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 The brand association has in fact been replaced by a new meaning through the materiality and the abstract action painting dynamic gestures.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

ltd tee / david flores "jean-michel basquiat" box set

LTD tee, an innovative t-shirt company that always delivers new and exciting product, is proud to present their latest collaboration with artist David Flores. In honor of the late, great graffiti and Neo-Expressionist master Jean-Michel Basquiat, LTD tee is proud to present, for a limited time only (from 7/19 to 7/25), your very own piece of art history in this box set of Basquiat treats. The MSRP is $24.00 and by using the discount code "iheartartblog" at checkout, you receive 10% off this shirt! Discount is valid until 7/25.

The Jean-Michel box set contains the following:

• High quality, screen printed t-shirt
• 8” x 10” art print
• Custom screen printed box
• Artist bio on both the box and neck label
• LTD Tee Sticker packFor more information, go to ltdtee.net.

kori newkirk/country club projects/ solo

LOS ANGELES, CA.- Country Club Los Angeles presents Kori Newkirk as the next artist in the gallery’s ongoing project series. Newkirk is presenting new works that touch upon fracture, abstraction, labor, the body, science and science fiction with this show while simultaneously ignoring, questioning and commenting on the modernist architectureof the gallery in Rudolf Schindler’s 1934-Buck House. Celebrated multimedia artist Kori Newkirk transforms everyday materials into loaded signifiers, shifting and distilling preconceived cultural ideas. Newkirk, using an economy of means, explores culture as an alchemist might, using culture as a raw material to manipulate and shape, forging something new.

Newkirk’s work often explores and questions the meanings of material and how this meaning is influenced and transformed by the form that it ultimately takes. With Mayday, worn white t-shirts have been used to speak about not only the recent past but also the very real present. Located directly on the floor, the work fluctuates between desire, despair and detritus, the gestures of erasure and addition, armor and adornment, the heavens and or ‘hell’as well as the body domestic.

July 17-August 21, 2010
Opening reception: Saturday, July 17, 6-8pm
www.countryclubprojects.com

Source: AKN

humble arts foundation/young curators/new ideas III

Thursday, July 22 – Friday, August 20
Reception: Thursday, July 22, 6P.M. – 8P.M.

P•P•O•W
511 West 25th Street / Room 301
New York, NY 10001
212.647.1044
Summer Hours: M – F: 10A.M. – 5P.M.

mr. & mrs. amani olu (formerly amani olu projects), in conjunction with P•P•O•W, is pleased to present Young Curators, New Ideas III, an experimental exhibition that investigates current positions in contemporary art through the perspective of six curators. Exhibiting curators include Andrew Russeth & Liza Buzytsky, Erin Dziedzic, Kate Greenberg & Hilary Schaffner, Stamatina Gregory, Gabriella Hiatt, and James Shaeffer. These multifaceted and dynamic micro-exhibitions consider contemporary issues that exist at the intersection of curatorial practice and artistic production.

For more information, go to mrandmrsolu.com and ppowgallery.com.

the wonderful world of THE DARK

The king of underground street artists, Devitt Brown knows how to go from one extreme to the next. His alter ego, The Dark , has quickly become Vancouver's answer to the UK's Banksy. Armed with a portfolio filled with stencils and posters, the artist recently sat down with Dazed Digital to discuss all things dark and all things transformative.

Dulux Walls "LET'S COLOUR"

Shot by Adam Berg over the course of four weeks and in four countries (France, Brazil, London and India), the sole purpose was to rid the world of "gray areas." A total of 120 different hues were used to give vibrancy to the under served and forgotten communities across the globe. To learn more about this initiative, visit Let's Colour Project by clicking HERE.

SHEPARD FAIREY x IGGY POP for INTERVIEW MAGAZINE

Shepard Fairey rose the fame via the Obama campaign. Now, pitted against icon Iggy Pop, Fairey discusses everything from freedom, liberty and the pursuit of the Associated Press against him in an exclusive interview. To read the entire article via Interview Magazine, click HERE.

RAOUL HAUSMANN | "The Art Critic"

Holding a Venus pencil in this right hand, a heeled shoe glued to his brain, his eyes and muth hidden by superimposed features and a sharp segment of a 50 deutschmark bank note embedded in his neck, Hausmann's view of this art critic is both critical and controversial. Through whose eyes does he really see? Whose words does he really speak? And whose payroll is he on?

One of the many self-proclaimed inventors of photomontage, Hausmann used cut-up photographs and pages from newspapers and magazines to construct his world of cynical imagery. This work is an example of the Dada movement, whose members would incorporate ordinary objects into their art, often employing an absurd sense of humour.

In 1925, Hausmann abandoned painting and four years later invented the optophone, an apparatus which turned kaleidoscopic forms into music.

Source:
Adam Butler,
Claire Van Cleave and Susan Stirling
The Art Book
(London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1994)
p.210

Last days of WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2010| All Day and Night | Pay-What-You-Wish

Whitney Biennial: Open All Day and Night
Wed, May 26 at 12 am–
Fri, May 28 at 11:59 pm
Admission is pay-what-you-wish at the following times:

From 12 am to 9 am on Wed, May 26

From 11 pm on Wed, May 26
to 9 am on Thurs, May 27

From 11 pm on Thurs, May 27
to 9 am on Fri, May 28

From 6 pm to 11:59 pm on Fri, May 28
Regular admission prices are in effect for all other hours.

For more information, go to The Whitney Museum of Art.

Dallas Museum | JACOB LAWRENCE | Coming Soon....

DALLAS, TX.- For the first time in nearly 25 years, the Dallas Museum of Art presents the work of one of America's leading modern figurative painters, Jacob Lawrence (September 7, 1917–June 9, 2000), in a new exhibition, "Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture". Opening on December 6 in the DMA’s Focus Gallery II, the exhibition will showcase a series of fifteen dramatic and colorful silkscreen prints based on a series of forty-one paintings entitled "The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture", Lawrence’s first multi-part narrative series, which was completed in 1938. Rarely exhibited together, the prints, on loan from the Curtis E. Ransom Collection of African American Art, will be presented alongside two important works from the Dallas Museum of Art collections–Lawrence’s painting The Visitors and a portrait of the artist by legendary photographer Arnold Newman.

“In a season of celebration when we are commemorating the Dallas Museum of Art’s 25th anniversary in the Dallas Arts District, we are so pleased to be able to present the brilliant work of artist Jacob Lawrence for a second time in nearly as many years,” said Bonnie Pitman, The Eugene McDermott Director at the Dallas Museum of Art. “Lawrence is one of the great artists of our era and we thank Curtis Ransom, one of Dallas’s most dedicated collectors of African American art, for offering us the opportunity to exhibit these magnificent works at the Museum.”

In 1986, the DMA hosted Jacob Lawrence, American Painter, the artist’s first major museum exhibition since 1974. The Museum loaned its painting "The Visitors" to this critically acclaimed project organized by the Seattle Art Museum that toured, in addition to Dallas, to the Oakland Museum, California; The High Museum of Art in Atlanta; The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.; and the Brooklyn Museum, New York.

"Jacob Lawrence: The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture", on view through May 23, 2010, celebrates the artistry of Jacob Lawrence and the life of and history surrounding Toussaint L’Ouverture, a leader in the Haitian revolution. L’Ouverture was born a slave and became a commander in chief of the Haitian revolutionary army in 1800. In 1804, Haiti became the first black Western republic. L’Ouverture was instrumental in drafting independent Haiti’s first democratic constitution.

“Through these powerful works of L’Ouverture and the Haitian revolution, Lawrence presents his vision of humanity’s struggle toward unity and equality,” said Roslyn A. Walker, Senior Curator, The Arts of Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific and The Margaret McDermott Curator of African Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. “As one of the 20th century’s most important artists, Lawrence brilliantly chronicled our own country’s social and political life since the 1930s.”

“Lawrence’s works have underlying constants that have defined his style since the beginning,” said Charles Wylie, The Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. “A visual sensibility rooted in cubism, a compositional format based on serial narratives, and subject matter taken from African American history and contemporary life—all are components within Lawrence’s art that make his style both complex and direct. His work is a truly inventive response and synthesis of the major political, economic and social forces that shaped the modern era.”

Jacob Lawrence was raised in Harlem during the Depression. He was enrolled in the Harlem Art Workshop, which was sponsored by the Works Project Administration, where he became affiliated with a loose confederation of black artists working in New York during the 1930s led by Charles Alston and Augusta Savage.

Lawrence’s painting soon departed from the Harlem street scenes that had characterized his first works for themes derived from black history. Those early narrative sequences were devoted either to the lives of important black figures, such as Toussaint L’Ouverture and American abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, or documented pivotal American events, like the mass movement of southern blacks to the industrialized North as seen in his landmark series The Migration of the American Negro.

Jacob Lawrence became the first African American artist to have his work shown at a major New York gallery when, in 1941, Edith Halpert of the Downtown Gallery exhibited the Migration series. By the close of World War II, his work had won much critical praise, and in 1944 The Museum of Modern Art in New York organized a one-person exhibition of selections from Lawrence’s early narrative series. In the following decades, Lawrence continued to cement his stature and is now generally regarded as one of the most important American artists of the 20th-century.

Visit the Dallas Museum of Art by clicking HERE

Source: AKN

COMING SOON | "20" by Maison Martin Margiela at Somerset House

The always elusive Maison Marin Margiela exhibit "20" is set to open on June 3, 2010 and run until September 5th. For more, please see the information listed below:

Maison Martin Margiela “20″ The Exhibition
Somerset House
Embankment Galleries
London
WC2

COPS AND ROBBERS | Major artworks stolen in Paris heist

Paris, France (CNN) -- Five paintings, including a Matisse and a Picasso, were stolen overnight from a Paris museum, the Paris mayor's office said Thursday.

The paintings were stolen from the Museum of Modern Art and included works by Georges Braque, Ferdinand Leger and Amedeo Modigliani, French police said.

The artworks are worth a total of just less than 100 million euros ($123.7 million), said Christophe Girard, cultural attache to the Paris town hall, which runs the museum.

Source: CNN

THE SELBY | Philippe and Jasmine Starck Interior

The home of popular industrial designer Philippe Starck and his wife Jasmine is the latest feature on The Selby. With a storied career based on consumer products ranging from easily consumable items to more intensive designs such as interior design, a glimpse into his home yields some interesting objects and inspirations; Many of which which are perhaps not evident in Starck’s commercial work.

Source:HB

REAL TALK: 05.05.10

"Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world."

-Renior

French Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir was born in France on February 25, 1841 and died December 3,1919 in Cagnes. Some of his most famous works include "Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette", "Luncheon of the Boating Party" & "Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre and The Bathers." Renior was closely associated with fellows artists Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Frederic Bazille, Henry Fantin-Latour, Camile Pissarro, and Paul Cezanne which would end up forming the Impressionist group.

To view more works, visit The Renoir Gallery online.

PICASSO | $106.5 milion | "Nudes, Green Leaves and Bust"

New York (CNN) -- A Picasso painting fetched nearly $106.5 million at auction Tuesday, a record for any single work of art, Christie's New York said.

"Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" sold for $106,482,500 to an unidentified telephone bidder, the auction house said in a news release.

"Silence fell over the packed saleroom as Christopher Burge conducted nine minutes of bidding that involved eight clients," it said. "Christie's lead auctioneer took bids from a client in the saleroom as well as those on the phone before the competition settled down to two bidders at the $88 million mark and a one-on-one battle ensued. The final bid was hammered down at 7.32 p.m. at $95 million."

The buyer's premium -- the additional fee paid to the auction house -- took the price of the painting to $106.5 million.

"Nude, Green Leaves and Bust," or "Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur," is from the collection of Los Angeles philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody, who died last November and was the wife of the real estate developer Sidney F. Brody. The collection, amassed primarily during the 1940s and 1950s, had been in the family's home since.

Experts had referred to the 1932 work as "lost" because it had never been published in color. It shows Picasso's muse and mistress, Marie-Therese Walter.

The previous highest price for a work at auction was $104,327,006 paid for "L'Homme Qui Marche I, bronze" (Walking Man 1), 1960, by Alberto Giacometti. It sold during an auction at Sotheby's to an anonymous telephone bidder in February, 2010.

The previous high for a Picasso was $104,168,000 for "Garcon a la Pipe" ("Boy with Pipe"), 1905, in May 2004.

Those who missed a chance to bid on the Picasso can bid on its prior owners' 2.27-acre estate in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. The 11,500-square-foot, five-bedroom, four-staff bedroom house was built in 1950 and is listed at $24.95 million, according to Coldwell Banker Previews International.

SOURCE: CNN

Apollo Theater Exhibit | The Smithsonian | Washington, DC

Washington, DC - Michael Jackson's fedora, Ella Fitzgerald's yellow dress and Louis Armstrong's trumpet are together in a Smithsonian exhibit celebrating the famed Apollo Theater that helped these stars to shine. The not-yet-built National Museum of African American History and Culture is bringing New York's Harlem to the nation's capital with the first-ever exhibit focused on the Apollo, where many musical careers were launched. It opens Friday at the National Museum of American History. About 100 items are on view, representing big names from entertainment today and from decades past.

"When I was growing up, the Apollo was for us our Radio City Music Hall — it was the theater to play in our community," said singer and actress Leslie Uggams, 66, who toured the exhibit Tuesday. "From the time I was 9 until about 16, I played the Apollo with some of the great, great stars — Ella (Fitzgerald), Diana (Ross), you name them."

The theater opened originally as a segregated, white burlesque hall in 1914. It was renamed the Apollo in 1928 and was early to integrate as black people migrated to Harlem, making it an African American cultural and political center. It was one of the first places where black performers could speak directly to white audiences, curator Tuliza Fleming said.

To continue reading, click HERE.

Source: AKN

SCION MAGAZINE 15 | Robert Berman

Scion Magazine 15: Robert Berman from Scion ART on Vimeo.

Source: Lucy Beer @ Elemental Consulting

NEW ARRIVAL: Abstract Expressionists | United States Postal Service

U.S. Postal Service Honors Abstract Expressionists

Ten Revolutionary Works of Art Make Debut as Postage Stamps

BUFFALO, NY — The U.S. Postal Service today honored the artistic innovations and achievements of a group of artists who moved the United States to the forefront of the international art scene with the release of the Abstract Expressionists commemorative postage stamps. The vibrant stamps feature works by Hans Hoffmann, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Joan Mitchell.

“These bold artists used art to express complicated ideas and primitive emotions in simplified, abstract form,” said Linda Kingsley, USPS senior vice president, Strategy and Transition. “Although these stamps can’t compare in size to their real-life canvases, they bring the passion and spirit of abstract expressionism to an envelope near you. The Postal Service is proud to pay tribute to the legacy and unique perspectives of these revolutionary artists.”

Abstract expressionists believed that art no longer depicted experience but became the experience itself. They emphasized spontaneous, free expression and allowed personal intuition and the unconscious to guide their choice of imagery. Other shared traits include the use of large canvases and an emphasis on paint texture and distinctive brushstrokes.

"The abstract expressionists began one of the most important art movements in the last century, placing New York and American art at the very center of the art world for the first time,” noted Louis Grachos, director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY, home of four of the works featured on the stamps. “The Albright-Knox Art Gallery was one of the first museums to begin collecting abstract expressionist paintings, and we are very proud that work from our collection was chosen by the Postal Service as some of the finest examples of the period.”

One of the most influential art teachers of the 20th century, Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) pioneered a method of improvisational painting that helped shape the development of abstract art after World War II. The Golden Wall (1961) features his trademark “push and pull” technique: geometric shapes that animate the canvas by seeming to shift and overlap.

Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974) created a uniquely American blend of inspiration from late medieval and early Italian Renaissance masters, European cubism, and the freely expressive line of surrealism in his innovative “Pictographs” of the 1940s. Romanesque Façade (1949) brings together his aspiration to be intuitively understandable to everyone and to convey a universal emotional reality.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970) is best known for his monumental paintings of two or more rectangles floated within a field of color. Orange and Yellow (1956) features two rectangles painted in the vibrant tones that Rothko favored. Far from static, the rectangles seem to stretch and contract, while translucent, luminous colors bring them to life.

Influencing much of the American abstract art that followed, Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) developed an original style that combined cubism and surrealism with his own disguised imagery. The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb (1944) — one of his largest and greatest pictures — uses abstract forms to camouflage a deeply personal portrait of his family at home.

Clyfford Still (1904-1980) painted ponderous, abstract canvases to convey universal themes about the human condition. 1948-C (1948) illustrates his signature style of richly textured surfaces, expressive lines and shapes, and sublime color in an expansive field. Still kept tight control of his work, much of which has never been seen.

Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) transformed the traditions of European art to create his own energetic and unconstrained style. While much of his work was entirely abstract, de Kooning’s best-known paintings blend abstraction and figural representation. Skittering black lines, shifting shapes, fragmented body parts, and flashes of color fill the surface of his 1948 work Asheville.

Barnett Newman (1905-1970) created deceptively simple works often characterized by large, even expanses of a single color punctuated by one or more vertical lines, which he called “zips.” One of several works based on ancient Greek mythology, Achilles (1952) does not feature a zip but rather a swath of red paint that moves down the canvas to end in a ragged edge.

Best known for his poured paintings, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) created spontaneously painted works that marked a break with artistic tradition. For Convergence (1952), he laid blue and white clouds and loops of red and yellow atop a black-and-white base. The expressive color and drawing are so fresh that the paint still looks wet.

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) viewed literature and philosophy as integral components of his art. He is best known for the “Elegy to the Spanish Republic” series, an ambitious group of somber abstract paintings. Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34 (1953-1954) features black bars and ovals and vertical white stripes that partly obscure colors that refer to the flag of the Spanish Republic.

Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) created expansive paintings with an energetic style distinguished by large gestural strokes, driving brushwork, and emotional intensity. She is perhaps best known for her ability to communicate the visual sentiments of nature — or, in her own words, “to convey the feeling of the dying sunflower.” La Grande Vallée 0 (1983) is one of 21 opulent French landscapes.

How to Order the First-Day-of-Issue Postmark

Customers have 60 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at their local Post Office™ facility, at The Postal Store website at usps.com/shop, or by calling
800-STAMP-24. They should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes (to themselves or others), and place them in a larger envelope addressed to:

Abstract Expressionists Stamp
c/o Postmaster
1200 William Street
Buffalo, NY 14240-9998

After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark. All orders must be postmarked by May 12, 2010.

How to Order First-Day Covers

Stamp Fulfillment Services also offers first-day covers for new stamp issues and Postal Service stationery items postmarked with the official first-day-of-issue cancellation. Each item has an individual catalog number and is offered in the quarterly USA Philatelic Catalog. Customers may request a free catalog by calling
800-STAMP-24 or writing to:

Information Fulfillment
Dept. 6270
U.S. Postal Service
PO Box 219014
Kansas City, MO 64121-9014

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

# # #

SOURCE

MOCA | 30 Works for 30 Years | Fred Tomaselli "Hang Over" (2005)

Fred Tomaselli creates collaged paintings from culled photographic reproductions and objects that he arranges on top of black grounds in kaleidoscopic compositions. Working on the floor, he organizes a work’s pictorial elements on a painted ground that he overlays with multiple thin coats of glossy clear resin, embedding them within the picture plane. Hang Over comprises hundreds of tiny leaves, pills, and images arranged in intricate patterns to depict the bucolic scene of a tree amid colorful flowers and tall grass. However, the work’s dense black background, as well as the dismembered hands and pills strewn about the tree branches like garlands, lend this seemingly utopian landscape an edgy quality, as if the setting for a dark fairytale.

Fred Tomaselli (b. 1956, Santa Monica, California; lives and works in New York)
Hang Over, 2005
Leaves, pills, acrylic, and resin on wood panel
84 x 120 in.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchased with funds provided by the Acquisition and Collection Committee

SOURCE