Tag: News

GETTYSBURG, PA (AP).- Lovers of modern architecture have won a round in their fight to preserve a half-century-old building at Gettysburg despite efforts by the Civil War purists to demolish the structure to restore the battlefield to its original appearance. The National Park Service has been seeking for a decade to demolish the Cyclorama Building, built in 1958 by famed modernist architect Richard Neutra to house a massive circular painting of the famous 1863 battle which has been relocated. The building is near one of the highest points on Cemetery Ridge, a key defensive position where nearly 1,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded during Pickett’s Charge. The National Parks Service would like to remove the building to preserve the battlesite, but an architectural preservation group says the building is also historically important. A federal judge in

NEW YORK (AP).- Photographer Annie Leibovitz is facing new accusations of balking at bills, less than a month after she struck a deal intended to resolve financial problems that had risked her rights to some of pop culture’s most famous images. Investment firm Brunswick Capital Partners LP said in a lawsuit filed Friday that Leibovitz owes more than $800,000 in fees for its help arranging her recent financing agreement with another firm, Colony Capital LLC. Through a spokesman, Leibovitz declined to comment Monday. New York-based Brunswick said it “made exhaustive efforts” to link Leibovitz with investors who could help her out of a financial hole that had threatened to cost her control of her life’s work. Leibovitz has photographed figures ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Queen Elizabeth during her 40-year career. Sometimes theatrical, often provocative, her work includes such famous images as a nude and very pregnant

HONG KONG.- Before an overflowing saleroom and telephone bank, Sotheby’s Hong Kong Contemporary Asian Art Spring Sale 2010 achieved a total of HK$144,881,000 / US$18,569,679, far exceeding the high estimate (HK$126,851,000 / US$16,342,214*). Liu Ye’s highly sought-after early work Bright Road fetched an impressive HK$19,140,000 / US$2.45 million after a round of intense bidding, almost tripling its high estimate (HK$4.5-6.5 million) and achieving a World Record for the Artist at Auction. Evelyn Lin, Head of Sotheby’s Contemporary Asian Art department, discussing the sale said: “Tonight’s sale demonstrated a strong return for blue chip Contemporary Chinese artists after a period of adjustment in which we experienced constricted supply. There is no question that these results show pent-up demand for great art. We set a world auction record for Liu Ye, and there was heated competition for top tier talents such as Cai Guo

NEW YORK, NY.- Phillips de Pury & Company announced the highlights of the forthcoming New York Photographs sale on Friday, April 16, 2010. As a leader in the Photographs market, the Photographs department continues to feature works by established and emerging artists whilst remaining committed to offering top quality works. Highlights of the New York Photographs sale include: Diane Arbus, Identical Twins, Roselle, NJ, 1967, estimated at $70,000-90,000; Robert Frank’s portrait Ben James, Welsh Miner, 1953, estimated at $60,000-80,000; Hiroshi Sugimoto, Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, 1998, estimated between $50,000-70,000 and Edward Steichen’s exceptionally rare Wheelbarrow with Flower Pots, France, 1920, a palladium and ferroprussiate print which will be offered with a pre-sale estimate of $150,000-200,000. This work marks a pivotal point in the photographer’s career for its conceptual and technical mastery

MILWAUKEE, WI.- One of the world’s finest collections of early American quilts will be on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum May 22–September 6, 2010. Featuring rare surviving textiles of the late 1700s and early 1800s from Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, Delaware, American Quilts outlines America’s earliest cultural landscape in stunning detail. American Quilts features more than 40 exquisite quilts whose fabric, design, and stitching combine to provide an extraordinary visual experience. These works of art also present a wealth of new information about the lives of their makers and the world around them. Quilts make political statements, celebrate marriages, and document the early global textile trade. Close examination of these quilts show the frugal recycling of a pair of men’s wool breeches, or the special purchase of fashionable and expensive fabrics. The exhibition includes some of the finest and earlies

LOS ANGELES, CA.- Merry Karnowsky Gallery will present a solo exhibition by Gregory Euclide, “What Was Still In The Pause of My Advance.” Euclide’s multi media paintings and sculptures are meditations on nature and the way in which humans experience the natural world. Euclide’s three-dimensional works begin with elaborate drawing-based paintings of picturesque landscapes on paper, to which he adds found objects, both organic and inorganic. By-products of human consumption are recycled and made beautiful- Styrofoam becomes a layer of snow, bubble wrap becomes a babbling brook, discarded blue paint becomes the sky. The artist finds beauty in the superficial, and uses discarded materials to show the regenerative properties of nature. His masterful paintings and sculptures explore the ways people experience and interact with nature, from idealizing its beauty to attempting to dominate and control the land. Eucl

OLD LYME, CT.- From April 24 through June 27, 2010 the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, presents Tula Telfair: Landscapes in Counterpoint. The exhibition pairs nine new monumental paintings by the artist with her selection of nineteenth and early twentieth-century paintings from the museum’s collection. Telfair’s choices, which include works by Thomas Cole and Frederic E. Church, establish the visual foundation for, as well as a counterpoint to, her own large-scale landscapes—paintings that are informed by both tradition and imagination. The exhibition is supported by The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. Telfair approaches landscape through color, creating epic canvases that balance illusionism against abstraction. Her poetic works, some over 9 by 6 feet, seem strangely familiar, their grandeur recalling the picturesque panoramas captured in the nineteenth ce

ISTANBUL.- Sanatorium opened “Passing China: Contemporary Chinese Photographers. This exhibition brings together the work of ten emerging and established artists whose work has been displayed worldwide Chen Qiang, Lian Dongya, Li Wei, Liu Bolin, Maleonn, Miao Xiaochun, Pan Yue, Wang Yiquing, Zuoxiao Zuzhou. Using photography, these artists delve into the conflict between China’s past and future and the plight of the individual caught amidst the transition. Since its invention in the early 19th century, photography has changed the face of art and traditional painting. The obsession with realism in painting, replicating the “true” image, whether a portrait, landscape, or still life, became suddenly obsolete; a photograph could capture a scene as it actually was, without the need for a painter’s interference. These ten artists use the assumed “reality” of photography to highlight the commercialis

LONDON.- Italian-born, Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino is one of the most significant artists working in Brazil today. Her new exhibition at Camden Arts Centre includes a site-specific installation and a selection of film works made over the last 30 years. In a career that spans five decades and a diversity of disciplines and mediums including clay, ink, film and performance, Anna Maria Maiolino’s work retains a fundamental concern with creative and destructive processes and with identity; from the subjective to the universal. Conducting a dialogue between opposite yet complementary categories, Maiolino’s practice dissolves the dichotomies of inner and outer, self and other, void and matter, ancient and contemporary. Maiolino’s early artistic experiments in Brazil throughout the 1960s and 1970s connect her to key moments of Brazilian art history: the New Figuration

BEXHILL ON SEA.- Tony Bevan (born Bradford, 1951) is one of the most important painters working in Britain today. For his new painting installation at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bevan has produced three colossal works specifically to utilize the dimensions of Gallery 2. Inspired by his recent travels to China, in particular his experience of the Giant Buddha of Leshan, and his ongoing interest in the ‘character heads’ of the 18th century German-Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, the new paintings continue Bevan’s exploration of self-portraiture in his practice. Bevan lives and works in London . He has participated in the Venice and Sidney Biennales and his work is held in public collections such as the National Portrait Gallery, Tate, The British Museum, MOMA ( New York ), The Israel Museum ( Jerusalem ) and IVAM ( Valencia ) amongst others. He is represented by Ben Brown Fine Arts. Modern Times