Art Of The Day Weekly
#169 - from 8 April 2010 to 14 April 2010
Alexander Ugay, Mourning, 2004, mixed media transferred on video, B/W and colour, sound, 9’55’’, © Collection du Centre Pompidou, Paris (current exhibition Les Promesses du passé)
IN THE AIR
Abdullah Wade, the President-sculptor of Senegal
Churchill liked to paint, Reagan was a movie actor, Berlusconi enjoys singing popular songs. The club of the Artist Heads of State has a new member, the current President of Senegal. On April 3 Abdullah Wade inaugurated on a hill in Dakar a gigantic statue, equal to the German, Italian or Soviet squares of the thirties. Taller than the Statue of Liberty, a martial couple with their child show their determination in face of the future. Local debaters focused on the length of the woman’s loincloth – considered indecent by the Muslim authorities – as well as on the role of President Wade. It seems that he has demonstrated unexpected pretentions in this complex project upon which even famous artist Ousmane Sow ended up rejecting. As the designer, he asked to be paid 35 % in royalties generated by the exploitation of the monument, meant to last 1200 years… The defenders of the «resale right» have found themselves a new hero.
EXHIBITIONS
Cezary Bodzianowski, Rainbow, Bathroom, Lodz, 1995 Photographie : Monika Chojnicka Courtesy : Foksal Gallery Foundation, Varsovie
Look East young man
PARIS– Up until the fall of the iron curtain, we knew very little on the artistic activity in the Communist countries. Since the end of the eighties, once the floodgates were open, the abundance has sometimes impeded us from understanding this huge and scattered reality, from Russia to Poland, from the Baltic countries to Yugoslavia. Consequently the Centre Pompidou offers a large exhibition that resumes the last 60 years. We see through significant interpreters that the subversive dimension passes more through photographs, videos, mail art and performances than through traditional disciplines such as sculpture and painting. This is an opportunity to (re)discover artists such as Stano Filko, Ion Grigorescu or Ewa Partum who, due to the repression and distance, did not receive the recognition they deserved … and to measure their influence on new talents such as Roman Ondak or Mircea Cantor. Fifty creators, from Marina Abramovic to Alexander Ugay, 160 works, one installation by Tobias Putrih and a performance by Jiri Kovanda on April 13, the opening day: this is a true in-depth section of a constantly effervescent scene.
•Les promesses du passé, 1950-2010, une histoire discontinue de l’art dans l’ex-Europe de l’Est (Promises of the past, 1950-2010, a discontinued history of art in former Eastern Europe) at the Centre Pompidou, from 14 April to 19 July 2010. Catalogue: publishing house of the Centre Pompidou, 44.90 €.
Isaiah Scroll, fac-simile - © Michael Falter - www.facsimile-editions.com
The secrets of the Dead Sea
PARIS - 1947 is one of the most important dates in XXth century archeology. It refers neither to Troy nor to Lascaux. What was unveiled on that date were the seven leather rolls. But they were from a grotto near the Dead Sea, at Qumrân, are over two thousand years old and are written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Needless to say imaginations flew quickly, while waiting for revelations on the life of Jesus and his apostles. The research is still in progress – was it a library from the sect of the Essenes? – and the exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France also has the ambition of having the last word on the discussions that accompanied this discovery and al the rest (up until 1956, eleven grottos were dug up, with a treasure of tens of thousands of fragments). While most of the pieces presented come from its own fund and are meant to put this discovery into perspective through objects and manuscripts (very few are from the diggings in Qumrân), significant loans were made by the museums of the Holy Land, such as the very important fragment from the Temple Scroll, from the Israel museum in Jerusalem.
•Qumrân, le secret des manuscrits de la mer Morte at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, from 13 April to 11 July 2010. Catalogue: BnF publications, 29 €.
Carte du Canal royal de communication des mers en Languedoc, détail Vers 1169 Gravure ; H. 0,915 ; L. 1,55 m © Château de Vincennes, Service historique de la Défense,
Verrio, the Baroque globe-trotter
TOULOUSE – Some people think travelling is a modern invention. Well, if we are to be the devil’s advocate, let us mention Antonio Verrio, the painter born towards 1635 in Lecce, in the Puglia, or in Naples – where he may have witnessed the popular revolt of Masaniello in 1647 – and then crossed Europe. A citizen of the world, supporting many women in many places, he worked in Tuscany as well as in Toulouse, in Paris and in London, where he made the large decorations for the royal castles of Windsor and Hampton Court (and where he died in 1707). This retrospective started with the patient restoration– two years of work – of a painting at the musée des Augustins, Saint Felix of Cantalice. While sketches from his British period are also shown, it is his stay in Toulouse (towards 1665-1671) which of course is brought forward. Verrio was the protégé of Pierre-Paul Riquet, the designer of the canal du Midi. It is rumoured that for his Marriage of the Virgin, done in one week, he took the traits of Madame Riquet…
•Antonio Verrio, Chroniques d’un Italien voyageur at the musée des Augustins, until 20 June 2010. Catalogue: published by the musée des Augustins.
Artoftheday also recommends...
•Es Baluard, the museum of modern art of Palma de Mallorca presents the collection Ella Fontanals-Cisneros of Latin-American abstract art : from Cruz-Diez and Héctor Ragni up to Lygia Pape and Soto, the whole movement is covered with 130 works by 66 artists. Until 20 June 2010.
•In Paris vaut bien une messe (Paris is worth a mass, the famous phrase of Henri IV), the national museum of the castle of Pau presents an ensemble of little-known grisaille paintings. They were commissioned by the Medici from Florence (Henri IV was the husband of Marie de Médicis) to commemorate, four months after his death, the memory of the king murdered by Ravaillac. Until 30 June 2010.
•At the IVAM in Valencia, Pinazo y la acuarela shows the vast production of watercolors by artist Ignacio Pinazo (1849-1916), in Spain, a country that has always privileged oil painting: portraits, academies, flower studies, etc. Until 23 May 2010.
AUCTIONS
Lot 119, vitrail en grisaille et jaune d'argent représentant Sainte Catherine d'Alexandrie. Ecole de Norwich vers 1450. Angleterre XV° siècle. (Très légères restaurations). 42x 21,5 cm, Estimation : 18 000 - 22 000 €. Courtesy Rieunier & Associés, Paris.
Five centuries of stained glass
PARIS – What is the price of a Medieval or Renaissance stained glass? If one thinks of the masterpieces of Chartres or Reims, the price is out of reach. But those are not easily found on the market either. The prices are a lot more reasonable for creations of inferior quality, produced in relatively greater numbers at the same period and later. The special auction organized by the Rieunier house proves it by placing side by side, for example, small fragments of grisailles from the XVIIth century, with estimates starting at 50 €. Even older pieces can be negotiated at very acceptable prices –less than 1000 €, in particular if they have been restored later. On the other hand, if the object has been kept intact and is well made, the price can soar: a stained glass in grisaille and silver yellow from the school of Norwich representing Saint Catherine (towards 1450) should go beyond 20 000 €. Values went down drastically during the XIXth century and today, except for a few refined examples of Art nouveau. It is curious to note though, a series of stained glass from the end of the XIXth century from Friar Park, the neo-gothic home of English lawyer Frank Crisp (1843-1919) and then of George Harrison, the guitarist from the Beatles.
•Vitraux at Richelieu-Drouot on 12 April 2010 (SVV Rieunier)
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Gendron Jensen Untitled (TRIBUNAL), 1988 Graphite on paper Suite of seven drawings, 84 x 48 inches each (numbered I-VII) (coyote bones)
Gendron Jensen, the poetry of bones
We may never see him exhibited in France. Gendron Jensen is one of those artists who turn their work almost into a sort of mystic and do not skip from one gallery opening to another. In his retreat in New-Mexico, near Taos, where he lives with another very unclassifiable artist, Christine Taylor Patten, he gets up every morning at 3 AM, and meditates. The he draws. What does he draw? Over the last forty years he draws only one thing, the bones of large mammals. And he uses one single technique, black lead. Elks, coyotes, wolves and blue whales decompose under his pencil and then are recomposed in gigantic ensembles, over two meters tall, in which shoulder blades, pelvises and femurs draw up symmetric figures that have never been seen in reality. Jensen was once a Benedict monk. It is believed he kept from that experience a patience to resist all tests. Actually, the discipline of the order must not have seemed strict enough to him, as he has subordinated his whole existence to the lead of a pencil. « I must have drawn 1500 serious drawings in my life » he told us in 2007. That comes out to some barely thirty a year. How else could we define a vocation?
•Gendron Jensen is exhibited in New York, at the Knoedler Project Space, from 1st April to 28th May 2010.
BOOKS
Building in the Var
Of course there is Le Corbusier at the Pradet, and Mallet-Stevens with his villa Noailles in Hyères. But there is also the hôtel Latitude 43, designed by Pingusson in Saint-Tropez. This book, dedicated to the remarkable architectural creations of the XXth century in the department of the Var in South-Eastern France, did not omit any of the great classics. It describes their genesis and their wait (long sometimes) before being included in the national heritage group: Port-Grimaud for example, which was started on an artisanal level by François Spoerry, was snubbed at for a long time in spite of its quick public success. But the main interest of this book is probably to have the public rediscover ensembles that have somehow been forgotten, such as the villa of Octave van Rysselberghe in the Lavandou or that of René Darde in Sainte-Maxime. Not to mention the unbelievable projects such as the mosque of Missiri, in Fréjus, commissioned to the Senegalese soldiers to keep them busy, or the aerial well of Achille Knapen in Trans-en-Provence, which never reached its objective, to produce water from the condensation of air…
•L’architecture du XXe siècle dans le Var, directed by Jean-Lucien Bonillo, Imbernon publishing house, 2010, 212 p., 30 €
IN BRIEF
MADRID-The International Encounters Paris-Berlin-Madrid, dedicated to cinema and contemporary art, will be held in various venues (Reina Sofia, Tabacalera, etc) from 12 to 21 April 2010.
NEW YORK – The Pace and Wildenstein art galleries, which merged in 1993, have announced they would split again. Pace is specialized in modern and contemporary art while Wildenstein is focused on ancient masters and impressionism.
NEW YORK – In its auction of photographs (April 13), Sotheby’s will put on sale the Nautilus Shell by Edward Weston, which carries an estimate of $ 300,000 (it was paid $ 10 in 1927). In its own sales (April 14 and 15), Christie’s will offer several collections, one of which is the Patricia McCabe collection, which boasts a series of photographs by Irving Penn.
PARIS – The pavilion of the Sessions du Louvre, the forerunner of the collection of the musée du quai Branly, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a retrospective, from 14 April to 26 July 2010.
ROME – Part of the ceiling of the Domus Aurea, the former palace of Neron, collapsed on 30 March without causing casualties.
ON ART-OF-THE-DAY.INFO
This week, do not miss
LIAM GILLICK One long walk... Two short piers
BONN - Liam Gillick - who emerged in the early 1990s - is one of the most prominent representatives of conceptual art today and one of the most influential artists of our time. The Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany dedicates him a comprehensive survey.
PAKISTAN - Where civilizations meet - Gandharan arts
PARIS – The Guimet Museum presents 200 exceptional works of art, typical of the Gandhara, a former kingdom with a Hellenistic influence which spanned the North West provinces of today’s Pakistan. This civilisation peaked between the 1st and 3rd century AD, in the era of the successors of Alexander the Great.