The centerpiece of the Brussels exhibition is the amazing "Apostles" series from Toledo Cathedral and the El Greco Museum
BELGIUM
The "Long Night of Museums" event, March 6, Brussels. As in many European countries, this event is hugely popular in Brussels. Even if you're on business and your Offshore Services has settled everything, do not deny yourself the pleasure of visiting museums. From 7 pm to 1 am, 19 city museums, including the Museum of Costume and Lace, the Museum of Musical Instruments, the Comics Museum, and the Center for Fine Arts, which hosts exhibitions of Frida Kahlo and El Greco, will open their doors to night visitors. To quickly reach a museum open at night, you can use special buses, the fare for which is included in the price of a single ticket for the "Night of Museums" (8 if purchased in advance, 12 on March 6).
In addition to special guided tours, visitors can expect musical concerts, dance evenings, and theatrical performances. At the Museum of Industry and Labor, you can enter a real working forge; at the Museum of Musical Instruments, see Renaissance dances; and the Museum of Costume and Lace has prepared an exhibition and show dedicated to 1960s fashion. //www.museumnightfever.be
El Greco, until May 9, Brussels. An exhibition dedicated to the late work of Spanish painter of Greek origin Doménikos Theotokópoulos, or El Greco (1541-1614), recently opened at the Brussels Center for Fine Arts. The artist's work was composed of various elements: his Cretan heritage, lessons from the Italian Renaissance, and the atmosphere of Toledo, where he lived the last thirty years of his life. Interestingly, after his death, El Greco's name and paintings were quickly forgotten – his work was rediscovered only at the end of the 19th century.
El Greco is considered a "lonely and extravagant" artist. Contemporary researchers seek to define the components of his "painterly alchemy" – elongated proportions are a characteristic feature of Mannerism, but only El Greco gave them a mystical meaning. His individuality was fostered by the atmosphere of Toledo, which shaped the iconographic preferences of the master, who devoted himself to religious painting. The centerpiece of the Brussels exhibition is the amazing "Apostles" series from Toledo Cathedral and the El Greco Museum. The cathedral's collection of the artist's works very rarely leaves Toledo, so this exhibition can be considered almost unique. //www.bozar.be
SPAIN
Art of Power, March 9 – May 23; "Guest Painting", March 16 – May 30, Madrid. The image of the ruler, the monarch of the 16th-18th centuries – that is the main theme of the exhibition opening at the Prado Museum in Madrid in early March. This exhibition is based on the winter Washington exhibition "Art of Power" but has been significantly expanded with the rich collection of the Madrid Armory. Portraits of monarchs by famous European artists, including Rubens and Titian, and attributes of "strong power" – armor, weapons – will be presented at this exhibition.
Another interesting exhibition from the "Guest Painting" series will open at the Prado in mid-March. This time it will be a painting by American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit," from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The painting was created in 1882 under the strong influence of Diego Velázquez's "Las Meninas" from the Prado collection. The "guest painting" will be placed next to Velázquez's masterpiece. //www.museodelprado.es, //www.museodelprado.es
Anish Kapoor Solo Exhibition, March 16 – October 12, Bilbao. Last autumn, a large solo exhibition of contemporary artist Anish Kapoor (born 1954 in Bombay, living in London since the early 1970s) was held with great success at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Now his works can be seen at the Guggenheim Museum in the Spanish city of Bilbao. Anish Kapoor's artistic career in the UK has been very successful: in the 1980s he joined the popular group "New British Sculpture", in 1990 he designed the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, in 1991 he received the prestigious Turner Prize, and since 1999 Kapoor has been a member of the Royal Academy.
The exhibition will feature both popular giant sculptures from past years and six new works by the artist. Among the exhibits is the famous installation "Svayambh" – an object made of a mixture of paint, wax, and Vaseline, which will slowly travel through the museum's halls on specially laid tracks, leaving "bloody" trails. Another popular exhibit will be the installation "Shooting into the Corner" – a cannon that fires red wax cannonballs at the wall every 20 minutes. //www.guggenheim-bilbao.es
ITALY
From Braque to Kandinsky and Chagall, February 28 – June 2, Ferrara. This spring, the Palazzo dei Diamanti will host an exhibition dedicated to the history of one of the most successful art galleries of the second half of the 20th century – the private collection and later the Foundation of French collector and publisher Aimé Maeght. The Fondation Maeght museum was built in 1964 in the French town of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, designed by Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert. The design of the gallery and its lighting was discussed with Braque, Chagall, and Miró, whose works are kept in the museum in large numbers.
The Italian exhibition will feature over 70 paintings, sculptures, and drawings by artists such as Georges Braque, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, and Wassily Kandinsky. Photographs from 1945-2000 will provide the historical context of the creation of the collection and museum. //www.palazzodiamanti.it
Pre-Raphaelites and the Italian Dream, February 28 – June 6, Ravenna. The Art Museum of the city of Ravenna together with the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford have prepared an exhibition devoted to the Italian pictorial and literary roots of the art of the famous 'Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,' founded in England in 1848. What exactly was the Italian component in the rebellious ideas of the pupils of the London Royal Academy? The new exposition attempts to answer this question.
Visitors will see paintings by Fra Beato Angelico and Perugino alongside works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and Edward Burne-Jones. A modern interactive project dedicated to the creation of Burne-Jones's mosaics will allow visitors to immerse themselves directly in the creative process of one of the Pre-Raphaelites and see his 'Italian dream.' //www.museocitta.ra.it
TURKEY
Pablo Picasso 'Vollard Suite', February 16 – April 18, Istanbul. 'Suite Vollard' is the name of a graphic series of etchings created by Pablo Picasso from 1930-1936 and acquired in 1937 by the famous Parisian collector and publisher Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939). Since 1893, when Vollard opened his own art gallery on Rue Laffitte, he organized exhibitions of artists such as Manet, Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso, whose solo exhibition took place at Vollard's gallery in 1901. Vollard worked closely with Picasso during his 'Rose' and 'Blue' periods, but did not accept Cubism and broke off their collaboration, which resumed only in 1937 when Vollard bought this series of etchings from Picasso.
At the center of the composition of this cycle are the myths of the Minotaur and Pygmalion, and Picasso's model for this series was Marie-Thérèse Walter, with whom the artist was in love. That is why 'Suite Vollard' is often called the 'suite of love.' The exhibition is taking place at the Pera Museum in Istanbul, located in the former grand hotel La Bristol. //en.peramuzesi.org.tr
SWEDEN
Rubens and Van Dyck, February 25 – May 23, Stockholm. A large exhibition devoted to two great Flemish painters of the 17th century will open at the end of February at the National Museum in Stockholm. The exposition will be structured as a 'dialogue' between Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641). Genres, motifs, sources of inspiration, technique, and the work in the studios of the two artists will be compared in this exhibition. A separate section is devoted to Van Dyck's work in Rubens's studio in 1618. At that time, Rubens made sketches from which Van Dyck executed paintings ('Bacchanalia', 'St. Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius', 'Portrait of Jacqueline van Caestre'), which for a long time were attributed to Rubens himself. The exhibition will feature paintings from the museum's own collection as well as from many museums in Europe and the USA, including the Rotterdam and Stockholm versions of Van Dyck's painting 'St. Jerome with an Angel' shown together. //www.nationalmuseum.se
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