| The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Friday, December 30, 2016 |
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| | Famous artworks showed early signs of neurodegenerative disease: Study | |
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This file photo taken on June 18, 2012 shows an artist posing with brushes in his New York studio. Brushstrokes in paintings could help early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases, according to a study published on Thursday of works by famous sufferers such as Salvador Dali and Willem De Kooning. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP.
LONDON.- Brushstrokes in paintings could help early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases, according to a study published on Thursday of works by famous sufferers such as Salvador Dali and Willem De Kooning. The analysis was carried out on 2,092 paintings, including those of two artists with Parkinson's Disease, Dali and Norval Morrisseau, and two with Alzheimer's Disease, De Kooning and James Brooks. Works by Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet, who were not know to suffer from any such disease, were also included for comparison. "Knowing that you have a problem sooner rather than later is always going to be an important medical breakthrough," Alex Forsythe from the University of Liverpool, one of the authors of the study, told AFP. Fractal analysis -- a way to study patterns that is already used to spot fake paintings -- was used to gauge the relative complexity of the works. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Piotr Glinski (R), Poland's deputy Prime Minister and culture minister, and Adam Karol Czartoryski, owner of a large private art collection attend a ceremony finalising a deal between state and private owners in Warsaw on December 29, 2016. The government wants to ensure that the collection, which includes a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, will permanently remain part of the nation's patrimony. A private art collection worth two billion euros that includes Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine". The 15th-century portrait of a young woman holding a white ermine, a kind of short-tailed weasel, is one of just four known paintings of women by the Renaissance master. JANEK SKARZYNSKI / AFP
| Poland to buy Da Vinci's 'Lady with an Ermine' | | Imi Knoebel enters into dialogue with Fernand Léger in exhibition | | Kerry James Marshall's largest museum retrospective on view at The Met Breuer | 
Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with the Ermine, 148990. Oil on wood panel, 54 cm à 39 cm (21 in à 15 in). Czartoryski Museum, Kraków.
WARSAW (AFP).- Poland's culture ministry is expected Thursday to buy a private art collection worth two billion euros that includes Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine". The 15th-century portrait of a young woman holding a white ermine, a kind of short-tailed weasel, is one of just four known paintings of women by the Renaissance master. Another is the Mona Lisa. After announcing it was in talks to buy the collection earlier this month, the ministry released a statement saying it would "sign an agreement regarding the final settlement of the status" of the works on Thursday. Currently owned by the Princes Czartoryski Foundation and housed at the National Museum in the southern city of Krakow, the collection numbers thousands of items. In addition to the da Vinci, which is insured for about 350 million euros ($365 million), its other big names include a Rembrandt and drawings by Renoir. Princess Izabela Czartoryska founded the collection in 1801 to preserve Polish and ... More | | 
Imi Knoebel (Wolf Knoebel, dit) mia donna I, 2016 Peinture acrylique sur aluminium © Ivo Faber © Adagp, Paris, 2016. Ivo Faber, photo mia donna I, 2016, peinture acrylique sur aluminium © Adagp, Paris, 2016.
BIOT.- Radical, minimalist, joyous - over the past 50 years, German painter Imi Knoebel's work has taken the shape of a sensitive and expressive reinvention of the abstract. Trained in Darmstadt, then in Düsseldorf's Fine Arts Academy under the watchful eye of Joseph Beuys, Knoebel asserts avant-garde influences on his art. Kandinsky, Bauhaus, constructivism, Mondrian, suprematism and Malevitch have featured in his personal pantheon from the very beginning of his career. Spurred on by the work produced by American minimalist and abstract artists such as Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Donald Judd and Carl Andre, Knoebel later sought to continuously reinvent new forms through painting, sculpture and installations. Knoebel views the abstract as an ever-shifting continuum within which shapes from the past resurface. The paths of Knoebel and Fernand Léger first crossed in ... More | | 
Kerry James Marshall, A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self, 1980. Egg tempera on paper, 8 à 6 1/2 in. (20.3 à 16.5 cm). Collection of Steven and Deborah Lebowitz © Kerry James Marshall. Photo: Matthew Fried, © MCA Chicago.
NEW YORK, NY.- The largest museum retrospective to date of the work of American artist Kerry James Marshall (born 1955) is on view at The Met Breuer as a cornerstone of its inaugural season. Encompassing nearly 80 worksincluding 72 paintingsthat span the artists remarkable 35-year career, this major monographic exhibition reveals Marshalls practice to be a complex and compelling one that synthesizes a wide range of pictorial traditions to counter stereotypical representations of black people in society and reassert the place of the black figure within the canon of Western painting. Kerry James Marshall: Mastry has been complemented by the concurrent exhibition Kerry James Marshall Selects, curated by the artist. Marshall has drawn some 40 works from The Met collection, ranging from the Northern Renaissance to French post-Impressionism, and ... More |
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| The Rijksmuseum celebrates exceptional year with most valuable European museum acquisition ever | | Latvian National Museum of Art presents a retrospective of Juris Dimiters'work | | Exhibition of newly commissioned work by Wael Shawky on view at Fondazione Merz | 
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Portrait of Marten Soolmans , 1634. Oil on canvas, 210 x 135 cm. Acquired by the Dutch State for the Rijksmuseum.
AMSTERDAM.- The world-leading museum, the Rijksmuseum, today announced a year of outstanding achievements in 2016 across a number of different areas. Highlights include: The most valuable acquisition by European museums ever: the two Rembrandt portraits, Marten & Oopjen purchased jointly by the Netherlands and France for 160 million, the first time that two countries have jointly acquired a work of art for their public collections. The masterpieces are now jointly owned by the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre and will be seen by visitors to the two museums in turn. The appointment of Taco Dibbits (47) as the new General Director of the Rijksmuseum (from 1 July 2016). 2.2 million visitors in 2016 including more than 300,000 children. RIJKS®, the Rijksmuseum restaurant led by chef Joris Bijdendijk, was awarded ... More | | 
Juris Dimiters can be considered one of the most original Latvian artists working in a surrealist style.
RIGA.- Juris Dimiters solo exhibition The Curtains Peek-a-boo is on show in the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga. The solo exhibition, which is conceived as a retrospective of the artists more than 40 years of creative activity, presents the viewer with almost 350 works. Juris Dimiters can be considered one of the most original Latvian artists working in a surrealist style, with a specific set of images and painterly technique. The exhibition presents a part of several series of works, which contain everyday objects and fruits and their irreal combinations, painted with distinctive attention and documentary precision. Alogical scenes unfamiliar stagings of the most common objects are, in essence, Juris Dimiters creative commentary on the relationships among the individual, society and power, as well as between humans especially a man and a woman. In order to ... More | | 
Wael Shawky, Al Araba Al Madfuna I, 2011. HD video, b/w, sound, 21, co-produced by Sharjah Art Foundation & Wiener Festwochen. Courtesy the artist & Sharjah Art Foundation.
TURIN.- Fondazione Merz is presenting Al Araba Al Madfuna, an exhibition of newly commissioned work by Wael Shawky, winner of the first edition of the Mario Merz Prize. The site-specific installation centres around the artists film trilogy Al Araba Al Madfuna, presented together for the first time. Here, the viewer is led through a series of immersive environments that physically compile the films contents - architectural set designs and sculptures. The installations, specially created for the exhibition, create an original atmosphere drawn from the historical, literary and cinematographic references from which the artist has built his stories. Al Araba Al Madfuna continues Shawkys interest, explored in several projects over the last decade, in using existing stories and histories from ... More |
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| Max Hollein lays plans for next chapter at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | | Works from the Gertraud and Dieter Bogner Collection on view at mumok | | Sol Calero's first institutional solo exhibition in Austria on view at Kunsthaus Bregenz | 
Max Hollein, Director and CEO, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Perhaps the most newsworthy event for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2016 was the midyear appointment of Director and CEO Max Hollein, who came to San Francisco after 15 years in Frankfurt, where he led the Schirn Kunsthalle, the Städel Museum, and the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection. After six months at the museums, Hollein has made great strides in building an exciting program for 2017 and beyond. With significant efforts that went into improving operations and invigorating programming, we are looking toward a bright future for the Fine Arts Museums in 2017, says Hollein. In fact, the upcoming year will likely feature one our most powerful, attractive, and challenging programs to date, with a renewed focus on scholarship and original exhibitions by our own curators, a fresh contemporary perspective, and clear distinctions in the programming between the de Young and Legion of Honor. The Fine Arts ... More | | 
Monika Brandmeier, Ohne Titel, 1984. Bottom piece: zinc sheet, bent and lacquered, wall piece: iron grating painted and wrapped with paper 300 x 250 x 150 cm. Collection Dieter and Gertraud Bogner at mumok seit/since 2007 © Bildrecht Wien, 2016. Photo: mumok.
VIENNA.- In 2007, the Viennese collectors Gertraud and Dieter Bogner gave mumok part of their collection as a gift with no ifs and buts. With more than a hundred paintings, sculptures, and objects, and three hundred drawings, prints, autographs, artists books, and archive materials, this is the largest single donation to the museum to date. Since 2007, the collection has been expanded and complemented. mumok has now invited the Bogners to curate their own exhibition based on the collection, entitled Construction_ Reflection. It is well known that public budgets alone have long ceased to be sufficient to actively expand our collection. Unconditional support for art, as shown by the Bogners, is remarkable. By giving their collection to mumok they have made a significant ... More | | 
Sol Calero LA SAUNA CALIENTE. Installation view, KUB Collection Showcase, Bregenz, 2016. Photo: Markus Tretter © Sol Calero, Kunsthaus Bregenz.
BREGENZ.- Venezuelan artist Sol Calero has developed a multiform practice to explore cultural codes and image production in Latin America. In carefully arranged environments colorful paintings, saturated with exotic fruits, and flowers, spread out beyond the canvas as such across ceilings, walls, and furniture. In combination with objects and props Calero transforms exhibition venues into vibrant and immersive domestic spaces in form of hair salons, salsa studios, cyber cafés, film sets, or sites for creative exchange; spaces, in which the traditional art objects appear as an aesthetic support of a social experience. While referencing Latin American art history as well as influential historical moments such as Roosevelts »Good Neighbour Policy« (implemented in the 1930s), it is this continuous unfolding and reformulating of prevalent cultural stereotypes that form the center her inquiry. In particular in countries ... More |
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| TEFAF Maastricht releases 2017 exhibitor list and TEFAF showcase particIpants | | Exhibition of works by Katinka Bock on view at Galerie Greta Meert | | First-ever space dedicated to children at the National Portrait Gallery set to open | 
TEFAF Maastricht 2016. Image: Harry Heuts.
HELVOIRT.- The 30th edition of TEFAF Maastricht welcomes 270 internationally renowned exhibitors to the Fair including five young and recently established dealers to TEFAF Showcase. As the worlds leading fine art and antiques Fair, TEFAF Maastricht provides an unrivalled meeting place for the best dealers in the world, attracting major international private and institutional collectors. Through the careful selection of its exhibitors, TEFAF enables visitors to make unexpected connections across disciplines creating a marketplace for the highest level of collecting at all of its Fairs. TEFAF Maastricht 2017 takes place from 10-19 March at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre), Maastricht, The Netherlands. TEFAF Maastricht is divided into nine sections (TEFAF Antiques, TEFAF Classical Antiquities, TEFAF Curated, TEFAF Design, TEFAF Haute Joaillerie, TEFAF Modern, TEFAF Paintings, TEFAF ... More | | 
Installation view.
BRUSSELS.- Galerie Greta Meert is presenting an exhibition of works by Katinka Bock (Frankfurt am Main, 1976). Katinka Bock creates sculptures and installations that explore temporality, process and space. She has used various materials, including ceramic, stone, metal, wood and water. The conventional aspects and the radical austerity of those materials resonate energy and tension and are chosen for their their primary aspect and their intrinsic qualities, but also because of the place there are linked to. "Space is articulated. This seems to be an essential aim for Katinka Bock: to make a space pronounce its elements, its qualities, its consitutive parts as an interlocking and signifying whole.* The artist has chosen to create a relationship with some works of Carla Accardi that belong to the collection of the gallery. Carla Accardi, who has recently passed away, was born in Trapani, Sicily. She was associated to the artists in the earl ... More | | 
Explore! with the Portrait Gallery. Photo: Explore! Childrens Museum of Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery in partnership with Explore! Childrens Museum opens its first-ever space dedicated to children Jan. 28, 2017. Explore! with the Portrait Gallery will expand experiences of portraiture by allowing kids to do hands-on activities with portraiture to answer questions such as What is a portrait? How do I see myself? and How do others see me? Located on the first floor of the museum, this space represents the Portrait Gallerys first exhibition with an interactive bilingual gallery for visitors with children ages 18 months to 8 years. Visitors will be able to trace each others silhouettes, strike a pose for a projected video art piece and experiment with expression and emotion by building faces out of illustrated blocks. Under the principle that children learn through play, Explore! was designed to give children the expe ... More |
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 On Birds, Skulls and Drones: Jeanne Bucher Jaeger exhibits works by Miguel BrancoPARIS.- Spectres is the title of Miguel Brancos second individual show at the gallery. Showing regularly since 1988, Branco has developed a very personal work through a variety of media, his practice including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation and computer image. Mostly known for his particular use of scale and for having animals as one of his main subjects, his work is always based on existing images. These images are taken from different sources and periods of the History of Art or from the media, such as newspapers photographs, science fiction movies and comic books, images that circulate in the web. This use of different historical strata is part of a constructive system, as expressed by the Portuguese art critic Bernardo Pinto de Almeida: As if using a scalpel, Branco dissects and cuts out numerous representations from classical art, which he deconstructs ... More China gives Trump the birdBEIJING (AFP).- A Chinese shopping mall is ringing in the year of the cock with a giant sculpture of a chicken that looks like US president-elect Donald Trump. China has gone cuckoo for the cartoonish pastiche -- complete with orange pompadour -- of the billionaire politician in Taiyuan, capital of the northern province of Shanxi. The scowling statue is one of many roosters popping up around the country as it prepares to celebrate the lunar new year at the end of January. With its tiny wings parroting Trump's distinctive hand gestures, replicas of the bird are available on the Chinese shopping site Taobao for as much as 12,000 yuan ($1,700) for a 10-metre version. Trump has captured the Chinese imagination, and riled its authorities, with his threats to talk turkey about massive tariffs on Chinese exports. With his crowing tweets on Twitter, including attacks on China's ... More Jewish Museum displays timely reminder of nation's founding values PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The National Museum of American Jewish History has installed new building signage asserting George Washingtons promise of religious liberty to the people of the United States. Quoting Washingtons iconic letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island in 1790, the large-scale banner reads, Happily the Government of the United States
gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. The Museuma safe, open space for alldisplays this text as a timely reminder of the ideals of inclusiveness on which this nation was founded. Facing Independence Mall in the heart of historic Philadelphia, the Museums signage refers to one of the most significant documents in American history. George Washingtons letter, currently on view at NMAJH, was composed in August 1790 in response to a letter from the Jewish ... More Whittredge painting is an expected top lot at Ahlers & Ogletree's Jan. 14-16 auctionATLANTA, GA.- A stunning oil on canvas painting by the renowned Hudson School artist Worthington Whittredge (Am., 1820-1910), titled Campers in the Blue Ridge Mountains, artist-signed lower right, is an expected top lot at Ahlers & Ogletrees New Years Signature Estates Auction, slated for Jan. 14-16 in the firms gallery at 715 Miami Circle (Suite 210) in Atlanta. From a prominent Atlanta private collection, the painting depicts a stony stream surrounded by dense forest, with a group of figures in the background building a small fire in a bright stream-side clearing. It is a classic Hudson River School painting that captures the essence of American Transcendentalism. Measuring 23 inches by 34 inches, its expected to bring $40,000-$60,000. Several relevant documents are available that attest to the works impeccable provenance. These include ... More Mayfair Antiques & Fine Art Fair to take place 5 to 8 January 2017LONDON.- Opening the new year in style, The Mayfair Antiques & Fine Art Fair takes place at the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square, London W1K 6JP from Thursday 5 until Sunday 8 January 2017. Organised by The Antiques Dealers Fair Limited, the fair, now in its fifth year, is supported by Mayfair property specialist Wetherell and NFU Mutual Godalming and attracts an international audience of collectors and interior decorators, museum curators and visitors still in London after the festive season. The forthcoming event includes some 40 expert dealers, predominantly members of The British Antique Dealers' Association and LAPADA The Association of Art & Antiques Dealers, joined for the first time by Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) scholars, who will be demonstrating their skills and selling their crafts. Newcomers at this fair include antique glass ... More Lunds konsthall presents "As Told"LUND.- Every day we are fed stories, observations, confessions, statements, anecdotes. Some of these pass us by, while others may prove decisive for how we view the world. Modern art used to insist on the difference between things seen and things told. The autonomy of the visual arts was seen as emanating from a profound understanding of silence, a resistance against sequenced narration and ultimately against its dependence on time. Contemporary art offers another perspective. Visuality has become part of a larger toolbox, with various modes of expression that include the spoken and written word. Indeed, todays artists often use language as a tool for analysing and transforming everyday stories. In this exhibition, Lunds konsthall presents works by four artists from different countries, born in different decades. What unites them is their interest in personal stories ... More Kunstmuseum Basel exhibits work by Manor Art Award 2016 Johannes Willi BASEL.- Johannes Willi (b. Basel, 1983) is a conceptual artist. Willi studied at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel. He cofounded the independent Hinterhof Offspace in Basel and, with collaborators, initiated the I Never Read Art Book Fair in Basel, which debuted in 2012 and which he continues to direct. With his fellow artists Olivier Rossel and Marcel Freymond, he is also a member of the collective Juice & Rispetta. Johannes Willis artistic practice may be described as a form of professional dilettantism, an application of specific artistic and artisanal techniques the artist imitates without actually having mastered them. The implementation of his plans and the outcome are an experiment in which failure is regarded as a reinterpretation and enhancement of the object being imitated. This practice was exemplified ... More Works from Nasan Tur's series "Political Supporters" on view at Kunst Haus WienVIENNA.- Berlin-based artist Nasan Tur counts among the most exciting political artists of the younger generation. Dealing with political ideologies, messages and statements communicated in the public space, and with the appropriation and instrumentalisation of signs and terms, Nasan Turs works reflect the political and social conditions of our time. In his works the artist thematises symbols of power and affiliation, which are omnipresent both in the cityscape and the media. He investigates the individual options ranging between acting in public space and doing nothing, between distance and affiliation. Nasan Tur succeeds in articulating his close observation of social phenomena and concrete social conditions both incisively and poetically in installations, photographs, objects and participatory projects. At the Garage and the Galerie of Kunst Haus Wien he presents ... More Exhibition at Jeanne Bucher Jaeger celebrates Yang Jiechang's 60th anniversaryPARIS.- On the occasion of YANG Jiechangs 60th birthday, a solo exhibition entitled On Earth as in Heaven takes place at the gallery presenting around 20 works by the artist, from different creative periods, as dense in content as they are in expression. Yang Jiechang was born in 1956 in Foshan in southern China where he lived until 1978. He was deeply affected by the Cultural Revolution proclaimed by Mao Zedong in 1966. After briefly joining the red guards in the 1970s, he quickly distanced himself studying calligraphy and deciding to study Chinese art history theory at the Canton Fine Arts Academy where he was also trained in the traditional art of ink painting. Gaining a considerable mastery of calligraphy and acute knowledge of traditional Chinese thinking, Yang Jiechang decided to be initiated over a period of several years into Taoism and Zen Buddhism which ... More Dirk Braeckman to represent Belgium at the 57th Venice BiennaleLEUVEN.- Dirk Braeckman: Participating in the Venice Biennale feels like a victory for Belgian photography, which has never had a broad international platform within the visual arts. Nowadays, everyone is capable of taking good photographs and people are only really interested in the end results. I oppose this trend by emphasizing a process-centred exploration. My photos are like unexploded bombs, charged and full of pent-up energy. Dirk Braeckman will represent Belgium at the 57th Venice Biennale. His exhibition in the Belgian pavilion at Giardini will be curated by Eva Wittocx, with M - Museum Leuven as the organizing institution. After past editions featuring artists like Vincent Meessen, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Angel Vergara, Jef Geys, Ãric Duyckaerts and Honoré dO, Flemish Minister for Culture Sven Gatz has decided that Dirk Braeckman will now occupy ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, Dutch painter, portraitist and art forger Han van Meegeren, died December 30, 1947. Han van Meegeren (10 October 1889 in Deventer, Overijssel - 30 December 1947 in Amsterdam), born Henricus Antonius van Meegeren, was a Dutch painter and portraitist and is considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century. In this image: 57 yr old Dutch painter Han van Meegeren, left, seen in the defendants box before the Amsterdam court, Oct., 1947, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Van Meegeren is charged with fraud for faking pix of the old masters Vermeer and Pieter De Hooch, signed them, and sold them for Approx $700,000. From left to right: Van Meegeren, an X-Ray screen to prove falsifications, and public prosecutor Dr. H. Wassenbergh. In the rear is The Last Supper.
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