ART BLOG
Blog Archives February 2010 |Blog Archives January 2010 |Blog Archives December 09 | Blog Archives November 09 | Blog Archives October 09 | Blog Archives September 09 | Blog Archives August 09 | Blog Archives July 09 | Blog Archives June09 | Blog Archives May 09 | Blog Archives April 09 | Blog Archives March 09 | Blog Archives Feb 09 | Blog Archives Jan 09
Join us on facebook @ Artlanow LA-now
ARTICLES FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH 2010
Lucien Freud (88y/o) at the Centre Pompidou
An exhibition paying tribute to one of the greatest living painters, Lucien Freud, opens today (March 10) at The Centre Pompidou in Paris. Now 88 years old, Freud has not shown in France since the major retrospective of his work nearly a quarter of a century ago, in 1987, at the Pompidou. His reputation has since grown and his place in the history of art as a ‘master’ is almost certainly assured.
The exhibition will present some fifty large-format paintings, mostly from private collections, together with a number of prints and drawings, as well as photographs of the artist’s London studio all organized around the theme of the artist’s studio, a theme which is essential to Freud’s paintings and to his practice as a painter.
Lucian Freud’s work is distinguished by his minute, obsessive treatment of portraits and nudes, based on an absolute commitment to the craft of painting: The artist has often said that he wants his “paint to work as flesh.” He treats his studio like a laboratory, where he observes and studies his models. His canvases include only what it to be seen within the studio: the same furniture, the sagging sofa, the old armchair, the dilapidated couch, the potted plant, the iron bedstead, the hand-basin and the paint-spattered walls recur in many of his works. Even the few landscapes Freud has painted are painted from his studio window. (The artist has changed studio locations 3-4 times during his career and these different studios throughout the London area can be discerned chronologically in his works.)
The exhibition runs until July 19, 2010 so if you’re in Paris this summer…..
Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995) Lucien Freud
The changing role of the museum
The concept of the art museum has changed over the last 40 years. The words “museum” and “modern” are no longer incompatible. The traditional process of building a museum collection was for one generation to select the best artworks of the preceding generation and then conserve them in the museums for the benefit of succeeding generations. In the context of the museum it was widely admitted that collecting art less than 30-40 years old would reflect fads rather than convey historical significance.
The times have changed. Nowadays art museums purchase avant-garde art while it is still being shown and sold by dealers along the street. In doing so, it is the museums that provide artists with instant legitimacy. Instead of serving as a recorder of history, museums are fabricating a distortion of history; creating reputations by giving a stamp of approval to works that have not stood the traditional test of time. In part they are motivated by financial concerns -why wait and pay lots of money for established artists if you can buy now cheaper and establish the artist through the purchase? It’s a win-win situation for the museums but in the long term what will future generations think about the art we leave them? Perhaps the purchase by the Guggenheim of work by painter Alison Fox best illustrates the extremes to which museums have gone down this new track. The Guggenheim bought the piece while Ms. Fox was still a student at Hunter College in New York following a recommendation by art collector, promoter and marketing expert Charles Saatchi who had bought some of her works for his own collection.
4 Corners –A. Fox
Robert De Niro Sr. –Honored by Son
Yesterday March 8, actor Robert De Niro was at The Matisse Museum in Nice, France honoring his father who has work on display there. The museum has set up an exhibition of painter Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922-1993), as part of its ongoing program to increase awareness of the works of 20th century master Henri Matisse.
The paintings and drawings of Robert De Niro, Sr. in the exhibition are similar in compositional style and harmony of colors to those of Matisse and demonstrate the same graphic techniques. De Niro was influenced by many of the great European painters but focused his own work on the figurative, a more sensitive representation of the world. He lived and worked in France from 1961 to 1964 and later detached himself from abstract expressionism and the New York school. This exhibition begins with the presentation of photographs of Robert De Niro, Sr. in his New York studio. Figurative paintings are organized according to thematic characteristics of the art of Matisse, such as female models, interiors, still lifes, landscapes, ending with a series of black and white drawings with “stumping” –which was a technique used extensively by Matisse.
Robert De Niro speaks about his father & his artwork
It’s far colder in Manchester, UK, than in Sydney, Australia
After more than 5000 Aussies turned out last week in their birthday suits for Spencer Tunick’s photo shoot at Sidney’s Opera House, the artist is now planning a similar nude fest to celebrate the 10th anniversary of a gallery in Greater Manchester in the UK. The Lowry Gallery in Salford has commissioned Tunick to create a piece of work in May 2010 and the artist is calling for 1000 volunteers to participate.
The volunteers will be transported by heated buses to 8 locations throughout Salford and Manchester during the weekend of May 1-2 and will pose naked as Tunick creates his multiple site art installation. There’ll be a lot of prayers for warm weather that weekend!!!
The work will be shown at The Lowry from June to September as part of its exhibition, “Everyday People.”
Tunick wants to capture the movement of everyday people in each photograph, reflecting the work of Salford artist LS Lowry whose paintings depict everyday lives of people working in the industrial world of 20th century U.K.
The Lowry's curator of special exhibitions, Ms. Farrell has put out a call urging people to take the opportunity to feature in an international artwork and become part of the global family of Tunick nude participants.
It can snow in May in North U.K.
Street art is coming off the streets & into Galleries
Over the past few years quite a few long-standing art galleries have gone out of business. Among the new ones that have sprung up it is interesting how many of them are dealing with what has been variously labeled as Lowbrow, Pop Surrealism or Pop Pluralism art. Street art, graffiti, skateboarding and tattoo art have been transposed from their original surface to the canvas to be commercialized as the new fine art genre. This art is visually direct, devoid of cerebral conceptualism and abstract expressionism. It is the art of the young and rebellious that has found its way from the fringe, from the poorest of neighborhoods into some of the chicest of galleries. Spray paint is replacing acrylics as the new medium. In New York, London, Paris and in L.A. mainstream art galleries are seeing the financial rewards in embracing what essentially began as free public art.
Many of the spray paint artists are mostly in their 20’s & 30s. They have been academically schooled in fine art but their inspiration comes from punk rock and hip-hop, comic books, cartoons and tattoos. Their work is typically figurative and often narrative, in a populist, accessible vein. Following on from 60’s & 70’s Pop Art, the culture of these young artists is the pop culture of now.
The art establishment was slow to warm to these artists and vice-versa. These artists preferred to create their own art scene by illegally postering and painting city walls or put their work in hip, funky spaces like Psychedelic Solution, a storefront gallery on West 8th Street in Greenwich Village, NY and La Luz de Jesus, a gallery above a pop merchandise shop on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.
But over the past few years the genre has gradually found acceptance in the art world. Even influential dealers like Jeffrey Deitch, recently named director at the MOCA began representing some of the artists, and institutions from the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney to Fondation Cartier in Paris now show their work.
Despite such successes, though, most of the artists still tend to speak in anti-elitist terms about their work and denigrate the commercial aspects of gallery representation. They are, of course, not unlike the proponents of every wave of new art that has come before theirs. History shows us that as soon as the latest thing becomes accepted into mainstream, the new next new thing is already emerging somewhere…..
What’s happening at LAAA
Los Angeles Art Association (LAAA) at 825 N. La Cienega Blvd is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization committed to championing creativity and innovation by supporting, nurturing and developing emerging artists. The LAAA presents exhibitions and promotional events for its members, offers art classes and workshops and many more activities.
Membership screenings are held twice a year, at the beginning and middle of each calendar year. (Screening Dates are generally posted 3 months prior to screening.) Get all the info their website: http://www.laaa.org
On the 3rd Tuesday of every month (this month it should be on March 16 –but check with them) they have what are called “Artist Hash Sessions” –discussions about issues that pertain to artists’ careers, the process of marketing, and networking with other artists. The sessions are moderated by LAAA Member James Thegestrom and are open to all.
According to the moderator, his goal is to guide the Artist Hash Sessions so that, within the context of the topic, an environment exists in which participants will be asking and answering questions about their art. The discussions will serve as the catalyst for insight and development of artistic process and practices. The sessions are conducted in a friendly, fun, encouraging and relevant manner. All are welcome to attend.
A New van Gogh on Display
25 years ago, a Dutch art curator and collector died claiming that in his collection was unknown work by one of the greatest modern painters. Poor old Dirk Hannema was considered a good art curator but a bit of a fool. He often claimed he had seven Vermeers in his collection, a few Rembrandts and even more work by the guy who did this painting here - but no one believed him.
A quarter of a century after his demise it turns out he was right – at least about one work, by Vincent van Gogh. “Le Blute-Fin Mill,” painted in Paris in 1886, is currently on display in the Museum de Fundatie in the central Dutch town of Zwolle. The painting, depicting a group of figures descending wooden stairs in the Montmartre district with a windmill in the background, is unusual for van Gogh. The canvas bears the stamp of an art store he frequented, and testing shows pigments common in other of his works works.
It is the first Van Gogh to be authenticated since 1995 and the sixth to be added to the confirmed list of the artist's paintings (of about 900) since the latest edition of the standard catalogue was published in 1970.
Hannema, who died in 1984, bought the painting in 1975 from a dealer in Paris. He paid 5,000 guilders for this and another work and proclaimed it, with "absolute certainty," as a Van Gogh. Unfortunately for him, he had already been involved in a scandal about a fake Vermeer, so nobody listened.
“Le Blute-Fin Mill”
New Extension at Gagosian, Beverly Hills is Open for Business
The Gagosian Gallery, on Camden Drive, Beverly Hills opened this week its new 5,000 ft expansion designed by architect Richard Meier. Gagosian has a network of gallery exhibition spaces stretching from L.A to New York, to London, Athens, Rome and across to Hong Kong and is known at the number one dealer world-wide.
The new construction brings the total space to 11,600 sq. ft. of which 3,000 square feet will be used for exhibitions at street level. The addition also includes a rooftop terrace that the gallery says it plans to use for outdoor installations.
The inaugural exhibition in the new space is a show of work by photographer Andreas Gursky, whose 99 Cent II Diptychon, 2001, holds the record for the most expensive photograph ever sold. It went under the hammer at Sotheby’s London in Feb. 2007 for $3.3 million.
Owner Larry Gagosian has weathered the recent recession well, surprising many observers by investing in new galleries even as the art market declined. Last year he opened a gallery in Athens, Greece adding to an already impressive empire that dominates the dealer market. The flamboyant and very rich Mr. Gagosian began his career in art back in the 1970’s selling posters to UCLA students.
Two Oscars that will not be in the Ceremony
So what is the deal with the two grotesque-looking, man-sized Oscar statues that showed up in Hollywood on Thursday?
One was left on the highest peak of Runyon Canyon, chained to the ground near the famed Hollywood sign with a plaque reading “Beauty is one snip away.” The second was set up in the parking lot of Mel's Drive-In diner, near the corner of Hollywood and Highland -- where the Oscars will be held in a few days. At this location the statue was accompanied by a plaque reading “Beauty is skin deep.”
The 6’7’’ statues, made of painted resin, are the work of a U.K.-based artist who goes by the name D*Face according to a person with connections to the artist, who didn't want to be identified for fear of getting in trouble. Until now, apart from the plaques, the artist has made no statement about his latest endeavors.
D*Face aka. Dean Stockton grew up in London is a well known graffiti artist who had a major solo exhibition in his home city in 2006 that sold out. Subsequent shows have been equally successful allowing him to continue with his passion for street art.
An Exhibition of Celebrity Mug-shots
Whether we indulge or not, the glamorous lives of movie celebrities permeate into everything that happens here in Los Angeles. However, a new exhibition which opened this week at ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, and continues until April 28, shows the stars in a completely different, far from glamorous light. Rachel Schmeidler, a local artist, has created silk screen type images combined with digital imaging technology, based on police mug shots of celebrities who have fallen foul of the law. These very unflattering images jar with the air-brushed, made-up and professional coiffed headshots we are usually fed of movie stars. In the exhibition titled "Hollywood Most Wanted + Co. some of the past few decade's most famous mug-shots are shown with contextual artistic quotation marks.
Among the 70 or so faces on view will be those of James Brown, Paris Hilton, Charlie Sheen, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix.
Included in the exhibition are similar images of Communist figureheads such as Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin accompanied by sub text of the “red scare” genre.
In a statement, the artist said, “Even recently political pundits cast shadows on candidates and incumbents by labeling their policies and beliefs ‘communist’ or ‘socialist.’ I wanted to bring these exchanges to light in a humorous way by placing communist celebrities here alongside Hollywood celebrities and musicians. We are all ultimately the same before the flash of the mug shot bulb."
Schmeidler has already shown similar work at other venues around Los Angeles. Other well known celebs that she has rendered in mugshot fashion include Jane Fonda, Al Pacino, Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Nick Nolte and Mel Gibson.
Charlie on a bad day
Gay Art In Washington, DC
A fund raising event was launched this week to help cover the costs of the first ever federal-backed gay art exhibition, “Hide-Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture”, which will be held in October, 2010 at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. The show, which explores the role of gay and lesbian artists in portraying modern America, will include over 150 works, with important loans from Europe. Already $500,000 has been raised towards the $900,000 cost of the show. The purpose of the exhibition is to re-orientate our ideas of modernism as seen through the lens of sexual orientation. If the financial target is not reached by October, the Smithsonian has offered to extend a loan until the sum is reached.
DNA analysis might solve the biggest art heist in US history.
Back in 1990 enterprising thieves, who dressed as policemen, took 13 pictures from the Gardner Museum in Boston. The Gardner Museum, built in the style of an Italian palace, was funded by Isabella Stewart Gardner to house her art collection. It was, and remains, the biggest art heist in US history. Three Rembrandts, a Manet, a Degas and a Vermeer were among the stolen works whose total estimated value is $250 million to $300 million. Since the robbery a $5 million reward has remained unclaimed despite encouragement by federal prosecutors who have said they will not bring charges against anyone who surrenders the artworks.
Today (March 4), a spokeswoman for the FBI's Boston office told the press that the agent, now in charge of the investigation, has sent DNA evidence from the crime scene (including DNA from the duct tape used to tie up the watchmen) to the FBI lab in Virginia to be analyzed under new techniques.
For the past 20 years the crooks have been sitting on their loot. "They can't sell it. It's too hot," says a FBI spokesman. I guess the thieves thought that in time the heat would die down and they could put the works on the market without anybody noticing. They are going to wait a long, long time….. Somebody, somewhere has a great collection of art –and can’t tell anyone about it!
The Vanishing Van Gogh
In 1990 Vincent van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” was auctioned off in a quick fire bidding session to a Japanese industrialist for $82.5 million setting a new record at the time. The buyer spent a few hours with his purchase and then locked it in a top secret climate-controlled vault in Tokyo where it stayed unseen for 7 years. At one moment he even declared to the art world his intention of having the artwork cremated and buried with him upon his death. Much mystery has surrounded the painting over the past few years…
While the painting rested in its hiding place Mr. Saito, the buyer, struggled financially and otherwise. In 1993, he was charged with trying to bribe officials to allow the development of a golf course, which, ironically, was to be named Vincent. By then, confined to a wheelchair bound and financially broke, Saito pleaded guilty and received a three-year suspended sentence. After his death in 1996 it wasn't clear who owned the painting or even where it was located. Disputes arose between Saito's heirs, company shareholders and his creditors. While representatives of Saito's company assured the art world that it was still around, a veil of secrecy shrouded all future transactions. “Gachet” seemed to vanish into the murky waters of the international art market. Rumors abound, some saying that the piece found its way through secretive auction house channels to a private collection. In 2007 reports surfaced that it was in the hands of an investment fund manager –who in turn had been forced to sell it when the markets turned.
If you have it, please let us now.
Van Gogh did two versions of Dr Gachet, by the way. The second hangs in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.
Public Viewing of Michael Crichton’s Art Collection in L.A.
Christie’s auction house announced the sale of works from the collection of the late Michael Crichton, who died in Los Angeles November 2008, at the Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on May 11 in New York. Michael Crichton, who had a medical degree from Harvard, became a best-selling author, screenwriter, film director and producer and was also acknowledged as a leading authority on the American artist Jasper Johns.
Christie’s will unveil many of the major works from the Crichton collection at their Los Angeles Galleries with a public exhibition from Friday March 5 to Friday March 12. On public view for the first time ever together, will be works by Andreas Gursky, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Claes Oldenburg, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Mark Tansey, Wayne Thiebaud, and Andy Warhol.
Christie’s spokesperson lauded Mr. Crichton as being of “the rarest breed of collector: a Renaissance man in every sense, whose passion for art was fueled by his search for answers to the basic tenets of art. He continually challenged his own understanding of an artist or work of art, becoming intimate friends with artists and responded as a creative equal to their own searches and challenges.”
In over 30 years Crichton assembled an amazing range of some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. His collection of works by Jasper Johns (b.1930) is the most significant and complete to ever come to the market and contains examples that span the artist’s entire career. The top highlight of the collection is probably Jasper Johns’ Flag, (1960-66), a painstakingly beautiful rendition of the American flag in encaustic that has never before been on the public market. It was acquired by Michael Crichton directly from the artist’s own collection, and was last seen in public 18 years ago as part of a major Pop Art survey organized originally by the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Get more info by phoning Christie’s Los Angles salesroom in Beverly Hills: Tel 310 385 2678
If any of you are interested in an internship (for minimum pay) at their Los Angeles branch, take a look at: www.christies.com/about/careers/internships_losangeles.aspx Check with them if the announcement is up to date.
Jasper John –American Flag
3D Photo/Sculptures
Art is about innovation. It forces the spectator to view the world in new ways and in doing so stretches our very understanding of what art is. Some contemporary artists create in completely new methods with unexpected materials, constantly pushing the boundaries of our perception. The results can be spectacular; - which is exactly the word to describe the ‘sculptures’ of Korean artist Osang Gwon.
Gwon’s sculptures aren’t cut from stone, chiseled from marble or cast in metal or clay. They are made up of hundreds of photographs overlaid on a light core. He takes 2D photographs – and fuses them into three-dimensional art form – sculpture – to create an entirely new type of art.
The artist was motivated to begin his work because he felt that traditional sculpting material were simply too heavy. He wanted to create sculptures that could be moved by him and one friend. The desire for a more mobile sculpture, coupled with his dual love of sculpture and photography, brought about his unusual artwork.
Creating these life-size replicas is complicated and can take two months to complete a sculpture. Gwon starts by shooting thousands of photographs of his subject from every imaginable angle. He then sculpts a life-size core out of lightweight foam and begins the laborious process of attaching the photographs; finally coating the entire sculpture. The result is reminiscent of the distortion of a cubist painting, but with much more depth and character. He has named his innovative sculptural style “Deodorant Style.” (One can only wonder why?)
Photo-covered foam isn’t the only medium Osang Gwon is using. One of his installations was created using images cut out from magazines, held vertically with wire to make sculptures. He arranged these individual sculptures into larger sculptures of grouped objects then took photographs of the resulting display. This particular exhibit has led to controversy for the artist, because while the artist defines his work as sculpture, many viewers refuse to accept it as anything other than photography.
Photographic sculpture or sculptural photography
Installation Art at Sydney’s Opera House
An art installation event, dubbed The Base, commissioned by the city of Sydney, Australia, as part of the city's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival attracted 5,200 volunteers today (March 1.)
Early today, in front of Sydney’s Opera House, the volunteers stripped naked to participate in U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick's latest art-photo shoot. Folks of all ages, backgrounds, shapes and sizes posed for Tunick, who has made a name for himself shooting nudes in public places.
People began queuing before dawn to participate in the U.S. artist-photographer's installation, which included a series of images shot outside as well as inside the iconic Australian landmark.
"Part of the project was to get the straight participants to embrace the gay participants and vice versa, so I was very happy when everyone came together [in a] united, friendly kiss, a loving kiss in front of this great structure," said Tunick after the shoot.
The Sydney installation, which was expected to draw just 2,500 volunteers, ultimately surpassed the 4,500 that turned up for Tunick's 2001 shoot in Melbourne.
Spencer Tunick has also photographed his installations in Mexico City, Montreal, New York and Switzerland.
Naked Art in Sydney
“American Stories at LACMA”
A new exhibition started over this past weekend at the LACMA: "American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life", 1765–1915. This is a major exhibition, highlighting the variety and strength of American artistic achievement from the colonial era through the period leading to World War I and features over seventy works, including loans from leading museums and private collections, as well as key works from LACMA’s collection. The exhibition’s only West Coast showing—will be on view in the museum’s Art of the Americas building from February 28 through May 23, 2010.
Spending on Arts & Crafts Supplies
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times today (March 1) U.S. Consumers spent $27.3 billion for arts and crafts supplies in 2008. We hope that the amount spent for the final products were equally impressive.
JURIED COMPETITIONS & EVENTS: DEADLINES MARCH 2010
The Wayne Art Center in Wayne, Pennsylvania has a call out to artists for its 4th Annual Plein Air Festival, May 22 through July 2. Awards: $4000+. Juror: William Scott Jennings. The exhibition in open to all painting mediums including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and pastel painted during the festival in the ‘plein air’ method. Entry Fee: $40 email/ $50 CD. Visit website for prospectus, or send a SASE to: 413 Maplewood Ave., Wayne, PA 19087. Questions? Contact Patti Hallowell at augustehallowell@mac.com or call 610-329-1834.DEADLINE: MARCH5, 2010
12 12 Gallery in Richmond, Virginia seeks entries for a photography exhibition, April 2 - June 20, 2010. Up to $1000 (US) Cash Prizes. Juror: Margaret Salisbury, is a Fellow of The Royal Photographic Society, Bath England. Women photographers age 18+, working in any photographic process, may submit up to 3 images for $25. Additional images are $5 each for a total of 5 works. Work previously exhibited at 12 12 Gallery is not eligible. Only 2-D work is eligible and must be limited to a maximum framed size of 24” wide. Info on their website or send a SASE to: 12 12 Gallery, 12 E. 12th Street, Richmond, VA 23224. Questions? Contact Martin McFadden at wijpe2010@gmail.com or Tel: 804.233.9957. DEADLINE: MARCH 5, 2010
|
||||||||||||||||