Wednesday, August 16, 2017

SelgasCano inaugurates their pavillon in Cognac



Pavillon Martell de SelgasCano, José Selgas and Lucía Cano, architects, June 30th 2017 - June 30th 2018. Steel, Onduline, 786 PVC cushions, wood, 1340 sqm, 31 sections of 2.40m wide each. © Iwan Baan.



5:38 pm /
The First Art Newspaper on the Net Established in 1996PortugalWednesday, August 16, 2017


SelgasCano inaugurates their pavillon in Cognac
Pavillon Martell de SelgasCano, José Selgas and Lucía Cano, architects, June 30th 2017 - June 30th 2018. Steel, Onduline, 786 PVC cushions, wood, 1340 sqm, 31 sections of 2.40m wide each. © Iwan Baan.


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COGNAC.- The site-specific commission of the Fondation d’entreprise Martell, the Pavillon Martell de SelgasCano, is a new, multifaceted architectural project created by Spanish architects SelgasCano and intended to completely fill the vast paved courtyard situated behind the Foundation during the first phase of work.

After the installation Par nature by Vincent Lamouroux, the Pavillon Martell de SelgasCano, conceived this time for the exterior of the building, brings a new architectural and international dimension to the Foundation.

This pavilion is comprised of modules constructed from hi-tech materials, which will house specific activities prefiguring the Foundation’s future schedule of events.

True to their aesthetic of transparency and openness to the outside world, SelgasCano constructed the pavilion from a metal framework covered by a translucent material developed by French brand Onduline. Strong and watertight, the material is permeated by a soft, changing light which creates intriguing iridescent effects. The rainbow reflections thus created are ideally suited to the architects’ aesthetics. This large pavilion, composed of flexible and organic shapes, is in harmony with environment, the architects defending the idea that "nature must prevail over architecture". The Pavilion also illustrates the transversality of technologies, uses and materials, which is a major focus for future projects developed by the Foundation.

Designed to host visitors and events, the Pavillon Martell de SelgasCano brings together a diverse programme centred on activities and themes that prefigure the Fondation d’entreprise Martell’s programming. Inflatable seats installed in the structure, attached by straps, will allow visitors to sit, lean, or stretch out in the context of workshops, concerts, presentations, conferences, markets, games, moments of relaxation, wanderings, etc. From summer 2017, visitors will be able to enjoy creation and performance-based experiences with invited designers including Atelier W110 and 71bis, and artistic partners such as the Abbaye aux Dames.


Louis Vuitton Beijing presents exhibition of works by Gerhard



Gerhard Richter. 4900 FARBEN (DETAIL). 2007. 4 plates, each 339.5 x 339.5 cm (Version VII). Enamel paint on Dibond. Courtesy Fondation Louis Vuitton. © Gerhard Richter.


5:34 pm /
The First Art Newspaper on the Net Established in 1996PortugalWednesday, August 16, 2017


Espace Louis Vuitton Beijing presents exhibition of works by Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter, STRIP (921-2), 2011. Digital print on paper mounted between aluminium and perspex, 200 x 440 cm. © Gerhard Richter. © Fondation Louis Vuitton/Martin Argyroglo.


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BEIJING.- On the occasion of its opening, the Espace Louis Vuitton Beijing is presenting an unprecedented exhibition dedicated to German artist Gerhard Richter. This presentation has been produced in the framework of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s “Hors-les-murs” program, showcasing previously unseen holdings of its collection at the Espaces Culturels Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice and Beijing, thus carrying out the Fondation’s intent to mount international projects and make them accessible to a broader public.

Since the early 1960s, Richter has created a paradoxical body of work that sits somewhere between figurative and abstract art. Classically trained as a painter, throughout his oeuvre Richter has maintained a lifelong fascination with the power of the image and painting’s long, uneasy relationship with photography. His early works depict enlarged black-and-white photographs, often from newspapers or his family albums, painted using only a range of greys. Richter blurs the depicted subjects, deviating from traditional figurative painting, in order to distinguish painting from photography. He believes that whilst either medium may claim to reflect or express reality truthfully, either ultimately suggests only a partial, or incomplete view of a subject; offering a far less objective meaning than originally assumed. Working alongside but never fully embracing the late 20th century art movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptualism, Richter has consistently absorbed many of their ideas whilst remaining sceptical of their grand artistic and philosophical ideologies. This is evidenced through the artist’s remarkably varied body of work, including photography-based portraits, landscape and still-life paintings, gestural and monochrome abstractions, and colour chart grid paintings, where themes of chance, realism and abstraction are prominent.

In 2008, the National Art Museum of China presented for the first time the work of Richter with a series of paintings from 1963 to 2007. Today, the Espace Louis Vuitton Beijing invites the public to continue the discovery of this internationally recognized artist. Richter is an iconic artist of the Fondation Louis Vuitton Collection, which holds a number of his very significant works. A whole room was devoted to Richter’s work at the inauguration of the building in 2014. It was thus obvious to show a version never before exposed—Version VII—of Richter’s kaleidoscopic work, 4900 Colors (2007) in this new venue of Beijing. Composed of 196 panels, each consisting of 25 coloured squares that can be arranged in 11 core configurations, this work pursues the artist’s early investigation of colour field paintings which he began creating in 1966 by replicating, in large scale, industrial colour charts produced by paint manufacturers. It epitomizes Richter’s practice, and his constant quest to ultimately “desubjectivise” painting. In this regard, it seemed important to show a work emblematic of the artist’s oeuvre in painting, which is the privileged medium of Western tradition.

Also part of the Fondation’s Collection, Strip (920-1), Strip (921-2) and Strip (921-5) (2011) are presented to further enhance the artist’s interest in the relationship between painting and photography, these works being in fact digital prints of augmented photographs taken of a previous squeegee painting created by the artist in 1990.

Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden, Germany in 1932. He now lives and works in Cologne. Classically trained as a painter, his vast oeuvre consists of a paradoxical body of work that sits somewhere between figurative and abstract art. Richter has represented his country at the Venice Biennale in 1972 and was included in (d)OCUMENTA, Kassel, in 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992 and 1997. Solo exhibitions of Richter’s work have been organized by major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (1989), Tate Gallery in London (1991), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (1994), Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (1997), Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (2002), Museum of Modern Art in New York (2002), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (2003), Kunst Museum in Bonn (2004), National Museum of China in Beijing (2008), and National Portrait Gallery in London (2009).


Bacon, Richter Tangled Up in Phillips ‘Jet Fighter’ Crash

Art Is Comic: A light response to the terrorist attacks in Brussels



Installation view.


11:51 am /
The First Art Newspaper on the Net Established in 1996PortugalWednesday, August 16, 2017


Art Is Comic: A light response to the terrorist attacks in Brussels
Installation view.


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BRUSSELS.- The MIMA’s third exhibition brings together Brecht Vandenbroucke, Mon Colonel & Spit, Brecht Evens, HuskMitNavn, Jean Jullien and Joan Cornellà. They champion a cosmopolitan idea of society by depicting human comedy through figurative works. Their influence across all brands of social media is at times colossal. On show from 23 June to 31 December 2017.

Art Is Comic
The MIMA opened on the day after the terrorist attacks in Brussels, a time of sadness and uncertainty. That is when the idea for this exhibition originated. How to respond to rampant anxiety and escalating secterianism? Humour!

Let us continue to laugh without allowing ourselves to get trapped in a moralising straitjacket. "Soyons désinvoltes, n'ayons l'air de rien" [let’s be flippant, carefree] said a song from the 1990s. This is the state of mind that inspired the exhibition’s curators’ artist selection. Each artist is unique, coming from very varied backgrounds but all of them use humour (in very different ways) in their work.

Dark humour, forced humour, satirical humour… this emotion, peculiar to man, has physical and social virtues. As education or as a call to action, it is capable of strengthening or breaking the social order. At the same time it is now even a direct target for the detractors of our cosmopolitan society. As such, it has become an effective barometer of our degree of freedom.

On the fringe of museums and galleries, social networks have become the world’s biggest exhibition spaces. They are redefining our tastes and culture. When popularity rhymes with talent on the social networks, young artists have an impact on our society never attained in the past. For instance, Jean Jullien has a community on Instagram three times larger than Jeff Koons, a world star of museums and art collections. With 4,500,000 followers on Facebook, Joan Cornellà has a greater following than the Louvre and the MoMA combined. The effect of these artists' work on a globalised world reveal the evolution of our cultural references.

The choice of artists reflects the cross-sectioning approach towards culture favoured by the MIMA. Gathered in one venue, the aesthetics and the statements shared by the artists involved overstep the boundaries of their various disparate artistic fields, amongst which feature comic art, fine art and illustration.

At a time when artists share their work on social networks, different creative fields now operate on a far more level playing field.

Brecht Vandenbroucke for example did not have to choose between the status of illustrator and visual artist: he is both at once. His work remains coherent when creating an illustration for the New York Times or a painting for the MIMA.

If the humour of “Art Is Comic” hits home with you, you will feel an antidepressant effect immediately. If moreover you laugh during the visit, your abdominal muscles will be strengthened. You can then conclude that the exhibition is excellent for your health, and we would be delighted.