Displaying items by tag: Tate Modern

One of Alexander Calder’s largest and most complex mobiles is to be shown outside Brazil for the first time this week after being restored by his grandson, Alexander Rower. Black Widow (around 1948) will be hung in its own space as the finale of the exhibition Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture (11 November-3 April 2016) at Tate Modern in London—the largest show of Calder’s work ever held in the UK.

Rower, the head of the Calder Foundation in New York, is on a mission to restore as many sculptures as possible.

The Tate Modern in London has announced that its hotly anticipated £260 million ($401 million) extension, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, will open to the public on June 17, 2016.

The extension and renovation will increase the Tate's display space by a whopping 60 percent, allowing a much greater portion of the museum's collection of modern and contemporary art to be shown. To mark the occasion, the new Tate Modern will reopen with a complete re-hang, showing works by over 250 artists from 50 countries.

Tate Modern will next year present shows devoted to two giants of 20th-century art, the American artists Georgia O’Keeffe and Robert Rauschenberg.

Announcing its 2016 program, Tate also revealed that the works of Francis Bacon will be on display at its outpost in Liverpool, Paul Nash at Tate Britain, and a solo show by the young British artist Jessica Warboys at St Ives.

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag has acquired two large sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, the grande dame of modern art, on long-term loan. Bourgeois’ work is held in great affection all over the world, among both art-lovers and the general public. The Louise Bourgeois Studio owns a number of the artist’s larger sculptures, and it loans them to only a handful of museums in the world. This now includes Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, alongside Tate Modern, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and DIA Art Foundation.

The Tate will receive an extra £6m from the government to help fund the cost of running Tate Modern, we have learned. The agreement, which has not been formally announced, was made ahead of the General Election, which saw the Conservative Party win a slim majority.

The promise of extra money for the Tate is a remarkable achievement by the Tate’s director, Nicholas Serota, who 15 years ago secured an extra £5m from the then Labour government so that Tate Modern could open without charging for admission.

In another sign of the market’s bubbling strength, Christie’s announced it will offer Alberto Giacometti’s life-size bronze “Pointing Man (L’Homme au Doigt)” from 1947 on May 11 in New York, along with an unpublished estimate in the record-breaking region of $130 million. Of the six works in the famed edition, as well as one artist proof, this example is believed to be the only one that is hand-painted by the artist. Five of the six in the edition are tucked away in museums or private foundations, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London. Only two are left in private hands.

“Pointing Man,” standing 69 7/8 inches tall and bearing a crusty patina, as if charred by the horrific aftermath of the Second World War, reaches out with his spindly right arm, while his left remains raised at shoulder height, as a fencer might guardedly stand before an opponent.

Abraham Cruzvillegas will undertake the inaugural Hyundai Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. This will be the first in a new series of annual site-specific commissions by renowned international artists, and will open to the public on October 13, 2015. Hyundai replaces Unilever as the sponsor for this important annual art event.

Abraham Cruzvillegas is a Mexican artist best known for creating sculptural works from local found objects and materials. During the 1990s and 2000s, Cruzvillegas was among the key figures of a new wave of emerging conceptual artists in Mexico.

Last week, the Whitney Museum massively overhauled its online database. The museum of American art expanded its online collection from a paltry 700 works to around 21,000. The digital reserve now includes over 3,000 pieces by Edward Hopper, in addition to offerings from a wide swathe of art from the United States, including the likes of Mike Kelley and Martin Wong.

This virtual expansion comes on the heels of "Matisse," a cinematic rendering of the Matisse cut-out show on display at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) through February 10. The film, which includes footage from both the MoMA show and the earlier exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, is part of the “Exhibition on Screen” project, which “brings blockbuster art exhibitions from galleries around the world to a cinema near you,” according to the initiative’s website.

A curator who 14 years ago was a front-of-house assistant directing visitors to the highlights and toilets of the National Portrait Gallery in London is to return as the organization’s new director.

Nicholas Cullinan, who co-curated Tate Modern’s blockbuster Matisse cutouts exhibition last year with Sir Nicholas Serota, has been chosen to replace Sandy Nairne and become only the 12th director in the NPG’s 158-year history.

Officials at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City always knew its Yayoi Kusama exhibition, which ends on January 18, 2015, would be popular. “Infinite Obsession,” based on the 2012 retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum in New York and Tate Modern in London, drew large crowds as it traveled through Argentina and Brazil this year. However, the numbers of visitors for its final stop in Mexico has surpassed all expectations, and the museum has been struggling to keep up.

The Tamayo’s attendance has gone from an average of 5,000 visitors per month to around 2,100 visitors per day. “It has been a challenge,” the museum’s chief of security Alfredo Esoíndola Vélez told the newspaper "El Universal."