Corey Helford Gallery: Ray Caesar

Opening Reception Saturday, October 22, 2011 from 7‑10pm
On View October 22 – November 12, 2011
Los Angeles, CA

Format: Digital

One of our favorite thoughts, Ray Caesar, has an exhibition opening this weekend at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles. “A Dangerous Inclination” continues on Caesar’s cathartic theme of elegantly haunting works. Caesar’s latest works disclose a more personal side to his narratives. While maintaning the self disclosure theme “A Dangerous Inclination” has definite notes of difference.  Ray Caesar was born in 1958 in London. At an early age, his family moved to Toronto, Canada, where he currently resides. From 1977—80 he attended Ontario College of Art, followed by 17 years from 1980—96 working in the art & photography department of the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto, documenting disturbing cases of child abuse, surgical reconstruction, psychology, and animal research. Coupled with inspiration from surrealists Kahlo and Dali, Caesar’s experiences at the hospital continue to influence his artwork. His haunting imagery is created digitally using 3D modeling software called Maya, mastered while working in digital animation for television and film industries from 1998—2001. In 1999, Caesar received a Primetime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Special Effects in a series.

CONTINUED: Read the full article »»»»

Kick Gallery: The Aerosol Assassin

The Aerosol Assassin: Refining the spirit of graffiti, of guerrilla art can be a tricky practice in contemporary arts. Although contemporary and post graffiti has become an important genre within art today, it is still too often viewed with a specious eye. Talking about contemporary graffiti in art history, the discussion generally starts with Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat and ends with Banksy.  All this in mind, John Williams  - DUEL – sidles the thin boundary between contemporary art and his much loved street work, a foot either side of a distinct line. Duel’s technique is much lauded by his – street – contemporaries, it is also easily recognized by those who gaze on contemporary abstract art. Duel’s refined stensiling style drags the mind back to Post-Painterly Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism, in this vein Duel is very much an Action Painter,

Duel’s Aerosol Assassin exhibition is a little reminiscent of Mark Tobey’s more intricate works, and like Tobey Duel’s pieces are infact works within works, multi layered, multi messaged geometric abstract works that begged a viewer to seek THE hidden meaning. Amusingly the artist informed me that each picture has a hidden word, then warned he’d had people stand in front of a picture for 45 minutes trying to find it. This latest show is a serious collision of gestural abstraction and guerrilla street art, the works lift Duels art to his next level. The works are intricate, layered and spontaneous. Bursts of color have always been part of Duels form, many of his current works simply pop with color, line and contrast.

“A big part of the inspiration for this show came from Denny Dent, his art and his physical movement making his art really triggered something” said Duel “A big problem in moving from painting the sides of trains to a studio is getting that high, the high you get from running, how do you move that to a studio? “

Attraction to street based works has to be partly based on a seemingly energetic approach, almost an attack on canvass. Staying true to this is a hardship, we all have to make a living and the pressures of conforming to moderation is a hard thing. Duel, fortunately doesn’t seem to suffer any need for an arithmetic mean. His measure is well entrenched  in a glorious history of mischief, a bounding talent and an eye that is well attached to a weirdly wired mind. Duel has realized what many miss, that getting any word out there in a single medium is laborious, and getting the word out is what it’s all about.

As a culture, street art is a complex being, a crew, a need for adrenalin, an eye for good spaces, and a style with the ability to stand out from a sea of layer upon layer upon layer of color. Being pursued down the street at speed by angry land owners and city officials also qualifies as a talent, though Duel says he talked his way out of most tight place. His reputation as one of the worlds finest street artists is important, it keeps him grounded, we are after all what we do. Duel it seems has a need for a public, an audience, his art is and always has been as much about performing as technique, her will doubtless be an interesting - at the least - artist to watch.

“I want different people to view my work in different environments, I like to watch people watch my art, it must be the performer in me, an audience is a good thing”

Duel’s Exhibition Runs Until August 6

Kick Gallery is at 4 Peel Street, Collingwood

For further information visit www.kickgallery.com/duel/

or contact the gallery on info@kickgallery.com

Le Quatorze Juillet: Mozart Guerra

So we have a theme going on, Bastille Day, more precisely, what Bastille Day means to we  none French! The obvious celebration aside, the modern French Republic has offered the galaxy more space than any other nation to be of an artistic mind. Artists from all over the planet have gravitated to France to freely express and be inspired. In this vein Mozart Guerra, Scuplteur! Guerra was born in Recife, Brazil in 1962, he studied architecture at University Federal of Pernambuco in Brazil, obtaining his degree in 1986. Guerra worked as a set designer in theatre, cinema and television. Mozart lives and works as a sculptor in Paris since 1992 and has participated in several solo and group exhibitions in galleries and art fairs in Brazil, France, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg and Italy.  Through his wondrous creations, the Brazilian sculptor Mozart Guerra seeks to show the public a skewed perception of the world. His works are sculpted using nylon rope and almost pure creative genius. GALLERY: Read the full article »»»»

Edwin Parker Twombly Dies

Edwin Parker – Cy – Twombly, Jr. April 25, 1928 – July 5, 2011. Twombly was a key figure in the post-war abstract art world, he died in Rome after suffering cancer for a number of years.Best known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors. Twombly exhibited his paintings worldwide. Twombly’s paintings blur the line between drawing and painting. Many of his best-known paintings of the late 1960s are reminiscent of a school blackboard on which someone has practiced cursive “e”s. Twombly’s paintings of the late 1950s, early 1960s might be reminiscent of long term accumulation of bathroom graffiti. Twombly had at this point discarded painting figurative, representational subject-matter, citing the line or smudge – each mark with its own history – as its proper subject.  Later, many of Twombly’s paintings and works on paper moved into “romantic symbolism”, and their titles can be interpreted visually through shapes and forms and words. Twombly often quoted the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, as well as many classical myths and allegories in his works. Examples of this are Twombly’s Apollo and The Artist and a series of eight drawings consisting solely of inscriptions of the word “VIRGIL”. Twombly lived in Lexington, Virginia, and Rome, Italy. He died in Rome after being hospitalized for several days, and had cancer for many years.

“Cy Twombly was one of the outstanding painters of the Post-War generation” said Tate Director Nicholas Serota, via email “The lyricism and poetry of his paintings is fully evident in the current exhibition Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters at the Dulwich Picture Gallery”

Twombly, 83, was best known for his canvases that combined painting, drawing and calligraphic texts – many of them reflecting classical themes. Twombly had been hospitalised in Rome for a 4 days prior to his death. Twombly never had an easy ride with art critics and experts, who questioned whether his calligraphic style and use of words and graffiti in paintings were worthy of a place at the high table of 20th century abstract art. Twombly shunned publicity but was none the less  a star of the contemporary art world.

“The art world has lost a true genius and a completely original talent, and for those fortunate enough to have known him, a great human being” said Larry Gagosian of Gagosian Gallery, which represented the Twombly. “We will not soon see a talent of such amazing scope and intensity. Even though Cy might have been regarded as reclusive, he didn’t retreat to an ivory tower. He was happy to remain connected and live in the present. Despite his increasing fame, he never lost the playfulness and sense of humor that was his true nature and, more importantly, he retained his humility. For me personally, it is an incredibly sad day and my thoughts are with Cy’s family and close friends”

Twombly was born in Lexington, Virginia on April 25, 1928. Twombly’s father, also nicknamed “Cy” after the baseball great Cy Young, pitched for the Chicago White Sox. After graduating from Lexington High School in 1946, Twombly attended Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, and studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. On a tuition scholarship from 1950 to 1951, he studied at theArt Students League of New York, where he met Robert Rauschenberg, who encouraged him to attend Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina. At Black Mountain in 1951 and 1952 he studied with Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and Ben Shahn, and met John Cage.

Arranged by Robert Motherwell, the Samuel Kootz Gallery in New York organized Twombly’s first solo exhibition in 1951. At this time his work was influenced by Kline’s black-and-white gestural expressionism, as well as Paul Klee‘s imagery. In 1952, Twombly received a grant from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which enabled him to travel to North Africa, Spain, Italy, and France. In 1957 Twombly moved to Rome, where he marries the Italian Tatia Franchetti, in 1959 – sister of his patron Giorgio Franchetti. His son, Cyrus Alessandro Twombly is also a painter and lives in Rome.

In 2007, an exhibition of Twombly’s paintings, Blooming, a Scattering of Blossoms and Other Things, and other works on paper from gallerist Yvon Lambert’s collection was displayed from June to September in Avignon, at the Lambert Foundation (Hôtel de Caumont). On July 19, 2007, police arrested Cambodian-French artist Rindy Sam after she kissed one panel of Twombly’s triptych Phaedrus. The panel, an all-white canvas, was smudged by Sam’s red lipstick. She was tried in a court in Avignon for “voluntary degradation of a work of art”. Sam defended her gesture to the court: “J’ai fait juste un bisou. C’est un geste d’amour, quand je l’ai embrassé, je n’ai pas réfléchi, je pensais que l’artiste, il aurait compris… Ce geste était un acte artistique provoqué par le pouvoir de l’art“

“It was just a kiss, a loving gesture. I kissed it without thinking; I thought the artist would understand…. It was an artistic act provoked by the power of Art” Rindy Sam

Twombly was invited to exhibit his work at the Venice Biennale in 1964, 1989 and 2001. In 1968, the Milwaukee Art Museum mounted the first retrospective of his art. Twombly had his next retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1979. The artist has later been honored by retrospectives at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1987, the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, in 1988, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1994, with additional venues in Houston, Los Angeles, and Berlin. The European retrospective “Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons” opened at theTate Modern, London in June 2008, with subsequent versions at the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome in 2009. From September to November 2008, a specially curated selection of Twombly’s photographic work was exhibited in “Huis Marseille”, the Museum for Photography, Amsterdam. The exhibition was opened by Sally Mann. Opening in conjunction with the Modern Wing, Twombly’s most recent solo exhibition  - Cy Twombly: The Natural World, Selected Works 2000–2007 - was on display at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009. in 2011, the Museum Brandhorst, mounted an exhibition of Twombly’s photographs from 1951 to 2010.

Twombly’s work was on exhibition at the Tate Modern, in London, from June 19 to September 14, 2008. Text for the showing read:

This was his first solo retrospective in fifteen years, and provides an overview of his work from the 1950s to now…. At the heart of the exhibition is Twombly’s work exploring the cycles associated with seasons, nature and the passing of time. Several key groups are brought together for the first time, such as Tate’s Four Seasons (1993–94) with those from the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition also explores how Twombly is influenced by antiquity, myth and the Mediterranean, for example the violent red swirls in the Bacchus 2005 paintings which bring to mind the drunken god of wine. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to see the full range of Twombly’s long and influential career from a fresh perspective.

Twombly was a recipient of numerous awards, most notably the Praemium Imperiale (1996). In 2001 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the 49th Venice Biennale. In 2010 he was made Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur by the French government.

Sydney: Ben Frost, Giggle at Blank Space

Giggle On The Stretcher an exhibition by Ben Frost

A selection of paintings, drawings and editions on canvas, board and found objects.

Opening Saturday June 25th, 4pm – 6pm

The Exhibition preview from 3pm, this 2 week exhibition continues until July 7th

Blank Space, 374 Crown St, Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia

Online catalogue will be available on Saturday June 25th
please send an email to giggle@benfrostisdead.com

M★C

Sydney: Serial Space, Yes Please Launch Party

Our Favorite Art Space – Serial Space – and our favourite new record label – Yes Please – have teamed up to party. Yes Please Records are on at Seral Space for their official label launch, as well as the launch of the Guerre EP launch. Thursday June 9 at Serial Space and we would love to see you there! It’s gonna be a very special night for Guerre, as they’re releasing the remixes of his debut EP Darker My Love – ahead of the originals. With remixes by Collarbones, Fishing, The Townhouses, Wintercoats, Albatross and Naminé, it’s going to be amazing!

As well as Guerre’s mesmeric neosoul, you’ll bear witness to the ambient-bent beats of Sydney’s Albatross and the newly formed duo Fox + Sui – who are Melbourne beatmaker Andras Fox and the delectable voice of Sydney’s Sui Zhen.

If you get yourself along to Serial Space on the night you’ll also get your hands on a copy of the very limited remix EP, hand drawn by the man himself, all yours to take home and love.

Doors open at 8 and its totally FREE!

Yes Please!

http://yespleaserecords.com/
http://www.facebook.com/YesPleaseRecords

http://serialspace.org