Sotheby's Old Masters Week - 25 - 31 Jan 2014

"Old Masters Week 2014 opens in our New York galleries on 25 January and features an array of sales from Old Master Drawings, Old Master Paintings, European Sculpture and Works of Art and Fine Arts. The auction series begins with Old Master Drawings. This sale presents a rich survey of some three and a half centuries of European drawings and is particularly strong in works from the Italian and Netherlandish schools. A highlight of the week is the Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture sale. This auction features a number of strong paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, including important rediscoveries by Gerrit van Honthorst and Jacob Ochtervelt. We are also excited to present The Courts of Europe: Renaissance to Rococo, a highly curated sale featuring distinguished paintings, drawings, and sculpture that demonstrate the princely taste of these artistic centers. The week concludes with Old Master and 19th Century European Art, which features over 300 works spanning the centuries and the majority of Europe."

(http://www.sothebys.com/en/sales-series/2014/old-masters-week-2014/overview.html)

Who is Susan Collis?????

From 2002 onwards, the Armory Show introduced an annual commision and this year's selected artist was Susan Collis as The Armory Show’s 2010 Commissioned Artist.

Collis is known for painstaking facsimiles of mundane objects, which force viewers to reconsider details they may not have initially paid attention to. In "Made Good" (2007), a typical piece for the artist, what initially looks like a Phillips screw sticking out of the gallery wall is in fact made of gems and precious metals. As part of the installation/performance “SWEAT” (2008), a digital clock seems to mark time in the background; but the display is not an LCD – instead, the time is a stop-motion animation composed of 12,000 individual drawings. Emblematic of Collis' extreme perseverance, the clock is unfinished and will take approximately two more years to complete.

Cartier: Le Style et L' Histoire!

Paris, Grand Palais
December 4, 2013 – February 16, 2014

Cartier. Le style et l’histoire, presented in the prestigious Salon d’Honneur room of the Grand Palais, is the first exhibition of this scale to be held in Paris since the Cartier retrospective at the Petit Palais in 1989. Commissioned by the Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais, the exhibition explores Cartier's role in the history of style and decorative arts, from the founding of the Maison in 1847 to the mid-1970s.
The exhibition features more than 600 extraordinary pieces, presented side-by-side for the first time. Most of the pieces belong to the Cartier Collection, or have been loaned by private parties, institutions and museum collections from France and around the world. Together, these pieces are a testament to the rich and intricate history of the Jeweler to Kings and the King of Jewelers.
Cartier's creative genius and artistic flair are presented in a new light under the innovative curatorship of Laurent Salomé, Curating Director of RMN, and his Assistant Director Laure Dalon. Salomé and Dalon approached the exhibition as an art history project, thoughtfully selecting each piece of jewelry, precious accessories, and timepieces for display.
The exhibit's carefully curated collection of jewelry, bejeweled accessories and timepieces is complemented by more than 300 documents from the Cartier archives: notebooks, drawings, order books, inventories, plaster casts, autochromes and photographs that provide insight into the jeweler's creative process.
Spanning several decades of style, the story and legacy of Cartier is revealed through inspirational imagery and iconic figures in this ephemeral setting.

(http://www.cartier.com/maison/living-heritage/exhibitions-12856/current-exhibition-12856/-15206-12856)

Collage Artist Hannah Hoch in Whitechapel Gallery London (15 January - 23 March 2014)

"Hannah Höch was an artistic and cultural pioneer. A member of Berlin’s Dada movement in the 1920s, she was a driving force in the development of 20th century collage. Splicing together images taken from fashion magazines and illustrated journals, she created a humorous and moving commentary on society during a time of tremendous social change. Höch was admired by contemporaries such as George Grosz, Theo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters, yet was often overlooked by traditional art history. As the first major exhibition of her work in Britain, the show puts this inspiring figure in the spotlight.

Bringing together over 100 works from major international collections, the exhibition examines Höch’s extraordinary career from the 1910s to the 1970s. Starting with early works influenced by her time working in the fashion industry, it includes key photomontages such as High Finance (1923) which critiques the relationship between bankers and the army at the height of the economic crisis in Europe.

A determined believer in artistic freedom, Höch questioned conventional concepts of relationships, beauty and the making of art. Höch’s collages explore the concept of the ‘New Woman’ in Germany following World War I and capture the style of the 1920s avant-garde theatre. The important series ‘From an Ethnographic Museum’ combines images of female bodies with traditional masks and objects, questioning traditional gender and racial stereotypes.

Astute and funny, this exhibition reveals how Höch established collage as a key medium for satire whilst being a master of its poetic beauty."

(http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/hannah-hch)