Friday, April 1, 2011

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ Recently, the New York Times Lens blog highlighted the work of photographer Jan Staller (go here to read the post). Staller has exhibited in a number of solo and group shows, is in museum and private collections, and is featured in monographs and color photography books, as well as many magazines and arts-related periodicals. His own books include On Planet Earth (Aperture Foundation, 1997) and Frontier New York (Hudson Hills Press, 1988). He's an extraordinary photographer. Take some time to view his recent and earlier images and then take a look at his projects titled "Sims Recycling", "Fence Drawings", and "Flushing Queens"; you'll never again see quite the same way the found objects and industrial detritus Staller captures in his lens.

✦ Painter Jerry Shawback and poet Renee Sigel upset any tired notions about art's call to poetry, and vice versa, with their marvelous collaborative project The Shawback Redemptions. Jerry achieves in his drawings and sketches, which he does independently of Renee's poetry writing, an unexpected depth of emotion, intimacy, and intensity. Renee's poems reveal her profoundly intuitive skill with words and meaning combined with great lyricism. Among my favorites are "rouges" and "linens of caravaggio". A series of curated exhibitions and a book are planned. I look forward to both.

✦ Artists are collaborating globally to raise relief funds for Japan as the island nation continues efforts to recover from the massive 9.0 earthquake and follow-on tsumani of March 11 (see Japan Quake Map). Among the most recent initiatives are Artists 4 Japan and, on flickr, Charity Print Auctions—Japan, where photographs are being auctioned. Other initiatives are featured in this Huffington Post article, "Artists and Galleries Around the World Band Together to Send Japan Earthquake Relief". Also see: Artists Help Japan blog, which also has a page on FaceBook; and the article "Artists Reach Out to Japan" on inspiredology, where you'll find original posters and other artwork that is being donated for fundraising.

Exhibitions Here and There

★ Award-winning illustrator and book designer Barry Moser is the subject of "Barry Moser: Bookwright" at Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. On view until May 22, the exhibit features a selection of Moser's superb wood engravings, watercolors, and limited-edition books from his Pennyroyal Press. Moser's publications number close to 150 titles.

Among Moser's newest releases are Portraits, a portfolio of wood and relief engravings of 161 artists, architects, writers, composers, friends, and family members, with a foreword by Ann Patchett; and Ashen Sky, commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum. Don't miss The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, the King James version designed and illustrated by Moser.

Image Above to Left: Barry Moser, Self-Portrait with Burin (2nd State), ca. 1987, Wood Engraving on Paper, Collection of Brandywine River Museum, Gift of Justin Schiller, 1989

Moser will be leading a workshop in life drawing at this year's Glen Workshop West, July 31 - August 7, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 


David R. Godine Publisher and Godine Blog (Godine has published a number of Moser's works, including One Hundred Portraits.)

Brandywine River Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

James Sullivan, "Moser's Lifework Thrives in Books", The Boston Globe, March 20, 2011

★ Washington, D.C., favorite Sam Gilliam opens April 2 in "Sam Gilliam: Close to Trees" at the Katzen Arts Center at American University. For this show, on view until August 14, Gilliam re-imagines 8,000 square feet of third-floor gallery space. 

Katzen on FaceBook

Art at the Katzen Blog

The Katzen also is participating in "BRAVOS: Groundbreaking Spanish Design", which is part of the program "Spain Arts & Culture 2011". Opening April 2, this exhibition features 21 young designers from Spain, including Curro Claret, Jaime Hanyon, Patricia Urquiola, Martin Azua, Marti Guixe, and Antoni Arola. The show, on view until May 15, is curated by Juli Capella (video here), produced by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, and co-organized by the Embassy of Spain and American University Museum at the Katzen.


Spain Arts & Culture on FaceBook and Twitter

★ Chicago's National Veterans Art Museum is showing through May "Intrusive Thoughts", an important exhibition of 37 works by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the Global War on Terror, who, through art, give voice to "unwelcome involuntary thoughts, images, or unpleasant ideas. . . that can be difficult to manage or eliminate. . . silent signs of our current occupations in our local communities, households, and memories." According to a press release about the show, the artists' work addresses the issues of reintegration following combat experience during military service, media depictions of military action, the role of political resistance, women in combat, military occupation, the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy toward homosexuality of military service members, and historical conflict in the Middle East.  

The artists whose work is featured in the show are Jeremy Stainthorp Berggren, Erica Slone, members of the Combat Paper Project, Peter Sullivan, Jacob Flom, Jon Turner, Ash Kyrie, Chris Vongsawat, Leonard Shelton, Joyce Wagner, and members of the Warriors Writers Project.

Writing Without Paper 2009 Post on Combat Paper

National Veterans Art Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

Also on show at NVAM: "The Things They Carried", an exhibition of art and artifacts inspired by Tim O'Brien's novel of the same name. Images from work in the traveling exhibition are here.

Immediately below is a "walkthough tour" of "Intrustive Thoughts"; it includes brief moments with some of the veterans speaking about their work.


★  In Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum celebrates art collecting locally in "Riches of a City: Portland Collects". On view through May 22, the exhibit includes 200 selections of photography, drawings, prints, silver, Asian and European Art, and modern and contemporary art culled from private holdings of Portland's citizens.

Portland Art Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

Haitian Art Auction and Sale

The Vassar Haiti Project will hold its annual live art auction and sale April 8-10 at the College Center at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. More than 350 paintings, as well as a selection of handcrafts, hand-painted silk scarves, sequined flags, and iron sculpture, will be offered. Proceeds will fund four initiatives in Chermaitre, a remote mountain village approximately 100 miles northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince: education of 350 children in the village's primary school, improved access and purification of the water supply, reforestation of barren hillsides, and a monthly health clinic. 

Absentee and  telephone bids may be placed for items in the live auction. The auction will feature a selection of 40 items, including 35 paintings. View the auction catalogue.

Art by category (people, animals, still lifes, estate paintings, etc.) may be accessed here.

A collaborative volunteer effort of Vassar students, faculty, staff, and community members, the Vassar Haiti Project is celebrating 10 years of support of Haitian artists and artisans and the delivery of vital educational, health, and sustainable development services to Chermaitre.

Untitled from andrew meade on Vimeo.

REMEMBER HAITI!

1 comment:

S. Etole said...

Thoroughly enjoyed the Shawback/Sigel
works.