By the early 20th century, gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz introduced modernism to a skeptical New York audience with exhibitions of watercolors by John Marin and Charles Demuth, drawings and watercolors by Georgia O’Keeffe, and pastels by Arthur G. Dove. American modernism contributed significantly to the evolution of the watercolor and helped to establish its status as an important American medium. O’Keeffe developed her signature style by exploring abstraction in watercolor and pastel, inexpensive and quick materials that lent themselves to experimentation. She and her contemporaries like Marin and Stuart Davis took advantage of this ease of experimentation to develop formal innovations, resulting in unique pieces that were displayed as finished works. Today, these watercolors are among the most highly valued objects of the American modernist period.

The exhibition was organized by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Curator of American Art, and Virginia Anderson, Assistant Curator of American Art. “The exhibition came out of our work on a comprehensive collections catalogue of American painting, watercolor, pastel, and stained glass at the Harvard University Art Museums,” said Stebbins.

“As we compiled the list of objects for that catalogue project, it became clear that the Fogg’s collection from this period and in these media was particularly strong and deserving of an exhibition.” Anderson adds, “This is an opportunity to present to the public a wonderful selection of important American works, the majority of which are unpublished. Through this exhibition, we can bring these works to light so that they can receive critical and scholarly attention.” 2006-04-08 until 2006-06-25, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA

"Lynne Gelfman: Resist and React"
2006-04-01 until 2006-05-06
Newman Popiashvili Gallery
New York

Photo: LYNNE GELFMAN, Sidi Bou Said, 1999, Acrylic on panel, 15 x 13 x 2 1/4 inches.

Newman Popiashvili Gallery is pleased to present the second solo exhibition of Lynne Gelfman at the gallery. The exhibition features four large-scale paintings from Gelfman’s latest series “Resist/React.” The exhibition will be on view from April 1 - May 6, 2006. In this new body of work, Gelfman continues experimenting with non-traditional materials and techniques. She intricately constructs the multiple layers of her paintings. Her work is often about illusion. From a distance, the surfaces appear to show thick paint, but up close, they are sanded fine and smooth. Gelfman introduces another layer, embodying the element of chance, in “Resist/React”. The top level shows a chemical resist that pulls apart the paint. Gelfman plays with the reaction of the resist to create movement across the image. Patterns of small spheres evoke associations with foam, spindrift, bubbles and hover over a sub-painting that suggests animal-like skins. Gelfman has often explored abstraction and its references to the physical world, architectural structures, aerial landscapes textiles and lichen. Here the work extends to the ethereal. Gelfman’s works are in the permanent collections of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida; Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, Florida; the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland and the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, among others. Her recent exhibitions include a solo show at Fredric Snitzer Gallery and Mapping Space: Selections from the Collection at the Miami Museum of Art. Newman Popiashvili is located at 504 West 22 Street in New York City and is open Tuesday through Saturday 11 AM – 6 PM.

"Mr and Mrs Antoni and Alison: An Exhibition of Photographs by Antoni and Alison". 2006-04-01 until 2006-04-29, hug - Gallery for International Photography. Amsterdam, Netherlands

“We like the idea of making something ridiculous, clowning with it, by depicting banal things… a banana is as funny as a sausage, they are immediately recognisable things… Bottecelli’s Venus is a stunning image, but we have always hated Venus herself in this image, so we have obscured her with a banana” Antoni + Alison. Duo Alison Roberts and Antoni Burakowski are also perhaps better known as the London-based fashion designers Antoni + Alison whose work is worn and admired internationally. They met 20 years ago at Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design and have worked together ever since. Their work has a British sense of humour with an appealing mischievous sensibility that doesn’t relate to fashion, but is based on their own exploration of ideas and experiences.

“We’ve never played the game.  We sit outside of fashion...fashion has a tendency to take itself too seriously, and laughter is the best way of breaking out of that pattern.  It doesn’t mean that we aren’t serious about what we do - we are incredibly serious - but for us, laughter is a means to communication.” However successful their clothes and accessory designs may be, Roberts and Burakowski are primarily fine artists who have exhibited their photography internationally within the museum and gallery sector and have subsequently become famous for their photographic prints of recurring themes and symbols, such as magical images of sweet faced creatures, cakes, cigarettes, potatoes and raw meat (food plays a key role) which decorate their images. Both self taught photographers, they use only natural sunlight and always photograph their tableaux or collages plein air developing the medium as a highly personal art form.   One key characteristic involves the placing of found objects onto 2D backgrounds to create surreal collages in a series of ongoing work called Pattern with Object; such as placing a ring doughnut on a conservative tweed fabric. This fusion of opposites is the essence of their work. As Burakowski explains “our work isn’t about trends. We are about putting together two things that should never meet.

They shouldn’t work or fit, but once you place them there, somehow they do.” Like their Corrected Masterpiece series depicting a famous and familiar Monet image overlaid with a lush organic lettuce, a Fragonard with the addition of confectionary and simply a sandwich on a Titan. Culminating in a modern twist on familiar classics of art history. “We visited Rochester castle and realised how difficult it was to relate to history, we came to the conclusion that in fact, what we do know historically is incorrect, how could it possibly be fully correct? We are not saying history didn’t happen, of course we’re not, but we don’t believe everything that we’re told about it. We just simply wanted to sum things up, so we pared history down to a real ignorance level, by depicting iconic figures, with no accurate knowledge.” “For example, the only thing we know about Marie-Antoinette is that she was a French ‘Fancy’ (the name of a very English cake), who famously said ‘let them eat cake’, so we decided to depict her in that way...she is two French tarts, which are ornate and frilly...we are basically just playing with these ideas of portraiture.” Both perfectionists who are extremely critical of their own work, they believe that there is a need to create these images that buzz around in their heads. “We are compelled to do what we do, we are not trying to be something…we have to work until we get the images absolutely right, they may go through several stages for just one image and ultimately as long as we are happy with it, it’s right.” Mr & Mrs Antoni & Alison are very serious about what they do “… and work very hard indeed!” Their work is included in, amongst others: both in the collection of Prints and Drawings, and exists as a ‘Living Archive’ at The Victoria & Albert Museum, London and in the permanent collection of The Huis Marseille, Institute for Photography, Amsterdam (where their work was included in the ‘Made in Britain: Contemporary British Photography’ exhibition in 2005) and the Citibank Collection, London.

They have also exhibited as far a field as Museum Fur Kundsthandwerk Stockholm, Sweden and The Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This exhibition will be their second solo show at The hug Gallery, the first having launch the gallery back in 2004. All work is available for purchase.  Curated by Addie Vassie

"Museums in the 21st Century: Concepts, Projects, Buildings"
2006-04-01 until 2006-06-25
K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf,  Germany

The museum seems to have assumed the role of urban landmark formerly fulfilled by the cathedral. Today, this institution serves as a symbol of cultural identification in a society that is passing through an insecure phase, one caused not least by the steadily advancing progress of globalization. A spectacular museum building can enhance a city’s attractiveness, shifting a remote locale into public awareness through its striking presence, or else endowing a fallow industrial zone with a new function. As the first station of an international tour, the K20 will be hosting an exhibition of museum architecture from the 1st decade of the 21st century. 26 projects from four continents offer a broad cross-section of the most interesting and forward-looking contemporary museum buildings, all currently in planning, under construction, or already completed. On view will be projects that arrive at strikingly contrasting solutions through the deployment of decidedly individualized formal means: Frank O. Gehry’s expressive idiom, for example, is juxtaposed against the clarity and homogeneity of Tadao Ando’s architecture.  Among the selected architects are Mario Botta, Stephan Braunfels, David Chipperfield, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Frank O. Gehry, Annette Gigon/Mike Guyer, Kisho Kurokawa, Daniel Libeskind and Jean Nouvel. All projects are documented through models, computer simulations, plans and sketches, as well as DVD installations.

"Call for Aritsts: Art of Music Exhibition"
2006-04-04 until 2006-06-19
Smithtown Township Arts Council
St. James, New York.

Smithtown Township Arts Council seeks entries for the Art of Music Exhibition, held at the Mills Pond House Gallery July 15 through August 19, 2006. Artists in all media are encouraged to submit works that are musically inspired, i.e. works that take music as subject matter, and/or works that explore the connections between art and music. Works may not exceed 54 inches width. Artists may submit their works by JPEG (300 dpi or greater) on CD only. Deadline for receipt on entries: June 19. Entry fee: $20 for up to three entries. Send SASE to STAC, 660 Route 25A, St. James NY 11870 or visit www.stacarts.org for a prospectus. (631) 862-6575.

Daniel Iliescu in Black and White

Photo: Form. Etude by Maestro Daniel Iliescu

Creating a whole universe with a few black and white strokes is a daring esthetical task. Zen masters did it on parchments and bamboos.  It was the sublime and the spiritual which came to life through the lines and elegant curves of the Japanese Senseis and enlightened Chan masters. Today, in New York city, there is an abstract artist who produced similar imagery and challenging forms via a different medium. He did not use bamboos, nor chanted to evoke the divine muse. He just did it with ink, juxtaposition of images, frames and repros in negative. Et voila, a superb world of light and darkness bursted on his laminated and glossy hard stock.

Photo: Composition by Iliescu

This phenomenal artist is Daniel Iliescu. There is an infinitum in his compositions. Delicate and rebellious blunt strokes freed and froze a mysterious world, simplistic in its form, but complex in its message. It is a dark world. A cosmos of quest, investigative mind and ultra-modern esthetical conception. Is it ornamental? Decorative? Abstract? Or simply an intellectual curiosity. Dare to find out. One thing is sure, Iliescu's work is most unusual and haunting.  Elegant in its lyrical simplicity and stormy in its eloquent silence.

Photo: Strings, by Daniel Iliescu

In-Depth Article in the forthcoming issue: The history and development of the Diaspora Art.