SHOWS

Hong Kong Art Week 2018 features gallery openings, receptions, and museum exhibitions. Primary among the events are the shows Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Central Hong Kong.


Art Central

March 27-April 1; preview March 26, 2018

Central Harborfront, Hong Kong

http://artcentralhongkong.com/#

Art Central will feature more than 100 leading international galleries, 75 percent of which hail from the Asia Pacific. The Fair’s extensive gallery line-up will include 30 galleries making their Art Central debut and will showcase striking works from across the globe, illustrating the diversity and prodigious talent of artists within today's contemporary art market.


Now in its fourth edition, Art Central is recognized as a place of discovery and a platform for museum quality artworks from more established names to be exhibited alongside cutting-edge works by emerging artists. Staged within an architect-designed temporary structure, the strong gallery line-up is complemented by a dynamic six-day program that includes interactive installations, experimental film and performance, engaging panel discussions, as well as some of Hong Kong’s hottest eateries.

 

Art | Basel Hong Kong

March 29-31; private viewing March 27; Vernissage March 28, 2018

Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

https://www.artbasel.com/hong-kong

Art Basel Hong Kong’s 2018 edition features 248 premier galleries from 32 countries and territories. Galleries consist of the world’s leading modern and contemporary art galleries displaying paintings, sculpture, drawings, installations, photographs, film, video and digital artwork. Underlining Art Basel's commitment to the region, half of the participating galleries have exhibition spaces in Asia and Asia-Pacific. The show provides an in-depth overview of the region’s diversity through both historical material and cutting-edge works by established and emerging artists.


In addition to the main galleries, “Sectors” within the show include “Insights” (projects by galleries based in the Asia and the Asia-Pacific region; booths may include solo shows, exceptional art-historical material and thematic exhibitions); “Discoveries” (a platform for emerging contemporary artists); the “Kabinett” (participants present curated exhibitions in an architecturally delineated space within their booths); “Encounters” (large-scale sculpture and installations); “Film” (short films and screenings), and “Conversations” (topics concerning the global contemporary art scene). The show also boasts a full schedule of events. These include Art Market Talks on the subjects of “The State of The Market,” and “Funding Cultural Production.” Visitors may attend artist talks, special tours, performances, and special screenings of films.


EXHIBITIONS

Rae Sloan Bredin: Harmony and Power
Through July 15, 2018
Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA
https://www.michenerartmuseum.org


The renowned Pennsylvania Impressionist painter Rae Sloan Bredin (1880-1933), is the subject of an exhibition at the Michener Art Museum. With most of Bredin’s work, characterized by refinement, dignity, and serenity, privately held, this show marks his first solo retrospective in 85 years.


Bredin's paintings depict an idyllic vision of life along the Delaware River, replete with dappled sunlight, arched shadows, sparkling water, and towering trees. Unlike most of his local peers, Bredin's paintings often include figures, especially women and children, in formal portraits and out in nature as well as in intimate interiors. Bredin's life, work, and career are lasting evidence of New Hope's essential nature as an art colony. While Bredin's formal education was complete before his first trip to Bucks County, the awards, commissions, sales, and exposure that defined Bredin's mature career are closely linked to his position within this particular community. Rae Sloan Bredin: Harmony and Power takes a comprehensive look at Bredin's life and career, touching on the lasting influences of his community and the creative environment for which his paintings are known depict so powerfully.


Rae Sloan Bredin (1880-1933), Garden of the Lake (alternately titled Garden of the Lake, Villa Falconieri at Frescati), 1914. Oil on canvas, 48 x 40 inches. Private collection. 






Ken’s Show: Exploring the Unseen
March 30-June 17, 2018
Tate Liverpool, United Kingdom
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool


As an Art Handler, Ken Simons has cared for every piece of art displayed at Tate Liverpool since the gallery opened in 1988. Exploring the Unseen, is a new display of 30 works selected by Ken to mark Tate Liverpool’s 30th birthday and Ken’s 30-year career at the gallery. On display are a selection of Ken’s favorite artworks from the Tate collection alongside artists who had their first UK showing at Tate Liverpool. Highlights include Joseph Mallord William Turner, Dame Barbara Hepworth, and Mark Rothko. 

 

The display explores the unseen or mysterious spaces in our world and point to Ken’s particular interest in sculptural and landscape art. You can hear from Ken first-hand during a week-longs residency in Tate Exchange and other fascinating, behind the scenes events, see below.




Mark Rothko, Light Red Over Black, 1957. Oil on canvas. Tate © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/DACS 2018.







CLOSING SOON

Josef Albers in Mexico
Through April 4, 2018
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC
https://www.guggenheim.org

During their first visit to Mexico, in the winter of 1935–36, Josef  and Anni Albers knew that they were in a “country for art like no  other.” The couple returned to Mexico thirteen times by the late 1960s,  developing a passion for pre-Columbian art and architecture that would  influence Josef’s abstract painting and prints and fuel his innovative  approach to photography.


In 1933, after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus, the German art and  design school where they both were instructors, the Alberses moved to  North Carolina to teach at Black Mountain College. On their frequent  trips to Mexico, they drove to archaeological sites throughout the  country—from Monte Albán and Teotihuacán to Uxmal and Chichén  Itzá—studying the monumental constructions and amassing a large  collection of sculptures and ceramics. For Josef, the complex abstract  vocabulary of pre-Columbian art and architecture embodied the principles he and Anni espoused in their work and teaching. With limited knowledge of the cultures that had built the structures they admired, the  Alberses celebrated those civilizations’ dynamic geometric forms and  truth to materials—values the couple sought to renew in modern art and  design. Josef’s encounters with the ruins of Mexico deepened his interest in  photography and advanced his experiments in abstract art. He took  thousands of pictures on his travels, later combining many of these  images to produce photocollages with grid-like compositions. This body  of work illuminates the indelible impact Josef’s time in Mexico had on  his larger practice.



OF NOTE

J. Paul Getty Medal Announcement
http://www.getty.edu

Image: from the homepage of The J. Paul Getty Trust. 

The J. Paul Getty Trust announces the J. Paul Getty Medal to go to Thelma Golden (director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem), Agnes Gund (president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art), and Richard Serra (sculptor). Established in 2013 by the trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust, the J. Paul Getty Medal has been awarded to eight individuals to date, to honor their extraordinary contributions to the practice, understanding and support of the arts. “The Getty Medal embodies and promotes excellence in the fields in which we work,” said Maria Hummer-Tuttle, chair, J. Paul Getty Board of Trustees. “We are honored to present the medal this year to three leaders and creative forces within the visual arts.” The awards will be presented at a dinner at the Getty Center in Los Angeles on September 24, 2018.


Featured Book


Arts of the Hellenized East
By Martha L. Carter
Published by Thames & Hudson, NYC
424 pp.; 350+ color ills.; softcover; $50
https://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com


Available for the first time in paperback (hardcover: $75), Arts of the Hellenized East, Precious Metalwork and Gems of the Pre-Islamic Era, is the sixth volume in Thamas & Hudson’s celebrated series exploring the treasures of the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait. The al-Sabah Collection houses one of the world’s most spectacular collections of ancient silver vessels and other objects made of precious metals and gems and dating from the centuries following Alexander the Great’s Conquest of Iran and Bactria in the later 4th century BC up to the advent of the Islamic era. Many of the objects illustrated and discussed have never before appeared in print. Both visually stunning and a scholarly resource for collectors, archaeologists, and historians, this volume presents some of the most precious metalwork from the Hellenized East.