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Art Of The Day Weekly

#476 - from 8 June 2017 to 14 June 2017


Piet Mondrian, Victory Boogie Woogie, 1942-1944. Oil, tape, paper, charcoal and pencil on canvas, 127.5 x 127.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Loan Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

IN THE AIR

Mondrian, the exhibition of the century

THE HAGUE – At first glance, the Gemeentemuseum –easier for your reviewer to write than to pronounce- the municipal museum, has no great merit in organizing this exhibition. It simply emptied some space in its superb Art Déco rooms to present its Mondrian collection. It just so happens that given the close relationship between its former director in the 1960s, Louis Wijsenbeek, with Salomon Slijper, the great friend and collector of the artist’s works, the museum has the most important ones in the world. It has some 300 pieces, i.e. a quarter of works by Mondrian (1872-1944), from his landscapes from the 1890s to 1944 to his very last work, the mythical Victory Boogie Woogie, bought by the Dutch state in 1998. In reality, the retrospective is not a simple –though colossal- hanging to celebrate the centennial of the De Stijl movement. It entailed a true spring cleaning of the museum’s collections from 2009 to 2015. Each piece was examined, cleaned, and when needed completely restored. These impressive figures would not matter if they didn’t help research. New motives, that had disappeared, popped up again, such as a whole farm in a country landscape from 1906. Most important, the specialists changed the image we had of a rational and cold artist, a sort of calculating Dutch man who painted like someone adding up his expenses. Actually, Mondrian loved to drink and to dance to jazz music, and he was full of doubts. The restorers noted hundreds of regrets on the abstract paintings, those that made him famous as of 1911 - lines forever done over and modified. As we look closer at the Victory Boogie Woogie, we can visualize this permanent waltz-hesitation. The surface is covered with small pieces of colored scotch tape (up to fourteen layers!) which Mondrian moved constantly until he found the right formula. After two years of work, when he died, he had not yet reached his target, and the painting remained unfinished.
The Discovery of Mondrian at the Gemeentemuseum en Haag, from 3 June to 24 September 2017.

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EXHIBITIONS


Henri Laurens, The Flag, 1939-1967, bronze, Centre Pompidou, MNAM/CCI, Paris, donation Claude Laurens, 1967.

Laurens-Braque, a beautiful friendship

SAINT-TROPEZ – A lot has been said about the friendship between Braque and Picasso, and its share of jealousy, of which the anecdote of the burnt roast of lamb at the Braque home, told by Françoise Gilot, is emblematic. A lot less has been said about the friendship between Braque and Henri Laurens, as the latter was less of a media object than the famous Spaniard. It lasted though almost as long, from 1911 up to the death of Laurens in 1954 and was a continuous dialogue between Braque and the “silent sculptor” who had gone from the papiers collés to the Cubist sculptures, all the way to figurative representation all in curves. Laurens’ legendary discretion did not allow his talent to reach the recognition his peers held for him: in 1950 for example, shocked by the fact Laurens did not receive the sculpture prize at the biennale of Venice, Matisse shared with him his own painting prize.
Braque-Laurens, quarante années d’amitié at the Musée de l’Annonciade, from 10 June to 8 October 2017.

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Alfred Sisley, Under the bridge at Hampton Court, 1874, oil on canvas, 50 x 76 cm. Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Gift Dr Herbert and Charlotte Wolfer-de Armas, 1973 © Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, Zürich, Lutz Hartmann

Sisley, a master landscape artist

AIX-EN-PROVENCE - Following Pissarro, who was honored by various exhibitions this winter, another major Impressionist painter –though right under the famous Renoir and Monet – is celebrated. Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) symbolized the purest Impressionist painting, the most loyal, the one that never broke away from the major theme, the landscape, which he rendered with a wise division of tones. The landscape is almost exclusively incarnated by Sisley in the Seine valley - at Louveciennes, at Bougival, at Port-Marly, at Moret-sur-Loing, at Saint-Mammès. Yet Sisley was English! He was the son of a trader who would have loved to see his son follow in his footsteps. He was never awarded the French nationality, not even in his last months when, famous and renowned, he was dying of throat cancer.
Sisley l’impressionniste at the hôtel de Caumont, from 10 June to 15 October 2017

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Frank Lloyd Wright

NEW YORK - An architect lives on forever through his built work as well as through all that surrounds him: his models, drawings, photos, films, furniture, textiles, etc. In the case of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), the material is colossal and is the object of an exhibition in 12 sections, covering six decades of his career, from the 1890s – the time of the Charnley House - to the 1950 – the decade of the Guggenheim Museum.
Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive at MoMA, from 12 June to 1 October 2017.

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AUCTIONS


Lot 12: Baldus, Hôtel des Invalides, cast copper, 475 x 359 mm

Baldus, a counterfeiter?

PARIS – His name is associated with the Mission héliographique, a pioneer enterprise of collective photography that left a large image of France’s monuments in the 1850s. Next to Le Gray, Bayard and Le Secq, Edouard Baldus (1813-1889) was one of the actors, in particular in Bourgogne. Later on he produced unforgettable series on the Louvre and on the reconstruction of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, after it was burnt during the Commune. The recent rediscovery of 84 plates of photo engravings that had remained unknown to this day (estimate starting at €200) confirms the interest Baldus had in this technique and his talent, in particular in reaching half-tones. This seems to support a mysterious episode from his youth. He kept the secret of his German origin and claimed to be a travelling photographer in America, while actually it seems there was a warrant for him in Kölhn in 1835 for being a forfeiter (a crime punishable by death penalty) and he fled his country in a rush. His novel-like destiny is not incompatible with his admirable knowledge of the engraving technique.
Vente Baldus, at Drouot-Richelieu on 16 June 2017 (Copages Auctions)

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LANVIN. Black and white evening dresses, three designs. Estimate: €1,000-1,500

Between Micral-N and Camille Claudel

ARTIGNY – This is the 29th edition of the Garden Parties of the Rouillac house. In the past we saw rock stars arrive in their helicopter or U.S. museums fight over an historical portrait of George Washington, the founding father. The spirit of diversity, of a wunderkammer is pushed here to the extreme. This year we see, side by side, the Micral-N, the French pioneer machine from 1974, which Steve Wozniak, the cofounder of Apple, considered the first microprocessor-based computer, and gouaches from the 1920 from the Jeanne Lanvin house. As well as an 18th century sculpted Vierge, from the Normand abbey of Breuil-Benoît, a pastel by Rosalba Carriera, a scroll of Anne de Bretagne’s with her large seal of mourning, an ice sleigh that belonged to the prince of Mérode, watercolors of the ports of France by Signac, and last but not least – one of the jewels of the auction -, a study of the sculpture of la Valse by Camille Claudel recently found in a closet.
• Vente Garden Party 11 and 12 June 2017 at the château d’Artigny (Indre-et-Loire) by Rouillac.

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IN BRIEF

KASSEL – The 14th documenta, opened in Athens on 8 April, will continue in Kassel, its historic birth place, from 10 June to 17 September 2017.

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LYON – The Biennale d’architecture of Lyon will be held from 8 June to 9 July 2017.

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MÜNSTER - The Skulptur Projekte, a sculpture event held every 10 years since 1987, will hold its 4th edition from 10 June to 1 October 2017.

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PARIS - The Musée Dapper, dedicated to African art, will definitely close its doors on 18 June 2017.

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VILNIUS - The contemporary art fair Art Vilnius is being held from 8 to 11 June 2017.

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OPENINGS OF THE WEEK


FRED STEIN, PARIS-NEW YORK

10 June 2017 - GENTILLY - Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau

A German born photographer (1909-1967), who escaped Nazism twice and is known by few

Our selection of new exhibitions