Friday, December 6, 2013

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ "The Ampersand Project", sponsored by The Sketchbook Project, aims to explore through 500 works of art the conception and interpretation of the symbol "&".

✦ Spend some time viewing the marvelous photography of Brian Nice, a traumatic brain injury survivor; and, if you missed it, read a profile of the celebrated image-maker at Lens blog. Beginning in late September of this year, Nice undertook an inspirational "Cross-Country Photography Expedition", otherwise known as "My Point of View", which he introduces in this brief video:


"My Point of View" is expected to result in an exhibition of photographs taken while on the expedition,  a coffee-table book of images, and a documentary about Nice and his coast-to-coast journey.

✦ Sculptor and installation artist Doris Salcedo is the recipient of the 9th Hiroshima Art Prize, which recognizes once every three years a contemporary artist's contributions to "the peace of humanity". Past recipients include Yoko Ono.

Doris Salcedo at White Cube, Tate, MoMA


✦ Fans of photographer William Wegman, who is also a painter, video artist, and writer, will want to pick up a copy of the delightful Flo & Wendell (Dial, September 2013). Wegman's Weimaraner Flo is the real-life character of the title. Read "Q & A with William Wegman" from Publishers Weekly, in which Wegman talks about his book and other projects in the works for his publisher. 


William Wegman on FaceBook, Twitter, and Pinterest

✦ Look for my Artist Watch feature for Escape Into Life on December 19.

Julia Borissova of Russia combines her original photography with archival images and other ephemera in her book The Farther Shore, which was shortlisted in this year's International Photobook Festival in Kassel, Germany. See a slideshow about the limited-edition, self-published art book and read a review. Borrisova's Running to the Edge was a finalist in the "Experimental" category of the International Fine Art Photography Award 2013.


Julia Borissova on FaceBook

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ The stunning work of Native American landscape painter and sculptor George Morrison, a Chippewa (1919-2000), is the subject of "Modern Spirit: The Art of George Morrison", a nationally touring exhibition. The comprehensive retrospective, which opened at Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota, earlier this year, is now at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. On view there through February 23, 2014, are approximately 80 drawings, prints, paintings, collages, and sculptures, half of which come from the collection of the Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, which collaborated with Arts Midwest to organize the presentation. The other 40 are drawn from public and private collections. Selections from Morrison's gorgeous Lake Superior landscape series are included, as well as several Abstract Expressionist works from Morrison's New York years. Be sure to visit the interactive exhibition Website, where you will find images, excellent biographical information, and educational resources.

Catalogue Cover

The show will be at Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, from March 2, 2014, to September 14, 2014; it then will travel to Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona (October 25, 2014 - January 12, 2015) before concluding at Minnesota History Center, St. Paul (February 14 - April 26, 2015). 

A 200-page full-color catalogue (see image above) from University of Oklahoma Press accompanies this important show. The Foreward is by Cherokee artist Kay WalkingStick. Read an excerpt from the catalogue. 

The Fall 2013 issue of American Indian offers a feature on Morrison, "From Cedar Tree to Cedar Street: The Modern Spirit of George Morrision", by John Haworth, director of the Smithsonian NMAI in New York.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland, is presenting through February 9, 2014, "Morris Louis Unveiled", an exhibition of more than two dozen works, including paintings and rarely seen drawings that form part of a bequest from the artist's widow's estate. The show is in the museum's Contmeporary Wing. Among the highlights are Louis's Silver III of 1953 and Untitled 5-76 of 1956. Morris founded the Washington Color School.

The BMA on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ Also in Baltimore, at The Walters Art Museum, is "The Book of the Faiyum", celebrating the crocodile god Sobek. In addition to a display of major sections of the ancient illustrated manuscript on papyrus (it's almost 20 feet long), the exhibition includes approximately 100 Egyptian sculptures, reliefs, jewelry, and ritual objects that help to inform the religious context that gave rise to the tale in which Sobek brings the sun to Faiyum, an oasis in the desert. The exhibition, for which tickets are required, continues through January 5, 2014. A series of exhibition-related events are planned. View a selection of images.


The Book of the Faiyum (Detail)
Egyptian, Roman Period, ca 14-15 CE(?)
Ink on Papyrus
The Walters Art Museum

The manuscript, sections of which are owned by The Walters and others by Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, offers a peek into cultural, intellectual, and religious life in ancient Egypt. This exhibition marks the first time in 150 years that the manuscript sections have been reunited.

The exhibition will travel to the Roemer-und-Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim, Germany.

The Walters on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

✭ In Charlottesville, Virginia, The Fralin, University of Virginia Art Museum, has mounted the first U.S. retrospective of the work of Emilie Charmy (1878-1974), an exhibitor at the 1913 Armory Show who was called "an exception for her time". On view through February 2, 2014, are approximately 40 paintings (most never seen before in the U.S.) of the "femme-peintre". A catalogue accompanies the show.

The retrospective will travel to The Arts Club of Chicago, where it can be seen February-May 2014.

UVaM on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ On view at the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is "Tell It with Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint-Gaudens's Shaw Memorial", part of a year-long celebration of African-American history. Created in the 19th Century, the memorial commemorates the July 18, 1863, Civil War battle involving Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina, and Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, an African-American military unit raised in the North and led by Caucasian officers. Shaw and nearly a third of the regiment died in the battle, deemed a turning point in the war. The exhibition title takes "Tell It with Pride" from an anonymous letter to Shaw's family announcing the colonel's death; the letter is in the exhibition. 

According to museum exhibition notes, Saint-Gaudens based his likeness of Shaw on photographs but hired African-American males to pose in his studio as members of the regiment. The exhibition features vintage portraits of members of the regiment and others, including recruiters and leaders, as well as related documents and artworks. View and read the color exhibition brochure. Browse images in the exhibition checklist.

When the exhibition closes on January 20, 2014, it will travel to the Massachusetts Historical Society (February 21-May 23, 2014). An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition (see image above left). In September, the "Object of the Month" at MHS was "Fort Wagner Falls, 7 September 1863", which offered information about Fort Wagner and Henry Webbers's watercolor of Morris Island as viewed from the installation.


NGA on FaceBook and Twitter

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