Art in Transylvania : January 2016

Jan 19, 2016

The most expensive painter alive, by György Palagyi

Based on abstract painting, the German painter Gerhard Richter, broke every record in 2012, when, according to Sotheby's auction house, Richter sold his " Abstraktes Bild " with the stunning amount of 30.5 million dollars.

Then, with the sale of “Domplatz Mailand”, he became the most expensive living artist.The artist whose work was sold in 2013 for 37.1 million dollars at Sotheby's in New York.

These two sales put him on the highest step of the podium as the best-selling living artist. The buyer of the second work, is Don Bryant, owner of vineyards in the United States, who says that painting "turned him around ".

UAD's involvement in Jazz In The Park, by György Palagyi

The Jazz Festival taking place this summer (June 27-July 3), due to the location (Central Park Cluj), called UAD to join in with the painting department, where the festival was held.

The painting department participated in an exhibition during the concerts involving a number of UAD's graduate students. Some of the students which I would like to mention are Todor Tamas, currently doctoral year III, and his colleague Laci Matyas, second year M.A. student, whose works were most appreciated in the exhibition.

The work of Mathias for example, although he is a contemporary painter, adopts the style of Ingres; on the other hand, his colleague Todor Tamas, addresses a very modern figurative painting style.

In my opinion, their works, along with those of their colleagues, of which I would like to

mention Andreea Tivadar, gave a valuable addition to the festival, bringing into the stage light the UAD painting department. UAD involvement was much publicized and called for future collaboration in the festival.

Jan 14, 2016

Cornel Brudaşcu' s paintings at TATE, by Gabriel Buturca

Tate gallery chose the Romanian artist Cornel Brudaşcu to be one of the few artists on The World Goes Pop exhibition list. The artist is originally from Salaj and is the only Romanian artists at this exhibition which celebrates the 1960's and 1970's art.

The World Goes Pop suggests a new perspective of the 1960-1970's art, highlighting the fact that Pop Art was not just a western culture of consumerism but an artistic language which today is very relevant. For this exhibition 6 paintings were chosen, 2 of them belonging in the Art Museum from Cluj-Napoca permanent exhibition. The paintings that were chosen are “The Guitarist”, “Youth on the Building Yard“, “Composition“, “Group Portrait” (see below) and “Portrait“, all of them painted in the '70's.

The curator for this exhibition was Jessica Morgan, who is one of the most influential curators in the world. She came to Cluj-Napoca to search about the Pop Art influences in Romania. She discovered Cornel Brudaşcu and she was fascinated by his work. One of his paintings, titled “Group Portrait ” was on display at Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.The same painting can be found now at Tate Gallery where the artist received a special place in the exhibition.

The World Goes Pop includes a selection of 160 works created between 1960 and 1970 by artists from Latin America, Asia, Europe and Middle East, many of them unknown to the British public, artists who were important figures of the art of period, in their home countries

The exhibition is co-curated by Flavia Grilling and Elsa Coustou and will be accompanied by a program of debates and events that will take place during the entire period of exposure: 17 September 2015 and January 24, 2016

”The Guitarist”

“Youth on the building yard”

Jan 13, 2016

Salonul de arta (The Annual Art Salon) in Cluj-Napoca, by Vivien Xenia Tinca

The Anual Art Salon by UAPR and Museum of Art Cluj-Napoca has been held in Cluj-Napoca at the Museum of Art between 17th December 2015 and 10th January 2016.
UAPR has the largest number of members after Bucharest but they do not have their own gallery or any other space, for that matter.

From 2007 after the evacuation of Galeria Mare the Anual Art Salon is being held in the Museum of Art, Cluj-Napoca.

Members of Cluj UAPR are extremely active and they also are constant participants in national and international exhibitions, openings in Romania and abroad.They are creating monuments and works of art in public spaces and are involved in teaching and much, much more.

Their work is really appreciated and encouraged with awards and distinctions.

We can certainly say that it is due to them that we can call Cluj a Cultural Capital and with their help and art this title continues to be ours.

The exhibition includes painting, sculpture, graphics, textile art, ceramics and photography, all by artists from Cluj.

It is the event with the largest number of participating artists and the largest number of works included and it is a “must see”.

So if you have time, go take a look to see how artists are not limited to spaces and how, even if there is not any space for UAPR, they continue to hold this exhibition, like a family that gathers together year by year to catch up.

SOURCES:

http://www.macluj.ro/salonul-de-arta-al-uap-cluj.html

http://www.clujlife.com/2015/12/17/salonul-anual-muzeul-de-arta/

The World of Charles and Ray Eames, Vivien Xenia Tinca

Exhibition at Barbican Centre,London

Charles and Ray Eames are at the same time a couple and two brilliant designers.The newest exhibition at the Barbican confirms that.

From 21 October 2015 to 14 February 2016 Barbican Centre presents the world of Charles and Ray Eames through objects and projects produced during their lifetime: film, photography, graphic design, multi-channel slideshows, sculpture, furniture, products, drawings, painting, etc.

The happy couple could design chairs, textiles, magazine covers, buildings, multi-screen video installations, exhibitions and medical aids.
These two undogmatic and practical people, have done things and combined elements that no one thought was possible before and for that they occupy a very important position among designers.
Maybe everyone knows their chairs.These are creations in aluminium, fibreglass, leather, wood and steel serving multiple purposes and taking different forms like executive swivel chairs, armchairs, even furniture that looks like modernist sculpture.

"It felt like it was time to reconsider their work," Ince told Dezeen. "Lots of people are still very familiar with the furniture only."

I think that the main point of this exhibition is to make people see not just the designers, but the artists as well.
These two people are always full of joy and happiness and it’s almost impossible not to feel the same too when you see their work and it’s really a pleasure to look at them.
So if you are somewhere nearby the exhibition, you should go and take a look.They even have fans of their work like rapper Ice Cube.

Installation design for the exhibition For Modern Living, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1949

Think!, a 1964 film created for the IBM Pavilion

Saul Steinberg Armchairs (c. 1950)

Posters

Scene from Travelling Boy-their first film

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/18/world-charles-ray-eames-review-barbican-rowan-moore

http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery

http://www.dezeen.com/2015/10/20/the-world-of-charles-and-ray-eames-exhibition-barbican-london-uk/

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2015/october/ten-things-to-see-at-the-world-of-charles-and-ray-eames/

Here and beyond, by Alexandra Burtiuc

Hermina Csata is an artist who graduated in 1991 from the University of Art and Design of Cluj-Napoca. She studied painting, but now her style combines all the painting skills that she has with a variety of textile materials.

Recently she has had an exhibition at the Museum of Arts in Cluj-Napoca. The name of the exhibition was Emotional Topography, and it was based on painted and embroidered leather. The concept of the works was a map of the soul, in which the viewers can see emotion, facts, elements and details that constitute a certain mood. Even the fact that she combines the textile materials and different techniques make you as a viewer to think about the life itself: life is never made from one simple thing, it is made from a lot of different things and this is what makes is beautiful. $C:\Users\Ale\Desktop\12308063_887024078084453_7543025835510104924_o.jpg$

I could not make it to the opening, but I have seen the exhibition with my classmates. The first impression was Wow! How could she do THAT? And it was a great thig to see! I was impressed by the little details on each and every piece of work and the effect that those details create in an image. And the scale of the works was impressive too. All of them were large. She used the both sides of the leather, a lot of golden thread, acrylic colours, embroidery, and in some of the works she used silk. The mix was an ingenious idea, and how all of these come together is amazing.

There were some of her drawings and sketches, a little bit smaller that the rest of the works, and they were next to the final result. The colours, the line, everything was exactly the same as it was in the sketch, which proves that if you have a good idea you do not need to chance a thing.

There was a certain work that I liked. It is called Faun. I have seen the sketch and the final work. What I liked about this was how it made me fell. I wanted to have a jacket made like that, I wanted to have it, I wanted to be embraced by it. I felt connected with it.

Probably it was the purpose of the exhibition: making the emotions of the viewers to came to life just by showing some images of her personal emotions.

http://www.macluj.ro/hermina-csata-2015.html

Woman, flower and sexuality, by Alexandra Burtiuc

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Yohji Yamamoto is a Japanese fashion designer who shook the entire fashion industry when he had the first exhibition in Paris. Since then he is one of the most respected and appreciated designers around the world.

The 2015 collection has as a concept sexuality and flowers. At a fist look these two things do not seem to be connected, but in his mind, it seems that women are like flowers, and even if at a flower you may not always see the stamen, it does not mean that it does not have it. In his opinion, sexuality is not what you see, because When you see too much it may turn to nothing (his words), but it is what it makes you think that she, as a woman, has. Seeing a part of a woman`s body is more than enough to think about sex. But let`s not forget about the fact that being from Japan makes you think differently when it comes to such aspects.

The dominant colour of the collection is black, even if there are some other colours like blue, yellow or white. In every look sexuality is generated by showing a shoulder or a leg or the belly and it is enough for the viewer's imagination. What I like even more than the clothes, are the shoes. There are not high heels, there are not exaggerations, and the expression ready-to-wear may be inspired by his creations. Why? Because as a woman you may not always wear high heel for every outfit that you want to wear. Flat soles are more comfortable, and it is more likely to wear that on street, than high heels.

Another thing that I found interesting about his work is how he makes disorder to look soo good. It is true that when things are too ordered and symmetrical they may be a little bit boring, but he knows how to manage the disorder to not be too much. And it is thought to look like it is a random thing, even if it is not.

Yohji Yamamoto has a deep way o thinking and he always comes with something new and original, because he thinks different. He is already a part of fashion history, and I totally understand why.

http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2015-ready-to-wear/yohji-yamamoto

Jan 12, 2016

Saatchi gallery to host its first all-female art exhibition, by Gabriel Buturka

The Saatchi Gallery was founded in 1985 to provide a platform to bring contemporary art to as wide an audience as possible and make it accessible. Over the last five years the Saatchi Gallery has hosted 15 out of the 20 most visited exhibitions in London

The Gallery is set to mark its 30th anniversary this year so the London gallery wants to celebrate by making an all-female art exhibition. The name of the exhibition is Champagne life and it's taken from one of the many works of Julia Wachtel in which the American artist puts a sky-blue image of Minnie Mouse alongside a picture of Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian.

“There are two aspects to my work: one is to considered to be landscape paintings, which are more traditional, and the other is celebrity culture ''she said. “Both of those are taking the media world as source material, rather than the actual virtual world of a real landscape or person.”

The Champagne life exhibition opens on January 13 and is focused on 14 emerging female artist like Stephanie Quayle, Virgile Ittah, Sigrid Holmwood and others.

According to recent studies in 2013 in the art galleries only 31% of artworks were made by a women.

Another all-female art show it' s happening at the Rubbel familly collection in Miami, Florida called No Man's Land.

The joker and the pope, by Vlad Dobritan

About Maurizio Cattelan, there are not too many things to be said, mostly because he says everything he wants to by himself. He does this in his work, as an artist, as a curator, he just says all it’s needed to be said about himself.

I will save myself the trouble to copy any information about him from the internet, he deserves more than a presentation of his biography, so if you crave to find out when he was born, where, who his parents were, and other such things you could just as well use Google or just ask Silviu Mănăstire to find out who Maurizio Cattelan really is.

Now that I have said what I’m not going to do here, let’s start with what I’m going to do.

First I will tell you how I started to get familiar with his work, and you might be surprised, but his

“The ninth hour” was unknown to me the first time I saw this work In fact, beside his work as a photographer I didn’t know anything about him. You might wonder how? The answer is simple,

I first saw his works in his magazine, Toiletpaper Magazine, magazine about you can read in my other post called “toilet paper”, I won’t talk here about his photography. I will mention instead his work as a sculptor.

The ninth hour – the jewel of the satirical sculptures, depicting his holiness, Pope John Paul II, carrying the cross, struck down by a meteorite.

This is a good example of Cattelan’s

critical thinking and humor.

Since the 90s Cattelan is a huge figure in the art world. Besides his work as an artist, he spent a lot of time curating and publishing, about his last publishing work, you can find out in my next article

Toilet paper. Magazine, by Vlad Dobritan

What is TOILETPAPER magazine? It’s all about the pictures quite frankly, Catellan himself says that “the pictures probe the unconscious, tapping into sublimated perversions and spasms of violence.”

More than that, Toiletpaper’s issues begin with a theme, always something basic and general, but the process takes that basic and general theme and makes out of it a pearl of surrealist art, he talks about that matter in his opening night of his retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum of New York: “…as we start, we move like a painter on a canvas, layering and building up the issue. We always find ourselves in a place we didn’t expect to be. The best images are the result of improvisation…” and he says what a “toiletpaper photo” should be :

“We keep homing in on what a Toiletpaper image is. Like distilling a perfume. It’s not about one particular style or time frame; what makes them Toiletpaper is a special twist. An uncanny ambiguity.”

As I have previously mentioned, Catellan can speak for himself far better than anyone could, that’s why I will only recommend you to check his magazine, smile, think a bit and most important, enjoy it!

Who was David Bowie for the world of art? by Ana Crețiu

The world of art mourns the loss of the musician, artist and actor David Bowie, who lost his battle with cancer on the 11^th of January, at he age of 69. As a collector of Modern and contemporary art, he started studying it at Bromley Technical High School, continuing to create works throughout his life. The Gallery on Cork Street, London, hosted his first one-man exhibition of paintings in 1995.

Besides creating and collecting art, Bowie also enjoyed writing about it. He was the co-founder of 21, an art-book publishing project that originated in 1997 and the magazine of Modern Painters had him as a frequent contributor and editorial board member. In 1996 he wrote a piece about the importance of the late graffiti artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, saying then that “For the briefest flicker of a tiny moment in the mid-80s, New York's streets and subways came alive with Twomblyesque cave-scratchings and the screaming confusion of five-fingered fury.”

The same year, Bowie played Andy Warhol in the movie Basquiat.

The same year, but in another Modern Painters piece, he spoke to Damien Hirst on the eve of his solo show at Gagosian gallery in New York. Bowie questioned Hirst about mortality, saying: “What seems to define your work as being so different from that of your peers is a far greater degree of personal passion. A strong resentment of the idea of death. It certainly strikes me as emotive, a reverberation of sorts.”

His retrospective, “David Bowie Is”, that opened in 2013 at the Victoria & Albert Museum is currently on show in the Netherlands, after another seven venues. According to the organisers, the show includes more than 300 objects demonstrating how “Bowie’s work has both influenced and been influenced by wider movements in art, design, theatre and contemporary culture”. One thing is for sure, David Bowie’s legacy will go on for a long time, as he greatly influenced the world of British music, acting scene, and art.

Photograph your Winter Customs, by Ana Crețiu

The Popular School of Arts of Cluj-Napoca launches this challenge for their students and for both amateurs and professionals who practice the art of photography individually or as part of a professional Romanian profile club.

The works submitted need to bear the mark of authenticity and need to be original. The objectives of the competition are the training and development of the aesthetic sense among participants, the recognition and encouragement of cultural and artistic values in the art of photography, assessing the level of practical and theoretical training of the young students, stimulating creativity, developing communication and teamwork skills, all while identifying specific instances of the winter season and putting them into pictures.

The 5^th edition of the competition “Winter Customs” is taking place in Cluj-Napoca as we speak, submissions being accepted from the 14^th of December 2015 until de 31^st of January 2016.

Each participant may send up to five digital photographs on the subject given, on e-mail at

scoaladeartecluj@yahoo.com

Jan 10, 2016

„Vârsta de bronz” – A National Sculpture Biennale, by Monica Dănilă

The fourth edition of the National Sculpture Biennale „Vârsta de bronz” took place at the Cluj-Napoca Art Museum on December 2, in partnership with the Art and Design University (UAD) and the Artists Union of Romania (UAP). The exhibition was based on the concept of two professors of UAD, Radu Moraru and Alexandru Păsat, and proposed a dialogue between two generations: the more experienced artists and the young ones, altogether over 100.

The project „Vârsta de bronz” began in 2007, in a launching exhibition, presenting works of the Art and Design University's students and their masters, guided by no specific theme, the only thing in common being the material they were made of – bronze. Although the outcome turned out well, it seemed hard to bring together different generations with different concepts about bronze sculpture.

The material that names the event was seen rather as a pretext to bring together so many works of art in the same exhibition, without causing any imbalance in the general aesthetics, and even creating a solid unity of artistic mass.

The critic Oliv Mircea addressed to the public present at the opening, on behalf of the artists and of the students, speaking about the sculptural phenomenon present in Romania in the past half-century.

The first biennial exhibition took place in 2009, reuniting the works of 76 artists, the second one, in 2011, gathered 96. But this year, the number of participants, grew over 100, which was itself an impressive achievement, adding to the high aesthetic quality of the exhibited works.

Bibliography:

http://citynews.ro/eveniment-23/foto-100-de-sculpturi-unice-varsta-de-bronz-la-muzeu-206713

http://www.clujlife.com/2015/11/27/varsta-de-bronz-muzeul-de-arta-2/

1800,000 images released by the New York Public Library and an invitation for the public to use them, by Monica DĂnilĂ

In the first week of 2016, the New York Public Library (NYPL) made an announcement about the release of over 180,00 public domain images, available in high resolution, including photographs, postcards, maps, etchings, watercolours, sheet music, stereoscopic views and other from the library’s special collection.

The difference between this release and other releases that happened before is that the files made public now are available for free and immediate download, even in the highest quality resolution, dating back as far as the 11th century. Users can choose, using a visual search tool, from blocks of images organized by category, colour and other filters.

The library encourages different experiences with the objects, re-using and creating something new with the historic collections, and wants to increase interaction by asking the people to tag their new creations with #nyplremix, if they used one or more of the images and retouched them, to keep an evolving dialogue. “We are trying to make it so users can not only see things, but can make determinations about whether to use them in new ways,” said Greg Cram, the library’s associate director of copyright and information policy.

Some of the collections open for exploration include 1843 cyanotypes of algae by Anna Atkins, old illustrations of military uniforms, over 40,000 stereoscopic images of the United States, manuscripts by Walt Whitman etc. The material dating back to the 11th century contains Renaissance and Medieval manuscripts, Babylonian cuneiform tablets, postcards form World War I Germany, and the first known map of Africa from 1460. This in an impressive and diverse collection of NYPL, and it’s only the tip of the aisberg.

“I think that’s absolutely a trajectory of the library, we should be a set of resources that people can use for new forms of creation that are contemporary, and ones we haven’t even thought about yet.” said Shana Kimball, manager of public programs and outreach for NYPL Labs.