Minimalist Sculptor Explores the Boundaries Between Art and Science
Posted on 7 September 2010 | By Jacob Nyman
[1] The following article is based on a series of interviews conducted by Jacob Nyman with John Duff, at the latter’s studio in New York City, between December 9th 2009 and January 29th 2010. All quotes attributed to the artist are taken from those transcripts.
I. Fine Arts Magazine
There exists an urgent and foreboding anxiety in art today- and so the anticipation of a reciprocal anxiety in the artist, and a consequent anxiety in us, the spectator. On its grandest scale this anxiety intuits the responsibilities of ownership, predicting the tragedy of man’s arbitrary nature. Arbitrary, not as anguished loss or random meaninglessness, but rather the profoundly human dread of the artist – the individuating unease of fully embodied and creative selfhood. The arbiter goes to see, looks into and then decides. This anxiety is the self-conscious bounding of nature (Necessity) into small, comprehensible images; viz., into knowledge.
above: John Duff, Inside the Kepler Conjecture III 2010. Urethane resin, steel ,47” x 22” x 22” Read more
Photographer, Alex Maclean Documents Two Threatened Settings in Unlikely Parallel
Posted on 4 September 2010 | By Michelina Docimo
At first glance, the only similarity between Vegas and Venice is that they both begin with the letter V. Look closer though, and you’ll see another parity—they’re both vanishing. Pilot, trained architect, and fine art aerial photographer, Alex Maclean, sees a disturbing beauty in these doppelgangers. Disturbing because of the environmental destruction these two iconic cities are experiencing, even though their impending demise is at the extreme ends of environmental catastrophe: drowning and desertification. But he beholds remarkable beauty there, too; because he brings to his task no preconceived ideas of what the lay of the land should be. From the sky, he surveys beauty wherever he finds it- even in the most unlikely settings. Fine Arts Magazine
Above: Alex Maclean, Las Vegas, Housing subdivision built out in the desert, from his solo exhibition, ‘Vegas-Venice’ Read more
Museum of Nebraska Art Maintains Legacy of John James Audubon
Posted on 25 August 2010 | By Kristin Gebhardt
John James Audubon. The name brings to mind the majestic beauty and grace of a vast collective of wildlife portraiture. However, it is crucial to remember Audubon’s detailed scientific observations as well, for his work in that capacity is still valid today. Fascinated by the natural world around him, Audubon’s ability to capture image and word has enriched the worlds of both art and science immeasurably.
Left: John James Audubon
Hooping Crane (Whooping Crane)
handcolored lithograph – double elephant folio size, 1834
Museum Purchase made possible by Carol Cope and the Museum
Museum of Nebraska Art Collection
Fine Arts Magazine Read more
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Features French Porcelain Vases from its Decorative Arts Collection
Posted on 25 August 2010 | By Rebecca Tilles
The history of Paris porcelain (known familiarly in France as vieux Paris) began around 1770 and refers not to a single manufacturer, but to more than thirty porcelain sources, based within the City of Paris between the mid-1700s and the end of the Second Empire in 1870. The term was not actually used until the latter part of the nineteenth century. The various Paris artisans, mostly situated in the northeast side of Paris, specialized in adapting the creations of porcelain manufacturer, Sèvres, to bourgeois tastes, while competing with Louis XV’s own Royal Manufactory. Fine Arts Magazine
Left: Pair of vases, France (probably Paris), about 1820. Hard-paste porcelain decorated in polychrome enamels and gilding; ht: 28 ¾”, wd: 12”. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bequest of Miss Clara Endicott Sears . Photo © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Read more
Native American Weaving Traditions Explored in U. Colorado Natural History & Arizona State Anthropology Museum Exhibits
Posted on 16 August 2010 | By Judy Newland MA MS
Navajo rug. A 'transitional' piece using both diamonds and pictoral motifs
Two recent exhibitions looked at the multiple stories woven into textiles. Navajo Textiles: Diamonds, Dreams, and Landscapes was a year-long exhibition in three themed rotations held at the University of Colorado’s Museum of Natural History in Boulder, Colorado (May 31, 2009 – May 31, 2010). Trading Cloth and Culture was the spring exhibition at the Arizona State University’s Museum of Anthropology (April 8 – June 30, 2010). Both were created under the supervision of Judy M. Newland, the director of ASU’s Museum of Anthropology. In a two-part series, Newland and other members of the faculty and staff at ASU and CU have worked together to produce an important and unique narrative regarding the Native American culture of the Southwest and the important role that woven artifacts have played in understanding the indigenous communities of the far west and the global influences that affect the design work, even today. All pieces pictured are from the University of Colorado textile collection Fine Arts Magazine Read more
Newport, Rhode Island’s Historic Vanderbilt Hall and Vernon Court Share Passion for Fine Art
Posted on 13 August 2010 | By Richard Friswell
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (circ.1910)
This is a tale of two historic homes in a beautiful seaside, New England town, and of how visionary zeal and coincidence braided history, friendship and a passion for things beautiful together in a most unusual way…
On May 1, 1915 Alfred Vanderbilt boarded the Lusitania bound for Liverpool as a first class passenger. It was a business trip, and he traveled with only his valet, leaving his family at home in New York. On May 7th, off the coast of County Cork, Ireland, the German submarine, U-20, torpedoed the ship, triggering a secondary explosion, sinking the giant ocean liner within eighteen minutes. Vanderbilt and his valet, Ronald Denyer, helped others into lifeboats, and then Vanderbilt gave his own lifejacket to save a female passenger, even tying it onto her himself, since she was holding an infant child in her arms. His selfless actions cost him, and those of 1197 other passengers, their lives. Fine Arts Magazine Read more
Smithsonian Makes Portions of Collection Available to U.S. Museums
Posted on 13 August 2010 | By Lindsey Koren
The Kolb Brothers Hanging, Grand Canyon (1904). Photo by Ellsworth & Emory Kolb, courtesy Cline Library, N. Arizona Univ.
The Grand Canyon is wild and unforgiving. But it is also one of the most stunning landscapes on Earth—a place for recreation, reflection and reverence. A beautiful Smithsonian exhibition allows us to marvel at this natural wonder without camping equipment, emergency rations or rappelling ropes.
Featuring 60 framed photographs, Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Grand Canyon Association. The exhibition is now midway through its national tour, and can currently be seen at the Durham Museum in Omaha, Neb., on view through September 12, 2010. If you can’t swing a visit to see this natural wonder in Arizona, perhaps you can catch a glimpse of the canyon’s beauty when the Smithsonian traveling exhibition comes to a venue near you. The exhibition tour continues through 2013, and the full itinerary can be seen at www.sites.si.edu. ARTES Fine Arts Magazine Read more
Smithsonian American Art, Hirshhorn and National Gallery Offer Unique View of Post-Modern Art
Posted on 11 August 2010 | By Elaine A. King
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Running Fence (1976)
The museums of Washington, DC are renowned for their exhibitions of eminent artists. Only infrequently however–in that city of policy and politics–do three exhibits appear in tandem, showcasing the work of artists who contributed to altering the definition of art in the twentieth century. This spring and summer, viewers are offered an opportunity to observe the National Gallery’s, Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg; Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers, at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden and Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s: Remembering the Running Fence, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Fine Arts Magazine Read more
Artist, Rebecca Allan, Explores the Influence of Charles Burchfield in Her Work
Posted on 30 July 2010 | By Rebecca Allan
Place, memory, and emotion are closely intertwined in the paintings of Charles Burchfield (1893–1967), at a exhibition currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Thoroughly grounded in the landscapes and neighborhoods of Western New York, Burchfield meticulously observed and freely interpreted places that others might overlook—sites not conventionally scenic or remarkable—transforming them into highly charged works of art. Reflecting a personal sensibility that evolved over six decades, Burchfield’s oeuvre constitutes an important chapter in the history of American art, fully equal to those articulated by Albert Pinkham Ryder, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Joan Mitchell, Fairfield Porter, and others who forged a contemplative visual language from the places they inhabited and recollected.
(left) Charles Burchfield (1893–1967),Yellow Afterglow, July 31, 1916, Watercolor and graphite on paper, 20” x 14”, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, Gift of Tony Sisti, 1979. Fine Arts Magazine. Whitney Museum of American Art. Read more
South African Visual Artist William Kentridge a Coveted 2010 Kyoto Prize-Winner
Posted on 29 July 2010 | By Richard Friswell
The Inamori Foundation, of Kyoto, Japan, recently announced that Mr. William Kentridge will receive its 26th annual Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, which focuses on the field of Arts. Mr. Kentridge, 55, will receive the award for his originality as a visual artist whose wide-ranging activities encompass animation, stage direction and writing.
(left) A hand-drawn still from a Kentridge animation (1998-99). Kentridge’s drawings and stop-motion videos often have a subtle but reflectively political undertone, investigating the cultural dualities of South Africa and the artist’s birth city of Johannesburg. Fine Arts Magazine Read more
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