Art exhibitions are to become social, digital and accessible to everyone thanks to a collaboration between Artfinder, The Wallace Collection and Cass Sculpture. The home of art on the web, Artfinder, has launched its very first fine art apps for the iPad in partnership with the Wallace Collection’s Watteau exhibition and the Cass Sculpture foundation.
The Artfinder apps are going to put art right into the hands of fans of fine art and this establishes the iPad tablet as a pioneering device where art is concerned. The revolution has been likened as to what Kindle did for e reading and the iPod did for music. A whole new generation can now discover and appreciate art without leaving their home.
For those wishing to visit galleries, museums and the like, the apps also offer you a guide to the establishments before you visit. For those who can’t make the visit in person, a window can now be opened to view the works of art you are interested in. Whereas before, you might have had to buy a postcard of your favourite work, you can now share it via download from the app to your social network.
With Artfinder’s apps, art discovery and browsing becomes:
- personal: exhibitions in your hands, in pin-sharp quality
- social: artworks can be shared via email and Facebook
- memorable: favourite the art you like as you browse
For artists, galleries and museums, Artfinder-powered iPad apps represent a new model for publishing curated content: far more accessible than the traditional art book, and offering an experience that can be long-form and comprehensive, souvenir or catalogue-like, a snapshot of an exhibition or collection, or any point in between.
With the Wallace Collection app, users can view high quality images of artworks from the current Watteau exhibition, Esprit et Vérité: Watteau and His Circle. The Cass Sculpture Foundation has partnered with Artfinder to create three apps: Biomorphia, featuring monumental sculptures by Eilís O’Connell, and two of their Breaking The Mould series, which feature works by Tony Cragg, Eduardo Paolozzi, Bill Woodrow and other eminent artists associated with the Foundation.
Chris Thorpe, Artfinder co-founder, said: “Art and this beautiful device and screen are just made for each other. We’re very excited to be launching our apps program with the Cass Sculpture Foundation and the Wallace Collection. We’re taking the coffee table art book into the digital age, and making it globally accessible. Each app offers a unique, self-contained, finishable art experience, retaining what’s wonderful about traditional art catalogues and monographs but with added social features, updateability and interactivity.”
Wilfred Cass, co-founder of the Cass Scultpure Foundation, said: “We are very excited about the Foundation’s partnership with Artfinder, and about the apps they’ve created for us. The experience of viewing and browsing through these beautiful, pin-sharp images of our monumental works on an iPad is hugely enjoyable. We hope that these apps will bring 21st Century British Sculpture to an even wider global audience, while providing a showcase for the work of the Foundation and the artists it supports.”
The apps are available for free in the iTunes App Store now:
The Hepworth Wakefield, is a £35m gallery and the largest purpose built in the UK in 43 years, is named for sculptor Barbara Hepworth of Yorkshire, and opened on Saturday. There are dozens of her works as well as prototypes plus pieces by JMW Turner and Henry Moore.
Since the Hayward, built on London’s South Bank in 1968, this is the largest. The gallery was designed by David Chipperfield an award winning architect and it has 5,000 metres and contains 10 galleries making it almost twice the size of the Turner Contemporary in Kent opened last month and another Chipperfield gallery.
In the first weekend over 150,000 are expected to visit and there is expected to by so many at the opening that wrist bands with 45 minute limits are being hand out. The opinion by locals of the building, located on the shore of the River Calder, is mixed. Some feel it looks like a concrete bunker said one councilor of the Wakefield council that helped with £18m in funding.
Even though there is a debate in the streets of Wakefield about the building there is not denying the quality when you get inside the gallery of the exhibits and everyone that visits will be incredibly surprised and impressed the councilor added. Plus he said the building will help to kick start the rejuvenation of the riverside area and help to generate £3m annually to the area economy.
A goal of Chipperfield and a major priority is to design his buildings so they are popular with the locals and he hoped that the Hepworth would help to generate a new set of art lovers. Those opposed will generally always be opposed but if young people get persuaded to come then quite possibly the attitudes can be changed about certain types of culture.
This is the second gallery to focus on the works of Hepworth in the UK. Tate runs the Sculpture Garden in Cornwall that also focuses on her. The Tate has also loaned some works to the Hepworth said Simon Wallis the director of Hepworth and he added they plan to work together.
Tracy Emin, an artist has reached a mid-career crisis at the age of 47. She has the most crucial UK exhibition of her art career to date. She said while the press were viewing her collection that the country is bankrupt and there is no money so the arts will drop to the bottom of everyone’s agenda.
But the Tories amazing art minister, Ed Vaizey is particularly defensive and protective of the arts and the cuts in the arts are less than Labour’s cuts some eight years ago. The way the economy is today, she said, it is amazing there is any money at all for the arts even though Tories are incredible art collectors.
Her friends she says think she is crazy to vote for the Tories but she wants to know who buys her friend’s art, certainly not the Labour voters. The thought is whether or not Emin has gone mad and has steered to the right, but still thinks she is a rebel dressed in her designer clothes. Some were handed it, some have it and some were lucky, Tracey seems to just be lucky.
Never shying away from attention she loves to go out with the likes of Kate Moss and others that grab the headlines. Is she the pure Rock n Roll or another one of those cougar chicks with the right designer wares. Even though her work should say it all, it has always been difficult to put a finger on and elusive. Looks good but is it fluff.
Emin is missing two works for the show one is her unmade bed that Charles Saatchi is exhibiting at a 2012 show and her tent – Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 that was destroyed in the fire of Momart in 2004. She is also showcasing 16 infamous neon signs of hers that includes ones that she specifically made for the show.
A detail from Morris & Co's Angeli Ministrantes Museum, National Art Pass
In a series of pioneering brain-mapping experiments, Semir Zeki, Professor of Neurobiology and Neuroaesthetics at University College London, has revealed what happens in our brains when we view art – and it can give us just as much pleasure as being in love.
Professor Zeki has found that viewing art triggers a surge of the feel-good neurotransmitter, dopamine, into the orbito-frontal cortex of the brain, resulting in feelings of intense pleasure, similar to the states of love and desire.
Subjects were shown images of art on a screen, including works by Botticelli, Constable, Turner and Cezanne, inside an MRI scanner where their brain activity was mapped.
The findings coincide with David Cameron’s interest in measuring the nation’s well-being, which led him to commission the ‘Happiness Index’ in April.
With art engendering such a feel good factor, the launch of the National Art Pass by national fundraising charity the Art Fund, giving free and discounted access to hundreds of normally-charging museums, galleries and exhibitions, is set to be good news for the Government, as well as the population at large.
“A nation’s well-being is not as easily measured as its GDP or economic growth, but it is probably more important. And our well-being is bound fast to the riches of our culture. Beautiful paintings that are sold and leave our country do not return, and their loss damages our collective health. The Art Fund plays a vital role in retaining our priceless heritage and needs our generous support; our well-being depends on it.” said award-winning author Ian McEwan
Dr Stephen Deuchar, Director of the national fundraising charity the Art Fund, said ‘Works of art can have a great impact on individuals. Our role is to support museums and galleries build outstanding public collections, and in helping the public make the most of them. Through the National Art Pass, which gives people free entry to over 200 museums, galleries and historic houses across the UK as well as discounted access to major exhibitions such as the current Miro at Tate Modern and The Cult of Beauty at the V&A, we are making art available to as many people as possible.
The money we collect from purchases of the National Art Pass goes towards helping museums and galleries buy and show art. If you own a National Art Pass, you’re not only Never Without Art but you’re also playing a vital role in ensuring that UK collections are also Never Without Art.’
Over the last five years, the Art Fund has given over £24 million to museums and galleries and helped them buy works such as Titian’s Diana and Actaeon, the Staffordshire Hoard, Antony Gormley’s 6 Times and Turner’s Blue Rigi.
Anish Kapoor, sculptor, has condemned the barbaric detention by China of artist Ai Weiwei and is calling on the closing of all galleries in protest for a day. He also has dedicated his Leviathan art installation located in Paris that was unveiled Tuesday to Ai.
Ai, 53, is being investigated by China as he was detained at the airport in Beijing when trying to pass through security in order to take a flight to Hong Kong. Gao Ge, his sister, said she had not heard a word from him and was not given any information as to his whereabouts or even if he had been charged with a crime.
It is now over a month that he has been held and not charged and his family still does not know where he is said Kapoor. Under any circumstances this is not acceptable he added. Some European ministers have expressed concern but Kapoor said more needs to be done. In London two exhibitions of major proportions of Ai’s work will open this week in London.
His Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads will be displayed in Somerset House in their courtyard from June 26, Thursday. He Lisson Gallery, from Friday, will exhibit some of his key works that have been created in the last six years.
The British government was deeply concerned said a spokesman from the Foreign and Commonwealth office by arrests and subsequent disappearances in China of artists, journalist’s, activists and others that dare to express their rights of freedom of expression.
Video games have been declared eligible for artistic funding says the US National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This means they are recognized legally as being an art form. The NEA is a government program that funds various projects that enhance the public good. In simpler terms they are the group that decides the artistic projects that are worthy of federal funding.
A grant of up to $200,000 can be applied for by artists that want to create art for a public place and not sell it commercially. It seems as though this may also be true for game developers quite soon.
The new category is named The Arts and Media which was formerly known as The Arts on Radio and Television. It will still contain what it did before with television, film and radio artistic projects but it has been broadened to include Internet-based and satellite based media as well as interactive media.
It really is not that important this early in the stage of things whether or not the NEA will fund a video game in the near future. What is important and a big breakthrough for the industry is that the U.S. Federal government now considers video games are worthy of artistic merit.
In a major expansion a London gallery that has been an important showcase for Scottish art will double its space for exhibitions. Dubbed the Embassy of Scottish Art the Fleming Collection of Scottish Art will be opening in June a new 125sqm space in their Piccadilly gallery. Admission will be charged for the very first time and will be showcasing over 50 classic works from Scotland.
An independent foundation has rum the Fleming Collection since 1990 that was launched from the Flemings bank art collection. The gallery space was opened in 2002 over and 100,000 people visit annually.
All funds are private but there were two major donations that helped with a five year lease for the new space above where the current gallery is on Berkeley Street London. Keeper of the collection Selina Skipwith said it was an important step for the gallery to make in just their 11th year. Now there will be works from the permanent collection on exhibit at all times which they were not able to do before.
The new space will have works such as key pictures by the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists next to exhibits of contemporary Scottish artists. It is the only gallery in all of the UK that is devoted to Scottish Art in its entirety.
When the gallery opens in June there will be 50 items that will be displayed that includes two iconic paintings – Lochaber No More by John Watson Nicol and The Highland Clearances by Thomas Faed.
Director of Edinburgh’s Scottish Gallery, Guy Peploe said that the new gallery was a guarantee that the crown jewels of the great Fleming Collection will be seen by the people. There have been several works that have been loaned to the Dumfries House in Ayrshire.
Aberdeen is also known as Granite City, and for the first time in its history the town will celebrate its granite heritage. Beginning Monday, May 2nd the month-long festival will offer an overview of the city’s ‘foundations’, with masonry workshops, educational talks and walking tours of famous buildings and monuments made of the indigenous rock.
For about 230 years, the Rubislaw Quarry has been the source of granite for building projects around the world. More than six million tonnes of the enduring stone were taken from the quarry before it ceased operations in 1971. The resulting 500 foot deep pit is the largest man-made excavation in Europe.
Aberdeen Councillor Irene Cormack is the chief instigator of the festival, which is led by Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums. As the restoration of Marischal College, the famous city landmark founded in 1593 is completed, the City Council will begin moving its offices into the College buildings later this year.
The festival opens with a demonstration of the modern masonry techniques used in the £65m restoration project, to take place at Provost Skene’s House. Marischal College is the second largest granite building in the world.
The Hepworth Wakefield, is a £35m gallery and the largest purpose built in the UK in 43 years, is named for sculptor Barbara Hepworth of Yorkshire, and opened on Saturday. There are dozens of her works as well as prototypes plus pieces by JMW Turner and Henry Moore.
Tracy Emin, an artist has reached a mid-career crisis at the age of 47. She has the most crucial UK exhibition of her art career to date. She said while the press were viewing her collection that the country is bankrupt and there is no money so the arts will drop to the bottom of everyone’s agenda. 
Anish Kapoor, sculptor, has condemned the barbaric detention by China of artist Ai Weiwei and is calling on the closing of all galleries in protest for a day. He also has dedicated his Leviathan art installation located in Paris that was unveiled Tuesday to Ai.
Video games have been declared eligible for artistic funding says the US National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This means they are recognized legally as being an art form. The NEA is a government program that funds various projects that enhance the public good. In simpler terms they are the group that decides the artistic projects that are worthy of federal funding.
In a major expansion a London gallery that has been an important showcase for Scottish art will double its space for exhibitions. Dubbed the Embassy of Scottish Art the Fleming Collection of Scottish Art will be opening in June a new 125sqm space in their Piccadilly gallery. Admission will be charged for the very first time and will be showcasing over 50 classic works from Scotland.
Aberdeen is also known as Granite City, and for the first time in its history the town will celebrate its granite heritage. Beginning Monday, May 2nd the month-long festival will offer an overview of the city’s ‘foundations’, with masonry workshops, educational talks and walking tours of famous buildings and monuments made of the indigenous rock.