Portrait of artist Wang Jianwei in his studio, Beijing, 2013. Photo: Xiao Mi. Courtesy the artist.
NEW YORK – The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum announced today the selection of Beijing-based artist Wang Jianwei as the first commissioned artist for the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Guggenheim Museum.
Launched in earlier this year, the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Guggenheim Museum has been established to expand the discourse on contemporary Chinese art by commissioning Chinese artists to create major works that will enter the Guggenheim Museum’s permanent collection and to present a series of exhibitions in conjunction with scholarly publications, notable lectures and education programs.
The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative is part of the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Program directed by Dr. Alexandra Munroe, Samsung senior curator, Asian Art.
Wang Jianwei is recognized throughout Asia and Europe for his bold experiments in conceptual, multimedia, and installation art—linking live performance, theater and film production to sculpture, documentary photography, and figurative and abstract painting. His highly innovative, masterfully formal and subtly complex practice engages with the most topical issues of social and political life in China today. The exhibition will be the artist’s first solo museum show in North America.
For this first cycle of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Guggenheim Museum, Wang Jianwei has been commissioned to produce a multimedia installation comprised of sculpture, video, and painting—promising an immersive, rich and complex environment. The thematic, conceptual and formal parameters of the commission will be developed over the next year, and the work will be presented to the public at the Guggenheim Museum in fall 2014 as the first of three commission-based exhibitions that will explore key ideas and core artists who shape contemporary Chinese art within a global context.
Wang Jianwei is considered one of the leading artists of the historic, post-reform avant-garde and experimental art movements in China. Wang is also recognized as an influential thought leader and cultural catalyst in China for his work as a writer and for his public discourse on contemporary Chinese art and culture. Born in 1958 in Sichuan Province (Western China), Wang pursued his graduate studies at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou. Beginning in the early 1990s, Wang became a pioneer of video and installation art in China, while developing a singular artistic practice invested in increasingly elaborate multimedia productions. Exploring history and social memory, Wang’s subject matter often concerns the everyday, existential conditions of life in China under rapid economic reform and the expansion of urbanization of traditionally rural societies. Informed by critical theory and Chinese philosophy, his works often seek to give form to structures of contingency, process and the nature of contemporary being.
Wang Jianwei’s work has been featured in several exhibitions, including “Documenta X” (1997); “How Latitudes Become Form: Art in a Global Age,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2003); “Past in Reverse, Contemporary Art of East Asia,” San Diego Museum of Art (2004); “Between Past and Future,” International Center of Photography and Asia Society, New York (2004); “The Wall” (2005), Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; and his projects: “Flying Bird Is Motionless” (2005) and “Dilemma: Three-Way Fork in the Road” (2007), were presented at Chambers Fine Art, New York. Wang recently had two solo exhibitions in Beijing: “Yellow Signal” (2011) at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) and “the event matured, accomplished in sight of all non-existent human outcomes” (2013) at the Long March Space.
“Wang Jianwei: The Texture of Reality” (working title) is organized by Dr. Thomas J. Berghuis, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Curator of Chinese Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Portrait of artist Wang Jianwei in his studio, Beijing, 2013. Photo: Xiao Mi. Courtesy the artist.
Three-piece setting of Baltimore & Ohio Railroad dinnerware by Shenango China. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and B. Langston LLC. NORFOLK, Va. (AP) – People say, if you do what you love, it won’t feel like work.
Here’s someone who followed that line of thinking: Leigh Greer, who said, “All my life, when I’ve had dinner parties, my favorite thing was setting the table.”
She turned that passion into a business, setting table after table for fun and profit.
Her shop, Table Seven, opened a year ago in November in Ghent’s vibrant and growing 21st Street shopping district. Greer specializes in tabletop antiques, selling everything for dining and, now, renting things, too.
The very specific niche market she created has caused a clamor for her things. Customers are charmed and inspired by the enticing narrative vignettes she creates with dishes and related accessories.
She does it like this: Antique hotel silver is featured beside a stack of well-traveled suitcases and an old dinner menu from a long-closed restaurant. A book about Grace Kelly joins other objects that play off the color of its jacket or items the movie star princess might have used—a gilt mirror, a dish that says “Monaco.” A few wooden darts with real feathers are tossed into a bowl, setting a manly tone shoulder to shoulder with an antique champagne bucket. There are barware and bridal sections and an array of antique silver eating utensils for tots.
She fleshes out her inventory with fabric holiday table banners, candelabras, old damask tablecloths and lots more.
What Greer has always thought of as play is actually masterful merchandising.
Her background is as a preschool teacher, so she has had plenty of practice keeping the attention of a young audience, an art form not unlike harnessing a following of fickle and cash-conscious consumers who still want to put on a good show for guests.
Need a vintage cheese knife? She has it. Want a plate from a hotel where your parents spent their honeymoon or a Navy ship on which your father served? Chances are, she can find it.
Looking to rent 100 cups and saucers and cake plates to go with them? Yes, again.
That very thing, a September tea for 100 at the Woman’s Club of Portsmouth, was her biggest rental order to date.
So how did this all begin?
Innocently, of course.
While growing up in Greenville, S.C., she watched her mother and grandmother tend the family’s antiques.
“My mother and I would go around to antique shows and shops when I was in high school,” she said. As Greer grew up, her mom would preview stores, then bring Greer there to choose.
Eventually, Greer moved here and taught for years at Loch-Meadow Kindergarten at Church of the Good Shepherd on Hampton Boulevard and later worked at her own church, First Presbyterian, on Colonial Avenue.
Along the way, she fell in love with hotel silver and restaurant china. She started indulging her passion, buying a spoon here, a teacup there, thick, storied and sensible pieces by Buffalo, Syracuse and Shenango that had served so many guests so well at so many establishments.
In an antiques shop on Granby Street, nearly a lifetime ago, she bought a hotel creamer from the Waldorf Astoria, the posh New York City hotel. She thought it was just so, so cute.
Soon she assembled a small collection of hotel china and, eventually, had so much of it that about five years ago, when a friend in her Norfolk neighborhood had a Christmas craft show, Greer set up a card table there.
“I took almost all the silver and china I had at the time. I wanted to see if other people liked it as much as I did, and it was very successful,” she said.
Figuring she might make a go of this as a business, she traveled to shows in Washington, Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley, and eventually rented a booth at an antiques show at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. Shoppers snatched up mess-hall china from every branch of service, from venerable places like The Greenbrier resort, from airlines long out of business and ships that had made their final ocean journeys. Buyers were thrilled to find this memorabilia.
But, eventually, all that packing and loading and setting up for two-day events got old.
“It got too hard to decide what to take for shows,” she said, “and, in the back of my mind, I started thinking about it, about having a shop. It was not something I had ever dreamed of. It just evolved. But I’m 55, and they say in your 50s is the best time to start something new in your life.”
Now, after 12 months on the west end of 21st Street, she has had a great response. She settled into an expanding area of retailers that includes restaurants and eateries, another antiques hub that moved here from a few blocks away. It includes Lana Hobbs Wolcott Antiques and Michael Millard-Lowe in the Antique Design Center with American Interiors Ltd. And, coming soon across the street, Greer is delighted to tell visitors, is yet another new neighbor, the upscale Fresh Market, with gourmet grocery shoppers who she is sure will need her pretties.
And there are lots of them, including books with dining themes.
“I buy anything that I think will fit,” she said. She mixes in items to accessorize tables, anything that has to do with entertaining, parties or special occasions. She offers limited and carefully selected new merchandise, such as the 10 different things she chose at this summer’s gift show in New York, items like charger-size paper place mats with colored borders of period dining chairs; sparklers; unusual tea towels; and metal letter tabs that can spell out initials or messages, like “Bon Voyage.”
For serving cheese or appetizers, she carries waxed papers. For football parties, there are paper runners marked off like a playing field. For Thanksgiving dinners, she has paper table toppers that family and guests can write on to say what they are thankful for. This Christmas she’ll feature about a dozen or so different selections of food items, including a Louisville, Ky., bourbon cake and beef jerky in “really cool packaging” that she’s sure will be a hit with men.
Her tabletop rental business began last spring after she did a vintage “Mason-jar look” May wedding reception at Talbot Hall in Norfolk and provided china, silver and paper place mats. More weddings followed, then brides began asking if she had what Greer now calls “froufrou” or flowered vintage china.
“So I thought, well, I’d better get froufrou,” she said, and laughed. By the time the Woman’s Club of Portsmouth called to rent cups and such for their please-pass-the-sugar-tongs, 100-person tea, she had plenty. That thinner china rents for $1.75 per plate. Hotel china, still her favorite, is $2.
She’s networked her way into the local wedding industry to expand the tabletop rental aspect of her business and, in the shop, creates holiday-themed tables for her retail customers.
For Thanksgiving, she imagines hostesses coming to her for paper place mats that look etched with sepia brown turkeys, for big turkey platters, or for grill plates, thick and sectioned off to keep servings of cranberry sauce from running into the turkey dressing like on the ridged Shenango china plates she found that used to clatter down the cafeteria line at a North Carolina elementary school.
For Christmas, she’s stockpiled all her red china and white china with red trim, and ordered vintage-look, tabletop bottlebrush trees. Last year, she set up fantasy tables for six, then did it again with glitter and glam toward New Year’s Eve. Each time, almost everything on them sold. So did nearly all her tiny glass and crystal salt cellars.
And, for a personal touch, she’ll track down more items to fill customer wish lists.
“It’s so much fun when I find things that people want,” she said. “I have several special customers. And when I call them, they’re here within an hour.”
A restored P-51D Mustang, built in 1944, in its wartime markings. Image by Adrian Pingstone, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. GALVESTON, Texas (AP) – Two men have died after a vintage fighter plane crashed near Galveston.
The Texas Department of Public Safety says 51-year-old pilot Keith Hibbett of Denton and his 66-year-old passenger John Stephen Busby, who was visiting from the United Kingdom, were killed in the crash Wednesday.
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Lehmann says the captain of a charter boat notified authorities after seeing the P-51 Mustang crash in an area between Chocolate Bay and Galveston Bay. He says the plane went down in water some 4 feet deep.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford says the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston operated the plane. He says the pilot was not in contact with air traffic controllers when the crash happened.
The cause of the crash is being investigated.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-10-24-13 0652GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A restored P-51D Mustang, built in 1944, in its wartime markings. Image by Adrian Pingstone, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Baseball signed by Yankees legend Mickey Mantle, which is being auctioned Oct. 25 by Ivey-Selkirk Auctioneers. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com and Ivey-Selkirk Auctioneers. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) – When New York Yankees legend Mickey Mantle signed a baseball for 9-year-old Dennis Schrader at a 1956 spring training game in Florida, it began a lifelong obsession. Today, Schrader has more than 4,600 signed baseballs, certified by Guinness as the largest such collection in the world.
That obsession is now on display at the St. Petersburg Museum of History in Florida. “Schrader’s Little Cooperstown” opened to the public Tuesday, and Schrader was grinning from ear to ear. He and his wife have loaned the balls to the museum for 20 years, and after that, they will be returned to the family.
Previously, Schrader’s baseballs were displayed in a 12-by-14-foot room in his home that had walls a foot thick, a bank vault door, motion sensors and video camera surveillance. The semi-retired mobile home executive once spent $25,000 on a single ball, signed by Joe DiMaggio and then-wife Marilyn Monroe.
He estimates the collection is worth $2 million to $3 million.
The collection is a trip through baseball history, and Schrader will personally give tours of the collection to groups.
There are the obvious great signatures: Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson. There are several Negro League balls, a tribute to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League featured in the movie A League of Their Own, and several signed by celebrities and politicians.
“He captured the essence of baseball,” said St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster.
In August 2011, Guinness World Records certified him as the owner of 4,020 baseballs signed by major league baseball players. Duplicates and balls signed by nonbaseball celebrities—including President Barack Obama—brought his collection of baseballs to more than 4,600.
Guinness requires the sign off and authentication from a reputable auction house or relevant institution or society, which specializes in collections of the type submitted, spokesman Jamie Panas said in an email.
The collection was verified by the president of All American Sports Collectibles and St. Petersburg Museum of History who are versed in baseball histories, he said.
It cost the museum $300,000 to design the exhibit and two years for city officials to convince Schrader to loan the precious collection.
The museum, which sits along St. Petersburg’s downtown waterfront, is also gearing up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of baseball spring training in the city. Spring training began in St. Petersburg with the St. Louis Browns playing at Coffee Pot Park in 1914.
Schrader admitted that “there’s an emptiness” in his home without the baseballs, but said the vault was filled with other collectibles, including his wife’s 500 cookie jars and several hundred celebrity autographed photos.
Schrader’s wife, Mary, said she and her husband won’t stop collecting signed baseballs.
“In fact, I have a ball in my purse right now,” Mary Schrader said, laughing and showing the blank ball. “I always carry one around, because you never know who you’ll run into.”
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-10-22-13 2301GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Baseball signed by Yankees legend Mickey Mantle, which is being auctioned Oct. 25 by Ivey-Selkirk Auctioneers. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com and Ivey-Selkirk Auctioneers.
Angiolo Tommasi, ‘La visita alla balia’, olio su tela, cm 195 x 280, stima €40.000-€50.000. Courtesy Babuino, Roma.
ROMA – Dopo più di mezzo secolo esce da una collezione romana un’importante opera di Angiolo Tommasi, Visita alla balia, che andrà all’asta da Babuino il 30 ottobre all’interno della vendita di dipinti del XIX secolo.
La scelta del soggetto, un momento di vita della società borghese, ha fatto accostare l’opera ai contemporanei di Tommasi, Giuseppe De Nittis e Giovanni Boldini, anche loro profondamente interessati alla raffigurazione della vita dei ceti borghesi.
Stilisticamente, però, si riconosce l’insegnamento di Silvestro Lega, che fu maestro di Tommasi e spesso ospite della villa di famiglia a Bellariva, presso Firenze, tra il 1878 e il 1885. Il quadro risale proprio alla prima metà degli anni 80 dell’Ottocento. Anche l’impostazione dell’opera rivela l’influenza del maestro: anche Lega ha rappresentato gruppi di donne nelle opere La visita (1868, conservato alla Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma), Un dopo pranzo (1968, alla Pinacoteca di Brera a Milano), e La visita della balia (1873, alla Galleria di Palazzo Pitti di Firenze). Quanto alla scelta di collocare la scena in un’ampia veduta, questa si ritrova anche nell’opera La culla (1882, al Museo Fattori di Livorno), e in alcune opere di De Nittis dell’epoca, come Al Bois de Boulogne (1873) e Che freddo! (1874), entrambi in collezioni private.
Nato a Livorno nel 1858, già in vita Tommasi ottenne successo di pubblico e critica. Nel 1889 fu premiato all’Esposizione Universale di Parigi per “Le bagnanti”, e nel 1899 partecipò alla Prima Biennale di Venezia con Il riposo delle gabbrigiane. All’inizio del Novecento viaggiò in Sud America e lavorò per il governo argentino. Tornato in Italia si avvicinò agli Impressionisti livornesi. Morì nel 1923. La stima del dipinto offerto da Babuino, un olio su tela di 195 x 280 cm, ammonta a €40.000-€50.000.
Alla stessa asta di dipinti dell’Ottocento si ritrovano due opere che rappresentano una vera occasione per i collezionisti per il prezzo a cui sono offerte: un’opera di Alessio Issupoff, nato in Russia nel 1889 e trasferitosi poi a Roma dove ricevette un’immediata consacrazione di critica e mercato e dove morì nel 1957. In questo caso si tratta di un’opera di sapore verista che risale al periodo russo, quindi prima del 1926, un ritratto di Contadina (olio su tela, 98 x 74 cm) che testimonia la capacità del pittore di ritrarre i costumi e i caratteri locali con la potenza del colore. La stima è di €2.000-€3.000.
L’altra opera è una Mamma col bambino di Francesco Longo Mancini (Catania 1880 – Roma 1954), un olio su tela, 97 x 99 cm, stimato €2.500-€3.000. Longo Mancini fu attivo nei primi del Novecento. Rimase sempre estraneo alle avanguardie ed è conosciuto, invece, per i nudi e i ritratti femminili. Non disdegnò i soggetti orientalisti, infatti in vita ricevette notorietà perché una sua opera rappresentante La preghiera di Maometto fu acquistata dal Re Umberto di Savoia.
Oltre a quest’asta di dipinti dell’Ottocento, Babuino tiene a fine mese altre due aste, una di dipinti antichi (il 29 ottobre) e l’altra di Libri, argenteria e porcellane (il 31 ottobre). In totale i lotti che vanno all’asta sono circa 700. Per i dipinti le stime vanno da circa €1.000 a €50.000.
Tra i dipinti antichi c’è attesa per i vedutisti del Settecento. L’asta, infatti, offre due opere del periodo a soggetto architettonico: una è di Gian Paolo Panini, nato a Piacenza nel 1691 dove studiò scenografia teatrale, si trasferì a Roma nel 1911 dove lavorò come decoratore di palazzi, pittore e insegnante di prospettiva all’Accademia francese. Morì a Roma nel 1765. Come pittore fu famoso per le vedute reali e immaginarie della città e i dipinti di rovine. In questo caso l’opera intitolata “Capriccio architettonico con figure e statua di Achille”, nota anche col titolo Mario sulle rovine di Cartagine, è un olio su tela, 65 x 44 cm, realizzato intorno al 1718, poco prima dell’opera Alessandro visita la tomba di Achille, che da Panini fu donata all’Accademia di San Luca. Lo stesso soggetto si trova in altre opere dell’artista. L’opera è stimata €35.000-€45.000.
L’altra veduta architettonica è una collaborazione tra Michele Marieschi (Venezia 1710-1743) e Francesco Albotto (Venezia 1721-1757), a cui sono attribuite le figure. Si tratta di una Veduta con capriccio architettonico, obelisco e monumento equestre, olio su tela di 69 x 83 cm, stimato €15.000-€20.000, che fu replicato da entrambi in numerose opere successive conservate in musei e collezioni importanti.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Angiolo Tommasi, ‘La visita alla balia’, olio su tela, cm 195 x 280, stima €40.000-€50.000. Courtesy Babuino, Roma.Alessio Issupoff, ‘Contadina’, olio su tela, cm 98 x 74, stima €2.000-€3.000. Courtesy Babuino, Roma.Gian Paolo Pannini, ‘Capriccio architettonico con figure e statua di Achille’, olio su tela, cm 65 x 44, stima €35.000-€45.000. Courtesy Babuino, Roma.Michele Marieschi e Francesco Albotto, ‘Veduta con capriccio architettonico, obelisco e monumento equestre’, olio su tela, cm 69 x 83, stima €15.000-€20.000. Courtesy Babuino, Roma.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Metropolitan Museum of Art image.
NEW YORK—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that, at the City’s request, it has signed an amendment to its 1878 lease with the City of New York. The new amendment confirms and continues the 42-year-long agreement under which the Met and the City first established, and has since maintained, a discretionary admission policy for the institution.
In addition to confirming the existing admission policy first introduced in 1971, and regularly modified with the approval of City administrations in the years since, the new amendment authorizes the museum, should the need arise, to consider a range of admission modifications in future years, subject as in the past to review and approval by the City.
“It is important to make clear as we sign this amendment that we remain very much committed to maintaining—and further widening—public access to the Museum,” commented Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan. “Toward this end, we recently expanded our hours by opening the Met seven days a week, and have enhanced programs designed to reach out to attract visitors from every community of the City. The effort to broaden and diversify audiences will continue. At the same time, however, faced with perennial uncertainties about future funding sources, the Met and the City concluded that it makes sense now to consecrate our longstanding and wholly legal admissions policies.”
“The continued generosity of our visitors under pay-what-you-wish remains crucial to our ability to build and maintain the Met’s encyclopedic collections and magnificent galleries, and to present special exhibitions and public programs at no additional cost to visitors who enter the building,” Mr. Campbell added. “When the policy was first introduced, the Met was a 750,000-foot-square museum attracting a million visitors a year. The building is now more than twice the size and commensurately more expensive to maintain and secure for its more than six million annual visitors. The quantity and quality of service provided by the Museum makes the preservation of its varied income streams more important than ever.
“We are extremely grateful that the City, which has long provided essential operating support to the Met, has moved now to reaffirm a policy that not only allows visitors to pay what they wish at the door, but has encouraged us to offer same-week entrance at no additional cost to the Cloisters museum and gardens in Fort Tryon Park, and has enabled us to provide free-with-admission access to all special exhibitions, as well as cost-free gallery tours, curatorial lectures, library access, and visits by New York City school groups. We expect and trust that the museum and the City will continue to work cooperatively into the future to preserve full access to the Met under the generous admissions policies so wisely created in the past.”
The new lease amendment acknowledges that by 1970, municipal funding, once the major source of revenue to operate the Metropolitan’s City-owned building, was “no longer sufficient to allow the Museum to operate without charging admission fees,” and formally reiterates that the Parks Department fully authorized the Museum to begin charging visitor fees in 1971, and that the City subsequently approved all modifications in writing.
According to the new lease terms:
The Museum may set the terms of admission to its permanent galleries to the general public, including admission fees and days and hours the Museum shall be open to the public, with the written consent of the Commissioner of the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld. In granting such consent the Commissioner shall consider the fiscal needs of the Museum in light of the Museum’s commitment to serving the public and the City’s monetary support. Admissions for special exhibitions, group tours, educational programs, performances, lectures, conferences, symposia, classes, and shows mounted in the Museum’s theater and event spaces may be charged such amounts as the Museum shall from time to time prescribe.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Metropolitan Museum of Art image.
Stephen Lapthisophon in his Dallas studio. Photo courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art.
DALLAS — Dallas-based artist Stephen Lapthisophon will present an installation featuring new works on paper, mural elements, and found objects at the Dallas Museum of Art in his first solo museum exhibition. Concentrations 56: Stephen Lapthisophon—coffee, seasonal fruit, root vegetables, and “Selected Poems,” on view October 27, 2013, through March 30, 2014, is part of the Concentrations series of project-based solo exhibitions by international emerging and under-represented artists. The series began in 1981 as part of the DMA’s commitment to showing the work of living artists, while preserving the excitement of the work.
“The Dallas Museum of Art is very pleased to be the first museum to present the work of Stephen Lapthisophon, a North Texas artist, in both his first solo exhibition and as part of our long-standing Concentrations series,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “For more than thirty years, Concentrations has showcased large-scale installations of over fifty emerging artists, with the goal of making the work of contemporary artists more accessible to DMA audiences.”
Stephen Lapthisophon openly embraces chance and mistake, as evidenced by the accidental nature of his gestural mark-making. In his installations and collaged works on paper, he rejects ideas of high polish and refined craftsmanship in favor of a chaotic, de-skilled aesthetic that is open to chance; humble materials; and the experiences of daily life. His work often employs food materials such as eggshells and coffee grounds that imbue his work with a palpable material presence that is at once fragile and ephemeral.
Other elements such as pigment infused with saffron or bacon fat, or sprigs of rosemary scattered throughout the space, call upon our sense of smell, creating a full-sensory art experience. The artist’s interest in a full-sensory experience of art relates back to his loss of sight in the early 1990s, resulting from an optic nerve disease. Now legally blind, Lapthisophon’s work goes beyond the typical realm of the visual and encourages viewers to think of radically different possibilities for artistic production.
“Stephen has been an influential mentor to a generation of emerging artists from North Texas, and it is a privilege to showcase his richly layered, thought-provoking work for the community at large,” added Gabriel Ritter, The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art.
For his current installation at the Dallas Museum of Art, Lapthisophon has created a space reminiscent of his studio, in which walls layer and obscure space, similar to his collage technique. Works on paper—some framed, others pinned directly to the wall—will be joined by anachronistic objects such as an antique record player, milk crate, and desk. These objects, much like the ubiquitous text throughout Lapthisophon’s work, are carefully selected for their datedness, and they function as a form of quotation, alluding to past moments or literary/philosophical references.
Lapthisophon studied comparative literature and theory at Northwestern University and received his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. He spent the next thirty years living and working in the Chicago area. In August 2007, he relocated to Dallas after participating in the University of Texas at Dallas’s Artist in Residence program. Lapthisophon was the recipient of the 2012 Moss/Chumley Artist Award, given annually to an outstanding North Texas artist. In 2008, Lapthisophon was awarded the prestigious Wynn Newhouse Award for artists with disabilities. He has taught at Columbia College in Chicago, the School of the Art Institute, and the University of Texas at Dallas. Lapthisophon currently teaches art and art history at the University of Texas at Arlington, and has exhibited at various institutions and galleries throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Concentrations 56: Stephen Lapthisophon is included in the Museum’s free general admission. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color illustrated brochure with an essay by exhibition curator Gabriel Ritter, The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. Stephen Lapthisophon will discuss his work featured in the exhibition on Wednesday, October 30, 2013, during the Museum’s weekly lunchtime gallery talk at 12:15 p.m. He will also discuss his work with his friend and colleague John Judd during a special exhibition lecture on Thursday, December 5, 2013, at 7:30 p.m. Additional programming will be scheduled throughout the run of the exhibition.
Concentrations 56: Stephen Lapthisophon—coffee, seasonal fruit, root vegetables, and “Selected Poems” is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art. Additional support provided by the Contemporary Art Initiative and TWO X TWO for AIDS and Art. Air transportation provided by American Airlines.
For additional information, log on to www.dma.org.
About the Dallas Museum of Art:
Established in 1903, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) ranks among the leading art institutions in the country and is distinguished by its innovative exhibitions and groundbreaking educational programs. At the heart of the Museum and its programs is its global collection, which encompasses more than 22,000 works and spans 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Located in the vibrant Arts District of downtown Dallas, the Museum welcomes more than half a million visitors annually and acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events, and dramatic and dance presentations. In January 2013, the DMA returned to a free general admission policy and launched DMA Friends, the first free museum membership program in the country.
The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Partners and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
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Stephen Lapthisophon in his Dallas studio. Photo courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art.
Angiolo Tommasi, ‘La visita alla balia,’ oil on canvas, 195 x 280 cm, estimate €40,000-€50,000. Courtesy Babuino, Rome.
ROME – After more than half a century in a Rome collection an important work by Angiolo Tommasi titled La visita alla balia will be offered at auction by Babuino on Oct. 30 during the sale of 19th century paintings.
The choice of the subject, a scene of daily life of bourgeois society, evokes the work of some of Tommasi’s contemporaries like Giuseppe De Nittis and Giovanni Boldini, who were also deeply interested in the depiction of the life of the middle class.
Stylistically, however, one can recognize the teaching of Silvestro Lega, who was a teacher of Tommasi and a frequent guest of the family house at Bellariva, near Florence, between 1878 and 1885. The painting dates to that time, the first half of the 1880s. Even the setting of the work reveals the influence of the master. Also, Lega represented groups of women in his works La visita (1868, now preserved at the Modern Art Gallery of Rome), Un dopo pranzo (1968, at Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan), and La visita della balia (1873, at the Gallery of Palazzo Pitti in Florence). As for the decision to place the scene in a bright view, this choice is also taken in the work La culla (1882, at the Museo Fattori in Livorno), and in some works by De Nittis from that time, such as Al Bois de Boulogne (1873) and Che freddo! (1874), both now in private hands.
Born in Livorno in 1858, Tommasi achieved success with audience and critics during his lifetime. In 1889 he was awarded at the Universal Exhibition in Paris for Le bagnanti, and in 1899 he participated in the First Biennial of Venice with Il riposo delle gabbrigiane. At the beginning of the 20th century Tommasi traveled to South America and worked for the Argentinean government. Back in Italy he came in contact with the Livorno Impressionists. He died in 1923. The estimate of the painting offered by Babuino, an oil on canvas of 195 x 280 cm, amounts to €40,000-€50,000.
At the same auction of 19th century paintings there are two works that represent an opportunity for collectors. The first is a work by Alessio Issupoff, who was born in Russia in 1889 and then moved to Rome where he received immediate consecration of critics and market, and where he died in 1957. In this case, we speak of a work of realist flavor that dates back to Russian period, which means before 1926: a portrait of Contadina (oil on canvas, 98 x 74 cm) that shows the ability of the artist to portray the local customs and characters with the power of color. The estimate is €2,000-€3,000.
The other work is a Madre con bambino by Francesco Longo Mancini (Catania 1880–Rome 1954), an oil on canvas of 97 x 99 cm, estimated at €2,500-3,000. Longo Mancini was active in the early 20th century. He remained alien to the avant-garde and is known, instead, for his nudes and portraits of women. He did not disdain orientalist subjects, either, in fact he received recognition during his life because one of his works depicting La preghiera di Maometto was purchased by King Umberto of Savoy.
In addition to this auction of 19th century paintings, Babuino holds at the end of this month two other auctions, one of Old Masters (Oct.29) and the other one of books, silverware and porcelain (Oct.31). The total number of lots going up for auction is about 700. For paintings, estimates range from around €1,000 to €50,000.
Among the Old Masters, there are expectations for the “vedutisti” of the 18th century. The auction, in fact, offers two works from the period with architectural subjects: one is by Gian Paolo Panini, who was born in Piacenza in 1691, where he studied theater design, and then moved to Rome in 1911, where he worked as a decorator of palaces, a painter and a teacher of perspective at the French Academy. He died in Rome in 1765. As a painter he was famous for his real and imaginary views of the city and depictions of ruins. In this case, the work offered is titled Capriccio architettonico con figure e statua di Achille, and is also known under the title Mario sulle rovine di Cartagine. It is an oil on canvas of 65 x 44 cm, realized around 1718, just before the work Alessandro visita la tomba di Achille, which was donated by Panini to the San Luca Academy. The same subject is repeated in other works by the artist. The work is estimated at €35,000 to €45,000.
The other architectural view is a collaboration between Michele Marieschi (Venice 1710-1743) and Francesco Albotto (Venice 1721-1757), to whom are attributed the figures. It is a “Veduta con capriccio architettonico, obelisco e monumento equestre,” an oil on canvas of 69 x 83 cm, estimated at €15,000-€20,000. It was replicated by both painters in numerous later works, which are now preserved in important museums and collections.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Angiolo Tommasi, ‘La visita alla balia,’ oil on canvas, 195 x 280 cm, estimate €40,000-€50,000. Courtesy Babuino, Rome.Alessio Issupoff, ‘Contadina,’ oil on canvas, 98 x 74 cm, estimate €2,000-€3,000, Courtesy Babuino, RomeGian Paolo Pannini, ‘Capriccio architettonico con figure e statua di Achille,’ oil on canvas, 65 x 44 cm, estimate €35,000-€45,000. Courtesy Babuino, Rome.Marieschi Michele and Francesco Albotto, ‘Veduta con capriccio architettonico, obelisco e monumento equestre,’ oil on canvas, 69 x 83 cm, estimate €15,000-€20,000. Courtesy Babuino, Rome.
Lot 325: diamond, platinum cross pendant. Estimate: $5,000-$6,000. Michaan’s Auctions image. ALAMEDA, Calif. – Michaan’s auction Nov. 3 will feature fine art with a concentration on early 20th century European and California landscapes and Spanish artists. The auction will begin Sunday at 10 a.m. Pacific. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
An especially lovely piece is found in a landscape titled California Foothills by Franz Arthur Bischoff (1864-1929). The picturesque image of natural growth trees framed by rolling hills is from a private San Francisco collection and remains in wonderful condition (lot 048, $2,500-$3,500). Selections from Chilean artist Roberto Matta’s (1911-2002) series “Les Oh! Tomobiles” are seen in lots 574 and 571, each at an estimate of $750-$1,000. The childlike, frenzied color etchings burst with energy from Chile’s leading surrealist artist.
Bay Area artist Justin Faivre’s (1902-1990) Girl Fixing Her Hair, 1958 is a rare image from his collective body of work (lot 059, $600-$800). He is largely known for watercolor landscapes and abstracts, making this bold portrait an unusual find. Rich, saturated colors are utilized to depict a young lady combing her hair, as large swathes of blue and red are placed in dynamic composition. Faivre made Oakland the location of his first studio before eventually settling in Alameda. Throughout the 1930s he was exhibited at what is now known as the Oakland Museum and a large portion of his subjects have revolved around Alameda County.
The jewelry department presents quite a large sale in November, with over 280 lots available. A variety of gemstones abound, with substantial carat weights held in numerous pieces. A platinum and diamond cross pendant carries 85 princess-cut diamonds weighing a total of approximately 7.85 carats (lot 325, $5,000-$6,000). Certified gemstone rings are found in lot 323 which centers an approximate 9.09 carat cushion cut spinel ($3,000-$4,000) and lot 497, which features a pear cut demantoid garnet of approximately 2.47 carats ($1,400-$1,800). A ring adorned by three round-cut zircons weighing a total of approximately 9.25 carats will be sold as lot 214 ($1,200-$1,500) and a certified jadeite suite of a pendant, earrings and ring will sell as lot 295 at an auction estimate of $5,000-$7,000.
Highlighting the jewelry selection is an Ippolita rose quartz, diamond and 18K yellow gold ring (lot 208, $800-$1,200). Ippolita jewelry pieces have been wildly successful at Michaan’s Auctions, as previous offerings have achieved anywhere from an approximate 95 percent sell-through to a 100 percent sell-through. The ring for sale is undoubtedly a playful and fashion-forward piece, as a sprinkling of nine round rose quartz cabochons and eight full-cut diamonds are splayed across five delicate bands of gold. Ippolita Collection pieces remain a Hollywood favorite, as they have adorned A-list starlets such as Halle Berry, Reese Witherspoon and Kate Hudson. The line has also been carried at major high-end retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Michaan’s 20th century design department features many furniture pieces in the November estate auction, including wall and shelving units, tables and chairs. A varied collection of 10 lots of lighting are highlighted by Kurt Verson floor lamps, a pair of Noguchi paper shades and a 1973 flexible chrome model Charmer lamp in mint condition with its original tag. A modern design lot of children’s items provides a unique grouping of collectible pieces, including a Fageol Walkee bike, a Temco Jet scooter and a Super Jet Speedster. A Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper child’s chair rounds out the grouping, finished by an assortment of catalogs and literature.
Arne Jacobson’s (1902-1971) iconic Swan chair stands as a testament to his fluid modern furniture designs, to be offered as lot 894 ($1,200-$1,600). He enjoyed worldwide success for simple and effective chair forms, which also included The Ant, Series 7 and The Egg. The Swan was commissioned for the SAS Royal Hotel in 1958, combining modernist ideals with a sense of Nordic naturalism. Shortly before his death Jacobsen reflected upon his career, concluding, “The fundamental factor is proportion … that is the essential thing.” The first year production chair will be sold alongside an additional Swan chair, with both remaining in excellent original condition along with original materials.
Quality furniture offerings are at the forefront of the November auction, evidenced by a lengthy list of pieces. Seating includes a Renaissance Revival hall chair adorned with masks (lot 124, $800-$1,200). Louis XV-style pieces include a pair of leather upholstered walnut chairs (lot 095, $500-$800), a verdure tapestry armchair (lot 096, $300-$400) and a pair of leather upholstered pear chairs in the Art Nouveau style (lot 097, $300-$400). Additional seating includes a chaise lounge with burgundy upholstery (lot 120, $800-$1,200), a leather-top inlaid davenport (lot 108, $800-$1,200) and a Renaissance Revival bench (lot 126, $800-$1,200).
A substantial furniture piece in the sale is an Art Nouveau marble-top buffet in the Louis XV taste (lot 102, $600-$800). Chests are highlighted by lot 115, a Janson Napoleon-style tall chest complete with six drawers and brass gallery ($1,000-$1,500) and a Renaissance Revival chest on chest listed as lot 131 at an estimate of $800-$1,200.
For general information phone 510-740-0220 ext. 0 or e-mail info@michaans.com.
Lot 048: Franz Arthur Bishoff (American, 1864-1929), ‘California Foothills,’ oil on canvas laid to board. Estimate: $2,500-$3,500. Michaan’s Auctions image.
Lot 059: Justin Faivre (Californian, 1902-1990), ‘Woman Fixing Her Hair,’ oil on canvas. Estimate: $600-$800. Michaan’s Auctions image.
Lot 131: Italian Renaissance Revival chest on chest. Estimate: $800-$1,200. Michaan’s Auctions image.
Lot 208: Ippolita rose quartz, diamond, 18K yellow gold ring. Estimate: $800-$1,200. Michaan’s Auctions image.
Lot 894: Arne Jacobson Swan Chair, first year production. Estimate: $1,200-$1,600. Michaan’s Auctions image.
Lot 176: Katniss arena costume. Blacksparrow Auctions image. LOS ANGELES – Blacksparrow Auctions will conduct The Hunger Games costume auction on Saturday, Nov. 16, at Blacksparrow headquarters beginning at 11 a.m. Pacific. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
Over 200 original screen-worn costumes will be up for auction, including costumes worn by Jennifer Lawrence as “Katniss,” Josh Hutcherson as “Peeta,” Elizabeth Banks as “Effie,” Stanley Tucci as “Caesar,” Liam Hemsworth as “Gale,” Woody Harrelson as “Haymitch,” Lenny Kravtiz as “Cinna,” Donald Sutherland as “President Snow,” Wes Bentley as “Seneca,” and many more.
Blacksparrow will host an invitation-only pre-auction reception at its headquarters on Thursday, Nov. 14 at 6 p.m. For information or the opportunity to attend, contact Blacksparrow.
