Archive for the 'Museums' Category
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Big Week for Fairey Amidst Growing Controversy
Art of Elysium’s 2010 Heaven Gala (Image via Art of Elysium)
It wouldn’t be a week without some sort of news from the Shepard Fairey camp, and this one is jam packed.
Fairey was named Visionary of the Year and lent design and decoration to children’s charity The Art of Elysium’s 2010 Annual Heaven Gala (pictured above). Fairey is participating in their annual benefit auction, and has donated several items to the fundraising event. The most exciting lot is a personal portrait sitting with the artist. The winning bidder will be entitled to a visit with Fairey for a photo shoot, which the artist will use to create a one of a kind 30″ X 44″ mixed media canvas. The prize is valued at $30-$40,000 for the in person sitting and final artwork (or $20-$30,000 if photos are sent). Other lots include unique 40″ x 60″ canvas depicting his Burmese Monk image, estimated at $20,000, and a rather quirky one of a kind collaged 7 foot lamp, valued at $7,500 (both pictured below). Both the portrait sitting and Burmese Monk can be bid on live via CharityBuzz until March 4, 12pm EST. If interested in the lamp, download an absentee bid form here
The opening of the third and final stop of his museum retrospective, Supply and Demand, set record attendance numbers at the Cincinatti Contemporary Arts Center this past week. Naturally, while in town, Fairey and crew were also out making their mark on the streets. (Lots more photos of the exhibition preparation, opening celebration, and outdoor campaign at the end of this post.)
(All museum and street images via Obey Clothing)
Next, Fairey’s design firm, Studio Number One, has lent their hand to titling sequences for the new Basquiat feature film, which can be seen in the trailer below.
Finally, the controversy over Fairey’s Obama portrait continues. The artist is now the subject of a federal grand jury criminal probe. Authorities are investigating whether Fairey violated federal laws prohibiting evidence tampering and perjury in connection to his copyright battle with the Associated Press. In October the artist released a public statement admitting, “in an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images.” As noted by Copyrights and Campaigns, the criminal investigation hinges on whether or not Fairey (along with his wife) violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(c)and 1621. Section 1512 makes it a crime to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the integrity or availability of the object for use in an official proceeding,” while section 1621 declares that any person who “willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true…is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
Fairey has filed an injunction hoping to postpone the civil suit with AP. The injunction argues
“Plaintiffs submit that there is a compelling case for postponement. Mr. Fairey is now the subject of a criminal investigation…It appears that the AP is, at minimum, encouraging and supporting that criminal investigation. Mr. Fairey’s criminal defense counsel believes that a deposition at this time would prejudice him and impair council’s ability to properly represent Mr. Fairey. Therefor, if a deposition does take place while the criminal investigation is pending, counsel would advise Mr. Fairey to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”
While we here at TAC have supported Shepard’s fair use claims in creating his Obama portrait (which now sits in the National Portrait Gallery), we will wait for the facts to further develop before weighing in on the separate criminal investigation, and confine our comments to reporting the findings as they emerge.
Read on for more pictures from Cincinnati opening night and installation Read the rest of this entry »
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Rubell Collection to Expand to D.C.
The recently sold Randall School building was purchased from the by the Rubells in partnership with the Telesis real estate firm from the Corcoran School and Museum. The joint venture will see the site developed into a new Rubell museum, a hotel, and private residencies. (Image via)
Famed Miami based collectors Don and Mira Rubell have just announced plans to open up a new museum in Wasington D.C. to showcase their ever expanding collection of contemporary art. The location will serve as a satellite to their Miami museum, and was purchased for $6.5 million from Corcoran College and Gallery of Art in partnership with real estate investment firm, Telesis. Part of the building will also be developed into a hotel and private residences.
This isn’t the Rubell’s first foray into the D.C. area. In 2002, the couple bought the Capitol Skyline Hotel. The seven story building was designed by their friend, architect Morris Lapidus, known for the Fontainebleau Hotel and other Miami Beach properties. Around the same time, they began focusing on D.C. artists. “The reason we even bothered to find a business [in D.C.] is that the art is amazing,” noted Mera Rubell in a December interview with Art in America. “A hotel is a natural place to create a kind of home. I want artists there—it’s exciting for my existence here whenever I’m here.”
(Image: Jenny Yang via Art in America)
The Corcoran is slated to host an exhibition organized by and culled from the Rubell’s collection. 30 Americans focuses on African American artists in the Rubell’s personal collection and was first on view at their private Miami museum in December of 2008. Last week, Tyler Green’s Modern Art Notes raised concern over the arrangement. Clarifying that works in the exhibit are owned by the Rubell family and not by their foundation, he notes:
“The last line of the Washington Post story on the deal is a classic case of burying the lede: “Officials said the exhibition is not related to the sale.” Really? When an art-museum-and-school is preparing to exhibit a family’s private collection at the same time it is cutting a real estate deal with the owners of that collection (and curator(s) of the show), the arrangement deserves significantly more journalistic examination than a toss-off at the end of a story.”
Spokespersons for the Corcoran affirm the exhibit and property sale are not related. Yet, if the recent hoopla over the New Museum’s upcoming exhibit of museum trustee Dakis Joannou’s personal collection is waranted, perhaps the Rubell’s dealings with the Corcoran are also worth further examination.
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Ed Templeton Rising
Internationally recognized for his painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography, skate-icon and artist Ed Templeton has several significant projects in the works.
Most immediately, Templeton opens a new photo exhibit at Roberts + Tilton (Los Angeles) this Friday, Feb. 26. The works on display are culled from the artist’s personal archives, and were shot spontaneously from the inside of cars over a span of 15 years. Speaking of the project, Templeton says, “I never went out driving just to shoot pictures. Each one of these was shot going from point A to point B for some other reason, organically; they represent the in-between. Most of it is from my frequent visits to LA from my home in Huntington Beach, 1 hours’ drive south. But there is also a lot from taxi rides in Paris, Moscow, London, Barcelona, and St Petersburg.”
Next up , Templeton’s photography will be included in the 2010 Photography Biennial at MAMAC (Liege, Belgium), which runs Feb 28 – April 25. Lastly, his first solo museum exhibition, The Cemetery of Reason, opens at S.M.A.K. (Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art) in Ghent, Belgium on April 2, and will include works across multiple disciplines.
Ed Templeton – The Duality of Femininity, 2009 (Courtesy of Roberts + Tilton and Tim Van Laere)
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Marcel Dzama at Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art
Marcel Dzama - On the banks of the Red River, 2008 (Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal)
Dzama returns home with a new exhibit at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. While several pieces on display first appeared in his 2008 showing with David Zwirner (NY), Of Many Turns is the largest exhibition of Dzama’s works ever organized by a museum, focuses on the artist’s recent multidisciplinary accomplishments.
All images courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, New York except where noted.
Marcel Dzama – Of Many Turns
Feb. 4 – April 25
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
185, Sainte-Catherine Ouest
Montréal, Québec H2X 3X5
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Details of Controversial Koons-Curated Joannou Exhibit Emerge
Jeff Koons’ One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (1985) was the first major art acquisition by collector Dakis Joannou, and the only piece of the artist’s work to be shown in the collector’s forthcoming New Museum survey, Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection (Image: the Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens)
The New Museum of New York has just released the details of an already debated exhibition of works from the treasure chest of billionaire collector Dakis Joannou. Though parts of the collection have previously been on view at Joannou’s own DESTE Foundation in Anthens, as well as in Paris and Vienna, the upcoming New York exhibit has skeptics voicing concerns of nepotism. Critics say the show is an obvious conflict of interest, arguing that Joannou, who is one of the museum’s trustees, could easily see the notoriety and value of his collection catapult.
Titled Skin Fruit, the show, which runs March 3 – June 6, will include 100+ works by 50 international artists, selected from the Joannou Collection by guest curator, Jeff Koons (whose work will also appear in the exhibit). Koons’ very first solo showing with a museum was held at the New Museum in 1980, when his Hoover vacuum cleaner installation was displayed in the windows of their former 5th Ave. location. The artist has also been heavily supported by Joannou, who owns 40 of Koons works, along with his 2008 yacht commission.
For more thorough investigative journalism regarding the debate over the exhibit, check out the always enlightening Culturegrrl here
The 50 selected artists are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
MOCA Cleveland Hosts Major Survey of Contemporary African American Art
Romare Bearden, Conjur Woman, (Image: © Romare Bearden / R.T. Miller Jr. Fund, 2001 Collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum)
In a critical event, MOCA Cleveland is currently playing host to the first ever public survey of contemporary African American art in the Ohio region. From Then to Now : Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art, features 27 artists, sourced from important regional collections – The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, the Akron Art Museum, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Progressive Corporation, and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Kara Walker, Untitled, 1998, (Image © Kara Walker / Collection of the Progressive Corporation)
Beginning with works from pioneering figures of the 1970s and 80s, such as Romare Bearden and Alma Thomas, From Then to Now continues to the present, with prime examples of works by artists including Lenardo Drew, Alison Saar, Willie Cole, David Hammons, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, René Green, Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley. TAC applauds MOCA Cleveland and curator Margo Ann Crutchfiel for presenting this unprecedented exhibition.
Kehinde Wiley, Passing/Posing, (Image: Collection of the Progressive Corporation, Mayfield Village, OH.)
From Then to Now : Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art
Jan 29 – May 9, 2010
MOCA Cleveland
8501 Carnegie Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has just launched an online reading room, where they are gradually making available a full range of electronic facsimiles of museum publications spanning their history. LACMA’s initial offering comprises ten early exhibition catalogues, mostly from the 1960s, and serves as an invaluable academic resource.
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Kiki Smith Comes to Brooklyn Museum
Kiki Smith - Singer (detail), 2008. (Image © Kiki Smith. Courtesy the artist and PaceWildenstein. Photography by Volker Dohne/Courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York)
Kiki Smith - Soujourn opens Feb. 12 at The Brooklyn Museum (NY). The site specific installation loosely follows the life cycle of a female artist, reaching beyond the autobiographical, drawing on a variety of universal experiences, such as birth and death, religion, mythology, spirituality, and inspiration.
The show is a bit of a departure for Smith, who is widely know for her sculptural work. In an interview with NY1, she reflected, “Primarily, this is a drawing show, which is really an exciting opportunity for me, because I rarely have that chance to just show graphic work. And it’s sort of punctuated a little bit by sculpture but the sculpture is to just ground the room or something like that and the pieces are more like in some other realm or something like that…you make works and they’re all autonomous works, but they all also have the opportunity to be dynamic and play with one another and be in relationship to one another. And so each time you install something, it’s like making theatre in a way and so each part become, has its own, maybe like agency or something like that. Each part becomes active and alive, but the story as a whole then emerges out of that.”
Kiki Smith – Sojourn
Feb. 12 – Sept. 12 2010
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Keep the Fire Burning: SFMOCA to House Fisher Collection for Next Century
Gerhard Richter, Two Candles, 1982. (Image © Doris and Donald Fisher Collection/Gerhard Richter, courtesy SFMOMA via Chez Namastenancy)
This past September SFMOMA announced it had reached an initial agreement to house the collection of GAP founders, Doris and Donald Fisher (Mr. Fisher past away days after the announcement). While early reports speculated a 25 year arangement, exact terms were not revealed until late last week.
Eclipsing initial estimates, SFMOMA will become the official home of the Fisher collection for the next 100 years. The museum also announced that an additional $250 million in endowment funds have been raised (largely a result of donations from the Fisher family, trustees and museum chairman, Charles Schwab), and that a new wing would be built to house the 1,100+ piece collection which currently resides in GAP corporate headquarters.
Donald Fisher at Gap headquarters (Image: Mike Kane/The San Francisco Chronicle)
The century long partnership will kick off June 25, when the museum opens Calder to Warhol: Introducing the Fisher Collection. The exhibit, part of SFMOMA’s ongoing 75th anniversary celebration, is slated to feature some 160 pieces from the Fisher’s astounding contemporary art collection, including works by Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, Philip Guston, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, and Brice Marden to name a few.
David Hockney – Interior With Sun and Dog. (Image © David Hockney/Doris And Donald Fisher Collection, via SFGate)
Brice Marden – The Sisters, 1991-93. (Image © Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society/Doris & Donald Fisher Collection, via MuseumViews)
More at the Wall Street Journal, SF Gate and LA Times
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Shepard Fairey Museum Survey Comes to Cincinnati
Shepard Fairey’s museum survey makes it third stop, opening at the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati on Saturday, Feb. 20. The artist was first shown at CAC in 2004, as part of the Beautiful Losers group exhibition. A free public reception will take place the night of Feb. 19, with Fairey doubling as dj. As with the previous installments at the Boston ICA and Andy Warhol Museum of Pittsburgh, the CAC store will be offering a limited edition print, created exclusively for the Contemporary Arts Center (pictured below)
It should come as little surprise that Jeffrey Deitch will also make good on taking over representation for Fairey shortly before accepting the position as the new director of LA MOCA. – Word is expect a solo show this April. a May 1 opening was just announced, as well as confirmation that this will be the final exhibit for Deitch Projects before permanently closing.
Shepard Fairey – Supply and Demand
Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati
Feb. 20 – August 22
44 E. 6th Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202