2017-01-31

12478 - 20170416 - Exhibition of 52 bronzes by sculptor Auguste Rodin at the Portland Art Museum - Portland, ORE - 21.01.2017-18.06.2017

.
 
The selected bronzes in the show represent the major achievements of Rodin’s long career.
 
The Portland Art Museum is presenting Rodin: The Human Experience—Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collections, an exhibition of 52 bronzes by the groundbreaking French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The exhibition, which opened January 21, 2017, is being staged in Portland to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the artist’s death.One of the greatest artists of his time, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) revolutionized the art of sculpture. While his works always remained faithful to nature, he departed from traditional practice in seeking to reveal the creative process. This exhibition of stunning bronzes demonstrates Rodin’s particular passion for modeling the human form in clay, the medium in which his hand and mind are most directly evidenced.

The selected bronzes in the show represent the major achievements of Rodin’s long career. They include powerful studies for The Burghers of Calais, as well as works derived from his masterpiece, The Gates of Hell. Others, such as The Night (Double Figure), demonstrate his experimentation with assemblage. Rodin: The Human Experience also features sculptures, such as Monumental Torso of the Walking Man, which demonstrate Rodin’s admiration for Michelangelo, and Dance Movement D, which speaks to his interest in understanding how the body moved.

The exhibition is especially rich in portraiture. Included are Rodin’s famous depictions of the writers Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac; the composer Gustav Mahler; the artist Claude Lorraine; one of his favorite dancers, Hanako; and his portrayal of The Hand of God, which is likely a self-portrait.

Rodin’s ability to use bronze to represent living flesh and his interest in expressing extreme psychological states were highly influential upon younger artists, both in Europe and America. Rodin: The Human Experience reveals why the artist is considered the crucial link between traditional and modern sculpture.

The Museum will present a variety of public programs and tours in conjunction with the exhibition, including an opening lecture by exhibition curator Judith Sobol, Executive Director of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation.
 
 
 
 

2017-01-30

12477 - 20170319 - Harvard's Fruitlands Museum celebrates the National Park Service with photographs by Xiomaro - Havard, MASS - 02.09.2016-19.03.2017

.

Xiomaro, Longfellow Entry Hall.
 
Having turned 100 years old, the National Park Service inaugurates its second century with a fine art photographic exhibit at Harvard’s Fruitlands Museum titled “Find Your Park: National Parks in New England,” which includes several large-scale photographs by New York artist Xiomaro. The group display is open through March 19, 2017.

Xiomaro (pronounced “SEE-oh-MAH-ro”) is an internationally-recognized artist, writer and speaker whose photography has been covered by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, CBS Eyewitness News and The Huffington Post. His photography has been widely exhibited at Harvard University, Long Island Museum, Fraunces Tavern Museum, African Burial Ground National Monument, Siena Art Institute (Italy) and by members of Congress. Xio’s commissions for the National Park Service include the New England National Scenic Trail in Massachusetts as well as the Brookline home and office of Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Boston’s Emerald Necklace.

The exhibit, guest curated by Rebecca Migdal, was developed in partnership with Freedom's Way National Heritage Area and with additional support from Artscope Magazine. To showcase the beauty of New England and the important work being done to preserve and promote the national parks, Migdal selected four super-sized photographs by Xiomaro. The images, on public display for the first time, are hung from the ceiling so that visitors can “walk through” the parks to explore their cultural, historical and natural wonders.

Two images Xio created under a commission from Boston Harbor Islands National Recreational Area show the range of historical and scenic diversity that can be encountered. One photograph depicts a dramatically forlorn Civil War hospital on the prison grounds of Fort Warren on Georges Island – its most famous captive being the Confederate Vice President. Another is an inviting seaside view lined with colorful Adirondack chairs against the backdrop of a newly restored World War II army chapel on Peddocks Island.

Xio’s commission for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's house, a national historic site in Cambridge, produced a pensive view of the entry hall where the world-renowned poet and abolitionist greeted dignitaries of his day. Another commissioned photograph shows J. Alden Weir’s painting studio where he created works that are now at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and other world-class museums. His homestead became Weir Farm National Historic Site, Connecticut’s first national park unit and the only one in the country dedicated to American Impressionist painting. It is also where Xio began his career as an Artist-in-Residence and continues as a Visiting Artist.

The National Park Service (NPS) officially turned 100 on August 25, 2016 and, with this exhibit, is looking ahead to the next century of stewardship and opportunities for public engagement. The NPS covers more than 84 million acres and includes 410 sites. Fruitlands Museum, founded in 1914 by Clara Endicott Sears, takes its name from an experimental utopian community established on the site in 1843. In addition to the exhibit, the art museum includes a collection of over 100 Hudson River School landscape paintings by artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Church.
 
 
 
 

2017-01-27

12476 - 20170430 - SFMOMA presents "diane arbus: in the beginning" in the new Pritzker Center for Photography - San Fransisco, CA - 21.01.2017-30.04.2017

.

Diane Arbus, Girl with a pointy hood and white schoolbag at the curb, N.Y.C. 1957; courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York / copyright © The Estate of Diane Arbus, LLC. All rights reserved.
 
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents the West Coast debut of the acclaimed exhibition diane arbus: in the beginning, on view January 21 through April 30, 2017. Organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, diane arbus: in the beginning considers the first seven years of the photographer’s career, from 1956 to 1962. Bringing together over 100 photographs from this formative period, many on display for the first time, the exhibition offers fresh insights into the distinctive vision of this iconic American photographer. The exhibition is on view in the museum’s new Pritzker Center for Photography, made possible by the Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund. SFMOMA is the only American venue other than The Metropolitan Museum of Art to present this exhibition.  
A lifelong New Yorker, Diane Arbus (1923–1971) found the city and its citizens an endlessly rich subject for her art. Working in Times Square, the Lower East Side and Coney Island, she made some of the most powerful portraits of the 20th century, training her lens on the pedestrians and performers she encountered there. This exhibition highlights her early and enduring interest in the subject matter that would come to define her as an artist. It also reveals the artist’s evolution from a 35mm format to the now instantly recognizable and widely imitated look of the square format she adopted in 1962.

Although this period was exceptionally fruitful—nearly half the photographs that Arbus printed during her lifetime were produced during these years—the work has remained little known. It was only after her death that much of it was brought to light. The exhibition includes many lesser-known published works, including Lady on a bus, N.Y.C. 1957; Boy stepping off the curb, N.Y.C. 1957–58; The Backwards Man in his hotel room, N.Y.C. 1961; and Jack Dracula at a bar, New London, Conn. 1961. It also highlights previously unknown additions to her body of work, including Taxicab driver at the wheel with two passengers, N.Y.C. 1956; Woman with white gloves and a pocket book, N.Y.C. 1956; and Man in hat, trunks, socks and shoes, Coney Island, N.Y. 1960.

The majority of the photographs included in the exhibition are part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s vast Diane Arbus Archive, acquired in 2007 by gift and promised gift from the artist’s daughters, Doon Arbus and Amy Arbus.

The exhibition has been complemented by a gallery featuring works by artists Arbus admired as well as by her contemporaries in New York including Walker Evans, Louis Faurer, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, William Klein, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, August Sander, Weegee and Garry Winogrand, all drawn from SFMOMA’s photography collection.

diane arbus: in the beginning builds on SFMOMA’s longstanding commitment to the artist, including the groundbreaking exhibition Diane Arbus Revelations, presented in San Francisco from October 2003 through February 2004. Co-organized by guest curator Elisabeth Sussman and Sandra S. Phillips, curator emerita of photography at SFMOMA, Diane Arbus Revelations brought together approximately 200 of the artist’s most significant photographs—making it the most complete presentation of her work ever assembled. The exhibition traveled to six additional venues in the United States and Europe.

“We’re so pleased to bring Arbus’s work back to the Bay Area,” said Corey Keller, curator of photography at SFMOMA. “Arbus made some of the most potent photographs of the 20th century, and this exhibition provides a unique opportunity to consider the origins of her vision and to explore a tremendously rich but largely unfamiliar body of early work.”

SFMOMA has been collecting and exhibiting photography since its founding in 1935 and was one of the first American art museums to do so. An independent department was established under the direction of Van Deren Coke in 1980. Under the leadership of Sandra S. Phillips, who joined SFMOMA in 1987 and now serves as curator emerita of photography, the collection has grown exponentially in size and quality, and the program, based on a philosophy of collecting and interpreting the photographic medium in all its richness and complexity, has earned an international reputation. Clément Chéroux will join the department as senior curator of photography in early 2017.

Today the photography collection numbers more than 17,000 objects, and is the largest collection at the museum. Its strengths include outstanding examples of work by West Coast modernist masters such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and their counterparts on the East Coast, most notably Alfred Stieglitz and Charles Sheeler. A small but important group of European modernist works by Hans Bellmer, Claude Cahun, László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray, among others, represents another highlight of this period. The collection also demonstrates a deep commitment to the work of major 20th- and 21st-century figures, including Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Lewis Baltz, Rineke Dijkstra, William Eggleston and Larry Sultan.

SFMOMA is particularly renowned for its thematic exhibitions, presenting photography as a vital modern visual language. This strong interest in photography’s social and cultural importance and this pioneering commitment to examining the medium’s distinguishing—and changing—characteristics continues to grow in relevance, as newer generations and evolving technologies challenge the very definition of photography as never before.
 
 
 
 

2017-01-26

12475 - 20170409 - KMAC presents works by acclaimed Chicago artist William J. O'Brien - Louisville, KY - 21.01.2017-09.04.2017

.
 
Untitled, 2015. Felt on felt. 72x72 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
 
KMAC Museum presents a new exhibition, William J. O'Brien | Oscillates Wildly, curated by Joey Yates, on view January 21-April 9,2017. This is KMAC's first solo exhibition following a full renovation completed in July 2016. KMAC will host an artist talk during which O'Brien will speak about his career and process on Saturday, January 21 at 3:30pm. 
William J. O'Brien shifts effortlessly from creating ceramic and steel sculptures to working with textiles, drawing, and painting. This dynamism is evident in the nearly 90 works featured in the exhibition, which fill the second floor gallery of the museum. Central to his varied practice, and equally to the province of craft itself, is a dexterous manipulation of multiple materials and forms venerating handmade labor and other meaningful connections with the physical world.

"In our modern lexicon of creative activity, O'Brien is commonly considered a maker, someone who is engaged in a thoughtful, physically rigorous, and oftentimes improvisational approach to materiality and process," said KMAC Curator Joey Yates. "In this effort, William J. O'Brien offers a prime example of the role craft plays in the critical dialogue about contemporary art, which the KMAC exhibition program explores."

Oscillating between two-dimensional surfaces to three-dimensional structures, his work explores varying relationships between color, form, pattern and texture, balancing tensions amid abstraction and figuration, chaos and control, absurdity and logic.

Drawing inspiration from an array of historical art movements, O'Brien creates work that blends conventional craft techniques with various methods of spontaneous mark making. Ignoring the hierarchies that were previously meant to segregate artistic practice, O'Brien obscures the distinctions between the skilled and amateur artist. Our conceptions of genre and history are collapsed into an idiosyncratic process where we see O'Brien's blurring the modern narratives of Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and the decorative arts, as well as more vernacular and intuitive forms of art like folk art of the American South and Art Brut.

KMAC donors and members are invited to preview the exhibition on Friday, January 20 from 6-8pm. Prior to the artist talk on Saturday, January 21 at 3:30pm, there will be an O'Brien inspired Family Fun Day from 11am-3pm, offering free family art making activities for all ages. Event details and more information can be found at KMACmuseum.org.

William J. O'Brien | Oscillates Wildly is generously supported by Brown Forman, Republic Bank, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Morgan Stanley, Mary and Ted Nixon, and Stephen Reily and Emily Bingham.

William J. O'Brien received his BA in Studio Art from Loyola University in Chicago, and his MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 2007 he has had several solo exhibitions at the Shane Campbell Gallery in Chicago and The Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York where his most recent body of work featuring new sculptures in bronze will be on view in a show titled The Protectors from January 5 - February 4, 2017. In 2014 he had his first major survey exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, curated by Naomi Beckwith. His work is included in several private and public collections including the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio; Perez Art Museum Miami, Florida; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Hara Museum of Art, Japan; and the Art Institute of Chicago, amongst others. He is currently an Assistant Professor in Ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
 
 
 
 
 

2017-01-25

12474 - 20170402 - The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents "FOCUS: Stanley Whitney" 21.01.2017-02.04.2017

.

Stanley Whitney, SunRa 2016, 2016. Oil on linen, 96 x 96 inches. Courtesy of team gallery.
 
Since the mid-1970s, Stanley Whitney has investigated the intricate possibilities of color and form in the realm of abstract painting. Whitney's signature style features multicolored, irregular grids on square canvases. Taking the essentialist grid of minimalism as his cue, his configurations are loose, uneven geometric lattices comprised of vibrant stacked color blocks that vary in hue, shape, and the handling of the paint. Whitney also utilizes color as subject, and his paintings often refer to literature, music, places, and other artists, connections that are bolstered in his titles.
Working without preparatory materials, Whitney combines balance and intuition in his approach to painting, as each color block is painted sequentially in relation to the ongoing arrangement. This process is expressive, improvisational, and can be linked to jazz, which continually inspires the artist. As Whitney has stated, "The way that it's a little offbeat, polyrhythmic; the way that things move. Nothing's straight. Nothing's regular. Everything's a little crooked. And I think that's really what comes out of the music. It comes out of the beat, it comes out of how people walk, the way people wear their hat, just a little off. I think about all of those kinds of things and want them in the painting."

FOCUS: Stanley Whitney features new work by the artist, including three large-scale paintings.

Stanley Whitney was born in Philadelphia, and lives and works in New York and Parma, Italy. He earned a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Yale University. Whitney has exhibited across the globe, having held solo exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Lagorio Arte Contemporanea, Brescia, Italy; Architettura Arte Moderna, Rome; Omi International Arts Center, Ghent, New York; University of Dayton, Ohio; University of Rhode Island, Kingston; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond; and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York. Whitney was in the 50th Venice Biennale. He has also been included in many group shows at such venues as the Camden Arts Centre, London; American Academy in Rome; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; University of Chicago; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; and the Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach. His prizes include the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize in Painting, American Academy of Arts and Letters Art Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
 
 
 
 

2017-01-24

12473 - 20170312 - Winslow Homer engravings exhibition at the Butler Institute of American Art - Youngstown, OH - 22.01.2017-12.03.2017

.
 
Winslow Homer, Snap the Whip, 1873.
 
An exhibition of two-hundred thirty celebrated prints by American icon Winslow Homer at the Butler Institute’s Trumbull location opening Sunday, January 22, 2017. Winslow Homer, arguably the most popular artist and illustrator of nineteenth century America, and one of the most important American artists of all time comes to the Butler Institute of American Art. Winslow Homer From Poetry to Fiction, includes 230 wood engravings on loan from Contemporary and Modern Print Exhibitions, Laguna Niguel, California, has been in the planning for more than twenty years beginning in1995 when curator Reilly Rhodes, then director of the National Art Museum of Sport took notice of the immense range of material that was available to museums and collectors through searching the inventory of rare book and print shops in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The initiative to collect Homer’s engravings was first brought to the attention of Mr. Rhodes through the advice and recommendation of D. Dodge Thompson, Chief of Exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in
Washington who was at the time advising the National Art Museum of Sport on acquisition possibilities for building a permanent collection of sporting art.

“The opportunity for museums to showcase these works on paper offers enormous storytelling potential that people of all ages can appreciate and enjoy,” said Rhodes. “Homer is easy to understand and to connect with. The content is straightforward and masterfully expressed. There was never any doubt, even in his youth, that Homer was a highly gifted and talented artist among his peers.”

In his lifetime, Homer did for painting what Walt Whitman did for poetry, and what Brahams did for music. He redefined the rules in terms of style, subject matter and message. The warmth and charm with which he interpreted American experiences has since, enchanted generation after generation. His best-known early paintings and illustrations including Snap-the-Whip, The Noon Recess, Gathering Berries, and Waiting for a Bite are among the engravings on view at the Butler Institute’s Trumbull location through March 12, 2017.

The exhibition Winslow Homer From Poetry to Fiction provides a rare opportunity to view this extensive collection of engravings produced by Homer between the ages of nineteen and thirty-nine, from 1855 to 1875—one third of the artist’s creative career. Three of his early works include music sheet covers (lithographs) that he produced as an apprentice artists working in Boston. At the age of nineteen he left Boston for New York to work as a free-lance artists making wood engravings for the pictorial press such as Harper’s Weekly and Ballou’s Pictorial. Homer also focused attention on book illustrations for poets and writers, an area that is seldom discussed or mentioned in exhibitions of Homer’s art.

The exhibition is presented in a manner that shows Homer’s themes and subjects inclusive of seaside activities, city and rural life moving from field to factory prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. The groupings of prints on view are arranged into sub-themed categories such as Leisure Time, The Sporting Life, Holidays, The War Years, Seaside Views, America’s Youth, Rural America, The Changing Role of Women, Fashion and Style.

The Civil War changed everything for Homer and for America. The innocence of America was also gone and people were turning away from the problems of reconstruction in favor of building wealth and expanding freedoms, pursuing personal interest and taking advantage of the opportunities that American industry began to find with a revised industrial revolution. America was expanding to the west, and the influx of immigration brought in a renewed workforce that was necessary to support labor needs. The civil war left a huge void in terms of lost lives and immigrants were welcomed and needed. With more than 600,000 lives lost in the war, women were left with task that men performed in the pre-war era. Women began to work in factories, teach school and even farm when no one else was left to perform the work. Homer produced several illustrations showing women at work on the farms and working in the textile mills. America’s youth was not spared, there were chores and jobs for children even in the mills that Homer illustrates in his post-war engravings.

Perhaps the most striking feature of this exhibition is Homer’s images of America’s youth—children at play and actively engaging each other in explorations that stimulated an excitement and perhaps above all, a hope for the future. He produced the majority of these images in the mid-1870s, though one can see the continuing interest in much of his earlier work. Some of the best and most important examples include Snap-the-Whip, The Noon Recess, The Nooning, The Last Days of Harvest, and The Morning Bell, all made in 1873, and all relating to his school subjects as well as Ulster County, New York.

Many of Homer’s late period wood engravings and watercolors from the 1870s reveal hints of the painter to come in the late 19th and early 20th century while Impressionism in Europe and the Hudson River scenes in American painting was still flourishing. Homer, though keenly aware of other art movements, was never associated with or part of any art movement. He directed his attention and focus on his own ideas and to his credit and benefit, spent the majority of his creative work to drawing, making his first serious watercolors and oil paintings when he was almost thirty years of age. Historians note that Homer was largely self-taught, though his mother was an amateur, yet skilled watercolorist

As popular as Homer has remained through the years, it is surprising to many to learn that it was not until the early 1950s that his work as an illustrator was rediscovered or taken seriously as a collectable art form. The influential American art historian Lloyd Goodrich wrote extensively about Homer and the importance of his wood engravings as a valued art form that had been overlooked by scholars, museum curators and art collectors. Goodrich organized an important exhibition of Homer’s engravings for the Whitney Museum of Art in New York. Soon after, several American art and history museums began to aggressively collect these prints, realizing that Homer’s engravings were printed mainly on newsprint and illustrated in some of the most popular weekly newspapers and journals published between 1857 to the mid-1870s. Some were published in rare limited edition books through the 1880s.

Extensive collections of Homer's engravings are today included in such distinguished museums as The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, The Butler Institute of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art , and several others including university and college museum collections.

Homer's prints provide valuable insight into his artistic achievements and a view of the society and times in which he lived. As social commentary, Homer's illustrations are recognized by historians and scholars as being important visual documents, that accurately depicted scenes of a young nation that was evolving into an influential and industrial world power.
 
 
 
 

2017-01-23

12472 - 20170507 - Bellevue Arts Museum displays the provocative work of acclaimed sculptor Al Farrow in solo exhibition - Bellevue, WA - 16.12.2016-07.05.2017

.

Al Farrow, Southwest Church, 2014. Guns, gun parts, bullets, lead shot, shell casings, steel, and glass, 20 x 19 x 5 in. Photo: Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery. Photography by Jock McDonald, John Wilson White, and John Westhafer
 
Using guns and ammunition, Al Farrow creates sculptures of reliquaries, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, mausoleums, and other devotional objects. The surprising inventiveness and the technical tour-de-force of his craftsmanship are highlighted in the Bellevue Arts Museum exhibition, Divine Ammunition: The Sculpture of Al Farrow. Divine Ammunition features more than 20 works by the acclaimed artist—ranging from sizeable religious buildings to relics of Farrow’s fictitious saint, Santo Guerro—drawn from private and public collections. Farrow has had numerous solo exhibitions since 1970 and his work is in many important public and private collections around the world, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the di Rosa Preserve in Napa, and other collections in New York, Germany, Italy, and Hong Kong. Farrow is currently represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.
The artist denigrates no one belief in his work, being mindful, discriminating, and probing toward all. His striking composite depictions of religious architectural structures are meticulously realized and perfectly scaled. Each work gives new meaning to its materials. Gun-barrel towers and domes built of bullets not only compel the viewer to consider the present, but also recall the history of conflict. The artist's material choices may be jarring, but they also provoke awe and inspire reflection.

By repurposing second-hand firearms and ammunition, Farrow adopts weapons as a medium to illuminate the dark side of various forms of organized religion. With their division of people into saved and damned, brethren or infidels, chosen or forsaken, his mosques, cathedrals, and synagogues are a reminder of how often faith has served as a justification for war. But Farrow's Divine Ammunition goes beyond that, hinting at an essential connection between dogma and death.

In the artists own words: I am perpetually surprised by the historical and continuing partnership of war and religion. The atrocities committed in acts of war absolutely violate every tenet of religion, yet rarely do religious institutions speak against the violations committed in the name of God. Historically, Popes have even offered eternal salvation to those who fought on their behalf (The crusades, etc.).

In my constructed reliquaries, I am playfully employing symbols of war, religion, and death in a facade of architectural beauty and harmony. I have allowed my interests in art history, archeology, and anthropology to influence the work. The sculptures are an ironic play on the medieval cult of the relic, tomb art, and the seductive nature of objects commissioned and historically employed by those seeking position of power.

Divine Ammunition is accompanied by a 112-page color catalogue with essays by Eleanor Heartney and Diana L. Daniels, and a foreword by Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Chris Hedges, author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
 
 
  
 

2017-01-20

12471 - 20170326 - Exhibition of works by Frederick Weygold on view at the Speed Art Museum - Louisville, KY - 07.01.2017-26.03.2017

.

Frederick Weygold (American, 1870-1941), Pictographic Painted Shirt, Frankfurt, 1902. Watercolor, brush and black ink, and graphite on paper. Gift of Frederick Weygold.
 
The Speed Art Museum’s latest major exhibition, Picturing American Indian Cultures: The Art of Kentucky’s Frederick Weygold, opened to the public Saturday, January 7 at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville. This unique exhibition features over 180 paintings, drawings, and photographs by Louisville artist and ethnographer Frederick Weygold (1870-1941), as well as highlights from the Speed’s American Indian collection.
“Although Weygold’s work as an illustrator, photographer, and collector of American Indian art is highly regarded in Europe, he remains virtually unknown in the United States,” said Kim Spence, Speed Art Museum Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs. This exhibition offers for the first time a comprehensive account of this remarkable man and his achievements as an artist, collector, educator, and social activist.

Highlights of the exhibition include a dramatic, full-length eagle feather bonnet or headdress, a catlinite pipe bowl and stem purported to have belonged to the renowned Sauk leader Black Hawk, an elaborate Lakota warrior’s dress ensemble that includes a beaded and painted shirt and accessories, examples of Weygold’s meticulous drawings of Plains and Woodlands Indian art, and rare photographs of Native American subjects.

“In addition to offering new insights into familiar favorites from our American Indian collection,” added Spence, “this exhibition also features examples of Weygold’s paintings and drawings that have rarely been shown publicly. Visitors to the exhibition will have the singular opportunity to see paintings that have been in private collections since the artist’s death in 1941 and highlights from an extensive collection of over 1500 drawings and watercolors owned by the Speed.”

Born in St. Charles, Missouri, Weygold studied art and languages in Germany at the University of Strasbourg and at the art academies in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart before settling in Louisville in 1908. In Europe (perhaps triggered by visits to Wild West shows), Weygold became fascinated with American Indians and, by teaching himself the Lakota language and acquiring a substantial knowledge of Native American cultures, he acted as an advisor to European museum directors.

In 1909, Weygold traveled to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, acquiring Native American artifacts for the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg, Germany, and documenting in photographs Native American life and culture, including the first photographic record of the Plains Indian sign language. He later used his ethnographic expertise to illustrate two books by the Dakota author Charles Eastman and two others by James Willard Schultz for a German publisher.

“Over time, Weygold built a personal collection of Native American artifacts that he later donated to the Speed,” said Spence. “These artifacts form the core of the museum’s Native American collection.”

Through his knowledge of the Lakota and Plains Indian sign languages, coupled with his forthright honesty and sincere respect for American Indian cultures, Weygold gained the trust and respect of many of the Lakotas he met who were travelling with Wild West shows in Europe and Philadelphia, and later on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Included among these were Shot In The Eye (a Lakota warrior who fought under Chief Red Cloud and American Horse in the Indian wars of the 1860s and 1870s), Hump (an old warrior and bison hunter who adhered to traditional ways after tribes were relocated onto reservations), and Short Bull (a prophet of the Ghost Dance, a religious movement that became wide-spread in the Plains region during the late 1800s). Through this mutual respect, Weygold convinced these men and others to share with him their knowledge of the meaning, use, and significance of the objects he documented in his drawings and watercolor studies, as well as insights into important religious rituals such as the Hunka, Haŋbleceya, and Yuwipi ceremonies.

"This exhibition strives to renew the memory of an unusual man, whom his Lakota friends called ‘One Tongue’—a man without the proverbial forked tongue of the White Man,” said guest curator Dr. Christian Feest.

In addition to highlighting Weygold’s interest in American Indian art and culture, the exhibition also explores other facets of the artist’s career, including his depictions of My Old Kentucky Home, Cherokee Park, and Cumberland Falls. It also examines his role as a public educator, an early advocate of American Indian rights, and his support of women’s rights and nature conservation.
 
 
 
 

2017-01-19

12470 - 20170409 - More than 65 works highlight the development of the still-life genre in America - Houston, TX - 14.01.2017-09.04.2017

.

Raphaelle Peale, Orange and Book, c. 1817, oil on canvas, the Frank and Michelle Hevrdejs Collection.
 
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents Two Centuries of American Still-Life Painting: The Frank and Michelle Hevrdejs Collection, an exhibition tracing the history of American still-life painting in the United States from the early 19th century to the present day. Bringing together 60 of the most influential American luminaries of the genre—including Otis Kaye, Georgia O’Keeffe, James Peale, John F. Peto, Max Weber, and Andrew Wyeth—Two Centuries of American Still-Life Painting features over 65 works from the private, Houston-based collection of Frank and Michelle Hevrdejs, the majority of which have never before been seen by the public. The exhibition will remain on view through April 9, 2017.
Through the extraordinary range of artistic styles and subject matter found in the Hevrdejs collection, the exhibition illustrates the rise and development of the still-life genre in post-revolutionary America, from European-influenced realism and trompe l’oeil to Impressionism, Modernism, Pop Art, and beyond.

Nineteenth-century highlights include Still Life with Fruit (1821–30), one of the earliest and most elaborate known still lifes by American master James Peale; and The Writer’s Table—A Precarious Moment (1892), a haunting trompe l’oeil composition that highlights John F. Peto’s masterful use of color, geometry, and light. Moving into the 20th century, works such as Max Weber’s Still Life with Three Jugs (1929) and Georgia O’Keeffe’s From Pink Shell (1931) reflect the growth of Modernism in America and its influence on the still-life genre. The exhibition is rounded out by 21st-century highlights, from Wayne Thiebaud’s Jelly Rolls (for Morton) (2008), painted as a tribute to jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton, to the poppy flowers painted by contemporary Minimalist artist Donald Sultan in Rouge Poppies (2012).

Accompanying Two Centuries of American Still-Life Painting: The Frank and Michelle Hevrdejs Collection is a 288-page catalogue of the same name by William H. Gerdts, professor emeritus of art history at the CUNY Graduate Center and a preeminent scholar of American art. Known for his work on 19th-century American still-life painting in particular, Gerdts is the author of more than 25 publications, including The Color of Modernism: The American Fauves and Art Across America. The fully illustrated catalogue Two Centuries of American Still-Life Painting, which presents new scholarship on the history of art collecting and still-life painting in the U.S., is published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and distributed by Yale University Press.

“I express my deep gratitude to Frank Hevrdejs, life trustee and longtime chairman of the Museum’s Collections Committee, and his wife, Michelle, for their generosity in sharing these undeniable masterpieces with our visitors,” said Gary Tinterow, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. “Two Centuries of American Still-Life Painting traces not only the progression of the American still life, but also the progression of the Hevrdejs’ as avid collectors of the genre.”

“Visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will have a chance to experience why this particular type of painting has captivated American artists, collectors, and audiences for over 200 years and discover works of art that have not been widely seen or published,” added Kaylin Weber, assistant curator of American painting and sculpture, and organizing curator of the exhibition.

Following its inaugural display in Houston, Two Centuries of American Still-Life Painting will travel to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (April 22–July 30, 2017) and the Tacoma Museum of Art (September 2, 2017–January 7, 2018).

The Frank and Michelle Hevrdejs Collection
Amassed over the past three decades, the Hevrdejs collection is a sweeping collection of American painting, including major portraits, genre and figure scenes, landscapes of the Hudson River School, and more. Though the collection as a whole spans a wide variety of schools and genres, still-life painting in particular has been an area of interest for the couple. This special concentration was first inspired by the Hevrdejs’ admiration for 17th-century Dutch still-life painting, which eventually led to a deep appreciation for the American genre. Their collection of still-life works begins with the appearance of the earliest American practitioners of the genre and continues to include many of the finest artists and specialists who focus on the theme today.

As noted by catalogue author William H. Gerdts, the Hevrdejs collection of still-life paintings is “unique in that it is devoted to the entire expanse of the still-life genre, from its beginnings shortly after the establishment of American independence to works of art painted in the last few years, thus chronicling the ever-changing forms and concepts of still life.”
 
 
  
 

2017-01-18

12469 - 20170325 - McMaster Museum of Art presents significant works of art from the 1980s by eleven artists - Hamilton, ON - 12.01.2017-25.03.2017

.

Edward Poitras, Small Matters (detail), 1985. Mixed media installation (nails, wire, paper, vinyl type). The Mendel Art Gallery Collection at Remai Modern. Purchased 1989. Image courtesy of Remai Modern.
 
A new exhibition at the McMaster Museum of Art presents significant works of art from the 1980s by eleven, foundational contemporary Indigenous artists—Carl Beam, Bob Boyer, Robert Houle, Gerald McMaster, Shelley Niro, Ron Noganosh, Jane Ash Poitras, Edward Poitras, Pierre Sioui, Jeff Thomas and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun—and acknowledges their critical role in paving the way for Indigenous artists and curators today.
During the 80s, these artists declared that the lack of Indigenous representation in major arts institutions across Canada was symptomatic of a broader historical and ongoing indifference to Indigenous peoples.

“They—and many others of their generation—were provocateurs,” says exhibition curator, Rhéanne Chartrand. “They weren’t afraid to talk about the issues and realities of life as a contemporary Indigenous person through their art. Despite the fact that they were acutely aware that the lack of inclusion in major institutions was directly tied to entrenched colonial attitudes that the art world held toward Indigenous art, they never wavered in their resolve to incite change on their own terms. They really broke down barriers and challenged the status quo about Indigenous art, and I believe that this artist-activist spirit has carried forward into Indigenous artistic practice today.”

Through powerful and provocative works, often employing humour, irony and satire, these artists achieved their objective. In place of inaccurate and stereotypical images, they asserted Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-representation, self-determination and sovereignty. Their art stands as both evidence of and a means of cultural survival + resistance = survivance.

Unapologetic: Acts of Survivance, includes eighteen works of art, on view in the Museum’s two main-level galleries. They are drawn from the collections of the artists, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, McMaster Museum of Art, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Remai Modern, Saskatchewan Arts Board Collection, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and Private collectors.

Rhéanne Chartrand is the Aboriginal Curatorial Resident at the McMaster Museum of Art, a position made possible by the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost, McMaster University. She is a curator, arts administrator, and cultural animator based in Toronto, Canada. Chartrand has worked with numerous galleries and cultural organizations including Aboriginal Pavillion for Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games, Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance, and aluCine Latin Film+Media Arts Festival.

Unapologetic is the first of two interrelated exhibitions of Indigenous art curated by Rhéanne Chartrand. The second exhibition, Coyote School, will be on display from June 09 to August 26, 2017 and will feature works by emerging and mid-career Indigenous artists who cite influence via artistic inspiration, mentorship or familial connection to the eleven artists presented in Unapologetic. The intent of Coyote School is to acknowledge and respect the contributions that senior Indigenous artists have made to personal and collective Indigenous artistic practices.
 
 
  
 

2017-01-17

12468 - 20170224 - Exhibition features three women artists' exploration of their identity - Dayton, OH - 13.01.2017-24.02.2017

.
 
Zoe Hawk, Rite of passage, 2014. Oil on alumninum, 17 x 19.
 
Dayton Visual Arts Center presents The Secrets We Keep: New Works by Zoe Hawk, Ashley Jonas & Stephanie McGuinness, opening January 13th and running through February 24th, 2017.
This exhibition consists of paintings, prints and installations and each of the three artists represented in the show use their art to explore their identity in the realm of private and public spaces.

Ashley Jonas
Ashley Jonas’ work is about the search for moments of wonder and beauty. By paying attention to the overlooked, monumental discoveries of tenderness, peculiarity and harmony between objects, flowers and the spaces we construct for ourselves are documented, composed and abstracted. These actions result in playful paintings and improbable sculptures.

Jonas was born in Key West, Florida and lives and works in Dayton. She received her master’ degree of fine art in ceramics from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a bachelor’s degree of fine art in ceramics from University of Florida, Gainesville. Ashley and her husband run The Blue House Art Gallery and Studios in Dayton.

Zoe Hawk
Zoe Hawk’s work explores issues of girlhood and coming-of-age experiences, often referencing children’s storybook illustration. The constructed narratives of her paintings are meant to be sweet and somewhat familiar to the viewer, yet upon closer inspection they take a slightly mysterious or unsettling turn.

Hawk was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1982 and currently lives in Doha, Qatar. She received a master’s degree of fine art in painting from the University of Iowa, and a bachelor’s degree of fine art in studio art from Missouri State University. Zoe has attended several artist residencies including Frans Masereel Centrum (Belgium), Kunstnarhuset Messen (Norway), Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale, New York), and is currently a resident at the Fire Station Artist in Residence program (Doha, Qatar).

Stephanie McGuinness
Stephanie McGuinness’ paintings examine the pressures on contemporary suburban America through the environment of a single multi-generational house. This collection’s narrative is based on discarded notes and lists found in public spaces and explores how external pressures and life events intrude into personal environments. In her paintings, viewers are granted access to private spaces, but hover slightly outside of the frame, unconnected to its inhabitants. The surface of the paint is rough and sometimes transparent to signify the painting process itself, as well as to reflect on how dwellings leave traces of their past as they continue to evolve.

McGuinness is a Dayton native who currently resides in Englewood. She received a bachelor’s degree of fine art from Wright State University in 2008 and studied at Miami University, receiving master’s degree in fine art in 2013.

The artists for this show were selected through the 2014 Biennial Call for Exhibitions, juried by Jason Franz, Founding Executive Director & Chief Curator, Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, Cincinnati; John Kortlander, Professor, Drawing & Painting, Columbus College of Art and Design and 2012 DVAC Biennial Call Artist; and Liz Maugens, Co-Founder & Director, Zygote Press, Cleveland.
 
 
 

2017-01-16

12467 - 20170304 - Influential glass artist Marvin Lipofsky exhibition at the Richmond Art Center - Richmond, CA - 10.01.2017-04.03.2017

.

Series Crystalex--Hantich Novy Bor #1, 1982. Photo: M. Lee Fatherree.
 
A leading figure in the world of glass, the late Marvin Lipofsky was instrumental in establishing and promoting the Studio Glass Movement on the West Coast. The Richmond Art Center will exhibit a collection of his works in Marvin Lipofsky: Molten Matter/Fantastic Form, which opens in the South Gallery on January 10, 2017. The works selected from his estate represent a curated glimpse into his decades of artistry.
“This exhibition moves from some of his earliest work through phases of formal exploration and aesthetic mastery,” says Jan Wurm, Director of Exhibitions. “With the beginning foundation of a sculptor's approach to form, Lipofsky pursued the molten mass of hot glass to blow, cut, etch, sandblast, and flock as he found shape, opened interiors, rearranged parts, and dazzled with color. We are thrilled to be able to share these fascinating works with our visitors.”

Lipofsky was a revered figure in the American Studio Glass Movement, as the founder of the glass program at the the University of California, Berkeley and the California College of Arts and Crafts, and as one of the first American glass artists to travel to Czechoslovakia. Well known for his traveling and teaching in and beyond California: to Europe, Russia, Japan, and China – Lipofsky shared his passion and experience while gathering new inflections and influences in an ever-refining practice.
 
 
  
 

2017-01-13

12466 - 20170422 - Racine Art Museum's Wustum Museum hosts 50th year of Watercolor Wisconsin - 11.12.2016-22.04.2017

.

One of the museum's most popular shows, Watercolor Wisconsin is a statewide competition organized by the museum annually since 1966.
 
Racine Art Museum's Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts continues an important Racine tradition with the opening of Watercolor Wisconsin 2016. One of the museum's most popular shows, Watercolor Wisconsin is a statewide competition organized by the museum annually since 1966. This long-running, juried exhibition attracts a wide range of artists. Limited only by their materials--aqueous media such as acrylic and watercolor--artists are free to create two-dimensional and three-dimensional works on paper. This year's show features a variety of subjects, from animals, flowers, and landscape to figurative studies and the abstract. The exhibition will be on display at Wustum, through April 22, 2017.
Peter Power--Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Print Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago--and Doug Stapleton, Associate Curator of Art with the Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery--an adjunct faculty in the Interdisciplinary Arts graduate program at Columbia College Chicago, and a visual artist--juried this year's show. Power and Stapleton considered 272 works submitted by 155 artists, narrowing down the selection to 98 works by 71 Wisconsin artists.

Also on view, Honoring Fifty Years of Watercolor Wisconsin at Racine Art Museum until February 5, 2017, features works that were acquired from past juried shows for the permanent collection. These acquisitions were made using various special funds dedicated to growing RAM's holdings in contemporary watercolor or were gifted by donors.

Artists in the Exhibition: Appleton: Gary Hanks; Brookfield: Julia F. McMurray; Burlington: Jimmy Yanny; Cedarburg: Patrick Doughman, Sandra Pape; Franksville: Sue Horton; Fredonia: Tim Day; Glendale: Kathleen Bergstrom; Grafton: Wallis Coffman, Jean Crane; Hales Corners: Betty A. Storey; Hartford: Harold E. Hansen, Barbara Sorenson Rambadt; Janesville: Connie Glowacki; Kenosha: Dennis Bayuzick, James Block, Judy Gotta, Sande Jensen, Robert Marcella, Beverly J. Mich, Carlotta Miller, Paula Touhey, Greg Uttech, Rebecca Venn; Madison: Randal Feig, Linda P. Hancock, Doug Haynes, Brian McCormick; Mequon: Kathleen Nelson, Alice Struck; Middleton: Michael Kratochwill; Milwaukee: Michael D. Andrysczyk, Joyce Eesley, Steve Horvath, Matt Kuhlman, Kiefer Ledell, Susan Leopold, JoAnna Poehlmann; Mount Pleasant: Robert W. Andersen; Nashotah: Alice Rossman; Neenah: Kathryn Wedge; New Berlin: Julie San Felipe; Oak Creek: Al Minzlaff; Oconomowoc: Virgilyn Driscoll; Racine: Jerry Belland, Mary Burant, Ellen Cardwell, Lisa Englander, Maureen Fritchen, Christopher Johns, Edwin Kalke, Jeff Kosmala, John Krewal, Karen Mathis, Sharon Mellberg, Lance Raichert, Linda Somogyi, Susan M. Sorenson, Dina Walker, Sue Wolff; Salem: Harry Wirth; Waterford: Norman Abplanalp, Linda Gerard Dzik, Edith Kubicek; Waukesha: Bruce Boeck; Wausau: Diane Shabino; Wauwatosa: Chris Sommerfelt; Whitefish Bay: Anne Miotke; Whitewater: Christine B. Miller, Linda Tump; Williams Bay: Lynne Railsback
 
 
  
 

2017-01-12

12465 - 20170326 - Japanese masterpieces reunited for first time in more than a century at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art - Hartford, CONN - 07.01.2017-26.03.2017

.
 
Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753‐1806), Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara, c. 1793, hanging scroll; ink, gouache, gold and gold leaf on bamboo paper, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum o f Art, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1957.17.
 
The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, "Utamaro and the Lure of Japan," reunites two monumental scroll paintings by Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) for the first time in more than 130 years. The exhibition brings together, "Fukagawa in the Snow," (1802-1806), from the Okada Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan, with the Wadsworth Atheneum's own, "Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara," (1793). In addition to the two iconic scrolls, the show displays more than 50 objects, including paintings, prints, textiles, porcelain and armaments taken from the Atheneum's 1,000-object collection of Japanese art. 
Kitagawa Utamaro was one of Japan's greatest artists of "ukiyo-e" - pictures that depicted the "floating world" of ephemeral everyday life, especially the pleasures of love and entertainment, in Edo (now Tokyo) from the early eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century. He is known for his portraits of beautiful women, and in the two monumental paintings included in the exhibition specifically celebrate the courtesans who lived in the famous pleasure districts of the time.

With its countless cherry blossoms hanging from trees, the Wadsworth Atheneum's painting depicts an idealized view of a real place: one of the tea houses that lined the central boulevard of the Yoshiwara quarter-a splendid and extravagant area of brothels, theaters, and revelry. Painted a decade apart but presented together, "Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara" and "Fukagawa in the Snow" offer visitors a unique opportunity to witness Utamaro's artistic development and to take measure of his artistic skill. Generally considered the artist's most ambitious work, the paintings each feature many figures-"Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara" pictures over 40 women, and "Fukagawa in the Snow" pictures 25-depicted in exceptionally vibrant colors, attesting to Utamaro's fame as one of the outstanding artists of his time. In his elaborate portrayals of dining, music making, and geisha performances, Utamaro's skill as an accomplished painter of both figures and architecture is apparent. The paintings also provide visitors with a unique window into the stratified Japanese society, highlighting gender roles during the Edo Period (1615-1868).

“The sheer beauty and deeply exotic character of Kitagawa Utamaro’s work captivated a curious public when it was first presented to western audiences in late nineteenth-century Paris,” said Thomas J. Loughman, Director and C.E.O. “It must have done so again in 1950s New England, when the Atheneum purchased ‘Cherry Blossoms.’ But the context of our painting and its meaning as a work of art is enriched by its presentation beside the recently rediscovered painting and amid our broader collection of Japanese art, filled as it is with works collected more than a century ago here in New England. This exhibition brings a chance to see these two paintings reunited—something we are thrilled to offer our visitors and the world through an international collaboration with the Okada Museum of Art in Hakone.”

It is little known that the Wadsworth Atheneum has steadily expanded its collection of Japanese art since the late nineteenth century. More than 1,000 objects were assembled by a number of Connecticut collectors who focused on one medium in particular, and eventually gave the museum their collections. Decorative arts—ceramics, lacquer work, armaments and costumes— from the 1905 Colt Bequest and other collections punctuate the exhibition. By contrast, “Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara” was a major purchase and is widely considered the most important object in the Wadsworth Atheneum’s collection of Asian art. Casting light on the long-lasting fascination with depictions of elegant Japanese women among Western collectors, the exhibition’s array of Japanese prints of scenes from pleasure districts with geisha and court women will center not only on those by Utamaro, but also on thematically and stylistically related sheets by contemporaries such as Ishikawa Toyonobu, Utagawa Toyokuni and Ando Hiroshige.

“This is an exciting moment, as this is the first time we will exhibit our wonderful collection of Japanese art comprehensively,” said Oliver Tostmann, the Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art and organizing curator of the exhibition. “This exhibition provides us the rare opportunity to explore the rich history of collecting Japanese art in Connecticut and at the Wadsworth Atheneum, and to reevaluate our holdings. Most of the objects selected for display have not been on view in decades, and through them visitors can compare Japanese artists from the seventeenth century with later artists, and see the changing tastes not only in Japanese art, but also among American collectors.”

The first record of Utamaro’s “Snow” and “Flowers” being displayed together is by a wealthy merchant of the Zenno family at Jogan-ji Temple, Tochigi Prefecture, in 1879, when they were shown with a third monumental work, “Moon at Shinagawa,” or “Moonlight Revelry at Dozo Sagami,” (c. 1788, now owned by the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.). The last time “Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara” was seen by an international audience was in 1995, when it opened the groundbreaking exhibition “The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro” at the British Museum in London and the Chiba City Museum of Art.
 
 
  
 

2017-01-11

12464 - 20170227 - MPA: RED IN VIEW now unfolding at the Whitney Museum of American Art - New York - 11.11.2016-27.02.2017

.

MPA (b. 1980), Entrance, 2014-2016 (left). Pigmented inkjet print mounted on mat board and painted wood, 7 × 7 in. (17.8 × 17.8 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Higher Pictures. Surrender, 2014-2016 (right). Pigmented inkjet print mounted on mat board and painted wood, 7 × 7 in. (17.8 × 17.8 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Higher Pictures.
 
Since relocating to California's Mojave desert in 2013, artist MPA (b. 1980; Redding, CA) has been immersed in a broad inquiry into the potential colonization of Mars, often known as the red planet. In this multi-part exhibition the artist looks at Mars as a place for settlement and a resource for our own planet, as well as a site of possible human origin. MPA’s research considers unconventional sources such as mythology, psychic accounts, and personal narratives, as credible authorities. By reflecting more generally on histories of colonization, RED IN VIEW raises questions of militarism and patriarchy, prompting us to examine our own, often subconscious, colonizing behaviors.
RED IN VIEW is organized by Jay Sanders, Engell Speyer Family Curator and Curator of Performance, and Greta Hartenstein, Senior Curatorial Assistant, with Allie Tepper, Curatorial Project Assistant.

Selected works on view were commissioned by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston for the exhibition THE INTERVIEW: Red, Red Future, organized by Dean Daderko, curator.

MPA (b. 1980) has explored a range of meditative, durational, theatrical, and actionist modes of performance to engage "the energetic" as a potential material in live work. Enriched with ritual, her performances and installations critically examine behaviors of power in personal and social spaces. In previous works, she has proposed questions on the global arms race, patriarchy as governance, and the dysfunctional union of art and capitalist commodity. MPA's work has been exhibited at the Swiss Institute, New York; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico. Her dynamic body of work Directing Light onto Fist of Father (2011) at Leo Koenig Projekte in New York, combined a looping 16 mm film and a plaster cast of MPA’s father's fist in an installation that incited three durational performances. In Trilogy (o) (2012), presented at Human Resources in Los Angeles, NASA sound recordings of dying stars accompanied thirty-one photographs of Nike war missiles arranged as a moon calendar. A frequent collaborator, MPA is a visible muse for many contemporary photographers, painters, and performers. After receiving a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant in 2013, MPA relocated from New York City to Twentynine Palms, CA to continue her research with somatic practices. Since 2013, MPA has focused these studies with research on the potential human colonization of Mars. This work was first presented as THE INTERVIEW: Red Red Future (2016) at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. RED IN VIEW, her exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, presents the second episode in this ongoing project.

Artist credits: Davida Nemeroff, Omar Wilson, M. Cay Castagnetto, Rachelle Sawatsky, Donnie Cervantes, Cameron Crone, Trina Merry, Lydia Okrent, Mariana Valencia, Makayla Bailey, and Rose Wonderfabulous.
 
 
  
 

2017-01-10

12463 - 20170212 - Exhibition at Denver Art Museum features paintings by Titian, Giorgione and Bellini rarely seen in the U.S. - 01.01.2017-12.02.2017

.
 
Attributed to Sebastino del Piombo, Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine and John the Baptist, about 1505-1508. Oil on panel; 20-1/8 × 31-7/8 in. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice. Image Photographic Archive, Polo museale del Veneto, granted by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
 
The Denver Art Museum is presenting Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance, Denver’s first-ever exhibition to illustrate the development of Venice’s own distinct Renaissance style from the second half of the 1400s to the early 1500s. The exhibition explores the city’s artistic evolution, as it shifted from a center of local significance, to the internationally recognized model of pictorial excellence admired by generations to follow.
The exhibition features about 45 significant works, including important loans from Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia, which houses one of the greatest collections of Venetian Renaissance art in the world. A rare opportunity for visitors to experience these masterworks outside of Venice, the exhibition also features four Titians, three Giorgiones and six Giovanni Bellinis. Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance is organized by the DAM and is on view through Feb. 12, 2017 before traveling to the North Carolina Museum of Art.

The exhibition includes a core group of 22 artworks from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. These masterpieces tell Venice’s artistic story alongside pieces from the DAM’s own collection and loans from institutions in the United States and Europe. These significant artworks include Christ Carrying the Cross by Giorgione, on loan from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, and Sacred Conversation by Titian, from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca in Parma, Italy.

“We are pleased to present extraordinary paintings from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, an important institution, which has rarely lent such a significant group of work,” said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM. “By bringing these works together with signature paintings in DAM’s collection, the exhibition engages audiences with the extraordinary creativity and artistic contributions of Venetians to the Renaissance movement.”

Co-curated by Angelica Daneo, curator of painting and sculpture at the DAM, and Dr. Giovanna Damiani, former Superintendent of the Museums of the City of Venice and current Director of the State Museums of Sardinia, the exhibition focuses on one of the most exciting and dynamic moments in the artistic history of Venice and western painting in general, when artists forged a Renaissance style immediately recognizable as distinctly “Venetian.” The new style ushered in a period of overwhelming creativity in Venice, inspiring artists across the continent. The artists included in the show will share the spotlight with the Republic of Venice, as the city itself also played an integral role in the unique artistic results of the movement.

“Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance highlights how Venice’s unique location and role in the Mediterranean, its cultural heritage and social structure, made it possible for the new Renaissance ideals to thrive and for artists, stimulated by the constant influx of rich and diverse influences, to experiment with new styles and compositions,” said Daneo. “The exhibition aims to create an immersive experience for audiences, evoking the magnificence of Venice in the late 1400s and early 1500s when ‘the mistress of the Mediterranean’ was already seducing its many visitors.”

Through key works by Vittore Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano and other Renaissance masters, visitors experience the art of some of the most influential Renaissance artists, whose sensitivity toward color and light remained unparalleled for centuries. Artworks in the exhibition emphasize how masters during this period veered from traditional techniques and began to incorporate oil paint into their creative process, a most flexible medium allowing them to experiment with depth, emotion and dimension in their work.

“This exhibition concentrates on the extraordinary and dynamic transition in Venetian culture from full adherence to Renaissance ideals to the embrace of a dazzling humanism and ultimately to the refined artistic language of the early Titian,” said Damiani.

Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance is on view in the Gallagher Family Gallery on level 1 of the Hamilton Building and included in general admission, free for members and youth 18 and under.
 
 
  
 

2017-01-09

12462 - 20170129 - Kerry James Marshall's largest museum retrospective on view at The Met Breuer - New York - 25.10.2016-29.01.2017

.

Kerry James Marshall, Slow Dance 1992-1993. Acrylic and collage on canvas, 75 1/4 × 74 1/4 in. (191.1 × 188.6 cm). The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Purchase, Smart Family Foundation Fund for Contemporary Art, and Paul and Miriam Kirkley Fund for Acquisitions © Kerry James Marshall

The largest museum retrospective to date of the work of American artist Kerry James Marshall (born 1955) is on view at The Met Breuer as a cornerstone of its inaugural season. Encompassing nearly 80 works—including 72 paintings—that span the artist’s remarkable 35-year career, this major monographic exhibition reveals Marshall’s practice to be a complex and compelling one that synthesizes a wide range of pictorial traditions to counter stereotypical representations of black people in society and reassert the place of the black figure within the canon of Western painting.
Kerry James Marshall: Mastry has been complemented by the concurrent exhibition Kerry James Marshall Selects, curated by the artist. Marshall has drawn some 40 works from The Met collection, ranging from the Northern Renaissance to French post-Impressionism, and from African masks to American photography of the 1950s and ‘60s, underscoring the global and historical nature of the influences that are predominant in his practice.

“It is with enormous pride that we present this examination of Kerry James Marshall’s work at The Met Breuer,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “With our collection spanning over 5,000 years, The Met is uniquely positioned to highlight Marshall’s deep connection to history. Our visitors will be able to experience the many layers of Marshall’s groundbreaking artistic vision as they explore the influences that are central to his work.”

The exhibition’s curator Ian Alteveer added, "Marshall’s work illustrates the American experience as unimaginable without black history and culture. Through the tropes of traditional painting—portraiture, landscape, and other narrative modes—he builds a conversation around visibility and invisibility. The result is a stunning body of work that is both intimate and monumental."

Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of The Met’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, noted, “This comprehensive look at Marshall's work aligns perfectly with our priorities for The Met Breuer where we are committed to expanding our thinking beyond established standards. Marshall’s career is based on the central concern of redressing the absence of the black figure in the canon of Western art. Through a deep knowledge of the history of art, he finds his place in it.”

Born before the passage of the Civil Rights Act in Birmingham, Alabama, and witness to the Watts rebellion in 1965, Marshall has long been an inspired and imaginative chronicler of the African American experience. He is known for his large-scale narrative history paintings featuring black figures—defiant assertions of blackness in a medium in which African Americans have long been invisible—and his exploration of art history covers a broad temporal swath stretching from the Renaissance to 20th-century American abstraction. Marshall critically examines and reworks the Western canon through its most archetypal forms: the historical tableau, landscape and genre painting, and portraiture. His work also touches upon vernacular forms such as the muralist tradition and the comic book in order to address and correct, in his words, the “vacuum in the image bank” and to make the invisible visible.

The exhibition’s title is a play on words referencing Marshall’s comics-inspired Rythm Mastr series, and the works included range from the early and iconic—such as A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) and Invisible Man (1986)—to his newest revisions of traditional history painting. One of these major, recent works—Untitled (Studio) (2014), a monumental picture depicting an artist’s workspace—was recently acquired by The Met. A veritable catalogue of the genres of painting, it combines still life, portraiture, and landscape with trompe l’oeil and abstraction, and includes many references to the Old Masters. The exhibition also reunites the five paintings of Marshall’s Garden Project series—pictures from the mid-1990s that serve to complicate the idea of public housing as bleak or desolate—for the first time in 20 years. Included among these is these is Watts 1963, which depicts the artist and his siblings at play outside Nickerson Gardens, the projects in Watts where the 8-year-old Marshall and his family lived when they first moved to California in 1963. Pages from the Rythm Mastr project, ongoing since 1999, are also featured in the exhibition. These graphic novel panels highlight Marshall’s interest in comics as a vehicle for exploring cultural phenomena, embodied by his band of black superheroes and his incorporation of African American vernacular.


  
 

2017-01-06

12461 - 20170618 - Baltimore Museum of Art presents "Shifting Views: People & Politics in Contemporary African Art" - 18.12.2016-18.06.2017

.
 
Robin Rhode and Niels Borch Jensen. Pan's Opticon Studies, No. 2. 2009. From the series Pan's Opticon Studies. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Roger M. Dalsheimer Photograph Acquisitions Endowment. © Robin Rhode.
 
The Baltimore Museum of Art presents Shifting Views: People & Politics in Contemporary African Art, the first exhibition of contemporary African art drawn from the museum’s collection. It features a selection of powerful prints, drawings, and photographs by seven artists who offer pointedly political perspectives on the lives of Africans and their diasporic descendants. The exhibition is on view in the African Art Galleries December 18, 2016–June 18, 2017. 
“Shifting Views provides visitors with an opportunity to experience a broader range of African art from the BMA’s outstanding collection,” said BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford. “These works on paper demonstrate the common viewpoints of contemporary African artists examining the effects of global capitalism.”

Exhibition highlights include Senam Okudzeto’s All Facts Have Been Changed to Protect the Ignorant drawings, reminiscent of early capitalist drives that fueled the trade of Africans into slavery; Julie Mehretu’s Landscape Allegories (2003–04), which mark the journeys of migrants in and explore the environmental impact of late-stage capitalism; William Kentridge’s upending racial presumptions in Industry & Idleness (1986–87); and Gavin Jantjes’ critique of state-sponsored racial violence in his famed A South African Colouring Book (1974–75). David Goldblatt quietly confronts the intersections of capitalism and racism in a 1970 photograph taken on assignment for Anglo American, a giant gold mining conglomeration; Robin Rhode’s Pan's Opticon Studies (2009) addresses race-based surveillance measures; and Diane Victor’s Smoke Screen (Frailty and Failing) of 2010 re-presents the disappeared: people missing and incarcerated.

The exhibition is curated by Associate Curator for African Arts Shannen Hill, along with Kevin Tervala, Former Curatorial Fellow in the Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia & the Pacific Islands.