2009-01-28

U.S.A. - Boston-Massachusetts - Splendor and Elegance


"Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection" features aristocratic European furniture and decorative arts, drawings, and paintings from the mid-sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Organized chronologically, stylistically, and thematically, the exhibition includes important examples of English, French, German, and Flemish furniture, ceramics, gilt bronzes, clocks, andirons, and hardstone vases. Highlights include a spectacular Flemish tortoiseshell cabinet-on-stand dating to the mid-seventeenth century; important early blue-and-white Delft wares; one of the earliest long-case clocks by the French royal cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle; a rare pair of rococo mahogany vase stands inspired by the designs of the English cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale; a painted secretary desk by the Paris cabinetmaker René Dubois; major examples of porcelain produced at the Chelsea, Meissen, and Sèvres factories in the eighteenth century; and a highly important collection of works executed in bronze, including a cartel clock attributed to Charles Cressent, a mantel clock by renowned bronze-maker Pierre-Philippe Thomire, and a pediment clock attributed to Francois Rémond. Approximately 75 drawings and paintings provide a broader cultural context for the furniture and decorative objects. Some of the themes that unify the drawings are studies of the human figure, literary illustrations (fables of La Fontaine), religious and mythological subjects, architectural fantasy and ruins, and design drawings for the decorative arts. The exhibition includes a few choice paintings by François Boucher, Joos de Momper, Jacques Linard, and Jean Pillement, and a generous selection of outstanding drawings by, among many others, Gericault, Guercino, Fragonard, Greuze, Oudry, Piazzetta, Rubens, and G.D. Tiepolo.



2009-01-23

U.S.A. - St. Louis-Missouri - Bruce Nauman


Bruce Nauman: Dead Shot Dan January 23 – April 19, 2009

Taking its title from a character in a Buster Keaton movie, Dead Shot Dan explores the element of humor embedded in the work of the highly influential American artist Bruce Nauman. Both Nauman and Keaton share a comic take on the tragic: they tell tales of violent acts tinged with Sisyphean traps, bodily contortions, linguistic slip-ups, and misunderstandings. Like Keaton, Nauman’s sense of humor comes with a sour after-taste, and this selection of neons, drawings, prints, photographs, and videos makes us laugh and cringe. While Nauman, who will represent the U.S. in the 2009 Venice Biennale, works with a wide range of themes, processes, and ideas, this exhibition underlines his sense of humor that is deadpan, painful, and relentlessly tongue-in-cheek.
Bruce Nauman (b. 1941, Fort Wayne, Indiana) studied mathematics, physics, and studio art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and then pursued an MFA at the University of California, Davis. In 1966 Nauman had his first solo show at the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles and in 1973, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art co-organized his first museum survey. A large-scale retrospective exhibition in 1994 was organized by the Walker Art Center and the Hirschhorn Museum, and traveled to The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Reina Sofia in Madrid. In the summer of 2009, Nauman will represent the United States in the Venice Biennale.

Website : Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis