word used in performance for a rehearsal. In performance, we never assume that opening night is qualitatively better than later presentations – first performances are, in fact, usually weaker than subsequent ones, which gain in depth from greater experience and familiarity with the material,” (Patricia Mainardi, “The 19th-century art trade: copies, variations, replicas,” The Van Gogh Museum Journal 2000, pp. 63-4.). The present version of Paradis Perdu, then, the only such répétition recorded in the Cabanel literature, may be regarded not merely as an art historically valuable replica of a lost painting, but as a personal challenge by the artist to himself, to offer to the world what he believed to be his best performance yet.

This catalogue note was written by Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D.


 
 
 
 
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2017-02-14

8488 - TEFAF New York Spring announces exhibitors for its debut fair

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International art fair TEFAF New York Spring has announced the 92 internationally acclaimed exhibitors participating in its debut edition, with an emphasis on modern and contemporary art & design. The Fair will take place at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City from May 4-8, 2017, with the Opening VIP Preview on May 3, 2017. The Fair is an expansion of the TEFAF portfolio, adding a new platform for today’s collectors and museums within the context of the TEFAF organization.

In addition to modern and contemporary art & design, a small number of TEFAF New York Spring dealers will exhibit jewelry, African & Oceanic art, and antiquities. The inclusion of African & Oceanic works and classical antiquities will cement the coherent aesthetic that is popular among contemporary and modern collectors.

“TEFAF is committed to a unique standard of excellence in all aspects of the art fair experience, which has made it a beloved cultural event in Europe and most recently in New York this past October. We are excited to introduce a second Fair in New York, which will focus on 20th Century and contemporary works, but also maintains the distinctive TEFAF character,” said Patrick van Maris, CEO of TEFAF. “Modern and contemporary art have long enjoyed a presence at TEFAF Maastricht, and we are looking forward to celebrating this on a larger scale in the United States.”

“The United States is recognized for the sustained vibrancy of its art market and New York is considered the global capital at its heart,” commented Michael Plummer, Managing Director of TEFAF New York. “In addition, modern and contemporary art account for the two largest segments of art sales. This, combined with the Fair’s prime location on Park Avenue and TEFAF’s reputation for excellence, has given us and our exhibitors high expectations for success.”

The Fair’s dealers will showcase their objects in the Drill Hall and rooms along the first and second floors of the Armory. Dutch architect Tom Postma will transform the Armory for the Fair, adding new design elements that reflect the spring show’s special focus.

“It is tremendously exciting for dealers in the Modern and Contemporary sector to finally have a TEFAF-quality fair here in Manhattan,” said Christophe Van de Weghe, owner of Van de Weghe Fine Art. “We expect the Park Avenue Armory will be the central meeting place for serious collectors gathering for the week’s renowned art events, especially given the high caliber of exhibitors who will be showing this May.” 


 
 
 
 

2017-02-13

8487 - The Museum of the City of New York receives largest gift in its history - New York

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The Museum of the City of New York has received the largest gift in its 94-year history, a $10 million donation from The Thompson Family Foundation to the Museum’s endowment in support of educational activities related to New York at Its Core, the Museum’s groundbreaking permanent exhibition covering 400 years of New York City history.

New York at Its Core, which opened on November 18, 2016, is the first-ever museum exhibition to present the sweeping 400-year history of New York from a striving Dutch village to today’s “Capital of the World” – a preeminent global city facing the future in a changing world. Five years in the making and developed with an advisory group of 17 of the country’s leading scholars and historians, the exhibition has been recognized as a major intellectual and cultural achievement for the Museum. New York at Its Core is an unparalleled educational resource, allowing the Museum to offer one-of-a-kind programming for tens of thousands of parents, children, students, and educators from every neighborhood in New York City.

“With this generous donation from The Thompson Family Foundation, the Museum will be able to continue to celebrate and interpret the city and reinforce our commitment to keeping education at the heart of the Museum’s mission,” said James G. Dinan, the Museum’s Chair of the Board of Trustees. “I want to offer my gratitude to The Thompson Family Foundation for their belief in the Museum as well as all those who have helped make New York at Its Core a ‘must see’ attraction for New Yorkers, tourists, and visitors of all ages.”

“We want to thank The Thompson Family Foundation for this generous gift, which is a vote of support for the vision and hard work of our Board and our talented staff,” said Whitney Donhauser, Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum of the City of New York. “The tremendously successful opening of New York at Its Core has elevated the awareness of the Museum and reinforces the Museum’s role as an educational resource for the students, teachers, and parents of New York City.”

Alan Siegel, a director of The Thompson Family Foundation and Museum of the City of New York Trustee, said: “As young boys, Wade Thompson and I had a similar dream – being part of New York, our ‘City of Ambition’. Wade’s daughter Amanda Riegel, the President of the Foundation, the other members of the Thompson family, and I want our youth to know New York’s remarkable history, particularly the diversity of its people, so that they understand that in New York anything is possible. New York at Its Core is a fabulous tool to help achieve that goal.”


 
 

2017-02-10

8486 - London gallery helps solve museum's 160-year old mystery surrounding ancient Egyptian royal box

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Amenhotep II box and fragment.
 
Missing fragments of an ancient Egyptian treasure have been reunited with the rest of the remains – 160 years after the item was donated to a Scottish museum.
The move came as a result of work by noted London ancient art dealers Charles Ede, who held the fragments, and Egyptologist Tom Hardwick.

Reuniting the lost fragments with the rest of the highly decorated c.1400BC perfume box at the National Museums of Scotland has confirmed its suspected royal associations after more than a century of conjecture about its provenance.

It is thought to have been made for the granddaughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, who ruled from about 1427-1401 BC, during Egypt’s 18th dynasty.

Bearing the image of Bes, a creature believed to be both a symbol of good luck and help ward off evil spirits, the box is also said to bear a remarkable resemblance to those found in Tutankhamen’s tomb.

The museum’s ancient Egypt expert, Dr Margaret Maitland, believes the box is “one of the finest examples of decorative woodwork to survive from ancient Egypt”. A masterpiece of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship, the 8½in high box is constructed of cedar, ebony, ivory, copper alloy, faience and gold and is thought to have been buried with a group of ten princesses.

Such is its nature and quality that experts believe it is likely to have been used by the royal household on a daily basis.

After research by Dr Hardwick revealed the link last April, the gallery immediately contacted the museum, which was able to raise the £25,000 needed to purchase it with support from the Art Fund and the National Museums Scotland Charitable Trust.

It is thought that the box was excavated in 1857 from a tomb in modern Luxor where the mummies of Amenhotep II’s granddaughters were found.

In 1895, the surviving pieces of the box were reconstructed , with elements of its decoration being restored in the 1950s. The discovery of the additional fragments now shows that the earlier restoration was flawed and errors made.

The box will go on public display in March as part of an ancient Egypt exhibition.
 
 
 
 

2017-02-09

8485 - Gift adds more than 1,100 artworks to the Colby College Museum of Art's collection - Waterville, ME

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Ai Weiwei, Colored Vases, 2006-2008. Neolithic Vases (50003000BC), industrial paint, dimensions variable. Colby College Museum of Art, The Lunder Collection. © Christie’s Images Limited, 2016.

Colby College today announced that it has received another gift of more than $100 million from Peter and Paula Lunder in support of the Colby College Museum of Art. The gift will add nearly 1,150 artworks to the Museum’s collection and will launch the Lunder Institute for American Art, establishing Colby as the only liberal arts college with a world-class art museum and a global research center on American art. The gift of artworks and endowment of the Institute will make it possible for the Lunder Collection at the Colby Museum to speak to a global audience, to make Waterville, Maine a must-see arts destination, and to offer Colby students opportunities to interact with and analyze a remarkably broad and deep collection.

“The Lunders’ generosity has transformed Colby College and the arts landscape in Maine,” said Colby President David A. Greene. “Now, with this gift to significantly expand the collection and create the Lunder Institute, the Museum will become a global destination for artists, scholars, and visitors. Colby students and faculty already make use of the museum in innovative ways, and this development will expand their opportunities for research and scholarship in all disciplines. We are grateful for Peter and Paula Lunder for their tremendous commitment to Colby, the Colby Museum, and the people of Maine.”

The gift includes paintings, sculptures, photography, and works on paper, dating from a 1501 engraving by Albrecht Dürer to a 2014 aquatint by Julie Mehretu, by more than 150 artists, including Mary Cassatt, Jasper Johns, Nina Katchadourian, Jacob Lawrence, Maya Lin, Joan Mitchell, Claes Oldenburg, Betye Saar, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt Van Rijn, Ai Weiwei, Fred Wilson, and James McNeill Whistler. They join the hundreds of works previously promised and given in 2007 by Peter and Paula Lunder, longtime benefactors to the College and the Museum, and bring the total number of works given by Mr. and Mrs. Lunder to more than 1,500. The Institute will be dedicated to the practice, study, and exhibition of American art, and will transform Colby’s art collection and scholarly activities by bringing together artists, curators, scholars, and students through cross-disciplinary engagement.

“For many years, we have been inspired and impressed by Colby’s teaching mission and the many ways that the Museum is deeply integrated into the curriculum to become a vibrant part of College life,” said Peter and Paula Lunder. “We are delighted that our art collection will be shared with future Colby students, the Waterville community, and visitors to Maine, and we know that Colby College will do a marvelous job enhancing the collection with their academic programs—we feel that Colby is the perfect home for our collection.”

The Lunder Institute will be integrated into the academic mission of the College and the Museum’s program and is poised to become a preeminent research center for American art. The Institute will create a unique space for scholarship, creative works, dialogue, and mentorship among visiting scholars and artists, Colby faculty and students, and the central Maine community; facilitate institutional exchange in the United States and internationally; and train future leaders in the field of American art through the Colby Museum and partner institutions around the world.

“Colby is especially interested in bringing together innovative artists and scholars to reflect on the historical and cultural parameters of ‘American art’ as an evolving field of intellectual inquiry and creative practice,” said Sharon Corwin, the Carolyn Muzzy Director and Chief Curator of the Colby College Museum of Art. “This reflection comes at a moment when the field is calling for more expansive definitions of this term, urging the world to see beyond the borders of the United States and make transnational connections across materials and methodologies. The Lunders’ generosity will enable Colby to be at the forefront of this exciting moment in the field.”

To advance critical and creative research in American art and related fields, the Institute will host a residential program for scholars and artists on campus and in downtown Waterville. Summer and academic-year residencies, ranging from several weeks to a year, will be offered to graduate students, scholars, curators, and emerging and internationally renowned artists who could develop new site-specific works on campus and in the community. These fellows will be a strong part of the intellectual and creative life of the College, working directly with faculty, students, and community members, and inspiring a dialogue between art creation and scholarship. The Institute’s activities also will include an exhibition program, a robust publication program and the organization of major multi-disciplinary symposia.
 
 
 
 
 



2017-02-08

8484 - Nelson-Atkins to unveil renovated Bloch Galleries of European Art in winter 2017 - Kansas City, MO

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Edouard Manet, The Croquet Party, 1871. Oil on canvas, 18 x 28 3/4 in. Gift of Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch, 2015.13.11.
 
In March 2017, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will open the renovated Bloch Galleries in the museum’s original 1933 Beaux-Arts building, featuring the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, on view for the first time since 2007. Comprised of nearly 30 masterpieces acquired by the Bloch family over the course of two decades and gifted to the museum in 2010, the Bloch Collection nearly doubles the museum’s current holdings of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. In 2015, the Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation provided a $11.7-million gift to support renovation of the museum’s European art galleries to integrate the Bloch Collection into its existing collections and keep the work on permanent view.

“This transformational gift underscores the Bloch family’s enduring commitment to our museum, and ensures that this unrivaled collection is a resource for visitors from Kansas City and beyond,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell CEO & Director of the Nelson-Atkins. “We are deeply grateful to the Blochs for their unwavering support over the years, and we are pleased to integrate this Collection into state-of-the-art galleries and within the context of the museum’s European art collections.”

Next year will also mark the 10th anniversary of the Bloch Building, a 165,000-square-foot expansion designed by Steven Holl. The expansion allowed the museum to accommodate its growing permanent collection and increased attendance, which has continued to grow following the introduction of a free admission policy in 2002.

One of the leading encyclopedic museums in the country, the Nelson-Atkins is recognized for its European collections, which contain more than 1,100 works of art ranging from the medieval period to the late 19th century, including works by Caravaggio, Rembrandt, El Greco, and one of only 25 authenticated paintings by Hieronymus Bosch in the world. The Bloch Collection diversifies and deepens the Nelson-Atkins’ Impressionist and Post-Impressionist holdings, which include masterpieces by Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne.

With the renovation and reinstallation of the galleries, the Bloch Collection will be incorporated into the museum’s permanent collection of European art, a project supported by consultations with Philippe de Montebello, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Marc F. Wilson, Director Emeritus of the Nelson-Atkins, who worked with the Bloch family over the years to help them build their collection.

The Bloch Collection made its public debut during the 2007 opening of the Bloch Building and was gifted to the museum in 2010 in celebration of the Nelson-Atkins’ 75th Anniversary. The Collection features works by the great masters of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, including significant works by Claude Monet, Gustave Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro, Eugène Boudin and Alfred Sisley. There is a particularly strong representation of Impressionist portraits by Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Berthe Morisot. The movement’s stylistic evolution can be seen in works by George Seurat and Paul Signac. Highlights include Édouard Manet’s The Croquet Party, Vincent van Gogh’s Restaurant Rispal at Asnières, Paul Gauguin’s The Willow Tree, and Paul Cézanne’s Man with a Pipe.

“Building this collection with Marion and the daily inspiration it provided in our home greatly enriched our lives,” said Henry Bloch. “I look forward to these works going on view at the Museum 10 years after their last exhibition, and I am especially pleased to share our collection with the city.”

The renovation of the Bloch Galleries, designed by Kansas City-based BNIM Architects, will transform 9,000 square feet of the original 1933 Nelson-Atkins Building. The expanded galleries will add more than 120 feet of wall space, and create an open viewing experience with sightlines encouraging viewers to make connections among works. The installation will present themes within the general chronology, and help to align the chronology of the building, presenting a fuller story of Western art. The galleries will feature state-of-the-art technology, including tunable lighting that can simulate the environments for which the works were originally created.

Curators and conservators at the Nelson-Atkins have already begun to conduct studies of works in the Bloch Collection to further the scholarly knowledge around these masterpieces of French painting. Their findings will enhance understanding of the works, both for display and for the French painting collection catalogue.