Of course, works of famous impressionists will also participate in thematic exhibitions – for example, 'Color in Painting' in Copenhagen or 'Food in Still Life' in Vienna. In London, an interesting exhibition of Arshile Gorky, little known in Russia, will open (at Tate Modern), and photography lovers should look at the classics – photographic portraits by Irving Penn at the National Portrait Gallery.
AUSTRIA
Food in Still Life, February 10 – May 30, Vienna. The main winter-spring exhibition at the Vienna museum BA-CA Kunstforum will be, as its curators call it, a 'culinary' exposition dedicated to the 'art and aesthetics' of food in European society. The exhibition will feature 90 paintings and sculptures by artists from the 16th to 20th centuries, from famous market scenes by Pieter Aertsen to works by contemporary artists Maria Lassnig and Zoe Leonard. Paintings for this exhibition have been provided by many museums in Europe and the USA, so visitors will be able to see the famous 'The Gardener' by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, as well as still lifes by Francisco Goya, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and other artists. //www.bankaustria-kunstforum.at
Andy Warhol's 'Cars', January 22 – May 16, Vienna. The car in pop art is the theme of the exhibition that recently opened at the Albertina Museum in Vienna. At the center of the exhibition is Andy Warhol's (1928-1987) 'Cars' series, consisting of 35 paintings that the artist created in the last years of his life. This series reflects the history of the Mercedes-Benz automobile. The same car is also the subject of a series of video clips by Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury, created in 2005. Also on display are a series of 'car portraits' by American artist Robert Longo and a conceptual study of the design of the Mercedes SLR in sculptures by Vincent Szarek. All works presented at the exhibition belong to the Daimler art collection. //www.albertina.at
BELGIUM
Boat Show, February 6-14; Classic Car Exhibition, February 20-21, Ghent. Over 220 exhibitors will present novelties of motor yachts and sailing dinghies, as well as accessories, at the traditional February boat show in Ghent, Belgium. At the Flanders Expo exhibition center, visitors can see models in operation and also visit halls showcasing the latest equipment and clothing for popular water sports.
The exhibition of vintage collector cars will take place at the same Ghent exhibition center a week after the boat show. This year's theme is 'Sports Cars', so visitors can see and purchase rare collector cars, as well as special literature, computer games, and vintage car models. Ticket price: €13. //www.flandersexpo.be, //www.collectioncar.be
GREAT BRITAIN
Retrospective Exhibition of Arshile Gorky, February 10 – May 3, London. The Tate Modern in London is preparing to open a major retrospective exhibition of American artist Arshile Gorky (1904-1948). The artist's real name was Vostanik Adoyan, he was born in Armenia. In 1915, his family fled to Sochi after the tragic events of the Armenian genocide, and then in 1920, the artist emigrated to America. From 1925, Gorky studied and later taught at the Central School of Art in New York. His first solo exhibition took place in 1931, and over the next decade he created a series of paintings in the style of abstract expressionism. In the early 1940s, Arshile Gorky met André Breton and the surrealist artists, which allowed him to find his own path combining figuration and automatic writing. His last works became harsh and tragic, caused by the misfortunes that befell him: in 1946, a fire in his studio destroyed 27 paintings, then he fell seriously ill, and after a car accident in 1948, the artist committed suicide. The complex and tragic fate of Arshile Gorky will be reflected in his works gathered for the London exhibition from many museums around the world. //www.tate.org.uk
Photographic Portraits by Irving Penn, February 18 – June 6, London. The exhibition of the recently deceased famous American classic photographer Irving Penn (1917-2009) at the National Portrait Gallery will feature about 120 portraits. The earliest of these were created by Penn in 1944, when he was the art editor and later a photographer for the famous magazine Vogue. Among the exhibits, of course, there will be many portraits of celebrities – Pablo Picasso, Christian Dior, Marlene Dietrich, Truman Capote, Duke Ellington, Alfred Hitchcock, Édith Piaf, Al Pacino. But no less interesting for visitors will be the ethnographic portraits and portraits of ordinary people from the Small Trades series, which Irving Penn was so proud of. //www.npg.org.uk
GERMANY
Pop Life, February 12 – May 9, Hamburg. An exhibition will soon open at the Gallery of Contemporary Art of the Hamburg Kunsthalle, where the relationship between genuine art and commercial success in art will be actively discussed. Of course, the first in this exhibition will be Andy Warhol, the creator of pop art and later "business art," in which he cast himself as an entrepreneur actively reproducing and advertising his own work. "Good business is the best art" – this thesis of Warhol's proved tempting for a whole range of contemporary artists, so the exhibition will feature items from the famous Pop Shop of American artist Keith Haring, the scandalous series of sculptures and photographs Made In Heaven by Jeff Koons, dedicated to his marriage to porn star Cicciolina, and the famous formaldehyde-preserved shark by Damien Hirst (Beautiful Inside My Head Forever), sold at Sotheby's in 2008 for a record sum. The exhibition ends with an overview of the work of one of the leaders of neo-pop, Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, who built a business empire on anime imagery. This exhibition recently had a scandalously successful run at London's Tate Modern. //www.hamburgerkunsthalle.de
BioFach exhibitions, February 17–20, Nuremberg. The BioFach exhibition of natural, organic food, natural cosmetics, textiles, and toys is hugely popular worldwide – it takes place not only in Europe but also in China, Brazil, Japan, and the USA. As last year, the exhibition will feature a "Wine Hall" where visitors can taste and evaluate the best natural wines presented by 350 exhibitors from 23 countries. Also last year, the Eco-Fashion-Show was very popular, so eco-textiles will be one of the main themes of the exhibition. //www.nuernbergmesse.de
DENMARK
Color in Painting, February 5 – June 13, Copenhagen. Near Copenhagen, in the town of Humlebæk, the famous Louisiana Museum of Modern Art opens an exhibition dedicated to the coloristic experiments of artists from the late 19th to the first half of the 20th century. It will feature over 100 paintings from the private Merzbacher collection. The collection began with paintings by Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Fauves, then expanded with works from the artistic groups "Die Brücke" and "Der Blaue Reiter," followed by Italian Futurists and Russian Constructivists. Among the exhibits are 8 paintings by Vasily Kandinsky, as well as works by Emil Nolde, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, and David Hockney. Naturally, the study of color theory at this exhibition will be supplemented by works from the museum's own collection. //www.louisiana.dk
SPAIN
Monet and Abstractionism, February 23 – May 30, Madrid. In late February, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid will join the famous old art-historical dispute about "abstraction in Monet." The impetus for this dispute may have come from the revelation of one of the founders of abstractionism, Vasily Kandinsky. The centerpiece of the exhibition are paintings by Claude Monet (1840–1926) created in the last 20 years of his life in Giverny. As an "abstract context" for comparison, works by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, and Gerhard Richter have been selected. //www.museothyssen.org
ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair, February 17–21, Madrid. More than 250 galleries from Spain, France, Korea, Italy, China, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Brazil, and other countries will present contemporary art at the next ARCO fair in Madrid. At the Juan Carlos I Exhibition Center, visitors can explore both traditional genres of contemporary art and experimental installations, video and media art. This year's special theme is "Los Angeles as a Center of Global Contemporary Art." Visitors can also expect solo presentations by popular contemporary artists and performances. //www.ifema.es
ITALY
Caravaggio, February 20 – June 13, Rome. The name of the reformer, scandalist, and rebel Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571–1610), is usually associated with the emergence and flourishing of the realistic trend in Italian painting of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. A major exhibition of Caravaggio's works, timed to the 400th anniversary of the artist's death and organized under the patronage of the President of Italy, will open in late February at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome and will occupy two floors of the exhibition center. The large Roman collection of Caravaggio's paintings will be supplemented at this exhibition by the artist's best works from many museums and private collections in Europe and the United States.
Visitors will see paintings from the Vatican museums, "Basket of Fruit" from the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, in which a still life becomes an independent and sole subject of the painting, and "The Annunciation" from the Museum of Fine Arts in Nancy. Moreover, this exhibition offers a unique opportunity to compare the paintings "The Supper at Emmaus" from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan and the National Gallery in London, "Bacchus" from the Uffizi and "Boy with a Basket of Fruit" from the Galleria Borghese in Rome, "The Concert" from the Metropolitan Museum in New York and "The Lute Player" from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, "John the Baptist" from the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City and the Galleria Corsini in Rome. The exhibition will run until mid-June. //www.english.scuderiequirinale.it
Retrospective exhibition of Edward Hopper, February 16 – June 13, Rome. This exhibition, organized jointly with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, recently had great success at Milan's Palazzo Reale. Now the retrospective of American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967) moves to Rome's Museo del Corso. In seven sections in chronological order, Hopper's works will be presented, from «Summer Interior» (1909) and Soir Bleu (1914), created under the influence of French post-impressionism, to the master's late works. It is known that until 1923 Hopper could not sell any paintings, so he had to work as a commercial illustrator in New York – works from this period are also presented at the exhibition. Also, visitors will have the opportunity to interactively see the process of creating many of Hopper's paintings, as many sketches have been preserved and will also be presented at the exhibition. In addition, renowned Austrian video artist Gustav Deutsch created a video installation that allows each visitor to «step into» Hopper's painting «Morning Sun» (1952). The exhibition is accompanied by films, clips, and photographs that will help fully immerse in the context of the era. //www.museodelcorso.it
NETHERLANDS
Gauguin – Breakthrough to Modernity, February 19 – June 6, Amsterdam. At the center of the new exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is a series of 11 lithographs by Paul Gauguin, created on the advice of Theo van Gogh in 1889 for the «Exhibition of Impressionists and Synthetists» at the Café Volpini. It is believed that these lithographs allowed the artist to make a «breakthrough» into modern art. The lithographs will be compared with famous paintings by Gauguin provided for this exhibition by European museums and private collectors.
In addition, from January 22 to July 4 (during the renovation of the Hague's H. W. Mesdag State Museum), the museum will host the painting collection of Dutch artist Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831-1915), who assembled paintings by artists such as Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet, Théodore Rousseau, Jacob Maris, and Jozef Israëls. //www.vangoghmuseum.nl
FRANCE
Designer Patrick Jouin, February 17 – May 24, Paris. La substance du design is the name of the new exhibition by trendy Parisian designer Patrick Jouin (b. 1967) and his design studio. The main idea of Jouin's work is design for everyday life, so he takes on interior projects for new restaurants, boutiques, and public toilets, designs functional home furniture and street benches, and engages in industrial design and architectural projects. The exhibition will present 20 new projects from the studio in photographs, drawings, models, and mock-ups. //www.centrepompidou.fr
Vanitas, February 3 – June 28, Paris. A new thematic exhibition dedicated to artistic interpretations of the idea of Vanitas (from Latin – «vanity, futility») across different eras will open in early February at the Musée Maillol in Paris. In the Baroque era, this term referred to an allegorical still life whose compositional center traditionally featured a human skull and an hourglass. Such paintings were intended to remind of the transience of life, the futility of pleasures, and the inevitability of death. This genre was most widespread in Holland, France, and Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Paris exhibition will present paintings, sculptures, jewelry, photographs, and video installations by artists from the 16th to the 21st centuries, from Caravaggio to Damien Hirst, who created a platinum skull encrusted with diamonds in 2007. //www.musee-maillol.com
SWITZERLAND
Van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet from the Buehrle Collection, February 12 – May 16, Zurich. At the Kunsthaus Zurich, an exhibition opens dedicated to the history of one of the world's most famous private art collections – the Buehrle Collection. The museum, which was created based on the collection of German industrialist Emil Bührle (1890-1956), holds 180 paintings and sculptures – one of the largest private collections of French art in the world.
In 2008, a theft occurred at the museum: Claude Monet's «Poppies near Vétheuil» (1879), Edgar Degas' «Count Lepic and His Daughters» (1871), Van Gogh's «Blossoming Chestnut Branches» (1890), and Cézanne's «Boy in a Red Vest» (1888) were stolen. The total value of these paintings is estimated at $163 million. The story of this daring robbery will be included in a documentary video series «commenting» on the main exhibits of the show – paintings by Frans Hals, Canaletto, Ingres, Delacroix, Monet, Cézanne, Vlaminck, Degas, Gauguin, Signac, Picasso, Modigliani, Van Gogh, and other artists. //www.kunsthaus.ch
Nyuta KUKUSHKINA.
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