Women’s History Month Exhibit Opens at New York State Museum

ALBANY, NY.- In celebration of Women’s History Month, the New York State Museum will open a small exhibition March 1 featuring artifacts and images from the woman’s suffrage movement of the early 20th century. “Women Who Rocked the Vote” will be open through March in the Museum’s front lobby window. The exhibition chronicles the history of the suffrage movement, which was officially launched when Elizabeth Cady Stanton added the demand for equal suffrage to the Declaration of Sentiments at the [...]

Even Robots Get the Blues: Photos by Markku Lahdesmaki

If you believe many of the fictional works depicting robots gaining sentience, someday these hunks of metal and wiring will begin to take over our world, eventually seeking to wipe out human civilization altogether. But could it be that they’ll just become an ordinary part of our world, going through the mundane motions of daily existence? Photographer Markku Lahdesmaki imagines rather retro-looking robots in sometimes humorous, sometimes melancholy situations partaking in human activities like talking on a payphone, doing laundry [...]

Painted Alive: Boldly Brilliant Body Paintings

Craig Tracy is dedicated to creating surreal moments in time. Without the use of digital manipulation or photographic tricks, he creates dazzling body painting compositions that have elevated this particular type of artistic expression into the realm of fine art. He recently opened a gallery in New Orleans: the first gallery in the world dedicated to fine art body painting images. Although he’s been an artist his whole life, it took Craig Tracy a number of years to truly find [...]

Sales at ARCOmadrid Point to the Beginning of a Recovery in the Art Market

MADRID.- ARCOmadrid_ 2010, the International Contemporary Art Fair, closed its doors on 21st February with positive results well above initial forecasts. At a press conference held to take stock of the fair, the Chairman of IFEMA Executive Committee, Luis Eduardo Cortés, stated that “galleries have done better than expected,” and that “Spanish and international collectors have demonstrated their ongoing commitment with art.” Thus, ARCOmadrid would seem to confirm the beginning of a recovery in the art market that had been [...]

Two for the Price of One! Collaborative Work Exhibited by Colnaghi at TEFAF

LONDON.- One of the highlights of the works being exhibited by Bernheimer-Colnaghi on their Stand No. 306 at TEFAF, 12 to 21 March 2010, will be the collaborative painting by Joos de Momper the Younger (1564-1635) and Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), entitled Spring: a landscape with elegant company on a tree-lined road, with an asking price of around €3 million. These two major artists worked together on more than eighty paintings over a period of almost thirty years, a [...]

Exhibition of Rembrandt Etchings at the Memorial Art Gallery

ROCHESTER, NY.- An exhibition of 39 rare etchings by 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn opens February 26 at the Memorial Art Gallery. The works are on loan from Baltimore cardiologist Dr. Morton Mower and his wife, Tobia Mower, whose fascination with Rembrandt’s innovative techniques and mastery of printmaking led to the formation of an extraordinary private collection. The selection explore the versatility of Rembrandt’s style as well as the breadth of his subjects, which range from scenes of daily [...]

Alex Katz Paints First Portrait of Anna Wintour-On View at Portrait Gallery in May

LONDON.- A new portrait of Anna Wintour, Editor in Chief of American VOGUE, by artist Alex Katz will be on display for the first time at the National Portrait Gallery in May 2010. The new portrait of Wintour will be accompanied by the display “Alex Katz: Portraits” from 15 May – 21 September 2010. One of the most significant artists of his generation, this will also be the first time that there has been a display at the Gallery dedicated [...]

Artist Community Makes Bid to Save the Earth at Christie’s

NEW YORK, NY.- Art and nature are unique in their power to elevate the human spirit. It should be no surprise that many of the world’s leading artists are making ‘A Bid to Save the Earth,’ by contributing works to the Green Auction, which will be held at Christie’s New York on April 22nd, 2010. In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Christie’s, the world’s leading art business, is convening an unprecedented group of major figures from the [...]

New Presentation of the Museum’s Permanent Collection at K 21

DUSSELDORF.- The foundation of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is an art collection of the highest conceivable quality. Preceding the reinstallation of the collection in July 2010 in an area measuring more than 10,000 m² is a singular presentation in the Ständehaus of K21, one that juxtaposes key works of classical modernism with central positions of contemporary art. The galleries accommodate a series of highly divergent works, and the results range from the lively dialogue, to the “quarrelsome duet”, to the intimate [...]

World’s Greatest Collection of Snuff Bottles Shows Emperor’s Personal Taste

LONDON.- Bonhams will sell 140 snuff bottles from the unique Bloch Collection in Hong Kong on May 28th. This Collection is the World’s largest and finest in private hands, comprising 1720 exceptional examples of these Chinese ‘miniature masterworks’. The auction includes an Imperial enamel-on-copper snuff bottle personally commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor for his own use in the Forbidden City in Beijing. This stunning object is estimated to sell for £250,000 and is one of the finest and rarest examples [...]

Splendour and Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire Explored at Exhibition in Bonn

BONN.- Presenting more than 600 magnificent and historically meaningful exhibits and important artefacts from collections and archaeological excavations the exhibition shed light on many aspects of the history, archaeology and art of the Byzantine Empire. It will offer an overview of the “Byzantine Millenium” (from the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 324 A.D. to the conquest by the Ottomans in 1453), but will concentrate above all on the prospering of the Empire from the time of Justinian [...]

Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

BOSTON, MA.- In Italy during the Renaissance (around 1400 to 1600), an innovative form of sculpture was developed using fine clay that was shaped and modeled before being fired in a kiln. Called terracotta in Italian (meaning “baked earth”), this type of sculpture often has been overlooked by scholars in favor of the more commonly known Renaissance sculptures carved in marble or cast in bronze. “Modeling Devotion: Terracotta Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance”, a new scholarly exhibition at the Isabella [...]

Candice Breitz Presents Third Exhibition at White Cube

LONDON.- White Cube Hoxton Square presents ‘Factum’, an exhibition of new work by Candice Breitz, the artist’s third exhibition at the gallery. Shot in Toronto, Canada, ‘Factum’ is a series of in-depth video portraits of twins – and one set of triplets – that extends Breitz’s ongoing interest in doubling, portraiture and identity. Titled after Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Factum I’ and ‘II’ (1957) near-identical twin paintings, Breitz’s ‘Factum’ explores the modes of internal and external forces that drive individuation. Breitz has [...]

Annual Canadian Front Film Exhibition at MoMA Presents Eight New York Premieres

NEW YORK, NY.- The seventh edition of Canadian Front, MoMA’s annual survey of new Canadian cinema, includes the New York premieres of eight features made over the last 18 months. The exhibition is organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, in association with Telefilm Canada, and screens at The Museum of Modern Art from March 17 through 22, 2010. This year’s selection includes two comedies: from Montreal, Émile Gaudreault’s surprise hit Fathers and Guns (2009), and from Toronto, [...]

Solo Exhibition by Finnish Film and Video Artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila at Parasol Unit

LONDON.- Parasol unit presents a major solo exhibition by the renowned Finnish film and video artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila. It will include three important video installations never before seen in England. Ahtila is best known for works that concentrates on narratives in human life together with the relationships and primal emotions that underlie them. She describes her films as ‘human dramas’ because they play on the central themes of our existence, such as love, death, sexuality, the difficulty of communication, and [...]