Gemeentemuseum Den Haag || Exhibition: Memento Mori – Damien Hirst || until 30.11.2014

The exhibition “Memento Mori – Damien Hirst” at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag ended today. We hope you did have the chance to attend this wonderful exhibition.

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In dialogue with Rodolphe Bresdin and Odilon Redon

Damien Hirst (b.1965) is not only fascinated by death, but likes to draw on traditional art historical themes and examples to inspire his work. There was an opportunity to see this last year in the Gemeentemuseum’s exhibition The Anatomy Lesson. The warm relationship between the artist and the museum is confirmed this summer by a new exhibition, entitled Memento mori, in the museum’s Vincent Award Room. The somber theme of the show – the Latin phrase in the title means ‘remember that you will die’ – is illustrated by a series of Hirst’s 2008 Memento etchings (from the Monique Zajfen Collection), displayed in dialogue with the works of Rodolphe Bresdin (1822-1885) and his student Odilon Redon (1840-1916) (from the collection of the Gemeentemuseum). Bresdin and Redon saw death as a mystery passing human understanding, whereas Hirst takes a contemporary view of…

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MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts || Exhibition: Robert Stadler ~ Back in 5 min|| until 30.11.2014

The exhibition “Robert Stadler ~ Back in 5 min” at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) ended today. Hope you had the chance to attend it.

#StoMouseio

Geymüllerschlössel

Before the backdrop of this venue’s changeful history leading all the way up to its present-day use as a museum branch, the MAK DESIGN SALON sets the stage for a dialog that encompasses multiple eras in order to highlight thematic relationships between past and present while also opening up new perspectives. The catalysts are provided by design interventions that temporarily transform this uniquely furnished Biedermeier and Empire-style atmosphere of study into a laboratory of the new. The interventions undertaken thus far, by London-based Cypriot Michael Anastassiades (Time and Again, 2012) and Italy’s Studio Formafantasma (The Stranger Within, 2013), have given rise to new contexts within which to encounter both the historical and the contemporary objects, which have to assert themselves differently at the Geymüllerschlössel than they would in a typical “white cube.”

This year’s contribution Back in 5 min by Paris-based designer Robert Stadler plays…

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#Onthisday Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born (24/11)

Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 1800s yielded a collection of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec – along with Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin – is among the most well-known painters of the Post-Impressionist period. In a 2005 auction at Christie’s auction house, a new record was set when La blanchisseuse, an early painting of a young laundress, sold for US$22.4 million.

Throughout his career, which spanned less than 20 years, Toulouse-Lautrec created 737 canvases, 275 watercolours, 363 prints and posters, 5,084 drawings, some ceramic and stained glass work, and an unknown number of lost works. His debt to the Impressionists, in particular the more figurative painters Manet and Degas, is apparent. His style was influenced by the classical Japanese woodprints which became popular in art circles in Paris. In his works can be seen parallels to Manet’s detached barmaid at A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and the behind-the-scenes ballet dancers of Degas.

He excelled at depicting people in their working environments, with the colour and movement of the gaudy night-life present but the glamour stripped away, and was masterful when painting crowd scenes in which the figures are highly individualized. At the time that they were painted, the individual figures in his larger paintings could be identified by silhouette alone, and the names of many of these characters have been recorded. His treatment of his subject matter, whether as portraits, scenes of Parisian night-life, or intimate studies, has been described as both sympathetic and dispassionate.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s skilled depiction of people relied on his painterly style which is highly linear and gives great emphasis to contour. He often applied the paint in long, thin brushstrokes which would often leave much of the board on which they are painted showing through. Many of his works may best be described as drawings in coloured paint.

Salon at the Rue des Moulins (1894)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French – At the Moulin Rouge- The Dance – Google Art Project
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French, 1864 – 1901 (1864 – 1901)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – At the Moulin Rouge
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Jane Avril, poster, 1893, by Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Laundress (1889)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – Matthias, Arnold: Henri de Toulouse-Lauterc

Source: Wikipedia

Moscow Museum of Modern Art || Exhibition: Salvador Dali and Media ||until 01.02.2015

The Moscow Museum of Modern Art together with the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation presents Salvador Dalí and Media exhibition. For the first time in Russia, artworks by one of the most well-known provokers in the 20^th-century art will be shown in the light of media. The exhibition partner is the Spanish jewelry design house Carrera y Carrera, which will present a special project in one of the halls at 10 Gogolevsky boulevard. The project is an imaginary result of the collaboration between Dalí and Carrera y Carrera glossy publications.

Salvador Dalí’s artworks are traditionally divided into periods, directly related to the geopolitical situation in the world. However, the exhibition in the MMOMA will not be arranged chronologically. Viewers can choose the way they go through the exhibition themselves. The show is divided into two parts, inextricably connected with each other. The first one will demonstrate Dalí at work. Covers and articles for Vogue, GQ, TV Guide, Newsweek, Town&Country, This Week magazines and many other editions will introduce the audience to Dalí the illustrator and the art director, the writer and the editor. The MMOMA halls will tell about each new role of the artist. The second part is a world of images   which are an integral part of the era of the Fourth Estate, where the artist worked. Giant eggs, female legs in Bryans Hosiery, lips and, of course, Dalí’s famous mustaches recreate the unique space of Dalí’s mad world. But surrealism will be interrupted by a hall of ratio, without which it is impossible to imagine the work of the genius with media. Numbers have accompanied from the very beginning of his creative work be it circulation of a publication he has contributed to, a number of covers or the author’s emoluments  he received from one of the largest publishing houses.

Dalí’s oeuvre in mass media was inextricably connected with the imagery one finds in his art. His work as an illustrator was neither casual nor a temporary passion. It was one of the foundations of his total oeuvre. The artist’s creative development, the beginning of his career coincided with the post-crisis period, the first five-years plan and the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The political situation in the world defined the time of smart magazines (L’Amic de les arts, Gaseta de les Arts, the Minotaur), where Dalí was an active theorist. Towards the late 1930s, the consumer society brought about glossy magazines and large-circulation newspapers. In search of scoops both of them turned to the artist, while he actively used his image, easily transforming into a pressman, an illustrator, an editor or even a publisher. Dalí would reuse the same eccentric themes many times. It became especially evident in 1934 in the American Weekly, published by William Hearst. Collaboration between Dalí and media was unique because of his wonderful ability to communicate with readers using clear symbols that made any Dalí campaign successful, be it advertising of Isotta or Chen Yu lipstick. In 1939, when the theory of the Surrealist object had conquered the world, Salvador Dalí signed a contract with Conde Nast. In the same year flower bouquets in the place of female heads appeared in the set of the artist’s most used images. The celebrated series of  Bryans silk stockings ads was published a year later. Dozens of female legs pointed to the sky or to the earth, replacing the wings of Pegasus, making symmetrical arches, ambiguously sticking out from behind arm-chairs. In the first years of the Second World War, Dalí filled the double page in the Click magazine No 42 with surrealist images of dreams and fashion.

In just ten years Dalí the artist became a living legend. The first years of the post-war decade saw the implementation of the idea of general mobilization was the loss of former market rules and the appearance of a free trade zone. It was the period when Dalí became especially interested in media as a domain most open to experiments. The first issue of the Dalí News magazine confirmed the idea. Monarch of the Dalíes was an imitation of the popular Daily News, issued in tabloid format with four pages, eight columns and huge headlines. It was published in 1945 for Dalí exhibition in New York.

Close and long-term collaboration between Dalí and mass media was only partially covered by the 2004 “Dalí. Mass culture” exhibition, at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. It was a part of the celebrations marking the centenary of Salvador Dalí’s birth. This year, the world is marking the 110^th anniversary of the birth of the great Spanish artist.

Revista Gran Via de Actualidades, Artes y Letras, 20/08/1960. Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2014.

Go, 11/1946. Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2014.

Revista de Actualidades, Artes y Letras, 8-14/09/1955. Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2014.

Photo Monde, 02/1954. Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2014.

Der Spiegel. Cover, 07/10/1959. ©Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, RAO 2014

Source: Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Moscow Museum of Modern Art || Exhibition: Vasili Shukhaev. (1887-1973). Retrospective || until 23.11.2014

Today is your last chance to attend the exhibition “Vasili Shukhaev. (1887-1973). Retrospective” at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Do not miss.

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The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents a large-scale retrospective exhibition of works by Vasili Ivanovich Shukhaev (1887-1973), a XX century artist, a master draftsman and painter. The exhibition held in the Museum’s main venue is meant to display Shukhaev’s lifework in all the varieties and genres of his art. Aside from containing some well-known artworks from the major museums’ collections, the exhibition also includes a number of paintings, drawings, theatre productions sketches and book illustrations which have never been exhibited to date.

The Vasili Shukhaev exhibition is the first part of a large research project conducted by the MMOMA. The second part will be embodied as a symposium on various aspects of life and work of the artist.

Vasili Shukhaev lived a long, complex and eventful life that fully reflects all the facets of the drama befallen the Russian artistic intelligentsia in the 20th century. Historical events, politics, plus certain peculiarities of the art scene of the pre- and post-revolution Russia and that of Paris between the two world wars — all the above combined in the artist’s personal life and…

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Palazzo Reale Milano || Exhibition: Marc Chagall – Una Retrospettiva 1908-1985 || until 18.01.2015

The Palazzo Reale in Milan presents the largest exhibition ever dedicated to Marc Chagall in Italy. Over 220 works, mostly paintings, guide visitors from his first painting Le Petit Salon (1908) to the last monumental works of the 1980s. It includes works from the collection of the heirs and masterpieces from major museums around the world, some of which have never been displayed before.

The theme of the exhibition is built around a new interpretation of the language of Chagall, whose poetic vein has been building over the course of the twentieth century through a mixture of major Western European traditions: from the original Jewish culture to that of the French avant-garde.

The exhibition is divided into sections: the first works made in Russia, the first stay in France and the subsequent return to Russia in 1921, the second period of his exile, first in France and then in the 1940s in America.

La Promenade Marc Chagall 1918

 

Marc Chagall Il compleanno 1915, olio su cartone The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, 1949 © 2014. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Firenze © Chagall ®, by SIAE 2014

Marc Chagall L’ebreo in rosso 1915, olio su cartone San Pietroburgo, Museo di Stato Russo © Chagall ®, by SIAE 2014

Marc Chagall Il poeta giacente 1915, olio su cartone © Tate, London 2014 © Chagall ®, by SIAE 2014

Marc Chagall La mucca con l’ombrello 1946, olio su tela New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Richard S. Zeisler, 2007 (2007.247.3) © Chagall ®, by SIAE 2014

Source: Palazzo Reale Milano, exhibition’s website

Palazzo Reale Milano || Exhibition: Van Gogh – l’Uomo e la Terra || until 15.03.2015

After more than sixty years, Van Gogh returns to Milan with a major exhibition at the Palazzo Reale. Most of the paintings and drawings are from the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands, with additional works coming from many international museums.

For the first time in Milan some of Van Gogh’s most famous masterpieces are on display, including Self Portrait (1887), Landscape with Wheat Sheaves and Rising Moon (1889), Portrait of Joseph Roulin (1889) and  Still Life With a Plate of Onions (1889).

The theme of the exhibition focuses on the different phases of rural life, marked by the plowing, sowing and harvesting, which are all symbols of the human effort to dominate the cycles of nature. The result is a complex dialogue between the human being and the nature that surrounds him.

The exhibition explores the evolution of Van Gogh’s painting through his early work, his meeting with the Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism of Seurat and Signac, and ending with his Arles period.

Van Gogh – La vigna verde, 3 ottobre 1888 circa

Van Gogh – Natura morta con patate, febbraio-marzo 1888

Van Gogh – Uliveto con due raccoglitori di olive, dicembre 1889

Van Gogh – Veduta di Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, 1-3 giugno 1888

Van Gogh – Contadina che lega fascine di grano, luglio-agosto 1885

Self Portrait, Van Gogh (1887)

Source: Palazzo Reale Milano, exhibition’s website

Palazzo Strozzi, Florence || Exhibition: Picasso and Spanish Modernity || until 25.01.2015

As of 20 September 2014 Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will be focusing on modern art once again with a major new event devoted to one of the greatest masters of 20^th century painting, Pablo Picasso.
The exhibition will present a broad selection of works by this great master of modern art in an effort to stimulate a reflection on his influence and interaction with such leading Spanish artists as Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris, Maria Blanchard and Julio González: art reflecting on art and on the relationship between the real and the surreal, the artist’s heartfelt involvement in the tragedy of unfolding history, the emergence of the monster with a human face, and the metaphor of erotic desire as a primary source of inspiration for the artist’s creativity and world vision.

Picasso and Spanish Modernity will be showing some ninety works by Picasso and other artists, ranging from painting to sculpture, drawing, engraving and even film, thanks to the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi’s synergistic cooperation with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. The works of art on display will include such celebrated masterpieces as Woman’s Head (1910), Portrait of Dora Maar (1939) and The Painter and the Model (1963) by Picasso, Siurana, the Path (1917) and Figure and Bird in the Night (1945) by Miró and Dalí’s Arlequin (1927), along with Picasso’s drawings, engravings and preparatory paintings for his huge masterpiece Guernica (1937), none of which have been displayed outside Spain in such vast numbers before now.

Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy, Picasso and the Spanish Modernity, poster

Source: Palazzo Strozzi

Fondazione Roma Museo || Exhibition: American Chronicles: The Art Of Norman Rockwell || until 08.02.2015

The exhibition American Chronicles: The Art Of Norman Rockwell will be held in the Fondazione Roma Museo from the 11th November 2014 to the 8th February 2015.

Over one hundred works belonging to the collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, will be shown for the first time in Italy, offering the public a comprehensive retrospective of this American artist.

Iconic works such as The Runaway or The Problem We All Live With interpret seventy years of American history, sometimes ironically and at other times with a keen eye.

Norman Rockwell was active between 1912 and the 1970s and his works (reproduced on posters, magazine covers or created to advertise consumer products) helped to establish the American ideals at an international level.

The entire and unique collection of 323 Saturday Evening Post covers, which document Norman Rockwell’s almost fifty year career at this notable magazine, will be displayed together with his oils on canvas, photographs and papers.

The exhibition has been promoted by Fondazione Roma and organised by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and Fondazione Roma Arte-Musei, in association with La Fondazione NY and the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della Città di Roma.

The Runaway, 1958, ©1958: SEPS, Norman Rockwell Museum Collections

Brass Merchant, 1934, ©1934: SEPS, Norman Rockwell Museum Collections

Going and Coming, 1947 ©1947: SEPS Norman Rockwell Museum Collections

Triple Self-Portrait, 1960 ©1960: SEPS Norman Rockwell Museum Collections

The Problem We All Live With, 1964 ©Norman Rockwell Family Agency. All rights reserved. Norman Rockwell Museum Collections

Source: Fondazione Roma Museo

State Museum of Contemporary Art , Thessaloniki, Greece || Exhibition: Alkis Pierrakos. The Naval Battle of Lepanto || until 10.01.2015

A very important and crucial historical event, the Mediterranean Sea as a setting, and the art of painting as a mean of narrative and image making power, these are the basic elements of the exhibition “Alkis Pierrakos. The Naval Battle of Lepanto”, organized by the State Museum of Contemporary At of Thessaloniki and The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation. The exhibition will run from October 10, 2014 until January 10, 2015, at the SMCA venue in Moni Lazariston.
Ten years after his solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center, second venue of the SMCA, Alkis Pierrakos returns to Thessaloniki, his birthplace, with a series of new ink paintings on paper, that “illustrate” the historically critical for the development of European civilization Battle of Lepanto (October 1571), which established the European history and fate after the collision of the forces of the Christian Western world and Islam.
“At a time when the whole planet, and especially the Mediterranean, is witnessing an outbreak of war, violence, terror, social and political turmoil, economic crisis, the displacement of value systems and the rise of religious fanaticism, the work of A. Pierrakos serves as a reminder that art can operate both at a psychological and at a social level, as it revives and updates historical memory, conveys meanings and messages and stimulates feelings’ says the exhibition curator Katerina Koskina, SMCA President and Artisitc Director of The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation. And she continues “The images from the Battle allude to the daily parade of media images from present-day violent conflicts, which have devastating consequences and a great number of victims across the planet. Alkis Pierrakos’ European education and consciousness, perhaps also influenced by the violence conveyed by this inescapable news agenda, “sparked off” the creation of those works. With his meticulous attention to movement — the repetition of the theme; the dynamism of his forms and lines; the contrasts between light and shadow and white and black — the drawings look like a film projection, which alludes to a dramatic time that coincides with the very beginnings of human history. This is the space of what seems to be a natural urge of humans to fight each other— beyond the clashes between different civilisations, world-views, religions, values and beliefs systems, this perennial human tendency is primarily proof of the inability of the members of our species to co-exist peacefully and of their urge to impose their will on each other. But regardless of the conceptual or actual space, what is constantly reaffirmed is, beyond the self-sacrifice of those fighting for their ideas, the involuntary “sacrifice” of the simple recruits and of the civilians who are turned, especially in our day and age, into targets for implementing those very ideas.”
Exhibition coordination: Alexandros Papayiannis- Professor NTUA, Anna Mykoniati- Art Historian, SMCA Curator

This exhibition is made possible due to the support of the “Association for the Promotion of the Work of Alkis Pierrakos”. The next stops for the exhibition “Alkis Pierrakos: The Naval Battle of Lepanto” will be Athens, at the Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika Gallery (January-March 2015) and Corfu, at a chapel of the city’s Catholic Cathedral (April-June 2015), with the support of the 21st Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities and Mr. Spiro Flamburiari.

Bographical Notes
Born on November 21st, 1920, in Thessaloniki,Greece. Until 1947 he lived in Yugoslavia, Thessaloniki and Athens. He studied at the Gewerbeschule of Basel (1948-1952), at the Slade School of Fine Arts and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts of London, where he met Oskar Kokoschka. In 1954 he moved permanently to Paris, where he lives and works until today. Since 1980 he has been working for long periods at Oxylithos, Evia. He has been a member and the co-ordinator of the group “La Ligne et le Signe”, which aimed to combine the limitations of drawing with the freedom of colour. In 1995 the “Association pour la Promotion de l’oeuvre d’ A. Pierrakos (APOAP)” was established.
His works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad.

Supporter
“Association pour la Promotion de l’ Oeuvre d’ A. Pierrakos” (APOAP)

State Museum of Contemporary Art , Thessaloniki, Greece, Alkis Pierrakos. The Naval Battle of Lepanto

State Museum of Contemporary Art , Thessaloniki, Greece, Alkis Pierrakos. The Naval Battle of Lepanto

State Museum of Contemporary Art , Thessaloniki, Greece, Alkis Pierrakos. The Naval Battle of Lepanto

State Museum of Contemporary Art , Thessaloniki, Greece, Alkis Pierrakos. The Naval Battle of Lepanto

Source: State Museum of Contemporary Art , Thessaloniki, Greece