Observingarts: Stavanger Art Society turns 150.

King Haakon of Norway opens Stavanger Kunstforening in 1925.

In 2015, Stavanger Art Society – which runs Kunsthall Stavanger – turns 150. The event will be celebrated with an anniversary exhibition in four parts with a combined opening and birthday party open to everyone on Thursday 26 November 6 pm – 9 pm. The official opening of the exhibition will be conducted by Minister of Culture Thorhild Widvey. 

Red more about birthday party at Kunsthall Stavanger

Observingarts: EXPERIMENTS IN JAPANESE ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY, 1968-1979

More at Japan Society

Observingarts: Steven Daily - work in progress.

stevendailyartVarnishing this beastie,so scary:(

Observingarts: Otto Muehl paintings Curated by Bjarne Melgaard at Rod Bianco Gallery, last chance to see

Last week of Otto Muehl paintings and drawings from the 80's Curated by Bjarne Melgaard at Rod Bianco Gallery, Oslo Otto Muehl - Untitled (Vogelfresser), 1983 oil on canvas, 130x140 cm

Observingarts: Yayoi Kusama to be exhibited at Henie Onstad Artcenter February 2016

Foto: Yayoi Kusama and Dots Obsession, 2011 

Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/ Singapore; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; David Zwirner, New York, 

© Yayoi Kusama

"-This Is the world's largest presentation of Kusama. The characteristic imagery and her repetitive artistic renewal has made her signature mark, polka dots, world famous. We are proud to bring this exhibition to Norway and Høvikodden, says Tone Hansen, director of HOK."

See recent post about Kusama. 

Observingart: Das Ding an Dich.

Das Ding an mich.  Does exposure of art for an audience improve art in general? How well does expensive art perform without a well curated context? How does expensive art in exclusive, monumental museums contribute positively to our perception of art in general? Or just limit our focus to some iconic works? Is the importance of context a problem – or does it benefit the general perception and consumption of art? Should love still be in the eye of the beholder, or do we need professional googles to enjoy art? The passion is not in one piece embedded in an institution. It is even more in the variation of the object and how it is expressed and given exposure: at a wall, in a video, on the web - or simply right in front of me. What is lost when art and how it is wrapped up becomes one object? 
Art is - for me - “das Ding an Sich” and definitively still “das Ding an Mich”.    

Observingarts: Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs' solo exhibition EURASIA

Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs, Sea Division, 2013, 

Silver Gelatine Print, Floating, Museum Glass, 173 x 127 cm, edition of 5

Peter Lav Gallery announce that Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs' solo exhibition EURASIA opens at Fotomuseum Winterthur on Friday 23 October 2015 from 18-21. 

The Shadow of the Avant-Garde, Rousseau and the Forgotten Masters Oct. 2, 2015 – January 10, 2016 Museum Folkwang

Erich Bödeker (1904-1971)Zebra, 1965
Beton, Blech, Eisen, bemalt, 110 x 130 x 25 cm
Kolumba. Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Köln
© Kolumba
© Foto: Lothar Schnepf

"Works by self-taught, non-academic artists are usually referred to as ‘naïve’ or ‘outsider art’ and are conventionally viewed as a distinct category, separate from modern art. But in terms of their power and intensity, these works often rival the great modernist masterpieces. In this major exhibition, the Museum Folkwang presents for the first time the works of such artists as Henri Rousseau, André Bauchant, Séraphine Louis, Martín Ramírez, and Bill Traylor alongside seminal works of modern and contemporary art by Honoré Daumier, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, and, more recently, Blinky Palermo and Mike Kelley. The show has been curated by Kasper König and Falk Wolf". More about the exhibition at Museum Folkwang. 

Observingarts: Galleri Nicolay Wallner, FIAC Stand 0.A15 October 22 - 25 2015

A Kassen, Bronze Pour XI (2015) Photo credit: Anders Sune Berg http://www.fiac.com/paris

Observingarts: New York state of mine no 6

I was walking the streets looking for inspiration:

Observing arts: take a closer look at Lawren Stewart Harris Canada

Lawren Stewart Harris ~ Mountain and Glacier

Source: http://www.heffel.com/

"Lawren Stewart Harris (October 23, 1885 – January 29, 1970) was a Canadian painter born in Brantford, Ontario, who was one of the best known landscape painters of the Group of Seven, a group of artists who set out to create a distinctly Canadian art. He pioneered a distinctly Canadian painting style in the early twentieth century". 
They turned out to be under influence of contemporary, Scandinavian artists. More bio here. 

Scandinavian influence: "Around 1915, he and his colleagues found resolve in the example of Scandinavian artists such as Gustav Fjestad, who combined an awareness of issues of verisimilitude with a strong sense of design". Examples of Fjestad paintings.

Source:http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/

The arctic nature is unike. It has been a rich source of inspiration - and still is. Light and colors different from anything else.
The link to Norwegian painter Nicolay Astrup falls into mind when observing Harris paintings. 

Observingarts: a closer look at the art of Frank Auerbach

Dated 6. nov. 2009, this video gives an introduction to a 2010 exhibition with curator Dr Barnaby Wright. This was the first exhibition to explore the extraordinary group of paintings of post-war London building sites by Frank Auerbach (born 1931), one of Britain's greatest living artists. More on Auerbach at Observingarts. 

Observingarts: Frank Auerbach at Tate Britain

Good reading: 

FT article/ review by Jackie Wullschlage
Se also recent posts about Auerbach.

If you feel like going a bit deeper, take a look at two articles by The Guardian on Auerbach:

Frank Auerbach: a painter's painter of horrors and joy

Auerbach review – 60 years of trying to paint
If you are close: visit Tate Britain for the ongoing exhibition! Or see Auerbachs art through the eyes of his son, Jake.

Observingarts: Craig LaRotonda

craiglarotonda"Greed" from my Seven Deadly Sins series "Eternal Consequences".