Anselm Kiefer Installation an International Coup for the Art Gallery of Ontario
Anselm Kiefer, Palmsonntag, 2007, 44 panels of mixed media on board, fiberglass and resin palm tree, clay bricks and steel support, dimensions variable. ©2010 Anselm Kiefer. Courtesy of the Gagosian Gallery. Photograph © Joshua White.
TORONTO.- Acclaimed international artist Anselm Kiefer’s monumental installation Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday) is coming to the Art Gallery of Ontario this March. Kiefer, known for his epic themes and operatic flair, will be adapting and adding to the installation for its Canadian premiere at the AGO, opening March 4 and continuing through August 1. Palmsonntag is composed of a 60-foot-long palm tree, cast in fiberglass and resin, that lies on its side across the Gallery floor, surrounded by a cycle of 44 massive panels hanging in rows on the walls above. The panels, eight of which Kiefer is creating specifically for the AGO exhibition, combine paint, plaster, mud, wood, human hair, dried plant materials and rusted chastity belts, among other materials — forming a massive collage of images at once unnerving and expansive.
Palmsonntag blends religious symbols, ancient text scrawled in multiple languages, and images of fossilized decay in a work that deals with life, death and rebirth in equal measure, says AGO Curator of Contemporary Art David Moos. “Palmsonntag is an installation of profound impact,” says Moos. “It must be seen, felt, and encountered. Its historical reach and epic vision are signatures of one of today’s most important living artists.”
“Anselm Kiefer is a major artist, an innovator and a visionary,” says AGO Director and CEO Matthew Teitelbaum. “The AGO is proud to be a key destination for major international artists like Kiefer; Palmsonntag is an ideal addition to our spring season of contemporary art on the leading edge.”
Anselm Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, Germany in 1945. His works, often enormous in scale, are thematically rich with historical, spiritual and political allusions. His paintings and sculptures are in the collections of virtually every major museum of contemporary art in the world, including the MOMA, the Tate and the Louvre….More
ANISH KAPOOR, whose giant sculptures adorn squares from Chicago to Nottingham, has joined the ranks of Britain’s super-rich artists with a multi-million-pound fortune.
New company accounts show that Kapoor, 55, made a £17m profit in 2008, taking the fortune he has made from his art to an estimated £40m.
Kapoor is now thinking about whether to add a £5m country house in the Berkshire downs to his assets. He will be included in The Sunday Times Rich List when the 2010 edition comes out, the first specialist sculptor to appear, joining artists such as Damien Hirst and Lucian Freud.
The reputation of Kapoor, a Turner prize-winner, has soared in the past decade. He is now engaged in the world’s largest commission, a £15m series of sculptures known as the Tees Valley Giants, destined for five towns in northeast England.
One, called Temenos, is being assembled in Middlesbrough and resembles a huge pair of tights stretched between two rings, hovering eerily over the post-industrial landscape. When completed in the spring, it will be more than 160ft high and 360ft long.
Read more at: Move over, Damien
No elephant dung, no glitter, no textured, collaged surfaces. It’s all a bit of a shock. But do we like Ofili’s new work?
The Raising of Lazarus 2007, by Chris Ofili, whose exhibition at Tate Britain, London, opens on 27 January Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex Features
I’d seen some of Chris Ofili’s new work in the lavish new Rizzoli book he has helped put together. Even so, after walking past so many greatest hits and old friends in the galleries at London’s Tate Britain, where his latest career survey opens to the public tomorrow, I got a jolt when I walked into the final pair of rooms, filled with his most recent work. In the first, the paintings are entirely blue – deep, midnight shades of indigo, ultramarine and bilberry. In the second, the paintings are screaming with acid colours: strident purple next to citrus orange; a tintinnabulating turquoise; egg-yolk yellow. And there is no elephant dung. And no glitter.
I have to confess I’m a bit of an Ofili fan. I’ve always loved the unashamedly stuff-encrusted surfaces of his paintings. So it’s a bit odd to see works stripped of their jewels, so to speak.
I’m still figuring out whether I like the new work, which is steeped in the landscape and mysterious atmosphere of Trinidad, where Ofili has lived and worked since 2005. The moment I walked into the final room of the show my heart, I have to confess, sank. Then I looked at the paintings a bit more, and concluded that I kind of liked them. Then I was sure again.
Read more at: Ofili’s new paintings: thumbs up or down?
At the very least, Rocco Landesman will be able to say that he created one arts-related job during his tenure as the head of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The NEA announced Monday that it is accepting proposals from artists and designers to create the agency’s “Art Works” logo. Landesman introduced the slogan earlier in his term to help emphasize the positive impact artists have on the economy.
“‘Art Works’ is a reminder that arts workers are real workers who are part of this country’s real economy,” said the NEA in its request for proposals.
“They earn salaries, support families, pay taxes. Artists are also entrepreneurs and placemakers, who revitalize towns, cities and neighborhoods – both the economies and the ethos of them.”
The NEA said the selected logo may be used in print and online and may accompany the existing NEA logo or even replace that logo.
The deadline for submitting proposals is Feb. 26 at 5 p.m., EST.
Read more at: NEA looking for artist to design ‘Art Works’ logo
Courtesy of Michael Landy. Michael Landy has began converting the South London Gallery into a 130,000-gallon trash can for art.
The British artist Michael Landy will be destroying hundreds of works of art this year, even though he’s gotten in trouble for it before. In his 2001 performance, “Break Down,” Landy shredded everything he owned — 7,227 items in total. Members of the public were most affected by the disposal of his car, his love letters, family heirlooms and the entire archive of his own art. However, he received most criticism from within the art world for destroying his art collection: works by fellow Young British Artists, including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, most of which he had received as gifts.
Now Landy is about to do the same to hundreds more works of art, contributed by artists from all over the world. On Jan. 29 he began converting the South London Gallery into a 130,000-gallon trash can called “Art Bin,” which will contain stacks of artworks Landy is selecting from online submissions to be destroyed. Works will be added throughout the exhibition, and when it closes on March 14, they will all be disposed of.
“In this country it is legal to destroy an artwork if you are the owner,” Landy said in his East London studio as he reviewed the artworks submitted for “Art Bin,” “but you can’t add to it, you can’t change its color — that’s a no-no. It’s bizarre. But within the art world, quite a few people did have issues with destruction of artworks in ‘Break Down.’ Now, just when people can bring themselves to talk to me again, I’ve raised it again. I’m already in trouble. I’ve already had a telling off.”
Read more at: Michael Landy’s ‘Art Bin’
The Nasher Sculpture Center is breaking ground with an exhibition by a living artist, Spanish conceptualist sculptor Jaume Plensa. That’s a first.
Some of Plensa’s pieces are interactive. Visitors can touch – in one case they have to touch. Another first.
And works installed on the front sidewalk tower 40 feet above Flora Street, yet another breakthrough.
MAX FAULKNER/Special Contributor
The artist says 11 alabaster heads of young girls, each 6 feet tall, ‘have a feeling of coming from an ancient culture, out of time.’
These events are secondary, though, to the magnificent spectacle of Plensa’s pieces in the Nasher. The scale and translucence of his work are in perfect harmony with the Renzo Piano-designed galleries. The sculptures look as if they were created for the location. They work from on high and as they gracefully sweep through the interior rooms and then spill out onto the terrace and over the garden lawn.
There are 28 sculptures. Many are part of a series or work with a twin. All were made between 2004 and 2009. The two seated sentries high atop pillars at the front of the building passively watch the day go by but become electric at night, glowing a changing rainbow of colors.
Plensa says they were inspired by ancient philosophers of Constantinople who would sit high above the fray on steles and contemplate the condition of man. He calls the piece La Llarga Nit (The Long Night) after a piece by Catalan poet Vicent Andrés Estellés, who wrote that it is the responsibility of the poet to watch out for the whole community. So until May 2, the end of the run, the Dallas Arts District has art sentries on guard.
By GAILE ROBINSON / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Read more at: Nasher Sculpture Center exhibit represents several firsts
Also check out Jaume Plensa’s website
Original Works and Multiples by Joseph Beuys at Mary Boone Gallery
Joseph Beuys, “Horn”, 55″ by 12″ by 6 ½”, bronze, plastic tube filled with red pigment and water. 1969. Hall Collection. Photo; Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Mary Boone Gallery presents at its Chelsea location “Joseph Beuys: We are the Revolution”, a comprehensive exhibition of original works and multiples from the Hall Collection by this influential German artist. The exhibition has been organized and installed by independent curator and art historian Dr. Pamela Kort. Beginning with a pencil drawing made while Beuys was still a student at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, through the notable “plastic work” (sculpture) Horn of 1969, to a suite of three large blackboards heavily inscribed during the course of Beuys’ “Action” Third Way in 1978, the original works provide a philosophical and iconographical context against which his numerous and well-known multiples unfolded over time. The making of multiples was integral to Beuys’ life; he championed them as a vehicle for disseminating his aesthetic ideas … More
