All Art Friday
Writers Talk at the Courtauld Gallery
In October, six writers — Ali Smith, Amit Chaudhuri, Ruth Padel, Andrew Motion, Michael Morpugo, and Margaret Drabble — took up an invitation to select from the permanent collection of The Courtauld Gallery in London a painting that moves, engages, or challenges them and to offer their personal reflections on the piece chosen.
In the first of two-program series hosted by Somerset House writer-in-residence Romesh Gunesekera, Smith spoke about Cezanne's The Etang des Soeurs, Osny, near Pontoise; Chaudhuri talked about Renoir's La Loge; and Padel reflected on Bruegel the Elder's Landscape With the Flight into Egypt. In the second program, Motion discussed Rousseau's The Toll Gate; Morpurgo examined Cezanne's Montagne Sainte-Victoire; and Drabble addressed van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.
The writers' talks were recorded and are available as audio slideshows on The Guardian. Margaret Drabble's, Ali Smith's, and Andrew Motion's reflections are here, here, and here respectively. Michael Morpugo's talk is here. Check here for Ruth Padel's reflections and here for Amit Chaudhuri's. Podcasts subsequently will be posted on the Somerset House site.
Previously, writer Ruth Padel was writer-in-residence at Somerset House and also undertook a "Picture This" series. Downloadable podcasts of that series' talks by writers Philip Pullman (Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere), Julia Neuberer (Pissarro's Lordship Lane Station), Colm Toibin (Cezanne's Route Tournante), Gillian Beer (Vanessa Bell's Conversation), Hisham Matar (Cranach's Adam and Eve), and Jackie Kay (Degas' Woman at a Window and Lady with a Parasol) are available here, along with links to audio slideshows of the talks via The Guardian.
These writers' reflections on art are well worth the few minutes required for listening time. Don't miss them!
The Courtauld Gallery Online Learning Programs
Romesh Gunesekera's Somerset House Blog
Art Exchanged for Health Care
As this BusinessWeek article makes clear, most artists do not have health care. In upstate New York, a group of artists is collaborating with physicians to change that, by exchanging art for medical services via the "O+ Festival". Read on to learn more about the bartering project and its potential (or not) for replication elsewhere.
Art Exchanged for Health Care
As this BusinessWeek article makes clear, most artists do not have health care. In upstate New York, a group of artists is collaborating with physicians to change that, by exchanging art for medical services via the "O+ Festival". Read on to learn more about the bartering project and its potential (or not) for replication elsewhere.
Artwork Consignment Program
Architect Frank Gehry, painters Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha, Tony Berlant, and Charles Arnoldi and sculptors Ken Price and Guy Dill are among artists displaying work through the "Keep Memory Alive" Art Consignment Program at Cleveland Clinic's Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas, Nevada. Proceeds from sales of the artworks, which range from $400 to $150,000, support clinic initiatives to promote awareness of and fund research for prevention, early detection, and treatment of neurocognitive and neurodegenerative disorders, including ALS, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's and Parkinson's diseases.
James Rosenquist is the most recent artist to donate a work to the center, which was designed by Gehry. Rosenquist's painting Cervello Spazio Cosmico ("Brain Space"), 20' x 10' and a gift from real estate developer and art collector Steve Wynn, who commissioned it, was unveiled November 20; it will hang permanently in the Events Center. Peter Alexander's sculpture Glass Pyramid was the first such donation.
A catalogue of paintings, sculptures, and other works of art available through the consignment program is here. E-mail inquiries may be directed to info@keepmemoryalive.org/ .
For an article about Las Vegas businessman Larry Ruvo, who established the Keep Memory Alive organization, see "Pioneering Brain Health in Las Vegas" (Cleveland Clinic Magazine, Summer 2010).
Keep Memory Alive on FaceBook
United States Artists To Announce Grant Recipients
A national grant-making and artist-advocacy organization, United States Artists launched in 2005 with $22 million in funding from the Ford, Rockefeller, Prudential, and Rasmuson foundations. The seed money enabled the organization to initiate USA Fellows, which awards annually to 50 artists unrestricted $50,000 grants. On December 7, USA Fellows will announce in New York City its grant recipients for 2010. This year's applications came in from 301 nominated artists representing 46 states and a wide range of disciplines, including architecture and design, craft, dance, literature, music, visual arts, theatre arts, and media. (More than 80 percent of artists awarded grants create original works or projects.) The USA Fellows nomination and selection process is described here.
USA also operates in association with Rasmuson Foundation a fully funded annual residency program in Alaskan cultural institutions, Alaska AIR, which is open only to USA Fellows.
USA on FaceBook
Keep Memory Alive on FaceBook
United States Artists To Announce Grant Recipients
A national grant-making and artist-advocacy organization, United States Artists launched in 2005 with $22 million in funding from the Ford, Rockefeller, Prudential, and Rasmuson foundations. The seed money enabled the organization to initiate USA Fellows, which awards annually to 50 artists unrestricted $50,000 grants. On December 7, USA Fellows will announce in New York City its grant recipients for 2010. This year's applications came in from 301 nominated artists representing 46 states and a wide range of disciplines, including architecture and design, craft, dance, literature, music, visual arts, theatre arts, and media. (More than 80 percent of artists awarded grants create original works or projects.) The USA Fellows nomination and selection process is described here.
USA also operates in association with Rasmuson Foundation a fully funded annual residency program in Alaskan cultural institutions, Alaska AIR, which is open only to USA Fellows.
USA on FaceBook
Exhibitions Here and There
✭ In Baltimore, Maryland, one of my favorite museums, American Visionary Art Museum, is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a year-long exhibition, "What Makes Us Smile?" The show, on view through September 4, 2011, includes work by Patty Kuzbida, John Callahan, John Root Hopkins, Chris Roberts-Antieau, Robert Gilkerson, Carlos Zapata, John Waters, Pedro Bell, Reverend Aitor, Nadya Volicer, and Tom Wilborn. The show is co-curated by Matt Groening, creator of "The Simpsons", artist Gary Panter (think Pee-Wee Herman's Playhouse), and AVAM founder Rebecca Hoffberger.
In addition to the artworks, toy assemblages, costumes, cartoons, and "out-loud & 3-D glee-filled surprises" round out the exhibition and commentary on the history and science of laughter. Separate mini galleries — "Ho-Ho-Ho Ha-Ha-Hanukkah", "More Tickle!", "Toot Suite!", "Holy Laughter!", "Tears to Laughter", "Boo! Why Playing Monster Is Fun", and the "Visionary Kid's Room" — offer experiential pleasures.
Patty Kuzbida, What Me Worry? Bed, 2010, Collection of the Artist
Glass Beads, Fake Jewelry, Beetle Wings on Bed Frame
A five-minute PBS Art Beat video highlighting AVAM and its exhibition is here.
AVAM on FaceBook and Twitter
Baltimore City Paper Feature on Exhibition
✭ New York City's Museum of Arts and Design has mounted "What is African? The Global Africa Project", on view through May 15, 2011. The show comprises contemporary African art, design, and craft by more than 100 artists working in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the United States and the Caribbean and encompasses ceramics, basketry, textiles, jewelry, furniture, fashion, and selective examples of photography, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Among the exhibiting artists are Victor Ekpuk, Sheila Bridges, Sonya Clark, Mary A Jackson, and Magdalene Odundo. Images of selected works are available here.
Vidtor Ekpuk, All Fingers Are Not Equal, 2008
Acrylic on Pigment, 43-5/16 x 51-3/16 inches
MAD Blog
✭ Notions of modernity and femininity and women's roles in Georgian England are examined in "Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman" at Cincinnati Art Museum. The show, on view through January 2, 2011, features Gainsborough's portrait paintings of women, including the newly restored Ann Ford (later Mrs. Philip Thicknesse), an oil on canvas dating to 1760. The exhibition will travel next year to the San Diego Museum of Art, where it's scheduled to open on January 29; an installation there of 18th Century dresses will complement the show of master paintings.
✭ Richard Gray Gallery in New York City is exhibiting "Roy Lichtenstein: Modern Paintings" through December 11. Organized with the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and drawn from private and public collections, including those of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the show includes more than 60 paintings executed in 1967, as well as accompanying drawings. The gallery also has published the first scholarly catalogue of the works in the exhibition. Eleven images are available online, beginning here.
✭ Japanese woodblock prints are the focus of "Dreams & Diversions" at the San Diego Museum of Art and University of San Diego. The exhibition, continuing through June 5, 2011, comprises exemplary examples of the Japanese prints in the museum's collection, spanning the history of Ukiyo-e. The prints, including important work by Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige are arranged thematically and chronologically.
Library of Congress Ukiyo-e Exhibition, "The Floating World of Ukiyo-e" (This site is well worth visiting.)
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6 comments:
It never ceases to amaze me how you find and reveal such Friday wonders every week.
thank you!
I am grateful.
Maureen ... thanks! I've got a trip to Las Vegas planned for next April and, as an avid Gehry fan, plan to see the Cleveland Clinic. It's great to know about their art program.
Also just discovered AVAM ... what fun. Wish Baltimore were closer.
Joyce, AVAM is one of my favorite places to visit. If you ever get out this way, I'll plan to take you there.
My girlies are at MOMA today (without Mama :)
ooh ooh i love the all fingers are not equal hand!!!
yowza
I feel like I dialed into a special cable art channel, Mo! What an abundance of beautiful things your mind and heart must be filled with. I read this post with classical music as the soundtrack and your soft voice as narration. ;) It was wonderful to get your TG visit and I hope you're enjoying leftovers as I was happy to do so as well!
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