Rodin – Genius at Work

Overview museum, Photo: Ralph Richter,
© Groninger Museum

Famed for his pieces The Gates of Hell and The Thinker, Auguste Rodin is regarded as the father of modern sculpture. Rodin paved the art form’s path into the 20th century through innovative experimentation and bold creation of shapes. The exhibition Rodin – Genius at Work currently at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands unravels the secrets of Rodin’s creativity with a display of 140 pieces.

Hand of God, Rodin

The exhibition starts with a room called “The Hand of God.” In the center, as if taken from the moment God was creating man, is The Hand of God. The walls are covered with photographs of Rodin’s atelier where more than fifty assistants worked to support the artist who holds the hand of God.

Different Materials

The exhibition displays works of varying materials such as marble, plaster, bronze and ceramics. Sculptures of the same theme impart different impressions depending on the materials and their process of creation. Rodin planned for Eve (fig. 1) together with Adam to stand as large statues at the sides of The Gates of Hell. The Bronze Eve emphasizes the interesting shape of arms encircling a twisted body while the marble figure highlights the female’s soft skin texture and figure’s curves.

Groninger Museum

Located in front of the Groningen train station, the Groninger Museum is a striking building designed by four architects led by the Italian Alessandro Mendini. The museum exhibits a wide-ranging collection, including world-renowned works of the local artists’ association De Ploeg and its collection of Chinese and Japanese ceramics.

Groninger Museum

Museumeiland 1
9711 ME Groningen
The Netherlands
http://www.groningermuseum.nl/en

Opening times:

Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-17:00

Closed:

Every Monday, and Jan 1, Apr 27, Dec 25.

Fra Bartolommeo – The Divine Renaissance Exhibition

The Pavilion and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Photo: studio Hans Wilschut.

Along with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, Fra Bartolommeo was one of the driving forces behind the High Renaissance. He is known for his majestic figures, delicate colors and skilled depiction of the draping of clothes. The exhibition displays 11 paintings and 140 drawings. The number of paintings is limited but span from his early to later pieces.

Owner of the World’s Largest Collection of Fra Bartolommeo Drawings

The Museum Bojimans Van Beuningen owns the largest collection in the world of Fra Bartolommeo’s drawings because its founder Daniel George van Beuningen owned two albums that contained 500 drawings by the painter. A Florence collector had bought the albums in 1792. They were purchased by Van Beuningen in 1940.

The Painter’s Intention Traced Back to the Drawings

There is no other 16th century artist whose drawings survive in such large numbers. For example, more than 60 drawings have been identified as studies for the fresco The Last Judgment. Bartolommeo made numerous drawings before finalizing a figure’s composition or pose. He used a mannequin with movable joints to study a person’s pose. He depicted the differences in personality and emotion that result from minor adjustments of the angle of the neck, the raising of an arm or extension of a knee on the ground. Carefully examining how these would affect the folds in the robes cloaking the bodies, Bartolommeo made numerous sketches before deciding on the best pose. Viewing the drawings in chronological order reveals clearly what the artist paid attention to in his revisions and final decision.
At the exhibition, in addition to the drawings and paintings, photographs of black-and-white printouts of the paintings will be posted near the drawings. The monochrome emphasizes the delineations, allowing viewers to study the similarities between the sketches and painting.

Fra Bartolommeo – The Divine Renaissance Exhibition Until Jan. 15, 2017

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Museumpark 18-20
3015 CX Rotterdam
the Netherlands
http://www.boijmans.nl/en/

Opening times:

Tuesday – Sunday　11:00-17:00
Dec 5、Dec 24, Dec 3　11:00-16:00

Closed:

Mondays and Jan 1, April 27, Dec 25

Magritte: The Treason of Images Exhibition

Fig. 1 René Magritte, La Décalcomanie, 1966, Huile sur toile, 81 × 100 cm, Dr Noémi Perelman Mattis et Dr Daniel C. Mattis, © Adagp, Paris 2016, © Photothèque R. Magritte / Banque d’Images, Adagp, Paris, 2016

Commemorating its 40th anniversary this year, the Centre Pompidou opened “Magritte: The Treason of Images” exhibition on September 27. The Belgian painter Rene Magritte was known as a surrealist who used imagination to its utmost and combined everyday images that on one glance appear unrelated. Magritte attempted to create a world of “hyper reality” where dreams and reality unite without contradicting each other (fig 1). Magritte interacted with philosophers including Michel Foucault whose influences on his work are clear.

The language of Magritte’s pictures

Fig.2 René Magritte, La Trahison des images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe),
1929, Huile sur toile, 60,33 x 81,12 x 2,54 cm, Los Angeles County Museum
of Art. Purchased with funds provided by the Mr. and Mrs. William Preston
Harrison Collection, © Adagp, Paris 2016, © Photothèque R. Magritte
/ Banque d’Images, Adagp, Paris, 2016

This exhibit proposes interpreting Magritte’s work from the viewpoint of ideology and art. Magritte repeatedly employed a number of motifs – curtains, letters, framed spaces and shadows – each with their own meaning. Magritte spoke through his paintings with this pictorial language like a philosopher presenting a well-argued theory. For example, his frames and segmented spaces refer to Plato’s allegory of the cave, and his shadows can be interpreted as the discovery of painting described in Pliny’s Natural History.

This is not a pipe

In “The Treason of Images (this is not a pipe)” (fig. 2), the words “This is not a pipe” are written below the painting. The picture and words seem to contradict each other, but even though the illustration could be mistaken for an actual pipe, it is still an illustration. The conflict between words and imagery has a long history that dates back to the biblical era when Moses, angered by the Israelites idolizing icons, destroyed the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments.

Magritte: The Treason of Images Exhibition until Jan 23, 2017 (closed Tuesdays)

Centre Pompidou

19 Rue Beaubourg
75004 Paris
France
http://www.centrepompidou.fr/en

Opening times:

11:00-23:00　 Closed on Tuesday

Museum Voorlinden Opening

Fig.1 Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar [foto: Pietro Savorelli]

The Museum Voorlinden (fig 1), located in Wassenaar, in the suburbs of The Hague, the Netherlands, opened on September 11. Wim Pijbes, the former head of the national Rijksmuseum was appointed General Director. Voorlinden will exhibit works from the largest private collection in the Netherlands, gathered over fifty years by Joop van Caldenborgh. A portion of the artworks was shown in 1995, but the opening of Voorlinden will finally allow the entire collection to be displayed.

The Largest Collection

Fig.2 Richard Serra (1938) Open Ended (2007-2008)
Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar [foto: Antoine van Kaam]

Ever since he purchased his first piece when he was 16 years old, Caldenborgh has been visiting exhibitions and galleries both in and out of the Netherlands and collecting art. His interests are broad, including paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs. The construction of Voorlinden allowed his largest piece, Richard Serra’s Open Ended (fig. 2), to be shown for the first time. The sculpture weighs a total of 216 tons and required a reinforcement of the museum floor. Also on display are the unrealistically large and exhaustively detailed recreations of people in Ron Mueck’s Couple under an Umbrella and Leandro Erlich’s Swimming Pool, where viewers can observe people in a pool.

Nature and Art

Voorlinden was built on a large and verdant 40-hectar plot of land. Transparent glass walls along part of the building give visitors a sense of being out in nature while actually inside. Surrounding the structure are sixty outdoor sculptures by Henry Moore, Sol LeWitt and others. Guided tours of the sculptures are also available.

Museum Voorlinden

Buurtweg 90
2244 AG Wassenaar
The Netherlands
http://www.voorlinden.nl/?lang=en

Opening times:

Open daily 11:00-17:00

The Essential Art Space Opened in January 2016

fig.1 ©AkzoNobel Art Foundation

The AkzoNobel Art Foundation is commemorating its 20th anniversary with an inaugural showing of its corporate collection. The exhibition is at The Essential Art Space, which opened in January 2016 on the ground floor of the corporate headquarters building in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (fig.1)

AkzoNobel N.V.

The parent organization of the foundation, Akzonobel N.V., is the world’s largest paints and coatings company and a producer of specialty chemicals. Headquartered in Amsterdam with offices in 80 countries, its products are used not only for planes, ships and housing, but also widely for devices such as computers, cosmetics and foods.

Opening Exhibition: Culture of Colors

The AkzoNobel Art Foundation has been collecting contemporary art for twenty years. The collection includes a large number of avant-garde pieces such as groundbreaking paintings and video art, and 3D works built with unusual materials. The opening exhibit “Culture of Colors” introduces this unique collection through the concept of color, a motif that is common to both the parent company and its art. The works are categorized around though-provoking themes such as the Power of Pigments centered on Peter Laurens Mol’s The Total Amount that displays pigments from 100 years ago. Sublime Splendor gathers works that reflect the tone and texture, and fluidity of paints, and Colors of Identity shows portraits of members of various races.

The Essential Art Space is open to the public. Admission is free.

The Essential Art Space

Christian Neefestraat 2,
1077 WW Amsterdam
The Netherlands
http://www.artfoundation.akzonobel.com/en

Opening times:

Monday-Friday 10:00-17:00

Georgia O’Keeffe Exhibition

London’s Tate Modern is showing a retrospective of Georgia O’Keeffe. Inspired by cubism and other avant-garde art movements in Europe, American artists in the early 20th century were creating novel, cutting-edge forms of expression. O’Keeffe was one of the driving forces behind this period of unprecedented stimulating and dynamic change in the American art scene.

Influence of Modernist Photography

O’Keeffe debuted her work in New York a century ago in 1916 and continued a long painting career of seventy years. She had a narrow range of motifs that included flowers, landscapes and animal bones and depicted these in exaggerated magnified dimensions. Her characteristic compositions have been attributed to the influence of modernist photography. One individual who particularly shaped O’Keeffe’s works was her husband Alfred Stieglitz who ran a gallery devoted to avant-garde art from Europe and was regarded as the father of modernist photography.

Large-scale Flowers

O’Keeffe’s masterpiece Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (fig. 1) depicts a single jimson weed blossom. O’Keeffe magnified the plant to fill the canvas but portrayed the center of the flower and veins of the leaves simply, limiting the use of colors to blue, green and white in contrasting shades. By incorporating techniques of photography, she gave new expression to the traditional theme of a still life of a plant.

Primal Landscape of America

Following the death of Stieglitz, O’Keeffe moved to Abiquiú, a small town in New Mexico in the American southwest which O’Keeffe had fallen in love with and visited many times. There, O’Keeffe used as motifs for her work, the dry and desolate landscapes and stones and buffalo bones that she collected herself. Her eyesight began to deteriorate in the 1970s, but she continued to paint with the help of an assistant until her death at 98.

Georgia O’Keeffe: Until October 30. (Closed Mondays)

Tate Modern

Bankside
London
SE1 9TG, United Kingdom

+44 (0)20 7887 8888
http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Opening times:

Sunday to Thursday 10:00-18:00
Friday to Saturday 10:00-22:00

The Douanier Rousseau

Fig.1 Henri Rousseau, dit Le Douanier Rousseau (1844-1910) La charmeuse de serpents, 1907 Huile sur toile, 167 x 189,5 cm Paris, musée d’Orsay © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

An exhibition examining the painter Henri Rousseau, who flourished from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, is underway at Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The exhibition interprets Rousseau through the theme of “archaism” and also presents the works of the avant-garde Montmartre painters like Picasso, who revered and recognized early on the talent of the elderly painter, as well as the followers of naïve art who carried out his legacy. By displaying these pieces together, one can probe the influence of Rousseau on modern art.

New Expressions

Henri Rousseau was called “the douanier” because he worked at the Paris tax office while he taught himself painting. His lack of formal training gave rise to an unrefined style that was regarded as a new form of expression and greatly influenced the avant-garde painters in Paris.

The New World of the Modern Era

While illustrating in a simple manner, Rousseau’s works incorporated new phenomena of the times. For example, in Portrait of Pierre Loti he painted factory chimneys spewing smoke in the background. In Myself, Portrait-Landscape, he depicted the elated atmosphere of the Paris Expo through ships flying expo flags and a hot air balloon. The exotic atmosphere he portrayed in his masterpieces such as La charmeuse de serpents (Fig. 1) and The Dream is an unprecedented landscape born out of the spread of colonialism. The young painters may have been drawn to these new representations of the new world.

The Douanier Rousseau Through July 17 (Closed Mondays)

Musée d'Orsay

1 Rue de la Légion d'Honneur
75007 Paris, France
+33 1 40 49 48 14
http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/

Opening times:

9:30-18:00 （Closed Mondays、Thursdays until 9:45 pm)