International Art News

Rona Yefman, Girl on Her Elephant (Detail), 2002 © Rona Yefman, Courtesy Rona Yefman und/and Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel-Aviv

From May 04th to September 02nd, 2012 – Kunsthalle Wien
Clear the ring for the world of acrobats, clowns, and exotic animals! Presenting a number of contemporary works of art, the exhibition The Circus as a Parallel Universe offers an introduction into the universe of the circus and highlights a wondrous place full of knowledge of the world, surprises and sensations, a place of poetry, but also of excitement, confusion, and unease.
The circus as a parallel world has become a projection surface in film and literature, but also in the fine arts. fascinated with the circus, its forms, and its practice, Peter Blake has created his own personal company of acrobats and fabulous circus creatures, for example. Federico Fellini has made the circus the subject of numerous films, and Charlie Chaplin’s figure of the tramp transcends the norms of social life. Ulrike Ottinger’s works confront us with the circus as a metaphor of an utopian perspective in which its sphere features as the gentle twin of revolution. Besides animals and acrobats, it is primarily the figure of the clown whose complexity oscillating between good and bad, funny and sad has always inspired the arts. Reaching far beyond the actual fringes of the circus’s ring, the exhibition assembles international artistic positions that thematize the world of the circus outside the big top and draw on its figures, forms, and metaphors.

Daniel Firman, Nasutamanus, 2012 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Paris © Daniel Firman, Foto/Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli

Participating Artists:
Diane Arbus, Matthew Barney, Julien Bismuth, Rhona Bitner, Peter Blake, Olaf Breuning, Bernhard Buhmann, Alexander Calder/Carlos Vilardebo, Charlie Chaplin, Clifton Childree, Charles & Ray Eames, Federico Fellini, Daniel Firman, Thilo Frank, Jeppe Hein, Roni Horn, Anna Jermolaewa, Anna Kolodziejska, Tomasz Kowalski, Patricia Leite, Zilla Leutenegger, Ulrike Lienbacher, Jonathan Monk, Bruce Nauman, Ulrike Ottinger, Marion Peck, Ugo Rondinone, Julian Rosefeldt, Joe Scanlan, Elisabeth Schmirl, Deborah Sengl, Cindy Sherman, Simmons & Burke, Kristian Sverdrup, Javier Téllez, Joe Wagner, Martin Walde, William Wegman, Nives Widauer, Erwin Wurm, Rona Yefman

Kunsthalle Wien Museum

Tarsila do Amaral A Negra, 1923 óleo sobre tela © 2011 Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo

From 6 October to 29 January 2012 – The Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo
Exhibition of 150 national and international works from the MAC collection. The aim of the show MODERNISM IN BRAZIL is to present the “Brazilian Modernism” (1917-1948) from a position that questions the vision of the art produced in the country during this period

Among the pieces on display, divided into five blocks , are works by artists like Anita Malfatti, Tarsila do Amaral, Flavio de Carvalho, Di Cavalcanti, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Maria Martins, Giorgio Morandi, Iberê Camargo, Tomie Ohtake, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Leger, Victor Brecheret, Antonio Gomide, Henri Matisse, Alfredo Volpi, Alexander Calder, Max Bill, Lygia Clark, Marc Chagall, Ismael Nery, Lasar Segall, Raoul Duffy and many others.

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Robert RAUSCHENBERG 29.7 x 37 x 38.3 cm. Shades, 1964 Lithograph on plexiglas on metal support and a lightbulb

From June 8 to October 30, 2011 – Moscow Museum of Modern Art
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents the exhibition «Masterpieces of the 20th Century from the Collection of the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM)».

It is remarkable that the IVAM and the MMoMA collections are similar to each other in many respects. Each collection counts over 10,000 exhibits and tends to present a panoramic view of modern art in all its diversity, with special emphasis on the national heritage. So it comes as no surprise that the Moscow Museum of Modern Art hosts this important exhibition.

The IVAM collection presents an overview of the avant-garde art of the first decades of the 20th century and all art tendencies of the postwar period. The art of Julio González, a pioneering Spanish artist and sculptor of the first half of the past century, occupies a special place in the IVAM holdings. The IVAM holds the richest collection of his artworks. The exhibition at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art opens with Julio González’s oeuvre together with the works by Torres Garcia, a Uruguayan artist of the early 20th century. Also on view at the Museum, will be kinetic sculptures by Alexander Calder, installations by Kurt Schwitters and Man Ray, abstract works by František Kupka and works by classic Surrealist and Dadaist masters Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, André Masson, Jean Arp.

The exhibition will show experimental tendencies of the postwar period, which reflected a newly formed worldview. These are works by European masters, i. e. Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Saura, Karel Appel, Ad Reinhardt, Pierre Soulages, and works by celebrated American artists, i. e. Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra. Works by American Pop-art artists, such as Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist and European representatives of this tendency, such as Eduardo Arroyo, Equipo Crónica group and others will also be exhibited.

Starting from the 1980s, artists have been actively using new media, new techniques and electronic devices. The IVAM responded to the new art trends early on and acquired for its collection works by Andreu Alfaro, Miquel Navarro, John Davies, Bruce Nauman, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Christian Boltanski, Eduardo Chillida and Juan Usle. Some of these artworks will be displayed at the exhibition «Masterpieces of the 20th century». Postwar Modern Art will be represented at the exhibition by the works by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Since the IVAM holds the most extensive and valuable collection of photography in Spain, a section of the exhibition is devoted to photography of the past century. Among other photo masterpieces of the 20th century, the show will feature a work by Alexander Rodchenko, one of the greatest Russian photographers.

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