I Am On A Short Summer Break !…I will return on August 4 th … See You Then!

Studio Museum Harlem hosts Kehinde Wiley’s The World Stage: Africa Lagos-Dakar

The Studio Museum in Harlem is proud to present The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar, our first-ever solo exhibition of the work of Kehinde Wiley, a former artist in residence (2001–02). The exhibition features ten new paintings from Wiley’s multinational “World Stage” series, a global extension of his signature examinations of power and portraiture. On exhibition through 26 October , 2008.

For this ongoing series, Wiley relocates to other countries and opens satellite studios to become familiar with local culture and history and include them in his practice. The paintings in The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar were created during Wiley’s extended visits to Nigeria and Senegal in 2007, where he found new subjects, inspirations and insights.

Wiley’s well-known, stylized paintings of urban African-American male youths started during his residency at the Studio Museum. He placed his subjects in poses borrowed from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European figurative paintings to investigate the ways that portraiture has been used historically to create and enforce power and privilege.

For the “World Stage” series Wiley continues to paint young black men, but uses poses based on regional sources. Paintings from the first “World Stage” site, China, featured poses from Communist propaganda art, and were shown in an exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin last year. For The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar Wiley turns to public monuments built to celebrate independence and the end of colonialism. Future sites for the series include Brazil and Turkey.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive full-color hardcover catalogue, the second in a series of catalogues about the “World Stage” series. The catalogue will examine the project from multiple perspectives, and will include essays by scholars Robert Hobbs, Tavia Nyong’o and Krista Thompson, as well as a conversation between curator Christine Y. Kim, Wiley and artist/writer/performer Malik Gaines.

Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977, Los Angeles) received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2001. His work is represented in the collections of several museums, including the the Walker Art Center, Brooklyn Museum, Denver Art Museum and Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Recently, his work was featured in exhibitions in Belgium, Los Angeles, Chicago and Ohio.

The Studio Museum in Harlem

IVAM Presents Chinese Contemporary Art Based on Traditional Techniques

This exhibition forms part of the agreement that Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM) and Shanghai International Culture Association subscribed, which last year presented at IVAM an exhibition of contemporary painting made by Chinese artists. This exhibition is a selection of 30 paintings made by 5 artists – Yang Zhengxin, Chen Jialing, Zhang Guiming, Dai Deming, Lu Fu Sheng- who, having been formed in the traditional language of the Shanghai school, have evolved to new forms of expression.

Sotheby’s Releases More Details on Damien Hirst Two Day September Sale

Work on Beautiful Inside My Head Forever – a major Sotheby’s auction of new works by Damien Hirst – has progressed and the full scope of this ground-breaking auction can now be revealed. Including a whole new body of work that covers the complete range of Hirst’s output and more, the auction will run over two days, commencing with an Evening Sale on Monday, 15 September, and continuing throughout the following day (Tuesday, 16 September) with a morning and afternoon session.

The two day sale, which will include 223 lots, is expected to realise a sum in excess of £65 million. Estimates will range from around £15,000-20,000 (for a range of new drawings) up to the £8,000,000-12,000,000 estimate attached to The Golden Calf –the monumental and arresting centre-piece of the sale. Among the works to be offered will be new and exciting variations on many of the key themes that have defined Hirst’s work to date.

Damien Hirst said: “After the success of the Pharmacy auction, I always felt I would like to do another auction. It’s a very democratic way to sell art and it feels like a natural evolution for contemporary art. Although there is risk involved, I embrace the challenge of selling my work in this way. I never want to stop working with my galleries. This is different. The world’s changing, ultimately I need to see where this road leads.”

The Day Sale
With some 160 or so works to be offered in the course of the morning and afternoon sessions, the Day Sale will bring to the market a wealth of new works – across a wide range of estimates – embracing everything from spot paintings and drawings to butterfly glosses and grids, and more.

The Charity Element
Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the celebrated Freeze exhibition curated by Hirst in London, which launched the careers of Hirst and his contemporaries, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever affirms Hirst’s position as a boundary breaker and as an artist who has never worked in the traditional vein. At the same time, the sale re-affirms Hirst’s continued commitment to the support of charitable causes.

In February this year, Hirst joined forces with singer Bono to spearhead the (RED) auction – a record-breaking sale held at Sotheby’s in New York, whose purpose was to raise money for the United Nations Foundation to support HIV/AIDS relief programs in Africa, conducted by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The sale, which included works donated by artists such as Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn, Marc Newson, Keith Tyson, Takashi Murakami and Banksy, realised $42.58 million – making it the most successful charity auction of contemporary art ever staged. Continuing that tradition, September’s sale will include four works to be sold to benefit charities especially designated by Hirst. They are:

Beautiful Love Demelza Painting with Beautiful Butterflies (lot 30, est: £400,000-600,000) to be sold to benefit Demelza, Hospice Care for Children: http://www.demelzahouse.org/  

Beautiful Love Survival Painting with Beautiful Butterflies (lot 8, est: £400,000-600,000) to be sold to benefit Survival International: http://www.survival-international.org/  

Beautiful Love Strummerville Painting with Beautiful Butterflies (lot 109, est: £400,000-600,000) to be sold to benefit Strummerville – the Joe Strummer foundation for new music – aiming to create new opportunities for aspiring musicians: http://www.strummerville.com/  

Beautiful Love Kids Co Twenty-Five to Ten Painting with Beautiful Butterflies (lot 209, est: £400,000-600,000), to be sold to benefit Kids Company – a charity founded by Camila Batmanghelidjh in 1996 in order to provide practical, emotional
and educational support to vulnerable inner-city children and young people: http://kidsco.org.uk/  

Alongside these will be:
Bill with Shark (lot 203, est: £200,000-300,000) – an oil painting, to be sold on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, based on a photograph by Jean Pigozzi, showing Bill Gates looking at shark-in-formaldehyde sculpture by Hirst. Proceeds from the sale of the work will benefit the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which aims to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world: www.gatesfoundation.org 

iPhone 3Gs developing cracks?

In what appears to be an increasingly common problem, hairline cracks are beginning to form on Apple’s new iPhone 3G. While most of the cracks are reportedly affecting the white model, this is likely due to the increased visibility of the dark fracture on the white case as opposed to any differences in materials between the white and black units. At the moment, the issue seems largely cosmetic and doesn’t appear to interfere with the operation of the phone.

Sanyo’s XACTI DMX-HD800: the best gets better

Aside HD700, Sanyo just replaced you with its DMX-HD800 720p camcorder. According to Akihabara News who is attending the launch event, the HD800 features a “HUGE step forward in video quality” coupled with reduced noise thanks to Sanyo’s 3DDNR filter. Spec-wize, we’re looking at an 8.0 megapixel 1/2.5-inch CMOS sensor, SD/SDHC support, 5x optical zoom, 2.7-inch LCD, face tracking, and easier to use drag-and-drop to pull AVC/H.264 video from the camera to your PC. We’ll have to wait for the reviews to know for sure but it looks like Sanyo just made one of the best 720p camcorders even better.

‘Dark Knight’ sets record for reaching $300 million

“The Dark Knight” continues to obliterate box office records, crossing the $300 million mark in just 10 days.

Saint Louis Art Museum to show ” Action / Abstraction ” 1940-1976

The Saint Louis Art Museum announces the October 19 opening of Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning and American Art, 1940–1976, the first major U.S. exhibition in 20 years to re-examine Abstract Expressionism and the movements that followed. Prior to traveling to St. Louis, Action/Abstraction opened May 4 at The Jewish Museum in New York. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y., is the exhibition’s third and final venue.

Serpentine Gallery presents Beijing-Based Artist Cao Fei

Beijing-based artist Cao Fei (born 1978) is fusing fantasy with the contemporary Chinese city in her construction of RMB City, an experimental art community in the internet-based virtual world of Second Life. Second Life was conceived as a platform for participants to create a parallel reality in which to live out their dreams, and 14 million people worldwide have registered since it launched in 2003. Each user is represented by an avatar, a digital figure that they can customize and control.

MoMA presents ~ Dreamland: Architectural Experiments since the 1970s

Dreamland: Architectural Experiments since the 1970s is an exhibition of works drawn from the MoMA collection of Architecture and Design that explores the ways in which the singular landscape of New York has inspired architects since the 1970s with visions of utopia. The city has served as a model for architectural projections and reflections, and also as a metaphor for the complex relationship between the limitations of reality and the infinite possibilities of architectural thought. On display through October 27, 2008.