All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ Lebanon-born Huguette Caland (b. 1931), who lives in Venice, California, is a renowned painter and sculptor.  Since first taking up a brush at age 16, Caland has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Her paintings, comprising acrylic and pen on canvas, and her mixed media work are exceptional for their color, evocative quilt-like or embroidered design (the paintings have the appearance of tapestry or fabric), and visual intricacy; they seem to explode off the canvas. Her work on linen is gorgeous and richly associative. Her abstracted figurative sculptures invite numerous looks. Caland is the subject of a retrospective this month in Beirut. (My thanks to Art of the Mid East, where I first learned of Caland's work.)

Anne-Marie O'Connor, "Her Magical World", LA Times, June 19, 2003 (To describe Caland's life as "interesting" — she is the only daughter of the first president of Lebanon — would be a great understatement.) Also see Joanne Warfield's article "Byzantium in Venice: A Visit with Hugette Caland".

Huguette Caland at Peter Findlay Gallery, New York City

In this 2009 video, Caland talks about her approach to her work and life while giving a tour of her home:

✦ The Historical Publications section of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (part of the Smithsonian Institutions), features more than 25 titles about the museum's collections. Published between 1978 and 1987, the documents are free online. Also available are more than 50 titles dating from 1896 to 1968, including past museum exhibitions. A sampling of titles indicates a wide range of subjects, from embroidered samplers and buttons in the collections to theatre designs, architectural drawings, and rare books.

✦ Japanese artist Keita Sagaki likes to scribble and doodle. You'll need to step up close to see what he makes of the relationship of whole to parts. (My thanks to Paper Darts for the link.)

✦ Abstract photography of UK-based Mitch Payne is a highlight of Visual Exploration of the Periodic Table Families.

Mitch Payne Blog

✦ There's much to praise in the work of award-winning freelance illustrator and graphic designer Allegra Lockstadt. I especially like Lockstadt's Hand Gestures, part of her wonderful Posture Perfect series of drawings whose source is women in the fashion industry. See more of Lockstadt's work in the Featured Artist section of Paper Darts (November 2012).

Yeah Okay Sure, Lockstadt's Drawing/Process Blog

Allegra Lockstadt on Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter

✦ Fans of Alberto Giacometti: Take note of the recently launched Giacometti Foundation Website.

Giacometti Foundation on FaceBook and Twitter

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ The 15th Annual Postcards From the Edge, hosted by Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York City, takes place January 25-27 (the preview party is January 25). Celebrating and benefiting Visual AIDS's 25th Anniversary, the event offers for $85 each, first-come first-served, any of more than 1,500 postcard-size artworks, all displayed anonymously. Each 4"x6" painting, drawing, photo, print, or mixed media work is original; each participating artist has been allowed to submit just one entry. 

✭ A two-person exhibition combining film installation and photographs by Los Angeles-Based Sharon Lockhart (b. 1964) with a selection of scores, drawings, and textiles by Israeli dance composer and artist Noa Eshkol (1924-2007) remains on view through March 24 at The Jewish Museum, New York City. "Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol" showcases Lockhart's five-channel installation Five Dances and Nine Carpets by Noa Eshkol (see the installation shots at the link.) For the piece, Lockhart filmed seven dancers performing five compositions by Eshkol, who created a notation system for describing nearly every perceptible movement of the body; each of the compositions is set against a selection of Eshkol's textiles. (Read the Exhibition Overview in the press release.)

Exhibition Catalogue Cover

On February 28 at 6:30 p.m., at The Jewish Museum, Lockhart will discuss the exhibition with Hunter College art history professor and Hunter College Galleries curator Katy Siegel. Tickets are required.

The exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 

In this interesting video, Lockhart talks about the exhibition and Eshkol's notation system and art:

Holly Myers, "Art review: 'Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol' at LACMA is respectful", Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2012

Elad Samorzik, "Bringing dance to life", Haaretz Daily Newspaper, December 14, 2011

"The Films of Sharon Lockhart" at The Seventh Art (2010)

"Fabric Tales by Noa Eshkol" at Tschochkes

The Jewish Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is presenting on the Upper Level of the East Building through February 17 "Modern Lab: The Box as Form, Structure, and Container". The exhibition examines the box as material object and in relationship to optical devices, architecture, and death.

NGA on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ Opening January 28 at Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of Maryland/Baltimore, is "Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran". Showcasing 20 of Iran's most accomplished and well-known photographers, the exhibition, which runs through March 24, includes 58 images and two video works on the subject of family, history, place, mortality, language, and memory. A checklist of artists and their work is here; see a selection of images here. Press about the show, which has been touring since 2009 and will continue on to the University of Southern Maine Art Galleries (September 26 - December 8, 2013), Schingoethe Museum at Aurora University in Illinois (January 8, 2014), and Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University (March 20, 2014), is here.

Save the Date!

The terrific artist Terry Dixon, whom I interviewed last year (Parts 1, 2, 3), is among artists and filmmakers exhibiting in "Convergence: Jazz, Films, and the Visual Arts", opening February 14 at The David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, and running through May 31. The exhibition features 65 works that depict or are influenced by jazz culture and music. Approximately 60 of the artworks come from the center's own collections; five films are from the American Jazz Museum's John Baker Film Collection. A two-day conference, February 14 and 15, "Jazz: A Dialogue in the Performance and Visual Arts" will be presented in conjunction with the show.

David C. Driskell Center on FaceBook

Terry Dixon on FaceBook and Twitter