Création d’une Organisation Panafricaine des Musées

AFRICOM - le Conseil International des Musées Africains

L'Assemblée constituante du Conseil International des Musées Africains (AFRICOM) se déroulera du 3 au 9 octobre 1999 à Lusaka en Zambie sur le thème " Construire ensemble avec la communauté : un défi pour les musées africains ".

Cette réunion est co-organisée par l'ICOM (Conseil international des musées) et le National Museums Board du ministère du Tourisme de Zambie.

Les bases d'AFRICOM ont été établies grâce à un programme de l'ICOM pour l'Afrique mis en oeuvre par les musées en Afrique et coordonné par l'ICOM sous la supervision d'un Comité de coordination africain. Le coup d'envoi de cette initiative a été donné lors des Rencontres " Quels musées pour l'Afrique ? Patrimoine en devenir " organisées en 1991 par l'ICOM à Lomé (Togo). Les champs d'intervention d'AFRICOM s'articulent autour du développement des musées, de la protection du patrimoine et de l'accès à la culture sur tout le continent. Des projets spécifiques ont vu le jour, notamment, sur la lutte contre le pillage des antiquités, l'établissement de normes pour les inventaires, le développement de services éducatifs adaptés. La réunion de Lusaka donne un nouvel élan à ce programme.

Aujourd'hui, l'AFRICOM devient le Conseil International des Musées Africains, une organisation non gouvernementale (ONG) autonome dont la coordination, la gestion et le financement seront sous la responsabilité des professionnels africains.

Des responsables des musées et du patrimoine venus de 40 pays d'Afrique mais également des décideurs politiques et économiques internationaux vont se réunir à Lusaka afin d'adopter les statuts de la nouvelle organisation, constituer le conseil d'administration, sélectionner le pays du siège, voter le budget et le programme d'activité pour la période 2000-2002.

Ce rassemblement de professionnels sera aussi l'occasion de faire le bilan des différentes activités menées depuis 1991 par l'AFRICOM et d'examiner la situation actuelle des musées africains afin d'explorer des voies innovantes pour renforcer l'impact des musées sur le développement des communautés.

Regroupés dans trois ateliers, les participants traiteront notamment des thèmes suivants : Musées et communauté ; Education et formation professionnelle ; Réseaux. Des expériences seront confrontées. Des pratiques professionnelles vont s'échanger.

L'AFRICOM, en tant qu'organisation panafricaine autonome, devra promouvoir la participation des musées dans le contexte du développement global et durable, renforcer les réseaux de collaboration des professionnels en Afrique et dans le monde et enfin impliquer toutes les composantes de la société dans la protection et la mise en valeur du patrimoine culturel.

Alpha Oumar Konaré, président de la République du Mali et ancien président de l'ICOM, déclarait en 1991 lors des rencontres de Lomé (Togo) : " Il est temps, grand temps de procéder à une totale remise en cause, il faut " tuer ", je dis bien tuer, le modèle occidental de musée en Afrique pour que s'épanouissent de nouveaux modes de conservation et de promotion du patrimoine ".

Qu'en est-il aujourd'hui ? Comment AFRICOM a-t-il et peut-il agir en ce sens ? Quelles sont ses grandes perspectives et priorités d'actions ? Ce sont là les questions auxquelles les participants de cette Assemblée constituante devront également répondre.

Didier Courbot, Galerie Nelson, Paris

Didier Courbot: Perfect days
Galerie Nelson, Paris
25 septembre - 6 novembre 1999

Le travail de Didier Courbot se caractérise par sa capacité à utiliser des objets et des procédés du quotidien qui parviennent à transporter le spectateur aussi bien mentalement que sensoriellement et émotionellement, du contexte de l’exposition ou d’une installation dans une pièce, vers d’autres situations que chacun de nous a vécues ou imaginées. Le processus par lequel il effectue ces déplacements se réalise par le biais d’images, vidéos et objets.

Les images semblent banales. Elles ressemblent à des instantanés de vacances, bien que le sujet de la photo reste indéfinissable. Les objets représentés dans chaque image sont identifiables et sous-entendent une narration qui néanmoins nous échappe. Elle reste mystérieusement au delà de notre capacité à la saisir ou accessible seulement à travers notre propre imagination ou notre propre mémoire. Ces objets sont montrés individuellement, par ensemble ou sous la forme d’un livre d’images sans texte, où la encore, la succession des images suggérerait un récit. La seule véritable histoire qui peut en découler n’est autre que celle des souvenirs imparfaits de l’observateur.

Les vidéos sont aussi simples, mais elles introduisent la notion de temps. Dans “Long Distance”, un moniteur, positionné comme les écrans d’informations des banques ou des aéroports, visionne un bout d’aile filmé de la fenêtre d’un avion. L’image est par elle-même quelconque et statique. Seuls le passage occasionnel d’un nuage ou une vibration éventuelle prouvent qu’il ne s’agit pas d’une image fixe. L’image n’est pas ce qui importe le plus, mais plutôt les sentiments qu’on y associe tels que l’ennui, l’attente, la libération et le rêve qui accompagnent souvent cet état de transit entre deux endroits distants. Cette pièce est en fait la description presque parfaite du fonctionnement des oeuvres de Didier Courbot. Elles transportent le spectateur de la réalité à un état de fiction ou d’imagination, fondé sur sa propre expérience réelle ou non.

En raison de leur nature et de leur présence dans l’espace, les objets se prêtent d’eux-mêmes à un rôle plus théâtral. Plusieurs paires de chaussures de luxe sont dispersées dans la galerie. Ce sont de beaux objets. La chaussure est un objet de fétichisme depuis très longtemps, mais ici, au lieu de la griffe d’un célèbre cordonnier ou designer frappée à l’intérieur de la chaussure, on y lit le nom d’une personne. Tous ces noms appartiennent à des personnes célèbres dans leur domaine mais certains restent inconnus du grand public. Par ce simple retournement, Didier Courbot a transformé la chaussure, objet de fascination qui attirent et concentrent le regard, en point de départ d’une fiction.

Le dernier élément de l’exposition fait partie d’un domaine rarement exploité dans les arts visuels, celui de l’odorat. De toutes les sensations physiques, l’odorat est réputé être le plus fort stimulant de la mémoire. Didier Courbot a ainsi installé un vaporisateur dans la galerie, accessible aux visiteurs qui ont la possibilité de diffuser du parfum dans l’air, créant ainsi une atmosphère olfactive. Il ne s’agit pas du parfum douceâtre qu’on utilise dans la vie quotidienne, mais d’une odeur d’humidité de villa romaine.

Le voyageur est ainsi arrivé avant même d’être parti. Le contexte de la destination a été établi avant que le déplacement réel n’ait eu lieu. Le véritable voyage est l’oeuvre.

GALERIE NELSON
40 rue Quincampoix, 75004 Paris
www.galerie-nelson.com

Serge Clément, Jane Corkin Gallery, Toronto

Serge Clément
Jane Corkin Gallery, Toronto
September 23 - October 23, 1999

Jane Corkin Gallery presents new work by Montreal photographer Serge Clément (b. 1950).

Serge Clément has been making photographs for the past twenty years. For this most recent body of work, he travelled through Europe, Asia and Canada. The photographs link past and present. They document how light and dark coexist, a powerful metaphor for life.

Serge Clément catches reflections in window panes, polished stone, puddles. The layers they create capture concrete details - a building facade, the curve of a street, a hand in a painting - and fleeting light and shadows. The images are intricate and abstract. They are transient moments. This is how he interacts with history. His photographs are the remains of his perception, and the record of his interaction.

In each image there is a sense of time passing. For Serge Clément, this body of work was his way of taming death. Many of the photographs are sombre and introspective. In the end, however, the light takes over. With each image, Serge Clément challenges us to look, to question what we see, to find the details, and leaves us knowing that the world is not always what it seems. He tells us that moments pass, that we are mortal, that richness and redemption lie in looking.

JANE CORKIN GALLERY
179 John Street, Suite 302, Toronto, ON, M5T 1X4
www.janecorkin.com

John Hoyland, Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Hoyland

Royal Academy of Arts, London

30 September - 31 October 1999

John Hoyland is one of Britain’s most distinctive artists. During the early 1960s he was associated with Situation, a group of British artists who sought to take abstraction to a greater extreme, banishing reference to landscape and the figure and concentrating instead on the fundamental elements of painting abstract shape and formal relation, colour and scale. This retrospective of John Hoyland’s work is the first in this country for twenty years. It will comprise of some 25 paintings from 1960 to the present day - including early works never seen in this country since they were first exhibited to recent paintings never exhibited before. The exhibition will provide a concise survey of the growth of John Hoyland’s vision.

Born in 1934, John Hoyland studied at the Royal Academy Schools. His large abstract paintings which drew together an engagement with optical effects, formal strategies and strong subjective expressiveness drew critical attention in the 1960s. As the decade progressed, he established his reputation with paintings which became increasingly ambitious: combining expansive scale with bold fields of colour - occupied and traversed by a few subtly orchestrated shapes.

The 1970s saw a growing painterliness in which richness of surface, an emphasis on the application of paint, and an even more sensuous use of colour became hallmarks. A retrospective was held at the Serpentine Gallery in 1979. These characteristics laid the foundations for John Hoyland’s work in the 1980s and 1990s, a period which has seen the maturing and synthesis of all these elements. In John Hoyland’s recent paintings, reference to the visual world has been reasserted in imagery. Driving visual inspiration from his immediate surroundings in London as well as from his travels to the Caribbean - a long standing passion - his paintings are vibrant celebrations of life which continue to investigate the limits and possibilities of painting.

The exhibition is curated by Paul Moorhouse, Curator at the Tate Gallery.

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS

Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1V 0DS

www.royalacademy.org.uk

Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective, SFMOMA, San Francisco

Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
February 19 - May 30, 2000

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will highlight 40 years of work by Sol LeWitt in the long-awaited exhibition Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective. The first comprehensive survey of Sol LeWitt's work since 1978, the retrospective will present over 200 works -- ranging from the well known wall drawings and structures to photographs, books and works on paper -- from each phase of the artist's career. Organized by Gary Garrels, SFMOMA Elise S. Haas Chief Curator and curator of painting and sculpture, in collaboration with Sol LeWitt, the exhibition will open on February 19 and be on view in the Museum's fourth-floor galleries through May 21, 2000, and in the fifth-floor galleries through May 30, 2000.

Sol LeWitt was born in 1928 in Hartford, Connecticut, and received his BFA in 1949 from Syracuse University. In 1953 he moved to New York, where he attended what is now known as the School of Visual Arts, and from 1955 to 1956 worked as a graphic artist for the architect I.M. Pei. In the mid-1960s, he began taking occasional teaching positions at art schools including Cooper Union, the School of Visual Arts and New York University. His work was first publicly exhibited in 1963 at St. Mark's Church, New York.

Since 1965, Sol LeWitt has had hundreds of solo exhibitions. His first retrospective was presented at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague in 1970 and later showcased in a major mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1978. His work has been featured in innumerable group exhibitions. Sol LeWitt's pieces have been collected by some of the most prestigious museums in the world, including SFMOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, Paris's Musée National d'Art Moderne, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum and the Tate Gallery, London. 

Development of a Distinct Philosophy 

Beginning in 1962, Sol LeWitt began to make a series of geometric wall reliefs, soon moving to free-standing objects or "structures," the name he uses for all of this sculptural work. At this time his work was closely related to that of other artists, including Carl Andre, Donald Judd and Robert Morris, who were developing the movement that was dubbed Minimalism. By 1964 his structures had been simplified to open, linear forms, in which ideas could be explored in permutations and series.

In the mid-1960s, he pioneered the Conceptual art movement, emphasizing ideas for the generation of art rather than working from physical materials. LeWitt published "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," an influential statement on Conceptualism, in a 1967 issue of Artforum and followed this with "Sentences on Conceptual Art," which appeared in Art Language in 1969.

In "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," Sol LeWitt stated the importance of reduction in the artistic process: "When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes the machine that makes the art." His work is focused upon the ideas behind it and the proscribed rendering of form to realize a physical manifestation of those ideas. 

Supporting his idea that the thought is more important than the act, Sol LeWitt rejects the notion of art as a unique and precious object. He often uses assistants to execute the works based upon his detailed instructions. Adherence to LeWitt's system does not validate a scientific principle or insure technical perfection. For Sol LeWitt, an idea may be mathematically or scientifically invalid, but as long as the executor follows the system established by the artist, a true expression of the idea is produced. The intent is to merely to make good art. Instructions for executing a work give way to any number of physical manifestations of an idea; some will be beautiful, some will not, but the idea maintains its integrity. His art exists, above all, in the space between the artist's conception and the viewer's reception; it is dependent upon the viewer's sensory responses for its completion. Some instructions are simple and straightforward and some are long and complex.

For example, Sol LeWitt's instructions for the execution of Wall Drawing #340, 1980, mandates: 

Six-part drawing. The wall is divided horizontally and vertically into six equal parts. 1st part: On red, blue horizontal parallel lines, and in the center, a circle within which are yellow vertical parallel lines; 2nd part: On yellow, red horizontal parallel lines, and in the center, a square within which are blue vertical parallel lines; 3rd part: On blue, yellow horizontal parallel lines, and in the center, a triangle within which are red vertical parallel lines; 4th part: On red, yellow horizontal parallel lines, and in the center, a rectangle within which are blue vertical parallel lines; 5th part: On yellow, blue horizontal parallel lines, and in the center, a trapezoid within which are red vertical parallel lines; 6th part: On blue, red horizontal parallel lines, and in the center, a parallelogram within which are yellow vertical parallel lines. The horizontal lines do not enter the figures.

Sol LeWitt's work strikes a delicate balance between perceptual and conceptual qualities; between dedication to the simplicity and order of geometry and his pursuit of visual beauty and intuitive creation; and between his authorship and anonymity regarding his work. Wall drawings, perhaps more than any other medium Sol LeWitt uses, illustrate this inherent tension between craftsmanship and anonymity. The historical precedent of Renaissance fresco painting, which LeWitt deeply admires, is counterbalanced by the execution of his wall drawings. By using industrial materials that erase any trace of craft and employing assistants to execute his ideas, LeWitt was one of the first artists to renounce the importance of the artist's hand. However, LeWitt's desire to adhere to a system does not negate his wish to create truly beautiful wall drawings. As the artist said in the early 1980s, "I would like to produce something I would not be ashamed to show Giotto." 

Four Decades of Work

In 1968 Sol LeWitt made his first artist's book, developing an array of variations of straight lines, overdrawn in four directions. In a logical extension, LeWitt made the radical break of executing some of these drawings in large scale with pencil directly on the wall, the first of his "wall drawings," which would form the basis for his most sustained, important and richly developed work over the next thirty years. This shift also set the pattern throughout his career of moving readily back and forth between works on paper, wall drawings and structures. It is this way of working through theme and variation among media and materials that will be highlighted in the SFMOMA retrospective. 

Idea, detail and execution merge in the work Incomplete Open Cubes, 1974, in which Sol LeWitt explores all possible configurations of an incomplete cube. Each arrangement is expressed in three ways: as a three-dimensional wooden structure composed of eight-inch segments; as a schematic drawing; and a photograph of the sculpture. In its most reduced state, the cube is achieved with three segments. At its most complex, it is fashioned with eleven edges and comes closest to forming a complete cube. Between the boundaries, Sol LeWitt illustrates each possibility of a cube-structures with four segments, five segments and so on. He presents the elements by rank, with both the sculptures and pictures ordered from the least to most complex.

In the 1980s, Sol LeWitt's work shifted significantly. Geometric shapes and their permutations became the dominant subject of his 1980s wall drawings, which are executed in layers of colored ink washes that create an extraordinarily varied palette of luminous tones. His works, until then linear and muted, now included three geometric shapes -- circle, square and cone -- and were created with a richer and warmer palette. For example in 1982, Sol LeWitt executed a series entitled Forms Derived from a Cube, in which he depicted variations of geometric elements found within a cube. The piece signifies the beginning of a more selective and interpretive approach to his work; with an innumerable number of possible permutations of a cube, LeWitt chose to depict only 24 variations. These, in turn, at the end of the decade, inspired a new series of complex geometric, crystal-like forms, executed both as multi-colored wall drawings and as structures of white painted wood that erupt from the floor. 

Over the years, Sol LeWitt repeatedly experimented with the idea of a star in different colors and configurations. His Star series exemplifies the artist's mature exploration of serialism and geometry. LeWitt's 1996 Wall Drawing #808 -- presented at the Bienal Internacional São Paolo where Sol LeWitt represented the United States -- presents an array of three-to nine-pointed stars, each centered within a black-bordered rectangular section of wall space. The artist's strict use of geometry dictates that each star is constructed from the form of a regular polygon, and each point of the star rests on the circumference of a circle. Sol LeWitt achieves the broad range of color in each section through a process of layering, rather than mixing, his traditional four colors. In later works from the 1990s -- such as Wall Drawing #879: Loopy Doopy (Black and White), 1998, which is composed of broad, lively swirls -- Sol LeWitt began to incorporate more fluid shapes and wider brushstrokes. Moving away from the strict systematic forms of his earlier work, the latest pieces have a rhythmic optical playfulness and exuberance, an almost decorative quality, often combining bright, saturated colors with alternately saturated blacks.

Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective will be accompanied by a 368-page catalogue with essays by Martin Friedman, Gary Garrels, Andrea Miller-Keller, Brenda Richardson, Anne Rorimer, John Weber and Adam Weinberg. Featuring a lavish photo section with 140 color and 315 black-and-white photographs, the catalogue also includes a selection of Sol LeWitt's writings, the complete exhibition checklist and a bibliography. The catalogue is co-published by the Yale University Press and will be available in a $39.95 softcover edition and a $75 cloth edition at the SFMOMA MuseumStore. In addition, SFMOMA's Education Department will present a host of public programs, including a studio program for youth, a three-part lecture series and a half-day symposium. 

After its SFMOMA presentation, the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (July to October 2000), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (October 2000 to February 2001) and other international venues. 

Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Support for this exhibition has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Henry S. McNeil Jr.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA
151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
www.sfmoma.org

Gilbert & George, Black, White and Red, 1971-1980 at James Cohan Gallery, New York

Gilbert & George

Black, White and Red, 1971-1980

James Cohan Gallery, New York

September 15 - October 16, 1999

James Cohan Gallery presents an exhibition of early photopieces by renowned British artists Gilbert & George. Gilbert & George: Black, White and Red 1971-1980 explores the development of Gilbert & George's work from this period.

Their transformation from two art students at St. Martin's School of Art in London into a single entity in which both chose to give up their surnames was crystallized in 1969 when they first performed the now classic piece The Singing Sculpture. It was with this performance that their life and their art became so completely fused that they seem to think, live, and create as one person. Their performances transformed them from living individuals into works of three-dimensional art, or as they put it "Living Sculpture."

Gilbert & George wrote in 1971, "Art is life and we create art for all." The documentation of them as "Living Sculptures" evolved in 1971 into an almost diarist record of their walks in London parks. The photographs were then presented in a scrapbook-like format on the wall. This marriage of art and life went beyond the bucolic as they began documenting their drunken binges with the Drinking Sculptures. Throughout this seminal period in their development, each work incorporates portraits of Gilbert & George; placing them at the center of the universe they observe and imagine, as if they were the only inhabitants of their alienated world.

In this first decade of Gilbert & George's work, there exists a factual nature to the images. With the use of the grid structure, positioning multiple images side by side, the journalistic and commonplace become unexpectedly powerful emblems of inwardness, melancholy and confinement. The addition of red to their rigorous vocabulary has been suggested as a symbol of their revolt against the status quo and a further retreat into themselves and the blood of their bodies. By the late 70s and into 1980, they had technically begun to achieve larger images but retained the grid sculpture in an almost stained glass-like fashion. The restrain and inwardness of the decade began to recede and a more assertive position was taken by the artists in later work.

JAMES COHAN GALLERY

533 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001

www.jamescohan.com

Gary Hill at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, NYC

Gary Hill: A name, a kind of chamber, two weapons and a still life
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York
18 September - 30 October 1999

Barbara Gladstone Gallery presents an exhibition of new work by Gary Hill featuring five installation works in videomedia. Gary Hill, born in 1951, is one of the pioneers of video art. He completed his first Single Channel Video work in 1973, and began producing video installations as early as 1974.

In the catalogue from Gary Hill’s 1993 solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, curator Dorine Mignot states: “Gary Hill is an artist who is interested in the capacity of the various human language processes — be it spoken, written, gesture or body — their interrelationships and relationship to the outside world. He renders visible, as it were, processes of thought, of seeing, of communication (language). He makes them into a physical experience, into a combination of visual and spatial experience in time. The human body is a point of departure and return, in both his thoughts and work. The body as transmitter and receiver.”

Of the five works in this exhibition, Still Life, 1999, best illustrates Gary Hill’s consistent practice of utilizing new technological possibilities to extend the vocabulary of his work. It consists of over a thousand computer generated objects viewed from multiple angles throughout the space. The works in this exhibition, sometimes removed their monitor casings or projected onto table tops, use a sublime imagery, sound and space to communicate. In Reflex Chamber, 1996, Hill transforms the white cube into something akin to the internal chamber of a camera. Switchblade, 1998-99, and Crossbow, 1999 reference the human body, while Namesake, 1999, emphasizes the structure of language through repetition of name and image responding to each other.

In the artist’s own words, “I am primarily an image maker. Video embodies a reflexive space of difference through the simultaneous production of presence and distance. I think it has a visceral reality more encompassing than writing and still allows for meditation without falling prey to the image. And yet, although my art is based on images, I am very much involved in the undermining of those images through language.”

In 1998, Gary Hill was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. His recent solo exhibitions include: Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark; School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, OH. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; and Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. The artist lives and works in Seattle.

Barbara Gladstone Gallery
515 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
www.gladstonegallery.com

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso Exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC - At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist - Amadeo de Souza Cardoso

At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist -

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso 

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington 

September 11 - November 28, 1999 

The Corcoran Gallery of Art with the Portuguese Ministry of Culture in Lisbon and the Embassy of Portugal in Washington presents an exhibition of the major modernist paintings and drawings by Portuguese artist Amadeo de Souza Cardoso (1887-1918). The presentation spans Souza Cardoso’s entire career and features 34 paintings, 19 works on paper, and archival materials. At the Edge is the first exhibition ever mounted in the United States devoted exclusively to the work of this influential artist.

A pioneer of modernism and a national cultural hero in Portugual, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso enjoyed a promising but tragically brief career. He settled in Paris as a student in 1906, immersing himself in the bohemian culture of the city while becoming friends with Amedeo Modigliani, Juan Gris, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Diego Rivera and the sculptor Constantin Brancusi. In the company of these artists, Souza Cardoso developed a personal style that combined exuberant and fanciful color with the newly invented forms of cubism and futurism. He also played with abstracted and fragmented forms in his paintings, often using more than one point of view in a single picture. 

"With breathtaking facility, Souza Cardoso worked through the major avant-garde trends of his day and came up with an original modernist style characterized by wonderful color, inventive subject matter and innovative form," says Dr. Jack Cowart, Corcoran Deputy Director and Chief Curator. "He was steadily gaining momentum with his adventurous work and had already made major contributions to modern art when he died in the great influenza epidemic shortly before his thirty-first birthday. This exhibition not only showcases his life’s work, but provokes us to imagine what might have been."

Throughout his career, Souza Cardoso maintained a strong connection to his native Portugal, but he also incorporated into his art modernist approaches developing in Europe, especially in Paris, where he lived. He worked in a variety of ways, often drawing the on the multiple viewpoints of cubism and the dynamism of futurism. He painted the dramatic mountainous landscapes of his native region Marão, in Montanhas; the elaborate Catholic processions he witnessed near his home in Portugal in Procissão Corpus Christi; extraordinary abstract portraits of his friends in Paris; and complex, vibrant still lifes that combine elements of Portuguese folk art with symbols of the Paris metropolis. Using rhythmic, circular forms of floating color, Souza Cardoso also painted some of the earliest completely nonrepresentational pictures ever created.

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso was born on November 14, 1887 in Manhufe, Portugal. In 1905, he traveled to Lisbon to study architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts. On his 19th birthday, Souza Cardoso left Lisbon for Paris where he quickly abandoned his architectural studies and decided to become a painter. While in Paris, Souza Cardoso participated in several important exhibitions such as the Salon des Indépendants of 1911 and 1912 as well as the Salon d’Automne of 1912. He also exhibited works at the Herbstsalon in Berlin and the Salon in London. In 1913, American art impresario Walter Pach invited Souza Cardoso to present eight works at the most important exhibition of avant-garde art in America, the historic International Exhibition of Modern Art, better known as the Armory Show. The exhibition opened in New York City and then traveled to Chicago and Boston. Souza Cardoso sold seven of his eight works to several notable American collectors.

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso was living in Paris but visiting his family in Portugual when the First World War broke out. Stranded by the war, he continued to paint and created some of his most complex and original works, such as Coty, a striking work that refers to the French perfume and combines the image of a female nude with bits of broken mirror, sand and hair pins.

After presentation at the Corcoran, At the Edge travels to the Arts Club in Chicago (January 20 - March 17, 2000). A fully illustrated catalogue, the only monograph in English on Souza Cardoso, accompanies the exhibition. It features essays by noted Portuguese experts, including Professor José-Augusto França of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, as well as American scholars Dr. Kenneth Silver of New York University, Ms. Rosemary O’Neill of the Parsons School of Design and Ms. Laura Coyle, assistant curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. These essays discuss Souza Cardoso’s biography, his stylistic development, the context of his years in Paris, his friendship with Robert and Sonia Delaunay, his relationship with Walter Pach, his participation in the Armory Show and the interest of American collectors in his work.

The exhibition was organized by the Office of International Relations, Ministry of Culture, Portugal and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. 

CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART

500 Seventeenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006

www.corcoran.org

Andreas Slominski at Metro Pictures, NYC

Andreas Slominski

Metro Pictures, New York

11 September - 16 October 1999

His sly wit and prankster behavior mask an undercurrent of serious cultural criticism...

...rich and complex art...

- Nancy Spector, curator,

Guggenheim Museum, New York

The German artist Andreas Slominski's first one-person exhibition in New York provides an opportunity to see his diabolical animal traps and absurdly counter-intuitive actions that have been presented in many European art venues since the late 80s.

Andreas Slominski's traps can be crude and brutal like the Trap for Birds of Prey or deceptively charming and crafty like the Rat Trap in the form of a church. Inviting metaphor, the traps suggest the obsessed backwoods trapper, the kitschy handmade garden ornament or the nasty business of pest control.

Andreas Slominski's actions, episodic processes of excessive difficulty and comic contrivance, reference formal sculpture and result in a physical art work of some kind. The visitor to the Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld, Germany, saw Andreas Slominski's piece titled Golf Ball, ostensibly a lone golf ball sitting on the floor of the museum. Getting the ball in place, however, required a crane to lift a dump truck over the roof of the museum to the back of the building; a local golfer to hit a ball over the front of the museum and into the dump truck so that it would roll off the truck and through the previously removed glass window of the museum. Then the glass was replaced, the truck and crane removed, the golfer departed, leaving only the inanimate golf ball. Andreas Slominski's actions, absurd, ironic and humorous as they may be, possess a poignancy and dumb purity and reflect on the serious accommodation granted to art and artists.

Andreas Slominski was born in Meppen, Germany in 1959 and lives in Hamburg. His work has been the subject of one-person museum shows at Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Museum fur Modern Kunst in Frankfurt, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kunsthalle Zurich, Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht and Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld and at galleries including Produzentengalerie in Hamburg, White Cube in London, Jablonka Galerie in Koln and Wako in Tokyo. The magazine Parkett featured his work in the Summer 1999 issue.

METRO PICTURES GALLERY

519 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011

www.metropictures.com

Wacom Tablette Graphique Graphire

WACOM présente son Ensemble de Souris & Stylet Graphire. La tablette, de la taille d’un tapis de souris, est livrée avec un stylet sans fil et sans pile, sensible à la pression, ainsi qu avec une souris haute résolution, sans fil, sans pile et sans bille.

L’ensemble Graphire peut séduire les utilisateurs qui souhaitent se servir d’une souris sophistiquée pour certaines de leurs applications, mais qui auront également besoin du positionnement absolu du stylet pour par exemple écrire des notes ou pour contrôler des jeux rapidement et avec précision. De même, Graphire est destniée à ceux qui recherchent avant tout un stylet sensible à la pression pour le graphisme, mais préfèrent utiliser une souris pour d’autres applications telles que la navigation sur Internet. Grâce à l’Ensemble Souris & Stylet Graphire, les utilisateurs bénéficieront d’un meilleur confort d’utilisation et profiteront des fonctionnalités, et des performances d’une vaste gamme de logiciels de graphisme, de jeux, de messagerie ou de bureautique.

La souris et le stylet Graphire, n’ont ni fil, ni pile et fonctionnent sur une tablette graphique, de la taille d’un tapis de souris. Les outils Graphire sont activés par la tablette graphique, grâce à une technologie unique de résonance électromagnétique, utilisant un signal radio basse fréquence, pour localiser les outils sur la surface de la tablette, et renvoyer ce signal (localisation, type de pression utilisée...) à l’ordinateur. Il n’y a pas de câbles disgracieux qui peuvent être emmêlés, cela favorise ainsi la vitesse et la précision d’utilisation de la souris et du stylet.

Une caractéristique de Graphire réside dans le positionnement absolu. En pointant le stylet, en haut à gauche de la tablette, le curseur à l’écran se positionne instantanément à cet endroit avec une précision au millimètre. La tablette graphique est en relation directe avec les pixels du moniteur, permettant ce degré de précision. Les utilisateurs bénéficient ainsi d’une efficacité et de l’ensemble des fonctionnalités de certains de leurs logiciels de jeux et de graphisme.

D’un format A6, la tablette Graphire sert de surface de travail pour le stylet et la souris Graphire. L’ensemble Graphire permet d’économiser de l’espace sur le bureau, car, de la même taille qu un tapis de souris, elle le rend obsolète. Elle est équipée d’un calque transparent, qui permet de reproduire facilement et avec précision, des dessins ou des photos. La tablette Graphire est également équipée d’un porte stylet intégré, amovible, permettant à l’utilisateur d’avoir son stylet à portée de main à tout moment. La tablette graphique, la souris et le stylet Graphire sont d’un design ergonomique. Les outils de pointage activés par la tablette graphique, rendent inutile tout fil, pile ou transmetteur infrarouge, et changer d’outils est une opération simple. La tablette graphique reconnaît instantanément l’outil en cours d’utilisation et configure automatiquement les paramètres du système.

La tablette graphique offre une résolution de 1 000 dpi permettant un travail assez précis.

Le stylet Graphire, sans fil, ni pile, dispose d’une pointe sensible à la pression qui reproduit les sensations naturelles et la souplesse des outils artistiques traditionnels, tels que la craie, le crayon, les pinceaux etc... Le stylet est bien équilibré, très léger, et son absence de fil permettra de laisser libre tous les mouvements de la main. Le stylet Graphire offre 512 niveaux de pression. Il est deux fois plus sensible que le stylet de la PenPartner de Wacom. Il dispose d’une gomme, également sensible à la pression, qui permet de gommer des graphismes et d’effacer des textes. Conçu à partir d’une étude ergonomique poussée, le stylet Graphire dispose d’une taille resserrée qui permet à l’utilisateur d’appliquer une plus grande pression, mais avec moins de force qu avec un tube cylindrique. Il est donc beaucoup moins fatigant pour le poignet et le bras. Le stylet Graphire possède également un double bouton latéral, programmable, qui peut être paramétré pour remplacer tout type de raccourcis clavier ou tout type de fonctions, en actionnant simplement du doigt ou du pouce le bouton approprié.

La souris Graphire, sans fil, ni pile, fonctionne sans bille : cela évite qu elle s’enraye à cause de la poussière accumulée autour de la bille, et de s’emmêler avec les câbles. Conçue selon une ergonomie très étudiée, la souris Graphire est symétrique et s’adapte donc confortablement à n’importe quelle main. La souris Graphire dispose de trois boutons programmables, pratiques pour l’utilisateur, dont une molette au doigt, cannelée, douce, destinée à la navigation rapide (scrolling) sur le Web, que ce soit sur Macintosh ou sur PC. Les 3 boutons de la souris Graphire peuvent être paramétrés selon les mêmes fonctions que le double bouton latéral du stylet Graphire. Disposant d’une résolution de 1 000 dpi, la souris Graphire offre une résolution plus de deux fois et demi supérieure à celle d’une souris standard et procure ainsi un niveau de précision très élevée.

Le panneau de contrôle Graphire permet aux utilisateurs de personnaliser les configurations de la souris et du stylet Graphire, augmentant ainsi les fonctionnalités du "Application Specific Settings" (une fonctionnalité qui permet de configurer les préférences spécifiques à chaque application). L’utilisateur peut paramétrer sa tablette Graphire et ses outils en fonction de ses applications. Ces commandes peuvent également servir à paramétrer les niveaux de sensibilité à la pression de la pointe du stylet et de la gomme, paramétrer la molette au doigt, les menus déroulants et la correspondance entre la tablette graphique et l’écran. Par exemple, un des deux boutons latéraux du stylet est réglé en double-clic par défaut, mais cela peut être changé pour prendre la main dans Adobe PhotoShop pour déplacer des images. Dans Painter de MetaCreations, il est également possible de programmer les touches "ctrl" et "alt" pour changer la taille des brosses sans quitter le logiciel.

4 logiciels livrés avec Graphire - L’Ensemble Souris & Stylet Graphire est livré avec quatre logiciels complémentaires - entre eux et avec le système de la tablette graphique - permettant à l’utilisateur d’optimiser l’usage de son ensemble Graphire dans les différents domaines d’application de ces logiciels.

• Painter Classic de MetaCreations (disponible sur PC et Macintosh) est un logiciel de peinture et de dessin très souple qui dispose de plus de 100 outils sensibles à la pression, et peuvent être utilisés avec le stylet Graphire pour créer des œuvres artistiques à l’aspect naturel. Les brosses "Natural Media" de Painter peuvent servir de source d'inspiration créative pour l'utilisateur. Ce logiciel propose également des outils de retouche d’images, permettant la manipulation intuitive, le recadrage et le rehaussement de tout type d’images numériques.
• Les "PenTools" WACOM (disponible sur PC et Macintosh) sont un ensemble exclusif de huit plug-ins sensibles à la pression, compatibles PhotoShop. Ils proposent une grande variété d’effets qui peuvent être peints sur une partie ou sur toute l’image directement, sans avoir à passer par un masque grâce au stylet Graphire. Les "PenTools" peuvent être utilisés pour nettoyer ou appliquer du bruit à une image, pour, par exemple déformer une image avec le plug-in "Modelage" ou pour créer des bords biseautés avec le plug-in "Sculpter en 3D". "PenTools" est compatible avec Painter Classic de MetaCreations, Adobe PhotoShop et Corel PhotoPaint.
• PenOffice SE de Paragraph (disponible sur PC) est un logiciel exclusif d’écriture manuelle pour Windows, qui permet de signer ou écrire des notes manuscrites dans des documents Microsoft Word 97 ou 2000. L’utilisateur peut annoter, souligner du texte, dessiner un croquis ou écrire à la main avec le stylet Graphire. PenOffice SE permet également d’écrire des idées ou des croquis par exemple, sur un "bloc-notes", qui peut être joint à un message électronique (e-mail). L’écran peut également servir de cahier de croquis virtuel, puis sauvegardé en fichier bitmap et attaché à un message électronique (e-mail) avec une visionneuse en pièce jointe.
• Cyber-SIGN de Cyber-SIGN (disponible sur PC) est un économiseur d’écran avec mot de passe sécurisé sous forme de signature manuscrite, sous Windows, qui utilise des données biométriques pour vérifier l’identité de l’utilisateur. La sensibilité à la pression de la tablette graphique et du stylet Graphire captent la forme, la vitesse, l’ordre du tracé et la pression sur le stylet d’une signature, garantissant ainsi l’exclusivité de son utilisateur.

Début de commercialisation : Octobre 1999 au prix public de 699 Francs TTC. L’Ensemble Souris & Stylet Graphire est distribué par Métrologie, TechData, Apacabar.

Configuration requise [en 1999, lors de la commercialisation] PC port série avec Windows 95/98 ou supérieur, NT 4.0 ou supérieur, port série et port PS/2 disponibles PC prêt pour USB avec Windows 98 ou supérieur, port USB actif iMac avec Mac OS 8.51 ou supérieur, port USB actif Power Mac avec OS 8.51 et port USB actif Lecteur de CD-Rom.

Message modifié le 20-06-2009

James Tissot: Victorian Life / Modern Love

James Tissot: Victorian Life / Modern Love

Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

September 22 - November 28, 1999

Musée du Québec, Québec

December 16, 1999 - March 12, 2000

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo

March 25 - July 2, 2000

James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love is the first major US retrospective in 30 years of the French artist James Tissot (1836-1902). Comprising approximately 40 paintings, 37 prints, and 20 watercolors and gouaches on loan from collections from around the world, the exhibition constitutes the most complete representation of James Tissot’s work in this country and celebrates his notable return to both popular and scholarly favor in recent years. The exhibition is organized by The American Federation of Arts and the Yale Center for British Art. 

Guest curator Malcolm Warner, Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, Yale Center for British Art, has arranged the exhibition into six thematic sections: Historical Subjects, Modern Life in France, Modern Life in Britain, Prints, La Femme à Paris, and Biblical Illustrations.

James Tissot gives prominence to the wry and urbane scenes of Victorian life for which the artist is best known. The exhibition presents a selection of James Tissot’s finest works with particular emphasis on his years in London, where he lived from 1871 to 1882. The paintings showcase his keen observations of the manners and fashions of his times. With remarkable technical virtuosity, he gently mocked what he admired, reveling in recording the minute details of contemporary finery.

In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Mr. Warner writes, "At the heart of James Tissot’s work as an artist lies the idea of the modern, that which makes the present time distinct in appearance and character from the past." In this setting, he portrayed the nuances of modern love: the drama of attraction, flirtation, passion, and loss, and the gestures through which they were expressed in Paris and London society.

James Tissot left London and returned to France in 1882, following the death of his beloved companion and favorite model, Kathleen Newton. Between 1883 and 1885, he created a series of fifteen large paintings titled La Femme à Paris. Like the canvases he created in London, these paintings hint at amorous intrigue while depicting scenes from the lives of Parisian women.

In 1886, still mourning the death of Mrs. Newton, Tissot experienced a vision of Christ and, consequently, a deepening of his religious ardor. From this turning point until his death, Tissot devoted himself to creating hundreds of works in a variety of mediums illustrating biblical stories. With their combination of mysticism and realism, these works struck a powerful chord with the public and were immensely popular in both exhibitions and in book form in Europe and North America.

While Tissot is not the kind of artist who features largely in general histories of art, his work is admired, studied, and collected all over the world, sometimes with cult-like devotion. According to Mr. Warner, the exhibition is designed to "present Tissot on his own terms, to bring out the intelligence, the inventiveness, and the humor that make him such a highly enjoyable artist."

JAMES TISSOT

Victorian Life/Modern Love

Published by the Yale Center for British Art 

and The American Federation of Arts

PUBLICATION - A fully illustrated catalogue, written by Malcolm Warner and Tissot scholar Nancy Rose Marshall accompanies the exhibition. James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love is published by the Yale Center for British Art and The American Federation of Arts in association with Yale University Press, London. 208 pages, 9 x 10", 96 color and 31 black-and-white illustrations.

THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS

41 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10021

afaweb.org

Van Dyck 1599 - 1641, Royal Academy of Arts, London

VAN DYCK 1599 - 1641

Royal Academy of Arts, London

11 September - 10 December 1999

Anthony van Dyck was born in Antwerp in 1599. To mark the four hundredth anniversary of his birth, The Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, are organising a major retrospective of the artist’s work. This collaboration brings together two of the cities in which Van Dyck built his international career as a painter. Her Majesty The Queen and Their Majesties King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium have graciously agreed to act as patrons of the exhibition. With over one hundred works this exhibition will offer a rare chance to see Van Dyck’s mythological and religious paintings as well as a great assembly of his portraits - of Antwerp burghers, Genoese nobles, the Stuart royal family, poets, statesmen, courtiers, friends and children.

Anthony Van Dyck was a child prodigy, whose exceptional talent was recognised by Rubens. By 1618, aged only 19, he had established his own workshop. His paintings from this early period were religious works for the churches of Antwerp as well as mythological paintings and portraits. His fame was such that he was invited to visit the Court of England where he worked for King James I, the Earl of Arundel and the Duke of Buckingham. From 1621 to 1627 he lived and worked in Genoa, visiting Venice, Rome, Palermo and Naples. Genoa was the most important international centre of banking and mercantile shipping, and Van Dyck painted the Genoese aristocracy and their children to brilliant effect. He returned to Antwerp in 1628 painting portraits at the court and altarpieces for the great churches of the city.

In 1632 Anthony Van Dyck was finally persuaded to accept the position of Court Painter to Charles I. The painter was knighted, presented with a gold chain and medallion, and given a studio on the river at Blackfriars where he painted the royal family and members of their court. In the space of seven and a half years he produced perhaps as many as four hundred portraits, ranging from grandiose portrayals of the King on horseback to more informal paintings of the less exalted courtiers, the diplomats, poets and musicians who were his friends. He completely eclipsed the rather wooden portraiture of his contemporaries in England, and set a style and standard that influenced artists from Sir Peter Lely to Reynolds, Gainsborough and Lawrence. Although many of his subject paintings made in England have been lost, a haunting Cupid and Psyche from the Royal Collection illustrates his genius for romantic and poetic works.

During this time he still visited Flanders and painted many fine pictures there. By 1640, he was anxious to leave England, but dogged by ill health, and unable to obtain a secure position in France, he returned to die in London in December 1641. He was buried in old St Paul’s Cathedral, his grave bearing a Latin inscription which in translation reads: `....while he lived he gave immortality to many. Charles I, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, provided this monument for Sir Anthony van Dyck’. By July 1642 the country was on the brink of Civil War.

The exhibition has been organised by the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The exhibition has been curated by Dr Christopher Brown, Director of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and an expert on Van Dyck.

Significant loans have been promised by Her Majesty The Queen; the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp; the National Gallery, London; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; The Museo del Prado, Madrid; Palazzo Rosso, Genova; Museo Capitolino, Rome and the Musée du Louvre, Paris, as well as the galleries at Brussels, Dresden, Amsterdam, Vicenza, Melbourne, Budapest, and elsewhere. In addition some works in private collections, rarely seen by the public, will be shown.

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS

Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD

www.royalacademy.org.uk