WALTERS UNVEILING
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore reopens on Oct. 20, 2001, after a $22-million, three-year renovation that gave the museum a dramatic new façade and soaring glass entryway for its Centre Street building, along with 39 newly designed galleries. Architect is Michael McKinnell; the new galleries are designed by Quenroe Associates of Boulder, Co. Among the five opening exhibitions are a special installation by contemporary artist Dennis Adams, a reinstallation of the museum's celebrated collection -- given "a theatrical flavor," the museum says -- titled "Wondrous Journeys: The Walters Collection from Egyptian Tombs to Medieval Castles," and "The American Artist As Painter and Draftsman," a selection of 19th-century paintings from the collection. The reopening is accompanied by six newly published books on the collection, including A Lost Art Rediscovered: The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium, published by Penn State Press, and Ethiopian Art: The Walters Art Museum, published by Third Millennium Publishing.
BLACK PANTHERS IN PHOTOGRAPHS
The UCR/California Museum of Photography in Riverside, Ca., opens "The Legacy of Panthers: A Photographic Exhibition," a selection of photographs from the Huey P. Newton Foundation that "captures the substance and spirit of this historic group of young, urban, black people engaged in the nation's civil rights struggle," Oct. 19, 2001-Jan. 6, 2002. The show includes historic photos of Black Panther Party alternative schools, medical clinics and voter drives, along with portraits of key party members. UCR/CMP mounts a conference on "The Black Aesthetic: 1960-2001," Oct. 19-20, 2001. For more information, call (909) 784-FOTO.
DOROTHEUM TO WEB AUCTIONEERS
The Austrian online auction site OneTwoSold has bought Vienna's venerable Dorotheum auction house for $56 million from the Austrian government, according to a report in London's Financial Times. OneTwoSold c.e.o. Martin Ohneberg says he plans to make the 300-year-old firm central Europe's biggest auction house. OneTwoSold was established in 1999 by newspaper heir Christoph Dichand and construction magnate Erwin Soravia. The Dorotheum, which had 2000 revenues of about $35 million, is headquartered in the Palais Dorotheum near the Hofburg palace of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
REOPENING IN TRIBECA
Among the downtown galleries that closed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is Apex Art, which specializes in cutting-edge international exhibitions organized by a changing slate of guest curators. It reopens to the public today, Oct. 2, with an extension of the current exhibition, "SportCult," curated by Euridice Arratia (to Nov. 3). The next show, "Revolving Doors: Public Sphere/Private Domain," is now slated for Nov. 15-Dec. 15, 2001. For more info, see the gallery's website at www.apexart.org.
Cheryl Pelavin Fine Art is once again accessible at 13 Jay Street; the current show features recent paintings by Daisy Craddock, to Nov. 3. And 123 Watts at 123 Watts Street reopens with "Microwave, Three," a group show featuring works by Jonathan Callan, Jean Shin and others, till Nov. 17.
SUGIMOTO DOES NOH
Famed postmodernist photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, known for somber black and white pictures of movie screens, the surface of the sea and historical wax-museum figures, is now directing a Noh theater piece at the Dia Center for the Arts in Manhattan. Noh Such Thing as Time, as it is called, features lighting and a stage set by the artist and a performance by Dr. Naohiko Umewaka, one of Japan's foremost Noh actors, and his Noh theater troupe. The show goes on Oct. 3-6, 2001, at 8 p.m.; admission is $45. For info, contact (212) 293-5588.
MATISSE GOES TO SCHOOL
The New York Studio School opens the first U.S. exhibition to examine Matisse's brief career as an art teacher in Paris (the school operated 1908-11), Oct. 18-Nov. 17, 2001. "Academie Matisse: Henri Matisse and his Nordic & American Pupils" features 60 paintings and drawings by 20 artists from six countries. The show is heavy on Scandinavian modernists, since half the artists who enrolled in Matisse's school were from Norway and Sweden. Among the pupils are Max Weber and Arthur B. Carles, along with Jean Heiberg, Henrik Sørensen, Isaac Grünewald and Per Krohg. The show draws on an earlier exhibition at the Lillehammer Kunstmuseum in Norway, which was organized by museum director Svein Olav Hoff and scholar Øivind Storm-Bjerke. The show's opening night at the Studio School, Oct. 17, doubles as the organization's 2001 benefit gala; for info on tickets, contact (212) 673-6466, ext. 27.
FRANK FOUNDATION CHALLENGE GRANTS
The Andrea Frank Foundation in New York has announced three $250,000 challenge grants, going to Anthology Film Archives, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, N.Y. The grants require a one-to-one match.
TURNER COMES TO BALTIMORE
The Baltimore Museum of Art hosts a major exhibition of works by J.M.W. Turner when "Reflections of Sea and Light: Paintings and Watercolors by J.M.W. Turner from Tate" comes to the museum, Feb. 17-May 26, 2002. The show, organized by Tate curator Ian Warrell, features 100 works spanning the artist's career. It subsequently travels to Madrid and Lisbon.
MULLERDECHIARA OPENS IN BERLIN
New York dealer Laurie De Chiara and Berlin gallerist Sonke Magnus Müller have opened Müllerdechiara, a new contemporary art gallery, with "Wattage and Friendship," curated by David Hunt, Oct. 4-Nov. 17, 2001. Among the 20-plus artists are Danny Hobart, Jacqueline Humphries, Mick O´Shea, Luca Pancrazzi and Erik Parker. The show is in a temporary space next to the city's new Jewish Museum; the gallery's permanent facility opens in the Mitte district early next year. For more info, check out www.mullerdechiara.com.
MUSEUM WORK FOR IVAN REITMAN
Celebrated film director and producer Ivan Reitman -- whose credits include Animal House and Ghostbusters -- has been elected to the board of trustees of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Reitman and his wife, Genevieve, have been collecting contemporary art for 18 years. Also joining the MOCA board is investment consultant Mark S. Siegel.
ELDREDGE PRIZE TO HAUPTMAN
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has awarded the 2001 Charles C. Eldrege Prize for distinguished scholarship in American art to University of Delaware art historian Jodi Hauptman, citing her book, Joseph Cornell: Stargazing in the Cinema (Yale, 1999). The prize includes a $2,000 award.
ALDRICH AWARDS TO DION, COREY
The 9th annual Larry Aldrich Foundation Award, a $25,000 prize administered by the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Conn., goes to Mark Dion. Painter Claire Corey won the $3,000 Aldrich Emerging Artist Award.
BOURGEOIS AT WILLIAMS
The Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Mass., dedicates a new outdoor sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, commemorating its 75th anniversary, on Oct. 6, 2001. Titled Eyes, the sculpture consists of multiple pairs of eyes cast in bronze and carved in black granite, ranging in height from three to seven feet -- some of them double as seating. It is installed on the newly landscaped front lawn of the museum.
OBERLIN CURATOR
The Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Oh., has named Stephan Borys as curator of Western art. He is currently assistant curator of European art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
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