International Art News

Olga Tobreluts. Ups and downs. Oil on canvas. 2012

January 24 to February 24 2013 – Moscow Museum of Modern Art
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with Triumph Gallery present a large-scale retrospective exhibition of Olga Tobreluts, a Russian artist, who became well-known internationally, primarily as a pioneering media art artist and a creator of massive video installations. She is one of the first contemporary artists who picked modern computer technologies as a medium. The latter enabled Tobreluts to develop her own singular yet extremely recognizable style one can clearly tell even in her early works. Tobreluts’s artworks appear to be intricate manipulations, in which historical realities and myths of modern culture are melted together for the purpose of transforming them into a magical super reality.

Olga Tobreluts. Venus. Print. 2003. Courtesy of The Moscow House of Photography.

Olga Tobreluts gave up using computer technologies as her artistic medium in 2003. The year saw her return to painting. She managed to find out her own painting manner by employing ancient painting techniques. She keeps developing her manner while carrying out experiments with the chemical makeup of paints to expand her range of methods of light transmission.
The MMOMA retrospective exhibition will show Olga Tobreluts’ well-known series of works made available courtesy of several museum and private collections. Apart from the above, the artist’s experimental works will be put on display for the first time

Moscow Museum of Modern Art – MMOMA

Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987). Self-Portrait, 1967. Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, 72 x 72 in. (182.9 x 182.9 cm). Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Friends of Modern Art Fund. © 2012 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

From September 18 to December 31, 2012 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
For decades, critics have observed that Andy Warhol exerted an enormous impact on contemporary art, but no exhibition has yet explored the full nature or extent of that influence.

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, born 1957). Neolithic Vase with Coca-Cola Logo, 2010. Paint on Neolithic vase (5000–3000 B.C.), 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 in. (24.8 x 24.8 x 24.8 cm). Mary Boone, New York. Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery, New York

Through approximately forty-five works by Warhol alongside one hundred works by some sixty other artists, Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years juxtaposes prime examples of Warhol’s paintings, sculpture, and films with those by other artists who in key ways reinterpret, respond, or react to his groundbreaking work. What emerges is a fascinating dialogue between works of art and artists across generations.

Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987). Big Campbell's Soup Can, 19¢ (Beef Noodle), 1962. Acrylic and graphite on canvas, 72 x 54 1/2 in. (182.9 x 138.4 cm). The Menil Collection, Houston. © 2012 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The exhibition is structured in five thematic sections: “Daily News: From Banality to Disaster,” “Portraiture: Celebrity and Power,” “Queer Studies: Shifting Identities,” “Consuming Images: Appropriation, Abstraction, and Seriality,” and “No Boundaries: Business, Collaboration, and Spectacle.”

Jeff Koons (American, born 1955). Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988. Porcelain, 42 x 70 1/2 x 32 1/2 in. (106.7 x 179.1 x 82.6 cm). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Purchase through the Marian and Bernard Messenger Fund and restricted funds. © Jeff Koons

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

From January 28 to July 1, 2012 – ARKEN Museum of Modern Art
With 135 works THE ESSENCE OF COLOUR is the biggest exhibition to date of H.M. the Queen’s art. At the exhibition we enter a personal universe and follow the Queen’s artistic development over 35 years. The subjects range from the close surroundings through imaginary landscapes to the most recent depictions of radiantly coloured rocks and bones.

Nature – both idyllic and dangerous – is a central subject for the Queen. The colours in the Queen’s art express the essence of a spirit. They evoke emotions and states of mind where words are not enough. The works in the exhibition range wide, from gentle watercolours through expressive paintings to imaginative découpages. In the découpages she has recomposed cuttings from art sale catalogues and magazines into new, magical worlds where anything can happen. We encounter both the humour and seriousness of the artist Queen Margrethe II.

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Pierre Bonnard, Le Café, 1915, Oil on canvas, 73 × 106.4 cm, Tate, Photo: © 2012, Tate, London © 2012, ProLitteris, Zurich

29 January – 13 May 2012 – Foundation Beyeler
With the exhibition “Pierre Bonnard”, the Fondation Beyeler celebrates the great French colorist and one of the most fascinating of modern artists. More than 60 paintings from renowned museums and private collections provide insight into all phases of his career.
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was a co-founder of an artist‘s group known as the Nabis, who admired the style of Paul Gauguin and Japanese woodblock prints. In Paris, Bonnard depicted the bustling life on the streets and in the cafés, before retiring first to Normandy, very close to Monet‘s water-lily garden, then to the sunny Côte d‘Azur, where he was inspired by the light and colors of the Mediterranean environment. Continually experimenting, he produced variants in ever-new color combinations and from surprising points of view on subjects from everyday life, in which time only apparently seems to stand still. The artist‘s favorite model was the mysterious Marthe, his muse and wife. Bonnard created harmonious still lifes, enigmatic interiors, intimate female nudes, moving self-portraits, and decorative landscapes whose magnificent palette is unique in modern art.

Pierre Bonnard - Place Clichy, 1906–07 Oil on canvas, 102.1 × 116.6 cm Private collection © 2012, ProLitteris, Zurich

One of the principal lenders is the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Further outstanding loans come from the Tate London; the Musée national d’Art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Kunstmuseum Basel; the Kunsthaus Zürich; and from distinguished private collections, not least from the Hahnloser successors.

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December 15, 2011 to January 15, 2012 – Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 25 Petrovka str
OstenGruppe is an association founded by designers Eric Belousov, Igor Gurovich and Anna Naumova. It appeared in Moscow in 2002, during the period of the rapid growth of the Russian advertising industry. The group’s activities are based on principles of the alternative culture, i. e. pre-revolutionary protest, radical attitude to the visual language, principal stand, liking for avant-garde thinking, ideology of the cultural diktat. OstenGruppe is a group of artists with their own styles, skills and dispositions. Individuality of each member contributes to the whole image of the group.

During a rather short period of time, the OstenGruppe has become a cult group in the Russian design. Not differentiating between the «low» and «high» genres, the group focuses its attention on the genre of the street poster art, seemingly non-topical in the 21st century. Following traditions of the 20th century graphic art and using cutting-edge achievements in the field of visual culture, the designers breathe new life into the social and plastic achievements of the Russian avant-garde art. The «art of the day» principle becomes vividly apparent in collaboration of the OstenGruppe with the Cultural Centre DOM. The lab provided design for music events. The poster transforms from a street advertisement into a method of the alternative visual culture.

The up-to-date poster is a platform for socialization of the artistic gesture and at the same time for the plastic experiment. Balancing on the verge of the applied and visual arts, public and individual utterance, the poster is called upon to bridge the gap between the «high» and the «low» cultures. Moreover, the poster performs social functions. It touches upon the issue of communication and its opportunities. What are the limits of the public utterance and do they exist at all?

The exhibition by OstenGruppe in Moscow Museum of Modern Art is called upon to expose the subject of the Russian contemporary poster and print art in the context of development and continuation of the avant-garde art of the 1920s. It is devoted to problems of the tradition and continuity in the Russian visual culture and the importance of the Russian print art in the world context. It is the first exhibition of the lab in the museum space. The exposition contains well-known and new works by the designers. Along with posters, there are objects, small print forms, documentary materials, which narrate the history of the group and introduce the project members to the audience.
A catalogue, illustrated with the most typical artworks by the group, has been published for the exhibition. This edition reflects the specific character of the designers, their approach to the creation of products of mass visual communication.

Igor Gurovich. During his career, he has been working in the field of set design in Russia, Latvia and France. In 1995-2002, he worked as art director at IMA-Press Publishing. Since 2002, he has been a member the OstenGruppe.
Anna Naumova. She has been engaged in print design since 1994. Prior, she had worked as theater artist. She has graduated from the Moscow Polygraphist Institute. For four years, she was working at IMA-Press Publishing. Together with Igor Gurovich and Eric Belousov, she is a founder of the OstenGruppe design lab.
Eric Belousov. In 1983-1985, he worked as graphic designer during his military service. In 1992, he graduated from the Stroganov Art School. In 1997-2002, he worked at IMA-Press Publishing. Since 2002, he has been a member of the OstenGruppe. Since 2007, he has been an academician of the Russian Academy of Graphic Design.

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Emil-Nolde -(danseuse-au-voile-violet)-ca--1920-1925-neukirchen-stifung-seebüll-ada-und-emil-nolde-photo--nolde-stiftung-seebuell

Until April 2nd 2012 – Centre Pompidou Metz
The Centre Pompidou is dedicating a brand new exhibition to the connections between the visual arts and dance, from the 1900′s to today. “Danser sa via” ["Dancing through life"] shows how these sparked off modernity and fed the major movements and the figures who constitute the history of modern and contemporary art. The exhibition illustrates its point through works by artistic figures of the 20th Century, through movements that founded modernity, and through the research of contemporary artists and dancers. It presents the common interest of art and dance for the body in movement. “Danser sa vie” ["Dancing through life"] creates a dialogue between all disciplines, of fine art and choreographic art. A wide range of paintings, sculptures, installations, audio-visual work and choreographic pieces, illustrate their incessant exchanges, in a language that is often fusional.

The title Danser sa vie [Dancing Ones Life] is taken from Isadora Duncan, the pioneer of modern dance: “My Art is just an effort to express the truth of my Being in gesture and movement … Before the public which has thronged my representations I have had no hesitation. I have given them the most secret impulses of my soul. From the first I have only danced my life” (Isadora Duncan, My Life, New York, 1927).

André Derain Danse bachique, 1906 Crayon et aquarelle sur papier The Museum of Modern Art, New York

AN EXHIBITION IN THREE SECTIONS

DANCE AS SELF-EXPRESSION, FROM VASLAV NIJINSKY TO MATTHEW BARNEY
The invention of a new subjectivity is explored through the emergence with Isadora Duncan of a free dance emancipated from classical ballet. In Germany, in the years of Expressionism and of “Freikörperkultur” (Free Body Culture or “naturism”), there was a hitherto unprecedented exchange between artists and dancers, exemplified, for instance, in the relationship between dancer Mary Wigman and the painters Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde. From Matthew Barney and Vaslav Nijinsky to Kelly Nipper and Mary Wigman, contemporary art too has maintained the dialogue with the greats of modern dance.

Auguste Rodin Nijinski, 1912 Bronze Musée Rodin, Paris.

DANCE AND ABSTRACTION, FROM LOÏE FULLER TO NICOLAS SCHÖFFER
Here the birth of abstraction is viewed through the choreographic inventions of Loïe Fuller and the ways in which Kandinsky, the Cubists, the Futurists, the Bauhaus and the Russian avant-gardes made use of dance. Certain figures, such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp, were both dancers and visual artists. Others maintained a dialogue with dancers, as did Kandinsky with Gret Palucca and Calder with Josephine Baker. The explorations of Nicolas Schöffer and Alwin Nikolais then bring this story to a close with mechanical ballets, kinetic inventions and virtual dances. This section also includes a new work
by Olafur Eliasson specially conceived for the exhibition.

Étienne Chambaud La Danse, 2009 Photographic collage: reduplication of an anonymous black and white print of Irma Duncan at Grünwald, c. 1910 Collection M. Étienne Chambaud, Paris

DANCE AS PERFORMANCE, FROM DADA TO JÉRÔME BEL
This last section considers the connections between dance and performance art and vice versa, from the first Dada actions at Cabaret Voltaire to the deployment of tasks (gestures taken from everyday life) by dancer Anna Halprin, from the birth of the happening with Allan Kaprow to Black Mountain College.
In the 1960s, Merce Cunningham engaged an artistic dialogue with John Cage, and indeed with Andy Warhol. A selection of works and documents looks back to the Judson Church in New York and then highlights the influence of popular clubbing and techno culture.

Artists

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