Asia Week New York scheduled for March 16-22

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Asia Week New York—the collaboration of 34 top international Asian art specialists, five major auction houses, and 17 museums and Asian cultural institutions— will take place March 16–24, 2012, throughout metropolitan New York, it was announced by Henry Howard-Sneyd, Chairman of Asia Week New York 2012, and Sotheby’s Vice-Chairman Asian Art, Americas. “Asia Week New York provides an astonishing showcase for the strength and breadth of material that this city offers in all disciplines of Asian art,” said Howard-Sneyd. “In [...]

Birmingham Museum of Art mobile site puts the art in your smart phone

BIRMINGHAM.- Smartphone users have a new reason to connect with the Birmingham Museum of Art – a new mobile site, designed to make access to important information about the institution easily available in an-easy to read, user-friendly way. The mobile site launched officially Dec. 1, and can be accessed on iPhones, or other smart phones running versions of Google’s Android operating system. Type www.artsbma.org into your smart phone browser, the same address used to access the BMA’s content rich website on a computer. [...]

Steven Holl Architects’ Cité de l’Océan et du Surf wins award in 2011 annual design review

NEW YORK, N.Y.- The Cité de l’Océan et du Surf in Biarritz, France, designed by Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with Solange Fabião, has received a 2011 Annual Design Review Award. About the museum, juror Joe Valerio stated, “The thing that is beautiful about this is the idea that it’s about the surf. You take an architectonic form and you make it roll like the ocean, and then the function slips underneath. To connect the surf with the function underneath, you have this [...]

Spectacular large works announced at Art Stage Singapore 2012

SINGAPORE.- For its sophomore edition, Art Stage Singapore 2012 presents even more significant and stunning large installation works than before. From intricately detailed sculptures to huge paintings, there is a wide spectrum of awe-inspiring pieces to experience at this year’s fair. Here are a few of the highlights that visitors can expect at the fairgrounds: INSTALLATIONS “Artificial Moon” (2007) by Wang Yuyang (China) Presented by Gallery Yang, Beijing In a poetic way, the “Artificial Moon” has been described to “draw attention to the [...]

Ayyam Gallery presents recent canvases by Syrian painter Tammam Azzam in “Dirty Laundry”

DUBAI.- Ayyam Gallery, Dubai presents “Dirty Laundry” an exhibition featuring recent canvases by Syrian painter Tammam Azzam. Continuing his acclaimed body of work, which utilizes rope, clothespins and other found objects, Azzam remains interested in the visual possibilities of basic components amidst an organic state, where the driving force of their arrangement is solely “the mechanisms of creation.” For Azzam, the benefit of working from such methodology is that it facilitates the creation of an artwork as a “hybrid form,” one [...]

Eykyn Maclean launches new London gallery with Cy Twombly: Works from the Sonnabend Collection

LONDON.- Eykyn Maclean specialises in museum calibre work by key Impressionist and 20th Century European and American artists. Christopher Eykyn and Nicholas Maclean established Eykyn Maclean in 2006 combining their 29 years of experience at Christie’s where they were co-heads of the Impressionist and Modern Art departments. The launch of their new London gallery space follows on from the successful inauguration of their New York space in 2010. Previous exhibitions in New York include: Inside Giacometti’s Studio – An Intimate Portrait (2010) and [...]

Northern Art Prize exhibition brings together the work of shortlisted artists at the Leeds Art Gallery

LEEDS.- Work by shortlisted artists Liadin Cooke, Leo Fitzmaurice, James Hugonin and Richard Rigg have come together in the exhibition on which they will be judged for the fifth annual Northern Art Prize, at Leeds Art Gallery from 25 November 2011 until 19 February 2012. Sarah Brown, curator of exhibitions at Leeds Art Gallery and chair of the judging panel commented: “The 2012 Prize short list brings to our attention four very different artists who each produce work that often takes a painstakingly [...]

Napa vintner Jan Shrem donates $10 million for new museum of art at UC Davis

DAVIS, CA.- The University of California, Davis, has received a $10 million gift to name a new art museum that will serve as a teaching and cultural resource for the region and provide opportunities to share the university’s artistic legacy, enhance its fine arts collection, and create new partnerships and collaborations. Slated for completion in 2015, the museum will be named for donor Jan Shrem, proprietor of Clos Pegase winery in Napa Valley, and his friend and arts patron Maria Manetti Farrow. [...]

Capitoline Museums exhibition compares two paintings of Baby Jesus by Pintoricchio

ROME.- The exhibition of the two paintings by Pintoricchio celebrates Christmas and reminds all the enthusiasts of the delicate figure of the sensitive Umbrian painter, who was born in Perugia sometime between 1455-56 and died in Siena in 1513. The two works of art both belong to Foundations. A fragment of fresco with the figure of a Blessing Baby Jesus (property of the Guglielmo Giordano Foundation) stands alongside a small but precious panel depicting the Madonna with Blessing Child (property of [...]

Monet masterpieces to be brought together at Tate Liverpool’s major exhibition for 2012

LIVERPOOL.- Five important Monet water lily paintings will be brought together in Tate Liverpool’s major exhibition Turner, Monet, Twombly: Later Paintings from 22 June – 28 October 2012, two of which have never been shown before in Britain. The Water-Lily Pond c1917-19 lent by the Albertina, Vienna, and Water Lilies 1916-19, lent by Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Basel are the works which will go on show for the first time in the UK. They will join three other Monet water-lily paintings in the exhibition: [...]

All five remaining Saint Rosalia paintings by Van Dyck reunited for the first time at Dulwich Picture Gallery

LONDON.- Dulwich Picture Gallery presents Van Dyck in Sicily: Painting and the Plague (15 February – 27 May 2012), the first ever exhibition to focus on the prolific year and a half that Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) spent in Sicily between 1624 and 1625. The exhibition reunites for the first time the 16 works, all portraits and paintings of religious subjects, that are documented, or believed to have been painted during that year in Palermo. The most significant group of paintings [...]

Dear Clark, Sara-Lena Maierhofer at Foam

AMSTERDAM.- What drives a person to constantly take on a new personality? What characterises a man who systematically avoids being recognised as himself? In Foam 3h, Sara-Lena Maierhofer (1982, Germany) shows her investigation into the life and the lies of swindler and fraud Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, alias Clark Rockefeller. In Dear Clark, Sara-Lena Maierhofer tries to approach a swindler and fraud whose life has consisted of carefully constructing and then erasing his identity. After she fails in convincing the man to meet with [...]

Magic of ancient Egypt transforms the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida

ST. PETERSBURG.- This landmark exhibition brings to life one of the greatest civilizations in the history of the world. Ancient Egypt—Art and Magic: Treasures from the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art/Geneva, on view from December 17, 2011-April 29, 2012, spotlights astonishing objects of every kind. Swiss art collector, philanthropist, and entrepreneur Jean Claude Gandur has developed one of the world’s most important private collections of Egyptian antiquities. Mummy cases and sacred works in diverse media, tomb and temple reliefs, a vignette of [...]

Sotheby’s announces its upcomming Archer M. Huntington Collection of coins from the Hispanic world

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Sotheby’s announces that it will offer the magnificent Archer M. Huntington Collection of coins from the Hispanic world in a sealed bid auction ending on 8 March 2012. Assembled more than a century ago, the 37,895 pieces form the most spectacular collection of coins relating to the entirety of Spanish history that is housed outside of Spain. The ambitious collection is among the finest and most comprehensive ever to be assembled, either by an individual or institution. The collection [...]

Swedish artist Gerhard Nordstrom exhibits at Malmo Konsthall

MALMO.- Born in 1925, Gerhard Nordström has taken a clear stand for much of his career against the abuse of power and the destruction of the environment. In his art he depicts in a direct and unavoidable way social injustices and the consequences of consumer society. He made his big public breakthrough in the early 1970s with a suite of paintings entitled Sommaren 1970 (The Summer of 1970), which are now regarded as some of the most important examples of 20th-century [...]