Art Of The Day Weekly
#246 - from 16 February 2012 to 22 February 2012
Cecilia Paredes, Sirena en el mar de rosas, 2011. Photo performance, paint on body, lambda print on photographic paper 100 x 100 cm. Courtesy Xavier Fiol, Palma de Mallorca (exhibited in ARCO, Madrid).
IN THE AIR
Arco, an engine for Madrid?
Over 20% unemployment, more than one out of two young workers out of a job, a real estate market that is crumbling down, a weakened bank system, a «spread» that grows with the German rates: in Spain more than elsewhere, life is not “la vie en rose”. This depressing state of affairs is countered by the offensive of the ARCO fair: this year there are more galleries (215) than last year in the contemporary art fair, where the Netherlands are the guest of honor. This month of February, as by the past, the event puts the limelight on Madrid, and its continued ambitious policy regarding exhibitions, with the Prado (open as of recently seven days a week), the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum (that is inaugurating a large retrospective on Chagall) and the Reina Sofía (that is getting ready to close an audacious exhibition on Raymond Roussel) competing in a stimulating way on the Paseo de los Museos. The phenomenon of parallel fairs resists by presenting «emerging» artists at low prices, by daring to set up in original venues, as done by JustMad – a fair with an ironic name very much of our times -, who chose the parking lot of the hotel Silken.
ARCO, 15 to 19 February 2012, at the IFEMA Convention Center
EXHIBITIONS
Chagall, Golgotha, Calvaire, 1912, oil on canvas, 174.6 x 192.4 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, 1949. © 2011 Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence © VEGAP
Seven decades of Chagall
MADRID – Faced with the blockbusters announced all over Europe – Matisse in Paris, Titian and Tintoretto in Italy, Klimt in Vienna or Picasso in London – the Spanish capital brings out Chagall. Jean-Louis Prat, the director for decades of the Fondation Maeght, has organized this exhibition that will benefit from all the links he knit during his years in Saint Paul de Vence and, of course, from his role at the head of the Comité Chagall. From 1909 (L’anneau The ring) to 1976 (Le Fils prodigue The prodigal son), one of the longest careers of the century is revisited through a remarkable ensemble of paintings and drawings (150 works) from all his periods: his youth at Vitebsk, the Jewish theatre in Moscow during the revolution, Paris between the two wars up to his American period in 1941-48 and his return to France. This marathon will be presented in two chronological phases: the first at the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, the second in the walls of the Caja Madrid foundation, the usual partner and ideally located behind Puerta del Sol.
• Chagall at the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum and the Caja Madrid foundation, from 14 February to 20 May 2012.
Art of the day also recommends in Madrid...
• With Locus Solus, the Reina Sofía museum presents a monument of experimental literature, Raymond Roussel, the author of d’Impressions d’Afrique, who drove through the continent without drawing the curtains of his car … and ended up committing suicide at the Palms hotel in Palermo. Until 27 February 2012 then at the Serralves foundation in Porto. (Photo: F. Picabia, Totalisateur, 1922 © Vegap, Madrid)
• As an unexpected coincidence, the Círculo de Bellas Artes dissects another «iconic» giant of French literature, Georges Pérec. Until 29 April 2012.
• During the year Russia-Spain, the Prado museum offers a selection of masterpieces from the Hermitage. Until 25 March 2012.
• The Fundacion March is only showing 10 fantasy portraits in Giandomenico Tiepolo (1787-1804) 10 retratos de fantasia but their advantage is their large size and their freshness: they are all from the same private collection, and have rarely been seen by the public.Until 4 March 2012.
• The Fundacion Mapfre exhibits one of the greatest French symbolists, Odilon Redon. Until 25 April 2012.
• The Fundacion Banco Santander plays in the contemporary scene by showing the Collection Rubell from Miami that has rarely travelled abroad. Until 17 June 2012.
They also open this week in Europe...
• LAUSANNE – At the Musée de l’Elysée, Derrière le rideau, l’esthétique photomaton (Behind the curtain, the aesthetics of an automatic photo booth) shows the fascination the technique of I.D. photos has over many artists. From 16 February to 20 May 2012. (Photo: Andy Warhol, Frances Lewis, 1966, acrylic and silkprint on canvas, 12 panels, 162,5x167,6 cm © Coll. The Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation/2011, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society, NY)
• MANTOVA – At one time the court of Mantova was as powerful as that of Venice, and it allowed exceptional collectors and patrons of the arts express themselves, among them Vincenzo Gonzaga (1562-1612), whose splendour is shown at the Museo Diocesano. From 18 February to 10 June 2012.
• MILANO - At Palazzo Reale, Tiziano e la nascita del paesaggio moderno (Titian and the birth of the modern landscape) shows the role of the Venitian painter in the birth of an autonomous genre, landscape painting. From 16 February to 20 May 2012.
• LONDON – At the Tate Britain, Picasso and Modern British Art studies the influence of the Spanish master on the other side of the Channel. From 15 February to 15 June 2012.
• PARIS – In Néon, Who’s afraid of red, yellow and blue ?, the Maison Rouge studies the arrival of a medium that marked contemporary art: the neon. From 17 February to 20 May 2012.
• ROUBAIX – Picasso, already in the limelight in London, is dissected here by the lens of his good friend and photographer David Douglas Duncan at the Piscine. From 18 February to 20 May 2012.
• VERSAILLES – The Château of Versailles has us discover Napoleon’s wars in Guerres de Napoléon as seen by an original reporter, General Louis-François Lefèvre, who was a talented painter. From 14 February to 13 May 2012
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Pablo Genovés, Cronología del ruido, methacrylate on C-print, 50 x 65 cm. Courtesy galerie Pilar Serra, Madrid
The apocalypsis, Pablo Genovés version
MADRID - We immediately think of the library of Sarajevo, with bomb holes, or of old photos of devastated museums during World War II, in which GI’s respectively consult precious books, their feet deep in rubble. With one difference, the images presented by Pablo Genovés (born in 1959), a photographer mad for collages, are only views of the mind. His cathedrals, naves, golden theatres and palatial rooms are only virtually in ruins, in flames, or flooded by tormented waters (as in the series «Precipitados»). But the effect is remarkable and these failed apocalypses are true «memento mori»: this is what the end of a civilization, ours, could look like …
• Pablo Genovés, Cronología del ruido at the Pilar Serra gallery (Almagro 44, Madrid) until 17 March 2012.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
BOOKS
The temptation of the occult
What are catalogues for? To accompany top quality exhibits but also to preserve keep them through time. Like the one that just closed in Strasbourg, called «l’Europe des esprits» Europe of the spirit, that brought together hundreds of works of art to materialize the countless bridges built between art and the world of the occult, esotericism, the dark forces of the subconscious. From Goethe to John Martin, from Redon to Ciurlonis, from Klee to Matta, the exhibit reviewed two centuries. Next to the leading figures, we also see creations by marginal authors, some of them not professional artists such as Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, others that history with a capital H have neglected such as Bresdin, Runge, Carus or Lesage… In the boxes we see fascinating, picturesque subjects – we learn how Elise Müller, who fascinated Breton and Lacan, succeeded in writing in Martian – or more significant – in particular on the attraction great scientists such as the Curie couple or William Crookes had for this world of the unexplainable.
• L’Europe des esprits ou la fascination de l’occulte, 1750-1950, directed by Serge Fauchereau and Joëlle Pijaudier-Cabot, Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg, 2011, 424 p., 48 €.
IN BRIEF
NEW YORK - The New Museum Triennal , which features 34 young artists, has opened on 15 February 2012 under the title "The Ungovernables".
NEW YORK - The New Museum Triennal , which features 34 young artists, has opened on 15 February 2012 under the title "The Ungovernables".
PARIS-The Institut du monde arabe will inaugurate on 21 February 2012 the new presentation of its museum, dedicated to the 22 founding countries of the IMA.
PARIS-The Centre Pompidou received a donation of 1200 drawings from collectors Daniel and Florence Guerlain.
STOCKHOLM-The Supermarket 2012 contemporary art fair will be held at the Kulturhuset from 17 to 19 February 2012.