Art Of The Day Weekly
#351 - from 19 June 2014 to 25 June 2014
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Villeneuve-les- Avignon, 1901, oil on canvas, 33x53.5 cm. Fondation Corboud.
IN THE AIR
Anything new on Renoir?
MARTIGNY – His nude female figures, lazy and chubby, have been over-reproduced until exhaustion and have become cheap chromos. Now look at Renoir (1841-1919) in a new way. This is somehow the aim of this exhibition, grouping together works that have rarely or never been shown before to the public. They have been hiding in private collections, in far-away museums or ones with less attendance (São Paulo, Moscow, Dresden). They confirm - no surprise – his favourite themes: portraits, landscapes, nudes and scenes of happy families. Now and then there is an unexpected image, like the early scene of the commedia dell’arte (Arlequin et Colombine). Or, in another genre, this portrait of a gracious young girl in a dress, with ribbons in her golden hair, busy sewing. All false! It was his son Jean, who would become the famous movie director...
• Revoir Renoir ! at the Fondation Gianadda, from 20 June to 23 November 2014.
EXHIBITIONS
Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Alexandre devant un vitrail, oil on canvas, 81x45.6 cm, 1913. Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Donation Blaise and Philippe Alexandre, 1988.
El Greco and his heirs
MADRID – Following a first round in Toledo, the year of El Greco – celebrating the fourth centennial of his death in 1614 –will have a second youth in Madrid. There isn’t a modern painter who was not influenced by the master from Crete. It seems obvious when we look at the list of paintings shown, presented to measure his post-mortem power of attraction. Of course there is Manet, crazy about Spanish painting, and Picasso. But there is also Kokoschka and a range of Expressionists, up to Pollock not to mention the Mexican Muralists –Orozco- or those who distorted the human anatomy such as Bacon. This type of ‘rapprochement’ is most debatable but is always enriching and exciting. As for the 78 works by El Greco which are put face to face with these modern works, they have been insured by the State for the amount of nearly €700 million. Prior to its opening, there is already a buzz around it due to these mind-blowing figures.
• El Greco y la pintura moderna at the museo del Prado, from 24 June to 5 October 2014.
Calder outdoors
AMSTERDAM – The Rijksmuseum has recently reopened following a long refurbishment, and it now has an external exhibition space. This summer it has set up 14 monumental sculptures by Calder, borrowed from great world collections.
• Calder at the Rijksmuseum, from 21 June to 5 October 2014.
Gauls, who are you?
CLERMONT-FERRAND – The Gauls were warriors, wore braids, a thick moustache and never washed. These myths remain and the success of Astérix has not helped belie them. Half-way between art, archaeology and sociology, this exhibition confronts the Gaul myth and reality, nourished by the latest archaelogic diggings. In Europe, the Gauls introduced soap...
• Tumulte gaulois at the musée Bargoin and the musée d’art Roger-Quilliot, from 20 June to 23 November 2014.
Rodin, a taste for the incomplete
GENEVA – We know Rodin spent years working on his famous Porte de l’Enfer without ever finishing it. But he seemed to have a passion for the un-finished. In any case it is the feeling we have after seeing this exhibition, with 80 fragments and intermediary states by the sculptor.
• Rodin, l’accident et l’aléatoire at the Musée d’art et d’histoire, from 20 June to 26 September 2014.
AUCTIONS
Lot 29 : Walter Greaves (1846-1930), Portrait of Thomas Carlyle. 1870. Drawing and pastel. Signed and dated on bottom right. 32 x 22.5 cm. Estimate : €2000-€3000.
Marseille is eclectic
MARSEILLE – In the world of auctions, we often forget the rest of France in favour of Paris. Yet, they break records there as well. We all remember the ones recorded each year during the “garden party organised by the Rouillac at the castle of Cheverny (this year, on 15 and 16 June) or the Chinese scroll sold in Toulouse by the Labarbe auction house in 2011 (€22 million). This week, the most beautiful pieces will be up for sale in Marseille. Local painting will have a place of honour – from the horsemen by Brayer to the masters of Provence Olive, Chabaud or Monticelli, including a large series by Augustin Carrera (1878-1952). But the most expected stars are more exotic: a painting by Chu Teh-Chun (estimated at €200 000), a Mariage à Marrakech by Majorelle or even Marie-Madeleine by baroque painter Spadarino, which belonged to the count of Chabran, a general of the Empire. If you like eclectic collections, this is your opportunity.
• Peintures on 21 June 2014 at Damien Leclère
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Bernard Aubertin, Wok, 2014, acrylic on wood, 42 x 42 cm.
Aubertin red
Yves Klein was known for his blue, Bernard Aubertin is known for his red. The two men had the same obsession with monochrome, and they were both friends. Klein died a long time ago (1928-1962) but Aubertin is celebrating his 80th birthday and continues his quest for red. The colour of blood, of passion, of the devil, the colour of energy and of what is forbidden. He spread this red colour on large canvases, which he burnt, or which he layered on metallic nets or on nails and matches. Aubertin was a member since the early 60s of the group Zero from Düsseldorf (where he joined in particular Gunther Uecker, Klein’s brother-in-law). He actually has a wider palette in which we find other monochromes (silver, gold) and works marked by the flame such as his fire drawings and even his recent Burnt Rotella.
• Bernard Aubertin is exhibited at the galerie Jean Brolly (18, rue de Montmorency, 75003 Paris), from 19 June to 31 july 2014.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
21 June 2014 - TREIGNY - Château de Ratilly
Recent works from one of the main representatives of Support Surface
BOOKS
Delvaux, the other Surrealist
Magritte has always monopolised Belgian Surrealism. Once a museum named after him opened in the heart of Brussels there was no end to this 'dictatorship'. Yet we know the country has many artists in this school: Marcel Mariën, Louis Scutenaire, E.L.T. Mesens and Marcel Broodthaers. Delvaux though, Magritte's elder, reappears periodically, like a locomotive coming out of a tunnel. This catalogue, which accompanies the exhibition at the Cantini museum in Marseille, based on the collection of the museum of Ixelles, lists the major sources of inspiration the artist with the amazing longevity (he died in 1994 at age 97). First and foremost, trams, stations and trains, preferably at night; then, female nudes, ethereal and mysterious, placed between columns and staircases; Last were the bones, all you can get. They remind the viewer of the monsters from Spitzner's 'wunderkammer', which fascinated him at the Foire du Midi in Brussels. One has forgotten the subversive power of these paintings, which throw in together Antiquity with Chirico's metaphysics. During the biennale in Venice in 1956, his skeletons caused -word has it- the fury of cardinal Roncalli, the future pope John XXIII…
• Paul Delvaux, le rêveur éveillé, Snoeck, 2014, 172 p., €30.
