Arts funding doesn’t show diversity

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP).- Billions of dollars in arts funding is serving a mostly wealthy, white audience that is shrinking while only a small chunk of money goes to emerging art groups that serve poorer communities that are more ethnically diverse, according to a report being released Monday. The report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, shows foundation giving has fallen out of balance with the nation’s increasingly diverse demographics. The report was provided to The Associated Press before [...]

British artist Rachel Howard’s “Folie a Deux” exhibit on view at Blain-Southern

LONDON.- Folie à Deux, French for ‘madness of two’, is the clinical definition for a psychosis in which delusional beliefs are transmitted from one individual to another. For her first exhibition at Blain|Southern, the acclaimed British artist Rachel Howard has created a series of intricately linked paintings, hung as triptychs, diptychs and stand-alone works, which subtly explore this disturbing malady. Folie à Deux can manifest itself in benign and extreme forms, and Howard was struck by a series of recorded case studies. [...]

Camden Arts Centre presents “I saw square triangle sine” exhibition of new works by Haroon Mirza

LONDON.- Camden Arts Centre presents an exhibition of new work by British artist Haroon Mirza. Using an eclectic range of objects and elements including used furniture, outdated electric appliances, electronic materials, light and the appropriated work of other artists, Mirza creates complex audio installations which investigate the moment where noise becomes music. For his new installation made for Gallery 3, Mirza is bringing together a number of instruments traditionally associated with bands including a keyboard, drum kit and synthesisers fused with turntables, [...]

Tiancheng International to offer Rodin’s Monumental Head of Pierre de Wissant

HONG KONG.- Tiancheng International Auctioneer Limited will offer Monumental Head of Pierre de Wissant (Pierre de Wissant, tête colossale), a bronze head sculpture in colossal form by the legendary Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) at Tiancheng International’s inaugural auction on November 28th in Hong Kong. Monumental Head of Pierre de Wissant is an enlarged cast of the head of one of the figures from Rodin’s famous Monument to the Burghers of Calais, one of the greatest works of public art of the nineteenth century. [...]

Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor romance puts sparkle in diamonds auction at Christie’s

LOS ANGELES (REUTERS).- Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but for Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor they were a lifelong passion that could now strike gold for the AIDS sufferers she championed. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds and pearls — many of them given to Taylor by her two-time husband Richard Burton during their stormy romance — are among the 269 jewels up for auction in December following the death in March of the legendary film actress. Some of the most jaw-dropping gems [...]

Warhol art app, showcasing the extensive collection of the Warhol Museum

PITTSBURGH, PA.- The Andy Warhol Museum and Toura announce the release of The Warhol Art app to the iTunes App Store and Android Marketplace. The Warhol Art app allows users to examine works of art and related ephemera in The Warhol’s collection with an in-depth view of archival materials, letters, source images, film and video clips, and audio. The Warhol Art app features a behind-thescenes glimpse at over 50 art works spanning Warhol’s career from the 1920s to late 1980s, including the iconic [...]

Tate St Ives presents The Indiscipline of Painting: International abstraction from the 1960s to now

CORNWALL.- The Indiscipline of Painting is an international group exhibition including works by forty-nine artists from the 1960s to now. Selected by British painter Daniel Sturgis, it considers how the languages of abstraction have remained urgent, relevant and critical as they have been revisited and reinvented by subsequent generations of artists over the last 50 years. It goes on to demonstrate the way in which the history and legacy of abstract painting continues to inspire artists working today. The contemporary position [...]

‘Warhol: Bardot’ opens at Gagosian Gallery with portraits never exhibited before

LONDON.- An exhibition of Andy Warhol’s portrait series of Brigitte Bardot opens at Gagosian Davies Street. Five of the works on show have never been exhibited publicly before, and never together in series. Warhol first met Bardot at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967 when she actively supported his attempt to show The Chelsea Girls there after the original planned screening had been cancelled. In 1973, at the height of her fame, she announced her retirement from making films. That same year [...]

A masterpiece visits De Nieuwe Kerk for five weeks:”The Holy Family” by Rembrandt

AMSTERDAM.- From 11 October to 13 November 2011, a religious masterpiece will be on view in De Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam: The Holy Family by Rembrandt (1645). For five weeks this painting can be admired in an ideal setting, displayed alone in the sanctuary, once the place of the high altar. For almost 240 years, this painting, which was acquired by Catharine the Great in 1772 from the Crozat Collection in Paris, has been one of the most important works at the Hermitage [...]

First United Kingdom exhibition of drawings by Robert Motherwell opens at Bernard Jacobson Gallery

LONDON.- Robert Motherwell: Works on Paper, the first ever exhibition dedicated to drawings and paintings on paper by Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) to be held in Britain, is being staged at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery, 6 Cork Street, London W1, from 10 October to 26 November 2011. Taking place twenty years after the artist’s death, it comprises some ninety works spanning most of his career. Robert Motherwell was a major figure in the birth and development of Abstract Expressionism and the youngest [...]

Major new body of etchings by British artist Ian Davenport at Alan Cristea Gallery

LONDON.- The Alan Cristea Gallery presents a major new body of etchings by British artist Ian Davenport in an exhibition entitled Prismatic, from 8 October until 12 November 2011. Ian Davenport was born in Kent in 1966. He is one of the now fabled generation of Young British Artists who participated in the seminal 1988 exhibition Freeze, in 1991 he was shortlisteded for the Turner Prize and in 1999 was a prize winner in the John Moores Exhibition. His work was part of [...]

The Dubai Sale: Forthcoming auction of Art from the middle east announced at Ayyam Auctions

DUBAI.- Ayyam Auctions announces its forthcoming Dubai Sale. To be held on October 24 at Ayyam Art Center in Dubai, this highly anticipated event will feature over 60 lots of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art and is expected to attract collectors from across the region. Offering painting, sculpture, prints and photography as in previous auctions, this upcoming auction will mark the first time that attendees will be able to bid on exceptional conceptual and installation work, notably by such artists as [...]

The Valencian Institute for Modern Art shows the recent works of Chinese artist Mou Huang

VALENCIA.- The exhibition, organized by IVAM and the Shanghai International Culture Association, brings together 20 works from the latest production by Chinese artist. Huan, participated in the collective exhibition of 16 Chinese artists held in the hall of the museum’s walls in 2007. Mou Huan’s works cannot be classified within any particular school or trend. As he is an artist “who moves between two cultures”, Mou Huan has a broader field of action and greater diversity of themes thanks to his Oriental baggage [...]

Magnificent Vision: two centuries of European masterworks from the Speed Art Museum

TULSA, OK.- After two exhibitions focusing primarily on work from 20th century America, Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art makes a dramatic shift in both time and setting. For the Museum’s final and biggest show of the year, the Museum is taking a look back at Europe in the 17th and 18th-centuries. Magnificent Vision: Two Centuries of European Masterworks from the Speed Art Museum features more than 70 major works by the likes of Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo, and Gainsborough. Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640),The [...]

Picasso’s L’Aubade expected to fetch $25 million at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art evening sale

LONDON.- Painted in 1967, L’Aubade exemplifies the dynamic force of Picasso’s late work on a magnificent scale. Picasso presents a panegyric to the power of music framed within the central dialogue between artist and model. The male figure, a recognizable amalgamation of self-portrait and mosquetero, serenades a reclining female nude who recalls the recumbent beauties of Rubens and Ingres. With its foundations in this trajectory of art history, L’Aubade is a towering accomplishment and a dynamic depiction of an historic theme. [...]