Art and Archaeology: Latest Features
Exhibition Review: 28 August 2010
Basel, Switzerland
A Bright Light
En Bref: Basquiat at the Fondation Beyeler
Is the
short, hot career and early death of Jean-Michel Basquiat the cause of his
celebrity, or is it a diversion making the assessment of his work
cliché-driven and shallow? The Fondation Beyeler wades into the
debate.
Art Market: 27 August 2010
New York
Online VIP Art Fair
To Launch in January 2011
Will major collectors and
dealers prefer virtual booths to private jets and extravagant parties in
Basel, London and Miami Beach?
News: 20 August 2010
Cairo
Cairo Museum of
Islamic Art Re-opens After $10-Million Restoration
The
twenty-five galleries of the 1903 building in central Cairo comprise the
world’s largest Museum of Islamic Art.
News: 18 August 2010
London
Treasures
of Kazakhstan to Go on View at Christie’s
Christie’s
presents a special loan exhibition, Treasures of Kazakhstan – Exhibition
of Kazakh and Russian Art from the Kasteev Museum and a Distinguished
Kazakh Private Collection at its headquarters in London.
Exhibition Review: 14 July 2010
Paris
Paul Klee: In the
Eye of the Collector
This exceptional exhibition, on view
at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, invites one to discover Klee’s last
paintings through the eye of the late Swiss collector, Ernst Beyeler.
Seen: 8 July 2010
Sydney
Maleonn (Ma Liang):
Second-hand Tang Poem
Shanghai-based photographer
Maleonn's highly choreographed scenes blend traditional Chinese mythology
and contemporary life.
Exhibition Review: 7 June 2010
New York
Cartier-Bresson and the Decisive
Moment
Iconic images of prostitutes in Mexico
City, war-ravaged Europeans, revolution in China, wrestlers in
Mongolia and the beautiful and famous document the evolution of one of the
most celebrated photographers of all time.
Exhibition Review: 23 May 2010
Paris
Last Chance in Paris!
Turner and the Masters
Born into a working-class family,
William Turner pursued relentlessly his ambition to be a great artist by
challenging old masters and contemporaries whom he considered rivals
to his own fame. Sound familiar?
Book Review: 7 May 2010
New York
Ripple Effect: Leo Castelli and the
Birth of the Contemporary Art Market
In her
new biography Leo & His Circle: The Life of Leo Castelli,
Annie Cohen-Solal recounts how an unlikely, gadabout immigrant should be
both credited and blamed for the crackling paso doble being
danced by Art and Commerce.
Interview / Review: 29 April 2010
Tokyo
Restoring the Malice to
Wonderland: Trevor Brown at the Bunkamura Gallery
More devious
than deviant, the notorious paintings of Trevor Brown turn the already
topsy-turvy world of Alice in Wonderland on its ear, restoring the shock
value to a tale that has become Disney-fied and de-sexed.
Exhibition Review: 12 April 2010
New York
And Now a Word from our
Sponsors: Skin Fruit at the New Museum
In a somewhat questionable
confluence (if not actual conflict) of interests, the New Museum presents
an exhibition of works owned by a trustee, and curated by one of the
artists being featured – Jeff Koons, not surprisingly.
Book Review: 25 March 2010
New York
The Bauhaus Group: Six
Masters of Modernism
The sleek, cool aesthetic we associate with
the Bauhaus group sprang from a surprisingly passionate, troubled and
messy group of artists and visionaries. Alan Behr reviews the new book
that traces that particularly unique nexus of art, design, politics and
romance.
Exhibition Review: 8 March 2010
London
"Servicemen and Women…" at
London’s Saatchi Gallery
In her somber take on cartes de
visite, Emily Prince brings the cost of war into tangible, graphic
focus.
News: 6 March 2010
Paris
Ernst Beyeler: 1921
- 2010
One of the world's most distinguished
art dealers of modern art, Ernst Beyeler, dies at age 88.
Seen: 24 February 2010
Istanbul
Cultural
Memory in Modern Turkish Art Explored at Istanbul Modern
An intriguing show in Istanbul explores how
Turkish artists employ history in their construction of modernism.
News: 24 February 2010
Oxford, England
New Excavations in India Reveal
Ancient Life
'Pompeii-like excavations' found
beneath ancient volcanic ash.
Art Market: 4 February 2010
London
Giacometti Bronze Breaks Art
Auction Record
Giacometti, Klimt and Cézanne headlined a
record-breaking sale of works totaling £146,828,350 / $235,659,502 /
€167,575,324 - making it the highest value sale ever staged in London.
Exhibition Review: 27 January 2010
New York
Burton and Bauhaus at
MoMA
Two concurrent exhibitions – one showcasing macabre
exuberance, the other, cool restraint – occupy one museum, but two
different planets.
News: 26 January 2010
Mexico City
1000-Year-Old Monument
with Image of Mayan Ruler Found
"At his feet, lying on his back on
the bench, lies another, smaller person with his torso opened as a sign of
sacrifice or of being overthrown," the archaeologist said.
Exhibition Review: 15 January 2010
Basel,
Switzerland
Text and
Context: Jenny Holzer at the Beyeler
The Beyeler Foundation
presents a thought-provoking exhibition of the text-based works of Jenny
Holzer, but are the message and the media at cross purposes?
Conment: 14 January 2010
Montreal
Frye-Ku Folio:
8
Canadian humorist and illustrator Arcangelo Frye offers
up pages from his folio of Haiku for the age of Flickr, YouTube, Twitter
and Facebook. Number 8 in the series of modern-day Haiku is devoted to the
artistic legacy of Michael Jackson.
Art Market: 14 January 2010
London
Matisse and
Van Dongen Highlight Christie's Auction of Impressionist and Modern
Art
The Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale and the auction
of The Art of the Surreal have a pre-sale estimate of £56,505,000 to
£80,805,000.
News: 2 January 2010
Charlotte, North Carolina
Bechtler Museum of Modern
Art Opens in Charlotte, North Carolina
Designed by the
Swiss architect Mario Botta, the new Bechtler Museum is the only museum
dedicated to the exhibition of mid-20th-century modern art in the
southeastern United States.
Exhibition Review: 30 December 2009
New York
America
in Black and White: The Americans Revisited
Robert Frank’s
startling and masterful 1958 book of photographs, The Americans, is given
a worthy and worthwhile retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art.
Travel Journal: 14 December 2009
Vienna
Strange Bedfellows
at Vienna Design Week
The uneasy intersection of Tradition
and Modernity is made all the moreso in a city so invested in its imperial
past. Alan Behr recounts the good, the bad and the bewildering witnessed
during this year’s event
Exhibition Review: 14 December 2009
Amsterdam
St. Petersburg
on the Amstel: Hermitage Amsterdam Opens in Grand
Style
Peter Kupfer on the blockbuster inaugural show
At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th
Century, on view at the newly-opened Amsterdam branch of
Russia's Hermitage Museum.
Art Market: 23 October 2009
London
Bust of Roman Emperor
Caracalla - 'Common Enemy of Mankind' -
To Sell in London
A bust of Caracalla, the notorious Roman Emperor who reigned from
211-217 and is remembered as one of the worst and cruellest rulers in the
history of the Empire, will be auctioned at Bonhams Antiquities sale on 28
October 2009.
Exhibition Review: 28 September 2009
Basel, Switzerland
Giacometti
in Basel: Too Rich, Not Thin Enough
Ironic, yes, but the Alberto
Giacometti exhibition currently presented by the Beyeler Foundation in
Basel might have benefitted from being thinned out a little.
News: 29 August 2009
Washington,
DC
Warhol
Portrait of Edward Kennedy on View at National Portrait
Gallery
Augmented with the hues of the American Flag and the dust
of diamonds, the 1980 portrait comes out of storage as the battle for
Kennedy’s "life work" continues unabated.
Exhibition Review: 3 July 2009
Paris
Kréyol
Factory: Rites and Passage
In a huge multidisciplinary show in
Paris, Caribbean artists explore creole identities.
Book Review: 1 July 2009
New York
Made in Cassina
The
superstar Italian furniture manufacturer is profiled in a handsome volume,
but something is lost in translation. C. Davis Remignanti offers his
review.
Seen: 25 June 2009
Venice
Virtually Miraculous:
Attending The Wedding At Cana
Filmmaker Peter Greenaway’s
installation explores the Veronese masterpiece from inside the
painting itself.
Exhibition Review: 18 June 2009
New York
Doubled
Delight: Gustave Caillebotte at the Brooklyn
Museum
Despite his iconic La Place de l'Europe, temps
de pluie, Gustave Caillebotte may be the best of the least-known
Impressionists. An exhibition currently at the Brooklyn Museum provides an
opportunity to get familiar with both the artist and the institution.
Exhibition Review: 5 June 2009
Berkeley,
California
The Nexus of
Art and Social Documentary: The Photographs of Sebastião
Salgado
With his uncanny ability to capture sculptural forms and
painterly composition, Salgado quashes the common perception of
photography as a second-tier art form, without diluting its power to
inform and inspire.
Exhibition Review: 21 May 2009
Paris
All
Too Human: The Sacred and the Profane in the Works of Filipo and Filippino
Lippi
Paris' Luxembourg Museum presents works of sublime beauty
and transcendant piety, wrought by artists with the hands of masters and
feet of clay. Patricia Boccadoro comments.
Art Market / Book Review: 13 May 2009
New York
Swimming Among the
Sharks: The Art of Profiting off Contemporary Art
While
there is undeniably big money to be made in the contemporary art market,
it is rarely made by those who buy the works. Don Thompson's new book
explores the labyrinthine and perilous path of art as investment.
Art Market: 20 April 2009
Seoul,
Korea
Market Makers:
Korean Eye: Moon Generation
Standard Chartered First Bank has
teamed up with Phillips de Pury & Company’s auctioneers and the
Saatchi Gallery in London to create a market in the West for Korean
Contemporary Art.
Book Review: 2 April 2009
New
York
Naughty Postcards From
Paris
With the international spotlight focused on the visit to
Europe of President and Mrs. Obama, our own "Monsieur X" reviews a book
that reminds us of a time when news from Paris was truly all about the
medium, not the message contained within.
News: 1 April 2009
New
York
CT
Images Reveal The Hidden Face of Nefertiti
Thin-section CT imaging
of the famous Nefertiti bust revealed a delicately carved face on the
limestone core.
Book Review: 25 March 2009
Paris
Sloe and Easy: Van Dongen at
the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Despite his early reputation for
painting louche, sloe-eyed broads, Kees Van Dongen inherited the Singer
Sargent mantle, becoming the portraitist of choice of early 20th century
Paris society. A new book, in conjunction with an exhibition at the
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, documents the man and the many, many women
he immortalized.
Exhibition Review: 12 March 2009
London
Babylon: A
Tale of Two Cities
They came, they conquered, they crushed... and
were never the same. Exhibitions in New York and London look back at the
myths and the realities of imperial Babylon and its impact on the ancient
world, but show us, through the prism of the Iraq war, how little
civilization has progressed since then.
Seen: 6 March 2009
Washington,
DC
Twittering from the
Ancient World: The Master Strokes of Hassan Massoudy
In the age of
Blackberries and iPhones, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the
original hand held communication device was the calligrapher’s pen.
Comment: 3 March 2009
New
York
In
His Own Image: Shepard Fairey Fights to Redefine Copyright Law
That his iconic "Obama Hope" poster is based on someone’s photograph
is not disputed, but Shepard Fairey claims his artistic manipulation of
that original is more than enough to shield him from the ill-advised
copyright lawsuit launched by the Associated Press (who, it turns out, may
not even own the rights to the image).
Art Market: 24 February 2009
Paris
The Yves Saint Laurent
and Pierre Bergé Collection: A Bruised Beau Monde Binges
Global
financial crisis be damned. Whether there to buy, gawk or merely be seen
at the associated soirées, those attending the Saint Laurent/Bergé estate
auction are hell-bent on partying like it’s 1999.
Exhibition Review: 13 January 2009
New York
Southern Living in Living
Color: The Photographs of William Eggleston
A native
Southerner raised on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta,
Eggleston has the ability to speak complex truths in single, garish bursts
of artistic discovery.
Seen: 8 January 2009
London
Death, Art and
Money
Prankster artist Santiago Sierra's latest in-your-face
installation explores the nexus of mortality and profit, with the ironic
collusion of one of the world's largest insurers.
Exhibition review
Paris
Dispatch from
Versailles: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime
In companion
commentaries, Patricia Boccadoro first provides the reader with reason to
postpone that once in a lifetime visit to Versailles, then offers a
compelling argument for booking the trip post-haste. (Hint: wait till they
get rid of the giant lobster.).
Exhibition
Review
London
British Museum's
Hadrian Exhibition: Empire Repeats Itself
Imperial
overstretch, financial bailouts, media manipulation, war in Mesopotamia,
and even (olive) oil: Hadrian's Rome looks eerily modern. |
