The Beirut Sale: Official Auction Results Totals Close to $750,000 at Ayyam Auctions

BEIRUT.- On July 15, Ayyam Auctions held its ninth public sale, resulting in just under $750,000 in sales. Offering nearly 60 lots of contemporary Arab art, the 2011 Beirut Sale included a solid mix of painting, sculpture, photography and prints by established and emerging artists. With a strong focus on art from the Levant, attendees had the opportunity to bid on masterworks by such prominent artists as painter Samia Halaby, sculptor Nadim Karam and photographer Nassouh Zaghouleh. Works that were emblematic of their [...]

Never Before Seen Photos of the Beatles’ 1964 Visits to America to Be Sold at Christie’s

NEW YORK, NY.- On July 20, Christie’s will present The Beatles Illuminated: The Discovered Works of Mike Mitchell, a sale comprised of 50 lots of unpublished and never-before-seen photographs of the Beatles’ first hysteria-inducing visits to America in 1964. Shot in black and white by photographer Mike Mitchell when he was just 18 years old, the images have been filed away for nearly fifty years. The complete rediscovered collection is expected to realize in the region of $100,000. On February 11, 1964, just [...]

Leading Indian Modernists at Saffronart’s 24-Hour Auction ’99 Modern Paperworks’

MUMBAI.- Saffronart, the world’s largest online fine-art auction house, will showcase a significant selection of works on paper by 22 Modern Masters at its next 24-Hour Auction. The selection includes works by leading Indian artists Tyeb Mehta, V.S. Gaitonde, F.N. Souza, Nasreen Mohamedi, Arpita Singh, Jogen Chowdhury and more. The auction, which begins on July 20, 2011 at 8.00 pm (IST), will take place online at www.saffronart.com. The aesthetic quality of the lots in this auction, coupled with their competitive estimates, offers [...]

Black and White by Benoit Courti

Benoit Court is a french photographer author of these beautiful and deep shots.  

San Jose Museum of Art Presents “Ordinary Folks” by Photographer Bill Owens

SAN JOSE, CA.- “Ordinary folks doing ordinary things”—that is how photographer Bill Owens described his subjects. Like a visual anthropologist, Owens astutely recorded the customs, symbols, and social relationships that characterized American middle-class culture in the 1970s. Owens adopted an air of objectivity that recalls the New Topographics, a generation of photographers such as Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, and Joel Deal, who portrayed the built environment with detachment. The exhibition is on display from July 16, 2011 through February 5, 2012 [...]

DePaul Art Museum’s New Home to Open to the Public with Debut of “Re: Chicago” Exhibition

CHICAGO, IL.- The DePaul Art Museum’s new $7.8 million home at 935 W. Fullerton Ave., just east of the CTA’s Fullerton “L” stop, will debut with the Sept. 17 opening of “Re: Chicago.” The exhibition, which runs through February 2012, examines the careers and artistic reputations of Chicago artists over more than a century. Artworks in the exhibition were chosen by asking leading figures in the Chicago art world – from critics to scholars to collectors – to name a famous [...]

Pinacotheque de Paris Announces Alberto Giacometti and the Etruscans Exhibition

PARIS.- It is the most eventful exhibition of the fall, an exhibition that the specialists and art lovers of Giacometti, have been expecting for over fifty years. Giacometti’s attraction to the primitive figure was present very early on in the artist’s oeuvre. Etruscan art, which he first of all discovered in the Louvre, in the archeological department, where he went regularly, then during the exhibition on the Etruscans in 1955 in Paris, was, however, to produce in the artist a very [...]

Pre-Columbian Gold and Jade Jewelry to Be Displayed at the Fabergé Museum in Germany

BADEN-BADEN.- On July 16, the Fabergé Museum unveiled the latest edition to its collection, almost 100 very rare and exquisite treasures of the ancient peoples of Central America – the Aztecs, Incas, and Maya. These gold and jade jewelry items pre-date the arrival of Columbus in the Americas, and they are now open to the public for the first time ever. Audiences will certainly be enthralled by both their beauty and nearly one thousand-year history. The fabulous items once decorated royal courts, as [...]

Under the Radar is Lyons Wier Gallery’s Second Group Exhibition of the Summer Season

NEW YORK, NY.- As expressed by its title, Under the Radar features eight New York based artists who have yet to surface prominently on the art scene but whose talent will surely rise to the top. The select eight are: Tobias Batz, Aleksander Betko, Dina Brodsky, Maya Brodsky, Talia Segal Fidler, Cobi Moules, Aristides Ruiz, and Mitra Walter. Tobias Batz’ work, a fusion of fashion photography and street art, is a respectful celebration of the female sprit. It reflects the urban [...]

Company Organizes Murder-Mystery Scavenger Hunt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

NEW YORK (AP).- An assistant museum curator who questioned the authenticity of a Leonardo da Vinci has been murdered — but before he died he left a code in his appointment calendar and a cryptic trail of clues connected to secrets in works of art that point to the killer. Now, would-be gumshoes must figure out what drove one of four suspects to kill him. Was it greed? Fame? Lust? Or revenge? That’s the plot of Murder at the Met, a [...]

The Morgan NY Presents a Spectacular Installation by Xu Bing: The Living Word

NEW YORK, NY.- A reflection on language and the nature of writing has been at the core of Xu Bing’s art since the beginning of his career in China during the mid-1980s. It is therefore particularly fitting that the Morgan, a library as well as a museum, should present his spectacular installation, The Living Word, a poetic evocation of the relationship between the written word and its meaning. The exhibition will be on view through October 2, 2011. “In The Living Word,” [...]

Miami Art Museum Presents Brazilian Artist Rivane Neuenschwander’s First Mid-Career Survey

MIAMI, FLA.- The Miami Art Museum presents the first mid-career survey of the work of Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander (b. 1967, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) focusing on over ten years of innovative practice. Neuenschwander’s work, which includes painting, photography, film, sculpture, immersive installations and participatory actions, combines conceptual rigor, sensory appeal, poetic evocation and viewer interaction. Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other (July 17 through October 16, 2011) punctuates the elements that have led to her reputation as one of the most [...]

Pop and Punk Drawings by German Artist Marc Brandenburg at Hamburger Kunsthalle

HAMBURG.- The artist Marc Brandenburg (*1965 in Berlin) has recently emerged as one of the best-known draftsmen of his generation. Affected by the pop and punk culture, Brandenburg documents aggressions, excesses and social exclusions in his graphite drawings as a reality of today’s society. His works are images of a subversive nightlife, portraits or extremely zoomed-in details of ordinary objects. These images seem to be harmless but turn to become symbols of experienced violence and power. Velocity and movement are the [...]

Outstanding Masterworks by Major Pop Art Artists on Sale at Artnet Auctions

NEW YORK, NY.- Artnet Auctions presents “Masterworks by Pop Artists,” a selection of important Pop paintings, prints, and sculptures by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos, Tom Wesselmann, Robert Rauschenberg, and other top Pop artists. A highlight of the sale, an extremely rare Andy Warhol painting in brilliant tones of blue and green entitled Flowers, 1978, 22 x 22 inches, is expected to fetch between US$1,100,000–1,500,000. In a private collection since 1995, it is one of only four Flowers paintings from this [...]

Museum of the African Diaspora Presents “Soulful Stitching: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Stunning, colorful, patchwork quilts known as kawandi and made only by craftswomen living in the little known Siddi communities of Africans in India are on display at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) as part of its exploration of how traditional practices are adapted over decades throughout the African Diaspora. The exhibition presents over 30 quilts of a variety of styles and techniques and also the compelling story of the Siddis, descendants of East African slaves, sailors and merchants [...]