Six-Month Restoration Ends of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Bedroom”

AMSTERDAM (AP).- Vincent van Gogh must have been horrified when he returned from the hospital to his studio in Arles early in 1889 to find one of his favorite paintings damaged by moisture. He pressed newspaper to the canvas to protect it from further deterioration, and later rolled it up and sent it to his brother Theo in Paris. Ella Hendriks could still see traces of newsprint when she looked at “The Bedroom” under a microscope, as she picked and [...]

Bob Dylan’s Specifically-Made ‘Brazil Series’ on Display in Denmark’s National Gallery

COPENHAGEN (AP).- Denmark’s National Gallery is displaying 40 acrylic paintings by Bob Dylan that have never before been shown to the public. Curator Kasper Monrad said the paintings in Dylan’s “Brazil Series” were specifically made for the Danish exhibition, which opens Friday. The collection includes figurative scenes from Brazilian slums, farms and beaches. The 69-year-old folk singer sketched the scenes during visits to the South American country and then painted them on canvas in a studio. “I chose Brazil as [...]

Canadian Pavilion in Venice: Hylozoic Ground by Philip Beesley

VENICE.- For the 12th International Architecture Exhibition Hylozoic Ground transforms the Canada Pavilion with an immersive, interactive environment made of tens of thousands of lightweight digitally-fabricated components fitted with meshed microprocessors and sensors. The glass-like fragility of this artificial forest is built of an intricate lattice of small transparent acrylic meshwork links, covered with a network of interactive mechanical fronds, filters and whiskers. The environment is similar to a coral reef, following cycles of opening, clamping, filtering and digesting. Arrays [...]

Treasures of Kazakhstan Take Centre Stage in London

LONDON.- Christie’s presents a special and unique loan exhibition, Treasures of Kazakhstan – Exhibition of Kazakh and Russian Art from the Kasteev Museum and a Distinguished Kazakh Private Collection at its headquarters in London from 1-8 September 2010. This selection of masterpieces of Kazakh and Russian art of the twentieth century will enable visitors to discover artistic developments that have taken place in Kazakhstan over the last 80 years. 75 extraordinary works that have never before been exhibited outside Kazakhstan [...]

Basquiat, Hockney and Wesley Drive Momentum in Christie’s First Open Sale

NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced the fall 2010 edition of First Open, a sale of edgy Post-War & Contemporary Art to be held on September 22, 2010 in New York. The offering runs the gamut with works by artists — such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hockney, Donald Judd ,Yayoi Kusama, Frank Stella, Thomas Struth, John Wesley and Lisa Yuskavage — and is geared to appeal to both seasoned and novice collectors alike. The auction to feature 249 lots is expected [...]

Walking in a Cloud at Venice Architecture Biennale 2010

VENICE (REUTERS).- If you thought that the world’s biggest architecture show would be about buildings, this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale has a few surprises in store. Highlights include a steel ramp sneaking into a cloud, a pitch-black room where water falls from a swirling hose and a tower of metal cages from which one can jump into the void — setting the tone for a show that, in a break with the past, this time focuses on people and space. [...]

French Pavilion in Venice by Dominique Perrault Explores the Metropolis

VENICE.- Obviously, unceasing transformation of urban territories has considerably altered the perception and the reality of the city envisaged as a unified urban entity of defined space and built form. The new, increasingly complex, disjointed, splintered and polluted urban territories we see today are a succession of solids and voids. The metropolis, in contrast to the city considered as a single physical mass, is precisely what the city has rejected, expelled outside of and beyond itself. With the “METROPOLIS ?” [...]

The Oyster Eater by Henri Stresor Returns to France for the XXVth Biennale Des Antiquaires

PARIS.- A painting that once belonged to Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763-1839), the half-brother of Napoleon’s mother, Letizia Ramolino Bonaparte, is among the superb selection of Old Masters being shown by Bernheimer-Colnaghi at the XXVth Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris from 15 to 22 September 2010. (Stand no. S02) The Oyster Eater, which shows a young man caught in the act of eating an oyster, was painted by Henri Stresor (1613?-1679) and has an asking price of 1.75 million euros. Very [...]

The 3rd Annual Governors Island Art Fair Opens 4th September

NEW YORK, NY.- Every year The 4heads Collective hotwires an abandoned military barracks on historic Governors Island in beautiful New York Harbor – launching a sizable exposition of independent artists and galleries known as the Governors Island Art Fair. Entering its 3rd year this fall, this extensive exhibition once again features an exciting and diverse selection of artists from around the world. As working artists living in New York City, The 4heads Collective takes a unique swing at the art [...]

Ostrale 010: International Exhibition of Contemporary Arts Opens in Dresden

DRESDEN.- The OSTRALE´010 is presenting for the 4th time the complete spectrum of contemporary art in the dilapidated structures of the former Erlwein Schlachthof in the Ostragehege in Dresden. The OSTRALE developed in a very short time to one of the most important art festivals in Germany and Europe. The OSTRALE`010 invited particularly artists who will deal with the still on the ground left arisings and bring them together to new order in the transformic sense of artistic Rites of [...]

Norton Museum of Art to Exhibit Painting by Van Gogh on Loan from National Gallery

WEST PALM BEACH, FL.- For the next several months the Norton Museum’s celebrated painting by Paul Gauguin, Christ in the Garden of Olives, 1889 (illustrated at right), will be featured in the exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth at the Tate Modern, London, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. In this work Gauguin portrayed himself in a tragic, iconic mode as Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal by Judas Iscariot. In a [...]

Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg Presents Exhibition of American Impressionist Paintings

ST. PETERSBURG, FL.- Transcending Vision: American Impressionism 1870-1940 from the Bank of America Collection features more than 100 paintings, drawings, and prints by more than 70 artists, including some of America’s most important. This spectacular exhibition, on view from August 28, 2010-January 9, 2011, is mainly comprised of oil paintings and encompasses the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, and a few works on the cusp of Modernism. It focuses on one of the most fertile periods in American art and [...]

Internationally Acclaimed Architects and Artists at the Venice Architecture Biennale

VENICE.- The Venice Biennale, which has its offices in Ca’ Giustinian (San Marco, 1364/A), has for over a century been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. Ever since its foundation in 1895, it has been in the avant-garde, promoting new artistic trends and organising international events in contemporary arts. It is world-beating for the International Film Festival, for the International Art Exhibition and for the International Architecture Exhibition, and continues the great tradition of the Festival [...]

Georgia Museum of Art Acquires Two Paintings from West Foundation Collection

ATHENS, GA.- The Georgia Museum of Art (GMOA), located on the University of Georgia (UGA) campus, recently acquired two significant American paintings from the West Foundation Collection of Atlanta, Ga. The foundation gave Benjamin West’s Portrait of Captain Christopher Codrington Bethell (1769) and John Linton Chapman’s Via Appia (1867) to the museum in honor of GMOA director, William U. Eiland, and in anticipation of the museum’s reopening this winter. A native of Springfield, Pa., Benjamin West was appointed historical painter [...]

Under Renovation and Expansion, the Stedelijk Museum Opens a Major Exhibition

AMSTERDAM.- While work continues on the renovation and expansion of the Stedelijk Museum, the museum is hosting a unique and compelling program called The Temporary Stedelijk at the Stedelijk Museum. Conceived by Stedelijk Museum Director Ann Goldstein, this special interim program, inspired by the building as it approaches completion, brings art, artists and the public back into the museum. The Temporary Stedelijk features two major exhibitions: Taking Place, in which specifically selected works of contemporary art are presented in spaces [...]