Crystal Bridges Announces Works by Female Artists

BENTONVILLE, ARK.- Works by female artists – a mid-19th century portrait by Susan Catherine Moore Waters (1823 – 1900) and a life-size recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper in 20,763 spools of thread by contemporary artist Devorah Sperber – are the latest works of art announced by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Though strikingly different in materials, style, subject matter and execution, both works are the product of highly creative women working in unexpected arenas or applying unusual [...]

120,000 Enchanting Singing Bird Musical Box for Sale at Bonhams

LONDON.- The only surviving privately owned example of a Victorian ‘Lion’ treadle lock-stitch sewing machine is for sale at Bonhams Fine Mechanical Music and Scientific Instruments auction at Knightsbridge on Wednesday 21 April. This dramatic looking machine was made in 1868 for the American market by Kimball and Morton, a Glasgow based manufacturer. In the shape of a noble but friendly looking lion the machine has all its original parts and is so well preserved that it could easily be [...]

First Solo Exhibition in a UK Public Gallery for Angela de la Cruz Opens at Camden Arts Centre

LONDON.- London-based artist Angela de la Cruz presents new and existing work in her first solo exhibition in a UK public gallery. Situated in-between painting and sculpture, de la Cruz’s works hide in corners, bully each other and fall from the wall as they fight against the physical constraints of gallery spaces. Angela de la Cruz’s practice stems from a feeling of exhaustion with painting as a medium and from a desire to escape the illusion of the picture-plane. “My [...]

Masterpieces by the Scottish Colourists to Lead Sotheby’s London Sale

LONDON.- On Thursday, 22 April 2010, the first of Sotheby’s biannual London sales of Scottish Pictures in 2010 will include a group of important works by the Scottish Colourists that unequivocally demonstrates the pivotal position occupied by these artists in the formative years of British modernism during the early decades of the twentieth century. The group comprises Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935), Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937), George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) and John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961), and following extended sojourns in [...]

Princess Diana’s Family Offers Painting by Peter Paul Rubens in $30 million Sale at Christie’s

LONDON.- The family of Princess Diana will auction a painting by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens as part of a clearout sale valued at $30 million designed to ensure the financial future of the Althorp estate. Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, is head of the estate, and plans to marry for a third time later this year, according to newspaper reports. Diana, who was married to heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997. The highlights [...]

Seven New Oil Paintings by Malcolm Morley at Xavier Hufkens

BRUSSELS.- Xavier Hufkens presents a new exhibition of Malcolm Morley. It comprises seven new oil paintings made by the artist in 2008 and 2009. On view in these paintings are Morley’s signature subjects, ships and old airplanes. The artist bases his work on models and found or remembered images that he paints to dramatic effect in unnatural colours. His objective is to achieve a rhythm, abstraction, the expressive power of the canvases or to be more precise, the way in [...]

“Herbert G. Ponting: The Conquest of the South Pole” at Flo Peters Gallery

HAMBURG.- With the exhibition Herbert G. Ponting: The Conquest of the South Pole the Flo Peters Gallery presents photographs of historic significance and incomparable suspense. In 1910 Captain Robert Falcon Scott set sail under the British Flag aboard the research ship Terra Nova aiming to be the first man to conquest the South Pole. Also part of the crew was a photographer and cameraman by the name of Herbert G. Ponting. With his photographs of the expedition and its participants [...]

Hirshhorn to Present First Yves Klein Retrospective in 30 Years

WASHINGTON, DC.- One of the 20th century’s most influential artists, Yves Klein (French, b. Nice, 1928; d. Paris, 1962), took the European art scene by storm in a prolific but brief career that lasted only from 1954 to 1962. “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers,” on view at the Hirshhorn May 20 through Sept. 12, is the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in the United States since 1982. Co-curated by the Hirshhorn’s deputy director and chief curator [...]

New Book Shows Explosions, Fires, and Public Order by Sarah Pickering

NEW YORK, NY.- Sarah Pickering’s “Explosions, Fires, and Public Order”, (Aperture, April 2010) is a visually arresting glimpse into the secret world of civil defense. Combining four series, the book begins with Public Order, a project exploring the Metropolitan Police Public Order Training Centre, a simulated urban environment near London where officers rehearse responses to imagined scenarios of civic unrest. Next, the Explosions series documents the tactical use of controlled explosions by the British military to add realistic stress to [...]

Door to Afterlife from Ancient Egyptian Tomb Found by Archaeologists

CAIRO.- Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said Monday. These recessed niches found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld. The nearly six-foot- tall (1.75 meters) slab of pink granite was covered with religious texts. The door came from the tomb of User, the chief minister of [...]

New Work from Contemporary Chinese Artists Lu Chunsheng and Jia Aili at Iniva

LONDON.- Iniva presents new work by two contemporary Chinese artists at Rivington Place, with the European premiere of a film by Lu Chunsheng who showed in the Serpentine Gallery’s exhibition of contemporary Chinese art at Battersea Power Station. This is also the first solo exhibition in Europe, “Make Believe…”, by emerging artist Jia Aili. Both artists reflect on industrial progress, social corrosion and the individual’s struggle in the machine age. Lu Chunsheng’s film, “The first man who bought a juicer [...]

The Cars’ Ric Ocasek Exhibits in NY for the First Time at Cinders Gallery

BROOKLYN, NY.- “Teahead Scraps” marks Ric Ocasek’s first art exhibition in New York and features never before seen drawings selected from a body of work that spans the last 30 years. Like the music of his beloved rock band “The Cars”, his drawings are unabashedly pop- and yet unlike his music’s super sleek veneer, these works are a bit more raw and unedited, revealing meditative moments of a Zen-like drawing practice. Never intended for public view, these works on paper [...]

Photographer Cuny Janssen Presents Latest Project at Foam

AMSTERDAM.- Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam presents the latest project by photographer Cuny Janssen, entitled “My Grandma Was A Turtle”. This refers to the Turtle clan of the matriarchal Delaware tribe of Native Americans in Oklahoma. In 2008, Janssen visited the village of Bartlesville in Oklahoma to photograph children of Native American ancestry and their surroundings. She was curious to see whether there was anything about their origins to be seen in today’s Native American children. Her photos of people and her landscape [...]

Leang Seckon’s First European Solo Exhibition Opens at Rossi & Rossi

LONDON.- Rossi & Rossi present Leang Seckon in the artist’s first European solo exhibition. Among the foremost members of the emerging Cambodian contemporary art scene he was born at the onset of the American bombings of Indochina and grew up during the rise of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. As a result of these tumultuous years he was left without a birth certificate and unable to verify his exact age. In this exhibition the artist will present some twenty paintings [...]

Exhibition Explores Authority, Learning, and Categorization

ATLANTA, GA.- The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center is showing “Substitute Teacher”, an exhibition co-curated by Regine Basha and Stuart Horodner, which includes twenty emerging and established artists whose works act as an alternative syllabus for art-life learning. The participating artists are Lisa Anne Auerbach, Daniel Bozhkov, Luis Camnitzer, Brody Condon, Brian Dettmer, Andrea Fraser, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Nina Katchadourian, Glenn Ligon, Larry Miller, Jenny Perlin, Walid Raad/The Atlas Group, Pedro Reyes, Danielle Roney, Jay Rosenblatt, Mira Schor, Michael Smith, Joe [...]