All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ Harvard University Press publishes this month William Kentridge: Six Drawing Lessons, which HUP describes as "the most comprehensive collection available of Kentridge's thoughts on art, art-making, and the studio." The book is based on Kentridge's 2012 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. (A video, "A Drawing Lesson", is available at the link.)

Harvard University Press on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✦ The second of four Getty Vocabularies — Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN)®  — has been released by Getty Research Institute. The free data set, which is available to download, share, and modify, includes names, descriptions, and other information about places important to art and architecture. Read The Getty Iris post for additional information.

✦ The new Artist Watch column at Escape Into Life features work by British artist Nicola Slattery. It's all about cats.

✦ Glass artist Carol Milne of Seattle, Washington, creates beautiful knitted glass. Her artistic process is described in Steve Isaacson's book Carol Milne Knitted Glass: How Does She Do That? (March 2013). Browse the videos and portfolios on Milne's Website and take a look at her own book In the Name of Love, featuring bombs reimagined as gifts.

Carol Mine on FaceBook and Twitter

✦ Portland, Oregon, glass artist Eric Franklin, whose work is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery, creates extraordinary life-size human figures (skulls and skeletons) into which he infuses light. Watch this Discovery video in which Franklin demonstrates and talks about his techniques, then browse his sculpture portfolio.

Eric Franklin on FaceBook

Exhibitions Here and There (A Washington, D.C., Edition)

✭ Wood- and paper cuts by Franca Bartholomai are on view in "ApocalyptiCAT" through October 10 at the Goethe Institut in Washington, D.C. Inspired by Albrecht Durer, Expressionism, and German art tradition, Bartholomai, an award-winning freelance artist and lecturer in graphic arts in Germany, instills her work with imagination and allegories. Read an interesting interview with the artist (pdf). View her superb artwork and a book of her woodcuts.

Franca Bartholomai Website (German)

✭ The exhibition "Femininity Beyond Archetypes" continues through October 5 at the Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American States, Washington, D.C. Featuring the photography of Natalia Arias of Colombia, the exhibition includes the series Taboo (1999-2005) and Venus (2005-2010), both of which present Arias's challenge to established and imposed generalizations about feminine identity and empowerment. 

AMA on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ Installation and Japanese performance artist Chiharu Shiota has brought to our Nation's Capital a beautiful monumental installation of discarded shoes and notes she has collected in a conceptual installation about past moments, personal memories of the departed, and the totemic power of ordinary objects. The installation at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery remains on view through June 7, 2015. A slideshow on Storify is available that shows Shiota setting up her installation.

Shiota lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She was selected to represent Japan at the 56th Venice Biennale 2015; her installation is titled "The Key in the Hand". Shiota needs keys for the installation (keys must be received by October 31, 2014); submission directions are at the Venice Biennale link above.

Browse several installation views in the gallery space. Also see Shiota's Website for photos of other work.

Chiharu Shiota Website

Freer | Sackler on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

Bento, Freer | Sackler Blog

✭ The portraiture of mid-20th Century artists (1945-1975) is the focus of "Face Value: Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction" at The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. More than 50 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture are in the exhibition. Among the artists whose works are featured are Alice Neel, Romare Bearden, Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Alex Katz, and Jamie Wyeth. The exhibition continues through January 11, 2015.

In  the "Portrait in a Minute" video that follows, NPG Warren Perry talks about Elaine de Kooning's 1946 self-portrait:

NPG on FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and iTunes

✭ In "The Lure of the Forest", Washington, D.C.'s Kreeger Museum is exhibiting Emilie Brzezinski's monumental wood sculptures through December 27. These chain-sawed and hand-chiseled tree trunks have been transformed into graceful, if imposing, artworks that look expressly made for the Kreeger's lovely setting.

Kreeger Museum on FaceBook and Twitter