International Art News

Constant Permeke Leonie 1929-32 Privéverzameling Fotograaf: Hugo Maertens, Brugge © SABAM 2012

From October 11, 2012 to January 20th 2013 – Bozar – Centre for fine Arts
He was a contemporary of Otto Dix and Egon Schiele. But the expressionism Constant Permeke (1886-1969) demonstrated had a very specific personality, reflecting the little people of Flanders – workers, women with many children and peasants – who led a very rugged existence. Dark colors, the power of charcoal often mixed with paint, the monumental approach (the rigidity of his women reminds one of antique goddesses) made Permeke the herald of Flemish expressionism.

Constant Permeke De Sjees 1926 Collection MuZEE, Oostende Fotograaf : AD-ART Sint-Amandsberg © SABAM 2012

Yet his reputation did not cross the borders easily. By bringing together 130 of his works, the organizers also wish to show his modernity and they chose to confront him to two contemporary artists – Marlene Dumas and her nudes, Thierry de Cordier and his landscapes.

Centre for fine Arts, Bozar

Anthony McCall, Line Describing a Cone 1973 © Anthony McCall, courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York - Sunday 22 July A rare poportunity to see all four 1974 cone films by Anthony McCal

The Tanks: Art in Action  – A fifteen-week festival from 18 July – 28 October 2012 – Tate Modern
What already impressed everyone about the Tate Modern when it was inaugurated was its huge size. His former electric plant has been able to offer contemporary art absolutely spectacular spaces that have ensured the public’s passion as we can see in the installations presented in the hall of the Turbines over the last ten years. While waiting for the extension carried out by Herzog and de Meuron to be concluded by 2016 (which will add 21,000 square metres i.e. 60% additional space), the museum has decided to recuperate other areas: the reservoirs where the oil used to run the plant was installed. These underground rooms with vast dimensions (30 metres long, 7 metres tall) will be inaugurated on 18 July 2012, with an original theme: they will host one of the largest concentrations in Europe of living art, happenings and performances. The list of artists includes Korean Sung Hwan Kim as well as Cuban artist Tania Bruguera or Flemish Anne Teresa de Keersmaecker.

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker - Photo: Herman Sorgeloos - Thursday 19 – Friday 20 July One of the most important choreographers of the 20th century performs widely acclaimed Fase: Four movements to the music of Steve Reich

An excellent opening to the Cultural Olympiad and to the London Festival 2012.

Tate Modern

Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of the Artist, c. 1665, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest.

From June 3, 2012 to Sept 3, 2012 – The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London showcases 48 masterpieces from the collection known as the Iveagh Bequest. These magnificent paintings reside at Kenwood House, a neoclassical villa in London, and they make their U.S. debut at the MFAH.

Thomas Gainsborough, Mary, Countess Howe, c. 1764, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest

Donated by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847–1927) and heir to the world’s most successful brewery, the collection was shaped by the tastes of the Belle Epoque—Europe’s equivalent to America’s Gilded Age—when the earl shared the cultural stage and art market with other industry titans such as the Rothschilds, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Henry Clay Frick. Acquired mainly from 1887 to 1891, the earl’s purchases reveal a taste for the portraiture, landscape, and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works typically found in English aristocratic collections. In addition to the masterworks from the Iveagh Bequest, the exhibition includes several works acquired specifically for Kenwood.

Anthony van Dyck, Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page, 1634, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest. Courtesy American Federation of Arts

The MFAH presentation is the first stop on a limited, four-venue U.S. tour that provides a rare opportunity for visitors to view superb paintings that have never before traveled outside the United Kingdom. The highly acclaimed works on view represent the greatest artists of their periods, from Rembrandt van Rijn, Thomas Gainsborough, and Anthony van Dyck to Frans Hals, Joshua Reynolds, and J. M. W. Turner.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, A Coast Scene with Fisherman Hauling a Boat Ashore ("The Iveagh Sea-Piece"), c. 1803–04, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest.

The Museum of Fine Arts

Willem de Pannemaker. The Mercury Series

2 June to 26 September 2010

Active from 1535 to 1581, Willem de Pannemaker was a member of one of the most celebrated families of weavers in Brussels. Pannemaker is considered the great tapestry-maker of the Flemish Renaissance, working for the aristocracy and the principal royal families of 16th-century Europe. He supplied the courts of Charles I of Spain (Charles V of Germany) and that of his son Philip II with numerous masterpieces. Pannemaker’s monogram and the quality stamp of the city of Brussels and the Duchy of Brabant, which were obligatory on tapestries from 1544 onwards, appear on the series of The Loves of Mercury and Herse, formerly in the Medinaceli ducal collection.

For the first time the Museo del Prado will bring together in its galleries this magnificent series of eight mythological tapestries, which are now dispersed among important collections and private institutions such as the Fundación Ducal Medinaceli, the Alba Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Prado. The latter has two from the series, which use gold and silk thread to depict Ovid’s verses on the loves of the god Mercury, son and messenger of Jupiter, and Herse, daughter of the king of Attic.