Art

After a lengthy reconstruction by architect Josef Paul Kleihues, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin reopened on 2 November 1996 as the "Museum für Gegenwart" (Museum for Contemporary Art). The building was erected in the mid-19th century as one of the first terminal stations of the rail system. In the early 20th century, the structure was converted into a museum of transport and construction. The station's architecture, its impressive Neoclassical façade, flanked by two towers, the grand industrial hall of the entrance area, and the wings of the cours d'honneur flanking the garden of the inner courtyard: all of these elements constitute special attractions for visitors to Berlin. Only the east wing, the so-called Kleihues Hall, was reconstructed in the style of a high vaulted grand gallery on the occasion of the 1996 reopening. Impressive from without by virtue of the façade's lucid historicist style, the building is rendered even more striking by an ingenious dichromatic installation, designed by American artist Dan Flavin, which bathes both the main façade loggia and the transitions leading to the wings of the cours d'honneur in blue and green neon light. Particularly at night, Flavin's last work (whose completion he unfortunately did not live to see) is visible from afar, and has come to be seen as the museum's trademark.The Hamburger Bahnhof is the third location of Berlin's Nationalgalerie. The name, "Museum für Gegenwart" invokes the museum's former Department of Contemporary Art, which opened at the Kronprinzen Palais on Unter den Linden in 1919 and was shut down by the Nazis in 1937. Established by Nationalgalerie director Ludwig Justi in the aftermath of the fall of the German monarchy, the "Museum der Gegenwart" was one of the first state museums devoted to "living art." In this progressive spirit, it was decided that the new museum's collection would focus on art since 1960. The original impetus for the elaborate redesign and restoration was the acquisition of the Erich Marx collection, whose permanent home would henceforth be the Hamburger Bahnhof. Its premiere presentation in 1996 in a splendid selection of works by Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly eloquently pointed up the museum's program. These pioneering artists, who transgressed the boundaries separating traditional art forms, were the point of departure, soon to be joined by additional pivotal figures, and the museum's exhibitions and programs have consistently focused on the interdisciplinary character of contemporary art. In the context of this expanded conception of art, the Nationalgalerie collection is distinguished in particular by its holdings of artists' rooms, including ones by John Cage, Bill Viola, Peter Campus, Wolf Vostell, Rebecca Horn, Carolee Schneeman, Reinhard Mucha, Marcel Broodthaers, Fritz Rahmann, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Johan Grimonprez and Aernout Mik. In 2002, the collection was enlarged significantly by the acquisition of Egidio Marzona's study collection of Conceptual Art and Arte Povera. Among recent acquisitions, filmic works represent an additional focus for the Nationalgalerie, a sphere of activity reinforced further by the arrival of the Joseph Beuys Media Archive and by Mike Steiner's donation of a collection of 1970s video art, as well as by purchases of films by artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, David Lamelas and Matthew Buckingham. In 2004, the museum was expanded by an additional 6000 m2, and now has a total exhibition surface of 13,800 m2. The former Lehrter Bahnhof, set behind the main building, was converted to become the so-called Rieckhallen, and now provides exhibition space for the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, on loan for an initial period of seven years. In February 2008 the collector Friedrich Christian Flick donated 186 works of art to the Nationalgalerie. This donation includes works of the last forty years, including main works by artists like Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, David Claerbout, Stan Douglas, Martin Kippenberger, Bruce Nauman, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades, Wolfgang Tillmans. The donation is the largest gift of a private person the museums since its foundation in the 19th century. The works of the donation will be presented in various shows during the next years. In addition, a publication about the donation is planned.The museum is currently publishing this collection of over 2000 superlative works of contemporary European and North American art in changing thematic and monographic presentations. Visit website:_ www.hamburgerbahnhof.de/

As part of Berlin’s Nationalgalerie and its third location, the museum houses three highly prestigious collections. Along with the permanent Nationalgalerie collection are the renowned Frederick Christian Flick, Erich Marx and Marzona collections. Since 1996 the Hamburger Banhof Museum has consistently consolidated its reputation as one of the world’s most highly-regarded contemporary art museums. In 2004 the prestigious Friedrich Christian Flick collection encompassing ca 2,000 works by approximately 150 artists was housed in the museum. In 2,002 the collection was again enlarged by the acquisition of Egidio Marzona’s collection of Conceptual Art and Arte Povera. The core elements of the museum’s collection stem from the legacy of Berlin collector Dr. Erich Marx who assembled some of the greatest masterpieces of the mid 20th century - works from contemporary giants such as the provocative German ‘enfant terrible’ Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Anselm Kiefer. Amongst the key pieces are iconic works of art such as Warhol’s ‘Mao’ and Joseph Beuys’ installations including over 450 drawings from Beuys and 60 sketches from Andy Warhol. Conceived as a showcase for the multi-media dimension of contemporary international art the scope of the museums’ exhibits encompasses other contemporary art forms such as film, video, design and photography with installation work from Nam June Paik and experimental work from artists such as Sol Lewitt, Marchel Duchamp and Sigmar Polke and Jason Rhoades. A main emphasis of the collection is art on video and film. A collection of 1970s video art, made as a gift by Mike Steiner, as well as the Joseph Beuys-Medienarchiv form its basis. In addition, key works of video art by Peter Campus, Gary Hill, Marcel Odenbach, Bill Viola, etc., are among the inventory. This focus on trendsetting video and film works has been recently continued by diverse positions, which include films by Matthew Buckingham and David Lamelas, with sound works, for instance by the Canadian artist pair Janet Cardiff / George Bures Miller, up through extensive installations by artists such as Daniel Pflumm, Christian Jankowski and Arnout Mik. Works by Gerhard Richter, A.R. Penck, and Imi Knoebel may be counted among the central points of departure in the collection within the field of the painting. The basic attitude connected to these positions, namely to proceed not from reality, but rather from a reality determined by the media during the selection of the motifs, has shaped the development of painting to this day. Works by younger artists such as Michel Majerus, Corinne Wasmuth, or the artist group Suzi Pop, illustrate the changeability of the visual in the age of the computer. Photography, which was only able to establish itself as an independent art form during the course of the 1980s, is also represented in the collection in diverse forms. In addition to works by the so-called Becher School (Hilla and Bernd Becher, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff) are examples of staged and conceptual photography, next to those works whose epicenter is based at the threshold between photography and painting, including abstract views of landscapes by the Berlin artist Michael Wesely. The Hamburger Banhof Museum is a world class showcase for contemporary art, and is well worth a visit.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Our Editor has been invited to visit Museums and cultural sites in mainland China, Korea, Vietnam. Myanmar, Thailand (Siam), Singapore, Bali and mainland Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan, Malaysia, Japan, Mongolia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and now Germany. Because of the Editor's travel we will be posting many interesting articles from our archives, some of the BEST Articles and Art Images that appeared in your magazine during the past six plus (6+) years . . Enjoy.

 

LONDON - A landmark exhibition at the National Gallery explores the dramatic rise of portraiture in the Renaissance, through the great Masters of Northern and Southern Europe. 'Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian' features masterpieces by, among others: Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Van Eyck, Holbein, Dürer, Lotto, Pontormo and Bellini. The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to explore Renaissance portraiture in exceptional depth, displaying over 70 paintings alongside important sculptures, drawings and medals. On exhibitions 15 October through 18 January, 2009.

BRUSSELS.- What better way to start the spring than by marking the bicentenary of Mexico’s independence and the centenary of its revolution? Behind the clichés of the Aztec god Quetzalcóatl, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and revolutionaries in sombreros, you can discover, over three months, a rich and complex nation, constantly reinventing its “Mexicanness”. Could Mexico, shaped over two centuries by the creative explosion of an incredible cross-fertilisation, be the archetype of the nation of the future? Find out at five exhibitions and a fascinating multidisciplinary Mexican festival at Bozar in Belgium.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - This summer, the National Galleries of Scotland presents Impressionism & Scotland, an exhibition of over 100 paintings, pastels and watercolours, which explore the Scottish taste for Impressionism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and assess the impact of modern European art on Scottish art and artists. On view through 12 October, 2008.

NEW YORK, NY.- Michael Werner Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings by Swiss artist Félix Vallotton (Lausanne, 1865 – Paris, 1925). The exhibition features portraits of women, primarily nudes, and is the first gallery exhibition in New York devoted to the artist’s paintings. Félix Vallotton’s paintings do not give pleasure easily. In portraiture he is not a flashy virtuoso and his nudes are not “sexy”, at least not in any typical fashion. His paint handling is careful and deliberate; his palette, subdued and a little flat; his surfaces, slow and at times somewhat dry. His intense, unforgiving attention to detail lends a palpable realism to the paintings. Enlivened by a thinly veiled eroticism, his subtly voyeuristic scenes leave one feeling more than a little uncomfortable. Paintings of Félix Vallotton is on view from 4 February to 10 April 2010.

WASHINGTON, DC.- Delights of the Spanish table depicted by 18th-century painter Luis Meléndez (1715-1780) will be presented to American audiences for the first time in nearly 25 years at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 17 through August 23, 2009. In a rare opportunity to explore the artist’s working method, Luis Meléndez: Master of the Spanish Still Life will showcase 31 paintings, some of which have never been exhibited publicly, and nine examples of 18th-century kitchenware similar to those used as studio props by Meléndez.

 

LONDON - Hauser & Wirth presents a major exhibition of important and previously unseen works from the Henry Moore Family Collection. The Old Bond Street gallery has been transformed by Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher, whose bold organic creations – specially commissioned for the exhibition – provide a sympathetic and novel context for re-approaching Moore’s oeuvre. Celebrated as the most important British sculptor of the twentieth century, Moore’s radical addressing of the human form and uncompromising vision make him an abiding influence for contemporary artists.

 

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, the most significant sculpture and botanic experience in the Midwest and an emerging cultural destination on the national scene, is pleased to host a major museum presentation of works by internationally-acclaimed sculptor George Rickey. The exhibition, George Rickey: A Retrospective is through December 31, 2007.

NEW YORK, NY - All parties involved in New York’s flagship international contemporary art fair know that, this time around, something serious is up, or rather down. But sub-7,000 Dow or no, the show is not only back in more or less full gear on Pier 94 on the Hudson River, but it’s also introducing a substantial and sometimes interesting supplement called the Armory Show Modern on the adjoining Pier 92. Over 240 international galleries are present for the 11th edition of the newly expanded Armory Show, and their exhibits range from contemporary works exclusively made for the fair to museum-quality historical presentations. A new series of Special Projects will punctuate the public areas.

Northampton, MA – Prints by Durer, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt, Boucher, Goya, and a host of other master painters are featured in The Early Modern Painter-Etcher, at the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, MA.  The exhibition surveys etchings from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries by more than sixty European artists who took up the challenge of making works on paper.  It highlights “experimental” sheets, which, in some cases, feature the single printed work an artist made.  The exhibition will be on view through Sunday, October 29, 2006.

For roughly half a century after its introduction in Europe, printmaking remained the province of a specially trained group of professionals, artists who either worked primarily in that medium or practiced printmaking while pursuing careers as metal smiths.  What changed this situation was the invention, in the early sixteenth century, of etching.  With etching, artists no longer had to master the difficult task of directly working a woodblock or metal plate.  As etching allows an artist’s print design to be drawn into a softer ground with a needle, and then eaten into the plate with acid, virtually any competent draftsman could try his hand at it. 

Santa Fe, NM — Collecting Modernism: European Modernism from the Munson- Williams-Proctor Arts Institute is a stunning exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts that features 26 notable works by Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault, and other key modernist figures.  The show runs Friday, September 29, 2006, through Sunday, January 7, 2007.  A companion exhibit, European Modern from the Museum of Fine Arts Permanent Collection, runs Friday, October 6, 2006, through Sunday, November 26, 2006.

In line with the Museum of Fine Arts’ mission to “bring the art of the world to New Mexico and the art of New Mexico to the world,” the two exhibitions opening this fall will showcase a select group of European paintings that represent the most important stylistic developments of the twentieth century.

Detroit, MI - The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) hosts the special exhibition Jane Hammond: Paper Work . The exhibition features Hammond’s unique works on paper made over the last 15 years from a myriad of techniques and materials, along with prints and books. All of the objects rely on the artist’s “vocabulary” of 276 borrowed images which she has manipulated endlessly to produce visually rich and mentally stimulating compositions that provoke thought, feeling, and new meaning about interaction and communication. Zany and mysterious, the works are flat and three-dimensional, large and small, painted and drawn, photographed, and printed.

NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art presents an exhibition of 33 nonfiction films chosen by Karen Cooper, Director of Film Forum, to celebrate that institution’s 40th anniversary and the crucial role Cooper has played in keeping it a vital part of New York’s film culture. All films in the series, which runs from February 3 to 20, 2010, premiered at Film Forum. Karen Cooper Carte Blanche: 40 Years of Documentary Premieres at Film Forum is organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) features Patterns of Speculation: J. MAYER H., the first solo museum exhibition of work by the German architecture studio J. MAYER H. The exhibition is unorthodox in that it combines two approaches to showing architecture in a gallery: video documentation of the studio's built work and an environment, designed by J. MAYER H., that presents the architect's spatial language at full scale. On view through 7 July, 2009.

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The Buchheim Museum in Germany is located north of Bernried in Höhenried Park, directly on the banks of Lake Starnberg. The path from the visitors' parking area to the museum is lined with old trees, charming ponds, pagodas, as well as works fashioned out of wood and metal. For the collections of Lothar-Günther Buchheim – painter, photographer, publisher, author of art books and novels – architect Günter Behnisch has designed an open and multi-segmental structure that reflects the museum's extraordinary diversity. The legendary core of the collection, works of expressionism predominantly by the artists' group "Brücke" (1905–1913), are shown in spacious halls. The more intimate rooms of the "towers" are reserved for the collections of folk art and ethnological artistry, as well as for Buchheim's own work. A unique architectural feature is the deck that is suspended twelve-meters high over the lake, providing museum visitors with a view of the town of Starnberg and the Alps. For nearly 40 years, Buchheim has pursued a museum concept that reverses conventional divisions – a painting gallery, a graphic arts gallery, a European crafts collection and a museum for ethnological art – and seeks to mix and connect the individual, yet richly interrelated collection areas: a pan-cultural encounter and an exciting dialogue between the art of the Expressionists and their inspirational sources from Africa and the South Seas. Buchheim's collection, which was essentially compiled in the 1950's, encompasses an extraordinarily wide spectrum of outstanding expressionist art. At the heart of the collection are paintings, watercolors, drawings, woodcuts, etchings and lithographs by artists of the group "Brücke", which included the artists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, as well as Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde and Otto Mueller, who joined the group briefly. After an initial late-impressionistic approach, the artists developed an expressive visual language, which is characterized by simplified, daring forms, monumentality and vivid colors, and was inspired by African and South Sea art, as well as by the works of Gauguin, van Gogh, Munch, the "Fauves" and early woodcuts. Since the worldwide exhibition tour in the early 1980's, the Buchheim collection of Expressionist art has enjoyed international recognition. The holdings found in the Buchheim collection not only provide an impressive overview of "Brücke" art, which marks the beginning of modern art in Germany. Groups of works by Lovis Corinth, Max Beckmann and Oskar Kokoschka complement the "Brücke" art, as do works from the ensuing so-called second Expressionist generation. Water-colors and graphic arts by Otto Dix form a bridge to Veristic art. Interrelatedness and characteristic differences between the individual artists are highlighted, as is the link between drawings, woodcuts and paintings. Visit website:_ www.buchheimmuseum.de/

Full appreciation for Buchheim's "museum of art and curiosities" is best achieved through understanding Lothar-Günther Buchheim himself, since Buchheim – already as a young boy a gifted painter – is a visual person. What he visually perceives not only becomes subject matter for his paintings and photographs, but also for his novels. Observing provides him with the opportunity to experience and understand the world. With each new piece that finds its way into his collection, he conquers new territory. Buchheim does not collect, he discovers. He is not dependent on the need to classify art as "valuable" or "worthless", or to categorize it as "high" or "inferior". Nor does he restrict himself to specializing in only one or a few areas. Buchheim is open to the richness of life. And never ceases to be amazed by the variety of natural forms and unbounded inventiveness of mankind. A single visit to the museum reveals only a fraction of what it really has to offer. The holdings are so diverse and extensive, that the museum can continually exhibit new works from the areas of Expressionism, classic French modern art (Picasso, Braque, Léger, Chagall), "outsider art", as well as works of folk and ethnological art. Along with shows of works on paper in the Expressionist galleries, which rotate several times a year, there are wide-ranging special exhibitions, as well as first-rate gallery presentations. The kaleidoscope of folk art and ethnological artistry includes glass paintings, carousel animal figures, fêtes foraines, hundreds of glass paperweights; furniture, ceramics, textiles, glass and jewelry from Asia, South America and Europe; masks, sculptures and other cult objects from Africa and the South Seas; a vast amount of popular printed works and much, much more ...Along with Buchheim's "Circus Buffi" and Diethild Buchheim's "Ditti’s menagerie of leaf pictures", there is "outsider art" with works by self-taught artists, such as the virtuoso wood sculptor Hans Schmitt, the folk artist Max Raffler, the ventriloquist Muskat and the Parisian naive artist Hector Trotin. Although it is difficult to find a common thread running through Buchheim's unique, all-embracing collection cosmos, his enthusiasm for direct, strongly expressive, vividly colorful and intricately crafted works suggests a possible path through this creative "chaos". That we also are circus aficionados the Lothar-Günther Buchheim has a current exhibition dedicated to the circus, of course by itself, because Buchheim has all this not only gathered. As a boy he produced linocuts with circus motifs, he also drew on the Circus grounds. And almost always when he visited Circus performances, he photographed. A selection of these beautiful photos, is now the first time to see .. on view through 3 April, 2011.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Our Editor has been invited to visit Museums and cultural sites in mainland China, Korea, Vietnam. Myanmar, Thailand (Siam), Singapore, Bali and mainland Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan, Malaysia, Japan, Mongolia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and now Germany. Because of the Editor's travel we will be posting many interesting articles from our archives, some of the BEST Articles and Art Images that appeared in your magazine during the past six plus (6+) years . . Enjoy.

 

Montclair, NJ - This exhibition, featuring 40 works by artist Philip Pearlstein, is the first retrospective in 25 years, since his 1983 survey at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The Montclair Art Museum’s exhibition includes paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints that cover Pearlstein’s art from 1940 through 2008. On exhibition through February 1, 2009.

Stockholm - Moderna Museet has one of the world’s best collections of art, spanning from 1900 to the present day. The photographic collection comprises works from the 1840’s onwards. The art collection includes key works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as new acquisitions by contemporary artists. Swedish art is largely integrated with the international works, presenting Swedish artists such as Vera Nilsson and Siri Derkert parallel with Oskar Kokoschka and Georges Braque. The contemporary section is rehung frequently, and it includes a presentation of contemporary film and video art in The Video Corridor. Selections from the collection on view through 31 January, 2010.

RICHMOND, VA.- One of the finest remaining refugee collections of German Expressionist art has a new home – at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The Ludwig and Rosy Fischer Collection includes works assembled by the couple in Frankfurt, Germany, between 1905 and 1925, the most creative years of German Expressionism. No state funds were spent by the museum. VMFA used donor funds restricted to the purchase of art for the commonwealth.

SAVANNAH, GA - World-class works on paper by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse and Joan Miro will be on display and available for purchase at the Savannah College of Art and Design during the "Modern Masters" exhibition, held Sept. 2nd through 22nd  at Red Gallery, 201 E. Broughton St., Savannah.  An opening reception and printmaking demonstration will be held in the gallery Sept. 4, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.