4 February - With 12 Child Curators, ‘Shhh... it’s a Secret’ Opens at The Wallace Collection
LONDON. Thursday 4th February 2010 will see the opening of 'Shhh... it's a Secret', an exhibition that has been put together with the help of 12 young students from neighbouring establishment, the St. Vincent’s Catholic School.
Designed specifically for families, it has intrigue at its heart as visitors delve into the stories that are behind the many objects held within the museum’s permanent collection. An interactive collection allows children and adults alike to reveal the symbolism behind the miniatures in playwright Voltaire'sVoltaire’s snuff box and how Madame de Serilly managed to escape the deadly guillotine.
With free admission, release your inner detective and discover what secrets are held in the various paintings, armour, ceramics and furniture on show.
The exhibition is due to run until Sunday 28th March 2010
22 January - Royal Academy of Arts Presents the First Major Van Gogh Exhibition in London in Forty Years
LONDON. Tomorrow, Friday 23rd January 2010, sees the opening of a unique exhibition - 'The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters' at the Royal Acadmey of Arts in which rarely seen letters by Vincent van Gogh will be displayed alongside paintings and drawing that relate to communication and correspondence.
Organised in conjunction with curators from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, 35 letters - written largely to his brother and art-dealer Theo - include sketches of works in progress or completed pieces and open up a new and sensitive view on a frequently considered erratic genius.
The exhibition runs until 18th April 2010 and costs £12 for adults, £10 for concessions, £4 for children aged 12-18, £3 for children aged 8-11 and free for those under the age of 7.
13 January - The 2010 London Art Fair Opens to the Public
LONDON. As the snow continues to fall on London, art lovers brave the elements as they make their way to Angel in North London for the 22nd London Art Fair. Aimed at professional collectors and first time buyers alike, the fair presents museum quality Modern British and Contemporary art from established artists and emerging talents.
Attracting almost 22,000 visitors, collectors will see works from over 90 galleries, alongside ArtProjects and Photo50. ArtProjects – which has this year moved into a new and larger space - features 25 displays and installations from solo and group artists. Sourced from an international forum of galleries, pieces can be seen from the Foley Gallery in New York, Gallery Baer in Dresden and Galerie f5.6 in Munich as well as Bearspace, Charlie Smith and Sumarria Lunn in London.
Photography Focus Day coincides with the opening of the fair on Wednesday 13th January, and features a series of discussions and tours dedicated to the contemporary photography exhibited within Photo50. Selected by a distinguished panel of art experts, including Ekow Eshun (Artistic Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts), Anita Zabludowicz (Collector and founder of 176 / Zabludowicz Collection, London), David Campany (writer and lecturer on the history and theory of photography) and a team from the Goldsmith's MFA curating programme, fifty works will be shown from the likes of Norbert Schoerner and Polly Braden.
Opening on Wednesday 13th January until Sunday 17th January 2010, pre-booked tickets cost £11 or £15 on the door.
17 December - Uncertainty Strikes the Royal Academy's 2010 Exhibition of Pieces from the Liechtenstein Collection
LONDON. Scheduled to open in September of next year, The Royal Academy’s exhibition of artwork from the Liechtenstein Collection – including paintings by Rubens, Jordaens and Van Dyck - is reported by The Art Newspaper to be in doubt. The exhibition that will show over 100 pieces is set to be a major event in the Museum’s 2010 timetable, but is unlikely to go ahead unless Prince Hans-Adams II gets a swift resolution to one of his paintings impounded in the UK.
Purchased in 2006 through the London dealer, Simon Dickinson, it is thought the portrait of the Infante Don Diego by Alonso Coello was impounded by HM Revenue and Customs after application for an export licence was filed citing the paintings value as £2million. Keen to keep such an important work in the country, the National Gallery decided to match the £2million through fund raising, but shortly after HMRC launched an investigation into the export applications and valuations of the painting and 8 others purchased at a similar time, impounding the Coello.
It is thought that due to far from favourable insurance options if the Prince was to send his collection to the UK, The Art Newspaper reported the Prince to be unhappy to send his collection over at all considering the authorities don’t yet look close to resolving his already impounded painting.
It is hoped the problem will resolved shortly, allowing the exhibition to continue as hoped for.
26 November - The Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb Prepares for its Grand Opening
CROATIA. With December only a few days away, Zagreb is preparing for the opening of its first museum in over a century, as the Museum of Contemporary Art is to open its doors on a collection of Croatian and International works.
Initially having explored a remodelling of the original museum, in 1998, the building of a brand new structure was instead decided upon. After a national architectural competition, which saw Ivan Franic the victor, outline planning was granted in 2002 and work started on site in November 2003. With construction now complete and with a total floor area of almost 14, 490 square metres, the building encompasses the museum’s permanent collection of International and Croatian contemporary works and will include large temporary exhibitions, film and video projections, theatre performances, concerts, lectures, presentations and children workshops.
As the doors open, patrons will be treated to ‘Urban Interventions’ – a series of projects encompassing the new Museum structure and its location and surroundings. The series, which covers the entire move and the construction of the new museum, includes ‘Under Construction’ – a series of photographs by Jasenko Rasol to document the entire process – and will be joined by the Benko Horvat and Richter collections, and extensive collections of drawings, graphics, prints, film and video, photography, media art and sculpture.
30 October - The Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 Opens at the Natural History Museum
LONDON. Now in its 45th year, this week saw the Natural History Museum open its doors on the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. With 95 eventual winning and commended images from professional photographers and some very talented amateurs, the competition judges had their work cut out for them as they whittled down the staggering 45,000 entries from over 90 countries worldwide.
The photographs, which were judged on their originality, also showed creative, fresh and surprising images. From the winners, runners up and commendations in 16 categories – including The Underwater World; Nature in Black; three junior age ranges and special awards, Gerald Durrell and One Earth Award – two overall winners were announced at the October Awards ceremony, held in the museums immense entrance hall. Although the fantastic ‘The Storybook Wolf’ by Jose Luis Rodriquez, overall winner of the adult category, and the ‘Clash of the Yellowhammers’ by Fergus Gill, winner of the young photographer group can be seen online at the official website, they are so much better close up.
With entry for the 2010 competition due to open on 11th January, the exhibition is a must for any budding photographer. Now with a bigger exhibition space and larger prints, the exhibition runs daily from 10am – 5:50 pm and is due to endl 11th April 2010. Tickets are: Adult £9, Child £4.50, Senior £4.50, Family £24 (up to 2 adults and 3 children) and free to members, patrons and children aged 3 and under.
16 October - Frieze Art Fair Opens in London’s Regent’s Park
LONDON. This week sees the opening of London’s biggest event on the art calendar – the Frieze Art Fair – borne from an enduring collaboration between Outset, Frieze Art Fair and Tate. Now in its 7th year, it is held in London’s Regent’s Park and involves more than 150 of the world’s most coveted art galleries. Although 2009 comes with a distinct change in its line up of galleries, the programme does not disappoint, with the commissioned works of Frieze Projects, and a packed talks and education programme.
The Frieze Art Fair opens to the press and VIPs on Wednesday 14th October and to the public on Thursday 15th October, and closes on 18th October
7 June - Scope Basel to open at Sportplatz Landhof as scheduled
LONDON. The third Scope Basel art fair will open as scheduled next week, following its successful appeal against a planning decision that threatened to force its cancellation or removal to a different site. The fair will be held in a temporary 65,000 sq. ft pavilion on the Sportplatz Landhof, a publicly owned piece of land within a few minutes' walk of the main Art Basel fair. Certain residents' groups had opposed the use of public land for the fair. Scope opens to the press and VIPs on Monday, and to the public from Tuesday to Sunday. The fair will showcase 110 international contemporary galleries, with sections devoted to art from China and Berlin, ten one-artists shows and a SCOPEkids programme of events for children.
LONDON. The centrepiece of the Chinese bronzes exhibition, “Treasures from Shanghai”, at London’s British Museum appears to have been illegally excavated within the past few years. However, it is now legitimately the property of the Shanghai Museum. The British Museum show is the first time the bronze has been exhibited.
19 December - British Army to help turn dictator’s palace into a museum
LONDON. The British Army is offering to help create a museum in Basra, which would be set up by the Iraqi authorities in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. British military planners have codenamed the project Oper ation Bell, after Gertrude Bell, the archaeologist who helped establish the Baghdad Museum in 1926. Assistance is also being offered by the British Museum, but all parties stress that this is an Iraqi venture.
The Art Newspaper can report that the location would be the Lakeside Palace, built by Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s.The Lakeside Palace would provide considerable space for antiquities. These would come from Baghdad’s National Museum, which has a huge collection in its stores (including some from Basra which survived the looting in 1991). The new museum would also show ethnography, manuscripts and more modern historical items. Its location in one of Saddam’s palaces would help tell the story of very recent events.
