Category: Art

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Art in NYC: Felix Feneon – the Anarchist and the Avant-Garde at MoMA

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Art in NYC: Felix Feneon – the Anarchist and the Avant-Garde at MoMA

“Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde—From Signac to Matisse and Beyond” at MoMA is the first exhibition devoted to the influential French art critic, editor, publisher, dealer, and collector.

On view through January 2, 2021

Paul Signac. Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon
Paul Signac. Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890. Oil on canvas. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller, 1991. Photo by Paige Knight. © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

In this abnormal time, a museum visit takes on a new meaning. It is both a return to normal life as we remember it and an affirmation of the unchanged desire to explore and experience art. A visit to MoMA to see the exhibit dedicated to Felix Feneon is exactly that.

Well researched and painstakingly laid out, the show brings familiar works by such giants of the late 19th-century art scene as Seurat, Signac, Vuillard, Matisse, Modigliani and the non-Western art together following the superb taste and visionary aesthetics of the French art critic and collector Felix Feneon.  Credited with coining the term Neo-Impressionism, he had recognized the significance of pointillism and other scientifically ordered art movements and tirelessly promoted them to the public. His fascination with non-Western art and sculpture propelled the interest in the works made in Africa and Oceania. The mesmerizing figurines from the Musee d’Orsay, Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, and private collections stun the viewers by the power and exquisite mastery of execution.

Attributed to the Master of Bouaflé (Guro, Côte d’Ivoire). Heddle pulley.
Attributed to the Master of Bouaflé (Guro, Côte d’Ivoire). Heddle pulley. Nineteenth century. Wood and pigment. Fondation Musée Barbier-Mueller, Geneva. © Fondation Musée Barbier-Mueller, photo studio Ferrazzini-Bouchet

The exhibit comes with an intriguing story of Feneon’s support and participation in the Anarchist movement while working at the Ministry of War. The episode of his imprisonment and a consequent trial are described in the show through the documents, photographs, and testimonies. Excerpts from his writing and publications are full of wit and elegance while the portraits of him by Valloton and Signac present a Mephistopheles-like figure.

The show tells the life story of a visionary who influenced the perception of art by his contemporaries and bravely advanced the Neo-Impressionists and Futurists. Indulge yourself in art and enjoy the show!

 

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Art in NYC: Gerhard Richter Painting After All at the MetMuseum

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Art in NYC: Gerhard Richter Painting After All at the MetMuseum

While MetMuseum has temporarily closed, you can visit it online from anywhere

Presenting a major exhibition of works by German artist Gerhard Richter titled “Painting After All”, the exhibit spans the entire artist’s career 

Gerhard Richter, S. with Child, 1995, Oil on canvas
Gerhard Richter, S. with Child, 1995, Oil on canvas, Hamburger Kunsthalle,© Gerhard Richter 2019 / Image courtesy of The MetMuseum

Recognized as one of the greatest artists of our time, Gerhard Richter succeeds in combining the detailed pictorial approach with the haze caused by the fog of time. His celebrated blurred figurative paintings, large scale abstract compositions, and monumental glass sculptures are the treasures of the art museums all around the world. Originally scheduled to be on view at the Met Breuer from March 4 – July 5, 2020, the exhibition includes a range of artworks from the artist’s early experiments with the pictorial depictions based on the old photographs, the glass sculptures, and the most recent cycle House of Cards (5 Panes) (2020). Some of the works will be more familiar to the art lovers, while others like the cycles Cage (2009) and Birkenau (2014) are shown in the United States for the first time.

Well known for his effort to reconcile through art the historical past with personal memories, Richter is uniquely qualified to remind the viewers about the horror of war, the danger of manipulation through the isolated messages or images taken out of context, and the inconsistencies in the recollection of the past events. To accentuate the point of a fleeting chance of memory, his technique of smudging the clear image reminds us of the distortion brought on by the time.

Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932, Dresden) Cage 4, 2006 Oil on canvas
Gerhard Richter, Cage 4, 2006, Oil on canvas, Tate: Lent from a private collection 2007,© Gerhard Richter 2019 / Image courtesy of the MetMuseum

The technique can be seen as a way to represent the perspective of time similar to the perspective of distance and space. It creates the fourth dimension (time) for otherwise ordinary snapshots. As the objects positioned far away are depicted proportionally smaller and with less visible details, the memories about the events from the past are covered in haze and come out with blurred outlines. One can still see the object, yet as years go by, the exact image loses its significance and is replaced by the vague outline.

Explore the show online by taking a virtual tour.

Virtual Tour

The exhibition at the Met Breuer is the first major expose of Richter’s art in the US in 20 years.

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Art in NYC: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met

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Art in NYC: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met

While the Metropolitan Museum of Art has temporarily closed, you can visit it online from anywhere

A magnificent exhibition of works by the 17th-century Dutch masters titled “In Praise of Painting” can be viewed online 

Aristotle with a Bust of Homer by Rembrandt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn), Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, 1653. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Met Museum collection of Dutch paintings is highly praised by scholars and extremely popular with the visitors. The “In Praise of Painting ” exhibition, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Met Museum founding, uses the occasion to showcase the treasures by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and others thematically and to highlight various aspects of the 17th-century Dutch society in all its complexity. The selection comes from the Benjamin Altman’s bequest, the Robert Lehman collection, and the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection. Thoughtfully organized by the curators around nine themes from portraiture to landscape and domestic scenes, the exhibition unites prominent works and allows for striking comparisons and keen amplification of the historical details.

The viewers are invited in for a closer look at people, their homes, land and the pastime when the Netherland was experiencing rapid changes brought in by the technological advancements and economic growth after the end of the Thirty Years war. The works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Steen and the rest of their famous contemporaries bring us closer to people living in the distant fast-changing times not that much dissimilar to our own. Societal mores, etiquette and hierarchy were turning in response to industrial progress and diversification at the time of the Dutch Golden Age. Luckily for us, it gave the world great artworks of unprecedented depth and potency. Savor the art in all its greatness.

In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces can be explored by taking an online visit.    Online Visit

 

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Virtual Visits: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Frescoes at Vatican

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Virtual Visits: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Frescoes at Vatican City

360° View of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City in the time of social distancing

Up Close: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel at the Oculus, World Trade Center, NYC
Sistine Chapel, Vatican / photo by Patrick Landy (FSU Guy)

One of the most popular sites of the Musei Vaticani complex, the Sistine Chapel stuns its visitors with Michelangelo’s frescoes and stories of the sacred rituals, such as Papal Conclave of the Cardinals conducted within its walls from 1492. Completely restored in the years from 1979 to 1999 to its original vibrant colors, the Chapel was visited daily by more than 20,00 people. Pope John Paul II said about the chapel that “The truth of our faith speaks to us here from all sides”.

As humanity stays at home in the face of the global coronavirus pandemic, it is particularly uplifting to revisit albeit virtually the historic places that withstood prior global disasters like plague epidemics and the wars. The Musei Vaticani offers a virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel with closeups of frescoes and an unobstructed view of the room without any distraction by the  guards or the unavoidable neck craning to see the ceiling.

 

 Virtual Tour

 

The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican was built in 1477-1480 by Pope Sixtus IV for whom the chapel is named. In fact, the old Cappella Magna that stood on that site from the mid-14th century was restored by the best artists of that time like Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Cosimo Rosselli. From that time until this day the Chapel is used for special ceremonies of the close circle of the Pope and as a place where the Papal Conclave of Cardinals meets to elect a new Pope.

Interestingly, the dimensions of the Chapel are the same as the Temple of Solomon according to the description in the Old Testament, the Book of Ezekiel. The Temple of Solomon was the first temple built by the Hebrews in 832 BCE under King Solomon. It was destructed by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE.

Michelangelo spent from 1508 through 1512 on painting the ceiling of the Chapel on the commission by Pope Julius II. Because at the time Michelangelo was preoccupied with sculptures and was reluctant to commit to such an enormous undertaking, Pope Julius granted him full freedom in selecting the scenes and figures to paint thus convincing him to take on the project. The resulting frescoes are considered to be the triumph of the artistic expression in Western civilization. The ceiling is populated with more than 300 figures starting from Christ’s ancestors including Adam and Eve, the scenes from the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood all the way to Christ’s followers, prophets, and sibyls.

Michelangelo’s mastery brings us the “faces of our time: anxiety masked by domesticity, women at work at household duties, men staring out blankly at an opaque fate” in the words of A.Gopnik in The New Yorker review  of the exhibit of the photographs of the frescoes at the Oculus in New York City.

Do your best imagining yourself walking through the grand doors of the Chapel by taking the virtual tour. And while it’s definitely not the same as being surrounded by the great art at the place for which it was created, you can still connect with history and art. Their meaning may even become more apparent and better understood.

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Art in NYC: Felix Vallotton Exhibition at the Met Museum

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Art in NYC: Felix Vallotton Exhibition at the Met Museum

The Met Museum presents Felix Vallotton: Painter of Disquiet, a retrospective of the most notable paintings and art prints depicting the fin-de-siècle Paris

On view from October 29, 2019 – January 26, 2020

Felix Vallotton, Five O’Clock, 1898
Five O’Clock, 1898, Distemper on cardboard, Private collection / Photo © Fondation Félix Vallotton, Lausanne

A fascinating exhibition of major works by Felix Vallotton tells a provocative story about life in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. Covering all the major phases of Vallotton’s oeurvre, the exhibition starts with his early prints and woodcuts. These early works were made at the beginning of artist’s career when he experimented with steep perspectives and flat images of the Nabis circle principles. The exhibition also showcases powerful oil paintings of the genre scenes, nudes, and landscapes of his mature period.

Well-known to art historians but not widely recognized by the public, Vallotton’s works are a mix of keen observation, wry wit, and subtle yet potent critique of the hypocrisy of bourgeoisie and the sinful pleasures of Belle Epoch France. His early prints and woodcuts made on a gamut of topics from the docile scene with music instruments to observations of everyday life to the street riots are examples of a mastery of detail and minimalist touch. While clearly demonstrating the strength of the technique, his works seemed to fall in-between the styles and artistic movements of his time. This leaves the impression that he either came too late for the expressive art of such painters like Ingre who was a strong influence for Vallotton or too early for the New Objectivity style of the 1920s.

Emphasizing his upbringing in a strict Protestant family in quiet Switzerland, the exhibition conveys Vallotton’s point of view as an outsider to the fast-moving city life.  He immediately sees the dissonance between the newly established canons and their twisted morality, but is restrained in his critique. While executed with very fine detail that at times allude to the influence of the Old Masters in the use of reflections and light, the ambiguity of the scenes leave many questions unanswered. The openness to interpretation is what makes Vallotton’s art so potent. After all, this probably was the artist’s goal and he achieved it with the utmost elegance.

In addition to Vallotton’s famous woodcut cycles, there are expansive paintings of landscapes, nudes, and discrete encounters with a multitude of subtleties, mysterious perspectives, and odd angles.

Coming to New York after a triumphant show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, this is the first retrospective of Vallotton’s work in New York in 30 years. It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with Fondation Félix Vallotton, Lausanne.

Discover this amazing artist while sampling the thrilling artworks on view at The Met. Felix Vallotton: Painter of Disquiet is on view form October 29, 2019 – January 26, 2020.

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