Congratulations to our dear friend and colleague Uwe Wittwer for landing a spot on the top 50 "most important Swiss artists" list published in today's Bilanz magazine.
Uwe Wittwer is represented by Haunch of Venison Zurich, Cohan and Leslie New York and Nolan Judin Berlin.
Uwe Wittwer: «Shepherds after Poussin», 2007, Watercolour, 179.5 x 304.5 cm
Some of the most beautiful plates from the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory are made by Hella Jongerius.
Designer Hella Jongerius (1963) has become known for the special way she fuses industry and craft, high and low tech, tradition and the contemporary.
After graduating Eindhoven Design Academy in 1993 she started her own design company, Jongeriuslab, through which she produces her own projects and projects for clients such as Maharam (New York), Royal Tichelaar Makkum (The Netherlands), Vitra (Basel) and IKEA (Sweden).
Her work has been shown at museums and galleries such as the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum (New York), MoMA (New York), the Design Museum (London), Galerie KREO (Paris) and Moss gallery (New York).
There is a whole series of animal plates - absolutely outstanding, check the fine pattern the bunny has on the belly and in his ears!
PS Jonsberg, Date: 2005, Commissioned by: IKEA, Sweden
Colored Vases, Date: 2003
Repeat, Date: 2002, Commissioned by: Maharam, New York
Soft Urn, Date: 1994
It's interesting how new passions can start out of almost nothing. I wasn't interested in ceramics or porcelain to long ago. And then a visit at linck ceramics atelier got me started. Our linck collection quickly grew from a single vase to a nice little collection.
Last year we got a beautiful vase made by Christine-Ann Richards as a present.
Last month in New York we went to Moss. The whole shop is filled with nice things. But most impressive was their porcelain and ceramic selection.
They had lot's of beautiful things from the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory.
I'd love to have one of these!
Hella Jongerius plates
Atlas service Service Zauberwald
Service by Konstantin Cricic
Global Service by Barnaby Barford
Read more on the Nymphenburg Parcelain Manufactory on wikipedia
April 4 - May 3, 2008
The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 6pm
www.cohanandleslie.com
138 Tenth Avenue
New York, New York 10011
«... the US debut exhibition of Swiss artist Uwe Wittwer, including large scale watercolors, paintings and unique inkjet prints.
While the works are figurative, Wittwer is more accurately a painter of images. His source material is chosen from the overwhelming sea of digital representations - images of images - found on the internet. Wittwer’s dominant interests are old master paintings and vernacular photographs of families and soldiers.
The show is centered on two massive watercolors based on 17th Century paintings by Nicolas Poussin. Their size and strength upend the typical prejudice towards watercolors as small and delicate. Across the gallery a group of 5 medium sized watercolors are based on photographs from family albums dating from the 1940s-60s, which suggest subtle narratives when seen as a whole.
The back gallery will feature large scale, black and white inkjet prints based on photographs by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Although entirely digital from beginning to end they are undeniably painterly, and rely on formal conventions similar to those of the watercolors. Usually rendered in negative, the watercolors and inkjet prints share a sinister sense of confronting memories or a history that may be difficult to face.
Wittwer denies the conventional hierarchy of media in favor of his engagement with images. Similarly, through the filter of the internet a painting by Poussin enjoys no hierarchy over an anonymous snapshot. The compositions found in a soldier’s photograph are as valid as the classical structure of the Old Masters. Both are representations of history with blurred, and possibly irrelevant, distinctions between ‘reality’ and fabrication.
Uwe Wittwer was born in 1954 and is based in Zurich. His work has recently been the focus of solo exhibitions and publications by Haunch of Venison Zurich, the Ludwigforum Aachen, and the Kunstmuseum Solothurn.»
We've been touring New York's Art Fairs and Galleries for a bit and here's the roundup of what caught our eye.
Coming into the Armory Show, one of the first things that caught our attention was the UK artist Greyson Perry's cast iron sculpture titled «Our Father», displayed alongside his fantastic vases at Victoria Miro's stand. Wicked, witty, naughty and beautiful work, hard to top.
A brilliant large-scale boat painting by Thoralf Knobloch (Wilkinson Gallery), a great smaller painting by Neil Tait (Acme) for a reasonable $ 4'500 and great work by Sam Windett (The Approach).
Galerie Schöttle had an impressive little stand with the great UK artist Andrew Palmer and another favourite of ours, Slawomir Elsner.
Rumanian gallery Plan B has some really good work by Adrian Ghenie, very good work was to be seen by Tony Swain (at the Herald St booth) and a rather strange but impressive fantasy/sci-fi drawing by Duncan Marquiss at Dicksmith Gallery. An "elderly" beauty we found in a excellent painting by Pieter Doig, a version of the Ooty Boathouse Study (depicted below).
At the Volta Show we stopped by our friends at Hamish Morrison Gallery with the solo booth by Ronald de Bloeme, and on to the Cosar booth with another favourite: Martin Klimas.
In Chelsea we went to see the great Katy Moran at Andrea Rosen Gallery. Her small oil paintings are still very, very good. It will be interesting to see, where Moran's work will go, as it is a very painterly position without apparent overall concept.
Also really beautiful, is Michael Schmidt's photography at Mitchell-Innes, Nash. Some deep work there.
All in all, a very rewarding tour.
This picture is taken from a very cool slideshow, called "The icemen cometh", I saw at the observer art website.
They asked top artists - from Rachel Whiteread to Will Alsop - to reinvent the snowman...
My favorite one is from the scottish artist David Shrigley, he is such multi talent.
see the whole slide show here
David Shrigley: 'A few years ago I went to St Moritz in Switzerland. I decided to build a non-conformist snowman. When the art collector who owned the hotel saw it he became very excited that I had created an artwork in the grounds of his hotel. I had to explain that it was not an artwork - it was just a snowman. It’s an easy mistake to make'
Photograph: David Shrigley
On this very grey day I discovered that windowzoo is not only freeing birds anymore, sharks, dinosaurs and Angelfish are now swimming through the city.
The pictures below are taken at the new Bollwerk stairs.
This is streetart at it's best.
Go check out the windowzoo project.
Technorati Tags: streetart
Not only has the London district of Islington given Banksy’s street works official protection, they are now having their staff conserve the pieces. The following article was published in The Evening Standard, seems ironic, while all effort is made to prevent graffiti and street art in most the world over, London makes even more effort to ensure its kept, theres a whole debate and much more to this, but read the article and make your own opinion.
COUNCIL ADDS ITS OWN TOUCH TO A BANKSY
By Jack Lefley, Evening Standard
Works by maverick street artist Banksy are being restored by council workers to protect them from graffiti vandals. One piece in Islington has been repaired five times by workmen who paint over the offending “tags”. A worker was spotted retouching the artist’s “Tate Gallery” piece in Martineau Road, near Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.
Banksy’s work sells for six-figure sums to Hollywood stars such as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But some of his pieces that appear in public places without permission have been condemned as vandalism. Tower Hamlets council has threatened to remove any work by the artist that appears on its patch without permission.
But it seems that Islington makes a clear distinction between his creations and that of the graffiti vandals ” tagging” over his work. One onlooker thought the workmen were about to remove the piece in Islington on Monday afternoon and stopped to remonstrate with them. Vicky Bamforth, 40, of Hackney, said: “I was driving past and got out because I thought they were about to try to get rid of it. I asked them what they were doing and they were very cagey. But eventually they admitted that it kept getting vandalised and they were repairing it.”
She added: “A lot of people in the area really like Banksy’s work and it’s a bit worrying the council thinks anyone with a paintbrush is qualified to restore pieces worth thousands. “At what point does it stop being a Banksy and start being a collaboration with Islington council?”
Islington today defended its policy to clean up and repair the artist’s work. It insisted it was spending taxpayers’ money on the operation in response to residents’ demands. Deputy leader and executive member for environment, Lucy Watt, said: “We take a very hard line on graffiti and remove it within 24 hours when it is reported to us. However, residents have been telling us Banksy is in a class of his own, his art sells for thousands, and they don’t want us to remove the work. Because of the quality and renown of Banksy’s work in Islington many people want to see it preserved.”
Since Brangelina and Co are buying BANKSY works there's a big discussion weather or not he is an artist and graffiti is art or not. What ever people say I think he's just great.
See more of his work here banksy.co.uk
