The Metropolitan Museum’s world-famed collection of European paintings encompasses works of art from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries—from Giotto to Gauguin. Most, though not all, are displayed in the galleries of the Department of European Paintings. The collection traces its origins back to the founding of the Museum in 1870, when 174 paintings were acquired from three private sources in Europe. Now, after two years of expansion and rethinking, the galleries for European paintings opens to the public again on 23 May.

The Art Newspaper writes: “The renovation of the galleries is long overdue, last undertaken in full in the early 1950s. When the Met’s then director Thomas Hoving inaugurated the age of the blockbuster in the early 1970s, one third of the space, then given over to Impressionism and contemporary art, was turned into galleries for temporary exhibitions. Hobbled by the contraction, for the next 30 years the Old Master galleries suffered from a lack of a unified concept: “We moved galleries around, but there was little thought about the way they would flow together,” says Keith Christiansen, the chairman of the European paintings department. 

As the collection grew, curators attempted to squeeze more and more onto increasingly cramped walls with varying degrees of success. The former head of the department, John Pope-Hennessey, added free-standing glass-encased partitions to display smaller pictures, but the glass reflected so badly that their contents were difficult to see and easier to overlook. Fabric-covered walls in shades of brick-red, crimson damask and dull green gave way to painted backgrounds of shades of red-purple, dark green and deep blue. 

The impetus for the new, expanded galleries was the 2007 re-installation of the Met’s collection of ancient Greek and Roman art, which reclaimed space that had been taken from the collection in 1949 by the Fountain restaurant. “We felt that if [the] Greek and Roman [collection] could get [its] old space back, we hoped for an arrangement to get some of our old space back. But when we approached our director, Tom Campbell, he said: ‘Why don’t you just take it all?’” For Campbell, the increasing cost of blockbusters made them economically unfeasible, and the museum no longer needed such expanses of space for temporary shows. Notably, there was no outside funding for the project—the only newly named space is the Neo-classical paintings room dedicated to Jayne Wrightsman, without whose donations and acquisition funds the collection would be much impoverished. ”

Read the whole story in The Art Newspaper.

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Art critic Alastair Sooke tracks down the ten most expensive paintings to sell at auction, and investigates the stories behind the astronomic prices art can reach. Gaining access to the glittering world of the super-rich, Sooke discovers why the planet’s richest people want to spend their millions on art.

Featuring works by Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Klimt and Rubens, Sooke enters a world of secrecy and rivalry, passion and power. Highlights include a visit to the art-crammed home of millionaire author Lord Archer; a rare interview with the man at the heart of the sale of the most expensive old master of all time; privileged access to auctioneers Christie’s; and a glimpse of the world of the Russian oligarchs.

These revelatory journeys allow Sooke to present an eye-opening view of the super wealthy, and their motivations as collectors of the world’s great art treasures.

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Turkey’s contemporary art scene is buzzing. Collectors pay millions for the hottest works at exclusive auctions, high-end galleries are springing up by the dozen, and more and more Turkish artists are holding exhibitions abroad.

The clients are the usual family magnates and super-rich – Istanbul ranks fifth in the world on the Forbes list of billionaires. But they also include an expanding class of young professionals looking for investment opportunities and a touch of prestige.

Reuters: “The boom in Turkey’s modern art market has coincided with a decade of steady economic growth. Since a financial meltdown brought the Turkish banking sector to its knees in 2001, the economy has more than doubled in size and per capita income has tripled in nominal terms.

“There are many young professionals who make good money and really want to have a piece of art in their home,” said painter Yigit Yazici as he sipped an espresso at his studio in Istanbul’s upmarket Nisantasi district.

Traditionally, patronage of the arts in Turkey was left to wealthy industrialist families.

The Sakip Sabanci Museum, owned by the Sabanci family, opened in Istanbul in 2002. Two years later, the Eczacibasi family launched the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, followed by Suna and Inan Kirac Foundation’s Pera Museum in 2005.

The launch of Istanbul’s International Contemporary Art Exhibition, known as the Istanbul Biennial, in 1987 introduced many once-skeptical Turks to contemporary forms of painting and sculpture.

But it was the opening of the Istanbul Modern – Turkey’s first modern art museum – nine years ago that really changed the scene by creating a space for contemporary artists that combined permanent and temporary exhibitions, a photography gallery and educational and social programs.

“A museum is an orderly home for art and this is what we have achieved here,” said Levent Calikoglu, chief curator at the Istanbul Modern.

“For the artists it’s prestigious to be included in the museum, and for investors it creates a benchmark and a guarantee for their investments.”

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party has come under frequent criticism for curbing freedom of expression in Turkey and there are growing fears that the arts – and artists – could be affected.

Critics cite examples such as the recent trial of world-renowned concert pianist Fazil Say on a charge of insulting religious values with a posting on Twitter. He received a 10-month suspended jail sentence.

In 2011, a work by sculptor Mehmet Aksoy in the eastern province of Kars was torn down after Erdogan described it as a “freak”.

But the availability of patronage and influx of money have emboldened Turkish artists, integrating them increasingly into the global art world and giving them a sense of greater independence in Turkey’s often conservative environment.

“Political power and art have never been at peace in Turkey. The only difference now is that the conflict is now more visible and we discuss it openly,” Calikoglu said.

ART AS INVESTMENT

In the absence of significant government support, private-sector sponsorship has become the mainstay of art through the purchases and commissions of major banks like Ziraat Bankasi, Garanti, Akbank, and Yapi Kredi, and art-savvy corporations.

Recently, independent collectors have also started making inroads as prominent buyers of sculpture. Central Istanbul has seen dozens of new art galleries in just the past few years.

“Ample global liquidity and negative real interest rates have had a great impact on increasing investment in art,” said Saltik Galatali, Akbank Deputy General Manager in charge of Private Banking.

“Art investments have become a tool for protecting the value of assets,” said Galatali, whose team manages a 17 billion lira ($9.5 billion) portfolio for 4,500 clients.

Pelin Sandalli has seen her business boom since she set up her Linart Gallery in Nisantasi in March 2011, exhibiting a full range of contemporary art forms, including video art, installations, photography, paintings and sculpture.

More and more of her clients are young professionals who are first-time buyers.

“The number of more conscious collectors who are highly educated, make extensive research and devote their time and energy to art are increasing day by day,” Sandalli said.

Sotheby’s was the first major international auction house to hold an exclusively Turkish contemporary art sale in 2009. British auctioneer Bonhams has since joined the competition with its own dedicated Turkish sales.

Such events have seen record prices for modern Turkish art.

At a Sotheby’s sale in 2010, highlights included Fahrelnissa Zeid’s “Untitled”, the first modern Turkish work to exceed $1 million at auction. Rising star Taner Ceylan’s painting “1881″ was sold for over 100,000 pounds ($154,900).

“We started off collecting art as a hobby, but now we see it as a good investment and something to leave to our son,” said ex-banker and marketing manager Burcu Egene as she flashed her card at an auction in one of Istanbul’s smartest hotels.

The Koc, Sabanci and Eczacibasi families, leading Turkish industrial dynasties, are pumping millions of lira into building art collections.

Two years ago, Murat Ulker, chairman of Yildiz Holding, a leading Turkish food and beverages group, paid 2.2 million lira for Burhan Dogancay’s “Blue Symphony”.

He also recently bought a controversial work by contemporary artist Bedri Baykam.

The eclectic tastes of the Ulker family, a pillar of the conservative business establishment, as well as the price tag, caught attention: “Empty Frame”, a suspended empty frame, sold for $125,000.”

($1 = 1.7975 lira)

($1 = 0.6454 pounds)

(Text from Reuters. Editing by Jonathon Burch, Nick Tattersall and Sonya Hepinstall)

Image of İstanbul Modern Müzesi from istanbulbest10.com

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Maxime Chevalier-Boisvert created Turing Drawings, an app which “uses randomly generated Turing machines to produce drawings on a canvas, as a form of generative art. The typical Turing machine formulation manipulates symbols on a one-dimensional tape. Turing Drawings uses machines that operate on a finite 2D grid, where each grid cell can contain one symbol which corresponds to a color value. ”

Another app from the same artist is Turing Tunes which “uses randomly generated Turing machines to produce sequences of musical notes, as a form of generative art. The musical pieces generated are potentially infinite in length.”

Maxime Chevalier-Boisvert writes on her blog :“One possible application for Turing machines is to use them as programs to generate data procedurally. Their simplicity makes it possible, for example, to create working programs randomly. Generating a random stream of x86 instructions that doesn’t crash could be tricky, but with a Turing machine, it’s quite easy. I decided to try something like this to produce so-called generative art. The program I wrote generates random Turing machines that operate on a two-dimensional grid instead of a one-dimensional tape. The symbols written on the grid can be interpreted as colors, and voilà: we have procedural drawings.

I prototyped this in JavaScript and named the project Turing Drawings. This is available on GitHub if you’re interested in seeing the source code.”

Programmer Darius Bacon also has some other cool stuff that mixes computer science with the humanities on his blog.

Trailer : Codebreaker

CODEBREAKER tells the story of one of the most important scientists who ever lived. Alan Turing set in motion the computer age and his World War II codebreaking helped save two million lives. Instead of accolades and praise, Turing faced public disgrace because he was gay. TLearn more at turingfilm.com.

Breaking the Code: Biography of Alan Turing (Derek Jacobi, BBC, 1996)

A biography of the English mathematician Alan Turing, who was one of the inventors of the digital computer and one of the key figures in the breaking of the Enigma code, used by the Germans to send secret orders to their U-boats in World War II. Turing was also a homosexual in Britain at a time when this was illegal, besides being a security risk.

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Ayyam Gallery London is pleased to be hosting the ‘Olympiad Palestine 2013′ from 20 June – 3 August, the first UK solo exhibition of Khaled Jarrar. This exciting body of work will include a new site-specific participatory installation for which Jarrar will be constructing a large concrete wall, dividing the space in two. In order to pass through this, participants must be publically weighed by a set of scales, presenting an allegory for the humiliating process for citizens crossing the border between Israel and Palestine from both sides. Beyond this wall, Jarrar will show a series of new and recent concrete sculptures based on sporting paraphernalia such as footballs, volleyballs and ping pong rackets. Beyond this wall, Jarrar will show a series of new and recent concrete sculptures based on sporting paraphernalia such as footballs, volleyballs and ping pong rackets. These are formed from materials secretly chiseled by Jarrar from the Israeli separation wall on the West Bank and explained that ‘by moving the wall from its original place and presenting it as a project within an artistic environment, I create a different and new function for it’.

Jarrar works across the mediums of video, installation, performance and photography to document his observations on daily life as a Palestinian – an identity inextricably linked to geography – and to explore ideas around borders, land, freedom and the state. Whilst explicitly addressing the ownership of land and displacement of people, he treads carefully but with authority, offering a potent alternative account of life in a contested land. His occasionally satirical approach to the absurdities visited on him and fellow citizens of Palestine become the catalyst and the subject of his output.

Stamp for Palestine

Trailer: Infiltrators – A film by Khaled Jarrar

The checkpoint is closed. “Detour, detour!” shouts a taxi driver and announces the beginning of the journey. The film unravels adventures of various attempts by individuals and groups during their search for gaps in the Wall in order to permeate and sneak past it.
Palestine, United Arab Emirates / 2012 / Arabic dialogue with English subtitles / Colour / Digital File / 70 minutes (More at idiomsfilm.com)

PERFORMANCE OF KHALED JARRAR

Football by Khaled Jarrar

The perception of a vertical object can shape the possibilities for its use in traditional ways that emphasize its functional definition as “standing in space”, which will still keep emphasizing its purpose of standing there. What I want to redefine with my new series of work is the functional definition of “The Wall” which has originally been built to separate humans. By moving the wall from its original place and presenting it as a project within an artistic environment, I create a different, new function for it: The perception will be changed and will have a valuable meaning that drives us to question the wall’s present status and that shows the importance of seeing it from another perspective. Working on the functional possibilities may give us the ability to exceed the problem.

Berlin Biennale, interview to Khaled Jarrar

Image from artberlin.de

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MoMA PS1 announces a major component of EXPO 1: New York, entitled Rain Room (2012), which is being presented at The Museum of Modern Art, from May 12 through July 28, 2013. A large-scale environment by Random International, Rain Room is a field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected—offering visitors the experience of controlling the rain. The presentation of Rain Room at The Museum of Modern Art is part of EXPO 1: New York, a large-scale festival exploring ecological challenges. Rain Room is on view at The Museum of Modern Art, courtesy of RH, Restoration Hardware.



Known for their distinctive approach to digital-based contemporary practice, Random International’s experimental projects come alive through audience interaction and Rain Room is their largest and most ambitious to-date. The work invites visitors to explore the roles that science, technology, and human ingenuity can play in stabilizing our environment. Using digital technology, Rain Room is a carefully choreographed downpour—a monumental work that encourages people to become performers on an unexpected stage, while creating an intimate atmosphere of contemplation.

The presentation of Rain Room at The Museum of Modern Art is the US premiere of the monumental installation, and follows its debut at Barbican Centre in London (October 2012-March 2013).

Rain Room at the Barbican, 2012

Rain Room In Conversation – HUO Talk Long Edit from Grama Low Res

Join artists Random International as they discuss their critically acclaimed art installation Rain Room with international curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of Serpentine Gallery, and choreographer Wayne McGregor, Director of Wayne McGregor Random Dance. Discussion event at Frobisher Auditorium, Barbican, 8 February 2013. Filmed by Gramafilm.

Random International was founded in 2005 by Hannes Koch, Florian Ortkrass and Stuart Wood, cohorts at the Royal College of Art who shared a common purpose. Today the studio is based in Chelsea, London with an outpost in Berlin, and includes a growing team of diverse talent. With an ethos of experimentation into human behavior and interaction, they employ new technologies in radical, often unexpected ways to create work which also draws on op art, kinetics and post-minimalism. Random International’s kinetically responsive sculpture Fly was premiered at the last Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, while intelligent light installation Swarm Study / III is on display permanently at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. In addition, they have won a number of awards including Designer of the Future 2010, Prix Ars Electronica – Honorable Mention, CR – Creative Futures Award, Wallpaper* Award and were listed in the Observer’s Top Ten Creative Talent in the UK.

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance in the Rain Room

Dancers from Wayne McGregor | Random Dance inhabited rAndom International’s acclaimed Rain Room installation in the Barbican’s Curve gallery, performing continuously evolving interventions in the Rain, with a score by contemporary composer Max Richter.

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance
Image: Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP

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Fourteen original Salvador Dali watercolour fruit studies, unseen until now, will be sold at Bonhams’ Impressionist and Modern Art sale in London on 18th June. Commissioned in 1969, the paintings have been in private hands since their creation. Each painting is valued at £40,000 – £70,000 and the series is expected to make close to £1million.

Dali was surrealism’s most exotic and relentlessly popular figure. His eccentric, attention grabbing behaviour was arguably the product of an abnormal childhood. The artist had an older brother, also named Salvador, who had died almost exactly 9 months before Dali’s birth. Aged five, he was taken to the grave and told that he was a reincarnation. “We resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections.” Dali said of his deceased brother. “He was probably a first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute”. In his own eyes, Dali was a distorted version of his elder sibling.

This series of fourteen paintings show Dali’s desire to take the ordinary and subvert it. Dali’s obsession with a warped, sinister version of life is perhaps rooted in his own history. He is quoted, “I myself am surrealism”.

In the ‘FruitDali’ series the artist appropriates very traditional nineteenth century botanical lithographs, designed as scientific illustrations, and paints over them with his characteristically fantastic embellishments.

At first glance, one could mistake the paintings for conventional decorative prints. A closer inspection of the fruit series reveals a Chapman brothers-style perversion of reality that predates the cutting-edge British artists by thirty years. The fruit and flower studies take on an anthropomorphic quality. The figure of Monsieur Hasty Plum sprints across the page on his branch and blossom legs, while Erotic grapefruit sends a leaf figure flailing on its back with a shower of juice.

William O’Reilly, Director of Bonhams Impressionist department said of the works, “These compositions are a fabulous illustration of Dali’s artistic approach. By overlaying such traditional images with his famous artistic vocabulary of dragons, hooded figures, crutches and weeping eyes, he gives us an insight into his own hyper-fertile imagination. But most of all, these beautifully fresh images show Dali enjoying himself, poking fun at the demons and fairies lurking behind the straight-laced images of the 19th century science.”

Dali declared, “I see the human form in trees, animals: the animal and vegetable in the human. My art shows the metamorphosis that takes place.”

Image from Bonhams: Salvador Dali, Half Plum

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Auckland’s art scene bursts to life with the 5th Auckland Triennial, New Zealand’s largest contemporary visual art festival.

The 5th Auckland Triennial (until August 11) features over 30 artists, artist collectives and architects from 15 countries and is led by internationally acclaimed curator, Hou Hanru. This year’s theme If you were to live here… has seen contemporary artists reimagine Auckland, and the world, through artworks that surprise, challenge and inspire.

There’s something for everyone with activities for people of all ages including family days, live performance, talks and more. For the first time, entry is free and visitors can explore nine venues across Auckland including new venues Fresh Gallery Otara and Silo 6, Silo Park, alongside Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland Museum, Artspace, George Fraser Gallery, Gus Fisher Gallery, ST PAUL St and The Film Archive.

Auckland Art Gallery Acting Director Viv Beck says, ‘It’s fantastic to be able to bring this festival of contemporary art to Aucklanders and visitors for free. With nine venues across the region there are plenty of opportunities for people to explore.’

Over the last few months Auckland has been buzzing with events, such as the recent Auckland Arts Festival and the NZ International Comedy festival on now. With the 5th Auckland Triennial underway, we should be proud of yet another exciting, world class event in our city.’

Triennial highlights:

• What’s your idea of the ideal home? Check out an international perspective and see Model Home by Michael Lin, Atelier Bow-Wow with Andrew Barrie at Auckland Art Gallery

• Find out what happens when you have expert Chinese calligraphers Yangjiang Group take over the George Fraser Gallery

• Look closely the next time you visit Auckland Museum and you might see Peter Robinson’s If you were to work here: the Mood in the Museum amongst the exhibits

• Art isn’t only for your eyes. Next time you’re at the waterfront check out Ryoji Ikeda’s A [for 6 silos] sound installation at Silo 6

• What happens when you cross Kauri with karaoke? You get Kauri-Oke at the Otara Markets on Saturdays for free thanks to Makeshift and Fresh Gallery Otara

• Immerse yourself at ST PAUL St Gallery in Ho Tzu Nyen’s Cloud of Unknowing

• Experience the sights and sounds of Janet Lilo’s neighbourhood, recreated at Artspace

• Jazz enthusiasts can enjoy saxophonist André Vida performing 3-2-1 live alongside Anri Sala’s A Long Sorrow video installation at the Gus Fisher Gallery.

A new feature in this year’s Triennial is The Lab, a think-tank which features some of the world’s most innovative and creative thinkers working on a series of projects investigating how we might live here better. Projects include the rejuvenation of the Whau River in Avondale and an investigation of the Kiwi ‘quarter acre’ dream. People can see The Lab in action at Auckland Art Gallery, take part in discussions and talks and watch each project evolve over time and contribute their own ideas.

The Auckland Triennial is New Zealand’s premier international contemporary art exhibition. Since its inception in 2000, it has worked with partners across the city to develop and present a lively and engaging contribution to the conversation about contemporary art and its relationship to the wider world.

Image: Saffronn Te Ratana, Ngataiharuru Taepa, Hemi Macgregor Ka Kata Te Po 2011. Installation with painted cardboard and fibreglass figure, dimensions variable. courtesy of the artists. Auckland Art Gallery.

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Sonic Water is a cymatics installation. Cymatics is the process of visualizing sound and vibrations through matter, such as for example sand or water.

In the beginning there was sound.
The reason cymatics exerts such a strong fascination is that we are not conditioned to “see sound”. Cymatics is like a magic tool that unveils the true substance of things audible, but conventionally invisible.
With it one can recreate the archetypes of different forms of nature.
So sound does have form and cymatics enables you to comprehend that it not only affects but causes form in matter.
In fact, we think sound had a fundamental influence on the formation of the universe itself. But that is another story.
Primarily, we are fascinated by the simplicity of this subject.
All it takes is sound and a very basic medium such as water to create… well, what could be (and in our view is) the coolest sound visualizer.

SONIC WATER – laboratory for water sound images by Sven Meyer & Kim Pörksen

SONIC WATER from elfenmaschine on Vimeo.

vernissage documentation / CREATE YOUR OWN WORLD / Olympus OMD Photography Playground 25. April – 24 Mai 2013 / Opernwerkstätten Berlin

sonicwater.org

MUSIC by Kymat - Wet Sound Enlightenment
studies of visible sound and vibrations – drop@sonicwater.org
greatpieceofcake.com & elfenmaschine.de

omd.olympus.de/site/rooms#sven_meyer_kim_poerksen

A few words from the Artists:

How does it work?
“Our installation at the Photography Playground in Berlin consists of two different areas.

A self-running installation and a DIY water-sound-image laboratory where people can experiment with their own cymatics.

The setup in both areas is almost identical. The only difference is, that you can use your own camera and create your own soundscapes in the DIY laboratory.
The installation is very simple: A sound signal is used to vibrate a speaker. On top of the speaker membrane we have applied a plate and on the plate we have then glued an ordinary bottle cap. The bottle cap (or the whole plate) is filled with water. The water works as a flexible three-dimensional sculpture mass, that translates the sound into pictures. The vibration of the speaker creates one of a kind water-sound-images in response to the respective sound impulse – from chaotic patterns to standing mandala-like waves.
The camera films the speaker from above and basically shoots a macro mode live view of the bottle cap action which is projected onto a large screen.
When people enter the room they initially just see the big screen cymatics projections. However, once they approach the cube with the speaker they suddenly grasp the setup and have this moment of incredulity and utter bewilderment, that a setup as simple as ours can create such astounding visuals. But this part of our installation is actually just an incentive or an ice breaker.

Our actual intention is for the audience to have fun in the laboratory, where they can create and document their own cymatics.
In the DIY laboratory you clamp a Olympus OMD camera on the stand, which you get upon entering the exhibition and you can then film or take photos of the water-sound-images you create by means of sound signals from a synthesizer, by using your own voice (via a microphone) or by just playing your favorite song on your smartphone.
What does it look like if you hum your favorite tune into the microphone? What does Wagners “Twilight of the Gods” look like in cymatics?
The results are images reminiscent of the shape of flowers, the form of a starfish, the patterns of turtleshells, cell division, the golden ratio, the flower of life – all depending on the individual frequency impulse.

In the laboratory you become the creator, the big bang and part of the genesis.”

More videos from the same artists on Vimeo.

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The Royal Collection’s online catalogue upgraded a portrait of Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) from what was known as a copy of a Van Dyck to a Van Dyck in full:

“This was until recently believed to be a contemporary copy after a lost Van Dyck portrait. It has however been convincingly suggested that this is the Van Dyck original: the handling certainly has the freshness and vigour of an original rather than a copy and the quality is sufficient to suggest Van Dyck’s hand.

The sitter cannot be identified but the portrait belongs to the artist’s second Flemish period (c.1630), when he painted a number of sitters in this particular format. Additions appear to have been made to the top and bottom of the canvas and it is possible that the fictive stone window was added alter.”

Just recently Van Dyck’s portrait of Olivia Boteler Porter, lady-in-waiting to Charles I’s wife Henrietta Maria, had been discovered online. The painting was photographed for the BBC Your Paintings website, a project to collect all of the UK’s oil paintings, where it was spotted by an art historian. After the BBC Two’s Culture Show investigated the case, it has been verified by Van Dyck expert Dr Christopher Brown, director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, who told The Culture Show that it was “a substantial discovery” and “quite clear that this is a late English period Van Dyck,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. This absolutely is Van Dyck at his best.”

Van Dyck is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draftsman, and was an important innovator in watercolour and etching.

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