Racine Art Museum Showcases Ornamented Vessels by Wisconsin Metalsmith

RACINE, WIS.- The Racine Art Museum commissioned metalsmith and UW-Madison Department of Art Assistant Professor Kim Cridler to create a new exhibition for its Windows on Fifth Gallery. This summer, the museum encourages visitors to embrace adventure, explore new destinations, connect to local culture and uncover cultural influences – all through art. Open July 31, 2011 through July 22, 2012, My Wisconsin Home, Cridler links object making to an examination of place. As she states, “this project and the investigative process at [...]

PowerHouse Books Publishes Age of Silver by American Photographer John Loengard

NEW YORK, NY.- Age of Silver is iconic American photographer John Loengard’s ode to the art form to which he dedicated his life. Loengard, a longtime staff photographer and editor for LIFE magazine and other publications, spent years documenting modern life for the benefit of the American public. Over the years he trained his camera on dignitaries, artists, athletes, intellectuals, blue and whitecollar workers, urban and natural landscapes, man-made objects, and people of all types engaged in the act of living. 1981, [...]

As Curator Paula Rego Sees the Sadness in “Naked Girl with Egg” Painting by Lucian Freud

PORTO.- ”Naked Girl with Egg” by Lucian Freud is on the centre stage of My Choice, an exhibition founded on the now known and tried concept of the artist-curator, with Paula Rego. Mostly comprised of drawings and etchings, but also photography and painting, the 87 works mirror their creators’ identity. Always individualized, each work seems to have been observed and selected as a unique piece, her selection being unconcerned with the building of a body of related works. What unites each [...]

Metropolitan Museum Highlights Frans Hals Paintings from Collection in Exhibition

NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds the most important collection of paintings in America by the celebrated Dutch artist Frans Hals (1582/83-1666), whose portraits and genre scenes were famous in his lifetime for their immediacy and dazzling brushwork. Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum—on view from July 26, through October 10, 2011—presents 13 paintings by Hals, including two lent from private collections, and several works by other Netherlandish masters. Frans Hals is one of the most familiar and accessible [...]

Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh Designed by LA-Based Brooks + Scarpa Opens

RALEIGH, NC.- Brooks Scarpa’s Contemporary Art Museum officially opened with a catered street festival and black tie event. The project was a result of the collaboration between local firm Clearscapes and LA-based Brooks + Scarpa. Originally a 1927 grocery supply warehouse, a railroad spur (still visible today) runs from the area around the Amtrak station to the structure where groceries were once unloaded. It later served various industrial functions, one of the most recent being a chrome bumper repair shop. Located [...]

Sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld Awarded an Honorary OBE

LONDON.- Internationally acclaimed sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld has been presented an honorary OBE for her outstanding contribution to art. She was presented her OBE by Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt, MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport at a private ceremony. Blumenfeld is one of the few non-British artists ever to have been honoured in this way. Honorary OBE’s are awarded to non-British subjects, and over the decades, only a relatively small number have been presented. Luminaries such as Pierce [...]

Nasser D Khalili’s Sons Open a New Concept Gallery on Mayfair’s Mount Street

LONDON.- A new concept gallery located on London’s fashionable Mount Street brings together an eclectic mix of the rare, the beautiful and the unique – crossing the boundaries between all art forms including fine art, design, sculpture, photography and jewellery, displaying contemporary as well as antique masterpieces. Shizaru embodies an unprecedented retail philosophy, blurring the boundaries between gallery and museum. It has been designed as an interactive space to satisfy creative curiosity and an appreciation of the aesthetic; a forum for [...]

21st Edition of Braga Photo Festival to Offer New Visions on Social Documentary Photography

BRAGA.- The “Encontros da Imagem” (Image Meetings), the oldest photo festival of the Iberian Peninsula is back in 2011 under the theme “New Visions on Social Documentary Photography”. From September 16th until the end of October 13 exhibitions will be shown at historical, cultural and modern spaces of Braga, Portugal, in an event that also includes a 7500 Euros prize for the best portfolio presented to an international jury. The current crisis in Portugal and the transformations of Eastern Europe after [...]

High Altitude: A Festival of Contemporary Mountain Photography in Switzerland

ROSSINIERE.- The mountain has been conducive to the affirmation of identities in Switzerland and elsewhere around the world. This theme has continued to fascinate artists since tours in the Alps by the painter Caspar Wolf in the 18th century. The mountainous landscape attracted the first generation of photographers in the 19th century, who managed to quickly produce extraordinary images. At the beginning of the 21st century, the mountain suddenly shows certain fragility as humans begin to infiltrate its environment. What remains [...]

Striking New “Road to 2012″ Exhibition Opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London

LONDON.- Striking new photographs of Taekwondo world number one Aaron Cook doing a flying side-kick outside his Manchester home; champion swimmer Eleanor Simmonds about to start a training session and former champion, now Director of Paralympic Integration, Chris Holmes relaxing in the water, were revealed today. The portraits were taken by Finlay MacKay and Emma Hardy, announced as the latest photographers to be commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery/BT Road to 2012 Project as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Their work [...]

Gérard Seghers: Between Mannerism and Caravagism at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

VALENCIENNES.- Gérard Seghers (on 1591 – 1651), painter of Antwerpen by big religious paintings, was subordinated for such a long time by the history to his illustrious contemporary Pierre-Paul Rubens (on 1577 – 1640). We can find tracks of the rubenian art in the painting of Seghers but no more than at the other antwerpers painters of the same generation The art of Gérard Seghers thinks in the other problems. The title of this exhibition shows well the questioning lifted by [...]

Paris Photo 2011 Takes African Photography as Its Special Theme for This Year’s Edition

PARIS.- Held this year from 10 to 13 November, Paris Photo celebrates its 15th anniversary by moving to a new location, the Nave of the Grand Palais, a spectacular venue like no other in the French capital for presenting works by photographic artists, thus marking a major turning point for this important international event. Paris Photo 2011 takes African photography as its special theme, paying tribute to the rich breadth and diversity of work produced by the continent’s creative talent in this field, [...]

Philadelphia Museum Announces the Acquisition of Major Work by Daniel Garber

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Philadelphia Museum of Art has acquired Tanis, one of the best-known paintings by Daniel Garber (American, 1880-1958), a leading Pennsylvania Impressionist and one of the most significant artists working in Philadelphia in the first several decades of the 20th century. This extraordinary work depicts the artist’s eight-year-old daughter standing in the doorway of Garber’s studio at his farm in Cuttalossa Glen near New Hope in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Painted in 1915, it was awarded a prize when first exhibited [...]

Major Collection of Frederick Kiesler Drawings and Sculptures Donated to Philadelphia Museum

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- A major collection of 31 drawings and two sculptures by the architect, artist, designer, poet, and philosopher Frederick Kiesler (American, born Austria-Prussia 1890–1965) has been donated to the Museum by Ronnie L. and John E. Shore, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Shore were inspired to make this gift by the close connection of Kiesler to Marcel Duchamp (American, born France, 1887-1968), whose work is so well represented in the collection of thePhiladelphia Museum of Art. Ranging in date [...]

Peter Fischli and David Weiss Arrange Sculpture Exhibition at Gallery Eva Presenhuber

ZURICH.- Gallery Eva Presenhuber is showing the group exhibition «Sculpture Now» presenting new works of 27 artists of the gallery. The art works in the exhibition have been arranged by the artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss. Doug Aitken Doug Aitken’s «NOW» offers a fascinating combination of image and text. The word’s meaning is illustrated by the image of the three letters thrown back at the viewer by their mirrored surfaces. This interplay of word and image evokes a reflection in the [...]