Tayfun Serttas, on the left, amongst the protestors

As the anti-government protests in Istanbul and rest of Turkey continue, there is now talk about the possibility of including Taksim Square and Gezi Park (the main sites of the protests) as venues for the upcoming Istanbul Biennial. But the Biennial curator Fulya Erdemci, who already made a statement supporting the peaceful protestors, said it is too early to discuss details but they are considering.

Organizers also confirm that the biennial is going ahead as planned, which is due to open in early September – we certainly hope everything will be settled before then!

Artist Mehmet Guleryuz was caught up in the protests in Taksim

Turkish artistic community has been active on the streets,  joining the protesters, including artists Tayfun Serttas, Mehmet Guleryuz, and Ali Kazma as well as curators Vasif Kortun, Defne Ayas, Beral Madra, Fulya Erdemci and Fatos Ustek.

Meanwhile Sandy Angus, who is the co-founder of a new art fair to be launched in September in Istanbul, ArtInternational Istanbul, says that he is “confident the current problems will be resolved.”

Taksim Square during protests

If you want to add performance flavor to your visit to the Venice Biennale this summer, here is a list of PERFORMA alumni of accomplished artists and curators who are amongst the participants, including Massimilioano Gioni, Tacita Dean, Jesper Just, Ed Atkins and Laurie Simmons. Performa team in New York must be proud.

“IL PALAZZO ENCICLOPEDICO” (The Encyclopedic Palace) curated by Massimiliano Gioni, a Performa supporter and friend Giardini, Castello, 30122, Venice & Arsenale, Calle della Tana, 30122, Venice

Tacita Dean (Performa 09)
b. 1965, Canterbury, U.K.

Aurélien Froment (Performa 09)
b. 1976, Reykjavík, Iceland

Sharon Hayes (Performa 05)
b. 1970, Baltimore, Maryland

Mark Leckey (Performa 11, with Frances Stark)
b. 1964, Birkenhead, U.K.

Laurie Simmons (Performa 05)
b. 1964, Long Island, New York

Ed Atkins  (Performa 11 with Haroon Mirza and James Richards)
b. 1982, Oxford, U.K.

NATIONAL PAVILIONS

New York Magazine shared Swedish photographer LouLou d’Aki’s observations of the remarkable culture taking shape in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. These are the temporary residents of the park, aged between 15 and 25, who joined forces and camping out together for a more tolerant, respectful society in Turkey. This is the youth who say they do not want to live in fear of a government imposing conservative, Islamic restrictions to their lives.

Asmin Kogak, 17, studies at a private high school. She says: “We finished our exams, and we have come here to support our people. I think you have some idea about what the fuck is going on in our country. Everybody has dreams. I want to be a pilot! I also want my country to be a democratic one. We don’t want Erdogan! Never give up the fight! We will win!”

Alihan Demir, 19, says he has not slept for the last 36 hours. He describes himself as an idealist. “Yesterday evening, while I was sleeping, I dreamed that the police were crossing the barricades. But I believe we will realize the revolution and that we will succeed to take Erdogan down,” he says. “Then we will live in a freer and more peaceful Turkey.”

Beykozlu Kemal, 17, left home a year ago after clashing with his conservative parents. While camping in Gezi Park, he has organized a stand with free magazines. He says: “I will be here until this place has a library and until it becomes a place where families can take a walk. I’m here as a singer and a cheerleader.”

Deniz Tuncer, 18, and Emre Coskun, 18, met two days earlier in Gezi Park during a sit-in. Deniz says: “I want freedom and democracy. We want peace, but the problem is our government is led by a dictator.”
Emre says: “It is colonialism when the government nationalizes its own people’s income. My grandfather is the founder of boron mines, and that got nationalized and he was still made to pay for the compensation of the workers that got fired by the government. Now those mines are held by the government, and there are rumors about them being sold to America. This is not a good government.”

Tuna, 22, says he is gay and that he joined the protest with some friends. He hopes someday to open a coffee shop.

Fatih Sapal, 18, and Oytun Tez, 19, have been a couple for six months. Both are students. Oytun discusses a paper he has just written called “Behavioral Freedom.” Asked what he wants to see come from the protests, Fatih says: “Peace. For people to listen and communicate.”

Sezen Barman, 24, studies psychology at a Turkish university. She says: “For these protests, the biggest benefit is the mutual exploration of the street, square, park, and garden. We can get together anytime we want and express ourselves in any way we want.”

Gaye Kar, 15, has a number of demands: “We don’t want the trees cut down. We want democracy and freedom. We want the government to change.”

Dilayda, 15, and a friend are on their way to Gezi Park for a sit-in protest against Turkish president Erdogan. “My only dream is that this park won’t be demolished,” she says.

Tomasso Brothers Pompeii display at Masterpiece, with “Laocoön and his sons” on the right

What a lovely preview day it was at Masterpiece yesterday. Amongst the many treasures, we loved Tomasso Brothers‘ display where they transformed their entire stand to a Pompeii room. The inspiration of this Pompeian atrium (reception area of Roman villa) comes from the fresco paintings from the House of Fannius in Boscoreale and the Villa of Agrippa Postuma at Boscotrecase — both near Pompeii. The centerpiece of the stand is a large 18th century marble group of Laocoön and his two sons (Laocoön was the priest who warned citizens of Troy against Greeks’ gift of a wooden horse, but was killed by two snakes along with his sons) This Pompeii display could not have been better timed as the British Museum’s blockbuster Pompeii show is on view since March and has been immensely popular — so much that the exhibition is soon going global with more than 1000 cinemas in 51 countries.

There were great antique pieces at Sam Fogg, London and Ariadne Galleries, New York. Galerie Mermoz from Paris had a beautiful display of archeological pieces and antiquities from Mexico and South America. We thought this pair of figures from Corasalso – Guerrero, Mexico looked so charming: they are ceremonial hacha (thin-bladed axe) representing masculine and feminine figures from 350 – 100 B.C, made of green diorite. In its fourth edition Masterpiece continues to bring together a good range of art works along with luxury items as this is the fair where you will find a Maserati stand next to Robert Young Antiques! The fair closes on 3rd of July.

Pair of figures,
Ceremonial Hacha representing feminine and masculine figures
Corasalso – Guerreo – Mexico
350 – 100 B.C.

Picasso, “Grand vase aux femmes voilées” 1950
partially glazed terracotta vase with white engobe, height 64 cm
Sold for $1.5million at Christie’s London, 19 June 2013, Lot 311

We are used to Pablo Picasso‘s paintings selling for millions of dollars, but it was only this week that one of his ceramics reached the million mark! “Grand Vase aux Femmes Voiles” 1950 was part of the Christie’s Impressionist and Modern day sale in London, and sold for $1.5million. One of the reasons why Picassos ceramics don’t reach as high prices as his other works is because they are not unique pieces but come in editions. The vase that was sold this week is the artist’s copy (marked ’1′) for the edition of 25. Another important factor is that Picasso simply decorated his ceramics, he did not make them. The auction record for a painting by Picasso is for his 1932 “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” at Christie’s New York sale in May 2010 for $106million !! Compared to this, $1.5million record for his ceramic vase seems so reasonable.

Picasso, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” 1932
oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm
Sold for $106million at Christie’s New York, 4 May 2010, Lot 6

Here is your chance to own iconic tech pieces from the 20th century: Christie’s is offering an online auction of vintage Apple products where you will find one of the first 25 Apple I’s assembled, complete with an inscription with the serial number 01-0025 in black ink, and signed “Woz.” This has a starting bid of $300,000.

An Apple -1 Personal Computer, starting bid at $300,000

An Apple Lisa Computer, starting bid at $20,000

There is also a 1983 Apple “Lisa” (named after Jobs’ daughter) with a starting bid of $20,000, as well as an assortment of early prototypes, software and other must-haves for the retro tech lover complete this fascinating look back at the future. It was only in 1976 in Palo Alto when a young Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs pore over Wozniak’s circuit designs in Jobs’ parents’ garage, hand-assembling a modest device that would help catalyze the Information Revolution: the “Apple I,” their fledgling company’s first computer.

James Turrell next to his vintage Helio Courier

It takes a great artist to have three independently organized major museum shows running concurrently across America. Our congratulations go to James Turrell, the 70-year-old American artist who has made a career on his experimentation with light. 2013 is certainly his year, with a retrospective organized at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and smaller, independently organized shows at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts and New York’s Guggenheim.

The 70-year-old American artist, pilot and rancher is one of the most multifaceted artists of our time. In the 1960s Turrell introduced an art that was not an object but an experience in perception, and he did this by manipulating light rather than paint or sculptural material. He was able to create some of the most beautiful art, treating light as a material presence in perfectly calculated installations where viewers are invited to investigate ideas of perception, passage of time and in artist’s words; to enter the light. His works became so popular that throughout his career, he has traveled around the world, making installations everywhere from Korea to Mexico, Japan, and Australia.

James Turrell, “Afrum I (White)” 1967
Projected light, dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

As Turrell’s installations require an understanding of precise calculations and psychology, it does not come as a surprise that he studied psychology and mathematics before getting is Masters in Art. In 1966, he began experimenting with natural and artificial light pieces in a former hotel in Santa Monica. Both the Guggenheim and LACMA exhibitions include pieces from this early period. Guggenheim shows “Afrum I (White)” 1967 which is part of their permanent collection, while “Afrum (White)” 1966 is at LACMA (which was acquired by the museum in 2008) In both works, the artist creates an illusion of a glowing cube in the corner of a room.

Speaking of Turrell, Guggenheim’s renowned curator Carmen Gimenez writes how he “transports us to the exterior of our interior … to explore that bottomless well that spans our lowest depths and greatest heights” For the Guggenheim show, Gimenez selected five pieces from different periods of the artist’s career, including a new work, “Aten Reign” 2013 dominating the museum’s infamous rotunda. This is the largest temporary installation taken both for Turrell and the museum. During a 60-minute cycle, “Aten Reign” moves seamlessly and seductively across the color spectrum. Interestingly, the best moments are those with the least color, when the lights are primarily white or shut off as it is at this moment the work is illuminated only by daylight from the rotunda skylight, creating a magical view.

Many colors of “Aton Reign” 2013

What is great about the Guggenheim show is the way its curators have really taken on Turrell’s word that light and space are his materials. So we have the entire rotunda galleries standing empty and spare, allowing the audience to immerse in the pieces. The only other exhibition on view at the Guggenheim is “New Harmony: Abstraction Between the Wars, 1919-1939″ a selection from the museum’s collection that is beautifully paired with Turrell.

Turrell’s magically beautiful installations give the audience heightened sensory experience of seeing yourself see, especially his famous skyscape pieces. These are small spaces with large, open to the sky apertures and walls lined with tilted benches. One skyscape is included in the exhibition, and you don’t have to travel too far to see another one: One of Turrell’s skyscapes “Meeting” 1986 is constructed at MoMa PS1′s top floor. They were so successful amongst audiences that collectors have been commissioned Turrell to make skyscapes for their private residencies. Aided by artificial lighting, these works encourage contemplation of the changing subtleties of sky and light and their spiritual implications.

“My art deals with light itself. It’s not the bearer of the revelation—it is the revelation.” James Turrell

From New York to Los Angeles: the Turrell retrospective at LACMA with nearly 50 pieces examines artist’s life-long production and includes extensive documentation of his on-going project “Roden Crater,” an extinct volcano in the Northern Arizona desert that the artist began working on in 1979. Turrell has spent great sums of money and time over decades to converting this space into an elaborate observatory with tunnels, rooms, and skyscapes — still remains unfinished after more than 30 years!

Similar to “Aten Reign” 2013, LACMA also includes a more recent work by the artist acquired by the museum, “Breathing Light” 2013, a walk-in environment reached by climbing an imposing stairway and flooded with indescribable colors.

“Breathing Lights” 2013

The show at MFA Houston, on the other hand, is a display of various Turrell works from the museum’s extensive permanent holdings. It opened just before the Guggenheim show, and will be on until 22^nd of September. Turrell mania has also spread over to Las Vegas with “Akhob” installed at the top floor of the largest Louis Vuitton store in North America.

To truly understand Turrell’s work, reading and looking at images will not suffice. You must visit one of these exhibitions, taking your time experiencing his installations at first hand as Turrell plays with our perception of reality. To achieve this, he draws inspiration equally from the realms of art, architecture, and science: “We all have prejudice perception—perception that we’ve learned,” Turrell says. “I like to tweak that a little bit.”

One of the delightful shows this summer was of the Brazilian conceptual artist and sculptor Jac Leirner at White Cube, Mason’s Yard which is closing this weekend! Leirner’s first London exhibition presents the artist’s most recent works, some of which were on view at Yale School of Art where Leirner was an artist in residence in Spring 2012. Leirner is regarded as amongst Latin America’s leading conceptual artists since her emergence on the international art scene in 1990s. Here at White Cube, we see how she transforms simple daily materials such as cigarette rolling paper or rulers to beautiful compositions. For example “Big 38″ 2013, consists of 38 rulers in different sizes stuck on a wall at equal distances - they are commentary on minimalism no doubt.  It brings to mind Donald Judd‘s stack pieces, with the use of repeated geometric forms creating a unified whole. Leirner also takes inspiration from her own experiences as with the cigarette rolling paper works: she has been an avid smoker for most of her life and through this habit, has come into contact with the various types, colors and formats of these papers.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit this wonderful show, watch this video of Leirner explaining how her work deals with quantities of things – groups of objects that have been collected from everyday life, her interest in Minimalism and in particular abstract works of Agnes Martin with repetition of dots and lines.

“Dalston House” in London

For some outdoor cultural fun, head out to East London this summer and immerse yourself in Leandro Erlich’s new playful installation where the world turns upside down. Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich is well known for his captivating 3D visual illusionary installations. For this off-site commission from the Barbican Centre in London, Erlich created “Dalston House,” a detailed façade of a Victorian terrace house which lies horizontally on the ground with mirrors positioned overhead so the reflections of visitors give the impression that they are scaling or dangling precariously from the building. Erlich has created similar projects relating to local architecture in other countries but here his motivation was not just the city of London but also the chance of building the project out in the street, in full public view. His previous installations include “Bâtiment (Building)”, a similar façade that was part of the Perceptions exhibition at art complex Le 104 in Paris last year, and “Swimming Pool” which was first created during Erlich’s residency at the Core Program in Houston in 1999, later exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2001, and on permanent display at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art at Kanazawa, Japan.

“Swimming Pool,” Kawazana, Japan

Speaking of “Dalston House,” Erlich says: “Perception is the inherited tool we are all born with and we use to understand the world and to achieve knowledge. I think illusion here acts as a trigger, seducing the viewer to participate in the experience while questioning their understanding of reality. The question is not just opposing the illusionary and the real, but understanding that what we call real is part of a construction.”

From his admiration of great Argentinian literary Jorge Luis Borges to his references to the film world, Erlich draws inspiration from different sources. He is a fan of Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Luis Buñel and David Lynch, whom, he argues, “have used the everyday as a stage for creating a fictional world obtained through the psychological subversion of everyday spaces.” So when you visit Erlich’s Dalston House, imagine you are in a David Lynch movie set!

For the past 10 years, when Leonid Tishkov packs for travel, he doesn’t only bring his suitcase but also his own private moon! What began as a single installation of the glowing moon, bringing surrealist artist Rene Magritte‘s “The Sixteenth of September (Le seize septembre)” to life, turned into a life long project for the Russian physician turned avant-garde artist Tishkov.

Rene Magritte, “The Sixteenth of September (Le seize septembre)” 1956-1957

Tishkov’s on going “Private Moon” is a series of stylized, sentimental photographs of himself, wearing his late father’s cloak, with a large illuminated crescent moon in the strangest, most unexpected places around the world. Influenced by Russian folk tales, Tishkov sees this project as a life performance where the moon is a shining point that brings people together from different cultures and countries. It gives fairytale and poetry in our world.

The world is beautiful around us, you just illuminate it with the light of poetry! And for me, the light of the moon is the perfect poetry.

Tishkov started the journey from a familiar place, his home. In the first pictures you see the artist’s country house, the bed where he sleeps and writes poetry. Later he went to  places such as France, Taiwan, China, Kazakhstan, and the list goes on. Join this lonely poet on his global tour.

It seems like there is an Old Master paintings boom in Singapore! First it was the announcement that highlights from the world famous Princely Collection of Liechtenstein, normally housed in the Liechtenstein Palaces, are going on exhibit at the National Museum of Singapore, which opened on 26^th of June. Singapore is already the fourth stop for the collections’ Asia tour, which have included Tokyo, Kochi and Kyoto. Further exhibitions in Beijing’s National Museum and the China Art Museum in Shanghai are planned to starting in the autumn.

Dr Johann Kraftner during the press preview of the Liechtenstein exhibition at the National Museum of Art, Singapore

Although these loan exhibitions are to promote the LGT Bank (owned by the princely House of Liechtenstein) in Asia, it certainly serves a great cultural purpose. The show is curated by Dr. Johann Kraftner, the family’s art advisor and director of its two museums in Vienna, and brings together by masterworks including Raphael, Rubens, Canaletto and Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

Canaletto,
“Venice: The Piazza San Marco, Looking West from the North End of the Piazzetta”
Oil on canvas
65 x 95 cm
Princely Collection of Liechtenstein, Vienna

The Canaletto on view was sold to the coll ection through the London-based Old Master dealer Derek Johns, who recently started a new venture in Singapore as well. Together with his Singapore-based partner Chng Hock Huat, and joining forces with Monaco-based dealer Marietta Vinci-Corsini (widow of the famous dealer Piero Corsini who passed away in 2001) Derek Johns has set up Emperor Fine Art in Singapore, giving the opportunity to see European Old Master paintings within the Asian region.

Chng Hock Huat and Derek Johns in front of “Holy Family” by Andrea del Sarto

Johns and Corsini selected a group of paintings from their gallery stock to send to Singapore and held their first official week of events which cleverly corresponded with the opening of the Liechtenstein exhibition on 26th of June.

Add all this information on to the fact that just a month ago, the Singaporean government announced that the Pinacothèque de Paris is to bring Old Masters and Modern art in a pop-up space from September during the renovations to its main building in Paris. Owned and run by the Modigliani scholar Marc Restellini, the Pinacothèque first opened in 2007, and since 2011 has been displaying a collection of masterpieces from Van Dyck, Monet and Modigliani to Picasso and Pollock; all works on loan from private or public collections.

Singaporeans are getting a series of events and exhibitions highlighting Old Masters! Exhibitions are a great way to educate and expose audiences to such works, which is even better news for the dealers as they hope that after viewing and admiring the Old Master treasures on display, the Asian audience will be more inclined to start collecting them too.

Tate Britain is showing three big artists this summer: Laurence Stephen Lowry, Gary Hume and Patrick Caulfield. Amongst this three, our favorite is the one of Caulfield! We felt that the Lowry show got a bit repetitive and Hume’s exhibition somehow fell short compared to the excitement we felt wondering through the Caulfield galleries.

Hume exhibition entrance

The Hume and Caulfield shows are in fact paired together by the museum, as two British artists of different generations both engaging with the medium of paint and who are amazing colorists. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Donald Judd, Klimt and the great Old Master colorist Vermeer, Hume made his own name as one of the new generation of Young British Artists with his paintings of doors. For the exhibition entrance, he makes reference to these paintings and in fact made functioning doors for the first time!

Gary Hume, “Angela Merkel” from the series Anxiety and the Horse 2011
Private Collection

This is a nice show bringing together Hume’s well-known works alongside recent paintings seen in the UK for the first time, all making up about 24 works charting Hume’s career since he exhibited his hospital doors paintings at the infamous “Freeze” exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988.  Among the works been shown for the first time in the UK is a portrait of Angela Merkel titled “Anxiety and the Horse” 2011 that Hume completed in his home in upstate New York.

Patrick Caulfield is from an older generation than Hume. He first came to prominence in the 1960s and continued painting until his death in 2005. Similar to Hume, Caulfield’s career took off after an important exhibition. Caulfield’s was in 1964, the first of The New Generation exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, where David Hockney and Bridget Riley were also included.   He never painted figures, expect for his iconic 1963 portrait of Juan Gris, the Surrealist painter, which is included in the show.

Caulfield looked up to the previous generation, to artists like Fernand Leger, Edward Hopper, and Stuart Davis who used lot of color. Caulfield was interested in the way these artists used space and light to capture a place and time. Caulfield’s skills as a colorist is evident as soon as one walks into the exhibition room: you get taken up by the bright lights, synthetic colors and shiny surfaces of the modern world. We see brilliant examples of Caulfield’s grand still lives and examinations of British culture. For example, he makes references to the 1970s custom of having continental breakfast or wallpaper in the living room with photographed European landscapes – or the late 90s when every bottle of lager had a wedge of lime. As the exhibition curator Clarrie Wallis says, “He is capturing the character of modern life.”

Caulfield was one of the most admired artists of his generation: figurative painters admired him for his sophisticated draftsmanship, abstract artists for his control and inventive use of color, minimalists for his austerity and conceptual artists for his intellectual rigor. If Tate Britain show is not enough dose of Caulfield for you, Alan Cristea has put on a show of the artist’s silk screen prints and they are for sale too.

World famous rapper/Samsung pitchman Jay Z just completed shooting his music video for “Picasso Baby” at the heart of the New York art scene, Pace Gallery in Chelsea. The song’s lyrics is full of references to the art world (scroll down for the lyrics) and it feels only appropriate that several art superstars make guest appearances, including Marina Abramovic, Lawrence Weiner, Dana Schutz, Marilyn Minter, and Performa founder and director RoseLee Goldberg. Mickalene Thomas shared a dance with Jay Z, and Sanford Biggers sketched furiously while PS1 founder Alanna Heiss spun around the gallery with a cast on her leg. Dustin Yellin performed an impromptu break-dance. Ryan McNamara pulled people from the audience to the bench at the gallery’s center, and Rashid Johnson traded jabs with the hip-hop superstar. Sounds like a great party and wish we were there too!  It took 6 hours to shoot the video, watch parts of it here.

Picasso, Baby

I just want a Picasso, in my casa
No, my castle
I’m a hassa, no I’m an asshole
I’m never satisfied, can’t knock my hustle
I wanna Rothko, no I wanna brothel
No, I want a wife that fuck me like a prostitute
Let’s make love on a million, in a dirty hotel
With the fan on the ceiling, all for the love of drug dealing
Marble Floors, gold Ceilings
Oh what a feeling – fuck it I want a billion
Jeff Koons balloons, I just wanna blow up
Condos in my condos, I wanna row of
Christie’s with my missy, live at the MoMA
Bacons and turkey bacons, smell the aroma
[Hook]
Oh what a feeling
Picasso Baby, Ca Picasso baby
Ca ca ca Picasso Baby, Ca ca ca Picasso baby
Oh what a feeling x2
[Verse 2]
It ain’t hard to tell
I’m the new Jean Michel
Surrounded by Warhols
My whole team ball
Twin Bugatti’s outside the Art Basel
I just wanna live life colossal
Leonardo Da Vinci flows
Riccardo Tisci Givenchy clothes
See me thrown at the Met
Vogue’ing on these niggas
Champagne on my breath, Yes
House like the Louvre or the Tate Modern
Because I be going ape at the auction
Oh what a feeling
Aw fuck it I want a trillion
Sleeping every night next to Mona Lisa
The modern day version
With better features
Yellow Basquiat in my kitchen corner
Go ahead lean on that shit Blue
You own it
*break*
[Verse 3]
I never stuck my cock in the fox’s box but
Damned if I didn’t open Pandora’s box
They try to slander your man
On CNN and Fox
My Miranda don’t stand a chance, with cops
Even my old fans like old man just stop
I could if I would but I can’t
I’m hot, and you blow
I’m still the man to watch, Hublot
On my left hand or not
Soon I step out the booth
The cameras pops niggas is cool with it
Till the canons pop
Now my hand on the Bible
On the stand got your man in a jam, again
Got my hands in cuffs
I’m like god damn enough
I put down the cans and they ran amok
My hairpin pierce skin, ruptures spleens
Cracks ribs, go through cribs, and other things
No sympathy for the king, huh?
Niggas even talk about your baby crazy
Eventually the pendulum swings
Don’t forget America this how you made me
Come through with ‘Ye mask on
Spray everything like SAMO
Though I won’t scratch the Lambo
What’s it gonna to take
For me to go
For y’all to see
I’m the modern day Pablo
Picasso baby
[Hook 2x]
XX

Fondazione Prada and Qatar Museums Authority have joined forces to launch the new Curate Award which is open to anyone! You don’t have to be in the art world. They are more interested in answers to these questions: Can you take an idea and build an exhibition? Will the elements you put together make people think? Would your message be provocative and culturally significant?  There are no restrictions for application and the winning curatorial idea will be realized in an exhibition in either or Qatar and Italy. Exciting!

Check out the recently released movie “Summer in February,” giving an interesting insight to the life of British painter Sir Alfred Munnings PRA. Set in Cornwall in the early 20th century and based on a novel by Jonathan Smith, the film tells the true but unofficial story of Munnings’ first wife, the love triangle formed with Munnings’s rival Gilbert Evans and her eventual suicide. Interestingly, there is no trace of a first wife in the biographical pages of the website of the Munnings Museum in Dedham, nor in his three volumes of autobiography. Partly shot at the Royal Academy in London, the academy’s website rightly suggests that if you enjoy the TV series Downton Abbey you will love this lushly photographed film!

The Royal Academy becomes the setting for Summer in February, starring, from left, Dan Stevens, Emily Browning, and Dominic Cooper as Alfred Munnings

Riflemaker with Haitian exhibition

Tired of seeing all similar art works, themes and names? If you are looking for a different flavor in the arts, why not stop by London’s Riflemaker for a very interesting show straight from Haiti!

There has been much focus on Haitian art recently, with Nottingham Contemporary staging the first comprehensive survey of Haitian art in the UK, and with Haitian vodou flags included in the group show curated by the celebrated American artist Cindy Sherman as part of the Venice Biennale this year. In the previous edition of the Venice Biennale, the Republic of Haiti made their first presentation with works from three artists who are part of Atis-Rezistans, the artistic collective from the Grand Rue neighborhood.

Sculptures by Grand Rue artists

Haiti is especially known for the art of its urban and rural poor and the show at Riflemaker brings together sculptors from Haiti’s Grand Rue neighborhood of Port-au-Prince: Celeur Jean Herard and Andre Eugene, presented with Haitian Vodou flags by Silva Joseph and Edgard Jean Louis who are both Vodou priests. These flags are in fact ritual ‘drapos’ originally made for ceremonial use but now part of Haitian contemporary art. Their bright colors make a great contrast with the haunting works of the Grand Rue sculptors, which are made out of ready-made and recycled materials with references to Vadou that evoke a cyberpunk sci-fi vision.

Haitian Vodou Flags

“Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou” at Nottingham Contemporary that just closed in January of this year, was a big show including works from different media — 200 works of 40 artists from the 1940s to the present day. It was able to display these artists’ vivid creativity, especially powerful in works inspired by Vodou – the religion which has been a central part of people’s lives since Haiti became the world’s first black republic in 1804. Speaking of the exhibition Alex Farquharson, director of Nottingham Contemporary says:

“Haitian art is often shown in a folk art context, which is unfair. If I didn’t feel that this work stood up to a lot of work that I think is most interesting in contemporary art then I really wouldn’t be showing it here.”

There is still time to go and see the show at Riflemaker, which closes end of the month, and make your own mind if you think Haitian art is as interesting!

England has many historic houses and gardens that one can visit: from the grand and imposing to the small and quirky, you are spoilt for choice when planning a visit to one of these time capsules. This weekend we take a trip to Norfolk, to the Houghton Hall built by Great Britain’s first prime minister Sir Robert Walpole. From the grand interiors designed by William Kent, to its surrounding 1,000 acres of parkland, Houghton remains a key building in the history of Palladian architecture in England. The current occupants, David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley and his family, has opened part of their home to the public. Now with the current exhibition “Houghton Revisited” which brings together the art collection of Sir Robert Walpole that had been sold by later generations, the house attracts great number of visitors. We take a tour of the house, its surrounding woods, the beautifully manicured walled garden and let’s not forget the contemporary sculpture park that has six great installations within the grounds, including James Turrell‘s “Skyscape” 2002 and ’Full Moon Circle, 2004 by Richard Long.

When Harvey Moon realized he is not really skilled in drawing, he did not let that stop him from becoming an artist. Instead, he made a machine that draws for him! Now he is creating carefully planned algorithms that turn into impressive drawings, using satellite imagery from Google Earth to draw impossible maps or simply tracking movements of an insect that transform into an art piece! Watch this video and learn more about Harvey’s “Drawing Machine”

For Moon the art isn’t necessarily the drawing that the machine produces, but rather the performance of the machine in the act of drawing.

When you think of the great Renaissance works, one tends to focus on oil paintings and the painters. But without the sculptors who paved the way, we would have no Botticelli, Leonardo or Raphael. Renaissance really began in a few decades at the beginning of the 15th century in Florence, and a superb exhibition “The Springtime of the Renaissance” at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence maps out this artistic revolution and brings together a treasure-studded retrospective of sculpture through Western art’s most important era. Speaking of the exhibition, curator Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi says “the exhibition aims to show that the origin of this revolution, which lasted two centuries, was sculpture.”

Works by masters including Donatello and Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello have been loaned for the unprecedented show, with works coming from collections including the Louvre in Paris, the Bargello Museum in Florence, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bode-Museum in Berlin, the Metropolitan in New York and the National Gallery in Washington.

Donatello, “Madonna Pazzi” circa 1420
marble, 74.5 x 73 x 6.5 cm
Bode-Museum, Berlin

Amongst the loans is the Cortona sarcophagus, carved with Amazon warriors and plunging centaurs, that Brunelleschi is said to have walked all the way from Florence to see. The Bode-Museum lent a magnificent work by Donatello known as the “Madonna Pazzi” — a marble statue used to create molds that were then used to cast copies in bronze. Speaking of this work, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi says:

“These moulds in terracotta or stucco were not that costly so that any store or convent could afford the statues in Florence and elsewhere. This allowed the aesthetic revolution to spread, including outside of Italy.”

Copies of the molds were made especially for the exhibition and put on display where visitors are encouraged to touch them.

Congratulations are due to the three institutions behind this show: the Louvre and the Bargello Museum, both of which have amazing permanent holdings, and Palazzo Strozzi. The exhibition ends in Florence on 18th of August, and will travel to the Louvre in September, on view until 6th of January 2014. So plenty of chance to see it.

Since his New York debut last year at Joe Sheftel Gallery, Alex Da Corte has been getting much attention in the art scene and keeping busy!  A graduate of the prestigious MFA program at Yale, Da Corte has been named as a hot young artist, an heir to the American school of pop. But his Americanism comes with a taste of South America (where he spent part of his childhood) especially with his appreciation of bright colors, swirling surfaces and celebratory life-and-death imagery.

“Fun Sponge” 2013, at ICA, Maine College of Art

Sheftel, who met Da Corte while he was still at Yale, says, “I think there are very few people interacting with objects the way he is.” Da Corte’s work ranges in different media, but his favorite is sculpture. He hunts grocery stores, street corners and IKEA for materials for his assemblages that utilize everything from Coca-Cola bottles to fingernails – basically anything what we, as a culture, consume and discard.  For his debut show at Joe Sheftel, one of the found objects was a video for Soul for Real’s 1995 song “Candy Rain” — we look at this thing that was number one on the charts and now it’s completely foreign! For his abstract paintings, Da Corte re-purposes everyday products like discount shampoo, and by doing so asks the viewer to re-examine the items placed closest to their bodies. He is a painter and a consummate collaborator who grays the lines between collecting, absorbing and embedding.

Da Corte has been getting a lot of press, as well as having two exhibitions on this summer! One is a solo show “Fun Sponge” at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, and the other in a two-person solo show at Oko Gallery in New York. Read here an interview from June 2013 where Da Corte talks about his art and inspirations.