Biennale Of Sydney Announces David Elliott As Artistic Director For 2010
The Biennale of Sydney announced the appointment of eminent curator David Elliott as the Artistic Director of the 2010 Biennale of Sydney. "We are extremely pleased that David Elliott has accepted our invitation to become the Artistic Director of the 17th Biennale of Sydney," Marah Braye says. "He is a dynamic curator with a very unique approach to contemporary art. Whilst being a truly international figure, he is also very familiar with Australia and Australian artists and we look forward to working with him on an exciting, multi-faceted event for the 2010 Biennale of Sydney."
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Costa Cruises Commissions Monumental Sculpture by Fernando Botero
Costa, Europe's Number One Cruise Line, has commissioned a monumental bronze sculpture by world-renowned artist Fernando Botero for its newest ship, the Costa Luminosa. The bronze sculpture is currently taking shape at the Mariani foundry in Pietrasanta, Italy, where Botero creates his works using the ancient traditional technique of lost wax casting. Once completed, the work of art will be installed in the atrium of the Costa Luminosa in May 2009, when the ship comes into service.
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Gardiner Museum Co-Founder Helen Gardiner Dies From Cancer
It is with great sadness that the Gardiner Museum announces the passing of Helen Gardiner at her home in Caledon on Tuesday, July 22, 2008. Less than one week after her 70th birthday, Mrs. Gardiner passed away after a short but courageous battle with cancer.
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Metropolitan Museum Acquires Lucas van Leyden Drawing
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired a drawing of the Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ by the Netherlandish master Lucas van Leyden (Leyden ca. 1494 – 1533 Leyden), it was announced yesterday. The drawing, dating to the 1520s, enters the Museum's collection through the combination of a promised gift by Leon D. and Debra R. Black and purchase by the Museum. It is now the only drawing by the artist in America.
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Juliet Kinchin Appointed Curator Of MoMA Architecture And Design
Juliet Kinchin has joined MoMA as Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design. As a curator focusing on the history of modern design, she is responsible for organizing exhibitions, managing the collection, and working on acquisitions for the collection. An internationally recognized specialist in modern design, Ms. Kinchin has published books and articles and helped organize exhibitions on the period from the Art Nouveau to the 1960s with particular emphasis on the Glasgow Style, associated with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the MacDonald sisters, and on Central European Modernism between the two world wars.
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Important Artworks Stolen From Swedish Museum
The Abergs Museum (Stockholm, Sweden) suffered from a break-in early Friday. Two Warhol, three Lichtenstein paintings and a Disney movie-poster were stolen. The value of the stolen artwork is estimated in about US$500,000. Police said they had no inmediate suspects in the case.
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Heather Pesanti Appointed Curator At Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Heather Pesanti, currently assistant curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, has been appointed Curator at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery effective October 2008.
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Artist Mark Lewis Will Represent Canada At The 2009 Venice Biennale
Mark Lewis will be Canada’s official representative at the 2009 Venice Biennale of Visual Art, the world’s oldest venue for the international display of contemporary art. The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at Hart House (University of Toronto), which proposed Mr. Lewis as the Biennale candidate, was the institution selected in a nationwide competition to represent Canadian visual arts at the event. The 53rd edition of the Venice Biennale will take place from June 7 to November 22, 2009 in Venice, Italy.
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National Museum Of American History Acquires 18th-Century Sampler
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History acquired an embroidered sampler made in 1781 by Elizabeth "Betsy" Bucklin from Rhode Island. Bucklin was 13 years old when she made the unique sampler where she expressed her feelings about the American Revolution.
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KISS Front Man Goes From Concert To Canvas
Wentworth Gallery, one of the nation's leading fine art retailers is pleased to present two art exhibitions by artist, rock icon and legendary KISS frontman, Paul Stanley. He will make two special appearances at the Wentworth Gallery in King of Prussia, PA. Both appearances are open to the public and free of charge.
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SAIC Names Architect And Artist Wellington Reiter Its 4th President
Barry MacLean, Chairman of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has announced the appointment of Wellington Reiter as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's fourth President. Mr. Reiter, who joins the School of the Art Institute on August 25, 2008, is an internationally recognized architect, artist, and urban designer, and currently holds the position of Dean of the College of Design at Arizona State University. In addition to his academic role, Reiter was instrumental in shaping a new university campus in the heart of downtown Phoenix that unites progressive academic, architectural and public art agendas.
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Salt Lake Art Center Receives Half-Million Dollar Bequest From Former Trustee
The Salt Lake Art Center is deeply honored to be the recipient of a bequest of over $500,000 from the Estate of Judge Judith Faye Whitmer, a former Salt Lake Art Center trustee (1970 – 1982). The announcement of the gift was made by Board President Erik Christiansen at the Salt Lake Art Center’s annual gala last month. Christiansen noted: "A gift of this magnitude will have a long-lasting impact on the Salt Lake Art Center and our ability to fulfill our mission, and speaks to the high regard in which the Art Center is held in our community."
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LACMA Announces Acquisition Of Landmark Oceanic Collection
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announced the acquisition of one of the most significant private collections of Oceanic art assembled in the twentieth century. Representative of the wide range of arts from the Pacific regions and with historic provenance, the collection’s greatest strengths lie in the areas of Polynesia and Melanesia, and includes objects from Micronesia and Australia. Among the key works: a superb eighteenth-century Hawaiian drum collected by Captain James Cook in 1778, an Easter Islands dance paddle, and a hermaphrodite ancestor figure. The acquisition substantially broadens LACMA’s permanent collection and also underscores the museum’s commitment to collecting and exhibiting works of art from underrepresented areas of the world.
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Three Rediscovered Drawings By Goya Realise US$7.9M At Christie's London
Three rediscovered drawings by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) were sold today (8 July) at Christie’s in London for a combined total of US$7,908,016. Last recorded at a landmark auction of works by the artist in Paris in 1877, the drawings have been missing and presumed lost ever since, and represent the most important grouping of sketches by the artist to be sold at auction in over 30 years. The top lot was "Bajar riñendo (Down they come)" which sold for US$4,498,625, a world record price at auction for a work on paper by the artist. The three drawings, which were sold individually, had been expected to realise a total in excess of £2 million.
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Australia PM Critizes Magazine's Cover Nude Girl
Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, critized decision of magazine Art Monthly editor Maurice O'Riordon to published a nude 6-year-old girl on his magazine's cover for the July issue. The magazine was trying to protest against the artistic censorship in Australia, supporting artist Bill Henson which was seized during a police raid in May. The case provoked a nationwide debate over censorship.
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MoMA Acquires Chinese Photography
New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has bought 23 photographs by some of the most influential Chinese artists such as Rong Rong, Huang Yan and Ai Weiwei. Even when the boom for Chinese art has been increasing in the last five years, U.S. museums have been a little slow to acquire the works.
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NPG And Harris Museum Combine To Acquire Arkwright Portrait
The National Portrait Gallery and the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, are hoping to acquire a portrait of the British engineer and inventor Sir Richard Arkwright by the painter Joseph Wright of Derby. In an appeal kick-started by The Art Fund, the UK's leading independent art charity - which has given £100,000 towards the purchase - the Galleries have three months in which to raise a total amount of £420,000.
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Statement By MET On Accident Involving Italian Terracotta Relief Sculpture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is saddened to report that late last night or early this morning, a late 15th-century glazed terracotta relief sculpture of Saint Michael the Archangel by Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), came loose from metal mounts that have long held the framed lunette securely to the wall above a doorway in its European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Galleries. The 62-x-32-inch relief, which has been on view in its current location since 1996, fell to a stone floor and suffered some damage. Preliminary inspection indicates that the relief has not been irrevocably harmed and that it can be repaired and again presented to the public.
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