Art Of The Day Weekly
#1 - from 27 April 2006 to 3 May 2006
IN THE AIR
Pinault, the merchant of Venice
French magnate François Pinault has set an ambitious challenge for himself. Discouraged by the red tape that opposed his projects in Boulogne-Billancourt, he was easily charmed by Venice where he has set up his foundation in teh famous Palazzo Grassi. Architect Tadao Ando simplified the decor, Jean Jacques Aillagon, who was President of the Pompidou Center before being Minister of Culture, is the director. Will this museum become a new reference along the Gran Canale? For the past weighs down on this location which once belonged to other great industrialists, none less than the Agnelli. They too created a museum, and they too put a former director of the Pompidou Museum, Pontus Hulten, to head it. So many similarities!The exhibitions from the Fiat period, dedicated to Futurism, to the Celts, to the Phoenicians, have gone down in history. After a grand opening with the Pinault personal collection, will the program be capable of meeting the challenge? We have already been told about "Picasso 1945-48", "The joy of living", "Europe 1967", "Arte Povera". With the Fondazione Cini undergoing a deep renewal, the Guggenheim collection always present and a new, very dynamic kid on the block, the palazzo Franchetti, competition is going to be very tough. How to survive in Venice... The Palazzo Grassi (Capo San Samuele, Venice) will open to the public on 30 April with ""Where are we going?", a choice of works from the François Pinault collection.
AUCTIONS
Picasso-Van Gogh, summit meeting
NEW YORK-The 104 million dollar record reached by Picasso’s painting Boy with a pipe at Sotheby’s on 5 May 2004, does not seem threatened. But we will undoubtedly witness a great confrontation this week due to two strong women. In one corner, Dora Maar with cat, Picasso’s mistress and muse whom he painted various times, in 1941 this time. (Sotheby’s 3 May). This painting had not been shown to the public since 1968. In the other corner, L’Arlésienne, Madame Ginoux, the owner of the café where Van Gogh and Gauguin went to quench their thirst in Arles (Christie’s 2 May). The painting, in the Bawkin family since 1929, was painted in February 1890, when Van Gogh was confined in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Both paintings are estimated at approximately 50 million dollars
The fiche of L’Arlésienne, Madame Ginoux on Christie’s website
The affront made to Blake
NEW YORK- Sotheby’s has been more discreet in advertising another auction this week, regarding the drawings by William Blake This unique ensemble of 19 watercolours, done in 1805, and called Studies for Blair’s Tomb. Obviously Blair is not the politician we all know (who, they say, is disturbed by the homonymy) but rather Scottish writer Robert Blair whose most famous poem The Grave was written in 1743. Art historians and museums curators are mad because the famous ensemble that was miraculously discovered intact in 2001 in Glasgow, will be divided for the sale. Unless a “white knight” is capable of meeting the price for each of the 19 lots and offer them in one block to a museum. But he would need to pay over 15 million dollars…
EXHIBITIONS
Cow Parade
PARIS – Crowned by its success in various countries (last March one could see painted cattle in Mexico City, in the Chapultepec park), the Cow Parade is finally landing in Paris. The principle is simple: glass resin cows are scattered throughout an itinerary taken by many people (in Paris, the axis between the Arc de Triomphe and the Concorde). Each one of these ruminants, symbols of peace and placidity, is decorated with the help of a sponsor, by an artist who gives free rein to his inspiration. Among the participants, Thierry des Ouches, Marika de Moro Giafferi,Yanne Kintgen, Hubert Le Gall. Colours, motifs or materials: all is possible except to sacrifice the cow. Cow Parade in Paris, from 26 April to 16 June 2006.
Gentile da Fabriano, the amiable Renaissance
FABRIANO – The town of Fabriano is known worldwide for the quality of its paper. It is equally proud of being the native town of a master of the Renaissance, a representative of the “international gothic”, an amateur of precious decors, and has dedicated to him the first retrospective ever organized. Some thirty altarpieces by Gentile da Fabriano are shown, next to works by his contemporaries such as Masaccio, Ghiberti, Masolino da Panicale or Fra Angelico. Itineraries based on a theme, named “Terre del Gentile”, allow us to discover this beautiful region of the Marches giving to the Adriatic sea. Gentile da Fabriano e l’altro Rinascimento, Spedale di Santa Maria del Buon Gesù, from 21 April to 23 July.
Art before the Perestroïka
SAINT PETERSBURG – The Russian museum is exploring the period between 1960 and 1980 named Times of change: on one side official art with Moisseïenko and Nikonov, on the other art in “clubs” or in apartments, where creators such as Rabine or Tselkov reigned. The 200 works shown are from the funds of the Russian Museum, of the Ludwig museum from Aix-la-Chapelle and various private collections. This light shed on the Brejnev period shows how art anticipated the upheavals that were to come and the explosion of the Soviet empire and the exhibit is enriched with films, photographs and music excerpts
FESTIVAL
The fashion of the future in Hyères
HYERES – Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester will be the star of this edition (the 21st) of the International fashion and photography festival since she will be the object of a retrospective. But one also goes to Hyères to discover the talents of tomorrow, such as Alena Bartschat; Julien Dossenat or the winner of the 2005 young designer contest, Romain Kremer who has organized a show-performance. Fashion photography will be shown under a New York light this year, as the two exhibitions dedicated to Saul Leiter, very active in the 1950s and 1960s, and to our contemporary Jason Schmidt will illustrate how the way of looking at woman, at man and at their clothing has evolved. Needless to say, the festival is also a unique opportunity to discover the remarkable villa designed by Mallet-Stevens in the 1920s for viscount and viscountess de Noailles. 21st International fashion and photography festival in Hyères, villa Noailles, from 28 April to 1 May 2006.
BOOKS
Tamara, icon of Art Deco
She was the symbol of the free and beautiful woman of the 1920s, capable of flying by with her helmet and glasses at the wheel of her convertible or of slipping into shiny evenings gowns. Ever since the exhibition that Alain Blondel dedicated to her in 1972, then the book by Franco Maria Ricci, we constantly rediscover Tamara de Lempicka and her aesthetically cold, metallic portraits. When she died in 1980 at the age of 82, the Polish artist, the eternal vagabond who went from Warsaw to Saint-Petersburg, from Paris to New York, up the slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano during her last residency in Mexico, hardly had the time to enjoy this new fame. Following the retrospective at the Royal Academy, an exhibition is held at the museum of the 30s, in Boulogne-Billancourt. The catalogue offers a very easy way to access her work. Tamara de Lempicka, collective work, Flammarion, 2006, 144 pages, (French only) 35€.
The website of the museum of the 30s, at Boulogne-Billancourt
IN BRIEF
NEW YORK-The Morgan Library and Museum will inaugurate next 29 April its extension, designed by Renzo Piano. The Italian architect had the task of giving a certain coherence to ill-assorted buildings built between 1906 and 1991
PARIS -Thanks to the sponsorship of the public works construction company, BTP Eiffage and the measures in the law of 4 January 2002 on national treasures, the décor by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon for the Lannoy town house (beginning of the XIXth century) will enter the Louvre. They are exhibited since 26 April in the Richelieu wing (Objets d’art, rooms 67 and 68
PARIS- The Louise spirit – the traditional simultaneous openings on the Louise Weiss street (XIIIth arrondissement) continue. On 29 April/February it will be the turn, among others for Ange Leccia (at Almine Rech), Iranian Shahryar Nashat (at Praz Delavallade) or Miss Van (at Magda Danysz, a little further away on rue Durkheim
CHICAGO – For its 14th edition, Art Chicago, one of the largest American contemporary art fairs, will host 125 galleries. From 28 April to 1 May.
MEXICO – Maco, the most dynamic of the Mexican contemporary art fairs, will be holding its third edition until 30 April. We will note the presence of well-established galleries –Krinzinger, Hauser & Wirth, Zwirner –that confront local ones such as Kurimanzutto or Arena Mexico.
GRANADA – The Encounters for Culture in Europe, inaugurated in Paris in May 2005, renewed in Budapest in November 2005 will be held this spring in the Andalusian city on 28 and 29 April. The subjects on the agenda include the regions, the development of the foundations and the dialogue with Latin America.
GRENOBLE – The Museum of Grenoble will dedicate a retrospective to artist David Tremlett as of 8 July and he will develop a Wall Drawing from 2 to 4 May.
ON ARTOFTHEDAY INFO
This week, do not miss
BASEL – Exhibitions dedicated to music are far too rare. The one organized by the Tinguely museum will trace the cosmopolitan itinerary of this great French avant-gard musician born in Paris in 1883, naturalized American and died in 1965.Music scores, photographs as well as works of art illustrate his links with the great creators of his time.
TOULOUSE- At the Convent of the Jacobins, an exhibition to comemorate the centenial of the Association des Toulousains de Toulouse and of the History Museum - whose very rich collection has just undergone an in-depth restoration –-tells the History and the tales of the Pink City throughout the centuries.