Art Of The Day Weekly
#311 - from 11 July 2013 to 7 August 2013
Andy Warhol, album cover The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1967 © 2013 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York/BUS. Collection Vitra Design Museum (exhibition at Moderna Museet, Stockholm).
IN THE AIR
Pop is fashion
After calling in the crowds in London, Roy Lichtenstein repeats his success in Paris. Keith Haring, whom we could consider one of his epigones, is also at the top of the billboard in Paris at the Museum of Modern Art and at the “104”. In New York, any of Andy Warhol’s serigraphic series have doubled its estimates. Just one example would be the sale of the Cowboys and Indians series, estimated at $30 000, that sold for $87 000 on 2 May at Sotheby’s. Claes Oldenburg has a full house at the MoMA since the month of April. Pop Art has is truly ‘alive and well… all over the world!’ Why not spend this summer- yes, it is finally Summer time- admiring these colorful creations? One can continue the itinerary at the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, with the exhibit ‘Life with Pop’ a pioneer exhibition from 1963. At the time, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and friends defined the movement in an abandoned boutique as “capitalist realism”. To wrap up the trip, drop by Stockholm, where the Moderna Museet shows the capacity of Pop Art to turn certain things around as well as to embody itself in consumer products. This rich cross-fertilization with design is one of the secrets of its longevity…
• Pop Art Design at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, from 29 June to 22 September 2013
• Life With Pop at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, from 21 July to 29 September 2013
SUMMER EXHIBITIONS
Hans Thoma, The Flight into Egypt, oil on canvas, 1879.
Thoma, too much love, from the wrong side
FRANCFORT – It is only now that he is shown again. Indeed, Hans Thoma (1839-1924) suffered from being considered “the Germans’ favorite painter” and Hitler’s in particular. This stigma followed him forever even though the artist had already passed away when the head of the Nazis came to power. His Symbolist landscapes, his sensual nymphs, his detailed interior scenes were once immensely popular, but it was politically correct to forget him after 1945. This presentation of some one hundred paintings is a sort of purgatory.
• Hans Thoma at the Städel Museum, from 3 July to 29 September 2013.
R. B. Kitaj, Junta, 1962, Ausschnitt · Privatsammlung · R. B. Kitaj Estate
Kitaj, a question of identity
HAMBURG – R.B. Kitaj (1932-2007) is one of the great American artists of the 20th century. He was the son of Russian immigrants who constantly questioned the dimensions of his Jewish identity, and consequently turned his work into a questioning of the nation, being uprooted, and solitude. Deeply figurative, this friend of Hockney and Freud was interested in various techniques, going from collage to automatic painting. The exhibition brings together over 130 pieces and benefitted from privileged access to the artist’s archives.
• Kitaj, The Retrospective at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, from 19 July to 27 October 2013.
Photo Matthew Lloyd. Courtesy Somerset House.
Ferran Adrià, portrait of the chef as an artist
LONDON - He is the wonderboy of XXth century cooking and his aura grew even more after he closed his restaurant to continue his research into molecular cuisinee. You all know we are refering to Ferran Adrià and his restaurant in Catalonia, elBulli. A true phenomenon of society, the chef takes his place next to the best known visual artists. There is nothing to eat, of course, but a lot to see in this exhibition: sketches, models in plastiline, made to measure utensiles, a great volume of correspondance and a photo report. Just to keep busy while awaiting the answer to the true question, when will elBulli open again?
• elBulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food at Somerset House, from 5 July to 29 September 2013.
Court dress, ca 1760. Lyon, musée des Tissus, acquired in, 1913 © Lyon, musée des Tissus, photo Pierre Verrier
Falsies, of all types
PARIS –Once upon a time there was an art form that was greatly successful at the beginning of the French Empire: the art of the silhouette. Those who practiced it, the silhouette artists, were capable of sketching the contour of a person in a matter of seconds. How could such a technique disappear, precisely at a time when we are more obsessed than ever with our profile and our figure? This exhibition includes that precise question while showing all the tricks woman has acquired –and men a little as well- to modify their appearance with springs, whale baleens or cushioned cloths …
• La mécanique des dessous, une histoire indiscrète de la silhouette at the musée des Arts décoratifs from 5 July to 24 November 2013.
Courtesy Fundación Botín, Santander.
At the time of Altamira
SANTANDER – The Botín family, the first Spanish financial dynasty, are sponsoring an exhibition on the famous cave paintings of Altamira. No April fool’s joke, just a simple public relations operation! But not only. It turns out that one of the inventors of the cave in 1868, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, was the father-in-law of the first Botín, the one who founded the Banco de Santander. At the time, the aspiring archaeologist was the laughing stock of all of Europe’s scientists when he declared the paintings were the work of men from the Palaeolithic period. Such motifs could only be vulgar fakes! This was the common belief until French pre-historian Eugène Cartailhac publishes in 1902 his Mea culpa d’un sceptique. The exhibition includes prints, tools and statuettes from the last ice age, and is also an invitation to visit the replica of the cave of Altamira, in Santillana del Mar.
• El arte en la época de Altamira at the fundación Botín, from 3 July to 29 September 2013.
VENICE BIENNALE
Assessing the Encyclopedic Palace
Dispatch 3 from our correspondents Preston Thayer and Marjorie Och
• See also Dispatch 2
• See also Dispatch 1
SUMMER READING
Forgotten Romanticism
Félicie de Fauveau? That name no longer rings a bell. And yet she was one of the best known woman sculptors (1801-1886) of the XIXth century. A fervent royalist, she preferred an exile to Florence rather than to live under the reign of Louis-Philippe. She was inspired by the fantastic Middle Ages, and recreated busts thath had the details of ivory sculptures and drawings that remind us of the "enluminures". Thsi book is a true detailed catalogue for the current exhibition at the musée d'Orsay and contains most of her works, in particular the impressive Lampe de Saint-Michel, recently bought by the museum.
• Félicie de Fauveau, collective work, 2013, 366 p., €45
Paris fashion
A very Parisian phenomenon saw the light at the beginning of the XXth century: high fashion. It is personnalized to the extreme around a few strong personalities, from Poiret to Madeleine Vionet, it is in reality a collective discipline that includes a multitude of seamstresses, the famous 'petites mains'. Decade after decade, according to targeted themes - the role of the cliente, embroidery in the twenties or haute couture under the German Occupation -, the book brings it back in the limelight. And makes us all dream before the reopening of the Galliera museum (programed for the autum) since all the superb outfits presneted here come from there…
• Paris haute couture, directed by Olivier Saillard and d'Anne Zazzo, Skira Flammarion, 2013, 288 p., €39.90.
