Tuesday, September 28, 2010

WHATIFTHEWORLD/GALLERY | athi-patra ruga| WED 06 OCT



ATHI-PATRA RUGA
TEETH ARE THE ONLY BONES THAT SHOW...
OPENING: WED 06 OCT 18H00


Exploring the border-zones between fashion, performance and contemporary art, Athi-Patra Ruga makes work that exposes and subverts the body in relation to structure, ideology and politics. Bursting with eclectic multicultural references, carnal sensuality and a dislocated undercurrent of humor, his performances, videos, costumes and photographic images create a world where cultural identity is no longer determined by geographical origins, ancestry or biological disposition, but is increasingly becoming a hybrid construct. A Utopian counter-proposal to the sad dogma of the division between mind and body, sensuality and intelligence, pop culture, craft and fine art, his works expresses the eroticism of knowledge and reconciles the dream with experience.

Recent exhibitions include: Beauty and Pleasure in Contemporary South African Art at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo, Norway; the Guangzhou Trienalle in China, Ampersand at the Daimler Collection (Berlin); _ A Life Less Ordinary - Performance and Display in South African Art_, (UK); For Those Who Live in It - Pop culture Politics and Strong Voices, MU (Holland), Athi-Patra Ruga - The Works,Solo Exhibition at FRED (London); Dak’Art - Biennale of African Contemporary Art (Dakar);

Athi-Patra Ruga was also recently included in the Phaidon book ‘Younger Than Jesus,’ a directory of over 500 of the world’s best artists under the age of 33. His works form part of private public and museum collections here and abroad, namely: Museion - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art , Bolzano Italy; CAAC - Pigozzi Collection; The Wedge Collection, Iziko South African National Gallery.

WWW.WHATIFTHEWORLD.COM

REAL TALK: 09.28.10




I'm painting an idea not an ideal. Basically I'm trying to paint a structured painting full of controlled, and therefore potent, emotion.
-Euan Uglow

Born in London, England, UK in 1932, Euan Uglow paintings include mostly nudes, still lifes and portraits. Uglow's meticulous painting method meant that sitters would have to pose for him over long periods of time, with the artist working and reworking the painting.

Image credit: The Diagonal

Monday, September 27, 2010

The Warholian exhibit | Royal/T








"The Warholian is an exhibition of photos, film, portraits and objects by Andy Warhol and various artists inspired and influenced by his work. The exhibit features a variety of Warhol-inspired pieces by artists such as Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst, celebrating the great pop artist’s deep effect on contemporary art. Curated by Eric Shiner, The Milton Fine Curator of Art at The Andy Warhol Museum, the exhibit features some of Warhol’s most recognizable original artwork including “Marilyn” (1967), “Electric Chair” (1971), “Dollar Sign” (1981), and “Flowers” (1970)."

Exhibit is available until January 31, 2011.

Royal/T
8910 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
Tel: 310.559.6300
www.royal-t.org

via HB

Saturday, September 25, 2010

SMFA | Lois Mailou Jones | The Early Works: Paintings and Patterns 1927-1937



Boston, MA - After her graduation from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA), in 1927, Loїs Mailou Jones embarked on a successful career as a textile designer before earning international recognition as a celebrated American painter and noted scholar and teacher. Loїs Mailou Jones: The Early Works: Paintings and Patterns 1927–1937, which focuses on the textile designs and studies Jones created at the outset of her career, is on view in the SMFA’s Grossman Gallery until October 14, 2006.

A pioneering twentieth century artist, Loїs Mailou Jones worked for more than seven decades in a wide variety of styles, enjoying an extraordinary career that drew inspiration from France, Haiti, and Africa, as well as her native New England. As an African-American woman artist working in a racialized gender-biased society, Jones met great challenges in her lifetime but persevered to exhibit her paintings to the world and earn many national and international honors.

“Loïs Mailou Jones’s invaluable contributions to American art are a testament to her talent and invincible spirit,” says Deborah Dluhy, dean of the School and deputy director, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “We are so pleased to pay tribute to her great accomplishments by showcasing the design work she created following her graduation from the Museum School.”

Comprised of more than 30 studies and designs and including many pieces on display for the first time, Loїs Mailou Jones: The Early Works: Paintings and Patterns 1927–1937 offers rare insight into Loїs Mailou Jones’s artistic beginnings and her grounding in the field of design. Jones’s pattern designs and designs for cretonnes, which show the strong use of color and great interest in other cultures that permeated her versatile and prolific career, were purchased, reproduced, and sold across the country by firms including Schumacher in New York and F. A. Foster in Boston. The design work in the exhibition is generously on loan from the Loїs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël Trust.

“Over a remarkably long career, Loïs’ work remained fresh, energetic and compelling,” says Edmund Barry Gaither, executive director and museum director, National Center of Afro-American Artists. “The ideas that are evident in her early designs were built upon and embellished in her later work giving it a structural clarity and colorful richness. Indeed, design remained key to her highly individualized synthesis of French, Haitian, African and American influences, and lent her work a wonderfully modern feeling.”

Loїs Mailou Jones was born in Boston in 1905 and began formal art training at the city’s High School of Practical Arts before receiving a scholarship to attend the Museum School, where she majored in design and received both the Susan Minot Lane Award and the Nathaniel Thayer Prize in Design. The work in this exhibition covers the 10-year period after her graduation until Jones’s trip to France in 1937. That first, extended foreign sojourn marked the beginning of Jones’s lifelong embrace of travel and world cultures, which informed both her art and her teaching at Howard University, where she taught painting and design for 47 years (1930–1977). The first African-American female artist to have a retrospective in a major museum (at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1973), Jones’s paintings are included in many of the world’s major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Loїs Mailou Jones died in 1998 at the age of 92.


Visit the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at : www.smfa.edu/

Source: AKN

Lehman Brothers | Art Auction



London, England (CNN) -- Artwork that used to adorn the walls and halls of Lehman Brothers' offices in London is expected to fetch £2 million ($3.1 million) when it goes up for auction Wednesday.
Christie's auction house in London is selling the art, which includes works by Lucian Freud and Anthony Gormley, antique maps and surveys, Chinese ceramics, and even Lehman Brothers' signs.

A separate sale of Lehman Brothers' artwork from their North American offices, due to take place at Sotheby's in New York on Sunday, was estimated to bring more than $10 million, according to the auction house.
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in the United States two years ago after a nearly $4 billion loss, the failure of buyout negotiations with Bank of America and Barclays Capital, and the refusal of U.S. regulators to offer a government-backed bailout.

At the same time, Lehman in the United Kingdom went into liquidation, with administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) appointed to sell off the assets.
Christie's said there are many people who may like to own art with a Lehman connection.

"We look forward to presenting what is a fascinating glimpse into the history of what was a giant of the financial world," said Benjamin Clark, director of corporate collections at Christie's London.

The Christie's sale takes place Wednesday and the art will be up for public viewings starting this weekend. Barry Gilbertson, a partner at PWC, said the auction date was chosen to coincide with the second anniversary of the Lehman collapse.

Old Masters up for sale include seascapes and naval scenes. Tea caddies, cigar boxes, porcelain, and leather-bound books including the works of Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson, and William Shakespeare are also being offered.

Modern art includes "Madonna" by Gary Hume, once described by the Guardian newspaper as "disconcertingly featureless," and estimated between £70,000 and £100,000 ($110,240 and $157,000). Two etchings by Lucian Freud are also up for sale.
Lehman Brothers' corporate signs, including a plaque commemorating then-Chancellor Gordon Brown's opening of the European headquarters in 2004, estimated at £1,000 to £1,500 ($1,566 to $2,349), are also available.

Lehman Brothers has its roots in Montgomery, Alabama, where Henry Lehman -- who had emigrated from Bavaria -- founded a convenience store in 1844. His brothers, Mayer and Emanuel, soon joined the business and later steered it toward the local cotton trade.

They opened an office in New York, which became their headquarters, and in 1870 Mayer Lehman was one of the founding members of the New York Cotton Exchange. It was the earliest commodities exchange in the city and still exists.

The company developed into primarily an investment bank by World War I.
"The brothers Lehman collected artwork which adorned their offices since the 19th century," Gilbertson said. "Over the subsequent years, of course, as the business expanded and the leadership changed, so did their corporate taste in art."
The Sotheby's sale includes more than 400 pieces, including examples of early works by leading 20th-century artists like Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami.

Hirst's "We've Got Style (The Vessel Collection - Blue)" is from a series of cabinets he produced in 1993, featuring dishes and ceramics, and is expected to fetch $800,000. A snowy, hazy cartoon landscape by Liu Ye, "The Long Way Home," is estimated at $600,000.

Sotheby's was appointed to sell the artworks by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Alvarez & Marsal, which is overseeing LBHI's restructuring.

Lehman acquired much of the art in the New York sale when it took over the Neuberger Berman firm in 2003. Roy Neuberger had made contemporary art an integral part of the workplace for decades, Sotheby's said, and the collection added to Lehman's commitment to fine art.

The two firms collected so much art that they donated it over the years to museums. New York's Metropolitan Museum even has a Lehman Wing with works donated by Robert Lehman.

Source: CNN

Sunday, September 5, 2010

MASSIMO GAMMACURTA "Lolli-Pop" Book







"Lolli-pop is the latest conceptual still life project by Italian born photographer Massimo Gammacurta. Each piece is a real Lollipop sculpture is handcrafted by Massimo Gammacurta with real hard ball candy. His lollies are edible icons. The brands are as sweet as candy for the palate and the eye. The brand association has in fact been replaced by a new meaning through the materiality and the abstract action painting dynamic gestures. When Massimo first distributed his lolli-pops on the Internet as an art experiment, interest amongst bloggers and fashionistas exploded."

To contact, visit MASSIMO GAMMACURTA PHOTGRAPHY.

MOCA | Mark Rothko



Los Angeles, CA - The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), is showcasing its premier collection of paintings by one of America’s iconic Abstract Expressionist painters in MOCA’S Mark Rothkos. Curated by MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel, MOCA’s Mark Rothkos brings together 8 out of 10 major Rothko paintings from MOCA’s collection in an intimate installation on view November 5, 2006–January 21, 2007 at MOCA Pacific Design Center. This grouping of magnificent paintings in the artist’s mature style—described as seeming to “glow mysteriously from within”—were acquired through gifts by Rita Schreiber in memory of her husband Taft Schreiber, and the Rothko Foundation, as well as the purchase of the famous Panza Collection in 1984 that formed the foundation of the museum’s assemblage of postwar art unparalleled on the West Coast.

To read more, click HERE.

Source: AKN