Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting

30th April 2014 - 21st September 2014
www.nationalgallery.org.uk

Architecture forms the basis of many Italian Renaissance paintings and now, as the result of a research partnership between the National Gallery and the University of York, visitors are invited to explore its differing representations in the exhibition ‘Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting’.

Depictions of buildings in Italian Renaissance works by artists such as Duccio,Botticelli and Crivelli offer a fascinating insight into the architecture of the time. While some reflect real architectural forms, others are deliberately fantastical; defying structural possibility but offering a convincing setting for biblical and mythological tales.

In the first exhibition of its kind in Britain, ‘Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting’ will consider the ways in which architecture was represented and used in pictures from the 14th, 15th and 16th century - how it was employed to frame figures and construct illusions of space, and how it shaped how contemporaries understood these paintings.

Paintings from the National Gallery Collection will form the heart of the exhibition, which also includes loans from other collections in the United Kingdom including from the National Galleries of Scotland.

The Sunley Room Exhibition Programme is generously supported by The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation.

Art as Therapy

25th April 2014 - 7th September 2014
www.rijksmuseum.nl

From 25 April, British writers and philosophers Alain de Botton & John Armstrong will be showing in the Rijksmuseum what art can mean to visitors. And not so much from an (art-)historical point of view, but focusing rather on the therapeutic effect that art can have and the big questions in life that art can answer. In the exhibition Art is Therapy, De Botton (1969) and Armstrong (1966) will be commenting on 150 artworks on display in the Rijksmuseum galleries, from the Middle Ages right through to the 20th century, but also on objects in the shop, café, cloakroom and entrance. They have also selected approx. 40 prints from the Rijksmuseum Print Room. The text boards have been designed by Irma Boom and added to the museum’s original ones. De Botton and Armstrong believe that these new captions shed an entirely new light on the Rijksmuseum collection. This exhibition will be the first time that the philosophers put their theories from their latest book Art as Therapyinto practice.

De Botton and Armstrong feel that by providing the name of the artist, the material used, the period in which the object was made/created, etc., traditional museum text boards already suggest what the visitor should think about a certain object. The exhibition Art is Therapy, however, wants to question what the purpose of art is and highlight the therapeutic effect that art has on visitors who simply look at art and enjoy it. As far as the British philosophers are concerned, the focus should be less on where an art object comes from and who made it, and more on what it can do for the museum visitor in terms of issues that concern us all: love & relationships, work, status, memory and mortality. Prints from our own collection will also be on display based around these themes.

Великие живописцы Ренессанса из Академии Каррара в Бергамо

29.04.2014 – 27.06.2014
ГМИИ им. А.С. Пушкина

На выставке будет представлено 58 произведений живописи мастеров эпохи Возрождения, среди которых работы Пизанелло, Якопо и Джованни Беллини, Боттичелли, Перуджино, Бартоломео Виварини, Карпаччо, Винченцо Фоппы, Лоренцо Лотто, Джованни Морони и многих других мастеров, которые позволят зрителю проследить процесс развития искусства Италии в один из самых интересных и важных моментов истории. Хронологически выставка охватывает XV и XVI века, от периода становления нового искусства, основанного на принципах гуманизма, до шедевров, созданных мастерами, прославившими свое время.

Самая знаменитая из представленных на выставке картин – написанный в 1441 году "Портрет герцога Лионелло д'Эсте" Антонио Пизанелло, выдающегося живописца, рисовальщика, стоявшего у истоков европейского медальерного искусства. Насчитывается менее десяти известных в мире живописных работ художника, а в отечественных музеях они отсутствуют.

Искусство как профессия. Собрание Майи и Анатолия Беккерман

22.04.2014 – 01.06.2014
http://www.arts-museum.ru/

Впервые в России собрание Майи и Анатолия Беккерман будет экспонироваться как самостоятельный проект. В Белом зале и на колоннаде Главного здания ГМИИ им. А.С. Пушкина будут размещены произведения тех художников, чье творчество представлено в коллекции монографически – Женщина с букетом сирени, 1922, Константина Коровина, Капри I, 1910-1911, Бориса Анисфельда, Испанская танцовщица, 1916, Натальи Гончаровой, Рыбак с крабом, 1922-1923, Бориса Григорьева, Ветер, 1916, Давида Бурлюка и другие произведения.
Особую часть экспозиции (зал № 20) составят работы, которые в свое время являлись частью нью-йоркской коллекции М.и А. Беккерман, а ныне находятся в музеях и частных собраниях Москвы и Санкт-Петербурга. Это такие произведения, как «Портрет С.И. Молло», 1917, Бориса Григорьева, «Петербург», 1912, Мстислава Добужинского, «Вербное воскресение на Красной площади», 1917, Бориса Кустодиева, «Портрет Давида Бурлюка», 1923, Николая Фешина из коллекции Государственного Русского музея и «Набережная Сены. Ширма», 1930-е, Натальи Гончаровой из собрания Московского музея современного искусства и другие.

Анатолий Беккерман, коллекционер и арт-диллер, владелец галереи «АВА», которая существует более 30 лет в Нью-Йорке. Произведения из этой коллекции «участвовали» во многих значимых художественных проектах, представленных в нашей стране: «Русский футуризм и Давид Бурлюк» (2000) и «Русский Париж» (2001) в Государственном Русском музее; «Американские художники из русской империи» (2008-2009) в Государственном Русском музее и Государственной Третьяковской галерее; «Время собирать» (2012) в Государственном музее-заповеднике «Царицыно» и Государственном Русском музее, а в 2013 году работы из коллекции Беккерман были представлены на выставках, вызвавших огромный интерес у отечественного зрителя: «Филипп Малявин» в Государственном Русском музее и «Наталья Гончарова» в Государственной Третьяковской галерее.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs

17th April 2014 - 7th September 2014
www.tate.org.uk

Tate Modern’s major exhibition, Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs, is the most comprehensive exhibition ever devoted to the artist’s paper cut-outs made between 1943 and 1954. It brings together around 120 works, many seen together for the first time, in a groundbreaking reassessment of Matisse’s colourful and innovative final works.

Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (1869–1954) is one of the leading figures of modern art and one of the most significant colourists of all time. A draughtsman, printmaker, sculptor and painter, his unparalleled cut-outs are among the most significant of any artist’s late works. In a career spanning over half a century, Matisse, made a large body of work of which the cut-outs are a brilliant final chapter in his long career.

Matisse’s first cut-outs were made between 1943 and 1947 and were collected together in Jazz 1947, a book of 20 plates. Copies, published by Teriade and featuring a text hand-written by Matisse, is shown alongside the original cut-outs. Other major cut-outs in the exhibition include Tate’s The Snail 1953, its sister work Memory of Oceania 1953 and Large Composition with Masks 1953. A photograph of Matisse’s studio reveals that these works were initially conceived as a unified whole, and this is the first time these three large-scale works will have been together since they were made in Matisse’s studio. Matisse’s renewed interest in representing the figure is demonstrated by the display of a number of Matisse’s Blue Nudes including, the most significant of the group Blue Nude I 1952.

When ill health first prevented Matisse from painting, he began to cut into painted paper with scissors as his primary technique to make maquettes for a number of commissions, from books and stained glass window designs to tapestries and ceramics. In the cut-outs, outlines take on sculptural form and painted sheets of paper are infused with the luminosity of stained glass. Using colour, Matisse evokes the convulsive surface of water and the lushness of vegetation. The result reflected both a renewed commitment to form and colour and an inventiveness freshly directed to the status of the work of art.

The exhibition re-examines the cut-outs in terms of the methods and materials that Matisse used, and their double lives, first as contingent and mutable in the studio and ultimately as permanent works through mounting and framing. The exhibition highlights the tensions in the works between finish and process; fine art and decoration; contemplation and utility; and drawing and colour.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-outs is curated by Nicholas Cullinan, Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Nicholas Serota, Director with Flavia Frigeri, Assistant Curator, Tate and at the Museum of Modern Art, New York by Jodi Hauptman, Curator, Department of Drawings, and Karl Buchberg, Senior Conservator, with Samantha Friedman, Assistant Curator.

«Золотой век русского авангарда» Питера Гринуэя и Саскии Боддеке

15 апреля - 18 мая 2014 г.
moscowmanege.ru

Мультимедийные технологии позволили авторам «оживить» произведения русского авангарда — здесь будут Эйзенштейн и Мейерхольд, Малевич и Кандинский в новой, невиданной доселе интерпретации.

С 18 экранов будут демонстрироваться видеоролики, основаннные на оригинале художественного произведения и современных технологиях (например, анимации и 3D-графике). В смысловом центре экспозиции находится интерпретация «Черного квадрата» Малевича. «Квадрат» решен при помощи проекций, света и звука. Авторы выставки не ставят перед собой цель отвлечь внимание посетителей от непосредственно самих шедевров русского авангарда. Но, по их мнению, идея с использованием визуально-звукового подхода поможет по-новому взглянуть на знакомые произведения.

Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner. Pittura inglese verso la modernità

15 aprile - 20 luglio 2014
http://www.fondazioneromamuseo.it/

L’esposizione, curata da Carolina Brook e Valter Curzi, intende offrire al pubblico una visione d’insieme dello sviluppo artistico e sociale, che si definì nel XVIII secolo di pari passo con l’egemonia conquistata dalla Gran Bretagna sul piano storico - politico ed economico.

A tal fine è stato riunito un corpus di oltre cento opere, provenienti dalle più prestigiose istituzioni museali quali il British Museum, la Tate Britain Gallery, il Victoria & Albert Museum, la Royal Academy, la National Portrait Gallery, il Museum of London, la Galleria degli Uffizi alle quali si unisce il nucleo di opere provenienti dall’importante raccolta americana dello Yale Centre for British Art.

Divenuta nel corso del Settecento una vera e propria potenza internazionale, protagonista della rivoluzione industriale e dell’egemonia sulle rotte marittime, l’Inghilterra si pose per la prima volta il problema della nascita di una propria scuola artistica.

Lo sviluppo economico di cui è protagonista la Gran Bretagna, permetterà la nascita di un vero e proprio mondo nuovo di figure professionali, industriali e mercanti, scienziati e filosofi, che troveranno nelle arti visive un significativo supporto all’affermazione del loro nuovo status, divenendo i mecenati di quei maestri che nell’arco del secolo contribuiranno alla definizione di una scuola nazionale.

Il percorso della mostra si articola in sette sezioni e propone una selezione dei più significativi pittori anglosassoni, con l’obiettivo di documentare in particolare i generi della ritrattistica e della pittura di paesaggio che maggiormente hanno trovato fortuna durante il secolo, dando luogo a un linguaggio figurativo capace di interpretare quella modernità che diventerà nell’Ottocento riferimento comune per tutta l’Europa.
In mostra si potranno ammirare pittori come Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Wright of Derby, Stubbs, Füssli, Constable e Turner, che offriranno con le loro opere uno spaccato significativo della peculiarità e originalità dell’arte inglese, di cui mancava a Roma una rassegna dalla mostra del 1966.

Lost Kingdoms. Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century

April 14–July 27, 2014
http://www.metmuseum.org/

This is the first international loan exhibition to explore the sculptural art produced in the earliest kingdoms of Southeast Asia. From the first millennium onward, powerful kingdoms emerged in the region, embracing much of Indic culture to give political and religious expression to their identities. Early Hinduism (Brahmanism) and Buddhism arrived early, first witnessed by Sanskrit inscriptions, and shortly thereafter by a proliferation of large-scale religious imagery.

Some 160 sculptures are featured in the exhibition, principally associated with the identifiable cultures of Pyu, Funan, Zhenla, Champa, Dvāravatī, Kedah, and Śrīvijaya. These are the "lost kingdoms," whose identities and sometimes very existence only emerged from the historical shadows in the twentieth century, as a result of pioneering epigraphic and archaeologial research, much of it recent. The artistic achievements and cultural parameters of these early kingdoms bring new understanding to the beginning of state formation in Southeast Asia and broadly define the modern political map of the region today. The surviving corpus of early religious art from these kingdoms is our principal window onto these cultures.

Many of the exhibits are monumental, and a significant number are designated as national treasures. The National Museums of Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Myanmar, as well as the Musée Guimet, Paris, and major museums in the United States are all lenders. Many of the works have never traveled outside their source countries before. Mynamar is making its first ever international loans to this exhibition.

The majority of the works are in stone, with others in bronze, gold, silver, terracotta, and stucco. Among the masterpieces in the exhibition, highlights include a sixth-century Cambodian Buddha Offering Protection; a spectacular Krishna Holding Mt. Govardhana from the hill shrine of Phnom Da, in southern Cambodia; a late seventh-century Avalokitesivara discovered in the Mekong delta of Vietnam in the 1920s, arguably the most beautiful image of the Buddhist embodiment of compassion in Southeast Asia; an Uma of startling naturalism that likely embodies a portrait of a deceased Khmer queen of the first half of the seventh century; an ascetic Ganesha from the eighth-century religious sanctuary of My Son in central Vietnam; and a Dvaravati kingdom terracotta sculpture Head of Meditating Buddha, a sublime representation of Buddhist meditation from the seventh century.

Индия. Драгоценности, покорившие мир

12.04.2014 - 27.07.2014
http://www.kreml.ru/

Выставочный зал Успенской звонницы. Одностолпная палата Патриаршего дворца Московского Кремля

Выставка впервые представляет в России триста блистательных произведений ювелирного искусства из многих музейных и частных собраний Европы, Азии и Америки. Великолепные творения индийских мастеров XVI–XX столетий демонстрируют разнообразие и самобытность ювелирных традиций Индостана.

Выставка показывает, как обращение к индийским мотивам и традициям работы с драгоценными камнями – резными изумрудами, рубинами, сапфирами – приводит к рождению в Европе нового оригинального «индийского» стиля. Создавшие его знаменитые фирмы – Cartier, Chaumet, Van Cleef & Arpels и другие – демонстрируют изумительные произведения, смело сочетающие модные европейские тенденции с экзотическими индийскими мотивами и элементами. Самым известным направлением стал популярный и сегодня стиль tutti frutti.

Dix/Beckmann: World as Myth.

11 April – 10 August 2014

http://www.hypo-kunsthalle.de/

With this exhibition, the Kunsthalle of the Hypo Cultural Foundation presents the first major juxtaposition of works by Max Beckmann (1884–1950) and Otto Dix (1891–1969), two of the most important German artists of the first half of the 20th century. Their works had a profound influence on the cultural life of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) before being declared "degenerate" by the National Socialists, endangering the very existence of the artists. Over 180 paintings, drawings and prints from important museums and private collections in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York and Washington, among many others, illustrate the artistic development and range of the two artists.

For Dix and Beckmann, World War I was an initial experience that had a major impact on their life and work. From then on, each developed his own distinctive style. Consciously rejecting expressionism and abstraction, they embraced their exploration of the harrowing experiences of reality – Otto Dix, by focusing on the bleaker side of contemporary society; Max Beckmann, by confronting the invisible layer behind the visible world. Despite their different approaches, they were both aiming at the same moment: when the familiar suddenly becomes strange and the world a myth.

Even at an early stage, both artists attracted a great deal of attention in Munich. In 1923, the Thannhauser Gallery presented an exhibition with works by Max Beckmann, followed by an exhibition of works by Otto Dix in 1926. It is not known whether the two artists ever came face to face during these cataclysmic years, and yet they moved in the same circles, exhibited their works with the same art dealers and even painted some of the same models. Although Dix and Beckmann have long been considered as the two greatest German artists of their generation, to date their works have never been juxtaposed in such a specific dialogue.

The exhibition offers a fascinating journey from the beginnings right through to the late works of these two outstanding, yet very different artists. In the process, it becomes clear just how profoundly both were affected by the extremes of their era. First and foremost, their graphic works reflect the artists' first-hand experience of war, yet the witnessed horrors are still manifest in their pictures of post war Germany, peopled with war invalids and prostitutes. In a similarly forceful way, Dix and Beckmann show the people in their own private and professional circles, including well-known personages on the cultural scene like Dix's portrait of the actor Heinrich George. Religious themes also recur consistently in their oeuvre. One early example is Beckmann's famous "Descent from the Cross" (MoMA). Moreover, this work attests to his exploration of the art of bygone eras, likewise an important leitmotif in Dix's oeuvre. In eleven rooms at the Kunsthalle, grouped by theme, the similarities and distinctions between the two artists are revealed to the visitor.

Based on a concept by Ulrike Lorenz and developed with Beatrice von Bormann, the exhibition is a cooperation with the Kunsthalle Mannheim

The World of Toulouse-Lautrec

10th April 2014 - 10th August 2014
www.szepmuveszeti.hu

The chief purpose of the exhibition conceived for the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth is to give a comprehensive presentation of the museum’s own material of prints and drawings. As the earliest sheets in the Budapest collection are from 1892 the exhibition wishes to shed light upon the last decade of his oeuvre (1891–1901), characterised by lively lithographic activity. Besides the two drawings from the Majovszky Collection (Ballroom at the Moulin Rouge, Portrait of Singer Mlle Cocyte), the museum preserves 200 lithographs from Toulouse-Lautrec’s reproduced graphic works, 368 sheets in all, including ten large posters, his cold needle series consisting of eight pieces and several illustrated books and albums (Yvette Guilbert).

This representative ensemble of prints is the result of deliberate acquisition prior to the First World War. The first sheets were bought in the year of the artist’s death, in 1901. Being in contact with the most eminent French and German art dealers, the museum was able to attain many works printed in limited edition (12-25), equipped with numbers, signatures and at times inscriptions. There are several impressions of which only four or five copies are known to exist at present. The museum’s collection therefore enables an extensive study into the graphic work of Toulouse-Lautrec, both regarding the diverse functions (posters, book illustrations and periodicals, cover designs, theatre programmes, cast lists and covers of music) and his themes (the world of Parisian theatres, cabarets, brothels, prominent performers of night life and horse racing). It is also interesting that certain compositions can be found in different print phases or colour variants, thus offering insight into the process of artistic creation.

The exhibition plans to present the Parisian settings and people connected to Toulouse-Lautrec in thematic groups, allowing for the portrayal of the scenes of public and private life, individuals vs. types and the examination of the boundaries between popular and elitist art. The most wide-ranging unit takes stock of the key locations of the end of the 19th century entertainment industry, the café chantants, dancing clubs and cabarets (Moulin Rouge, Mirliton). Works linked to the theatre would form a separate section: posters and cast lists and the depiction of theatrical scenes (e.g. Sarah Berhardt or Marcelle Lender in their famous roles) or the audience itself. The world of brothels features in a distinct unit with the oil painting The Ladies in the Dining-room as the focus - purchased by the museum in 1913 from the exhibition staged at Ernst Museum - in addition to the 1896 series of lithographs Elles (Girls), depicting with unusual empathy the intimate moments of those living on the brink of society. The last part of the exhibition would place individuality and the world of stars at its centre by illustrating the most important performers, singers and dancers of fin-de-siècle Paris (Aristide Bruant, Jane Avril, Loïe Fuller, Marcel Lender, Yvette Guilbert), in whose careers the works of Toulouse-Lautrec played a key role.

Paris of the “belle époque” can also be evoked by archive photographs, films or even musical inserts integrated into the exhibition. The Collection of Prints and Drawings is able to give a broader context to Toulouse-Lautrec’s graphic oeuvre by involving the artworks of other contemporaries (such as Bonnard, Steinlen or Ibels).

Николай Рерих. 1874–1947

9 апреля - 15 июня
rusmuseum.ru

В 2014 году исполняется 140 лет со дня рождения художника, философа, общественного деятеля Николая Рериха. Этому событию посвящена выставка, на которой можно увидеть около 300 живописных работ Рериха из собраний разных музеев. Представленные произведения живописи и графики художника относятся к различным периодам его творчества. Это и ранний этап, когда Рерих учился в Императорской Академии художеств, и полотна, написанные в тридцатые-сороковые годы прошлого века в Индии.

Сюрприз для почитателей творчества Николая Рериха – показ полотна «Садко», которое экспонируется крайне редко из-за больших размеров: два метра высота и семь метров длина. Панно «Садко» - одно из семи, которые составляют так называемый «Богатырский фриз», созданный Рерихом в 1910 году для столовой в доме Ф.Бажанова.

Rubens, Van Dyck en Jordaens - de Vlaamse barok

6-4 - 28-9 2014
http://www.rijksmuseumtwenthe.nl/

Rijksmuseum Twenthe presenteert in samenwerking met Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen de tentoonstelling Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens - de Vlaamse barok. Aan de hand van meer dan vijftig schilderijen en enkele tientallen prenten geeft de tentoonstelling inzicht in de betekenis, het functioneren en de impact van de 17e-eeuwse kunst zoals ze in Vlaanderen werd geproduceerd. Het merendeel van deze meesterwerken is nooit eerder in Nederland te zien geweest. De tentoonstelling Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens - de Vlaamse barok toont de Vlaamse barok in de volle breedte.

Wie ‘barok' zegt krijgt visioenen van welgevormde nimfen, heroïsche Christusfiguren en mythologische goden met dramatisch wapperende haren. Groot, imposant, zinnelijk: dat is waar wij aan denken bij Vlaamse kunst uit de 17e eeuw. Een groter contrast met de sobere kerkinterieurs van Saenredam en de van symboliek geladen genrestukken van Jan Steen uit de reformatorische Noordelijke Nederlanden lijkt niet mogelijk. Maar klopt dit beeld eigenlijk wel? Is er werkelijk zo'n groot verschil tussen Noord en Zuid? Rijksmuseum Twenthe werpt nieuw licht op de overeenkomsten en verschillen tussen de Hollanders en onze zuiderburen aan de hand van vijf thema's: religie, mythologie, portretten, landschappen en stillevens.

De clichés rondom de Vlaamse barok bestaan niet zonder reden: juist de imposante meesterwerken van Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) voldoen aan alle heersende opvattingen over wat de Vlaamse barok kenmerkt. Zijn overtuigende, dynamische en emotionele schilderstijl is precies wat de contrareformatie nodig had om de afgedwaalde schapen op het rechte pad te leiden na de verwoestingen van de Beeldenstorm. De vernuftig uitgedachte beeldprogramma’s met mythologische of allegorische thema’s en indrukwekkende portretten moesten op hun beurt het gezag van de adel herbevestigen. Met zijn krachtige, energieke en theatrale taferelen komt Rubens als geen ander tegemoet aan de wensen van dit soort opdrachtgevers. Zijn leerling Antoon van Dyck (1599-1641) en zijn tijdgenoot Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) deden niet voor hem onder. Geen wonder dat deze drie schilders toonaangevend werden en nog altijd hun stempel drukken op onze voorstelling van de Vlaamse barok. De tentoonstelling in Rijksmuseum Twenthe geeft een uniek beeld van de volle breedte van de Vlaamse barok door de meesterwerken van Rubens, Van Dyck en Jordaens in samenhang te tonen met schilderijen en prenten van tijdgenoten die gemaakt werden voor een nieuwe markt: de welgestelde burgers van Antwerpen.

Otto Dix. War – The Dresden Triptych

April 5 - July 13, 2014
http://www.skd.museum/

Otto Dix can rightly be described as the 20th-century artist who produced the most intense and compelling works on the subject of war. His shockingly realistic depictions of dead and wounded soldiers in the trenches of the First World War have been imprinted on our collective pictorial memory – in particular his triptych entitled “Der Krieg” (War) from the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden.

The year 2014 will see the centenary of the start of the First World War. To mark this occasion, the four panels will be investigated in all their various facets and presented in an exhibition along with Dix’s outstanding series of etchings entitled “Der Krieg” (War), published in 1924, as well as preliminary studies and drawings from his time at the front. Dix painted the triptych between 1929 and 1932 using Old Master techniques, after having been appointed professor at the Dresden Art Academy. In this work he also reflected on the rise of revanchist nationalism in the Weimar Republic as it came under increasing threats from its enemies. The exhibition will also consider Dix’s reception of the works of Old Masters and parallels with war films such as All Quiet on the Western Front after Erich Maria Remarque (1930), thus setting the work within a wider context.

Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty

5 апреля 2014 - 20 июля 2014
www.ago.net

In Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty, the Art Gallery of Ontario brings two giants of 20th-century British art together in a major exhibition of sculpture and paintings, featuring over 60 works by the two highly influential artists as well as a number of photographs and drawings dating from the Second World War.

Although they were neither friends nor collaborators, painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) and sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) were contemporaries who shared an obsession with expressing themes of suffering, struggle and survival in relation to the human body. Both artists were focused, in different ways, on representing the body in various states of contortion, which reflected their experiences of conflict and violence. Drawing on the artists' own personal experiences and references, including the London Blitz, the exhibition examines how confinement and angst fostered their extraordinary creativity and unique visions.

Guest curated for the AGO by Dan Adler, associate professor of art history at York University, Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty is the first Canadian exhibition of Bacon's work. The presentation also includes never-before-seen Moore artworks, from both the AGO collection and elsewhere. Loans for the exhibition have been secured from several institutions including MoMA, Tate Britain and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

The exhibition was originally curated by Richard Calvocoressi CBE, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation and Martin Harrison, editor of the catalogue raisonné on Francis Bacon.

Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Ai Weiwei – Evidence

3 April to 7 July 2014
http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de

Despite all the incredible hostility shown him in his own country Ai Weiwei decided to put on his largest one-man exhibition yet in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau. On 3,000 square metres in 18 rooms and the spectacular Lichthof he will be displaying works and installations which were either designed for the Martin-Gropius-Bau or have not yet been shown in Germany.

The name he has given to his exhibition is “Evidence”, a term well known beyond the English-speaking world from American TV crime series in the meaning of proof that will stand up in court. It is a political exhibition that Ai Weiwei has designed for Berlin in his simple and spacious studio in the rural outskirts of Beijing

Paris 1900, la Ville spectacle

2nd April 2014 - 17th August 2014
www.petitpalais.paris.fr

L’exposition «Paris 1900, la Ville spectacle» invite le public à revivre les heures fastes de la capitale française au moment où elle accueille l’Exposition Universelle qui inaugure en fanfare le 20e siècle. Plus que jamais la ville rayonne aux yeux du monde entier comme la cité du luxe et de l’art de vivre. Plus de 600 oeuvres – peintures, objets d’art, costumes, affiches, photographies, films, meubles, bijoux, sculptures… - plongeront les visiteurs du Petit Palais dans le Paris de la Belle Epoque. Les innovations techniques, l’effervescence culturelle, l’élégance de la Parisienne seront mis en scène comme autant de mythologies de ce Paris dont la littérature et le cinéma n’ont cessé depuis de véhiculer l’image dans le monde entier.

Dans une scénographie inventive intégrant le tout nouveau cinématographe au fil du parcours, le visiteur est convié à un voyage semblable à celui des 51 millions de touristes qui affluèrent à Paris en 1900.
Le parcours organisé autour de six « pavillons » débute par une section intitulée « Paris, vitrine du monde » évoquant l’Exposition Universelle. A cette occasion, les nouvelles gares de Lyon, d’Orsay et des Invalides sont construites tout comme la première ligne du « métropolitain ». Des projets architecturaux, des peintures, des films mais aussi de pittoresques objets souvenirs et des éléments de décors sauvegardés, rappelleront cette manifestation inouïe.

Mais Paris 1900 ne saurait se résumer à l’Exposition Universelle : la Ville lumière proposait bien d’autres occasions d’émerveillement et de dépenses. Dans les magasins de luxe et les galeries d’art, les amateurs pouvaientdécouvrir les créations des inventeurs de l’Art Nouveau, présenté ici au sein d’un second pavillon dédié aux chefs-d’oeuvre de Gallé, Guimard, Majorelle, Mucha, Lalique…

La troisième section dévolue aux Beaux-Arts démontre la place centrale de Paris sur la scène artistique. À cette époque, tous les talents convergent vers la capitale pour se former dans les ateliers, exposer dans les Salons et vendre grâce aux réseaux montants des galeries d’art. Des toiles du finlandais Edelfelt, de l’espagnol Zuloaga ou de l’américain Stewart, évoqueront ce climat international. Mais l’accrochage confronte aussi les oeuvres de Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Vuillard, avec celles de Gérôme, de Bouguereau ou Gervex, gloires acclamées tant de l’Académisme que de l’Impressionnisme enfin reconnu, du Symbolisme tardif ou de figures plus nouvelles, comme Maillol ou Maurice Denis, tandis que triomphe l’art d’un Rodin.

El Greco’s Library

1 April - 29 June 2014
https://www.museodelprado.es

On El Greco’s death in Toledo on 7 April 1614, his possessions included 130 books that are partly known from two inventories compiled by his son Jorge Manuel Theotokopouli: one drawn up a few weeks after the painter’s death and another of 1621, compiled as proof of the possessions that Jorge Manuel was bringing to his second marriage.

Based on the original documents of these two inventories, the exhibition is organised into five sections which together present its theoretical argument. Greek forefathers and the classical heritage, Metamorphosis in Italy, Painting as a speculative science,  Vitruvius and the terms of architecture, The problem of religious imagery