A Passion for Art

Edvins Strautanis: Action Painter

Hoping you can stop by to see the new exhibition I co-curated currently on view at the Lobby Gallery, 499 Park Avenue, New York City.

The exhibition is on view until December 30, 2010 and is open to the public seven days a week from 10 AM to 6 PM.

For more info about the exhibition and to download a brochure with an essay by Judd Tully click here 

Here's some photos from this past Tuesday's gala opening reception.

Emerging Arts Leaders Creative Conversations Program Page

Every October, in honor of National Arts & Humanities Month, Americans for the Arts partners with emerging leaders from across the country to host Creative Conversations. Last year, more than 1,500 emerging arts leaders participated in 43 locally hosted Creative Conversations throughout the country, and those leaders continue to be engaged at the national level.  

via www.americansforthearts.org

For those of us with a passion for art, this is a wonderful and powerful way to engage in ensuring the continued support of the arts in America.

Art Project to help Haitian schoolchildren

One month after losing their home, school and every possession to Haiti’s earthquake, 100 children from the Maranatha School and Orphanage came together and created 209 masterpieces of art. The project was the initiative of Rogue Space Gallery owner and documentary filmmaker Kevin O’Hanlon. O’Hanlon collaborated with artist Richard Laurent and the Life For The World team to bring canvasses and painting supplies to Maranatha which has been the home and school to over 100 children since 2002. The children have been sleeping outside, on the streets or under tents since the earthquake. "This was one of those mutually abundant situations. We got to experience the mindset of these amazing children at a pivotal moment in their lives, while bringing so much joy to kids who had never held a paintbrush or seen a blank canvass before. The project empowered them, affirmed their artistic abilities and set them on a creative path their own solution. They are Haiti’s future, the generation who will rebuild."

Click the link to view via roguespacechelsea.com

With all the more recent natural disasters being in the forefront of the news, I've still been wondering what's being done in and for Haiti now. I was happy to discover this event at Rogue Space Chelsea. If you're in or near Manhattan, try to check it out.

Earthday Ice

I'm pleased to announce the placement of two color photographs by internationally-renowned photographer David Burdeny, one of Canada's most successful fine art landscape photographers. The works were selected for the board room of an international financial firm.

Burdeny has participated in over forty solo and group exhibitions since 2003 across Canada, the United States and Europe. In 2008 he was awarded Nature Photographer of the Year in the 2008 International Pilsner Urquell Photography Awards for his work titled, "NORTH/SOUTH" which document the fragile shorelines and monolithic ice forms for Greenland, Iceland and Antarctic.

His haunting images capture the ethereal beauty of this endangered land.

Blue Monday, Antarctica 2007                                    

 

Tabulars in Hope Bay, Antarctica 2007

As he states in a 2009 interview in lesphotographes.com

"For me it was not so much a political statement. . .I think I was looking for this new photographic landscape that was the last pure landscape. . .  There are scientists out there that can talk about it better than I can but I’m happy to record the visual component and bring it to public ground. The icebergs are as deeply beautiful as they are horrific; it’s almost as if they are living things." 

New York School Redux Exhibition

I'm so excited about a new exhibition I co-curated that is currently on view at the Lobby Gallery at 499 Park Avenue (at 59th Street) in New York City.  It features important works by five artists Alcopley, Herman Cherry, Howard Daum, Edvins Strautmanis and Nina Tryggvadottir, who were part of the New York School. The Lobby Gallery is open to the public seven days a week from 10 AM to 6 PM.  A gala opening reception is planned for April 21 from 5-7 PM.  We hope you can join us.

For more information about the exhibition click here

Exhibiting artwork in commercial venues such as this can be a valuable tool for developers and property managers to help market their buildings in today's competitive environment.

Art adds to the cachet of a building, and can support its branding and leasing efforts.  Art helps set a building apart from its competitors, and it provides a unique amenity for existing and prospective tenants.  Art not only visually enhances a property, it also is a powerful and cost-effective way to communicate to a targeted audience and and can generate positive media coverage about the building.  Art demonstrates a firm's commitment to support local culture for the benefit of the community.

Una Dora Copley (daughter of Alcopley and Nina Tryggvadottir) at the installation

The Altered Landscape: Environmental art exhibition extended through March 12, 2010

I'm pleased to announce that "The Altered Landscape" an environmentally themed art exhibition I curated, currently on view in the Lobby Gallery at 499 Park Avenue, New York City,  the 28 story office tower owned and managed by Hines, the international real estate firm, has been extended through March 12, 2010. 

Hines has been an industry leader in sustainable development for over half a century, and this exhibit is a unique way for the firm to draw attention to the building's Energy Star rating, help it reinforce its Green message, and inspire environmentally friendly actions amongst its tenants, visitors, and staff.

The exhibit is open to the public during normal business hours and features the work of five contemporary artists who share a deep understanding of the precariousness of our relationship to the natural world. They use art as leverage to address the pervasive inability of humanity to integrate with the rest of nature. Each artist's distinctive approach conveys these ideas profoundly, capturing our imagination and helping us see things from a new perspective.

Jay Hart 's highly detailed digital images of enhanced distant views of extraordinary natural landforms reveal the history of Earth's geologic processes and natural development. His images give us the ability to literally rise above the clutter of surface detail, to examine the structure of the whole, and to get a palpable sense of the planet as a living organism.

Susquehanna - archival inkjet print 2008t     Courtesy the artist

David Maisel's aerial photographs from his Terminal Mirage series feature exquisite cropped compositions and astonishing color. His intent is to portray the impact that mankind has had on the natural landscape and he creates a dynamic and breathtaking tension between the visual beauty of his images and the staggering environmental devastation they suggest.

Terminal Mirage #25, C-Print 2005    Courtesy the artist and Von Lintel Gallery

Kim Keever constructs and photographs large, dramatic dioramas of geological formations and imaginary worlds in a 100-gallon fish tank in his studio, resulting in expansive atmospheric landscapes. His images recall embedded notions of nature as the embodiment of the sublime, while at the same time, asserting the artificiality of that ideal. Like dreamscapes, these hazy vistas are remote but inviting, exotic but strangely familiar. They present nature as a place of otherworldly ethereal beauty – a place that is ultimately accessible only through the imagination.

Turtle Skull Rock, C Print 2001    Courtesy the Artist and Kinz & Tillou Fine Art

Adapting the visual vocabulary of children’s book illustration to large-scale works, Randy Bolton uses wry humor and irony to explore relations between humans and the physical world. Employing succinct narrative scenarios, Bolton’s work presents human psychology in a perpetual state of contradiction, ambiguity and missed connections, where hope of integration with the natural world may indeed elude us, doomed to be lost in the simple bumbling of our day-to-day existence.

Never Take More Than You Need, 2005 Digital Print on Canvas,  sculptural element 

Courtesy the artist and Littlejohn Contemporary

In her text-based photographs, Stephanie Lempert documents several success stories, where people have begun to take some measure of responsibility for past actions in relation to the natural environment. She presents picturesque images of public parks that are built upon waste sites and overlays the photographs with text that describes details of the conversion process. Her work exudes optimism asserting a re-conception of nature from the ashes of our misdeeds, and proposing the possibility that, if put to the right ends, human ingenuity might find an antidote to human excess.

Fresh Kills Park Digital C-Print, 2008    Courtesy the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery

While scientific and economic arguments for a sustainable future are compelling, it seems that is not enough to convince us to change our ways. In order that we do so, we must first alter our perceptions about our relationship to Nature. Art is a powerful tool for doing this, for it has always helped move society in new directions. Hines' support of this exhibition helps raise awareness about the need to create a sustainable future and stimulate further thought and dialogue about the choices we make, and actions we take, in our homes, our workplace and in our communities.

All You Need Is Love

How perfect!  My first blog and first post on Valentines Day.  

As you can see from the title, my passion is art.  For over 30 years now I have been blessed by being able to live my passion everyday through my work as an art consultant.  I believe that if we all were able to pursue our passion and do what we love to do, the world would be a much happier place.

Artists create their work with passion, though all too often they find they have to do other work in order to make a living.  As Robert Henri, one of the leaders of the Ashcan School stated

"I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living." 

With this blog, I hope to share my love and passion for art, presenting thoughts, ideas, wonderful works of art, and ways to incorporate art into daily life - whether it be in your home, your business or the making of it.     

_{The Beatles/Lennon/McCartney - The Blue Album}

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you
in time - It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.