The Miho Museum in Shiga, Japan is one of those places that always comes along with adjective "renowned," and for good reason. It was funded by one of the richest women in Japan, Mihoko Koyama, and its collection of both Asian and Western antiques could be worth up to a billion dollars.
Right now it's closed because they're getting ready for their summer exhibition: Ancient Sacred Drinking Vessels. Yes, it's about what the people of old used to drink from. In fact, there are a lot of animal-shaped drinking vessels which sound more exciting than the very regular-shaped glass we drank our last beer out of.
Along with the exhibition there'll be stories and myths about what they were drinking (and possibly, how they cured their hangovers). It opens up on July 12 and should run to August 17. Even if you don't want to see how your ancestors drank, tag along to the Miho just for the scenery. We promise it's great.
Artist Robert Rauschenberg died Monday night. Best known for his "combines" that blurred the lines between painting and sculpture, he's a fixture at modern art museums around the world. Below, we've listed some of the many places you'll find his art, including his famous piece "Bed."
Coincidentally, Rauschenberg lived in a large estate--including nine homes and multiple studios--on Captiva Island, a place that we've been covering this week.
We've always thought it'd be cool to travel around the art circuit--like writer David Amsden did last year--but it's always seemed too pricey. We'd hardly be able to afford all the champagne and cocktail dresses, let alone the actual work for sale. But the Affordable Art Fair coming to NYC may actually be worth a visit.
The event, started in London in 1999, aims to make contemporary art buying accessible, without the snobby atmosphere or astronomical prices. (At least, so they say.) At the stateside fair this year will be more than 70 galleries from 12 countries, and 75 percent of the art will be priced from $100-$5,000. Not exactly cheap, but certainly reasonable.
And even if you're not buying, it's still a good chance to see a bunch of art under one roof. There will also be printmaking and sculpture demos, so you can get your hands dirty if you get inspired. The fair runs June 12-15 and admission is $17.
So you take your camera out into the wilderness and decide to take your photographs only at night time. Sounds like a way to get a lot of really dark pictures, but clever photographer Darren Almond managed to create an entire exhibition out of his moonlight photography, and it opens on Friday at the White Cube gallery in London.
The exhibition's called "Moons of the Iapetus Ocean" and features pictures from all over Britain, plus three large-scale photographs from his new collection of work done in Tibet. A lot of the pictures end up looking pretty eerie, with waterfalls and rivers frozen in time by the long exposure. And with strange lights and glowing spots, we think there might be some UFOs in a couple of them.
The Almond exhibition runs until February 23, so don't delay in getting in to see what a real photographer can do in the dark. You'll never want to use your camera at night again, because you'll never know what you might find.
Not only is the Hermitage in St. Petersburg home to silver stealers and other intrigues, it's also easily one of the most fascinating collections of art in the world.
Every guide at the museum will tell you a different tale of how many lifetimes you'd need to see the entire collection if you stood before every piece for just 10 seconds, but fuzzy math aside, the point is clear. It's no wonder that a large proportion of the paintings and sculptures owned by the gallery are actually just stored in a warehouse waiting their turn to be on display.
For those who want to fit more into their lifetime, specialist tour agencies are now offering "privileged access tours"which will take you--for a price, of course--out to the Hermitage storerooms, into the Gold Treasure Rooms at the Winter Palace and on private viewings in other areas, too. You just have to lack an appreciation for art or you'll never get through the tour in time.
Andy Warhol fans are in for a treat if they can get to the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia in the next few months. A major new exhibition featuring pieces from a number of galleries across the world will come together from January 4 to March 28, 2008.
Along with a bunch of Warhol artwork, including his famous Campbell's soup cans, the exhibition will include a Warhol Up Late program every Friday evening, an interactive activity for children and a freely downloadable Audio Guide to the Warhol exhibition on the gallery website.
We know he coined the phrase, but Warhol always seems to get much more than his fifteen minutes of fame.
No this isn't your middle-school-aged sister's bedroom wall. It's Cinders Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. What can we say? You know those hipsters--they thumbtack stick figures to the wall and call in ironic. And we have to admit, we find it appealing when we visit a gallery whose work reminds us of Mrs. Johnson's fifth grade classroom wall.
The gallery founders sought to "create a space to show art that felt more homey, warm and inviting than the often cold and intimidating atmosphere of galleries." The original space intended for Cinders burned down, hence the name. Today, with sprinkler system firmly in place, the gallery hosts monthly art shows as well as other events that have included live music, readings, slide shows and performance.
For multicultural art, especially Central and East Asian works, Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Chelsea is the preeminent space in Manhattan. Established in 2000, the gallery says its mission is to open the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures:
In a world where communication is instant and cultures are colliding and melding as never before, our goal is to provide a venue for art that transcends boundaries of all sorts.
Sounds like the artistic equivalent of Times columnist Tom Friedman's book The World Is Flat; art, like everything else, is getting globalized. So does this mean we'll be able to buy cut-rate knockoffs of the art from a guy in a trenchcoat a few blocks away in Chinatown?
