NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY PRESENTS THE JOHN PARTRIDGE SKETCHBOOK 1823-1827

St Peters, Rome by Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, 1825. Drawing. © National Portrait Gallery, London

Drawings from a sketchbook belonging to the portrait painter John Partridge (1789-1872) will be shown for the first time at the National Portrait Gallery. The sketchbook, from Partridge's tour of Italy, will form part of a new display highlighting a dynamic group of British artists and sculptors who lived and worked in Rome during the 1820s.

John Partridge lived in Italy between 1823 and 1827 to advance his training and reputation by prolonged study of Old Master paintings. Upon reaching Rome he mixed with a like-minded group of ambitious British artists. Both Partridge and these artists recorded their responses to the art and culture of Italy in his sketchbook. These drawings offer an insight to the group's male friendships, shared experience and mutual artistic endeavours in Italy during the mid-1820s. The display will contain six pencil portrait drawings of the group of artists, several Italian scenes and portraits of local characters from the Partridge sketchbook, purchased by the Gallery in 1955. These will be shown alongside prints and drawings of the key figures of the art establishment in London, including the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), the subject of a major exhibition opening at the Gallery in October 2010. Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815 had brought the British war with France to an end and after almost two decades of isolation from European art and culture, the Continent was once again accessible to British travellers. The mix of classical ruins, neoclassical architecture, Old Master paintings and contemporary art were all compelling reasons for aspiring artists to travel to Italy. Rome was particularly appealing as an environment to advance an artist's training and repute. The display will examine the artistic interaction between Rome and Britain at this time including the attempt to found a British academy in Rome, the nature of this group's artistic ambition, and the effect of the Italian experience on their subsequent careers.

Website : National Portrait Gallery

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THE MORGAN N.Y. TO SHOW BLACK-AND-WHITE DRAWINGS BY ROY LICHTENSTEIN

Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) has long been considered one of the key figures in the development of Pop Art. His signature brightly colored paintings are cornerstones of museum collections the world over. His subject matter drawn from visual fragments of popular culture is emblematic of an entire movement.
An extraordinary new exhibition organized by The Morgan Library & Museum, opening September 24, presents an important series of large-scale, black-and-white works as a group for the first time and examines Lichtenstein’s less known exploration of the medium of drawing. Created during the early and mid-1960s, the fifty-five drawings on view offer a revealing window into the development of Lichtenstein’s art, as he began for the first time to appropriate commercial illustrations and comic strips as subject matter and experimented stylistically with simulating commercial techniques of reproduction—the famous Benday dots. The work represents an essential and original contribution to Pop Art as well as to the history of drawing. Roy Lichtenstein: The Blackand-White Drawings, 1961–1968, is on view through January 2, 2011.
“The Morgan is delighted to be the first museum to bring together this important group of drawings by Roy Lichtenstein,” said William M. Griswold, director. “The work offers visual evidence of a great artist going in a radical new direction and using the medium of drawing to help him find his way. The Morgan Library & Museum is committed to the study of drawings and their role in the creative process, and Lichtenstein’s black-and-white works are superb examples of this.”
Roy Lichtenstein in the Early 1960s
The year 1961 was a momentous period of transformation for Roy Lichtenstein. Thirty-eight years old and regularly exhibiting in New York since 1951, he was by many measures already a midcareer artist, working primarily in painting in Cubist and Abstract Expressionist styles. But in 1961 his art made a radical departure from these precedents. Influenced by the happenings staged by Allan Kaprow, George Segal, Claes Oldenburg, and others, which incorporated everyday objects and popular culture, Lichtenstein turned to an entirely new imagery culled from the contemporary world of advertisements and comic books and adopted the graphic techniques of commercial illustration. The exhibition demonstrates how the act of drawing took on a central role in his practice at this stage, both as a favored medium in its own right, as well as a powerful means of translating and transforming his sources of pop iconography.
The Exhibition
The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to study Lichtenstein’s black-and-white drawings as a group, to explore their technique and subject matter, to draw attention to Lichtenstein’s revolutionizing contribution to the history of drawing, and to bring to light the critical insights these drawings offer into the artist’s larger body of work.
The drawings constitute an original body of work independent from Lichtenstein’s paintings. Although he produced many black-and-white paintings during the 1960s, the drawings were in fact conceived independently and cannot be interpreted as studies for the works on canvas. Lichtenstein’s motivations in creating these works—which did not have the commercial value of paintings—remain enigmatic, though the exhibition provides some background. Moreover, these drawings differ significantly from Lichtenstein’s main body of works on paper. They do not belong to the category of preparatory studies and also stand apart from the drawings of other major pop artists, notably Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jim Dine, whose treatment of pop subjects cultivated an old-master look that is absent from Lichtenstein’s black-and-white drawings.
The exhibition traces the development of Lichtenstein’s drawing style in the 1960s, notably his technique of simulating the Benday dot printing process—a characteristic feature of his style. The viewer can follow the development of the black-and-white drawings through the rendering of these dot patterns. Lichtenstein never drew them freehand but experimented with a variety of approaches, which he perfected over the years to mimic the effect of mechanical printing.
This technique became inseparable from the meaning of the finished work, producing, in the words of critic Lawrence Alloway, “an original artwork pretending to be a copy.” By imitating mechanical modes of reproduction, Lichtenstein presented a critical challenge to prevailing notions of artistic originality and authorship, paradoxically achieving an unmistakable hallmark of style in the process.
The exhibition also explores the sources—comic strips, advertisements, magazines, and mail-order catalogues—of Lichtenstein’s subjects. In addition to the drawings themselves, related sketches are on display as well as clippings from newspapers, magazines, telephone books, and other sources from which Lichtenstein drew inspiration for the works in the exhibition. The show underscores the two themes that came to dominate the drawings—household objects and comic-book scenes of war and romance—and illustrates how Lichtenstein endowed them with a heightened psychological resonance and formal intensity, raising them to the level of high art.
Exhibition Highlights
The earliest drawings are also the most basic. A centrally placed, single object often stands against a blank background: an airplane, a couch, a cup of coffee. Others are based on diagrams demonstrating how to use a product by depicting a hand or foot interacting with an object, such as Hand Loading Gun and Foot Medication. When figures are included, as in Man with Coat and Girl with Accordion, they have plain, ordinary features, as oppose to the conventional beauty of male and female figures that would soon appear in his comic-inspired works.
By 1962, the drawings began to incorporate more elaborate source images, which introduced more complex compositions. Keds, for instance, was inspired by an advertisement for Sears, Roebuck & Company. In a sly reference to contemporary abstract art, Lichtenstein significantly reworked the composition to give greater emphasis to the geometric pattern of the sole. Bratatat and Jet Pilot are two drawings inspired by war comics. Both are close-up views of a pilot in his cockpit, with much attention lavished on the details of his accoutrements.
The exhibition also includes a piece from a little-known installation done by Lichtenstein in 1967 that represents an extension into three dimensions of his black-and-white drawings on paper. As part of the Aspen Festival of Contemporary Art, Lichtenstein drew with black tape on the wall of a white room, outlining its architectural elements. The only extant part of this project, a door with the words Nok!! Nok!! is featured, together with unpublished photographs of the whole room.
Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961–1968 introduces an entirely new dimension of the artist’s work to audiences more accustomed to seeing his brightly colored paintings. Although Pop art in general has been the subject of a number of shows, they have featured few drawings and rarely addressed the practice of drawing by Pop artists.

Website : The Morgan Library & Museum New York

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NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND TO CELEBRATE THE WORK OF WILLIAM MC TAGGART

This year marks the centenary of the death of William McTaggart, one of Scotland’s best-loved artists. The National Gallery of Scotland will celebrate his life and work with a small exhibition featuring over 25 stunning watercolours, small oil paintings and compositional studies as well as a selection of rarely seen personal memorabilia.
William McTaggart has long been regarded as one of the most outstanding and innovative Scottish artists. He was the son of a crofter, born near Aros in Kintyre on the west coast of Scotland and, unlike many of his contemporaries, he chose to work almost exclusively in Scotland. His native land was a constant source of inspiration and provided him with a wealth of subject matter – everyday scenes of fishing communities, breathtaking views of the ocean, and sheltered bays along the Scottish coast all feature heavily in his work. His pictures have a strong emotional content linking people with nature, such as children playing in the surf, fishermen battling with storms or emigrants setting sail for America.
Highlights of the exhibition include studies for some of McTaggarts best known oil paintings such as a delicate pencil study for Spring and an atmospheric study in watercolour for Dawn at Sea. Homewards. There will also be a selection of rarely seen personal memorabilia including the artist’s paint palette, brushes, sketchbooks and Royal Scottish Academy medals. Touching photography from the McTaggart family album will also be on display depicting his true inspiration – his family and surroundings.
The exhibition will be complemented by a small display which will examine McTaggart’s early artistic training at Edinburgh College of Art and features rare studies made by McTaggart when he was a young student.

Website : National Galleries of Scotland

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KUNSTVEREIN MÜNCHEN ANNOUNCES FIRST COMPREHENSIVE SOLO SHOW BY TOBIAS MADISON

Kunstverein München announced the first comprehensive Solo show of upcoming artist Tobias Madison (*1985, Basel) in Germany.
His multidisciplinary working method is inspired by an artistic practice, that explores the borders between form, context and critique. The exhibition at Kunstverein München aims to provide an insight into Madisons eclectic body of work and the diverse processes of production, merging design and lifestyle with artistic identity. „Do it to do it“ takes its reference from a quote by US-American billionaire Donald Trump, which can be seen as an activating key to enter for Madisons dynamic working processes.
What makes Madison a crucial player in his generation of visual artists in Switzerland is that he has become the inspirational driver of numerous national and international collaborations that have come out of the artistic position that he embraces. He is co-founder of the basel based showroom New Jerseyy (Daniel Baumann, Emanuel Rossetti und Dan Solbach) and explores projects that have a more complex relation to the art world, such as initiating a conceptual museum for Italien Memphis designer Ettore Sottsass together with Emanuel Rossetti und Martin Jaeggi in 2009. The Ettore Sottsass Museum aims to establish a collection of objects and information related to Ettore Sottsass, the Memphis group and Sottsass Associati and is dedicated to its modes of presentation and distribution.
In his work „Yes I Can! The Movie: A Preview“ Madison combines overpainted flags and a shortfilm from 2009. This roadmovie records Madisons trip from Switzerland to Hong Kong. This project features a selection of “Yes I Can” flags, taking them from the facades of the Radisson hotels he passed on the way, as if the slogan was an invitation to do so. For his show at the Swiss Institute in New York, he stretched five flags like canvas, commissioning other artists to add painterly gestures to this readymade surface. Each canvas features the corporate colours of patrons, that sponsored the trip and finally lead to the production of his film. In this way „Yes I Can!“ becomes the slogan of a selfgoverning capitalism in which the involved parties establish the rules and change them at any given point.
To program an exhibition of Madisons work would not result in a solo-show in the traditional sense. On the contrary it would appear as fragmentary and dynamic as a group show. This is why Kunstverein München has approached Madison for his debut exhibition in Germany and asked him to ‘curate’ his exhibition as if it was a group show.

Website : Kunstverein München

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SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART SHOWCASES WORKS BY PAUL KLEE

Through January 16, 2011, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will showcase the exhibition Prints by Paul Klee (1946). Organized by John Zarobell, SFMOMA assistant curator, collections, exhibitions, and commissions, the exhibition features 21 works.
SFMOMA has had a longstanding commitment to the art of Paul Klee over its 75-year history. This exhibition re-creates a show of prints by the Swiss-born modernist held at the museum in 1946. At that time, Klee's work was little known outside of Europe; the exhibition was perceived as highly original, and the works seem no less fresh or innovative more than six decades later. The prints demonstrate how Klee, like many German Expressionist artists of the early 20th century, experimented with etching, drypoint, and lithography techniques in order to advance his exploration of pictorial symbolism.
Klee (1879–1940), born in Münchenbuchsee, just north of Bern, Switzerland's capital, grew up in a musical family and was himself a violinist. Ultimately he opted to study art and in 1900 trained with neoclassicist Franz von Stuck at the Munich Academy, where he first met painter Vasily Kandinsky. As was standard academic practice, his training included anatomy lessons and life drawing from the nude; he later spent seven months touring Italy, where he was exposed to early Christian and Byzantine art. In 1906 he married pianist Lili Stumpf and settled in Munich, then an important center for avant-garde art; their only child, Felix, was born there the following year. Klee's friendship with Kandinsky prompted him to join Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), an expressionist group pivotal to the development of abstract art. Later, at the invitation of founder Walter Gropius, Klee taught at the esteemed Bauhaus from 1920 to 1931; in 1931 he accepted a position at the Dusseldorf Academy, but was soon dismissed by the Nazis, who included 17 of his works in their infamous exhibition of "degenerate art," Entartete Kunst, in 1937. After a move to Switzerland in 1933, Klee developed the crippling collagen disease scleroderma, marked by a pathological thickening and hardening of the skin; he died from its complications in 1940.

Website : SFMOMA

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EUROPEAN MASTERPIECES FROM LEONARDO TO SCHIELE OPENING SOON AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS LONDON

This September the Royal Academy of Arts will present an exhibition of works which will showcase the breadth and wealth of one of the finest collections in Central Europe. The exhibition will feature over 200 works and will include paintings, drawings and sculpture from the early Renaissance to the twentieth century. Selected works by artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, El Greco, Rubens, Goya, Manet, Monet, Schiele, Gauguin and Picasso will be on display, many of which have not previously been shown in the UK. The exhibition comprises works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, with additional key loans from the Hungarian National Gallery.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest houses the state collection of international art works in Hungary and includes the Esterházy collection, acquired by the Hungarian state in 1871. The collection began in the seventeenth century but expanded during the rule of Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy (1765 – 1833) who was responsible for developing the fine collection of Old Master paintings and drawings which will be showcased in the exhibition. One of the highlights of the exhibition will be Raphael's Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist, 1508 (known as The Esterházy Madonna).
The show will be organised chronologically, with thematic sections which will consider the richness of the collections in relation to religious works, mythological subjects, portraiture and landscape paintings. The exhibition will open with the dramatic St. Andrew Altarpiece, 1512, from Liptószentandrás, drawing attention to the wealth of skill and sophistication of early wood carving in Hungary. The work will reflect the influence and exchanges of culture with Northern European painters, sculptors and carvers.
Key works from the early Italian School will include rare and exquisite Renaissance bronze sculptures attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea Riccio as well as fifteenth century devotional paintings by Jacopo del Sellaio and Liberale da Verona. The Northern European Schools will be represented through paintings by Lucas Cranach and Maarten van Heemskerck. At the heart of the exhibition will sit a selection of over eighty Old Master drawings which will include works by Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer, Altdorfer, Carracci and Tiepolo and will range from preparatory studies to presentation drawings.
The Italian School will remain prominent throughout the galleries dedicated to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and will include religious and mythological paintings by artists including Tintoretto and Guercino whilst works by Poussin and Laurent de la Hyre will highlight the French school. Large scale paintings by Rubens and Jacob Jordaens will showcase the Flemish school and the exceptional Spanish collection will be displayed through works by El Greco and Murillo.
Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele will also include still lifes, landscapes and portraits by some of Europe’s finest artists, including works by Royal Academicians Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Constable and Angelica Kauffmann. The exhibition will conclude with a showcase of twentieth century artists including Monet, Chagall, Picasso and Schiele alongside works by Hungarian artists such as Károly Ferenczy and József Rippl-Rónai.

Website : Royal Academy of Arts London

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DE GAUGUIN AUX NABIS A LODEVE

Le musée de Lodève consacre cet été une exposition aux peintres de Pont-Aven et aux Nabis.

L'exposition met l'accent sur la part prise par les peintres de ces courants, à la suite de Gauguin, dans le passage entre l'art du XIXe et celui du XXe siècle.Il s'agit de faire découvrir ou redécouvrir l'intérêt des années 1890 à 1930, au travers d'oeuvres de Gauguin, Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, Vallotton, Ibels, Ranson, Lacombe...
Comment notamment ces peintres ont ouvert la voie au fauvisme et à l'abstraction.

De Gauguin aux Nabis, Le droit de tout oser.
Musée de Lodève, square Georges Auric, 34700 Lodève, jusqu'au 14 novembre 2010

Tous les jours sauf le lundi, 10h-18h.

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Bron/Source : France 2

IN SEPTEMBER, ALL EYES WILL BE ON KEES VAN DONGEN EXHIBITION

This autumn, for the first time, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is showing the recently restored work A Finger on her Cheek by Kees van Dongen in its original state in All Eyes on Kees van Dongen, an exhibition that also features some sixty other key masterpieces from international collections.
This autumn Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is staging a major exhibition of paintings by the internationally renowned artist Kees van Dongen (1877-1968). The thoughtful selection of eighty works -around sixty paintings- is being flown to Rotterdam from leading international collections. These highlights of his oeuvre come from both private and public collections, from as far afield as New York, Monaco, Geneva and Moscow. Many of the works have rarely been loaned out or have not been seen in the Netherlands for many years. A Finger on her Cheek, part of the museum’s permanent collection, has recently been restored and can be seen for the first time in its original state from 18 September. The colours are now as brilliant as they were in 1910.
Bohemian
Cornelis Theodorus Maria van Dongen was born on 26 January 1877 in Delfshaven, then still a small independent port near Rotterdam. After drawing lessons at what is now the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, Van Dongen worked for several newspapers including Het Rotterdamsch Nieuwsblad. In 1897 he went to Paris for the first time to continue his training as a draughtsman. Van Dongen the left-wing illustrator became a celebrated artist by way of the avant-garde movements of his time.
Van Dongen was notorious for his contemporary use of colour, paint and electric light—and almost as much for his lifestyle. His lavish studio parties in the 1920s and 30s were attended by film stars, famous politicians and artists. What Andy Warhol was to New York in the 1960s, Kees van Dongen was to the Paris of the 1920s—a society artist and Bohemian who brought added colour and excitement to the city. The artist received various French awards, shared a studio with Picasso and took French nationality in 1929. In the Netherlands of his time, Van Dongen was essentially seen as the Dutch artist who was a success abroad.
Highlights
The exhibition includes paintings Van Dongen made during a trip to Rotterdam in 1907, among them the vivid ‘Modjesko’, works inspired by the Folies-Bergères and the most daring Parisian works, including the monumental nude of his wife Guus. Important, too, are the works he painted during and after his trips to Spain, Morocco and Egypt. These alluring, experimental portraits of women, with Oriental influences, intense colours and decorative accents, are among his best works. The exhibition ends with acrobats, provocative women, nightlife scenes and paintings dating from his first years in Paris and Rotterdam. Alongside the sixty paintings there is a selection of drawings, ceramics, posters and a great many photographs.
Artists’ Circles
For the last two years, guest curator Anita Hopmans has been carrying out in-depth art-historical research into Kees van Dongen. She has discovered many new facts about his years in Paris, which she is incorporating into the current exhibition. She looked for works with which Van Dongen attracted the attention at the art fairs and played a role in the artists’ circles of his time.
A lavishly illustrated catalogue with essays by Anita Hopmans will be published along with the exhibition. In English and Dutch, it will be on sale internationally. There will be various workshops and lectures while the exhibition is running.

Website : Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen - Rotterdam

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TATE LIVERPOOL ANNOUNCES FIRST MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE OF NAM JUNE PAIK

Video artist, performer and composer Nam June Paik (1932-2006) was one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century and is widely considered to be the first video artist. From 17 December 2010 - 13 March 2011 Tate Liverpool, in collaboration with FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), presents the first major retrospective of Paik’s work in the UK. Displaying works from all phases of his career, many shown in the UK for the first time, the exhibition traces the artist’s avant-garde and experimental spirit.
Born in South Korea, Paik began his career as a composer in Japan and Germany, later developing an interest in electronic art and avant-garde movements including the Fluxus group. Influenced by and working alongside artists such as John Cage, Joseph Beuys and Karlheinz Stockhausen, his early years in Germany proved to be a formative experience for his practice. Paik continued his experiments in performance and video art after moving to New York in 1964. His collaboration with cellist Charlotte Moorman was particularly significant in the context of the New York avant-garde.
Characterised by an inventive use of technology, Paik’s signature style has been established through mesmerising closed-circuit video installations and manipulated TV works. Covering the diverse yet coherent phases of his career, Tate Liverpool’s exhibitionoffers a definitive look at Paik’s body of work, from the scores of early music performances and TV works, to robot sculptures and large-scale video installations. In the late 1960s Paik and Japanese video engineer Shuya Abe developed a sophisticated method of manipulating video images with the invention of the ‘Video-Synthesiser’, which revolutionised video art by distorting the colour and shapes of images on TV screens. Paik also undertook public broadcasting and satellite TV projects that were revolutionary in demonstrating the power of decentralised public media, and his experimental use of popular music and visual images are recognised as an early precursor to the ‘MTV generation’.
The exhibition also showcases a rich selection of documentary materials from Paik’s performances and early exhibitions, including Exposition of Music – Electronic Television, the artist’s first solo exhibition at the Galerie Parnass (Wuppertal, Germany) in 1963. Paik’s influential collaborations are also explored in depth, including his friendship with artist Joseph Beuys, and its wider significance in both artists’ practice.
Focusing on Paik's innovative use of creative technology, FACT will showcase Laser Cone for the first time in the UK: a major laser installation representing Paik's 'post-video’ period and the culmination of his continuous experiments with new technology and media. The presentation will also include a number of single-channel video works, demonstrating the artist’s interests in the digital manipulation of visual images as well as the possibilities of satellite technology in extending the physical realm of video art. FACT’s display concludes the retrospective both in terms of its chronology and its conceptual genealogy.
Nam June Paik is initiated and developed by Tate Liverpool and museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf, curated by Sook-Kyung Lee and Susanne Rennert. The exhibition is presented in Liverpool by Tate Liverpool in collaboration with FACT, with curatorial support from Karen Newman.
Museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf, will present the exhibition from 11 September – 21 November 2010.

Website : Tate Liverpool
Website : Museum Kunst Palast

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EDVARD MUNCH'S MASTER PRINTS ON VIEW IN COMPELLING EXHIBITION AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART WASHINGTON

Haunting images of love, attraction, alienation, death, and other universal human experiences in the work of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1865–1944) will be presented in a fascinating exhibition of nearly 60 of his most important prints. On view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from July 31 through October 31, 2010, Edvard Munch: Master Prints examines the artist’s stylistic approach to each of these themes, a process that involved transforming ideas into an evocative motif and exploring that image through numerous variations over a lifetime. Such variations are evident in several of print series shown here, selected not only from the Gallery’s own holdings but also from two exceptional private collections: the Epstein Family Collection and the Collection of Catherine Woodard and Nelson Blitz Jr. The Gallery has presented five exhibitions on Munch: Woodcuts, Lithographs, and Etchings by Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch (1947); Prints by Edvard Munch from the Rosenwald Collection (1972); "The Sick Girl" by Edvard Munch (1975); Edvard Munch: Symbols and Images (1979); and Edvard Munch: Master Prints from the Epstein Family Collection (1990).
"We are pleased to display exceedingly rare works by Munch, including stunning prints from the Epstein and Blitz Collections. We offer our profound thanks to the lenders who have made this exhibition possible," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "The series brought together for this unique occasion will engage visitors as they experience Munch’s fascinating engagement with printmaking."
The Exhibition
Organized in five sections, the exhibition features side-by-side comparisons of related prints, revealing how Munch changed a particular image over time, in terms of color, line, texture, and pictorial detail. His persistent experimentation and virtuosic handling of woodcut, lithography, and intaglio enabled him to vary not only the form but the meaning of individual impressions. Such alterations, which could be both subtle and radical, are also seen in his paintings and drawings.
Building on new research, Master Prints is the first exhibition that considers the exact dating of different impressions of Munch’s fundamental images. A woodblock from 1898, for instance, might have been printed 1898 and again in 1907, 1915, and 1925, each time with some variation. The exhibition and catalogue will clarify how Munch’s artistic ideas evolved through multiple versions of a subject and how the artist reinterpreted powerful memories through new ideas and experiences.
The first section of the exhibition presents various impressions of The Kiss—first as an etching and later as a woodcut. This is a prime example of the development of an image over time, through a succession of new starts using different printmaking matrices (a "matrix" is an object such as an etching plate or a woodblock on which a design has been created and which is then impressed on a piece of paper to make a print).
The second section reveals a more radical reassembling of images, with Munch simplifying and abstracting compositional devices and adding color for dramatic effect. Scenes of starkly frontal figures in landscape settings, their eyes wide in fear or anxiety, progress from the only known impression of the lithograph Evening on Karl Johan Street (c. 1895) to the famous existential image of The Scream. Munch developed that image compositionally and stylistically into the two-color lithograph Anxiety, which he then reprised in a single woodblock hand inked to print a two-color version.
The third section considers examples of Munch making a print from a matrix but developing the image further after printing. Conceptually and practically, the simplest way Munch accomplished this is exemplified by two different versions of Ashes, where he took an impression of the two black-and-white lithographs and enhanced each with hand coloring.
The fourth section describes six examples in which Munch refined a scene or a theme, beginning with a single matrix and then altering that image through a variety of means, some quite bold and some less obvious: he redrew the original matrix, combined matrices, printed them in different sequences and colors, masked part of the matrix, changed the paper support, hand colored the impression. As a sophisticated printmaker, Munch creatively adapted or invented graphic techniques to produce some of his most complicated prints, including Vampire, Madonna, The Sick Child, Sin, Moonlight, and Girls on the Jetty.
The fifth and final section pulls together all of the artistic approaches seen earlier, with Munch varying his initial images over many decades through his masterful manipulation of printmaking media. In his color aquatint The Lonely One and color woodcuts The Lonely Ones, Toward the Forest, and Two Women on the Shore, Munch’s creative alterations of the basic scenes have a purely experimental character, exploring what could be drawn out of the image through continual variation.
Edvard Munch (1865–1944)
Edvard Munch was the most powerful and influential of the modern Norwegian artists. He produced more than 700 woodcuts, lithographs, and intaglio prints, constituting one of the major accomplishments in the graphic arts of the past century.
Personal events such as the deaths of his mother and sister, which occurred when he was a child, his own close brush with death at age 13, and his intense love affairs had a profound effect on his work. Munch translated many of his psychological experiences into visually condensed but potent and popular images, such as the delicate head of his sister seen in profile against the pillow of her deathbed in The Sick Child.
After studying in Oslo, Munch received an art scholarship that enabled him to visit Paris in 1885. During the next two decades he traveled throughout Europe, producing paintings that were heavily influenced by impressionism and symbolism but later developed an intensity that anticipated the later expressionist movement. By the 1890s Munch’s paintings were being widely exhibited.
Dire poverty in 1894 may have contributed to Munch’s decision to take up printmaking for the first time. In 1895 his friend Julius Meier-Graefe produced Munch’s first portfolio of eight etchings and drypoints, which revealed his immediate grasp of the medium. His distinctive working method lent itself naturally to printmaking, which accommodated both his personal psychological needs and his commercial interests.
In 1908 Munch settled in the town of Kragerø, Norway. Proceeds from the more extensive sale of his work enabled him to live comfortably beginning in 1909. Although he traveled occasionally, he spent his later years living a solitary existence on an estate in Ekely, outside Oslo. He continued to create works of art until the time of his death from pneumonia in 1944.

Website : National Gallery of Art Washington

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Bron/Source : Artdaily

UNDERGROUND GALLERY: LONDON TRANSPORT POSTERS 1920S-1940S AT MOMA

After World War I, striking modern posters began to transform the stations of London’s Underground, the first subterranean railway system in the world. These posters were the crucial face of a pioneering public transport campaign for coherence and efficiency that also included station architecture, signage and timetables, buses and bus stops, train interiors, upholstery, and even public trash bins. The program is still recognized as a landmark in corporate design. The principal figure in this famous campaign was Frank Pick (1878–1941), who joined the Underground Group as an assistant in 1906 and became managing director of the newly formed London Passenger Transport Board in 1933. Pick commissioned Edward Johnston to design the system’s distinctive typeface—Johnston Sans (1916)—and roundel logo (1918), Charles Holden to design station architecture (from 1925), and Harry Beck to design the iconic Underground map (1931–33). At a time when British design was largely unregulated, Pick established a standard in design management that would serve as a beacon for quality and progressive innovation. In 1942 he was acclaimed by historian Nikolaus Pevsner as "the ideal patron of our age." The Underground stations were hung with changing series of posters by some of the most significant artists of the time, including Edward McKnight-Kauffer, László Moholy-Nagy, Zero (Hans Schleger), Edward Bawden, and Abram Games. The result was a network of "poor man’s picture galleries." These posters from collection of The Museum of Modern Art speak to the experience of modern London—from culture and entertainment to the anxieties of daily life in wartime. In the so-called Golden Age of London Transport graphics, in the 1920s–30s, production exceeded forty posters per year promoting urban attractions, regulating congestion, encouraging visits to the country, and celebrating the modernity of the transport system itself. During World War II they explained new procedures related to blackouts and air raids. About the posters, one British newspaper reported in 1951, "An excellent show they make, covering many facets, both grim and gay, of the British way of life."

Website : MoMA

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Bron/Source : Artdaily

LA MEP FETERA SES COLLECTIONS AU MOIS DE LA PHOTO

Paris fête les 30 ans du Mois de la photo en novembre, avec 57 expositions dans les musées et galeries.

Le concept central du Mois de la photo 2010 sera "Paris collectionne" pour célébrer aussi les 30 ans des collections de la Maison européenne de la photographie, née en même temps que la manifestation.En pleine révolution numérique, le Mois de la photo fera également l'éloge de l'argentique.
Parmi les grandes expositions, le Jeu de Paume proposera une rétrospective André Kertesz, qui entend montrer comment le photographe hongrois a créé une poétique de la photographie, un "véritable langage photographique".
La Fondation Cartier-Bresson exposera Harry Callahan, grâce notamment à un prêt de la MEP, le Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris une rétrospective Larry Clark, de ses photos d'ados paumés des années 60 à ses films des années 2000.
Saul Leiter sera à la galerie Camera Oscura, Giacomelli à l'Institut culturel italien, la MEP parlera d'"extrême" avec Helmut Newton et les nouvelles images en 3D de Rodolphe Gombergh.Le Musée des arts derniers s'intéressera au rituel de la pose dans les studios photo d'Afrique dans les années 1970.A la BNF Depardon exposera sa France, qu'il a photographiée à la chambre, ainsi que quatorze jeunes photographes qu'il a choisis et qui montreront leur propre vision de la France.Le Musée d'art et d'histoire et du judaïsme présente des portraits de ses collections, autour des portraits que Richard Avedon a faits de son père.Dans les galeries on pourra Mohamed Camara, une des révélations de la photo africaine de ces dernières années, chez Pierre Brullé, le noir et blanc poétique et intime de l'Américaine Sally Mann chez Karsten Greve. La galerie Esther Woerdehoff présentera, 45 tirages noir et blanc, une installation et des vidéos du grand artiste brésilien Mario Cravo Neto, décédé il y a un an.Le visuel de l'affiche du Mois de la photo a été réalisé par le photographe brésilien Vik Muniz avec des gamins des favelas qui lui ont apporté des objets qu'il a collés sur l'image projetée d'un Rolleiflex.

Website : MEP

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Bron/Source : France 2

THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPES OF ASHER B.DURAND TO BE EXPLORED IN EXHIBITION AT FUNDACION JUAN MARCH

This exhibition of 140 works—including oil paintings, drawings and prints—is the first monographic exhibition devoted to Durand outside the United States, where he is recognized as a leading landscape painter and pioneer engraver.
Through an important selection of works, the exhibition will reveal Durand’s unique genius as a landscape painter and portraitist. During his long artistic career Durand depicted the bucolic beauty of the American landscape.
As many other nineteenth-century American artists and writers, Asher B Durand (1796-1886) embarked on a European tour in June 1840. In the company and friends and fellow painters, Durand left the port of New York for London with the intention of travelling to several European cities—a common interest at the time—and the sole purpose of “instruction alone.” After 170 years, almost two centuries later, Durand’s artwork returns to Europe. This time he travels alone (with the exception of a small display of works by his contemporaries and followers). An important selection of 140 works by Durand, including oil paintings, drawings and prints, will be featured at the exhibition. Durand is recognized as a leading landscape painter and pioneer engraver in his native United States. This, however, is the first monographic exhibition in Europe devoted to the artist and therefore aims to display Durand’s remarkable talent in portraiture and landscape painting, in which he depicted the bucolic beauty of the American landscape.
Durand’s work is held by major private and public collections in the United States and has also been displayed at national and international group exhibitions devoted to American landscape painting. This exhibition, entitled The American Landscapes of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), is the first dedicated to the artist outside the United States and can be seen at the Fundación Juan March’s headquarters in Madrid from October 1, 2010 to January 9, 2011.
Durand divided his time between New York and frequent excursions to the mountains and valleys of the surrounding countryside. Because of his longevity, his oeuvre spans nearly the entire nineteenth century and therefore provides an ideal view point from which to contemplate the main features of nineteenth-century American culture. Hence the name of the exhibition. Though the term “landscapes” refers to the geographic locations where Durand worked—the Catskill Mountains, Adirondacks, and the valleys and vistas of the Hudson River—, it also alludes to his “intellectual landscapes.” Durand’s was a spiritual and naturalistic portrayal of America, much in the line of Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman. His paintings communicate an emerging sense of nationhood, the growth of cosmopolitan New York City during the 1800s, and the transformation of Europe’s cultural—and also artistic—tradition into American heritage.
Due to the array of possibilities such a context offers, the exhibition catalogue not only features a fine selection of works, but a collection of essays by recognized authorities in the field. These essays present a series of approaches into the work of Durand, a varied yet coherent and comprehensive view of both the painter and his oeuvre. The reader will undoubtedly draw such conclusions from these writings by noted scholars on Durand and nineteenth-century American art: Drs. Linda S. Ferber and Barbara Novak—author of an article published in The Art Journal in 1962 that led to Durand’s resurgence in popularity—, Barbara Dayer Gallati, Rebecca Bedell, Roberta Olson, Marilyn Kushner, and Kimberly Orcutt.
In addition to the exhibition catalogue, a semi-fascimile and bilingual edition of Durand’s nine Letters on Land Landscape Painting has also been published. These writings, originally printed in 1855 in The Crayon (the first American periodical devoted to the fine arts), relate the artist’s theories on art and combine spiritual thoughts with practical recommendations on the art of painting.
The majority of works on display draw on the holdings of the New-York Historical Society. Furthermore, the project has been overseen by Dr. Linda S. Ferber, curator of the Society and a renowned expert on the work of A. B. Durand. In fact, The American Landscapes of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) is the result of two years of close collaboration between the Fundación Juan March and the New-York Historical Society. Thanks to the contributions of several other individuals and organizations, both institutions have discovered, quite naturally and efficiently, the common interests and goals they share.
Founded in 1804, the New-York Historical Society is the oldest museum in New York. It has played a major role in understanding the importance of the city in forging the history and culture of modern America. The Society houses a vast collection of works of art and historical documents, including the world’s largest collection of paintings by Asher B. Durand. As mentioned earlier, Durand’s work is linked to the making of modern New York. The Society therefore strives to promote his oeuvre.
For both institutions, the possibility of jointly conceiving and organizing the first exhibition devoted to Asher B. Durand in Europe—where his work has only been displayed in group exhibitions—revealed itself as an excellent opportunity to fulfill two wishes: to introduce a different tradition where it is still unknown and to make the unfamiliar one’s own with the purpose of sharing it with more individuals. The result is this exhibition, on view at The Fundación Juan March this fall.
On his first and last trip to Europe, Durand acquired first-hand knowledge of the works of European masters. (He also developed certain tastes, such as a fondness for Rubens and Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain or Constable, or a lesser interest in Turner, to name but a few examples). The American Landscapes of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) represents a second voyage to Europe in several ways. It is a return journey, not for Durand himself, but of his works—now made accessible to all those who wish to view them. To European eyes, encountering these works for the first time will mean embarking on a journey of discovery similar to Durand’s.
The exhibition therefore aims to recreate his trip, yet with the opposite effect: the European audience will now become acquainted with the Durand’s oeuvre and perhaps go a step further by perceiving the reality and landscape of America through the artist’s eyes. Such is the reason for any retrospective (the origin of this word implies the act of looking back): “Our age”—wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1841, the year Durand returned from his first trip to Europe— “is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes.” These words, with which Emerson began one of his famous treatises, refer to the image of nature Durand saw with his own eyes; a vision we are now able to contemplate, enjoy, and comprehend thanks to his legacy.

Website : Fundation Juan March Madrid

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Bron/Source : Artdaily

HUEHUETEOTL S'INSTALLE FACE A PABLO PICASSO

En été, la capitale catalane est le paradis, ou l'enfer, des touristes. On s'y bouscule devant la Sagrada Familia et aux entrées du Musée Picasso. Havre de tranquillité dans la Carrer de Montcada, pile en face de la précipitation adulatrice des consommateurs, et admirateurs, de Picasso, le petit Musée Barbier-Mueller, consacré aux arts premiers américains, tient salles réfrigérées dans une bâtisse aux murs épais. Entre les toiles de l'ancien élève de l'Ecole des beaux-arts de Barcelone et les totems précolombiens, on pourrait tendre un fil à linge - et les commères de papoter aux fenêtres : oui, Picasso fut dissipé, il a peint les Demoiselles d'Avignon en 1907 en référence à la Carrer d'Avinyó, une rue chaude de Barcelone. Alors que faire ? Pair ou impair ? Petit musée ou grande institution ?
En 2006, le mythe Picasso avait traversé la venelle, et quitté ses espaces pour l'exposition "L'homme aux mille masques" que lui consacrait le Musée Barbier-Mueller, confrontation entre les chefs- d'oeuvre des arts premiers et ceux du peintre cubiste. Les commissaires rappelaient que l'art nègre n'avait pas été le seul à toucher Picasso, que la fameuse sculpture nimba de Guinée avait inspiré les portraits de Marie-Thérèse Walter en 1929, et qu'avant cela, le créateur du cubisme avait regardé de près les arts primitifs américains au Musée du Trocadéro et savouré la sculpture ibérique dans la ville catalane de Gosol en 1906.

Point de Picasso en 2010 au Musée Barbier-Mueller d'art précolombien. Jusqu'au printemps 2011, y est proposée une exposition intitulée "Rastros del Norte" ("empreintes du Nord"), parcours géographique partant du Grand Nord pour aboutir au sud, le Mexique. Les pièces qui proviennent des Etats-Unis et du Canada ont été empruntées au Musée Barbier-Mueller de Genève, la maison mère, très riche en arts africains, celles du Mexique sont conservées dans l'annexe barcelonaise. Le Musée du quai Branly à Paris a prêté (jusqu'en novembre) un masque yupik d'Alaska (vers 1200-1500).
Parentés et repères
"Rastros del Norte" décline un voyage allant de l'Arctique à la Méso-Amérique en passant par la côte Nord-Ouest, les forêts orientales, les grandes plaines et l'Ouest. Soit des lampes inuites à graisse de baleine (Xe siècle), un totem haïda de Colombie-Britannique, un masque concha du Mississippi, un gilet sioux (XIXe siècle) ou un encensoir figurant la divinité du feu Huehueteotl en provenance du site de Veracruz au Mexique (VIIe siècle).
Dans un certain désordre chronologique, ces quelque cent pièces sont pourtant des repères à la compréhension d'un Nouveau Monde influencé par la variété de sa géographie, soumis aux bouleversements introduits par des sécheresses chroniques (la ville de Cahokia, dans l'Illinois, habitée dès 1300 av. J.-C.) ou l'introduction du cheval par les Espagnols.
Ce qui frappe, c'est la très grande modernité de ces formes anciennes. La rigueur d'une amulette inuit en ivoire trouvée en Alaska, la ressemblance frappante d'un encensoir provenant du site de Teotihuacán (200-600 av. J.-C.) avec les pièces de plâtre coloré proposées aux touristes du XXIe siècle sur les marchés mexicains : empilement pyramidal de fleurs, de plantes, d'êtres aux yeux arrondis ou fermés comme des fils, portant boucles d'oreilles... En mars, Jean-Paul Barbier-Mueller annonçait la création de la Fondation culturelle Musée Barbier-Mueller, afin d'éviter la perte irrémédiable de ces mémoires du temps. Pour que jamais, de l'Alaska au lac de Mexico, tout ne soit pareil.
"Rastros del Norte", Musée Barbier-Mueller d'art précolombien, Montcada, 14, Barcelone.

Du mardi au dimanche, de 11 heures à 19 heures. Jusqu'en avril 2011.

Website : Musée Barbier-Mueller Barcelone

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Bron/Source : Le Monde

INVERLEITH HOUSE OPENS FIRST MUSEUM EXHIBITION IN THE U.K. DEVOTED TO THE ARTIST JOAN MITCHELL

Inverleith House presents the first museum exhibition in the UK devoted to the artist Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) – one of the most important and singular American painters of the post war period, whose influence and stature are gaining increasing recognition today.
Mitchell studied at The Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York in the late 1940s where she became the youngest member of the Abstract Expressionist movement, enjoying the support of artists such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. In 1959 she left the United States and moved to France, where she lived and worked for the rest of her life. There, she developed a highly personal painterly style – synthesizing an Abstract Expressionist tendency with the traditions of high European painting. In the colour, brushwork, and structure of her paintings one finds affinities with Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri Matisse.
On show at Inverleith House, widely regarded as one of the most beautiful galleries in the UK, the exhibition comprises seven paintings on canvas and five works on paper, (from public and private collections in Europe and America) made throughout the artist’s career and it considers Mitchell’s work in light of her love of nature and poetry. A poet’s painter, Mitchell was a lifelong reader of William Wordsworth, John Clare, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wallace Stevens, and Rainer Maria Rilke. During her time in New York she befriended key figures of the then-emerging New York School of poetry (James Schuyler, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery), while in France she came to know Samuel Beckett and Jacques Dupin. Like these writers, Mitchell expresses through her painting a complex interplay of emotion, memory, and sense of place.
It has been selected by New York-based writer and curator Philip Larratt–Smith and is presented in association with the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York.
The exhibition is part of an ongoing series of exhibitions by internationally-acclaimed artists presented during Festival time, which has included in recent years; John McCracken, Richard Hamilton, William Eggleston, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Cy Twombly, Franz West, Ed Ruscha, Lawrence Weiner, Agnes Martin and Carl Andre. Inverleith House was formerly the founding home of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (1960 to 1984) and its exhibitions make use of its natural light and exterior views to the Garden and City beyond.
The exhibition is presented as part of the 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival. Inverleith House is a Flexibly-Funded Client organisaton of The Scottish Arts Council.

Website : Inverleith House

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Bron/Source : Artdaily

COURBET EN VOISIN CHEZ PROUDHON

C'est une toile parmi les plus célèbres de Gustave Courbet. Pas la meilleure, sans doute. Elle n'a ni l'ampleur de L'Enterrement à Ornans, ni le charme scabreux de L'Origine du monde. Mais l'une des plus instructives.
Sur la deuxième marche d'un escalier, en plein air, au soleil, un homme d'une quarantaine d'années est assis, l'air songeur, vêtu simplement d'une blouse, des livres et des papiers posés sur la pierre devant lui. Deux petites filles blondes sont près de lui. L'une joue sur le sol, l'autre lit. Sur un fauteuil d'osier, des linges et une corbeille de couturière sont posés. Dans un premier état de la toile, dont ne reste qu'un cliché, une femme était assise dans le fauteuil, la mère des enfants, l'épouse de l'homme, qui n'est autre que Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, le théoricien français du socialisme.

Après avoir exposé cette version au Salon, où elle fut moquée, Courbet l'a retravaillée jusqu'en 1867. Pour alléger un peu la composition, il a effacé Mme Proudhon. En dépit de l'apparence, cette toile n'a donc rien d'un portrait de famille fait d'après modèles. Courbet l'a commencée en 1865, après la mort de Proudhon en janvier de cette année-là. Il s'est fondé sur ses souvenirs et, probablement, sur des photographies. Il le fallait d'autant que le choléra de 1854 avait été fatal aux filles de Proudhon.

L'oeuvre est donc une image fabriquée, dont le titre exact est Pierre-Joseph Proudhon en 1853. Le lieu a été identifié par certains historiens comme le jardin d'une maison, rue d'Enfer, à Paris, mais tous ne sont pas d'accord. Le patron du réalisme a signé là un pur montage pictural, addition de portraits posthumes. Malgré ses efforts, il n'est pas parvenu à placer toutes les figures dans la même lumière - et à peine dans le même espace.
Un monde nouveau
Factice, l'oeuvre n'en est que plus intéressante. Pourquoi Courbet l'a-t-il entreprise et s'est-il obstiné à la reprendre ? Par sympathie régionale et, plus encore, par conviction politique. L'exposition qui se tient à la Saline royale d'Arc-et-Senans étudie les relations entre les deux hommes de façon détaillée et revient sur les engagements de Courbet, qui finirent mal avec l'affaire de la colonne Vendôme renversée durant la Commune en 1871, l'incarcération à Sainte- Pélagie et l'exil en Suisse. Les prêts sont nombreux et de qualité, les documents abondants, le parcours démonstratif. Réussite certaine.
L'histoire commence donc en Franche-Comté. Proudhon naît en 1809 à Besançon et Courbet en 1819 à Ornans. Ils sont voisins. Ils ne sont pas du même milieu social, Proudhon issu de la classe ouvrière, Courbet de celle des petits propriétaires terriens. Mais ce sont des mondes où l'on ressent la même défiance à l'égard de la religion, du pouvoir, des autorités et des bourgeois. On y cultive l'indépendance, la solidarité et la mémoire de la Révolution française. On y ressent, directement, les premiers effets de l'industrie et de la mécanisation. Ce sont bien assez de raisons pour vouloir, vers 1848, fonder un monde nouveau, s'appuyant sur l'équité et la raison. Les essais politiques de Proudhon sont, comme ceux de Charles Fourier, des tentatives pour construire ce monde.
Courbet les a-t-il lus ? Plus que la théorie, la colère lui est familière. Et avec elle, la polémique, la satire, la provocation. L'exposition, sur ce point, est d'une rare exhaustivité. On y revoit Les Paysans de Flagey revenant de la foire, dure évocation de la paysannerie, et l'admirable Fileuse endormie, version moderne de la Parque. Deux tableaux légendaires disparus y sont largement évoqués : Les Casseurs de pierre, détruits à Dresde en 1945, et Le Retour de la conférence, toile d'un anticléricalisme exaspéré qui fut achetée par un amateur pieux pour être détruite, ce qu'il fit aussitôt.
Les nombreux portraits d'amis de Courbet réputés pour leurs convictions révolutionnaires confirment qu'il fut le peintre de la cause socialiste avec constance - tout en étant simultanément, il est vrai, celui des nus, des vagues et des chasses, oeuvres apolitiques. Ils confirment aussi la maîtrise stylistique de Courbet dans le genre du portrait, avec, parfois, des effets proches de Manet. Une telle maîtrise que son portrait bricolé de Proudhon a imposé à la postérité sa vision du théoricien du socialisme, alors qu'elle est bien plus subjective et symbolique que réaliste.

Website : Saline royale d'Arc et Senans

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Bron/Source : Le Monde

VALENCIA INSTITUT FOR MODERN ART OPENS AN EXHIBITION OF WORKS DONATED TO ITS COLLECTION

The Institut Valencià d'Art Modern has received a lot of artworks over the last 25 years. Out of the 10 643 works comprising the IVAM's collection, 61 % are donations made by collectors, artists and heirs who have considered that the IVAM is the perfect museum to preserve and disseminate their creations. Thanks to the donations, the museum has increased its artistic heritage becoming a reference museum for studying the works of some artists, for example Julio González, whose name is also the name of the IVAM headquarters. Artworks by Miquel Navarro, Gerardo Rueda, the Equipo Crónica, Jacques Lipchitz, or Gabriel Cualladó also appear in the exhibition. We should emphasized the name of other artists who, thanks to the donations made by them or their heirs, have contributed to turn the museum into an essential place for the study and knowledge of their works. Some of these artists are: Ignacio Pinazo, Bernard Plossu, Eduardo Arroyo, Díaz Caneja, Horacio Coppola, Gabriele Basilico, Juana Francés, José Sanleón, Manolo Gil, Rafael Pérez Contel, Salvador Victoria, Paco Caparrós, Georges Zimbel, Carlos Canovas, Grete Stern, Joan Antoni Vicent, Roberto Otero, John Davies and Carlos Pascual de Lara.
The IVAM wants to make public some of the pieces that have been donated and for with this intention we have organized a large exhibition that covers five rooms in the museum: galleries number 2,3,4,7 and the hall in the second floor. Some of the exhibited artworks are shown for the first time, and they follow the layout of the core that defines the museum's collection. The IVAM has received donated works from more than 500 artists from the late 19th century up to now.
Julio González Gallery
Julio González and the tradition of iron sculpture Julio González gallery includes painting, drawing, sculpture and craftsmanship in precious metals of the important legacy of this artist, whose name is also the name of the IVAM headquarters and whose contributions have turn the IVAM into a museum of reference for studying his work. It also includes paintings and drawings made by his brother Joan González and his daughter Roberta. The presence of Julio González collection has encouraged other sculptors of the 20th century to donate their works. We can emphasize the donation of masks made by André Derain and donated by Peter Coray and the important collection of plaster by Jacques Lipchitz that was donated by his heirs. Other artists that continue the tradition of abstract sculpture in iron paying tribute to Julio González are Anthony Caro, Martín Chirino, Joan Cardells and Miquel Navarro.
Gallery number 3
Preliminaries of modernity in Valencian art IVAM's collection pays a great deal of attention to some artists that have rethought the modernity from a different perspective, that is, considering its isolation regarding the international artistic centres. In this sense, it is essential to set the modernity's origin in the work by Ignacio Pinazo together with other artists' donations as for example works by Timoteo Pérez Rubio (Juan Gil Albert's portrait), Rafael Pérez Contel and Manolo Gil.
Experimental abstraction and graphic design
In the second room, there are shown some similar avant-garde works that create traditions which have survived in the post-war period and that have reappeared with the neo avant-garde movement in the seventies and eighties. When selecting the graphic and work design on paper we find works by Gustav Klucis, Lazslo Moholy-Nagy, Karel Teige, John Heartfield, Van Doesburg, Crous-Vidal, Giralt-Miracle, Joan Brossa, Javier Mariscal, Alberto Corazón or Paco Bascuñan. In the section dedicated to the experimental abstraction we can find the most representatives of the historic avant-garde movement, with artists like Robert Delaunay, Herbert Bayer, Max Bill, Jean Helion, Josef and Anni Albers and artists of later periods that maintain the abstraction in their works as for example José Mª Iglesias, Joaquim Llucià, Pic Adrián and Elena Asins.
The figuration's survival
In the third room we can see some of the works characterized by the loyalty to figuration, understanding it as the disciplined practice of painting with a deliberated and resistant position to the equalization of the artistic style in the last third of the 20th century. Some representative artists are Pascual de Lara, Díaz Caneja, Fausto Mellotti, Zoran Music, Ida Barbarigo, María Girona, Gerardo Rueda and Cristino de Vera.
The photography in the middle decades of the 20th century
The fourth room is based on photography. It shows, on the one hand, the dramatic scenes of the Spanish Civil War taken by anonymous photographers and some others taken by important ones like Robert Capa or David Seymour "Chim"; on the other hand, it shows the most experimental work made by authors like Catalá Pic, Alexander Rodchenko y Barbara Stepanova and the documentary facet of Walker Evans, Hermanos Mayo, and Horacio Coppola. It can be seen as well works taken by great photographers as Friedlander, Herbert List and Gabriel Cualladó together with almost unknown photographs by Julio González.
Colour, material y gesture
The fifth room comprises a selection of sculptures with works by Esteban Vicente, Martín Chirino, Manolo Gil, Alain Kirili, Lucebert, Markus Lupertz, Gerardo Rueda, Salvador Soria, Navarro Baldeweg. There are also some paintings typical of the Spanish Informalism represented by Antonio Saura, Manolo Millares, Salvador Victoria, Antoni Tàpies, Jacinta Gil, Salvador Soria, Juana Francés, Cristóbal Gabarrón y, junto a ellos, las composiciones pictóricas de Alberto Corazón, Caio Fonseca, Miguel A. Campano, Luis Gordillo, and Jorge Teixidor.
Gallery number 4
Deviant images: Pop and its environment
The sixth and seventh rooms gather typical works of some artistic trends as the Pop Art together with the narrative figuration which has a wide representation in the IVAM's collection with some authors as Equipo Realidad, Erro, Fischli & Weiss, Katharina Fritsch, Claes Oldenburg, Ran Oron, Ana Peters, Darryl Pottorf, Richard Prince, Christopher Makos, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Joan Verdú, Richard Bosman, Juan Antonio Toledo, Rafael Solbes, Manuel Boix, Andrés Cillero, Luis Gordillo, Antonio de Felipe, deMo (Eladio de Mora), Equipo Crónica, Eduardo Arroyo, Herminio Molero and Guillermo Pérez-Villalta. In the seventh room we can find a selection of photographs related to this trends with works by Grete Stern, Roberto Otero, John Baldessari, Gerhard Richter, Antoni Miró, P. Pomet, Darío Villalba, Alberto Schommer, Dis Berlin, América Sánchez, Ciuco Gutierrez, Ariane Lopez-Huici and Chema Madoz. Distancing from the modern tradition: art as biography and search for new languages The eighth room is dedicated to photography. It includes works by Sergio Larraín, Georg S. Zimbel, Gabriele Basilico, Alex Harris, Humberto Rivas, Bernard Plossu, Carlos Canovas, Paco Caparros, Enrique Carrazoni, Pillippe Salaum, Jesús Císcar, Ursula Schultz-Schonburg, Ferran Montenegro, Joan Antoni Vicent and José Manuel Ballester. It also contains works on paper and mixed technique by Gerardo Rueda, Eusebio Sempere, Ramón de Soto, Fernando Zóbel, Javier Chapa, Horacio Silva, Carmen Calvo, Rafael Calduch, Joan Castejón, Gonzalo Chillida, Cai Xiao Song, Javier Calvo, Franco Palazzo, Linda Karshan, Eva Lootz and Albert Ràfols Casamada. In the ninth room, it is shown a selection of the most important donations of the sculptor Miquel Navarro; some drawings by Vicente Colom, John Davies, Beatriz Gutman, and sculptures by Charles Simmonds and Per Kirkeby can be seen. In the tenth room there are paintings by Dennis Ashbaugh, Julián Casado, José Sanleón, Soledad Sevilla, Wenzel Ziersch, Alberto Bañuelos and Ramón de Soto. Gallery number 7 In the seventh gallery we can see some installations and new means of artistic expression with the most conceptual work by Alberto Corazón, installations by Manuel Quejido, Fernando Canovas, Susy Gómez, Guillermo Kuitka, Ángeles Marco, Mar Solís, Natividad Navalón, José Antonio Orts, Ximo Lizana, Esther Pizarro, Ángel Mateo Charris, Vicente Peris, Uiso Alemany, Bernardí Roig, Domingo Sánchez Blanco, Joan Fontcuberta and Eduardo Kac and video-creation by Bigas Luna, Júlio Quaresma or Robert Frank together with works close to the land-art made by Hannsjörg Voth. Outside the museum sculptures by Vicente Ortí and Eladio de Mora are shown and in the hall we can see a mural by Gerardo Rueda.

Website : IVAM

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Bron/Source : Artdaily

UN MUSEE A VOCATION UNIVERSELLE POUR JERUSALEM

Ce qui fait un grand musée, c'est son inscription dans le paysage, son architecture, la force de ses collections, et surtout le potentiel de l'ensemble", dit James Snyder, le patron du Musée d'Israël, qui a rouvert au public le 26 juillet après trois ans de travaux. Il a raison : le nouveau Musée d'Israël, ce sont d'abord des perspectives

La plus spectaculaire, dès l'entrée, est topographique. Elle conduit l'oeil vers le haut de la colline où les bâtiments ont été élevés, vers une oeuvre contemporaine monumentale du Britannique Anish Kapoor, en majesté sur la plus haute terrasse. Intitulée Turning the World Upside Down, Jerusalem ("le monde à l'envers, Jérusalem"), c'est une sorte de gigantesque sablier chromé, où les passants se reflètent sens dessus dessous, la tête en bas.
Une autre perspective est temporelle : les collections couvrent tous les champs de l'histoire de l'art, de la préhistoire et l'Antiquité à nos jours. Une troisième perspective est géographique, puisque des salles sont consacrées aux Inuits comme d'autres aux civilisations amérindiennes ou extrême-orientales. Un musée à vocation universelle, donc, dans le contexte particulier de Jérusalem.
Fondé en 1965 sous l'impulsion du maire de Jérusalem Teddy Kollek, le Musée d'Israël avait été conçu par Alfred Mansfeld (1912-2004) et l'architecte d'intérieur Dora Gad (1912-2003), sur le principe des villages méditerranéens construits sur des hauteurs. Sur un terrain pentu, ils avaient bâti des édifices cubiques, bordés par un parc de sculptures dessiné par l'artiste américain Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988).
L'architecte new-yorkais James Carpenter, chargé de la rénovation, en a remarquablement préservé l'esprit, malgré l'adjonction de près de 8 000 m2 de constructions nouvelles. Il est rare qu'un architecte de ce niveau soit aussi modeste et respectueux d'un site. Le nouveau musée s'étend ainsi sur 58 000 m2 et, dans le bâtiment principal, le passage des parties neuves aux anciennes est, pour le non-initié, totalement imperceptible.
Neufs, les pavillons d'entrée sont des cubes de verre pourvus de claustra, formés de lamelles de céramique de son invention, qui les préservent de la chaleur et de trop de lumière tout en paraissant presque transparents. L'ensemble a coûté 100 millions de dollars.
Un budget presque entièrement fondé sur des donations de particuliers, ce qui n'est pas la moindre fierté de James Snyder. Cet ancien responsable du MoMA de New York est un habitué du fund raising. "A l'origine de ce musée, il y a la générosité de vingt et une familles ! Et la totalité ou presque de nos collections (500 000 pièces environ) provient de dons. Nous sommes ainsi soutenus par quatorze sociétés d'amis à travers le monde, et la vente d'un de nos deux tableaux de Basquiat en 2007, pour 14,6 millions de dollars, a pu constituer un fond dont les intérêts permettent de nouvelles acquisitions."
Les collections sont réparties en une trentaine de départements. "C'est une opportunité unique", se félicite James Snyder, qui prend pour exemple la reconstitution de la collection personnelle du sculpteur Jacques Lipchitz, réunie dans des vitrines, où l'artiste avait mélangé tous les styles et les genres. "Nous pouvons opérer ainsi toutes sortes de transversalités, et je vais encourager fortement mes conservateurs à le faire", ajoute- t-il. C'est particulièrement spectaculaire dans la partie réservée aux antiquités, où les civilisations méditerranéennes se télescopent dans les salles comme elles le firent dans l'Histoire. La mise en relation constante de l'art mésopotamien, égyptien, juif, grec, romain, chrétien ou islamique, est extraordinairement stimulante.
A contrario, dès que la politique impose un repli nationaliste, les choses se gâtent : la section d'art israélien d'après-guerre et contemporain est paradoxalement la plus décevante. Pire, elle nuit à la mise en valeur de certains artistes. L'excellente Sigalit Landau voisine ainsi avec des seconds couteaux, voire de tristes croûtes.
La section contemporaine ne montre presque que des chefs-d'oeuvre, dont une grande installation d'Olafur Eliasson, ou une pièce historique de l'artiste d'origine palestinienne Mona Hatoum, mais aussi beaucoup d'artistes français. On s'étonne cependant de l'absence d'une Michal Rovner, sans doute une des meilleures artistes israéliennes du moment.
La majorité des salles sont toutefois spectaculaires, avec des mentions spéciales pour la reconstitution, surprenante, d'un salon Empire, l'ébouriffante collection de photographies réunie et offerte par Noel et Harriette Levine, et surtout la totalité des ready-mades de Duchamp édités par le marchand italien Arturo Schwarz, qui a donné en tout près de 700 oeuvres dada et surréalistes. Dont la Fontaine, le célèbre urinoir de Marcel Duchamp, oeuvre fondatrice de l'art moderne. Elle est ici accrochée bizarrement, sur le côté droit d'une porte, en biais, et au tiers de la hauteur à partir du linteau. Exactement à la façon d'une mezouzah, cet objet rituel qui orne chaque entrée de maison à Jérusalem, ou chaque porte des chambres d'hôtel. Ce doit être ça aussi, l'humour juif.

Website : The Israel Museum

FIC123.BE een website met info en cultuur.

Bron/Source : Le Monde