Karijn Kakebeeke Named Winner of the 2009 BMW Paris Photo Prize

PARIS.- Karijn Kakebeeke was named winner of the 2009 BMW – Paris Photo Prize for contemporary photography at the opening of Paris Photo, receiving the 12 000 Euros (US $ 15, 000) Prize. Karijn Kakabeeke, represented by The Empty Quarter Gallery from Dubai, is the sixth winner of this major international award. Born in 1974, the Dutch photographer is pursuing her continuing interest in social issues through her photojournalistic, essayistic images. In this context, she captures pictures that stand as [...]

Sotheby’s Hopes “Zero Art” Sale will Raise Plenty of Cash

LONDON.- Sotheby’s is hoping its February sale of 49 works from the so-called “Zero Art” movement will raise plenty of cash, and confidence is high after a recent New York contemporary auction that eclipsed expectations. The works from the private collection of Gerhard and Anna Lenz are expected to fetch more than 12 million pounds ($20.2 million) and will form part of the auctioneer’s London contemporary art sale in 2010. Jan Schoonhoven, “Relief R 69-1″, 104 x 104 cm. Executed [...]

Do Antiquities Really Belong To Their Country Of Origin?

Zahi Hawass regards the Rosetta Stone, like so much else, as stolen property languishing in exile. “We own that stone,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking as the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. The British Museum does not agree — at least not yet. But never underestimate Dr. Hawass when it comes to this sort of custody dispute. He has prevailed so often in getting pieces returned to what he calls their “motherland” that museum curators are scrambling [...]

UC Berkeley Modifying Museum Building Project; Alternate Plan Due Early Next Year

BERKELEY, CA.- The University of California, Berkeley’s plans for a new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) are being modified due to lingering economic uncertainty, museum and university officials announced today. Several intriguing concepts for a new BAM/PFA home are under review and a detailed plan is expected to be unveiled early next year, said Lawrence Rinder, the director of BAM/PFA, which is one of the largest university art museums in the United States in both size and [...]

Nine Dusseldorf Museums and Galleries Prepare for Dusseldorf’s Second Quadriennale

DUSSELDORF.- Art enthusiasts from Germany and abroad are looking forward to the second Quadriennale, which will open on September 10, 2010 and ends in January 2011. Nine Duesseldorf museums and galleries are preparing high quality exhibitions with considerable grants from the regional capital without which the ambitious exhibition plans would not be possible. Despite the general financial crisis, the city is supporting the Quadriennale with additional funds of approx. five million Euros. “With this Festival of Arts, the city with [...]

Picasso Artworks at New Delhi by Fundación Mapfre

NEW DELHI.- Today, Fundación Mapfre and the Cervantes Institute have opened the exhibition ‘Vollard Suite’ by Pablo Picasso. It will be on show in the exhibitions halls at the aforementioned centre until January 24, 2010. The exhibition includes 100 prints created by Picasso between 13th September 1930 and March 1937, commissioned by the art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard. This set of engravings appeared in 1939 in two formats: one large (760 mm x 500 mm) on vellum paper signed [...]

National Museum of Wales delighted by capture of their Picasso gem

The first oil painting by the 20th century’s most influential artist to enter a public collection in Wales will go on display today. Pablo Picasso’s Nature Morte Au Poron, or Still Life with Poron, has spent several years in a private collection but has been acquired by the National Museum of Wales for more than £1.4m. Although painted after the Second World War, it references Picasso’s single most important innovation: the development of cubism in the first decade of the [...]

The Art of the Steal: The Untold Story of the Barnes Foundation

“The Art of the Steal: The Untold Story of the Barnes Foundation” is a riveting — and tragic — documentary film chronicling the gratuitous ruin of a school outside Philadelphia that houses an incomparable art collection. It’s a classic story of destroying the village in order to save it. Except this little saga comes with an unexpected twist: “Saving” the Barnes turns out to have been a sham, as the title’s claim of artful theft implies. (Full disclosure: I was [...]

Picasso’s Blue Period 1901-04

Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period refers to a series of paintings in which the color blue dominates and which he painted between 1901 and 1904. The blue period is a marvelous expression of poetic subtlety and personal melancholy and contributes to the transition of Picasso’s style from classicism to abstract art. As one of the founders of modern abstract art, Pablo Picasso is generally associated with cubism and related styles which are predominantly abstract. It is therefore essential to realize that [...]