March 2006

ABEL SALAZAR THE COMPULSIVE DRAFTSMAN

CENTRO CULTURAL DE BELÉM (Portugal): FROM 31ST MARCH TO 28TH MAY 2006

This exhibition represents a unique opportunity of looking at about 250 designs of Abel Salazar, practically unknown to the greater public.
A man of extraordinary talent and multipurpose capabilities, Abel Salazar (1889-1946) mastered varied techniques, from drawing, caricature and oil painting to portrait, landscape and mural painting.
The plastic work carried out by this doctor, scientist, professor and philosopher, includes sculptures as well, models, paintings, hammered copper and etchings. ...

http://www.ccb.pt/ccb/

Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic

Philadelphia Museum of Art: March 29, 2006 - July 16, 2006

Groundhog Day
1959
Andrew Wyeth (American, born 1917)
Tempera on Masonite
31 3/8 x 32 1/8 inches
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Henry F. du Pont and Mrs. John Wintersteen, 1959 © Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth, one of America’s most recognized and beloved artists, is the subject of a compelling retrospective that takes a fresh look at seven decades of accomplishment. Though linked to the realist traditions of Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Edward Hopper, Wyeth often transcends literal transcription to move into the realm of memory and imagination, inviting viewers into a strange and wondrous world. In Wyeth’s work, objects transform metaphorically into portraits of friends, family, and even the artist himself. The exhibition explores how Wyeth invests these objects with meaning, and how he will sometimes begin with figure subjects and then gradually paint people out of the picture, leaving the objects to tell the stories themselves. ...

http://www.philamuseum.org

WHITE ON WHITE (AND A LITTLE GRAY)

American Folk Art Museum: March 28–September 17, 2006

Artist unidentified United States 1810–1820 Cotton with cotton fringe 96 x 78"

“White on White (and a little gray)” highlights the vernacular American participation in the vogue for neoclassicism. The pure light of white-on-white textiles was the perfect emblem of rationalism in the Federal era. The American Folk Art Museum holds a breathtaking collection of these textiles executed in a variety of techniques that have never been shown together. About ten whiteworks will be on view, from the Museum’s earliest example, dated 1796, to mid-nineteenth century textiles. ...

Photographic Discoveries: Recent Acquisitions

National Gallery of Art: March 26 - July 30, 2006

In the last few years the National Gallery of Art has significantly expanded its holdings of both 19th- and 20th-century European and American photographs. Presenting approximately 70 works by such celebrated photographers as William Henry Fox Talbot, Eugène Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and Brassaï, this exhibition highlights significant new acquisitions of photographs made during the first century of the medium's history, from the early 1840s to the 1940s. ...

http://www.nga.gov

The Elegant Gathering: The Yeh Family Collection

Asian Art Museum (San Francisco): Part I: March 24–June 25 , 2006

“Yaji,” or ‘elegant gathering,’ refers to a tradition among members of China’s intellectual elite who would informally gather to “debate with art rather than words.” The Elegant Gathering features 80 superb masterworks of Chinese calligraphy and painting carefully drawn together by generations of the fascinating Yeh family—scholars, statesmen, and passionate practitioners of the yaji tradition. ...

Orchard Pavilion Preface (Lanting xu) in cursive script (caoshu) (detail), dated 1629, by Gui Changshi (1574–1645). China, another source 1573–1644, Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Handscroll, ink on paper. Gift of the Yeh Family Collection, R2002.49.36.A

http://www.asianart.org

From the Fire: Contemporary Korean Ceramics

Asian Art Museum (San Francisco): March 24–May 21, 2006

In Korea, it is understood that if one makes ceramics, one must do it well. From the Fire showcases 108 vibrantly diverse artworks by 54 of Korea’s most important ceramic artists, revealing the latest innovations of the country’s rich ceramic tradition. ...

http://www.asianart.org

Don Bracken - "3 Decades"

New Arts Gallery: March 25 - April 17,2006

"On the Beach",2006- acrylic on canvas,22"x54"

New Arts Gallery is pleased to be opening the 2006 exhibition schedule with Don Bracken, “Three Decades”. This exhibition will open on March 25th and continue until April 17th. The career of Don Bracken has been profoundly circuitous. From his earliest works, colorful and vibrant figures, seascapes and street scenes belying turbulent underpinnings. In the early 1980’s the California native became fascinated by the “ground zero” concept; the paradoxical illusion of security and safety in bucolic and tranquil settings. ...

http://newartsgallery.com

Antonello da Messina

Scuderie del Quirinale (Rome): from 18 March to 25 June 2006

The "Antonello da Messina" exhibition, scheduled at the Scuderie del Quirinale from 18 March to 25 June 2006, is a unique event, bringing together – for the first time in history – virtually all of Antonello’s paintings that have come down to us. Thanks to the generosity of some of the world’s major museums, the Scuderie del Quirinale will be displaying such undisputed masterpieces as St. Jerome in his Study from the National Gallery in London and the celebrated crucifixions from Antwerp and Sibiu (Romania). The exhibition will also feature...

http://www.mostraantonellodamessina.it

The Concerned Photographer

The Art Institute of Chicago: March 18-June 11, 2006

Susan Meiselas. Marketplace in Diriamba, Nicaragua, 1978. National Endowment for the Arts Museum Purchase Grant. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos.

“The concerned photographer finds much in the present unacceptable which he tries to alter. Our goal is simply to let the world also know why it is unacceptable.” --Cornell Capa (b. 1918), photographer

Drawn entirely from the collection of the Art Institute, The Concerned Photographer considers how socially motivated and widely circulated photographs are intended to move, inspire, and impact their viewers. This exhibition showcases work by Margaret Bourke-White, Bruce Davidson, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Susan Meiselas, and Sebastião Salgado, among others. Together, these photographers confronted issues ranging from child labor to the Great Depression, from the Civil Rights movement to gold mining. ...

http://www.artic.edu

Betye Saar: Extending the Frozen Moment

NORTON MUSEUM OF ART: March 18–June 4, 2006

Sambo’s Banjo, 1971–72. Mixed-media assemblage, 41 by 14 ½ x 18 inches. (banjo case); 6 ½ by 12 ¾ by 2 ¾ inches. (watermelon slice). Collection California African American Foundation, Courtesy California African American Museum

Betye Saar is widely viewed as one of the most distinguished figures in American art today. Born in 1926 in Los Angeles, she emerged in the 1960s as a seminal figure in the redefinition of African American identity in art. Throughout her career, Saar has made art that challenges us to think about our societal responses to race and to the history of race in the United States. Though politically trenchant, Saar's work moves beyond protest to encompass a profound spirituality and an awareness of the things that link human beings across cultural lines and across time. Best known for her richly evocative assemblages of found objects, Saar has been included in numerous exhibitions and is represented in many major museum collections. This exhibition examines Saar's achievement by focusing on her work with photography, specifically, her incorporation of photographic fragments as a metaphor for her view of the African American experience and of lives too often obscured in American visual history. ...

http://www.norton.org

Ellsworth Kelly: Paris/New York, 1949–1959

Philadelphia Museum of Art: March 11, 2006 - August 13, 2006

Boats in Sanary Harbor 1952 Collage on paper 20 x 6 5/8 inches (50.8 x 16.8 cm) (EK D 52.33) Private collection

In 1948, following his military service in World War II, the twenty-five-year-old American artist Ellsworth Kelly moved to Paris, where he lived for six years before moving to New York in 1954. The paintings, drawings, and collages in this exhibition illustrate the significant changes in his work during this formative period, when the artist experimented with strategies that would prove to be instrumental to his artistic development. It was in Paris that Kelly abandoned figuration and easel painting, made his first shaped wood cutout canvases, embraced white monochrome and then primary colors, and developed the intensely felt abstraction for which he is known. ...

http://www.philamuseum.org

Blacken Caricature / Toru Nishimaki

The girl who put on boots...

http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~kiemqu/

Tracks - recent photographs by Robert Christie

Eastern Front Gallery: March 8 to 19, 2006

A quick glance around Robert Christie’s upcoming exhibition Tracks, at Eastern Front Gallery and you may think he’s a good abstract painter, working in the tradition of Robert Rauchenberg and Graham Gilmore. But look at the images themselves and you will slowly realize they are photographs of freight trains. ...

http://www.easternfrontgallery.com

Barnaby Hosking/MATRIX 155

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art: Mar 2, 06 through Jun 4, 06

Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2004, London-based artist Barnaby Hosking has created a stir with video installations about the making of art—painting, sculpting, sketching—or about a living art, such as the Japanese tea ceremony. However, Hosking's installations are more than a simple meditation on the activity of the artist. By displaying the completed object alongside the video of its creation, Hosking allows the painting or sculpture to assume a life of its own, separate, yet intimately connected to the persona of the artist. For MATRIX 155, Hosking will present a selection of recently completed installations. ...

http://www.wadsworthatheneum.org

9th International Open

Woman Made Gallery: March 3 - 30, 2006

Patriot Act Roberta Smith mixed media 24 x 24"

Artists Represented:

Nancy Agati, Setsuko Aihara, Yasmine Awais, Amy Babinec, Theresa Bertocci, Rupa Chordia, Marie-France Cournoyer, Nuala Creed, Marisa DiPaola, Donna Dodson, Magda Dudziak, Golnaz Fathi, Julie Foreman, Barbara Freeman, Jocelyn M. Goode, Clare Grill, Michelle Kay, Mairead O'Neill Laher, Laura Sherrill Ligon, Regina Mamou, Nichole Maury, Monika Meler, Lisa Merida-Paytes, Marcia Middleton, Uzma Mirza, Nancy Morrow, Judith Schubert Mullen, Jennifer Murray, Joyce Owens, Nicole S. Pietrantoni, Cherry Rahn, Jennifer Raimondi, Alisa Savage, Dana Ann Smith, Roberta Smith, Jacklyn Soo, Wendy Red Star, Annette Tacconelli, Hong-Ling Wee.

http://womanmade.org

Connoisseurship of Japanese Prints, Part II

The Art Institute of Chicago: March 4-May 7, 2006

Inagaki Tomoo. Sketch for Cat Making Up (A), c. 1962. Ink and pencil on paper. Gift of the artist.

Continuing with the theme of the previous exhibition which explored issues of connoisseurship in Edo period (1615-1868) prints, the current display tackles these questions for from the mid- to late 20th century. Contemporary print artists in Japan often changed their color choices, modified the subject, or altered the printing technique of an image in the middle of a print run resulting in works that look similar but have different details. Prints from the same edition exhibiting these changes will be on display. In addition, several preparatory sketches along with their final printed versions will be shown to further elucidate particular artists’ working methods. Featured in the exhibition will be prints by such luminaries as Sekino Jun’ichiro (1914-1988) and Saito Kiyoshi (1907-1997), along with less familiar artists such as Kinoshita Tomio (b. 1923) and Inagaki Tomoo (1902-1980). ...

http://www.artic.edu

William Wegman: New & Improved

Sperone Westwater - New York: 2 March 2006

William Wegman Skylark, 1979 ink and/or gouache on silver gelatin print 7 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches 19.1 x 25.1 cm 12 5/8 x 14 3/16 inches (frame) 32.1 x 36.1 cm SW 06053

Wegman has been altering photographs through drawing since the 1970s. Interested in issues of perception and identity, Wegman used wordplay and simple line drawings to turn black and white photographs into simultaneously humorous and strange images/documents that destabilize the familiar and reveal life’s essential oddity. Some later works on paper incorporate postcards and greeting cards and the viewer is never quite sure where the printed image ends and Wegman’s drawing begins. Always present in Wegman’s work is a smart, gently subversive humor that adds dimension and a kind of metamorphosis to what first appears to be an uncomplicated visual statement. ...

http://www.speronewestwater.com

David Hockney Portraits

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Sunday, February 26, 2006 - Sunday, May 14, 2006

The best-known British artist of his generation, David Hockney portrays friends, family, and lovers—and himself—in works that have become icons of our times. For five decades, David Hockney’s portraits have expressed this influential artist’s passion for life. Curious, experimental, and clear-eyed, Hockney is a master of many media, engaging directly with his subjects from mod Londoners to LA’s coolest, creating memorable images of his parents, fellow artists, and companions. The exhibition, the first devoted solely to Hockney’s portraiture, premieres at the MFA. ...

http://www.mfa.org

Horrors of War

SAN DIEGO MUSEUM OF ART: February 25 through May 14, 2006

Jacques Callot, The Hanging (from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War), etching, 1633. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Helen M. Towle Bequest, 1947:74.a.11.

The artistic tradition of representing the destruction, death, and misery of war goes back to ancient times, with images of triumphs and defeats found in sculpture and on utilitarian and honorific objects. During modern times—from the Renaissance to the present day—images of war are among artists' most powerful and moving works. They record and report events, send partisan or political messages, or express deeply personal feelings. ...

http://www.sdmart.org

Jun Kaneko: Madama Butterfly

JOSLYN ART MUSEUM: ...through May 7

This exhibition presents drawings, designs, and models that internationally renowned Omaha artist Jun Kaneko produced over the past year and a half in his role as set, and costume designer for Opera Omaha's new production of one of the most popular operas of all time: the more than 100-year-old story of Madama Butterfly (March 17, 19, 22, and 25, 2006). Kaneko's designs blend his traditional Japanese sensibility with his unique artistic vision. Kaneko began his career as a painter and is recognized as one of the world's foremost ceramic sculptors. He is best known for his rounded, large-scale forms called dangos (after the Japanese word for steamed sweet dumplings). ...

http://www.joslyn.org