Leonardo in London

December 5, 2011 / / 2 Comments

“Just as Leonardo’s Last Supper followed a Leitmotiv of triples (three windows; groups of apostles in threes) to honour the Trinity, so there should be three triumphs in connection with the remarkable exhibition of his work at the National Gallery in London: “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan”.

As it happens, the triumphs are unmistakable in two parts of the enterprise. The curator Luke Syson’s achievement in gathering together nine of Leonardo’s 15 surviving paintings is an astonishing feat. It seems extremely unlikely that such generosity among the scattered owners of these masterworks will be repeated in the foreseeable future”……..

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Reunited, sort of: the Louvre’s (left) and the National Gallery’s Virgins are installed on opposite ends of the fourth gallery, making it impossible to get more than the vaguest idea of how Leonardo changed his mind over the years.

Art on shifting sands

December 5, 2011 / / No Comments

“The Guggenheim is certainly not cancelled,” the US ambassador, Michael Corbin, told me. “It’s just delayed due to cash flow problems and the Arab Spring”. This was at an exhibition of Middle Eastern artists hosted in the residence to show his general support for the role that art is playing in Abu Dhabi policy. There were more signs of official approval for the idea of art. A huge red ball is appearing in surprising places, such as the Zaha Hadid-designed bridge, and in shopping malls. This is an installation by Kurt Perschke to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).”- The Art Newspaper

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Tony Shafrazi admires the Kids’ Zone

image courtesy of Art Newspaper

Chan Hwee Chong

October 31, 2011 / / 1 Comment

Extraordinary work from this young designer. All these images are drawn with a single line.

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images courtesy of Faber Castell @ behance

watch a video of the process here

see his portfolio here

You won’t find an ‘Untitled’ among my works

October 31, 2011 / / No Comments

“In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Neo Rauch’s enigmatic paintings—an intensely coloured mix of realism, surrealism, pop art and comic-book imagery—brought him huge international success. In Germany his work still fuels debate on the pros and cons of figurative painting.

This month the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden is opening a Rauch retrospective (27 May-18 September, see What’s On). Curated by art historian Werner Spies, the show will cover the artist’s development over the past 20 years. Of particular interest will be the presentation of Rauch’s first sculpture, titled Nachhut, 2011″.

text + image courtesy of The Art Newspaper

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Scheme launched to purchase Wrapped Reichstag

October 31, 2011 / / 1 Comment

“A foundation has been launched to raise the €10m needed to purchase the Wrapped Reichstag collection from the artist Christo. Negotiations also began last month to organise the display in Berlin’s Reichstag of the artist’s drawings, collages, archive photographs and even lengths of rope and fragments of the aluminium-covered material that shrouded the historic building, as part of the project”.

text + image courtesy of The Art Newspaper

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One masterpiece can go a long way

September 23, 2011 / / No Comments

An interesting development that underpins the problems that lack of sufficient funding for public institutions and the buying power of corporate collections poses for Exhibitions curators.

“There might be less money to organise exhibitions in many US museums, but by borrowing one masterpiece, putting it on display, and so turning a single work into a star attraction, several are stretching their budgets a long way.”

Caravaggio’s “The Fortune Teller” at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, proved a big draw

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Image courtesy of the Art Newspaper

Arts education in England under threat

September 23, 2011 / / No Comments

A disturbing new trend surfaces in education in England.

“Arts organisations, including the Cultural Learning Alliance (CLA) and Arts Council England, fear that arts subjects could be cut from secondary school education in England following the introduction of the English Baccalaureate, a way of ranking pupils according to grades achieved in five core subjects: maths, English, science, a language and either history or geography.”

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Parliamentary Plein Air Finalists 2011

August 3, 2011 / / No Comments

Finalists for the NSW Parliamentary Plein Air Photography Prize and Secondary Schools Competition  have been published at the Plein air Photography Prize website.

Click on the image below to view

Missing form this years list are some of the big names in Australian photography such as Dean Sewell, William Yang, Peter Elliston and Andrew Quilty.

The exhibition at Parliament House runs from 2nd – 25th August.

Gallery system is structurally weak

August 1, 2011 / / No Comments

“A recent and new report by the non-profit dealers’ federation, Cinoa finds that fair-led and online business is taking over as the main source of revenue;

The traditional gallery model is in decline, according to a new report by the non-profit dealers’ federation Cinoa (Con­féd­ération Internationale des Négociants en Oeuvres d’Art), which found that fair-led and online business is taking over as the main source of revenue.

Gallery visits are declining as the art market expands to new international centres served better by art fairs or electronic media.”

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