Heidrun Löhr, Traffic, 2001, Nalina Wait and Alexandra-Katie Macdonald at Omeo Dance Studio, Sydney. Courtesy the artist

From March 3rd to the 15th of April 2012 – Australian Centre for Photography
Parallax is a simple enough problem for photography: the image you make depends on your viewing angle. But when you add the variable of the moving body in performance, the parallax factor multiplies to a point where the camera captures something no human eye will ever see in any other way.

Heidrun Löhr, the celebrated photographer of live performance, is famous for her active use of the camera around the stage. More than documents of a vanishing work, the images open up a whole terrain of performance photography, where the gestures and expressions of subjects from all walks of life perform a sense of identity. An identity that can be as multiple and various as the positions of the camera.

Heidrun Löhr’s career began in Munich and Berlin but for over 25 years now she has worked in Sydney. Her photographs capture some of the most bizarre, outrageous and beautiful moments in experimental performance in this city.

Centre Hours

Eszter SIPOS - Maybe we are already at the place, where we would like to be. (R. R.) / 2010 / acrylic on shaped wood / d=80 cm, 10 x 80 cm text

March 7, 2012 to April 14, 2012 – Viltin Gallery
Eszter Sipos represents everyday life situations, where people and scenes are rebuilt through an abstract composition. All of them have different styles, techniques and treat different topics, but at the end they raise the same questions and sometimes give answers to the visitor.

Eszter SIPOS - Parallel steps / 2008 / acrylic, oil on canvas / 125 x 125 cm

“Today’s ideal woman is multifunctional. She combines traditional female roles with the modern image of the smart, sexy woman. Her exciting radiance emanates precisely from the flashes of unexpected role changes. Eszter Sipos follows a similar path when working out the refined broth of her paintings: Beauty and knowledge is blended with a touch of coquettish charm. At times, their surfaces are babbly and gushing, at other times philosophically succinct. Their characters are so familiar (frequently taken out of magazines), still, become unusual through the painter’s peculiar point of view. Her works manifest the “bipolar personality” of today’s painting, and their peculiar character derives from the dual appeal of tradition and innovation, abstraction and figurativism, popular and elite culture.”(Emese Révész)

Gallery Hours

Jorge Macchi Tevere, 2006 Concrete 10 x 500 x 70 cm Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin Photo by Ela Bialkowska

29 February–13 May 2012 – Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art
Lines of Thought explores the work of 15 contemporary artists, whose practice has focused in particular on using line in creatively challenging ways. The show encompasses painting, sculpture and installation as well as crosses several generations.

Hemali Bhuta: Stepping Down, 2010 Dimension: Variable, wax sticks of various lengths and cotton threads. Copyright the artist and Project 88

Highlights include a giant cave-like installation made of 30,000 wax candles which will hang from the gallery ceiling, and a 3m² wall drawing entitled ‘Ceaseless Doodle’ which depicts the contours of all the world’s borders. The Lines of Thought exhibition brings together a number of disparate works that prompt thoughts about how the simplicity of line is the core element of so many and often unpredictable forms of artistic expression.

Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt: Ceaseless Doodle, 2009 Wall drawing with permanent marker, 320x320 cm Courtesy of the artists Installation view; Kunsthalle Mannheim Photo: Cem Yücetas

Participating include Helene Appel, Hemali Bhuta, James Bishop, Raoul De Keyser, Adrian Esparza, Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Jorge Macchi, Nasreen Mohamedi, Fred Sandback, Conrad Shawcross, Anne Truitt, and Richard Tuttle

Foundation Hours

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917). Two Dancers, ca. 1905. Pastel on card. Batliner Collection. Albertina, Vienna. Photo © Fotostudio Heinz Preute, Vaduz

14 March 2012 – 31 December 2012 – Albertina
In spring 2007, one of Europe’s greatest private collections of classical modern art came to the Albertina as a permanent loan from the Rita und Herbert Batliner Foundation in Liechtenstein.

The Albertina is now in a unique position to compensate for the major gaps in the Austrian state-run museums’ holdings of international modern art with key works of French Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, German Expressionism, Fauvism and the Russian avant-garde.

Pablo Picasso- Woman in a green hat, 1947 - Albertina, Vienna - Batliner Collection © Succession Picasso / VBK, Vienna 2011. Photo: © Fotostudio Heinz Preute, Vaduz

The Batliner Collection has received acclaim from museums and connoisseurs for decades. It includes outstanding works by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon. These masterpieces can be seen in a new permanent exhibition at the Albertina.

The Batliner Collection is augmented by works from the Forberg Collection in Switzerland, which was also transferred to the Albertina on permanent loan.

Herbert and Rita Batliner began collecting art nearly half a century ago. Due to their close friendship with the legendary art dealer Ernst Beyeler, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting formed a cornerstone of the collection from the very beginning, along with the work of Alberto Giacometti. Exceptional works by Monet such as The Water-Lily Pond, Edgar Degas’ Two Dancers, or Cézanne’s Arc-Tal and Mont Sainte-Victoire landscapes attest to the couple’s passion for French art.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Portrait of a young girl (Elisabeth Maître), 1879 - Albertina, Vienna - Batliner Collection. Photo: © Fotostudio Heinz Preute, Vaduz

Picasso became an additional focal point. Today he is represented in the collection with over 40 works, including ten paintings and numerous drawings and one-of-a-kind ceramics.

In the course of his travels, Herbert Batliner gained familiarity with Russian avant-garde art. He and his wife were inspired by the works they saw in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, to build their own fine collection of Russian avant-garde art from 1905-35.

The focus of their acquisitions was on Marc Chagall, but they also sought out works by Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova und Mikhail Larionow. The collection includes a major work by Kazimir Malevich, painted as a defiant memory image immediately following the artist’s release from a Stalinist prison.

Kees van Dongen- Woman with Blue Eyes, 1908- Albertina, Vienna - Batliner Collection © VBK, Wien 2009. Photo: © Fotostudio Heinz Preute, Vaduz

The permanent exhibition spans the most fascinating chapters from more than 130 years of art history, from Impressionism to the most recent present. Paintings by Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Miró, Klee, Kandinsky, Chagall, and other masters offer a survey of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, the Fauves, Expressionism, and the Russian avant-garde. With late works by Picasso and exhibits by Rothko and Bacon, the exhibition leads over to the second half of the twentieth century, before it ends with works by contemporary artists such as Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter.

Albertina opening hours

February 25 and 26, 2912 – Downtown Lake Worth
Welcome to the Annual Lake Worth Street Painting Festival! Watch as over 400 Artists use the pavement as canvas to transform downtown Lake Worth into a temporary outdoor museum of original art and masterpiece reproductions. See the streets come alive as the artists transform the pavement into works of art. It happens every February in downtown Lake Worth, Florida

Traced back to 16th century italy when itinerant artists would use their chalks to transform pavement into a makeshift canvas, street painting has retained its appeal through the centuries. As in ages past, crowds still gather to watch as fine works of art emerge. The “paintings” last only until the next rain, but the lively spirit and accessibility of the exhibition captivates new audiences each year and inspires lasting memories.

Downtown Lake Worth and the Greater Lake Worth Chamber of Commerce invite you to the annual Street Painting Festival, which claims bragging rights as the world’s largest. The 2-day event transforms the downtown streets with more than 200 street paintings sponsored by businesses, organizations, families and individuals, covering more area than any other festival of its kind in the world. Hundreds of artists converge to display their diverse talents on the asphalt – using only chalk – in styles that range from Renaissance classicism to Cubism and Pop Art. Street performers, strolling minstrels and Mainstage musical entertainment add to the creative atmosphere. And of course, don’t miss the Festival Food Courts, accommodating culinary tastes and thirsts as diverse as the surrounding artwork.

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Floor

25 February to 20 May 2012 – Kunsthal Rotterdam
The Kunsthal Rotterdam proudly presents the exhibition Closer to You, illustrating the fascination that Dutch painter Jasper Krabbé has for his wife and muse Floor. The exhibition, which includes over 200 portraits, illustrates Krabbé’s desire to get closer to her. He spent a year and a half creating images portraying ever different aspects of this one woman. The selected works illustrate a wide diversity of options for creating contemporary portraits as well as a variety of techniques on paper. Krabbé particular likes to work on ‘used’ backgrounds such as pieces of cardboard, envelopes and packaging materials. All his works are presented in frames that he has found and many of which are antique. The portraits, presented as an installation across two floors of the Kunsthal’s Design Gallery, are an ode to love.

The series of portraits range from watercolours to detailed studies in ink, and from detailed portraits to simple line drawings. The works contain countless references to portrait art but also to street art and film posters. Furthermore, the frailty and transience of life form a recurrent theme in Krabbé’s work. In close proximity to his muse, he has recorded moments in time that would otherwise have been lost. In the portraits, we see Floor taking a nap in the car, staring into space or standing in a shop. On viewing these works, one feels almost a part of these daily, sometimes profound moments.

Jasper Krabbé (1970) lives and works in Amsterdam. He graduated with honours from the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and from the Cooper Union in New York. Krabbé began his artistic career as a graffiti artist and was a member of the Amsterdamse Collectief USA (United Street Artists). His work often reflects memories of places, events and individuals. Krabbé has had various exhibitions in countries including Sweden, Brazil, Italy and the United States of America. His work is included in collections belonging to De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and others.

Museum Hours