STUDIO-ONLINE

Theo Jansen, Animaris Percipiere Primus, 2005. Photo: Kevin Kennefick

The surprising works displayed in this exhibit include meticulously crafted animals that move on their own, healing machines that exude beneficial energy, love-filled performances and statues that honor past and present deities. With their deeply-held personal truths, the “believers,” the artists who dare to believe in order to create, courageously defy skepticism, irony and, often, reason.

In their works, the artists contemplate some of the most fundamental questions that have long captivated philosophers, scientists and spiritualists, from the nature of matter, the possibility of immortality and the elements of identity, to the dynamics of human interaction, the limits of physical capacity and the power of the human mind.

Among the Believers are Bas Jan Aders, the Icelandic Love Corporation (ILC), Yoshua Okón and Fritz Haeg, CarianaCarianne, Sister Mary Corita, Erkki Kurenniemi, Jonathan Meese and former hobo Emery Blagdon, who created the healing machines.

Selections from The Believers will be on view through December 2007.

MASS MoCA
87 Marshall Street
Building 4, Second floor
North Adams, MA
Telephone: (413) 662-2111
Web site: http://www.massmoca.org

Clothing, accessories and textiles from the collection of the Charleston Museum are on view in a year-long exhibit, Clothes to Dye For, which examines color symbolism and color theory. The show unravels the history of dyeing and illuminates the role of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and the importance of indigo to the Lowcountry; the Spanish introduction to Europe of tiny South American cochineal insects full of red dye; and dangerous concoctions such as Scheeles’s green, a lightfast dye that is extremely poisonous to dyer and wearer.

Sections of the exhibit are devoted to specific colors and have sparked a series of special color-related events. For more information, visit: www.charlestonmuseum.org

Charleston Museum
360 Meeting St.
Charleston, SC
Telephone: (843) 722-2996
Web site: www.charlestonmuseum.org

Robe à la française
Yellow silk taffeta brocade
Circa 1735, France or Italy
The Museum at FIT, 2006.56.2, Museum purchase

The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology has a charming exhibit of clothing designed by influential fashion designers from the past and present who have presented their personal conceptions of “luxury” in haute couture. Shown in the museum’s Fashion and Textile History Gallery, the display comprises 150 examples from the 18th century through the present, and includes garments and accessories designed by the “big” names in fashion history: Worth, Poiret, Chanel, Dior, Balenciaga, Lavin, Hermès, Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent among them. Younger houses and designers include Rodarte and Yeohlee.

The Museum at FIT
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street
New York, NY 10001
Telephone: (212) 217-5800
www.fitnyc.edu/museum

The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin has a full calendar of programs planned for the museum’s Summer of Masterworks. Two exhibits feature prominently in the line-up: A Century of Grace: 19th-Century Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York (May 18-Aug. 5); and Master Drawings from the Yale University of Art Gallery (June 1-Aug. 12).

Programs and events organized for the exhibits include:

Art Fix: Drawing
(Thursdays, June 21, July 5 and July 19, at 6 p.m.)
Participants explore works of art in the exhibit Master Drawings from the Yale University of Art and techniques used to create them. Suppliles will be provided.

An Academic Century: An Introduction to 19th-Century Art (Sundays, June 24, July 1 and July 8, at 2 p.m.)
This lecture series focuses on painting, architecture, sculpture and printmaking. Call (512) 471-9205 to register.

Blanton Book Club (Thursday, July 12, at 6 p.m.)
This month’s book club selection is The Greek Myths by Robert Graves. The discussion will address the imagery in A Century of Grace.

The Nude and the Lewd: Alexandre Cabanel and the Birth of Venus (Sunday, July 15, at 2 p.m.)

Free public lecture by Lisa Small, associate curator of the
Dahesh Museum, New York, who will recount the story of Cabanel’s famous painting, which caused a stir at the 1863 Paris Salon.

Blanton Museum of Art
The University of Texas at Austin
MLK at Congress
Austin, TX 78701
Telephone: (512-471-7324
Web site: www.blantommuseum.org

Sally Agee, San Francisco, 2003

Artists’ sketchbooks offer a birds-eye view of the creative imagination, uncensored and unarranged for public viewing. These visual diaries of the events and experiences that have impressed particular women artists from the 18th century to today contain fascinating biographical details. The show includes 21 works by 14 artists (Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg, Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Irene Rice Pereira among them) from the U.S., Argentina and Spain.

National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 200005
Telephone: (800) 222-7272
Web site: www.nmwa.org

Takeshi Murata, Monster Movie, 2005. Courtesy of the artist.

American artist Takeshi Murata (b.1974) produces films through manipulation of digital animation integrating hand-built dimensions. The artist’s short films incorporate psychedelia, abstraction, intense color and hypnotic sound tracks.

Termed “electronic painting,” Murata’s technique consists of taking found-object images from feature films and digitally reworking them into short, hallucinogenic films. The thousands of individually rendered alterations he makes can take the artist up to a year to complete. Viewers of these works are immersed in continually shifting images that are unsettling and have been described as “visual quicksand.”

This show offers a selection of Murata’s short films, including Monster Movie from 2005, featuring scenes the artist sampled from a video of the B-movie Caveman (1981); and Untitled (Pink Dot) from 2006, referencing early avant-garde films and one of the latest additions to the Hirshhorn’s collection.

The Black Box Theater series was developed to exhibit recent films and videos made by emerging and established international artists. Films run continuously during regular museum hours.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
National Mall
Independence Avenue at Seventh St. SW
Washington, D.C. 20013
Telephone: (202) 633-1000
Web site: www.hirshhorn.si.edu

Francis Bacon (English, 1909-1992). Man with Dog, 1954. Oil on canvas, 60 x 46″ (152.4 x 116.8 cm.). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1955. ©2006 Estate of Francis Bacon/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London.

Anglo-Irish painter Bacon (1909-1992) is known for the raw, disturbing imagery depicted in his works. During the 1950s, Bacon’s personal life was unsettled, and the artist frequently moved from place to place. But at this time, he was also particularly prolific and created many remarkable paintings.

This exhibit is the first to focus on this pivotal point in the artist’s career and was organized by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, with funding from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Charitable Trust.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery
1285 Elmwood Ave.
Buffalo, NY 14222
Telephone: (716) 882-8700
Web site: www.albrightknox.org

Mola panel with raptor and snake
Early to mid 20th century
T86.0041 Textile Museum of Canada
Gift of Dr. Peter Herschman

From the effects of a ban on traditional dress in Panama to a peaceful demonstration staged by shawl weavers in Kashmir, cloth has been at the center of major political and social controversy. The capacity of cloth and the cloth arts to spark events ranging from arrests to full-scale revolution is explored through this historical journey around the globe.

Events planned in conjunction with the exhibit include:

Two-Day Block Printing Workshop, Saturday, July 14, and Sunday, July 15; 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Mola Making Workshop (10 a.m.-2 p.m.) and demonstration (2:15-5 p.m.), Saturday, June 16 *

Industrial Revolution(s) Lecture Series

Fents, Thrums, Hangings: English Weavers and the Criminal Law presented by Dr. Douglas Hay of York University, Sept. 18, 6:30 p.m.

300,000 Little Girls in Lancashire: Making Cotton in Industrializing England presented by Dr.
Jeanette Neeson of York University, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 6:30 p.m.

Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Ave.
Toronto, Ontario
Telephone: (416) 599-5321
Web site: www.textilemuseum.ca

* Mola is the word for blouse in Kuna Indian culture. Mola making is a relatively recent craft developed by the Kuna Indian women of Panama involving reverse appliqué.

Samuel Namunjdja - Owen Yalandja - John Mawurndjul
Bark Painting, ‘06 - Yawkyawk, ‘06 - Lorrkon, ‘06

Scheduled for fall 2007, RAARK-London, a major exhibition of more than 100 works of art from Arnhem Land, will take place on London’s South Bank and feature some of Australia’s leading contemporary artists.

Josh Lilley Fine Art in association with Maningrida Arts and Culture (a community-based art center responsible for the cultural assets of the Aboriginal people in the Maningrida region), will show new work from Western Arnhem Land Australia, including painting and sculpture by internationally acclaimed artist John Mawurndjul and works by Samuel Namunjdja and Owen Yalandja.

The exhibit confronts preconceptions of Aboriginal art as purely ethnographic or anthropological by drawing attention to the vitality and universal themes in the art and its relevance to an international audience in London, an international arts center.

Highlights of the exhibit are: multiple sculptural installations, video and a selection of more than 30 bark paintings ranging from 60 cm. to 2.5 m. in height. An extensive full-colour catalogue with essays by contemporary art critics and Australian academics will be published in conjunction.

Private viewing: Thursday, Sept. 20, 6–9 p.m.

Bargehouse Gallery
South Bank
London, England

For more information, contact Josh Lilley Fine Art at (44) 207 243 6286 (www.joshlilleyfineart.com).

Wysing Arts Centre has planned a sneak preview of its £1.3 million state-of-the-art new purpose-built studios in the rural village of Bourn. Open to the general public and arts and design professionals, students and architects, the preview will take place during the 11th annual National Architecture Week 2007 (June 15–24). This year’s theme is “How Green is our Space?,” focusing on critical issues concerning sustainability and the environment and encouraging people to think creatively about the spaces around them.

Currently near completion, the studio block was designed by London architects Hawkins\Brown and built by ISG Jackson. It will be available for professional artists from across the UK and Europe in July 2007. Natural light, under-floor heating, a support staff, New Media equipment, an on-site gallery and an international residency program are among the studio-block’s attractions. A new reception block and improved gallery facilities, costing an additional £450,000, will be launched to the public in November 2007.

Free guided tours available on Saturday, June 23, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Wysing Arts Centre
Fox Road,Bourn
Cambridge, England
Telephone: (44) 01954 718 881
Web site: www.wysingartscentre.org