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In association with Choque Cultural Gallery in Brazil, the Jonathan LeVine Gallery presents a group exhibition featuring artwork by Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Andrew Brandou, DALEK, Shepard Fairey, AJ Fosik, Camille Rose Garcia, MARS 1, Souther Salazar, SHAG and Jeff Soto. This show is a follow up the 2007 exhibit De São Paulo: A Survey of Brazilian Street Art, which brought eight of São Paulo’s finest Street Artists to Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York. Collaborating with Choque Cultural, the gallery has invited a group of eleven North American artists to present their work to Brazilian audiences in the city of São Paulo, resuming the International exchange of artistic ideas and communication by coming full-circle on South American soil.

For information on Choque Cultural Gallery, location and hours of operation, contact Jonathan LeVine Gallery.

Opening Reception: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008

Jonathan LeVine Gallery
529 W. 20th St., 9E
New York, NY
Telephone: 212-243-3822
Web site: www.jonathanlevinegallery.com

After Nature, 2007
Alkyd enamel and oil on canvas
90 x 72 inches

John Zinsser (b.1961) has drawn the attention of critics, fellow abstract painters, modernists from a spectrum of fields and collectors because of the integrity, originality and sheer beauty of his paintings, and the intellectual vitality of his philosophy of the arts.

Zinsser attended Yale University, where his father, William Zinsser (On Writing Well), taught. At Yale, Zinsser majored in American Studies and the History of Art, while he continued to pursue his interest in painting, developed while he was quite young. Almost immediately after graduating in 1981, he began associating with and, eventually, exhibiting with a group of well-known and successful abstract painters in New York City. He also began writing about the arts for noted arts journals. In 1988, he co-founded The Journal of Contemporary Art, which now functions as an online journal, exclusively. Today, Zinsser lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches and lectures at the New School University.

For their first exhibit of Zinsser’s paintings, JG Contemporary in New York will display works on canvas that the artist created in 2007, which demonstrate how Zinsser has built upon his intellectual exploration of art and his deep understanding of the physical aspects of painting during the past year.

Reception: Thursday, Feb. 7, 6-8 p.m.

A full-color catalogue is available from the gallery.

To read a recent interview with John Zinsser go to Studio International

JG Contemporary
32 E. 67th St.
New York, NY
Telephone: (212) 535-5767
Web site: www.jamesgrahamandsons.com

February 2008 at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia is filled with family-friendly musical activities and performances. Highlights of the scheduled events include the Please Touch Playhouse “Scat Cat’s Junior Jazz Jamboree” and the Jazz Club Stage, where kids can dress up and perform on their own. For a complete listing of concerts and educational programs, visit www.pleasetouchmuseum.org.

Please Touch Museum
210 N 21st St.
Philadelphia, PA
Telephone: (215) 963-0667
Web site: www.pleasetouchmuseum.org

January is “Toys and Play” month, and to celebrate this fun time for children and their families, the Please Touch museum has a display of 25 artworks by Etch-A-Sketch artist Tim George. “Mr. Etch A Sketch,” as George is known to his legions of fans, young and not-so-young, began drawing on the classic, red-edged toy in 1988.

George will be at the museum to greet families and sign copies of his new book, “Looking at Animals with Mr. Etch A Sketch,” on Saturday, January 26, at 10 a.m.

Please Touch Museum
210 N 21st St.
Philadelphia, PA
Telephone: (215) 963-0667
Web site: www.pleasetouchmuseum.org

Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (Autorretrato con collar de espinas y colibrí), 1940
Oil on canvas. 24 5/8 x 18 7/8 inches
Nickolas Muray Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
© 2007 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. Av. Cinco de Mayo No. 2, Col. Centro, Del. Cuauhtémoc 06059, México, D.F.

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s stature as one of the most original, remarkable and soul-stirring artists of the 20th century is confirmed by an upcoming exhibit that examines the full range of her talents.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Kahlo’s birth, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has organized the first major display of her work in the U.S. in nearly fifteen years. Rendered in vivid colors and realistic detail, the more than 40 of Kahlo’s self-portraits, still lifes and portraits date from the beginning of her career in 1926 until her death in 1954. Many of the works come from more than 30 private and institutional collections in the U.S., Mexico, France and Japan, with several of them on view in the U.S. for the first time. Visitors will also see a selection of nearly 100 photographs of Kahlo and her husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, taken by international photographers of the period, including Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Gisele Freund, Tina Modotti and Nickolas Muray, and personal snapshots of the artist with family and friends, for example, André Breton and Leon Trotsky.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA
Telephone: (215) 763-8100
Web site: www.philamuseum.org

The Dead Girl, 1938
Juan Soriano, Mexican
Oil on panel
18 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches (47 x 80 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Clifford, 1947
1947-29-3

Fragile Demon: Juan Soriano in Mexico, 1935–1950, the first exhibition of its kind in a major museum in the US, examines the early work of one of modern Mexico’s most intriguing artists. Although Soriano (1920–2006) played a pivotal role in the development of Mexican painting and sculpture from the 1930s until his recent death, his art is almost unknown outside of Mexico. While recent exhibitions of Soriano’s works have examined his paintings and sculpture from 1950 forward, few have focused on the artist’s paintings from the 1930s and 1940s. These works—portraits of friends and family, images of children, still-lifes, and landscapes—offer a distinctive variation on the themes and artistic styles that preoccupied Soriano’s contemporaries. When Soriano moved to Mexico City in 1935, he began visual and personal dialogues with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, among others. In his own works, Soriano responded to the works of these prominent Mexican artists, while he drew upon his deep interest in popular and indigenous arts, as well as Cubism, German Expressionism, Fauvism, and Surrealism, to create a personal style of romantic realism.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA
Telephone: (215) 763-8100
Web site: www.philamuseum.org

The Five Gods of the Five Sciences
Sipe Rignga
Tibet; 18th century; Mineral pigments on cloth; 14 x 55 1/8 in.
Rubin Museum of Art
C2006.66.53

Bon: The Magic Word is the first art exhibit to illuminate the Bon, a religious and cultural group living in the Himalayas and Central Asia and a group almost unknown in the Western world. Bon culture and religion pre-date the northern advance of Buddhism onto the Tibetan Plateau in the 7th century. Despite Buddhism’s growth in popularity since the 11th century, the Bon religion and culture have survived and thrived to this day. This eye-opening exhibition highlights a belief in the spirits of place and natural formations—mountains, sky, rivers, stones, and lakes—springing from Bon that runs through the edifices of religions in the region. It will also begin to train the eye to see distinctive Bon features in the arts of the Himalayas and surrounding regions.

Rubin Museum of Art
150 W. 17th St. (off of Seventh Avenue)
New York, NY
Telephone: (212) 620-5000
Web site: www.rmanyc.org

The Great Tangka at Drepung
Photo by Eveline Yang; courtesy of the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library (www.thdl.org)

This exhibition presents the largest objects from the Rubin Museum’s collection and explores the reasons why artists living in the Himalayas produced the even larger tangkas (Tibetan scroll paintings and textiles) that are majestically draped over mountainsides and in valleys. In Himalayan cultures, these large works are the focus of community celebrations and accrue merit for all who participate.

Rubin Museum of Art
150 W. 17th St. (off of Seventh Avenue)
New York, NY
Telephone: (212) 620-5000
Web site: www.rmanyc.org

SEMINOLE EVERGLADES
from EARL CUNNINGHAM’S AMERICA
Earl Cunningham (1893 - 1977)
St. Augustine, Florida. c. 1945
Oil on fiberboard
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of the Honorable Marilyn L. Mennello and Mr. Michael A. Mennello, 1997.162

Organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, “Earl Cunningham’s America” examines the paintings of landscape artist Earl Cunningham (1893-1977), who worked in the tradition of memory painting. This retrospective, which is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, presents Cunningham as a folk modernist who used the flat space and brilliant color common to folk art to create sophisticated compositions with complex meanings about the nature of American life. The exhibition features 50 of the more than 400 canvases Cunningham painted during his life and places his work in the context of the folk art revival that brought Edward Hicks, Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses, Horace Pippin and other folk masters to national attention.

Cunningham’s imaginary landscapes are filled with whimsical surprises: Pink flamingos dot the shoreline of the Maine coast, New England cottages sit at the edge of Florida swamps, Viking ships float in harbors with schooners and Seminole Indians wear feathered headdresses. In his make-believe world, Cunningham offered nostalgic views of the past based on his own appreciation of a life without modern encumbrances. His fascination with the past dovetailed in the 1920s and 1930s with a national revival of interest in vernacular culture and American folk art.

American Folk Art Museum
Lincoln Square Branch
2 Lincoln Square
(Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets)
New York, NY
Telephone:(212) 265-1040
Web site: www.folkartmuseum.org

Dr. Whirlwind, Cayuse Tribe, ca. 1905
Photo by Lee Moorhouse.
From the Division of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Library System.

Two upcoming exhibits (January 26–June 8, 2008) at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington in Washington State highlight the arts and culture of the Plateau Indians.

Peoples of the Plateau: The Indian Photographs of Lee Moorhouse, 1898-1915 displays historic photos by Lee Moorhouse that serve as a visual record of Native life in the interior Northwest as it transitioned from frontier life to the modern era. This photography exhibit was organized by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

This Place Called Home represents the best of the Burke’s eastern Washington collections, including beadwork, cradle boards, baskets and blankets. A notable feature of the show is a series of in-gallery artist demonstrations and video interviews with tribal elders discussing their family heirlooms and ancestors.

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
Telephone: (206) 543-5590
Web site: www.washington.edu/burkemuseum