Monthly Archives: February 2020

Francesco Albano /// Dania Hubard

In 1976, the artist known as Francesco Albano was born in the town of Oppido Mamertina located in southern Italy. At the age of 12, Albano was apprenticing underneath the artist Stefano Albano, his father. Francesco started his artistic journey at a young age and developed his art with the guidance of his father. He finished in apprenticeship in 1996 and then joined the Fine Art University of Carrara to finish his studies; which he graduated four years later. He traveled quite a bit after that, though at this time he is based in Buenos Aires. Albano is a pretty accomplished artist. In 2005, he won the National Prize of Arts for one of his sculptures.

            Francesco’s art is very visceral and draws in the audience’s attention with its grotesque view of the human body. At first his sculptures seem like a gross perversion of the human form and twists it into an unrecognizable piece made of flesh and bone, but there is so much more to his work and what it is saying about humans to their core. His art explores many themes of mental illness and is basically a visual representation of the emotions of loneliness, emptiness, and fear.

“What deeply interests me is how the physical appearance of the human body can be affected by the psychic and mental state and how the disarray of these states can reshape the body; how it can be annihilated by social pressure, how a specific unrest can deform, distort, void and overfill the body; its container. Through my work, I record experiences and the people around me. My sculptures are fantasies-phantoms that depict desire and emptiness.”

(Bahadur, 2017)

Currently, some of Albano’s artwork is available to purchase. His pieces are being sold for as much as $1,000 to $15,000. https://www.artsy.net/artist/francesco-albano

On the Eve (2013)
Acedia
On the Eve
One of these Days (2013)
35 kg (2009)
When Everyday was Thursday (2010)
The Straw Man Fallacy (2013)
Study of Head of Shouting Man (2017)
The Temptations of St. Anthony (2016)
After Galenus (2013)

Albano, F. (2009). TWELVE YEARS AGO NEW YEAR’S FEAST. [online] francesco albano’s blog. Available at: http://albanofrancesco.blogspot.com/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020].

Albano, F. (2014). Francesco Albano. [online] Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=478vTmTSF9M [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020].

Artsy.net. (2010). Francesco Albano – 12 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy. [online] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artist/francesco-albano [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020].

Bahadur, T. (2017). Going Deeper into Fear, Emptiness, Incapability: The Visceral Sculptures of Francesco Albano. [online] On Art and Aesthetics. Available at:

Going Deeper into Fear, Emptiness, Incapability: The Visceral Sculptures of Francesco Albano
[Accessed 26 Feb. 2020].

Aliza Nisenbaum-Sebastian Arellano

Aliza Nisenbaum was born in Mexico City in 1977. Initially, she began studying psychology in Mexico City before deciding she wanted to go into painting. Aliza moved to Chicago where she got her B.F.A and M.F.A at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her style is greatly influenced by the Mexican Muralist movement and artists like Alice Neel, who painted intensely personal portraits.

‘London Underground: Brixton Station and Victoria Line Staff,’ 2019. (Courtesy of the artist and Art on the Underground, London; Anton Kern Gallery, New York/© Aliza Nisenbaum)

In 2012, while Nisenbaum was living in New York, she was asked by artist Tania Bruguera for help teaching at Immigrant Movement International, a community center for local immigrants. Many of the immigrants were undocumented, and spoke little to no English. She decided to teach them English while also teaching them about art history.

During her time teaching, Aliza became very close to her students. After becoming involved in their lives and hearing stories about their lives, she decided she wanted to paint them.

Aliza Nisenbaum – Las Taliveritas, 2015 courtesy the artist and Mary Mary, Glasgow

Nisenbaum would often paint students in their own homes or invite them into hers. Because her students were often adult women with families, their children and husbands were often painted with them. She also liked to use textile patterns often found in their homes in the paintings.

Aliza paints her portraits from life, and therefore spends hours staring at her subjects. She is very interested in the personal relationships that are formed as she paints. Many conversations are had about her life and her subject’s life. I think the personal relationship she has with her subjects can be seen in her works.

Aliza Nisenbaum, Eva, Juan Carlos, Yael, Christian and Samantha, 2014. Oil on linen, 129.5 x 83.8 cm / 51 x 33 in Courtesy the artist, Mary Mary, and Frieze New York

Aliza Nisenbaum – Veronica, Marissa, and Gustavo, 2013 courtesy the artist and Mary Mary, Glasgow

My Yoga, 2019, Oil on linen, 24 x 22 inches (61 x 55.9 cm)

Nisenbaum sees a lot of her works as political statements. Her paintings help bring light to people who are obliged to live in shadows.

“To pay attention to someone can be a political act.”

A frequent Nisenbaum subject, the young Mexican woman depicted in Marissa’s Room, 2015, is surrounded by her own artworks, her guitar, and a Virgin Mary calendar serving as protection for her family.Photo: Courtesy of the artist / Mary Mary, Glasgow
La Talaverita, Sunday Morning NY Times, 2016, on show at next month’s Whitney Biennial, portrays Marissa and her father reading the news.Photo: Courtesy of the artist / T293 Gallery, Rome / Mary Mary, Glasgow

Sources: https://www.vogue.com/article/aliza-nisenbaum-artist-immigration-political-portraits https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2016/october/26/aliza-nisenbaum-why-i-paint/

Eric Carle – Savanna Pitchford

Eric Carle is an American writer/artist of children’s literature who published many best-selling books around the word in 60 languages. The most famous of his books would be The Very Hungry Caterpillar which sold over 50 million copies.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Born in 1929, Carle comes from a German family that moved to the United States to live a better live till his father was drafted into the German army during World War ll. Living in Germany was very dramatic for him.

© Eric Carle all rights reserved 413-586-2046

He completed his schooling in Germany where he studied graphic art (graduated 1950). Then he returns back to the United States making it his goal to be an artist in New York City.

The New York Times was his first job as a graphic designer. He was living his New York dream till he was drafted into the US army during the Korean War.

Later returning back to his same job to leave it to focus more on his own art. Eventually he published his first book in 1967 called “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”.

Carle made over 70 books independently using his own unique technique which made him very well known.

To create such beautiful art work as Carle you need to use acrylic paint, tissue paper, pencils, glue, crayons, and colored pencils.

He paints acrylic paint on top of the tissue paper, which made his art have more textures. Where he can make a lot of unique patterns.

Carle used a lot of different techniques to make textures and shapes in his artwork.

The themes of his stories/books are drawn from his knowledge and love of nature. He wants his readers to learn something about the world around them with amazing art and wording. He wants the readers to understand their feelings, creative knowledge and growth about the world around you. 

Now at his age of 90 years old, he won many awards for his amazing books and just had an 50 years celebration at The Frist Art Museum of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” .

Work Cited https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eric-Carle / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Carle / https://www.carlemuseum.org/artists/eric-carle / https://fristartmuseum.org/calendar/detail/eric-carles-picture-books

Elliott Hundley- Hollie Wilson

Elliot Hundley is a 45 year  old artist living in Los Angeles. He uses a collage of different pictures, lines, etc. to create a large piece on canvas. Hundley’s work has been exhibited in lots of different galleries in New York and Los Angeles. 

In “Let the House Crash Season I”, I really loved his use of color. He has lots of bright colors and they are mostly analogous. I really like the yarn that is suspended and I think it would be really cool to see this piece in person because of the texture. 

My favorite thing about “Tabloid” is the message it shows. I think it talks about how advertisements make up so much of our world. The colors are extremely bright and I really am attracted to it visually. 

“Secrets” makes me feel like I am looking at an A&W restaurant wall. It is a gigantic collage of colorful photographs. What I really like is that most of the photographs do not have manipulated color. They are in their natural background. 

“Agave” makes you feel like you are looking at an iSpy puzzle. There are so many different objects across the canvas. He constantly uses beautiful bright colors and in this piece he uses a black background to contrast. 

“Lighting’s bride” has a beautiful analogous color scheme. Up close it is a large collage of various objects with colors within the scheme, but when looked at far away, it is a beautiful piece of different pictures of a woman. 

“Plague” is a very interesting piece because of how different it is up close and far away. Up close it is a collage with multiple colors. It seems to be a colorful piece. However, far away it is mostly red. The color of red used has an angry feel to it, making contrast emotionally. 

“There is No Firmament” makes me feel like I am looking at a TGI Friday’s ceiling. There are lots of pop culture references and cds collages onto it. It has beautiful bright colors. 

Let the House Crash Season I Elliott Hundley
Tabloid Elliott Hundley
Secrets Elliot Hundley
There is No Firmament Elliott Hundley
Agave Elliott Hundley
Lightning’s Bride Elliott Hundley
The Plague Elliott Hundley

Artist Talk: Hank Willis Thomas

Artist Talk: Hank Willis Thomas
Image: Baron of the Crossroads, 2012, from the series Wayfarer, © Hank Willis Thomas, in collaboration with Sanford Biggers, Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Aperture Foundation, in collaboration with the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons the New School for Design, is pleased to present an artist talk with Hank Willis Thomas. Appropriation and juxtaposition are two of many strategies with which Thomas orchestrates his interdisciplinary practice. His series Unbranded (2008) uses advertisements lifted from the pages African-American interest magazines; Thomas subtly reworks them, removing key text, logos, and/or products. The skeletal remains betray immediately the subliminal prejudice common throughout consumer culture. Another series, Branded (2011), adopts a commercial vernacular to decry the commodification of African-Americans, both in contemporary sports and in the historical slave trade. A basketball player dunks into a noose, for example, or a Nike swoosh is branded onto a man’s head. Thomas’s images confront our difficult history through the universal legibility of advertising.

Hank Willis Thomas is a photo-conceptual artist working with themes related to identity, history, and popular culture. He received his BFA from New York University and his MFA in photography, along with an MA in visual criticism, from California College of the Arts (CCA), San Francisco. His work has been featured in several publications including 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers (2003), 30 Americans (2008) as well as his monograph Pitch Blackness (Aperture, 2008). He has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and abroad, and his work is in numerous public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art, both in New York, and Brooklyn Museum. Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City.

source: https://aperture.org/event/artist-talk-hank-willis-thomas/

Guggenheim

Brancusi

In gallery space devoted to the permanent collection, the Guggenheim is showcasing its rich holdings of the work of Constantin Brancusi (1876–1957). In the early decades of the twentieth century, Brancusi produced an innovative body of work that altered the trajectory of modern sculpture. During this period, Brancusi lived and worked in Paris, then a thriving artistic center where many modernist tenets were being developed and debated. He became an integral part of these conversations both through his relationships with other artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, and Henri Rousseau, and through his own pioneering work. His aspiration to express the essence of his subjects through simplified forms and his engagement with non–Western European artistic traditions led to new stylistic approaches. In addition, his mode of presentation, which equally emphasized sculpture and base and in which works were shown in direct relation to one another, instead of as independent entities, introduced new ways of thinking about the nature of the art object.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum began collecting Brancusi’s work in-depth in the mid-1950s under the leadership of its second director, James Johnson Sweeney. When Sweeney began his tenure at the museum, the collection was focused on nonobjective painting. Sweeney significantly expanded the scope of the institution’s holdings, bringing in other styles and mediums, particularly sculpture. The Guggenheim’s commitment to Brancusi during these years extended beyond its collecting priorities, and in 1955 the museum held the first major exhibition of the artist’s work.

Guggenheim Collection: Brancusi, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, March 17, 2017–January 3, 2018
Installation view, Guggenheim Collection: Brancusi, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Ongoing. Photo: David Heald

Thannhauser

Justin K. Thannhauser (1892–1976) was the son of art dealer Heinrich Thannhauser (1859–1935), who founded the Moderne Galerie in Munich in 1909. From an early age, Thannhauser worked alongside his father in the flourishing gallery and helped to build an impressive and versatile exhibition program that included the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, the Italian Futurists, and regularly featured contemporary German artists. The Moderne Galerie hosted the premier exhibitions of the New Artists’ Association of Munich (Neue Künstlervereinigung München) and The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), both of which included Vasily Kandinsky, in 1909 and 1911, respectively. Kandinsky later described the gallery’s rooms as “perhaps the most beautiful exhibition spaces in all of Munich.” The Moderne Galerie also mounted one of the first major Pablo Picasso retrospectives in Germany in 1913, thus initiating the close relationship between Justin K. Thannhauser and Picasso that lasted until the artist’s death in 1973.

An ambitious businessman, Thannhauser opened a second gallery in Lucerne in 1919 with his cousin Siegfried Rosengart (1894–1985). Eight years later, the highly successful Galleries Thannhauser—as the Munich and Lucerne branches were collectively called—tested the waters in Berlin with a major special exhibition before permanently relocating its Munich gallery to this thriving art center. The Galleries Thannhauser officially closed in 1937, shortly after Thannhauser and his family immigrated to Paris. Thannhauser eventually settled in New York in 1940 and, together with his second wife, Hilde (1919–91), established himself as a private art dealer.

The Thannhausers’ commitment to promoting artistic progress paralleled the vision of Solomon R. Guggenheim (1861–1949). In appreciation of this shared spirit, and in the memory of his first wife and two sons—who might have continued in the family’s art trade had they not died at tragically young ages—Thannhauser gave a significant portion of his art collection, including over 30 works by Picasso, to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1963. From 1965 until Thannhauser’s death in 1976 (when his collection formally entered the Guggenheim’s holdings), the Thannhauser Collection was on long-term loan to the museum. A bequest of 10 additional works received after Hilde Thannhauser’s death in 1991 enhanced the legacy of this family of important art dealers.

The Thannhauser Collection is organized by Megan Fontanella, Curator, Modern Art and Provenance.

Paintings along the curved wall of the Thannhauser Gallery
Installation view, Thannhauser Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Ongoing. Photo: David Heald

source: https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions

Studio Museum in Harlem: Dozie Kanu

Image result for dozie kanu juelz santana
Dozie Kanu, Juelz Santana, 2019. Found handlebars, steel, spray paint, concrete, 30 × 16 × 22 1/2 in. Courtesy the artist and Salon 94

Dozie Kanu: Function presents Nigerian-American artist Dozie Kanu in his first museum solo exhibition. This exhibition maps out the arc of Kanu’s practice over the last three years, exploring the tensions between form and function, African and African-American, and art and design as embedded in the act of object-making.

The dialogue across materials, objects, and actions here surfaces urgent questions: “What is an art object?,” “How can art function?,” and “What does ‘functional art’ look like?” Responsive to these queries, the artist looks to the notion of “pragmatic sculpture” as a means of blurring boundaries, situating his work at the intersection of fine art and utilitarian design. Kanu places these objects in dialogue within the rigidity of the traditional art historical canon. Ultimately, arguing toward new ways to engage with art objects through touch, sense, and perception.

Dozie Kanu: Function is organized by Legacy Russell, Associate Curator, Exhibitions, with Yelena Keller, Curatorial Assistant, Exhibitions. Special thanks to Curatorial Fellows Makayla Bailey and Jasmine Wilson, and Curatorial Intern Sami Hopkins.

source: https://www.studiomuseum.org/function

Kris Kuksi

Unveiled Obscurity, Mixed Media Assemblage, 2013

Kris Kuksi is an amazing assemblage artist whose highly detailed works carry beautifully dark Gothic overtones. He was born in Springfield Missouri in March of 1973 but later moved to a town near Wichita Kansas. Due to his extremely quiet home environment and support of his grandmother his creativity was allowed to grow into the art you see today. It wasn’t until after he received a master’s degree in painting from Fort Hays State University that he realized it wasn’t his medium of choice. After many hours of hard work and training he moved on to an assemblage style of art.

The Evidence of Tyranny, Mixed Media Assemblage, 2011

His works often hold a deeper meaning with details so small and fine that looking closely is like reading words on a page. You could stare at them for hours and notice something new after every time you blink. He pulls a lot from real historical events and even the Myths and Legends of many different cultures. He has many art pieces that heavily relate to religion partially because of the way he was raised but also because he loved classical sculptures.

Hercules-vs-Diana, Mixed Media Assemblage, 2011

This work has ties to both Greek and Roman Mythology with the Greek hero Hercules on the left and Diana the roman goddess of hunting on the right.

Sanctuary of the Bewildered, Mixed Media Assemblage, 2009

He has several stand out pieces that are less clear on the stories being told and are more like visually stunning architectural masterpieces. These works are a lot of fun because he really seems to let the Gothic aspects of his art flow freely.

A Tribute to the Madness of Beethoven, Mixed Media Assemblage, 2009
Pan Discomforting Psyche, Mixed Media Assemblage, 2009
A Rather Noble Cock, Mixed Media Assemblage, 2009

He also has several that I genuinely have no explanation for.

Sources: https://www.kuksi.com/

Billelis the Best Yet!

I believe 3-D art is all about perspective. Looking at the same piece from different angles really shows you the content and values which make the piece worth looking at. I went through a few different artist’s work to find one that really popped to me. BillElis who hails from the UK is by far my favorite 3-D artist that I have been able to find so far. The way he uses his materials, mostly metal, brings out the darkness of his pieces which are Gothic in style. Although the idea is dark and the setting of the piece is too, you can see so much contrast due to the content that his work is portraying. He has been approached by the video game market because of his illustrative work. His work on Wick is great! Death and Darkness, is what I see when I look at his work and this really intrigues me to look at the shadows for inspiration. 

Billeils has produced some of the best art of the top athletes, musicians for ad companies and magazines in the world. He inspires me because it seems that he dabbles in everything and is a master of creations that not only should intrigue but give you inspiration too. He can engrave, carve hard stone, make an anime in a virtual world which he can blend and create his own beautiful dark style of art. All the different techniques he uses not only takes desire but dedication and will power to complete his ideas in a provocative manner. His contrasts bring darkness to a new light. 

Dale Chihuly

Dale Chihuly was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1941, and while the first time he’d blow glass would be in 1965, he’d truly discover his passion for the craft in 1968 following a trip to Venice where he’d learn its secrets and intricacies. Chihuly is one of, if not the most well known glass artist of the modern era, creating hypnotic pieces heavily inspired by aspects of the natural world, such as plants and ocean life. Over the course of his over forty year career, he’s created dozens upon dozens of pieces and exhibitions that have been seen in museums, galleries, and other organizations all over the world and 32 states, including Cheekwood and the Frist Museum. Though losing sight in his left eye and an injury in his right arm caused by various accidents throughout his career prevents him from taking a more hands on approach in the creative process nowadays, he still remains an active part of his team as “more choreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, more director than actor” in his own words. 

Chihuly is a pioneer to the art form of glass blowing, emphasising the force and power of heat, gravity, and centrifugal force in otherworldly pieces that seem to almost defy the laws of physics at points.

White Pearl Seaform
Silvered Rose Ikebana with Silver Stem and Yellow Flower
Nightfall Macchia
Seaform Installation, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, California
Gibson Chandelier, 2000
Mille Fiori 

Works cited:

https://fristartmuseum.org/calendar/detail/chihuly-at-the-frist

https://www.chihuly.com/