Impression, soleil levant, l'histoire vraie du chef d'oeuvre de Claude Monet

Impression, soleil levant, l'histoire vraie du chef d'oeuvre de Claude Monet

Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 

Jusqu'au 18 janvier 2015 

Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant, 1872 

Huile sur toile - 50 x 65 cm - Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 

© Christian Baraja - Ancienne collection Ernest Hoschedé - Ancienne collection Georges de Bellio

Impression, soleil levant, la toile qui a donné son nom à l’impressionnisme et qui est le fleuron des collections du musée Marmottan Monet, est l’une des peintures les plus célèbres au monde. Cette œuvre n’a pourtant pas fait l’objet d’une étude approfondie jusqu’à ce jour. Au contraire, depuis près de quarante ans, le mystère semble grandir autour du chef-d’œuvre : que représente véritablement le tableau ? Un soleil levant ou un soleil couchant ? Quand fut-il peint ? En 1872 ou en 1873 ? Qu’est-il advenu du tableau à l’issue de la première exposition impressionniste ? Pourquoi a-t-il rejoint, en 1940, les collections du musée Marmottan, un établissement initialement dédié à l’Empire et qui n’abritait alors aucune peinture impressionniste ? Pourquoi à cette date ? Dans quelles circonstances ? Le musée Marmottan Monet répond à ces questions dans cette exposition.

Cette vue du port Havre dans les brumes, signée et datée en bas gauche « Claude Monet 72 », est exposée pour la première fois en 1874 dans les anciens ateliers de Nadar qui accueillent l’exposition de la Société anonyme des peintures, sculpteurs, graveurs. Désignée au livret sous le titre Impression, soleil levant, elle inspire au critique Louis Leroy, du journal satirique Le Charivari, le terme « impressionniste » qui désignera par la suite le groupe d’artistes réuni autour de Monet. Si le terme se diffuse rapidement, l’œuvre et son histoire sont peu à peu oubliées. En mai 1874, le collectionneur Ernest Hoschedé l’acquiert pour 800 francs. Le tableau est revendu quatre ans plus tard, 210 francs dans l’indifférence générale et sous le titre Impression, soleil couchant. Son propriétaire, le docteur Georges de Bellio, le lègue à sa fille Victorine, qui en fait don au musée Marmottan en 1940. Entre 1940 et 1959, l’œuvre apparaît encore dans les inventaires de l’institution – comme dans de nombreux ouvrages – sous le titre Impression ou Impression, soleil couchant. Elle n’y prend le titre d’Impression, soleil levant qu’en 1965. Dix ans plus tard, l’auteur du catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre de Monet, Daniel Wildenstein - faute de documents biographiques retraçant la vie de Monet en 1872, date l’œuvre du printemps 1873, date avérée d’un séjour de Monet en Normandie.

Dans le cadre du 80e anniversaire de l’ouverture du musée Marmottan au public et à l’occasion du 140e anniversaire de la première exposition d’Impression, soleil levant, le musée Marmottan Monet a décidé d’ouvrir l’enquête et d’organiser, du 18 septembre 2014 au 18 janvier 2015, la première exposition jamais dédiée à l’œuvre fondatrice de l’impressionnisme.

Autour d’Impression, soleil levant, l’exposition présente une sélection rigoureuse de vingt-six œuvres de Claude Monet, trente-cinq œuvres d’Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Johan Barthold Jongkind, William Turner, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Stevens, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, des photographies anciennes par Gustave Le Gray, Emile Letellier, ainsi qu’une quarantaine des documents d’époque dont beaucoup sont inédits. Les œuvres proviennent des plus grands musées français (Musée d’Orsay, Paris ; Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Paris ; Musée d’art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre ; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy...) et étrangers (National Gallery, Londres ; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphie ; Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Francfort- sur-le-Main ; National Museum Wales, Cardiff) et de collections particulières. La bibliothèque nationale, la bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, les archives de Paris, la bibliothèque et les archives du Havre se sont également activement associées au projet.

L’exposition retrace l’histoire du tableau. Delacroix, Courbet, Boudin, Jongkind ouvrent le parcours avec une série de marines, de soleils levant et de soleils couchant peints avant 1872. Turner, que Monet découvre à Londres en 1870-71, vient ensuite et permet de mieux appréhender la formation et l’œuvre de Monet au début des années 1870 et la genèse d’Impression, soleil levant. Impression, soleil levant est présenté dans la section suivante qui regroupe un ensemble unique de vues du port du Havre. Citons, le prêt exceptionnel par une collection particulière américaine de l’Avant port du Havre, effet de nuit de Monet, un rarissime nocturne peint à la même date qu’Impression, soleil levant. Les peintures et les documents exposés dans cette section (photographies, plans et documents anciens) ont permis de mener la première étude iconographique d’Impression, soleil levant. Cette approche, conduite par des équipes française et américaine, s’est appuyée sur des données topographiques, météorologiques et astronomiques. Elle a non seulement permis de confirmer quel moment Monet a choisi de peindre : un soleil levant ou un soleil couchant, mais aussi de proposer une datation affinée de l’oeuvre, c’est-à-dire à l’année, au mois et au jour près.

Le parcours se poursuit avec la première exposition impressionniste évoquée à travers deux chefs d’œuvre de Monet présentés aux côtés d’Impression, soleil levant en 1874 : Le Déjeuner (Städel Museum, Francfort-sur-Main) une toile de 232 x 151 cm et Le Boulevard des Capucines (Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City). Le livret de l’exposition et l’original du Charivari sont également présentés. Dix-neuf peintures issues des deux seules collections où figura Impression, soleil levant : celle d’Ernest Hoschedé et celle Georges de Bellio continuent le parcours. Chaque œuvre est commentée et resituée par rapport à l’œuvre fondatrice de l’impressionnisme. Des documents rares dont de nombreux inédits illustrent également le propos. Il apparaît ainsi qu’Impression, soleil levant loin d’occuper une place centrale au sein de ces collections fut longtemps oublié et sous estimé. 

La dernière partie du parcours révèle une page tout à fait inconnue de l’histoire d’Impression, soleil levant. Les recherches menées à l’occasion de l’exposition on permis de retracer les circonstances de l’entrée du tableau dans les collections du musée Marmottan. Le dépôt de l’œuvre au musée le 1er septembre 1939 pour «risque de guerre», son évacuation à Chambord avec les collections du Louvre où elle est entreposée à l’insu de tous durant six ans, son don au musée Marmottan décidé le 23 mai 1940, quelques jours seulement après le passage des Ardennes par l’armée allemande le 10 mai et le début de l’occupation allemande. L’exposition se termine autour de Soleil couchant sur la Seine à Lavacourt (Paris, Petit Palais) qui illustre la pérennité du thème chez Monet et présente les premiers ouvrages de l’après guerre qui érigèrent Impression, soleil levant au rang d’œuvre fondatrice de l’impressionnisme. 

Commissariat de l’exposition : Marianne Mathieu, adjointe au directeur en charge des collections du musée Marmottan Monet Dominique Lobstein, historien de l’art.

Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

www.marmottan.fr

David Weiss: Works, 1968-1979 @ Swiss Institute, New York

David Weiss: Works, 1968-1979

Swiss Institute, New York

December 11, 2014 - February 22, 2015

DAVID WEISS (1946-2012) was world-renowned for his sculptural, photographic and video work, made as Fischli/Weiss in collaboration with Peter Fischli beginning in 1979. This exhibition focuses on the lesser-known solo career of David Weiss, made prior to his ongoing collaboration, and is comprised of an exceptional group of works on paper from 1968-1979, previously exhibited at the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur, Switzerland in Spring 2014. David Weiss: Works, 1968-1979 at Swiss Institute also includes additional, never-before-seen material from the artist’s archive that provides unprecedented insight into his formative years.

Though set aside and virtually unknown to the public for over 30 years, in the months before his death in 2012, David Weiss began to organize his notebooks, sketchbooks, and early works on paper, culminating in this exhibition and the posthumous publication of Nine Books 1973-1979 by Edition Patrick Frey. David Weiss wrote: “At first we were part of a small Bohemian scene. In 1968 we suddenly were part of a movement that included larger groups of society. I felt I was part of it, I became committed, I read a great deal, stayed awake and wanted to see life.” His embrace of the rapid political and cultural shifts observed both in Zürich and through his extensive travels to the United States is reflected back in the incisive references and trenchant aesthetic of the exhibition.

The rarely seen works gathered at Swiss Institute conjure up cartoonish imagery, abstract compositions and cinematic cityscapes, signaling some of the subsequent artistic innovations of Fischli/Weiss’s celebrated oeuvre, which will be shown in a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Spring 2016. A unique occasion to explore the genesis of the prolific and irreverent vocabulary of one of contemporary art’s most influential figures, this exhibition further presents key elements of an artistic legacy that appear as fresh today as they did when first exhibited.

SWISS INSTITUTE 

18 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10013

www.swissinstitute.net

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

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

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

Miyoko Ito (1918 - 1983): Paintings, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York

Miyoko Ito (1918 - 1983): Paintings

Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York

November 7 - December 19, 2014

Adam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings by MIYOKO ITO (1918-1983). This is Ito’s second New York solo exhibition since 1978. Miyoko Ito was born to Japanese parents in Berkeley, CA in 1918. She studied art at the University of California at Berkeley for a short time until she was imprisoned in a Japanese-American camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Ito continued her education in prison and afterwards went to Smith College. After college, she was given a scholarship to attend the Art Institute of Chicago. It was in Chicago that Ito's career as an artist flourished; exploring cubism and latent abstraction in her works. Miyoko Ito stayed in Chicago until her death in 1983.

The exhibition focuses on Miyoko Ito’s paintings from the 1960’s to 1970’s. These paintings with their subtle mix of abstraction and figuration share the spirit of Matisse’s “Piano Lesson,” the linearity of Diebenkorn’s “Ocean Park” paintings and Paul Klee’s “ability to imbue his images with an inner life that is compelling and magical,” yet Ito’s paintings retain an obstinate independence and original vision that were an inspiration and bridge for generations of abstract and imagist artists in Chicago.

In his essay for the exhibition, Len Klekner says, “Ito’s paintings are in the main abstract, creating and maintaining an alternative universe as a whole distinctly set off from the world we inhabit. But many of her forms are allusive, suggestive of bits and pieces of bodies and the furnishings of our everyday lives. These elements are never resolved enough to overpower the imaginative arenas of her abstract fields. But they are suggestive enough, and perhaps even jarring enough, to lend another level of frisson to her works. Her forms are also often playful, quirky, and even goofy-to the point of contrasting markedly with the quiet authority of her sensitive backgrounds and resonant facture.”

Miyoko Ito’s work has been included in all major surveys of Chicago art including the exhibition “Art in Chicago 1945-1995.” A retrospective of her work was held at The Rennaisance Society at The University of Chicago in 1980. Ito was also included in the Whitney Biennial in 1975, and the Carnegie Insititute’s “International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting.” Her work is in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The National Academy of Design, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.

ADAM BAUMGOLD

60 East 66th Street, New York, NY 10065

www.adambaumgoldgallery.com

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 Sonia Delaunay, Paris, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris

Sonia Delaunay - Les couleurs de l’abstraction 

Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris 

17 octobre 2014 - 22 février 2015 

Première grande rétrospective parisienne consacrée à Sonia Delaunay depuis 1967, l’exposition organisée par le Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris rassemble, aux côtés de trois reconstitutions exceptionnelles d’environnements, plus de 400 œuvres : peintures, décorations murales, gouaches, estampes, mode et textiles. Cette monographie qui suit l’évolution de l’artiste de l’aube du XXème siècle à la fin des années 1970, met en lumière l’importance de son activité dans les arts appliqués, sa place spécifique au sein des avant-gardes européennes, ainsi que son rôle majeur dans l’abstraction dont elle figure parmi les pionniers.

Le parcours chronologique, largement documenté, illustre la richesse et la singularité de l’œuvre de Sonia Delaunay marquée par un dialogue soutenu entre les arts. L’ensemble des œuvres choisies révèle une approche personnelle de la couleur, réminiscence de son enfance russe et de son apprentissage de la peinture en Allemagne. 

Tandis que Robert Delaunay conceptualise l’abstraction comme un langage universel, Sonia Delaunay l’expérimente sur les supports les plus variés (tableaux, projets d’affiches, vêtements, reliures, objets domestiques) et crée à quatre mains avec le poète Blaise Cendrars La Prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France. Durant la Grande Guerre, son passage en Espagne et au Portugal coïncide avec un premier développement de ses activités dans les domaines du théâtre et de la mode qu’elle commercialise à Madrid dès 1918, puis à son retour à Paris dans les années 1920. La décennie suivante marque l’épanouissement d’une abstraction épurée, caractéristique du style international, et en harmonie avec l’architecture comme en témoignent les grandes décorations murales du Pavillon de l’Air de l’Exposition internationale des arts et techniques, présentées à Paris pour la première fois depuis 1937. Le rôle de « passeur » de l’artiste entre la génération des pionniers de l’abstraction et celle de l’après-guerre se manifeste à travers sa participation aux Salons des Réalités Nouvelles, son implication dans les projets d’architecture et sa présence au sein de la galerie Denise René. Dès l’après-guerre, la peinture de Sonia Delaunay connaît un profond renouvellement qui culmine, à la fin des années 1960, dans un art abstrait intensément poétique. Sa créativité formelle et technique s’exprime alors dans des œuvres monumentales (peinture, mosaïque, tapis, tapisserie) et son œuvre tardive connaît un ultime essor dans les albums d’eaux-fortes et les éditions Artcurial. 

Servie par la reconstitution d’ensembles et de dispositifs inédits, et la présence de photographies et de films d’époque, l’exposition souligne le paradoxe d’une œuvre profondément inscrite dans son temps – de la belle époque aux années 1970 – et la constance des recherches formelles et la quête de synthèse des arts rendent également atemporelle.

Commissaires de l’exposition

Anne Montfort

Cécile Godefroy

L’exposition sera ensuite présentée à la Tate Modern de Londres du 15 avril au 9 août 2015.

Exposition réalisée avec le concours exceptionnel de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et du Centre Pompidou

Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris

11 avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris

www.mam.paris.fr

Giovanni Battista Moroni, Royal Academy of Arts, London

Giovanni Battista Moroni

Royal Academy of Arts, London

25 October 2014 – 25 January 2015

This exhibition of outstanding works by Giovanni Battista Moroni (c.1520-1579), widely regarded as one of the greatest painters of the sixteenth century, will be the first comprehensive survey of his oeuvre to be held in the UK. In the autumn of 2014, the Royal Academy of Arts will gather a selection of over 40 works to present Moroni not only as a distinctive portraitist but also as a fine religious painter, a role for which he is lesser known. For the first time, a number of altarpieces from the churches of the Diocese of Bergamo, northern Italy, will be displayed alongside examples of Giovanni Battista Moroni’s portraiture, chronologically charting his rise to the summit of Italian sixteenth-century painting. From works influenced by Lotto and Moroni’s master Moretto, to later commissions earned as the leading painter of Bergamo, Giovanni Battista Moroni will offer viewers the chance to discover Moroni as an unsung genius of the Renaissance.

Moroni captured the exact likeness, character and inner life of his sitters with rare penetrating insight. His portraiture, singular not only for its unprecedented realism but also its psychological depth and immediacy, was in many ways ahead of his time. Preempting the work of Caravaggio, Moroni came to be widely collected in the nineteenth century, including Portrait of a Lady (c.1556-60) and A Knight with a Jousting Helmet (c.1556), purchased by the National Gallery, London, in 1876. Moroni’s portraits depict members of the society in which he lived, a cast of compelling Renaissance characters whose lives played out the feuds and family dramas of a pro-Spanish aristocracy living under the Republic of Venice in the mid-sixteenth century. With a selection to establish Moroni as one of the major specialists in the genre, his portraits reveal an enamel-like brightness, a clarity of design and a touch of realism which is in contrast to the adorned portraiture of his contemporary Titian.

Although Moroni’s name was linked to Bergamo, he also lived and worked in the nearby towns of Brescia, Trent and Albino. Working in a city without a leading court, Moroni’s sitters span a surprisingly wide social spectrum; his clientèle, unique at the time, comprised intellectuals, professionals, state officers and artisans. His famous portrait of The Tailor (1565-1570), one of the highlights of this exhibition, is the first known portrait of a man depicted whilst undertaking manual labour. In capturing the world around him, Moroni’s works also offer a vivid record of the fashions and fortunes of Bergamo, revealing changes in costume as the colourful silks of the portraits of Isotta Brembati (c.1555) and Gian Gerolamo Grumelli (c.1560), yield to the more sombre styles of the Spanish fashion, seen in the portrait of Pietro Secco Suardo (1563).

Moroni’s religious paintings were completed in accordance with the principles of the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent (1545-1563). In these, a worshipper is often depicted as a witness to the sacred scene, as demonstrated by The Last Supper (c.1566-1569). The pastoral visit of the religious reformer Cardinal Charles Borromeo to the Diocese of Bergamo in 1575 prompted the churches of the region to commission many new religious paintings, and Moroni as the leading painter produced several art works for public devotion, including the altarpiece painting Saint Gotthard Enthroned with Saint Lawrence and Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c.1575). The selection of Moroni’s religious works will also include examples of paintings intended for private devotion, such as A Gentleman in Adoration before the Baptism of Christ (c.1555-1560).

The exhibition will be a definitive survey of Moroni’s output and includes many of his greatest masterpieces. It will reveal an artist who has perhaps gone unrecognised as an exceptional painter and a master of the Renaissance.

Giovanni Battista Moroni has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The exhibition has been curated by Simone Facchinetti, Curator of the Museo Adriano Bernareggi in Bergamo, and Arturo Galansino, Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Giovanni Battista Moroni 

(c) Royal Academy of Arts, London

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated and scholarly catalogue with contributions from Simone Facchinetti and Arturo Galansino.

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS 

Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

www.royalacademy.org.uk

GoPro Hero4 Black & Silver... & GoPro Hero Digital Video Cameras

GoPro Introduces HERO4 Black & Silver... & HERO

GoPro HERO4 Black

© GoPro, Inc.

GoPro HERO4 is the highest performance line of capture devices the company has ever made.  GoPro HERO4 is available in two editions, GoPro HERO4 Black at $499 (MSRP) and HERO4 Silver at MSRP $399. GoPro's Emmy Award-winning imaging technology combines with enhanced ease-of-use and powerful new features such as 4K30, 2.7K50 and 1080p120 video capture (Black) and built-in touch display convenience (Silver), to make it easier than ever for consumers to self capture and share stunning, professional quality content of their favorite experiences.

GoPro HERO4 Black delivers 2x the performance of its best-selling predecessor GoPro HERO3+ and now captures cinema-quality 4K video at 30 frames per second (fps), 2.7K video at 50fps and 1080p video at a blistering 120fps, virtually eliminating rolling shutter in most scenarios while allowing for time-bending slow motion effects. GoPro HERO4 Black also features an entirely redesigned audio system that captures high fidelity sound with 2x the dynamic range of previous models. Additional enhancements include improved image quality, low light performance, highlight moment tagging and an improved user interface that allows for easier discoverability and access to key features and controls. The HERO4 Black is simply the highest performance GoPro yet.

GoPro HERO4 Silver

© GoPro, Inc.

GoPro HERO4 Silver delivers the same professional image quality as HERO4 Black less some of the higher performance video capture modes including 4K30, 2.7K50 and 1080p120. HERO4 Silver includes a brilliant built-in touch display for those who value convenience and ease-of-use over the no-holds-barred performance of the HERO4 Black.

The new GoPro HERO4 line will be available October 5 on GoPro.com and at select retailers worldwide.

GoPro HERO4 Black - 2x the performance, yet again

The flagship GoPro HERO4 Black builds upon GoPro's Emmy® Award-winning technology to deliver the next level of GoPro image quality, versatility and performance:

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GoPro HERO4 Silver - Professional quality capture. Touch-display convenience

The GoPro HERO4 Silver sets a new precedent for convenience and ease-of-use with GoPro's first built-in touch display:

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- Professional quality video capture at 2.7K30, 1080p60 and 720p120

- 12MP magazine cover-quality photos at burst speeds of 30 photos per second

- 50% faster Wi-Fi* combined with Bluetooth® delivers enhanced GoPro App performance and improved power management. 

GoPro HERO4 Black and Silver share powerful 

new features that expand what's possible with a GoPro

Protune, now for photo + video

For those who prefer to take manual control of their GoPro to maximize versatility and performance, we've expanded our professionally minded Protune mode to include Color, Sharpness, ISO Limit, and Exposure controls for both photo and video capture.

New settings for after dark

Whether you're shooting the Milky Way or a campfire hangout, Night Photo and Night Lapse allow you to capture stunning images of ultra low-light scenes with customizable exposure settings of up to 30 seconds.

Mark your best moments

HiLight Tag enables you to mark key moments with the push of an on-camera button while recording, making it easy to find, playback and share your favorite clips in GoPro Studio or with the GoPro App.  You can also HiLight Tag using the mobile GoPro App or the new Smart Remote accessory.

QuikCapture speed and convenience

QuikCapture makes it easy to power on and record with the press of a single button. When enabled, a single press starts video capture, while a press and hold engages Time Lapse photo capture.

High-performance audio

A totally re-designed internal audio system combines with a state of the art microphone to capture clean, high fidelity sound with 2x the dynamic range of previous models.

*Than previous comparable GoPro HERO3+ models

GoPro HERO

© GoPro, Inc.

GoPro HERO - The perfect entry-level GoPro 

GoPro also debuts HERO, the perfect entry-level GoPro. Designed with simplicity in mind and built directly into a rugged, waterproof housing, HERO captures high-quality 1080p video at 30fps and 720p video at 60fps. HERO captures the same immersive, eye-popping footage that's made GoPro one of the best-selling cameras in the world—all in a simplified package with an MSRP of $129.

For more information, visit www.gopro.com

Niki de Saint Phalle au Grand Palais, Paris - Exposition rétrospective

Niki de Saint Phalle 
Grand Palais, Paris 
17 septembre 2014 - 2 février 2015

Niki de Saint Phalle au Grand Palais 

Affiche de la Réunion des musées nationaux-Palais 

© Réunion des musées nationaux-Grand Palais, Paris 2014

NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE (1930-2002) est l’une des artistes les plus populaires du milieu du XXe siècle mais paradoxalement la richesse et la complexité de son oeuvre restent à découvrir. Elle compte parmi les premières artistes femmes à acquérir de son vivant une reconnaissance internationale et à jouer de sa personnalité médiatique. Niki est d’ailleurs l’une des premières personnalités – au même moment que Andy Warhol – à utiliser la presse et les media pour contrôler ou orienter la réception de son travail. 

Autodidacte, Niki de Saint Phalle s’inspire de Gaudi, Dubuffet et Pollock pour mettre en place dès la fin des années 50 un univers singulier, en dehors de toute tendance et mouvement. Son parcours biographique y est sublimé par la création de grands thèmes et de mythes qui articuleront ensuite toute son oeuvre. On en connaît le caractère joyeux et coloré, mais on en a oublié la violence, l’engagement et la radicalité. Qu’il s’agisse de l’audace de ses performances, du contenu politique et féministe de son travail ou de l’ambition de ses réalisations dans l’espace public.

Cette rétrospective, première grande exposition consacrée à Niki de Saint Phalle depuis vingt ans, présente toutes les facettes de l’artiste qui fut à la fois peintre, assemblagiste, sculpteure, graveuse, performeuse et cinéaste expérimentale, et renouvelle profondément le regard posé sur son travail. Plus de 200 oeuvres et archives dont beaucoup sont inédites émaillent un parcours de 2000 m2 à la fois chronologique et thématique, ponctués d’écrans montrant l’artiste commentant son travail. Des maquettes de projets architecturaux et une sculpture-fontaine (L’Arbre de Vie) devant l’entrée du Grand Palais, permettent d’évoquer l’ampleur et la diversité de son oeuvre publique.

Niki de Saint Phalle

Dolorès, 1968-1995, 550 cm, polyester peint sur grillage, Sprengel Museum, Hanovre 

© 2014 Niki Charitable Art Foundation, All rights reserved. Donation Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle : Une artiste franco-américaine

Née en France où elle passera une grande partie de sa vie mais élevée aux États-Unis et choisissant d’y passer la fin de sa carrière, elle ne cessera de voyager entre ses deux pays d’origine et d’en réconcilier les tendances artistiques. Connue comme la seule artiste femme du Nouveau Réalisme en France, on a oublié que c’était aussi une artiste américaine - dont les oeuvres sont à replacer dans une histoire des Combine Paintings Néo Dada - au côté de Jasper Johns et Robert Rauschenberg, mais aussi à l’origine du Pop Art dont son approche renouvelle la lecture. Le multiculturalisme - les références à l’art des natifs d’Amérique et à la civilisation mexicaine, la question raciale et la critique de la politique de Georges Bush sont autant de sujets américains qui caractérisent ses dernières oeuvres.

Niki de Saint Phalle : La première artiste féministe

Articuler une vie de femme avec une vie d’artiste, renouveler la représentation du corps féminin et de l’érotisme, réinterpréter les grandes figures mythiques, interroger le rôle de la femme dans la société et en proposer un autre sont autant de thèmes contenus dans son travail dès la fin des années 50 et qui seront récurrents jusqu’à la fin de la vie. Fille, épouse, mère, guerrière, sorcière et déesse, pour n’en citer que quelques-unes, sont autant de facettes ou d’interprétations possibles des fameuses « Nanas » qui sont autant d’autoportraits, à la fois réels et fantasmés, de l’artiste et de la femme contemporaine. De fait, les séries successives des Mariées, Accouchements, Déesses puis après les Nanas, des Mères dévorantes, recréent une véritable mythologie féminine. S’y ajoutent les performances, les textes et les déclarations de l’artiste, le contenu des longs métrages : autant de preuves pour réhabiliter Niki de Saint Phalle comme la première grande artiste féministe du XXe siècle.

Niki de Saint Phalle

Skull (Meditation Room), Sprengel Museum, Hanovre, donation de l’artiste en 2000 

© 2014 Niki Charitable Art Foundation, All rights reserved / Photo : Michael Herling

Niki de Saint Phalle : Une artiste engagée

Le féminisme n’est qu’un élément de sa lutte précoce et constante contre les conventions et les carcans de la pensée. Chacune de ses oeuvres comporte plusieurs niveaux de lecture et d’interprétation dont on a souvent omis le caractère politique au profit d’une lecture décorative et superficielle de son oeuvre. Aller au-delà, c’est reconnaître par exemple aux « Tirs » toute leur puissance subversive. Ces performances, où des tableaux étaient détruits à la carabine par l’artiste ou le public invité, furent à la fois fondatrices dans l’histoire du happening et particulièrement scandaleuses car orchestrées par une femme. Dirigés contre une vision de l’art, une idée de la religion, une société patriarcale, une situation politique où guerre froide et guerre d’Algérie s’entremêlent, un pays – les États-Unis – où le port d’arme est légalisé, les Tirs sont à l’image de son oeuvre ultérieure, qui se nourrit presque toujours de questionnements sociétaux. Niki de Saint Phalle fut l’une des premières artistes à aborder la question raciale et à défendre les droits civiques puis un multiculturalisme américain ; une des premières aussi à utiliser l’art pour sensibiliser le grand public aux ravages du sida.

Niki de Saint Phalle : A l’avant-garde d’un art public

Première femme à s’imposer dans l’espace public à l’échelle mondiale, Niki de Saint Phalle a eu le souci très tôt de s’adresser à tous, bien au-delà du seul public des musées. Le choix d’un art public est à voir comme un choix politique ; il est précoce puisqu’elle en fait une direction essentielle de ses recherches dès le milieu des années 60. Projets architecturaux et sculptures monumentales se suivent ensuite tout au long de sa carrière : fontaines, parcs pour enfants, jardins ésotériques et maisons habitables sont parmi ses plus importantes réalisations. Central et majestueux, le Jardin des Tarots est son oeuvre majeure, qu’elle a entièrement financé elle-même, en partie grâce au développement d’éditions ; un parfum, du mobilier, des bijoux, des estampes, des livres d’artistes.

Niki de Saint Phalle

Vue du Jardin des Tarots, Garavicchio, Italie 

© Laurent Condominas

Cette exposition est organisée par la Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand Palais avec l’aimable participation de la Niki Charitable Art Foundation et co-organisée avec le Guggenheim Museum de Bilbao. Elle bénéficie de prêts exceptionnels des musées de Hanovre et Nice, qui ont reçu d’importantes donations de l’artiste. Elle sera présentée au musée Guggenheim de Bilbao du 27 février au 29 juin 2015.

Commissariat général : Camille Morineau

GRAND PALAIS, PARIS
www.grandpalais.fr

Philip Guston - Late Paintings, Peder Lund, Oslo

Philip Guston - Late Paintings 

Peder Lund, Oslo 

September 20 - November 8, 2014

Peder Lund is proud to announce an exhibition of late paintings by the American painter Philip Guston (1913-1980). Bringing works by Guston to Norway for the first time, Peder Lund exhibits six paintings and two drawings made in the last decade of the painter’s life, two of which are on loan from Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Four of the paintings have been part of the travelling exhibition Philip Guston: Late Works, celebrating the centennial of the artist’s birth, which opened in November, 2013, at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, and travelled to Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, through August, 2014. 

Philip Guston was born in Montreal in 1913 as the youngest son of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants, who had fled the pogroms in Odessa, Ukraine. The family relocated to Los Angeles in 1919, and Philip Guston began to draw at the age of 14. He earned a scholarship from the Otis Art Institute in 1930, but left the art school after three months and set out as an autodidactic painter, before travelling to Mexico in 1934, where he got involved with the Mexican Mural Movement. Returning to America, Guston left Los Angeles for New York in 1936 and joined the Work Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project (WPA/ FAP) (1935-43), the visual arts initiative of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programme, for which Guston made a number of murals on public buildings. A fascination with Italian Medieval and Renaissance artists came to influence Philip Guston’s murals, and the painter further explored this interest when he travelled across Italy, Spain and France between 1948 and 1949. This fascination endured throughout Philip Guston’s oeuvre and came to play a significant part in his late, figurative works.

After leaving the WPA project, Philip Guston began to frequent the vibrant circle of Abstract Expressionists, also known as the New York School that was forming in New York, and he developed close friendships with painters including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, as well as the minimalist composers John Cage and Morton Feldman. Guston almost exclusively produced non-figurative art between 1951 and -54, but the grand narratives about art that the New York School propagated did not interest Guston, and he refused the Formalist theories of Clement Greenberg that coloured the work of the New York School. The return to figuration in Philip Guston’s paintings in the decade that followed famously provoked the New York art scene, and Guston insisted that each of his paintings justified itself and that none of his paintings were part of an overall theoretical scheme. He also dismissed the Modernists’ neglect of the tumultuous external affairs that coloured the political landscape at the time, and stated, “what kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything – and then going home into my studio to adjust a red to a blue […].”

Philip Guston relocated to the remote Woodstock in upstate New York in 1967, where he frequented other artists and poets and further developed his interest in Renaissance art, as well as the work of painters such as Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico and Max Beckmann. These influences now stood alongside an attraction to cartoons and comic strips – the work of the cartoonist George Herriman in particular. Cartoon-like figures and recurring themes such as soles or piles of shoes, people’s heads, boxy cars, self-portraits of the artist smoking, and anthropomorphic figures that Philip Guston called “Hoods” (a reference to Ku Klux Klans men) began to appear in his work, and the blocky shapes and open brushwork seen in his non-figurative period had now become caricatured humans and objects. The paintings on display at Peder Lund show several of the recurring themes in Guston’s late paintings – the “Hoods,” shoes, books, amputated legs and heads with protruding eyes. Guston's late paintings have had an unprecedented impact on artists working from the 1980s and up until the present and have earned Philip Guston the standing as one of the most important painters that reintroduced figuration into painting in the second half of the 20th Century.

Philip Guston’s work has been the subject of a vast number of exhibitions at some of the world’s most prestigious public institutions. Recent solo exhibitions include Philip Guston, which ran through 2003-04, and travelled from the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Guston’s work is featured in numerous public collections worldwide, including those of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

PEDER LUND

Tjuvholmen allé 27 - 0252 Oslo 

pederlund.no

Horst: Shadow & Light, Staley-Wise Gallery, New York

Horst: Shadow & Light 

Staley-Wise Gallery, New York 

September 19 – November 1, 2014 

The subject of this exhibition is women, filtered through Horst’s use of shadow and light to achieve his unique dramatic effects. Horst’s love of classical architecture and sculpture figures prominently in much of his work, as does the influence of Surrealism. His dramatic lighting, elegance and imaginative settings changed the look of portrait and fashion photography. 

In work from 1936 to 1987, Horst’s fashion, portrait, and still life photographs demonstrate his extreme sophistication and reflect the artistic spirit of their time. From the surrealism of Dali’s ballet costumes and disembodied hands to portraits of Chanel, Schiaparelli, Dietrich, the Bouvier sisters, and Yves Saint Laurent fashion, he is in tune with the era. 

Horst lived in the center of artistic and social activity of the 20th century. Born into a conventional German family, he soon left for Paris and an apprenticeship with the great architect Le Corbusier.  A chance meeting with the gifted photographer Baron George Hoyningen-Huene changed the course of his life, opening the doors to a career in photography and a life spent among the elite of Paris and New York.

Horst began working for Vogue in 1932, dividing his year between Paris and New York until the outbreak of World War II, during which he served in the United States Army. Horst worked for Conde Nast publications, and over the course of sixty years he photographed fashion, interiors, and every artistic, political, and social figure of note. Horst’s work has been the subject of numerous articles, books, and documentary films. Museum exhibitions have been held at the International Center of Photography, the Louvre, the Nassau County Museum, London’s National Portrait Gallery and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a retrospective exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum London starting September 2014.

STALEY-WISE GALLERY

560 Broadway, New York, NY 10012

www.staleywise.com

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris : Ouverture au Public

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris

Ouverture au public le 27 octobre 2014

La Fondation Louis Vuitton ouvrira ses portes au public le lundi 27 octobre 2014. Son bâtiment, conçu par l’architecte Frank Gehry, constitue à Paris un nouveau lieu pour la création artistique contemporaine française et internationale.

Le groupe LVMH annonce l’ouverture au public, le lundi 27 octobre 2014, de la Fondation Louis Vuitton. Elle se déploie au sein d’un bâtiment conçu, à l’initiative de Bernard Arnault, par l’architecte américain Frank Gehry. Véritable nuage de verre, la Fondation s’intègre au site du jardin d’Acclimatation à Paris, au nord du Bois de Boulogne.

La Fondation Louis Vuitton a pour ambition de soutenir et de promouvoir la création artistique contemporaine auprès des Parisiens et d’un public international. Elle inscrit sa collection et sa programmation dans la lignée des mouvements historiques de l’art et la création des XXe  et XXIe siècles.

Le bâtiment de la Fondation Louis Vuitton comprend des galeries d’exposition dédiées aux collections permanentes, aux expositions temporaires et aux commandes artistiques. Il se complète d’un Auditorium modulable destiné à accueillir des manifestations pluridisciplinaires.

Les terrasses du bâtiment offrent des points de vue inédits sur Paris et sur l’environnement boisé du jardin d’Acclimatation dont Frank Gehry s’est inspiré pour créer une architecture de verre et de transparence.

Dans le cadre de son programme artistique d’ouverture, la Fondation Louis Vuitton présentera une exposition consacrée au projet architectural de Frank Gehry pour la Fondation. L’exposition dialoguera avec la première rétrospective européenne que le Centre Pompidou consacrera à l’œuvre de Frank Gehry à partir d’octobre 2014.

La Fondation Louis Vuitton est une fondation d’entreprise, une initiative culturelle privée, dédiée à l’art et aux artistes. Elle constitue une étape nouvelle du mécénat pour l’art et la culture engagé par LVMH en France et dans le monde depuis plus de vingt ans.

FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON

8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, Bois de Boulogne, 75116 Paris

www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr