Art News

BRUSSELS.- Xavier Hufkens presents the exhibition “Sterling Ruby & Robert Mapplethorpe”. In his first solo exhibition at the gallery, Sterling Ruby enters into dialogue with the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe. Alongside a highly personal selection of photographs by Mapplethorpe, the artist takes the opportunity to create new collages entitled “Transcompositional” and shows sculptures in various materials including several from the series “Acts”. Sterling Ruby is attracted to Mapplethorpe’s work because of “(…) the choice of subject matter and the contrast between marginal subcultures and

CHAMPAIGN, IL.- Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion will present “Stranger in Paradise: The Works of Reverend Howard Finster”. A self-proclaimed “Man of Visions,” Finster was one of America’s most widely known and prolific self-taught artists, producing over 46,000 pieces of art before his death in 2001. Born in rural Alabama in 1916, Finster went on to become a preacher, tent revivalist, and “master of 22 different trades” before building his roadside tribute to inventors, the “Plant Farm Museum”. Later

ZURICH.- Hauser & Wirth announced an exhibition of works by Guillermo Kuitca, one of the most important artists to have emerged from Latin America. The works on show, “Der Fliegende Holländer” (The Flying Dutchman) and “The Warhol Series”, reflect Kuitca’s intense relationship to his primary medium, painting. “Der Fliegende Holländer”, (Scrim Suite), is an installation that traces its origins to the stage designs conceived by Kuitca for a 2003 production of Wagner’s “Der

KASSEL.- With the exhibition “Nuevos Ricos”, the entire produce range and scope of the art project and record label by the Mexican artist Carlos Amorales is presented for the first time. The Kunsthalle Fridericianum not only provides an overview of the history and social positioning of the project, but above all reflects the broad artistic spectrum: From December 2009 to February 2010 performances, band acts and lectures supplementing the exhibition will enable the philosophy and social policy of Nuevos Ricos to be experienced live.

BRAUNSCHWEIG.- The installations and paper works of ‘blauorange 2009’ prize-winner Bjőrn Braun maintain a balance between art and nature, the natural and the artificial. In the cultural landscapes of his collages, romantic views saturated with German sentimentality, he only uses the ‘material’ that he already finds in the image. His abstract works, for example, consist of paper that is handmade by ‘recycling’ books by Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter, and his sculptural works pursue a similar logic in transforming material and content. Accordingly, in Braun’s work process nothing can be lost, everything left over must be used, and nothing can be destroyed without something new emerging, as for example in an installation that is being shown for the first time at the Braunschweig exhibition. A simple wooden bench is placed before an abstract work. Looked at closely, the bench is missing a bar from both the seat and the back. Braun has made them into a lands

By: Monica Faro

MADRID (EFE).- To denounce the hundreds of crimes against women that go unsolved and unpunished in Ciudad Juarez, French artist Peggy Adam speaks through the pictures in “Luchadoras” (Female Fighters), a comic that calls attention to the hundreds who have been tortured, raped, kidnapped and murdered in that Mexican border city. The insecurity, the fear, the desperation of families and the constant threats suffered by mothers of the victims who demand justice are just part of the drama Peggy Adam portrays in this graphic novel of less than 100 pages, born of her “shock” at hearing some their testimonies. “The reality was much worse than I thought,” the author told EFE, adding that she learned of the tragic situation in Ciudad Juarez through an article in the Swiss edition of the Amnesty International magazine, which described the killings as an “epidemic” and denounced the impunity that lets hundreds of murderers of women go free. Ciudad Juarez, considered

ALBERTA.- The Art Gallery of Alberta’s (AGA) interim home at Enterprise Square will permanently close its doors on Sunday, December 13, 2009. To honor and celebrate the two years the AGA spent at the Jasper Avenue location, the Gallery will host an afternoon of art activities for all ages in a special HSBC All Day Saturday on Saturday, December 12, 2009 from 1-4 pm. Activities are free with admission. The closure of the temporary gallery marks a milestone in the AGA’s three

PARIS.- Sotheby’s biannual Evening Sale of Contemporary Art in Paris realized the remarkable total of €8,051,100 (£7,302,584 / $11,947,027), far surpassing pre-sale expectations of €4,680,000-6,440,000* ($6,938,240-9,547,493 / £4,192,797-5,769,575). The auction saw all but one lot sell, achieving the joint-highest sell-through rate of 96.3% for a Sotheby’s Paris Evening Sale of Contemporary Art, and established a sold-by-value rate of 98.1% – the second-highest for an Evening Sale of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Paris.

LONDON.- Two purchases funded by the UK’s leading independent art charity The Art Fund, through its £5 million funding scheme Art Fund International, are going on display for the first time at a new exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. The works by Lothar Baumgarten and Emily Jacir form part of the exhibition “Unsettled Objects” which features pieces from Glasgow’s collection of contemporary art, and runs from December 10, 2009 until March 2011. On display for the first time is Lothar Baumgarten’s installation “Unsettled