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Art Of The Day Weekly

#267 - from 12 July 2012 to 1 August 2012


Ei Arakawa, See Weeds, 2011, Courtesy of the Artists and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Photo: Alison Vieuxmaire (Th Tanks, Tate Modern)

IN THE AIR

The Tate Modern opens up its basement

What already impressed everyone about the Tate Modern when it was inaugurated was its huge size. His former electric plant has been able to offer contemporary art absolutely spectacular spaces that have ensured the public’s passion as we can see in the installations presented in the hall of the Turbines over the last ten years. While waiting for the extension carried out by Herzog and de Meuron to be concluded by 2016 (which will add 21,000 square metres i.e. 60% additional space), the museum has decided to recuperate other areas: the reservoirs where the oil used to run the plant was installed. These underground rooms with vast dimensions (30 metres long, 7 metres tall) will be inaugurated on 18 July 2012, with an original theme: they will host one of the largest concentrations in Europe of living art, happenings and performances. The list of artists includes Korean Sung Hwan Kim as well as Cuban artist Tania Bruguera or Flemish Anne Teresa de Keersmaecker. An excellent opening to the Cultural Olympiad and to the London Festival 2012.

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EXHIBITIONS


The Arundel First Folio - Engraving of William Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout. Copyright of the Governors of Stonyhurst College

Shakespeare superstar

LONDON - We could have expected this sort of celebration in 2016, which will be the 4e centennial of his death (and that of Cervantes while we are at it!). But the Olympic Games rushed things and therefore we now have the great retrospective of the Barde that will be held in the heat (?) of a rather sporty London summer. Is this an exhibition to show-off or does it include real research? It seems very ambitious with over 400 objects requisitioned throughout Great-Britain and in Europe – and the collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company seems to prove the reality of our second hypothesis. All we can do is hope that tourists will leave the arenas of the East End for a breath of fresh air with a copy of the first Folio Arundel, miniatures by Hilliard or strange Elizabethan relics, like this mummified eye of the martyr Edward Oldcorne.
Shakespeare, staging the world at the British Museum, from 19 July to 25 November 2012.

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Something else...

Contemporary art on the beach

LES SABLES D'OLONNE - The museum of the Abbaye Sainte-Croix puts periods side by side in its two exhibitions this summer: a selection of works from the Centre national des arts plastiques in Explorers and XIX century seaside architecture in l'heure du bain. From 18 July to 10 November 2012.

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Return to photography

ORNANS - Ath the Gustave Courbet museum, A l'épreuve du réel shows how painters faced one of the major revolutions of the XIXth century: the arrival of photography. From 30 June to 1st October 2012

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The book in art

PORTO - What dialogue can there be between visual arts and books? That is the subject of the exhibition Tarefas infinitas at the fondation Gulbenkian, combining old prints as well as excerpts from Alphaville by Godard. From 20 July to 21 October 2012/.

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Gasiorowski in his proper dimension

SAINT-PAUL-DE-VENCE - Monory had named him the «man mad about painting». Gérard Gasiorowski, who died too young in 1986, is finally enjoying a retrospective that will be a reference: the fondation Maeght has made him its guest star for the summer of 2012. From 30 June to 26 September 2012

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John Cage, the go-between

STUTTGART - He would have been 100 years old in 2012: the Staatsgalerie is seizing the opportunity to draw up an assessment of John Cage,who before being a composer, had been a maverick who brought down the barriers between different disciplines of contemporary art. From 21 July to 11 November 2012

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Clavé, the other artist from Catalunia

TOULON - Among the Catalan artists who recently died, next to Saura and Tàpies, we too often forget Antoni Clavé (1913-2005), presented now at the Hôtel des Arts. This great friend of Picasso's had explored canvas as well as bronze. From 30 June to 2 September 2012.

ARTIST TO FOLLOW


Peter Saul, Telephone call, 1988, acrylic on canvas, 183x214 cm Photo : © Peter Saul

Peter Saul, into the kitsch

In face of the ever-powerful conceptual art, photography or installations, what place is left for gaudy painting? The question may sound like a joke, but it is not so innocent actually. With his loud colors, his deformed characters, his derision of major historical episodes (the battle of El Alamo, Napoleon crossing the Alps), Peter Saul (born in 1934) has been for the last fifty years the author of a form of art with Rabelaisian dimensions, which finds no visibility in the institutions. He is caught between Pop Art and caustic comic strips- like Mad-, and he presents his last two decades of work with some fourty paintings and notebooks full of drawings.
• Peter Saul at the Fondation Salomon (Château d'Arenthon, Alex, Haute-Savoie), from 14 July to 11 November 2012.

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OPENINGS OF THE WEEK

BOOKS

In search of the unicorn

Summer is the season for gigantic books and adventure novels. Here is one that will quench all thirst for exoticism and wonder. One strolls through unicorn horns and the teeth of a giant from the Ariège region, between canopic jars and turned ivories. We are of course referring to the “cabinets de curiosités” that were so in fashion during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries, when one wanted by all means to understand the world in all of its manifestations, in particular the more bizarre ones. The author has defined typologies of collected objects in which he slips 45 varieties Pierre Morin tulips as well as the much disputed Othons, those bronze coins of an Emperor who only reigned for 3 months in the year 69. Her we have the animal, mineral and vegetable kingdoms… and even gravel with the stones from Chaduc. They gave way to savory exchanges between Rubens and Peiresc, the learned man from Provence when they wished to determine what part of the female anatomy details these reliefs of the "greatest boasters of love all of Antiquity"…
Le géant, la licorne et la tulipe, les cabinets de curiosités en France au XVIIe siècle, by Antoine Schnapper, Flammarion, 2012, 768 p., €15.

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