From January 23rd to April 25th the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT will exhibit "Exotic Encounters: Art, Travel, and Modernity." The extensive exhibition includes work from the museum's own distinguished collection. While New York City boasts many of the world's greatest art galleries and museums, the Bruce Museum and its newest exhibition are worth the one-hour train ride (from Grand Central Terminal), and offer tri-state area residents and visitors a chance to see modern, yet mysterious treasures from around the world.

"Exotic Encounters," which includes about 70 works, brings about themes and depictions of journey, travel, physical displacement and exotic encounters. In his desire to show connections between the extraordinary places people visit and what they bring back to mark their travels, the Bruce Museum's Adjunct Curator, Kenneth Silver, brilliantly presents a variety of painting, sculpture, photography, decorative / utilitarian objects and other crafts from the late-19th and early 20th-century.

To read more about the works on exhibit and the entire article associated with this post, click here.
 

The Tate Modern's "Pop Life: Art in a Material World" focuses on the theme of mass media and art. All of the artists whose works are on display have one thing in common: they have used their art to create a brand and promote their public image. Thus, the Tate Modern can expect the masses (everyone from in-frequent museum visitors to art collectors, dealers and artists) to relate to, and thus flock to the exhibit. Andy Warhol, whose image has been linked to everything from beauty products  (Vidal Sassoon ads) to the world of journalism (The creation of Interview Magazine in the 1970s), leads others including Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst, Sara Lucas, and Tracey Emin in exhibiting their "brands." 



From The Guardian:

Bright yet dark, shrewd yet vacuous: Koons's art remains poised in equal tension. And when you get to Damien Hirst's gallery full of gold calves in formaldehyde, gold spot paintings, gold vitrines dazzling with diamonds, it is no longer so obvious to whom he owes the greater debt: the production line of Koons or Warhol?

The British galleries of Pop Life give Tate Modern its first chance to show Hirst, Emin, Lucas, Gavin Turk et al as international history, which has the effect of deactivating their art. What were slick, rude, crude, epigrammatic, hilarious or wilfully dumb now look like the artefacts of air-conditioned archives.

Click here to read the full article. 


      

The questionable provenance of the museum’s collection is mainly attributed to two problems.

First were Vietnam’s conflicts with the United States in 1975 over communism and with China in 1979 over a brief border war.  Because Hanoi, Vietnam’s then capital, was often threatened by bombings, numerous works at the museum were stored away in the countryside, and artists and copiers were commissioned to produce replicas for temporary display at the museum.   

The second problem stems from Vietnam’s recent emergence in the international market; Vietnamese art became popular amongst collectors.  With their new capitalist mindset, Vietnamese artists saw this as an opportunity to produce several copies of their works to garner more sales.  Though these artists got away with this scheme for a while, it was not long before collectors, gallerists and curators caught on.  Now, there is a lack of trust when it comes to acquiring Vietnamese art, and all parties are affected.

What’s making this issue more problematic is the museum’s lack of documentation, and authenticating even the most important works will be a huge task.

Mr. Binh, the director, says, “We will create an Art Work Evaluation Center…Its function will be to examine and evaluate all the items, and then we will be able to label them: original or copy.”

(via NYTimes.com)

Winged Victory of Samothrace (@ the Louvre!)

A pilgrimage to the Louvre is a must-do on any art lover’s list.  However, for art lovers less fortunate who have not yet the opportunity to visit the beautiful City of Lights (me included), rejoice!  The Louvre just announced that they will launch an English version of their website, louvre.fr, making their extensive database accessible to the average Joe. 

About 80% of the Louvre’s collection can be viewed online in English, totaling a whopping 22,000 works.  You’ll be able to download high-resolution pictures, as well as pinpoint the locations of works and galleries within the museum. 

So how was this all made possible?  The American Friends of the Louvre provided a $380,000 grant for the database.

Aside from the exciting architecture designed by New York based Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, it’s the art that’s really attracting a wide audience. Right now on show is Shepard Fairey’s Supply and Demand. Most well known for his “Hope” poster of President Barack Obama, Fairey is fairly accessible to the general audience. And this seems to be the general formula that the ICA is following. The museum opened with a show surveying the work of Jeff Koons, and recent shows include works by Tara Donovan and Anish Kapoor. For an audience accustomed to Monet and Sargent, their embrace contemporary art with well-known names is a good start; you don’t have to be an art historian or insider to appreciate and understand these works. However, this programming direction is met with some skepticism. Some say that this is not fair representation of contemporary art.

Nevertheless, attendance is up 200,000 from last year, and the Shepard Fairey show, scheduled to close in May is now extended until mid-August.

Nevertheless, this coincidence still makes for a strong statement, drawing much attention as real life intersects with art – a rare occurrence in Chelsea galleries.

This show will feature 56 Iranian artists, both residing in Iran and abroad.  Unfortunately, of the Iranian residing artists, all but one were unable to make it to New York for the show’s opening.

"Iran Inside Out" will run until September 5th at the Chelsea Art Museum (556 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, 212-255-0719, chelseaartmuseum.org).  More information can be found at nytimes.com.

Some images for your viewing enjoyment:


work by Shoja Azari


Shirin Aliabdai and Farhad Moshiri, "We Are All American Operation Supermarket Series," 2006.



Farideh Lashai, "Pomogranates."


Pooneh Maghazehe, "Hell's Puerto Rico Performance Still." 


Bita Fayyazi, "PlayGround Installation at Espace Louis Vuitton." 

There's some controversy surrounding the recent demolition of a structure at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Via the Boston Globe:

The so-called carriage house was razed to make way for new museum buildings designed by the architect Renzo Piano. The museum gained all the necessary approvals for the action from the relevant preservation bodies, including the Boston Landmarks Commission and the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

Plans to demolish the carriage house became acutely controversial in May, when staff inside the museum drew attention to a new essay by scholar Robert Colby exploring the historical significance of the building.

The controversy increased after the museum’s director, Anne Hawley, told the Globe that she had not been aware of the building’s historical context until after plans for its demolition were presented to the Boston Landmarks Commission - even though that context had been spelled out in an essay by her predecessor, Rollin Hadley.

Despite attempts by the museum to characterize it as a mere “garage,’’ the carriage house was, for Gardner, more than just a place to keep her carriage. Like the rest of her unusual “palazzo,’’ it was always intended to evoke wider, symbolic meanings.

To continue reading the full article, click here.

…over the ownership of the Elgin Marbles.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story of the Elgin Marbles, here’s a very brief overview.  During the 19^th century, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, the Earl of Elgin obtained controversial permission from the Ottomans to remove classical Greek sculptures in the Parthenon and transport them to England; these sculptures are now known as the Elgin Marbles.  To this day, the Greeks refuse to recognize British ownership of the marbles, and the British refuse to return them back to Greece on the grounds that Greece does not have a fitting venue to keep the marbles.

The Elgin Marbles at the British Museum.

Therefore, in response to England’s argument, Greece has built a $200 million, state-of-the-art Acropolis Museum. In this spacious 226,000 square-feet building is where the precious relics of ancient Greek civilization, including the left over marbles that Elgin did not take from the Parthenon.  With the Parthenon sculptures scattered in different places, it’s like a family portrait with “loved ones missing.”

The New Acropolis Museum.

However, the British will not be so easily swayed.  The marbles have been in London for over two centuries, and have thus made their own mark in history. 

Nevertheless, the British offered to lend the Elgin Marbles for 3 months to the Acropolis Museum to celebrate its opening, but the offer was declined.  Greece is unwilling to compromise on an issue.

So, what do you guys think?  Which country do you think has rightful ownership over these marbles?

There are a lot more issues that I didn’t cover concerning this issue.  So, if you’re interested in learning more about this controversy, read this article on the New York Times.