Thirteen’s SundayArts Teams Up with New Arts Correspondent Melissa Chiu

NEW YORK, NY.- SundayArts — THIRTEEN’S unique broadcast and online showcase for the arts – adds its newest correspondent, Melissa Chiu , in March 2010. Chiu will conduct a series of interviews with tastemakers in the arts who are multi-generational and culturally diverse; her interviews will focus on the compelling life stories of her subjects, who include The Nose opera director William Kentridge, Oscar Award- winning composer Tan Dun, painter Chuck Close, filmmaker and artist Shirin Neshat, and conceptual artist [...]

Prado Museum Opens Exhibition Dedicated to the Armour and Paintings of the Spanish Court

MADRID.- 35 paintings will be seen alongside 31 full suits of armour and pieces of armour loaned from the Royal Armoury in Madrid, considered the finest collection in the world along with that of the imperial collection in Vienna. Together, they will narrate the evolution and impact of the court portrait in the period from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Particularly noteworthy is the juxtaposition of Titian’s portrait of Charles V at Mühlberg and the impressive suit of equestrian [...]

‘Secret’ Painting by Giotto Uncovered in Florence Chapel

FLORENCE.- Restorers using ultra-violet rays have rediscovered rich original details of Giotto’s paintings in the Peruzzi Chapel in Florence’s Santa Croce church that have been hidden for centuries. “We have uncovered a secret Giotto,” said Isabella Lapi Ballerini, head of Florence’s Opificio delle Pietre Dure, one of the world’s most prestigious art restoration laboratories. Last year, more than a dozen restorers and researchers began an ambitious project of “non-invasive diagnostics” to ascertain the condition of the 12-meter-high chapel, which Giotto [...]

Van Abbemuseum Welcomes Visitors to Experience the Museum on Transformation Mode

EINDHOVEN.- From Tuesday 9 March until Friday 9 April 2010, the entire Van Abbemuseum is on the move, bustling with installation activity and preparations for the change from Part 1 to Part 2 of the exhibition programme “Play Van Abbe”. During Transition visitors can experience the museum on its transformation mode and are invited to take part in special behind-the-scenes tours. By joining Transition visitors can experience the museum via backstage corridors, exchange views with artists, the conservators and technical [...]

The Box Shows Robert Mallary’s Work in Los Angeles for the First Time Since 1954

LOS ANGELES, CA.- Robert Mallary (1917-1997) was an artist interested in new materials and cutting edge technologies that would enable him to be on the forefront of art making. Freely blending figurative and abstract imagery in imposing, gritty assemblages Mallary created a unique body of work that is complex in material and form. The Box brings the work of Robert Mallary to Los Angeles for the first time since 1954. Robert Mallary was interested in exploring how different materials could [...]

Brooklyn Museum Gala with New Format Celebrates the Major Exhibition American High Style

BROOKLYN, NY.- The Brooklyn Museum will celebrate the major exhibition “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection” and the landmark collection-sharing partnership between Brooklyn and the Metropolitan Museum of Art at its annual gala, the Brooklyn Ball, on Thursday evening, April 22, 2010. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. with cocktails and hors d’ oeuvres in the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing on the fifth floor and an exclusive opportunity to preview American High Style. Featuring some eighty-five [...]

Israel Museum Commissions New Works by Olafur Eliasson and Anish Kapoor

JERUSALEM.- Olafur Eliasson and Anish Kapoor have been commissioned by the Israel Museum to create two new monumental installations on the Museum’s campus, as it nears completion of a comprehensive renewal and expansion, together with a complete reinstallation of all of its collection galleries. These site-specific works will be installed as focal points within the Museum’s newly re-organized campus, opening to the public on July 26, 2010. These commissions include: Olafur Eliasson’s installation “Whenever the Rainbow Appears”, consisting of 300 [...]

Sotheby’s to Exhibit in Doha Treasures from Its Forthcoming “Arts of the Islamic World” Sale

DOHA.- Sotheby’s will stage an exhibition in Qatar of highlights from its bi-annual London sale of Arts of the Islamic World. The highlights will be on view to the public at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Doha from 11am to 8pm on Sunday, March 14, 2010. The exhibition will showcase an exceptional array of around 35 fine and rare works of art that will be available for collectors and connoisseurs to acquire at the Sotheby’s London auction on Wednesday, April 14, [...]

FBI Recovered Antiquarian Library to Be Sold At Auction

CHICAGO, IL.- Leslie Hindman Auctioneers announces an auction featuring over 75 lots of early Italian and Latin literature from the antiquarian book library of John Sisto of Berwyn, Illinois. The books, maps and engravings comprise what remains of the over 3,500 items seized by the Chicago division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2007, of which 1,600 items were repatriated to Italy after being deemed unlawfully imported. The collection had been brought to the attention of the FBI [...]

New Music Museum in Jamaica to Show Marley, Tosh

KINGSTON.- Jamaica plans to open a music museum next year that officials say will feature rare pieces from the island’s music history, such as the sole album that the late reggae star Bob Marley produced before he gained international fame. Artifacts will include a cassette tape in which another reggae great, Peter Tosh, jams a blues song with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, museum curator Herbie Miller said Sunday. The tape was recorded in June 1977 [...]

Sugary Photographs with Tricks, Poses and Effects: A Festival on Photography

ANTWERP.- I hate nothing more than sugary photographs with tricks, poses and effects. So allow me to be honest and tell the truth about our age and its people. (August Sander, 1876-1964) In the above quotation, Sander was venting his irritation at what he saw as the dominant style of photography in the early part of the 20th century. Sander critiqued that photographers seemed too concerned with pursuing the same artistic strategies as painters (such as heavy reliance on landscape [...]

Air Sculptures, the Grid, Space, and Beyond-New Los Angeles Gallery Presents Daring New Work

LOS ANGELES CA.- One thing is clear to all who step into Muzeumm, a new art gallery that opened in October 2009 in L.A.’s West Adams district: I’ve stepped into another world. That’s the type of reaction this daring new art space generates with its newest exhibition of work, Introspective by artist Tilghman Branner, opening March 6, 2010. Muzeumm Founder/Director Mishelle Moross explains; “Tilghman’s work takes the familiar and turns it into something exotic. It’s alive and bold while inducing [...]

Walk-Into Sculptures by Collective Atelier Van Lieshout at MUMOK

VIENNA.- This spring, as part of the OUT SITE programme, MUMOK in collaboration with the MuseumsQuartier Vienna is showing three ‘walk-into’ sculptures by the Dutch art collective Atelier Van Lieshout : the “BikiniBar” (2006) — a female torso dressed in a bikini; “Darwin” (2008) — a dark blue sperm; and the “BarRectum” (2005) — a multi-functional, real, oversized anal orifice. People look into a giant, walk-in sculpture of a woman’s bikini-clad torso in front of Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier cultural complex. The [...]

Leo Villareal Public Art Installation Illuminates Downtown with Sky

TAMPA, FL.- New York-based digital light artist Leo Villareal’s recent completion of Sky (Tampa) on the south façade of the new Tampa Museum of Art features a dramatic 12,000-square-foot public art commission that illuminates the downtown core. The exterior of the new museum features programmable LED lights, 45 feet high and 300 feet long, embedded within two-layers of perforated aluminum panels. In daylight, the museum’s façade creates a moiré-like pattern, and in darkness the LED light installation glows with Villarreal’s [...]

Much-Anticipated Reopening of the Morris Museum of Art

AUGUSTA, GA.- After months of planning and preparation—fresh paint, new carpet and lights, interior construction, and rearranging and hanging hundreds of works of art—the Morris Museum of Art reopened. This is the first time since the Morris opened in 1992 that its renowned permanent collection has been completely reinstalled. “The museum’s staff has done an outstanding, outstanding job under great pressure and in a very short span of time. They have completely transformed the permanent collection galleries at the Morris,” [...]