| The First Art Newspaper on the Net | Established in 1996 | Tuesday, December 27, 2011 |
| | Ancient seal found in Jerusalem linked to ritual practiced at temple 2,000 years ago
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A rare clay seal is displayed during a news conference at the archaeological site known as the City of David in east Jerusalem, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. Israeli archaeologists say they have unearthed a rare clay seal that appears to be linked to religious rituals that took place at the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago. AP Photo/Oded Balilty.
By: Matti Friedman, Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP).- A rare clay seal found under Jerusalem's Old City appears to be linked to religious rituals practiced at the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday. The coin-sized seal found near the Jewish holy site at the Western Wall bears two Aramaic words meaning "pure for God." Archaeologist Ronny Reich of Haifa University said it dates from between the 1st century B.C. to 70 A.D. — the year Roman forces put down a Jewish revolt and destroyed the second of the two biblical temples in Jerusalem. The find marks the first discovery of a written seal from that period of Jerusalem's history, and appeared to be a unique physical artifact from ritual practice in the Temple, said Reich, co-director of the excavation. Very few artifacts linked to the Temples have been discovered so far. The site of the Temple itself — the enclosure known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Musli ... More |
| The Best Photos of the Day |  |  | HAMBURG.- Hamburger Kunsthalle is presenting an exhibition of works of art from its collection. The exhibition shows the rise of so-called minimal art in the 1960s radically changed the notion of art. Characterized by basic forms, serial arrangements, industrial materials and means of manufacturing, this direction of art ? which started in the United States ? counted artists Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and Robert Morris among its most representative artists.Richard Long (*1945), Magpie Line, Malmö, 1985. Sammlung Lafrenz in der Hamburger Kunsthalle VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011. Photo: Kay Riechers. Im Hintergrund: Alan Charlton (*1948), Channel Painting No. 3, 1975. Sammlung Lafrenz in der Hamburger Kunsthalle © Hamburger Kunsthalle/Alan Charlton. Photo: Kay Riechers. | | |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Museum of Fine Arts, Boston celebrates the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty | | Japanese designer of everyday arty kitchenware Yanagi died in Tokyo at age of 96 | | Edo Pop: The Graphic Impact of Japanese Prints at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts | 
Head of Aphrodite ("The Bartlett Head" ), Greek, about 330–300 B.C., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
BOSTON, MA.- Ancient worshipers traveled to Mount Olympus in Greece or to temples in Cyprus to pay homage to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, but today, devotees can admire the beguiling divinity closer to home at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in Aphrodite and the Gods of Love. On view to February 20, 2012, in the Lois and Michael Torf Gallery, it is the first museum exhibition of classical works devoted solely to Aphrodite (known as Venus to the Romans) and her realm—one that celebrates her likeness as the first female nude in western art history. It features some 160 works from the MFA’s Greek and Roman collection, among the finest holdings in the United States, and includes 13 important loans. Nine of these lent works are from Rome and Naples—including the spectacular Sleeping Hermaphrodite, which has left Italy only once prior to this exhibition. “I am excited to welcome visitors to the r ... More | | 
Photo taken in 2002 showing Sori Yanagi, a pioneer of Japan's industrial design. AP Photo/Kyodo News.
By: Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
TOKYO (AP).- Sori Yanagi, whose designs for stools and kitchen pots brought the simplicity and purity of Japanese decor into the everyday, has died. He was 96. The pioneer of Japan's industrial design died of pneumonia in a Tokyo hospital Sunday, Koichi Fujita of Yanagi Design Office said Monday. Yanagi's curvaceous "butterfly stool," evocative of a Japanese shrine gate, won an award at La Triennale di Milano in 1957 and helped elevate him to international stature. The work later joined the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Louvre museum in Paris. Another typical Yanagi design was the stackable plastic stool, humorously called the "elephant stool," because of its resemblance to the animal's chunky feet. The lines and curves of Yanagi designs were as distinctly Japanese ... More | | 
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French, 1864–1901, Ambassadeurs: Aristide Bruant dans son cabaret, 1892, color lithograph, The William Hood Dunwoody Fund P.13,19
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is home to one of the world’s great collections of ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) prints. The museum’s new exhibition, “Edo Pop: The Graphic Impact of Japanese Prints,” running through January 8, 2012, features more than 160 masterworks that reveal the great breadth of ukiyo-e production as well as the individual artistry of about 40 artists. Organized thematically, the exhibition provides a kaleidoscopic view of popular culture in pre-modern Japan. “Pop Art” usually describes the artistic movement of the 1950s, when artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein gleaned inspiration from contemporary urban life, mass-produced consumer products, and slick advertising. Picturing film stars and comic-book heroes in bright colors and crisp ... More |
| MoMA PS1 pays tribute to one the most prolific and influential American filmmakers of the last half century | | From New England to the South, Civil War's 150th anniversay stirs a trove of memories | | Driven to Draw: Twentieth-century drawings and sketchbooks form the Royal Academy's Collection | 
George Kuchar, K-Mart, vintage 3D Nimslo photograph, late 70′s or early 80′s. Courtesy ADA gallery.
LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y.- MoMA PS1 pays tribute to George Kuchar (1942-2011), one of the most prolific and influential American filmmakers of the last half century, with a new exhibition of his film, photography, painting, and comic illustration. Organized by MoMA PS1 Curator Peter Eleey and initiated with the artist prior to his death in September, George Kuchar: Pagan Rhapsodies includes more than thirty of Kuchar's films, celebrating the prolific and exuberant practice of this visionary who found high drama in low culture and the vulgarities of everyday life. "Making movies is a magical enterprise," Kuchar said, "exorcising a lot of personal devils and charting your own perversities." He began his film career as a teenager, making no-budget 8mm flicks with his twin brother, Mike, in their Bronx apartment before being introduced to the underground scene in New York in the early 1960s. The Kuchars' family members and friends star ... More | | 
This 1928 photo shows Joseph Benjamin Sims, where he served as a sharpshooter with the 6th Virginia Infantry, Company K., at the battle of the Crater. AP Photo/Courtesy of the Library of Virginia.
By: Steve Szkotak, Associated Press
RICHMOND, VA (AP).- A diary with a lifesaving bullet hole from Gettysburg. An intricate valentine crafted by a Confederate soldier for the wife he would never see again. A slave's desperate escape to freedom. From New England to the South, state archivists are using the sesquicentennial of the Civil War to collect a trove of wartime letters, diaries, documents and mementoes that have gathered dust in attics and basements. This still-unfolding call will help states expand existing collections on the Civil War and provide new insights into an era that violently wrenched a nation apart, leaving 600,000 dead. Much of the Civil War has been told primarily through the eyes of battlefield and political leaders. These documents are adding a new narrative to the Civil War's story, ... More | | 
Edward Bawden, R.A., Lindsell Church, Essex. No. 1, 1956. Pen and ink with watercolour. Photo: ©Royal Academy of Arts, London; Photo: Photo Studios.
LONDON.- A new exhibition in the Tennant Gallery reveals the richness of the Academy’s rarely seen holdings of twentieth-century drawings and sketchbooks. Although drawing is a natural human activity, only in the twentieth century have artists drawn more from inner compulsion than out of practical necessity. By including a wide range of styles, techniques and modes of draughtsmanship found in works by both Royal Academicians and students alike – everything from doodles to diploma works – the exhibition aims to capture the magic of drawing done for its own sake. Works in the exhibition include a characteristically direct street scene by L.S. Lowry RA and an atmospheric view of an Essex church by Edward Bawden RA. Frank Brangwyn RA’s powerful, fleshy likeness of his mentor, A. H. Mackmurdo, is displayed alongside a delicate pencil portrait ... More |
| The Glass Ceiling Shattered, 30 Years - 3 Great American Women Artists at Alan Avery Art Company | | Kunstverein Hamburg curates exhibition with works by American graphic designer Charley Harper | | Sammlung Falckenberg in Hamburg opens exhibition by Ena Swanser and Robert Lucander | 
Louise Nevelson, NS Relief, Black cast paper relief, 27 x 31.
ATLANTA, GA.- Alan Avery Art Company will celebrate their 30th anniversary with the exhibition The Glass Ceiling Shattered, 30 Years - 3 Great American Women Artists, featuring work from Louise Nevelson, Helen Frankenthaler and Kara Walker. The exhibition has opened to the public Saturday, December 3, 2011. The exhibition continues through Friday, February 10, 2012. For the past three decades as an art dealer, Alan Avery has strived to bring a different voice and a new perspective to Atlanta's collecting audience by bringing artists and great works to a city that may otherwise not be seen on southern soil. To celebrate Alan Avery Art Company's landmark 30th anniversary, Alan wanted something that had not been done before, something that would not only speak about who he is as a dealer, but also offer the city an opportunity to learn, grow and expand their knowledge in the world of art and collecting great works of ... More | | 
Installation view, Pavillon der Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin.
HAMBURG.- Kunstverein Hamburg goes Berlin: On invitation by the Volksbühne the Kunstverein Hamburg curates an exhibition with works of the American graphic designer Charley Harper at the pavilion at RosaLuxemburg-Platz, Berlin. The exhibition presents a collection of app. 35 works that had been shown at the Kunstverein Hamburg in Summer 2011. Birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, fish, the artwork of wildlife artist Charley Harper (1922 –2007) is a visual ecosystem in which elements of colour, shapes, lines and subjects are interrelated, interdependent and perfectly balanced. Harper had an unique ability to capture the essence of any living organism. His works still challenges our previous perceptions of nature, and offers a new and unexpected way to enjoy it, both visually and verbally. In a style he called “minimal realism”, Charley Harper captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual el ... More | | 
Ena Swansea. Im Hintergrund: Ena Swansea, snow on 16st st., 2011 (Ausschnitt).
HAMBURG.- At the end of this year, the Sammlung Falckenberg brings together seemingly poetic-surrealist images by US painter Ena Swanser and subversive-enigmatic works by Finnish artist Robert Lucander who now lives in Berlin. The exhibition’s title of “Psycho” is a reference to the eponymous horror classic by Alfred Hitchcock and calls to mind the disturbed nature of schizophrenics, psychopaths and other psychologically disturbed persons. “Psycho” is Greek for “soul” and the term referring to insanity is derived from the notion that a human’s spirit or soul can become ill; psychoanalysis, for example, is used to treat deep-rooted psychological traumata and behavioral disorders. Bret Easton Ellis’ novel “American Psycho” exposed, for example, the ugly face of unquestioning materialism but left the reader in doubt as to whether the gruesome scenes depicted in ... More |
| One of the world's most important annual photography events to be held at the Park Avenue Armory in March | | Serial Pursuits: David Mabb, Dayanita Singh, Manisha Parekh, Audiobombing Crew at Nature Morte | | San Francisco Arts Commission announces Tom DeCaigny as new Director of Cultural Affairs | 
More than 10,000 visitors (up from 8,300 in 2010) viewed works.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- The Association of International Photography Art Dealers will hold the 32nd edition of The AIPAD Photography Show New York, one of the world’s most important annual photography events, March 29 – April 1, 2012, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. More than 70 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will present a wide range of museum-quality work, including contemporary, modern, and 19th-century photographs, as well as photo-based art, video, and new media. The AIPAD Photography Show New York is the longest running and foremost exhibition of fine art photography. The Show will open with a Gala Preview on March 28, 2012, to benefit InMotion, which provides free legal services to low-income women. AIPAD 2012 will present four new member exhibitors: David Zwirner, New York; Sasha Wolf Gallery, New York; Paul Cava Fine Art Photographs, Bala Cynwyd, PA; and 798 Photo Gallery, Beij ... More | | 
David Mabb, Construct 3 Morris, Fruit / Stepanova, Untitled textile design, 2003, Paint on wallpaper mounted on canvas, 54,60 x 54,50 cm / 21.5” x 21.5”.
BERLIN.- Nature Morte announces "Serial Pursuits," a group exhibition in which recent works in various media by David Mabb, Manisha Parekh, Dayanita Singh and Audiobombing Crew will be brought together to present an exploration of art works created as sets or in sequences. The highlight of the opening night will be a performance by Audiobombing Crew. Founded by Markus Zull and Stephan Ebersthäuser in 2003, the sound art collective creates serial sound loops, which are collaged together from analogue sources. The duo works with technical defects and their dynamic manipulation. By mixing Indian pop songs sourced from Bollywood musicals and spoken audio materials, the artists develop sound loops whose repetitive nature resembles the tone of ancient mantras. Audiobombing Crew live and work in Pfaffenhofen in Southern Germany. They have performed in venues such as the ... More | | 
Tom DeCaigny is currently an independent consultant, strategist and facilitator with over fifteen years of leadership experience in the fields of arts and culture, youth development and education.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The San Francisco Arts Commission voted unanimously to appoint Tom DeCaigny as the agency's new Director of Cultural Affairs. A local consultant and the former executive director of the Performing Arts Workshop, DeCaigny will officially assume his new role leading the $10 million agency responsible for championing the arts in San Francisco on January 9, 2011. "I'm honored and humbled that the San Francisco Arts Commission and Mayor have entrusted me to serve as the Director of Cultural Affairs," said Mr. DeCaigny. "My first priority as Director will be to steward a community engagement process aimed at defining a clear strategic direction for the San Francisco Arts Commission over the next 3-5 years. I look forward to working with the community, the Commissioners and the Arts Commission staff to define a shared ... More |
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 Yayoi Kusama's flower sculptures brighten the Jardin des Tuileries for the Winter PARIS.- The Jardins des Tuileries in Paris has been enlivened by Yayoi Kusama's vibrantly colored Flowers That Bloom at Midnight, a series of unique largescale sculptures. This is the first time that these sculptures are seen in France. The presentation by the Musée du Louvre-which coincides with Kusama's major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou-is consistent with the museum's ongoing initiative to integrate contemporary art into its broader historical and cultural programme. This special project has been realized with the support of Gagosian Gallery. The first known photograph of Kusama as a small child is an arresting image: her beautiful face with its grave expression appears above a cluster of gigantic dahlias, each bloom larger than her small head. In a watercolor of 1950 entitled Self Portrait, the sunflower is an anthropomorphic stand-in for the artist herself. Flowers have continued to populate Kusama's ... More Dugald Stermer, artist who redesigned Olympic medal, dies SAN FRANCISCO, CA (AP).- Dugald Stermer, who served as art director of the left-leaning magazine Ramparts and redesigned the Olympic medals for the 1984 Los Angeles games, has died. He was 74. Megan Stermer, the artist's daughter, told The Associated Press on Saturday that her father died from respiratory and cardiac failure on Dec. 2 at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Stermer worked at Ramparts in the 1960s. The San Francisco-based political and cultural magazine was critical of the war in Vietnam and included pieces by Noam Chomsky and other left-leaning writers. A 1967 cover reflective of the magazine's political temperament showed the hands of Stermer and three of the magazine's editors burning their draft cards. Ramparts's typographical style under Stermer is credited with influencing the early design of Rolling Stone. Stermer's career also included work as an illustrator for such ... More New performance program showcasing emerging artists at work LAS VEGAS, NV.- Patron Spirits invited a new kind of window shopping for this holiday season, which started on Nov. 15 and continuing through Dec. 31, 2011, the Patron "Simply Perfect" Art Project showcases live, working art studios and galleries that offer emerging artists the opportunity to create one-of-a-kind works of art for auction in support of four local organizations. Across the country, four "Simply Perfect" Art Project studios occupy formerly vacant storefront windows that have been transformed into spaces of creativity and imagination for nearly 30 up-and-coming artists. Given approximately one week each, artists will create an original painting, sculpture or other work based on their personal interpretation of Patron tequila's "Simply Perfect" mantra. Each studio is active throughout afternoons and evenings, Wednesdays through Sundays. During all other times, the art will be on display in each window, along wi ... More Yang Fudong's epic seven-screen installation, The Fifth Night, premieres in Hong Kong HONG KONG.- For the first time in Hong Kong, and as a pre-launch event to Spring’s autumn 2012 opening, Spring (Workshop) is proud to present The Fifth Night, by internationally-acclaimed artist Yang Fudong. The installation at Spring (3/F Remex Centre, 42 Wong Chuk Hang Road Hong Kong) is open to the public, free of charge, through Sunday, January 8, 2012. The majestic video work, created in 2010, is a dramatic black-and-white film reverie of old Shanghai, projected on seven large synchronised screens, spanning 21 meters in length. The Fifth Night emerged from the artist’s reflection on film production, resulting in his use of a new multiple-camera method for creating a video installation that Yang Fudong calls "multiple-views file." Facing seven cameras, actors' expressions in each shot are uncontrolled. The randomness presents a subtle and unpredictable aesthetic; the piece is as much about the videos as ... More National Gallery of Canada presents Christian Marclay's most ambitious video installation OTTAWA.- The National Gallery of Canada announced its Winterlude 2012 programming. Along with its current exhibitions, the NGC invites the public to see the Canadian première of The Clock, a masterful work by artist Christian Marclay. This ode to time and the cinema is made up of thousands of fragments from a wide range of films to form a 24-hour, single-channel, real-time video loop. Gallery visitors will also have the opportunity to hear Canadian artist Janet Cardiff's famous and much-loved work Forty-Part Motet. As well, the Artissimo kiosk will feature family activities, and photography lovers can attend a free talk on the influence of American photography from 1900-1950 on Canadian photographers, as part of the exhibition Made in America 1900-1950: Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada. For complete information on programming, visit www.gallery.ca/winterlude. "We're excited to celebrate Winterlude ... More |
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