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Art Of The Day Weekly

#13 - from 7 September 2006 to 13 September 2006

IN THE AIR

An overdose of biennial events

It has become a key to many things. It is hardly important what is presented, the word alone seems to have become a guarantee as to the seriousness of the event, of its creativity. Biennial, triennial, quadrennial contemporary art events are blooming more than ever. The month of September is particularly devastating in this aspect: not a day goes by without one being announced around the corner. Judge for yourselves: on September 4 the biennial fair of Singapore and on the following day the one in Shanghaï, followed on September 8 by the one in Gwangju in South Korea(called «Feverish variations», intended no doubt for those amateurs who try to keep up with the rhythm), followed on the 10th by the architecture biennial of Venice. Just a few days' rest before the final fireworks: on September 16, the biennial fairs in Busan (again, in Korea), Liverpool and Seine-Saint-Denis will open simultaneously. On September 21, the latest venue, that of Vienna, in Austria, will try to make a little place for itself. We wish everyone luck! We hardly dare announce the headline of our next letter on 14 September: the Biennial of antique dealers of Paris…

EXHIBITIONS

Titien, the artist who made the portrait of royalty

PARIS - He could speak on an equal basis to Charles V or Isabelle d’Este, negotiate outrageous fees. When speaking of Titian we are no longer in the world of an anonymous painter-artisan but rather in the circle of stars…Throughout his long career (born in 1488, he was still active when he was carried away in 1576, by the plague that ravaged Venice), the painter met all the powerful people of his time. Among those he painted we find in the exhibition a few Italian princes(the Gonzague, the Farnèse, the Este), a pope (Paul III as a cunning old man), Charles V and his son Philip II, François I, the doge Nicolò Marcello… But he also represented the inteligentzia of the time (Aretino, cardinal Bembo), representatives of the bourgeoisie and, to close the parade, superb women. Out of the 60 works presented, 35 are done by Titian. The other, by contemporary artists such as Rubens, Jules Romain or Lorenzo Lotto, shed a varied light on the way «stars» were portrayed at the time. * Titian, face to face with power at the Musée du Luxembourg, from 13 September 2006 to 21 January 2007

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The dark charm of Caravaggio

DUSSELDORF – Considered scandalous in the XVIIth century (he died in 1610), neglected for three hundred years, then «relaunched» by art historian Roberto Longhi in 1951 in an unforgettable exhibition, Caravaggio today is a solid reference for the major museums. His confrontation with Rembrandt (at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam) is barely over, and once again he i snin the limelight. This time it is at the Museum Kunst Palast, directed by Jean-Hubert Martin, in the context of the new quadriennial art event in Dusseldorf, on the theme of «the human body in art». Various Saint John the Baptist as well as The Lute players or The Dinner at Emmaüs: in total some thirty works by the master of chiaro-oscuro. The catalogue includes essays by writers (Henning Mankell, Andrea Camilleri) fascinated by the adventurous existence of the painter murderer, who died of exhaustion and malaria on a beach in Toscany.

  • Caravaggio at the Kunst Palast Museum, from 9 September 2006 to 7 January 2007

    Presentation of the exhibition

  • MUSEUMS

    A scream of relief

    OSLO - At the end of the Summer of 2004 – on 22 August – bad news cme from the Norwegian capital. The Scream, a national icon and one of the best known works of Edvard Munch (1893), had been stolen from the Munch museum. In the middle of the day the robbers had threatened the visitors with their weapons and had taken the time to take the Madona by the same painter before fleeing in the car that awaited them parkd outside. In the Spring of 2006, the sentnces made against the supposed offenders had convinced no one. One can believe they contributed to the success of the operation as almost two years later, to the day, the Norwegian police has just announced, on 30 August, it had found the two paintings. The best known version of the Scream - there are four of them – had aleady been taken in 1994, for a few months, from the National Museum.

    The Scream, vstolen and found again

    ARCHITECTURE

    Venice looks at the town

    VENICE - «Cities, architecture and society» is the theme of the 10th biennial architecture event (held on even years, thus alternating with the more famous Biennial of visual arts). An ambitious program, more than ever on contemporary events: the director of this edition, Richard Burdett, professor at the London School of Economics, recalls the urban population has gone, in one century, from 10% to 50% of the world's population. Some fifteen large urban areas or megapoles are closely studied, with videos and models, in the huge Corderies of the Arsenal, among them Barcelona, New York, Mexico, Bombay or Cairo. The Italian pavilion will welcome concrete projects on the futre of towns. The Golden Lion for a career was awarded to an architect who has alwaysplaced the urban mesh at the hart of his concerns, British architect Richard Rogers, the author, with Renzo Piano, of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

  • Venice Biennial architecture event, from 10 September to 19 November 2006

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  • PHOTOGRAPHY

    Way by the war correspondents'

    PERPIGNAN – Visa pour l’Image, the photojournalism festival, is holding its 18th edition. One doesn't only see blood and violence: as an example we have the retrospective of Elliott Erwitt's work, he who for over half a century has known how to trace with a sense of humor the faults of his contemporaries, or the exhibition dedicated to the «Sahara Chronicals» by Jean-Luc Manaud. As for the rest, the planet is not doing well even though the echo we get is sometimes a little deafening: children in the throngs of violence (Alvaro Ybarra Zavala), the famine in the horn of Africa (Bruno Stevens), Guatemaltec or Nicaraguayan migrants desperately looking for the American dream (Claudia Guadarrama), the earth quake in 2005 in Kashmir (Jan Grarup)… Is this piercing eye professionnal reporters lay on the miseries in the world threatened by the boom of the press on show business and by digital photography, that dilutes copyright?

  • Visa pour l’image, du 2 au 17 septembre 2006

    The website of the festival is a little limited: is this to incite one to go to Perpignan?

  • BOOKS

    Travels through the gardens

    Autumn has always been the season for gardens: while leaves are getting ready to play their symphony of colors, here is a nicely illustrated vademecum. Most of the major classics are dealt with, in a planetary trip. The congruent portion was awarded to the gardens of Islam, from Iran to Grenade, and to the gardens of the Far East, too often limited to the cherry trees in bloom, to wooden bridges and to the believers in zen scratching the gravel. The Western world is by far more abundantly analyzed, from the reconstructions of antique gardens (Pompey) and the medieval cloisters to the most remarkable creations from the XXth century. It is difficult to find any unity as the inventiveness goes in different directions, from Roberto Burle Marx's perfect geometries (Pétropolis, Brésil) to Richard Jencks' conceptual evocations (at Portrack, Scotland with a black hole and the garden of DNA!), up to the ivy that invades the zinc roofs in Paris (Camille Muller). In the last creations, wheat is even used for the flowerbeds and it is moving (the Mas de les Voltes, in Catalonia). One regrets the absence of an introduction that would have allowed us to place this lush matter in an historic perspective.

  • Deux mille ans de jardins, photos by Alain Le Toquin, text by Jacques Bosser, La Martinière, ISBN : 2-7324-3482-5, 2006, 49 €

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  • IN BRIEF

    ATHENS -For the first time since Lord Elgin took away an important part in 1802 (presently at the British Museum), a fragment of the frieze from the Parthenon has been returned to Greece by a foreign institution. Indeed, the university of Heidelberg carried out this return on Tuesday 5 September, possibly announcing other similar operations. Before being solemnly presented to the press, the piece measuring a few square inches had the privilege of travelling in the Prime Minister’s plane.

    BRUSSELS – The Belgian capital hosts its first Design Week: from 8 to 17 September, exhibitions, workshops, conferences and price awards will alternate. An opportunity to confront well-known talents (such as the Bouroullec) to young Belgian design.

    The detailed program

    GENEVA - A controversy regarding the Kokoschka estate has arisen: a nephew of the painter's, Roman Kokoschka, feels neglected after the artist's widow -who die in 2004, left all the assets to the Kokoschka foundation. He has taken the matter to the Swiss courts. At stake, one thousand paintings by the expressionist painter…

    LONDRES – On 30 August a fire destroyed an annex of the Royal Academy of Arts. No art work was affected but the fire undoubtedly delayed the opening of an exhibition that was to take place as of 6 October. It is called USA Today, and is eant to present current American art based on Charles Saatchi'scollection.

    To know more, check the Saatchi Gallery website.

    LONDRES – The Hayward Gallery exhibits a sample from the collection of the Arts Council, the most important public collection of British art of the XXth century. Created in 1946, it continues to grow. The selection presented extends from the «classics» such as Moore or Bacon to contemporary creators made famous under the name YBA (Young British Artists).

    Brief presentation of the Arts Council collection

    NEW YORK - Who bought the portrait of Dora Maar with cat by Picasso last May for 95 millin dollars? According to American journalist Marc Spiegler, who presented his conclusions in the New York magazine, it can only be a Russian oligarch. The one he is thinking of is not used to being on the front covers of the press. It could be Boris Ivanishvili, the man at the head of a conglomerate that associates banks and mines.

    PARIS - The Jérôme de Noirmont gallery presents from 13 September to 30 October an ambitious retrospective of Keith Haring. The main piece is a mural painting over 10 m2 big, made in 1986 for the boutique Jouets et Cie. Added to that we have works on paper, sculptures and a few pieces of furniture.

    To know more

    PARIS - Kaos, itinerary through the worlds, the tribal art event that is held every autumn at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, will be held from 13 to 17 September. The principle is that foreign galleries be hosted by French colleagues. Consequently, Arte y Ritual are at Alain Bovis', Pace Primitive at Nicolas Deman's, etc. This year the threshhold of the fifty antique dealers has been surpassed.

    TOKYO -Every two years the Japanese Imperial Academy awards a sort of Nobel prize of the arts. In 2006, the Praemium Imperiale prize has been awarded to the following recipients: Yayoi Kusama (Japan, painting), Christian Boltanski (France, sculpture), Frei Otto (Germany, architecture), Steve Reich (United States, music), Maïa Plissetskaïa (Russia, theatre). The Scholarship for young artists was awarded to the Venezuelan Foundation of young orchestras, FESNOJIV. The award ceremony will be held on 18 October in Tokyo.

    TOLEDO (Ohio) - The Toledo Museum of Art opened last 22 August the new building that hosts its collection of glass art. The building itself is in glass and was designed by the Japanese architect firm Sanaa, chosen to build the Louvre antenna in Lens.

    ON ART OF THE DAY.INFO

    Do not miss...

    Niki and Jean, l'Art et l'Amour

    BASEL - In association with the Sprengel Museum Hannover and the Niki Charitable Art Foundation - which holds the estates of Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely - the Museum Tinguely organised this original exhibition about the “Bonnie and Clyde of the arts”, one of the most interesting and famous couples in modern art. The collaboration between the two artists is reflected in common or individual works -, shown in original if they can be shipped, or as models, through photos, drawings or posters - , their artistic partnership and, of course, their personal relationship.

    Read the article

    The King, the Emperor and the clock

    BESANçON - The exhibition at the Musée du Temps (Museum of Time) brings together some fifty sumptuous clocks brought out from the reserves of the Mobilier national (State owned furniture) and presented to the public for the first time. This historic collection that belonged in the past to the Crown’s Storage, is exceptional by its rarity and the origin of each piece: the bedroom furniture of Napoleon and the Empress, the living room of the King of Rome at the Tuileries palace, The Empress’ boudoir at the palace of Saint-Cloud. It perfectly represents a period that was rich in major artistic currents and it traces, from one Empire to the next, the century’s political history.

    Read the article