In today’s New York Times, Alastair Macaulay considers Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary La Danse alongside the Watteau exhibition now at the Met:

Nicolas Lancret, "La Camargo Dancing” ca. 1730 (DC: National Gallery)

. . . Many of us who love ballet have found our feelings on this film to be conflicted. By chance, I saw it a few hours before I attended the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition “Watteau, Music and Theater.” What a difference! If you love dance, “La Danse” isn’t the place to see why; “Watteau, Music and Theater” certainly is. The display fills only two rooms. Many of its pictures, especially those by Watteau himself, are not related to dance. Yet it spans, and often illuminates, the first century of existence of the institution in the film, the Paris Opera Ballet. True, ballet then was almost a different species. The paintings here help show the impact of the most famous achievement of the celebrated Paris Opera ballerina Marie Camargo, seen in a classic Nicolas Lancret painting from about 1730: the shortening of her skirts to give full exposure to her ankles and lower calves. “Watteau, Music and Theater” makes the dance of that era feel pristine. Here is the sunrise of a tradition. . .

If you are starting to make your plans to attend the new AQS Show in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,   March 24 – 27, 2010,  you may want to plan to include two other exhibits in the area that are on during that time.   They are:

“Quilts In The Mansion II”  is the second exhibit of a collection of  50 antique quilts dating from the 1800s to 1950 at Historic Poole Forge in Churchtown, Pennsylvania.  The quilts can be viewed Monday, March 22,  through  Saturday, March 27, 2010.   The new American Quilter’s Society show in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,  will be held while the “Quilts in the Mansion II” exhibit is on.

While the website has no information about the “Quilts in the Mansion”  show, you can see a  picture of the mansion and get other information about the site –
http://www.historicpooleforge.org/

While in the area, you can see this plus  a special quilt exhibit at the Lancaster Quilt and Textile Museum (in addition to their Amish quilt exhibit), and  “Layers Chester County Quilts # 3″  at the Chester County Historical Society.

Layers
Chester County Quilts #3
February 25 – September 11, 2010

For more info, the historical society’s web site is:  http://www.cchs-pa.org/
This is the third rotation of antique quilts that is set for February 25 through September 11, 2010.  About 50 quilts will be shown.   Currently, the info available is at http://www.cchs-pa.org/upcoming.php

A lot is going on during that time!

Up coming exhibitor and illustrator in residence, Rae Duncan, hard at work in kilau!

You can see more of Rae’s work on her blog and her flickr.

Rae will be exhibiting with us next September!

- Eion

A week of Cuban cinema at the Egyptian Centre of International Cultural Cooperation was opeed on November 19.

Due to the strong links between the Cuban Embassy in El Cairo and the Sector of International Cultural Relationships of the Egyptian Cultural Ministry and following a proposal made by the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC, after its initials in Spanish), was opened the week of Cuban cinema at the Egyptian Centre of International Cultural Cooperation.The season is made by a total of five documentaries and four movies, made by important Cuban directors such as Octavio Cortazar, Julio García Espinosa, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and Fernando Pérez and is a small and punctual tour through the development of the Cuban cinematography from 1964 until 2007.

Vladimir Gonzalez Quesada, The Affair Official of the Cuban Embassy in Egypt, said in his addressee during the opening ceremony that the documentary “Por primera vez” and the movie “El brigadista”, both made by the director Octavio Cortazar, were chosen for the opening ceremony for being a reflect through the film of the initial work of the revolution in the social and cultural fields.

He added the documentary showed the experience of taking the cinema to the mountains. The inhabitants of the Cuban mountains were before being faced with a screen. At the same time, the movie recreates the historic deed of the literacy campaign made by Cuba, the first country in Latin America to be free from illiteracy in 1961.

Prof. Hossam Nassar, President of the Sector of Cultural International Relationships, thanked the diplomatic mission the opportunity offered to the Egyptian people to enjoy the Cuban cinema.

He also remembered the trip made to Havana in May 2008, accompanying the Egyptian Minister of Culture, when he was able to see the hospitality and warmth of the Cuban people, as well as their high level of preparation and instruction.

Prof Nassar commented that with this interesting cinema week it is ending a working period at the Egyptian Centre of International Cultural Cooperation, which will be closed for a while for a complete remodeling.

The opening night had the presence of several executives of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, representatives of the diplomatic mission in El Cairo, executives and members of the Cuba Egypt Friendship Association and the Egypt – Latin America Friendship Association as well as journalists and general public.

The cinema season ended yesterday, 23 of November with the movie “Clandestinos”, by director Director Fernando Pérez.

Source: Cuban Embassy Egypt

All is set for London! Ava Nord – project created by Dancing Nun Hats and Sjöhaga Sweden – will exhibit at the Morley Winter Fair in London the 6th of December.

Finally I have found myself a really thrilling hotel. Finding a hotel in short notice in London in December is a thrill in itself, but this seems like one of a kind. The hotel’s name is The Pavillion Hotel, or rather The Pavilion Fashion Rock’n Roll Hotel!

When I booked I didn’t actually know anything about the hotel, but when I found it on Internet I was quite surprised Look at these rooms.

I’m home. Waiting for the pizza to arrive. The Christmas fair at Ninni’s studio was super nice, with the perfect Christmas feeling. I sold three hats and I’m so pleased.

The problem is that I have found myself in an anti-climax. I have worked so hard and prepared so much for London next weekend and I’m not ready yet, and since yesterday I have prepared for the Christmas show today. So now all energy has poured out of me.

But pizza is on its way! And if I go up in the studio I will put on my cd-book and will hear the last chapter Time to get ready for London!

This gate pattern of masjid jamek An-Nur in Labuan attracts me very much.

As we count down the last few days until the Copenhagen COP15 summit, the number of possible things I could blog about here is overwhelming. The numbers of events, exhibitions and initiatives hoping to tackle climate change is intense. I could write about Buy Nothing Day or the 350 vigil or the Wave, about the eARTh exhibition opening at the RA or about the RETHINK climate and contemporary art programme in Copenhagen. I could report about efforts to introduce greener energy around the world, for example, how Spain has exceeded its targets for renewables. I could, and I really should, tell you more about my business partner in Flow, Mark Stevenson, and his extraordinary travels around the world seeking reasons to be hopeful where scientists and change-makers are saving the planet. But you’d be better off reading his blog and then buying his book next year.

I could tell you all that and much more. Meanwhile, the bad news about the evidence of warming and resistance to act on it is relentlessly dripping into my Twitter stream. It’s difficult to be upbeat in the face of it. The climate negotiations are based on out of date predictions. Last night, I heard that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing 57 gigatonnes of ice a year (a gigatonne is a billion tonnes) and that the temperature there is now 6 degrees warmer. Last week there were reports of over 100 icebergs heading slowly for New Zealand. If the sheet melts entirely the sea levels will rise by 64 metres. Almost the most depressing thing about that is that the predictional film most likely to come true is Kevin Costner’s Waterworld.

Angela Palmer is the artist behind the Ghost Forest which landed in Trafalgar Square last week en route to Copenhagen. She was so depressed by deforestation and its links to climate change that she couldn’t sleep about it. So she undertook a major challenge, went to Ghana and transported these stumps to Europe. I found the installation an odd experience, unsettling, being in Trafalgar Square surrounded by these great uprooted things while people looked on respectfully at this combination-at-once of creativity and destruction. The labels told us that some of the trees had stood as tall as Nelson’s column. We were just looking at the feet of the giants, all washed of their soil.

Afterwards I went over to St Martins in the Fields to the Hard Rain exhibition, which although unconnected to Ghost Forest, showed photos of the Ghanaian logging operations and other evidence of environmental destruction. There is an image of a small boy stretching out his arms in front of the disc of a chopped trunk, a vibrant orange colour. The text for this exhibition said ‘If we can understand the horror we can dare to hope.’ My next stop was another exhibition by Angela Palmer, called Breathing In, in the Wellcome Institute. This is the result of journeys to China and Tasmania to collect evidence of the effects of climate change and pollution on people’s lives. For example, she compares white clothes and face masks worn in both places, China showing itself as one of the polluted places on earth by the black grime.

I liked these three exhibitions and I was glad they had been made. But I felt a kind of tedium or hopelessness, a feeling that art as eco-propaganda isn’t going to work, all these images of destruction and dystopias, that it wasn’t actually planting trees but using them up.

My final exhibition that day was Points of View, about 19thC photography from the British Library. Having just been to see the Ghost Forest I was struck by the first image, blown up large, a ghostly tree, all brachial white against dark. This was the negative of An Oak Tree in Winter, the first photograph by Fox Talbot, the first photographer, the image itself a ghost. He was excited that in a few seconds you could make an image that would take a skilled artist weeks or months. This process is still something we can get excited about, and photography is a primary means by which artists show us the abuses of nature and peoples around the world. But it is all part of the mechanisation that accelerated the materialism which has brought us to this state.

The next day I went for a walk in Honor Oak, up to One Tree Hill and found myself transfixed by an oak tree. A man came along the path and stood there quietly looking at it with me, then after a while he nodded, smiled and walked on. Oaks were planted by Joseph Beuys in his 7,000 oaks work in Kassell and are still being planted around the world in a legacy to that project. The  tree of doors and of endurance.

Exhibitions that trace broad themes back to the eighteenth century can be both instructive and delightful. I’m thinking, for instance, of the show, Rococo: The Continuing Curve, 1730-2008.

I have my doubts that the following exhibition on Decadence, now on view at the Dunkers Kulturhus in Sweden, lives up to such high standards, but it’s perhaps notable all the same. I apologize for the feeble translation. Since I was unable to find a description in English, I simply plugged the Swedish into Google’s translator. I was surprised the text came out as sensible as it did, though it’s still humorously rough. Indeed, it struck me as consistent with the apparent playful spirit of the show. -CAH

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

Decadence: A Rake’s Progress
Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg, Sweeden, 31 October 2009 — 28 February 2010

The word Decadence tickle in your mouth and into the tank. But what does it actually mean? Is that all you want but do not dare? Is it leather, whips and sex? Is it a luxury, pearls and swine? There are probably as many preliminary proposals as people.

Dekadens is also the title of one of Dunkers Kulthurhus’s major autumn exhibitions. It has its origin in a picture story of William Hogarth from the 1700s London, A Rake’s Progress. We follow a young heir by sudden wealth, betrayal, gambling, women, poverty, betrayal again, new wealth, drugs, prison, insane asylum and death. A story that tells positions. Which way of life should we choose? The security of challenging the faithful or shameless? Sometimes one or the other but never both at once.

This story has inspired many artists through the ages, as Igor Stravinsky, Ingmar Bergman, David Hockney and Paula Rego. They are all in Dekadens as well as a few of our most interesting young artists: Nathalie Djurberg and Jockum Nordstrom. They are involved with new works created for the exhibition. Cartoonist Gunnar Krantz gives his version of The Rake’s Progress and let the center be moved from London to Yuppie Future Stureplan in Stockholm. Decadence are everywhere and anytime.

Exhibition form breathable rubber, tar and rose petals. We will find the place we never knew of and that will always occupy our minds. Jonas Lindvall has designed an exhibition that is impregnated by everything from the asceticism of pomp! Welcome to the challenges posed maze!

Available to buy individually, see previous post or in 'Shop' - Trophies

Quote on copper plate reads 'Culture does not allow unmediated access to animals themselves. Our attitudes, our prejudices and indeed our sympathies are all filtered through or clogged up in this thick but transparent mesh (or mess) of history, culture, public opinion, received ideas. Steve Baker

Exhibition continues until December 6th. Thurs, Fri, Sat 11am – 5pm, Elysium Gallery, Swansea. Here you will find not only my work, but 6 other innovative and original illustrators most current work – Ashleigh Ward, Constantino Ellis, Charlotte Wood, JoAnn Worthington, Megan Evans and Sophia Shaw. See www.elysiumgallery.com for preview animation and more information about the gallery and the exhibition.

My dear friend, Ninni, is arranging a Christmas House tomorrow, Saturday 28th of Dec 13-16. She has moved her Chiropractor studio – Pagelsborgs kiropraktik – and is inviting customers, friends anD potential customers to an open house, with a fire, ginger cookies and glögg in Silpinge.

She also invited local food producers and designers to present and sell their products. I have just been up to Silpinge to arrange my collection of wearable art and already know it’s going to be a fantastic day with Christmas spirit in the air.

Some of the companies that are going to be at Ninni’s place tomorrow: Dancing Nun/Ava Nord, Veras hus, Mairo, In My House.

Eggs from the village of Silpinge

Wood for the fire in charming locally created bags

Finally, the christmas tree looks like it standing straight...

My hats are lined up and ready for the crowd...

Having collectively spent many, many seriously joyful hours on many, many days looking, seeing, and learning at The Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC we’re happy to see that Judith H. Dobrzynski has written an short, practical review of the Museum’s newly redesigned website.  Entitled “The Whitney Debuts Its Latest Acquisition: A New Website”, Dobrzynski’s article appears in her ArtsJournal blog “Real Clear Arts” and is well worth the quick read.  Then, of course, you must go to the new Whitney site and read about the sunrise/sunset project, and all the other fascinating goings on (including online access to the permanent collection!).

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

Agnes Pelton, "Mountain Flowers, September at Thomas Mountain," 1945

Spanierman Gallery, LLC at East Hampton is pleased to announce the opening on November 27, 2009 of Little Gems for the Holiday Season . This exhibition presents fifty small-scale paintings that are ideal for holiday gifts. More affordable than larger examples of equal quality, the selections in this exhibition also provide many opportunities for new collectors. See all the works online.

26th November – 7th February. Open daily 10am-6pm, admission free.

The Serpentine Gallery presents its first ever exhibition solely dedicated to modern design. Curated by Konstantin Gcric, it investiagtes the ways industrial products fit into our complex material world, and the effect these products have on our daily lives.

Find out more at www.design-real.com

Duminica 29 noiembrie, intre 11:00 – 18:00, va asteptam iar pe toti in inedita ambianta a clubului La Scena pentru cateva ore de relaxare, probat si achizitionat haine vintage si ale unor tineri designeri, dar si bijuterii&accesorii handmade, schimbat impresii, sorbit limonade&cafele, degustat meniul zilei la pret special, in cadrul unui nou targ vintage&handmade. Si asta pentru ca La Scena va gazdui constant astfel de evenimente. Ne vedem acolo!

PRESS RELEASE

IFES AND EXPOPEDIA.NET ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP

Brussels, 30 October 2009

IFES, the International Federation of Exhibition Services and Expopedia have signed an agreement for the roll-out of the worldwide trade service finder  www.expopedia.net. The agreement provides IFES’ support for a fast build-up of a qualified suppliers database and high standards of service for users who rely on Expopedia.net to find experienced subcontractors around the globe.

Where do I find a good catering company near Kiev Expo? Who can deliver floor coverings at Transamerica Expo Center in Sao Paulo? What is an acceptable hour rate for workforce at the Sri Lanka Expo and Convention Center? Stand contractors who operate internationally often face this kind of questions abroad. There are hardly any international standards for quality of services for events and exhibitions and most international stand contractors rely on small networks of colleagues they got to know personally. The IFES network has facilitated the collaboration between IFES members and now Expopedia will bring the same principal of sharing trusted suppliers to a much wider audience.

The international Trade Service Finder at www.expopedia.net copes with subcontracting questions and challenges by organizing specialized offer and specialized demand geographically. The search engine’s database only returns contact data of relevant suppliers, linked to the venues and services you need.

As the world’s leading umbrella organization for exhibition services, IFES has a privileged overview of potential suppliers around the globe. IFES unites over 1,600 companies in 27 countries.  The purpose of IFES is to promote the commercial, professional and socio-political interests of its members on an international level. It does so by developing a platform for exchange of information and promoting international cooperation through the IFES network.

IFES and Expopedia have agreed a partnership to support the fast roll-out of the international trade service finder of www.expopedia.net. IFES Members will provide a qualified base of professional suppliers and will support Expopedia with a rich, international knowledge base when verifying its subscribers. Expopedia, for its part, will stress the importance of industry association adherence as a quality criterion every time the search engine returns results and create a series of unique membership benefits for the IFES-network.

The Belgium based company Passport-Expopedia launched www.expopedia.net, the first dedicated website to source exhibition services worldwide. Expopedia.net was created by a group of Belgian entrepreneurs with a long experience in the exhibitions industry. They joined forces to develop a reliable and easy-to-use internet platform to source products and services related to exhibitions, conferences and events worldwide.

 Exhibitors and stand contractors who want to operate internationally often experience difficulties in finding the right partners in or near the venue abroad they have in mind. A poor knowledge of local suppliers and uncertainties about the quality level of the services have been identified as important obstacles for a genuine internationalization of the entire events and exhibitions industry. Exhibitors and stand contractors abroad are reluctant to source services locally and often choose the more expensive solution: transporting goods from their home-base over vast distances. Venue owners and show organizers who cannot offer a complete array of services on-site experience more difficulties in attracting foreign exhibitors and/or show organizers. Expopedia.net aims at overcoming this deadlock by offering geographically organized information about qualified suppliers to exhibitions, conferences and events.

Not just another database

Expopedia.net is not just another database with service suppliers. The input of companies is meticulously monitored on two criteria: quality of services and experience at the given venue(s). Users start their search with specifying where the event will take place. The returned data are from qualified suppliers only.

Expopedia.net relies on trade associations from the exhibitions industry and on venue owners to keep the database up-to-date. Both are currently being invited to review the entries and add their selection of trusted suppliers. A tailor-made benefit scheme for trade associations ensures the continuity of the cooperation for the years to come. Adherence to Expopedia.net gives the associations an additional argument to find and convince new members.

Industry leadership

Expopedia.net is the first application that was developed by industry professionals for industry professionals. It is easy to use, free to use and reliable as to the companies it refers to.  

“Expopedia.net is bound to increase the sphere of influence of stand contractors and exhibition venues dramatically”, says Passport-Expopedia CEO Hans Dejonckheere. “Hard to find services and expensive to transport goods are an important obstacle to exhibiting abroad. Expopedia.net will take away these obstacles, enhance international cooperation and – most importantly – reduce the ecological footprint of international exhibition activities. Environmental issues are high on the agenda of both political authorities and industry associations around the world. With Expopedia.net, we offer the exhibition industry a unique tool to anticipate any limitations that may be imposed in the near future on daily exhibitions’ operations. In fact, the more people use Expopedia.net, the more we can develop an industry leadership inspired by the leading trade associations.”

From the website of the Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis, a house museum built in the 1680s that boasts some remarkable eighteenth-century interiors:

Dutch Cartography of Russia, 16th-18th Centuries / Nederlandse Kaarten van Rusland, 16e-18e eeuw
Museum Geelvinck, Amsterdam, 4 July 2009 — 1 February 2010

Pontus Euxinus of Nieuwe en Naauwkeurige Paskaart van de Zwarte Zee, ontworpen door N.Witsen, Reinier & Iosua Ottens, 1723

De kaarten maken deel uit van de collectie van Jhr. Dr. Igor Wladimiroff, zoon van een naar Nederland geëmigreerde Rus. Wladimiroff promoveerde onlangs in Groningen op een onderzoek in Russische en Nederlandse bronnen naar de relatie en rol van Witsen en Vinius bij de cartografie van Rusland. Midden 16e eeuw ontdekten de Engelsen door toeval een nieuwe handelsroute via de Witte zee naar Moscovié. In hun kielzog volgden de Nederlanders. Vanaf begin 17e eeuw kwamen Nederlandse kooplieden, ambachtslieden en diplomaten in toenemend aantal naar Rusland. In dezelfde periode gingen de Nederlandse koopvaarders de wereldzeen bevaren en golden al spoedig de zee- en landkaarten van de Nederlandse cartografen als de beste ter wereld. Hun namen spreken nog altijd tot de verbeelding: Ortelius, Waghenaer, Mercator, Hondius, Blaeu, Janssonius en vele anderen.

Het was logisch dat in de Nederlanden ook behoefte ontstond aan betrouwbare kaarten van Rusland. Al was het alleen maar vanwege de herhaalde pogingen om via de noordelijke kust van Rusland een doorvaart naar China en Indië te vinden. Voortbouwend op de primitievekaarten die eerder in het Westen gemaakt waren, streefden de Nederlandse cartografen ernaar hun kaarten van Rusland te verbeteren. Gelet de hiervoor genoemde reden was dat echter een groot probleem.

Alleen door eigen kennis en waarneming, door vertrouwelijke contacten met ontwikkelde Russen en door het smokkelen van geheime informatie, kon men aan cartografische gegevens uit Rusland komen. Nederlanders die in de 16e en 17e eeuw uit Rusland cartografisch materiaal meebrachten waren onder andere: Olivier Brunel, Willem Barentsz, Isaac Massa, de gebroeders Kluytting, Nicolaes Witsen en Jan Struys. . .

milieu artspace

From today until December 12th, Byron Bay and it’s environs can expect a wonderful display of art at the local Retrospect Galleries.

Featuring works from young Australian artists (including some recently seen in Leeloo’s Once Upon – Nicole Tattersall, Kareena Zerefos and Kareem Rizk), alongside a bevvy of emerging talent, this is a must-see for anyone slightly south of the northern border in the coming weeks. Head to the web site for more details.

At Herdsman Lake (detail) 2009

Irish artist Maria Hildrick is having an opening at the Kidogo Arthouse for her exhibition Bowerbirds and Other Animals on Thursday 3rd of December at 6.30 pm.

It runs from the 4th to the 9 of December, 10 am to 5 pm and you can find more blurb about it here on its FaceBook event page.