Art Of The Day Weekly
#289 - from 7 February 2013 to 13 February 2013
The Boxer of Quirinal, so-called Terme Boxer (2nd half of the 4th century B.C. or 3rd century B.C., Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome). Photo akg-images/Jürgen Raible (exhibition Back to Classic at Liebighaus, Francfort).
IN THE AIR
Jean-Paul Gauthier enters the museum
ROTTERDAM – He is the designer for bad boys, of fickle sailor boys, of free girls. Jean-Paul Gaultier, the trouble maker of the ‘80s, emerged from the punk movement, now steps into the major cultural institutions. The “use” of cinema and fashion by the museums of modern art is nothing new. We have already seen Dior, Saint Laurent, Armani, Peter Greenaway or David Lynch. With Alexander McQueen, who in 2011 attracted 660 000 visitors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York -one of the highest attendance levels in its history-, and Gaultier, we are dealing with the most recent generation, the one that created iconoclasm, who did “world culture” and used the manipulation of consumerism symbols as their own personal mission. Thirty seven years after his first show, 140 models by Gaultier, of which some are from the “people” collections such as those of Madonna or Pedro Almodovar, have been “brought to life” through digital animation. The enfant terrible has been bought…
• The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier at the Kunsthal Rotterdam, from 10 February to 12 May 2013.
EXHIBITIONS
Bison sculpted from mammoth ivory. Found at Zaraysk, Russia, about 20,000 years old. Zaraysk Museum of Art and History. Dr Sergey Lev.
Modern art is 20,000 years old
LONDON - Modern art comes from prehistoric times … In any case that is the interesting approach the British Museum has chosen for its exhibition Ice Age Art. The idea is not revolutionary: the creators before the last ice age left us “icons” with a sobriety is similar to that of our recent avant-gardes. Picasso, Braque and Vlaminck among others never hid the fact they had been inspired by the Neolithic Venuses in reindeer bone or in ivory from mammoths. In this occasion we will admire a very famous one, that of Lespugue, a master piece from the musée de l’Homme in Paris, as well as important loans from Russia or Germany, a bear head in limestone from the Science Academy of Saint-Petersburg, geometric decorations from the Baikal region, diadem and pearls, a flute in vulture bone from Bade-Wurtemberg. The evetn becomes particularly stimulating when the curators oppose these objects to current creations– works by Matisse, Moore or statuettes by Brassaï, very pure and hardly known by the public at large.
• Ice Age Art at the British Museum, from 7 February to 26 May 2013.
These exhibitions also open this week…
Watteau's melody
BRUSSELS – In Watteau, le salon de musique, the painter of ceremonial festivities –the famous fêtes galantes – and of the dying Ancien Régime, brings together his musicians and his beautiful damsels at the Bozar, with orchestra director William Christie as curator. From 8 February to 12 May 2013.
The grandeur of Ancient Greece
FRANKFURT – At the Liebighaus, Back to Classic closely re-examines the Greek sculptures of the Vth and IVth centuries B.C. by presenting major recent discoveries, in particular in Brindisi. From 8 February to 26 May 2013.
Man Ray, the portrait artist
LONDON –Man Ray Portraits shows an aspect of one of the masters of Surrealism at the National Portrait Gallery. From 7 February to 27 May 2013.
Impressionists out in the open
MADRID – In Impresionnismo y aire libre, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza describes the genesis and development of outdoor painting, from Corot to Van Gogh (photo Château de Chillon by Courbet). From 5 February to 12 May 2013.
Chagall, ten years
ZURICH – The Kunsthaus has stolen the show from the musée du Luxembourg by opening a retrospective Chagall, maître de la modernité (Chagall, master of modernity) focused on the 1911-1922 period, two weeks before the Chagall, guerre et paix (Chagall war and peace) at the Parisian institution. From 8 February to 12 May 2013.
AUCTIONS
Lot 429, 1791 - Arrest of King Louis XVI in Varennes, decree of French National Assembly, 25 June 1791. Estimate: €1,000. Courtesy Delorme & Collin du Bocage, Paris.
History in posters
PARIS – This impressive collection of posters and billboardss with 1098 lots is a real treat for history lovers. The first is the petition sent in 1606 to the duke of Savoie by the merchants and carriage drivers of Asti for him to move the Asti fair to the 8th Easter Sunday … The last is the call to voters to vote for deputy Autun in 1845. Between the two –estimated respectively at €350 and €60 –there are centuries of small and major European events. The most sought for will probably be the Bulletin de la Grande Armée announcing the entry in Moscow on 16 September 1812 (lot 890, €1000). It was not too long before the big defeat … Or another lose, the decree of the Assemblée nationale on 21 June 1791 for the arrest of the King at Varenne (lot 429, €1000). It was this paper that allowed Romeuf, the aide de camp of La Fayette, to arrest Mr. Durand, alias Louis XVI in Varennes…
• Affiches et placards 12 February 2013 at the hôtel-Drouot (SVV Delorme & Collin du Bocage)
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Alexandre Singh, Assembly Instructions Lecture (Ikea, Manzoni, Klein et al-, performance, Alexander Nagel’s apartement, New York, 2009 Courtesy artconcept, Paris
Alexandre Singh, a human comedy
To Alexandre Singh, an artist of Indian and French origin, trained in London, living in New York and exhibited in Rotterdam, born in 1980 in Bordeaux and recent winner of the prix Meurice d’art contemporain, multiculturalism and cosmopolitism are not words in vain. We should speak rather of mixing at all levels since her work is both visual (drawings), animated (videos) and literary (novels and essays), using marketing codes such as the projection of paintings and theatre… Consequently, it is difficult to give a precise definition except that it proceeds by “projects”. The most ambitious is maybe the latest which gave birth to a one year residence at the Witte de With center in Rotterdam and that led to a multiform creation soberly and exaggeratedly called Humans.
• Alexandre Singh is represented in Paris by the galerie artconcept
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
BOOKS
The hidden face of Versailles
There is an Apollo version of Versailles– the one we know, marked by the love of the Sun King for the “la Montespan” or for the duchesse of La Vallière – but there is also a Dyonisus version of Versailles, marked by violence and chaos. Such is the thesis defended by Michel Jeanneret, who uses with well rounded out arguments. First there is the work itself – to move earth like a Titan – which makes the former pleasure castle of Louis XIII look like a “cesspool” according to Saint-Simon. There is also all that decorative program that is not so typically Grand Siècle after all with its statues of satyrs brutally carrying away the nymphs, the Colérique by Jacques Houzau or those monstrous frogs in the Bassin de Latone. And last but not least there the confusion of threatening and hurling water, -the Grandes Eaux-, the parades of flaming giants, the ballets where the king played the role of a libertine, in the midst of the hunchbacks and cripples of the Court. A stimulating vision for it puts into doubt the cliché of classic order and elegance …
• Versailles, ordre et chaos by Michel Jeanneret, Gallimard, 2012, 384 p., €38
IN BRIEF
LONDON -Painter Lucian Freud, who died in March 2012, donated to the National Gallery a painting by Corot that was accepted as payment for the inheritance rights of his heirs. The painting, l’Italienne by Corot, had been bought at an auction in 2001 and had previously belonged to actor Edward G. Robinson.
MADRID – The 32nd edition of ARCO modern and contemporary art is being held from 13 to 17 February 2013 with Turkey as the guest country.
MADRID – The Art Madrid fair, specialized in modern and contemporary art, is being held from 13 to 17 February 2013.
MOSCOW -The website that defends patrimony, archnadzor.ru, denounces the destruction by the mayor of the Russian capital on 1st January 2013, of an historic monument, the Novo Ekaterininskaïa hospital by Neo-classic architect Joseph Bové, on the Strassnoï Boulevard.
PARIS - The Hopper exhibit at the Grand Palais, which closed on 3 February 2013, attracted 784 000 visitors. It beats the previous record set by Picasso et les maîtres in 2009 (783 352) but remains far behind the Monet in 2011 (913 064).
PHILADELPHIA - The Barnes Foundation, which celebrates its first anniversary of its move to the center of Philadelphia, will now organize temporary exhibitions. The first one will open on 4 May 2013 and will be dedicated to Ellsworth Kelly.
ROTTERDAM - The Art Rotterdam fair, dedicated to contemporary art (with an emphasis on video art), is being held from 7 to 10 February 2013.