Art Of The Day Weekly

Tim Burton, a trap for youths

The real stars in museums of modern art today are movie directors. We do not mean of course Charlie Chaplin, Fellini or Godard, who recently were honored in retrospectives Tàpies or Baldessari could imagine in their greatest dreams. We think rather of the younger generation, directors like David Lynch, whose exhibition at the fondation Cartier in Paris was a media event, or Tim Burton. The latter, just fifty years old (he was born in 1958), known for his unrestrained inventiveness, from Batman to Charlie and the chocolate factory, is being given the royal treatment by the MoMA in New York. No less than 700 of his works are exhibited – drawings, models, photographs, puppets and, of course, storyboards – to show his varied talents. We can feel it is debatable whether a show of this type is legitimate or whether certain adoring remarks are not excessive– the Art Newspaper quotes the curator who compares Burton to Warhol. But we can only applaud this masterful operation: in the obsessive competition between museums to attract a younger public, the MoMa has a head start.
•Tim Burton is present at the MoMA from 22 November 2009 to 26 April 2010

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Avercamp, the painter who came from the North

AMSTERDAM – Winter is no longer what it used to be … The current lamentations would have well made Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634) smile. He, who took advantage of the «small ice age» that covered Europe during the XVIIth century, became a specialist of «cold» snow scenes. Skaters on frozen canals, children enjoying snowball fights, walkers transfixed: behind these genre scenes there are always delicate landscapes with low skies and trees set in frost. Some twenty paintings and as many drawings make up this themed retrospective, which is more than a hymn to leisure: the Dumb man (the artist could not speak) also painted peasants picking up wood or washwomen trying to wash their clothes in frozen rivers …
•Avercamp, the Little Ice Age at the Rijksmuseum, from 20 November 2009 to 15 February 2010.

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Baselitz, 50 years of a career

BADEN-BADEN – Georg Baselitz is one of the musketeers of German art of the post-war period, next to Penck, Richter or Immendorf. This artist who became famous for his characters painted head down and by the sexually disturbing context of this work is being given all the honours. Two institutions have allied to cover fifty years of creation: the Frieder Burda museum attacks painting (as of 1959) and the Kunsthalle focuses on sculpture (a discipline that he started twenty years later, in 1979). While his initial period, in particular the influence of his youth in Eastern Germany, is of course essential, the most recent creations also have their place in this retrospective, in particular the sculptures in crude wood of his very last months, that resemble primitive idols.
•Baselitz, 50 years of painting at the Frieder Burda museum, from 21 November 2009 to 14 March 2010
•Baselitz, 30 years of sculpture at the Staatliche Kunsthalle, from 21 November 2009 to 14 March 2010

The website of the Frieder Burda museum

The website of the Staatliche Kunsthalle

My son, my model

PARIS – It is raining Picassos, Renoirs, Cassatts, and others … Not paintings but rather real characters in skin and bones: these painters often used their children, their cousins, their nephews. The intention of the curator of this exhibit is to point clearly at the family relations that were the raw matter of these great artists. And it is not limited to the classics of the XIXth century, such as Vuillard or Maurice Denis, who presented all his close relatives in the Nabi style … We are thus shown the most recent cases of Pierre Arditi, his father’s son, or Jean-Paul Belmondo, who preferred roller skating in the apartment rather then submitting himself to the posing séances imposed by his father, the sculptor. Aside from the finished paintings, the exhibition also presents the costume that young Paul Picasso wore along a series of toys and tells of some of the methods invented by the parents to have the children stay still …
•Les enfants modèles at the musée de l’Orangerie, from 25 November 2009 to 8 March 2010.

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Artoftheday also recommends these new exhibtions ...

•The Louvre presents the Georges Pébereau collection, of which the banker recently gave a part to the museum: there is an abundance of European drawings, from the XVIth to the XXth centuries, from Poussin to Schiele. From 26 November 2009 to 22 February 2010.

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•She left an indelible mark on modern dance and the circumstances of her death have greatly contributed to confirm her aura: the musée Bourdelle revisits the Isadora Duncan myth. Until 14 March 2010.

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•In Florence, the Palazzo Strozzi shows in Inganni ad arte the secrets of trompe l’œil through the ages. Until 24 January 2010.

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Three thousand years of the Orient

PARIS – An archaeology auction can be a good opportunity to make good business. It is also a remarkable means of reviewing the history of great civilizations. This can be the case during the sale the Boisgirard Company has organized at Drouot on 27 November, dedicated to the Orient. Some ten major lots have all been lucky enough to end up in a museum, like this very animated and expressive relief that decorates a Roman sarcophagus of the IIth century, presenting the works of Hercules (that could go for half a million euros), or the very fine gold plate head of Selene, the moon goddess. Other pieces remain accessible to amateurs with lesser means, such as the Seldjoukide cups or the Damask squares (for a few hundred euros). Following Brancusi’s research, an Anatolian idol, fifty centuries old, could be sold for 15 000 euros, as well as these Luristan bronze bites, worked in a masterful manner. These pieces show us that the effect of the balancing between figuration and abstraction is not something new…
•Arts d’Orient at Richelieu-Drouot on 27 November 2009 (SVV Boisgirard).

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