Art News Galore » Tate Modern

World’s most expensive painting goes on exhibition

Alan — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:33:59 +0000

The painting by Pablo Picasso that last year broke all records for the price paid for a single work of art is to be displayed in public in the UK. Nude, green leaves and bust is being loaned to the Tate Modern by its owner, who remains anonymous. Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate, is understandably delighted at being able to display such an iconic painting. Picasso created this masterpiece one day in 1932, and it is part of a sequence of paintings depicting his love at time – Marie Theres Walter.

It was in May 2010 that this seminal work of art entered the record books, selling at New York auction house Christie’s for £66m, $106.5m. Previous to this sale, it had been in the same hands since 1951, when collectors Sidney and Frances Brody bought it for a mere $19,800. During their entire ownership it was only shown publicly once, to mark Picasso’s 80^th birthday in 1961.

He painted Nude, green leaves and bust at the height of the passionate affair he enjoyed with Ms Walter, who was just a young girl of 17 when Picasso first met her in 1927. He apparently accosted her coming out of a Paris metro station and grabbed her arm, declaring who he was and his intentions towards her. The liaison lasted for 8 years until Picasso met Dora Maar in 1935, and swapped his affections. The painting clearly depicts the submissiveness of the subject, giving it almost as many critics as fans.

There has been endless supposition as to who the actual owner is, and the story that the owner is British has gained credence with it being displayed at the Tate. The New York Times suggested at the time that one bidder had been Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea FC.

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Gallery’s record on art damage is poor

Alan — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:49:27 +0000

A new set of documents shockingly proved that hundreds of sculptures, paintings, and other pieces of artwork have been damaged while under the supervision of the leading galleries and museums in the UK.

Among the works damaged are pieces by Tracey Emin and Andy Warhol and include dinosaur bones and a doll house. In one specific case a complete steam engine was destroyed by accident. A few items were damaged to the point where they had to be scrapped, while others required thousands of pounds worth of renovations.

The National Galleries of Scotland were responsible for eight damaged pieces of art, including the Andy Warhol painting Mark of the Beast and the Tracey Emin piece My Uncle Colin. The Tate Modern damaged Ishi’s Light, 2003 by Anish Kapoor when a film cameraman hit it.

Paintings were also damaged by poor supervision at the Tate, which saw damage twice in one year to Mark Rothko’s Black on Maroon: once when a child left fingerprints on it and another incident in which it was dented by a child.

For the most part, the documents found that incidents were most likely to occur while a painting or work was being taken down or installed by staff. For instance, at the London National Gallery Domenico Beccafumi’s painting Marcia was broken in two when being removed from the wall. An adhesive failure was blamed for the incident which led to repair costs.

The Victoria and Albert Museum also damaged a 15^th century Christ figure while removing it at the cost of £1,600 in repairs.

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Nude 10 year old Brooke Shields Pulled from Tate

Alan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:26:50 +0000

“Spiritual America,” a Richard Prince exhibition at the Tate Modern London, was delayed from opening Thursday after Scotland yard issued a warning to the museum that a photograph taken of Brooke Shields in the nude at age ten, may violate obscenity laws.

The Prince exhibition was set to be part of the program at the gallery entitled “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” but did not open after press reviews about the display and the Shields feature drew police attention.
The photograph was first seen in 2007 at the Guggenheim Museum.

It was a photograph that was authorized by Shield’s mother and was printed originally by Gary Gross.

Tate Modern released a statement saying, that for the moment the exhibition will remain closed, and that all items in the catalog are also not for sale at the moment.

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Tate Modern Andy Warhol ‘footnote’ exhibition

Alan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:59:37 +0000

The Tate Modern is premiering a new exhibition entitled Pop Life that is based around the premise that all art since the 1980s is nothing more than a ‘footnote’ to the works created by Andy Warhol.

The exhibition will contain some of the 2008 Damien Hirst Sotheby’s auction as well as some of the explicit works from Jeff Koons’s collection in which the artist is seen with his ex wife La Cicciolina in some porn-esque settings.

The common thread among all the pieces in the show is that most of good art has its roots in good business.

Of course, the viewpoint is highly controversial given that the entire collection could be described as commercial given the fact that the work by Hirst collected 110million quid at auction.

Koons defends his pieces however as well as the entire theme of Pop Life by stating that artists do not primarily think about making money, as that is just a simple part of life, but instead it is the power of creating art that draws artists in the field.

He stated that artists have always made money and gained political as well as economic power since the time of the monarchs and churches and that to see any type of non-commercial art you have to look back prior to the 19th century.

Pop Life will open on Thursday to the public and also contains work from Cosey Fanni Tutti who for a short time was a pornographic model as part of her artistic expression.

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