Forget the ultra, super duper VIP preview at the Basel. Nothing gets more exclusive than a Thomas Keller catered party at Jeff Koons‘ West 29th street studio. The mega Chelsea star hosted the event to celebrate his collaboration with BMW, making him the 17th artist to join the illustrious list of Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, Alexander Calder, and the latest creative mind to receive a big check: Olafur Eliasson. Sure, Keller’s glittered macaroons were exquisite and this collaboration thing is nice and all but we were just happy to get a sneak peak at Koons’ exciting factory. Art Box and other recognizable faces like Klaus Biesenbach, Yvonne Force Villareal, Ingrid Sichy and Sandy Brant got to see plenty of Bettie Pages and Popeyes, all meticulously organized with color palettes for some of dozens of Koons land assistants. The most colorful and striking image of Miss Page was almost ready to be shipped to a private buyer (perhaps one of the Russian collectors circling the room like an eagle) and the rest are due at Jeff’s next big show that may well be more than sixteen months away. Until then, clear your walls. These canvases are not for amateurs.
© Patrick McMullan Photo – BILLY FARRELL/PatrickMcMullan.com
©2009 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Photo by: Bruce Yamakawa ARTRUBY caught up with Kirsten Dunst in Los Angeles during a Golden Globe weekend and we had to ask about her experience of collaborating with Takashi Murakami and McG on Pop Life: Art in a Material World.
“It was one of the most amazing creative experiences ever,” the actress told us. “Who doesn’t want to run around in costume with Takashi? He’s just very kind and inspiring. My only regret is that I couldn’t really experience the work at The Tate. So I enjoyed it at home on my computer!” Does she have any more forthcoming art collaborations? “Not at the moment, but I did direct a short video on my own. But it’s hard to top Takashi.”
On January 23, 2010, the Royal Academy of Arts will stage a landmark exhibition of the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). The focus of the exhibition will be the artist’s remarkable correspondence. Over 35 original letters, rarely exhibited to the public due to their fragility, will be on display in the main galleries of Burlington House, together with around 65 paintings and 30 drawings that express the principal themes to be found within the correspondence. Thus the exhibition will offer a unique opportunity to gain an insight into the complex mind of Vincent van Gogh. This will be the first major Van Gogh exhibition in London for over forty years.
In addition to lending almost all the letters in the exhibition, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, has made available twelve important paintings. Other major lenders include the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, together with other museums and private collections worldwide.
Van Gogh was a compulsive and eloquent correspondent. The majority of his letters were written to his brother Theo, an art-dealer who supported Vincent throughout his difficult artistic career. Vincent also wrote to other family members, including his sister Wilhelmina. Other artists, notably Anton van Rappard, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, were also, at different phases of Vincent’s life, recipients of his letters. The originality of his ideas about art, nature and literature, combined with his deep understanding of these subjects, make Van Gogh’s letters much more than a personal expression of feelings: they attain the status of great literature. In reading the letters one encounters not only a sensitive, determined and exceptionally hard-working man, but also someone possessed of a powerful intellect; this exhibition will challenge the view that Van Gogh was an erratic genius by allowing the viewer a rare insight into his artistic process through the intimate medium of his correspondence. Together the letters create a ‘self-portrait’, and reveal the ways in which Van Gogh defined himself as an artist and as a human being.
Taking the letters as its starting point, The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters will view the paintings and drawings from the perspective of the correspondence. The letter sketches that Van Gogh frequently used to show a work in progress or a completed work are a fascinating part of the correspondence, and many will be shown alongside the paintings or drawings on which they are based.
The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, Royal Academy, London, Saturday to 18 April.
Dear Readers!
We wish you the happiest and most inspiring of holidays. Thanks for your incredible early support of our young site, and we hope to keep enlightening you for many more years.
This celebration season we hope you take time out to see that exhibit, museum, or gallery that has eluded you over the last few months and share it with someone you love.
Sincerely,
Art Ruby Team
