Archive for the 'Museums' Category
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
McGee Acqusition by Berkeley Art Museum, Named Guardian Artist of the Week
Barry McGee – Untitled, 2008, acquired by the Berkeley Art Museum. (Image: Ratio 3)
As part of its current exhibit, Galaxy: A Hundred or So Stars Visible to the Naked Eye, The Berkeley Art Museum is exhibiting a recent Barry McGee acquisition. The 13-panel ballpoint pen-head installation was purchased from Ratio 3 Gallery, where McGee presented a solo exhibition last September. In a video walk through, curator Lawrence Rinder adds valuable insight to these drawings, shedding light on their origins and meaning. Rinder notes that McGee based the series on a homeless person he encountered on Harrison Street in San Francisco’s Mission District. “He saw a man who was so striking, Barry couldn’t get him out of his mind…and proceeded to make a number of drawings bases on this experience.” This is not the first piece of McGee’s art in the museum’s permanent collection. In 2004 they acquired an early piece dated to 1994.
In related news, with a new monograph just two months away and a substantial UK museum exhibit at the Baltic Centre recently completed, The Guardian’s Jessica Lack has selected Barry McGee as artist of the week.
see 2:36 – 3:43. (Video © Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive)
The McGee grouping acquired by BAM can be seen in this image from A Moment for Reflection: New Works by Lydia Fong, at Ratio 3 Gallery, 2008. (Image: Ratio 3)
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
Rose Museum Sues Brandeis to Stop Closure and Sale of Art
Former Brandeis President Abram Sachar (left) with the Rose Art Museum’s founding benefactors Bertha and Edward Rose (far right). Image: Rose Art Museum via Boston Globe
The battle to save the Rose Art Museum escalated Monday, when the museum’s overseers filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to halt Brandeis University from permanently shutting it down and selling off of a collection including some 7,000 works of art estimated at $350 million.
Read on for our full story and full transcript of the filed lawsuit. Read the rest of this entry »
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Clayton Brothers’ New Gallery + Museum Exhibitions
Topsy Turvy Times of Cockamamie Mumbo-Jumbo, 2009. 84 x 144 inches.
The Clayton Brothers open a much anticipated show in Los Angeles tomorrow, July 18. Judging by the large mixed media on canvas works shown here, we expect the duo to unleash an ambitious exhibit, which slated to fill both the east and west spaces at Patrick Painter Gallery’s Bergamot Station location. This one is not to be missed.
The Claytons are also scheduled for their first major museum exhibition at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin. Rob and Christian Clayton: Inside Out will run from Sept. 10 – Dec 19, 2010.
Spacey Still Life with Protective Pigeons, 2009. 84 x 48 inches.
I’m Just Joking, 2009. 84 x 84 inches.
Clayton Brothers – Jumbo Fruit
July 18 – August 29
Patrick Painter Gallery2525 Michigan Ave., Unit B2
Santa Monica, CA 90404
info@patrickpainter.com
All Images © Clayton Bros./Patrick Painter Inc.
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
Deaccession Controversy Hits Orange County Museum of Art
California Impressionist Granville Redmond’s Silver and Gold was one of 18 paintings sold by the Orange County Museum of Art to an unnamed private collector.
The Orange County Museum of Art has fallen subject to scrutiny over their recent sale of 18 notable California Impressionist paintings to an unnamed private collector. OCMA’s situation is far different from recent controversy surrounding other institutions, such as the National Academy, whose deaccession was not linked to the funding of new art, and in violation of accepted museum standards put forth by the American Association of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors. In an interview with the LA Times, OCMA’s director, Dennis Szakacs, affirmed that the sale would only be used to support the acquisition of new works, adding that the relinquished pieces no longer fit into the museum’s new focus of post-1950s art.
So why all the controversy? By arranging the quiet sale to a private collector, some argue that OCMA ignored its duty of keeping art in the public trust, and that other public institutions should have had an opportunity to bid on the works, either privately or through auction. In addition, the works sold for a total $963,000, far below their estimated worth. Some skeptics are questioning why the museum would agree to a sale so under market value, speculating a preferential deal. One LA gallery director told Artinfo that two of the paintings were worth more than $1.5 million, while the LA Times quotes two specialists’ estimates of Granville Redmond’s painting Silver and Gold at $1 million alone.
Szakacs contends that OCMA did make the most financially and ethically sound decision, noting that the realized price was favorable in the current down market and that ten of the works are already on view at the Nevada Art Museum, demonstrating the importance of selling the collection to one private enthusiast, rather that splitting up the pieces at auction.
Meanwhile, Artinfo notes that Bolton Colburn, director of the Laguna Art Museum, is attempting to seek out the unknown buyer in an effort to buy the paintings for approximately $1 million, little more than what was paid.
Friday, June 12th, 2009
Bansky’s Bristol Show Revealed
Via BBC
Today, Banksy unveiled the secret show he had eluded to on his website earlier this week. The artist’s largest exhibit to date, Banksy Versus Bristol Museum, opens to the public in his hometown at the City Museum and Art Gallery. The show features over 70 new works, as well as some familiar ones, including animatronics that were first seen at Banksy’s Village Pet Shop in New York last year. “This is the first show I’ve done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off,” said the artist in a statement (AP). The show is free and runs through August 31. In the meantime, check out the video tour below, and see more pics via BBC
Via BBC
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Employee Steals $600K+ from Brooklyn Museum
The NY Times reports that a former payroll manager for the Brooklyn Museum stole over $620,000 from the already strapped institution by creating fake payroll profiles with the names “Brooklyn Museum” and “Brooklyn,” which he then issued paychecks to and syphened into his personal bank account. The former employee, Dwight Newton, 40, is out on bond and faces up to 20 years if convicted for wire fraud.
As if the crime wasn’t shameful enough, it was just two months ago that the Times reported the museum was cutting salaries and raising admission fees to avoid layoffs and make up for a drastically depleted endowment, which, in addition to a 32% cut in city funding , has shrunk nearly 70% since last year, from 93.1 million to 65 million.
Feeling philanthropic? – Make a tax-deductible donation to the museum’s fund here
Friday, June 5th, 2009
There Will Be Blood – Anish Kapoor to Fill Royal Academy
Anish Kapoor – Svayambh, 2007 at Le Musée des Beaux Arts. Image: Exporevue
This coming September, London’s Royal Academy of Arts will host a major exhibition by acclaimed sculptor, Anish Kapoor, representing the first time the main exhibition galleries will be filled by a living contemporary artist. Here, Kapoor will present several new works, alongside signature pieces representing his accomplished career. The exhibition’s focal point will be Svayambh (Sanskrit for self-born), a site specific work comprised of mammoth block of red wax that slowly trudges along on motorized tracks, morphing to the shape of the gallery arches it passed through and staining the walls along the way. An earlier version of the piece debuted at Le Musée des Beaux Arts in 2007. Also on display will be Shooting Into the Corner, a new work that sees an air-powered cannon continually firing red pellets of wax at a wall.
The pieces represent Kapoor’s recent exploration of art that is both transient and self-generating. In an interview for Tate Magazine, the artist noted, “I am interested in sculpture that manipulates the viewer into a specific relation with both space and time. Time, on two levels; one narratively and cinematically as a matter of the passage through the work, and the other as a literal elongation of the moment.”
Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy of Arts opens September 26 and runs till December 11, 2009.
Image: The Royal Academy of Arts
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
Francis Bacon Retrospective at MET
Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective opens tomorrow at the Metropolitan Musuem in New York and will be on view till August 16. The exhibition marks a century past since the artist’s birth in Dublin in 1909, bringing together some of the most significant works from each period of his career.
On Thursday, May 22, the MET will hold a free full day symposium, featuring several lectures and a panel discussion focusing on the career and legacy of the artist. More information and a schedule of the day’s events can be viewed here.
Images: met.org, © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
MOCA Benefit Auction
It should come as no surprise that now more than ever, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is in need of financial support. This Saturday, May 8, MOCA will hold its annual Fresh Silent Auction, with works donated from a massive list of over 300 artists, including Ed Ruscha, Raymond Pettibon, Mark Ryden, Martin Kippenberger, Barbara Kruger, Christopher Wool, Neo Rauch, Robert Rauchenberg, and Andrea Zittel. The event takes place at the Geffen Contemporary in Los Angeles from 7-11pm. View the full list of contributing artists here and purchase tickets here.
As you may recall, late last year the museum announced that it was on the verge of total financial collapse, ultimately opting for a $30 million private injection from billionaire Eli Broad, along with the resignation of director, Jeremy Strick, and massive financial restructuring.
Read more from us on the MOCA’s recent financial here and here
One of our favorite lots – Ed Ruscha – Ye, 1991. Cut Out Lettering, Color Pencil on Black Paper.
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
Damien Hirst Kiev Retrospective
Image: artnet
The most comprehensive Damien Hirst museum exhibition opens later this week at the Pinchuk Art Centre in Kiev, Ukraine. Entitled Requiem, the retrospective will feature over 100 works from 1990-2008 and serve as the debut for the mega-star’s recent series of (not spin art) human skull paintings, which were surprisingly executed by Hirst himself.
It should come as no surprise that several pieces in the exhibit were on the block last year at Hirst’s now infamous Beautiful Inside My Head Forever auction with Sotheby’s. In fact, Victor Pinchuk himself (an ex Member of Ukrainian Parliament and billionaire businessman and philanthropist listed as the 246th richest person in the world, whose interests span steel, banking and media) is rumored to have been a secret buyer at the sale and major customer with White Cube, Hirst’s London Gallery.
Damien Hirst – Requiem opens April 25 and runs till September 20, 2009 at the Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev.
Hirst’s Death Explained, 2007, will be on view at the Pinchuk Art Centre as part of Requiem, the artist’s first major exhibition in Ukraine.