All Art Friday
I dedicate this edition of All Art Friday to my friend, the gifted painter Tracey Clarke, who died December 29, 2013. I first met Tracey in 2009, at The Athenaeum in Alexandria, Virginia, where she was exhibiting her marvelous paintings. Tracey was beautiful and gracious. She painted from a deep and intuitive place, creating work highly imaginative, dramatic, as dark and mysterious as it was at times joyful and always full of narrative possibility. When painting, she wrote on her Website, "[t]here is a kind of communion that takes place between me and God."
Throughout her more than two-year experience of the brain cancer that has claimed her life, Tracey was remarkable. She shared her experience fully, so that others might better understand what cancer is and does and takes. But far more: she showed us all the depth of faith and love that sustained her and her husband Craig, that let her live each day with the whole of her being, feeling blessed.
It was such a privilege to share her light. May it always shine from above.
[. . .]
She left early
She left early
before violets opened
under the crumbled wall.
~ from "The Bereaved" by Denise Levertov
All Art Friday Spotlights
✦ The Urban Analogies series of Cuban-American contemporary artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada — fragmented portraits in charcoal on a 150- to 200-year-old wall surface transferred onto wood panel — are extraordinary. Images of 38 of the partial gazes, sometimes consisting only of an eye or a mouth, are on the artist's Website. Weather-textured, they are remarkably life-like and exquisite. Rodriguez-Gerada describes them as "a metaphor for the passage of time"; he uses charcoal "for its transparency and ephemeral quality". I can only imagine how stunning a wall of these fragments must be.
Rodriguez-Gerada is represented in Spain by N2 Gallery.
✦ A six-part lecture, "The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dali", delivered in 2011 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., by classicist Mary Beard of Cambridge University is available to view here. The excellent program also is available at iTunes.
✦ My Artist Watch column this month will post on January 16 at Escape Into Life. I'll be showcasing images of work by Salma Arastu.
✦ The art-business site Artsy Shark has compiled a comprehensive, annotated, A-to-Z list of more than 220 places where artists can sell their work online.
✦ New York City's New Museum plans to launch in the summer of 2014 an "incubator" for art, technology, and design. A nonprofit initiative, the project will feature a 24/7 center that will promote collaboration and innovation among more than 60 start-up and creative entrepreneurs. An 11,000-square-foot warehouse next door to the museum will be used for studio space, conference rooms, and screening rooms. Details can be found here.
✦ Many of us can affirm how art and especially art-making helps heal us. In today's video feature, "Painting Cancer", artist Richard Schwenk reveals through his paintings his experience of cancer. (In 2011, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and, as of the date of his most recent scan, is showing no evidence of the disease). His seven-painting series about his "journey through treatments" and subsequent physical and emotional healing was on view earlier this year at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
My thanks to ArtInfo for the video.
Exhibitions Here and There
✭ Cultural traditions in the southeastern United States, especially in Florida, that have been influenced by the art and culture of the Kongo peoples of West Central Africa are the subject of "Kongo across the Waters" at the Samuel P. Harn Musum of Art at the University of Florida at Gainesville. Continuing through March 23, the exhibition, which coincides with Viva Florida's celebration of 500 years of cultural heritage, addresses the themes of leadership, religion, and daily life as interpreted within historical, archaeological, linguistic, musicological, anthropological, and art historical contexts. It presents more than 160 historic and contemporary artworks and artifacts, including works loaned by the Royal Museum for Central Africa and on display for the first time in the United States. Sculpture, drawings, engravings, paintings, textiles, ceramics, baskets, and musical instruments are included.
Of special note are the featured contemporary works of Steve Bandoma, Edouard Duval-Carrie, Jose Bedia, Renee Stout, and Radcliffe Bailey. The latter's Returnal was damaged during Hurricane Sandy and is being shown for the first time since its restoration, which the artist oversaw. (See image below.)
Radcliffe Bailey, American, b. 1968
Returnal, 2008
Museum Purchase
Funds Provided by Ruth P. Phillips Endowment
Additional Funds Provided by Caroline Julier and James G. Richardson Acquisition Fund
A three-part 450-page catalogue including essays and photographs accompanies the exhibition. (See cover image above right.) Purchasing information is here.
Details about the show's organization, a selection of images, and video are available on the exhibition Website.
The exhibition is scheduled to travel in May to the Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Georgia; and thereafter to Princeton University Art Museum (October 25, 2015 - January 25, 2015) and New Orleans Museum of Art (February 27, 2015 - May 25, 2015).
✭ The Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln continues its exhibition of "Painting — From the Collection of the Sheldon Museum of Art". Featured are works from the 19th Century through present, from Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Eakins, and John Singer Sargent, to Edward Hopper, Barnett Newman, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Mark Rothko, to Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Hung Liu, Ed Ruscha, and otheres. The survey, on view through mid-July, marks the 125th anniversary of the Sheldon Museum and the Sheldon Art Association, and is accompanied by a catalogue of 125 major works in the museum's collection.
✭ Paintings by artist, educator, and writer Lee Hall remain on view through February 1 at Jerald Melberg Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina. A color catalogue is available.
Jerald Melberg Gallery on FaceBook
✭ The history of play and the pedagogical foundation for creating toys are explored in "Constructing Play: Classic Building Toys" through January 30 at Philadelphia Center for Architecture. The exhibition showcases more than 50 toys from the past 175 years, including Tinker Toys, LEGO, Erector Sets, and K'Nex. A number of Hands-On carts are available for viewers who want to let out their inner child.
PCA also is featuring more than a dozen loans from Davidson Neon and the Neon Museum of Philadelphia. Incudes are a winking Buster Brown and the sign for the local McGillin's Old Ale House.
Notable Upcoming Exhibition
✭ In Santa Fe, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum opens February 7 "Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: The Hawaii Pictures". The exhibition, the first to feature the artists' work created in Hawaii on commission, will feature 14 O'Keeffe paintings of exotic tropical blossoms, seascapes, and lush valleys, from a 1939 trip to create illustrations for print ads for Hawaiian Pineapple (now Dole) Company. and a selection of Adams's photographs taken in 1948 and 1957 for the Department of the Interior and Bishop National Bank of Hawaii, respectively. The show will run through September 14. Its appearance at Honolulu Museum of Art concludes January 12. (A selection of images is available at the Honolulu Museum page for the exhibition.)
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1 comment:
I am sorry for the loss of your friend.
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