Happy Birthday Peggy Guggenheim

August 26, 2009 American heiress Peggy Guggenheim was considered to be as intriguing as the art she collected. One of the pioneering collectors of Abstract Expressionism, she had a particular fondness for surrealism, cubism and sculpture. At the height of her career, she amassed a piece of art per day. In London, Guggenheim opened her first modern art gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, featuring artists like Wassily Kandinsky, Yves Tanguy and Pablo Picasso. Although she didn’t actually know v.. read more...

Somewhere Between Art and Life

August 21, 2009 There are times at Venice when you feel Marcel Duchamp has a lot to answer for. The artist's infamous urinal not only paved the way for the grand, imaginative gestures of, say, Robert Rauschenberg - whose scrap-iron sculptures are at the Peggy Guggenheim museum - but also for a slew of self-indulgent installation art much of which is currently taking up exhibition space in the city of Titian and Tintoretto. The Scottish and Mexican pavilions prove that Duchamp's legacy has.. read more...

Is This Recyclable?

August 19, 2009 Is This Recyclable? An upcoming exhibition at Under Minerva, Brooklyn. This group show focuses on thirteen artists who break away from traditional media and instead explore materials that are often overlooked yet readily available. By using readymade and recyclable materials the artists are both directly appropriating from the materials purpose and properties, literally recycling these pieces in the process. The theme is motivated by early readymades of Duchamp, and the co.. read more...

A Game of Chess with Marcel Duchamp, 1963

August 19, 2009 Marcel Duchamp: A Game of Chess, A film by Jean-Marie Drot, 55 min. This French film includes original footage of interviews filmed consequent to Duchamp's first major retrospective exhibition in 1963 at the Pasedena Art Museum. The film includes voice-overs in English, as well as original black and white footage interspersed with color reproductions of artworks. It includes a custom soundtrack by the French composer Edgar Varèse. The program follows Duchamp's work somewhat.. read more...

Collage at Fred Gallery London, starts: 6 Aug 2009 ends: 27 Sep 2009

August 18, 2009 FRED (London) is delighted to have this opportunity to present an exhibition in celebration of Collage. Co-curated with Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York, this joint-exhibition provides a platform for contemporary American artists to show in London, many for the first time, alongside leading European artists represented by FRED. Both galleries have also brought together works by some of the foremost practitioners in Twentieth century Western art. The exhibition creates a unique .. read more...

A Peep into Duchamp

August 17, 2009 Marcel Duchamp labored in secret for 20 years to produce what the painter Jasper Johns has called "the strangest work of art any museum has ever had in it." He might be right: The diorama known by its abbreviated French title Etant donnes is spectacularly bizarre, enigmatic, mysterious, disturbing, captivating, and, perhaps to some observers, repellent. None of those attributes is obvious, because Etant donnes is also as secluded as a cloistered nun. It has been one of the.. read more...

Jonah Bokaer’s Octave

August 14, 2009 Jonah Bokaer's - Octave from Giovanni Jubert on Vimeo. "A solo dance work composed through the use of DanceForms 1.0 software. To accompany the live choreography, Bokaer collected five thousand used MetroCards which were deposited onto the performance space creating an alarming audiovisual activity of flying décor and musical reverberation. The work collapses the traditional distinctions between movement, sound, and décor. Bokaer also recreated Marcel .. read more...

Surreal Things Revisited

August 12, 2009

The Art Gallery of Ontario has announced a two-week extension for its show Surreal Things, an exhibition of surrealist art organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism

August 11, 2009 Manchester Art Gallery's major new exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see outstanding works by women artists including Frida Kahlo and Lee Miller from public and private collections around the globe. Women played a huge, but at the time not fully recognised, part in the Surrealist movement. Only recently has an appreciation grown of how crucial women’s contributions were in this movement. Artists such as Meret Oppenheim, Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington.. read more...