Art Of The Day Weekly
#149 - from 5 November 2009 to 11 November 2009
IN THE AIR
Mona Lisa has put on weight
She is fifty times larger than her rival at the Louvre and 85 liters of paint were needed to finish her. She is a rather particular Mona Lisa that can be seen since the end of the month of October on the floor of a shopping center in Wrexham, in Great Britain. The Telegraph reports she is identical to the real Mona Lisa: when one moves while looking at her from the balcony, one has the impression she follows the viewer with her eyes… Aside from the renewed question on her expression (Spanish researchers have just brought forward an explanation to her real-false Cheshire cat smile), this amazing feat shows once again the public's thirst for being part of visual creativity. The staging of Spencer Tunick's nudes attract thousands of persons. The rising star in Canada, artist Adad Hannah, recreates live paintings with dozens of walk-ons. As for this Mona Lisa, over 200 persons alternated to carry out the project. It had been a long time since art was seen as a big, collective mass…
MUSEUMS
The return of an old Oxford pro
OXFORD – The Ashmolean Museum that opened in 1683 prides itself in being the first public collection in the world. Over three centuries later it remains faithful to its encyclopedic spirit. Orchestrated by architect Rick Mather, its restoration which lasted three years at the cost of nearly 100 million euros, has allowed it to double its available spaces. All the ancient buildings have been demolished except for the Cockerell Building, protected as an historical monument. The extensive collections span from Cypriot archaeology to arts from Islam, from Japanese rolls to the post-Impressionists from Camden Town, from the portraits of Fayoum to Raphael’s drawings. The new museum approach prefers bridges between civilizations rather than the watertight character of different departments.
EXHIBITIONS
Wouverman liked to horse around
THE HAGUE – One can almost always find two elements in the paintings by Philips Wouverman (1619-1668): a horse with its rider and a tree, preferably thrashed by the wind. This treatment may seem a bit repetitive to us but it greatly pleased his contemporaries: in the Netherlands in the XVIIth century, Wouverman was practically equal to Rembrandt. This is because his scenes were colorful, animated and their well oiled forms – battle scenes, hunting and winter leisure scenes- efficiently concentrated the Dutch or Italian landscapes. The Mauritshuis presents a concentrated retrospective (some fifty works of art) but which has the advantage of grouping together works from very far (Vaduz, Florida, Manchester) and of benefitting from private collections rarely shown.
The Bauhaus spirit
NEW YORK – After being shown at the Martin-Gropius-Bau until 4 October, the retrospective on the Bauhaus school offers another rendez-vous to those who would have missed it. Indeed the MoMA will welcome 400 works that synthesize the vitality of that multidisciplinary movement that shone in Germany from 1919 to 1933 before disappearing under the Nazi darkness. The exhibition brings together creations by Moholy-Nagy, Kandinsky, Albers or Oscar Schlemmer, and takes on a particular sens at the MoMA, opened in 1929. Its founder, Alfred Barr Jr., only spent three days at the Bauhaus, in 1928, but he considered them among the most formative in his life. The design of his museum was directly inspired by that wise combination of art, architecture and design. After the exhibition, a Lounge space allows visitors to sit in Bauhaus furniture, signed by Breuer or Mies van der Rohe.
Artoftheday also recommends these new exhibtions ...
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille, 90 Interview May 1998 Miroir III, 2008, oil on canvas, 250 X 200 cm, Courtesy Almine Rech Gallery, Bruxelles-Paris & Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, Paris
Tursic and Mille fiddle with current events
Both were born in 1974, and met more or less half way, at Dijon, where they worked. He is Wilfried Mille, from Boulogne-sur-Mer, she is Ida Tursic, from Belgrade. Through their acid colors– combining newspapers excerpts, airbrush and watercolor – they look closely at current events and at the Western man’s fantasies: the golden world of top models and the movie icons such as Romy Schneider, James Dean or Kate Moss, dramatic events (fires), pornography (which made them famous in the beginning). In short, all that is published in popular magazines or is susceptible of attracting their readers … In the midst of their career in full expansion, they have just been awarded the price of the 2009 Ricard Foundation for contemporary art and will therefore see one of their works soon integrate the collections of the Centre Pompidou.
AUCTIONS
The treasure hunt
PARIS – It is not common to invent a treasure. A lot has been said about the one of Staffordshire, unveiled last summer and recently sown in Birmingham. Another one will soon be under the spot light of an auction: it was discovered in Pouilly-sur-Meuse, near Verdun, by a private citizen in November 2006 and includes 31 pieces of gold art pieces from the XVIth century. It was probably hidden for safety in troubled times during the wars of religion, and slept peacefully near the bed of the Meuse for over four centuries. It includes three cups, two goblets, a silver-gilt ewer with a stamp of Paris and 21 spoons among which an ensemble of 12 in silver, with a stamp from Chalons en Champagne, dated 1520. Aside from their state of conservation, these last items modify our vision of the history of French gold and silver work since the oldest known ensemble of twelve pieces of flatware dates from 1680. The sale of this «national treasure» (it is forbidden for them to leave the territory for 30 months) will be made lot by lot with a possibility of bringing them together at the end of the sale (if a bidder offers more than the total value of the ten lots).
At closing time, we learn that the French State, together with the region of Lorraine, the city of Nancy and the help of a private sponsor and a learned society, have bought the hoard for €1.4 million.
BOOKS
Dina, from muse to museum
«And you Sir, the artist, how do you see this monument? – Oh, Mr. President, I see a lovely woman’s ass! » The monument which they are referring to is to be dedicated to Blanqui, the revolutionary, and the iconoclast who pronounced these words was – who would have guessed? – Maillol, known for his shyness… The autobiography of Dina Vierny (1919-2009), who was in her youth the sculptor’s favorite model, is full of spicy anecdotes of this type, regarding characters as diverse as Victor Serge, Jean Moulin, Auguste Perret, Gaston Deferre or Billy Wilder. That is because the young Russian who came from Odessa with her family after the Revolution was in circles with all the intelligentsia of the XXth century. And not only as a model: she was also a resistant, a collector (archaeology as well as dolls), a gallery owner (she discovered in particular Poliakoff, who had lived until then from his gains as a gypsy guitarist), nocturnal bookstore owner, and last but not least as the founder of the musée Maillol, which comfortably settled into the Paris cultural scene after an almost endless waiting period due to administrative problems.
IN BRIEF
BASEL - The Basel Ancient Art Fair will be held from 6 to 11 November 2009.
BAMAKO – Les Rencontres de Bamako, the African photography biennale, will be held from 6 November to 7 December 2009.
NEW YORK – The 3rd edition of Performa, the international biennale of artistic performance, will be held in New York from 1 to 22 November 2009.
PARIS – The Jean-Jacques Henner museum, set up in the former atelier of his friend Dubufe, will reopen on 5 November 2009.
PARIS – The Salon du patrimoine culturel (International Heritage Fair), to be held at the Carrousel du Louvre from 5 to 8 November 2009, will be on the theme of «religion heritage».
PARIS – The « Temps forts », the presentation of the most beautiful sales to come, will be held at Drouot-Montaigne until 8 November 2009.
TURIN – The modern and contemporary art fair, Artissima, will be held from 6 to 8 November 2009.
ON ART-OF-THE-DAY.INFO
This week, do not miss
SALON D'AUTOMNE 2009
PARIS - A manifestation that is over one hundred years old (the first edition was held in 1904), that has marked the history of art (with the scandal of the Fauvist artists in 1905, the affirmation of the Surrealists or the School of Paris), the Salon d'Automne is back at the Grand Palais from 12 to 16 November 2009 to defend a certain form of cultural diversity.