All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ August 21 marked the centennial of the extraordinary theft of the Mona Lisa, which is the subject of the film The Missing Piece by Joseph Medeiros. The writer-director has been fascinated by the story for decades and has run down unlikely thief Vincenzo Perrugia and documented the hitherto unknown motive for the audacious art robbery. Here's the trailer for the indie documentary (a longer version is here):

The Missing Piece Blog

The Missing Piece on FaceBook and Twitter

Minute-by-Minute Account of Theft

Noah Charney, "100th Anniversary of the Mona List Theft", ArtInfo, August 19, 2011 (Art historian Charney has published a new book, The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: On Stealing the World's Most Famous Painting (ARCA Publications).) Also see Chaney's excellent ArtInfo series "Meeting Mona Lisa", Parts I, II, and III.

Ashton Cooper, "Mona Lisa Madness: 3 Unusual Ways to Celebrate the Anniversary of the Painting's Theft", ArtInfo, August 22, 2011

✦ Ann Martin, who showcases the finest paper art at her wonderful All Things Paper blog recently visited Vermont's Shelburne Museum to see its "Paperwork in 3D" exhibit and shared images of some of the great work there. (See Part 1 and Part 2.) In her second feature on the exhibit, Ann introduced readers to Emma Hardy's installation Packages (2010) and included a video (see below) of the marvelous and moving paper-and-wood sculptures. Thank you, Ann! 

Hardy, who lives in Colorado, has received many grants and commissions and her The Mad Hatter's Tea Party has been exhibited nationally. Although her media are wide-ranging, Hardy indicates that her preferred medium is paper tape. 

The museum show is on view through October 30.

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ I last wrote about Colorado-based artist Trine Bumiller in this post. Currently, Bumiller is showing, through October 8, at New York City's Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, where her new series, "Slipstream", comprises a dozen sets of beautifully conceived multi-paneled paintings in which abstract impressions of nature — trees, water, stones, stars — evoke a continually changing landscape of patterns also meant to suggest the patterns and rhythms of our own lives. She gives them such names as Inchoate, Center of Gravity, Downshift, and Forget Me Not.

Trine Bumiller, Floodplain, 2011

Oil on Panel, 5 Parts, 36" x 84"

Image Courtesy of Artist

© Trine Bumiller

The paintings show off to beautiful effect Bumiller's glazing technique in which she applies daily a layer of paint that then is allowed a day to dry before the time-intensive process is repeated; each work may have as many as 50 transparent layers, the colors building up over to give the work form and depth. Works in the series range from two panels to nine. 

Of her series, Bumiller says, "Our lives are real but our memories are shaped by who we are, what we think and what we experience. The landscape stays the same, but doesn't, based on natural disasters, environmental issues, human interactive, growth and decay. . . My paintings are about finding meaning beyond the visible world."

The show at Kathryn Markel is Bumiller's third solo exhibition with the gallery. Bumiller regularly exhibits in Chicago and in Colorado, as well as in New York City.

Trine Bumiller, Rare Earth, 2011 

Oil on Canvas, 5 Parts, 36" x 72"

Image Courtesy of Artist

© Trine Bumiller

Trine Bumiller, Sea Change, 2011

Oil on Panel, 6 Parts, 36" x 84"

Image Courtesy of Artist

© Trine Bumiller

See the full series here. (My thanks to Trine for sharing her images with me.)

✭ Santa Fe's Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art is showing through October 15 "John Geldersma - Black Wings". Geldersma, a widely exhibited sculptor, works with wood, including aspen, pecan, pine, and sycamore, which he carves into totems (also known as "Spirit Poles"), cairns, tablets, and other forms and then ornaments with geometrics in sign paint. His seemingly minimal pieces have the feel of Native American and African art that evokes both the spiritual and the ritualistic. It is quite commanding in its own way, as you'll note if you visit his site.

✭ In Cannon Beach, Oregon, White Bird Gallery is exhibiting through September 30 new oil paintings by Ken Grant. Grant is a native of Oregon who has worked in interior design/display, advertising, and book and magazine illustration. A book of his drawings, The Nude (available through re-sellers), was published in 1982. I find his interiors, which often are empty of objects other than a single chair, particularly atmospheric; he also paints still lifes, figures, and surrealistic images

✭ Washington, D.C.'s American University Museum at the Katzen is presenting "Re-viewing Documentary: The Photographic Life of Louise Rosskam" through December 14. The retrospective highlights Rosskam's photographs of D.C.'s southwest neighborhoods and images of Puerto Rico. A catalogue accompanies the show.

Louise Rosskam, Shulman's Market, 1941-42
N and Union Street, S.W., Washington, D.C.
4"x5" Kodachrome Transparency
(Click to enlarge and note Axis leader posters in window.*)

* This image is in the collections of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs (Additional images at Flickr.)

Exhibition Factsheet (pdf)

A Life in Photography: Louise Rosskam, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Butler Films

Louise Rosskam (1910 - 2003) at Shorpy Historic Photo Archive

Also on exhibit through December 14: "Wayne Barrar: An Expanding Subterra" (photography); "Gifts of Duncan Phillips", which include paintings by Milton Avery and John Marin (this show is in conjunction with "90 Years of New" at The Phillips Collection); a sculpture-sound installation, "Seismic Dream" by sculptor Pattie Porter Firestone and composer Barbara Buchanan; "Bruce Conner: An Anonymous Memorial", commemorating 9/11; and "Inner Piece: Works from the Collection of Heather and Tony Podesta", featuring multiple works by Pilar Albarracin, Clare Langan, Laurel Nakadate, Julie Roberts, and Saskia Olde Wolbers. 

✭ Also in Santa Fe, the Jane Sauer Gallery, which I try to visit any time I get to New Mexico, just opened "Chuck Savoie: Pattern and Light", which will be on view through October 11. Renowned for his Venetian cup-making, Savoie makes his exquisite glass work from scratch, using raw material such as sand and relying on modified 17th Century Venetian and bohemian formulas.

Savoie Glass

Jane Sauer Gallery on FaceBook

Jane Saur Blog

Online: "Green the color and the cause"

The Textile Museum's exhibit "green the color and the cause" closed September 11 but you can still access the site for the show here, and browse by theme (color, nature, global choices, interconnectedness, repurposing, sustainability, adaptation) or artists, of which there are 36, including Alabama Chanin, the late James Koehler, and Carol LeBaron.

Also see Susan Stamberg's "Celebrating Green: As Color, As Concept, As Cause" at NPR.