Displaying items by tag: patrons

The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive presents "American Wonder: Folk Art from the Collection," on view October 1 through December 21, 2014. Featuring approximately fifty portraits, landscapes, weather vanes, decorative sculptures, and other works dating from the wake of the Declaration of Independence War to the end of the Civil War, this exhibition captures glimpses of young America during a period of boundless optimism, massive growth, and eventual upheaval. This distinguished collection at BAM/PFA—one of the most impressive American folk art collections from this period anywhere—results from the generosity of two collectors and patrons, Bliss Carnochan and Nancy Edebo. "American Wonder" is the last major art exhibition to open in BAM/PFA’s current museum building at 2626 Bancroft Way before the institution moves to a new location, currently under construction, in downtown Berkeley in early 2016.

American Wonder starts in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century New England, where the country’s newly independent citizens were beginning to help define and assume a national identity—one aligned with the goals of liberty, self-improvement, and advancement.

The simple fact that physical and online galleries have totally different modes of presentation is impossible to deny; often contained within a single, rectilinear room, "white cube" galleries, with their high-monied patrons and cordoned-off curations, often evoke ideas of art-world exclusivity. Online galleries, on the other hand, typically present artworks in a thumbnail grid, slideshow, or on an infinite scrolling page, but generally lack the substantiality and depth of their physical counterparts; flattened onto 2D screens, these are restrictions that the online viewer has grown to accept, and that many artists have learned to work within.

Manuel Palou and Moises Sanabria, the duo known as Art404 (aka Art Not Found), have seemingly bridged this gap, creating a link between physical galleries and their online counterparts. Gallery404 is a browser-based gallery space where the first-person "player" can explore a three-dimensional gallery filled with iconic artworks.

During its annual gala on Saturday, October 5, 2013, Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum announced that all exhibitions will be free to the public beginning in February 2014. The Hammer Museum is a contemporary institution affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles and attracted approximately 215,000 visitors last year. General admission to the museum has historically been $10.

The change in policy was made possible by two patrons’ gift of $1 million each, which will cover the loss of income from admission fees. Hammer Museum officials hope that by getting rid of admission fees, the institution will be more accessible to the public.  

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston presents the exhibition Audubon’s Birds, Audubon’s Words. The show features approximately 30 prints from the museum’s copy of John James Audubon’s seminal work The Birds of America alongside the prose he originally wrote for the book.

The naturalist and painter is best known for his life-size, hand-colored prints illustrating the wide variety of birds in North America. The MFA’s exhibition aims to bring attention to Audubon’s undervalued text, which he original wrote to describe each bird he portrayed in Birds of America. However, the first edition of the book was printed between 1827 and 1838 without words. The MFA’s presentation of Audubon’s prose allows patrons the chance to read first-hand accounts of the methods the artist used to depict the birds and the trials associated with his substantial project.

Audubon’s Birds, Audubon’s Words will be on view at the MFA through May 11, 2014.

In November 2012, two members of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York sued the institution for making the public think that the suggested admission fees are mandatory. The historically free institution suggests entry fees of $25 for adults and less for seniors and students.

Theodore Grunewald and Patricia Nicholson filed the suit in state court in Manhattan and said that the museum’s fee policy lacks transparency. They also argued that the museum fails to note that the fee is suggested on several of its websites and that it’s only in fine and barely legible print on signs near cash registers. A statute was put in place in 1893 declaring that the Met must remain free in order to continue receiving government funding. Grunewald and Nicholson commissioned a survey of visitors to the museum and found that 85% of patrons believed they had to pay to gain entry.

According to court papers filed by Gerald Lee Jones, who worked at the Met as a floor manager from 2007 until 2011, cashiers were paid in part based on how much they collected from admission fees. The statement, which was filed in late June 2013, also suggested that cashiers were instructed to never volunteer that patrons may pay less than the “recommended” fee.

Harold Holzer, the Met’s senior vice president for public affairs, said that Jones, “one of the many floor managers” had a “glib spin on his experience [at the museum].” Holzer also asserted that the Met tracks how much the cashiers collect because auditors require admission figures. “It has nothing to do with performance evaluation or salary,” said Holzer, adding “The Met will offer its response in due course.”

During the year ending in June 2012, the Met brought in $37.8 million in admissions, about 16% of the museum’s revenue.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now open seven days a week for the first time in over 40 years. The schedule shift occurred on Monday July 1, 2013 following the official announcement, which was made by the Met’s director and CEO, Thomas Campbell, on March 28. Opening hours will also be moved from 9:30AM to 10AM.

The goal of the increased hours of operation is to make the museum more accessible to patrons. A record 6.28 million people visited the Met last year and museum officials hope to maintain the institution’s ongoing success.

The changes also apply to the Cloisters, the Met’s museum of medieval art and architecture located in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan.  

The 44^th edition of Art Basel closed on Sunday, June 16, 2013 after welcoming a record 70,000 visitors. Exhibitors at the highly anticipated fair reported exceptionally strong sales throughout the show’s six-day run and patrons were impressed by the quality of the works offered.

This year, Art Basel hosted 304 international exhibitors at Messe Basel, a venue situated at the border of Switzerland, France and Germany. Among the offerings were paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs, which drew strong sales across the board. The buying frenzy began during the fair’s two-day VIP opening, which lasted from June 11^th through the 12^th and saw the $12 million sale of Alexander Calder’s (1898-1976) Sumac (1961) by London’s Helly Nahmad Gallery.  

Next year, Art Basel will be held from June 19-22, 2014.

Art Basel, the most anticipated art fair in the world, will be held from June 13-16, 2013 in Switzerland. A VIP preview and vernissage were held on June 11 and June 12 respectively and included the $12 million sale of Alexander Calder’s (1898-1976) Sumac (1961) by London’s Helly Nahmad Gallery.

Now in its 44^th year, Art Basel welcomes 304 international exhibitors to Messe Basel, a venue situated at the border of Switzerland, France and Germany. The fair presents the finest works of modern and contemporary art by more than 4,000 artists. Works on view include paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video and editioned works. The show is split into eight sectors – Galleries, Feature, Statements, Edition, Unlimited, Parcours, Film, and Magazines – and allows patrons to explore the many facets of modern and contemporary art including museum-quality paintings, curated projects, and site-specific artworks.  

The remarkable roster of exhibitors includes Acquavella Galleries Inc. (New York), Castelli Gallery (New York), Gagosian Gallery (multiple locations), Hauser & Wirth (Zurich/New York), Dominique Levy (New York), and Lisson Gallery (Milan/London).

Art Basel offers a full program of events including symposiums, artist talks, and lectures. Featured participants include Massimiliano Gioni, curator of the 55^th Venice Biennale and Director at the New Museum, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London.    

While many museums post photos of their illustrious collections online, the images are not for public use. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is about to change all of that. The institution, which focuses on the art and history of the Netherlands, is allowing visitors to download high-resolution images off of their website at no cost. They’re even going so far as to encourage patrons to copy, alter, and share the images.

The Rijksmuseum, whose collection includes works by Rembrandt (1606-1669), Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), has already made 125,000 images available through Rijksstudio, an interactive section of their website. Officials aim to add 40,000 images per year until the entire collection, which is comprised of 1 million artworks, is available to the public. The decision to make all of the museum’s images public stems from the notion that they are a public institution, making the art and objects in their collection communal property. The proliferation of the Internet has also made image policing extremely difficult and officials would rather the public use high-quality images instead of poor reproductions.

Rijkstudio has seen over 2.17 million visitors since going live in October 2012 and approximately 200,000 people have downloaded images.

On May 23, 2013, after a two and a half year renovation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York unveiled 45 updated and expanded galleries of European paintings. The new space, which has increased by about a third, boasts 600 works of art dating from 1250 to 1800. Arranged in chronological order and grouped by country, the collection includes the Met’s renowned holdings of early Dutch, French, and Italian paintings.

The reimagined European painting galleries include 23 high profile loans, mainly from private collections. Works by Jan Van Eyck (1395-1441), Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) will be on view for at least six months thanks to the generosity of the Met’s trustees, and patrons.

The Met’s European painting galleries have not been fully renovated since the early 1950s and this is the first overall reinstallation of the collection since 1972.