London’s National Gallery and Birmingham’s Barber Institute swap masterpieces

LONDON.- An outstanding group of Old Master and 19th-century paintings – including masterpieces by Poussin, Turner, Monet and Manet – have gone on show at the National Gallery, London this summer as part of the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the foundation of Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Birth of a Collection: Masterpieces from the Barber Institute of Fine Arts runs from 22 May to 1 September 2013. At the same time, outstanding portraits by Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt, Goya [...]

Late Surrealism: Exhibition at the Menil Collection revisits a pivotal moment in 20th century art

HOUSTON, TX.- One of the most profound shifts in the history of modernism took place in New York City in the 1930s and 40s, as artists from Europe took refuge in the United States, and the radical forms of figurative art they brought with them prompted and competed against an impulse toward abstraction among American artists. By the time this period of ferment was over, New York had displaced Paris as the main site of activity for modern art, and a [...]

Pat Steir creates new work for National Academy exhibition

NEW YORK, NY.- Pat Steir has created three new paintings being exhibited at the National Academy Museum. On view from May 23 through September 8, 2013, the artist’s most recent works – Orange, Green, and Yellow, which measure 132 x 50 inches each-from her Waterfall series and shown with the artist’s largest canvas to date, Blue River, (135 ¾ x 445 ¾ inches). Steir’s monumental paintings depict more than simply the fluidity of water and paint. They also suggest a metaphysical place [...]

Metropolitan’s expanded and reinstalled new European Paintings Galleries, 1250-1800, open

NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s galleries for its world-renowned collection of European Old Master paintings from the 13th through the early 19th century reopened on May 23 after an extensive renovation and reinstallation. This is the first major renovation of the galleries since 1951 and the first overall reinstallation of the collection since 1972. Increased in size by almost one-third, the space now accommodates the display of more than 700 paintings in 45 galleries, including one rotating special [...]

Mumbai-based artist Shilpa Gupta opens exhibition at Galerie im Taxispalais in Innsbruck

INNSBRUCK.- In the exhibition will we ever be able to mark enough? by Shilpa Gupta, the Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, presents a comprehensive display of works by one of India’s most significant contemporary artists. Shilpa Gupta’s works – known internationally since the late 1990ies – unite a wide variety of media, including video, photography, installations and objects. Influenced by the politics and by the cultural reality of her country, Gupta’s works address the modern-day globalized world, revealing how daily life is permeated [...]

Chapman Brothers unveil diabolical art installation at White Cube in Hong Kong

HONG KONG (AFP).- The Chapman brothers presented their latest epic installation featuring thousands of little figures in violent conflict Tuesday at the sidelines of Art Basel in Hong Kong, but dismissed the renowned fair as a “shop”. “The Sum of all Evil” by Jake and Dinos Chapman builds on previous works “Hell” (1999), and “Fucking Hell” (2008), which showcased innumerous miniature Nazis soldiers in various states of diabolical torment. Their ambitions to use themes of war, genocide, the apocalypse and the evils [...]

Exhibition presents a South African curator/artist-run organization currently in residence at New Museum

NEW YORK, NY.- This spring, the Museum as Hub will present “After-after Tears,” a project exploring the operational strategies of Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR), a Johannesburg-based platform founded in 2010, currently in residence at the New Museum. Over the course of two years, CHR gained local and international recognition through diverse projects that mobilized around historical events and sites in order to explore how officially obsolete systems and ideologies continue to condition contemporary life. The exhibition is on view from May [...]

Even more rediscovered masterpieces to be unveiled during Master Paintings Week 2013

LONDON.- Master Paintings Week, now in its fifth year and already an important event in the London art calendar, takes place from 28 June to 5 July 2013 and, for the first time, will have the support of The Crown Estate. The successful collaboration between twenty leading dealers and three international auction houses highlights the extraordinarily wide selection of European paintings dating from the 15th to the 20th centuries available in London . A number of newly rediscovered works will be [...]

China’s most influential portrait artist, Mao Yan exhibits at Pace Gallery in Beijing

BEIJING.- Pace Beijing is presenting the solo exhibition of China’s most influential portrait artist, Mao Yan. This exhibition is also the first exhibition of Mao Yan since his representation by Pace Beijing. Mao Yan is well known by his portrait art. His artworks reveal the momentary glory of peace and attract audience into his artworks through the very straight expression without any metaphor. Mao Yan insists the spiritual dominance in his paintings and depicts the same object though years, in which he [...]

Centre Pompidou in Paris exhibits works by a master figure of abstraction: Simon Hantaï

PARIS.- The Centre Pompidou brings together for the first time the work of one of the greatest painters of the second half of the 20th century, a master figure of abstraction: Simon Hantaï. Five years after the death of the artist, the Centre Pompidou dedicates an original exhibition to Hantaï’s work – the first in over thirty-five years. Through more than 130 paintings created from 1949 to the 1990s, this exhibition, unprecedented in its scale and retrospective character, bears witness to the [...]

Groundbreaking exhibition presents works by Isamu Noguchi and Qi Baishi together for the first time

ANN ARBOR, MI.- The University of Michigan Museum of Art is presenting Isamu Noguchi and Qi Baishi: Beijing 1930, an exhibition of drawings and paintings by the two eminent artists seen side-by-side for the first time and the first large-scale exhibition to focus on the fruits of Noguchi’s six-month stay in Beijing in 1930. This exhibition showcases the artists’ cross-cultural creative impulses and underscore their respective and lasting influences on contemporary practice worldwide. The exhibition, which is accompanied by a scholarly publication, [...]

Frank Auerbach’s first solo exhibition in Asia opens at Ben Brown Fine Arts in Hong Kong

HONG KONG.- Frank Auerbach, one of Britain’s most accomplished living artists, will have his first solo exhibition in Asia at Ben Brown Fine Arts in Hong Kong from 22 May 2013. By concentrating solely on a select group of portrait paintings and drawings, from the 1970s to the present day, this exhibition demonstrates the remarkable insight of a famously hermetic artist. Running concurrently at the gallery with the exhibition NOT VITAL: Landscapes, both shows will open during Art Basel Hong Kong. At the [...]

New and recent works by Rodney Graham on view at Lisson Gallery in London

LONDON.- Following his acclaimed retrospective exhibition Through the Forest, at MACBA, Barcelona, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg in 2010-11; Rodney Graham presents new and recent works at Lisson Gallery. The artist will show a selection of light-boxes, representing mise-en-scenes which have both a sculptural and cinematic presence. These painstakingly detailed and chromatically rich digital tableaux represent scenes that conflate the artist’s mundane observations with the illustration of moments – often overlooked or forgotten – originating in literature, music, film [...]

Landmark exhibition returns Sir Horace Walpole’s collection to its original setting

LONDON.- The magnificent art collection amassed by Great Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, has been reassembled in its original home of Houghton Hall for the first time in over 200 years. The most celebrated British collection of the 18th century, it was acquired in 1779 by Catherine the Great in a landmark private sale negotiated by James Christie, founder of Christie’s. The core of the collection went on to adorn the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Christie’s is sponsoring Houghton Revisited which [...]

Jonathan VanDyke’s second solo exhibition with Scaramouche opens in New York

NEW YORK, NY.- Scaramouche presenting The Painter of the Hole, Jonathan VanDyke’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. VanDyke’s new work evolves from his wall-mounted and free-standing sculptures, first exhibited at Scaramouche in 2009, that “perform” as they continuously drip paint directly onto the floor, and from his many recent live performances, in which actors and dancers move silently for hours while paint drips upon them and passes from body to body. The works offer signifiers we associate with painterly process – [...]