CURRENT NEWS

On view June 26 - October 17, 2010
 
This summer, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, premieres the major traveling exhibition Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy, the first exhibition to assess Calder's influence on the new generation of contemporary sculptors. The presentation of sixty of Calder's iconic works is mounted along with approximately twenty sculptures by seven contemporary artists who have been directly influenced by Calder: Martin Boyce, Nathan Carter, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Aaron Curry, Kristi Lippire, Jason Meadows, and Jason Middlebrook.
 
Calder has long been a popular and beloved modernist master, but it is only recently that young contemporary artists have turned to his work and its example of hands-on explorations of form, balance, color, and movement. "One of the most vital and interesting dialogues happening in the art world today is how the influence of the modernist generation of artists is increasingly becoming the basis for the creation of relevant and compelling art by contemporary artists," says MCA Curator Lynne Warren.

(NEW YORK, NY – June 24, 2010) — On July 15 the Guggenheim will launch Dark Sounds, a three-part series of live music performances accompanying the exhibition Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, currently on view at the museum through September 6. Produced by Sam Brumbaugh, Special Events Consultant, and Bronwyn Keenan, Associate Director of Special Events, the series takes its thematic cue from the conceptual threads that weave through Haunted, aiming to evoke the exhibition’s elements of melancholy, ghostliness, the uncanny, and our collective and individual obsession with accessing the past. The series title is borrowed from the writings of Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936), who is often described as the father of the modern ghost story.

Dark Sounds kicks off with the richly modernized Balkan gypsy folk of Beirut on Thursday, July 15; followed by Andrew Bird & Ian Schneller’s Sonic Arboretum, a site-specific performance involving violin, looped passages, and a landscape of horn speakers on Thursday, August 5; and then by the deeply melodic, electronic, and jazz-improvised sound of Cinematic Orchestra on Friday, September 3.

The Dark Sounds series is made possible in part by Dr. Martens.

Doors open at 8 pm and guests are encouraged to view the museum exhibitions Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance and the Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim Julie Mehretu: Grey Area before the performances, which start at 10 pm in the museum’s famed Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda.

Ticketing
Priced at $25 for members and $30 for nonmembers, tickets are limited and available through advance online ticket sales only at guggenheim.org/darksounds. Beirut tickets will go on sale June 24 for members and June 25 for nonmembers.

Dark Sounds membership package
The museum offers a Dark Sounds membership package, which includes tickets to all three events plus all the benefits of Guggenheim membership for one year, including free, unlimited admission to the museum; invitations to parties and private viewings; and savings at the Guggenheim Store, the Wright, Cafe 3, and on all public programs. The Dark Sounds membership package is available for $125 for one person or $250 for two people and can be purchased by phone at 212 423 3535 or by e-mail at membership@guggenheim.org.


        
BEIRUT
July 15, 2010
Multi-instrumentalist Zach Condon is behind the critically acclaimed American band Beirut, which he formed in Albuquerque in 2006, recruiting friends for the recording of the debut album Gulag Orkestar. Inspired by Condon’s European travels, Gulag Orkestar is deeply influenced by Balkan folk and gypsy music, and features an eclectic array of instruments such as trumpets, ukuleles, glockenspiels, mandolins, violins, and cellos. The album was almost entirely recorded in Condon’s bedroom. For Beirut’s second full-length album, The Flying Club Cup (2007), Condon drew from the Gallic tradition of Chanson Française to produce an LP that revisits and reinterprets the wistful genre through a unique blend of rich vocals and layered accordions, horns, violins, piano, brass, and bass. Beirut also produced a full-length double EP, March of the Zapotec/Holland (2009), and three additional EPs. Known for their memorable live shows, Beirut performs with a varying number of members, ranging from 6 to 10.

        
ANDREW BIRD AND IAN SCHNELLER
August 5, 2010
Andrew Bird is a Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist and lyricist known for his experimental forays into pop music that incorporate elements of gypsy jazz, classical, folk, and country blues traditions. Bird has released nine albums since 1996. In a live setting, passages of violin, guitar, voice, and glockenspiel are looped and layered, crafting melodic hooks and rhythms from spontaneous stabs and strums. For Dark Sounds, Bird will collaborate with sculptor, inventor, and luthier Ian Schneller of Specimen Products to present Andrew Bird & Ian Schneller’s Sonic Arboretum, an audiovisual landscape featuring audio sculptures scattered around the rotunda floor that project sound skyward. Schneller has been designing and building his own line of custom guitars, tube amplifiers, and audio horn speakers for more than 25 years. With a master’s degree in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, his creations are sonic, kinetic, structural investigations that blend modern and vintage aesthetics and technology. Alone, the sculptures vaguely resemble a union of Victrola speakers and plant life, while Sonic Arboretum’s cumulative effect evokes a symphonic field of poppies, a prairie of sound, a forest floor of hornlings—all parts of one “ecosystem.”

        
CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA
September 3, 2010
For Jason Swinscoe, founder of the Cinematic Orchestra, working life began at Ninja Tune, the London-based independent record label. By day, Swinscoe distributed records while by night he developed a unique sound that would eventually evolve into the Cinematic Orchestra. Swinscoe introduced other like-minded musicians to the act and soon after, a string of albums emerged. Following their 1999 debut album Motion they have released Every Day (2002), Man With A Camera (2003), and Ma Fleur (2007), as well as the soundtrack The Crimson Wing for DisneyNature (2009), Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2008), Remixes 1998–2000 (2000), and Late Night Tales, a compilation (2010). Cinematic Orchestra’s diverse, imaginative, jazz-improvised, electronic approach was praised by Uncut magazine as “every hard-boiled, neon-lit Hollywood thriller you’ve ever seen.”

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. Currently the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation owns and operates the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection on the Grand Canal in Venice, and also provides programming and management for two other museums in Europe that bear its name: the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by architect Frank Gehry, is scheduled to open in 2013.

#1165
June 24, 2010

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT
Claire Laporte, Publicist
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
212 423 3840
pressoffice@guggenheim.org

June 27, 2010

Until August 25, 2010, at the fourth floor of the spacious Art Gallery of the Yonkers Riverfront Public Library.

The Library's Director, Stephen Force, and the President of the Yonkers Arts Board, Judith Schwartzstein, have confirmed the extension of the Yonkers Artists Showcase to the week ending August 27. 

In these hard times of budget concerns and schedule reduction, this is an important opportunity for the public to still catch this second annual important exhibition.

The show is open and free to the public during Library hours (call the Library for updated schedules).
The fine art examples displayed here represent one fifth of the good quality artists currently living or working in Yonkers. About one third of the present selection is represented by artists belonging to the Blue Door Artist Association, a large group presided by Luis Perelman (also a co-curator). Another third of the group represents the many artists currently working in the YOHO building at Nepperhan Avenue (a self generated assembly of artists from all over, with the common denominator of needing a studio).
The last third includes representation of the most varied sources and varied levels, from Richard Haas, whose frescos beautify Yonkers downtown, high up there in the buildings leading to Main Street, to the latest arrival of eager and young artists from Albania to Puerto Rico.

To acknowledge the quality of this show I need to list all the artists currently showing and we look forward to what next year the third annual will bring us; but do not wait until next year.  Go now to visit the second annual Yonkers Artists Showcase.

Luis ARVELO, Richard BENASH, Ana BERNSTEIN, Haifa BINT-KADI, Jef CAMPION, Gino CIVALE, Liz DE BETHUNE, Arthur DWORIN, David FISCHWEICHER, Ginny FOX, Ralph GABRINER, Mitchell GOSAR, Paul GRECO, George GUTIERREZ, Richard HAAS, Joan JENNINGS, Satish JOSHI, Barbara KING, Jacqueline LORIEO, Leslie MILLER, Alvin MOST, Carole NAGGAR, George PALI, Luis PERELMAN, Albert PFARR, Librado ROMERO, Dena SCHUTZER, Barbara SEGAL, Nat Mayer SHAPIRO, Maxine SHORT, Arline SIMON, Cecily SPITZER, Paulo SUZUKI, Turhan VON BRANDON, Jonathan WALLEN.

Sculpture, collages, mosaic, photography, oil and watercolor paintings, assemblages, woodcuts, constructions, metal works, drawings, special techniques; all aspects of the contemporary fine arts are here. Not-lost-in-Yonkers fine art can still be seen before it shuts down for the Fall.

Sine Nomine Herma - Where the hell is Hermes?

Sculptures and Project Drawings
by Francesco Pessina

Opening: Thursday 1st July 2010  6 to 9pm
Exhibition dates:  2nd July to 7th August 2010

Patrick Heide Contemporary Art is delighted to present “Sine Nomine Herma – Where the hell is Hermes?”, the second solo exhibition of Italian artist Francesco Pessina in London.
The exhibition is mainly dedicated to the artist’s new series of sculptures, Sine Nomine Herma, which subtly tackles the subject of the divine in modern society, or rather its absence as expressed by the subtitle ‘Where the hell is Hermes?’.

In his new sculpture series Pessina refers to a form of Ancient Greek statues called herms, quadrangular pillars surmounted by a head or bust depicting the god Hermes, which functioned as an apotropaic symbol to ward off bad luck.

In Greek mythology Hermes is the great messenger of the gods, the guide to the Underworld and the god of fertility, luck and travel. The herms statues were therefore placed at road crossings, country borders, entrances and other boundaries as a means of divine protection.

Originally the Hermes figures depicted the god itself, later on in Roman times the likenesses of famous figures from public life. In his contemporary take on the herms, Pessina replaces the heads with geometric, phallic and organic shapes chiselled from volcanic stone or red lagoon. Distinct facial features are erased, the form merely suggests their anthropomorphic origin leaving room for the imagination to expand and reveal the divine aspect of the new series.

Pessina very consciously keeps a formal division between the plinth and the head. Superimposed blocks of found wood and synthetic stucco compose the plinth or ‘body’, representing the past of human history as well as our personal experiences, while the head represents the mind that defines the future of our human destiny.

‘My herms are good wishes. They embody the passage between a known and uncomfortable present and an unforeseeable future: we have to work on the present to understand the future…
My herms aim to serve as a warning...’
 
Several project drawings on display will be complementing the sculptures: canvases glued to red wood panels, these sketches bear notes that give insight into the conceptions and ideas of ‘Sine Nomine Herma’.

A large-scale sculpture in red and white onyx from Pessina’s ongoing Totem series was specifically realized for the London exhibition and will be placed in the front gallery alongside a selection of so-called “Bidimensionali”, Pessina’s paintings, wherein the familiar Totem forms are applied in relief, the playful compositions bursting with Mediterranean colors.
 
Born in Magenta (Milan) in 1946, Francesco Pessina studied sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and painting at the Ripetta Art Academy in Rome.

In the 1970’s he decided to move to the volcanic island of Filicudi, north of Sicily, where he still lives and works detached from modern city life and the art world. Pessin’a choice of life has led him to become an artist in quest for the anthropological, mystic and spiritual roots of human existence, attempting to expose the essential truth lying at their core.
 
A short film directed by Alessandro Scippa about Francesco Pessina’s life choice as an artist comprising insights into the artist’s research will be screened in the gallery during the show.

Patrick Heide Contemporary Art

11 Church Street
London NW8 8EE
T    +44 (0)2077245548
UK +44 (0)7900215317
D    +49 (0)1723822495

info@patrickheide.com
www.patrickheide.com

Last Chance to See 54th Long Island

Artists Exhibition
The Art League of Long Island’s 54th Long Island Artists Exhibition will be drawing to a close on July 3.  The exhibit features 46 artists chosen by Heidi Lange, director of the DC Moore Gallery in New York City.

Ms. Lange made her selections from a field of 275 entries that included paintings in oil, acrylic, watercolor and pastel, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, and photography.  Award of Excellence winners are Rosemarie Furia of Northport for “Sea Flowers”, Judie Marcus of Roslyn for “Double Take”, and Shain Bard of Greenlawn for “Winter Light”.  Artists also receiving awards as Honorable Mentions:  Anthony D’Avino of North Babylon for “Neutron Robot Man”, Patricia Russac of Oyster Bay for “Totem 2”, Vania Milan of Dix Hills for “Tyrone”, Melissa Imossi also of Dix Hills for “Phantom Forest”, and Louis Giacolone of West Islip for “Reflection”.

The Art League’s Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery is open weekdays 9:00am – 4:00pm, weekends 11:00am – 4:00 pm and is located at 107 East Deer Park Road in Dix Hills.   For more information call (631) 462-5400 or visit www.artleagueli.org.

Image Above "Sea Flowers," by Rosemarie Furia

Rogue Space | Chelsea welcomes collaborating artists Joe Mays and Jill Morgan for their one night solo show Thursday July 24th 6-9pm.

Rogue Space | Chelsea is located at 526 West 26th Street, 9E, New York.

Joe and Jill were awarded a solo while participating in our Weekend Group show and Marketing Workshop in February and team up again for the joint exhibition UnMasquerade.

"What are the filters we've built into the way we see ourselves and others? What is the mask and what is the human being behind it? Where does the human flesh stop and the human being begin? These are the questions that we ask in various ways through our pieces."

                    

                                    

Marrakech Art Fair

October 9 to 11, 2010

Sharing art

The city of Marrakech will be hosting the first edition of the Marrakech Art Fair from 9 to 11 October 2010. A platform for exchanges between gallery owners, artists, and collectors, this unprecedented artistic meeting ground is being organized by Hicham and Zineb Daoudi, and Brahim Alaoui.

For three days, some fifty galleries from Europe, Morocco, and the Arab world, seduced by this new international encounter, will meet at the Es Saadi Palace to present their discoveries.

On the agenda: modern art, contemporary art, and emerging scenes, during an ephemeral leisure staged amidst the patio and garden through works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries. Within special spaces called "Collectors' Villa", the Marrakech Art Fair is also offering a new exhibition concept with a dialogue between contemporary design, decorative arts, and modern art.

The Marrakech Art Fair will establish cultural and artistic synergy throughout the entire city with a programme of exhibitions and meetings offered by Brahim Alaoui.

The programme will emphasize the sharing of art with a diversified audience. The fair will make it possible to discover places having ties to the history of Marrakech and open up foundations and artists' studios to a broad audience, thereby offering them an international forum.

"Resonance: contemporary Moroccan artists across the world"

The Marrakech Museum, founded by art patron Omar Benjelloun and presided over by his spouse Mrs. Naima Benjelloun, is a 19^th century riad located in the heart of the Marrakech medina. It will be part of the programme and will host the exhibition entitled "Resonance: contemporary Moroccan artists across the world", which will consist of contemporary Moroccan artists from the diaspora.

This exhibition will offer 15 artists of Moroccan origin living in Europe and the American continent, who use various types of media: painting, drawing, installation, video, and photography, and who are creating new images connecting the two cultures.

These are primarily artists who, through their individual backgrounds and talents, think of identity and otherness—the here and there—as driving forces for inventiveness and cultural diversity.

They include, for instance, Chourouk Hriech, Mohamed El Baz, Mounir Fatmi,  Bouchra Khalili, and Malik Najmi.

This exhibition is being organized in partnership with the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad.

"Images of oneself", photography and video by contemporary Arab artists

Other locations are being associated with this event, such as the Dar Bellarj Foundation which will host the exhibition "Images of oneself". The idea is, for once, to leave behind the unilateral perspective of images conveyed by the media in favour of a more intimate view of the Arab world, and to adopt the point of view of those who inhabit it, who live everyday, and sometimes through their memory.

"Images of oneself" is a photography and video exhibition from a selection of contemporary Arab artists who bring a unique look at the reality and imagination of the world surrounding them. An unveiling of the intimate, documentary distance, political questioning, or plastic experimentation, the proposed exhibition bears witness to the diverse approaches of a new generation of creators enamored with a new image culture. Here we will find works by Meriem Bouderbala, Faisal Samra, and Youssef Nabil.

"In the shade of the Palaver Tree"

Dar Cherifa, one of the oldest riads in the medina dating back to the end of the 15^th century and now restored and converted into a literary café, has become a meeting place in the heart of the Red City. It is offering for this occasion a thematic exhibition on the dialogue between artist Farid Belkahia and poet Adonis.

Here and there, the cultural effervescence around the Marrakech Art Fair…

- The Al Maqam artist residence, located in Tahannaout in the Marrakech surroundings, will open its doors to the fair's audience.

- The  Fourtou Foundation will also be welcoming the Marrakech Art Fair visitors.

- Also worth discovering: private collections in unique residences to share the passion that their owners feel for contemporary art.

- Round tables will be organized in the lounges of the Es Saadi Palace with reflection themes focusing on the contemporary art market and emerging Arab scene, and on globalization issues, including professionals and people involved with the international art market and the Arab world.

- Lastly, a symposium on art education will be organized in partnership with the Marrakech Graduate School of Visual Arts.

Using the intimate subject of "the self", artists reveal themselves by making the private, PUBLIC!
This exhibit coincides with birthdays of two famous self-portrait artists:
Frida Kahlo (July 6) and Rembrandt van Rijn (July 15)
On display June 19th through August 1, 2010
OPENING RECEPTION JUNE 19th!
Gallery hours Fri and Sat 12-8pm~ Sun 12-6pm
ARTISTS UNION GALLERY
330 SO CALIFORNIA STREET
VENTURA, CA

 

"Self Portrait"
Michele Bramlett
www.bramlettart.com

	Tommaso Pedone at Art Basel 2010 Scratch & Win          Location: Art Basel 2010    web: www.tommasopedone.com
Caption: Tommaso Pedone, Scratch & Win, video still, 2009   It's Liquid announces the videoinstallation "Gratta & Vinci" (Scratch & Win) by Tommaso Pedone at Art Basel 2010. For further informations visit: www.tommasopedone.com   Gratta e Vinci (Scratch & Win) Italy - 2009 6’00'' performer: Alberto Mariani   EN Videoart project with performer. Part of the “Crisis” serie, a meditation on italian and International critical moment. A deconstructed flag in action painting creates the backdrop for a man dressed as a scratch card. Luck/Destiny are the themes treated in a as conceptual as figurative project, that doesn't want to give an answer at the end but only to have a deep impact with the point of view on contemporary values.   IT Primo progetto di videoarte figurativa vera e propria realizzato, parte della serie “Crisis”, una riflessione sul delicato momento socio-economico italiano (e, in senso più allargato, internazionale). Una bandiera scomposta in action painting fa da scenografia alla performance di un uomo trasformato in tessera argentea di un biglietto Gratta e vinci. La risposta disperatamente ricca di speranza dell’essere umano contemporaneo (il fenomeno investe tutti i livelli della società) per il futuro quotidiano diventa anche metafora di ricerca interiore. La statistica dice che ogni tot. numero di tessere c’è un vincitore, il progetto non vuole dare una risposta al tema posto, ma rappresentarne neorealisticamente relatività ed universalità del concetto di “fortuna/destino”.   Tommaso Pedone Via Leopardi 5 - 61121 Pesaro Tel. +39.329.3958659 | +39.0721.67167 email: tommasopedone@gmail.com | info@tommasopedone.com web:  www.tommasopedone.com | www.myspace.com/tommasopedone

Opening Thursday 1st July 2010
Exhibition until July 30, 2010