Tag Archives: contemporary

Art Venice, Art Venice, Art Venice

Posted on June 10, 2013 by kkeditor

If you happen to be in Venice, Italy between June and November, you will see art everywhere…strange art, really ugly art, and beautiful, take-your-breath-away art!   Art is in the museums, the palazzos, the canal-fronted warehouses, small intimate gardens!   It’s everywhere!

The Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious contemporary art shows in the world is happening!   Artists from 88 countries are presenting sculpture, painting, video, installation, performance…all the art you can imagine.

But, alas, some of us can’t make it to Venice.

Don’t despair!   We CAN experience it!   Read on…

Triple Point Installation, 2013
Sarah Sze

American artist, Sarah Sze, shows “Triple Point”, a huge and wild collection of found objects from ladders and paint cans to scraps of paper.  Sze has wrapped Venice’s ancient buildings with these objects.

It is startling.  It’s ethereal.
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S.A.C.R.E.D. Installation, 2013
Ai Weiwei

 

S.A.C.R.E.D. (view of inside box), 2013
Ai Weiwei

Political art is alive and kicking at the Biennale!

Ai Weiwei is China’s best known artist.   Only he protests the abuses of the Chinese government and Beijing officials don’t like him a bit.
In 2011, the Chinese condemned Ai’s art, burned his studio and held him in a secret prison for 81 days.
Ai wasn’t allowed to travel to Venice after his release from prison, so he clandestinely made his art pieces, then quietly transported them out of China to Venice.

The art work features six imposing steel boxes.   The boxes have narrow slits in the windows, through which visitors peek privately onto eerily life-like scenes of robotic officers, dirty bathrooms and bleak food.    A re-enactment of Ai’s 81 day detention.
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Artist Jeremy Deller with his mural
of a bird clutching a Land Rover

British artist, Jeremy Deller, takes aim at the royals and the wealthy.

This audacious artist zeroes in on a scandal in Britain in 2007.    Prince Harry and a mate were out a-hunting on one of the royal estates and “maybe accidentally” shot two endangered birds…hen harriers.    Although the caper couldn’t be proven, the British press had a merry old time with the story.

The cheeky Deller fills one wall at the Biennale with a huge mural of one of the owl-like birds clutching a miniature Land Rover in its talons.

As for the Land Rover, it is the object of the bird’s revenge, and Deller’s swipe at the haughty who ride them, particularly on London roads where he cycles.

Watch this video to see more art in Venice!   Click here if unable to view the video.

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Really?!   Major Art Collectors?

Posted on June 1, 2012 by kkeditor

Herb and Dorothy Vogel in their
New York apartment, 2008.
Unlikely art collectors

Herb and Dorothy

He was a postal worker. She was a librarian. Together they amassed one of the most important contemporary art collections in the world.

Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a seemingly ordinary couple, lived for decades in a humble one-bedroom Manhattan apartment with cats, turtles, fish and ultimately more than 4,000 art-works.  The couple used Herb’s salary to buy art, while Dorothy’s paychecks covered the bills.

From the earliest days together, The Vogels realized the joys of collecting, concentrating on contemporary art.  A Picasso ceramic piece was purchased for their engagement and a John Chamberlain (known for welding old automobile parts in abstract forms) sculpture to celebrate their wedding in 1962.

By the early 1990s, the Vogels’ collection filled every corner of their living space, from the bathroom to the kitchen, floor to ceiling. “Not even a toothpick could be squeezed into the apartment,” recalls Dorothy. The place was bursting at the seams, and something had to be done.

Courted by every major museum, the couple astounded the art world by transferring their entire collection, worth several million dollars, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. – the first place they visited on their honeymoon.  As government workers themselves, they liked the idea of sharing their prized pieces with the American people.

After weeks of packing, shippers carted away a staggering five full-sized moving trucks of paintings, drawings and sculptures from the tiny apartment.

Today, still in love with each other and with art, Herb and Dorothy live in the same apartment, with their pet turtles, fish and cat. The once completely emptied space is again filled with art.

And we fell in love with Herb and Dorothy in this video!
Click here if unable to view the video.

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