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Specialists photograph drawings painted on the walls of the Mogao caves in northwest China |
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A technician restores one of the Mogao caves in Dunhuang, northwestern China's Gansu province. From the fourth century onwards the 492 largely hand-dug caves near Dunhuang, a desert oasis and crossroads on the Silk Road, acted as a depository for Buddhist art for around a millennium. But their unique appeal is the very thing that is putting them under threat, with every visitor's entrance, body and breathing altering the delicate environmental balance inside the chambers. AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones.
By: Sebastien Blanc
DUNHUANG (AFP).- Inching their cameras along a rail inside the chamber, specialists use powerful flashes to light up paintings of female Buddhist spirits drawn more than 1,400 years ago. One click after another illuminates colourful scenes of hunters, Buddhas, flying deities, Bodhisattvas and caravanserais painted on the walls of the Mogao caves in northwest China, considered the epitome of Buddhist art -- and now in existential danger. From the fourth century onwards the 492 largely hand-dug caves near Dunhuang, a desert oasis and crossroads on the Silk Road, acted as a depository for Buddhist art for around a millennium. Unesco describes the World Heritage Site as "the largest, most richly endowed, and longest used treasure house of Buddhist art in the world". "Dunhuang is where Chinese, Greek and Roman, Islamic and Indian arts meet," says Mimi Gates, a former director of the Seattle Art Museum who is helping to preserve the caves, and stepmother to Microsoft founder Bill. But their unique appeal is ... More |
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| MoMA celebrates Ellsworth Kelly's 90th birthday reuniting The Chatham Series paintings of 1971 |
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Emerging and lesser-known artists seek global audience at Hong Kong's Art Basel |
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Early works on paper produced by Robert Motherwell on view at The Peggy Guggenheim Collection |
Elllsworth Kelly (American, born 1923). Chatham XIII: Yellow Red. 1971. Oil on canvas, two joined panels. 96 x 81 1/2″. Private collection. © Ellsworth Kelly. Photo: D. James Dee.
NEW YORK, NY.- In celebration of Ellsworth Kelly’s 90th birthday, The Museum of Modern Art presents Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series, an exhibition that reunites, for the first time in 40 years, the first series of paintings the artist made after leaving New York City for Spencertown, in upstate New York, in 1970. On view from May 23 through September 8, 2013, the exhibition is organized by Ann Temkin, the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art. After working for about a year in a studio he found in the nearby town of Chatham, Kelly (American, b. 1923) embarked upon an ambitious series of 14 paintings that he would name for the town. Each of the works in the Chatham Series takes the form of an inverted ell made of two joined canvases, each a different color: black, white, red, yellow, blue, or green. These compositions grew from an intuitive process rather than a system: the final paintings a ... More |
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Visitors walk past the "Beetle Sphere" by Ichwan Noor at the Art Basel Hong Kong fair. AFP PHOTO / Philippe Lopez.
HONG KONG (AFP).- Having taken five Volkswagen Beetles and compressed them into spheres, artist Ichwan Noor was always going to grab attention at the inaugural Hong Kong Art Basel. Noor is known in his native Indonesia but is hoping the glittering, champagne-soaked art fair will give him further recognition beyond his home borders. Such are the opportunities that await emerging and lesser-known artists at the fair, which aims to highlight Hong Kong's growing role as a global arts hub. Soon after the event opened to guests on Wednesday, Noor saw one of his $88,000 "Beetle Spheres" snapped up. "Events like Hong Kong Art Basel will provide him (Noor) with the needed exposure," Jakarta-based art museum and gallery Art:1 deputy director Monica Gunawan, told AFP. "He is quite well known in Jakarta, but not so much in the international art market." Works from more than 3,000 international artists have been exhibited through 245 of the world's leading galleries, more than half of which are from Asia. Buoyed by ... More |
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The Door, July 1943. Ink on paper. Private collection© Dedalus Foundation, Inc/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
VENICE.- The Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents Robert Motherwell: Early Collages (May 26 - September 8, 2013) curated by Susan Davidson. This exhibition is devoted exclusively to early collages and related works on paper produced by Robert Motherwell (Aberdeen, Washington 1915 - Cape Cod, Massachusetts 1991), one of the leading figures of American Abstract Expressionism, during the first decade of his career, from 1941 to 1951. Motherwell has been the subject of several comprehensive retrospectives orga¬nized around the globe that have acknowledged the critical role of col¬lage in Motherwell’s oeuvre but have not paid any special attention to his pioneering work in this essential medium. Robert Motherwell: Early Collages is in fact the first presentation to extensively chronicle his artistic beginnings through the lens of his reve¬latory encounter with the papier collé technique, which Motherwell described in 1944 as “th ... More |
| Rare paintings of Vermont by Edward Hopper return for the summer to Middlebury College Museum of Art |
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Painting once in the possession of HRH Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, to be offered at Christie's |
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With Paul Schimmel as new partner, Hauser & Wirth plans Los Angeles art space |
Edward Hopper, Windy Day, 1938 (detail). Watercolor on paper. Collection of William S. Beinecke.
MIDDLEBURY, VT.- The Middlebury College Museum of Art opened Edward Hopper in Vermont, a rare and stunning exhibit of watercolors and drawings of Vermont subjects by the iconic American painter. In the more than 75 years since their creation, the majority of Hopper’s Vermont works have been shrouded in obscurity, and some have not been on view to the public in nearly fifty years. This exhibition, assembled from museums and private collections throughout the United States, reunites Hopper’s Vermont works and displays them together, in Vermont, for the first time. Arranged sequentially, without the interruptions of works painted elsewhere during the intervening years, these works illuminate Hopper’s process in translating into paint and paper his singular vision of the Vermont landscape. Edward Hopper, often characterized as the quintessential New York artist, traveled away from the city every summer, leaving behind the heat and co ... More |
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Benito Quinquela Martín (Argentinian), The Bridge at Boca (Puente en La Boca), 1924 (detail) (lot 53). Oil on canvas. Estimate: $300,000 – 400,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2013.
NEW YORK, NY.- Benito Quinquela Martín, declared Argentina’s most famous artist by Time magazine in 1953 is well represented at Christie's Latin American Art Sale with The Bridge at Boca (Puente en La Boca) (lot 53) (estimate $300,000 – 400,000). Largely self-taught as an artist, Quinquela adapted an idiosyncratic Impressionism over his career, eschewing avant-garde experimentation for emotionally charged renderings of the waterfront – brought to life in the bustle of ships and the hardworking dockhands attending them. Once in the possession of HRH Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, this offering depicts a lyrical and atmospheric quality registering the auspicious horizons of the modern Argentine nation and commemorates a storied diplomatic exchange. The Bridge at Boca is a tribute to the working classes of La Boca, the port district of Buenos Aires and Quinquela’s ... More |
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Paul Schimmel joins Hauser & Wirth as partner.
NEW YORK, NY.- Hauser & Wirth announced that internationally acclaimed curator and scholar Paul Schimmel has been named a partner of the gallery. Schimmel joins Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Marc Payot in leading an enterprise founded over 20 years ago. Described by The Financial Times as 'a marketplace of ideas', Hauser & Wirth has locations in Zurich, London and New York. Its program focuses upon significant contemporary artists and includes historical surveys and thematic group exhibitions that advance new dialogues about art. The gallery represents over 50 established and emerging contemporary artists, as well as the estates of Eva Hesse, Allan Kaprow, Josephsohn, Lee Lozano, Jason Rhoades, Dieter Roth, Philippe Vandenberg and the Henry Moore Family Collection. Over the course of the past three decades, Paul Schimmel has become known as one of the most influential curators of his generation. Formerly chief curator ... More |
| Day after Kabul attacks, 10,000 peace balloons by conceptual artist Yazmany Arboleda handed out |
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Marian Goodman announces new exhibition of works by Giuseppe Penone |
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T-Rex maxilla, featuring seven teeth, leads Bonhams Natural History Auction in Los Angeles |
A conceptual artist from the United States Yazmany Arboleda (R), 31, the organizer for "We Believe In Balloons", an art project promoting peace walks in Kabul. AFP PHOTO/Massoud HOSSAINI
KABUL (AFP).- After a day of explosions and gunfire, residents of Kabul woke up on Saturday morning to be greeted by a public art project in which volunteers handed out 10,000 neon-pink "peace" balloons. Organised by Yazmany Arboleda, a 31-year-old conceptual artist from the United States, the project was an unusual attempt to bring a dose of creativity and fun to the Afghan capital, which has been wrecked by decades of war. The timing of the event, which had been kept secret, came just hours after Taliban militants had launched a major suicide and gun attack on a compound of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in central Kabul. One police officer was killed and five gunmen were shot dead in several hours of violence as security forces hunted down the attackers, with bursts of gunfire and grenade blasts heard across the city late into the evening. "I did think of calling it off last night but all the volunteers insisted it continued," Arboleda said. "I could hear explosions from my ho ... More |
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Ombra di terra, 2008. Bronze and terra cotta, 283 x 162 x 86 cm. Installation view « Giuseppe Penone, Le Corps d’un jardin », Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris. Courtesy de l’artiste et de la Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris / New York.
PARIS.- Galerie Marian Goodman announced a new exhibition of works by Giuseppe Penone. The works are on view from May 25th, just a few weeks before the inauguration of an exceptional exhibition of more than twenty monumental sculptures by Penone at the Chateau de Versailles. The exhibition at the gallery Le Corps d’un jardin presents works made from 1984. The show is curated by Laurent Busine, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Grand Hornu, and follows three principle themes: marriage, embrace and procession. Laurent Busine: “There are multiple and varied forms which make us go beyond ourselves, project into the space around us invisible bundles (of glances, traces, smells), and encounter forms and words which confront the forms and the words proffered by the sculptor who constructed and installed them; it is they that make us marvel and arrest our gaze.” 1 Each work has been selected to represent the m ... More |
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Superb Tyrannosaurus rex Maxilla with Seven Teeth - A Recent Discovery. Tyrannosaurus rex, Cretaceous, Hell Creek Formation, Montana. Sold for $86,500; Est. $70,000-90,000. Photo: Courtesy of T. Lindgren/Bonhams.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- A Tyrannosaurus rex maxilla (upper jaw) from Montana achieved the top-selling spot in Bonhams auction of Natural History, May 22 in Los Angeles. The maxilla, featuring seven teeth - with five mature teeth and two emerging teeth seen, sold well within its $70,000-90,000 estimate, bringing $86,500. Highlights of the 145-lot sale went on to include a rare and exceptional jurassic crocodile of Poseidon Shale, Holzmaden, Germany, which brought $84,100 and a gigantic Megalodon teeth in jaw reconstruction, whose deep ocean teeth were primarily found at Offshore Cape Fear, Wilmington, North Carolina, which achieved $74,500 - surpassing a $50,000-60,000 estimate. Also notable in the auction was an immense dinosaur specimen from a recently discovered undescribed species, comprising a mounted femur, tibia, fibula and foot, Diplodocus sp., possibly Amphicoelias, from the Morrison Formation, Wyoming, that brought $31,350; and a research ... More |
| Mitchell-Innes & Nash open their first solo exhibition of Daniel Lefcourt's work |
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Works on paper (1953-1986) by William Scott on view at Denenberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles |
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A stellar line-up of artists will be present at the Tenth Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair |
Cast (Object Model), 2013. PBK31 (perylene green-black) pigment and urethane paint on canvas, 80 by 56 in. 203.2 by 142.2 cm. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash.
NEW YORK, NY.- Mitchell-Innes & Nash is presenting their first solo exhibition of Daniel Lefcourt. Modeler includes new paintings and graphite panels within a modified exhibition framework. The exhibition title Modeler evokes someone – or something – making a scale model construction. It is this emphasis on making that captures Lefcourt’s interest: a fixation on material process in relation to simulation. This dynamic between making and simulating is played out at every level of the exhibition. Unpainted false walls, of a type used in theatre production, imply that the exhibition itself is a type of model. Fiberboard panels entitled Drawing Boards have been machined using a computer controlled wood-router, and delicately finished by hand with graphite. This layering of simulated and physical procedures is performed most elaborately in the paintings. Even the very act of painting is ... More |
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William Scott, Three Forms Read, 1966 (detail). © The estate of William Scott.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- When James Johnson Sweeney, Director of New York’s Guggenheim Museum first saw William Scott’s paintings in the 1950s, he declared to Scott’s American dealer, Martha Jackson, ‘at last Britain has a painter!’ For more than fifty years, artist William Scott CBE RA (1913 -1989) has been a key figure in European and American art and is considered one of the most influential British painters of the 20th century. Scott visited New York in the early 1950s and was the first British artist of his generation to make contact with the abstract expressionists including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. He also became a close friend of Mark Rothko. To mark the centenary of his birth, Denenberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles is hosting a major exhibition in his honor, developed with the support of the William Scott Foundation. The exhibition features a selection of Scott’s original drawings, paintings and textiles. Many of these pieces are being displayed to the general pub ... More |
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Bob and Roberta Smith and Gavin Turk at the Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair 2012.
LONDON.- Celebrating 10 years of fun and frivolity, the UK’s hottest annual art fair, the Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair is gearing up to be another unmissable event, featuring over 70 renowned artists including Sir Peter Blake, Gavin Turk, Emin International, Polly Morgan, Mat Collishaw, Bob & Roberta Smith, Pam Hogg, Pure Evil, Marcus Harvey, Billy Childish, pitching up to personally sell their original and limited edition works of art at authentically bargain prices. The Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair is famous for being the day the art world lets its hair down, coming together to fill the car park with English eccentricity, quirky ideas, incredible bargains, cool art, eclectic wares and mad performances. Pop stars mingle with fashion designers and actresses rub shoulders with Royalty as they all check out the art, hang out at the bar and muck in with all the entertainment, of which there is plenty. It’s an art-buying frenzy from the moment the doors open to the thousand plus queue, ... More |
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The things that I have apparently parodied I actually admire. Roy Lichtenstein |
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 Margaret Harrison wins 2013 Northern Art Prize
LEEDS.- Margaret Harrison (72) was announced the sixth winner of the Northern Art Prize at Leeds Art Gallery on Thursday 23 May 2013 in front of several hundred guests. She was presented with a cheque for £16,500 by Co-Editor of contemporary art magazine ‘Frieze’ and judge Jennifer Higgie with each of the remaining shortlisted artists Rosalind Nashashibi, Emily Speed and Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan awarded £1,500. The judges, comprising Tomma Abts, Turner Prize-winning painter; Margot Heller, Director of South London Gallery; Jennifer Higgie and James Lingwood, Co-Director of Artangel visited the Prize exhibition of new and recent work by all of the shortlisted artists earlier in the day with Sarah Brown, Curator of Exhibitions at Leeds Art Gallery and chair of the judging panel. They commented: “The judges acknowledge the challenge involved in considering artists ... More New paintings by Groningen-based artist Coen Vunderink on view at Galerie Gabriel Rolt
AMSTERDAM.- Galerie Gabriel Rolt presents It’s not a house, it's a home!, a show of new paintings by Groningen-based artist Coen Vunderink. This is Vunderink’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, running from Saturday May 25th through June 29th. The paintings on view are inspired by Vunderink’s fascination for MRI-scans; mysterious medical pictures of the human brain, black and white with ominous specks of colour that may or may not contain devastating information for the patient. Using bare canvas as both the medium and the first layer, Vunderink applies vibrating layers of spray-painted photographic negatives picturing everyday objects and materials like carpets, lace, flowers or doormats. This creates photogram-like, monochrome imagery that is both familiar and abstract. To these images, Vunderink adds sparse, expressive brushstrokes, using traditional homemade egg ... More New series of exhibitions at AndrewShire Gallery presents the work of Skip Arnold and Doug Harvey
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The AndrewShire Gallery is presenting Take Five: Series 1, the first exhibition in the series features the work of Skip Arnold and Doug Harvey in a two-person show featuring paintings, drawings, photographs and video. This series of two and three-person exhibitions feature Los Angeles-based artists and the improvisational interplay of their artworks. Although the exhibitions are not thematically based, there is an interesting exchange between each artist and their work in this five part series. Arnold and Harvey, both veteran LA artists, show their work together for the first time. Although both artists have very divergent artistic approaches, there is an underlying subversiveness to both of their artistic practices. Arnold presents work from his 2004 China project and a new video self-portrait inspired by 18th Century German-Austrian sculptor Franz Messerschmidt. ... More New York-based painter Joseph Montgomery's first solo museum exhibition opens at MASS MoCA
NORTH ADAMS, MASS.- A selection of new and existing works from three closely-related bodies of work (2010-2013) by New York-based painter Joseph Montgomery will be on view in MASS MoCA's Brown Gallery from May 26, 2013, through April 7, 2014. This will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition. Montgomery creates compact abstract assemblages (many measuring only 12 x 10 inches) which have an uncanny familiarity. The small paintings vibrate with texture and movement and bursts of color amidst a mostly subdued and earthy palette. Despite their small size, the works have an intense visual and visceral impact - made from an array of elements which curve up, out, and beyond the confines of the support. Montgomery builds his layered images with a range of materials — a base vocabulary of sorts — including wood, clay, cardboard, fiberglass, paper, and wire. These ... More Visual artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas' work enters permanent collection of the British Museum
VANCOUVER.- Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’ work Copper from the Hood (2010) has now found its home in the permanent collection of the prestigious British Museum, after an eighteen month international tour with Treasures of the World’s Cultures. The sculptural work was one of more than 250 cultural treasures which toured the globe with the British Museum exhibition, with stops in Australia, the Middle East and Europe. Copper from the Hood is one of a series of works which Yahgulanaas began in 2007, while working on the exhibition Meddling in the Museum for the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada. Commissioned by the British Museum, this work presents imagery created in Yahgulanaas’ distinctive Haida manga style and is one of a series of fifteen works made with automobile hoods. Fabricated from a car hood embellished with copper leaf, Copper from the Hood ... More Morton & Eden to sell rare Ptolemy V Tetradrachm from Acre
LONDON.- An exceptionally rare coin struck in the year that the boy king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, was defeated in battle and forced to relinquish his rule of Judaea is among the important Greek coins to be sold by specialist auctioneers Morton & Eden. It will be offered on Wednesday June 5, the first of a two-day coin auction in London. Only one other example of the historically important tetradrachm struck in year seven of Ptolemy V Epiphanes’ rule (198/7 BC) exists. This was the last year of his control in Ake Ptolemais, when he was aged just 12. The coin’s obverse shows the young king’s diademed and draped bust looking to the right, while the reverse is struck with an eagle standing on a thunderbolt, clearly bearing the mintmark of Ake and the year it was struck. It is estimated at £1,500-2,000. Ptolemy V began his life precariously, being proclaimed king of a troubled empire at the ... More Italian sports and racing exotics head to RM's eagerly anticipated Monterey sale
BLENHEIM, ON.- RM Auctions, the world’s largest collector car auction house for investment-quality automobiles, is delighted to announce a selection of the early highlights for its annual flagship sale in Monterey, California, August 16-17. With no less than 21 Ferraris already secured alongside other handpicked cars from such renowned marques as Maserati, Duesenberg and Mercedes-Benz, the sale is already shaping up to be yet another incredible event to match the achievements of past years. Headlining the exciting docket of Ferraris consigned to date are eight spectacular cars from the Estate of the late William H. Tilley, a well-known Beverly Hills based collector and Ferrari aficionado. All cars in the collection are offered without reserve, and the highlight of the group is a rare 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider Series I, chassis 0418 MD. The sixth of just 22 examples built, ... More |
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Highlights from Bonhams' Modern British & Irish Art Sale
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| Flashback |
| On a day like today, American photographer Dorothea Lange
was born |
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| May 26, 1895.- Dorothea Lange was an influential
American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known
for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration
(FSA). Lange's photographs humanized the tragic consequences of the
Great Depression and profoundly influenced the development of documentary
photography. In this image: Dorothea Lange in 1936. |
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Royalville Communications, Inc
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 takes a picture of Portrait Officiel Rouge by Yan Pei-Ming at the Art Basel Hong Kong fair in Hong Kong. The four-day annual show, which ends on May 26, has until now only been held in Switzerland and the United States and has made a dazzling debut in a city better known as a fast-paced financial hub. Art Basel replaces Art HK, Hong Kongs former art fair which was set up in 2008. It was recently taken over by the high-profile Swiss Art Basel franchise, which has been showcasing modern and contemporary art since 1970. AFP PHOTO / Philippe Lopez.');)
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 by Kohei Nawa at the Art Basel Hong Kong fair in Hong Kong on May 23, 2013. The first Art Basel fair to be hosted by Hong Kong boasts a prestigious array of international art, highlighting the citys new role as a global arts hub amid an explosion of personal wealth in mainland China. AFP PHOTO / Philippe Lopez.');)
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 stands by Cheval de Turin by Adel Abdessemed at the Art Basel Hong Kong fair in Hong Kong. The four-day annual show, which ends on May 26, has until now only been held in Switzerland and the United States and has made a dazzling debut in a city better known as a fast-paced financial hub. Art Basel replaces Art HK, Hong Kongs former art fair which was set up in 2008. It was recently taken over by the high-profile Swiss Art Basel franchise, which has been showcasing modern and contemporary art since 1970. AFP PHOTO / Philippe Lopez.');)
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 walks down an alley of the Art Basel Hong Kong fair where an artwork by Marnie Weber titled Log Lady and Dirty Bunny (C) is displayed, in Hong Kong on May 22, 2013. The first Art Basel fair to be hosted by Hong Kong, previewed by VIPs on May 22 and opening to the public on May 23, boasts a prestigious array of international art, highlighting the citys new role as a global arts hub amid an explosion of personal wealth in mainland China. AFP PHOTO / Philippe Lopez.');)
