Vodou Inspired Art

Tired of seeing all similar art works, themes and names? If you are looking for a different flavor in the arts, why not stop by London’s Riflemaker for a very interesting show straight from Haiti!

There has been much focus on Haitian art recently, with Nottingham Contemporary staging the first comprehensive survey of Haitian art in the UK, and with Haitian vodou flags included in the group show curated by the celebrated American artist Cindy Sherman as part of the Venice Biennale this year. In the previous edition of the Venice Biennale, the Republic of Haiti made their first presentation with works from three artists who are part of Atis-Rezistans, the artistic collective from the Grand Rue neighborhood.

Haiti is especially known for the art of its urban and rural poor and the show at Riflemaker brings together sculptors from Haiti’s Grand Rue neighborhood of Port-au-Prince: Celeur Jean Herard and Andre Eugene, presented with Haitian Vodou flags by Silva Joseph and Edgard Jean Louis who are both Vodou priests. These flags are in fact ritual ‘drapos’ originally made for ceremonial use but now part of Haitian contemporary art. Their bright colors make a great contrast with the haunting works of the Grand Rue sculptors, which are made out of ready-made and recycled materials with references to Vadou that evoke a cyberpunk sci-fi vision.

“Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou” at Nottingham Contemporary that just closed in January of this year, was a big show including works from different media -- 200 works of 40 artists from the 1940s to the present day. It was able to display these artists’ vivid creativity, especially powerful in works inspired by Vodou - the religion which has been a central part of people's lives since Haiti became the world's first black republic in 1804. Speaking of the exhibition Alex Farquharson, director of Nottingham Contemporary says:

“Haitian art is often shown in a folk art context, which is unfair. If I didn't feel that this work stood up to a lot of work that I think is most interesting in contemporary art then I really wouldn't be showing it here.”

There is still time to go and see the show at Riflemaker, which closes end of the month, and make your own mind if you think Haitian art is as interesting!

We are all Curators

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cGGit4_oeGE Fondazione Prada and Qatar Museums Authority have joined forces to launch the new Curate Award which is open to anyone! You don't have to be in the art world. They are more interested in answers to these questions: Can you take an idea and build an exhibition? Will the elements you put together make people think? Would your message be provocative and culturally significant?  There are no restrictions for application and the winning curatorial idea will be realized in an exhibition in either or Qatar and Italy. Exciting!

Art World Stars in Jay Z's new Music Video

World famous rapper/Samsung pitchman Jay Z just completed shooting his music video for "Picasso Baby" at the heart of the New York art scene, Pace Gallery in Chelsea. The song's lyrics is full of references to the art world (scroll down for the lyrics) and it feels only appropriate that several art superstars make guest appearances, including Marina Abramovic, Lawrence Weiner, Dana Schutz, Marilyn Minter, and Performa founder and director RoseLee Goldberg. Mickalene Thomas shared a dance with Jay Z, and Sanford Biggers sketched furiously while PS1 founder Alanna Heiss spun around the gallery with a cast on her leg. Dustin Yellin performed an impromptu break-dance. Ryan McNamara pulled people from the audience to the bench at the gallery’s center, and Rashid Johnson traded jabs with the hip-hop superstar. Sounds like a great party and wish we were there too!  It took 6 hours to shoot the video, watch parts of it here.

Picasso, Baby

I just want a Picasso, in my casa No, my castle I’m a hassa, no I’m an asshole I’m never satisfied, can’t knock my hustle I wanna Rothko, no I wanna brothel No, I want a wife that fuck me like a prostitute Let’s make love on a million, in a dirty hotel With the fan on the ceiling, all for the love of drug dealing Marble Floors, gold Ceilings Oh what a feeling – fuck it I want a billion Jeff Koons balloons, I just wanna blow up Condos in my condos, I wanna row of Christie’s with my missy, live at the MoMA Bacons and turkey bacons, smell the aroma [Hook] Oh what a feeling Picasso Baby, Ca Picasso baby Ca ca ca Picasso Baby, Ca ca ca Picasso baby Oh what a feeling x2 [Verse 2] It ain’t hard to tell I’m the new Jean Michel Surrounded by Warhols My whole team ball Twin Bugatti’s outside the Art Basel I just wanna live life colossal Leonardo Da Vinci flows Riccardo Tisci Givenchy clothes See me thrown at the Met Vogue’ing on these niggas Champagne on my breath, Yes House like the Louvre or the Tate Modern Because I be going ape at the auction Oh what a feeling Aw fuck it I want a trillion Sleeping every night next to Mona Lisa The modern day version With better features Yellow Basquiat in my kitchen corner Go ahead lean on that shit Blue You own it *break* [Verse 3] I never stuck my cock in the fox’s box but Damned if I didn’t open Pandora’s box They try to slander your man On CNN and Fox My Miranda don’t stand a chance, with cops Even my old fans like old man just stop I could if I would but I can’t I’m hot, and you blow I’m still the man to watch, Hublot On my left hand or not Soon I step out the booth The cameras pops niggas is cool with it Till the canons pop Now my hand on the Bible On the stand got your man in a jam, again Got my hands in cuffs I’m like god damn enough I put down the cans and they ran amok My hairpin pierce skin, ruptures spleens Cracks ribs, go through cribs, and other things No sympathy for the king, huh? Niggas even talk about your baby crazy Eventually the pendulum swings Don’t forget America this how you made me Come through with ‘Ye mask on Spray everything like SAMO Though I won’t scratch the Lambo What’s it gonna to take For me to go For y’all to see I’m the modern day Pablo Picasso baby [Hook 2x] XX

Add Some Color to Your Summer with Tate Britain Shows

Tate Britain is showing three big artists this summer: Laurence Stephen Lowry, Gary Hume and Patrick Caulfield. Amongst this three, our favorite is the one of Caulfield! We felt that the Lowry show got a bit repetitive and Hume’s exhibition somehow fell short compared to the excitement we felt wondering through the Caulfield galleries.

The Hume and Caulfield shows are in fact paired together by the museum, as two British artists of different generations both engaging with the medium of paint and who are amazing colorists. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Ellsworth Kelly, Donald Judd, Klimt and the great Old Master colorist Vermeer, Hume made his own name as one of the new generation of Young British Artists with his paintings of doors. For the exhibition entrance, he makes reference to these paintings and in fact made functioning doors for the first time!

This is a nice show bringing together Hume’s well-known works alongside recent paintings seen in the UK for the first time, all making up about 24 works charting Hume’s career since he exhibited his hospital doors paintings at the infamous “Freeze” exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988.  Among the works been shown for the first time in the UK is a portrait of Angela Merkel titled “Anxiety and the Horse” 2011 that Hume completed in his home in upstate New York.

Patrick Caulfield is from an older generation than Hume. He first came to prominence in the 1960s and continued painting until his death in 2005. Similar to Hume, Caulfield’s career took off after an important exhibition. Caulfield’s was in 1964, the first of The New Generation exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, where David Hockney and Bridget Riley were also included.   He never painted figures, expect for his iconic 1963 portrait of Juan Gris, the Surrealist painter, which is included in the show.

Caulfield looked up to the previous generation, to artists like Fernand Leger, Edward Hopper, and Stuart Davis who used lot of color. Caulfield was interested in the way these artists used space and light to capture a place and time. Caulfield's skills as a colorist is evident as soon as one walks into the exhibition room: you get taken up by the bright lights, synthetic colors and shiny surfaces of the modern world. We see brilliant examples of Caulfield’s grand still lives and examinations of British culture. For example, he makes references to the 1970s custom of having continental breakfast or wallpaper in the living room with photographed European landscapes - or the late 90s when every bottle of lager had a wedge of lime. As the exhibition curator Clarrie Wallis says, “He is capturing the character of modern life.”

Caulfield was one of the most admired artists of his generation: figurative painters admired him for his sophisticated draftsmanship, abstract artists for his control and inventive use of color, minimalists for his austerity and conceptual artists for his intellectual rigor. If Tate Britain show is not enough dose of Caulfield for you, Alan Cristea has put on a show of the artist's silk screen prints and they are for sale too.

Old Masters Boom in Singapore

It seems like there is an Old Master paintings boom in Singapore! First it was the announcement that highlights from the world famous Princely Collection of Liechtenstein, normally housed in the Liechtenstein Palaces, are going on exhibit at the National Museum of Singapore, which opened on 26^th of June. Singapore is already the fourth stop for the collections' Asia tour, which have included Tokyo, Kochi and Kyoto. Further exhibitions in Beijing’s National Museum and the China Art Museum in Shanghai are planned to starting in the autumn.

Although these loan exhibitions are to promote the LGT Bank (owned by the princely House of Liechtenstein) in Asia, it certainly serves a great cultural purpose. The show is curated by Dr. Johann Kraftner, the family's art advisor and director of its two museums in Vienna, and brings together by masterworks including Raphael, Rubens, Canaletto and Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

The Canaletto on view was sold to the coll ection through the London-based Old Master dealer Derek Johns, who recently started a new venture in Singapore as well. Together with his Singapore-based partner Chng Hock Huat, and joining forces with Monaco-based dealer Marietta Vinci-Corsini (widow of the famous dealer Piero Corsini who passed away in 2001) Derek Johns has set up Emperor Fine Art in Singapore, giving the opportunity to see European Old Master paintings within the Asian region.

Johns and Corsini selected a group of paintings from their gallery stock to send to Singapore and held their first official week of events which cleverly corresponded with the opening of the Liechtenstein exhibition on 26th of June.

Add all this information on to the fact that just a month ago, the Singaporean government announced that the Pinacothèque de Paris is to bring Old Masters and Modern art in a pop-up space from September during the renovations to its main building in Paris. Owned and run by the Modigliani scholar Marc Restellini, the Pinacothèque first opened in 2007, and since 2011 has been displaying a collection of masterpieces from Van Dyck, Monet and Modigliani to Picasso and Pollock; all works on loan from private or public collections.

Singaporeans are getting a series of events and exhibitions highlighting Old Masters! Exhibitions are a great way to educate and expose audiences to such works, which is even better news for the dealers as they hope that after viewing and admiring the Old Master treasures on display, the Asian audience will be more inclined to start collecting them too.

Around the World with the Moon

For the past 10 years, when Leonid Tishkov packs for travel, he doesn't only bring his suitcase but also his own private moon! What began as a single installation of the glowing moon, bringing surrealist artist Rene Magritte's "The Sixteenth of September (Le seize septembre)" to life, turned into a life long project for the Russian physician turned avant-garde artist Tishkov.

Tishkov's on going "Private Moon" is a series of stylized, sentimental photographs of himself, wearing his late father's cloak, with a large illuminated crescent moon in the strangest, most unexpected places around the world. Influenced by Russian folk tales, Tishkov sees this project as a life performance where the moon is a shining point that brings people together from different cultures and countries. It gives fairytale and poetry in our world.

The world is beautiful around us, you just illuminate it with the light of poetry! And for me, the light of the moon is the perfect poetry.

Tishkov started the journey from a familiar place, his home. In the first pictures you see the artist's country house, the bed where he sleeps and writes poetry. Later he went to  places such as France, Taiwan, China, Kazakhstan, and the list goes on. Join this lonely poet on his global tour.