Displaying items by tag: Contemporary Art

New York’s Gagosian Gallery is currently presenting an exhibition of sculptures and works on paper by the late American artist Walter De Maria. A pioneer of conceptual art, installation art, land art, and Minimalism, De Maria continuously pushed the boundaries of what contemporary art looked like and how it was displayed.

Last month, Gagosian Gallery announced that it had acquired De Maria’s estate and planned to establish the Walter De Maria Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to managing the artist’s rights and reproductions, advising on curatorial matters, and overseeing the preparation of a major monograph. Elizabeth Childress, former director of the De Maria studio, and current director of the Walter De Maria Collection and Archives, said, “Walter so wished to establish his own foundation, but sadly he did not accomplish this during his lifetime. It is an important step to have this entity as both a protection and a promotion of his legacy.”       

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art brought out the red carpet, the Champagne and the Gucci-clad footmen on Saturday for its fourth annual Art + Film Gala. Artist Barbara Kruger and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino were the honorees, each receiving a video tribute and standing ovation at the celebrity-packed event.

Michael Govan, LACMA's chief executive and director, said in an interview that the choices of Tarantino and Kruger were intended to be "edgier" than in past galas.

On November 11 and 12, Sotheby’s will offer an unprecedented line-up of celebrity portraits by Andy Warhol during its Contemporary Art sales in New York. Led by a luminous portrait of Elizabeth Taylor titled “Liz #3 (Early Colored Liz),” the lot includes paintings of Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, Judy Garland, Debbie Harry, and the socialite São Schlumberger.

“Liz #3,” which presents the beguiling actress on a striking mint green background, has only been exhibited once since 1972.

This city may not have a reputation as being on the cutting edge of the international arts scene, but Melissa Chiu may be about to remedy that in her new role as director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

In her first interview since assuming her post a month ago, Ms. Chiu outlined a plan to develop the Hirshhorn, whose reputation rests largely on its collection of American and European modern and contemporary art, into more of a showcase for experimental and international works.

From ancient cave drawings to Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machines, birds have always played a central role in art and imagination. “For millennia, humans have been fascinated by birds,” says Joanna Marsh, curator of “The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art,” opening Friday at the American Art Museum. “Birds can fly, while we’re stuck in our own earthbound existence. They are accessible to us yet out of reach — a paradox that is fruitful creatively.” The new exhibit features 46 works by 12 artists.

Eli Broad's new contemporary art museum that is currently rising in downtown Los Angeles will now open some time in fall 2015, organizers said on Tuesday.

The museum has experienced delays since construction began in 2012, and an expected 2014 opening was scratched earlier this year.

Broad officials didn't provide specific dates in their announcement. The museum, designed by the firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is expected to cost about $140 million and will feature artwork from the private collection of Eli and Edythe Broad.

Alexi Fung is the new managing director of the Bonhams Hong Kong branch, a post he will take up immediately at the auction house’s new One Pacific Place salesroom. With a focus on Asian 20th century & contemporary art, Fung has previously worked at auction houses in Hong Kong and Japan.

“We are delighted to welcome Alexi to Bonhams, particularly at this exciting time for the company,” Malcolm Barber, co-chairman for Bonhams Group, said in a statement.

The much-anticipated Louis Vuitton Foundation (Fondation Louis-Vuitton), in Paris, is now open to the public. The massive museum for contemporary art, designed by Frank Gehry, is a spectacle: The gallery spaces are contained in cement blocks covered by massive, curved pieces of glass. Set in a public park in the Bois de Boulogne in the western part of the city, the structure seems to alight on the earth like a spaceship from the future.

Bernard Arnault, the 65-year-old chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (MC:FP), commissioned the museum, and both he and the 85-year-old Gehry hope this building will be an indisputably positive contribution to a complicated legacy.

Contractors plan to begin tearing down a building in Rockland on Monday to make way for a new home for the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

The art center will move seven miles south to downtown Rockland in July 2016. The move signals the end of a long relationship between Rockport village, where the influential arts organization has been since it opened in 1952, and the beginning of a new chapter in the midcoast’s cultural hub.

Hans Haacke, a father of Conceptual art and one of its chief political firebrands, has often made works incorporating lists, visually unlovely but highly effective ways to show how the world works. If you were to borrow the technique to show the unusual position Mr. Haacke has occupied in the art world for more than 50 years, the list might look something like this:

1. He has resisted allowing his face to be photographed, because he says that artists are too often fetishized as personalities.

2. He does not allow his work to be shown in art fairs and has attended only one, in Germany in the late 1960s, which so disgusted him that he flew back home to New York the next day. (“It was held in a circus tent, if you can believe that,” he said.)