Exhibits

exhibits

Modern Times: American Art 1910–1950 April 18—September 3, 2018

The early twentieth century was a time of great social, artistic, and technological change— from jazz and the jitterbug to assembly lines and skylines. In response to the change, artists began to employ a revolutionary language of shapes and colors. This exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art includes the works of Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Jacob Lawrence, and others depicting how they challenged convention and forged bold new styles to fit the times.

Tudors to Windsors: British Royal

Portraits from Holbein to Warhol October 7—February 3, 2019

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is hosting Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits from Holbein to

Patrick Demarchelier,

Princess Diana, 1990, platinum print, Demarchelier Studio.

Warhol. The show will shed new light on changing ideas of monarchy and nationhood in Britain. Features will include portraits of British royalty spanning 500 years, by artists such as Hans Holbein, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Annie Leibovitz and Andy Warhol.

Tudors to Windsors addresses the kings, queens, princes, and princesses who have graced the British crown. The MFAH is the only U.S. venue to host this unprecedented exhibition, part of a major partnership with the National Portrait Gallery in London. Nearly 150 objects—most never before seen outside of England—tell the story of Britain’s monarchy through masterworks of painting, sculpture, and photography.

The exhibit explores four royal

dynasties: the House of Tudor (1485–1603), the House of Stuart (1603–1714), the House of Hanover (1714–1901), and the present-day House of Windsor. Some of the many works on view include portraits of King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, King George I, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana, and Prince William.

John Grade: Middle Fork Ongoing

The Seattle Art Museum is exhibiting John Grade’s large-scale sculpture, Middle Fork. It echoes the contours of a 140-year-old Western Hemlock tree located in the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle. The artist and a cadre of volunteers began by making a full plaster cast of the living tree. They then used this mold to recreate the tree’s form out of thousands of pieces of reclaimed old-growth cedar. Middle Fork was conceived and fabricated at MadArt Studio and made its Seattle debut there in January 2015. The

Middle Fork, 2014–2017, John Grade, American, b. 1970, cedar and waterproof glue, 105 ft. long x 30 ft. diameter, Seattle Art Museum Commission, Photo: Ben Benschneider.

original work was 40-feet long and will more than double in length for its installation in the Brotman Forum at the Seattle Art Museum.

Brody Albert: Strata June 17—October 7, 2018

Brody Albert: Strata presents unseen sites, both intimate and public, throughout California and the communities that inhabit them. Brody Albert, based in Los Angeles, displays three works, expanding beyond the gallery walls of the PMCA Project Room and into the Museum’s lobby and stairwell.

Smog rubbed from the walls of a freeway tunnel, the crushed remains of a fire escape, and accumulated paper waste spun into a nest are the results of unnoticed exchanges between people, environment, and industry. Albert’s sculptural installations examine this type of interplay and the marks that

ArtDiction | 14| July/August 2018

Something on the Eight Ball. Stuart Davis, American, 1892 - 1964 © Estate of Stuart Davis / Licensed by VAGA, New York. In 1954 Stuart Davis explained the title of this kinetic painting in a letter to Henry Clifford, a Philadelphia Museum of Art curator: “’Something on the Eight Ball’ is a switch on the usual phrase ‘behind the eight ball.’ I used it without knowledge of hearing it before in a conversation with some jazz musicians [and] it got a laugh, causing me to remember it.” Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2012.

people leave on their surroundings.

Orosi (2016), conceived in sculpted steel, displays the network of a narrow alley shared between an abandoned freemason temple, a tangerine farm

Brody Albert, Wasp Nest (Mr. Horsepower), 2016. Xerox paper, steel. 66 x 24 x 11 inches. Image courtesy of Jeff McLane.

in Orosi, CA, and the truck drivers who dispense the food. Wasp Nest (Mr. Horsepower) (2016) reflects the labored process of wasps building a structure to draw a parallel with the built and shifting infrastructure of Californian cities. 110 at I-5 (2017) is a life-sized re-creation on the gallery walls and

exhibits

Museum stairwell. While pedestrians rub away smog and soot as they pass under the 110 freeway tunnel, Albert will produce the inverse, presenting the pedestrians’ record of movement in a vinyl mural.

The exhibit is organized by Pasadena Museum of California Art and curated by Sarah Mitchell, PMCA Director of Exhibitions.

The Shape of Speed: Streamline Automobiles and Motorcycles, 1930-1942 June 16—September 16, 2018

The Portland Art Museum has debuted a special exhibition, The Shape of Speed: Streamlined Automobiles and Motorcycles, 1930–1942. Beginning in the 1930s and lasting until the outbreak of the World War II, automotive designers embraced the challenge of styling and building streamlined cars that were fuel-efficient and fast. Designers were influenced by the convergence of aircraft design with the sleek shapes of fast railroad locomotives; advanced highways such as the Autobahns; and events like the 1939 New York City World’s Fair, which showcased futuristic design.

The Shape of Speed presents a select group of rare automobiles and motorcycles that depict how auto designers translated the concept of aerodynamic efficiency into exciting machines that in appeared as if they were moving while at rest.

The Museum will display 17 cars and 2 motorcycles from Europe and the United States. Engineering drawings and period photographs will show some of the aircraft, railroad, ship, and yacht designs that influenced the automakers. Engineers and designers to be featured include Paul Jaray, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Norman Bel Geddes, Raymond Loewy, Harley J. Earl, Hermann Ahrens, Georges Paulin, Joseph Figoni, Dr. Wunibald Kamm, Otto Kuhler, Jean Bugatti, Hans Ledwinka,

Gordon Buehrig, and others.

Some of the automotive marques featured in The Shape of Speed include Mercedes-Benz, who have restored one of the carmaker’s Stromlinienwagens (streamlined cars) from 1938, along with Bugatti, BMW, Alfa Romeo, Voisin, Talbot-Lago, Delahaye, Cord and Chrysler. In addition, The exhibit includes two motorcycles: a radically streamlined Henderson KJ and a BMW

Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery.

concept R7 motorcycle that was developed in the mid-1930s, lost for decades in a missing crate, recovered in 2005, and completely restored.

The Shape of Speed is guest curated by Ken Gross, former director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los

Angeles. Gross previously curated the Museum’s 2011 exhibition The Allure of the Automobile, which enthralled visitors with its lavish presentation of automobiles as kinetic art—a form of rolling sculpture. With this new exhibition, the Museum opens the door to another fascinating exploration of automotive design.

Kenny Scharf: Inner and Outer Space March 19—August 31, 2018

Leila Heller Gallery is presenting the first solo exhibition in Dubai, UAE by Kenny Scharf (b. 1958), installation artist, painter, muralist, and, sculptor. He is best known for his fantastical, large-scale paintings of anthropomorphic animals and imagined creatures. The exhibit features a selection of large-scale works on canvas along with relief sculptures comprised of oil painted televisions and small assemblages of found objects.

Reacting to what he perceives as our ‘increasingly out-of-control situation’, Scharf work reflects his unlimited optimism and his sense of fun but including profound issues beneath the facade. Ecology, the environment, and capitalist excess are his central themes.

Using bright, colorful paintings, murals, drawings, sculptures, prints, and installations, Scharf’s work is often described as playful, optimistic, bubbly, and full of joy. Beneath the colorful and idyllic surface of his paintings and collages, Scharf references the darker issues of the modern world. He categorizes his art as “pop surrealism,” drawing inspiration from the realm of the unconscious, explaining that his own unconscious is full of pop imagery. He cites surrealism and abstract expressionism as his major influences.

ArtDiction | 15 | July/August 2018