Author: conte

AMSTERDAM.- Michael Smith (Chicago, 1951) has an impressive exhibition and performance history that began in the mid 1970s. He attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 1970 and 1973 and graduated from Colorado College in 1973 with a degree in painting. Soon after graduation he became intrigued by Vito Acconci’s performance art, William Wegman’s videos and the theater of Richard Foreman. Smith is best known for his performances, installations, drawings and videos, but his artistic career also includes puppet shows, commercial and cable television skits, stand up comedy and comic publications. Intertwining the worlds of art, American entertainment and the everyday, Smith uses humor to articulate and emphasize the banality and hype of mass consumer culture. Taking visual elements from American television formats such as music videos, commercial advertisements, sitcoms and game shows, Smith’s videos and performances take place in a slowed down world, once-removed fro

LONDON.- After 40 years of trading at the top end of the business, legendary English antique dealership, Sampson and Horne, are to sell their entire stock, comprising nearly 800 lots, and attracting a pre-sale estimate of £1,000,000, at Bonhams on 28th April 2010. Widely considered as the leading dealer in British pottery and country furniture, the Mayfair-based company, whose clientele include important private collectors and international museums from the UK and the US, is closing due to the ill health of its founder Jonathan Horne, and has chosen Bonhams, with its record of successful single-owner sales and leading ceramics department, to sell the exceptional collection. The sale will feature 17th and 18th century fine and rare British pottery, country furniture, decorative and unusual period items, needlework and paintings. John Sandon, who directs Bonhams British ceramics department, has known Jonathan Horne, and his late

WASHINGTON, DC (AP).- Construction is finally under way on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall after more than a dozen years of planning, fundraising and legal wrangling. Workers have been clearing the site on the Tidal Basin since Dec. 28. They will move some trees to another part of the mall, including a few of Washington’s famous cherry trees. By February, heavy construction will begin. Monday will mark the first King holiday, though, when organizers can finally see their work in progress. “Everyone in the office is taking a deep breath,” executive architect Ed Jackson Jr. said in an interview Friday. “Although it’s been a labor of love, it’s been a long road, 13 years for me.” It was supposed to be completed by now. President Bill Clinton signed a law authorizing the memorial in 1996, and President George W. Bush appeared at a ceremonial groundbreaking with Oprah Winfrey and others in 2006. Numerous design approvals and a disagreement with the National P

ST. PETERSBURG (AP).- President Dmitry Medvedev has outdone his powerful predecessor — as an artist. A photograph Medvedev took of the kremlin, or fortress, in a Siberian town sold for 51 million rubles ($1.7 million) at a charity auction Saturday night, surpassing the 37 million rubles (then $1.1 million) paid last year for a painting by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Medvedev’s black-and-white photo was snapped up by Mikhail Zingarevich, a board member at Ilim Group, the pulp and paper company where Medvedev once worked as a lawyer. Zingarevich said he planned to hang the 69-by-96-centimeter (27-by-38-inch) picture in his office.

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- One of the most innovative and influential artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) was at his most inventive between 1905 and 1945. The Philadelphia Museum of Art will present Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris (February 24 – April 25, 2010) surveying Picasso’s remarkable output during these years, from the pioneering role he played in the development of Cubism to his dialogue with Surrealism and other important art movements in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition also explores the pivotal role that the city of Paris played in the history of modern art, where artists from around the world made

MADRID (AP).- A Spanish lawmaker was horrified to find out the FBI used his photograph as part of a digitally enhanced image showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today, he said Saturday, calling into question the crime-fighting agency’s credibility in battling terrorism. Gaspar Llamazares of the United Left party said he would no longer feel safe traveling to the United States after his hair and facial wrinkles were taken from the Internet and appeared on a wanted poster updating the U.S. government’s 1998 photo of the al-Qaida leader. “I was surprised and angered because it’s the most shameless use of a real person to make up the image of a terrorist,” Llamazares said at a news conference

BOLOGNA.- Bologna Art First reaches its fifth edition: for the first time, this exclusive itinerary in the city becomes a project curated by Julia Draganovic. From 29 January to the end of February 2010, the project, a collaboration between the City of Bologna and Arte Fiera Art First, will present a series of site specific installations by artists who work with participating galleries. Some of these works will be specially created in situ, respecting the structure of the historical buildings that host them. This single, large collective exhibition will create a dialogue between contemporary art and unusual locations in the city’s historical centre and its surroundings, and Bologna will once again demonstrate its eclecticism by alternating from ancient to modern, becoming a stage where the public can see and experience contemporary art in environments radically different from the usual white

NEW YORK, NY.- Stellan Holm Gallery is presenting I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq, an exhibition of photographs by David Levinthal. The exhibition runs through February 13, 2010. This is the first solo exhibition of works by David Levinthal on view at Stellan Holm Gallery. I.E.D.: War in Afghanistan and Iraq features eighteen color photographs by renowned photographer, David Levinthal, which seek to examine the way in which our society looks at war. The idea for this series was conceived when Levinthal recognized a flood of figurines and models available to the American consumer, depicting the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through the use of these miniature soldiers, civilians and armored vehicles, Levinthal constructs extremely realistic dioramas that recreate

MADRID.- The most noteworthy new introduction at ARCOmadrid_ 2010 is the focus on Los Angeles , one of the world’s epicentres for art right now, as the fair’s special invited guest. This is a new twist to its Panorama section, shifting from its usual focus on a country to a single city. The idea is present a more homogeneous portrait of what’s happening in a specific urban area that is, in itself, one of the major art capitals of the USA . It is L.A. ‘s dynamism energy and creative diversity that has situated it at the forefront of the world’s art market. With the support of the City Council of Los Angeles and a selection of 17 galleries chosen by Kris Kuramitsu y Christopher Miles, PANORAMA: Los Angeles brings together “a huge variety of works in terms of technique, genre and