If you didn’t get enough James Franco during Oscar weekend you can head over to the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills to take a look at some of his art output. Franco and director Gus Van Sant are the double bill on a shared exhibit titled “Unfinished.”
The exhibit includes screenings of the film, “My Own Private River,” which is a collaboration between Van Sant and Franco. After casting Franco in the award-winning film “Milk,” Van Sant showed him the dailies and other footage that he had shot for “My Own Private Idaho” an early 1990s movie featuring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as street hustlers. Franco took the footage and created a new film which is a haunting video portrait of the late River Phoenix in his role as Mike. The film features a soundtrack by REM frontman Michael Stipe.
The exhibit also features artworks in watercolor by Van Sant. His poignant portraits of young men are well-done but have a certain mug-shot sadness as the subject stares at the viewer with an impassive and not-entirely-at-ease gaze. The exhibit runs February 26 through April 9 at the Gagosian Gallery at 56 North Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90210. Daily screenings of the Franco film run Tuesday through Saturday at 10:00am, 12:00pm, 2:00pm and 4:00pm.
A new exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia explores the legacy of Marc Chagall and his artist compatriots. “Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle” runs from March 1 to July 10 and focuses on the work of Chagall and others in Paris in the early 1900s.
Chagall arrived in Paris in 1911 and was immersed in the artistic styles flowering in Paris at this time. He worked at La Ruche, a beehive-like building that was home to a variety of artists’ studios. French sculptor Alfred Boucher opened the building in 1902 offering inexpensive space and free models for talented artists. It blossomed into a vibrant community for artists to exhibit work and share ideas. When Chagall joined La Ruche it already had many Eastern European artists who had also moved to Paris to discover firsthand the most recent trends in modern art. Other artists there in the 1910s included Archipenko, Kisling, Lipchitz, Soutine, and Zadkine, who were represented in the exhibition by two sculptures in cedar wood that have not been displayed at the Museum since 1963. Shown above is Chagall’s “Paris Through The Window” which was painted in 1913. The exhibit seeks to capture the atmosphere of artistic excitement in Paris at this time and also explores a bit of history, looking back to at Chagall’s return to Russia during World War I and the rise of the Russian Revolution and his second stay in Paris in the 1920s.
The museum website has a series of podcasts devoted to the exhibit which offer a comprehensive roadmap to all that is going on in a Chagall painting. For example, in the painting shown above, the artist’s double-faced self-portrait in the lower right hand corner is a representation of the two sides of his spirit, looking back toward his homeland but also forward toward Paris, Cubism and a world of changing ideas and ideals.
Last July we chronicled the listing of late Intel founder Max Palevsky’s home on Sea Lane in Malibu. Back then that house was listed at $55 million but it now carries a price of $45 million. Last July we mentioned that the home was designed by architect Joe Weiser in 1975 and renovated by Italian designer Ettore Sottsass in 1984. Most of the time when a luxury home goes up for auction we don’t always know where the furnishings go but in this case we know where some of the ended up and I got to see some of them hands on recently at Los Angeles Modern Auctions where they will be part of a sale of Modern Art and Design on March 6.
Study Rembrandt’s self-portrait, a monumental painting in a new show at the Frick Collection in New York City, and you see a man who looks much older than 52. Rembrandt presents himself as a bear of a man, draped in a luxurious fur cape, a golden pleated smock with a red sash wound around his waist. He holds a silver-tipped cane. He looks indomitable, strong, and resolute. The American painter Kenyon Cox’s description of the painting in 1910 says it all: “It is the head of an old lion at bay, worn and melancholy, yet conscious of his strength, determined, and a little defiant.” Yet in reality, in 1658, the year he painted the portrait, Rembrandt was morose and troubled. He had declared bankruptcy two years earlier. His family was hounded by debtors. He was forced to sell his many collections and even the house and studio he had occupied since 1639. His reputation suffered. Commissions lagged and his once large group of students and followers had all but abandoned him and in some cases, even his “Rembrandtesque” style.
The monumental self portrait has pride of place in the Oval Room in the Frick’s new show, “Rembrandt and His School; Masterworks from the Frick and Lugt Collection.” It presents work by the master, his pupils, and followers in a blockbuster celebration of Rembrandt’s paintings, drawings, and etchings. Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and Dutch art historian and collector Frederik Johannes Lugt (1884-1970) were both great admirers of Rembrandt van Rijn. The precocious Lugt at 12 had started to catalog Dutch and Flemish drawings in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum while Frick once said that the the talents he would most like to have possessed were Rembrandt’s. These two admirers were renowned collectors with the eye, the connections, and the deep wallets to buy what pleased them.
In our modern, high-speed culture, we lose track sometimes of what came before. How do we bridge the gap between how we live now and the ways that indigenous people have lived on this planet for millennia? A new exhibit in Santa Monica, California showcases art as a form of communication. Nomad: Two Worlds opened last night at Pier 59 Studios West in Santa Monica with a presentation that combined art with strong messages about what we lose when we forget our collective past.
Prepare to be dazzled. The 60 ikat robes in Washington D.C.’s The Textile Museum’s show, “Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats,” are a riot of sun-splashed color. The rich jewel toned robes, appealingly hung in the round so you can view them from all directions, are from the museum’s Megalli Collection. Most are 19th century ceremonial robes from Samarkand, Bukhara, and the silk weaving centers in the Fergama Valley in Central Asia.
An artist who creates Western-themed bronze sculptures is taking on Kevin Costner over his delayed plans for a Deadwood-area luxury reosrt. South Dakota-based sculptor Peggy Detmers has said she spent more than six years on a monumental sculpture of 14 bison and three American Indian hunters for a commission by Costner. The piece was supposed to be part of a resort that Costner wanted to open in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Detmers is suing in order to force Costner to sell the sculpture which she calls “Lakota Bison Jump.” Her website features details on the making of the piece which Costner commissioned in the 1990s.
After filming much of his Academy Award-winning movie “Dances with Wolves” in South Dakota, Costner bought land and a casino and announced plans for a resort called The Dunbar on the edge of Deadwood. Those plans never fully came to fruition and for a time the sculpture had no home. According to the Rapid City Journal, Costner eventually spent $6 million to create a display site for the sculpture and build a visitors center: Tatanka: Story of the Bison. Detmers says she wasn’t really included in the project.
The Academy Awards take place on Sunday February 27 and once again Architectural Digest is hosting a well-appointed “greenroom” for the celebrity attendees. Fine art dealer Questroyal Fine Art of New York City has announced that six of its painting are part of the Architectural Digest greenroom at the Oscars. Designer Michael S. Smith, who was tapped by the Obamas to create the look for their family quarters at the White House, went for a classic American look inspired by luxe, tailored 1940s Hollywood style. He used furnishings from his personal line with Baker Furniture and handpicked six paintings from the Questroyal collection to decorate the room.
A new exhibit of Swiss photographer Michel Comte’s eye-popping photographs, including several nude supermodels such as Gisele Bundchen (above), has opened at the Leica Gallery in Prague run by the famed camera maker. A trained art restorer and self-taught photographer, Comte came to prominence in 1979 with his first advertising commission for Karl Lagerfeld’s fashion label Chloé. One of the top names in fashion and magazine photography, his work fetches tens of thousands of dollars at auction and has appeared in Vanity Fair, Vogue and many others. Some of Comte’s other celebrity subjects include Sharon Stone, Jeremy Irons, Cindy Crawford and Carla Bruni.
Each year we mention Naples, Florida for its annual luxury wine festival but the tony warm weather enclave will have a new annual event to draw the rich, the first Naples Premier Art and Antique Fair, which takes place from Feb. 24 to March 1 at the Naples International Pavilion. The event is being put on by David and Lee Ann Lester, founders of International Fine Art Expositions which also organizes the Miami International Art Fair, Art Palm Beach, American International Fine Art Fair, The London International Fine Art Fair and SeaFair - the floating art fair.
The new fair brings over 60 art, antique, and jewelry dealers to Southwest Florida in a newly renovated 55,000 square foot facility. The fair features old master paintings, impressionist paintings, modern and contemporary art and sculpture, furniture, decorative arts, silver, ancient arts, haute couture and period jewelry, and rare books. Luxury jeweler Graff will be showcasing some of its fine diamond and colored gemstone jewelry. A painting by Renoir will also be on display and a historically significant portrait of President Abraham Lincoln will be presented by the 19th Century Shop.
Sylvester Stallone isn’t an actor who took up painting on a lark. His commitment to art spans decades and will get its due in a new retrospective exhibit at Galerie Gmurzynska in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The exhibition, Sylvester Stallone. 35 Years of Painting, shows around 30 pieces that Stallone has painted, some of them self portraits. Stallone likes to paint on a grand scale, the pictures are large, colorful and bold and he cites Pablo Picasso and Gerhard Richter among his influences. In his acting, Stallone combines broad gestures and big action with moments of surprising delicacy and vulnerability and that’s true in his artwork as well.
The exhibit runs from February 18 to March 15 and is accompanied by a catalogue written by art critics Anthony Haden-Guest and Donald Kuspit. Over the past couple of years, Stallone has been able to command some pretty impressive prices for his art. In 2009 he sold a piece to casino mogul Steve Wynn for $40,000.
Love Love from julien berthier on Vimeo.
Artist Julien Berthier has created a yacht that attracts attention no matter where it goes. The French artist’s “Love Love” sculpture is a work of art that is also a functioning boat, albeit one that appears to be sinking beneath the water. Berthier created the sculpture by cutting a boat in half and adding a motor and keel that allow it to stay above water and travel around. He created the sculpture in 2007 and since then has taken it on European waterways including the English Channel.
Through his Link of Times Foundation, Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg has made it his personal mission to repatriate cultural and historical objects taken out from Russia in the 20th century. Toward that mission, Vekselberg has amassed a large collection of Faberge eggs made by Pyotr Karlovich Faberge and brought them back to Russia. Now he’s sending them back out into the world. RIA Novosti reports that Vekselberg has worked with the Vatican to bring the Faberge eggs to the Holy See Museum for a new exhibition.
Before the Russian Revolution in 1917, Faberge’s jewelry company in St. Petersburg manufactured some of the world’s most beautiful jewels and objects for the Russia’s imperial family. The most famous of his works are the intricate Easter eggs which have become some of the world’s most collectible bejeweled items.
Vekselberg worked for over a year to arrange the exhibit which begins on April 14. There will be a total of 180 exhibit pieces which show the history of Russia and tsar’s family. The House of Faberge created a total of 54 Imperial eggs for Alexander III and Nicholas II as gifts for their wives and family and 42 of these eggs remain today. Vekselberg purchased Faberge works from the Forbes family in 2004. Malcolm Forbes was a famous collector of Faberge eggs. That collection included nine Imperial Easter eggs and another 190 items, including brooches, inkwells and smoking accessories. Vekselberg said he paid over $90 million for the collection.
An important re-discovered Andy Warhol self-portrait crowned a big art week in London, selling for £10.8 million pounds ($17.4 million) at Christie’s. The piece which dates from 1967 is a red square six-foot acrylic and silkscreen piece showing Warhol staring thoughtfully at the viewer, two fingers covering his mouth. Christies had estimated the work to sell for £3 to £5 million as part of its 64-lot auction of contemporary works. Legendary art dealer Larry Gagosian snapped it up, bidding in the room and wresting it away from another client on the telephone.
This week’s Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening sale in London started off with a bang when the first lot, Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds, came up for sale. The Chinese artist generated headlines around the world when he installed 100 million ceramic sunflowers seeds in the Tate Modern in London and art watchers were curious to see how the art would sell. The first 100-kilogram pile of seeds was estimated to bring in £80,000 to £120,000 but sold for sold for £349,250 ($559,394) or around £3.50 per seed.
Each porcelain sunflower seed was individually hand made and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. The Sotheby’s listing suggests that the piece can be installed either in a mound as shown above or smoothed out into a carpet-like experience. There will be a total of ten lots sold from this work.
The works of painter Vincent van Gogh are some of the world’s most prized pieces of art, partly for their vibrant tones, but some of those colors have been fading in recent years. Art researchers and scientists have been using X-ray microscopes to examine van Gogh paintings that have been losing their color and determine why once brilliant yellows have been turning brown in several key works of van Gogh and other artists of the late 19th century.
The results of the study were published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. The problem comes down to the chromium in a yellow pigment called yellow chrome which undergoes a chemical reaction when exposed to ultraviolet lighting (including sunlight), turning the painting brown. The paint, which gave works including van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings, their sun-splashed beauty has been known to darken under sunlight since the early 19th century. What’s new is that now scientists have uncovered why this happens and can work to gain potential clues as to how to prevent it.
A Table from the Sea’s Edge from Neon Otter on Vimeo.
A large conference table and 12 chairs isn’t usually considered art but A Table from the Sea’s Edge by Silas Birtwistle isn’t just any table. The British furniture maker and artist Silas Birtwistle created the table from driftwood gathered from Belize, Vancouver Island, Tanzania and Borneo. The exhibit, now on display at the World Museum in Liverpool, England, is meant to promote conservation of the world’s seas, oceans and forests. Birtwistle gathered his wood with help from indigenous communities and the World Wildlife Fund as well as other organizations.
Now that the dust has settled a little in Cairo, a full inventory of the Egyptian Museum has been done to assess the damage. The AP reports that according to the Ministry of Antiquities 18 items were taken by looters. On January 28, during the turmoil and chaos around Tahrir Square, thieves climbed a fire escape to the museum’s roof and lowered themselves on ropes from a glass-paneled ceiling to the museum’s top floor. Around 70 objects were damaged but it wasn’t known until an announcement on Sunday night that anything had gone missing. Among the casualties were two gilded wooden statues of King Tut.
In the world of celebrity artists, Pete Doherty might be one of the oddest. The notorious musician is part of several bands including The Libertines and Babyshambles but made headlines for his relationship with Kate Moss and his addiction to heroin. Just about everything he does causes controversy and his art is no exception. When he first exhibited his paintings in 2007, they turned heads and stomachs because of his use of human blood, mostly his own.
Paul Fraser Collectibles is selling a painting that Doherty made for a fan last year. The Paul Fraser website says that a fan approached Doherty asking how he could make some money. Doherty said he would create a blood painting and send him £20. The painting was sent a week later (with a drawn £20 note). The canvas measures 32″x32″ and the words “For Alistair, love Peter” are scrawled over half the canvas in blood. The self-portrait shows Doherty smoking, wearing his trademark hat, a quick smudge of pencil, pen and blood. It’s listed for £25,000.
Was there ever a time when the art world was more exciting and more dynamic than the years leading up to World War I? The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s new show, “The Great Upheaval: Modern Art From the Guggenheim Collection, 1910-1918,” illuminates a time when artists were in a state of revolt. Consider Kazimir Malevich’s 1912 “Morning in the Village after a Snowstorm.” His inspiration is folk art. His figures are stylized and compact, geometric and tubular. Even his palette is limited to red, black, blue, white with touches of brown. What this show demonstrates so clearly is that the old European prescription for painting, especially landscapes, was no longer relevant.
If you didn’t get enough James Franco during Oscar weekend you can head over to the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills to take a look at some of his art output. Franco and director Gus Van Sant are the double bill on a shared exhibit titled “Unfinished.”
James Franco and Gus Van Sant Partner On Art Exhibit originally appeared on Luxist on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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