Hand Made Media

The “Van Gogh to Picasso: Impressionist and Modern Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art” is on display at the Seoul Arts Center (Hangaram Art Museum), Seoul, South Korea from December 22, 2006 to March 28, 2007. This exhibition is part of the series of Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) which began in Beijing, China in March 2006, and traveled to Tokyo Japan in September 2006. The Korean leg comprises exhibits at Seoul Art Center to be followed from April 7, 2007 to May 20, 2007 at Seoul Olympic Museum.

It is an opportunity for the Koreans to view selected works of modern European masters from the 19th and 20th century. The masterpieces that include sculpture, paintings and works on paper, are divided into groups: “The Impressionist Epoch”, “Post-Impressionism”, “Early Modernist Sculpture”, and “The Age of Avant-Gardes”.

Some of these finest works include: Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s (French, 1841–1919) Romaine Lacaux (1864); The Red Kerchief: Portrait of Mme. Monet (1868–70); Berthe Morisot’s (French, 1841–1895) Reading (1873); Auguste Rodin’s (French, 1840–1917) Heroic Head of Pierre de Wiessant, One of the Burghers of Calais (1886); Vincent van Gogh’s (Dutch, 1853–1890); Paul Gauguin’s (French, 1848–1903) In the Waves (1889); Paul Cézanne’s (French, 1839–1906); Pablo Picasso’s (Spanish, 1881–1973) Bottle, Glass, and Fork (1911 12); Amedeo Modigliani’s (Italian, 1884–1920) Portrait of a Woman (c. 1917–18); Henri Matisse’s (French, 1869–1954) Festival of Flowers, Nice (1923); Edgar Degas’ (French, 1834-1917) In the Salon; and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s (French, 1864-1901) May Milton.

One of the finer art galleries, Aaron Galleries is located at the Oak Street, Chicago, Illinois. Some of the finest paintings of the 19th and 20th century American paintings and prints can be found here. Artists whose paintings are generally portrayed are Beauford and Joseph Delaney, Dale Nichols, Grant Wood, Hart Benton, Herman Menzel, Louis Lozowick, Martin Lewis, Perle Fine, Reginald Marsh, Rockwell Kent, Thomas Hart Benton,  Werner Drewes, and others. 

Works expected to be found here include portraits, historical landscape paintings (America), still life, modern art, and abstract art. Works of African-American Masters too are exhibited since 2000. An extensive research library on American arts is another feature of their services. Collections include paintings that can be invested in for future gains.

Being members of the Chicago Art Dealers Association (CADA) and the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA), Aaaron Galleries maintains very high professional standards.

Ryan Schneider holds his first solo exhibition in New York City from November 21, 2006 to December 30, 2006. Termed “Today I am a Knife”, the exhibition is presented by Priska C. Juschka Art. Schneider emotes well through his paintings, be it a quiet way of connecting to the subjects or plain affections. Schneider takes paintings as a physical expression of his emotions on canvas. His forms come from thick paints that he gradually develops into figures and patterns that create an illusion of space. 

Schneider’s works are a commentary of his knowledge and experiences, but not biographical in a true sense. They do indicate to his private moments that show intensity and his personal truths.

His source of inspiration though are Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse and Francis Bacon, yet the outcome on canvas are the results of his intuition.

The Joan of Arc exhibition is currently going on at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The extraordinariness of this young French heroine of the medieval times (circa 1412 – 1431) never seizes to touch people’s lives. Over 200 works of art in a wide variety of media is on show at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C. The exhibition depicting one of the most fascinating women of all time will be on view through January 21, 2007.

Also known as Jehanne la Pucelle or Joan the Maid, Joan of Arc has been revered and admired by the French for centuries. What makes this young women’s life so inspiring is the fact how a young illiterate peasant girl went on to become a victorious army commander, and burnt at the stake for her unorthodoxy.

The theme centers around two treasures from Corcoran’s own collection of works done by the renowned French artist and illustrator Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1850 – 1913).  His works include six oil and gold-leaf paintings depicting the life of Joan of Arc and a beautifully illustrated picture book – Jeanne d’Arc (1896).

Joan of Arc can be seen in all her roles as a fighter and true patriot to the humble peasant that she was. The life of this brave woman inspires all as a role model of strength and resilience. The exhibition begins by displaying some very early images and descriptions of the protagonist, which include illustrated manuscripts and rare books drawn from the rare collections of the Library of Congress, Bryn Mawr College, Columbia University and Harvard University. Part of the exhibition also includes facsimiles and translations of the trial transcripts that have survived the ravages of time. These documents reveal the trial that ended in condemning Joan of Arc to death for heresy in 1431. A second document shows a rehabilitation trial held 24 years later turning around the earlier judgment. Most of her life is revealed through the trial transcripts.

The 4th International Art Festival will be held from 2nd November to 15th November at the Old Customs public exhibition center in Chania, Crete, Greece. The exhibition under the patronage of the prefecture of Chania, Omma Center of Contemporary Arts is spread over an area of 4,000 square meters. Considered one of the largest annual art exhibitions in Greece, and the largest in Chania, it exhibits art work in all media including painting, sculpture, mixed media, digital art, photography and Nano-art.

Nano-art is a recent art form that represents the latest technological invention of the 21st century. Nanotechnology features the synthesis and manipulation of matter at sub -100 nanometers level. Cris Orfescu is exhibiting the art form at Chania. He presents the microscopic views of nano-art in the form of high resolution electron microscopic scans created through chemical processing and physical interaction. The monochromatic electron images are created digitally and printed with archival inks on fine art paper or canvas. His creativity thus finds artistic expression different from other at forms. It is different from photography in the sense that it has a 3-D look about it and the images are created by electrons and not photons as is the case in photography.

Leo Asemota’s exhibition “Misfortune’s Wealth” at Estate of the Leo Asemota – EotLA, London, UK, is part of his The Ens Project. The illustrations, drawings and aphorisms represent the loss of inner contact between divinity and human personality because of the substantial growth of society. The exhibition can be viewed until January 20, 2007 at the venue.

The idea of ens germinated in 1994 during the The Great Benin exhibition at the Museum of Mankind in London, and has been there with Asemota ever since. Ens, which in Latin means the essence, started taking shape in 2005. First to come was the project’s insignia – an inscribed circle inside an equilateral triangle. Asemota then assigned a source of his ideas to each angle of the triangle. In Asemota’s own words, “Misfortune’s wealth essentially is reason advanced and sources reconciled to define the inscribed circle”. According to the artist, since the circle contained the essence of his ideas, they should appear in more clarity in form. The circle represented a figurative, metaphoric, and conceptual form of the work.

Leo Asemota’s work focuses on head worship that the Edo people in Benin practiced, the British conquest of the Royal Kingdom of Benin in 1897, and Walter Benjamin’s work named The Artwork in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility. The Igue ritual of head worship performed annually is the supreme rite of the people there, which ensures power and continuity of the Oba Dynasty. The ritual is deeply immersed in the belief that the human body is a sculpture that is animated by the soul. It is the soul that protects and guides the physical head (temporal self).

Asemota’s work consists of drawings in coal and Kaolin on paper except his work The Field of Mortal Activity; Time Memory drawn on an iron sheet. These materials are symbols of historical events. The coal and iron symbolize the might of Britain, as these minerals led to the British Industrial Revolution. Iron for the Edo people stands for god Ogun worshipped by the craftsmen and warriors alike. Kaolin, a ritual chalk, is considered the symbol of purity and harmony. Asemota’s work revolves around these raw materials and the ideology they represent.