RSS Feed from www.artknowledgenews.com

The Dali Collection in St. Petersburg, Florida to Move to Hurricane-proof Building

ST. PETERSBURG, FL.(EFE) - The largest collection of Salvador Dali works outside of his native Spain is being moved to a more secure location, a hurricane-proof, cement and glass building located just blocks away from its original location in St. Petersburg, Florida. The collection of 2,140 pieces, including 96 paintings by the "enfant terrible" of Surrealism, as well as numerous etchings and drawings, will be relocated in a new, $35 million structure in that west-central Florida city that will have a sturdier structure and be less exposed to the elements. The most unique aspect of the new Salvador Dali museum will be its 45 centimeter-thick (18-inch-thick) walls, capable of resisting the impact of a Category 5 hurricane packing winds of up to 265 kilometers (165 miles) per hour.

Artists and Thinkers Gather in Charles Darwin's Home Town to Celebrate his Lasting Legacy

SHREWSBURY, UK - In the year of the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species – and 200 years since the great man’s birth – Darwin’s home town is hosting a 10-day celebration of the lasting legacy of his ground-breaking work. The Shift Time festival brings together over 30 artists and performers, who have all been inspired by Darwin’s theories to create new commissions ranging from large-scale sculptures to street theatre performances; and from dance displays to interactive exhibitions. Sparking debate and questioning the very roots of human existence, Shift Time directs us through art, performance and spoken word to find an answer for that age-old question – what is it to be human?

Bonhams London Old Master Sale Offers The Grand Tour With Paintings by Classic Artists

LONDON.- Bonhams next sale of Old Master paintings on July 8th in New Bond Street, offers stunning views of some of the highlights of The Grand Tour by some of the masters of the time. Today, when the capturing of images by cameras, phone, video and film have become commonplace we forget the power and the impact and the privilege of having images of places one has visited. Many of the band of aristocratic travelers on the Continent during the height of the Grand Tour took the opportunity to return home with the modern equivalent of tourist snapshots. But few tourist snapshots will hold their enchantment or their value in the way that these breathtaking images have done for centuries.

New Mexico Museum of Art hosts American Impressionism ~ Paintings From The Phillips Collection

Santa Fe, NM - Works by Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, Augustus Vincent Tack, and John Henry Twachtman, are among other American Masters who compose some of this exhibition’s highlights. These artists’ works were among the earliest acquisitions of The Phillips Collection, established in 1921 as America's first museum of modern art. The exhibition opens at the New Mexico Museum and runs through September 13, 2009. This exhibition has been organized by The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

The Ashmolean Museum Acquires a Collection of Drawings by Tom Phillips RA

OXFORD, UK - A comprehensive group of over 200 drawings and sketch books, assembled by the artist Tom Phillips, has been acquired by the Ashmolean with a major grant from independent charity The Art Fund, and additional funding from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and the Christopher Vaughan Bequest Fund. The collection spans the chronological range and genres of his work, from a drawing of his mother made before he went to university, to a set design for The Magic Flute at Opera Holland Park in 2008.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery announces Both Cost-cutting and Revenue-generating Measures

BUFFALO, NY.- The Albright-Knox Art Gallery today announced it is embarking on an aggressive three-year operating plan designed to actively sustain its artistic mission and current staffing levels while successfully addressing financial challenges resulting from the recent economic recession, which has had an impact on the museum. In a proactive step, the Gallery’s Board of Directors earlier this week approved the operating plan, which becomes effective with the Gallery’s new fiscal year beginning July 1. It was announced by Gallery Director Louis Grachos and Board President Charles W. Banta. The plan focuses on both cost-cutting and revenue-generating measures that ensure the Gallery maintains a standard of programmatic excellence that fulfills its compelling mission to acquire, exhibit, and preserve modern and contemporary art.

Aperture Foundation Announces Winners of the Strand's Photography Contest

NEW YORK, NY.- Aperture Foundation, Pratt, and the Strand Book Store are pleased to announce the winners of the Eye on the Strand photography contest, which kicked off last fall and concluded March 31, 2009. The winners were chosen by a prestigious panel of judges from over 500 submissions featuring unique and creative photo representations of the Strand Book Store. The Grand Prize Winner will get to have lunch at New York City’s famous Balthazar Restaurant with world-renowned photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and receive a collection of Aperture books, among other prizes.

Marlborough Fine Art to show New Works of Frank Auerbach

London - “Frank Auerbach’s paintings are the full results of tremendous application. They may appear sudden -instantaneous even- but they are feats of concentration. Studied yet impulsive, ranging from darkness to radiance and from the declamatory to the subdued, they are keyed to an air of resolve as unguarded as joy, as involuntary as grief. From the earliest portrait heads to recent sightings of the tower blocks beyond Mornington Crescent, glorified as the sun strikes them, there’s a constant quickening, a pulse of the here and now”. . .William Feaver. On exhibition 23 September – 24 October 2009. Private view Tuesday 22 September 2009 at Marlborough Fine Art, London.

Nassau County Museum of Art announces a Major Norman Rockwell Exhibition

ROSLYN HARBOR, NY.- “I paint life as I would like it to be,” said the great illustrator Norman Rockwell. Seeing himself as a storyteller, Rockwell created the images that defined America and Americans, in this country and abroad. His enormous impact was achieved through the 321 covers he created for Saturday Evening Post from 1916 to 1963. Among Rockwell’s most memorable renditions of Americana is his much-loved Four Freedoms series of patriotic paintings symbolizing President Roosevelt’s wartime aims: Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. This contribution to the war effort, published in four consecutive issues of the Saturday Evening Post, raised nearly $140 million in war bonds. Norman Rockwell, opening at Nassau County Museum of Art (NCMA) on Sunday, September 20, 2009 and remaining on view through Sunday, January 3, 2010.

Famed cartoonist Arnold Roth Inducted into Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Famed illustrator and cartoonist Arnold Roth, a 1950 graduate of the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts), is one of five inductees elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. Roth’s work has appeared regularly in nearly every major American magazine from Time to Sports Illustrated to The New Yorker for the past 50 years. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Roth and his wife Caroline reside in New York City. Contemporary illustrator Paul Davis and posthumous honorees Mario Cooper, Laurence Fellows and Herbert Morton Stoops were also inducted at a black-tie dinner at the Society’s headquarters on Manhattan’s Upper East Side on June 25.

"Soul i-D" A Pioneering Exhibition to be Showcased at Christie's Rockefeller Center

NEW YORK, NY.- In collaboration with i-D Magazine, Christie’s is announced that it will host a pioneering exhibition in New York, supported by Gucci, celebrating the recent publication of a 600-page book entitled SOUL i-D. From July 16 to July 30 2009, Christie’s New York will showcase the final leg of a three year international exhibition tour, unveiling the highlights of this highly laudable visual anthology in the United States. The brainchild of Terry and Tricia Jones, founders of i-D magazine, this innovative exhibition will be assembled in the form of a suspended eye at the centre of the gallery, proffering a window into the heart and soul of modern society.

La Lanta Fine Art presents "Poetical Junctures" by Five Indonesian Artists

Bangkok, Thailand - La Lanta Fine Art presents a new painting exhibition "POETICAL JUNCTURES"  by five Indonesian artists, curated by Rizi A. Zaelani, a well known Indonesian curator.   All participating artists depict similar concerns pertaining to the change they are experiencing in their country.   The artists discuss the issues of social, political, and cultural changes through images of body.  

Berlin's Museum of Prints & Drawings opens Works by renowned German artist Emil Nolde

BERLIN.- As a main proponent of expressionism, Emil Nolde (1867-1956) ranks as one of the most renowned German artists of the 20th century. With its 110 works (made up of some 36 watercolours and approx. 70 of the artist's most important graphic prints - including etchings, lithographs and woodcuts), the Museum of Prints and Drawings in Berlin not only owns one of the oldest, but also one of the most comprehensive public museum collections of the artist's work, second only to the Nolde Foundation Seebüll, which administers Nolde's estate, and the Sprengel Museum Hanover, which owns a large collection of Nolde's prints. On view 3 July through 25 October, 2009.

Damien Hirst Refuses to Become an RA at the Royal Academy of Arts

LONDON.- British artist Damien Hirst has turned down an offer to become a Royal Academician at the Royal Academy in London, an institution that was founded in 1768 by King George III. The refusal was revealed by Secretary and Chief Executive Dr Charles Saumarez Smith CBE, who told the Evening Standard that he does not know the reasons of this decision. According to Saumarez Smith, there are artists who have accepted the invitation and others that have not, some of these are: Lucian Freud, Howard Hodgkin and Paula Rego. Other contemporary artists, such as Tracey Emin, who made her dirty bed an artistic installation, have accepted to become a Royal Academician.

Citygarden the New St. Louis Sculpture Park Opens to the Public

ST. LOUIS, MO.- It has no real equivalent anywhere: a public garden with spectacular landscaping and internationally renowned modern and contemporary sculpture in a completely open, accessible in a downtown setting. Citygarden, which was dedicated yesterday, is an oasis in the City, a breathtaking civic space of multi-dimensional appeal — marrying art and nature, stone and water, architecture and design. It features fountains and pools, a waterfall, places to sit and even stretch out, and a café. No walls or fences surround it. The garden also will stimulate tourism,visitors to the Arch will be more inclined to cross Memorial Drive into downtown, and St. Louis’s place on the art map will be enhanced for art lovers all over the world. Admission is free.

GSK Contemporary 2009 ~ Earth: Art of a Changing World coming to The Royal Academy of Arts

LONDON.- The Royal Academy of Arts presents GSK Contemporary 2009, the second annual contemporary art season at 6 Burlington Gardens. Opening in December, Earth: Art of a changing world will present new and recent work from more than 30 leading international contemporary artists, including commissions and new works from the best emerging talent. The exhibition will introduce the key elements that make up the natural world, and the activities that affect the planet’s fragile equilibrium. Works by artists including Ackroyd & Harvey, Spencer Finch, Mona Hatoum and Marcos Lutyens & Marianantoni, engage with the earth, air, sky, nature and carbon elements to encourage a deeper consideration of our cultural relationship to earth’s stability.

ÜberPortrait at Bellevue Arts Museum / A fresh perspective on contemporary portraiture

Bellevue , WA   –   Bellevue Arts Museum offers a fresh perspective on contemporary portraiture with its new exhibition ÜberPortrait , on view through October 18, 2009. Comprised of over 30 works by locally, nationally and internationally celebrated artists, this unique exhibit examines the ‘portrait’ in all its facets – from individual likeness to overarching cultural identity. Working in a broad range of media such as sculpture, ceramics, photography, fiber, performance art and film, artists highlighted in ÜberPortrait share a common interest: exploring the age-old fascination with capturing a person’s likeness and/or recreating his or her identity, both as individual and a collective entity.

Jeff Koons Signature Works from his Popeye Series at the Serpentine Gallery in London

LONDON.- The Serpentine Gallery presents an exhibition of the work of the celebrated American artist Jeff Koons. This will be England’s first ever major survey of Koons’s work in a public gallery. For his exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, Jeff Koons presents works from his Popeye series, which he began in 2002. The works incorporate some of Koons’s signature ideas and motifs, including surreal combinations of everyday objects, cartoon imagery, art-historical references and children’s toys. The sculptures on show continue Koons’s interest in casting inflatable toys. Those typically used by children in a swimming pool are cast in aluminium, their surfaces painted to bear an uncanny resemblance to the original objects. On exhibition 2 July through 13 September, 2009.

Dallas Museum of Art to host "All the World’s a Stage ~ Celebrating Performance in the Visual Arts"

DALLAS, TX.- The dynamic and historic connections between the visual and performing arts will be explored in two exhibitions—one focusing on contemporary artists and the other spanning multiple eras and cultures—at the Dallas Museum of Art. Drawn from the DMA’s encyclopedic collections and special loans, the exhibitions will be presented in conjunction with this fall’s historic opening of the new Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and the completion of the Dallas Arts District. The exhibition will also incorporate several theatrical tableaux in photography, including pieces by Cindy Sherman, Nic Nicosia, Matthew Barney, and Gregory Crewdson, among others. In these images, conventions of costume, character, and set are combined to create characters and scenarios often found on the stage.

Major Contemporary Ceramics Collection Gifted to Crocker Art Museum

Sacramento, CA – The Crocker Art Museum has received a gift of an encyclopedic collection of 20^th-century ceramics, comprised of nearly 800 works by more than 300 artists. The collection, given by Syndey Swidler, brings to the Museum a fully developed view of the medium from the early-20^th-century to the present. Works by some of the most prominent artists in contemporary international ceramics are featured in the collection, including Curtis Benzle, Colin Pearson, Angela Verdon, Val Cushing and Jeffrey Swindell. The Swidler Collection will be showcased as one of the inaugural exhibits when the Crocker opens its 125,000-square-foot expansion in 2010.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Expands Public Access to Archives

NEW YORK, NY.- The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building this year, has expanded the public and private access to its archival materials with the support of four recent grants totaling more than $200,000. The grants have been awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the Documentary Heritage Program of the New York State Archives, the Hilla von Rebay Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts to preserve archives that document the museum’s founding history and select areas of exhibition and educational programming.

Metropolitan Museum of Art announces Augustus Saint-Gaudens Exhibition

NEW YORK, NY - Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) was a French-Irish immigrant who became the greatest American sculptor of his day. From humble roots, through his prodigious talent, he rose in society, eventually counting some of America's most influential people in art and literature, diplomacy and economics, technology and social policy among his friends and clients. The collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art contains nearly four dozen works by the accomplished artist, representing the entire range of his oeuvre, from early cameos to innovative painterly bas-reliefs to character-penetrating portrait busts and statuettes derived from his public monuments.

Wikimedia Foundation receives Ford Foundation Grant to grow Wikimedia Commons

San Francisco, CA - The Wikimedia Foundation, the non- profit organization which operates Wikipedia, has received a $300,000  Ford Foundation grant to make it easier for people around the world to  participate in Wikimedia Commons, the Internet's largest repository of  high quality, freely reusable educational illustrations, photographs,  maps, sound, and video files. Available in 85 languages, Wikimedia Commons is a global community  dedicated to sharing media. The Wikimedia Commons also acts as the  central multimedia library for Wikipedia. The Ford Foundation grant  will support interface and work-flow improvements to make it much  easier to contribute freely reusable content.

Jeu de Paume shows Planète Parr ~ The Martin Parr Collection

PARIS - Loud colours, strange patterns and concise narratives are what characterise the photographs of Martin Parr (born in Bristol in 1952). While some of his images may seem over the top, they are always astonishingly inventive and richly humorous. Over the last thirty years, Parr has been documenting Western society, and in particular his fellow citizens of the United Kingdom. However, he is also interested in phenomena linked to globalisation such as mass tourism, consumerism and so-called leisure. His work is seen as a satirical look at contemporary life which unmasks the grotesque element behind banality. On exhibition from 30 June 2009 until 27 September 2009.

Christie's Auction of Post-War and Contemporary Art in London Tops $31.8 Million

LONDON.-Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction took place this evening and realised £19,063,350 / $31,778,604 / €22,513,816 selling 88% by lot and 86% by value. The top price was paid for Night Playground by Peter Doig (b.1959), 1997/98, an exemplary large scale painting described by the artist as one of his own favourites. It was offered at auction for the first time and realised £3,009,250 / $5,016,420 / €3,553,924, the second highest price for the artist at auction (estimate: £1.5 million to £2 million). A particularly rare urban view, the painting shows night falling on a city playground and portrays the contrast between nature and the man-made. At this evening’s auction, 4 works of art sold for over £1 million / 11 for over $1 million, and buyers (by lot / by origin) were 65% UK and Europe, 29% Americas and 6% Asia.