by Sandy | Jul 21, 2016 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
The Art Institute of Chicago:
“What is American art? That is a question the country’s artists asked and answered in myriad ways during the decade spanning the economic crash of 1929 through America’s entry into World War II. With economic downturn at home and the rising threat of fascism abroad, artists of the time applied their individualized visions of the nation to rethinking modernism. This exhibition brings together 50 works by some of the foremost artists of the era—including Aaron Douglas, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Grant Wood—to examine the landscape of the United States during the Great Depression and the many avenues artists explored as they sought to forge a new national art and identity.”
America After The Fall: Painting In The 1930s
Thru September 18, 2016
AIC / The Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Il
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by Sandy | Jul 16, 2016 | Art
The New Orleans Museum of Art is showcasing work by musician Bob Dylan until July 31, 2016.
“In a suite of paintings, Bob Dylan presents a distinctive vision of New Orleans, a city for which he has well-known affection. As he wrote in Chronicles, the first volume of his autobiography, “There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There’s a thousand different angles at any moment…No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem.”
Bob Dylan: The New Orleans Series
New Orleans Museum of Art / NOMA
One Collins C. Diboll Circle, City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana
(Image: “Rampart Street Courtyard”)
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by Sandy | Jul 16, 2016 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Museums
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which debuted in 1935, has undergone extensive renovations since 2013. The grand re opening happened on Saturday, May 14, 2016. One of the exhibitions on view is the “The Campaign for Art”.
“Among the Painting and Sculpture highlights are two key paintings by Jackson Pollock, important works by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and an entire gallery dedicated to Joseph Beuys. A space devoted to the late work of Diane Arbus showcases a major gift to the Photography department. Media Arts features significant historic pieces by performance and video pioneers Ant Farm, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Nam June Paik…”
“The Campaign for Art”
Thru September 18, 2016
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA
(Image: Richard Diebenkorn, “Coffee” 1959)
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by Sandy | Jul 10, 2016 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Books, Culture, Education, Events, Learning
Spoken word events, a forum for Caribbean writers, over 200 exhibit booths, music, panel discussions and children’s activities will be on hand at the Harlem Book Fair. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday in the city.
“The vision of the Harlem Book Fair is to partner with local 
and national leadership organizations under the banner of literacy
awareness, affirming HBF as the nation’s largest African American
literary event celebrating family literacy, community empowerment,
and community cooperation. “
18th Annual Harlem Book Fair
Saturday, July 16, 2016
SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN BLACK CULTURE
515 Lenox Avenue, West 135th Street,, NYC
Info:
Tel:914.231.6778 / Tel: 212.491.2200
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by Sandy | Jun 6, 2016 | Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums, Photograhy
“Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) is one of the most influential photographers of the last half century. Working in both color and black and white …Davidson is known for his humanist outlook and a desire to engage directly with his subject matter, approaches that owe much to his early artistic influences in photography, including Robert Frank, W. Eugene Smith, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.”
“Bruce Davidson: Gifts to the Collection”
Until September 11, 2016
De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
(Image: “England/Scotland”, 1960)
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by Bob Martin | Apr 28, 2016 | Drawing
For untrained artists the problem of seeing lies in the inconsistency that exists between the actual visual reality of an object and the way the brain attempts to represent our perception of this reality on the drawing paper. This attempt always involves the tendency to draw our symbolic preconception instead of the actual reality.
Symbolic preconceptions are part of a subconscious visual language that uses symbols to represent known subjects. This language of symbols evolved as a mechanism to help us survive as a species. These symbols help us, for example, to instantly recognize food sources or dangerous predators.
When we view an unknown object our subconscious mind immediately tries to form a new symbol to represent and store the object in memory. Often beginning artists will more accurately draw unknown objects than familiar ones because they are not yet married to the new symbols.
However, when they try to draw the same object a second time, it is likely that a more symbolic image will emerge because ready to use symbols have already been stored in the brain.
Consider, for example, the word “head”. Immediately an image comes to mind which is symbolic for the head. Unfortunately, this symbol is only a schematic representation of a head and is invariably a gross simplification of a real head. Nevertheless, there is a strong subconscious pull to draw the symbol instead of what we actually see.
It is this conflict that artists must try to overcome. This is particularly a problem for pencil portrait artists. When drawing a portrait the artist must resolve numerous layers of symbols to achieve a realistic effect.
We now will describe a very good exercise to learn to avoid the problem of symbol drawing.
We will be drawing from an upside-down photograph. This way our symbolic preconception of the head is disrupted. We will be required to draw without our symbols. The result will be a purer drawing occurrence unfettered by a tainted perception.
As you draw the lines and block in the values you will feel quite awkward in your drawing. This is a good thing. Do not be overly concerned of how your drawing looks. This is an exercise in seeing.
When practicing line and tone this way, beginning artists often get better results than from the right-side up way. Trust yourself and throughout the exercise only look at your photograph in the upside-down position even though it may feel quite uncomfortable.
You will learn to see and draw tone as shapes and will be able to break down hard edges into short, straight lines instead of the usual symbols your brain will give to the nose, the ears, etc.
Thinking of and naming perceived objects will lead you down the garden path of almond shaped eyes, two holes for nostrils, a bunch of lines for hair, cauliflower ears and something that looks like the letter M located on a bowl for a mouth instead of what is actually there.
Artists will never be free of symbolic preconceptions. The symbols actually adapt and become more complicated. It is by constantly analyzing and abstracting form that we are able to draw realistically.
Remi Engels, Ph.D., is a pencil portrait artist and oil painter. He is also the creator of a popular Free Pencil Portrait Drawing Course. Get your free copy here: Free Pencil Portrait Course while supplies last. Also, glimpse some of Remi’s pencil portraits at Remi’s Pencil Portrait Web Site.
For the art of another kind – game art – read these PlayStation 3 pre order tips.
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by Sandy | Apr 20, 2016 | Art, Artist, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
The Seattle Art Museum presents: Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic
“Kehinde Wiley is one of the leading American artists to emerge in the last decade and he has been ingeniously reworking the grand portraiture traditions. Since ancient times the portrait has been tied to the representation of power, and in European courts and churches, artists and their patrons developed a complex repository of postures and poses and refined a symbolic language… Wiley’s portraits are highly stylized and staged, and draw attention to the dialectic between a history of aristocratic representation and the portrait as a statement of power and the individual’s sense of empowerment.”
Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic
Seattle Art Museum – Until May 8 2016
(Image: Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness (detail), 2013, Kehinde Wiley)
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by Sandy | Apr 16, 2016 | Art, Blogroll, Museums
On March 18, 2016 the Metropolitan Museum expanded to a building at 75th and Madison Avenue. Formerly the Whitney Museum of American Art, designed by Marcel Breuer, it will be devoted to 20th and 21st Century art.
The Met Breuer, (pronounced BROY-er)
945 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10021
(Closed Mondays)
FYI: Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St, NYC
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by Sandy | Apr 6, 2016 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Exhibits, Museums
“Vincent van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles is arguably the most famous chambre in the history of art. It also held special significance for the artist, who created three distinct paintings of this intimate space from 1888 to 1889. This exhibition—presented only at the Art Institute of Chicago—brings together all three versions of The Bedroom for the first time in North America, offering a pioneering and in-depth study of their making and meaning to Van Gogh in his relentless quest for home.”
“Van Gogh’s Bedrooms”
Through May 10, 2016
AIC / The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Il
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by Sandy | Apr 4, 2016 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Dancers, Exhibits, Museums
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, 1834–1917 “is best known as a painter and chronicler of the ballet, yet his work as a printmaker reveals the true extent of his restless experimentation. In the mid-1870s, Degas was introduced to the monotype process—drawing in ink on a metal plate that was then run through a press, typically resulting in a single print. Captivated by the monotype’s potential, he immersed in the technique with enormous enthusiasm, taking the medium to radical ends.“
“The exhibition includes approximately 120 rarely seen monotypes—along with some 50 related paintings, drawings, pastels, sketchbooks, and prints—that show Degas at his most modern, capturing the spirit of urban life…”
“Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty” Until July 24, 2016
The Museum of Modern Art / MoMA
11 West 53 Street, New York, NY
Image: “Three Ballet Dancers (Trois danseuses)”, 1878–80, Degas
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