ArtDaily Newsletter: Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The First Art Newspaper on the Net Established in 1996 Tuesday, September 29, 2009   Fake Dutch Golden Age Painting at Courtauld Institute Proven to be Genuine Hans van Meegeren (1889-1947), Procuress (after Dirck van Baburen) Circa 1940. Oil on canvas, height: 98.7 cm; width: 103.9 cm. Copyright: The Samuel Courtauld Trust\unknown. LONDON.- A painting that supposedly was made by Hans van Meegeren, one of the most notable forgers of all time, dates, from the XVII Century and might have even hung in Johannes Vermeer's house, according to the Art Newspaper. The painting is titled "The Procuress" and is housed at the Courtauld Institute in London, which accepted it in 1960 as a donation from Professor Geoffrey Webb, a specialist in historic architecture. Webb, who worked in Germany after World War II, had received it as a gift for his help in the return of works of art to rightful owners. He believed that it was a forgery made by Van Meegeren (1889-1947) which Dutch autjorities had recovered after the War in a chalet that Van Meegeren had in Nice(south of France). The painting was loaned to three forgery exhibitions as an example of an excellent artistic forgery. The painting represents three characters, the Procuress, the character on ... More Major Works to Highlight Sotheby's October Contemporary Art Sale Fuego Flores in acrylic and oilstick on canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988). Estimate £800,000-1,200,000. Photo: Sotheby's. LONDON.- On Friday, October 16, 2009, Sotheby's London will present its October Contemporary Art Auction, which will include for the first time a section of Arab and Iranian Art. The 177 lot sale will comprise works, in a range of media, by leading Post-War and Contemporary artists, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Anish Kapoor, Andy Warhol, Chris Ofili, Damien Hirst, Gerhard Richter, Frank Auerbach, Antony Gormley, Farhad Moshiri and Yan Pei-Ming. The sale is estimated to realise in excess of £9 million. Commenting on this year's Contemporary Art Sale to coincide with Frieze Week, Isabelle Paagman, Director and Specialist in Contemporary Art and Alex Branczik, Deputy Director ... More   Royal Ontario Museum and Art Gallery of Ontario Unveil Two Star-Studded Exhibitions Actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and his wife, the actress Joan Crawford, 1931 Gelatin silver print Courtesy Condé Nast Archive, New York © 1931. Condé Nast Publications. TORONTO.- The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) launched two complementary and dynamic exhibitions this fall, featuring images that epitomize glamour and that have helped define the public personas of some of the world's most influential people. The simultaneous opening of two iconic photography exhibitions – the ROM's Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008, presented by the Bay, featuring classic images from Vanity Fair magazine's early years and contemporary images after its 1983 re-launch, and the AGO's Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, the Condé Nast Years, 1923-1937, showcasing photographs by one of the most ... More   MoMA Presents the First New York Exhibition of Paul Sietsema's Latest Work Paul Sietsema. Still from film Figure 3, 2008. 16mm film (black and white and color, silent), 16 min. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fund for the Twenty-First Century. © 2009 Paul Sietsema. NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art presents Paul Sietsema, the first New York exhibition of the artist's most recent body of work, on view from September 30, 2009, through February 15, 2010. Sietsema's films, drawings, and sculptures engage moments in art history and various genres of visual cataloguing. Out-of-print midcentury exhibition catalogues, archaeological manuals, and explorers' diaries all provide visual source material for direct appropriation and a more subtle gleaning of editing, framing, and presentation styles. This exhibition features his third film, Figure 3 (2008), and drawings related to the film, including new works ... More Modernologies: Contemporary Artists Researching Modernity and Modernism John Knight, Logotype (project for documenta 7), 1982, Relief. Birch plywood and advertising poster, 80 x 80 x 4 cm. Ernest and Micheline Delville © John Knight, 2009. BARCELONA.- Few people were able to see Window Blow Out. The year was 1976, and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York was presenting the show Idea as Model, featuring new utopian proposals then being put forward by leading US architects of the day. The night before the opening, though, Gordon Matta-Clark borrowed an air gun from the artist Dennis Oppenheim and shot out the windows in one of the exhibition spaces. In the casements of these he then proceeded to mount photographs of housing projects in the South Bronx, whose windows had been smashed by the tenants themselves. ... More   Van Gogh Museum First Museum on the Continent to Launch iPhone Application Rietveld building - interior. Photo: Luuk Kramer. AMSTERDAM.- The Van Gogh Museum is the first museum on the European Continent to have developed, in collaboration with Antenna Audio, an iPhone application. The application Yours, Vincent was developed to accompany the exhibition Van Gogh's letters: The artist speaks. The application offers people with an iPhone or an iPod touch the unique opportunity to get acquainted with Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) also at home and even while travelling. Van Gogh takes the users of the application on a tour through his life and his art on the basis of his letters. The facilities offered by iPhone, such as audio, video and zooming in on paintings and letters, will be exploited. ... More   Christie's to Offer an Exceptional Auction of Modern and Contemporary Art in Dubai Ahmed Moustafa, Rembrance and Gratitude. Estimate: $600,000-800,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2009. DUBAI.- Christie's, the world's leading arts business, announce their seventh auction of International Modern and Contemporary Art in Dubai which will take place on Tuesday 27 October 2009. The sale will bring together and offer to the international art market an important selection of pictures and sculptures from the Middle East region including impressive examples of Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian art. These works will be complimented by a very strong group of Indian, Pakistani and Iranian art, and the most important selection of Turkish art ever offered at auction in the Middle East. The auction will take place at the ... More Bike Rides: The Exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Jonathan Brand, Fallen, 2007. Courtesy of the artist. Collection of Cindy Sherman. RIDGEFIELD, CT.- It's a sign of the times—and our increased interest in sustainable transportation—that The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum debuted Bike Rides: The Exhibition. Organized by Aldrich curators Richard Klein and Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, with the advice of musician, artist, and bicycle advocate David Byrne, the exhibition explores the growing relevance of bicycles in contemporary art and culture. The multidisciplinary project features approximately thirty works from around the world, including functional cycles—ranging from cutting-edge designs to populist expressions—as well as bicycle-inspired sculpture and video. ... More   Centro Galego de Art Contemporanea Shows Familar Feelings from the Boston School Nan Goldin, Picnic on the Esplanade, 1973. SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA.- In the mid-seventies a group of artists from the East Coast of America began to challenge the conventions of the photographic medium starting from its technical and moral aspects, which had enjoyed a great influence in the uses of representation in the late twentieth century. The defence of truth was expressed by an unknown degree of exposed intimacy, which revealed modes of affection and consequently the emergence of new models of social articulation. Its fundamental contribution consists in turning uneventful motives into interesting narratives, which up until then had not been regarded as subject matters in works of art. ... More   Serpentine Gallery Shows Major Survey of Work by Influential Artist Gustav Metzger Gustav Metzger, Historic Photographs: Terror and Oppression 2007. Two black and white photographs on fabric, 444 x 563 cm and 444 x 471 cm. Installation view from Gustav Metzger, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw 2007. Photograph © S Madejski © 2009 Gustav Metzger. LONDON.- The Serpentine Gallery presents a major survey of work from six decades by the influential artist and activist Gustav Metzger. Metzger's practice represents a life-long involvement in left-wing politics, ecology, and the creative and destructive powers of twentieth and twenty-first century industrialised societies. This is the first time such an extensive overview of Metzger's work has been presented in the UK. Metzger has worked closely with the Serpentine Gallery to examine his own archives and those kept by institutions, ... More MoMA Anounces First U.S. Retrospective of Marina Abramovic's Work Marina Abramovic/Ulay. Imponderabilia. 1977. Originally performed for 90 min. Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna, Bologna. Courtesy Marina Abramovic Archive and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. © 2009 Marina Abramovic NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art presents Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, the first U.S. large-scale museum retrospective of the artist's groundbreaking performance work, from March 14 to May 31, 2010. Internationally recognized as a pioneer and key figure in performance art, Marina Abramović (Serbian, b. 1946) uses her own body as subject, object, and medium, exploring the physical and mental limits of her being by creating pieces that require her to withstand pain, exhaustion, and discomfort in the quest for artistic, intellectual, emotional, and ... More   Orlan Presents Her Sculptures and Video at the Maubuisson Abbey Orlan devant la sculpture de plis, photo de Catherine Brossais © CGVO. SAINT-OUEN-L'AUMONE.- Orlan's exhibition at the abbey focuses on two of the artist's favourite modes of expression: video and above all sculpture, which the problems posed by the work's relationship to the venue, crucial in the abbey's highly singular the first person. Working in the heritage, formerly religious setting of the abbey, Orlan has spaces, give her the opportunity to explore in depth. With the powerful questions they raise, the works – especially produced for the exhibition –demonstrate in various forms her direct, joyful and subversive way of creating art in created a project that mingles time periods, hybridises appearances and unites differences. ... More   Sotheby's 20th Century Italian Art Sale to Include Important Works Giorgio de Chirico, Interno con frutta, oil on canvas, 1926-28. Estimate: £900,000-1,200,000. Photo: Sotheby's. LONDON.- Following the tremendous success of Sotheby's 20th Century Italian Art Sale last October, which was 94.2% sold by value and achieved the second highest total* for a sale in this category at Sotheby's, the forthcoming auction on Friday, October 16, 2009 is set to include 33 works in a variety of media by leading Modern and Contemporary Italian artists. The sale will include pieces by Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Marino Marini, Lucio Fontana, Salvatore Scarpitta and Alighiero Boetti and is estimated to realise in excess of £5.7 million. ... More More News Museum of London Shows a Collection of Portraits of Londoners with Polish Roots by photographer Grzegorz Lepiarz LONDON.- London Creatives: Polish Roots, a collection of portraits of Londoners with Polish roots by photographer Grzegorz Lepiarz, goes on show at the Museum of London from 1 October to 1 November 2009. The display, which is presented by the Polish Cultural Institute, honours Londoners of Polish origins who, as leaders in their field, have actively played a part in London's vibrant cultural scene and asks how their Polish roots have shaped and affected their careers in London. The display includes portraits from a wide spectrum of backgrounds and artistic disciplines including Adam Ficek (musician and drummer with Babyshambles), Andrew Czezowski (co-founder of The Fridge and The Roxy), and Iwona Blazwick, (Director at London's Whitechapel Gallery) as well as Polish film directors, architects, artists, journalists, costume designers and poets. Accompanying the black & white portraits are video interviews with sev ... More Young Masters Inspired by Old Masters to Exhibit at Cynthia Corbett Gallery LONDON.- The forthcoming Young Masters exhibition, presented by The Cynthia Corbett Gallery, features emerging and newly established artists whose work is inspired by Old Masters. Through painting, photography, sculpture, and installation, each artist references an element of the established art historical canon, either through technique, imagery, or subject, whilst establishing an undeniably contemporary spin on highly revered paintings. The artists offer images that are familiar icons, often instantly recognisable, yet re-interpreted, distorted and somewhat uncanny. Young Masters includes work by an international group of artists including Gemma Anderson, Lluis Barba, Charlotte Bracegirdle, Maisie Broadhead, Cecile Chong, Hector de Gregorio, Alice Evans, Ghost of a Dream, Kerry Jameson, Valerie Mary, David Roche, Constance Slaughter and Masaki Yada, all of which address various issues through their practices, ... More International Japanese Conceptual Artist Tatzu Nishi Brings 'Home to Art' SYDNEY.- Tatzu is known for bringing 'home to the art' rather than art to the home, enclosing public monuments within private settings. Two new 'homes' have been constructed for his Kaldor project outside the Art Gallery of New South Wales swallowing up Gilbert Bayes' grand bronze equestrian sculptures, The Offerings of War and The Offerings of Peace. Both sculptures have been transformed within makeshift domestic rooms, making them appear outsized and surreal within familiar settings. Visitors can enter into these surprising new spaces and experience the sculptures up close in their new environments. The project is the latest from Tatzu Nishi who has been building domestic spaces around public monuments, artworks and streetlights for over a decade. He incorporates these familiar, pre-existing structures into temporary, intimate domains, forcing us to reconsider the public/private divide and ch ... More Fourteen International Artists Exhibit in Geneva Under the Title Why Painting Now? GENEVA.- Creative and expressive possibilities in the visual arts underwent a rapid expansion during the twentieth century. Duchamp invented the ready-made; in the 1960s and 1970s, happenings, installations, Land Art, Body Art, video and photography were among the media used by visual artists. The death of painting was widely announced. Yet in recent times, painting has made a comeback, seeing its prestige restored in the eyes of collectors and institutions alike. In late 2002, the Centre Pompidou presented the exhibition Cher Peintre, Lieber Maler, Dear Painter. Figurative Painting since the Last Picabia. It attempted, in the form of a genealogical tree, to contextualize the "return" of a kind of figurative painting that had emerged over the course of the 1990s. Between 2004 and 2005, Charles Saatchi presented in London a cycle of three exhibitions entitled The Triumph of Painting. In 2007, with the exhibition What is Painting? Contemporary Art from the Collection, Ne ... More Mamounia Hotel Reopens in Marrakech MARRAKECH (AP).- Winston Churchill invited Franklin Roosevelt here to relax following strategic talks during World War II, and Alfred Hitchcock shot some of "The Man Who Knew Too Much " in the hotel's lobby — which has also been a haunt of the Rolling Stones, Charlie Chaplin, Sharon Stone and many other Hollywood stars for nearly a century. Now, after a three-year, $176 million makeover, the Mamounia is opening again for business in the oasis gardens of Marrakech in southern Morocco. A top interior designer has refurbished its rooms in Art Deco and Arabo-Andalusian styles, star-studded chefs have opened restaurants, and a sprawling spa has been added to the 20-acre gardens of palm and olive trees to lure once again the rich and the famous to this legendary hotel set inside the Medieval ramparts of a world heritage site. "There is only three golden rules about a palace of this standing," says Jacques Garcia, the star French decorator who led restoration efforts: "Elegance, ... More MoMA's Seventh Annual International Festival of Film Preservation Showcases Newly Restored Masterworks NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art presents To Save and Project: The Seventh MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, its annual festival of preserved and restored films from international film archives and studios around the world, from October 24 through November 16, 2009. Spanning more than 75 years of film history, from 1921 to 2000, the festival comprises over 25 films, virtually all of them having their New York premieres, and some shown in versions never before seen in the United States. To Save and Project is organized by Joshua Siegel, ... More Artek to Launch Fragrance Inspired by 'Second-Cycle' Furniture Exhibition HELSINKI.- In October 2009 Artek and Comme des Garçons will launch their joint creation, the STANDARD fragrance. The name derives from Artek's standard thinking, based on Alvar Aalto's original idea of systems and standards in furniture design. The unisex fragrance was created in line with Artek STUDIO's brief on combining synthetic and natural elements. The final scent was developed by Christian Astuguevieille, perfume creator at Comme des Garçons. The result is a blend of Finnish Labrador Tea, Twinflower Linnea Borealis, metal and rust in the base notes and fennel, ginger, lemon, musk, saffron and cedarwood in the top notes. The visual aesthetics of the STANDARD fragrance were developed to stand along with Artek's ideology and existing products. In line with Artek's design ideology, the scent is created with the ambition to nourish physical and emotional wellbeing. The fragrance concept was conceived in the p ... More Time Capsule Captures Snapshot Of Museum COUNTY DURHAM.- A time capsule portraying a slice of life at The Bowes Museum has been concealed within the Barnard Castle treasure house, following a major transformation. With the £3m roof project now complete the magnificent French-style chȃteau is once again watertight, which led to its being removed from the Buildings at Risk register and paved the way for a makeover of the interior. During this major revamp a message in a bottle was discovered by local builders as they unblocked a chimney to create a stone archway into the new shop. The message, which survived intact, was written by former curator Owen Scott in 1906 and secreted by him during an earlier building project. The curiosity its discovery engendered among the builders, Museum staff and visitors prompted the idea of creating a time capsule to provide a flavour of the workings of this magnificent building in the present day. The contents of the capsu ... More Art and Music Come Together in a New Display at National Museum Cardiff CARDIFF.- An original Damien Hirst; work based on Peter Finnemore's own record collection; and the inspiration for a new track by the Victorian English Gentlemens Club all form part of a new exhibition at National Museum Cardiff of art influenced by music and music inspired by art. The Sight of Sound (26 September 2009 – 3 January 2010) looks at the relationship between art and music in the 20th and 21st centuries. It gives visitors the opportunity to listen to pieces of music while enjoying a display of art from Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales collection and pieces on loan to the Museum. Beautiful, Father Time, Hypnotic, Exploding Vortex, The Hours Painting (2008) by Damien Hirst has been lent to the Museum by Mr Steve Watts from Cardiff, who won the work in a recent competition. The large five foot square spin painting, created by dripping paint into a spinning canvas is the original artwork for th ... More Classic Photo Booths Still Churn Out Memories PORTLAND, OR (AP).- In a corner of the airy, wood-paneled lobby at the Ace Hotel stands a big black booth with a curtain for an entrance and a mirror with delicate script that reads: "You are beautiful." Two young girls duck inside. Who are they to argue? They sit on a pedestal, pay $4 and wait. POP — a flash goes off. POP. POP. POP. A machine inside whirs and clicks, and clicks some more. They wait, like hundreds of other people every week, for it to spit out a slender strip of paper with four little pictures in black and white. Photo booths — the old-school, dunk-and-dry kind — are at the same time ubiquitous and endangered. The experience of waiting for that strip, small little moments in time, is nearly universal, yet the classic-style booths are hard to hunt down. The boxes, full of wires from disparate decades, aren't in production any longer. A Web site devoted to the booths puts the number at about 200 in the United States and about 300 worldwide. No doub ... More United States Artists Names Rosalba Rolón, Shawn M. Donnelley, and Steven H. Oliver to Board of Directors LOS ANGELES, CA.- United States Artists (USA), the national artists' grant making and advocacy organization, today announced the appointment of three cultural leaders to its board of directors. Rosalba Rolón of New York, NY—actor, director, writer, dramaturge, and USA Fontanals Fellow in 2008—was appointed on September 11. She joins Shawn M. Donnelley, president of the Chicago-based nonprofit consulting firm, Strategic Giving, and Steven H. Oliver, prominent Bay Area arts patron and philanthropist, who were elected to the board in recent months."Rosalba, Shawn, and Steve each bring with them invaluable knowledge and a great passion for USA's mission to invest in outstanding American artists and illuminate their value to society," said Susan V. Berresford, USA Board Chair and former president of the Ford Foundation. "Rosalba Rolón brings invaluable insight as a past recipient of a US ... More This Halloween Idea Generation Opens the Crypt Doors to Launch London's Most Frightening Festival LONDON.- This Halloween Idea Generation opens the crypt doors to launch London's most frightening festival – the Hammer House of Horror Festival. The Hammer House of Horror Festival brings together a terrifying programe of film screenings, ghost tours, readings, and an exhibition featuring never-seen-before artwork from their classic and upcoming films, rare and original posters and behind the scenes photos from Britain's most successful film company Hammer. The Hammer Horror Festival will be event you'll want to get your teeth stuck into as the exhibition, forming the back bone of the festival, unearths images from Hammers classic subjects and genres including Hammer Horror, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Living Dead, Thrillers, Science Fiction and Hammer Glamour. There'll also be an exclusive chance for Hammer fans to catch the first glimpse of artwork from yet to be released Hammer film Let Me In ... More This is not unsolicited email. 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