William Klein's Never-Before-Seen Fashion Photos Exposed in New Book

Artist William Klein, who arrived in Rome in 1956 and wandered around the city with film director Federico Fellini, poet Pier Paolo Pasolini, novelist Alberto Moravia, and other avant-garde Italian writers and artists, masterfully photographed images of the city and the fashionable men and women who inhabited Rome. Klein's visual displays were published in an a book that featured the artist's observations and descriptions (via extended captions) as well as quotes and statements about Rome by some of the world's most famous writers.

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Rome book's 1959 release, the Aperture Foundation and Contrasto are collaborating to publish a revised version. The new edition includes two volumes of many never-before-seen fashion photos that Klein had taken while in Rome and text updated by the artist. The book introduces society's newest generation of photography lovers to Klein's daring and experimental work (which, during the 1950s and 60s, shocked the art world) and today still captivates viewers and inspires creative thinking.

To read the ArtDaily article associated with this post, click here.

"Six Decades" of Kazuo Shiraga at McCaffrey Fine Art

McCaffrey Fine Art is currently displaying Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga's first ever solo show in the US. The exhibition, titled "Six Decades," shows paintings by the distinguished artist who uses the style of "foot painting" in his work.

A style often associated with artists who cannot use their hands (or whose hands have been amputated or otherwise destroyed), Shiraga says he first experimented with this method in order to go beyond (the already complex) style of Abstract Expressionism. He has used foot art since the 1950s (hence the title of the exhibition).

The avant-garde artist sought inspiration from Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Yves Klein and Jackson Pollock during the 50s - but developed his own unique methods of placing large sheets of paper on the floor, then sliding, spinning, and swirling his feet into heaps of boldly colored oil paint and letting his feet and mind create masterful paintings.

Although the artist's work has been included in various museums' surveys of Japanese Art throughout the United States in the past few decades, he has remained largely unknown in the American Art World until now. The current exhibition at McCaffrey Fine Art also accompanies the first in-depth publication on Shiraga's work in English.



To read more about the artist, his influences, and past exhibitions, click here.

Alejandro Corujeira's New York Debut

Internationally acclaimed Argentine painter, Alejandro Corujeira, will debut his first New York show at Marlborough Gallery. The artist, who now lives in Madrid, creates abstract works that mix curvy lines, subdued colors, and layers of transparency. His paintings radiate a calming - almost trance like - effect on those who are drawn to the soothing nature of his creations.

The artist's use of earth tones and pale blue and green hues gives many of Corujeira's paintings in his new exhibit a unique essence, which is precisely what the artist strives for. As he states in a recent article from Art Daily,

“In this painting ["El comienzo" or The Beginning ... ] there is a sinuous plane, organic in nature, which is left suspended over the surface; with the colored lines, energies of tinted light, causing it to palpitate permanently in a respiratory rhythm.” "Melodías inventadas" (Invented Melodies) ... is invested with a similar vibrating energy. Here graphite circles move like cells over the surface of the painting, seemingly attempting to settle upon pale red and green lines and producing, in the artist’s words, a continual movement like an audible impression.

Check out Corujeira's first NY solo show - which promises to be a welcoming and calming display - from November 19th until December 19th.

Above Images ( "Álbum de los días" and "El comenzio," respectively) courtesy of Marlborough New York

Glenn Barr's First Solo Show in Seven Years: Old Style/ New Style/ Creative Mix

Artist Glenn Barr, who worked on Nickelodeon's "Ren and Stimpy Show" in the mid-1990s and was one of two artists from Detroit's 1990s underground art scene to make it big, will be presenting his first local show in seven years. Barr is most known for his surrealist and noir-styled paintings and prints, but along with his re-emergence comes the added style of lighter, more realistic works.

As mentioned in an article from the Detroit News:

"When I started out, my work was irreverent, campy, erotic, alluring and somewhat dangerous in theme," Barr says, as if that's all safely in the past. But even a cursory look at his new stuff suggests the continuing vitality of those themes...

...By contrast, Barr's recent, realistic works spring from the mythic realm of vintage advertisements and noir paperbacks -- and more recently the folk art decorating the sides of Detroit beauty salons.

It's this move into realism that tickles Tom Thewes, who carried Barr's work at Detroit's late C-Pop Gallery until it closed earlier this year. In particular, Thewes points to "Evening," a tension-filled work in which a well-dressed man helps a woman into her fur coat.
"It's beautiful and in the vein of an old 1950s illustration," Thewes says, noting that Barr collects old illustrations by the masters. "There was a whole story there that didn't need all kinds of crazy weird creatures. I loved it."

Barr does continue to use his darker creativity to produce the quirky noir works that everyone associates him with, and his approach of combining elements from his old and new styles create an innovative mix of art worth seeing.

Exhibition Details:

Start Date/ Time:

October 28, 2009 at 6:00pm

End Date/ Time:

November 27, 2009 at 9:00pm

Location:

323East Gallery
323 E. Fourth St
Royal Oak, MI

Tel: 248-246-9544

For the little ones

I previously wrote about the Lascaux cave paintings on this blog, so imagine my delight when I came across this precious children's book over the weekend. First Painter by Dawn Sirett tells a fantastically fictional tale of how the first cave paintings were created. I know that it's well, a little more "youth-geared" than most of my recommendations, but it's never too early to create an art lover!

America through the eyes of its first painters

An interesting new book was published this year that examines the first years of America through the portrait artists that documented the great politicians of the time. The Painter's Chair, by Hugh Howard, chronicles George Washington's relationship with these artists.

When George Washington was born, the New World had virtually no artists. Over the course of his life and career, a cultural transformation would occur. Virtually everyone regarded Washington as America's indispensable man, and the early painters and sculptors were no exception. Hugh Howard brings to life the founding fathers of American painting, and the elusive Washington himself, through their evolving portraits. We meet Charles Willson Peale, the comrade-in-arms; John Trumbull, the aristocrat; Benjamin West, the mentor; and Gilbert Stuart, the brilliant wastrel and most gifted painter of his day.

Howard's narrative traces Washington's interaction with these and other artists, while offering a fresh and intimate portrait of the first president. The Painter's Chair is an engaging narrative of how America's first painters toiled to create an art worthy of the new republic, and of the hero whom they turned into an icon.

Dennis Hopper and his new billboard paintings

From NYMag:

Before his self-directed performance in 1969's Easy Rider made him the Dennis Hopper you know, he was but a promising young photographer documenting the sixties in all its cinematic glory. On display at Shafrazi through October 24 is his new show, "Sign of the Times," a collection of Hopper's pre-'67 photos of Warhol, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, and other twentieth-century art-world luminaries, along with a dozen of his never-before-seen "billboard paintings." Vulture spoke with Hopper this week about the show, his career, and a job opening at the Vatican.

click here to read the interview