Author: Darko Topalski

NEW YORK, NY.- An installation of 14 bold and
colorful paintings created by contemporary Aboriginal Australian artists will go
on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 15th .
Drawn from a U. S. private collection, “Contemporary Aboriginal Painting
from Australia” will provide an introduction to Aboriginal painting, which has
become Australia’s most celebrated contemporary art movement and has
attained prominence within the international art world. The installation will
present works created primarily over the past decade by artists from the central
desert, where the contemporary painting movement began, and from adjoining
regions, to which the movement spread.

LONDON.- East Central Gallery will present an
exhibition curated by Nour Wali of collaborative works by Iranian artists Shoja
Azari and Shahram Karimi, showcasing for the first time in a London gallery
their revolutionary artistic approach, which intertwines the media of painting
and video. Five artworks from the “Oil Series” will surround viewers,
re-creating a cinematic experience through the canvases’ glow of mesmerising
colours. Referring to the first Gulf War, and presented in the darkened
subterranean floor of East Central, the “Oil Series” depicts scenes of deserts
aflame, with fires scorching the skies, smoke bellowing in the wind, a soldier
disappearing into misty horizons and tanks reining over ashen land.

WASHINGTON, DC.- One of the world’s most
extraordinary gemstones, the “Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond”, will be on display at
the National Museum of Natural History Jan. 28, 2010, through Aug. 1,
2010. This will be the first time it has been available to the
public in more than 50 years. A diamond of rare deep-blue color and weighing
31.06 carats, the “Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond” will be presented in the
“National Gem Collection” in the Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals, where the
renowned Hope Diamond is on permanent view. The “Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond” has
long been rumored to have originated from the same diamond mine in India as the
Hope Diamond. Smithsonian scientists will explore this mystery while the diamond
is in their care.

MIAMI BEACH, FL.- The Wolfsonian–Florida International
University presents “Women’s Work / Men’s Work: Labor and Gender in
America”, an exhibition that explores how the sexual division of
labor in America has been represented in art, propaganda, and advertising.
The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, is on view
in The Wolfsonian Teaching Gallery at The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art
Museum at Florida International University from January 20 through April
25, 2010.

ATLANTA (AP).- New York City has Times
Square. New Orleans is known for the French Quarter, and in San Francisco,
camera-toting tourists flock to Fisherman’s Wharf. Now, city leaders in Atlanta
hope to add Centennial Olympic Park — and the growing roster of museums dotting
it — to the list of popular urban tourism corridors. The downtown
district, once home to rundown buildings and dark streets, was transformed in
the mid-1990s into the town square for the 1996 Olympic Games. Now the 21-acre
park is bordered by the world’s largest aquarium, the international headquarters
for CNN, the World of Coca-Cola, a children’s museum and the National Museum of
Patriotism.

LEIDSCHENDAM, NL – During the first nine months of
the Holland Art Cities art and culture event, well over 860,000 visitors from
abroad, and 100,000 visitors from the United States saw one or more exhibitions.
“Holland Art Cities” will run until mid 2011 and the theme until July
1, 2010 is “Young: Modern and Contemporary Art and Design”. The theme “Young:
Modern and Contemporary Art and Design” presents a cross section of the very
best in today’s world of art and design. Both Dutch and foreign artists, such as
Matisse, Malevich, Picasso, Van Dongen, De Vlaminck, Derain, Kadinsky, Gauguin
and fashion designers, including Aziz, Alexander van Slobbe and Chanel are
included in the modern art collections of various museums and are truly
exciting.

LONDON.- Christie’s present a superb array of
Victorian & British Impressionist Art Including Drawings & Watercolours
to the international market on Wednesday 16 December 2009. The sale is led by
“Eve”, a magnificent and monumental painting by Solomon J. Solomon, R.A.,
P.R.B.A. (1860-1927), which is estimated to realise between
£700,000 and £1,000,000. Offered at auction by Ealing Council, who will
use all proceeds of the sale to support culture and heritage in the Borough,
this is the first opportunity for collectors, institutions and dealers around
the globe to acquire the work.

LONDON.- This exhibition will be the first survey of
Marcus Coates’ work in a public gallery in the UK and will include early film
pieces, sculpture, sound, costumes and photographs as well as new work.
Coates often assumes the identity of an animal, such as a fox, goshawk or stoat,
by simulating its appearance, enacting its habits and appropriating its
language. In the film, ‘Stoat’, (1999), for example, Coates totters around on
ramshackle platforms, learning to recreate the animal’s bounding movements; in
‘Goshawk’, (1999), a telephoto lens captures the artist as a rare bird perched
precariously at the top of a tree; while in ‘Finfolk’, (2003), the artist
emerges from the North Sea spluttering a new dialect, as spoken by seals.
The show will run from January 15 through April 4, 2010.