Tag Archives: Museums

Museum Insider: Curators & Artists Oversee New Frames, Placement Of Paintings At MoMA (Video)

The new MoMA opens. Cherished works return to the walls of the galleries in brand new frames, while curators and artists watch the completion of the reinstallation. After being closed for four months, MoMA reopens its doors to the public.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

0:13 – Associate sculpture conservator Roger Griffith and sculpture conservation fellow Joy Bloser clean Arthur Young’s Bell-47D1 Helicopter.

0:52 – Senior curator of Painting and Sculpture Anne Umland and chief curator of Painting and Sculpture Ann Temkin oversee the hanging of Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

1:20 – Peter Perez, frame shop foreman, discusses “The Starry Night’s” new, black frame.

2:53 – Artist Amy Sillman explains how she curated and arranged “The Shape of Shape,” part of the long-running Artist’s Choice exhibition series in which artists selects works to show from the Museum’s collection

4:17 – Photography curator Sarah Meister and conservator Lee Ann Daffner adjust the lighting on Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey’s “Rome. Arch of Septimus Severus and Capitoline Lion.”

5:02 – Senior deputy director of exhibitions and collections Ramona Bronkar Bannayan and director of exhibition design and production Lana Hum make a final checklist of things to accomplish before the opening.

5:32 – Artist Betye Saar sees her exhibition for the first time.

7:11 – Manager of enterprise applications Rik Vanmechelen and developer Ryan Sprott check the new ticket machines.

8:04 – Chief facilities and safety officer Tunji Adeniji welcomes the public to the new MoMA on opening day.

8:30 – Silent film accompanist Ben Model improvises a live piano soundtrack for Frank Powell’s 1915 film “A Fool There Was.”

9:12 – Security supervisor Chet Gold greets volunteer Fred Liberman. Gold returns to his favorite room in the new MoMA.

Top Automobile Exhibits: “Legends Of Speed” At The Phoenix Art Museum (November 3 – Mar 15, 2020)

Featured cars have won many of the world’s most iconic races, including Le Mans, the Indianapolis 500, and the Italian Grand Prix, and were loaned to the Museum by internationally recognized collectors from Arizona and across the United States. Legends of Speed offers an unparalleled opportunity for Museum guests to experience and learn about some of the most successful and famous racecars of all time.

Legends of Speed is the first major exhibition of racing cars presented at Phoenix Art Museum. Opening in fall 2019 and featuring more than 20 legendary cars by Maserati, Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Ford, and more, the landmark exhibition showcases an unprecedented collection of cars driven by some of the greatest drivers in the history of racing, including A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney, and Stirling Moss.

Website: http://www.phxart.org/exhibition/legendsofspeed

Exhibitions: “Leonardo – Experience A Masterpiece” At The National Gallery, London (Nov 9 – Jan 12)

The secrets of Leonardo’s masterpiece are revealed in four distinct spaces. Each space invites you to look at ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’ in a new way.

Leonardo Experience a Masterpiece National GalleryThe mind of Leonardo

Start your journey in a landscape populated by the thoughts and ideas of Leonardo as he sets about painting ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’.

The studio

Discover the secrets only science and conservation can reveal in this projection-filled space which unlocks the mysteries of how ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’ was painted and reveals the lost composition hidden beneath the painted surface.

The light and shadow experiment

Take part in the room-sized experiment to discover the dramatic effects of light and shadow on Leonardo’s composition for ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’.

The imagined chapel

At the end of your journey, you will come face to face with the original masterpiece where it hangs on the walls of an imagined chapel for you to contemplate how ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’ might have appeared in its original setting as part of an elaborate altarpiece.

To read and view more: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/leonardo-experience-a-masterpiece#HighlightPaintings93395

Top New Exhibitions: “An Impressionist Autumn” At The Museum Of Fine Arts, Houston Thru January 12

From a Arts and Culture Texas online article:

Paul Cézanne, The Turning Road (La route tournante), c. 1877, oil on canvas, private collection.While all of the works on exhibit hold special interest, Aurisch identifies several gems. For example, Van Gogh fans will enjoy his spectacular perspectival rooftop view from the window of his room in The Hague in 1882. Maurice de Vlaminc’s 1906 Dancer at the “Rat Mort” (La danseuse du “Rat Mort”) is a delight with his Fauve treatment of the figure; through color and gestural line, it’s as though we are witnessing a shift into the 20th century. And Henri Matisse’s 1943 still life titled Lemons against a Fleur-de-lis Background (Citrons sur fond rose fleurdelisé) vibrates with lively pink patterned wallpaper and a stacked brick platform, charged with Japonisme energy.

This fall season, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Monet to Picasso: A Very Private Collection and Berthe Morisot: Impressionist Original, billed together under the theme of “An Impressionist Autumn,” on view Oct. 20, 2019 through Jan. 12, 2020. The two exhibitions offer museum visitors the chance to peek into the private lives of artist, muse, and society at large.

To read more: http://artsandculturetx.com/fall-for-impressionism-morisot-and-monet-to-picasso-at-mfah/

Architecture: The Frank Lloyd Wright Designed Guggenheim Museum Celebrates 60th Year

Frank Lloyd Wright Guggenheim MuseumThis year marks the 60th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s building for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Since opening its doors on October 21, 1959, the architectural icon has inspired countless visitors and is widely seen as Wright’s masterpiece.

From its opening to the present day, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has been an unparalleled physical and cultural presence in the New York landscape.

Over the course of the sixteen-year period between the commissioning of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1943 and its 1959 opening, the project underwent a series of revisions. The iconic spiral form remained primarily unchanged, but a close reading of documents in the Guggenheim Museum Archives sheds additional light on an array of obscure details that were designed out over time to accommodate budgetary, programmatic, and structural needs and constraints.

To read more: https://www.guggenheim.org/the-frank-lloyd-wright-building

New Exhibitions: “A Tale Of Two Women Painters – Sofonisba Anguissola And Lavinia Fontana”(Prado)

From an Apollo Magazine online review:

Queen Anna of Austria (c. 1573), Sofonisba Anguissola. Museo Nacional del Prado, MadridBorn in Bologna in 1552, Lavinia Fontana is often considered to be the first professional woman painter; she was the first to be accepted into the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, and supported her family throughout her life by gaining prestigious commissions for portraits in the city. This self-portrait has been interpreted as a wedding painting; it was completed in the year of Fontana’s marriage to Giovan Paolo Zappi, a fellow artist who became her agent and manager.

Self-Portrait at the Easel (c. 1556–57), Sofonisba Anguissola. Łańcut CastleSofonisba Anguissola was born into an aristocratic family from Cremona in around 1532; she travelled to Rome as a young woman, where her talent was recognised by Michelangelo, and in 1559 became lady-in-waiting to Elisabeth de Valois, Queen of Spain (and a keen amateur painter). She became a court painter to Philip II, and remained at court for some 15 years – at least until her marriage to a Sicilian nobleman after Elisabeth’s death in 1568, for which Philip II provided the dowry. Here she portrays Anna of Austria, who became Queen of Spain after Philip remarried in 1570.

Prado MuseumPart of the Prado’s bicentenary celebrations, this exhibition looks at two of the most significant women artists of the Renaissance. Though born into very different social classes, both Lavinia Fontana and Sofonisba Anguissola rose to heights of prestige that had not previously been scaled by women painters – Fontana at the Vatican, and Anguissola at the Spanish court.

To read more: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/art-diary/a-tale-of-two-women-painters-sofonisba-anguissola-and-lavinia-fontana/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=APBR%20%2020191020%20%20AL&utm_content=APBR%20%2020191020%20%20AL+CID_fd9e2bf8d99fdf80e9a01126a4b72680&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Apollo&utm_term=Sofonisba%20Anguissola%20and%20Lavinia%20Fontana

New Museum Exhibitions: “Andy Warhol – From A To B And Back Again” At The Art Institute Of Chicago

From the Art Institute of Chicago website:

Self-Portrait, 1964 The Art Institute of Chicago; gift of Edlis Neeson CollectionWarhol, with obvious self-deprecation, described his philosophy as spanning from A to B. As this exhibition decidedly proves, his thinking and artistic production ranged well beyond that, but his true genius lies in his ability to identify cultural patterns and to use repetition, distortion, and recycled images in a way that challenges our faith in images and questions the meaning of our cultural icons.

This major retrospective—the first to be organized by a US institution in 30 years—builds on the wealth of new research, scholarship, and perspectives that has emerged since Andy Warhol’s early death at age 58 in 1987. More than 400 works offer a new view of the beloved and iconic American Pop artist, not only illuminating the breadth, depth, and interconnectedness of Warhol’s production across the entirety of his career but also highlighting the ways that he anticipated the issues, effects, and pace of our current digital age.

To read more: https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/2937/andy-warhol-from-a-to-b-and-back-again?utm_medium=email&utm_source=warhol&utm_campaign=nonmember&utm_content=warhol-opening-non-mem-10-20-19

Top New Exhibitions: “The Last Knight” At The Metropolitan Museum, NYC Through Jan 5, 2020

From the MetMuseum.org online:

The Last Knight Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition BookThe Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I examines the profound significance of European armor at the dawn of the Renaissance, through the lens of Emperor Maximilian I’s (1459–1519) remarkable life. On view only at The Met, The Last Knight coincides with the five-hundredth anniversary of Maximilian’s death, and is the most ambitious North American loan exhibition of European arms and armor in decades. Including 180 objects selected from some thirty public and private collections in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, The Last Knight will explore how Maximilian’s unparalleled passion for the trappings and ideals of knighthood served his boundless worldly ambitions, imaginative stratagems, and resolute efforts to forge a lasting personal and family legacy.

This exhibition features many works of art on view outside Europe for the first time, including Maximilian’s own sumptuous armors that highlight his patronage of the greatest European armorers of his age, as well as related manuscripts, paintings, sculpture, glass, tapestry, and toys, all of which emphasize the emperor’s dynastic ambitions and the centrality of chivalry at the imperial court and beyond.

To read more: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2019/last-knight-art-armor-ambition-maximilian?utm_source=Exhibitions&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019_1019_Met_Exhibitions

New Paris Museums: Bourse De Commerce – Pinault Collection To Open In June 2020

From an Art Forum online article:

Bourse de Commerce—Pinault Collection by Maxime TétardThe plans for the venue were previously reported to encompass 9,850 square feet of exhibition space, a black-box theater, and an auditorium. Earlier this year, Pinault said he wants the museum to complement existing art institutions in Paris, and that he will collaborate with the Centre Pompidou on a program that will take place concurrently at both venues in 2020.

The French billionaire art collector François Pinault announced that his $170 million contemporary art museum in Paris is slated to open next June near the Louvre and the Centre Pompidou. The Bourse de Commerce—Pinault Collection will be housed in the city’s old stock exchange, in a building designed by the Pritzker Prize–winning architect Tadao Ando, and is to host ten exhibitions a year drawing from Pinault’s collection.

To read more: https://www.artforum.com/news/francois-pinault-to-open-contemporary-art-museum-in-paris-in-june-2020-81017

Top Museum Exhibits: “Greco” At The Grand Palais, Paris On Oct 16

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (c. 1585), El Greco.Rediscovered in the late 19th century, celebrated by authors, acknowledged and embraced by the 20th century avant-garde, the artist has enjoyed the dual prestige of tradition and modernity, linking Titian to the Fauvists and Mannerism to Cubism, Expressionism, Vorticism and Abstraction up to the Action painting.

This retrospective is the first major exhibition in France ever to be dedicated to this artist.

Born in Crete in 1541, Domenico Theotokopoulos, known as El Greco, undertook his initial apprenticeship in the Byzantine tradition before refining his training in Venice and then Rome. However, it was in Spain that his art flourished, firmly taking root from the 1577s. Attracted by the incredible promise of the El Escorial site, the artist brought Titian’s colour, Tintoretto’s audacity and Michelangelo’s heroic style. This eloquent combination, original yet consistent with his own way, gave El Greco (who died four years after Caravaggio) a unique place in the history of painting, as the last grand master of the Renaissance and the first great painter of the Golden Age.

Website: https://www.grandpalais.fr/en/event/greco