Tag Archives: Art Exhibitions

Profiles: American Artist Ed Ruscha – “NOW THEN” Exhibition At MoMA NYC

CBS Sunday Morning (November 12, 2023) – The largest exhibition ever of works by Ed Ruscha, one of the most celebrated American artists of the postwar era, is now on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN

Through Jan 13, 2024

Ruscha, now 85, talks with correspondent David Pogue about collecting much of his life’s work into one retrospective; the cryptic nature of many of his paintings; and his use of unusual materials (like chocolate and axle grease).

“I don’t have any Seine River like Monet,” Ed Ruscha once said. “I’ve just got US 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles.” ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN will feature over 200 works—in mediums including painting, drawing, prints, photography, artist’s books, film, and installation—that make use of everything from gunpowder to chocolate. Exploring Ruscha’s landmark contributions to postwar American art as well as lesser-known aspects of his more than six-decade career, the exhibition will offer new perspectives on a body of work that has influenced generations of artists, architects, designers, and writers.

In 1956, Ruscha left his hometown of Oklahoma City and drove along interstate highway 66 to study commercial art in Los Angeles, where he drew inspiration from the city’s architecture, colloquial speech, and popular culture. Ruscha has recorded and transformed familiar subjects—whether roadside gasoline stations or the 20th Century Fox logo—often revisiting motifs, sites, or words years later. Tracing shifts in the artist’s means and methods over time, ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN  underscores the continuous reinvention that has defined his work.

Art Exhibitions: ‘Gerhard Richter – Engadin’, Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz Gallery

Hauser & Wirth – Art Gallery (November 11, 2023) = Gerhard Richter, born in 1932, is one of the most important and celebrated artists of our time. His works can be found in international collections and have been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries in Europe and the United States. Richter first vacationed in the Swiss Alpine village Sils, located in the Upper Engadin region, in 1989, a location he has regularly visited during both summer and winter holidays for over 25 years.

Silsersee (Lake Sils) – Gerhard Richter 1995

GERHARD RICHTER
ENGADIN

St. Moritz

16 December 2023 – 13 April 2024

25.3.15 – Gerhard Richter

Curated by Dieter Schwarz and presented across three venues in the Upper Engadin—Nietzsche-Haus, the Segantini Museum and Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz—this momentous exhibition is the first to explore Gerhard Richter’s deep connection with the Engadin’s alpine landscape. More than seventy works from museums and private collections—including paintings, overpainted photographs, drawings and objects—are testament to the artist’s fascination with the Upper Engadin. Opening 16 December 2023, ‘Engadin’ will be on view through 13 April 2024.

The work connecting the three exhibition venues is a steel sphere that Richter had produced as an edition, on view at each site. He first presented it at Nietzsche-Haus in 1992, in an exhibition curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Each unique sphere bears the name of a mountain in the Upper Engadin. The matte, subtly reflective, almost surreal sphere delicately reflects all that surrounds it. It symbolizes the sublime yet inhospitable manifestations of nature, which are especially conspicuous in the mountains.

St. Moritz – Gerhard Richter – 1992

Kugel III (Piz Fora) [Sphere III (Piz Fora)] – Gerhard Richter – 1992

On view at the Segantini Museum and Hauser & Wirth are paintings that Richter created from photographs taken during his hikes in the Upper Engadin. These works mark a new chapter in his landscape painting—a genre that had always appealed to him for its supposed untimeliness. Richter’s Engadin landscapes are exemplary of the ambiguity in his painting, oscillating between a seductive transfiguration of nature and a reflection of its alienness. Particularly noteworthy is the painting ‘Wasserfall (Waterfall)’ (1997) from Kunst Museum Winterthur, a work that clearly traces Richter’s engagement with 19th-century painting, from romanticism to realism. The artist later overpainted some of the Engadin motifs, including depictions of Piz Materdell and Lake Sils, transforming them into abstract paintings with a melancholic atmosphere that responds to impressions of the landscape.

Exhibitions: Hans Holbein At The Court Of Henry VIII

Royal Collection Trust (October 30, 2023) – Explore the art of the image-maker of the Tudor court in the Royal Collection. Watch the film to discover the importance of the drawings, paintings and miniatures in the Royal Collection.

Discover how Holbein rose to become Henry VIII’s court painter and find out more about the techniques he used. See a rare moment where Holbein’s preparatory drawing and finished painting were reunited. Hans Holbein was one of the most talented artists of the 16th century. 

From his arrival in England in search of work he rose to royal favor, chosen to paint the portraits of Henry VIII, his family and leading figures, among them Anne Boleyn and Sir Thomas More. By his death, Holbein’s work was as admired by his contemporaries as it is today. His portraits inspired the next generation of artists in their depictions of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Previews: Holbein And The Renaissance In The North

Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (detail; c. 1520–24), Andrea Solario. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna

Apollo Magazine (October 27, 2023) This exhibition at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt places work by Hans Holbein the Younger and the Elder, Albrecht Dürer and Hans Burgkmair in dialogue with that of their contemporaries working in the city of Augsburg and elsewhere in Germany, and in Italy and the Netherlands (2 November–18 February 2024).

Holbein and the Renaissance in the North

2 Nov 2023 – 18 Feb 2024

The Städel Museum is prized far and wide for its major Old Masters exhibitions. After Rubens, Rembrandt and Reni, it now holds yet another exceptional show in store for the public. The Städel Museum is presenting the Renaissance in the North—a new and entirely unique style of painting that originated more than 500 years ago in the North of Europe at the threshold from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period.

Philipp Demandt, Director, Städel Museum
Renaissance in the North

It brings together some 130 painting, drawings and prints by leading artists of the Northern Renaissance dating from the period of the 1480s through to the 1530s. These include two masterpieces by Holbein the Younger – the Solothurn Madonna (1522), on loan from the Kunstmuseum Solothurn, and The Madonna of Jacob Meyer zum Hasen (1526–28) from the Würth Collection.

READ MORE

 Find out more on the Städel’s website.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (October 27, 2023): This week: the first Kyiv Biennial since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year is taking place in various locations across the wartorn country as well as a host of neighbouring European states.

We talk to the co-curator, Georg Schöllhammer, about this year’s event. As refugees and displaced people continue to dominate the news, a global sound art project, Migration Sounds, aims to explore and reimagine the sounds of human migration and settlement.

We speak to Stuart Fowkes, the founder of Cities and Memory, who has conceived the project with the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (Compas). And this episode’s Work of the Week is Rebirth of a Nation, a mural made for Brixton Underground Station in London by the Ethiopian-Italian artist Jem Perucchini, which is unveiled next week. Jessica Vaughan, the senior curator of Art on the Underground, tells us about the commission.

The Kyiv Biennial continues to unfold into 2024, visit 2023.kyivbiennial.org

Cities and Memory’s Migration Sounds project, citiesandmemory.com/migration; compas.ox.ac.uk

Jem Perucchini: Rebirth of a Nation, Brixton Underground Station, London, from 2 November.

International Art: Apollo Magazine – November 2023

Image

Apollo Magazine November 2023: The new issue features Modern art at the Imperial War Museum; Around the world in thousands of textiles; Tashkent bets big on cultural tourism, and more…

Inside this issue:

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (October 20, 2023): This week: it’s the second year of Paris +, the event that has taken over from Fiac as the leading French art fair. How is Art Basel’s French flagship faring amid geopolitical turmoil and economic uncertainty, and is Paris still on the rise as a cultural hub?

We speak to Georgina Adam, an editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, and Kabir Jhala, our deputy art market editor, who are in Paris, to find out. The largest ever exhibition of the work of the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto opened last week at the Hayward Gallery in London, before travelling to Beijing and Sydney next year. We talk to its co-curator Thomas Sutton.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is La femme-cheval or the Horse-Woman, a painting made in 1918 by the French artist Marie Laurencin. She is the subject of a major survey, called Sapphic Paris, opening this week at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia in the US. Cindy Kang, who co-curated the exhibition, tells us more about this landmark work in Laurencin’s life.

Paris +, 20-22 October.

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, Hayward Gallery, London, until 7 January 2023; UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 23 March-23 June 2024; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, 2 August-27 October 2024.

Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, US, 22 October-21 January.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (October 13, 2023): The Frieze art fair has turned 20 this week, and is only growing in its ambitions, having acquired the Armory Show fair in New York and Expo Chicago.

So what should we make of Frieze’s continuing expansion and what’s the mood at Frieze London and Frieze Masters this year? We talk to Tim Schneider, The Art Newspaper’s acting art market editor, who is over from New York for the fairs. In Reykjavik in Iceland, the artist-run Sequences Biennial opens on Friday. A former curator of the event is Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, who will represent Iceland at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Tom Seymour went to the Icelandic capital to talk to her about Venice, Sequences and the Icelandic scene.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Open Window, Collioure (1905) by Henri Matisse. The painting is a highlight of the exhibition Vertigo of Colour: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We speak to Dita Amory, co-curator of the show, about this landmark painting in Matisse’s career.

Frieze London and Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park, London, until 15 October.

The Sequences Biennial, entitled Can’t See, begins on 13 October and continues until 22 October 2023.

Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 13 October-21 January 2024; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 25 February-27 May 2024.

Chicago Exhibitions: ‘Caravaggio In Rome’

The Cardsharps - Wikipedia
The Cardsharps, about 1595
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

The Art Institute of Chicago (October 8, 2023) – Whether for his large dramatic canvases or his larger-than-life persona, the name Caravaggio evokes images of turmoil and violence, both sacred and profane. Born in Milan in 1571, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio entered the robust Roman art scene around 1592 and, over the next 14 years, developed an original and captivating painting style that attracted eminent patrons and passionate followers, thrusting him into the public eye. 

Among Friends and Rivals: Caravaggio in Rome

Sep 8–Dec 31, 2023

Martha and Mary Magdalene (Caravaggio) - Wikipedia
Martha and Mary Magdalene, about 1598
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. 

Caravaggio’s followers, known as the Caravaggisti, embraced the stylis­tic hallmarks of the painter’s intensely naturalistic work. Like their trailblazing idol, they used models from real life, boldly depicting their quirks and flaws in dynamic compositions whose turbulent movement was revealed in dramatic extremes of light and dark. The themes and individual artistic approaches of Caravaggisti often depended on their direct or indirect relationships to Caravaggio—some knew the artist personally, while others knew him only through his work.

READ MORE

Museum Exhibition Tour: ‘Manet/Degas’ At The Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 6, 2023) – Stephan Wolohojian, John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge, and Ashley Dunn, Associate Curator, explore Manet/Degas. This exhibition examines one of the most significant artistic dialogues in modern art history: the close and sometimes tumultuous relationship between Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas.

Manet/Degas

September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024

Manet/Degas - Yale University Press London

Born only two years apart, Manet (1832–1883) and Degas (1834–1917) were friends, rivals, and, at times, antagonists who worked to define modern painting in France. By examining their careers in parallel and presenting their work side by side, this exhibition investigates how their artistic objectives and approaches both overlapped and diverged. Through more than 160 paintings and works on paper, Manet/Degas takes a fresh look at the interactions of these two artists in the context of the family relationships, friendships, and intellectual circles that influenced their artistic and professional choices, deepening our understanding of a key moment in nineteenth-century French painting. On view: September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024