News
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10/07/2011
Takashi Murakami will have his first solo exhibition in the Middle East as part of a series of exhibitions devoted to building bridges between cultures.
from ARTINFO: "The exhibition, to be held from February 9 to June 24, will be the Japanese artist's first solo show in the Middle East. Curated by New Museum darling Massimiliano Gioni, the show promises to "immerse visitors in a fantasy world... capturing the way Murakami channels the ecstasy and anxiety of contemporary culture." It will feature more than 60 works made from 1997 to the present, including several new works created specifically for the show."
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10/07/2011
The exhibition for SECA Art Award recipients Mauricio Ancalmo, Colter Jacobsen, Ruth Laskey, and Kamau Amu Patton opens at SFMOMA on December 9, 2011, and will remain on view through April 3, 2012.
from the SFMOMA press release: "Though chosen for individual conviction in their work rather than thematic overlap, this year's SECA artists share some affinities. The current SECA award exhibition, titled 2010 SECA Art Award: Mauricio Ancalmo, Colter Jacobsen, Ruth Laskey, Kamau Amu Patton, will showcase four artists whose innovative works, while diverse in form and subject matter, reflect similar approaches in terms of conceptual rigor and skillful execution."
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10/06/2011
Cern, the European physics laboratory that operates the world’s largest particle accelerator, has unveiled plans to offer a series of artists' residencies.
from The Art Newspaper: "As part of its new policy for engaging with the arts, Great Arts for Great Science, Cern has initiated a three-month residency programme over three years called Collide@CERN, inviting artists to its laboratory near Geneva where they will be mentored by leading scientists and given a stipend of €10,000."
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10/05/2011
An expensive new arts center in Aviles, Spain, designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, has abruptly closed its doors six months after opening.
from The Guardian: "The Niemeyer centre, which was designed by the celebrated 103-year-old Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, was intended to have the same impact on the industrial Cantabrian sea port as the Guggenheim museum has had on Bilbao, 150 miles to the east. As Spain tries to digest the museums and arts centres designed by world-famous architects during the boom years of public investment in culture of the past two decades, a new regional government has forced the centre to shut its doors for at least the next two months."
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10/05/2011
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is partnering with the Motion Picure Academy to establish a new movie museum.
from the Los Angeles Times: "Los Angeles has museums dedicated to art, science, automobiles and even the Grammy Awards. But the city known as the epicenter of the move industry has always lacked a large-scale museum dedicated to the art of filmmaking. Now that absence is poised to be filled thanks to a new partnership announced late Tuesday between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences."
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10/04/2011
On Monday, Obama proclaimed October as National Arts and Humanities Month.
from the Los Angeles Times: "As the 2012 election season nears, political pundits of various persuasions have lately been noting the strong populist streak emerging in President Obama's recent public presentations. Now, add Monday's White House proclamation naming October as National Arts and Humanities Month...The choice of [Norman] Rockwell, America's favorite homespun illustrator, is a long way from the modern and contemporary art that the Obamas chose to hang in the White House in 2009."
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10/03/2011
Downtown Los Angeles was transformed into a set for political theater over the weekend, with protesters pitching tents in front of City Hall and performance artists dancing on floats meandering through the streets.
from the Los Angeles Times: "Inspired by the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, several hundred people set up camp in front of Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday and announced that they were there to stay...As protesters were staking out City Hall, the streets of downtown were taken over Sunday afternoon by a cacophonous parade of artists and activists expressing similar sentiments but organized separately."
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10/03/2011
After years of criticism, "Tracing the Fore," a $135,000 stainless-steel sculpture installed by the city of Portland, Maine, in 2006, has been removed.
from the New York Times: "'Tracing the Fore' was removed last week, pulled from the ground by a big yellow excavator as passers-by cheered and complimented members of the removal crew on their efforts...After a series of votes and deacquisition hearings over the last year, the sculpture was gone by Wednesday, sold for $100 to a local collector who planned to install it privately. The collector also paid about $9,000 to have it removed."
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09/30/2011
The Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) today announced twenty-seven recipients in the eighth round of funding for Media and Performing Arts under its Investing in Artists grants program, which is designed to build the personal and creative capacity of California's artists working in all disciplines.
from the press release: "The Investing in Artists grants program was established by the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) in 2007 to enhance the working lives and strengthen the creative support system for California artists working in all disciplines. Following an initial three rounds of funding made to 54 artists in 2007 and 2008, CCI has continued the grants program from 2009-2011 with support from The James Irvine Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation."
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09/30/2011
New research suggests that prehistoric cave etchings in the Cave of a Hundred Mammoths in Rouffignac, France, are the work of children as young as three.
from the BBC: "It is thought the most prolific was a girl aged five. The artists ran their hands down the cave's soft surfaces. 'Flutings made by children appear in every chamber throughout the caves,' said archaeologist Jess Cooney, who has pioneered the research in conjunction with Dr Leslie Van Gelder of Walden University in the US."
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09/29/2011
The Museum of Modern Art has announced its plans to acquire “The Clock,” the 24-hour-long film by artist Christian Marclay.
from ARTINFO: "MoMA is just about the last major art museum to jump on the “Clock” bandwagon. “The Clock,” already considered a masterpiece of computer-age art-making, consists of footage appropriated from iconic movies in which clocks are shown, or the time referenced. Together, the cut-together clips show one full day of movie time."
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09/28/2011
The wife of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has urged lawmakers to reject draft legislation that would cement in law police powers to hold dissidents in secret locations without telling their families.
from Reuters: "Human rights advocates have decried China's proposed amendments to its Criminal Procedure Code that could embolden authorities to go further with the kind of shadowy detentions, which have swept up human rights lawyers and veteran protesters earlier this year. 'If the above measures are passed, it will be a regression for China's legal system, the deterioration of human rights, and will be a hindrance to the progress of our civilization,' Lu Qing wrote in a letter to the legislative working committee of the National People's Congress, a copy of which was posted on Ai's Google Plus account."
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09/27/2011
The "Centre Pompidou Mobile," a nomadic version of Paris's celebrated museum of modern and contemporary art, is soon to hit the road.
from ARTINFO: "Designed by Patrick Bouchain, the large portable structure will display highlights of the permanent collection. Next month, the Centre Pompidou Mobile will spend three months in Chaumont (Haute-Marne), before moving to Cambrai and Boulogne-sur-Mer in 2012." The Centre Pompidou Mobile is intended to bring art to areas of France with little access to cultural institutions.
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09/27/2011
Bob Dylan, whose reliance on a variety of sources has raised questions of attribution in the past, is once again stirring debate — this time over an exhibition of his paintings at the Gagosian Gallery.
from the New York Times: "Since the exhibition opened on Sept. 20, some fans and Dylanologists have raised questions about whether some of these paintings are based on the singer’s own experiences and observations, or on photographs that are widely available and were not taken by Mr. Dylan...A wide-ranging discussion at the Bob Dylan fan Web site Expecting Rain has pointed out similarities between several works in “The Asia Series” and existing or even well-known photographs–for example between a painting by Mr. Dylan depicting two men and an Henri Cartier-Bresson photograph of a eunuch who served in the court of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi."
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09/26/2011
An exhibit of controversial drawings and paintings by Palestinian children was shown in a downtown Oakland museum's courtyard Saturday, after the Museum of Children's Art canceled the display three weeks ago.
from the Mercury News: "After criticism from exhibit founder Middle East Children's Alliance, the museum made a late offer Friday to reschedule the event at a later time, but the organizers said they had already found their own space. The Berkeley children's group presented about 50 pieces of artwork, drawn by Palestinian children ages 6 to 14, from the "A Child's View From Gaza" show...The artwork will be displayed in an unnamed space at 917 Washington St., a minute's walk from the children's museum, until Nov. 13."
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09/23/2011
The United States National Slavery Museum, an organization founded by the former Virginia governor Douglas L. Wilder, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
from the New York Times: "the museum indicated in its bankruptcy filing that it had $3 million in unsecured debts. Among its unpaid bills is one for more than $215,000 in property taxes owed on the 38-acre parcel where the museum was to have opened several years ago. Since then, the proposed museum’s director has departed, its board has stopped meeting and some people who gave artifacts to the museum have asked for their return."
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09/23/2011
The J. Paul Getty Museum said Thursday that it will return two ancient artifacts to Greece as part of a new agreement with the country's ministry of culture.
from the Los Angeles Times: "The objects in question are fragments of a grave marker and a Greek language inscription, both acquired in the 1970s, according to the Getty. The museum said the grave-marker fragments have never gone on display in L.A. and that they are part of a larger work depicting female forms that dates from the 5th century BC...As part of Thursday's agreement, the Getty and the ministry of culture are planning cultural exchanges of scientists and scholars in the fields of archaeology, conservation, art history and other fields."
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09/22/2011
The American Folk Art Museum on Wednesday evening will continue operating at its current location at Lincoln Square in Manhattan instead of dissolving.
from the New York Times: "At its board meeting on Wednesday, the trustees of the museum, which had considered closing and transferring its collection to the Smithsonian Institution, created a strategy to increase its visibility and to extend its brand instead. In addition, the museum will try to expand its loans to other New York City museums and to mount traveling exhibitions."
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09/21/2011
Lucian Freud's final work – an enormous and unfinished nude portrait of his assistant and close friend, David Dawson, with Dawson's whippet, Eli – will be shown for the first time next year.
from The Guardian: "The National Portrait Gallery on Tuesday revealed details of what will be a blockbuster, with more than 100 works filling most of the ground floor gallery space. The exhibition, the first major show to focus on Freud's portrait work, had been planned in close partnership with the artist, who died aged 88 in July. His final work was, said curator Sarah Howgate, "a commanding and affectionate" portrait of a man who had been the artist's assistant for 20 years."
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09/20/2011
Teresita Fernández has been appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts, the federal panel that advises the President, congress, and governmental agencies on national matters of design and aesthetic.
from Artforum: "Fernández, a 2005 MacArthur Foundation fellow best known for her public sculptures, lives and works in New York and is represented by Lehmann Maupin Gallery. As a member of the arts panel, Fernández will take part in approving the site and design of national memorials and museums, advising the U.S. Mint on the design of coins and medals, and administering the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs program. She is one of seven commissioners appointed by the President, each who will serve four-year terms."
