Installation view of The early Van Gogh. Photo: Marjon Gemmeke.
OTTERLO.- From 24 September 2016 until 9 April 2017, the Kröller-Müller Museum presents the exhibition The early Van Gogh: ‘work against indifference’. The exhibition shows how at the start of his career, Vincent van Gogh teaches himself to translate his view of the world into images. Unlike contemporaries such as Isaac Israels or George Breitner, he focuses not on the cosmopolitan city life, but instead on the fringes of society. On people who have to work hard for their living, in humble workshops and on farmlands in all weathers. Van Gogh tries to sincerely express his compassion for their way of life. Or, as he puts it himself in a letter to his brother Theo: ‘I say it again – work against indifference – perseverance isn’t easy – but things that are easy mean little.’ The emphasis in the exhibition is on drawings, which are rarely shown due to their sensitivity to light. The ... More
Some 20 activists in matching uniform jackets and camouflage from a little-known non-governmental organisation called "Officers of Russia" stand outside the doors of the Lumiere Brothers Gallery. Andrei BORODULIN / AFP.
MOSCOW.- Pro-Kremlin activists on Sunday threw urine on pictures by a controversial US photographer at a Moscow gallery and forced the show's closure after a government advisor condemned the images as "child pornography". The exhibition showed pictures by Jock Sturges, a well-known photographer whose nude images of children have regularly prompted accusations of paedophilia, which he denies. The exhibition at the established Lumiere Brothers Gallery close to the Kremlin is the first to show Sturges' work in Russia and is titled "Jock Sturges: Absence of Shame." Russia's children's ombudswoman Anna Kuznetsova launched a public campaign against the exhibition on Saturday, writing on Facebook that it was "child pornography." Influential conservative senator Yelena Mizulina also released a statement calling the exhibition, which opened September 7, "a public ... More
PARIS.- From September 15th, 2016, through January 22, 2017, the Marmottan Monet Museum presents the exhibition «Hodler Monet Munch – To Paint the impossible.» Why would one unite, in one exhibition, the work of Ferdinand Hodler, Claude Monet, and Edvard Munch? A Swissman born in 1853, who died in 1918; a Frenchman born in 1840, who died in 1926; and a Norweigian born in 1863, who died in 1944. At first glance, the composition of the trio may appear strange. These men never even met, and, although there is no doubt that Hodler and Munch often looked toward the work of Monet, there is no evidence of the converse. The aggravating circumstance : Art History has taken to classifying these men in different categories, Impressionism, Postimpressionism or Symbolism. But it is precisely such classification that this exhibition aims to challenge, by demonstrating that their works have much more to say to one ... More
Clyfford Still, PH-950, 1950. Oil on canvas, 233.7 x 177.8 cm. Clyfford Still Museum, Denver (c) City and County of Denver / DACS 2016. Photo courtesy the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver, CO.
LONDON.-The Royal Academy of Arts presents the first major exhibition of Abstract Expressionism to be held in the UK in almost six decades. With over 150 paintings, sculptures and photographs from public and private collections across the world, this ambitious exhibition encompasses masterpieces by the most acclaimed American artists associated with the movement – among them, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Phillip Guston, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Aaron Siskind, David Smith and Clyfford Still, as well as lesser-known but no less vital artists. The selection aims to re-evaluate Abstract Expressionism, recognising that though the subject is often perceived to be unified, in reality it was a highly complex, fluid and many-sided phenomenon. Likewise, it revises the notion of Abstract Expressionism as based solely in New York City by ... More
LONDON.-Pace London announces Roman Willow, an exhibition of new paintings by Nigel Cooke. The exhibition is on view at 6 Burlington Gardens from 21 September to 22 October 2016. Cooke’s exhibition coincides with the release of a major new monograph, published by Phaidon, which will survey the artist’s career and feature new essays by Marie Darrieussecq and Tony Godfrey, an interview between the artist and Darian Leader and a selection of Cooke’s writing. Pace will also publish a new catalogue to accompany the exhibition. In his first exhibition in London since 2013, Cooke presents a drastic departure from his earlier work. Purging the sort of nihilistic imagery and motifs that had developed as recognizable trademarks of his practice, the new body of paintings pursues a more poetic sensibility founded in the impressionistic and sensorial. In his new body of paintings, Cooke ... More
Damien Hirst, Psalm 8: Domine, Dominus noster - Non diamond dust, 2014, signed, screenprint with diamond dust 39/50, 27.5 x 27.5 in printed area.
MEXICO CITY.- Mexico City has a vibrant contemporary art scene that thrives thanks to its museums, galleries and independent exhibition spaces. Morton Subastas, the leading auction house in Mexico and the most active in Latin America, has been gaining international appeal thanks to the diversity and quality of its auctions. Coming up on September 28, Morton Subastas will be holding a unique contemporary art auction, named appropriately Esto Es Ahora (This Is Now). What makes this auction special and unprecedented is that, like never before, it gathers works from different artists, groups and contemporary proposals of diverse formats and languages. Morton Subastas is interested in being a platform that makes contemporary art visible and approachable to the general public, encouraging the collecting of contemporary art forms, as well as the physical and virtual spaces that promote their production ... More
Salvatore Scarpitta, Forager for Plankton, 1959 bandages and mixed media on canvas, 128 by 104 cm £1-1.5m / €1.2-1.7m / US$1.3-2m. Photo: Sotheby's.
LONDON.- “The Italian Sale” at Sotheby’s London will present outstanding pieces by Modern and Contemporary Italian masters on 7 October 2016. Seminal works by Giorgio Morandi and Marino Marini are joined by an exceptional example from Alberto Burri’s celebrated Plastiche series and Salvatore Scarpitta’s striking 1959 Forager for Plankton. Works by Enrico Castellani include the only surviving panel from his ground-breaking installation Ambiente Bianco, unveiled at Lo spazio dell’immagine, a radical exhibition that heralded a pivotal moment in the development of the post-war avant-garde in 1967. The sale also features four works from the renowned collection of Paolo and Alida Giuli. Having bridged the gap between gallerist, collector, tastemaker, and curator, Paolo Giuli is considered one of the most important figures in 20th-century Italian art. The four works offered at Sotheby’s are microcosmic of his e ... More
Jan Brueghel the elder, The Entry of Animals into Noah’s Ark, 1613 (detail), oil on panel, 54.6 x 83.8 cm (21 ½ x 33 in.) On loan from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
SAN DIEGO, CA.- Inspired by the San Diego Zoo’s 100th Anniversary, the Timken joins six prominent Balboa Park institutions in a collaboration of animal-themed exhibitions for 2016. The Timken’s exhibition, Blessed Beasts and Curious Creatures: Animal Processionals from the 13th to the 21st Centuries, runs September 23 through December 11, 2016 and examines humanity’s changing relationship with animals, nature, and the world through Western art. "The project grew out of a collaborative desire to join in and celebrate the Zoo's 100th anniversary. With partners, The J. Paul Getty Museum and the University of San Diego, and the cooperation of artist Kiki Smith, we have the chance to study some compelling depictions of the animal kingdom,” said Timken Curatorial Director Derrick R. Cartwright, PhD. Two of the objects in the exhibition, Jan ... More
PARIS.-Christie’s presents the outstanding collection of Modern and Contemporary art, thoughtfully accumulated over decades by Claude Berri (1934-2009), the Oscar-winning director and a tremendously successful producer. An important selection of works will be offered in a dedicated auction on October 22nd during FIAC. This main auction will be followed by three other sales organized later this year in order to demonstrate the multiple facets of this eclectic collection: Photographs sale, taking place during Paris Photo in November, and two sessions of Online-only Contemporary Art sales in October and December. As Claude Berri once declared: “Art changes lives. It changed mine, to the point of taking precedence over cinema. Today, I have the feeling I’m better for paintings than for movies.” Edouard Boccon-Gibod, Managing Director of Christie’s France: “Christie’s France is very proud to have been entrust ... More
This project is an opportunity to display pieces of furniture and other objects the context which was originally theirs: a domestic world.
BORDEAUX.- From 24 September 2016 to 29 January 2017, the Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design in Bordeaux (madd) hosts an exhibition displaying more than 300 pieces from the Fonds national d’art contemporain, the National Contemporary Art Collection, and organized by the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap). This collection, one of the largest in Europe, contains some of the most significant works of contemporary designers, French and international alike. This project is an opportunity to display pieces of furniture and other objects the context which was originally theirs: a domestic world. The exhibition is thus being held in two venues, two extraordinary houses. The first one, the Hôtel de Lalande, built in the 18th century, which still has its original wooden panelling and parquet flooring, is listed as a UNESCO heritage ... More
DETROIT, MICH.-The Detroit Institute of Arts is displaying a 20-foot tall, 400-pound installation titled “Thalassa” by famed New York street artist Caledonia “Callie” Curry, known as Swoon. “Thalassa” takes its name from the Greek goddess of the sea, and was originally created for the New Orleans Museum of Art where it was on view in 2011. It has been adapted for a site-specific installation in the DIA’s Great Hall from Sept. 24, 2016 to March 19, 2017, and is free with museum admission, which is free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. The massive sculpture, constructed of plywood on a steel frame and covered with paper cut outs and prints, has been suspended from the ceiling of the museum’s Great Hall. Thalassa’s face is looking upward and her bodice is adorned with imagery of sea creatures, as well as colorful swathes of fabric. Long paper ribbons cascade beneath her like tentacles reachi ... More
Francesca Pasquali, Straws, 2015. Fuchsia, red, pink and transparent plastic drinking straws on wooden panels and metallic frame 78.75 x 98.4 x 9 in (200 x 250 x 23 cm) Triptych. Images courtesy of the artist.
NEW YORK, NY.-Leila Heller Gallery is presenting Plastic Resonance, the first U.S. solo exhibition of Italian artist Francesca Pasquali, on view from September 8 – October 22, 2016. Through the saturated hues of site specific installation, wall reliefs, and undulating, folded sculpture, Pasquali’s work redesigns the contours of organic forms through ready-made inorganic material, rendering elegant, playful designs. In Pasquali’s work, inert plastic and industrial material—straws, neoprene, polyurethane foam, bristles, balloons—take on an appearance flush with life. Often colorful and always laboriously arranged, cut drinking straws adopt the appearance of coral structures or microscopic topographies; vibrantly-hued plastic bursts for Spiderballs, once intended to serve as cobweb ... More
KASSEL.- Bottled humanism, colored neon contaminations, tattered flaps of skin, and limp penises bring humanist self-assurance crashing to the ground. What appears as poison or chemical devastation is in fact an appeal to understand metamorphosis as a state of being. Over a period of three decades (from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s), Tetsumi Kudo (1935 – 1990) created a consistent body of work that serves as a model for contemporary conceptual approaches of Posthumanism and the New Materialism. The Fridericianum presents the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of the Japanese artist’s work in Germany. Forms converge, melt or conglomerate in the microcosms ... More
Quote Art is constitutive. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
More News
Thomas Dane Gallery presents Akram Zaatari's 'Letter to a Refusing Pilot' in the UK for the first time LONDON.- In the summer of 1982, a rumor made the rounds of a small city in South Lebanon, which was under Israeli occupation at the time. It was said that a fighter pilot in the Israeli air force had been ordered to bomb a target on the outskirts of Saida, but knowing the building was a school, he refused to destroy it. Instead of carrying out his commanders’ orders, the pilot veered off course and dropped his bombs in the sea. It was said that he knew the school because he had been a student there, because his family had lived in the city for generations, because he was born into Saida’s Jewish community before it disappeared. As a boy, Akram Zaatari grew up hearing ever more elaborate versions of this story, for his father had been the director of the school for twenty years. In many ways, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had been the backdrop to his education as an ... More
Eduard Planting Gallery exhibits works by Dutch fine art photographer Jan Stel AMSTERDAM.- From 24 September until 5 November Eduard Planting Gallery in Amsterdam presents an exhibition of Dutch fine art photographer Jan Stel. Following the launch of his first book 'Manmade / no human'. The exhibition shows the fascination of the photographer for abandoned buildings with distinctive architecture. In almost twenty years, Jan Stel has captured lots of intriguing locations with his analogue and digital cameras, only using pure, natural light conditions. These locations, that once roared with life and activity, are now silent and without any human presence. Conceived, designed and built by people, but now deserted by everyone. Over the years, Jan Stel photographed in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France and Spain locations like an old gas tank, steel plant, veterinary school, cooling tower, power station, wine cathedral, castles and historic ... More
Ivorian artist Aboudia's most recent works on view at Galerie Cécile Fakhoury ABIDJAN.-Galerie Cécile Fakhoury presents Môgô Dynasty, the third solo exhibition by the Ivorian artist Aboudia in its space. This portrait of a changing society assembles his most recent works produced in Abidjan alongside a monumental in situ installation. Aboudia’s work depicts the vitality and the unvarnished energy of a youth that gets by and manages; the smiles are a little nightmarish at times, but these broad smiles exalt their experience. This generation on the fringes of society is growing and taking on a new form. Its strength is becoming clearer as it is restructured. In each work swarms a multitude of lives, a breath of fresh air and noise, silhouettes seek their place in endlessly narrow spaces. In Môgô Dynasty, Aboudia’s paintings shrink. The figures are stifled in the frame. Their voices are heard in a steamy commotion, their combined force at bursting point. ... More
Jihadist who razed Timbuktu tombs readies for judgement THE HAGUE(AFP).- War crimes judges will deliver a historic judgement on Tuesday against a Malian jihadist who admitted attacking Timbuktu's fabled shrines, in a case which could send a strong message against cultural destruction. Around the globe, 55 places are on UNESCO's list of endangered sites and fears are growing for other monuments caught in the crossfire in Iraq and Syria. Protection of such treasures "is about more than shielding stones and buildings –- it is a part of our effort to defend human rights and save people's lives," UN chief Ban Ki-moon told a recent event at the United Nations on protecting cultural heritage. He offered the hope that the case of Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi before the International Criminal Court (ICC) could "help end impunity." "Combatants that attack cultural treasures want to damage more than artefacts –- they aim to tear at the fabric ... More
South Street Seaport Museum announces the return of the 1885 full-rigged ship Wavertree NEW YORK, NY.-South Street Seaport Museum announces the triumphant return of the restored 1885 full-rigged cargo sailing ship Wavertree at Pier 16 in the East River (Fulton and South Streets), NYC. The Seaport Museum welcomed the vessel with traditional maritime fanfare, including fireboats spraying water, a bell-ringing, flag raising, and a cheer to the ship and hosted a lineup of special guests including Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer, Council Member Margaret Chin, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Commissioner Feniosky Peña-Mora of the NYC Department of Design and Construction, and Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, to help welcome her home to her berth at Pier 16. Mayor Bill de Blasio praised the Seaport Museum and the restoration of Wavertree: "In New York's earliest days, the waterfront ... More
Annely Juda Fine Art opens exhibition of recent work by the British artist Suzanne Treister LONDON.-Annely Juda Fine Art announces an exhibition of recent work by the British artist, Suzanne Treister. HFT The Gardener features artworks created by the fictional character Hillel Fischer Traumberg, a banker turned 'outsider artist'. Primarily a painter through the 1980s, Treister has - since the 1990’s - been a pioneer in the field of new media art, developing fictional worlds and international collaborative organisations. Utilising various media, including video, the Internet, interactive technologies, photography, drawing and watercolour, Treister has evolved a large body of work which engages with eccentric narratives and unconventional bodies of research. Often spanning several years, her projects comprise fantastic reinterpretations of given taxonomies and histories that examine the existence of covert, unseen forces at work in the world, whether corporate, ... More
Landmark first London solo exhibition by Turkish artist Taner Ceylan opens at Sotheby's S/2 gallery LONDON.- This autumn, Sotheby’s S|2 gallery is staging the landmark first London solo exhibition by the leading Turkish contemporary artist, Taner Ceylan. Running from the 23 September to 28 October, and comprising six astounding photo-realist paintings, ‘I Love You’ is a major new body of work by the Istanbul-based artist. Through his virtuoso, emotionally charged paintings, Ceylan has become the most revered - and perhaps most controversial - Turkish artist of his generation. Sharing the technical mastery of great 20th-century photorealist pioneers such as Chuck Close, Ceylan’s work is suffused with a visceral emotional energy that belies the painstakingly labour-intensive process behind each painting. “I try to paint with the language of the contemporary artists, and contemporary photography with the techniques of the classical artist”, says ... More
Works by Olya Oleinic on view at Foam AMSTERDAM.- In July 2016, Olya Oleinic (Moldova, 1991) embarked on a journey through China and its surrounding areas: from Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei to Hong Kong. Fascinated by consumer culture and the aesthetics of advertising, she went to research the country that produces most of the products we use in our daily lives. At the same time, Chinese culture blends Buddhism, communism and consumerism in a way that seems quite incomprehensible to the average European. With her exhibition Made of China, Olya Oleinic relives her confusing encounter with China’s consumer culture. A typical Chinese shop arises in Foam 3h, in which her artworks merge with consumerist objects and obscure items on the shelves like random merchandise. Oleinic captured everything that struck her while scouring the cities’ streets. After her return to Amsterdam (NL), where ... More
Weiss Berlin opens first exhibition with Keith Mayerson BERLIN.-Weiss Berlin is presenting My American Dream: Berlin Edition, Keith Mayerson's first exhibition with Weiss Berlin. My American Dream: Berlin Edition is a new chapter of a ten-year project to represent and complicate the fiction of America and the possibilities of its painterly representation. Mayerson, an acclaimed draftsman and professor for both fine art and cartooning, has also published a number of graphic novels Horror Hospit al Unplugged with Dennis Cooper (1996/2011). This show combines oil paintings, drawings, and graphic works. My American Dream: Berlin Edition presents works arranged by three themes: Destiny, Pioneers, and Rebels . Destiny comprises paintings of landscapes and sites important to Mayerson's narrative such as the Rocky Mountains and Elvis' Memphis home, Graceland . The drawings in Pioneers feature civil rights leaders and ... More
Sixty artists explore the nocturnal at Towner Art Gallery EASTBOURNE.-Towner Art Gallery presenting Towards Night, a major exhibition exploring the nocturnal through paintings, prints and drawings by over sixty artists. Drawing on the nineteenth century European Romantic tradition, the show surveys contemporary and historical connections to wonderment and dystopia at dusk, twilight, night and dawn. Towards Night juxtaposes key paintings and prints by Constable, Friedrich, Munch, Nolde, Palmer and Turner, some of the best known visionaries of the Romantic tradition with contemporary artists who work with the transformative aspects of nightfall to convey emotional responses of awe, anxiety and solitude, love and loss, revelry, insomnia, and journey’s end. The exhibition opens with direct and positive responses to the natural world; Marc Chagall’s exotic dreamlike evening in The Poet Reclining (1915) sits close to eighteenth ... More
Ana Garcia-Pineda opens the Espai 13 exhibition series for the 20162017 season at Fundació Joan Miró BARCELONA.- With simple, seemingly naive drawings and aphoristic texts based on absurd but strongly subversive humour, Ana Garcia-Pineda (Sabadell, 1982) takes apart small everyday tragedies, creating an alternative space of resistance. The artist opens the exhibition series One Foot Out. Expeditions and Diasporas with Fiction is a Reality Yet to Happen, a show that revolves around drawing, text, and literary aspects, combining various concepts: the theory of possible worlds, the concept of truth in fiction, and the study of reality through the unreal. Colour, Identicals, Body, Language, Shape, Property, Function, Holes, Time. These are the nine concepts that Garcia-Pineda has chosen to redefine in a large-scale installation created specifically for Espai 13. Each of these themes is re-examined through a series of literary exercises in audio form that accompany the various ... More
Transforming Everyday Objects | Modern Art & Ideas
PhotoGalleries
Flashback
On a day like today, French painter Théodore Géricault was born
September 26, 1791. Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (26 September 1791 - 26 January 1824) was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. Although he died young, he became one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement. In this image: A visitor studies a painting "The Raft of the Medusa" by French artist Theodore Gericault 1791 - 1824 with the help of the new audio guide at the Louvre Museum in Paris Thursday April 12, 2012.
