Illustration at the Erotica Auction

An anonymous French illustration from 1900 available for sale at the enormous Erotica auction held by EVE (Estimations & Ventes aux Enchères) today Sunday, December 18 and tomorrow Monday December 19.  A bulk of the collection comes from a Swiss collector who has spent 35 years gathering his holdings. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 11 - 9 rue Drouot, 75009 Paris

Rodarte: Fra Angelico Collection

Rodarte_Fra_Angelico_Collection_lacma

RODARTE: Fra Angelico Collection, on view starting tomorrow at the LACMA's Italian Renaissance gallery, features a group of extraordinary gowns by Kate and Laura Mulleavy. The collection is inspired by Italian art, specifically the Renaissance frescoes in the monastery of San Marco by Fra Angelico in Florence, Italy, as well as the Baroque sculpture, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) in Rome. Rodarte’s signature dressmaking techniques and sculptural details can be seen in each of the gowns. Silk fabrics (including chiffon, georgette, lamé, organza, satin, taffeta, and tulle) are draped and manipulated to give form, texture, and tonal variety to the color palette inspired by the frescoes. The gowns are customized utilizing a variety of materials such as feathers, swarovski elements, sequins, and custom-made silk flowers. Hand-forged gold metallic accessories such as a headpiece, breastplate, and belts dramatically complete the look of several key gowns. The Fra Angelico collection will enter LACMA’s Costume and Textiles Department, which houses over twenty-five thousand objects, representing more than one hundred cultures and two thousand years of human creativity in the textile arts.

SHERRIE LEVINE: MAYHEM

Sherrie Levine (b. 1947) has transformed and re-contextualized images and objects in her work since the late 1970s, often presenting them as installations that provide a compelling sense of context. An exhibition at the Whitney in New York, entitled Mayhem, developed as a project by the artist, includes works ranging from well-known photographs, such as After Walker Evans: 1-22, 1981, to recent sculptures, such as Crystal Skull: 1-12, 2010. The exhibition, conceived by the artist as offering constellations of older and newer works, will provide juxtapositions that provoke new associations and responses. The installation will also emphasize the powerfully seductive, tactile nature of Levine’s art, and the complex layers of reference and meaning that unfold between the ostensible sources and Levine’s own work. Sherrie Levine: Mayhem is on view at the Whitney until January 22, 2012. 

In Focus: Los Angeles, 1945–1980

Gary Winogrand

The Getty presents 30 photographs from the Museum’s permanent collection made in Los Angeles between 1945 and 1980. Both iconic and relatively unknown works are featured by artists whose careers are defined by their association with the city, who may have lived in Los Angeles for a few brief but influential years, or whose visit inspired them to create memorable images. Works by Robert Cumming, Joe Deal, Judy Fiskin, Anthony Friedkin, Robert Heinecken, Anthony Hernandez, Man Ray, Edmund Teske, William Wegman, Garry Winogrand, Max Yavno and others are loosely grouped around the themes of experimentation, street photography, architectural depictions, and the film and entertainment industries. In Focus: Los Angeles, 1945–1980 will be on view from December 20 to May 6, 2012. 

[FIRST LOOK] POST x BLK DNM Perfume 11

A video by POST, an Ipad only arts and culture publication, for BLK DNM Perfume 11 which premiered at The Webster Miami for Art Basel; with sound design by Twin Shadow. "BLK DNM Perfume 11 molecules mixed with water - and in one scene, paint....The inspiration was a re-imagining of a birth of a nebula in an alternate universe, and then how planets, rocks, land, water and clouds - an atmosphere - may form in an alternative gravitational field.....It was important for us to use the actual perfume within the liquid mix so as to imbue the video with a special energy and integrity as an artwork."

MICHAËL BORREMANS: The Devil’s Dress

MICHAËL _BORREMAN_the_devils_dress

David Zwirner gallery in New York presents an exhibition of new works by Michaël Borremans, The Devil’s Dress. Borremans’ drawings, paintings, and films present an evocative combination of solemn-looking characters, unusual close-ups, and unsettling still lifes. There is a theatrical dimension to his works, which are at once highly staged and ambiguous, just as his complex and open-ended scenes lend themselves to conflicting moods—simultaneously nostalgic, darkly comical, disturbing, and grotesque. His paintings display a concentrated dialogue with previous art historical epochs, however their unconventional compositions and curious narratives defy expectations and lend them an indefinable yet universal character. On view until  December 17, 2011 - 525 West 19th Street.

Fuyuki Yamakawa at Big in Japan

Avant-garde khoomei singer and performance/installation artist Fuyuki Yamakawa at the Ksubi X Kirin presented Big In Japan events last month i. Yamakawa's performances use light bulbs, yogic breath, antiquated medical equipment, and modified musical instruments and involvesoutputting bodily functions (like his heartbeat, amplified with an electronic stethoscope) in synch with external sound and light so the space becomes an extension of his body.

You, Me, Something Else

you_me_Something_else_glasgow_strive_to_set_the_record_straight_james_mclardy

A piece entitled Strive To Set the Record Straight by artist James McLardy now on view at the exhibition You, Me, Something Else in Glasgow celebrating sculpture.

Warhol's Empire

In celebration of the opening of Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964–1977, the Art Institute of Chicago will project Andy Warhol’s 1964 film Empire—a single, eight-hour-long nighttime take of the Empire State Building—from the museum’s Bluhm Family Terrace across Millennium Park to the upper stories of the Aon Center. Warhol’s work thus sets the stage for the artists featured in Light Years who redrew the boundaries of both photography and contemporary art. On view December 9 through December 10.

I Like Pigs & Pigs Like Me

Lately, artist Miru Kim has been spending a lot of time with pigs for her project entitled The Pig That Therefore I Am. Pictured above, Miru Kim spent 104 hours, nude, behind glass with two hogs for Miami, Basel. Part live performance, and part photographic series, Kim writes in her artist statement about the project: "Both a pig and I carry our exteriorized memories on our cutaneous garment–scars, blemishes, wrinkles, and rashes that manifest markings of time, anguish of the soul, wounds of love and war. We all live at the same time, naked and not quite naked. Underneath our exterior coverings, whether they are silk, cotton or leather, we humans carry our own skin, just as pigs do. Born with a blank canvas enveloping us, we accumulate more and more brushstrokes of memories as years pass, on our garment that cannot be literally cast off until death."