The Morgan Library has named Colin Bailey as its new director, who has previously served as the chief curator of the Frick Collection. “We should be able to do a little better,” says Morgan President Lawrence R. Ricciardi. “The programming is there. It’s just a question of getting the word out and getting people in the door.” (more…)
A Los Angeles Times article charts the success of LACMA curator Stephanie Barron, who has helped grow the museum and its collection into an international powerhouse of modern and contemporary art, as well as a growing Korean, Islamic and Latin American collections. “I’ve had the amazing good fortune,” Barron says, “to work for an institution that has unconditionally supported the seriousness of the work that I want to do.” (more…)
Lucio Fontana, Scultura astratta (1934), all images courtesy Museum d’Art Moderne
On view at Museum D’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is an retrospective exhibition of Italian painter Lucio Fontana, who was known as one of the the primary founders of Spatialism, and was long known for his association with the Arte Povera movement. The exhibition will continue through August 24th. (more…)
Henri Matisse, Memory of Oceania, (1952-1953) via Museum of Modern Art
Currently on view at London’s Tate Modern, Henri Matisse’s vivid cut-outs reveal the final chapter in Matisse’s career: when he began ‘carving into color’, as the artist was known to describe his spectacular cut-outs, a vastly divergent and fascinating point in the artist’s career.
Richard Long, Four Ways (2014), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery
Richard Long’s first solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery in over three decades brings together photographs, text, and natural elements as records of his walks in England, Switzerland, and Antarctica. Working in conjunction with the materials and forces that make up his surroundings, Long brings the fruits of his lone experiences in nature to the imaginations of a gallery audience. Long made his reputation in the 1970s with his sculptures born of days-long walks to remote locations, acting as bridges between natural design and human creation. His present exhibition reveals his persistence in investigating the themes that run through his lifelong body of work. (more…)
The Guardian profiles downtown art icon Dan Colen, in the run-up to the artist’s retrospective at The Brant Foundation, which opens this week, reappraising the artist’s career in terms of his material and technical concerns. “I’m trying to equalise the world to say there is no high and low,” Colen says. “People have often thought I was fucking with them when really I was just trying to share that sentiment.” (more…)
Willem de Kooning, [no title] (1984), © 2013 The Willem de Kooning Foundation:Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Tim Nighswander: IMAGING4ART
The late works of Willem de Kooning represent a striking departure for the artist’s work. Condensing his colorful, flowing style into a tightly controlled, minimalist series of patterns and movements, de Kooning’s paintings in the late years of his life, from the mid-1980’s onwards signal a new interest in negative space and light. The collisions and grating proximity of forms of his definitive work during the 50’s and 60’s seems to dissolve into a mellow, effortless form, well-balanced and refined.
Willem de Kooning, Ten Paintings (Installation View), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery (more…)
ArtInfo has posted a feature profiling the early professions of a number of high-profile artists, offering a look at how they made a living before becoming art world mainstays. The list includes Mark Rothko (delivery boy), Yves Klein (judo master), Matthew Barney (model), and James Turrell (cattle rancher), who famously said: ““I don’t know if it’s harder to make a living as an artist or a rancher.” (more…)
