Flurrying Exhibits Around The Globe

Every month museums around the globe have fabulous art exhibits; from modern art, to paintings, to history and relics from an iconic artist’s past. To bring in the new year I’ve chosen some fantastic current exhibits from some of my favorite museums around the world.

The Louvre in Paris, holds magnificent exhibits every month. The beauty of the Louvre is that it acts as an ancient backdrop for any new and ever-changing exhibit. This month’s exhibit by Joseph Kosuth, “Neither Appearance nor Illusion”, is a bi-polar, yet visually pleasing work of art. Written along the ramparts and old walls of the Louvre’s medieval moat, are glowing French sentences in neon-tubing. This collision of a mysteriously ancient subterranean space and the brightly modern words of a renowned artist are beautifully displayed in this inimical exhibit. Joseph Kosuth, a major figure in the contemporary international art scene, offers the Louvre and its audience a dense and illustrious piece of art. Kosuth’s art draws a search for meaning, thus the idea or concept becomes his defining component in his works of art. He uses words often in his art, and highlights a connection between words and things, language and representation. { Exhibit from 10-21-09 to 6-21-10 }

Sailing over to London’s Tate Modern, an extremely impressive Museum of Modern Art, is a wonderful display of popular culture’s collision with modern art. “POP LIFE: Art in a Material World”, is an exhibit that brings forward artists from the 1980s onward who have embraced pop culture and the mass media to build their own “brands”. Featuring artists such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murukami, and more, this exhibit will seduce you with its challenging and unique nature. This blockbuster exhibit profiles the the birth, development, and BOOM of pop art in commercial culture. { Exhibit from 10-21-09 to 1-17-09 }

[Above: Warhol @ POP LIFE]

[Above: Murakami himself, infront of his work @ POP LIFE]

[Above: Jeff Koon's seductive sculpture]

[Above: Hering's Pop Shop replication with Visitor Stand]

Escaping from modernist artists and contemporary exhibits, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, transports you through a man’s history with a series of letters. “Van Gogh’s Letters: The Artist Speaks”, is an exhibit housing more than 120 letters next to the paintings in which he was writing about. These documents have never been shown to the public due to their fragility and sensitivity to light. This exhibit shows a different side of Van Gogh and  his world that he created through his imagination. Each letter is so unique, with an artistic sketch that corresponds with the final painting. After 15 years of research, the museum has finally put together this magnificent exhibit delving into the life of one of the most ground-breaking artists in history. { Exhibit from 10-9-09 to 1-3-10 }

Traveling to Tokyo to The National Museum of Modern Art, a South-African artist by the name of William Kentridge allows us to explore “What We See and What We Know”. Starting with his signature ‘drawings in motion’ in the late 1980s, Kentridge created an image and style of his own. This was a laborious process of photographing charcoal and pastel drawings with a motion-picture camera, allowing the drawings to ‘move’. As he continuously changed drawings, and tried to erase, little lines were left behind during the animation process. These blurring marks contribute to his expression that ‘could be described as the accumulation of time itself ‘. { Exhibit 1-2-10 to 2-14-10 }

An eery yet transfixing exhibit in Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria, is Bill Viola’s “Ocean Without a Shore”. This exhibition explores the threshold between life and death, or as Viola says, “the presence of dead in our lives.”  The artistic representations bring attention to humans in states of transformation or renewal. In this installation, three video screens show images of the dead manifesting and attempting to re-enter our world. The digital effects are enmeshed with a physical property of cascading water in front of the screen. Viola is a ground-breaking artist who is known for his central themes of human consciousness and experience: birth, death, love, and emotion. { Exhibit from 12-1-09 to 1-31-10 }

At the beautiful MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York City, is the vibrant “Compass in Hand” exhibit by the Judith Rothschild Foundation. With a selection of more than 300 works focusing on different abstraction patterns, representation, and figuration, this exhibit brings together historical works from various artists. Focusing on diverse artists of the 20th century, this exhibit brings light to contemporary drawing and artistic tendencies today. { Exhibit from 4-22-09 to 1-4-10}

[Above: Painting by Amelie Von Wulffen]

[Above: "Nine Disasters" by Kelley Walker]

[Above: "Nova Popularna" by Mackenzie/Olowska]

‘When we artists put a painting on the wall at an exhibition, we bare our souls…At that time, everyone becomes a critic. ” (Sidney Hermel)

xx Isabella