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Laisvyde Salciute, Dove with Rose, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 58” x 40”

Nudes. Smiling is the first US exhibit by Lithuanian artist Laisvyde Salciute.

“Nudes. Smiling” is printmaker Laisvydė Šalčiūtė’s diversion into painting.  Naked women arranged in sexual poses are smiling among colourful background with animals, sometimes alone, sometimes as couples. This is similar to how the models painted by Rembrandt, Rubens or Manet laid or sat - demonstrating their bodies for the viewer’s pleasure, longing for love. The color in Šalčiūtė’s nudes are especially bright and courageously combined with stars, swans and hearts.

The paintings have exaggerated smiles that sharpen one’s ears and joyful combination of colors.  The light layer of paint highlights lines so that wrinkles on female’s bodies become as if incised with a knife. Comfortable poses are distorted in such a way that bodies become overstretched and the faces, arms, legs and bellies become mutilated. Fingers are especially nervous (sometimes more than ten), they look like wrenched by arthritis, although the women appear young.  Thus the smile is self-ironical here, denying all superficial happinesses offered by women’s magazines, advertisement and beauticians. These are the women, according to the author, “torn by inner contradictions”, in other words, contradictions to oneself, self-sacrifice, exhaustion - the woman’s permanent daily experience.

The artist was a grant recipient from The Frans Masereel Graphic Center, Kasterlee /Belgium/ in 2005 and 2003. Also, in 2004-06 ,1997, 1993 she received grants from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and in 1994 a grant from Austrian Ministry of Culture.

In 2007 Laisvyde was awarded by the Associations of Lithuanian Art Creators as The Best Artist of the Year. Her works are in the The National Lithuanian Art Museum in Vilnius, at The National M.K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas /Lithuania/, also in Skovde University, Sweden and Vilnius University Graphic Cabinet.

Laisvyde has built a career as a printmaker and exhibits regularly all over Europe. She has also participated in group exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Fair in Vienna, The United Nations in Geneva, Vilnius Contemporary Art Centre, The International Print Triennials in Germany, Sweden, Poland, Japan, France, Netherlands and The Graphic Art Festival Evora  in Portugal.

Laisvyde Salciute grew up in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. In 1989 she is graduated from Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts.

Opening receptions: Saturday September 6, 6-9 PM and Sunday September 7, 2-8 PM.

Something Unexpected Art Gallery
152 Main Street
Nyack, NY 10960
Phone: 845-358-1196 / 845-709-1756
Web: www.something-unexpected.com

NYC artist, Marco Maggi (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1957) presents his solo exhibition at Galeria Nara Roesler, the new installation Hipo Real, the unfolding of the series The Turner Collection, developed since 2005. In this series, Maggi, who has participated at the 25th São Paulo International Biennial, and at the 3rd and 4th editions of the Mercosul Biennial, once again exposes the confrontation between the excessive velocity present in contemporary society and human temporality.

“Slow down, demands Maggi. The game he proposes is filled with great secrets and revealing strategies. It is necessary to look with time”, writes art critic Adriano Pedrosa about the exhibition. He makes us remember how subjective is the experience of looking and interpreting, explains one of the several international articles about his work. According to Pedrosa, slowing down is anti-modern, anti-progressive, anti-capitalist, anit-urban and anti-globalization. “As a contemporary Faust, the artist seems to tell us: ‘Stop, an instant that passes’”.

His wonderful, precise and delicate drawings that, according to Maggi, have the paper as purpose and time and focus as preferred means, are made with the most prosaic materials: incision on piles of paper or on acrylic, grafitte on paper or on the passe partout of the frame itself, dry point on aluminum framed on slides, amongst others.

The installation Hipo Real is composed of 15 acrylic boxes spread around the floor and of 8 paper panels distributed on the walls, on which Maggi appropriates reproductions of artists’ works such as Warhol, Klein, Fontana, Richter and of important names of the Latin American art scene, such as Jesus Soto, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Mira Schendel and Lygia Pape.

“Hipo Real is the opposite of the exageration, of hyper-realisam, it is a second underlying reality, a surface unnoticeable to be read without the hope to be informed”, says Maggi. According to Adriano Pedrosa, he flips the image for the viewer, adds a pile of paper to it and then makes cuts on its surface, “creating small reliefs on paper, revealing here and there, filaments and fragments of hidden masterpieces”.

Six more drawings complete the exhibition, in which the reference to velocity is further underlined in Slow Foil, Slow Shadow, and Sliding (remitting to slides, whose frames are used in the works), besides the installation with aluminum foil packages.

Gleria Nara Roesler
Avenida Europa 655
01449-001
São Paulo, Brasil
Phone: 55 (11) 3063 2344
Website: www.nararoesler.com.br

FAVIÁN VERGARA: “Saints and Impossible Saints” - Photography and Paintings

¿Quién puede ser llamado Santo?

Pero ¿de quiénes hablamos cuando nos referimos a santos, testigos y mártires? En sentido general, son ejemplos extraordinarios de vida cristiana, de fe y confianza en Dios. Y, sin embargo, se trata al mismo tiempo de personas comunes, cercanas a nosotros, que nos recuerdan que la santidad es para todo aquél que se vuelve Dios…

Los santos son hombres o mujeres distinguidos en las diversas tradiciones religiosas por sus supuestas relaciones particulares con las divinidades y la consiguiente superioridad espiritual o moral respecto al resto de los seres humanos.

En español se utiliza la palabra santa cuando se trata de una mujer (por ejemplo, santa Ana de Nazareth). Cuando es un hombre se utiliza siempre el apócope san, con las excepciones de santo Tomé, santo Toribio, santo Tomás y santo Domingo, en las que se emplea el término completo.

Galería Óscar Román
Julio Verne 14.
Col. Polanco,
Mexico, D.F.
Phone: (+52) 5280 0436
Website: www.galeriaoscarroman.com.mx/

ALBERTO BAÑUELOS: “Between Earth and Heaven” - Sculpture

La exposición “Entre la tierra y el Cielo” del artista burgalés Alberto Bañuelos-Fournier presenta tres núcleos del trabajo desarrollado por este escultor en la última década. El eje principal a la obra en piedra o mármol, escultura en blanco y negro compuesta por una treintena de piezas pertenecientes a las distintas series que realiza Bañuelos y entre las que destacan la serio “del mar adentro”, obras de gran estilización y sensualidad en busca de la esencia metafísica; “del espacio”, un acercamiento escultórico al desarrollo melódico de la forma; “abrir o cerrar” , piedras en vertical que conectan totémicamente la tierra y el cielo; “los paisajes”, tratamientos epidérmicos del mar y de la tierra, o varios “torso” que representan el tránsito y el acercamiento entre unas series y otras.

Galería Óscar Román
Julio Verne 14.
Col. Polanco,
Mexico, D.F.
Phone: (+52) 5280 0436
Website: www.galeriaoscarroman.com.mx/

My Own Worst Enemy, 2007, cyanotype and gum photo 15″ x 15″
(All images © Diana Teeter. Reproduced courtesy of Diana Teeter.)

Interviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

For many artists, New York City is a symbol. As Paris once had prior to the close of World War II, New York has held, for more than half a century, the key to a dream. It is a dream that, perhaps more than any other commonality, binds artists through the ages. In whatever time and place, makers of art hope to communicate their vision; impact a large audience; appeal to critics, curators and patrons; and, of course, earn a place in art history. While other centers (Paris, London, Tokyo, Prague, Stockholm and St. Petersburg, for example) function as thriving artistic centers, none has the magnetic power of New York. While there always remains the possibility of being a big fish in a smaller pond, the chance to become a name in New York City draws art students and recent graduates to New York in droves. Despite the prevalence of the Internet, which has made self-promotion more accessible and inexpensive, living and working in New York is itself a dream. (more…)

RESEARCH: The Royal Scottish Academy Research Residencies in Focus

This exhibition presents the work of 10 artists who were awarded RSA Residencies in 2007: Katie Orton, Eoghann MacColl, Katie Houston, Nick Law, Kirsten McAlister, Nichola Martin, Paulina Sandberg, Colin Parker, Jim Harold and Susan Brind. Highlighting the process of development as well as teasing out questions about the need for developmental support and the strength and inter-connectivity of the artistic network in Scotland.

Developmental support of artists towards the creation of new work is a primary aim of the RSA. Opportunities are currently given to some 35+ artists per annum to research and develop new work and to present new exhibitions at galleries across Scotland. Some opportunities are for international travel, such as the RSA John Kinross Scholarships to Florence and The RSA Alastair Salvesen Art Scholarship and Barns-Graham Travel Awards. Other Scholarships are for the development of new work in Scotland such as the RSA Gillies Awards and others are in collaboration with partners such as The Scottish Arts Council, The Friends of the RSA, Sabhal Mor Ostaig, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and Peacock Visual Arts to name a few.

A selection of the works on show will be some of the most recent acquisitions to the Collection of the RSA. This collection, which dates back some 200 years, is of primary importance to the history of art in Scotland and is an ever-developing body of historic and contemporary works, letters and objects.

This exhibition is part of the Edinburgh Art Festival 2008.

RSA Finlay Room, Royal Scottish Academy.
Admission FREE

Royal Scottish Academy
The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Phone: 0131 225 6671
Website: www.royalscottishacademy.org.uk

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

A gifted storyteller and chef, American author Marlena de Blasi’s has enchanted readers with her tales of life in Tuscany (A Thousand Days in Tuscany), Venice (A Thousand Days in Venice) and the town of Orvieto (The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria). (more…)

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

Antiquarian book dealers Nancy and Lawrence Goldstone can narrate their life together with suspenseful tales centering on books sought, pursued and won. This couples’ passion for the old and the elusive may be typical of ardent rare book lovers, but their gift for expressing it places them among the best popular non-fiction writers. Together, the Goldstones have published accounts of their adventures in book collecting: Warmly Inscribed: The New England Forger and Other Book Tales (2001), Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore (1999) and Travels in the Book World (1997); as well as two volumes of medieval history: Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World (2002) and The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World (2005). (more…)

(Atria Books, 2005; paper Washington Square Press, 2007)

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

In July 2008, author Elizabeth Hickey’s second novel, The Wayward Muse (Atria, 2007), is set for a paperback release. This event marks an auspicious time for readers unfamiliar with Hickey’s delightfully inventive first novel, The Painted Kiss (Atria, 2005; paperback, Washington Square Press, 2007), to seek out a copy. (more…)

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

Dominika Dery’s account of growing up in Czechoslovakia following the brief flickering of hope known as the “Prague Spring” (a period of political liberalization beginning in January 1968, led by Alexander Dubček) and subsequent reassertion of Soviet authority (or “normalization”) marks her as one of the rare authors capable of conjuring magic from memories. A witness to unrelenting frustrations experienced by her dissident parents (as well as those who towed the line in exchange for a very fragile safety), Dominika prays to the “little god” who protects her family from informers in every corner of their hometown, Černošice, near Prague. Whether it is this god, her parents’ stubborn refusal or Dominika’s own rose-colored glasses that save the family from poverty, prison and despair, their triumph over the system ranks with victories achieved by Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones. (more…)