Don’t forget to stop by the Old Hotel Art Galley, located at 33 East Larch Street, this weekend during Othello’s Centennial celebration. The structure, built in 1912, housed workers on the Milwaukee rail lines.
“A lot of the people here probably know the history of the hotel, but it is important to note we are almost 100 years old,” Sally Laufer, manager, Old hotel and Art Gallery, said. “It’s the only railroad associated structure left in Othello and the surrounding areas.”
The hotel also housed locals and the occasional travelers who ventured to town.
“It was the thriving place to be,” Laufer said. “The depot was located just across the street.”
In 1895, President Grover Cleveland awarded a patent to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company to build the hotel on the land it currently sits on. Ownership of the property exchanged hands five times over the next 11 years. In 1906, a man who went by the name of Sherman bought the site and adjoining land for seven cents and acre and sold it to the Spokane and St. Paul Land Company for $12 an acre.
Ten months later, the Western Townsite Company purchased the property and transferred it to the Milwaukee Land Company to use for a railroad right of way. In 1909, the Milwaukee Railroad was established in Othello and its tracks defined the western edge of Othello townsite.*
Events happening at the hotel during the centennial weekend include a free art class in the new children’s art center building for children and adults from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., an antique car club will line the parking lot and perimeter of the building with old cars, the Old Time Fiddlers will appear from 1 to 2 p.m. and the Andy Sulzman band will perform throughout the weekend.
The Old Hotel Cafe will also be serving samples of authentic railroad chili.
“We’ll give everyone a little taste …. Sort of an appetizer when they come in to eat,” Laufer said. “Linda Boothman and I will be cooking it. We got the recipe from a fellow who made railroad chili. He called it Ken’s authentic railroad chili. People would come from everywhere to eat it.”
People who come to the Old Hotel and Art Gallery will also be able to see the new organic garden recently planted.
“Master Gardeners Terri Rice and Linda Crossier did a marvelous job,” Laufer said.
The Old Hotel and Art Galley is open to the public, but is a not-for-profit business, so it depends on commerce conducted by those who visit.
“We can also rent out the art center for reunions or birthday parties and get togethers,” Laufer said.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Image of Paris art thief captured on CCTV "like cubist painting"
'L'olivier près de l'Estaque' by Georges Braque was also taken Photo: Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
But they are so poor that they resemble a ‘cubist painting’ and are unlikely to be able to identify him.
The problem with what one investigator described as ‘faulty CCTV’ is the latest in a catalogue of embarrassment for the city’s Museum of Modern Art, which underwent a pounds 15 million security refit just four years ago.
The problems included an alarm system which had been broken for almost two months and three ‘dozing’ guards who ‘saw nothing’.
With the alarm’s array of sirens and sensors out of action, the intruder was able to slip into the museum on Thursday morning and calmly remove a Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani and Leger in just under 15 minutes.
Now it has emerged that he stared into at least one of the internal closed circuit cameras for ‘a few seconds’.
‘It’s a terrible image,’ said the investigator, ‘It looks just like a poor cubist painting — disjointed and strange and with no overall meaning.
‘We’re trying to piece it together slowly but it is almost certain that we will not be able to identify the man from it.’
The investigator also revealed that the thief had expert knowledge of the Museum, picking out three of its 20 galleries after breaking in through the East Wing.
After taking four of the paintings, including the Picasso, from two, he walked to another to pick up the Modigliani. All of the works were removed from their frames and then rolled up into a single bundle.
‘We’re trying to find finger prints or even DNA samples on what he left behind,’ said the source.
Christophe Girard, deputy mayor of Paris, confirmed that the cameras were working but at some point ‘went opaque’.
An unnamed colleague of the deputy mayor, meanwhile, said that none of the works were insured.
“To put it bluntly — the town council will have to foot the bill,” he said.
Paris City Hall, which is run by the Socialist Party, was officially the manager of the permanent exhibition of 20th Century modern art from which the paintings were stolen.
They were: Pigeon with Green Peas by Pablo Picasso (1912); Pastoral by Henri Matisse (1905); The Olive Tree near Estaque by Georges Braque (1906); The Woman with the Fan by Amedeo Modigliani (1919); and Still Life with Chandeliers by Fernand Leger (1922).
In 2006 the museum reopened after what was supposed to have been a ‘state-of-the-art refit’ , which included the fitting of the Spie alarm system.
However, it had been broken for almost two months on the morning of the raid because of a missing part.
Both city hall and Spie are carrying out internal investigations, as police seek the raider responsible for the crime.
Confirming an ‘internal administrative enquiry’, Paris mayor Bernard Delanoe said ‘all have questions to answer.’
Nobody at either City Hall or the museum would make an official comment about the vexed issue of insurance.
Viscount Charles Dupplin, of Hiscox insurance, said he thought the criminals involved were ‘almost certainly enthusiastic amateurs’ who had decided to launch the raid after ‘getting excited’ about recent high prices for Picassos and other works.
America’s FBI estimates the stolen art market at being worth more than pounds 5 billion. The Art Loss Register lists more than 170,000 pieces of stolen and missing pieces.
Picasso is the world’s most stolen artist due to his prolific output and the value of his works. The Art Loss Register lists some 550 missing Picassos.
NK art exhibition opens in Vienna
|
Russian Dagestan village defies odds with ancient art
Kubachi elder Gadzhiomar Izabakarov, 79, shows off his life-long collection of engraved silverware in his mini-museum at his home in Kubachi. Villagers in Kubachi, whose population is a mere 2,300, boast that every man, woman and child has mastered the ancient tradition of delicate silverwork, first brought to the region by Persian traders almost two millennia ago.
KUBACHI, Russia - The cacophony of hammered silver reverberates through the sole school of this tiny village nestled in the lush and craggy Caucasus mountains of Russia's deeply turbulent Muslim region of Dagestan.
Villagers in Kubachi, whose population is a mere 2,300, boast that every man, woman and child has mastered the ancient tradition of delicate silverwork, first brought to the region by Persian traders almost two millennia ago.
Teacher Kultum Kutsulova, clad in a flowing white hijab decorated with gold paisley teardrops she has embroidered, carefully watches over students etching elaborate, swirled flowers into silver and copper goblets and earrings.
"We are a blacksmiths' village and we have it in our blood. Every child must know the work of their parents," she told Reuters in Russian, before switching back to her native Kubachi, a Caucasian dialect only spoken by the villagers.
Perched 2,000 metres (6,560 ft) in the Caucasus overlooking steep mist-covered valleys and ramshackle farms, Kubachi is 90 km (56 miles) south of Makhachkala, the Caspian Sea capital of Dagestan, a Russian region home to over 40 ethnicities.
An Islamist insurgency is raging in Russia's North Caucasus region, particularly in Dagestan, Ingushetia and neighbouring Chechnya, site of two separatist wars with Moscow since the mid-1990s. Twin suicide bomb attacks on the Moscow metro in March, which killed 40, turned the global spotlight on the North Caucasus. Authorities blamed the attacks on women from Dagestan.
In this turbulent trio, militants fuelled by poverty and the ideology of global jihad stage near-daily attacks, and many want to carve out a separate sharia state.
"Even though this republic is suffering from so many problems, we have kept our culture," Kutsulova said.
Kubachi has retained its language and traditions: while men almost exclusively make and engrave silverware, women embroider hijabs and veils for their weddings, which often take place when they are just out of school.
Sixteen-year-old Indira Ammalaimiyeva, whose round gold earrings poke out from under her long black hair, said she wanted to follow her ancestors by learning the craft properly.
"I get married this summer and I want to look the same as my grandmother did at her wedding," she said as fellow classmates chipped away in their weekly two-hour Kubachi art class.
A rarity in Soviet times, the village was granted permission by the Kremlin to teach the traditional art form 40 years ago in the state-run school.
While under Communism the Kubachi etched Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin on their silver and copper jugs, they have now returned to their pre-revolutionary heritage styles of peacocks, flowers, and embedded gems in layered petals. Sporting a shaggy white ram's wool hat, Kubachi elder Gadzhiomar Izabakrov, 79, shows off his life-long collection of engraved silverware in his mini-museum he keeps beside his living room.
"We're not just people who make special artistic treasures, we are hard-working people who believe in observing tradition."
Villagers in Kubachi, whose population is a mere 2,300, boast that every man, woman and child has mastered the ancient tradition of delicate silverwork, first brought to the region by Persian traders almost two millennia ago.
Teacher Kultum Kutsulova, clad in a flowing white hijab decorated with gold paisley teardrops she has embroidered, carefully watches over students etching elaborate, swirled flowers into silver and copper goblets and earrings.
"We are a blacksmiths' village and we have it in our blood. Every child must know the work of their parents," she told Reuters in Russian, before switching back to her native Kubachi, a Caucasian dialect only spoken by the villagers.
Perched 2,000 metres (6,560 ft) in the Caucasus overlooking steep mist-covered valleys and ramshackle farms, Kubachi is 90 km (56 miles) south of Makhachkala, the Caspian Sea capital of Dagestan, a Russian region home to over 40 ethnicities.
An Islamist insurgency is raging in Russia's North Caucasus region, particularly in Dagestan, Ingushetia and neighbouring Chechnya, site of two separatist wars with Moscow since the mid-1990s. Twin suicide bomb attacks on the Moscow metro in March, which killed 40, turned the global spotlight on the North Caucasus. Authorities blamed the attacks on women from Dagestan.
In this turbulent trio, militants fuelled by poverty and the ideology of global jihad stage near-daily attacks, and many want to carve out a separate sharia state.
"Even though this republic is suffering from so many problems, we have kept our culture," Kutsulova said.
Kubachi has retained its language and traditions: while men almost exclusively make and engrave silverware, women embroider hijabs and veils for their weddings, which often take place when they are just out of school.
Sixteen-year-old Indira Ammalaimiyeva, whose round gold earrings poke out from under her long black hair, said she wanted to follow her ancestors by learning the craft properly.
"I get married this summer and I want to look the same as my grandmother did at her wedding," she said as fellow classmates chipped away in their weekly two-hour Kubachi art class.
A rarity in Soviet times, the village was granted permission by the Kremlin to teach the traditional art form 40 years ago in the state-run school.
While under Communism the Kubachi etched Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin on their silver and copper jugs, they have now returned to their pre-revolutionary heritage styles of peacocks, flowers, and embedded gems in layered petals. Sporting a shaggy white ram's wool hat, Kubachi elder Gadzhiomar Izabakrov, 79, shows off his life-long collection of engraved silverware in his mini-museum he keeps beside his living room.
"We're not just people who make special artistic treasures, we are hard-working people who believe in observing tradition."
Aboriginal director's portrait wins art prize
Sydney artist Craig Ruddy, left, poses with filmmaker Warwick Thornton and his portrait of the director, which has won the Archibald People's Choice Prize. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images) A large-scale portrait of Aboriginal writer and filmmaker Warwick Thornton is the people's choice pick for Australia's Archibald Prize for portraiture.
Sydney artist Craig Ruddy's painting The Prince of Darkness was named winner of the Archibald People's Choice Prize on Thursday. More than 23,000 people cast votes in this year's contest.
"The greatest thing for an artist is to evoke feeling and emotion in the viewer," said Ruddy, who said he was inspired by Thornton's cinematic exploration of dark topics, including Australia's treatment of its Aboriginal population.
Thornton, who was honoured with the Caméra d'Or prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for his feature Samson and Delilah, was also on hand in Sydney to celebrate Ruddy's win.
"It's kind of a nice thing to just sit there," he said of posing for the painter, also a past Archibald winner.
"You'd hear this beautiful sweeping. And these really sporadic, chaotic scratches and that.… It was amazing to listen to someone paint."
Ruddy, who receives $2,500 Australian (about $2,100) in prize money, previously won both the main Archibald Prize and the people's choice category in 2004 for his popular but contentious image of Aboriginal actor and dancer David Gulpili.
The main Archibald prize for 2010 went to Sam Leach for his picture of Australian comedian, musician and cabaret performer Tim Minchin.
This year's finalists and winners of the Archibald Prize will continue on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until May 30.
Sydney artist Craig Ruddy's painting The Prince of Darkness was named winner of the Archibald People's Choice Prize on Thursday. More than 23,000 people cast votes in this year's contest.
"The greatest thing for an artist is to evoke feeling and emotion in the viewer," said Ruddy, who said he was inspired by Thornton's cinematic exploration of dark topics, including Australia's treatment of its Aboriginal population.
Thornton, who was honoured with the Caméra d'Or prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for his feature Samson and Delilah, was also on hand in Sydney to celebrate Ruddy's win.
"It's kind of a nice thing to just sit there," he said of posing for the painter, also a past Archibald winner.
"You'd hear this beautiful sweeping. And these really sporadic, chaotic scratches and that.… It was amazing to listen to someone paint."
Ruddy, who receives $2,500 Australian (about $2,100) in prize money, previously won both the main Archibald Prize and the people's choice category in 2004 for his popular but contentious image of Aboriginal actor and dancer David Gulpili.
The main Archibald prize for 2010 went to Sam Leach for his picture of Australian comedian, musician and cabaret performer Tim Minchin.
This year's finalists and winners of the Archibald Prize will continue on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until May 30.
Furnishings as Art Works
A piece of French fashion designer Christian Lacroix's exotic world comes up for auction in Paris next week.
On May 26, Sotheby's will offer colorful furnishings specially made by French designers Elizabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti for the Lacroix fashion house when it first opened in 1987 in a sumptuous townhouse on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. They created a theater of fashion, reflecting Mr. Lacroix's baroque style and love of bright Mediterranean colors.
![[collecting]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/EW-AI585_WECOLL_DV_20100520094036.jpg)
It was a luxurious environment of wrought iron, coral-tinted wood, terracotta and bronze in luminous yellow, pink and orange, with organic, poetic forms inspired by nature, irony and excess. Imitation branches of trees grew out of cabinets and the backs of chairs had strange antennas evoking frisky grasshoppers.
The idea, says Sotheby's 20th-century decorative arts and design specialist Cécile Verdier, was "to put clients on a stage" in a theater d[eacute]cor where they were the stars.
Among the 196 lots are sofas, chairs, tables, benches, wall- and floor-lights, mirrors, fitting cabins and entrance gates. Ms. Verdier describes the décor as "a testimony to taste at the end of the 1980s."
An orange lacquered wrought-iron chair with antennas is estimated at €3,000-€5,000, as are a pair of stools with tree-trunk bottoms and pink upholstery.
That day, Sotheby's will hold a general 20th-century decorative arts and design sale. Star lot will be a rare "Fauteuil Nautile" (1913), a carved, walnut armchair with striped upholstery by Paul Iribe, a French designer and fashion illustrator, who worked with such couturier greats as Paul Poiret (estimate: €80,000-€120,000).
In this auction and at Christie's Paris on May 28, there will be works by French husband and wife duo Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne. Claude's gilt bronze bench with a crocodile underneath happily eating its supports (2008) is estimated at Christie's at €80,000-€120,000.
On May 26, Sotheby's will offer colorful furnishings specially made by French designers Elizabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti for the Lacroix fashion house when it first opened in 1987 in a sumptuous townhouse on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. They created a theater of fashion, reflecting Mr. Lacroix's baroque style and love of bright Mediterranean colors.
It was a luxurious environment of wrought iron, coral-tinted wood, terracotta and bronze in luminous yellow, pink and orange, with organic, poetic forms inspired by nature, irony and excess. Imitation branches of trees grew out of cabinets and the backs of chairs had strange antennas evoking frisky grasshoppers.The idea, says Sotheby's 20th-century decorative arts and design specialist Cécile Verdier, was "to put clients on a stage" in a theater d[eacute]cor where they were the stars.
Among the 196 lots are sofas, chairs, tables, benches, wall- and floor-lights, mirrors, fitting cabins and entrance gates. Ms. Verdier describes the décor as "a testimony to taste at the end of the 1980s."
An orange lacquered wrought-iron chair with antennas is estimated at €3,000-€5,000, as are a pair of stools with tree-trunk bottoms and pink upholstery.
That day, Sotheby's will hold a general 20th-century decorative arts and design sale. Star lot will be a rare "Fauteuil Nautile" (1913), a carved, walnut armchair with striped upholstery by Paul Iribe, a French designer and fashion illustrator, who worked with such couturier greats as Paul Poiret (estimate: €80,000-€120,000).
In this auction and at Christie's Paris on May 28, there will be works by French husband and wife duo Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne. Claude's gilt bronze bench with a crocodile underneath happily eating its supports (2008) is estimated at Christie's at €80,000-€120,000.
Wanted: art commissioner with a watery mindset
Those interested in taking on the challenge – individuals or organisations – must pitch a plan involving an artist or artists with “a significant national profile”. They may curate the project themselves or bring a curator on board, and they must indicate an outline budget. The application deadline is 5pm on June 1st. Later in the month, shortlisted applicants will be asked for more detailed proposals and interviewed by a selection panel.
Budgeting is likely to present a particular challenge. In 2009 Culture Ireland invested €210,000 and the Arts Council €70,000, and additional fundraising was necessary. Proceeds from sales of the artists’ work also went into the kitty. Although the application process is rigorous and detailed, it is usually hotly contested. That’s because Venice retains its position as the world’s most prestigious art event, in certainly the most beautiful venue.
Ireland has upped its Venice game in recent years, particularly with commissioners Mike Fitzpatrick and Caoimhín Corrigan and the artists Gerard Byrne and Kennedy Browne. They shared a great venue, Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, with Willie Doherty and Susan MacWilliam, Northern Ireland’s outstanding representatives at the last two biennales. The hope is to retain this spacious venue; if not, it’ll be a headache for the eventual commissioner.
Midsummer danger
The enticing drip feed of information about Cork Midsummer Festival became a torrent at Thursday’s launch of this year’s programme, writes Mary Leland . Director William Galinsky admitted to anticipating “a whiff of scandal” in relation to Jérôme Bel’s signature dance piece, The Show Must Go On, announced as a provocative assembly of 18 dancers with 18 pop classics. The piece is still associated with tags such as “anti-theatrical” and “notorious”, which greeted its first appearence in 2001.
But it looks as if Bel (at Cork Opera House on June 18th and 19th) will have his competitors in danger this year. A glance at the schedule suggests it should carry a health warning, as several productions come with hazard lights blazing.
Corcadorca’s headline piece, Plasticine, by Vasily Sigarev (at the Savoy from June 14th to 26th), is described as “pulsating with anger, vitality and destruction”, and as it includes “scenes of a disturbing nature” it is strictly for adults only.
Then there’s FML (Everyman, June 25th and 26th), which contains such “strong and sexually explicit language” that a “parental advisory note” restricts it to over-16s. This production, which will tour to London, Helsinki and the Festival of Youth Theatre in Scotland, is the fruit of workshops by Pol Heyvaert of Belgium’s Campo Gent company. Co-commissioned by Cork Midsummer Festival and the Granary Theatre as a work in progress last year, it focuses on the lives of local teenagers.
This year’s festival will include other initial workshops and showcase several international productions and companies, along with the interactive Best Before, from Rimini Protokoll.
Films “they tried to ban” will also be screened, starting on June 12th with the 1926 silent movie Irish Destiny, at City Hall, where Proinnsías Ó Duinn will conduct, with Micheál Ó Súilleabháin playing his own score. At the same venue, and giving his first recital in Cork, Philip Glass closes proceedings on June 26th.
The Spiegeltent is replaced by Midsummer Nights at the Pavilion; performances, gigs and exhibitions will be spread around the city centre, including a 26-hour non-stop improvised soap opera at the Camden Palace. Meanwhile, at Merchants’ Quay shopping centre, there’s the chance to have your hair cut by children from St Vincent’s National School – and don’t worry, they have been trained!
College and sculptor resolve dispute over destroyed art
Remnants of Haydn Davies’ original will be use
While certain details of the settlement were not made public, it results in the establishment, in perpetuity, of an annual cash award for a graduating student in sculpture installation at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto (Davies attended the college in the late 1940s).
In addition, Lambton is returning the remaining pieces of the destroyed sculpture, called Homage, to the Davies family. Before his death, at 86 in March 2008, Davies prepared a series of drawings for a new outdoor installation that, should a settlement ever be reached, would be made from the remnants of the destroyed work – “in effect, an homage to Homage,” according to his son Bryan, who added: . “We were pleased to reach this [arrangement] without a trial, because a trial would have done nothing in terms of what we wanted to accomplish on my father’s behalf, namely to benefit art in Canada.”
The settlement marks the end of a saga dating to June 2005, when Lambton ordered the demolition of Homage, a large, almost Stonehenge-like work of laminated red-cedar that the college commissioned from Davies in 1974 for its entrance. Officials argued Homage had to be destroyed because it had deteriorated to the point where “it was no longer safe.” Earlier, they’d agreed to at least postpone its demolition by back-hoe to allow the Davies family to visit the site and make a determination. However, officials failed to reach the outside contractor hired for the removal in time to halt the action. The remnants were subsequently deposited in a compost field on the Sarnia campus.
The destruction made headlines across Canada and later inspired a play by Nova Scotian Anthony Black. Called Homage, the play, which had its world premiere in Halifax last spring, will have four performances next month at Toronto’s Luminato Festival of Arts and Creativity.
In his original suit, Davies argued that in demolishing Homage, Lambton violated his moral rights under the Copyright Act and breached its obligation to maintain the work. The suit was filed after talks between Davies and Lambton broke down in the fall of 2005. Davies wanted the Homage remnants returned; the college said it was “open” to this – but on the condition that “no legal action … be pursued against the college” and that Davies halt his “public criticisms of the college.” Davies refused.
Canada's spring auctions feature collectors' art
One of Heffel's top lots this spring is Bylot Island I by Lawren Harris, estimated to sell for between $1.5 million and $2.5 million. (Heffel.com) An exciting batch of rare Canadian artworks — recently unearthed from several noted collections — will be among the pieces for sale during Canada's spring auction season.Heffel's Fine Art Auction House will be first out of the gate in Vancouver on May 26 with its sale, with highlights from three prominent collections: the estates of architect Arthur Erickson, Theodosia Dawes Bond Thornton, who built her post-war collection by purchasing canvases directly from Group of Seven artists — and an unnamed Canadian philanthropist.
Among the top Heffel lots is Lawren Harris's oil on canvas mountainscape Bylot Island I, estimated to sell for between $1.5 million and $2.5 million.
It's a similar story at Sotheby's Canada, which is selling a host of paintings from the estate of art aficionado W. Allan Manford, who possessed — for a time — what was considered the finest collection of Group of Seven paintings in Canada, Sotheby's Canada president David Silcox told CBC News.
Sunlight in the Forest by Emily Carr is one of the featured lots of the upcoming Sotheby's Canada spring auction on June 2. (Sotheby's Canada)Though Manford had sold a few major works in the past decade, "he kept some pretty wonderful things for himself," Silcox said, noting the works by Harris, David Milne, J.E.H. Macdonald and Emily Carr that will be sold in Toronto on June 2.
For instance, a Carr from the collection — the oil-on-canvas work Sunlight in the Forest — is the top lot and estimated to sell for $700,000 to $900,000.
While the public's taste typically runs to the Group of Seven, their contemporaries and has also expanded to latter collective Painters Eleven, Silcox is especially excited by Canada's newer wave of living contemporary artists.
Lots in the upcoming sale include works by Kent Monkman, Charlie Pachter, Edward Burtynsky, Graham Gillmore and Attila Richard Lukacs.
"We're — relatively speaking — still a small country as far as the contemporary art market is concerned. We still have a way to go to catch up to places like the U.K., France, Germany, even Australia," Silcox said.
Sweeping sale in Toronto
Access to many collections has also led to a large, sweeping sale for Toronto-based auctioneer Joyner Waddington, slated for June 1."We're starting an hour early to accommodate," said Joyner Waddington vice-president Rob Cowley.
The Joyner Waddington offerings range from strong historical art from the 19th and 20th centuries, to living artists, native art, fine sculpture, folk art and prints, Cowley noted.
"We're very pleased with the breadth of the sale," which will be "accessible to many different types of collectors across the country."
So far, the A.J. Casson oil canvas Street in Glen Williams — featured on the cover of the Joyner Waddington spring catalog — has been garnering the most interest from buyers, Cowley said. The vibrant small-town Ontario-inspired work is estimated to sell for $200,000 to $250,000.
Appetizing sculpture
On the other end of the scale is Flat Paraire Pantry, a massive painted ceramic and wood sculpture by Saskatchewan artist Victor Cicansky (estimated to sell for between $10,000 and $15,000) that has also sparked buzz and excitment among art lovers and auction staffers."In the past, at auction, you've literally seen just one mason jar," Cowley said of Cicansky's whimsical, food-related sculptures.'
"In this case, you have a pantry full of not only the mason jars, but also made up of the cabbages and potatoes [and vegetables] ... It's eight feet long [2.43 metres] and over eight feet high," he added.
"We're very excited to see what is going to happen with that piece at auction."
Fans can draw their own trading cards
Remember the old Art Instruction School commercials where you could test your drawing skills with a test that included drawing a turtle and a pirate in an effort to not "let the wonderful world of art pass you by"?
[+] Enlarge
ToppsStarting next week, you can draw your own Topps trading card and possibly be in a future set.
Well, Topps has done them one better.
The New York-based collectibles company is launching a program in its forthcoming set of 2010 Topps Series 2 baseball cards (arrives on Wednesday) that allows collectors who find special cards inside packs to test their art skills.
"You Sketch It!" cards are found thoughout packs of Series 2 and essentially are a blank slate for artists of all ages to complete -- here comes the kicker -- and return their masterpieces to Topps for possible inclusion as bonus cards in future packs of baseball cards. That's right, your artwork might be found beside cards of Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Howard or Tim Lincecum -- that is, if it's good enough.
Think of it as "American Idol" for the artistically inclined sports card enthusiast.
"I think it is a fantastic idea," said Monty Sheldon, a popular Seattle-based sports artist. "If I wasn't already working for Topps, I would appreciate this chance to show them what I could do, hoping it would lead to future art jobs with the company. My guess is that a number of the cards they get back will be of top caliber."Topps will award prizes for the best artists, too, but we'll let the concept sell you on getting out your pencils and Sharpies. How can interested artists get involved? The backs of the cards give details on what's accepted art-wise and the instructions on where to send them.
Paul LempaArtist Paul Lempa used paint for this trading card.
Pocket-sized masterpieces are relatively new to the sports card scene, but they've been included in non-sports card sets for years with comic book characters like Wolverine or Superman often the main focus.Since late 2008, though, Topps has commissioned artists to create sketch cards to be inserted into pack of its baseball cards -- unique gems that are much different than an autograph or a card with a piece of memorabilia embedded inside.
The artists' styles vary -- as does the type of work given the quantities -- but collectors have shown that they enjoy these types of cards by sometimes paying hundreds of dollars for the creations.
Most sketch card artists, like Brooklyn-based Brian Kong for example, will use traditional inks or pencils for their sketches, but some artists go to even more creative lengths. Jersey City, N.J.-based artist Paul Lempa uses paint -- quite a challenge when you consider that it's just a 2½ by 3½ inch piece of cardboard canvas.
What media collectors settle on when they tackle their own sketch cards -- and who will they draw as dreams of wax pack stardom dance in their heads? Therein lies the charm of the project.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Check out Beckett.com -- and be sure to get the latest news on sports cards and memorabilia at The Beckett blog. You can also follow him on Twitter.
Art stolen from Kate Moss' home
Artwork worth £80,000 has been stolen from Kate Moss's home
Valuable artwork including an £80,000 Banksy portrait was stolen from Kate Moss's home, it has been reported.
Thieves raided the model's £7 million home in Maida Vale, north London, in the early hours of Thursday.
Kate, 36, her partner Jamie Hince and mother Linda were believed to be asleep in the house at the time, the Daily Mirror reported.
A 24-year-old man was arrested in connection with the burglary and inquiries are ongoing, police said.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Camden Police are investigating a burglary at Greville Road, NW6, from approximately 4.20am on Thursday, May 20.
"A 24-year-old man was arrested in connection with it and inquiries are ongoing."
It is not the first time works by guerilla artist Banksy were targeted by thieves.
Police are hunting a man and a woman who smashed their way into an art gallery in New Compton Street, central London, earlier this month and snatched Banksy prints worth more than £16,000. In 2007, 10 prints worth about £10,000 were stolen from a branch of Art Republic in Brighton.
Thieves raided the model's £7 million home in Maida Vale, north London, in the early hours of Thursday.
Kate, 36, her partner Jamie Hince and mother Linda were believed to be asleep in the house at the time, the Daily Mirror reported.
A 24-year-old man was arrested in connection with the burglary and inquiries are ongoing, police said.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Camden Police are investigating a burglary at Greville Road, NW6, from approximately 4.20am on Thursday, May 20.
"A 24-year-old man was arrested in connection with it and inquiries are ongoing."
It is not the first time works by guerilla artist Banksy were targeted by thieves.
Police are hunting a man and a woman who smashed their way into an art gallery in New Compton Street, central London, earlier this month and snatched Banksy prints worth more than £16,000. In 2007, 10 prints worth about £10,000 were stolen from a branch of Art Republic in Brighton.
Art exchanges between Taiwan and China increasing
With improved relations between Taiwan and mainland China, many paintings and art collections from China are now available for viewing in Taiwan for the first time.
From principal museums to provincial associations, the number of exhibits held in Taiwan has increased greatly in the last two years, as has the scale of the exhibits.
Artists are inspired by this situation and are proposing more communication between art students from the two sides in the future.
One of the most popular topics being discussed recently is the possibility of displaying a famous Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 A.D.) landscape painting --"Dwelling in the Fu Chun Mountains" by Huang Kung-wang (1269-1354) -- in its entirety at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This is still in the planning stage.
In addition, other organizers are also planning to hold unique exhibitions and competitions for students to increase their understanding and broaden their views.
"I am planning to organize an exhibition to present a collection of pre-1949 works at the end of this year, " revealed Jaimy Chung, the president of the Cross-strait Chinese Culture & Arts Foundation, adding that these pieces have rarely been seen in Taiwan.
He is also planning to organize a painting competition for graduate students of the two sides.
"The competition probably will be held next year, " Chung indicated, and emphasized it is more meaningful to promote communication by means of education.
From the beginning of this year, the National Palace Museum presented an exhibition entitled "Gold and Glory–The Wonders of Khitan from the Inner Mongolia Museum Collection" featuring 115 artifacts, more than half of which were classified in China as items of first grade quality.
The director of the museum, Chou Kung-hsin, indicated that the exhibit, which ended last week, has provided Taiwanese people the opportunity to learn and witness rich artifacts of the Khitan culture, which were rare in Taiwan.
Active in promoting further cultural communication with mainland China, Chou went to the Shanghai Expo to promote the NPM at the beginning of this month.
She has also revealed that the museum will borrow works from China of the Southern Song Dynasty (around 1127-1279) to present in October this year.
In her trip to China, one of the important missions was visiting the Zhejiang Provincial Museum to borrow the remaining half of " Dwelling in the Fu Chun Mountains." However, according to the NPM, the final decision will be delayed until next month when the members of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum come to Taipei to discuss this issue.
Besides ancient art, Taiwan and China are also holding exchanges in modern art. The Taipei Fine Art Museum (TFAM) has cooperated with the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing in April to present an exhibition entitled "The Moment of the Landscape–Oil Paintings by Contemporary Chinese Masters." For over half a century, the political barriers that have separated Taiwan and mainland China have meant their respective art worlds were covered in a veil of mystery to each other, said organizers of the TFAM.
Today, mainland China and Taiwan have very different faces, the result of their divergent historical development and social transformation, so that is why the TFAM has invited some Chinese contemporary artists to show their works here, organizers said.
The National Museum of History (NMH) has also announced that it will open a new exhibition entitled "Legends of Heroes -The Heritage of the Three Kingdoms Era, " this June, which will feature more than 60 pieces of state-class or first grade antiques among 146 artifacts.
In addition to displaying the relics, the museum will also use 3D virtual technology and modern online games to raise the interest of the younger generation, said Pauline Kao, Deputy Director of the NMH.
Many organizers have indicated that exhibitions in Taiwan focuses on interaction with viewers, which provides new ideas to the organizers in China.
"But we also benefit a lot due to this level of communication, " Chuang said, adding that Taiwanese artists and museum curators can learn a lot from their Chinese counterparts and artefact, especially in the areas of Chinese paintings and calligraphy.
Chung, who has led the foundation for almost a decade, has organized more than a dozen exhibitions so far. He expects more interesting activities in the future.
"Through cultural exchanges, people in Taiwan and China will understand each other more, which is the best way to earn friendship and to win peace," he stressed.
Artists are inspired by this situation and are proposing more communication between art students from the two sides in the future.
One of the most popular topics being discussed recently is the possibility of displaying a famous Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 A.D.) landscape painting --"Dwelling in the Fu Chun Mountains" by Huang Kung-wang (1269-1354) -- in its entirety at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. This is still in the planning stage.
In addition, other organizers are also planning to hold unique exhibitions and competitions for students to increase their understanding and broaden their views.
"I am planning to organize an exhibition to present a collection of pre-1949 works at the end of this year, " revealed Jaimy Chung, the president of the Cross-strait Chinese Culture & Arts Foundation, adding that these pieces have rarely been seen in Taiwan.
He is also planning to organize a painting competition for graduate students of the two sides.
"The competition probably will be held next year, " Chung indicated, and emphasized it is more meaningful to promote communication by means of education.
From the beginning of this year, the National Palace Museum presented an exhibition entitled "Gold and Glory–The Wonders of Khitan from the Inner Mongolia Museum Collection" featuring 115 artifacts, more than half of which were classified in China as items of first grade quality.
The director of the museum, Chou Kung-hsin, indicated that the exhibit, which ended last week, has provided Taiwanese people the opportunity to learn and witness rich artifacts of the Khitan culture, which were rare in Taiwan.
Active in promoting further cultural communication with mainland China, Chou went to the Shanghai Expo to promote the NPM at the beginning of this month.
She has also revealed that the museum will borrow works from China of the Southern Song Dynasty (around 1127-1279) to present in October this year.
In her trip to China, one of the important missions was visiting the Zhejiang Provincial Museum to borrow the remaining half of " Dwelling in the Fu Chun Mountains." However, according to the NPM, the final decision will be delayed until next month when the members of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum come to Taipei to discuss this issue.
Besides ancient art, Taiwan and China are also holding exchanges in modern art. The Taipei Fine Art Museum (TFAM) has cooperated with the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing in April to present an exhibition entitled "The Moment of the Landscape–Oil Paintings by Contemporary Chinese Masters." For over half a century, the political barriers that have separated Taiwan and mainland China have meant their respective art worlds were covered in a veil of mystery to each other, said organizers of the TFAM.
Today, mainland China and Taiwan have very different faces, the result of their divergent historical development and social transformation, so that is why the TFAM has invited some Chinese contemporary artists to show their works here, organizers said.
The National Museum of History (NMH) has also announced that it will open a new exhibition entitled "Legends of Heroes -The Heritage of the Three Kingdoms Era, " this June, which will feature more than 60 pieces of state-class or first grade antiques among 146 artifacts.
In addition to displaying the relics, the museum will also use 3D virtual technology and modern online games to raise the interest of the younger generation, said Pauline Kao, Deputy Director of the NMH.
Many organizers have indicated that exhibitions in Taiwan focuses on interaction with viewers, which provides new ideas to the organizers in China.
"But we also benefit a lot due to this level of communication, " Chuang said, adding that Taiwanese artists and museum curators can learn a lot from their Chinese counterparts and artefact, especially in the areas of Chinese paintings and calligraphy.
Chung, who has led the foundation for almost a decade, has organized more than a dozen exhibitions so far. He expects more interesting activities in the future.
"Through cultural exchanges, people in Taiwan and China will understand each other more, which is the best way to earn friendship and to win peace," he stressed.
The Vancouver Art Gallery debate is a blank canvas
At 7 p.m. on Thursday, a two-hour symposium was held in the subterranean Robson Square theatre to discuss the burning civic question of, Whither the Vancouver Art Gallery? Two mind-numbing concept-filled hours later, nothing had been settled except I definitely had a headache. For this, I missed 30 Rock.
Here's an important fact about that evening:
It was exactly 46 minutes into the proceedings before one of the five panellists deigned to mention the issue of money, and then only in passing -- which was odd because, as we all know, art is about money.
In this case, the VAG's desire to relocate to the block just east of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre would demand a whack of it, somewhere in the range of $350 million, give or take a king's ransom.
Is such a sum problematic? No, we have been told. A couple weeks ago, developer Michael Audain, chair of the art gallery relocation committee, assured the editorial board of The Sun that raising it was not at all a difficulty; that with the $50 million the provincial government had already promised for a new gallery, and the $40 million the committee had lined up in pledges, the rest could be made up by private donation. Audain travels in rarefied company.
But since then, Europe has filed for Chapter 11, the markets have dropped off the edge of the world, and Audain has started campaigning for the feds to chip in money, too. If Ottawa was willing to buy the votes of arty Torontonians and Montrealers, he reasoned, it was only right it should do the same for Vancouverites. Any pork in a storm, I guess.
All that money does not include the cost of the three acres of land, which, the VAG committee insists, should be donated by the City of Vancouver, which owns it. There is also the matter of a $48-million encumbrance on the property, money devoted to the renovation of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and money that the city wants to recoup. While the city would surely admit that you can't put a price on the feeling great art inspires, the profit on an office-tower development on prime downtown real estate is another matter. The former is incalculable; the latter makes your bond-rating agency do handstands.
This gap between purposes deserved to be discussed at the symposium: It was not. None of this was brought up by the panellists. Instead, there was talk of "iconic structures" and "public space." There was talk of Vancouver being a "frontier city" as opposed to a city whose cutting-edge artists deserved a space commensurate with their world-renowned talents. Audain even mentioned a recent visit to New York just to view an Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, a devotion to art with which I, and my bank account, am unaccustomed.
A city's movers and shakers propel a city forward with the cultural edifices they create, of course, but there was, in all this high talk, a baser and unspoken undercurrent of meaning that seemed to be concerned more with image than with art, and that Vancouver had outgrown not the VAG, but its britches. The VAG wanted to move because it wanted to play with the big boys. The new gallery would be our first real pair of pants.
At the end of the evening, the panel entertained comments from the floor, most of which centred around the should-we-stay-or-should-we-go issue. The sentiments were 50-50. My personal favourite came from Andrew Gruft, professor emeritus with the University of BC school of architecture, who was, true to his name, gruft. Preferring plain English to artspeak, he argued that the gallery should stay where it is, that it should be gutted and expanded outward toward Robson Street. Yes, it would present difficulties, he said, but to move the gallery away from its present location would destroy the city centre's focus.Here's an important fact about that evening:
It was exactly 46 minutes into the proceedings before one of the five panellists deigned to mention the issue of money, and then only in passing -- which was odd because, as we all know, art is about money.
In this case, the VAG's desire to relocate to the block just east of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre would demand a whack of it, somewhere in the range of $350 million, give or take a king's ransom.
Is such a sum problematic? No, we have been told. A couple weeks ago, developer Michael Audain, chair of the art gallery relocation committee, assured the editorial board of The Sun that raising it was not at all a difficulty; that with the $50 million the provincial government had already promised for a new gallery, and the $40 million the committee had lined up in pledges, the rest could be made up by private donation. Audain travels in rarefied company.
But since then, Europe has filed for Chapter 11, the markets have dropped off the edge of the world, and Audain has started campaigning for the feds to chip in money, too. If Ottawa was willing to buy the votes of arty Torontonians and Montrealers, he reasoned, it was only right it should do the same for Vancouverites. Any pork in a storm, I guess.
All that money does not include the cost of the three acres of land, which, the VAG committee insists, should be donated by the City of Vancouver, which owns it. There is also the matter of a $48-million encumbrance on the property, money devoted to the renovation of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and money that the city wants to recoup. While the city would surely admit that you can't put a price on the feeling great art inspires, the profit on an office-tower development on prime downtown real estate is another matter. The former is incalculable; the latter makes your bond-rating agency do handstands.
This gap between purposes deserved to be discussed at the symposium: It was not. None of this was brought up by the panellists. Instead, there was talk of "iconic structures" and "public space." There was talk of Vancouver being a "frontier city" as opposed to a city whose cutting-edge artists deserved a space commensurate with their world-renowned talents. Audain even mentioned a recent visit to New York just to view an Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, a devotion to art with which I, and my bank account, am unaccustomed.
A city's movers and shakers propel a city forward with the cultural edifices they create, of course, but there was, in all this high talk, a baser and unspoken undercurrent of meaning that seemed to be concerned more with image than with art, and that Vancouver had outgrown not the VAG, but its britches. The VAG wanted to move because it wanted to play with the big boys. The new gallery would be our first real pair of pants.
"The VAG's move to a new location would be tearing out the heart of the city. And why?! People would kill to get in [the old location], and we're going to walk away from it?! Give me a break!"
To be honest, I'm not sure what to think about the idea of the VAG moving. I know what a great art gallery can mean to a city -- in another life I was a member of the Detroit Institute of Arts, a welcome island of enlightenment in the midst of a wrecked city.
But after what they say was several years of spade work, the VAG board and relocation committee have given the public and government nothing to work with except questions.
Funding? Architectural plans? Land costs? The cost of operating a new gallery once it's built? The accommodation of other cultural institutions on the site, such as a mid-sized symphony hall? The draining effect that so huge an investment of public and private donations will have on the city's other, more needy, cultural institutions? The finding of new tenants for the old gallery once the new one has been built?
These unanswered questions betray a sense of entitlement that art and money bring, I think, as if the folks at VAG are telling us that they needn't bother with the hard details. Perhaps they have but aren't saying.
What they have offered, instead, is a blank canvas on which any vision is possible, as long as it's theirs.
Israeli art detectives crack a forgery riddle
JERUSALEM — The portrait of a glum, bespectacled man was about to go on auction in Amsterdam when someone at Sotheby's noticed a problem: Israel's national museum owned precisely the same painting.
One of them had to be a fake.
For curators at the Israel Museum, cracking the riddle of the Jozef Israels self-portrait and its mysterious twin meant tracking down a tale about a forgotten Turkish pasha and an eccentric Jerusalem artist, and using infrared cameras to peer underneath the painting's muted oils.
The impostor, they now say, has been revealed. It is nearly as old as the original, and its provenance is more interesting.
Israels, the man who painted the original, was a renowned Dutch artist of the 19th century whose style drew comparisons with Rembrandt and whose works today regularly fetch tens of thousands of dollars.
The first self-portrait, the one in the museum's collection, had been given by Israels himself to a friend, Boris Schatz, in 1909. Schatz, born in Lithuania and trained in Paris, was a Jewish artist and occasional boxer who discovered Zionism and abandoned the European art scene for Jerusalem, then a Mideastern backwater, where he founded a visionary art school in 1906 and became known for his trademark white robe and pet peacock.
After Schatz died, part of his collection, including the portrait, eventually became the nucleus of the Israel Museum.
Last year, Jimmy Lewensohn, Schatz's great-great-nephew and the executor of his estate, decided to sell a painting that had long been in the family's private collection: a Jozef Israels self-portrait from 1909. Hoping to donate the proceeds to the Israel Museum, he arranged for Sotheby's to auction it in Amsterdam.
Then the auction house called him in Israel. "Is it possible that this painting is not the original?" a representative asked, Lewensohn recalled, the implication being that he was knowingly peddling a fake. "This wasn't a pleasant conversation," he said.
The painting Lewensohn wanted to sell was where it had always been — in the family's possession. But when he called the Israel Museum, the European art curator checked and informed him that he must be mistaken: The painting was in the museum. It was not regularly on display, so Lewensohn did not know it existed.
The curators placed them side by side in a museum restoration lab. They were stumped.
The paintings showed the same man with the same beard, hat and glasses. They had the same expert brush strokes, down to the little rust-brown streak beside the nose. Both were dated 1909 and signed Jozef Israels.
Because the new painting originated in the same place — the Schatz family — its claim to authenticity rivaled that of the museum's version. So which one was the fake? Would the real Jozef Israels please stand up?
The curators quickly figured out where the forgery must have originated: with Boris Schatz himself. Only he would have been able to leave one painting to the museum and another to his own family. But there was no indication that Schatz had ever tried to sell or exhibit it before his death in 1932, and why would Schatz, a respected artist in his own right, forge a painting?
The attempt to unravel the mystery led to a strange story recorded in a 1972 book by art historian Heinrich Strauss which pointed back to a time when Palestine was part of the empire of the Ottoman Turks.
During the First World War, the story went, Schatz's art school in Jerusalem was visited by a high-ranking Turkish official, Jemal Pasha. The Turk was taken with the portrait, the school's most valuable European piece, and informed Schatz he would be back the next day to take it.
Rather than lose one of his best paintings, Schatz sat down overnight and painted a copy to present as the real thing, according to Strauss. But the commander never showed up, the Turks were booted out of Palestine by the British not long afterward, and the fake remained in the collection.
Yigal Zalmona, one of the museum curators, believed this solved the riddle. "This was a forged painting made to save a real painting," he said.
Another curator, Shlomit Steinberg, saw holes in the story. Schatz, whose Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design remains Israel's most prestigious art school, might have been skillful enough to pull off such an expert copy, she said, but could not have done it overnight; oil paints can take months to dry.
"The threads of this story do not quite fit," she said. Instead, she has a different theory: that the painting was a copy done as an art exercise by Schatz or one of his talented pupils.
Both explanations were plausible, but neither indicated which painting was the fake. This required the expertise of the museum's senior conservator in charge of oil paintings, Ghiora Elon.
"I am like a military tracker, but for art," Elon said. "There are many signs in paintings that the untrained eye doesn't see and we do."
Elon and his team scanned both paintings with an infrared camera but saw nothing of interest.
Elon then looked closely at both paintings, focusing on the glasses and the hat. Those details looked nearly identical when viewed frontally. But in the newly arrived portrait, when viewed from the side, they lost their distinct shape and appeared to have been done by a less skilled artist or by one working in a hurry.
Then Elon checked the fabric. The recently discovered painting was painted on cotton. The museum's was done on linen, a more expensive material far more likely to have been used by a wealthy painter in Europe than by someone working in a poor city like Jerusalem.
The museum's painting was the real thing, Elon concluded. The new arrival was the fake.
But rather than competing with the original, the fake only adds to its mystique, elevating the portrait into an enigmatic player in forgotten history.
For now, both paintings remain on a table in a museum back room, wearing identical poker faces and looking as if they were always meant to be together.
One of them had to be a fake.
For curators at the Israel Museum, cracking the riddle of the Jozef Israels self-portrait and its mysterious twin meant tracking down a tale about a forgotten Turkish pasha and an eccentric Jerusalem artist, and using infrared cameras to peer underneath the painting's muted oils.
The impostor, they now say, has been revealed. It is nearly as old as the original, and its provenance is more interesting.
Israels, the man who painted the original, was a renowned Dutch artist of the 19th century whose style drew comparisons with Rembrandt and whose works today regularly fetch tens of thousands of dollars.
The first self-portrait, the one in the museum's collection, had been given by Israels himself to a friend, Boris Schatz, in 1909. Schatz, born in Lithuania and trained in Paris, was a Jewish artist and occasional boxer who discovered Zionism and abandoned the European art scene for Jerusalem, then a Mideastern backwater, where he founded a visionary art school in 1906 and became known for his trademark white robe and pet peacock.
After Schatz died, part of his collection, including the portrait, eventually became the nucleus of the Israel Museum.
Last year, Jimmy Lewensohn, Schatz's great-great-nephew and the executor of his estate, decided to sell a painting that had long been in the family's private collection: a Jozef Israels self-portrait from 1909. Hoping to donate the proceeds to the Israel Museum, he arranged for Sotheby's to auction it in Amsterdam.
Then the auction house called him in Israel. "Is it possible that this painting is not the original?" a representative asked, Lewensohn recalled, the implication being that he was knowingly peddling a fake. "This wasn't a pleasant conversation," he said.
The painting Lewensohn wanted to sell was where it had always been — in the family's possession. But when he called the Israel Museum, the European art curator checked and informed him that he must be mistaken: The painting was in the museum. It was not regularly on display, so Lewensohn did not know it existed.
The curators placed them side by side in a museum restoration lab. They were stumped.
The paintings showed the same man with the same beard, hat and glasses. They had the same expert brush strokes, down to the little rust-brown streak beside the nose. Both were dated 1909 and signed Jozef Israels.
Because the new painting originated in the same place — the Schatz family — its claim to authenticity rivaled that of the museum's version. So which one was the fake? Would the real Jozef Israels please stand up?
The curators quickly figured out where the forgery must have originated: with Boris Schatz himself. Only he would have been able to leave one painting to the museum and another to his own family. But there was no indication that Schatz had ever tried to sell or exhibit it before his death in 1932, and why would Schatz, a respected artist in his own right, forge a painting?
The attempt to unravel the mystery led to a strange story recorded in a 1972 book by art historian Heinrich Strauss which pointed back to a time when Palestine was part of the empire of the Ottoman Turks.
During the First World War, the story went, Schatz's art school in Jerusalem was visited by a high-ranking Turkish official, Jemal Pasha. The Turk was taken with the portrait, the school's most valuable European piece, and informed Schatz he would be back the next day to take it.
Rather than lose one of his best paintings, Schatz sat down overnight and painted a copy to present as the real thing, according to Strauss. But the commander never showed up, the Turks were booted out of Palestine by the British not long afterward, and the fake remained in the collection.
Yigal Zalmona, one of the museum curators, believed this solved the riddle. "This was a forged painting made to save a real painting," he said.
Another curator, Shlomit Steinberg, saw holes in the story. Schatz, whose Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design remains Israel's most prestigious art school, might have been skillful enough to pull off such an expert copy, she said, but could not have done it overnight; oil paints can take months to dry.
"The threads of this story do not quite fit," she said. Instead, she has a different theory: that the painting was a copy done as an art exercise by Schatz or one of his talented pupils.
Both explanations were plausible, but neither indicated which painting was the fake. This required the expertise of the museum's senior conservator in charge of oil paintings, Ghiora Elon.
"I am like a military tracker, but for art," Elon said. "There are many signs in paintings that the untrained eye doesn't see and we do."
Elon and his team scanned both paintings with an infrared camera but saw nothing of interest.
Elon then looked closely at both paintings, focusing on the glasses and the hat. Those details looked nearly identical when viewed frontally. But in the newly arrived portrait, when viewed from the side, they lost their distinct shape and appeared to have been done by a less skilled artist or by one working in a hurry.
Then Elon checked the fabric. The recently discovered painting was painted on cotton. The museum's was done on linen, a more expensive material far more likely to have been used by a wealthy painter in Europe than by someone working in a poor city like Jerusalem.
The museum's painting was the real thing, Elon concluded. The new arrival was the fake.
But rather than competing with the original, the fake only adds to its mystique, elevating the portrait into an enigmatic player in forgotten history.
For now, both paintings remain on a table in a museum back room, wearing identical poker faces and looking as if they were always meant to be together.
New art theft in France
Marseille - Robbers attacked a pensioner in his home and stole five art works, including a Picasso lithograph, only hours after a major theft of paintings in a Paris museum, police said on Saturday.
The assault occurred early on Friday, after two unidentified men rang the doorbell at the victim's home in Marseille, southern France.
On opening the door he was violently punched as the men rushed into the living room and seized the pictures before making their escape.
The victim, who was not named, was taken to hospital for treatment. Police said Saturday they were hunting for the robbers and the value of the haul had not yet been determined.
On Wednesday night a thief broke into the Modern Art Museum in Paris in a swift and simple raid, seizing five paintings valued at between $112-$125m.
Three guards were on duty but one of the alarms was defective and other security systems were apparently overcome.
The paintings cut from their frames were by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger and Amedeo Modigliani. Experts said they would be impossible to sell openly.
Interpol assists
Interpol said on Saturday it had circulated images and descriptions of the stolen works to its 188 member states at France's request.
The images have also been added to the international police organisation's stolen works of art database, which can be accessed online not only by law enforcement agencies but also by bodies such as culture ministries, museums, auction houses, art galleries, foundations and collectors "who may have vital information relating to the theft," it said.
Jean-Michel Louboutin, Interpol's executive director, was quoted as saying, "These extraordinary paintings by these great masters are so recognisable that they will be difficult to sell in any market.
"Their inclusion in Interpol's publicly accessible works of art database will allow any legitimate buyer of paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Leger and Modigliani to determine whether their purchase would be legal and for the public to remain alert as to what has been reported stolen."
Interpol said that officers from its headquarters in Lyon, southwest France, were liaising with French police investigators.
In January, about 30 paintings - including some by Picasso and Henri 'Douanier' Rousseau - were stolen from a private villa in the Cote d'Azur, with a total estimated value of around one million euros.
On New Year's Eve, a pastel by Edgar Degas disappeared from the Cantini museum in Marseille. The 1877 painting worth €800 000 had been lent for an exhibition by the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
In June last year, the Picasso Museum in Paris was robbed in broad daylight of a book of drawings by the celebrated 20th century artist, worth an estimated three million euros.
The assault occurred early on Friday, after two unidentified men rang the doorbell at the victim's home in Marseille, southern France.
On opening the door he was violently punched as the men rushed into the living room and seized the pictures before making their escape.
The victim, who was not named, was taken to hospital for treatment. Police said Saturday they were hunting for the robbers and the value of the haul had not yet been determined.
On Wednesday night a thief broke into the Modern Art Museum in Paris in a swift and simple raid, seizing five paintings valued at between $112-$125m.
Three guards were on duty but one of the alarms was defective and other security systems were apparently overcome.
The paintings cut from their frames were by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger and Amedeo Modigliani. Experts said they would be impossible to sell openly.
Interpol assists
Interpol said on Saturday it had circulated images and descriptions of the stolen works to its 188 member states at France's request.
The images have also been added to the international police organisation's stolen works of art database, which can be accessed online not only by law enforcement agencies but also by bodies such as culture ministries, museums, auction houses, art galleries, foundations and collectors "who may have vital information relating to the theft," it said.
Jean-Michel Louboutin, Interpol's executive director, was quoted as saying, "These extraordinary paintings by these great masters are so recognisable that they will be difficult to sell in any market.
"Their inclusion in Interpol's publicly accessible works of art database will allow any legitimate buyer of paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Leger and Modigliani to determine whether their purchase would be legal and for the public to remain alert as to what has been reported stolen."
Interpol said that officers from its headquarters in Lyon, southwest France, were liaising with French police investigators.
In January, about 30 paintings - including some by Picasso and Henri 'Douanier' Rousseau - were stolen from a private villa in the Cote d'Azur, with a total estimated value of around one million euros.
On New Year's Eve, a pastel by Edgar Degas disappeared from the Cantini museum in Marseille. The 1877 painting worth €800 000 had been lent for an exhibition by the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
In June last year, the Picasso Museum in Paris was robbed in broad daylight of a book of drawings by the celebrated 20th century artist, worth an estimated three million euros.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
A dance on the wild side
Choreographer Sharon Eyal is celebrating her 20-year affair with the Batsheva Dance Company with a powerful new work inspired by video art and the digital world.
When asked if being beautiful helps her in life, dancer-choreographer Sharon Eyal, 38, balks. “I don’t feel all that beautiful,” says the former model. “Maybe I would say I feel that other things about me are more powerful than that.”
“Powerful” was the word critics used when describing her 2008 work “Makarova Kabisa.” Indeed, there is no doubt that Eyal’s stage persona, and certainly her choreographic style, are high volume and hard-hitting. “Bill,” her new work for the Batsheva Dance Company, which premiered earlier this month at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv, is a natural continuation of “Makarova.”
Like her previous creations, “Bill” is characterized by a primal, wild, almost tribal atmosphere − and at the same time one that is also contemporary, like today’s club culture. This creation, Eyal explains, “seems to start with something pretty and sweet and inviting, and then it gets complex, both in physical and emotional terms. I also laugh at myself in this work, and I’m really pleased with that.”
There is something theatrical about “Bill,” which tells a story in contrast to your previous works.
Eyal: “Yes, I also feel that. I think there’s a story here, from the dramatic perspective. Actually, there are lots of stories, not just one, but they aren’t theatrical per se. I feel less of a connection to theater.
What were your inspirations for this work?
“I’m a great fan of video art, especially that of Bill Viola. In general I really love the three-dimensionality and that digital feeling − the form that video embodies. And when you try to transfer this to living flesh, it’s very interesting ...
“Another source of my inspiration is Spanish artist Santiago Sierra. He’s amazing. He doesn’t have a studio − he comes to places and creates there. He is also political. For example, he took a homeless person, put him in a box in a museum, gave him food and drink − and that was the exhibition. On another occasion he took a group of people who were having sex on rugs, installed mirrors and created a kind of series of white men with white men, black men with black men, black women with black men, and so on [on video and in photographs]. I got to know him through a good friend, who was also an inspiration for this work: [multidisciplinary artist] Michal Helfman. These are things that give my mind a little ‘twist.’”
Eyal worked on “Bill” for three months, albeit not continuously, with 21 Batsheva dancers. At the beginning of April, about half the troupe’s members set out for a tour in Japan, which was extended unexpectedly by the eruption of the volcano in Iceland; after several days’ delay, the dancers returned home via a circuitous route.
“This work isn’t particularly connected to the time I started it,” Eyal explains, “but there is something continuous about it, some sort of process I’m going through. When I started, I was thinking about several short vignettes, like short stories, and somehow during the course of the work I felt it was right to do a ‘journey piece’ − with the element of landscape as the most powerful thing about it. But it also has dominant situations that undergo changes, as if by a kind of manipulation.”
Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem in 1971 and started dancing when she was 4, “in one of those rhythmics classes for children.” At the age of 11, she was accepted to the Hora Efrochim children’s folk-dance troupe, then under the direction of the late Bracha Dudai. She attended the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance until the end of 10th grade, whereupon she left the regular education system and devoted herself to studying at the Bat-Dor studio in Tel Aviv. At that time she also started modelling (for example, in ads for Neshikolada chocolate and Cider Hagalil) and acquired a reputation as a glamour girl. The local weeklies quickly anointed her the queen of nightlife. When she cut off her tresses, they were eulogized in a column in a Tel Aviv weekly. Eyal refuses to speak about this period, or about her personal life in general, in the few interviews she gives to the media.
A Romance
Eyal’s romance with Batsheva began exactly 20 years ago, when Shelley Sheer and David Dvir, the troupe’s previous directors, spied her during a lesson at Bat-Dor. A few weeks later Ohad Naharin was appointed artistic director and the rest is Batsheva history: Eyal would scream backstage to release tension, he was smitten by the charms of this antithesis of the fragile, precise ballerina − and the two became a professional duo, identified with each other like Swedish choreographer Mats Ek and dancer Ana Laguna, or Jiri Kylian and Sabine Kupferberg of the Netherlands Dance Theater.
“Sharon is one of the most unique women, dancers and artists I have ever worked with,” says Naharin today. “Watching her for over 20 years, both as a dancer and as a choreographer, I always liked and was inspired by how she connects and fuses together her thoughts, fantasies, skills, views, sexuality, madness and love of dance.
While choreographers have found a muse in her, dancers who worked alongside Eyal speak of her wonderful sense of timing and extraordinary aptitude for improvisation. Dancer-actor Yehezkel Lazarov told the Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha’ir at the end of the 1990s how, during a duet in “Anaphase” with Eyal, she would tear his hat off spontaneously − and sometimes his pants.
Eyal, who started creating solo pieces for herself back in high school, developed as a choreographer within Batsheva: first in the Batsheva Dancers Create project, then for the Ensemble (the young dance troupe) and finally for the adult troupe. Her first work for the whole company, “Bertolina” (2005), had its world premiere at the prestigious Montpellier Festival.
Today she lives in Tel Aviv with her two children − Noa, 8, and Charlie, 16 months, and her life companion and creative partner of the past five years, Guy Bachar, a musician and organizer of underground arts events. She gave birth to Charlie in Norway during the course of creating “Killer Pig” for the Carte Blanche dance company, and will be returning there to create another work in the coming months. In 2011 her piece for the Hubbard Street Dance troupe will premiere in Chicago, sharing the stage with a new piece by Naharin, as will another work she has been commissioned to do for the Oldenburg dance company in Germany.
The local arts establishment’s recognition of Eyal’s abilities was relatively fast in coming: She won the 2004 Education, Culture and Sports Minister’s prize for young creative dance talents, has been a “chosen artist” of the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation since 2008, and was awarded the Mifal Hapayis Landau Prize last year. Eyal says she is totally loyal to the artistic team that accompanies her − Bachar, “the amazing” DJ Ori Lichtik and set designer Avi-Yona Bueno, aka Bambi (“He can feel me from his soul”) − about which she says: “This is a team I sign my name to − it is organic as far as I’m concerned.”
Eyal left Batsheva in 1998, after returning from a sabbatical, and went to Europe where, inter alia, she participated in a project of Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen. After a year and a half abroad, however, she returned to the company, which since then has been her permanent home. In 2003 after Naharin resigned, she was appointed artistic co-director of Batsheva, together with with Japanese choreographer Yoshifumi Inao. A year and a half later, Naharin returned as artistic director and in 2005 appointed Eyal as the company’s house choreographer.
Eyal’s major strength as a choreographer lies in ensemble work, but dancers who have performed her solo dances tell of an exciting experience with a warm, generous woman who creates from the gut.
How would you sum up your first 20 years at Batsheva?
“First 20 years, hmmmm,” she smiles. “I think it’s a pity to sum up. I would say mainly that it’s been really good. I have my place, the freedom to create. Beyond that, I’m a sworn fan of Gaga [the special movement language Naharin created]; I was lucky to be there from the beginning of this process. To my mind Gaga is one of the most wonderful things in the world; inspirational material for my works. As far as I am concerned it is the realization of personal potential. That’s the beauty of it − that you succeed through it in refining something in yourself.”
To what extent do you use Gaga in your work?
“It’s hard to say. It’s as though you’d asked how much of this or that I spread on my bread. Gaga is very strong with me ... but I have been influenced by many things, collectively.”
Do you still watch video clips of Natalia Makarova, the prima ballerina whom you said you admired and who inspired your 2008 work?
“Not so often. As a girl I was a sworn fan of hers. I would watch tapes of hers all the time. Yes, I admired her. Today I see [her dance] and admire it very much, but I immediately want to do something else. I adore it, it’s classic, it’s like hearing good music.”
Of her own work, Eyal says: “I have these contradictions − there’s a place within me from which I feel I only create, and yet a moment later, I turn into some kind of wild animal.”
As for working with Naharin: “The language we use is free. I consult with him and he with me. There was a period when I designed the clothes for his works. It’s a very open [communication] channel.”
Exclusive arrangement
Dancers in the troupe relate that Eyal has total artistic freedom and that Naharin usually only comes to see her creations for the first time at the premiere.
“That’s true,” she says. “I share my ideas with him, but I feel I am totally trusted. I think I wouldn’t be able to work any other way, because of the wildness in my mind. And it’s amazing, this freedom. They just say to me, ‘Go ahead with this and everything you want.’ The dancers, too. Sometimes I have hallucinatory ideas, God help us! I’m in favor of trying everything, always, every option, anything from which something could happen. I can come in after I’ve had a dream and tell the dancers: Listen, I want you to fly.”
A trend has developed in recent years whereby choreographers sometimes allow their dancers to take part in the creative process, and sometimes even credit them as “dancer-creators.” Eyal makes up all the movements herself, whereupon she goes into the studio with her ideas and transmits them to others. That, she believes, is where the real freedom lies for a dancer or choreographer who seeks his own personal meaning or interpretation of a piece.
Eyal: “The way I work is to ‘build’ the materials onto the dancers. That is, the materials come from me, but also make use of the qualities of the dancer alongside me. I think the moment he gets it, he has the freedom to create lots of worlds of his own. I think that in ‘Bill,’ there are small moments that are kind of the dancers’ ideas, more so than in other works of mine.”
Eyal has an exclusive arrangement to create works for Batsheva: “In Israel I don’t create for other companies. It’s always possible to discuss it, if there is something out of the ordinary that I want to do, but as a rule I am the house choreographer for Batsheva. It was important to me to have the freedom to create abroad, because I want to develop and grow, and part of my creativity and what I believe in is change. I think that in other countries there’s a different air, other people, different energies. As creators, it is our experiences that influence us more strongly than anything else.”
Do you feel you are working too much? Too little? Do you also create things and store them away for later?
“I want to create more, to dance more, to be a mother more, to be a life partner more − everything, a lot more. But I’m creating all the time.”
How do you feel about the fact that your works are performed in Israel less than Naharin’s?
“I don’t want to compare myself to Ohad. Ohad is Ohad; the comparison is superfluous. I would of course be glad if there were a great many ‘Makarova Kabisas’ and ‘Bertolinas’ − that’s obvious.”
Did the experience of being artistic director leave you with a taste for more?
“I wasn’t really the artistic director − it was tangential to that.”
Do you see yourself founding a company of your own in the future?
“It’s crossed my mind, obviously. I’m not living within a ‘shanti’ mindset; I do things to get ahead. But things will happen in their own time, and this isn’t occupying me at the moment.”
You once said you wouldn’t get along with a dancer like yourself. What did you mean?
“You should ask Ohad. I think I was very difficult. There was a period when I was very young and very wild. During the past 10 years, it hasn’t been like that. As a mature dancer it has been completely different. When you do choreography and you understand what it is to face people, it gives you a different perspective.”
What do remember about your first days in Batsheva?
“I remember that Ohad came and we did ‘Wall.’ I had a solo there called ‘Happiness’ and I was embarrassed to do it in front of people and he asked everyone to leave so I could do it.”
And today, do you still get embarrassed?
“Less and less.”
With “Bill,” for the first time in her career at Batsheva, Eyal is not dancing in one of her own creations (“At the moment, not,” she says in her mysterious and noncommittal way, “but maybe I’ll surprise people”). She hasn’t danced in the company for two years now. In fact, she was not slated to perform in “Makarova Kabisa” either, but stepped in during rehearsals, when one of the dancers was injured.
“I don’t feel as if I am in a transition,” she explains. “It’s the same: I feel choreography is dance. True, at the moment I’m not performing physically, but I am dancing all day long. And, yes, I have a more focused ‘take’ on choreography. The process is becoming better and better.”
There are many choreographers who find it hard to dance in their own works because it’s too personal and exposes them too much.
“I enjoy it, it is the most fun in the world. It’s like putting on your bedroom slippers, feeling comfortable. The audience sees who I am most strongly when it sees my work − it doesn’t make much difference whether I dance or not.”
So your personal life gets translated into your choreography?
“It is an entire complex of things that I’ve experienced, my feelings, what I see now and will see.”
What in your opinion is needed to be a good dancer?
“Being a good dancer is something chemical. It’s something you feel about a person, his totality, even if he isn’t absolutely the most talented. Beyond that there are the usual things: being musical, having coordination. These are very important, but there are non-musical dancers who are marvelous. What’s most important is the totality.”
You are a woman in a predominantly male artistic field. In your opinion, why is choreography like that?
“I ask myself the same question. It’s interesting. Maybe to be a choreographer, you need balls. It’s terribly hard work. I don’t have an answer. I’ll think about it.”
Do you go to dance performances?
“Seldom. I have to admit that if there’s a good film or music I really love, I’ll go to that first. I love dance, I love movement, I love the body, I love the vitality of it, but it isn’t always tangible enough for me. I love to think, and for things to stir something in my heart.”
What is your biggest professional dream?
“I have tons of dreams, but what I really want to do is film. I admire Tim Burton, Lars von Trier, who to my mind is totally a choreographer, the Coen brothers, all the greats.”
Is there a moment in dance history that you would have liked to experience?
“I would have been glad to have seen Balanchine − he caused such a revolution.”
Do you have anxieties connected to age and your body? Are there things you can’t do as you did in the past?
“It seems my body is only getting better. Both my body and my mind. I know, and I can do, a lot more now.”
Next year you are scheduled to travel to Norway, Germany and the United States. How does one combine an international career with two children?
“First of all I haven’t yet mentioned the most important thing in my life, my partner, without whom I couldn’t be doing what I am doing. I could cry when I talk about him; I am crazy about him. It’s very much thanks to him that I manage to combine things, because we do everything together. He’s truly a partner in my creative work. I listen to him; I’m glad there’s someone I can also share the difficulty with. Take the poster for the performance [“Bill”]: It’s his idea. The costumes are his idea, we work together totally and it helps me a lot. It takes a heavy responsibility off me. We are together. On the family front it is an amazing boon that we are together. He also has a mother who helps us a lot, and my parents do as well.”
Would you want your children to become dancers?
“I want my children to be whatever they want to be.”
Can you tell me how you met Guy?
“I prefer not to.”
Why this reluctance to talk about your personal life?
“Because I love my privacy, the intimacy of my home and my family. This is important to me. I’m not interested in reading about people and their lives; I’m interested in what they do and what they create. I feel that no one really needs to know what happens in my personal life. It’s very private and intimate.”
When asked if being beautiful helps her in life, dancer-choreographer Sharon Eyal, 38, balks. “I don’t feel all that beautiful,” says the former model. “Maybe I would say I feel that other things about me are more powerful than that.”
“Powerful” was the word critics used when describing her 2008 work “Makarova Kabisa.” Indeed, there is no doubt that Eyal’s stage persona, and certainly her choreographic style, are high volume and hard-hitting. “Bill,” her new work for the Batsheva Dance Company, which premiered earlier this month at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv, is a natural continuation of “Makarova.”
Like her previous creations, “Bill” is characterized by a primal, wild, almost tribal atmosphere − and at the same time one that is also contemporary, like today’s club culture. This creation, Eyal explains, “seems to start with something pretty and sweet and inviting, and then it gets complex, both in physical and emotional terms. I also laugh at myself in this work, and I’m really pleased with that.”
There is something theatrical about “Bill,” which tells a story in contrast to your previous works.
Eyal: “Yes, I also feel that. I think there’s a story here, from the dramatic perspective. Actually, there are lots of stories, not just one, but they aren’t theatrical per se. I feel less of a connection to theater.
What were your inspirations for this work?
“I’m a great fan of video art, especially that of Bill Viola. In general I really love the three-dimensionality and that digital feeling − the form that video embodies. And when you try to transfer this to living flesh, it’s very interesting ...
“Another source of my inspiration is Spanish artist Santiago Sierra. He’s amazing. He doesn’t have a studio − he comes to places and creates there. He is also political. For example, he took a homeless person, put him in a box in a museum, gave him food and drink − and that was the exhibition. On another occasion he took a group of people who were having sex on rugs, installed mirrors and created a kind of series of white men with white men, black men with black men, black women with black men, and so on [on video and in photographs]. I got to know him through a good friend, who was also an inspiration for this work: [multidisciplinary artist] Michal Helfman. These are things that give my mind a little ‘twist.’”
Eyal worked on “Bill” for three months, albeit not continuously, with 21 Batsheva dancers. At the beginning of April, about half the troupe’s members set out for a tour in Japan, which was extended unexpectedly by the eruption of the volcano in Iceland; after several days’ delay, the dancers returned home via a circuitous route.
“This work isn’t particularly connected to the time I started it,” Eyal explains, “but there is something continuous about it, some sort of process I’m going through. When I started, I was thinking about several short vignettes, like short stories, and somehow during the course of the work I felt it was right to do a ‘journey piece’ − with the element of landscape as the most powerful thing about it. But it also has dominant situations that undergo changes, as if by a kind of manipulation.”
Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem in 1971 and started dancing when she was 4, “in one of those rhythmics classes for children.” At the age of 11, she was accepted to the Hora Efrochim children’s folk-dance troupe, then under the direction of the late Bracha Dudai. She attended the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance until the end of 10th grade, whereupon she left the regular education system and devoted herself to studying at the Bat-Dor studio in Tel Aviv. At that time she also started modelling (for example, in ads for Neshikolada chocolate and Cider Hagalil) and acquired a reputation as a glamour girl. The local weeklies quickly anointed her the queen of nightlife. When she cut off her tresses, they were eulogized in a column in a Tel Aviv weekly. Eyal refuses to speak about this period, or about her personal life in general, in the few interviews she gives to the media.
A Romance
Eyal’s romance with Batsheva began exactly 20 years ago, when Shelley Sheer and David Dvir, the troupe’s previous directors, spied her during a lesson at Bat-Dor. A few weeks later Ohad Naharin was appointed artistic director and the rest is Batsheva history: Eyal would scream backstage to release tension, he was smitten by the charms of this antithesis of the fragile, precise ballerina − and the two became a professional duo, identified with each other like Swedish choreographer Mats Ek and dancer Ana Laguna, or Jiri Kylian and Sabine Kupferberg of the Netherlands Dance Theater.
“Sharon is one of the most unique women, dancers and artists I have ever worked with,” says Naharin today. “Watching her for over 20 years, both as a dancer and as a choreographer, I always liked and was inspired by how she connects and fuses together her thoughts, fantasies, skills, views, sexuality, madness and love of dance.
While choreographers have found a muse in her, dancers who worked alongside Eyal speak of her wonderful sense of timing and extraordinary aptitude for improvisation. Dancer-actor Yehezkel Lazarov told the Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha’ir at the end of the 1990s how, during a duet in “Anaphase” with Eyal, she would tear his hat off spontaneously − and sometimes his pants.
Eyal, who started creating solo pieces for herself back in high school, developed as a choreographer within Batsheva: first in the Batsheva Dancers Create project, then for the Ensemble (the young dance troupe) and finally for the adult troupe. Her first work for the whole company, “Bertolina” (2005), had its world premiere at the prestigious Montpellier Festival.
Today she lives in Tel Aviv with her two children − Noa, 8, and Charlie, 16 months, and her life companion and creative partner of the past five years, Guy Bachar, a musician and organizer of underground arts events. She gave birth to Charlie in Norway during the course of creating “Killer Pig” for the Carte Blanche dance company, and will be returning there to create another work in the coming months. In 2011 her piece for the Hubbard Street Dance troupe will premiere in Chicago, sharing the stage with a new piece by Naharin, as will another work she has been commissioned to do for the Oldenburg dance company in Germany.
The local arts establishment’s recognition of Eyal’s abilities was relatively fast in coming: She won the 2004 Education, Culture and Sports Minister’s prize for young creative dance talents, has been a “chosen artist” of the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation since 2008, and was awarded the Mifal Hapayis Landau Prize last year. Eyal says she is totally loyal to the artistic team that accompanies her − Bachar, “the amazing” DJ Ori Lichtik and set designer Avi-Yona Bueno, aka Bambi (“He can feel me from his soul”) − about which she says: “This is a team I sign my name to − it is organic as far as I’m concerned.”
Eyal left Batsheva in 1998, after returning from a sabbatical, and went to Europe where, inter alia, she participated in a project of Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen. After a year and a half abroad, however, she returned to the company, which since then has been her permanent home. In 2003 after Naharin resigned, she was appointed artistic co-director of Batsheva, together with with Japanese choreographer Yoshifumi Inao. A year and a half later, Naharin returned as artistic director and in 2005 appointed Eyal as the company’s house choreographer.
Eyal’s major strength as a choreographer lies in ensemble work, but dancers who have performed her solo dances tell of an exciting experience with a warm, generous woman who creates from the gut.
How would you sum up your first 20 years at Batsheva?
“First 20 years, hmmmm,” she smiles. “I think it’s a pity to sum up. I would say mainly that it’s been really good. I have my place, the freedom to create. Beyond that, I’m a sworn fan of Gaga [the special movement language Naharin created]; I was lucky to be there from the beginning of this process. To my mind Gaga is one of the most wonderful things in the world; inspirational material for my works. As far as I am concerned it is the realization of personal potential. That’s the beauty of it − that you succeed through it in refining something in yourself.”
To what extent do you use Gaga in your work?
“It’s hard to say. It’s as though you’d asked how much of this or that I spread on my bread. Gaga is very strong with me ... but I have been influenced by many things, collectively.”
Do you still watch video clips of Natalia Makarova, the prima ballerina whom you said you admired and who inspired your 2008 work?
“Not so often. As a girl I was a sworn fan of hers. I would watch tapes of hers all the time. Yes, I admired her. Today I see [her dance] and admire it very much, but I immediately want to do something else. I adore it, it’s classic, it’s like hearing good music.”
Of her own work, Eyal says: “I have these contradictions − there’s a place within me from which I feel I only create, and yet a moment later, I turn into some kind of wild animal.”
As for working with Naharin: “The language we use is free. I consult with him and he with me. There was a period when I designed the clothes for his works. It’s a very open [communication] channel.”
Exclusive arrangement
Dancers in the troupe relate that Eyal has total artistic freedom and that Naharin usually only comes to see her creations for the first time at the premiere.
“That’s true,” she says. “I share my ideas with him, but I feel I am totally trusted. I think I wouldn’t be able to work any other way, because of the wildness in my mind. And it’s amazing, this freedom. They just say to me, ‘Go ahead with this and everything you want.’ The dancers, too. Sometimes I have hallucinatory ideas, God help us! I’m in favor of trying everything, always, every option, anything from which something could happen. I can come in after I’ve had a dream and tell the dancers: Listen, I want you to fly.”
A trend has developed in recent years whereby choreographers sometimes allow their dancers to take part in the creative process, and sometimes even credit them as “dancer-creators.” Eyal makes up all the movements herself, whereupon she goes into the studio with her ideas and transmits them to others. That, she believes, is where the real freedom lies for a dancer or choreographer who seeks his own personal meaning or interpretation of a piece.
Eyal: “The way I work is to ‘build’ the materials onto the dancers. That is, the materials come from me, but also make use of the qualities of the dancer alongside me. I think the moment he gets it, he has the freedom to create lots of worlds of his own. I think that in ‘Bill,’ there are small moments that are kind of the dancers’ ideas, more so than in other works of mine.”
Eyal has an exclusive arrangement to create works for Batsheva: “In Israel I don’t create for other companies. It’s always possible to discuss it, if there is something out of the ordinary that I want to do, but as a rule I am the house choreographer for Batsheva. It was important to me to have the freedom to create abroad, because I want to develop and grow, and part of my creativity and what I believe in is change. I think that in other countries there’s a different air, other people, different energies. As creators, it is our experiences that influence us more strongly than anything else.”
Do you feel you are working too much? Too little? Do you also create things and store them away for later?
“I want to create more, to dance more, to be a mother more, to be a life partner more − everything, a lot more. But I’m creating all the time.”
How do you feel about the fact that your works are performed in Israel less than Naharin’s?
“I don’t want to compare myself to Ohad. Ohad is Ohad; the comparison is superfluous. I would of course be glad if there were a great many ‘Makarova Kabisas’ and ‘Bertolinas’ − that’s obvious.”
Did the experience of being artistic director leave you with a taste for more?
“I wasn’t really the artistic director − it was tangential to that.”
Do you see yourself founding a company of your own in the future?
“It’s crossed my mind, obviously. I’m not living within a ‘shanti’ mindset; I do things to get ahead. But things will happen in their own time, and this isn’t occupying me at the moment.”
You once said you wouldn’t get along with a dancer like yourself. What did you mean?
“You should ask Ohad. I think I was very difficult. There was a period when I was very young and very wild. During the past 10 years, it hasn’t been like that. As a mature dancer it has been completely different. When you do choreography and you understand what it is to face people, it gives you a different perspective.”
What do remember about your first days in Batsheva?
“I remember that Ohad came and we did ‘Wall.’ I had a solo there called ‘Happiness’ and I was embarrassed to do it in front of people and he asked everyone to leave so I could do it.”
And today, do you still get embarrassed?
“Less and less.”
With “Bill,” for the first time in her career at Batsheva, Eyal is not dancing in one of her own creations (“At the moment, not,” she says in her mysterious and noncommittal way, “but maybe I’ll surprise people”). She hasn’t danced in the company for two years now. In fact, she was not slated to perform in “Makarova Kabisa” either, but stepped in during rehearsals, when one of the dancers was injured.
“I don’t feel as if I am in a transition,” she explains. “It’s the same: I feel choreography is dance. True, at the moment I’m not performing physically, but I am dancing all day long. And, yes, I have a more focused ‘take’ on choreography. The process is becoming better and better.”
There are many choreographers who find it hard to dance in their own works because it’s too personal and exposes them too much.
“I enjoy it, it is the most fun in the world. It’s like putting on your bedroom slippers, feeling comfortable. The audience sees who I am most strongly when it sees my work − it doesn’t make much difference whether I dance or not.”
So your personal life gets translated into your choreography?
“It is an entire complex of things that I’ve experienced, my feelings, what I see now and will see.”
What in your opinion is needed to be a good dancer?
“Being a good dancer is something chemical. It’s something you feel about a person, his totality, even if he isn’t absolutely the most talented. Beyond that there are the usual things: being musical, having coordination. These are very important, but there are non-musical dancers who are marvelous. What’s most important is the totality.”
You are a woman in a predominantly male artistic field. In your opinion, why is choreography like that?
“I ask myself the same question. It’s interesting. Maybe to be a choreographer, you need balls. It’s terribly hard work. I don’t have an answer. I’ll think about it.”
Do you go to dance performances?
“Seldom. I have to admit that if there’s a good film or music I really love, I’ll go to that first. I love dance, I love movement, I love the body, I love the vitality of it, but it isn’t always tangible enough for me. I love to think, and for things to stir something in my heart.”
What is your biggest professional dream?
“I have tons of dreams, but what I really want to do is film. I admire Tim Burton, Lars von Trier, who to my mind is totally a choreographer, the Coen brothers, all the greats.”
Is there a moment in dance history that you would have liked to experience?
“I would have been glad to have seen Balanchine − he caused such a revolution.”
Do you have anxieties connected to age and your body? Are there things you can’t do as you did in the past?
“It seems my body is only getting better. Both my body and my mind. I know, and I can do, a lot more now.”
Next year you are scheduled to travel to Norway, Germany and the United States. How does one combine an international career with two children?
“First of all I haven’t yet mentioned the most important thing in my life, my partner, without whom I couldn’t be doing what I am doing. I could cry when I talk about him; I am crazy about him. It’s very much thanks to him that I manage to combine things, because we do everything together. He’s truly a partner in my creative work. I listen to him; I’m glad there’s someone I can also share the difficulty with. Take the poster for the performance [“Bill”]: It’s his idea. The costumes are his idea, we work together totally and it helps me a lot. It takes a heavy responsibility off me. We are together. On the family front it is an amazing boon that we are together. He also has a mother who helps us a lot, and my parents do as well.”
Would you want your children to become dancers?
“I want my children to be whatever they want to be.”
Can you tell me how you met Guy?
“I prefer not to.”
Why this reluctance to talk about your personal life?
“Because I love my privacy, the intimacy of my home and my family. This is important to me. I’m not interested in reading about people and their lives; I’m interested in what they do and what they create. I feel that no one really needs to know what happens in my personal life. It’s very private and intimate.”
When fashion met art
Luxury fashion label Louis Vuitton has teamed up with five of London’s leading art institutions - Hayward Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, South London Gallery, Tate Britain and the Whitechapel Gallery - to launch the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project.
The initiative is a three year arts and education programme which aims to give young Londoners access to the museum directors and curators, artists and collectors who shape the widely recognised British contemporary art scene.
Five panels of young people aged between 13 and 25, all recruited from different areas of London, will collectively visit exhibitions at the five partner institutions, where they will be given exclusive tours and unprecedented access to the inner workings of the art world as part of a peer-led youth forum for the employment and further understanding of art. Through additional focused workshops the young people will help create a project website to launch in 2011, providing an online community for debate, for showcasing work and for blogs.
The project launch follows the recent announcement that the solid 18-carat gold World Cup trophy will be carried in a custom-made Louis Vuitton trunk before it is presented to the winning team in South Africa in July.
The initiative is a three year arts and education programme which aims to give young Londoners access to the museum directors and curators, artists and collectors who shape the widely recognised British contemporary art scene.
Five panels of young people aged between 13 and 25, all recruited from different areas of London, will collectively visit exhibitions at the five partner institutions, where they will be given exclusive tours and unprecedented access to the inner workings of the art world as part of a peer-led youth forum for the employment and further understanding of art. Through additional focused workshops the young people will help create a project website to launch in 2011, providing an online community for debate, for showcasing work and for blogs.
The project launch follows the recent announcement that the solid 18-carat gold World Cup trophy will be carried in a custom-made Louis Vuitton trunk before it is presented to the winning team in South Africa in July.
Two fine-art collectors talk about their passion
Toby Penney’s “Mindful Path” hangs above a contemporary yellow cabinet. The other painting is “Irony of Eternal Life,” by Frank Hansen.
PHOTOS BY JAMES D. FIDLER
Catherine Leigh "Charlie" Damstetter has only two pieces in her art collection. But everyone has to start somewhere and Charlie is, after all, only 5 months old.
"Collecting is for every age," says her doting granddad, Bob Damstetter, a collector himself, who bought the Chris Vance paintings for Charlie one while she was still just a twinkle in her daddy's eye.
"I actually bought 'Fhat-Ass Duck' and put it away to save for a grandchild. Then we decided, what the heck, and gave it to our son anyway. When we did, they announced they were pregnant."
Art for every inch By contrast, Dennis Atherton Wellmark employee by day, art geek 'round the clock didn't get serious about collecting until he was about 28. Twenty years later, his 650-square-foot apartment near downtown is full of paintings, photographs, glass pieces and bits of memorabilia and ephemera that have caught his eye. Some of the photographs are his own artwork. Two storage units hold more treasures. "I have to rotate my art," Atherton says, sounding somewhere between sheepish and gleeful.
Large abstract paintings cover the living-room walls; photos and smaller works line the hallway. More 2-D pieces lean against the baseboards throughout the apartment and deep windowsills display small sculptures. A humble Cadillac hubcap shares space with paintings worth thousands.
"I try to make a statement without shouting too loudly," Atherton says. "I like to be surrounded by books and art; I like a curious mix of things." Hence the glass sculpture snuggled up to a cheapo gold picture frame draped with his late mother's gold wristwatch holding a jukebox song label beneath cracked glass.
Atherton's collecting habits are more spontaneous than planned. Things either speak to him or they don't. "I just know," he says, about how he picks his art. His collection has no theme besides eclecticism.
All Iowa Damstetter (Charlie's grandfather), and his wife Laura are nearly 40 years into their romance with art. They bought their first piece before they were married, a Karl Christiansen ceramic piece that caught their eye at an art show.
There are two "rules" in the Damstetter collecting handbook: One, the couple must agree on a purchase, and two, the artist has to have an Iowa connection. Both the rules have been bent from time to time. Bob does most of the bending of the first rule, and those acquisitions are generally hung in his office.
As for the second rule, the couple agreed that their collecting project needed an overarching theme. "Over time," Bob says, "we decided it would be Iowa artists. At times we have loosened that definition ... they just need to have an Iowa affiliation."
Though Bob, vice-president of Marel Townsend Inc., is not an artist, he does have some studio training and some education in art history. But Bob's interest in art pre-dates any of that. As a kid in Humboldt, he lived next door to elderly amateur artist Helen McGee, who piqued his interest. "She got me painting. I would have been thirteen, so she would have been...in her eighties! Can you imagine that much patience teaching a teenager to paint when you're eighty-something?" he says incredulously. Those early lessons stayed with Bob, and the Damstetters' art holdings include a small McGee seascape that hangs in their Ankeny sunroom.
The Damstetters' collection spans all different media prints, watercolors, pastels, oils and sculpture and a variety of artists, though most of their works fall into the abstract category, like the large oil by John Phillip Davis that hangs as a focal point in their dining room. Over the fireplace in the living room, fourteen Chris Vance paintings of varying sizes create a sort of mural, a visual story line.
One of his most interesting pieces, Bob says, is by a little-known 30-year-old artist named Knobi. "It is white with strokes of gold and blue. You can just see the motion in it." Though she was born in Nebraska at the Henry Doorly Zoo Knobi the orangutan now lives in Iowa at the Great Ape Trust.
Laura gives the collecting credit to Bob. "I enjoy art, but I'm not the connoisseur that Bob is. I just know what I like. I like the Iowa aspect because the artists are usually someone you can connect with."
Art smart Jackie and T.J. Moberg, co-owners of Moberg Gallery and Gilbert Vicario, curator at the Des Moines Art Center say the key to collecting things that will always hold your attention, and their value, is education. Look, study, read and look some more. "Develop your visual vocabulary," T.J. says.
Jackie says people need to first assess why they're buying art. "Do you need something red to go with a rug? Are you looking for an investment? Does it just make you smile?" The easiest way to narrow down what you really like is by comparison, she says.
If you already have an inkling about what you like, Vicario says, choosing art "is a pretty organic process. With a little guidance, it's not hard."
"The process should be fun, Jackie says. "What you buy should interest you now, next week and next year."
Rotary art show moves to Caulfield
THE Camberwell Rotary Art Show is moving to Caulfield after outgrowing its home of 45 years.
Caulfield Racecourse will host the May 27-30 event, which has swelled from exhibiting 1800 paintings last year to about 3000 this year.
Art show judge and former chairman John Oppy said space at Camberwell’s Civic Centre had been shrinking over the years, with the centre now earmarked for a $17.4 million library and office transformation.
“In the past you could hang about 2200 paintings, then they converted one area for offices, so we lost 200 spots, then last year they cut back another area and we were just losing too much space,” he said.
“We have a very good relationship with the council. They’re trying to help us, but unfortunately we had to make a very difficult decision and go.”
Mr Oppy said due to expensive running costs at Caulfield, the show would now run for four days, rather than the usual 10.
“But there are other advantages at Caulfield, with more parking and public transport. And we have some new, really outstanding artists exhibiting this year.”
Boroondara Mayor Jack Wegman said he wished Rotary every success at Caulfield “but in the end it ... will always be the Camberwell Art Show”.
Artists will vie for their share of $37,500 of prizemoney. Ticket proceeds will go to towards Rotary-supported charities.
Caulfield Racecourse will host the May 27-30 event, which has swelled from exhibiting 1800 paintings last year to about 3000 this year.
Art show judge and former chairman John Oppy said space at Camberwell’s Civic Centre had been shrinking over the years, with the centre now earmarked for a $17.4 million library and office transformation.
“In the past you could hang about 2200 paintings, then they converted one area for offices, so we lost 200 spots, then last year they cut back another area and we were just losing too much space,” he said.
“We have a very good relationship with the council. They’re trying to help us, but unfortunately we had to make a very difficult decision and go.”
Mr Oppy said due to expensive running costs at Caulfield, the show would now run for four days, rather than the usual 10.
“But there are other advantages at Caulfield, with more parking and public transport. And we have some new, really outstanding artists exhibiting this year.”
Boroondara Mayor Jack Wegman said he wished Rotary every success at Caulfield “but in the end it ... will always be the Camberwell Art Show”.
Artists will vie for their share of $37,500 of prizemoney. Ticket proceeds will go to towards Rotary-supported charities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)