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Artnet News
6/8/01

HURRICANE-PROOF YOUR ART
Now that the Atlantic Coast is embroiled in hurricane season, AXA Art Insurance wants to make sure you know how to protect your art valuables. AXA (which also underwrites the gallery of the same name over on Manhattan's West Side) has set up a checklist for the conscientious collector on its website. Among the recommendations: draw up a fine art inventory; secure important documents in a weather-proof safe; stock up on emergency supplies and equipment; and keep a camera around to take pictures in case of damages. Follow these guidelines until the coast is clear, usually around the end of November.

SURREALIST EXHIBITIONS
A recent visit to Ubu gallery on Manhattan's Upper East Side found the space thronged with celebrants of sometime Artnet Magazine correspondent Lewis Kachur's new book on the history of Surrealist exhibitions. Titled Displaying the Marvelous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali and Surrealist Exhibition Installations, the book is an erudite romp through the world of umbrellas, sewing machines and dissecting tables. The Ubu crowd was similarly dialectical. Art history professors Colin Eisler, Joan Marter, James Saslow and Leo Steinberg mingled with artists who had known Duchamp, such as Mierle Ukeles and Ellen Levy. Also on hand were Artnet.com contributors Suzanne Boettger, Anthony Haden-Guest and Francis Naumann, who himself has recently opened a gallery dedicated to things Duchampian. For more info, check out Kachur's free public lecture in the Uris Auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum on Friday, June 22, at 6 pm.

L.A. COOL IN LONDON
London is getting its first real taste of surfboard cool with "Out of L.A." at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery. The show, extended by popular demand until June 23, 2001, presents pioneers of the '60s "L.A. Look" comprised of the West Coast Pop, Light and Space and Otis Clay movements. The six featured artists are Larry Bell, Joe Goode, famed for his painted skies, sculptor Bob Graham, abstract expressionist Ed Moses, Ken Price, and Ed Ruscha. The six artists, together again in the London show, also reunited in person on their native coast for this photo op.

PEW ANNOUNCES GRANT RECIPIENTS
The annual $50,000 awards from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, one of the larger grants available to artists, were distributed last week to 12 winners selected from a pool of 400 applicants. This year's categories were Fiction and Creative Nonfiction, Media Arts, and Works on Paper. Recipients of the visual arts awards are artists Yane Calovski, Enid Mark, Gabriel Martinez and William Smith, photographers Vincent Feldman, Laurence Salzman and Ron Tarver, and media artists William Larson, Maria Rodriguez and Shanti Thakur.

CASH FROM CREATIVE CAPITAL
New York's Creative Capital Foundation has awarded over $400,000 in grants to 43 artists across the nation. Founded several years ago to take up the slack after right-wingers in Congress cut the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital supports individual artists pursuing innovative and experimental projects and provides its grantees with career counseling as well as funding. The winning ideas, selected from almost 3,000 submissions in the fields of visual and media arts, include wallpaper art and an animated history of Korea.

KENYAN COMMUNITY TRADES ART FOR A SCHOOL
Forget filing and making coffee. Intern Kakuta Hamisi of the Seattle Art Museum went beyond the call of duty when he made a special trip home to his native Maasai community in Kenya to acquire Maasai art for the museum. Hamisi, who is a student at Evergreen State College in Washington, took an unusual approach to his mission: he spent the acquisition funds to build a school for the village, and in return the Maasai donated a variety of items to the museum. In a videotaped ceremony, the creator of each piece explained the practical and cultural significance of the object. The jewel of the exchange is colorful beaded bridal costume, which traditionally is made as part of a community-wide effort. For more info on the art works and their acquisition, see www.maasai-infoline.org.

MICHAEL SONNABEND DIES AT 101
Art impresario, documentary-maker and scholar Michael Sonnabend died at his Manhattan home on Friday, June 1, 2001. He is survived by his wife, art dealer Ileana Sonnabend, and their adopted son, Antonio Homem, director of the Sonnabend Gallery in New York.



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Displaying the Marvelous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, and Surrealist Exhibition

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Mierle Ukeles

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Ellen Levy

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Joe Goode

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Ed Moses

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Ken Price

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Ed Ruscha

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Ron Tarver