Tag Archives: Arts & Literature

Top Artist Documentary: ‘PHYLLIDA’ – A Portrait Of The 76-Year Old British Sculptor Phyllida Barlow

This documentary is an intimate portrait of British sculptor Phyllida Barlow during her preparation for the major survey ‘cul-de-sac’ at the Royal Academy last Phyllida Barlow Cul-de-Sac Royal Academyyear. Directed by Cosima Spender, this film maps the roots of Barlow’s oeuvre, as she revisits childhood memories, domestic and urban spaces, and their subsequent role in her creative process.

Phyllida Barlow began studying at Chelsea College of Art in 1960, and went on to study and teach at Slade School of Art for more than twenty years, becoming Emerita Professor in 2009. She was elected a Royal Academician in 2011, and represented Great Britain in the 2017 Venice Biennale, where she created the ambitious installation, ‘folly’.

Hauser & Wirth Phyllida Barlow 2020

Watch this evolution and the artist’s influences in ‘PHYLLIDA’. ‘I want the work to be traversed in a way that your memory of it is tested, so that you keep forgetting what you’ve seen’, Barlow explains, ‘I think that is the nature of sculpture – not something that can be held as a whole image in your head, only as fragments… The spaces, the silences in between, are as much a component of the work as the thing itself.”

‘PHYLLIDA’ is produced by Hauser & Wirth, in association with Third Channel and Peacock Pictures.

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Artist Profiles: 66-Year Old American Painter Dan Graziano – “Beauty In A Vanishing America”

Artist Dan Graziano
Artist Dan Graziano

“In my paintings, I try to capture the hidden beauty found in the unexpected places and fleeting moments of everyday life.  I continue to be intrigued by the urban landscapes of inner cities – their active streets, time worn buildings and multiple layers of decay, renewal and adaptation – that proudly display the effects of age and use, which I see as testaments to strength, character and authenticity in contrast with modern society’s demand for newness, imitation, disposability and easy duplication.  

Dan Graziano is an award winning, nationally exhibited artist whose paintings capture the hidden beauty found in the unexpected places and fleeting moments of everyday life.  Incorporating dramatic light, shadow, color and perspective, his compositions feature a diversity of subjects – from a simple still life to rugged coastlines, active urban life, lively cafes and bars, small rural towns and forgotten roadside relics.  His work has been featured in numerous publications and is in the collections of private and corporate collectors throughout the world.

Dan Graziano Street Paintings - Website

His artistic vision began taking shape in the 60’s, during America’s explosive political, cultural and artistic awakening.  His first formal training focused on advertising and illustration, but a career opportunity in architecture and urban planning altered his original direction.

When he returned to painting, he was drawn to the rich complexity of the urban landscape – inspired by Edward Hopper and other urbanist painters. As an accomplished blues guitarist (his other great passion), he found the city streets, time worn buildings and multiple layers of decay and repair a visual parallel to the spirit and culture of the music.

“My work is influenced by the American realists such as Sargent, Hopper and the three generations of Wyeths along with California painters Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn.”

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FINE ARTS: 4K VIDEO TOUR – THE VAN GOGH MUSEUM “Artistic Flourishing”

Van Gogh Museum Tour in 4K. Have you always wanted to be alone in the Van Gogh Museum? Step into Vincent’s world and enjoy the private video tour. Episode 4: Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.

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New Literary Podcasts: Author James Shapiro On “Shakespeare And Plagues”

Octavian Report Rostrum PodcastsOctavian Report “Rostrum” spoke with him about a major theme in Shakespeare’s work and life: disease. Specifically, pandemic plagues, which ravaged London repeatedly throughout Shakespeare’s career, shuttering the theaters, and which appear (obliquely and otherwise) in some of his greatest plays.

The latest episode of the Rostrum’s coronavirus series features James Shapiro, the Larry Miller professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, and a leading expert on Shakespeare. Shapiro has published widely on this subject, most recently Shakespeare in a Divided America. He is also an advisor to the Royal Shakespeare Company and to the Public Theater.

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James S. Shapiro (born 1955) is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specialises in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching Shakespeare and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture.

 

Art Magazines: “Apollo” April 2020 Issue Released

INSIDE THE ISSUE
FEATURES | Michael Prodger visits the newly resplendent Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden; Yinka Shonibare talks to Samuel ReillySeamus Perry considers the visual qualities of Wordsworth’s poems; Tim Smith-Laing on the modern monsters of Léopold Chauveau; Emilie Bickerton looks at how museums tackle the subject of cinema; Christopher Turner talks to Grażyna Kulczyk, founder of the Muzeum Susch
REVIEWS | Matthew Sperling on Picasso’s works on paper at the Royal Academy; Nicholas Hatfull on Edward Hopper at the Fondation Beyeler; Scott Nethersole on Renaissance art in the regions of Italy; Alan Powers on the life of Humphrey Stone; Max Norman on a new study of Poussin; Peter Parker on John Minton’s illustrations for Elizabeth David’s cookery books
MARKET | Tim Maxwell and Tamara Bell on cybersecurity; and the latest art market columns from Susan Moore and Emma Crichton-Miller
PLUS | Matt Stromberg and J. Patrice Marandel consider if LACMA has lost its way; Kitty Hauser takes a personal view of the bushfires in Australia; Rachel Cohen on the resurgence of interest in the painter Beauford DelaneyFatema Ahmed on a display of chivalry in Abu Dhabi; Douglas Murphy visits an art nouveau masterpiece in NancyRobert O’Byrne on a talented Dutch curator; and Thomas Marks on museums and the art world in a time of crisis

New Book Podcast: “The Poster – A Visual History” Authors Gill Saunders & Margaret Timmers (V&A)

Monocle 24 The StackMonocle 24 speaks with Gill Saunders and Margaret Timmers about their upcoming book ‘The Poster’ from Thames & Hudson in partnership with the V&A.

Featuring posters from the world-class collection of the Victoria and Albert Underground Electric Railways Co of London Poster 1930 V&A MuseumMuseum, this book is the perfect resource for all those who appreciate one of the most popular art forms.

Even in the digital age, the printed poster has continued to be one of the most influential and well-loved ways of informing and entertaining audiences. A powerful means of mass communication, posters are an invaluable resource for understanding the time periods in which they were produced and distributed and have often played key roles in shaping society.

Organized into seven thematic chapters, The Poster brings together more than 300 examples that offer a comprehensive history of the poster as a medium that has been used to share, sell, or incite political and social change. The text traces the poster through innovations in design, illustration, typography, and printing, as well as movements in art, including Art Nouveau, modernism, Art Deco, psychedelia, and punk.

Featuring works by A. M. Cassandre, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, Milton Glaser, Paula Scher, and Peter Gee, and many more, this book is an essential resource for graphic designers, illustrators, and anyone interested in social and political history.

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Art: “The Most Beautiful Gardens In Art” (Christie’s)

From a Sotheby’s Online Magazine (March 26, 2020):

From Sargent to Sorolla, Jonas Wood to Winston Churchill, Berkshire to Bali — how artists have found solace and inspiration in gardens the world over.

Edouard Manet The Monet Family In Their Garden at Argenteuil 1874 - Christie's Online Magazine

Edouard Manet The Monet Family in Their Garden At Argenteuil 1874

Gustav Klimt Farm Garden with Sunflowers 1905-06 - Christie's Online Magazine

Gustav Klimt Farm Garden with Sunflowers 1905-06 Christie's Online Magazine

Christie's Online Magazine

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Art Videos: “El Greco: Ambition And Defiance” (Art Institute Chicago)

Art Institute ChicagoExplore the exhibition “El Greco: Ambition and Defiance” with curator Rebecca Long and research associate Jena Carvana. Follow along as they lead you through the galleries and share some of the reasons El Greco and his work continue to fascinate us.

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Travel & Quarantines: Author Frances Mayes Writes Of Poet John Keats In Naples, Italy In 1820 (NYT)

From the New York Times (March 26, 2020):

I have seen Naples from his vantage of a ship anchored offshore — one of the most sublime locations in the world, that sweep of coast stacked with apricot, carmine, azure and rose villas; the blue, blue U of the harbor; the emphatic Vesuvius anchoring the view. 

Frances Mayes
Frances Mayes

In October of 1820, typhus raged in Naples. With his artist friend, Joseph Severn, the British poet John Keats rocked in the city’s harbor for 10 days, not nearly the quaranta giorni — 40 days — that give us our word quarantine.

Before this journey, Keats always felt intense melancholy. In “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time,” he wrote “… mortality / Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep.” (And in the smooth pentameter of “Ode to a Nightingale”: “I have been half in love with easeful death.”) Not a holiday, this voyage out of England was a desperate trip to the sunny climate of Italy. His cough had grown steadily worse. Since the morning he’d seen a splotch of blood on his pillow, he knew he had little chance of surviving the consumption that had invaded his lungs. His last-ditch: Go to Rome. Meanwhile, exile at sea.

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Art Insider: “The European Fine Art Fair” (TEFAF) – “Vetting Process” (Video)

TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) brings together the world’s leading experts across a multitude of disciplines to implement and adhere to TEFAF’s vetting procedures and regulations. This allows TEFAF to create a standard that applies across all of its fairs.

Established in 1988, TEFAF is widely regarded as the world’s pre-eminent organization for fine art, antiques, and design. TEFAF runs three Fairs internationally – TEFAF Maastricht, which covers 7,000 years of art history; TEFAF New York Spring, focused on modern and contemporary art & design; and TEFAF New York Fall, covering fine and decorative art from antiquity to 1920. TEFAF gives international dealers the platform to present museum-quality works of all eras and genres to a broad base of collectors and connoisseurs.

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