Art Of The Day Weekly
#7 - from 8 June 2006 to 14 June 2006
IN THE AIR
All is fair in Basel
BASEL- This is the 37th edition of a now highly acclaimed fair: the Art Basel fair has 5 days to give the measure of international art. The 290 galleries admitted offer a complete panorama (nearly 2000 artists), from XXth century avant-gard to current creations. For many of them the contracts signed or even the contacts made this week represent an important part of their yearly activity. The impossibe objective of course is to want to walk through this huge fleeting museum, in a limited time. The various impressions one receives accumulate, bump into one another, eliminate one another and the stroll turns into a nightmare. It is best to draw up a map, from Aquavella to Zwirner. Or to concentrate on special sections. Art Limited offers installations, performances, videos; Art Premiere brings together 12 young galleries; Art Statements welcomes personal exhibitions by 22 young artists. Here is where theoretically one gets an idea of things to come. A sign of the times, seven of the creators chosen (one third of the total number) work in Germany, while France, "The strength of art", only placed three (of which two are settled in Montreuil, a true breeding ground). We must note that Art Basel carries a series of events in its wake, such as "List", the fair of the young generations, or "Basel Latina" which as of this year is dedicated to Latin American art.
JUSTICE
Settlement or chaos?
SAINT-ROMAIN (Rhöne)- The court of appeals of Lyon will examine the case of the Demeure du Chaos (literally The dwelling of chaos) on 9 June. In the beginning this monumental and unclassifiable work was a bourgeois home similar to so many others, used as a coaching inn in the XVIIth century. Its owner, Thierrry Ehrman, the CEO of the Serveur group that controls among other things artprice.com, a data bank on the art market, has decided to submit it to a systematic process of "deconstruction". It has been transformed inside and outside by a collective group of artists (Ben, Mathieu Briand, Rudy Ricciotti, a recent winner of the architeture prize, etc) who gutted it out, covered it with tags, blackened it and has proceeded to various other interventions. The mayor of the town appealed to the magistrates' court and the latter feels the Demeure du Chaos has contravened the law. As soon as its volume went beyond 43 sq. meters, the dwelling should have been the object of a prior declaration of works. But the court also considerd that "there was no doubt it is a work of art". If the Ministry of Culture were to automatically classify the building, this could be a possible solution...
The website (on black background...) of the Demeure du Chaos
THE YEAR OF CEZANNE
Aix's prodigal son celebrated at home
AIX-EN-PROENCE- The centennial of his death will be celebrated this autumn (23 October 1906). But celebrations around Cézanne have been taking place for some time now and a rich menu has been cooked up for the artist who never thought he would be a national glory. This includes concerts, readings, strolls, picnics and of course, exhibitions. The most important of these, named Cézanne in Provence is arriving in Aix-en-Provence after a visit of the National Gallery in Washington D.C. It includes some one hundred works on his favorite motives- Sainte-Victoire, the Estaque, the Bibémus quarry -and will offer the opportunity to appreciate the refurbishing of the Granet museum, just finished under the wand of architects Pierre Brotons and Jean-Franços Bodin. The interest of a trip to Aix is multiplied by the possibility of visiting Jas de Bouffan, the family home where Cézanne painted a great number of his works. The municipality owns it and has just opened it to the public.
EXHIBITIONS
Dunkerque in Eggleston's lens
DUNKERQUE-This one could not be a roaming exibition, as is now often the fashion as well as a need (to amortize the costs). It is not because it lacks interest, but rather because its aim is quite specific. And rare enough for us to underline: the 40 images by William Eggleton -the star of color photography- are the result of a commission. The American creator, who for over half a century has had a neutral, cold, "clinical" look of the urban universe, responded to the invitation made by Vincent Gérard and the museum of contemporary art. Interested in measuring the distance between the myth (the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of soldiers by operation Dynamo in 1940) and reality, he strolled throught the streets, to the port, in the midst of the blast furnaces. Eggleston completed the exhibition with a choice of works in the permanent collection.
Kandinsky, a jump into abstraction
LONDON-One of the pioneers of abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) is the subject of an exhibition at the Tate Modern, which has just proceeded to change the hanging of its collections. The retrospective is focused on the first two decades of the XXth century, a very creative and cosmopolitan era: the artist lived succesfully in Munich and Murnau (where he played an essential part in the movement of the Blue Cavalier), returned to Russia to take up certain responsibilities at the beginning of the Revolution, then left again to Berlin and Weimar, to teach at the Bauhaus. The loans from the Russian museums represent a large part of the fifty paintings and 35 works on paper exhibited a the Tate. They illustrate the evolution of the language from figurative to abstract, done on a stable framework: the game of color.
David Smith, a stranger
PARIS-He is one of the major American sculptors of the last century but his name continues to be largely ignored in France. The retrospective that is arriving at the Centre Pompidou from the Guggenheim in New York is here to fill that gap. David Smith (1906-65) is a child of the industrial civilization who carries within him the nostalgia of a golden rural age (a little like Frank Lloyd Wright, see below). With a strong preference for metal, he reconstructs figures by welding recycled objects together. One of his main series, called Agricola (in the 1950s), uses peasants tools, pieces of tractors, elements from carts. In another one, the Tanktotem, he uses boned boilers. More than forty of these sculptures, representing a link between Julio Gonzàlez and Arman, are brought together. They are accompanied by a few drawings.
BOOKS
Frank Lloyd Wright, master in houses
Seventy years of activity and a remarkable capacity to renew himself, one could resume Frank Lloyd Wright's in this manner. He is the most famous American architect of the XXth century. A thick, very complete book -hence very difficult to manipulate!- lists all the individual houses he designed, from 1889 when he was a young partner of Louis Sullivan in Chicago, to 1959. From the shingle houses with slanted roofs to the large horizontal homes in the Prairy, from the "cabins" fit into nature to the "American" or prefabricated homes, how many forms and ideas! Concrete, glass and steel, as well as bricks, stone and wood. The architect is at the crossroads of rural tradition and technologic progress. For his funeral, it seems he had requested a cart with wheels with air chambers...A few icons, adapted to the different biotopes of a continent, keep his legend alive: in the North, the famous House of cascades and the Taliesin West in Scottsdale, in the heat of Arizona.
For sale, under restauration or victims of fire: the current situation of Wright's houses
IN BRIEF
LIVERPOOL – The Museum of Liverpool Life closed its doors on 4 June. It will open again in 2010 under the name of Museum of Liverpool in its new buildings. The cost of the operation it estimated at 65 million pounds.
LOCHES – The two paintings found in the Saint-Antoine church which some people believe to be by Caravaggio are presented as of 14 June at the chancellery, near town hall. These are Dinner at Emmaüs and Saint Thomas' lack of faith.
LONDRES – A water color by Turner from 1842, representing the lake of Lucerne, offered by Christie’s on monday 5 June was sold for 5,8 million pounds, almost three fold its original estimate.
METZ – The construction site of the Centre Pompidou Metz is about to open, in the district of the Amphitheater. Facing the chosen site stands a «House of the project» that explains it all, that will be inaugurated on 10 June.
MILAN – The small sacristy of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (where Leonardo's Last Supper is) will open for the first time to the public as of 7 June. The campaign to restore it revealed the presence of a Virgin and Child from Leonardo da Vinci's school
NEW YORK – The 12th International Fine Art Fair will be held from 12 to 17 June, at the Seventh Regiment Armory. The works exhibited by the nearly fifty international art merchants go from the Renaissance to the XXth century.
PARIS – While the Camard sale on 2 June registered a record for the low Pierre Legrain table (1,5 million euros), more spectacular auctions are expected for the breaking up of the Art déco collection of the Dray spouses, at Christie’s on 8 and 9 June. In the programme, among Rateau, Chareau, Dunand and their like, an exceptional work by Edgar Brandt, the Oasis screen, estimated at 1,3 million euros.
PARIS – The Tajan auction house presents on 8 June the second Levy sale, dedicated to the collection of the great American merchant, «the go-between» of the surrealists on to American soil. The first had been held in the autumn of 2004.
PARIS – The Parisian itinerary of design (Designer’s days) has chosen the theme of travelling for its 2006 edition, from 8 to 11 June. Some forty houses will be participating (cocktails Rive droite on 8 June, Rive gauche on the 9th).
PARIS – The Maison rouge (10 boulevard de la Bastille, 75012) inaugurates simultaneously four exhibitions on 8 June, among them the cooked books of Denise Aubertin and the work of an «accursed artist», Henry Darger (1892-1973), who spent his life illustrating his own book of 15 000 pages.
PARIS – The Azzedine Alaïa gallery (18 rue de la Verrerie, 75004) hosts from 9 to 30 June the winners of the World Press Photo 2006.
SEDAN – The Biennial photography event of the city will hold its 3th edition from 9 June to 2 July, in various sites in the city (fortified castle, manufacture of Dijonval, etc), at Charleville-Mézières and in the industrial buildings of Vrigne-aux-Bois.
ON ARTOFTHEDAY.INFO
The Brueghels, the Giacomettis, the Booschaerts: the history of art gives various examples of artists brothers. How did they live through this original situation? This is the theme the exhibition explores at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, showing how a desire of uniqueness is born: the last known groups of brothers often try to stick out by using pseudonyms, like De Chirico and Alberto Savinio.