Archive for the 'Museums' Category
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
New Whitney Museum Confirmed
The High Line at night (Image © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)
The New York Times confirms that after three years of negotiation, the Whitney Museum has closed a deal with the New York City Economic Development Corporation to build a second museum near the Ganesvoort St. entrance to the new High Line park, located on a former elevated railway line in the Chelsea area of Manhattan. The museum recently singed a contract to buy the city owned site for $18 million, about one-half its actual value.
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Shepard Fairey Exhibit Opens Amidst New Legal Controversy
(All Images via Obey Clothing)
After a hugely successful run at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, Shepard Fairey’s museum retrospective opened today at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The exhibit premiers just as new and disheartening information surfaces about the artist’s ongoing legal battle with the Associated Press.
Read on for the full story Read the rest of this entry »
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Elizabeth Peyton Retrospective Travels to Netherlands
Democrats are more beautiful (after Jonhatan Horowitz), 2001, oil on board. Collection Laura and Satfford Broumand, © Elizabeth Peyton.
Elizabeth Peyton: Live Forever, the museum retrospective which premiered at the New Museum in NY one year ago, opens Oct. 16 at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastrciht, Netherlands. A comprehensive hard-cover exhibition catalog co-published by the New Museum and Phaidon is now available. For more commentary, see our previous post.
Flower Liam, 1996, oil on board. Private collection Courtesy Zwirner & Wirth, New York, © Elizabeth Peyton.
Jackie and John (Jackie fixing John’s hair), 1999, oil on board. Collection Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey R. Winter, © Elizabeth Peyton.
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Let There Be Light :: Monumental Times for James Turrell
Roden Crater, view from southwest. (Image: © James Turrell, Photo: Florian Holzherr, 2003.)
James Turrell is about to unveil a new light work and his largest ever museum installation at The Kunstmuseum in Wolfsburg, Germany. James Turrell: The Wolfsburg Project opens Oct. 24 and runs though April 5, 2010. In addition, Pace Wildenstein, NY, is currently holding its fourth solo gallery exhibit with the artist, featuring fifteen large-scale light works on view for the first time.
Ganzfeld Piece, Begehbare Installation, Stuttgart, 2009. (Image: © James Turrell, Photo: Zooey Braun.)
The most anticipated events, however, are still a few years off. After more than three decades of development in Arizona’s Painted Desert, Turrell’s Roden Crater will finally open to the public for the first time. The unveiling is scheduled sometime during the course of the artist’s upcoming museum retrospective, which will debut in 2012 at the Guggenheim before traveling to LACMA, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and several international institutions. Since 1972 Turrell has been transforming the extinct volcanic crater into an open-air observatory that will enable visitors to witness celestial phenomenon with the naked eye, viewable from only a handull of locations around the world.
An interactive book entitled Turrell World Tour will coincide with the opening of Roden Crater. The publication will highlight 137 public works across 18 states and 23 countries, and will function as a passport that is signed and stamped at each of the 85 destinations. Upon completing the tour, readers will be invited as a personal guest of the artist’s to the site.
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
US Art Museum Directors Face Salary Reductions
MoMA Director, Glenn Lowry (Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders/MoMA)
The Art Newspaper reports that more than one third of the directors of major US art museums have recently faced significant cutbacks in compensation, ranging from salary reductions and elimination of bonuses to unpaid leave. Included in the list is MOMA Director, Glenn Lowry, who is credited as the highest paid art museum executive in the US. After having his salary cut 15% in 2009, Lowry will face an additional 10% cut this coming year. His salary however, will remain above $1m in 2010.
See the entire list here – It’s worth a read.
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Pop Will Eat Itself – Tate Modern’s New Exhibit Explores the Art of Branding
Keith Haring – Pop Shop (Image: © Keith Haring artwork © Estate of Keith Haring. Photo: Charles Dolfi-Michels.)
The early pop-art that emerged in the late 50s and early 60s was as much a critique as it was a celebration of a new post WWII consumer culture hyped up by industry and government during the height of the Cold War. Since then, pop artists have taken their commentaries on capitalism beyond the incorporation of mass media imagery, employing modes of commercial production and sometimes becoming brands themselves. Pop Life: Art in a Material World, a new exhibition at Tate Modern, surveys pop artists of the last three decades who have embraced not only mass media, but mass production and commerce. The exhibit is highlighted by works from Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, selections from Damien Hirst’s self-promoted 2008 Sotheby’s auction, a newly commissioned installation by Takashi Murakami, and a recreation of Keith Haring’s NY Pop-Shop. The museum has also opened a special Pop Life Boutique, with select products available online.
(Exhibition Images: Nigel Howard/London Evening Standard)
Pop Life: Art in a Material World
Oct. 1 – Jan. 17, 2010
Tate Modern
London, England SE1 9TG
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
Renewed :: MOCA Celebrates 30 Years with Massive Permanent Collection Exhibition
Franz Kline – Buttress, 1956, oil on canvas, 46 ½ x 55 ½ in., collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Panza Collection, © 2009 The Franz Kline Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
We’ve got to hand it to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. After surviving near financial disaster and significant restructuring, MOCA is set to celebrate its 30 year anniversary with a new exhibition from its permanent holdings.
Opening November 15, 2009 at both of two of MOCA’s Los Angeles locations, Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years will be the most comprehensive exhibition of the museum’s renowned post-war collection to date, highlighting over 500 works by more than 200 artists, including Diane Arbus, Chris Burden, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, Nan Goldin, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Piet Mondrian, Bruce Nauman, Chris Ofilli, Claes Oldenburg, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark Rothko.
The exhibition is a bold and appropriate reassertion of the recently troubled institution’s vital contribution to the field of public arts. Paul Schimmel, MOCA’s Chief Curator noted that the museum “is approaching this exhibition of works from its collection with the same level of ambition and depth that has characterized the museum’s most celebrated thematic exhibitions. MOCA is assembling its major holdings into an unprecedented installation that will occupy 50,000 square feet in two museum buildings. The scope and scale of Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years will enable the community to build relationships with individual works of art and develop a sense of long-term engagement with the collection and the museum.”
To commemorate the event, the museum has launched a clever email campaign. Every week for 30 consecutive weeks members and mailing list subscribers will receive an image of a featured work from the museum’s permanent collection. Sign up here
Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years
Nov. 16, 2009 – May 3, 2010
MOCA Grand Avenue, 250 S. Grand Ave., L.A., 90012
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, N. Central Ave., L.A. 90013
Monday, September 28th, 2009
A NY Minute in Rome
(Image: Francesco Demichelis/MACRO Future)
Photos from NY Minute have finally surfaced. The inaugural museum exhibition at the newly renovated MACRO Future museum in Rome was organized by DEPART Foundation and curated by Deitch Projects’ Director, Kathy Grayson. Grayson selected a group of sixty artists connected to the young New York art scene, including Aaron Bondaroff, Asume Vivid Astro Focus, Aurel Schmidt, Ben Jones, Barry McGee, Chris Johanson, Dan Colen, Dash Snow, Matt Leines, Ryan McGinley, Taylor McKimens, Scott Campbell, Steve Powers, Tauba Auerbach, Terence Koh, and Tim Barber. The exhibit is on view through Nov. 1. Read on for more images. Read the rest of this entry »
Friday, September 25th, 2009
Ari Marcopoulos :: A Survey of 30 Years at Berkeley Art Museum
SHO KA WAH, Sonoma, CA, 2004. All images: (All images courtesy of Ari Marcopoulos, Ratio 3, San Francisco, and The Project, New York.)
In 1979 Dutch born photographer Ari Marcopoulos migrated to New York City, quickly submerging himself in the downtown art scene. Sill in his twenties, Marcopolous found work printing photographs for Andy Warhol, and then as a studio assistant to photographer Irving Penn. He credits these early experiences with teaching him that anything is worth taking a picture of, as well as the importance of technical skill and a simple approach. These dual virtues are clearly evident throughout the body of work on view in Within Arm’s Reach, Marcopoulos’ first U.S. mid-career museum survey, which opened this week at The Berkeley Art Museum. The exhibition spans three decades of the artist’s photography, including his documentation of 80s street and music culture in New York, emersion into the early 90s skate and and later snowboard scenes, and recent autobiographical depictions of his family, often reflecting back on his own youth through images of his children.
The museum has published an exhibition catalog, designed by Marcopolous and available in their online store. Ari Marcopolous – Within Arm’s Reach in on view till Feb. 7. See below for details.
Read on for our extensive set of photos from the exhibit and visit Interview Magazine for a new interview with the artist. Read the rest of this entry »
Monday, August 31st, 2009
Mike Shinoda’s Glorious Excess (Dies)
LA’s Japanese American National Museum is now hosting a prodigious art exhibition by Mike Shinoda entitled Glorious Excess (Dies). The massive creative effort is a pivotal point in the career of the young artist, as he establishes himself outside of his work in music. Shinoda’s adroit use of all types of media to channel his voice is remarkable. The show signals the artist’s ability to create his vision in a plethora of mediums, including digital platforms. It’s clear that the concept of the exhibition has been thoughtfully embedded into each rendition. It’s not too early to opine that Glorious Excess (Dies) provides one the year’s most memorable moments. On view until October 4.