Displaying items by tag: cultural

Cambodia on Tuesday officially welcomed the return of three ancient statues looted from the kingdom more than 40 years ago, including one retrieved after a long legal battle in the United States.

Authorities say the 10th-century sandstone artworks were stolen in the 1970s as the country was gripped by civil war, from the Koh Ker temple site near the famed Angkor Wat complex.

The statues, part of a nine-strong ensemble, depict warriors "Duryodhana" and "Bhima" locked in combat -- as well as a bystander called "Balarama".

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is currently presenting the exhibition ‘The American West in Bronze: 1850-1925.’ The show explores the aesthetic tastes, technical achievements and cultural attitudes that led American artists to create bronze statuettes depicting scenes of the new frontier.

The works on view cover a variety of themes including nostalgia and the struggles faced by Native Americans, the region’s wildlife and settlers during the transformative time. The exhibition’s 65 sculptures and three paintings are divided into four sections -- American Indians, Wildlife, Cowboys and Settlers. Highlights include James Earle Fraser’s ‘End of the Trail,’ Alexander Phimister Proctor’s ‘Stalking Panther,’ and Frederic Remington’s ‘The Mountain Man.”

‘The American West in Bronze: 1850-1925’ will be on view at the Met through April 13, 2014.

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA has selected New York-based Ennead Architects to design their $200 million, 175,000-square-foot expansion. The project is part of the museum’s comprehensive, $650 million Advancement Campaign, which was announced in 2011. The goal of the Campaign is to celebrate outstanding artistic and cultural creativity in ways that transform people’s lives. Besides the expansion, which will include galleries, a restaurant and additional space for public programs and education, the endeavor includes reinstalling the museum’s collection, several infrastructure improvements and other initiatives.

Ennead Architects previously designed the renovation and expansion of the renowned Yale University Art Gallery. The firm has also worked on projects at the Brooklyn Museum, Natural History Museum of Utah and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History.

Groundbreaking for the Peabody Essex Museum’s expansion project is expected to commence in 2015 and the new wing is slated to open in 2019. The museum will remain open throughout the renovation process until the final months, when the collection will be reinstalled.

Following the lead of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and PBS, Google will launch a series of monthly digital “Art Talks.” The project aims to bring gallery and museum collections to life through virtual hangouts with curators, museums directors, historians, and educators from the world’s most distinguished cultural institutions. The talks will explore various arts-related topics including the curating process, popular themes throughout art history, art education, and the significance of specific masterpieces and artists.

The first Art Talks hangout will take place at 8PM on March 6, 2013 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Deborah Howes, the museum’s Director of Digital Learning, will join a panel of artists and students to discuss the process of teaching art online.

Upcoming Art Talks include Caroline Campbell and Arnika Schmidt from London’s National Gallery discussing depictions of the female nude throughout art history (March 20, 2013) and a panel discussion of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s (1525-1569) Tower of Babel featuring Peter Parshall, curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (April 2013). Additional talks are planned for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico.

The talks will be posted on the Google Art Project‘s YouTube channel after they air.

A Grand Tour: Trade Winds of Influence
16th Annual Charleston Art & Antiques Forum
March 13–17, 2013
Old Courtroom, 23 Chalmers Street, Charleston, S.C.
For information visit www.CharlestonAntiquesForum.org or call 800.926.2520

The forum will bring together an impressive group of speakers from the US and Europe who will demonstrate the influence of the Grand Tours of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries on the architecture, furniture, silver, art, and gardens of Americans and Europeans alike. Dame Rosalind Savill, Director Emeritus of the Wallace Collection, London, England, will deliver the keynote address, focusing on her experience with French decorative arts. The mission of the Charleston Art & Antiques  Forum is to present the best fine and decorative arts scholarship, and to benefit arts education and preservation. Sponsors of the 2013 Forum are Charlton Hall Auctions, PDI, and the Florence Museum.

10th Annual Charleston Antiques Show
March 22–24, 2013; preview March 21
Memminger Auditorium, 56 Beaufain Street, Charleston, S.C.
66th Annual Spring Festival of Houses and Gardens
March 21–April 20, 2013
For information visit www.historiccharleston.org or call 843.723.1623

Inspired by the rich historical, architectural, and cultural heritage of Charleston, the 10th annual Charleston Antiques Show is a premier destination for collectors and enthusiasts who enjoy seeing and learning about incorporating antiques into modern-day décor. Attendees will find English, European, and American period furnishings, decorative arts, and fine art, architectural elements, garden furniture, vintage jewelry, and silver. In addition to attending the show, visitors can sign up for special events such as a luncheon lecture with the award-winning classical architect Gil Schafer, behind-the-scenes tours with experts, and study tours. While in Charleston, enjoy walking tours through the city’s historic district showcasing Charleston’s distinctive architecture, history, and gardens during the 66th Annual Festival of Houses and Gardens and experience the intimate charm and elegance found within private gardens and historic homes.

In the 1970s a coat of varnish obscured Sea Change (1947), an important work by Jackson Pollack that signaled his transition famous drip technique. The Seattle Museum of Art has tackled the restoration of Sea Change, which is a cornerstone of the institution’s collection.

Efforts appear to be going well as reporters and photographers were invited to the museum on Tuesday, November 27, to see the progress firsthand. Led by the museum’s chief conservator, Nicholas Dorman, the undertaking is complicated due to the multiple types of media used by Pollack and the sheer depth of the painting’s surface. Measuring approximately 4 x 5 feet, Sea Change consists of many layers including several types of paint (oil, house and commercial, early acrylic), a white oil base, aluminum paint drips, and imbedded gravel.

In order to preserve the original painting, Dorman had to become as familiar as possible with the work underneath the layer of old varnish. He carefully studied old X-rays of the painting as well as photographs of Pollack at work in order to learn more about the composition itself.

Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project is funding the restoration work on Sea Change. Launched in 2010, the initiative has provided about $2 million to the conservation of art and artifacts of cultural and historical value around the world.

While rocket fire is a normal occurrence in southern Israel, the recent attacks on Tel Aviv, the country’s northern capital city, has art museums in the area taking extra precautions. The walls of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art have been stripped and nearly 200 works, including approximately 100 works by relatives of the Renaissance master Pieter Brueghel the Elder, were moved to a rocket-proof safe late last week.

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has continued to escalate, other museums are following suit. The curator of the Ashdod Art Museum in southern Israel has taken down 15 works by the leading Contemporary Israeli artist, Tsibi Geva, and placed them in a vault deep underground. The structure is designed to withstand both rocket fire and biological weapons. It was the first time the Ashdod Museum has taken down any art amid attacks since opening in 2003.

While air strikes are creeping up from the southern Israel’s traditional rocket range to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, some institutions are holding out on stashing their works. The Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, which specializes in Near Eastern antiquities and other art, has left its treasures in place. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, which houses some of the country’s most prized antiquities and cultural artifacts has also continued to operate as usual.

The last time the Tel Aviv Museum of Art took down works during a conflict was in 1991 when Iraqi scud missiles pounded the city during the Gulf War.

Over fifty major works totaling about $64 million were offered as payment to the UK for nearly $40 million worth of inheritance tax that accumulated between 2010 and 2012. Those in control of the estates of authors, artists, and collectors have been allowed to use cultural and historical artifacts to pay the tax since 1910.

The UK has recently received a number of masterpieces including two oil portraits of aristocratic families by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a renowned 18^th century English artist. One portrait will be placed in the Tate and the other will go to the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Other works include two landscapes by JMW Turner; an oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens titled The Triumph of Venus that will be placed in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum; a work by Italian 17^th century master Guernico that has been allocated to the National Gallery; and four sculptures and three works on paper by Barbara Hepworth.

The ability to donate significant works to pay off inheritance tax has introduced a number of remarkable pieces to the UK’s galleries and museums, bringing monumental works out from behind closed doors and into the public arena.