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Aarhus, Denmark
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum
Jeppe Hein
Dates: 28 Aug 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Aros Allé 2 Aarhus DK-8000
Tel: +45 8730 6600 Website
Adelaide, Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia
Bravura: 21st-century Australian Craft and Design
Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Design
Address: North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000
Tel: +61 (0)8 8207 7000 Website
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Hermitage Amsterdam
At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th Century
Dates: 20 Jun 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Decorative
Address: Amstel 51 Amsterdam 11675
Tel: +31-20-5308755 Website
This huge exhibition—featuring more than 2,000 objects on loan from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg—inaugurates the Russian museum’s Amsterdam’s home in the newly restored 17th-century Amstelhof (now the Hermitage’s sole foreign exhibition centre). The space has been designed by the architectural firm Merkx+Girod to give an impression of the splendour of public rooms in which the court met in the royal palaces in St Petersburg and Moscow. Russia vacillated in
the 19th century between Francophile and “native” Slavic and Byzantine poles: the court fashioned its taste on European or national styles and more often than not a combination of the two. The tsars patronised artists and craftsmen from Italy, France and Germany, and British gardeners to ensure that the Russian court kept pace with developments in western Europe, and a succession of German tsarinas ensured a regular flow of works by Romantic and Nazarene artists. In the court costumes and furniture we see the native adaptation of the same sequence of styles seen elsewhere—neo-classical, Egyptian, Gothic revival and art nouveau. In this show are ball gowns and uniforms, jewellery by Fabergé, court paintings, furniture, silver, clocks and watches and Sèvres and other porcelain dinner services. D.L.
A. Malyukov, after original by Franz Krüger, Alexandra Feodorovna, 1836.
Atlanta, USA
High Museum of Art
John Portman: Art and Architecture
Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 18 Apr 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 1280 Peachtree Northeast Street, Atlanta 30309
Tel: +1 404 733 4437 Website
Barcelona, Spain
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB
Cerdà and the Barcelona of the Future: Reality Versus Plan
Dates: 20 Oct 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Design
Address: Casa de Caritat, Montalegre 5 Barcelona 08001
Tel: +34 93 306 4100 Website
Berlin, Germany
Ethnologisches Museum
Döner, Duty and Design: Berlin Entrepreneurs
Dates: 21 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Curious
Design
Address: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Lansstrasse 8 Berlin D-14195
Tel: +49 (0)30 830 1438 Website
Bexhill on sea, United Kingdom
De La Warr Pavilion
Mind into Matter
Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Marina Bexhill on sea TN40 1DP
Tel: +44 (0)1424 787 900 Website
Bilbao, Spain
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Frank Lloyd Wright
Dates: 22 Sep 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Avenida Adandoibarra, 2 Bilbao 48001
Tel: +34 (0)94 435 90 80 Website
Bordeaux, France
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Jasper Morrison: Take a Seat
Dates: 5 Oct 09 - 18 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Hôtel de Lalande, 39, rue Bouffard Bordeaux 33000
Tel: +33 (0)5 56 10 14 00 Website
Bracciano, Italy
Castello Odescalchi
Sovrana Eleganza (Sovereign Elegance): Roberto Capucci
Dates: 17 Sep 09 - 13 Dec 09
Categories: Design
Address: Piazza Mazzini 14 Bracciano
Tel: +39 06 9980 2379 Website
The Italian fashion designer, renowned for his extravagant outfits, shows 66 “sculpted” dresses, drawings, and items of jewellery against the fantastic backdrop of the Castello Odescalchi, which dominates the town. The show, supervised by the designer, is organised by the Museo del Castello Odescalchi and the Associazione Opere—a programme of musical events coincides with the first four days of the exhibition—with the Fondazione Roberto Capucci.
Brussels, Belgium
Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire
I Medici: a Renaissance in Paper by Isabelle de Borchgrave
Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 18 Apr 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Parc du Cinquantenaire 10 Brussels B-1000
Tel: +32 (0)2 741 7200 Website
Chicago, USA
Art Institute of Chicago
Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago
Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Design
Modern (1900-1945)
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 111 South Michigan Avenue Chicago 60603-6110
Tel: +1 312 443 3600 Website
Konstantin Grcic: Decisive Design
Dates: 18 Nov 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 111 South Michigan Avenue Chicago 60603-6110
Tel: +1 312 443 3600 Website
Smart Museum of Art
Heartland
Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: University of Chicago, 5550 South Greenwood Avenue Chicago 60637
Tel: +1 773 702 0200 Website
The Smart Museum of Art delves into the heart of middle America and comes up with surprising results in this two-part exhibition, organised with the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. The Dutch segment, on view last year, presented to a European audience a broad
survey of the Midwest’s culture, art and music. The Smart’s version looks at independent artist
communities in centres such as Detroit and Kansas City. Design 99 (Gina Reichert & Mitch Cope) have been towing an old speedboat through the Midwest. “By the time they arrive in Chicago, they’ll have transformed it into a portable, carnivalesque sculpture,” says curator Stephanie Smith. Kansas City’s dance and variety show Whoop Dee Doo performs in Chicago in its first ever museum commission. H.S.
Whoop Dee Doo
Chichester, United Kingdom
Pallant House Gallery
Henry Moore Textiles
Dates: 14 Nov 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Modern (1900-1945)
Post-War (1945-70)
Design
Address: 9 North Pallant Chichester PO19 1TJ
Tel: +44 (0)1243 774 557 Website
Dallas, USA
Dallas Museum of Art
The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs
Dates: 20 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Decorative
Design
Address: 1717 North Harwood Street Dallas 75201
Tel: +1 214 922 1200 Website
Düsseldorf, Germany
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, K20
Ayse Erkmen: Hausgenossen
Dates: 8 Nov 09 - 14 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Address: Grabbeplatz, 5 Düsseldorf D-40213
Tel: +49 (0) 211 8381 - 630 Website
Frankfurt, Germany
Städel Museum
Botticelli
Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Durerstrasse 2 Frankfurt D-60596
Tel: +49 (0)69 605 09 80 Website
It is a commonplace that some artists reach in their old age a “late style” characterised by loose, free expression and a distillation of experience (for example, Michelangelo and Titian) while others wither and decay (for example, Pontormo and Domenichino). Botticelli is reckoned, however, to have taken a different trajectory by turning, in his old age, from a mature style and content to the manner and concerns of his youth.
The life and work of Sandro Botticelli is, like Caesar’s Gaul, divided in partes tres: his Florentine early training and career, from his birth in 1444/45 to around 1478, covering the years of his apprenticeship under Fra Filippo Lippi and in which he produced works such as St Sebastian, 1473-74, and a number of frescoes in Florence and Pisa, most of which are now lost. During the years of his maturity, around 1478 to 1490, he painted most of the works for which he is famous: frescoes in Florence and Rome, altarpieces, portraits, allegories and mythological narratives. Here he perfected his personal style, perhaps best described as a combination of International Gothic and classical prototypes, an assimilation of the stile nuovo and antico, in which figures are presented in supple contours, contrapposto, graceful proportions, most memorably exemplified in the Primavera, around 1478, and The Birth of Venus, 1482-86. This high courtly style also informed his religious paintings (shown, The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, about 1490), which may have incurred the censure of the charismatic Dominican reformer, Girolamo Savonarola, who, it is believed, came to influence Botticelli as, from the 1490s until his death, the artist turned back to the simplicity and affective expression of his early work. This maniera devota, inspired by moral and religious sentiment, resulted in works such as the Mystic Nativity, around 1500, and the illuminations for a luxurious, unfinished manuscript edition of The Divine Comedy, 1490s.
Following his death, Botticelli fell from favour and it was not until 19th-century art historians began to resurrect and elevate Florentine artists that he came again into favour. This process was initiated mainly by German art historians and collectors: the Berlin museum acquired the St Sebastian and the Bardi altarpiece in the 1820s; Walter Ullmann produced the first Botticelli monograph in 1893 and Aby Warburg produced his influential dissertation in the same year. Thus it comes as something of a surprise that this is the first Botticelli show to take place in the German-speaking world (pace the exhibition of the Divine Comedy illuminations in Berlin in 2000-01). The exhibition is curated by Andreas Schumacher, the director of the pre-1800 Italian, French and Spanish paintings collections, and is the first in line to celebrate the quincentenary of the artist’s death (1510). The show, like Botticelli’s life, is in three parts: his portraits and allegorical paintings, the mythologies and, finally, his religious œuvre. Although many of the works have recently been seen in the shows at the Palais de Luxembourg (2003-04) and at the Palazzo Strozzi (2004)—the fragility, the renown and the limited number of his works make it impossible to transport many of them—this exhibition includes workshop pieces and drawings from private lenders never seen before in public. Special attention is given to the unrequited love Botticelli bore for the celebrated beauty Simonetta Vespucci (around 1453-76), wife of a Florentine nobleman, who is thought have been his model for his Venuses (and with whom he was buried), and to his works commissioned by the Medici. In addition to the 40 Botticelli paintings, there are 40 by Verrocchio, Antonio del Pollaiuolo and Filippino to put Botticelli’s work into a historical context. The show is sponsored by the Commerzbank-Stiftung with support from Alnatura Produktions- und Handels, the Italian National Tourist Board, Weleda and Ikarus design. The catalogue is edited by Dr Schumacher and published by Hatje Cantz (€49.80).
The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, about 1490
Hamburg, Germany
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe
Phenomenon Ikea
Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Design
Address: Steintorplatz 1 Hamburg d-20099
Tel: +49 (0)40 42 81 34 27 32 Website
Helmond, Netherlands
Gemeentemuseum
The Wonderful World of Czechoslovakian Glass Art
Dates: 14 Nov 09 - 30 May 10
Categories: Design
Address: Kastelplein1 Helmond 5701 PP
Tel: +31 (0)49 254 7475 Website
Helsinki, Finland
Designmuseo
Herman Olof Gummerus: Diplomat of Design
Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Korkeavuorenkatu 23 Helsinki FIN-00130
Tel: +358 (0)9 622 0540 Website
Houston, USA
Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Houston
Recent Accessions in Design
Dates: 16 Aug 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Design
Address: 1001 Bissonnet Houston 77005
Tel: +1 713 639 7300 Website
Leon, Spain
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon (MU
Kyong Park
Dates: 11 Jul 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Address: Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24 Leon 24008
Tel: +34 987 09 00 00 Website
Lisbon, Portugal
Museu Berardo—Modern and Contemporary Art
The Fourth Dimension in Graphic Design
Dates: 16 Sep 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Address: Praça do Império Lisbon 1449-003
Tel: +35 1 213 612 913 Website
London, United Kingdom
Brunei Gallery
Design and Nature
Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 12 Dec 09
Categories: Middle East
Far East
Photography
Address: School of Oriental and African Studies, Russell Square London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4915 Website
Design Museum
Wearable Paper
Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 7 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Decorative
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website
David Chipperfield
Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website
Real World Design: How Ergonomics Is Making Things Better
Dates: 18 Nov 09 - 14 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website
Designers in Residence
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 31 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 28 Shad Thames London SE1 2YD
Tel: +44 (0)870 909 9009 Website
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
Renoma: Reflections of Wroclaw
Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 30 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Mind into Matter: Eight Exemplary Buildings 1834-2009
Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Modern (1900-1945)
Post-War (1945-70)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Photography
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Of Dreams and Cities - Architecture in Film
Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Video & New Media
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Open Poland: Architecture and Identity
Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 25 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 66 Portland Place London W1N 4AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 4389 Website
Sir John Soane’s Museum
Order: Myth, Meaning and Beauty in Architecture
Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 30 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields London WC2A 3BP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7405 2107 Website
Los Angeles, USA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
From Spoon to the City: Design by Architects from LACMA’s Collection
Dates: 6 Aug 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 5905 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles 90036
Tel: +1 323 857 6000 Website
Madrid, Spain
CaixaForum Madrid, Fundació “la Caixa”
Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy
Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Paseo del Prado, 36 Madrid 28014
Tel: +34 91 330 7300 Website
Malaga, Spain
Museo Picasso Malaga
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Dates: 19 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Palacio de Buenavista, San Agustín, 8 Malaga 29015
Tel: +34 952 12 76 00 Website
Swiss-born Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943) is an artist whose work transcends boundaries. A real “renaissance artist”, Taeuber-Arp embraced many disciplines, from painting and embroidery to puppetry and interior design, with equal vigour and intensity. She was greatly admired by contemporaries such as surrealist Hugnet, Kandinsky and her husband, fellow artist and collaborator Jean Arp, and the German artist Hugo Ball once said: “Everything to do with Taeuber has the luminosity of sunlight…she is full of invention, whim and extravagance”. An active member of multiple avant-garde movements, her work shows elements of dada, constructivism and abstraction. Curated by Spanish scholar Estrella de Diego, this exhibition—the first of its kind in Spain—brings together 130 pieces including paintings, textiles, drawings, furniture, photographs, plans, puppets and collages drawn from public and private collections in Germany, France, Switzerland and the US.
The exhibition is divided into three sections. The first, “Broken Rhythms” focuses on her early work when constructivism and dada coexisted openly. This section contains Portrait of Jean Arp, 1918, one of the artist’s iconic “dada heads”. “Inhabiting Spaces” explores her involvement in interior design and architectural projects. The final section, “Living Geometry” is devoted to the display of a series of her striking, geometrical abstractions. E.S.
Portrait of Jean Arp, 1918
Manchester, United Kingdom
Whitworth Art Gallery
The Manchester Indian: Thomas Wardle and India
Dates: 30 Sep 09 - 31 Aug 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Design
Decorative
Far East
Address: Oxford Road Manchester M15 6ER
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 7450 Website
Milan, Italy
Triennale di Milano
Frank Gehry Since 1997
Dates: 27 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: viale Alemagna, 6 Milan 20121
Tel: +39 (0)2 724341 Website
The Fragile City
Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: viale Alemagna, 6 Milan 20121
Tel: +39 (0)2 724341 Website
Minneapolis, USA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA)
From Towers to Teakettles: Michael Graves Architecture and Design
Dates: 29 Aug 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis 55404
Tel: +1 612 870 3000 Website
New Takes on Traditional Techniques: 20th-century Textile Art
Dates: 29 Aug 09 - 29 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Design
Address: 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis 55404
Tel: +1 612 870 3000 Website
Moscow, Russia
Moscow Kremlin Museums
Heritage of the Empress
Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Decorative
Design
Address: Moscow Kremlin Moscow 103073
Tel: +7(495) 624-55-03 Website
Munich, Germany
Pinakothek der Moderne
Chinese Architectural Models from the National Museum in Beijing
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 31 Dec 09
Categories: Design
Address: Barer Strasse 29 Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 23 805 280 Website
The Bata Phenomenon: Functionalism in Zlín 1910-60
Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Barer Strasse 29 Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 23 805 280 Website
Zlín: the Model Town of Modernism
Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Curious
Design
Address: Barer Strasse 29 Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 23 805 280 Website
Naples, Italy
Museo PLART
Amanda Levete
Dates: 20 Oct 09 - 6 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Address: 48, via Martucci Naples 80121
Tel: +39 08119565703 Website
New York, USA
Asia Society
Performa 09
Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 725 Park Avenue New York 10021
Tel: +1 212 288 6400 Website
Performa 09 is the third biennial of new visual art performance, held in collaboration with 80 institutions, and featuring more than 150 international artists in about 110 events organised by 40 international curators—all in just three weeks.
That dizzying set of statistics is being overseen by director RoseLee Goldberg, who set up the non-profit arts organisation Performa in 2004 and has done much to bring performance art and its history to the fore, as much through her writings as through her teaching and curatorial work, turning the public eye on to such performance artists as Marina Abramovic and Laurie Anderson.
“The major difference for Performa 09 compared with previous biennials is that we’re commissioning from all disciplines, encompassing art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, film, television, design, food—it’s crossing all disciplines, and that is the big leap forward this year,” said Goldberg. Her major contribution this year is the “Performa Commissions” series, which forms the nerve centre of the biennial, alongside, for the first time, a “Performa Premieres” programme featuring six pieces never before seen in New York.
The 11 new commissions are by Guy Ben-Ner, Candice Breitz, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Omer Fast, Yeondoo Jung, Mike Kelley, Arto Lindsay, Wangechi Mutu, Christian Tomaszewski, Futurist Life Redux and Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners (a group of experimental musicians and composers).
South African video and installation artist Candice Breitz is presenting New York New York, 2009, her first live performance work. The piece features two casts, made up of identical twins performing on identical sets, spontaneously responding to scripts given to them on the spot. Unlike the performers, viewers will be able to take in both performances in real time.
Other highlights in this programme include Yeondoo Jung’s Cinemagician, 2009, at the Asia Society—a theatre piece, commissioned with the Yokohama Festival for Video and Social Technology, that looks at the relationship between magic and cinema—and Omer Fast’s first live performance piece, commissioned with the Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, which looks at history and memory through the re-enaction of a childhood storytelling game.
The six artists chosen for the “Performa Premieres” programme are Keren Cytter, Tacita Dean, Alicia Framis, Loris Gréaud, William Kentridge and Joan Jonas. British artist Tacita Dean is presenting Craneway Event, 2009, at Danspace Project in the Bowery. This feature-length work shows the choreographer Merce Cunningham and his company in rehearsal in a deserted Ford motor factory in California, marking Cunningham’s last appearance on film before his death in July. South African artist William Kentridge is showing I Am Not Me, the Horse is Not Mine, 2009, a work related to his current opera-in-progress inspired by Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1928 satirical opera “The Nose”, and French artist Loris Gréaud is showing a video of a fireworks display in Abu Dhabi that he co-designed with Groupe F.
There are related events across the city involving architecture, design, dance, film, music and food. Berlin-based architecture collective An Architektur is creating a “living think-tank” about the future of architecture in New York, Spanish designer Marti Guixé is staging Mealing, a three-hour performance involving 200 people and “edible microsnacks”, and Jennifer Rubell stages Creation on the opening night of the biennial, with a series of food installations at X Initiative.
Rosie Spencer
A performance still from the Korean artist Yeondoo Jung’s theatrical work Cinemagician, showing at the Asia Society, New York
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Design USA: Contemporary Innovation
Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 4 Apr 10
Categories: Design
Address: Smithsonian Institution 2 East 91st Street New York 10128
Tel: +1 212 849 8400 Website
Jewish Museum
Reinventing Ritual: Contemporary Art and Design for Jewish Life
Dates: 13 Sep 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 1109 Fifth Avenue New York 10128
Tel: +1 212 423 3271 Website
Museum of Arts and Design
Read My Pins: the Madeleine Albright Collection
Dates: 30 Sep 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Curious
Decorative
Design
Address: 40 West 53rd Street New York 10019
Tel: +1 212 956 3535 Website
Slash: Paper under the Knife
Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Curious
Decorative
Address: 40 West 53rd Street New York 10019
Tel: +1 212 956 3535 Website
NewYork, USA
Performa
Performa 09
Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Video & New Media
Address: Various venues NewYork
Tel: Website
P erforma 09 is the third biennial of new visual art performance, held in collaboration with 80 institutions, and featuring more than 150 international artists in about 110 events organised by 40 international curators—all in just three weeks.
That dizzying set of statistics is being overseen by director RoseLee Goldberg, who set up the non-profit arts organisation Performa in 2004 and has done much to bring performance art and its history to the fore, as much through her writings as through her teaching and curatorial work, turning the public eye on to such performance artists as Marina Abramovic and Laurie Anderson.
“The major difference for Performa 09 compared with previous biennials is that we’re commissioning from all disciplines, encompassing art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, film, television, design, food—it’s crossing all disciplines, and that is the big leap forward this year,” said Goldberg. Her major contribution this year is the “Performa Commissions” series, which forms the nerve centre of the biennial, alongside, for the first time, a “Performa Premieres” programme featuring six pieces never before seen in New York.
The 11 new commissions are by Guy Ben-Ner, Candice Breitz, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Omer Fast, Yeondoo Jung, Mike Kelley, Arto Lindsay, Wangechi Mutu, Christian Tomaszewski, Futurist Life Redux and Music for 16 Futurist Noise Intoners (a group of experimental musicians and composers).
South African video and installation artist Candice Breitz is presenting New York New York, 2009, her first live performance work. The piece features two casts, made up of identical twins performing on identical sets, spontaneously responding to scripts given to them on the spot. Unlike the performers, viewers will be able to take in both performances in real time.
Other highlights in this programme include Yeondoo Jung’s Cinemagician, 2009, at the Asia Society—a theatre piece, commissioned with the Yokohama Festival for Video and Social Technology, that looks at the relationship between magic and cinema—and Omer Fast’s first live performance piece, commissioned with the Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, which looks at history and memory through the re-enaction of a childhood storytelling game.
The six artists chosen for the “Performa Premieres” programme are Keren Cytter, Tacita Dean, Alicia Framis, Loris Gréaud, William Kentridge and Joan Jonas. British artist Tacita Dean is presenting Craneway Event, 2009, at Danspace Project in the Bowery. This feature-length work shows the choreographer Merce Cunningham and his company in rehearsal in a deserted Ford motor factory in California, marking Cunningham’s last appearance on film before his death in July. South African artist William Kentridge is showing I Am Not Me, the Horse is Not Mine, 2009, a work related to his current opera-in-progress inspired by Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1928 satirical opera “The Nose”, and French artist Loris Gréaud is showing a video of a fireworks display in Abu Dhabi that he co-designed with Groupe F.
There are related events across the city involving architecture, design, dance, film, music and food. Berlin-based architecture collective An Architektur is creating a “living think-tank” about the future of architecture in New York, Spanish designer Marti Guixé is staging Mealing, a three-hour performance involving 200 people and “edible microsnacks”, and Jennifer Rubell stages Creation on the opening night of the biennial, with a series of food installations at X Initiative.
Rosie Spencer
A performance still from the Korean artist Yeondoo Jung’s theatrical work Cinemagician, showing at the Asia Society, New York, as part of Performa 09
Odense, Denmark
Kunsthallen Brandts
Robots
Dates: 21 Aug 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Curious
Design
Address: Brandts Torv 1 Odense DK-5000
Tel: +45 40 26 15 78 Website
Oslo, Norway
Museum of Contemporary Art
The National Academy of Fine Arts: 100 Years
Dates: 12 Jun 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Post-War (1945-70)
Address: National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Bankplassen 4 Oslo 0130
Tel: +47 22 86 22 10 Website
Allora & Calzadilla
Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Bankplassen 4 Oslo 0130
Tel: +47 22 86 22 10 Website
Museum of Decorative Arts and Design
The Fashion Galleries
Dates: 26 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Address: National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, St Olav’s Gate 1 Oslo 0165
Tel: + 47 21 98 20 00 Website
National Gallery
Rolf Nesch
Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Post-War (1945-70)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Universitetsgaten 13 Oslo 0033
Tel: +47 22 20 04 04 Website
Padua, Italy
Palazzo della Ragione
Zaha Hadid
Dates: 27 Oct 09 - 1 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Address: via VIII Febbraio Padua
Tel: +39 (0)49 8205006 Website
Paris, France
Centre Pompidou
Habiter 2050
Dates: 24 Oct 09 - 8 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 19, rue du Renard Paris 75191
Tel: +33 (0)1 44 78 12 33 Website
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Drawing in Design
Dates: 22 Oct 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Design
Address: Palais du Louvre, 105-107, rue de Rivoli Paris 75001
Tel: +33 (0)1 44 55 57 50 Website
Madeleine Vionnet
Dates: 24 Jun 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Palais du Louvre, 105-107, rue de Rivoli Paris 75001
Tel: +33 (0)1 44 55 57 50 Website
Hommages to Toulouse-Lautrec’s Graphic Design
Dates: 18 Jun 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Palais du Louvre, 105-107, rue de Rivoli Paris 75001
Tel: +33 (0)1 44 55 57 50 Website
Musée d’Orsay
Eugène Grasset
Dates: 12 Oct 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Design
Address: 62, rue de Lille Paris 75343
Tel: +33 (0)1 40 49 48 14 Website
Art Nouveau Revival
Dates: 20 Oct 09 - 4 Feb 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Design
Address: 62, rue de Lille Paris 75343
Tel: +33 (0)1 40 49 48 14 Website
Portland, USA
Portland Art Museum (OR)
China Design Now
Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 1219 Southwest Park Avenue Portland 97205
Tel: +1 503 226 2811 Website
Providence, USA
Rhode Island School of Design Museum (RISD)
Carey Young: Uncertain Contracts
Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 18 Apr 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 224 Benefit Street Providence 02903-2723
Tel: +1 401 454 6500 Website
Inner City
Dates: 25 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 224 Benefit Street Providence 02903-2723
Tel: +1 401 454 6500 Website
The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650
Dates: 18 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 224 Benefit Street Providence 02903-2723
Tel: +1 401 454 6500 Website
Joe Deal: New Work
Dates: 4 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 224 Benefit Street Providence 02903-2723
Tel: +1 401 454 6500 Website
Avish Khebrehzadeh: Backyard and Other Stories
Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 28 Mar 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: 224 Benefit Street Providence 02903-2723
Tel: +1 401 454 6500 Website
Quebec, Canada
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (MNBAQ)
Québec in Design: 75 Years of Works from the Collection of the MNBAQ
Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 18 Apr 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Post-War (1945-70)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Address: Parc des Champs-de-Bataille Quebec G1R 5H3
Tel: +1 418 643 2150 Website
Quimper, France
Musée des Beaux-Arts
François Béalu: Engraver and Designer
Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 25 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: 40, place Saint-Corentin Quimper 29000
Tel: +33 (0)2 98 95 45 20 Website
Rome, Italy
Museo dell’Ara Pacis
Drawings and Design: Italian Licence and Design
Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Lungotevere in Augusta Rome
Tel: +39 (0)60608 Website
Museo Venanzo Crocetti
Franco Ferrari
Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Address: Via Cassia Rome 492-00189
Tel: +39 (0)6 33711468 Website
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen
Rotterdam Design Prize 2009
Dates: 19 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Museumpark 18-20 Rotterdam 3015 CX
Tel: +31 (0)10 441 9400 Website
Rotterdam Kunsthal
Tribute to the woman: Erwin De Vries: 60 Year sculptor-painter
Dates: 12 Sep 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Westzeekijk 341 Rotterdam 3015 AA
Tel: +31 (0)10 440 0300 Website
Saffron Walden, United Kingdom
Saffron Walden Museum
Henry Moore Sheep
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Post-War (1945-70)
Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Address: Museum Street Saffron Walden CB10 1JL
Tel: +44 (0)1799 510333 Website
San Diego, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (La Jolla)
Automatic Cities: the Architectural Imaginary in Contemporary Art
Dates: 26 Sep 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present)
Design
Address: 700 Prospect Street, La Jolla San Diego 92037 - 42
Tel: +1 858 454 3541 Website
Seville, Spain
Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC)
Optical Devices
Dates: 8 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Address: Monasterio de la Cartuja de Santa Maria de las Cuevas Seville
Tel: +34 95 503 7070 Website
Tel Aviv, Israel
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Mandate Architecture in Palestine, 1917-48
Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Address: 27-29 Sderot Shaul Hamelech Boulevard Tel Aviv 61332
Tel: +972 3 695 7361 Website
Thessaloniki, Greece
Museum of Byzantine Culture
Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art
Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Design
Medieval
Address: 2 Stratou Avenue Thessaloniki GR-546 46
Tel: +30 231 0868571-4 Website
Many exhibitions have been dedicated to Byzantine art and culture, but this is the first to focus on the architecture of the empire and how it was reflected in the visual arts. While few buildings remain from the early centuries of the empire, the forms and ideals of Byzantine architecture can still be seen in icons, stone carvings, mosaics and other works of art. Co-organised by the European Center for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments in Thessaloniki and the Princeton University Art Museum (where it goes on display next year), this show brings together about 80 objects from international collections, including the Benaki Museum, Athens, and the Metropolitan Art Museum, New York. The icons, manuscripts, ivories, carved stone and metal objects on view describe a highly spiritual society with a clearly defined religious hierarchy, reflected in the design and use of space in church and secular buildings.
Princeton curator Slobodan Curcic says the show is unique in that “the subject of representation of architecture in Byzantine art has never been articulated as such in scholarship. While it will include some well-known works of Byzantine art, it will also put on display many objects never previously seen in an international context.”
Thun, Switzerland
Kunstmuseum Thun
Forms of Resistance in Contemporary Art
Dates: 19 Sep 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Design
Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: Thunerhof, Hofstettenstrasse 14 Thun ch 3600
Tel: +41 (0)33 225 84 20 Website
Vienna, Austria
Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK)
Jugendschatz und Wunderscherlein: Book Art for Children in Vienna 1890-1938
Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Curious
1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Modern (1900-1945)
Design
Address: Stubenring 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 711 248 Website
Chawan: Tea Bowls
Dates: 14 Oct 09 - 28 Mar 10
Categories: Design
Far East
Address: Stubenring 5 Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 711 248 Website
Vilnius, Lithuania
Lithuanian National Gallery of Art
Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70
Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 7 Dec 09
Categories: Design
Address: Konstitucijos Ave. 22 Vilnius LT-01119
Tel: (+370 5) 262 8030 Website
Washington, USA
Textile Museum
The Mary Baskett Collection
Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 11 Apr 10
Categories: Decorative
Design
Address: 2320 South Street NW Washington 20008
Tel: +1 202 667 0441 Website
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