SHANGHAI (REUTERS).- Shanghai officially opened its multi-billion-dollar Expo Friday with a dazzling display of fireworks, lasers and dancing fountains, amid tight security and the virtual shutdown of its main Pudong financial district. After a rather low-key performance by singers and dancers in an indoor arena, the ceremony moved outside, with fireworks exploding off bridges and fountains shooting water up as high as 80 meters (263 ft). Some 6,000 LED fuchsia, red and yellow balls floated into the murky Huangpu River, creating a bright sea of balloons against the black water. “The World Expo is a grand event to showcase the best achievements of human civilization. It is also a great occasion for people from around the world to share joy and friendship,” President Hu Jintao told a welcome dinner for foreign leaders. “As the first registered World Expo hosted by a developing country, the Shanghai Expo will be an opportunity for China and also for the world,” Hu added, to an audi
Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art at the British Library
LONDON.- Maps can be works of art, propaganda and indoctrination. Opening on 30 April 2010, “Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art” offers a rare chance to see an unrivalled collection of cartographic masterpieces on paper, wood, vellum, silver, silk and marble, including atlases, maps, globes and tapestries that were intended for display side-by-side with the world’s greatest paintings and sculptures. Drawn from the 4½ million maps held in the British Library’s cartographic collections – the greatest map collection in the world – this new exhibition will showcase 100 maps dating from 200AD to the present day, including 80 of the most impressive wall-maps ever created, most of which have never been seen before. Recreating the settings in which they would have originally been seen – from the palace to the schoolroom, the exhibition reveals how maps express an enormous variety of differing world views, using size
Sotheby’s to Sell John Lennon’s Handwritten Lyrics for A Day In The Life
NEW YORK, NY.- On 18 June 2010 Sotheby’s New York will offer for sale John Lennon’s autograph Lyrics for A Day In The Life – the revolutionary song that marked the Beatles transformation from pop icons to artists. The double-sided sheet of paper in Lennon’s hand is complete with cross-outs, corrections, reworkings, and chronicles the evolution of one of the most famous pop masterpieces from conception to the lyrics presumably used in the recording studio. A Day In The Life was the final track of the Beatles legendary 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which spent 27 weeks at the top of the UK’s charts and 15 weeks at number one on the American Billboard 200. The lyrics once belonged to Mal Evans, the Beatles’ road manager and are estimated to fetch $500/700,000. From the first time it was aired on 1 June 1967, A Day In The Life was recognized as one of the tow
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Opens Multimedia Retrospective of Jazz Musician Miles Davis
MONTREAL.- Initiated and organized by the Musée de la musique with the support of the artist’s family represented through Miles Davis Properties, LLC, in association with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), “We Want Miles: Miles Davis vs. Jazz” is a multimedia retrospective exhibition devoted to one the greatest jazz artists of the twentieth century: Miles Davis (1926-1991). Bearing the same title as Davis’s 1982 live album, “We Want Miles” explores many of the greatest highlights of Davis’ exceptional life and career. Tracing how Davis impacted the course of jazz several times throughout his life, and divided into eight thematic sequences arranged chronologically from his childhood in East St. Louis, (MO), to his last concert at La Villette in Paris (1991), the exhibition features a wide range of exceptional works of art, archival materials, and objects many of which are on view for the f
National Archives Opens Groundbreaking Civil War Exhibition
WASHINGTON, DC.- Beginning on April 30, 2010, the National Archives will peel back 150 years of accumulated analysis, interpretation, and opinion to reveal a Civil War that is little-known and even more rarely displayed in a new exhibition in the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. The Discovering the Civil War exhibition will present the most extensive display ever assembled from the incomparable Civil War holdings of the National Archives, and will take a fresh look at the Civil War through little-known stories, seldom-seen documents, and unusual perspectives. The exhibition is presented by the Center for the National Archives Experience and supported by the Foundation for the National Archives. Following its Washington, DC display, Discovering the Civil War will travel throughout the country to venues including: The Henry Ford, Dearborn, MI (Summer 2011); The Houston Museum o
Sampson and Horne’s Legacy Makes Over 1 Million Pounds at Bonhams
LONDON.- Legendary English antique dealership Sampson and Horne’s collection of British pottery and furniture went under the hammer yesterday (28 April) at Bonhams, New Bond Street with huge success, achieving a total of £1,056,000 with a 91% sold by value. The auction lasted all day with 740 lots on offer, but the saleroom remained packed throughout with many of their loyal customers attending in person – a poignant reminder of their many visits to Sampson and Horne’s shops. While estimates had been set cautiously, in many cases fierce competition among private collectors meant prices in the auction were at retail levels. Of particular interest were two fine London delftware blue-dash Royal portrait chargers, which fetched £19,600 and £13,200 respectively against pre-sale estimates of £8,000 – 12,000. Also fetching a high price were a late 18th century pair of life sand paintings sold
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Announces Portrait, Sculpture
BENTONVILLE, ARK.- The beauty of glorious attire and what it communicates to others is celebrated in two works of art announced by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr. (1765), an oil portrait by John Singleton Copley, considered one of the most influential painters in colonial America, augments an exceptional collection of portraits by Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent. Dress Impression with Wrinkled Cowl (2007) by Karen LaMonte, a leading figure among American artists using glass in large-scale sculptures, builds on the collection’s emerging strength in contemporary art. Working more than 240 years apart, both artists captured the essence of their subject in very different ways. As was typical in 18th century portraiture, Copley expressed Mrs. Atkinson’s elevated social status by painstakingly depicting the lavish details of her attire – the
New, Six-Part Series by Andreas Gursky at Sprüth Magers in Berlin
BERLIN.- Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers present an exhibition of new works by Andreas Gursky in Berlin. The series of works represents an important new development in Gursky’s practice in which the artist reassesses the way he works with photography. Like many of Andreas Gursky’s works, the new, six-part series Ocean I-VI (2009-2010) goes back to a spontaneous visual experience. As the artist relates, while flying one night from Dubai to Melbourne he stared for some time at the flight monitor: the Horn of Africa to the far left, a tip of Australia to the far right – and there in between the blue void. Then all of a sudden he saw the graphic representation on the monitor as a picture. The path from diagram to large-scale photographic work proved to be very involved. Gursky used high-definition
Vinyl Factory Releases Exclusive Art Edition by Grace Jones & Chris Levine
LONDON.- The collaboration between pop icon Grace Jones and light artist Chris Levine continues with a stunning art & vinyl edition and a series of limited edition prints, which will be released by The Vinyl Factory on 29th April. The Vinyl Factory, which is hosting Grace’s first ever London art exhibition, will be taking preorders for the bespoke art & vinyl edition, which includes the Hurricane LP, Grace’s first album of new material in nineteen years. Limited to just 500 copies, Grace Jones by Chris Levine: Hurricane will be presented in a beautiful gatefold sleeve with unique screen-printed front cover artwork of Grace Jones by Chris Levine. Inside, along with two super-heavyweight 200-gram records, mastered for vinyl, and released on record for the first time, will be a Giclee fine art print of Chris Levine’s ‘Superstar’ image of Grace Jones. In addition, each of these art & vinyl editions
Exhibition in Venice Examines the Evolution of Utopian Ideas
VENICE.- From May 1 through July 25, 2010 the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents the exhibition Utopia Matters: from Brotherhoods to Bauhaus, curated by Vivien Greene, Curator of 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. With more than 70 works of art, encompassing painting, sculpture, drawing, decorative art, design, photography, and printed matter, the exhibition examines the evolution of utopian ideas in modern Western artistic thought and practice, taking an international sequence of case studies that reveals some of the faces that utopia can assume when embraced by artistic movements—from the brotherhoods of the 19th century to the avant-gardes of the period immediately following World War I. The groups addressed are the French Primitifs, the