2016-12-30

10456 - 20170319 - The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Fiona Tan's work Disorient (2009) for the first time in Spain - 22.12.2016-19.03.2017

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Fiona Tan, Disorient (2009). Two-channel digital color video installation, with sound, 17 min. and 19 min. 30 sec. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Purchased with funds contributed by the International Director’s Council, 2014. 2014.120 © Fiona Tan, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016.
 
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is presenting Fiona Tan’s work Disorient (2009) for the first time in Spain. This is the ninth piece programmed in the Film & Video gallery since it opened in 2014 as a space dedicated to video art, video installation and the moving image.  
Fiona Tan (Sumatra, 1966) produced Disorient in 2009 for the Dutch Pavilion of the 53rd Venice Biennale, where it was also partially staged and shot. In fact, the film reflects the history of Venice as a strategic center for the trade of goods from newly charted Asian territories in the 13th to 16th centuries. Tan’s film evokes the dream of a “great Orient”, as described by Marco Polo in his famous Book of the Marvels of the World. This collection of tales, now seven centuries old, inspired in Europe the image of a fairytale and fantastic Orient, rich in millenary cultures open for the first time to European knowledge; a cliché manipulated, also for centuries, to mask the exploitation of peoples and resources. This paradox impregnates the different elements in Fiona Tan’s installation.

Disorient is composed of two facing screens, which communicate with one another by means of the objects appearing on them and the speaker placed between them, from which a man’s voice can be heard whispering fragments of Marco Polo’s travel chronicles. On the largest screen, a slow travelling shot depicts an anachronistic collection of souvenirs and trophies from the Far East: taxidermied exotic animals, gold statues, luscious fabrics, fine porcelain, spices and amulets; but also, surprisingly, modern bibelots, cash in various currencies, TV sets, and even a model of the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. All of these objects are stored in a lonely warehouse kept by a mysterious, pensive man—a Westerner—dressed in a golden robe.

On the opposite screen, a montage of images describes contemporary life in the Asian lands allegedly visited by the celebrated Venetian explorer, where its inhabitants scrape a living among pollution, poverty and labor exploitation, in an environment of violence and chaos. These images, shot in Afghanistan, Iraq and China, obliquely document the creation, collection, shipping and installation of the luxurious objects represented in the rich warehouse on the first screen. As the title of the piece suggests, the juxtaposition of these two narratives, apparently disparate, but deeply connected, generates a sense of disorientation in the spectator.

Fiona Tan transforms the warehouse into a stage and archive for cultural memory and modern myth, reconstructing Marco Polo’s legendary Asia, a reconstruction which is at once the recovery of an unwritten memory of the Asian continent and an invention of what this recollection could have been.

Fiona Tan, born in 1966 in Pekanbaru, a city in the center of Sumatra (Indonesia), has been based in the Netherlands since 1988. With a Chinese father and an Australian mother, Tan calls herself a “professional foreigner,” a migrant by birth whose background inspires many of her works. Her productions, combining film, video and photography, examine the formation of identities in the postcolonial, globalized culture, particularly in relation to the myths and legends of the colonial East.

Fiona Tan is one of the most acclaimed contemporary film and video artists. The artist earned recognition for a series of works based on archive footage where she questions the role of the observer and the observed, challenging the myths of the colonial past. Reflection on identity, time and memory is a constant in Tan’s work. Her portraits combine analysis of the sociological and historic-artistic context with a reflection on how time influences our perception of those portrayed.

Fiona Tan has participated in numerous exhibitions, both collective and solo, among which are the Documenta in Kassel and the Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Sydney and Yokohama Biennales. In 2009, Tan represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale. Among her most important solo exhibitions are the MCA in Chicago, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Sackler Galleries in Washington, the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Switzerland and the MMK in Frankfurt, where an extensive retrospective of her work will run until January 16, 2017. She won the J.C. van Lanschot Prize for Sculpture in 1998 and the Infinity Award for Art in 2004, and her work can be found in famous public and private collections, including the Tate Modern in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the New Museum in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
 
 
  
 
 
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2016-12-29

10455 - 20170219 - Collection de l'Art Brut marks its fortieth anniversary with exhibition of works by Eugen Gabritschevsky - Lausanne - 11.11.2016-19.02.2017

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                                                    Untitled, ca. 1938. Gouache on paper, 26 x 33 cm. Photo: Caroline Smyrliadis, AN Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne. Marking its fortieth anniversary, the Collection de l’Art Brut is showing the little known oeuvre of Eugen Gabritschevsky (1893-1979). This Russian creator's works first met the public eye thanks to their integration by Jean Dubuffet into his personal Art Brut collection, as of 1950. 
The Eugen Gabritschevsky show is being set up jointly with the La maison rouge (Paris, July 8 - Sept. 18, 2016) and the American Folk Art Museum (New York, March 13 - Aug. 13, 2017). It comprises 75 works from the Collection de l'Art Brut holdings, together with a good number of works on loan from abroad, i.e. from both the creator's family and the Galerie Chave in Vence (Fr). Featuring 145 of Gabritschevsky's pieces, the show also includes photographs, texts by his pen and archival documents.

The son of a renowned bacteriologist, this creator was born in Moscow. After studies in biology and then specialization in genetics, he went on to publish several articles that were well-received in scientific circles. Thereupon, Columbia University (NY) invited Eugen to pursue his research with them; and, in 1926, he set off to pursue his work at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. While thusly on the threshold of a brilliant scientific career, health problems put an end to his plans. He was committed to the Eglfing-Haar Psychiatric Hospital near Munich in 1931; here he would remain some fifty years, until his death.

Eugen Gabritschevsky devoted himself to artistic creation for over forty years, producing a total of some five thousand paintings and drawings. These he carried out on scrap paper and the backs of calendar pages and official circulars, resorting randomly to watercolor and gouache which he applied by brush or finger and then—using a rag or a sponge— shaped into suggestive forms. He would heighten the resulting outlines by brush to spawn monstrous hominoid figures, fantasy world stage scenes and bizarre animals in enigmatic landscapes. He also was wont to experiment other work methods, including scraping, plant element imprints, Tachism and pliage, inviting surprising elements to spring forth. This show treats viewers to the multiple facets of this creator's major and complex production.

Exhibition curator : Sarah Lombardi, Director, Collection de l’Art Brut
Research assistant : Pascale Jeanneret, Curator, Collection de l’Art Brut  
  
 
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2016-12-28

10454 - 20170205 - First major retrospective of the work of the New York artist Rochelle Feinstein in Hanover - 03.12.2016-05.02.2017

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Rochelle Feinstein, Dinner Party, 1996, 106,7 x 106 , 7cm. Öl und Laserdruck auf Leinen. Courtesy Stellar Rays und die Künstlerin.
 
Make It Behave is the first major retrospective of the work of the New York artist Rochelle Feinstein (*1947). The exhibition was developed in cooperation with the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich and will be presented in 2018 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York. It brings together paintings and series of works from the past three decades. 
As the title of a work and the exhibition, Make It Behave illustrates the crucial role of language and its normative use in Feinstein’s painting. The work Make It Behave (1990) consists of the gesture of a single stroke of the paintbrush that forms a red square. Who is being told to behave here? What should a “proper” square look like?

With The Estate of Rochelle F. the artist created her own posthumous estate between 2009 and 2010. Inspired by the financial crisis in 2009, Feinstein decided to work exclusively with existing materials. She compiled her own works, everyday objects, and gifts that she once received into a new series. Texts and drawings in the form of journal entries augment the work. By translating the economic collapse into her own activities, Feinstein poses questions about impermanence as well as her own artistic surplus.

Ambiguity and humor accompany Feinstein’s artistic approach. Based on autobiographical experiences, she demonstrates the absurdity of value systems that determine our daily life as well as politics and art history. With an astute gaze, Feinstein questions the formal repertoire of abstract painting as well as her own positioning as an artist and professor within the structures of artistic production and the art market.

Rochelle Feinstein studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She initially worked as a fashion and advertising illustrator before devoting herself to painting in the early 1980s. Since 1994 she has taught painting and printmaking at the Yale University School of Art in New Haven. She lives and works in New York.

The exhibition at the Kestner Gesellschaft is supported by the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung and the Förderkreis + Kunstkomm.

Curator: Christina Végh
Assistant curator: Elmas Senol
 
 
  
 
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2016-12-27

10453 - 20170226 - Arab World Institute in Paris presents the exhibition 'Seafaring Adventurers, from Sinbad to Marco Polo' - 15.11.2016-26.02.2017

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Boutre Nizwa © Reno Marca
 
Guided by the legendary Sinbad the Sailor, the geographer al-Idrīsī, the explorer Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, and many others, set sail—with the Arabs, the masters of the seas, and the great European sailors who sailed on their maritime routes—on a wonderful voyage of discovery extending from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. From the beginning of Islam to the dawn of the seventeenth century, it is a maritime adventure that visitors can see and experience in an exceptional immersive itinerary that combines sound effects, images, and optical devices. 
Extraordinary travel diaries have related the fruitful maritime exchanges that flourished in the seas of the Old World Visitors are able to view these wonderful accounts—the common thread of the exhibition—in the most famous travel diaries.

These accounts take the exhibition’s visitors on a journey at the crossroads of African gold and Western silver, Greek coins and Golconda diamonds, glassware from Alexandria, Venice, and Bohemia, and porcelains, silks, and spices from China and the Moluccas.

A MONUMENTAL EXHIBITION
With Sinbad, the sailor and hero from ‘The Arabian Nights’, the exhibition initially introduces visitors to the strange and terrifying world of the sea, over which flies the formidable and mythical roc (legendary bird). It was also inhabited by sea monsters, which feature in the fabulous miniatures of the ’Aja’ib (‘The Wonders of Creation’) by al-Qazwīnī, the famous Persian scholar. Statuettes, pictures, ex-votos, and Latin and Arab miniatures will be displayed to highlight the mystical dimension, in religious traditions, of the dangers of the sea.

Maritime travel was a divine—and very real—undertaking. This is attested by the accounts of the Arab geographer and traveller from Andalusia, Ibn Jubayr (1145–1217), who describes the terrible sinking of a vessel, against a backdrop of images of storms.

Sailors had to learn to master the sea before setting sail. In a relaxed atmosphere, under the guidance of the sailor and cartographer Ibn Majid (1432–1500), visitors will learn about the art of sailing, see wonderful navigation instruments, and discover the development of vessels, in a journey of discovery complemented by many models.

Thanks to the development of cartography, sailors were able to better master the seas, as attested by the author of a famous map of the world: the geographer al-Idrīsī (circa 1100–1165), against a backdrop of medieval Latin and Arab cosmographies, maps and portolanos, world maps, and other astronomical treatises, and beneath a didactic and interactive sky.

The itinerary subsequently moves onto Marco Polo (1254–1324), the famous Italian merchant, and Ibn Baṭṭūṭah (1304–1377), one of the greatest travellers of the Middle Ages, whose sea adventures are related in a shadow theatre.

Both figures enable us to appreciate the extraordinary history of maritime exchanges, from the time of the caliphs to the dominance of the trading cities. From the outset of Islam, the Arabs took control of the maritime routes, from the Arabian-Persian Gulf to China. Items found in the Belitung shipwreck, the exceptional remains of an Arab vessel discovered in Indonesia, ceramics, objets d’art, manuscripts, and various coins will illustrate this chapter in history.

This was followed by a period of European expansion and the beginning of globalisation, which is evoked by the last guides on our journey, the Chinese navigator and diplomat Zheng He (1371–1433) and the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama (c.1460–1524). Major maritime trading companies then emerged, which had a lasting effect on these regions.

The immersive and rich exhibition scenography is divided into three sections and offers visitors a spectacular visual itinerary; it is complemented by many cartographic points of reference. Major travel diaries create a common theme and embody this great epic, and their accounts are on display in the various rooms. Sinbad, Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Majid, Marco Polo, Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, Zheng He, and Vasco da Gama are brought to life using the ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ system. Invented in the nineteenth century, this system is one of the most widely used today in the creation of holograms. This press kit contains various extracts from the accounts of these travellers.

A majestic thirty-metre long traditional sailboat—an Omani dhow—will stands on the AWI’s forecourt, rounding off the exhibition itinerary.

Fruit of an exceptional partnership between the MuCEM and the Arab World Institute (Institut du Monde Arabe), the exhibition ‘Seafaring Adventurers’ is being held at the AWI between 15 November 2016 and 26 February 2017; then it will be held in the MuCEM, in Marseille, between 7 June and 9 October 2017.
 
 
  
 
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2016-12-26

10452 - 20170212 - Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris presents a career retrospective of the work of Carl Andre - 18.10.2016-12.02.2017

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Installation view, Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958–2010 at Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. © Pierre Antoine.
 
The Musée d’Art Moderne is presenting a tribute to the major 20th-century American artist Carl Andre (b. 1935 in Quincy, Massachusetts). The exhibition Sculpture as Place, 1958–2010 covers the full spectrum and inner consistency of the Andre oeuvre, with 40 monumental sculptures, numerous poems and photographs, works on paper and various objects that defy pigeon-holing. His iconic works appear alongside pieces never shown together before, such as his Dada Forgeries. A leading Minimalist figure together with Donald Judd and Robert Morris, Andre now stands out as one of the 20th century's greatest sculptors. 
This retrospective reveals how Andre, working with standard, unmodified industrial elements, redefined sculpture as a means for experiencing space, form and matter. He also produced poems that made use of words for their visual as well as their semantic and sound value. The overt simplicity of his work challenges the traditional notions of technique, composition and installation, at the same time as it makes the viewer an active participant.

After arriving in New York in 1957, Andre wrote poetry and made his first, small sculptures. Drawn to the properties of matter – form, weight, texture – in 1965 he began assembling industrial components like wood, metal, bricks and bales of hay in interaction with his exhibition venues. Since then he has continued to respond to gallery, museum and urban spaces: he works with materials he finds on-site, assembles items he can handle on his own, and produces works that combine real presence with a spatial integration so effective that they seem to have been there forever.

In the Andre oeuvre the artwork changes status: it is no longer a symbolic or figurative element, but a real object that is as much a part of the world as a tree or a wall. In the course of the 1960s his notion of sculpture evolved, first as form, then as structure and finally as place: "I have desires," he told Marta Gnyp in an interview in 2015. "I don't have ideas. For me it is a physical desire to find the material and a place to work."

The first Carl Andre exhibition in France for twenty years – the last was at the Musée Cantini in Marseille in 1997 – Sculpture as Place reflects the Musée d'Art Moderne's policy of taking a fresh look at the great founders of modernity.

Designed by the Dia Art Foundation in close collaboration with the artist, this retrospective has already been seen in New York (2014), Madrid (2015) and Berlin (2016), and will subsequently travel to Los Angeles (2017).

The international exhibition Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958–2010 has been made possible by the support of the Henry Luce Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art, as well as the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, The Brown Foundation, Inc. in Houston, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Sotheby’s.

This event is part of Tandem Paris-New York 2016, organised by the City of Paris and the French Institute in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States and the American Embassy in France, with the backing of the City of New York.
 
 
  
 
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2016-12-23

10451 - 20170423 - Move On: Kröller-Müller Museum exhibits works of art that have a degree of movement - Otterlo - 26.11.2016-23.04.2017

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                                           General view of Move On, with Tom Claassen, Untitled (Brigid), 1998. Photo: Marjon Gemmeke.
The Kröller-Müller Museum presents the exhibition Move On, with sculptures and drawings of work that is capable of movement, sometimes literally, often imagined. The presentation features work from the collection by Gerrit van Bakel (1943-1984), Tom Claassen (1964), Constant (1920-2005), Martin van Oel (1967), Panamarenko (1940) and Carel Visser (1928-2015).

At ease
All the selected works of art have a degree of movement, or at least a suggestion thereof. They have wheels, legs or wings, with which they can roll, walk or fly. But none of the sculptures will move in the space. As semi-scientists, inventors or visionaries, these artists mobilise thinking – from extremely slow to faster than light.

Sluggishness
Untitled (Brigid), 1998 by Tom Claassen is a cross between an oversized cuddly toy and a paralysed monster. Claassen’s animals usually look adorable, but are often overwhelming due to their size. Stripped of any form of heroism, Brigid lies on a table stupefied and thus embodies sluggishness.

Faster than light
The inventor-artist Panamarenko seeks to make the technically impossible possible. In his multifaceted oeuvre he is inspired by existing designs of all kinds of vehicles and by nature. In the work Polistes he combines the speed of racing cars with his cherished theme: flying. The shape is based on the fast Porsche 917, designed in 1969. The title of the work also refers to a type of large paper wasps, the Polistes. By producing the car in rubber, Panamarenko makes this design for extreme speeds into an ‘Ever-Ready-Airbag’.

Natural tempo
Gerrit van Bakel distrusted speed. His machines move by using natural forces. Thus the Rain cart (1982-1983) converts mass into energy in an ingenious way to move forward. With his designs, Van Bakel provides a counterbalance to the rapidly advancing industrialization of farming in the nineteen sixties.

From Claassen’s animal overcome with despondency Untitled (Brigid) to Panamarenko’s Polistes, in an increasing tempo, Move On sets the imagination in motion.


                                                                     Website : Kröller-Müller Museum 

 
 
 
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2016-12-22

10450 - 20170423 - Exhibition at The 21er Haus presents works by the Austrian artist Franz West - Vienna - 14.12.2016-23.04.2017

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Franz West – Anselm Reyle, Stolen Fantasy, 2011. Courtesy Anselm Reyle und Verlassenschaft nach Franz West, Exhibition view Franz West - ARTISTCLUB, 2016, Photo: © Belvedere, Vienna, © Archiv Franz West.
 
The 21er Haus is presenting central works by the Austrian artist Franz West (1947–2012) in an exhibition entitled Franz West – ARTISTCLUB. The works on view were made by 36 different artists in collaboration with Franz West. The so-called ARTISTCLUB began as a participatory project started by West in 1999. Even though it did not achieve its desired form while the artist was alive, here it can be experienced as a curatorial idea. Viewer participation and the collaboration with other artists play a central role in West’s artistic practice. He continually challenged the relationship between the artist, the artistic work, and the recipient in a radical way. The exhibition aims to reflect West’s concepts of art as a participatory act, the inclusion of various artistic positions via the process of collaboration, and the associated idea of authorship.
The 21er Haus attempts to revive West’s concept of the ARTISTCLUB. Starting in mid-January, this idea will be newly interpreted every second Wednesday between 6:00 and 9:00 PM. Heimo Zobernig’s central four-meter-large artwork will, in this sense, specifically serve as an “open stage” for lectures, talks, concerts, performances, and much more. Moreover, any visitor to the 21er Haus exhibition is invited to interact with the objects, which includes the opportunity to sit on any seating areas.

Born in Vienna in 1947, Franz West discovered his passion for the art world early on in his youth. He gained insight into international art movements and maintained constant contact with Vienna’s intellectual scene. His intensive pursuit of and reflection upon philosophical writings throughout his life had a crucial impact on his artistic work. Spontaneous and self-educated, West started his artistic production in 1970. His initial works, small and on paper, were followed by his first so-called Adaptives (Passstücke), that emerged in the 1970s. These functioned as sculptural extensions of the human body that turned the viewer into an integral part of each artwork.

West’s prominent pieces of seating furniture and his large-scale outdoor sculptures were based on his principle of participation. His work concept was defined by structures that were transformable, perceptual, and relational. As opposed to works conceived of as fully independent, his work avoided formulating any definite answers. West’s sculptures and installations always offer the visitor the opportunity to engage in a dialogue, and are read on both a physical and an intellectual level.

Beginning with his Adaptives (Passstücke), West’s open work concept is played out in his modification of the meaning of authority. Through co-authorship and collaboration as well as through the re-launching of works from various creative phases and involvement by other artists, West introduced a subversive and often humorous form of play with the way authorship is attributed to artworks. This 21er Haus exhibition aims to display and investigate the different scenarios by which this play manifested itself.

With this in mind, it is important to note another significant work by West, named Extroversion, that was conceived for the 2011 Biennale di Venezia. In this work, West practically turned the walls of his studio kitchen inside out. Made by friends, colleagues, and co-workers, it involves 43 different artistic works that similarly upend themselves. While retaining their autonomy, they also come together to form a larger, more complex work of art. In addition to the typical conceptual displacement between work and the author, Extroversion also introduces a new and exciting aspect of West’s experience and treatment of space and architecture. The work itself, therefore, forms the starting point for an additional focus of the exhibition, one that concretely explores his approach toward space and architecture.

The exhibition shows Franz West together with Bizhan Bassiri, Elisabetta Benassi, Songül Boyraz, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Plamen Dejanoff & Svetlana Heger, Mathis Esterhazy, Marina Faust, Marco Fedele di Catrano, Urs Fischer, Herbert Flois, Gelitin, Douglas Gordon, Heiri Häfliger, Richard Hoeck, Peter Höll, Franz Kapfer, Mike Kelley, Leopold Kessler, Roland Kollnitz, Anita Leisz, Sarah Lucas, Otto Muehl, Albert Oehlen, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Rudolf Polanszky, Andreas Reiter Raabe, Anselm Reyle, Tamuna Sirbiladze, Josh Smith, Johann Szenizcei, Octavian Trauttmansdorff, Zlatan Vukosavljevic, Hans Weigand, Erwin Wurm, Heimo Zobernig.
 
 
 
 
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2016-12-21

10449 - 20170423 - Manchester Art Gallery presents "Wynford Dewhurst: Manchester's Monet" - Manchester - 09.12.2016-23.04.2017

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Wynford Dewhurst, Evening Shadows. Private Collection, 1899. Oil on canvas. 72 x 99cm. Private collection. Photograph: Dan Brown.
 
Manchester Art Gallery is presenting Wynford Dewhurst: Manchester’s Monet, the first retrospective of the English impressionist painter and art theorist since his death in 1941, which includes many works that have not been on public display before.  
A controversial figure on the Anglo-French art scene at the turn of the twentieth century, Wynford Dewhurst is most famous for his 1908 work The Picnic, in the collection of Manchester Art Gallery. He was born in Manchester in 1864 and began his career studying law. He moved to Paris at the relatively advanced age of 27 to train as an artist, returning to France throughout his life to paint in the valleys of the Seine and the Creuse in the style of Claude Monet, who became his principal mentor. This exhibition brings together a large selection of Dewhurst’s shimmering paintings with contextual material to reintroduce the painter to his native city.

Dewhurst’s pictures take their cue from Monet, but they surpass the efforts of an acolyte. His vision is of a glowing, dense ether from which cliffs and castles emerge solidly, glowing as if lit from within. Although from Manchester, Dewhurst’s affinity was with French landscape and the bright light of the continent. His views have the archetypal Impressionist quality of appearing in the gallery like windows on to a sunlit world, the purple hills warm and inviting in the distance.

Dewhurst was an art theorist as well as a painter and his 1904 book Impressionist Painting, Its Genesis and Development was the first important British study of Impressionism. The book became notorious for Dewhurst’s insistence that the English landscape tradition, especially the work of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner, was at the root of modern French painting. Dewhurst’s thesis was that, ‘the French artists simply developed a style which was British in its conception.’

The independent curator of the exhibition, Roger Brown, has researched the life and work of Wynford Dewhurst for the past five years. A fully illustrated book authored by Brown will be published by Sansom & Company to accompany the exhibition. It will be the first monograph to be written on this influential artist and writer.

This exhibition puts the two works by Dewhurst in Manchester Art Gallery’s collection into context with significant loans from private collections which have not previously been seen in public. They range from works from his students days through to post World War One, including many paintings when he was at the height of his powers between 1900 and 1910. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full programme of events.

Wynford Dewhurst (1864 – 1941) was an English Impressionist painter and art theorist. He trained as an artist in Paris and was profoundly influenced by Claude Monet. Primarily a landscape painter, Dewhurst exhibited widely at home and abroad from 1897 when his first works were accepted by the Paris Salon. In London he exhibited with the RBA, as well as the Royal Academy from 1914 to 1926. In addition, he frequently wrote articles and reviews for journals such as The Studio, The Artist, and Pall Mall Magazine.
 
 
Website : Manchester Art Gallery    
  
 Source : Artdaily
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2016-12-20

10448 - 20170305 - The Stedelijk exhibits the latest work of German artist Loretta Fahrenholz - Amsterdam - 10.12.2016-05.03.2017

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Loretta Fahrenholz, Two A.M., 2016. HD video, color, 40 minutes, ed. 5 + 2 AP. Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York.
 
The Stedelijk is showing the latest work of German artist Loretta Fahrenholz: Two A.M. (2016). The 40-minute fantasy film is based on the exile novel Nach Mitternacht (After Midnight) by Irmgard Keun—a prophetic, blackly humorous novel about the rise of the Nazis, written after Keuns escape to the Netherlands in 1937. Two A.M. deals with contemporary forms of surveillance and social control and follows the interlocking private passions and crises of a group of people at a moment when the larger social spring is wound so tight it could snap at any time.
Synopsis
Punky, streetwise Sanna (Theadora Davis) bridles at her aunt’s traditional ways. Her adopted family are members of the Watchers, powerful information-obsessives whose unusual telepathic abilities and sociopolitical pretensions only manage to get on Sanna’s nerves. But after she abandons the family home and her young lover for the city, her dream of a brilliant urban life quickly falls flat. From her half-sister Algin (Emily Sundblad), in despair over a faded singing career, to Algin’s love-obsessed partner Lisko (Emile Clarke), to Hedy (Jim Fletcher), the splenetic, paranoid journalist who’s inadvertently caught Lisko’s eye, everyone in the big city seems to be totally wrapped up in their own serial dramas and star-crossed affairs. She quickly acquires a problem of her own when her lover, Franz (Andrew Kerton), reappears in the city along with her unpredictable, sinister Watcher sisters (Mira Partecke, Yuko Torihara). Sanna and her friends bounce from bar to bar towards a party that will bring everyone’s minor ennuis and compulsive intimacies together with unforgettable results. —by Jeff Nagy

Two A.M. is produced by the artist, Fridericianum Kassel and Kunsthalle Zürich.

In 2017 the Stedelijk will publish an artist’s book with Loretta Fahrenholz, in cooperation with graphic designer Bill Hayden.

Loretta Fahrenholz is an experimental filmmaker, often working closely with the actors and extras who perform in her work. The artist’s films are an amalgam of different film genres, fusing elements typical of the documentary with those of the disaster movie, and porno. In her post-cinematic films, Fahrenholz documents the contemporary reality that is shaped by collective fictions, staging, and media communication.

In 2015, the Stedelijk acquired the film Ditch Plains that Loretta Fahrenholz made in 2013, created in collaboration with street dancers and shot while hurricane Sandy tore through New York, as well as the photo series Europa (I and II) from 1996—2013.
 
 
  
 
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2016-12-19

10447 - 20170305 - Latvian National Museum of Art presents exhibition of works by Felicita Pauļuka - 08.12.2016-05.03.2017

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Felicita Pauļuka (1925–2014) is one of the most outstanding painters of portraits and nudes in Latvian art.
 
The exhibition Felicita Pauļuka (1925–2014). Pastels and Drawings is on show at the 4th Floor Exhibition Hall of the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga. The show of Felicita Pauļuka’s works opens the new cycle of museum exhibitions The Generation, dedicated to the young of the 1950s–60s.
Felicita Pauļuka (1925–2014) is one of the most outstanding painters of portraits and nudes in Latvian art. In 1940, the fifteen-year-old Felicita Jānke enrolled into the Art Academy of Latvia. It was a rather rare occurrence for the academy – to accept a student without a secondary school diploma, but the matriculation commission was impressed by the girl’s superb drawing skills. Nevertheless, the studies had to be interrupted for four years. In 1943, Felicita married painter Jānis Pauļuks (1906–1984). In 1944, she resumed her studies, at the same time working as an illustrator and cartoonist at the Cīņa (Struggle) newspaper. In 1949, she graduated with distinction from Ģederts Eliass’ Workshop of Easel Painting at the Art Academy of Latvia.

In the 1950s and 60s, artists whom the authorities considered promising had the opportunity to go on creative trips not only in Latvia, but also in the broad expanses of the Soviet Union, and Felicita Pauļuka took up the offer. These travels resulted in cycles of charcoal and sanguine drawings (Latvian Fishermen, Georgian Peasants, Miners of Donbas, Saaremaa Fishermen and others), which testified to the artist’s virtuoso skill in these techniques and also her ability to reveal the nature of the character of the models.

Since the 60s, Felicita Pauļuka devoted herself to pastel, and for the entire life she held that “it requires work with the heart’s blood. Only by mastering the specific expressive potential of pastel, it is possible to find new values.” The artist’s style changed over time: sometimes it was laconic and harsh, at others it was tender and caressing, at times lively and passionate, while on occasion it was cold and distanced.

“The work begins with the choice of the model. I am very subjective. (..) you cannot force respect upon yourself – it either exists or not. By concentrating on the model’s essence one cannot become monotonous. Each model sets a new task, compositional structure, tonal solution, changes in the use of materials. The model’s mental state determines the choice of either bright or reserved harmonies,” recounted Felicita Pauļuka.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the painter begun a series of portraits of Latvian cultural figures, which she continued in the following years. The painter depicted artists, writers and actors in an objective and recognisable manner, at the same time preserving her own viewpoint in the characterisation of the sitters.

Felicita Pauļuka’s paintings of nudes are manifold and expressive, occupying a central place in the master’s oeuvre. “The human body reveals not only the outer, but also the deepest essence, just like the face. Hands and feet also have their life story. Therefore, the nude for me is an extended portrait in which I involve the entire body and express the essence of the person,” the artist explained. This deeply intimate and delicate genre reveals the author’s worldview and the full extent of her refined technique. Over time, cycles of nude paintings of a single model formed in Felicita Pauļuka’s oeuvre, and each of them contains new discoveries, nuances of character and mood.

The exhibition consists mainly of works from the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art.
 
 
 
 
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2016-12-16

10446 - 20170326 - First exhibition in the UK to feature Australian Impressionists in London - 07.12.2016-26.03.2017

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John Russell, Rough Sea, Morestil, about 1900. Oil on canvas on hardboard, 66 x 81.8 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Purchased 1968 © AGNSW.
 
This will be the first exhibition in the UK to focus solely on Australian Impressionists, presenting 41 paintings including important masterpieces never previously shown in the UK. For the first time at the National Gallery, visitors will have the opportunity to discover the impact of European Impressionism on Australian painting of the 1880s and 1890s, and explore how the art that emerged was both referencing the work of the European masters and yet was distinct from it.
 
The exhibition focuses on four major Australian Impressionists: Tom Roberts (1856–1931), Arthur Streeton (1867–1943), Charles Conder (1868–1909), and John Russell (1858–1930) and will show how their work epitomised a growing sense of national identity as Australia approached Federation in 1901.

All of the artists featured in the exhibition either studied or worked in Europe at different stages of their careers. Inspired by their counterparts active in Europe, such as Monet, and Whistler (1834–1903), the Australian Impressionists painted en plein air; their works displaying a preoccupation with the effects of light and colour, using bold and experimental techniques to depict scenes of daily life.

Australia’s Impressionists is organised in three sections, each exploring the artists’ working relationships and respective styles, as well as their proximity to, or distance from, the European tradition.

Urban Australia and the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition
The first section is based on the landmark 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition held in 1889 in Melbourne. Organised by the three major figures of the so-called ‘Heidelberg School’ (later known as the Australian Impressionists) – Tom Roberts, Charles Conder, and Arthur Streeton – it is regarded as one of the most significant art exhibitions ever to have been mounted in Australia. The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition introduced Melbourne society to a distinctly Australian version of Impressionism with some one hundred and eighty ‘impressions’ or oil sketches, many of which were painted on panels of 9 x 5 inches made out of cigar box lids. This section of the exhibition also features a number of iconic paintings of the rapidly changing cityscapes of Mebourne and Sydney, introducing late-19th century Australian society as one that was highly urbanised.

National Landscape
Australian Impressionism hit its stride around 1888 at the time of the centenary of the European settlement of the Australian continent. With a growing sense of national identity came a desire to authentically represent the great Australian landscape and in particular, the light. The practice of painting en plein air, which Roberts had embraced while travelling in Europe in the early 1880s, provided the basis for this new school of painting. Scenes of daily life at Sydney Harbour are recorded with a vibrant sense of excitement and pride, while scenes of the bush are elevated to a mode of heroic myth.

A highlight painting in this section is Streeton’s Fire’s On (Art Gallery of New South Wales) from 1891, which shows the construction of the Lapstone Tunnel through the Blue Mountains near Sydney, and vividly depicts the moment when a young navvy was killed by a blast just a few yards away from Streeton. Resilience in the face of the sometimes harsh and unforgiving Australian environment became a recurrent theme.

John Russell
John Russell was born and died in Sydney, but spent 40 years as an expatriate in Europe, closely connected to the avant-garde. Russell first enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1881 under French artist and professor Alphonse Legros before continuing his studies in Paris alongside Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh. He travelled to Spain with Roberts in 1883, painting en plein air, but unlike Roberts, Russell settled in Europe on the island of Belle-Île-en-Mer, off the coast of Brittany, where he observed Monet painting and where he also met and mentored the young Matisse.

He returned to the Antipodes in the early 1920s, eventually settling in Sydney in 1924. This section explores the work of a painter who, despite his connections to some of the most important artists of his time, rarely exhibited and was only rediscovered as ‘Australia’s lost Impressionist’ in the second half of the 20th century.

The inspiration for Australia’s Impressionists came as the result of the National Gallery receiving the long-term loan of Blue Pacific (1890, Private collection) by Arthur Streeton in 2015. This was the first painting by an Australian artist to be displayed at the National Gallery and the exhibition will further introduce visitors to the artistic movement to which it belongs.

Christopher Riopelle, National Gallery Curator of Post-1800 Paintings said: "Australia’s Impressionist painters were doing more than just recording familiar visual phenomena. They were actually inventing a way for Australians to see this vast and various land, its suddenly teeming cities, and the abrupt new intersections of nature and the man-made. That is what makes the subject so exciting, especially for British and other European viewers; they witness Australians using oil painting to come to visual terms with a continent so endlessly different from their own."

National Gallery Director, Gabriele Finaldi said: "Australian painters at the end of the 19th century were deeply interested in how the language of contemporary European Impressionism could be adapted to the Australian landscape and Australian subject matter. The process produced some striking and original results. This will be the first time an exhibition devoted to Australian painting can be seen in the National Gallery."
 
 
 
 
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2016-12-15

10445 - 20170326 - Versailles presents the infinite variety and ingenuity of entertainment in the court -Château de Versailles - 29.11.2016-26.03.2017

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Covering three monastic reigns, from Louis XIV to the revolution, the exhibition does not aim to be exhaustive, but focuses on the courtier’s point of view. © Château de Versailles, Didier Saulnier.
 
As a political monarch, King Louis XIV took “grand entertainment” to the height of magnificence, making Versailles a venue for monumental, extraordinary and fantastical parties and shows. The king had a shrewd understanding of the human mind and understood that “this society of pleasure, which gives members of the Court an honest familiarity with [the sovereign], and touches and charms them more than can be said,” (Louis XIV, Memoirs for the Instruction of the Dauphin, 1661) was necessary for the political framework he had built. Everyday life in Court required multiple forms of entertainment, and extraordinary royal events needed to surprise and enthral the court, the kingdom—all of Europe. Each of his successors maintained the tradition of splendid, creative shows in their own way, according to their own tastes and the fashions of the time.
This exhibition presents the infinite variety and ingenuity of entertainment in the court, whether put on by the king or enjoyed by the court. These included all forms of public shows, comedies, operas, concerts, fireworks and light displays, as well as private performances in which Seigneurs and Ladies of the court went on stage themselves. The was a large amount of gambling, leading to fortune or ruin, as well as physical activities in which members of the court had to shine, including hunting, dancing in balls and masked balls, pallmall and real tennis.

Covering three monastic reigns, from Louis XIV to the Revolution, the exhibition does not aim to be exhaustive, but focuses on the courtier’s point of view. A large selection of clothing, paintings, objects and graphics from French and foreign public and private collections convey the wide range of entertainment and the refinement associated with them. The exhibits are accompanied by large visuals, 3D images and immersive scenes that invite visitors to rediscover the atmosphere in the venues — some of which no longer exist — and imagine what it would be like to be in the king’s court.

SECTION 1: HUNTING
Versailles was initially built as a hunting lodge, and the sport always remained the most popular form of royal entertainment. All three kings partook in the activity several times a week, but Louis XV was the most enthusiastic adherent. He enjoyed hunting with weapons but was especially fond of hunting with dogs. To accompany the king on a hunting trip, courtiers had to fully master the customs of hunting with hounds or to share the sovereign’s passion and thus gain his favour. Hunting was also a means of relaxation; the speed and open air were a way to escape from the constraints of court life. Themes: • The hunting ritual: moments, participants, personnel, clothing and equipment • The game, horses and especially the importance of hounds • Courteousness: the role of the ladies and the pleasure of picnics

SECTION 2: THE LAST CAROUSELS
Carousels were another equestrian pleasure, replacing the tournaments that were banned after the death of Henry II. The last carousels were held at Versailles in 1664 during the Delights of the Enchanted Island party and in 1685 and 1686 in the Great Stables at the initiative of the Grand Dauphin. This equestrian ballet was doomed to fade out, since in the 18th century the Seigneurs of the court could no longer afford its exorbitant cost, notably to the luxurious clothing required.

SECTION 3: TEMPORARY STAGES AND VENUES
The whole of Versailles, and even Marly and Trianon, served as a theatre. Until the Royal Opera House was finally built in Versailles in 1770 for the Dauphin’s wedding, stages were set up in the park and its perspectives, in various apartments using removable installations, and even in rooms which were temporarily or permanently modified for the purpose. This proliferation of stages demonstrates the incredible theatre culture in Versailles.

Themes: • The Temple of Minerva, the fully preserved unique stage backdrop from the Ancien Régime which has been restored and reassembled for the exhibition • 5 videos guide visitors through sites of ordinary and extraordinary spectacles, using 3D modelling to present both still-existing and bygone performance venues.

SECTION 4: STAGE PERFORMANCES
All performances, from comedies to tragedies, operas to ballets, fell into one of three categories: extraordinary (open to a large audience), ordinary (reserved for the court) and society theatre (highly exclusive).

In particular, there were constant repeat performances, mixing of genres within a single evening and a predilection for the comical and even burlesque.

Ordinary Performances
Ordinary performances, or “court performances,” were given in the winter three or four evenings a week, from 6pm to 10pm, by three dedicated troops. They alternated between French comedy, Italian comedy and tragedy.

• Italian comedy notably included comedies in three acts, entertainment and pieces de circonstance of all kinds. Marivaux was an official playwright of Italian comedies. • French comedy was characterised by grand five-act dramas, comedies and tragedies. • Lyric tragedies and tragic operas were put on by the Royal Academy of Music. Since Versailles did not have a suitable theatre space (unlike Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau), tragedies were performed without scenery, mechanisms or costumes. Under Louis XV, who did not much care for music, lyric works were rarely performed for ordinary audiences.

Society Theatre
• For the education of the Duchess of Burgundy in the Grand Chamber of Mme de Maintenon. She was taught by Baron. Edifying plays by Racine were put on (Esther at Saint-Cyr but attended by the entire court, and Athalie in 1702), as were plays that were specially written by Duché, the king’s Valet de Chambre.

• The Marquise de Pompadour in the theatre in the private apartments on the Ambassadors’ Staircase. During four seasons, from 1747 to 1750, from 6pm until 10pm or 11pm, plays were performed in two parts, with an interval for scenery and costume changes. Additional pieces were recited or sung alongside works from the great repertoire by Molière, Lully and others.

• The Seigneurs' Troop at the Petit Trianon. Much less professional than Mme de Pompadour’s troop, the Seigneurs’ Troop was composed of ten or so artists performing simple plays, comic operas and comedies. There were three major seasons: August and September of 1780, the summers of 1782 and 1783, and the one-time, crowning performance of The Barber of Seville (Beaumarchais) on August 19, 1785 (with the queen as Rosine, Artois as Figaro and Vaudreuil as Count Almaviva) in front a very small audience and with the playwright present as a guest.

SECTION 5: CONCERTS
Music was everywhere. Under the aegis of the all-powerful Superintendent of His Majesty’s Music, the Musique de la Chamber was in charge of the Court’s daily entertainment. Balls, comic ballets, lyric tragedies and dances at evening gatherings were all part of the Musique de la Chambre’s remit.

Chamber concerts and, under Marie Leszczyńska, the queen’s concerts. Chamber concerts were performed without costumes, backdrops or ballets and lasted an hour. The princes would sometimes play instead of musicians who were not up to standard. Grand chamber concerts were also held two or three times a week.

Concerts in the King's chamber. The flautist Michel de la Barre quickly became a frequent performer in the rooms of Versailles, alongside François Couperin, Antoine Forqueray and the Hotteterre brothers, at the famous concerts in the King’s Chamber, which Louis XIV enjoyed toward the very end of his reign.

Private practice. Louis XIV was very skilled at the lute and guitar, which had until then been considered commoners’ instruments but which he made respectable. The Mesdames played the violin and viola da gamba, and Marie Antoinette played the harp.

SECTION 6: PROMENADES AND OUTDOOR GAMES
The King's Promenade like hunting, with which they alternated, promenades and strolls in the gardens provided a breath of fresh air. Under Louis XIV, promenades were a courtly affair, with the king travelling on foot, in a wheeled chair or in a carriage. Conversely, Louis XV and Louis XVI preferred to take their strolls in a less ceremonial manner, so their presence did not detract from the pleasure.

The great outdoors Groves were constant sources of surprise and marvel thanks to their variety, landscape design and water features, providing a cool, summertime refuge full of birdsong.

An excellent picnic spot. Trianon was popular for its botanical collections, and the Menagerie for its curious animals. The canal was perfect for boating in the summer and ice skating and sled races in the winter.Exercices du corps et jeux d’extérieur.

Physical and outdoor games between Versailles, Trianon and Marly, skilled players of pall-mall and real tennis had a number of courts at their disposal. Boldness and athleticism were a must in a competitive world where education and personality traits required players to give it their all in appearance and in reality.

SECTION 7: GAMES
In the court, games took three forms: •“The king’s game” and “the queen’s game,” played at evening gatherings in the apartments at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV. Marie Leszczyńska’s game was played in the Peace Room starting in 1739. It continued in the Royal Room at Marly during all three reigns and included lotteries. •“The royal game” was played at evening gatherings in the State Apartments during grand royal festivals as a spectacle open to a wider audience than just the court. •Private games, open only to certain members and more with a more relaxed etiquette. The games were played after the king’s supper in his private rooms or in the accommodation of one of the courtiers.

High-stakes games. The stakes in high-stakes games attracted bold and expert players, both male and female. Losses meant financial dependence on the king. To be permitted to play at the king’s table was a mark of favour which made and lost fortunes.

Games required luxurious furniture and accessories. Agreements were put in place to codify the Court’s house rules. • Card games (lansquenet, ombre, quadrille, reversis, brelan, whist, pharaoh) • Games of chance (dice, lotto, cavagnole) • Strategy games (chess, checkers and especially tric trac) • Games of skill (billiards, gym sets)

SECTION 8: BALLS AND MASQUERADES
Court balls. In the time of Louis XIV, balls were held every Saturday in the Mars Room or in the gallery next to the War Room. Under Louis XV, dances at Versailles were more spread out, taking place mainly in the Hercules Room but also sometimes spreading to four locations: the Hercules, Mars, Mercury and Apollo Rooms. Later on, the theatre in the Princes’ Courtyard, which could be transformed into a ballroom when enlarged, was also used. Beginning in 1775, Marie Antoinette restored the pomp to court balls, which she held on Wednesdays […] from the start of the year until Lent, often in wooden houses constructed temporarily for the purpose.

Dances. Ballroom dancing required great technical skill acquired from childhood. Dancing was practiced under the supervision of dance masters (Beauchamp, Pécour and Ballon, and later Lany, Laval, Gardel and Vestris). Balls began with group dances (the branle under Louis XIV, then later the gavotte), followed by couples’ dances (frequently minuets, which were replaced by contra dances in the 1750s).

Formal balls and masked balls. Held for special occasions, formal balls involved a higher degree of ceremony and pomp than court balls and were held in the largest rooms (the Royal Stables, the Hall of Mirrors, the Royal Opera House). During Carnival and other major celebrations, ordinary balls were replaced by masked balls, which were an opportunity to show off extravagant costumes, although in terms of choreography the two were nearly indistinguishable.

SECTION 9: BEHIND THE SCENES
Of monsters and machines. Special effects, monsters, splendour and sound effects transported courtiers to fantastical worlds that were as much a testament to the inventiveness of the engineers and designers of the King’s Chambers as to the kings’ passion for Baroque effects.

Fireworks and illuminations. No extraordinary event could be held without a firework show, with temporary constructions set aflame, illuminations along the grand canal, and fireworks in the Marble Courtyard. Each and every spectacle required creativity, technical knowledge and ingeniousness; only the best pyrotechnicians were hired.
 
 
 
 
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2016-12-14

10444 - 20170305 - New installation by Rinus Van de Velde on view at Gemeentemuseum Den Haag 02.12.2016-05.03.2017

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Every Thursday evening there was an open podium at the local bar., 2016. Charcoal on paper, 190 x 240 cm. Courtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp.
 
In his home country of Belgium, Rinus Van de Velde (b. Leuven, 1983) is already a celebrity. Elsewhere, his striking, life-size charcoal drawings are now catapulting him to fame on the international art scene. For this show at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Van de Velde is creating a brand-new installation referring to the major painters of the 20th century. In addition to works on paper hung on a painterly background, the artist will present autonomous, free-standing sculptures – the first time he has ever done so.
Explorer in the Brazilian jungle, castaway on a desert island, chess grandmaster or star tennis player – Rinus Van de Velde presents a constant succession of alter egos in drawings that are invariably explained in English-language captions written below them in block letters. The individual images can stand alone as autonomous works of art, but can also be read in sequence like some virtuoso storyboard.

Paper
Van de Velde previously designed large sets and used them to stage scenes featuring himself and various extras. The tableaux were photographed and the resulting images reproduced in the form of meticulously detailed, photorealistic drawings made in black, white and shades of grey on life-size canvases. Recently, however, he has abandoned this time-consuming staging process and turned to using paper instead of canvas.

Rinus Van de Velde: “You draw differently on the big, 6 x 3 metre prepared canvases I used to use than on a piece of paper you’ve just cut from a roll and hung up that morning. Paper lets you make mistakes again. And that’s when interesting things can start to happen.”

Cardboard reproductions
In his show at the Gemeentemuseum, Van de Velde tells the story of Isaac Weiss, the leader of an artists’ colony and fictive alter ego of the artist himself. The members of Weiss’s colony are various big-name artists of the twentieth century, including Mark Rothko, Jean Brusselmans and Pablo Picasso.

The framed charcoal drawings depicting life in the colony will hang on walls covered with vast cardboard reproductions of paintings by these leading figures in art history. They will include, for example, life-size reproductions of Pablo Picasso’s Sibylle (1921) and Alexej von Jawlensky’s Landscape at Oberstdorf (1912), both now in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum. Within the installation and still in the persona of Weiss, Van de Velde (who initially trained as a sculptor) will also exhibit autonomous sculptures – the first time he has ever done so.

Van de Velde: “By reproducing works by great painters of the twentieth century, I’m experimenting with the way those artists worked. I’m constantly trying out different artistic stances. Right from the start, I ask myself what it means to be ‘a genuine artist’. What does it mean to me? How genuine am I myself?”
 
 
  
 
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2016-12-13

10443 - 20170305 - Copenhagen Contemporary presents a vast installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot - Copenhagen 25.11.2016-05.03.2017

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Celeste Boursier-Mougenot, from here to ear , 2016. Photo: Anders Sune Berg.
 
This winter, French contemporary artist and composer Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is presenting his monumental installation from here to ear in one of the industrial exhibition halls at Copenhagen Contemporary. Boursier-Mougenot has won worldwide recognition with his vast, acoustic installations that take their starting point in nature and the rhythms of everyday life – two aspects that are also evident in the work now being shown at CC. 
 
A 600-m2 hall has been transformed into a giant walk-through aviary where 88 living zebra finches live. The aviary is equipped with sand, plants and nesting places – and, very importantly, with eighteen bass guitars and electric guitars arranged horizontally on stands. Audiences are invited to walk around inside this living installation, watching as the birds flit around and perch on the stings of the instruments as if they were cables suspended between city roofs or branches in a forest. The song of the finches and the random sounds created as they perch on the electric instruments fill the space. The exhibition hall is transformed into a concert hall as the bird’s activities give rise to experimental ambient music that intensifies and changes in accordance with the dynamics between exhibition visitors and the finches. Like a permanent warm-up to a rock concert, without beginning or end, suspending time. from here to ear offers an immersive experience where all senses are activated and challenged. As one of Boursier-Mougenot’s major masterpieces, the work has been shown in various versions in art institutions across the world – always adapted to each specific site.

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot is partly inspired by the great American composer and Fluxus artist John Cage and his work with sounds from everyday life. Using chance as a principle and as a creative force, Boursier-Mougenot creates works on the basis of everyday objects and phenomena: large vats containing hundreds of white porcelain bowls that ring out as they collide in the turquoise water (clinamen, 2013); cherry pits tumble down from the ceiling, creating drum solos as they hit a drum kit on the floor (aura, 2015); an indoor channel in Palais de Tokyo invites audiences to paddle around the exhibition in a boat while the sounds of the water is played back as feedback in the room (acquaalta, 2015), and mobile pine trees created for the French pavilion in Venice: the trees move to catch the light and create harmonies of sounds based on input from their surroundings (rêvolutions, 2015). 2015)

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot was born in 1961 in Nice, France. He now works and lives in Sète, France. Originally a trained composer, Boursier-Mougenot works with acoustic installations in his art. In recent years he has had solo exhibitions at important venues such as Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Montréal: Palais de Tokyo, Paris: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Museum of Contemporary Art Massachusetts, Amherst; Hangar Bicocca, Milan; Barbican Art Gallery, London; Pinacothèque, Sao Paulo. He represented France at the 2015 Venice Biennial.
 
 
  
 
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2016-12-12

10442 - 20170305 - Major exhibition of the Birmingham-born, international artist Roger Hiorns at Ikon - Birmingham - 07.12.2016-05.03.2017

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Ikon presents a major exhibition of the Birmingham-born, international artist Roger Hiorns, whose influential work will show from 7 December 2016 until 5 March 2017.
Through the transformation of materials and found objects, Hiorns focuses on various aspects of modern life, closely analysing what is assumed or taken for granted. He explains,

“You always have to think about materials and objects in terms of being malleable – you have to cut them off from what their established use is, to directly interfere with their world-ness, it becomes a process of human empowerment to re-use and re-propose the power of objects simply left lying in the street.”

Jet engines often occur in Hiorns’ work. By injecting a US military aircraft engine with anti-depressants, he toys with the possibility of affecting some kind of robotic nervous system, reflecting his ongoing interest in the anthropomorphism of machinery. In his Youth series (1999 to the present), the encounters between a jet engine and a naked young man suggest not only mysterious communion, but also melancholy. Ripped from the wing of an aeroplane, and partly dismantled, the engine is positioned like a remnant from classical antiquity, instilling awe as if being contemplated at some point in the distant future when air travel as we now know it no longer exists.

Hiorns’ field of jet engine dust (Untitled, 2008) is likewise philosophical. An aerial landscape when seen from a normal standing position – like a desiccated savannah – it is a memento mori for humanity as a whole, a reminder of what will ultimately become of us and all our modern achievements.

This exhibition will also include a new video work documenting Untitled (a retrospective view of the pathway), an off-site project produced by Ikon in June 2016. It features choristers of St Philip’s Cathedral Birmingham singing Evensong whilst lying on their backs on the floor of the nave, rather than standing to sing in stalls in front of the altar. A re-imagining of an ancient ritual, atomising a rigid formation, it exemplifies a restlessness with respect to a revered institution, part of an establishment that defines our society. Likewise he focuses his attention on the art world and has made numerous statements that articulate a certain scepticism:

“I believe that the artist’s role is to move things on, to hold up a truthful mirror in order that progress might continue. Frankly I’m suspicious of many of my contemporaries who make work that simply reflects the desires of collectors: they’re reinforcing the surfaces. I think. I find artists fascinating in the same way I’m fascinated by how machines and systems function.”

Hiorns has recently made paintings with copper sulphate. Delicate works of art, untouched by the artist, they are at once beautiful and problematising. There is a kind of instability embodied in them that epitomises his artistic practice as a whole. At Ikon the artist exhibits a very early pair of sulphate works, grown from brain matter. These pieces embody the hyper-vigilant fragility of the contemporary mind.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication, including an essay by writer and curator Ruth Noack.


 
 
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2016-12-09

10441 - 20170108 - Kunsthalle Wien opens exhibition of paintings and films by Sarah Morris - Vienna - 08.12.2016-08.01.2017

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Installation view: Sarah Morris. Falls Never Breaks, Kunsthalle Wien 2016, Photo: Jorit Aust.
 
Sarah Morris’ paintings and films contain elements that complement and connect to one another, generating a constant back-and-forth play between the two. In her paintings, she uses colors and geometries that she associates with a city’s unique aesthetic vocabulary and palette, as well as its character and multiple histories. Within the framework, Morris’ work plays with social and bureaucratic typologies to implicate occluded systems of control. In her films President Bill Clinton, Chase Bank, Philip Johnson, Robert Towne, the film industry, poster design, the Olympics, the banking system, Oscar Niemeyer, J.G. Ballard, perfume, lunar cycles, pharmaceutical packaging, birdcages and even fruit are all fair game.
Known for her distinct use of color, Morris streamlines a way of perception as much as a virtual architecture, which is suggested through her titling. In Bettina Funcke’s words: “She wants to be both author and protagonist, and to her that means using compromised personalities and places as portals into entanglements of power, generating a sense of dizzying simultaneity that she translates into motives and resources for her paintings and a flow of images for her films, all of which add up to topologies of a moment in the life of power and style.”

Strange Magic (2014), Morris’ recent film examines the production of desire and luxury. Originally commissioned by the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, it depicts France’s connection to the production of luxury goods by way of the new Frank Gehry designed museum in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. The film is a treatment of the role of fantasy as much as the commodity form or the architect. Morris filmed at multiple sites: the Eiffel Tower, Bois de Boulogne, Frank Gehry’s studio in Los Angeles, the Dior perfume factory, Veuve Clicquot, as well as other sites of production. In Strange Magic an alchemical mix of materials as grapes, flowers, leather, cloth, girls, pigment, steel, wood, and glass are distilled to create the substance that forms the idea of luxury. Morris portrays the French context for the production of luxury. Strange Magic depicts states of contradiction. The artist refers to the film as a “capitalist poetry”.

Morris states, “It all comes down to production. The production of space, the production of brands, the production of art. The production of dreams and desire, paradoxically intangible at the end of the day. These dissonant zones, a Venn diagram which usually exists on paper only, can momentarily coincide, conflate and then distance again.”

Sarah Morris lives and works in New York. She has been exhibited internationally including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1999); Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich (2000); Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2001); Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen (2004); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2005); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2005); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2005); Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2006); Fondation Beyeler (2008); Lenbachhaus, Munich (2008); MAMbo, Bologna (2009); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2009); K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (2010); Wexner Center for the Arts (2012); Kunsthalle Bremen (2013); and M Museum Leuven (2015).

Works by the artist are held by the following collecting institutions, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate Modern, London.

Curator: Nicolaus Schafhausen
 
 
 
 
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