Art Of The Day Weekly

Look for woman

While the legitimate question regarding the part the Western image of woman will have in the exhibitions at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi still remains to be answered, the Art Newspaper and The Guardian echoe a similar concern of the curators at Tate Gallery: to give women the place they deserve. An analysis of the collections has indeed shown that only 12% of the 2914 artists exhibited by the respectable institution are women, that is hardly over 300. The figure is even more embarassing if one reasons in terms of works of art: it goes down to 7 %. The Guardian seizes this opportunity to recomend the purchase of some essential works. They mention of course Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Lee Miller or Vanessa Beecroft. The Guerilla Girls have been carrying out spectacular operations for years to awaken minds to the sub-representation of women. Equality has no sense here but the process is interesting: now that museums have become major current topics, they point out and espose to the general public the inadequacies of the collections. Who can tell whether we will see the birth of citizens movements, of users' associations that can influence the purchasing policy? Just like the unions of small shareholders in the anagement of companies listed in the French institute of stokebrokers index. At a time when museums are increasingly resembling multinational corporations, this type of convergence should not be put aside.

Piero, a symbol of the Renaissance

AREZZO - A native from Sansepolcro, he learned his art in the major courts in central Italy (Perugia, Florence, Ferrara) before becoming one of the greatest interpreters of the Renaissance. Italy excells, as it did recently with Mantegna in offering us intelligent retrospective exhibitions. Once again it links various cities together: Sansepolcro (Museo Civico), Monterchi (where the Pregnant Madonna may be admired) and Arezzo (the Bacci chapel in the church of San Francesco) to present this painter. The most complete exhibition will be the one at the Museo Nazionale d’Arte medievale e moderna in Arezzo, with some one hundred works from the close surrounding towns – such as The Madonna of Senigallia (from Perugia) or further away such as the Portrait of Sigismond Malatesta (from the Louvre in Paris). The exhibition does not only deal with Piero: to underline the importance of the exchanges, of the relations between the artists and the courts, a number of paintings and altarpieces by Rogier van der Weyden, Pisanello, Berruguete, as well as bronzes, coins and enlightened manuscripts are equally presented to the public. Piero della Francesca took the Renaissance to its fullest expression, both in the technique and in the narration. It is not surprising that he died on 12 October 1492, the day on which Christopher Colombus discovered America and in doing so marked the entrance to the Modern Times…

Surrealism through objects

LONDON – In the line of the large themed exhibitions on design through the ages – the previous ones were dedicated to Art & Crafts, to Art déco, to Modernism, the Victoria & Albert is now facing a more complex challenge: Surrealism. While the movement led by André Breton deeply marked society, it is not necessarily branded in every day objects. The commissionr, Ghislaine Wood, is aware of this and has put unique and wild pieces next to creations that had a following. On th side of the former ones, icons such as the telephone-lobster by Dali and James, the iron with nails by Man Ray, the satin-covered wheel barrow by Oscar Dominguez or the fury tea cup of Meret Oppenheim. Among the more "respectable" pieces, the innovations are rather conceptual, with a revolution in the aesthetics of the windows (in particular with Elsa Schiaparelli), of fashion, of advertising, graphism (up to the covers of Vogue magazine). The exhibition is rich with its 300 objects, and revisits a good part of the XXth century since it chose for titself wide time limits, from the twenties up to the bed-cage by Max Ernst in 1974. Some of the most important moments are the musical introduction with ballet (De Chirico, Masson and Miro) and the reconstitution, in a reduced model, of a tunnel-gallery designed in 1942 by Frederick Kiesler for Peggy Guggenheim. The lights go off, Delvaux's and Magritte's paintings are plunged into darkness and one can hear the rumble of a train engine…

Archeology of daily life

MARSEILLE - The musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (Musuem of European Civilizations and the Mediterranean), known by its acronym MUCEM, is being built in Marseille by architect Rudy Ricciotti and is to open in 2010. In order to help the public be patient – and in particular the fans of the late musée des Arts et traditions populaires -, an exhibition to give an idea of what is to come has been organized at the Saint-Jean fort, entitled «Daily Treasures». It presents an anthology of objects classified in three large parts - utility, distinction, transmission. A Tyrolian cupboad, a Sicilian cart decorated with scenes from the medieval "Chanson de Roland", a crib, good luck cherry pits: is it that easy to classify them by category? As to not be accused of being nostalgic about the past, the commissioners went through time until our day and show the tiara of Miss France or singer Rory Gallagher's funeral mask in papier mâché.

Bis, repetitat Art Paris

PARIS - By being the first to enter the Grand Palais in 2006 once it was renovated, Art Paris has acquired an additional dimension. This year it has kept a foreign participation rate of nearly 30% while taking on a stronger contemporary art aspect. The award for drawing to be given by the Daniel and Florence Guerlain foundation is undoubtedly partly responsible for this. Another original initiative is the sculpture itinerary, that stands up for a somewhat waning technique: Niki de Saint-Phalle (at JGM's), Jorge Oteiza (at Jean Brolly's) or Martin Chirino (at Thessa Herold's) are some of the twenty artists that punctuate this itinerary. Among the original propositions from the 110 galleries present, we note that of Marion Meyer who pays tribute to the 1957 Micro-Salon exhibition at Iris Clert's by bringing together, like its famous predecessor, miniature works by some one hundred artists, from Arman to Wols.

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Andreas Gursky: photography at the summit

LONDON – Who would ever have imagined that a photo could reach so quickly such high prices? Andreas Gursky has easily doubled Richard Prince and his Marlboro cow-boy. Last February, one of his images, 99 cent II was sold at Sotheby’s in London for 1.5 million £ ( close to 2.3 million €). Startin from a procedure that in theory was documentary with large frontal compositions similar to those of his masters Bernd and Hilla Becher, the German artist, born in 1955, nevertheless introduced a virtual aspect through his control of digital manipulation.We can check this by studying the huge images presented at the White Cube gallery up close, in particular the one of the paddock in a Formula 1 race, where the cars are surrounded by an exaggerated crowd of mechanics. Or in a German asparragus field or a Japanese neutrinos laboratory, in order to give various faces to globalization .