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31
mar
2010

Expressionist Art by Caleen Ladki
Posted by Julia Baron at 12:55

As influence for her colorful expressionist art, the young artist Caleen Ladki, 22, draws from her experience of living in two very different cultures.  She grew up in Saudi Arabia and moved to London at the end of high school –a big move which had a great impact on her life and work.

Caleen Ladki, Two Woman, 2009, €780

After living in Saudi Arabia, her move to a climate like London influenced her work tremendously, and Ladki’s expressionist art is emotional.   “Riyadh is a very enclosed society. There are no cinemas. No beaches. Restaurants are segregated and you have to wear an abaya covering yourself when you go out. This was a big influence on my work,” she explains.  It seems the drastic change inspired Ladki to create based on her everyday reactions, and it translates quite effectively in her expressionist art.

Caleen Ladki, Exploding Coral, 2009, €500

Ladki’s work is also inspired by her favorite artists Gustav Klimt and Egon Shiele, both in expressionist style and subject matter.  She often layers paint and also tends “to squeeze the paint straight onto the canvas and work like that rather than thinking things through for hours.”  Ladki’s work is vibrant and spontaneous.  “I never work on a painting for more than a day. Since my paintings reflect my emotions, I feel it’s necessary to the work that I paint and finish my idea that same moment to capture the true essence of the emotion.”

Ladki’s artwork has changed since she began studying textile design two years ago, and she now tends to work with textures and abstract paintings, whereas she used to focus on the body and self portraits.  Both styles have the movement and energetic quality of expressionist art.  Ladki’s fresh and original painting will no doubt have great success as it emerges in the contemporary art scene.

Caleen Ladki, Girl with Arm Band, 2009, €1000

26
mar
2010

New Pop Art by Adrien Belgrand
Posted by Julia Baron at 13:27

Adrien Belgrand’s Pop Art has intriguing strength without being too forceful.  A newcomer to the French art scene, Belgrand humbly sets his style into contemporary art.  Composition wise, his canvases are a mix of figurative art and Pop Art.  From Paris, where Belgrand lives and works, his contemporary art presents a journey through his different series, produced based on photographs from a variety of international destinations.

Adrien Belgrand, Sno Shack, 2450€

Influenced by David Hockney, Adrien Belgrand uses a vibrant palette reminiscent of the Pop Art style.  With an exposed frame, with the presence or absence of human figures and a geometric sharpness of contours, Belgrand revitalizes the genre.  His personal touch is quite apparent.  Objects and architectural elements are simplified, with color appearing overexposed to sunlight, which gives the impression of complete flatness in the manner of Pop Art.

Adrien Belgrand, Tunnel, 1650€

A fascinating body of work for its uniqueness, Belgrand gives himself a temporality, as we can see time passing with his serial work.  Viewing his paintings, you might encounter street scenes, a series of kiosks, or country highways of California.  A rising artist in the contemporary art world, Belgrand’s success is only increasing.  His new Pop Art style has been welcomed all over Europe, as he auctions in Drouot and his works have already been bought by collectors from art galleries in England, Germany, and Italy.

Adrien Belgrand, Candy Apples, 2450€

25
mar
2010

Modern Art at the Louvre: New Ceiling by Cy Twombly
Posted by Julia Baron at 14:53

Cy Twombly is the third contemporary artist bestowed with the honor of being commissioned for a work in the Louvre Museum -after Anslem Kiefer’s monumental painting in 2007, and François Morellet’s Lefuel Staircase window installations this year.  The Louvre’s practice of inviting works by living artists continues with Twombly’s new painted ceiling in one of the museum’s biggest gallery spaces –the 350m2 Salle des Bronzes.

View of the Louvre’s new Salle des Bronzes ceiling by Cy Twombly

The ceiling differs from Twombly’s usual style characterized by a graffiti influence.  He designed the work to complement the large rectangular space containing the museum’s Classical bronze sculpture.  The result is a vibrant blue ceiling decorated with yellow, off-white, and blue spherical orbs and the names of the seven foremost Greek sculptors from the fourth century –including Praxiteles, Polyclitus, and Lysippus.  The last artist asked to do a Louvre ceiling was Georges Braque in 1953, in a room which leads to Twombly’s new ceiling.

Cy Twombly with his ceiling at the Louvre in Paris, on March 23, 2010

Cy Twombly, originally from Virginia where he was born in 1928, has lived in Italy since the 1950s and has often traveled to Greece, as his work is strongly influenced by ancient Greek history and mythology.  His work for the Salle des Bronzes is a nice synthesis of his contemporary abstract style rooted in antiquity.

Opens March 25, 2010.

Louvre Museum, Sully Wing, 1st floor, Salle des Bronzes, Paris, France.

23
mar
2010

Art Paris + Guests 2010: A Fusion of Creative Fields
Posted by Julia Baron at 16:45

Art Paris, the city’s major spring contemporary art fair founded in 1999, continues to expand the boundaries and possibilities for exhibiting contemporary art with this year’s event at the Grand Palais from 18 to 22 March.  Art Paris + Guests was a collaboration of art galleries with other creative entities, and not just limited to the art market.  The idea of having a “guest” component to the fair this year was to promote networking between varieties of cultural factions.  The exhibitions showed how contemporary art is so closely linked to other creative fields, including architecture, fashion design, gastronomy, cinematography, and music.  Art Paris + Guests highlighted the importance of that interdisciplinary communication.

Art Paris + Guests was designed to encourage the crossover between all different elements of the international art scene.  Furthermore, Art Paris + Guests welcomed emerging global art markets such as Indonesia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and featured these diverse international art scenes with special platforms. Out of 106 exhibitors at the fair, 71 galleries came from France, and 17 countries were represented altogether.  The seven platforms included the countries Indonesia, Ukraine, Finland, the continent Africa, two Parisian platforms featuring Marais and Rive Gauche galleries, and finally a platform for four young, “ultra-contemporary” European galleries from Brussels, Berlin, Milan, and Paris.  Indonesia’s platform, organized by the collector Deddy Kusuma, “The Grass Looks Greener Where You Water It,” included a diverse range of artistic media as Indonesia asserts itself as a strong player in the international art world.

Agus Suwage, Luxury Crime, 2007-2009

Innovation was the name of the game at this year’s Art Paris.  Frédéric Mitterrand, Minister of Culture and Communication, explained:

« At the turn of the XXIth century, an event of this kind, reaffirms the phenomenal vitality of Paris on the international artistic scene. This fair presents exclusive projects: the stands, conceived as platforms dedicated to a country or a theme, facilitate a dialogue between different arts and horizons…The glass roof of the Grand Palais will reveal the perpetual metamorphosis of contemporary arts to bedazzled spectators. »

18
mar
2010

Photography by Sarah McTernen: Seen From a Different Angle
Posted by Julia Baron at 14:32

In Sarah McTernen’s photography gallery on Artsetter, you might notice an airplane, the Golden Gate Bridge, a bright red tulip, a sea creature, and a circuit board –all things without much in common thematically, but which are all brought alive through the lens of Sarah’s camera.  As a skilled photographer, she keeps things interesting with any subject that she transforms in beautiful ways in her digital photography.  Sarah has a photographic talent for making ordinary items into marvelous images.

Sarah McTernen, To the Skies, 50€

To the Skies shows an airplane from behind, in an interesting point of view, as it looks into a turquoise sky dotted with clouds and pink smoke.  Red and white stripes on the wing lead the eye to the green-blue hues beyond, as if it wishes to join the clouds.

Sarah McTernen, Sanding Patterns, 50€

Her use of digital photography gives her many options as to the final result of her work, and her choices keep the viewer wanting to know more.  Particularly in her abstract photography, Sarah makes banal subjects quite appealing to the eye.  Sanding Patterns shows a small portion of a 1969 Mustang, focusing in on scraped away multiple layers of paint.  Sarah takes photographs from unique angles and skillfully works with lighting to find the personality in ordinary everyday things.

Sarah McTernen, Downward Guitar

16
mar
2010

Picasso : Themes and Variations – An Exhibition of Picasso’s Prints at the New York MoMA
Posted by Julia Baron at 16:28

The incredibly prolific Pablo Picasso extended his artistic talent to media outside of painting –printmaking, drawing, and sculpture, to name a few.  The upcoming exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art will display Picasso’s work in printmaking throughout his career, featuring about 100 works out of the 2000 prints Picasso produced.

Pablo Picasso, The Frugal Repast, 1904, printed 1913. Etching.

The exhibit covers Picasso’s printmaking throughout his different periods –Blue, Rose, Cubism –and his exploration of the variety of printmaking techniques –including, but not limited to, lithography, etching, aquatint, woodcuts, and linoleum cuts.  Picasso began printmaking in his early years and was completely absorbed with it by the early 1930s.  The Frugal Repast represents an early etching.

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Glass Under the Lamp, 1962. Linoleum cut.

Starting out with etching and drypoint, Picasso later came across lithography at Fernand Mourlot’s workshop in Paris, and he experimented with the many possibilities within printmaking all throughout his life.  He was influenced by great printers such as Roger Lacourière, who trained him in intaglio techniques of etching, drypoint, engraving, and aquatint.

Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman No. 6, Portrait of Dora Maar, 1939.  Aquatint.

Picasso’s work in printmaking guided his artistic progression.  The MoMA exhibit presents different themes to point out how Picasso’s imagery evolved.  The way he portrayed the women in his life, for instance, shows marked change with a look at his prints over the years.  In another theme featured in the exhibition, Picasso’s lithographs of a bull show his stylistic change from realist representations to total abstraction.

Pablo Picasso, The Bull, state VII, 1945. Lithograph.

« Picasso : Themes and Variations »  is on view from March 28 – September 6, 2010. Organized by Deborah Wye, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, Museum of Modern Art.

15
mar
2010

Bedroom secrets, Restoration of a masterpiece: Following Van Gogh’s Bedroom
Posted by Julia Baron at 13:20

One of Vincent van Gogh’s most prized paintings, The Bedroom (1888), is about to undergo restoration.  As it is a crowd favorite at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, those in charge of the work’s restoration had the idea to document the process with a blog – www.vangoghmuseum.com/bedroomsecrets –so that art fans can track the whole procedure.  The Van Gogh Museum bloggers are Ella Henricks, head of conservation; Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho, assistant curator; and Axel Rüger, director of the Van Gogh Museum.  All three have a close relationship to the work and care passionately about its conservation.

Vincent’s bedroom in Arles, 1888, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Oil on canvas, 72 x 90 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh himself felt a special connection to The Bedroom as well, as he expressed in his letters to his brother Theo.  He painted it during his time in the Yellow House in Arles, and sent his brother Theo and friend Paul Gauguin multiple sketches of the painting.

The plan to restore Van Gogh’s masterpiece was based on extensive examination done last year.  The work underwent damage from the beginning, living in Van Gogh’s damp studio, and it was first restored in 1930. Further preservation of the work is necessary, and it has been waiting patiently in line for restoration since the 1980s.

Those missing the painting at the museum can visit the exhibit Bedroom secrets, Restoration of a masterpiece, and via blog, follow the beloved masterpiece along its way to being preserved for future generations to admire.

11
mar
2010

Splendor in the Romanticism of Joachim Frydman
Posted by Julia Baron at 12:57

With a strong element of romanticism, Joachim Frydman’s photography delights the senses.

Joachim Frydman has a deliberate artistic style in his contemporary photography.  He adopts different approaches for his black and white pictures and his color photography, and both photography techniques result in truly stunning images with an aura of romanticism.

Joachim Frydman, Le Louvre et sa pyramid, 500€

Frydman’s black and white photography focuses on the element of reflection.   He often plays with the eye by reversing photographic images –as in his Canal St works and photographs taken of the Louvre and its pyramid.  We see the reflection of a scene in the top portion of the photograph, and enter Frydman’s realm of wonder and play with the senses, in the spirit of romanticism.

Joachim Frydman, Hudson River I, 500€

In Frydman’s color photography, a theme of romanticism connects the images.  With dramatically radiant city scenes, such as a series of the Hudson River and his alluring displays of the Eiffel Tower, Frydman brings us into a world of luminous color and beauty.  Some of his landscape photography looks like dreamy illustrations of different settings, such as La cite perdue des Incas and Le village de Gordes.  Just as in the romanticism art of the mid-19th century, Frydman’s work celebrates unbridled nature, the senses, and emotion’s triumph over reason.

Joachim Frydman, La cité perdue des Incas, 500€

10
mar
2010

Cedric Blatrie’s Abstract Art
Posted by Julia Baron at 13:18

In the abstract art of Cedric Blatrie, his contemporary style makes use of collage and attention-grabbing shapes and colors.  A self-taught artist with a talent for oil painting, Blatrie creates original artwork with multiple layers, which takes the viewer into vibrant scenes of the art abstract.

Cédric Blatrie is a self-taught artist.  He launched into painting one day, and was quite successful at it.  With Blatrie, we enter a world of sensation, colors, and geometric shapes in his abstract paintings.  In his original artwork, where we see some influence of Staël, Blatrie catches our eye in his deliberate, contemporary style with an interesting display of shapes and a limited color palette.  Blatrie invites us to ponder his mastery of art abstract.

Cedric Blatric, Haute Couture, 810€

Working in Lausanne, Switzerland, Cédric Blatrie gives us a look at abstract paintings in his world constructed by touch, flatness, and powerful geometrical forms.  This abstraction reminds us of the invisible, impalpable world of the unconscious.  His abstract art is characterized by the use of large white canvases on which his work takes place.  Adding material to create thick layers, Blatrie asserts his talent in the act of collage atop oil painting in his NeuroParty works.

Cedric Blatrie, Neuroparty II, 475€

A lover of the big screen and music stars, Blatrie also creates black and white portraits of famous artists in his series entitled “Show Business,” with images of icons from the Beatles to the Godfather.  Gradually straying from figurative art, his current painting style will no doubt delight aficionados of abstract art.

Cedric Blatrie, Beatles, 340€

3
mar
2010

Berggruen Gallery’s The Road to Here: Exploring the Life of California Art
Posted by Julia Baron at 14:04

San Francisco’s John Berggruen Gallery shows different exhibitions monthly, often specializing in important Bay Area artists.  The current show, The Road to Here, consists of work by six different artists who share a California art connection.  Spread throughout two floors of gallery space, the art exhibition presents the work of Robert Bechtle, Ed Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud, Zoe Crosher, Dave Muller, and Jonas Wood.

Wayne Thiebaud, Park Place, 1993

Among these artists who have informed contemporary California art, their individual diverse styles are apparent.  Shown on one floor, Bechtle paints soft yet precise scenes of San Francisco streets, Ed Ruscha’s colorful screen prints feature road signs, and Thiebaud’s delicate landscape paintings stand out with his signature use of vibrant color.  Upstairs, we find the calm still life works by Jonas Wood, Zoe Crosher’s Out the Window [LAX] series of photographs picturing dismal hotel interiors looking out over the LA airport, and Dave Muller’s work which incorporates text and a travel theme -a concept which manifests throughout the art exhibition.

The Road to Here displays contemporary California art of everyday life made intriguing by these six artists.  With different styles and media, the artists are linked as they explore the vibrant West coast.

Robert Bechtle, ‘68 Cadillac, 1970

Zoe Crosher, LAX Radisson, 2001