Mirella Ferrari

Kind of White 

Paper Sculptures by Mirella Ferrari

Curated by Valerio Dehò

October 12-26, 2013

Opening: Saturday, October 12 at 6:30pm

Kind of White is an exhibition dedicated to the color white, but also its many contrasts and its infinite nuances. Mirella Ferrari, Bolognese artist who lives in Florence, and wife of SACI Painting and Drawing Instructor Gary Lissa, works primarily with the medium of paper and produces works that are as valuable as embroidery, solid and delicate at the same time. The color white is the protagonist of the history of art in both negative and positive perspectives. The color, strangely, is not well received, even by artists who have employed it masterfully. White seems to belong to a primitive stage, and oddly enough is considered an enemy of the mind. Bernard Berenson in Aesthetics, divided the society between those founded on the combination of mind – and the most simple form based on the combination of strenth – color.

In contemporary art, the color white is crucial: the galleries and museums are of this color (the “white cube”), as is the legacy of modern architecture and “purism” of Le Corbusier. Mirella Ferrari, with great technical skills, creates works in which the interaction between form, material and color, are sensitive to changes in light. The elementary forms of the same idea, as it may be a simple dress for women, is not calling the world of women simple, but indicates a conceptual function. The white dress, pure wearable white, becomes something that can carry these ideas out of the art world. It is an indication that leads directly into society and everyday life. Wearing white is not a call to an unlikely collective purification, rather it gives priority to the relationship with others. This is why the idea of ​​using mainly the paper, a material so ancient and so intrinsically linked to the biological cycle (plant fibers), makes this series of works a cerebral construction, a path of sensitivity and knowledge, to return white and to Nature.

Galleria Terre Rare
Via Carbonesi 6, Bologna – Italy
T/F (+39) 051 221013
www.terrerare.net
rosabiagi@terrerare.net

Open: Monday – Saturday, 10am-1pm, 3:30-7:30pm, Closed on Sundays

ANDY WARHOL: An American Story

Palazzo Blu, Lungarno Gambacorti, PISA – Italy
12 October 2013 – 2 February 2014

Two hundred and thirty works from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and many American and European collections, reconstruct the creative artist who revolutionized the art of the twentieth century. Contrary to many similar initiatives dedicated to Warhol, related to the taste of a single collector, the exhibition in Pisa, titled ANDY WARHOL: An American Story, reads through a highly themed adventure artist who has managed to shake the foundations of the academic world of painting and criticism of the late twentieth century, but also to forever alter the image of America and Contemporary Society.

The exhibition, curated by Walter Guadagnini and Claudia Zevi, offers 230 works from the creative journey of the author who revolutionized the art of the twentieth century, thanks to the research conducted in the archives at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh – which holds a large part of his legacy, and that have granted the loan of some important works practically unknown in Italy – and the support of some historic international museum and private collections.

The exhibition opens with the self-portraits in which the artist ‘iconize’ his own face; from those of the sixties, in which he portrays himself as a thoughtful intellectual, to those famous last period with the silver wig, a permanent mark his public image.

After this introduction, the exhibition continues with a total immersion in the season of Pop, 1962-1968, represented here by some thirty works from the small painting Avanticar, to the great framework of the dollar from the Museum of Contemporary Art of Nice, the Brillo boxes of detergent in the Berardo collection in Lisbon, and many variations on the theme of flowers and cans of Campbell’s Soup.

Warhol’s genius lies in being able to tell even the dark side of American society: exemplary in this regard is the diptych of 13 Most Wanted Men and the series dedicated to the Electric Chair at the Albertina in Vienna, as well as the paintings that have to theme Guns and Knives, the latter became even better known in recent years as the cover image of Gomorrah, the book by Roberto Saviano, having sold millions of copies.

Andy Warhol, Skull, Serigraphy & arcrylic on canvas, 1976,Vienna (Photo © Museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien, On loan from Austrian Ludwig Foundation) © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Warhol himself, on the other hand, was the victim of this violence underlying the American society when, in 1968, was severely injured and nearly given up for dead following the attack of a deranged woman who had been part of the curious personalities that populated the Factory, the place where he invented and realized all his masterpieces. This experience is evidenced in the torn photographs taken by the artist and rebuilt by Richard Avedon and published by the newspapers of the time, as well as a large painting titled Skull of Mumok of Vienna.

Life, Death, Society is the title of the section in which you will see the most famous icons of Andy Warhol. First, Marilyn in the historical sequence of ten, but also in two later versions black and white, and then the great paintings of Liz Taylor, Mick Jagger, Joseph Beuys, Troy Donahue, and the photographs of Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Keith Haring, the 16mm film with Marcel Duchamp, Dali, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Dennis Hopper and others. In these works, created in the sixties until his death, through unmistakable images that mixed public life and private life, almost without distinction, Warhol succeeded in bringing the history of art, the star system and customs of the twentieth century.

Even the politics remained immune to his spectacular icons. The political assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy ends up identifying with the tragic mask of Jacqueline Kennedy, while the man who lead the largest communist empire in the world, Mao Zedong, became the subject of one of the most popular works by Warhol in the West capitalist.

A Palazzo Blu then analyzes the creative period of Warhol’s later, in which the artist still manages to surprise, on the one hand, his Eggs and Yarns assume the forms of giant abstract paintings, on the other he reinvents the mythology of America at the dawn of the eighties. In the canvas Myths (almost 3x3m in size) he joins on a single surface Superman and Mickey Mouse, Santa Claus and Dracula, the Mami of Gone with the Wind and the wicked witch of the Wizard of Oz, all icons of an imaginary collective among which the artist inserts himself as well in the role of the Shadow.

Warhol however, is still able to tell the great events of his time, as the tragedy that swept Naples with the earthquake of 1981, which depicted through the pages of newspapers, or using a simple black line that turns out to be the trace of a seismograph, and paying homage to the city, its history and its culture with the series of Vesuvius, represented here by two huge canvases, coming respectively from the Museum of Capodimonte and from a private collection, as well as other color images and drawings.

The exhibition ends with another ingenious invention of the artist born in Pittsburgh, or a wallpaper decorated with cow heads.

Info: http://clponline.it/mostre/andy-warhol-una-storia-americana

ANDY WARHOL . An American story
Pisa, Palazzo Blu (Lungarno Gambacorti 9)
12 Oct 2013 – 2 February 2014

Hours (the ticket office closes an hour earlier):
Monday – Friday 10am to 7pm
Saturday – Sunday 10am to 8pm

www.mostrawarhol.it

Full ticket including audio guide € 10
Reduced ticket includes audio guide € 8.50 (over 65, college students up to age 25, disabled)
Discounted ticket includes audio guide € 8 (Blue Card, Friends of Palazzo Blu, Giunti Card)
Free admission to children up to 10 years accompanied by family, a group leader for every group and two for each school group, people with disabilities, registered journalists, ICOM members

For information and pre-sales : http://www.midaticket.it  or Tel 050-3198830
Booking fee € 1.50

And if you are in Umbria before October 27, the small town of Città di Castello is hosting another Warhol exhibition, this time from the Rosini Gutman Collection. Over 70 pieces from 1957-1987 are being exhibited in the Pinacoteca Comunale of the Palazzo Vitelli alla Cannoniera, Via della Cannoniera 22A, Città di Castello (PG).

Hours: 10am-1pm, 2:30pm-6:30pm daily, closed on Mondays
Tickets: € 8

For more information, see www.editebro.it/mostra-andy-warhol/

“I never read. I just look at pictures…” Andy Warhol

Patricia A. Cordoba, “Sueño 168″

Patricia A. Cordoba, “MercurioII”

Patricia A. Cordoba (SACI Alumna, Spring 1998) is a Mexican-born printmaker who lives and works in Florence, Italy, and Mexico City. From 1994 to 1997, she studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston, and the Academia de Bellas Artes San Carlos in Mexico. In 1998 she came to Italy to study at SACI. In 2001, Patricia focused on printmaking at the Printshop ‘Il Bisonte’ in Florence, Italy, and currently teaches for the Sarah Lawrence College Art Program. Between 2009 – 2010 she was an invited artist at La Ceiba Grafica, a non-profit and collective self-sustainable project from creator Per Anderson, where she produced lithographs on Mexican marble.

Her work as an artist has been exhibited internationally: Suyama Space, Washington State; Galleria Tornabuoni, Pietrasanta, Italy; Museo Marino Marini, Florence, Italy; Galleria Kraczyna, Barga, Italy; Museo dela Estampa, Mexico; and the 2010 International Lithography Symposium, Tidaholm, Sweden. Patricia was invited to participate in the exhibition Mexico Mirrored in its Art, opening at the Museum of Fine Arts (Kunstmuseum) in Bern, Switzerland, where her lithograph ”Sueño 168″ will be exhibited in a presentation of works from the collection:

MEXICO MIRRORED IN ITS ART 
Prints, Independence, and Revolution

René Derouin, La muerte y la vida (Der Tod und das Leben; rechter Teil eines Diptychons), 2010, Linolschnitt, 119,7 x 99,2 cm, Kunstmuseum Bern, Schenkung der Vereinigten Mexikanischen Staaten. © René Derouin / Museo Nacional de la Estampa México / Kunstmuseum Bern.

The exhibition is showing contemporary art produced in conjunction with the 2010 project Estampas, Independencia y Revolución (Prints, Independence, and Revolution) organized by the Museo Nacional de la Estampa of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. It brings together the work of famous Mexican and international artists—among them Leonora Carrington, Helen Escobedo, Adolfo Mexiac Calderón, Mimmo Paladino, and Roberto Turnbull.

The starting point of the project was the celebrations for Mexico’s Independence bicentenary and Mexican Revolution centenary. The participating artists, who were selected and invited by an academic committee, address the subject of freedom in their works. The results are provocative, sometimes socio-political, sometimes surrealistic or abstract answers to the question of the cultural identity of the Mexican people. The sheets were printed in numerous fine-art printmaking studios across the republic in editions limited to 100. Half of the prints were distributed among Mexican institutions and the remaining donated as gifts to leading public collections all over the world.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is exhibiting the woodcuts, lithographs, and etchings together with the only piece of sculpture by the grande dame of surrealism Leonora Carrington, who died only shortly after completing it. The presentation has been subdivided thematically into the four areas of history, figuration, surrealism, and abstraction, which sets the framework for our visitors to explore Mexico’s history and its contemporary art.

Kunstmuseum Bern

Hodlerstrasse 8-12
3000 Bern 7 – Switzerland
T +41 31 328 09 44
F +41 31 328 09 55
info@kunstmuseumbern.ch

Regular opening hours
Tuesday: 10am – 9pm
Wednesday to Sunday: 10am – 5pm
Mondays: closed

Holidays
Closed on Good Friday, 1 August and 25 December
Open from 10h – 17h on other holidays.

Admission fees 
Combined Ticket CHF 24.00 /red. CHF 20.00
Children (up to 16): free

Collection CHF 7.00 /red. CHF 5.00
Children (up to 16): free

Exhibitions up to CHF 18.00 / red. CHF 14.00
Children (up to 16): free

SACI Artist Council member Paul Karasik, American cartoonist, editor, and teacher is featured in article in the November 11, 2013  The NEW YORKER Magazine in “Above & Beyond” where his cartoons have appeared for many years. On Saturday, November 9 at 11am, Paul will be one of the special guests speaking along with Paul Auster, David Mazzucchelli, and Art Spiegelman at the Comic Arts Brooklyn festival, an annual festival of comics and cartoon art. For information, see below.

Above & Beyond, The New Yorker, November 11, 2013, page 19

Discussion:  City of Glass: It Was A Phone Call That Started It

Saturday November 9th, 11am, free

The Knitting Factory, 361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the comics adaptation of Paul Auster’s novel City of Glass, Paul Auster, Paul Karasik (The New Yorker), David Mazzucchelli (Asterios Polyp), and Art Spiegelman (Maus) will come together for the first time ever to discuss the genesis of the adaptation of the book into illustrated form. The panel will be moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos.

With 20 foreign editions, this graphic novel has been cited by The Comics Journal as one of the “Top 100 Comics of the 20th Century.”  The story of how it came to be is filled with odd coincidences and connections not unlike a novel by Paul Auster, himself. Secrets about the book’s translation into comics will be deconstructed and revealed.

comicartsbrooklyn.com

SACI Florence Exhibition at Kendall College of Art & Design

Earlier this month at Kendall College of Art and Design (Grand Rapids, Michigan) students who studied abroad at SACI exhibited the artwork they made while in Florence, Italy. The SACI Florence Exhibition showed a great range of media including some techniques that are not commonly taught in some other fine art programs such as fresco painting, silkscreen (serigraphy), and batik. Other works in photography, graphic design, and painting also reflected their unique Florentine experience.

KCAD students have the opportunity to study at SACI thanks to the SACI Consortium collaboration between many US universities. KCAD students can find out more by contacting Painting Professor Margaret Vega. To find out more about Studio Art Centers International in Florence, see the website: www.saci-florence.edu

Kendall College of Art and Design
17 Fountain NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
www.kcad.edu

CELESTE PRIZE 2013, 5th EDITION

International Contemporary Arts Prize

Exhibition and awards at FIENAROLI 28 Rome, Italy

December 7-15, 2013

OPENS Saturday 7th December 2013:
Exhibition opens at 2pm
Meet & Greet with the curator
Drinks from 6pm
Awards at 7.30pm
Party with DJ set from 9pm to late

______________________________

40 international artists will be exhibiting their work in Italy at Celeste Prize 2013’s final exhibition to be held at FIENAROLI 28, a new exhibition space in Rome’s Trastevere district.

20,000 € prize-money will be awarded according to choices made in a secret vote by the finalist artists themselves and the curator of the prize, Ami Barak. Celeste Prize is an international, contemporary arts prize open to emerging and mid-career artists which has attracted more than a thousand artworks this year. Celeste Prize encourages artists working at all levels to participate, without limits of age, sex or qualification.

There are 6 prize categories: Painting & Graphics; Photography & Digital Graphics; Video & Animation; Installation, Sculpture, Live Media & Performance; Curator ‘s Prize; Visitors Prize.

Statement by Ami Barak, curator of the Celeste Prize 2013, 5^th edition:

“To take part in this type of competition and be responsible for the final selection requires a delicate positioning and represents a path full of potential pitfalls. But I was fortunate to be surrounded and supported by a group of excellent colleagues who were all on the same wavelength. This has pleased me greatly and made ​​me confident in the artistic personalities which have been selected. The shortlist in each category is instructive in at least two points: among the participants I noticed established artists of great talent, but also newcomers, emerging artists which have nothing to envy their elders, and show a gratifying and encouraging aplomb. Now I know that, whoever the winners will be, they deserve it.”

The selection of the 40 finalists and the 80 shortlisted works for the prize catalogue were made by the Selection Panel of 11 international curators and art critics and by Ami Barak. Each member of the Selection Panel has published online his or her 5 favorite works in each of the categories of the award. The 10 artists in each category whose works received a majority of votes have been admitted to the final exhibition and prize voting in Rome on 7 December.

During the opening day of the exhibition the finalist artists themselves will onsite choose the prize winners, and announcement of their choices will be made during the awards ceremony at 7.30pm on Saturday 7 December 2013.

Take a look at the 40 selected artists, the prizes, and the Selection Panel of judges.

Location: Fienaroli 28 (ex-Bibli), via dei Fienaroli 28, Trastevere district, Rome, Italy

Opening hours: Saturday 7 December 2pm > late; Every other day 3pm > 7.30pm

Celeste Network is an online network born in 2006 where artists and arts professionals from around the world share their common interests in contemporary art, encourage new projects, and promote their work in a positive and active online community of like-minded individuals.

Celeste Network has 55,000 signed-up members, each with a personal page, and more than 9,000 visitors a day.

www.celesteprize.com

RODIN: il marmo, la vita.

The monumental hall of the Caryatids of the Royal Palace in Milan is home to the most comprehensive exhibition ever organized on the marble sculptures by Auguste Rodin in an exhibition of over 60 works by the great French sculptor. The exhibition is curated by Aline Magnien, Chief curator of the heritage the Musée Rodin in Paris, in collaboration with Flavio Arens.

The illusion of flesh and sensuality is the theme around which the first section of the exhibition is developed, featuring some early works of classical style, including the famous Homme au nez cassé, rejected by the Paris Salon of 1864, a portrait tribute to the great genius of Michelangelo.

The second section offers some of the most famous sculptures by Rodin and demonstrates the maturity of his technique in which figures emerge from the snow-white stone blocks.

The poetics of the incomplete characterize the third section where it represents the triumph of the “unfinished”, the linguistic artifice reminiscent of Michelangelo, where Rodin adapts to modernity. Here are some works ranked among the most beautiful portraits by the artist, including that of Victor Hugo and another, little-known, Puvis de Chavannes, one of the most popular artists of his era.

After Milan, the exhibition will continue its journey to Rome, where it will be staged in the monumental space of the large space of the Baths of Diocletian, one of the venues of the Museo Nazionale Romano, while GNAM will present a selection of Italian sculpture from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to suggest a comparison with the sculpture of the French master.

RODIN: il marmo, la vita.

Through January 26, 2014

Palazzo Reale – Sala delle Cariatidi
Piazza Duomo, 12, Milan – ITALY

Hours: Monday 2:30-7:30pm; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday 9:30am-7:30pm; Thursday and Saturday 9:30am-10:30pm.

Tickets: € 11.00, € 9.00 reduced
Info & reservations: T 199 15 11 14 – servizi@civita.it

www.mostrarodin.it
www.comune.milano.it/palazzoreale

Audrey Flack, “Jolie Madame”, 24 x 20 in. © Audrey Flack

If you are in the vicinity of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, don’t miss an evening featuring artist, Audrey Flack, who will be giving an artist talk and later performing live bluegrass music with the History of Art Band. Jock Reynolds, Director of the Yale Art Museum, will be in conversation with Audrey Flack at 5:30 in the Yale University Art Gallery, concert to follow. Both events are open to the general public.

Audrey Flack holds a graduate degree and an honorary doctorate from Cooper Union in New York City, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (1952) from Yale University. She attended New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts where she studied the history of art. She was awarded the St. Gaudens Medal from Cooper Union, and the honorary Albert Dome professorship from Bridgeport University. She is an honorary professor at George Washington University, and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Audrey Flack, “Time to Save”, 1979. © Audrey Flack

A pioneer of Photorealism and a nationally recognized painter and sculptor, Ms. Flack’s work is in the collections of major museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art and the National Museum of Art in Canberra, Australia. She was the first photorealist painter to have work purchased by the Museum of Modern Art.

Studio Art Centers International is proud to note that Audrey Flack is on SACI’s Artists Council. Audrey Flack lives and works in New York City and Long Island.

For more information, see her website: http://www.audreyflack.com

Artist Talk: Audrey Flack

Thursday, January 23, 2014 at 5:30pm*

Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG)
1111 Chapel St., New Haven, CT
203-432-0600
artgalleryinfo@yale.edu

Audrey Flack joins director Jock Reynolds in the galleries to talk about her painting Time to Save (1979), on view in the exhibition Still Life: 1970s Photorealism.

*There will be a bus leaving from New York at 1:30pm from the Park Avenue Armory between 66th and 67th on the east side of Park Avenue and returning after the concert. For those interested, be sure to contact Yale and reserve a place. Seating is limited.

Audrey Flack (3rd from left) and the History of Art Band

Audrey Flack and the History of Art Band

Thursday, January 23, 2014 at 6:30pm

Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG)
1111 Chapel St., New Haven, CT
203-432-0600
artgalleryinfo@yale.edu

Enjoy a bluegrass concert with music by artist Audrey Flack and the History of Art Band. Preceded by a talk by Flack. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Still Life: 1970s Photorealism.

Still Life: 1970s Photorealism

August 30, 2013 – March 9, 2014

Still Life displays works from the Gallery associated with Photorealism—a movement comprising painters who took photography as their subject and sculptors who recreated the human body with surprising accuracy. A significant trend in 1970s art, Photorealism has often been described since then as a more mechanical offshoot of 1960s Pop art. However, the works in Still Life make a compelling argument that Photorealists captured life in the 1970s with a grittier honesty than has previously been acknowledged. These works have renewed relevance as the ability of photography to capture “the real” has undergone dramatic changes and continues to develop in unanticipated ways.

Exhibition is open to the public, and made possible by the Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund.

Duchamp. Re-Made in Italy

October 8, 2013 – February 9, 2014

You still have time to catch Duchamp. Re-Made in Italy through February 9 at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (GNAM) in Rome.

Marcel Duchamp, Roue de bicyclette, 1913, ready-made,126,5 cm. Roma, GNAM © Succession Marcel Duchamp, by SIAE 2013

On the occasion of the centenary of the first ready-made created by Marcel Duchamp (Bicycle Wheel, 1913), the GNAM is dedicating an exhibition to the artist who revolutionized the concept of a “work of art” in the early decades of the twentieth century. Tracing the history of the passage of Duchamp in Italy, Re-Made focuses on two important events: the exhibition in Milan at Galleria Schwarz in 1964, and the exhibition held in Rome at the Gavina space in Via Condotti in June 1965 with the installation design by Carlo Scarpa.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain , 1917, ready-made: porcelain urinal, 36x48x61cm, Roma, GNAM © Succession Marcel Duchamp, by SIAE 2013

The exhibition focuses primarily on fourteen ready-mades donated to the museum by the publisher and gallerist Arturo Schwarz in 1997.  Re-Made features organic and unconventional works, accompanied by a selection of around 100 important works and original documents, photographs and films.

Duchamp’s works are presented and accompanied with works by: Baj, Baruchello, Dangelo, Patella, Fioroni, Vaccari, and more.

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (GNAM)
Viale delle Belle Arti, 131 - Rome, ITALY
Tel. 0039 06 322981
www.gnam.beniculturali.it
s-gnam@beniculturali.it

Transportation:
Tram: 3 e 19, viale delle Belle Arti
Bus: 88 – 95 – 490 – 495, M, piazzale del Fiocco

Opening hours:
From Tuesday to Sunday 10:30am – 7:30pm
Closed on Mondays and holidays
Last admittance 45 minutes before closing time.

Admission:
10 € full + agency fees
8€ reduced + agency fees
4€ school + agency fees

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is exhibiting The Seven Last Works of Venetian artist Antonio Canova (1757-1822).

Antonio Canova, perhaps the greatest of all Neoclassical sculptors, remains famous above all for the elegant nude mythological subjects that he carved exquisitely in marble. He also worked with spiritual subject matter. With these less familiar works, a different side of Canova is revealed in an extraordinary series of full-scale plaster casts of his clay compositions, illustrating episodes from the Old and New Testaments. Such models, used as compositional studies before they were transferred into stone, were a distinctive feature of his sculptural practice. The Biblical scenes on exhibit at the MET were made in connection with a project for thirty-two low reliefs that were to adorn the Tempio Canoviano, the church he built for his home town Possagno, which later became the artist’s mausoleum. He completed only seven models before his death.

Six of the reliefs come from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, and one from the Gipsoteca in Possagno. Clearly inspired from ancient sculpture and early Renaissance masters, the reliefs are uniquely noted for the delicate linearity of the figures within ideal compositions. These are Canova’s last and most “profoundly moving masterpieces,” according to the MET. Recently restored, they are being shown for the first time in the U.S.

SACI students in Art History are able to visit some of Canova’s more well-known pieces during scholastic field trips to Rome, for example the lounging statue of Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, now at the Galleria Borghese as well as his Perseus with the Head of Medusa at the Vatican Museum.

See the Met’s website for hours and ticket information.

Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 5th Ave, New York, NY

www.metmuseum.org

Judy Chicago, “The Dinner Party” (1979)

Elizabeth A. Sackler, a Friend of SACI, created SACI the Elizabeth A. Sackler Museum Educational Trust SACI Scholarship in 2004.

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is an exhibition and education environment dedicated to feminist art—its past, present, and future. Among the most ambitious, influential, and enduring artistic movements to emerge in the late twentieth century, feminist art has played a leading role in the art world over the last forty years. Dramatically expanding the definition of art to be more inclusive in all areas, from subject matter to media, feminist art reintroduced the articulation of socially relevant issues after an era of aesthetic “formalism,” while pioneering the use of performance and audiovisual media within a fine art idiom.

The Center’s mission is to raise awareness of feminism’s cultural contributions, to educate new generations about the meaning of feminist art, to maintain a dynamic and welcoming learning environment, and to present feminism in an approachable and relevant way.

The Center’s 8,300-square-foot space encompasses a gallery devoted to The Dinner Party (1974–79) by Judy Chicago, a biographical gallery to present exhibitions highlighting the women represented in The Dinner Party, a gallery space for a regular exhibition schedule of feminist art, a computerized study area, and additional space for the presentation of related public and educational programs.The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art was established through the generosity of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation.

Brooklyn Museum

200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum

www.brooklynmuseum.org

The Armory Show

Piers 92 & 94, NYC

Hours: Thursday, March 6th – Sunday, March 9th, 12 pm to 7 pm

Info: www.thearmoryshow.com

It’s that time of year again for The Armory Show at Piers 92 & 94 in NYC and VOLTA NY in SoHo, March 6-9, 2014. If you are in the NYC area, you will find numerous related art events going on during The Armory Arts Week, March 4-9.

The Armory Show, a leading international contemporary and modern art fair and one of the most important annual art events in New York, takes place every March on Piers 92 & 94 in central Manhattan. The Armory Show is devoted to showcasing the most important artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries. In its fifteen years the fair has become an international institution, combining a selection of the world’s leading galleries with an exceptional program of arts events and exhibitions throughout New York during the celebrated Armory Arts Week. Read about The Armory Show history.

TICKETS aren’t cheap at $40 for general admission, but discounts for students/seniors/groups apply. There are usually shuttle buses offering transfers from The Armory Show to VOLTA NY, a related event of contemporary art. If you have to choose between one of these shows or the other, VOLTA NY offers a less commercial, more progressive taste of the current international art scene.

VOLTA NY

March 6–9, 2014

Public vernissage: Thursday, March 6, 6–9pm

82MERCER
Between Spring and Broome Streets - New York, NY
Hours: Friday–Saturday 10am–8pm, Sunday 10am–5pm

www.voltashow.com

VOLTA NY returns downtown to its SoHo sanctuary in the solo-artist fair’s seventh edition in New York. Across widened aisles and within more spacious booths in the Mercer Street loft, over 90 galleries from five continents mount a dynamic survey of emerging and innovative contemporary art positions, spotlighting artists from 30 nations.

Young talent arrives with formidable force in this year’s edition, with highlights including Paweł Śliwiński (Beers Contemporary, London), who echoes Neue Sachlichkeit/New Objectivity in his deeply psychological paintings; Hyon Gyon‘s lush, melted-fabric compositions of traditional Korean shamanistic imagery (Shin Gallery, New York), following her participation in the Tokyo Wonder Wall 10th Anniversary at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; monumental photography by Mohau Modisakeng (BRUNDYN+, Cape Town), featured in the inaugural Biennale International d’Art Contemporain, Fort-de-France (Martinique); and a site-specific installation by New York-based Armenian painter Anna Navasardian (Galerie Andreas Binder, Munich). Their presence is balanced by seasoned cultural purveyors, including Hungarian-Syrian artist Róza El-Hassan (INDA Gallery, Budapest), who represented Hungary in the 1997 Venice Biennale and enjoyed a major retrospective In-Between at Kunstmuseum Basel in 2012, in addition to her ongoing project Syrian Voices with activist Shadi Al Shhadeh; veteran color theorist Siri Berg (Hionas Gallery, New York), whose 1986 seminal show Black & White 1976–1981 at the American Swedish Historical Museum (Philadelphia) was recently restaged at the gallery; and renowned “urban archaeologist” Willie Cole (beta pictoris gallery/Maus Contemporary, Birmingham), whose emotive upcycled assemblages and steam-iron printmaking are subject of his two-year nationally touring career survey Complex Conversations: Willie Cole Sculptures and Wall Works.

Over 50 returning exhibitors reaffirm VOLTA NY as a platform for salient contemporary art voices. Notable galleries for 2014 include Kevin Kavanagh (Dublin), presenting a storytelling series by Sonia Shiel, current ISCP NY artist-in-residence and recipient of Ireland’s 2014 Arts Council Project Award; Laura Bulian Gallery (Milan), highlighting career Conceptualist Vyacheslav Akhunov, whose cultural investigations were featured in dOCUMENTA (13) and the 2013 Venice Biennale’s Central Asian Pavilion; Frederieke Taylor Gallery (New York), revealing environmental concerns of downtown stalwart Christy Rupp, whose seminal public art projects factored into the 2012 exhibition Come Closer: Art Around the Bowery, 1969–1989 at the New Museum; Galerie Heike Strelow (Frankfurt am Main), combining sociopolitical commentary and black humor via Florian Heinke, who curated System of Diplomatic Chaos at Kunstverein Wiesbaden last year; contemporary Bahamanian art hub Popopstudios (Nassau), spotlighting “everyday” assemblages and mixed-media works by founder John Cox; and CONNERSMITH. (Washington DC), featuring two new series in gouache and collage on contemporary social and racial politics by Zoë Charlton, who participated in The Bearden Project at the Studio Museum in Harlem, plus Wilmer Wilson IV‘s durational performance From My Paper Bag Colored Heart and related works in photography and sculpture.

Special programming at this year’s edition includes critically acclaimed artist-run podcast Bad At Sports (Chicago/New York), who engage in conversations with artists, critics, and curators within the dynamic installation and interview snuggle-fest Bedside Chats. Plus, Culture Shock (New York) returns with ULTRA VOLTA: The Spectrum of Ultra Violet, a curated environment unveiling the downtown art scene legend’s transmedia oeuvre, from film and music to Ultra Violet‘s memoir and recent baroque mirror works.

Solo projects from notable and emerging international artists advance VOLTA‘s original mandate for a tightly focused program that fosters a dynamic gaze into the current art climate and salient contemporary positions—regardless of the artist or gallery’s age. VOLTA NY complements the exciting program of art presented by its sister fair, The Armory Show, with shared VIP access, plus direct shuttles connecting both fairs.

A full list of artists and galleries, plus visiting hours and access information, can be found by visiting our website www.voltashow.com.

About VOLTA
VOLTA was founded in Basel in 2005 by dealers Kavi Gupta (Chicago), Ulrich Voges (Frankfurt) and Friedrich Loock (Berlin). The tenth edition in Basel, VOLTA10, will coincide with Basel Art Week and will be held from June 16 to 21 at Basel’s Markthalle.

Studio Art Centers International (SACI) announces the new SACI INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION AWARD 2015.

Artists of any age, students and professionals, from all over the world are invited to submit their work in any medium and theme. Works will be juried by members of the SACI Artists Council.

DEADLINE: December 15, 2014

AWARDS

FIRST PRIZE: The selected winning artist will be awarded an opportunity for a solo exhibition in the SACI Gallery at SACI’s historic Palazzo dei Cartelloni in Florence, Italy in JULY 2015. The winner’s exhibition will be featured on SACI’s website: www.saci-florence.edu, on social media outlets, and publicized to the international community, as well as to the local press.

SECOND PRIZE: A runner up will be selected according to popular vote via social media. This artist will be featured on the SACI Art Blog: saci-art.com.

APPLICATION INFORMATION

• Submission is FREE
• Send ten (10) images of a cohesive body of work to gallery@saci-florence.edu
• Email subject must read: SACI AWARD SUBMISSION
• Image formats accepted: JPG, PDF, GIF, TIFF
• Images no larger than 1000 px in any direction, no smaller than 500px
• Images must be in 72 dpi resolution
• Include your website link if applicable and your artist curriculum vitae (C.V.) in WORD or PDF format
• LIKE the SACI Fan Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SACIFlorenceArt
• One (1) approved image of your work will be added to the related SACI Fan Page photo album
• Share your photo from the SACI Fan Page album on your Facebook profile
• Invite your friends to LIKE the SACI Fan Page and LIKE your image from the page (one like = one vote)

CALENDAR

December 15, 2014              Deadline for submissions
December 15, 2014              Public online vote closes 5pm UTC+1 (Central Europe time zone)
January 30, 2015                 Award winners will be announced digitally on social media networks
July 2-30, 2015                     Solo Exhibition in the SACI Gallery, Palazzo dei Cartelloni, Florence, Italy

COMPETITION DETAILS

• There is no application fee for submitting artwork.
• Upon receipt of your submission, you will receive a confirmation email.
• Only prize winners will be notified by email.
• The First Prize winner must be able to exhibit his/her work July 2-30, 2015 and follow SACI Gallery exhibition guidelines and procedures.
• The SACI Gallery may have certain limitations to types of installation requirements.
• SACI offers an exhibition reception open to the public, digital publicity, and press coverage.
• SACI is a non-profit organization and does not commercialize or sell artwork. Any potential sales of artwork must be handled by the artist; SACI does not take any commission fee.
• The First Prize winner is not required to be present for the exhibition, however 2-way shipping/delivery of artwork is the full responsibility of the artist.
• SACI is not responsible for any costs related to shipment/delivery of work, international customs fees, travel expenses, accommodation, artwork framing, printing, or insurance. Artwork must be “ready to display.”

TERMS & CONDITIONS

• The subject matter and medium is open to discretion of each artist, however, submissions of potentially offensive nature in any way relating to ethnicity, religion, sexuality, disability, or similar will not be considered.
• SACI reserves the right to confirm the Jury’s final decision, and to moderate and verify the final public vote to determine prize winners.
• Participation in the competition implies acceptance and delegation to SACI to promote and publish the projects sent, in the most appropriate and convenient forms, both by printing and by publishing them on the Internet.

Ownership of submissions: The projects submitted to the Jury will remain the property of the artists; any wish to use the projects will be explicitly communicated first to the artist(s) for permission and with credit.

Applicants warrant that the entry submission is the original work of the artist and, as such, the artist is the sole and exclusive owner and rights holder of the submitted work, and that the party submitting has the right to submit the work for exhibition and grant all required licenses. Each entrant agrees not to submit any entry that (1) infringes any third party’s proprietary rights, intellectual property rights, industrial property rights, personal or moral rights or any other rights, including without limitation, copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, privacy, publicity, or confidentiality obligations; and (2) otherwise violates the applicable state, federal, provincial, or local law.

Acceptance of the Competition Rules: Participation in the competition presupposes complete acceptance of these rules and likewise implies unreserved consent for personal data to be held and used in accordance with prevailing “privacy” laws.

For more information, see the SACI website: www.saci-florence.edu
For inquiries, contact the SACI Gallery: gallery@saci-florence.edu

SACI – Palazzo dei Cartelloni
Via Sant’Antonino, 11 – Florence, ITALY
www.saci-florence.edu

T (+39) 055 289948 │ F (+39) 055 2776408

Frida Kahlo

The Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome is hosting a magnificent exhibition on the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), a symbol of the artistic avant-garde and of the exuberance of Mexican culture in the 20th century:

“The legend which has grown up around the life and work of Frida Kahlo has reached global proportions; the unquestioned icon of 20th century Mexican culture and the seductive subject of a Hollywood movie, Frida Kahlo’s contribution to contemporary culture comprises one of the most inextricable tangles of art and life of the whole of the 20th century. Yet her paintings do not merely mirror her life, severely marked as it was by the physical and psychological injuries that she suffered in the terrible accident in which she was involved at the age of seventeen.  Her art is fused with the history and spirit of her contemporary world, reflecting the social and cultural transformations that led up to the Mexican Revolution and ensued in its wake.

It was precisely the revolutionary spirit that prompted her to reassess the country’s native past and traditions, which she considered to be irrepressible identity codes, generating an unprecedented fusion between self-expression and the language, the imagination, the colors and the symbols of Mexican popular culture. At the same time, Frida is an expression of the artistic avant-garde and the cultural exuberance of her time, and a study of her work allows us to intercept the trajectories of all the most important international cultural movements that criss-crossed the Mexico of her day, from Revolutionary Pauperism to Stridentism and from Surrealism to what was become known decades later as Magical Realism.  

Frida Kahlo, “La novia cue se espanta de ver la vida abierta,” 1943 (The Vergel Foundation, Mexico City)

The exhibition sets out to gather around a corpus of her work a selection of absolute masterpieces from major collections, key works belonging to other public and private collections in Mexico, the United States and Europe. The project is completed by a selection of photographs portraying the artist, including those take by Nickolas Murray in the 1940s, a crucial and intriguing complement to Frida Kahlo’s art in terms of her iconographic codification. This, because while the exhibition sets out to present and explore the development of Frida Kahlo’s artistic career from beginnings that still owe a debt to New Objectivity and to Magical Realism to her revival of traditional and ancestral art, and from the echos of American Realism in the 1920s and ’30s (Edward Hopper, Charles Sheeler, Georgia O’Keefe) to the ideological and political aspects inspired by Mexican muralism (Rivera, Orozco), the predominant theme in the exhibition is self-depiction, both in terms of the numerically important role that the “self-portrait” genre plays in her overall output and, above all, in terms of the unique significance that it has acquired in the transmission of the iconographical, psychological and cultural values that have shaped the “legend of Frida”.

Both the exhibition and the catalog are designed and curated by Helga Prignitz-Poda, a distinguished expert in the life and career of Frida Kahlo and the co-author, together with Salomon Grimberg and Andrea Kettenmann, of the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work published in 1988.” (Source)

FRIDA KAHLO

Exhibition Curated by Helga Prignitz-Poda

20 March - 31 August 2014

Scuderie del Quirinale
Via XXIV Maggio 16, Rome – ITALY

TICKETS:
Full price € 12.00
Reduced price € 9.50

Information and booking
T. +39 06 39967500 / 06 39967200
info.sdq@palaexpo.it
http://english.scuderiequirinale.it/categorie/exhibition-frida-kahlo

Etruscan Seduction

The MAEC (Museum of the Etruscan Academy and of the City of Cortona) presents Seduzione Etrusca: dai segreti di Holkham Hall alle meraviglie del British Museum (Etruscan Seduction: From the Secrets of Holkham Hall to the Marvels of the British Museum). The exhibition attempts to construct through paintings, drawings, archaeological artifacts, documents and other objects, the birth of Etruscan studies in the 1700’s.

Cortona

At the center of the exhibition is the British passion for the Etruscan civilization, well represented by Lord Thomas Coke, founder of Holkham Hall and avid collector and financier in 1726 of De Etruria Regali Libri VII by Thomas Dempster. This volume, with its more than 90 images of Etruscan works, spurred interest and research into the Etruscan culture and the formation of the Etruscan Academy in Cortona.

A very special exhibition opportunity has been arranged for SACI’s first MFA students in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della città di Cortona (MAEC), which will feature artifacts from Holckam Hall and the British Museum. SACI’s MFA students will work on a multimedia project entitled Within Alterity: Encounters with a Population, a Collection, a Territory. The project will be based on their engagement with the museum and its Etruscan collection, the people of Cortona, and the surrounding region where many Etruscan sites are located. It will culminate in an exhibition of the MFA students’ artworks, inspired by their exposure to Etruscan culture, which will be held at MAEC throughout the spring and summer and sponsored by the US Consulate in Florence. This opportunity was made possible through the efforts of MFA instructors Karen Yurkovich and Daria Filardo and by the support of MAEC Director Paolo Giulierini. Stay informed from the SACI Art Blog about the SACI MFA student exhibition opening on April 24, 2014.

“. . . as inseparable as life and death, even now, on the sunny, green-filled April morning with the breeze blowing in from the sea. And the land beyond seems as mysterious and fresh as if were still the morning of Time.” David Herbert Lawrence

Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona (MAEC)
Piazza Signorelli 9, Cortona (AR) – ITAY
T. 0575 630415 – 637235

How to get there

Tickets & Reservations
General € 12
Reduced € 9 (group, families, etc.)

Combined ticket: MAEC+MUSEO DIOCESANO
General €13
Reduced € 9

SACI’s Head of Conservation program, Dr. Roberta Lapucci speaks at Bowling Green State University on March 22, 2014

Current and prospective art students will want to be on hand for the upcoming ARTalk entitled Where Next?: The Future of Art (School/Work/World), and attend the opening of the BGSU BFA Senior Thesis exhibition on March 22. The Bowling Green State University School of Art will host three art educators and professionals discussing future possibilities for art students at 4 p.m. in room 204 of the Fine Arts Center as a prelude to the exhibition opening reception that evening.

The speakers include Dr. Georgia Strange, a professor and former director of the Lamarr Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, Dr. Roberta Lapucci, the Head of Conservation program at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy and Brett Shaheen, the owner of Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art in Cleveland, Ohio.

Guests will be able to take part in a question and answer session with all of the speakers.

Following the ARTalk, will be the opening reception for the annual BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition – the premier opportunity for BFA students to share the work they’ve produced while studying at BGSU. This year’s installment will feature multiple works in a wide variety of media from 63 student artists.

The opening reception will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a screening of animations and videos by digital arts students in room 204 of the Fine Arts Center, followed by the exhibition viewing in the galleries. The awards ceremony will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery.

The opening reception will be the first opportunity to see the show, and the many awards, including four new ones being presented. The newest awards include the Medici Circle Cup Best of BFA Show Award, two awards sponsored by Tom and Jane Vanden Eynden for Art Education and Photography students, and the Mark Borsz Memorial Scholarship.

The exhibition will run from March 22 – April 6 in the Dorothy Uber Bryan and Willard Wankelman Galleries at BGSU.

MARCH 22, 2014
ARTalks
Where Next?: The Future of Art (School/Work/World)
Leading art educators and professionals discuss the futures facing our graduating students
FAC 204, 4-5:30 p.m.

MARCH 22 – APRIL 6
BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition
Dorothy Uber Bryan & Willard Wankelman Galleries
Opening Reception: March 22, 6:30-9 p.m.
The final show for students graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is a juried selection of art in all media that showcases a cohesive and accomplished body of work by each of these talented young artists.

SATURDAY, MARCH 22 OPENING RECEPTION (6:30pm)
4:00-5:30pm – ARTalks Where Next?: The Future of Art (School/Work/World) Leading art educators and professionals discuss futures facing graduates 204 FAC
6:30pm – Video/Animation Screening 204 FAC
7-8:30pm – SOA Opening Reception, Bryan and Wankelman Galleries
8pm – Awards Presentation

New work by Karen Graffeo

University of Montevallo art professor Karen Graffeo wins $7,500 grand prize in 2014 Energen Art Competition

Karen Graffeo, a University of Montevallo Associate Professor of Art and Fulbright scholar who lives in Birmingham, Alabama, has been awarded the grand prize in Energen’s 15th annual art competition. Graffeo receives $7,500 for She Flew West, chosen over 192 entries in the juried competition.

In all, 251 artists competed for prizes. Proceeds from artists’ entry fees and an Energen contribution will go to Red Mountain Theatre Company. The free exhibition will be open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Energen Plaza, 605 Richard Arrington, Jr. Blvd. North in Birmingham.

Graffeo has previously exhibited her photographic work twice in the SACI Gallery: Let Us Now Praise the Rom and RE:re:fwd:forward.

Her works also will be featured in an exhibition titled 3000 Dreams Explained, to be held March 23 – May 9 at the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art in Tuscumbia.

Included in the exhibition will be 20 large-scale, mixed media photographic drawings on paper, metal and silk, and photographs of the sky and water, all inspired by a crumbling, discarded book of the same title, found by the artist in a market. This book of dreams became a kind of journal and experiment in language and imagery for Graffeo during her 2013 Fulbright Fellowship in Romania. Several pieces are photographs of specific pages from the book, whose words inspired drawings – drawings which Graffeo intends to be personal hieroglyphics or visual shorthand of her own dreams and daily experiences.

The Tennessee Valley Museum of Art is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 3 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students. Group rates are available, and Sundays are free.

For additional information, contact the Tennessee Valley Art Association (TVAA) at 256-383-0533 or at http://www.tvaa.net.

Karen Graffeo

Social dialogue and cultural policies in the post-communist context

SACI Digital Multimedia instructor, Dejan Atanackovic, participated in a conference and exhibition (through March 30, 2014) in Tirania, Albania, together with political and intellectual figure, Fatos Lubonja and artist, Ardian Isufi. Dejan’s work, German Lessons, has previously been presented in Belgrade, Florence, and Trieste, and now with a new video element.

Dejan Atanackovic, “German Lessons” installation

According to Dejan, “Tirana is an environment of extraordinary vitality, with a lot of heavy problems, but a very interesting place. It is a unique thing to have an exchange relationship with such an environment. It is ‘opposite’ from Florence [Italy] in many ways, but for this it helps to understand the world in a rather substantial way as an artist.”

These are some still images captured by Dejan from around Tirana:

Dejan Atanackovic (Tirana, 2014)

Dejan Atanackovic (Tirana, 2014)

Dejan Atanackovic (Tirana, 2014)

Dejan Atanackovic (Tirana, 2014)

Dejan Atanackovic (Tirana, 2014)

Dejan Atanackovic (Tirana, 2014)