The photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney

The photograph and Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
21 March - 8 June 2015 
Queensland Art Gallery
June - September 2015

DAVID MOORE

Migrants arriving in Sydney 1966 

Gelatin silver photograph 

Art Gallery of New South Wales, gift of the artist 1997 

© Lisa, Karen, Michael and Matthew Moore

The photograph and Australia at the Art Gallery of NSW is the largest exhibition of Australian photography held since 1988 that borrows from collections nationwide and looks at the history of the medium.

Reflecting an evolving image of Australia from the 1840s until today, The photograph and Australia presents more than 400 photographs by more than 120 artists, including Morton Allport, Richard Daintree, Paul Foelsche, Samuel Sweet, JJ Dwyer, Charles Bayliss, Frank Hurley, Harold Cazneaux, Olive Cotton, Max Dupain, Sue Ford, Carol Jerrems, Tracey Moffatt, Robyn Stacey, Ricky Maynard, Anne Ferran and Patrick Pound.

The works of renowned artists and those considered to be national icons are shown alongside those by unknown photographers and everyday material, such as domestic albums and postcards. The photographs in this exhibition tell people’s stories, illustrate where and how they lived, and communicate official public narratives. Scientific photography such as the earliest Australian X-rays and astronomical photographs appear alongside contemporary representations of people and place.

Sourced from more than 35 private and public collections across Australia, England and New Zealand, including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia and the State Library of Victoria, The photograph and Australia uncovers hidden gems dating from 1845 until now.

From mass media’s evolution in the 19th century to today’s digital revolution, The photograph and Australia investigates how photography has been harnessed to create the idea of a nation and reveals how our view of the world, ourselves and each other has been changed by the advent of photography.

It also explores how photography operates aesthetically, technically, politically and in terms of distribution and proliferation, in the Australian context. Highlights include works by Australia’s first professional photographer, George Goodman and recent works by Simryn Gill.

Curated from a contemporary perspective, the exhibition takes a thematic rather than a chronological approach looking at four interrelated areas: Aboriginal and settler relations; exploration: mining, landscape and stars; portraiture and engagement; collecting and distributing photography.

Exhibition curator, Judy Annear, senior curator, photographs, Art Gallery of NSW, said: ‘We are proud to present The photograph and Australia, an exhibition that considers how the photograph invented modern Australia.

Audiences are invited to experience the richness of Australian photography, past and present, and the sense of wonder the photograph can still induce through its ability to capture both things of the world and the imagination.’

Director Michael Brand stated: ‘We hope that The photograph and Australia will contribute to an understanding of the richness and complexity of the medium and provide impetus for further explorations of the photograph’s production, function and dissemination in this country. We trust that in doing so, it will also help place Australian photography in a broader international context.’

A richly illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition, reflecting the exhibition themes and investigating how Australia itself has been shaped by photography.

There will be related education programs, digital resources, a substantial film program and live events. A major symposium will also be held at the Art Gallery of NSW on 18 April addressing the proliferation and distribution of photographic images.

The photograph and Australia will be open to the public at the Art Gallery of NSW in the major exhibition gallery from 21 March to 8 June 2015, before travelling to the Queensland Art Gallery, where it will be open to the public from June to September 2015.

Art Gallery of NSW - Sydney - Australia
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Taking it all away: MCA Collection, Sydney

Taking it all away: MCA Collection 
Museum of Contemporary Art , Sydney, Australia
Through 22 February 2015

Stuart Ringholt

Untitled (Clock), 2014, clockwork, tubular bells, world globe, steel, glass, electronics 

Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2014

Installation view Stuart Ringholt: Kraft, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2014

Image courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist, photograph: Andrew Curtis

What might happen if you took away time, so a 24-hour day passed in just 18 hours? What are you left with once 260 volunteers have spent five years erasing a magazine by hand – page by page? These questions about our relationship to time, and how it might be spent and measured, represent one line of enquiry within Taking it all away, an exhibition of works drawn from the Museum of Contemporary Art Collection that is on display this summer.

Taking it all away: MCA Collection presents works that speculate upon the continued importance of Minimalism and conceptual art, the processes of erasure and abstraction, and the social impact of art.

The exhibition includes work by Gordon Bennett, Christian Capurro et. al. (featuring Chris Bond), Peter Cripps, Gail Hastings, Robert Hunter, Rose Nolan and Stuart Ringholt. It presents recent works acquired by the MCA Foundation, along with artworks drawn from the MCA Collection.

Exhibition highlights include Christian Capurro’s erased magazine, which passed through the hands of 250 people over five years and Stuart Ringholt’s 18-hour clock, which explores not only the potential impact of time being taken away but also cosmology and our place within a vast universe. 

In different ways Peter Cripps, Gail Hastings and Robert Hunter explore how art activates our senses of spatiality and temporality, requiring not only our occupation of space but also our input of time and contemplation. Through mirrored surfaces, subtle painted grids or objects to walk around, these works map out the interaction between gallery and spectator.

Gordon Bennett’s soft ground etchings featuring black squares directly reference the origins of abstraction, while Rose Nolan’s banners recall the radical aesthetics of Constructivism’s political slogans. Yet hers are a call to arms of a more individualistic nature, in which party ideology is pared down to personal anxiety.

Natasha Bullock, MCA Senior Curator said ‘If there is a link between the diverse works by the artists featured in Taking it all away it is in their exploration of the dynamics of space and time, set against the complexities of modern life.’

The museum dedicates this exhibition to the memory of artists Gordon Bennett and Robert Hunter, who both sadly passed away during its development.

ARTIST LIST
Gordon Bennett was born 1955, Monto, Queensland. Lived and worked Brisbane. Died Brisbane 2014.
Christian Capurro was born 1968, Dampier, Western Australia. Lives and works Melbourne.
Peter Cripps was born 1948, Melbourne. Lives and works Melbourne.
Gail Hastings was born 1965, Perth. Lives and works Sydney.
Robert Hunter was born 1947, Melbourne. Lived and worked Melbourne. Died Melbourne 2014.
Rose Nolan was born 1959, Melbourne. Lives and works Melbourne.
Stuart Ringholt was born 1971, Perth. Lives and works Melbourne.

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
www.mca.com.au

Weegee: At the Movies! Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas, NYC

Weegee: At the Movies! 

Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas, NYC 

Through June 14, 2015 

WEEGEE, [Girls laughing at movie, New York], ca. 1943. 

with infrared film

© Weegee/ International Center of Photography.

Fourteen images by Weegee—best known for his tabloid photographs of New York City’s crime scenes, urban crowds, and nightlife in the 1930s and ’40s—are on display on the second floor of the Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas  (260 West 23rd Street) to celebrate the theater’s reopening. The photographs are part of a series Weegee made in New York City theaters in the mid-1940s with infrared film.

From bemused children to entwined couples, lonely sleepers to exhilarated teenage girls, this gallery of portraits constitutes a powerful, unique, and moving tribute to cinema lovers. The passion conveyed in these images—their lyricism, magic, and poetry— remind us of the quintessential role played by the arts, and specifically still and moving images, in our society.

The photographs exhibited here are part of the Weegee archive, representing the largest holding of this master photographer’s work, which is housed at the International Center of Photography. The archive containing nearly 20,000 prints, negatives, tear sheets, manuscript drafts, correspondence, and other personal memorabilia.

Weegee: Biography 

Weegee was born Usher Fellig on June 12, 1899, in the town of Lemburg (now in Ukraine). He first worked as a photographer at age fourteen, three years after his family immigrated to the United States, where his first name was changed to the more American-sounding Arthur. Self-taught, he held many other photographyrelated jobs before gaining regular employment at a photography studio in lower Manhattan in 1918. This job led him to others at a variety of newspapers until, in 1935, he became a freelance news photographer. 

He centered his practice around police headquarters, and in 1938 he obtained permission to install a police radio in his car. This allowed him to take the first and most sensational photographs of news events and offer them for sale to publications such as the Herald-Tribune, Daily News, Post, the Sun, and PM Weekly, among others.

During the 1940s, Weegee’s photographs appeared outside the mainstream press and met success there as well. New York’s Photo League held an exhibition of his work in 1941, and the Museum of Modern Art began collecting his work and exhibited it in 1943. Weegee published his photographs in several books, including Naked City (1945), Weegee’s People (1946), and Naked Hollywood (1953). After moving to Hollywood in 1947, he devoted most of his energy to making 16-millimeter films and photographs for his “Distortions” series, a project that resulted in experimental portraits of celebrities and political figures. He returned to New York in 1952 and lectured and wrote about photography until his death on December 27, 1968.

Weegee’s photographic oeuvre is unusual in that it was successful in the popular media and respected by the fine-art community during his lifetime. His photographs’ ability to navigate between these two realms comes from the strong emotional connection forged between the viewer and the characters in his photographs, as well as from Weegee’s skill at choosing the most telling and significant moments of the events he photographed. ICP’s retrospective exhibition of his work in 1998 attested to Weegee’s continued popularity; his work is frequently recollected or represented in contemporary television, film, and other forms of popular entertainment.

About Bow Tie Cinemas, New York

Founded by B.S. Moss in 1900, four generations of family ownership have guided Bow Tie Cinemas from its origins in Vaudeville to its current holdings of fifty-five theaters in the eastern United States. 2015 marks the 115th anniversary of Bow Tie Cinemas and the completed renovation of its flagship Chelsea Cinemas in Manhattan. In addition to a permanent photography exhibit curated by The International Center of Photography, the all-new Chelsea Cinemas’ upgrades will include: luxury seating and reserved seating, a new lobby and interior box office, concession stands and enhanced food offerings.

About ICP, New York

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to the practice and understanding of photography and the reproduced image in all its forms. Through our exhibitions, educational programs, and community outreach, we offer an open forum for dialogue about the role images play in our culture. Since our founding, we have presented more than 700 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes, providing instruction at every level. ICP is a center where photographers and artists, students and scholars can create and interpret the world of the image within our comprehensive educational and archival facilities. Visit www.icp.org for more information.

On Kawara, Silence at the Guggenheim Museum, New-York

On Kawara, Silence

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New-York

February 6 - May 3, 2015

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will present the first comprehensive exhibition of the work of ON KAWARA (1933-2014), the broadest representation to date of his practice since 1963. On Kawara—Silence invites the viewer to consider a body of work that engages the nature and experience of time and place.

Installed along the spiral ramps of the museum according to a framework of 12 sections, or “chapters,” devised by the artist, the exhibition features work from 1963 through 2013 and includes every category of On Kawara’s output, much of it produced during his travels across the globe: monochrome Date Paintings (from the Today series); telegrams (the I Am Still Alive series); stamped tourist postcards (the I Got Up series); city maps marked with the route taken by the artist on a given day (the I Went series); lists of names of people encountered that day (the I Met series); newspaper cuttings (the I Read series); a complete inventory of paintings (the Journals); and vast calendars (One Hundred Years and One Million Years). Numerous drawings produced in Paris and New York in 1964, which are fascinating proposals for unrealized works, and Kawara’s only two extant paintings of 1965, Location and Title, which herald the Today series, offer a historical perspective and indicate the emergence of the pictorial idiom he continued to pursue throughout his career. The exhibition also presents three months of consecutive Today paintings, identified by the artist collectively as Everyday Meditation, part of which was displayed in the 1971 Guggenheim International Exhibition. As part of the One Million Years project, a continuous live recitation of dates from an immense ledger will occur three days a week during the run of the exhibition on the ground floor of the Guggenheim rotunda.

Born in Kariya, Japan, ON KAWARA achieved early recognition during the 1950s as a young member of the Tokyo avant-garde. The artist left Japan in 1959, moving first to Mexico City and then to Paris before settling in New York City. During that period of relocation, he abandoned his early surrealistic representations of the body. In 1966 his practice acquired the form it would take thereafter—the intermittent yet persistent production of paintings and other works, most of which serve to identify the time and place of the artist’s whereabouts on the day they were made.

On Kawara’s work is often associated with the rise of Postminimal and Conceptual art. Yet in its complex wit and existential reach, it also stands well apart. At the heart of On Kawara—Silence are paintings from the Today series, created over the course of seven decades according to intensive protocols. With each painting, the date is inscribed in white acrylic against a monochromatic ground in variants of blue, red, or very dark gray, in the language of the place where the painting was made. The strict range of dimensions for the Date Paintings is preordained, and the process of making them is seemingly mechanical, although the paintings were, in fact, meticulously produced by hand. A painting was either finished in the course of a given day or destroyed. On some days, two, and, very occasionally, three, were made. The exhibition presents over 150 Date Paintings, many accompanied by the handmade storage boxes that Kawara often lined with cuttings from the daily press. Such cuttings, representing topics both historical and banal—politics, natural disaster, celebrity, space exploration, sports—place Kawara’s work in a context of current events, although any logic of selection is difficult to discern.

“I Got Up.” “I Went.” “I Read.” “I Met.” Much of Kawara’s work deploys such first-person declarations, which seem to designate little more—yet nothing less—than his very being in the world. More than 1,500 tourist postcards, addressed, stamped, and mailed to friends and acquaintances including artists, gallerists, collectors, critics, and curators such as John Baldessari, Germano Celant, Herman Daled, Kasper König, Sol LeWitt, Lucy Lippard, Toshiaki Minemura, and Adrian Piper bearing the message “I GOT UP AT,” followed by the precise time Kawara began his day, are featured in On Kawara—Silence. The exhibition also includes city maps upon which the artist traced his route in a single day, and more than 100 telegrams delivered between 1969–2000, each bearing the simple message “I AM STILL ALIVE.” These series, produced according to their own set of rules, record the basic activities of the artist’s life. Like the Date Paintings, they appear to be purely systematic. While close examination reveals the work’s unexpectedly personal qualities—not least the discipline and endurance implied by the artist’s relentless record keeping—indications of personal experience are elusive. Throughout his lifetime, the artist’s official biography consisted only of the number of days he had been alive. The schematic nature of his oeuvre means that, despite its subjective nature and focus on self-examination, it remained surprisingly abstract.

On Kawara said very little about his art and preferred to leave much about it unexplained. He did, however, identify one central theme: human consciousness, an individual’s heightened awareness of his or her existence in the world. Kawara also said that a Date Painting represents a paradox—that each painting forever signifies the present by bearing the name and date of the day it was made, yet once the day is over, that present belongs only to the past.

Exhibition curator Jeffrey Weiss observes that Kawara’s work represents an expansive practice, a field of operations and activities that occur over time according to remarkably consistent terms: “The artist believed the best way for us to engage his work was by direct encounter, through which we can discover its relevance to our own lives.”

On Kawara—Silence is organized by Jeffrey Weiss, Senior Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, with Anne Wheeler, Assistant Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in close cooperation with the artist.

The Leadership Committee for On Kawara—Silence is gratefully acknowledged for its support, with special thanks to David Zwirner, New York/London; Glenstone; Leonard and Louise Riggio; and Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf and Berlin.

This exhibition is also supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

On Kawara—Silence: Exhibition Catalogue

On Kawara—Silence will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue with essays contributed by Jeffrey Weiss and Anne Wheeler as well as artist Daniel Buren; Whitney Davis, George C. and Helen N. Pardee Professor of History and Theory of Ancient and Modern Art, University of California at Berkeley, and Visiting Professor of History of Art, University of York; Maria Gough, Joseph Pulitzer Jr. Professor of Modern Art, Harvard University; Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex; novelist and critic Tom McCarthy; and Susan Stewart, Avalon Foundation University Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, Princeton University. Featuring more than four hundred images and available in four different colors of cover that correspond with the monochromes of artist’s Date Paintings, the book will offer authoritative descriptions of each category of the artist’s work and will be available for $65 in a hardcover edition beginning in February at guggenheimstore.org.

Austin Osman Spare, Charles Joshua Chaplin, Jean-Gabriel Domergue, Albert Houthuesen at Roseberys Fine Art Auction, London

Austin Osman Spare, Charles Joshua Chaplin, Jean-Gabriel Domergue, Albert Houthuesen

Roseberys Fine Art Auction, London

9 December 2014

Having trained initially as a draughtsman through a scholarship at the Royal College of Art, Austin Osman Spare (1886 - 1956) went on to be the youngest entrant at the 1904 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Despite initial acclaim Spare’s career went in to decline after a spell as the official war artists during the First World War, and he spent the 1920s living in abject poverty in London. A growing interest in surrealism during the 1930s saw his career resurrected by a small following of critics and collectors citing him as an early precursor to the surrealist movement. Spare’s work draws on preoccupations with symbolism and art nouveau, as well as his emphasis of the unconscious mind, much of which can be seen in “Galaxy”. 

The old master section of the auction saw classic French artists achieve high prices with an oil on canvas by the salon painter and printmaker Charles Joshua Chaplin (1825 - 1891) selling for £4,560. Entitled “The Seamstress” the beautiful portrait of a young lady, for which Chaplin is most famous. Dated 1869, the picture encompasses elements of the artists later, more sensual, style which was popular with members of the French high society during the French Third Republic. A member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, and an artist who exhibited widely, Charles Joshua Chaplin was one of the most popular and celebrated artists of his time. 

Three oil on panels entitled “Carnaval à Venise” by the French painter Jean-Gabriel Domergue (1889 - 1962) also attracted a great deal of interest. Created between 1927 and 1928, the works were produced for a Parisian restaurant and are signed by the artist who is best known for his portraits of Parisian women. Within his lifetime Jean-Gabriel Domergue painted over 3,000 portraits of women, and his classical but fashionably elegant style makes him an instantly recognisable artist, and one that was popular amongst high society. During his career the artist turned his hand to designing dresses and accessories for various couturiers including Paul Poiret and Henry Marque, an influence which can very much be seen in the costumes in “Carnaval à Venise”. The three panel painting sold for £4,320.

Elsewhere in the sale a selection of six works by the Dutch born British artist Albert Houthuesen (1903 - 1979) from the art collection of the former St. Gabriel’s College in Camberwell, London sold well above estimate. A former teacher at the college, it was the artwork he had collected that formed the art collection that was curated by his wife Catherine Dean. Albert Houthuesen worked alongside Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Edward Burra, Ceri Richards and Cecil Collins at The Royal College of Art during the 1920s, but worked in isolation for the remainder of his career. Heralded as one of the future great figures of post-World War II Western art, his work has been acquired by many of the most prominent art galleries and collectors. From the six painting collection offered for sale, an oil on canvas of a colliers miner smoking a pipe drew the greatest interest. Albert Houthuesen himself said of painting the miners at the Point of Ayre Colliery “In the evening, I would watch the colliers walking back from the Point of Ayre Colliery. It was the first time I’d seen these fellows. They came into that village absolutely black so that until eventually I came to know them and saw them washed, I couldn’t recognise them as being the same men. Sometimes I would just begin to ask one or two colliers if they would sit.” The portrait sold for £3,600.

ROSEBERYS

70-76 Knights Hill, London SE27 0JD

www.roseberys.co.uk

Gu Changwei at MoCA Shanghai - “ i ” Contemporary Art of GU Changwei

“ i ” Contemporary Art of GU Changwei
Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai
December 13, 2014 - March 31, 2015 

The Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai presents an exhibition of works by Gu Changwei.

One of China’s most famous film directors today, Gu Changwei began studying art in his pre-college days. In 1978 he was enrolled into the Cinematography Department of Beijing Film Academy as his entry to the movie industry. His practice and exploration of contemporary art, however, has so far remained largely unknown to the public. In this sense, “ i ” Contemporary Art of Gu Changwei is a presentation of his art works after years of silent accumulation.

In this exhibition, the artist used different media including video, two dimensional pieces, and installation. All the works are closely linked to our day-to-day lives and yet they have represented an unexpected and extraordinary splendor. In front of these works, we question on ourselves and derive all kinds of solutions, which also hide behind the artist's interpretation of the contemporary social values, and thinking of the current physical existence.

This solo exhibition is not intended as a summary or extension of Gu Changwei’s achievements as an artist. Rather, it marks a beginning with a unique perspective, a sober-minded meditation expressed with passion. Here and now, we will see an old friend of ours opening up his brave new world of “ i ” to us.

To explain his motivation in creating these works, Gu Changwei quotes from Marcel Duchamp: “Art is not about itself but about the attention we bring to it.”

The curator of this exhibition, Kong Chang’an was among the curators and organizers of the China/Avant Garde ‘89. In the early 1990s, as an eminent art critic, he introduced China’s contemporary art to the West through Flash Art, a world-famous art magazine. Besides, he is the first Chinese curator to work for the 45th Venice Biennale in “Aperto” in 1993. In recent years, Kong has been more involved in research and practice on visual/video art in the United States.

“ i ” Contemporary Art of Gu Changwei at the MoCA Shanghai is a display of contemporary art based on the trans-disciplinary cooperation between a celebrated film director and a senior curator and on an intellectual dialogue by means of visual/video art. For China’s art circles, it will be the year’s finale notable for its flickering novelty.

Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai 

Curator: KONG Chang’an

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, SHANGHAI
People's Park, 231 West Nanjing Road, Shanghai
www.mocashanghai.org

Updated 30.06.2019

Bon Boullogne (1649-1717), Musée Magnin, Dijon - Un chef d’école au Grand Siècle

Bon Boullogne (1649-1717) 

Un chef d’école au Grand Siècle 

Musée Magnin, Dijon 

5 décembre 2014 – 5 mars 2015

Cette rétrospective a pour vocation de faire redécouvrir l’oeuvre de Bon Boullogne qui, avec Charles de La Fosse, Jean Jouvenet, Antoine Coypel et Louis de Boullogne, fut l’un des cinq plus célèbres peintres d’histoire de la fin du règne de Louis XIV. Lors des expositions Les Peintres du Roi-Soleil (1968), Les Amours des Dieux (1990), La Peinture française au Grand Siècle (1994), aucune peinture de Bon Boullogne n’était présentée.

La production de Jouvenet, La Fosse et Coypel nous est connue par de nombreux travaux ; le cabinet des arts graphiques du Musée du Louvre a consacré une exposition aux dessins de Louis de Boullogne en 2010. Bon Boullogne n’a quant à lui jamais été l’objet d’un travail de fond, ce qui tient sans doute à la difficulté à reconstituer son oeuvre. De fait, dès 1745, Dézallier d’Argenville avait remarqué le caractère protéiforme de la production de Bon Boullogne. Et s’il est vrai que son oeuvre tend à échapper aux méthodes de classement, il adopta néanmoins une manière relativement constante : passées les années 1690, un véritable répertoire formel commença à voir le jour. C’est ainsi qu’une trentaine d’oeuvres de sa main ont pu être identifiées dans les musées de France et collections privées.

L’oeuvre de Bon Boullogne est diversifié, tant du point de vue des genres que des techniques. Tantôt imite-t-il les grands Bolonais, tantôt réalise-t-il des pastiches des petits maîtres hollandais du Siècle d’or. Cette dimension insolite apparaîtra dans l’exposition, de même que le rôle considérable que Bon Boullogne joua sur le plan de l’enseignement. Non seulement la plupart des peintres français actifs au tournant du siècle furent formés dans son atelier, mais en multipliant les sujets mythologiques peuplés de nudités, Bon Boullogne posa également les bases du goût qui allait prévaloir dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle. L’exposition permet d’enrichir notre perception de l’histoire de l’art, au nom de laquelle une rupture aurait eu lieu à partir de la Régence. Dès les années 1690, les tableaux de Bon Boullogne montrent que la transformation était déjà en cours.

Cette exposition est organisée par la Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand Palais et le musée Magnin.

Commissariat général : Rémi Cariel, conservateur en chef, directeur du musée national Magnin

Commissariat scientifique : François Marandet, historien de l’art, spécialiste de Bon Boullogne

MUSÉE MAGNIN 

4 rue des Bons-Enfants, 21000 Dijon

www.musee-magnin.fr

Editions limitées, Galerie Maeght, Paris

Editions limitées

Galerie Maeght, Paris 

5 décembre 2014 - 17 janvier 2015 

La Galerie Maeght met à l’honneur la richesse du métier d’éditeur d’art. « Editions limitées » originales : gravures, lithographies, phototypies et livres de bibliophilie des plus grands maîtres dialoguent avec les oeuvres récentes de jeunes artistes.

L’exposition présente des oeuvres rares de Valerio Adami, Jean Bazaine, Georges Braque, Pol Bury, Alexandre Calder, Marc Chagall, Eduardo Chillida, Jean Cortot, François Fiedler, Gérard Gasiorowski, Joan Miró, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Guy de Rougemont, Pierre Tal-Coat, Antoni Tapiès, Raoul Ubac, Manolo Valdès et Bram Van Velde. Leur répondront Enzo Cucchi, Marco Del Re, Luc Doerflinger, Cécile Granier de Cassagnac, Ra’anan Levy, Pierre Roy-Camille et W4.

Valerio Adami, Placard Derrida, 1976.

Lithographie originale, 74 x 100 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Des chefs d’oeuvre. L’exposition présentera des oeuvres gravées de Georges Braque ou Eduardo Chillida aux côtés de gravures ou lithographies originales de Joan Miró, Bram Van Velde ou encore Jean-Paul Riopelle.

L’ensemble réuni par Isabelle Maeght parcourt plus de cinquante années d’édition et témoigne de la richesse du dialogue entre artistes, poètes, imprimeurs, relieurs et graveurs. Ensemble, ils dépassent les limites de l’édition traditionnelle pour réaliser des oeuvres gravées et ouvrir de nouveaux horizons. « Un très bel ouvrage de bibliophilie, une gravure originale de Joan Miró ou une lithographie originale de Georges Braque, ce sont des années de patience et de ferveur, des techniques virtuoses, une immense poésie : des oeuvres d’art à part entière », précise Isabelle Maeght. Avec plus de 12 000 titres publiés, Maeght Éditeur est aujourdhui reconnu comme le plus important éditeur de lithographies et de gravures originales au monde.

La collection des « Placards » porte l’empreinte de ces échanges entre arts graphiques, littérature et poésie. Ainsi, à l’initiative de la Galerie Maeght, poètes, écrivains et artistes collaboré étroitement sur des lithographies originales de grand format : Valerio Adami et Jacques Derrida, Jean Bazaine et André Frénaud, Pol Bury et Honoré de Balzac, Eduardo Chillida et Edmond Jabes, Jean Cortot et Guillaume Apollinaire, Gérard Gasiorowski et Gilbert Lascault, Pierre Tal-Coat et Jean Daive, Antoni Tapiès et Brossa Joan Brossa, etc. A redécouvrir.

Pierre Tal-Coat, Placard Daive, 1978.

Lithographie originale, 55,7 x 76,2 cm.

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Jean Bazaine, Placard Frénaud, 1977.

Lithographie originale, 65 x 85 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Jean Cortot, Placard Apollinaire,1996. 

Lithographie originale, 68 x 99 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Eduardo Chillida, Placard Jabes, 1975. 

Lithographie originale, 60 x 96,5 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

La série des eaux-fortes originales de Jean Cortot témoigne du lien étroit entre artistes, écrivains et poètes. Dès 1974, Jean Cortot réalise une oeuvre singulière, fondée sur une étonnante symbiose entre écriture et peinture. Dans cette série, l’artiste rend hommage aux grands écrivains, philosophes, poètes et musiciens qu'il aime, notamment Guillaume Apollinaire, Jacques Audiberti, Blaise Cendrars, René Char, Michel Déon, Paul Éluard, Max Jacob, Pierre-Jean Jouve, Mallarmé, Fernando Pessoa, Pétrarque, Raymond Queneau et Jean Tardieu.

Jean Cortot, Paul Eluard, 2008. 

Eau-forte originale éditée à 35 exemplaires, 25 x 33 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Jean Cortot, Guillaume Apollinaire, 2002. 

Eau-forte originale éditée à 35 exemplaires, 25 x 33 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Jean Cortot, Max Jacob, 2008. 

Eau-forte originale éditée à 35 exemplaires, 25 x 33 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Jean Cortot, Audiberti, 2002. 

Eau-forte originale éditée à 35 exemplaires, 25 x 33 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

La Galerie Maeght propose également des oeuvres récentes de Marco Del Re, Luc Doerflinger, Cécile Granier de Cassagnac, Ra'anan Levy, Pierre Roy-Camille et W4, témoignant de l’intérêt sans cesse renouvelé des artistes pour l’édition. De grandes eaux-fortes originales de Pierre Roy-Camille dialogueront avec des linogravures originales de Marco Del Re, des gravures originales rehaussées à l’aquarelle de Cécile Granier de Cassagnac, des impressions numériques sur plexiglas originales de W4 ainsi que des monotypes originaux de Luc Doerflinger et des gravures originales de Ra’anan Levy.

Pierre Roy-Camille, Bouliki 

Lithographie, 2014. 51,5 x 76 cm. 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Ra’anan Levy, Mains III 

Gravure, 2014, 53 x 56,5 cm 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Arianna d’Enzo Cucchi et Nanni Ballestrini. Depuis 1998, poètes et artistes se rencontrent à travers la collection de bibliophilie « Duos ». Ces ouvrages de poésie, illustrés de lithographies, eaux-fortes ou phototypies originales, sont édités en un nombre limité d’exemplaires. Le dernier de ces livres-objets, Arianna, est le fruit du dialogue entre l’artiste Enzo Cucchi et le poète Nanni Ballestrini.

Enzo Cucchi et Nanni Ballestrini, Arianna, 2014.

Collection de bibliophilie « Duos ». 

© Galerie Maeght, Paris.

Programmation de la Galerie Maeght, Paris :

Jean-François Spricigo, « Carnets du ciel » : 7 - 29 novembre 2014

« Éditions limitées » : 5 décembre 2014 - 17 janvier 2015

« Bronzes » : 22 janvier - 7 mars 2015

Ra’anan Levy : 13 mars - 16 mai 2015

Tatyana Franck, directrice du Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne

Tatyana Franck, directrice du Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne

Le Conseil d'Etat du canton de Vaud a désigné au poste de directrice du Musée de l'Elysée (musée cantonal de la photographie) TATYANA FRANCK, actuellement directrice des Archives Claude Picasso. Son entrée en fonction est prévue pour le 1er mars 2015.

En raison du départ de Sam Stourdzé qui a repris, dès le 1er octobre 2014, la direction des Rencontres photographiques d'Arles, le poste de directeur-trice du Musée de l'Elysée a été mis au concours.

Suite à la procédure de mise au concours, durant laquelle 29 dossiers ont été examinés et à l'issue de laquelle aucune candidature n'a été retenue par le Département de la formation, de la jeunesse et de la culture, la conseillère d'Etat Anne-Catherine Lyon, cheffe du DFJC, a proposé l'engagement par voie d'appel de Tatyana Franck à la tête de l'institution, à partir du 1er mars 2015. Elle anticipera cependant son entrée en fonction sur certains dossiers.

Née le 12 mai 1984, de nationalité suisse, domiciliée à Genève, Tatyana Franck est titulaire d'une licence d'histoire de l'art et de droit (2006) et a obtenu un Master en droit des affaires en 2007 (Université Paris I) ainsi qu'en 2008 (Université Lyon III), un Master 2 en droit du marché de l'art. Elle suit actuellement l'EMBA-Global Asia (Executive master of business administration), formation en cours d'emploi qu'elle terminera en 2016. Depuis 2007, Tatyana Franck est la directrice des Archives Claude Picasso, à Genève, qui contiennent notamment plusieurs milliers de photographies; elle assure en particulier la mise en valeur du fonds photographique de David Douglas Duncan. Depuis 2010 elle a réalisé plusieurs commissariats d'expositions internationales, dont l'exposition itinérante Picasso at work, through the lens of David Douglas Duncan. Madame Franck est par ailleurs trésorière du Conseil d'administration de la Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, membre du Sotheby's European Advisory Board ainsi que du conseil d'administration d'Amis Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert.

Tatyana Franck a présenté une vision stratégique claire pour l'avenir du Musée, que ce soit en termes de gestion des collections, de leur valorisation, de leur numérisation ou encore sur le développement de l'inscription de l'institution dans le réseau international. La vision de son rôle comme directrice à la tête de l'équipe du Musée a aussi fait montre d'une approche stimulante par sa capacité et sa volonté de valoriser les compétences et l'engagement de cette équipe tout en formulant précisément les priorités qu'elle entend fixer à la direction de l'institution. Alliant jeunesse et maturité, Tatyana Franck s'est montrée très motivée à relever le défi de reprendre les rênes du Musée en s'engageant avec enthousiasme dans le développement du projet de pôle muséal.

D'ici son entrée en fonction, l'intérim est assuré par le Conseil de direction du musée.

Source : Bureau d'information et de communication de l'Etat de Vaud, Communiqué de presse, 5 novembre 2014

ETAT DE VAUD

www.vd.ch

Birgir Snaebjörn Birgisson: Ladies, Beautiful Ladies Exhibition at Helsinki Contemporary

Birgir Snaebjörn Birgisson 

Ladies, Beautiful Ladies 

Helsinki Contemporary, Helsinki 

November 28 - December 21, 2014

A scientific article back from 2007 claims that men have “a blonde moment” when encountering an image of a beautiful blonde woman. This means that their mental performance declines, mimicking the unconscious stereotype of a blonde. This article has puzzled the Icelandic artist Birgir Snæbjörn Birgisson ever since.

The two-part exhibition project Ladies, Beautiful Ladies follows up on the latest developments of Birgisson’s ongoing project focusing on the question of politics of representation, addressed through the visual negotiations of blondes in our cultural environments. The theme of blondes has reoccured in Birgisson’s work for over a decade now, the subject matter varying from blonde nurses to blonde Miss World contest winners.

In Ladies, Beautiful Ladies Birgisson presents a variety of works that reach from paintings on canvas via installation on site to works on paper. What connects all the different media is the issue of how identities are made and shaped, distributed and retold, rooted and rebounded.

The work Blonde Musicians consists of over 400 old LP covers – only a selection of them presented in the exhibition – dating from the 1960’s to the 80’s, which Birgisson collected from fleamarkets. He painted over the covers in pastel colours, cropping out everything in the background, focusing on the figure that is then left visible: obviously, a blonde beautiful woman.

“The repetition in the work deals with both the reclarification and volume of the mass-produced things – finding it interesting to say the same things often and all over – and the way in which through repetition it deletes the original meaning and gives room to a new and other meanings.” - Birgir Snæbjörn Birgisson

The exhibition underlines the actively politicized versions of what is beautiful and how that is used and abused – from any sides of the equation, wishes, wants and fears. The works confront the theme of what is believed and seen as beautiful. They are not illustrations, not an explanation of a phenomena or a clarification of an effect. Neither are they celebration or glorifications of the inherent quirkiness of our relationship towards beauty and blondes.

The first part of the exhibition project was shown in ASÍ Art Gallery in Reykjavík, Iceland. 

BIRGIR SNÆBJÖRN BIRGISSON (b. 1966) is an Icelandic artist, graduated in the beginning of the 90’s. Blondes have reoccurred as a theme is his work for over a decade. His works have been seen in group shows and solo exhibitions in Europe and North America in both galleries and museums, e.g. Stop for a moment – Painting as Narrative, group show, Proje4L, Istanbul Museum of Contemporary Art 2002; Pleasure Principle, group show, Kling & Bang, Reykjavik 2011 and Galleri Björkholmen, Stockholm 2011 and Blonde Miss World 1951-, solo exhibition, Reykjavík Art Museum 2007.

HELSINKI CONTEMPORARY

Bulevardi 10, 00120 Helsinki

helsinkicontemporary.com

Samiro Yunoki, MNAAG, Musée Guimet, Paris : La danse des formes. Textiles de Samiro Yunoki

La danse des formes. Textiles de Samiro Yunoki 
MNAAG, Musée Guimet, Paris
Jusqu'au 12 janvier 2015

Cette exposition marque l’entrée dans les collections de 71 œuvres, essentiellement textiles, données au musée national des arts asiatiques - Guimet par Samiro Yunoki, artiste japonais né en 1922 à Tokyo.

Issu d’une famille d’artistes, Samiro Yunoki s’oriente vers des études d’histoire, d’art et d’esthétique au sein de l’université de Tokyo et s’intéresse après la Seconde Guerre mondiale au travail du textile et des techniques artisanales, en suivant les enseignements de Keisuke Serizawa, grand artiste japonais (1895-1984) dont il fut l’élève.

La diversité des pièces de la donation reflète la variété de son œuvre qui allie savoir ancestral et vision moderne, tant dans les techniques et matériaux employés que dans les motifs décoratifs eux-mêmes. Eclatantes de modernité, ces œuvres attestent d’une parfaite maitrise de la technique japonaise de la teinture au pochoir, technique du katazome, littéralement « teinture à partir d’une forme ».

L’artiste se distingue également par l’emploi de couleurs vives, en parfaite harmonie avec la texture du tissu ainsi que par des motifs imaginaires abstraits mais si évocateurs qu’ils en deviennent presque figuratifs. Une extrême clarté des formes et un remarquable sens du mouvement donnent un caractère singulier à l’œuvre de Samiro Yunoki qui, outre les textiles, s’exprime sur des supports très diversifiés tels que peinture sur verre, collages, sculptures ou livres illustrés pour enfants.

En marge d’œuvres imprégnées par le Japon traditionnel, une grande partie de son travail est très ouvertement influencée par l’Occident et notamment Matisse. Yunoki ne considère pas ses textiles comme de simples décors en aplats mais comme des objets d’art tridimensionnels et dynamiques qui se déploient dans l’espace.

Autour de l’exposition, tarifs, informations pratiques et horaires :
www.guimet.fr

Présidente de l’établissement : Sophie Makariou
Commissaire : Aurélie Samuel, chargée de la section textiles au MNAAG

Samiro Yunoki. La danse des formes 

Catalogue de l'exposition

Coédition musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet / Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais, 2014

Auteurs : Samiro Yunoki ; Aurélie Samuel ; Kévin Kennel, assistant section Textiles au MNAAG.

Broché, 48 pages, 40 illustrations - Prix : 10 euros 

Ann Edholm at Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin - Trotz

Ann Edholm: Trotz
Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin
November 15, 2014 - January 10, 2015

Galerie Nordenhake presents new and recent works by Ann Edholm from her latest body of work titled Trotz (In Spite of All). With an elaborate network of cultural, religious and symbolic references Ann Edholm meticulously merges classical painting with elemental geometric shapes and slight painterly gestures. The size of the canvases and the relationship between form, scale and colour in the compositions subtly define the meeting between viewer and painting.

Working in extended series Ann Edholm often stages large, occasionally even monumental, paintings that straddle both geometric abstraction and subtle expressionism. The latter reveals itself in barely perceptible details, such as small fingerprints or smear marks made by the brush or, more often, the palette knife, thus destabilising the seemingly solid compositional patterns of basic geometric shapes, simultaneously reminiscent of, for instance, the Russian Suprematist Kazimir Malevich and the American Abstract Expressionist Barnett Newman. Her latest paintings from Trotz connect to these sources as well as they point to profound layers of Expressionism in her oeuvre.

Looking at the “Trotz”-paintings art historian Tom Sandqvist emphasises the painter’s specific and decidedly non-abstract approach: „Ann Edholm has again and again fought against the conception of being an abstract painter. Now it’s obvious that her paintings are more than realistic, they are – indeed – painfully real confronting us with our own dark ugliness.”

The four large scale black and red paintings from the series Trotz entitled Oświęcim (2014) are based on the four famous photos taken inside Auschwitz–today’s Oświęcim–by prisoners in 1944, discussed by French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman in his book Images malgré tout (2004). Of one and a half million surviving photos related to Nazi concentration camps, only four depict the actual process of mass killing perpetrated at the gas chambers. These images, taken clandestinely in spite of the ban of images by one of the Jewish prisoners forced to help carry out the atrocities, were made as a potent act of resistance. Ann Edholm’s paintings hereby also are an act of resistance, as they remind us not only of our own pain in realising who we really are, but also of our greatness when refusing to forget and why we make images in spite of all. Didi-Huberman’s relentless consideration of these harrowing scenes demonstrates how Holocaust testimony can shift from texts and imaginations to irrefutable images that attempt to speak the unspeakable. Indeed, Didi-Huberman puts the agenda already in his first sentence: ”In order to know, we must imagine for ourselves.”

ANN EDHOLM was born in Stockholm in 1953, and now lives and works in Nyköping, Sweden. Last year her site-specific commission for the ECOSOC Session Chamber at the United Nations headquarters in New York DIALOGOS was inaugurated. Ann Edholm has had solo exhibitions at Karlskrona Konsthall (2012), Millersgården (with Håkan Rehnberg) in Stockholm (2007), Göteborgs Konstmuseum (2003), and Uppsala Konstmuseum (2003) among others. In 2009 she participated in the Tirana Biennial, Albania. Her works have been exhibited in group exhibitions at abc - art Berlin Contemporary in Berlin (2011), Immanuel Kant State University in Kaliningrad (2006), IASPIS in Stockholm (1999), Rooseum in Malmö (1996 and 1992), Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt/Main (1995), Moderna Museet in Stockholm (1995 and 1991), and PS1 in New York (1988). In 2007 she was honoured with an award from the Landstinget Sörmlands artist fund and was awarded with the second price of the Carnegie Art Award 2012. She has been exhibiting with Galerie Nordenhake since 1994.

GALERIE NORDENHAKE
Lindenstrasse 34, 10969 Berlin
www.nordenhake.com

Nacho Carbonell, Groninger Museum - Inspiration, evolution and transience

Nacho Carbonell

Inspiration, evolution and transience

Groninger Museum

22 November 2014 - 22 March 2015

The Groningen Museum presents the work of Nacho Carbonell (Valencia 1980), one of the most remarkable young designers of the present day. He graduated cum laude from the Design Academy Eindhoven, and at Design Miami Basel in 2009 he was proclaimed Designer of the Future. In that same year, the Design Museum in London nominated his Lover’s Chair as Design of the Year. The Groninger Museum has been following Nacho Carbonell for quite some time. This first large-scale solo exhibition, presenting much new work, forms the conclusion to this cooperation.

Objects that lie at the interface of design and art are a characteristic feature of Nacho Carbonell’s work. He has a recognizable form language and a striking choice of material. His work and work process are light-footed, but are simultaneously critical investigations into the relation between people and objects as well as their symbolic significance. In an ongoing experiment, he researches themes such as inspiration, evolution and transience. 

The interactive and behaviour-determining (or even coercive) elements are also of the utmost importance. For instance, Nacho Carbonell regards objects as a kind of organism that brings visitors to life when they use them. Creeping away, secluding oneself or hiding in cavernous forms is typical of his work, and evokes associations with scenes from the work of the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516). 

GRONINGER MUSEUM

Museumeiland 1 - 9711 ME Groningen, The Netherlands

www.groningermuseum.nl

Maartje Korstanje, Groninger Museum - Irregular sculptures with soul

Maartje Korstanje
Irregular sculptures with soul
Groninger Museum
22 November 2014 - 22 March 2015

Maartje Korstanje (Goes 1982) makes irregular sculptures, mainly out of cardboard supplemented by diverse other materials. These are often large, room-filling objects that, with their organic forms, induce ideas of tree roots, insects or carcasses. Ambiguity and animation are important concepts in her work, in which she explores the twilight zone where beauty acquires a sinister edge and where doubt raises its ugly head: ‘Has it just died, or is it now coming to life?’ Maartje Korstanje studied at the St. Joost Academie in Breda and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. The Groninger Museum has been following her for quite some time and this exhibition is her most extensive one up to the present. Most of the work shown here has been made especially for the occasion.

Much of Maartje Korstanje’s (earlier) work refers to animal shapes and other recognizable natural objects. That work expresses a deep fascination for animals and nature, something that is not surprising for someone who grew up on a farm in the Province of Zeeland. But in addition to these recognizable elements, her work also has a very outspoken formal side. It can be regarded as an ongoing investigation into form and material, in which classical sculptural principles such as composition, structure and texture are all equally important.

The result is not determined in advance but develops during the process of creation – kneading and pasting. Originally she mainly used papier-mâché, which she replaced with cardboard after a time. She gradually expanded her arsenal with silver leaf, synthetic materials, ceramics, bronze, textile and existing objects such as a cart. She introduces tension into her work by playing with contrasts: dry and (apparently) wet, brownish and unnaturally brightly coloured, round and spiky, hard and soft, figurative and abstract. Maartje Korstanje’s work has become more stratified in the course of time. It ranges from literal quotes or references to living creatures and current events (such as bee extinction) to existential and universal themes such as life and death, the boundary between organisms and objects, culture and nature.

GRONINGER MUSEUM
Museumeiland 1 - 9711 ME Groningen, The Netherlands
www.groningermuseum.nl

Neïl Beloufa, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Alberta - Counting on People

Neïl Beloufa: Counting on People 
Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Alberta
November 8, 2014 - March 1, 2015

Walter Phillips Gallery, in collaboration with the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, presents an exhibition of new work by the French and Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa. Combining video and sculptural elements, the works in Counting on People reflect on the ways in which society and our interpersonal relationships are highly influenced by changing digital technology. It is Neïl Beloufa’s first North American solo exhibition.

“Neïl is an important young contemporary artist, and it has been fantastic working with him to develop this new body of work! This exhibition will challenge the audience’s perception of sculptural and video artwork. We are thrilled to be partnering with the ICA, London to present this exhibition, where it is simultaneously being staged – an incredible task for both galleries and artist,” says Jen Mizuik, director of visual and digital art at The Banff Centre.

Counting on People is the North American premiere of two new films co-commissioned by Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, and the ICA. Filmed in Banff, the first film, Data for Desire (2014) seeks to explore and predict, via statistical analysis, the romantic actions of a group of North American teenagers at a house party, highlighting the unpredictable nature of attraction.

The theme of desire continues in Home is Whenever I’m With You (2014). This science fiction drama reflects on the ways we communicate via social media, and how these developments in technology change how we receive information. Home is Whenever I’m With You was filmed in Banff and Calgary.

Two of Neïl Beloufa’s previous works are also included in the exhibition: VENGEANCE (2014) documents the artist’s collaboration with secondary school students in a suburb of Paris; and World Domination (2012) depicts a geopolitical role-play where members of the public meet and make decisions about local and international issues.

Neïl Beloufa puts the viewer at the heart of his exhibition arrangements, offering familiar images of the world while deconstructing their codes, symbols, myths, and economic systems.

The French and Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa (b. 1985) lives and works in Paris. Having studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia; Cooper Union, New York; and Le Fresnoy–Studio National des Arts Contemporain, Tourcoing,  he has gone on to exhibit internationally in contemporary art institutions as well as in film festivals. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have taken place at the Mendes Wood Gallery, Sao Paolo (2014); Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris (2014); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012) Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria (2012) and Western Front, Vancouver (2011).  His videos have been screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (2011); the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2009, 2012, 2014); and the London Film Festival (2009, 2010, 2011), and he was awarded grand prizes at the 54th (2008) and 57th (2011) Oberhausen Film Festival, Oberhausen. Beloufa has been the recipient of several awards, including the Audi Talent Award, Paris (2011), the Studio Collector prize by Agnes B. (2011) and most recently the Meurice Prize for Contemporary Art (2013).

WALTER PHILLIPS GALLERY
The Banff Centre
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Banff, Alberta
www.banffcentre.ca

Ai Weiwei at La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona

Ai Weiwei: On the Table
La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona
5 November 2014 - 1 February 2015

On the Table. Ai Weiwei offers a comprehensive view of the artist's life and work through the display of a variety of artworks and materials, set up to match the scale of La Virreina Image Centre.

The exhibition aims to give an idea of the scope of Ai Weiwei's artistic career, from his beginnings in 1980s New York to his present-day status as the best-known and most influential Chinese artist in the world. Work by this media-savvy activist calling for greater freedom in China can now be found in leading contemporary art museums and collections worldwide.

Ai Weiwei makes use of a number of artistic practices, including photography and documentary film, sculpture, design and architecture, in operations that transcend formats and disciplines to create images that infiltrate and propagate through social networks and popular culture. In addition to several key pieces for appreciating this artist’s work, the show at La Virreina Image Centre also presents unseen work, new productions and installations by Ai Weiwei specially designed for this exhibition.

Curator: Rosa Pera

AI WEIWEI

Ai Weiwei is well known for his longstanding confrontation with the Chinese communist government and for his large-scale installations in leading contemporary art museums and events worldwide. He works on a global scale with any format and medium that comes to hand—or simply invents new ones.

A staunch defender in the struggle for freedom, he has used his work as a potent mouthpiece for speaking out against the unseen repression and censorship as China opens up to capitalist markets. As an artist, he strives tirelessly to raise critical awareness in society.

On the Table. Ai Weiwei aims to give a comprehensive overview of his work by exploring some of his best-known pieces alongside previously unseen work. Ai Weiwei makes use of a wide range of techniques—including photography, architecture, video, sculpture, graphic design, installations, objects and music videos, among others—but central to all his work is the role of the image as a construction and vehicle for reality. He then uses this to explore the tensions between truth and lies, evidence and ambiguity, control and freedom, politics, art, power and society.

Ai Weiwei sees art as a device for striking up dialogues within various contexts, comparing and contrasting different traditions and visions, negotiating, dissecting, projecting and sharing: like a table on which we can lay out our credentials and show our cards, discovering what is underneath and, if necessary, turning the tables.

Rosa Pera

La Virreina Image Centre and La Fábrica have prepared a catalogue to accompany the exhibition On the Table. Ai Weiwei. It offers an insightful rereading of the artist’s work and runs to 180 pages, including over 240 pictures of 42 pieces. The idea, design, editing and sequence of images were all personally overseen by Ai Weiwei himself. The catalogue also includes an interview with the artist in his studio in Beijing by Llucià Homs, director of La Virreina Image Centre, and an essay by Rosa Pera, curator of the show, entitled Image and Power in Three Movements and a Device.

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina
La Rambla, 99. 08002 Barcelona
http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/lavirreina/en/

Henk Peeters, Tilton Gallery, NYC

Henk Peeters

Tilton Gallery, New York

October 31 – December 19, 2014

HENK PEETERS (1925 – 2013), a Dutch artist who exhibited worldwide with the Zero group, was an active participant and founder (with Armando and Jan Schoonhoven) of the Dutch Nul (Zero) group within The Netherlands and is known for organizing the historic exhibitions Nul 1962 and Nul 1965 at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others. He created a body of work in keeping with the beliefs of this loosely affiliated group of international artists, but is also remembered as a key organizer of Zero exhibitions, drawing connections between artists, reconstructing lost works and keeping their efforts alive. He was also a writer on the theory of art and a teacher till the end of his life, influencing and inspiring generations of younger artists, among them the Dutch artist Berend Strik, with his use of stitching, importantly executed by people instructed by the artist, but untouched by his own hand. Berend Strik exhibits new work at the same time at Tilton Gallery.

Henk Peeters’ work is included in the concurrent exhibition, Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow 1950s- 60s at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, whose introduction to the show succinctly summarizes Zero group as, “...an international network of like-minded artists from Europe, Japan and North and South America... who shared their aspirations to redefine art in the aftermath of World War II.” Founded in Dusseldorf in 1957 by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack and joined by Gunther Uecker in 1961, “They chose the name, as Otto Piene explained in 1964, to indicate ‘a zone of silence and of pure possibilities for a new beginning....’ ” Zero group did not have a manifesto, nor did they have members; it was not a movement; rather it was an attitude, a vision, and a new approach to natural processes and everyday materials and the exploration of light and space, as well as a rejection of the emotional abstract painting of Tachisme and Art Informel. The many (more than 140 globally) artists associated with Zero group, beside the three mentioned above, also include Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, and Piero Manzoni. In 1961, Henk Peeters became a work of art himself when Piero Manzoni appointed him as one, signed and certified by the artist. He exchanged artworks with Klein and Fontana and built several “Metamatic” machines for Jean Tingueley.

Henk Peeters’ own work incorporated water, fire and smoke, feathers, stitching and artificial plastics, as represented in the works currently on exhibition at the gallery. For this show, organized with the help of Tijs Visser, founding director of the Zero foundation and initiator of the Guggenheim Zero show, works are brought together that span his concerns. These include an early work of water bags mounted on canvas from 1961, a canvas with a feather boa attached (relating to a motorized feather piece at the Guggenheim) from the 1970s and his first two fire paintings from 1959, as well as one work from 1962 with thread stitched onto the support. These are key examples of his original early works that survived destruction at the end of a solo show in 1966 at Galerie Orez in The Hague, called La derniere exposition (The Last Exhibition) when he proclaimed that “The age of the unique work of art is over....” He felt he could make his own duplicates, and went on to reconstruct many of the destroyed works, dating a stamp on the verso of these with both the date of the ‘original’ and the date of the reconstruction, and accompanying them with a statement saying “This work is an ‘original’ copy made by Henk Peeters after one of his early works.” Two of these “ ‘original’ copies” from 2011 are also on exhibit.

Born in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1925, Henk Peters lived in Arnhem till his death in 2013. He taught at the Rietveld Art Academy in Arnhem from 1957 till 1972. He exhibited internationally in shows in Germany, Italy, Belgium, England and the United States and his work was exhibited at Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf. He was given a retrospective in 2012 by the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague and his work is included in numerous museum collections, such as those of the Tate Modern, London and the Neuerburger Museum. This is his first solo exhibition in New York.

TILTON GALLERY

8 East 76th Street, New York, NY 10021

www.jacktiltongallery.com

Exposition Baccarat, Petit Palais, Paris : La légende du cristal

Baccarat. La légende du cristal
Petit Palais, Paris
Jusqu'au 4 janvier 2015

A l’occasion du 250e anniversaire de Baccarat, le Petit Palais exposer dans ses Grandes Galeries les chefs-d’oeuvre de la plus illustre manufacture de cristal au monde, étonnants témoignages de la virtuosité de ses artisans.

Baccarat : Candélabre dit « du Tsar »,

commandé pour le tsar Nicolas II en 1896

© Archives Baccarat

Il s’agit de la première rétrospective en France dédiée à Baccarat depuis l’exposition du Bicentenaire aux Arts décoratifs en 1964. En accord avec l’architecture du Petit Palais élevé pour l’Exposition universelle de 1900, l’exposition présente les créations de Baccarat conçues pour les grandes expositions parisiennes de 1823 à 1937, au cours desquelles la manufacture conquiert une notoriété internationale. C’est également à la faveur de ces rendez-vous que Baccarat attire par son éclat les commandes des grands de ce monde.

Baccarat : Calices couverts et verre à jambe haute peints à l’or en relief, 

Exposition Internationale de l’Est de la France, Nancy, 1909

© Baccarat

Photographe : Patrick Schüttler

Dans une scénographie raffinée sublimant la virtuosité et le savoir-faire des artisans du cristal, le visiteur découvre au sein du parcours d’exposition les oeuvres rassemblées selon leurs affinités stylistiques ou leur contexte de création. Un choix exceptionnel de près de cinq cents pièces historiques est présenté, en majorité provenant de la collection privée de la manufacture lorraine et complété d’emprunts prestigieux au musée d’Orsay, au Louvre, aux Arts décoratifs, à la Cité de la Céramique, aux Arts et Métiers, au château de Compiègne et aux musées de Nancy. De nombreux dessins et documents d’archives inédits permettent de retracer la genèse des créations exposées et de dévoiler les sources d’inspiration qui ont nourri les artisans de la célèbre manufacture depuis 250 ans.

Baccarat : Vase « Simon » : « Allégorie de l’Eau », gravé par Jean-Baptiste Simon, 

Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1867

© Baccarat

Photographe : Patrick Schüttler

Ainsi, sont présentées des oeuvres exceptionnelles comme le monumental « Vase Négus », « la Toilette de la duchesse de Berry », ou les « Vases Simon » créés pour l’exposition universelle de 1867 à Paris. Des pièces de services issues de grandes commandes royales ou conçus pour les puissants du monde entier comme le tsar Nicolas II, l’empereur du Japon, ou encore des maharadjas témoigneront de l’excellence du savoir-faire de Baccarat. Une table mettant en scène certaines de ces commandes soulignera le triomphe de la manufacture dans le domaine de l’art de vivre. Un espace spécifique retrace l’histoire légendaire du verre Harcourt, pièce iconique, inspiré du calice d’apparat et gravé du monogramme royal commandé par le Roi Louis-Philippe en 1840.

L’exposition s’achève de manière éblouissante par une galerie où est accrochée une série de lustres en majesté, dont le plus monumental resplendi de 250 lumières dans la galerie d’honneur du Petit Palais.

Commissariat de l'exposition :

Michaela LERCH-MOULIN, conservateur de la Collection patrimoniale, Baccarat

Dominique MOREL, conservateur en chef au Petit Palais

Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Avenue Winston Churchill - 75008 Paris
petitpalais.paris.fr