Displaying items by tag: curated

The Portland Museum of Art in Maine presents Shangaa: Art of Tanzania. The first major exhibition in the United States to focus on the traditional arts of Tanzania, Shangaa includes 165 objects on loan from private and public collections throughout the U.S. and Europe. While most of the works are sculptural in nature, styles range from expressionistic to abstract to refined.

“Shangaa” means “to amaze” in Swahili and that is the intent of the exhibition. Curated by Tanzanian art specialist Dr. Gary van Wyk, Shangaa includes works ranging in date from the 19^th century through today. The exhibition illustrates how Tanzanian culture uses art to channel energy, mark the passage into adulthood, and celebrate life among many other things.

Shangaa: Art of Tanzania will be on view through August 25, 2013.

Art Basel, the most anticipated art fair in the world, will be held from June 13-16, 2013 in Switzerland. A VIP preview and vernissage were held on June 11 and June 12 respectively and included the $12 million sale of Alexander Calder’s (1898-1976) Sumac (1961) by London’s Helly Nahmad Gallery.

Now in its 44^th year, Art Basel welcomes 304 international exhibitors to Messe Basel, a venue situated at the border of Switzerland, France and Germany. The fair presents the finest works of modern and contemporary art by more than 4,000 artists. Works on view include paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video and editioned works. The show is split into eight sectors – Galleries, Feature, Statements, Edition, Unlimited, Parcours, Film, and Magazines – and allows patrons to explore the many facets of modern and contemporary art including museum-quality paintings, curated projects, and site-specific artworks.  

The remarkable roster of exhibitors includes Acquavella Galleries Inc. (New York), Castelli Gallery (New York), Gagosian Gallery (multiple locations), Hauser & Wirth (Zurich/New York), Dominique Levy (New York), and Lisson Gallery (Milan/London).

Art Basel offers a full program of events including symposiums, artist talks, and lectures. Featured participants include Massimiliano Gioni, curator of the 55^th Venice Biennale and Director at the New Museum, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London.    

Thirty-five out of forty-four senior art students were left without their sketchbooks, canvases, brushes, books, and completed works after a fire broke out at Pratt Institute in New York City on February 15, 2013. The fire, which ignited in Pratt’s historic Main Building due to faulty electrical wiring, also destroyed much of the structure’s roof and the studios that painting students are given in their final year.

In an effort to ease the students’ crushing loss, art dealer Larry Gagosian has partnered with Pratt to present a special drawing and painting exhibition. Gagosian was especially moved by Pratt’s fire as he almost lost a sizable chunk of his own collection after a fire broke out at his home in the Hamptons in 2011.

Flameproof will feature 100 works by Pratt’s 44 senior drawing and painting students and will be curated by Eugenie Tsai, the John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is focused on the students’ collective experience at Pratt and was largely facilitated by the Pratt recovery effort, which provided students with donated supplies and gift cards from the school’s administration and local art stores.

Flameproof will be held at the Seagram Building on Park Avenue from May 9-14, 2013.

For another week and a half, visitors of the Gagosian Gallery in New York will be able to view a major exhibition dedicated to Helen Frankenthaler’s (1928-2011) paintings from the 1950s. Frankenthaler, one of the few female artists involved in the Abstract Expressionist movement, was a major force in 20^th century American art. Nevertheless, Frankenthaler has not had the lasting adulation that her male Ab-Ex counterparts such as Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970) have enjoyed. In fact, the Gagosian exhibition is the first show in three decades devoted to Frankenthaler’s work.

Painted on 21^st Street: Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959, which was organized in cooperation with the Estate of Helen Frankenthaler, brings together nearly 30 paintings, many of which have rarely been seen. The show was curated by John Elderfield, the Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and author of the foremost monograph on Frankenthaler’s, and includes paintings from Frankenthaler’s estate as well as private and public collections. Highlights from the exhibition include Painted on 21^st Street (1950-51), Mountains and Sea (1952), and Jacob’s Ladder (1957). The Gagosian exhibition spans the considerable range and diversity of Frankenthaler’s paintings and illustrates how she synthesized certain aspects of her counterparts work to create an entirely new approach to Abstract Expressionism.

Painted on 21^st Street will be on view through April 13, 2013.

Beyond the Bed: The American Quilt Evolution, which is on view at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York, traces the evolution of the North American quilt from the early 19^th century to the present day. The exhibition is guest curated by Jean M. Burke of Vermont’s Shelburne Museum and explores how the form, fashion and, function of quilts have changed over the centuries.

Beyond the Bed presents a wide variety of objects from bed coverings, wall decorations, and clothing to three-dimensional sculptures and furniture accessories. While, some of the quilts on view are traditional in pattern and construction, others are more progressive.

Highlights include a rare pincushion quilt attributed to a member of the Vanderbilt family; Ella B. Chase’s (unknown-1919) Pickwick Papers Crazy Quilt depicting characters from Charles Dickens’ Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club; a tromp l’oeil quilt carved by Fraser Smith (b. 1971) from a 200-pound block of wood; and a free-standing quilted sculpture by Dominique Ehrmann.

Beyond the Bed: The American Quilt Evolution will be on view through June 16, 2013.

100 years after the 1913 Armory Show changed the landscape of American art forever, the current incarnation of the event opened to the public today, March 7, 2013. Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference to inaugurate the 2013 Armory Show, which features 214 exhibitors from across the globe. The event is expected to draw about 66,000 visitors and will generate approximately $54 million in the city during its four-day run.

This year’s Armory Show features a specially curated section titled ‘Armory Focus: USA’ and aims to celebrate the remarkable impact the 1913 Armory Show had on the country. The section is curated by Eric Shiner, the director of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA and features 17 established and emerging galleries that focus on contemporary art.

The Armory Show is held on Piers 92 and 94 in central Manhattan and is part of the highly anticipated Armory Arts Week, a suite of cultural events and exhibitions taking place across the city from March 7-10, 2013.