50TH YEAR FOR WINTER ANTIQUES SHOW
It's "Americana Week" in New York City and the foremost attraction of that annual collection of art shows and auctions has got to be the Winter Antiques Show, Jan. 16-25, 2004, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. A total of 74 top dealers are on hand at the fair, which is mounted as always at the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue and benefits East Side House Settlement in the South Bronx. New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has even been tapped as honorary chair of the Jan. 15 gala opening; for info, see www.winterantiquesshow.com.
The show's special guest exhibition comes from the Metropolitan Museum, and features selections from the American wing: a gilded bronze Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (a smaller version of the popular work in the museum courtyard) flanked by John Singer Sargent's large portrait of Mr. and Mrs. I.N. Phelps Stokes (1897) and Ralph Earl's colonial-era portrait of Elijah Boardman (1789) along with tables by Chippendale and Lannuier, an assortment of fine silver, and favrile glass vases by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The mixture is "emblematic of the way we should be thinking about American art today," noted Morrison H. Hechkscher, chairman of the Met's American wing. The special exhibition is underwritten (for the eighth consecutive year) by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies.
On hand are the bluest of blue chip dealers, from Mallett to Leigh Keno, from Peter Tillou Works of Art to L'Antiquaire & the Connoisseur. Among the galleries specializing in fine paintings are Adelson Galleries, Thomas Colville, Fine Art Society, Hirschl & Adler, Gerald Peters and Schwarz Gallery. For Arts and Crafts there's Cathers & Dembrosky; for the Aesthetic Era there's Associated Artists. Madison Avenue dealer W. Graham Arader III has brought an exquisite selection of natural history prints, while the Old Print Shop features American prints from 1750 to 1950. For illuminated manuscripts and historical jewelry there's Le Enluminures, and for arms and armor there's Peter Finer.
The Elinor Gordon Gallery of Villanova, Pa., which specializes in antique Chinese Export porcelain, has participated in all 50 Winter Antiques shows. This year, the show's dealers have recognized Mrs. Gordon with the establishment of the Elinor Gordon 50th Anniversary Scholarship Fund to aid promising East Side House Settlement students.
General admission is $16, and includes a copy of the catalogue.
BERLIN BIENNALE 2004
The 3rd Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art, organized by Ute Meta Bauer, goes on view Feb. 14-Apr. 18, 2004, at two venues, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Martin-Gropius-Bau (plus a film program at the Arsenal Kino). The third edition of the show is dedicated to the "fundamental urban restructuring processes" that have reshaped the city since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and thus is organized around five "hubs" that "function as thematic anchors" -- migration, fashions and scenes, other cinemas, urban conditions, and sonic scapes. Among the 50 participants are Karin Mamma Andersson, Judith Barry, Walter van Beirendonck, Ingrid Book and Carina Hedn, Kaucyila Brooke, Fernando Bryce, Maria Bustnes, Ergin Cavusoglu, Banu Cennetoglu, Willie Doherty, Marcelo Expsito, Christine Fenzl, Samira Gloor-Fadel, Florian Hecker, Isaac Julien, Serge Kliaving, Erkki Kurenniemi, David Lamelas, Mark Lewis, Masami Akita, Ryuji Miyamoto, Regina Mller, Piotr Nathan, Bert Neumann, Fanni Niemi-Junkola, Melik Ohanian, Ulrike Ottinger, Mathias Poledna, Aura Rosenberg, Constanze Ruhm, Bojan Sarcevic, Dierk Schmidt, Nada Sebestyn, Thomas Struth, Akira Suzuki, Mika Taanila, Sissel Tolaas, Nomeeda & Geiminas Urbonas, Mika Vainio, Vangelis Vlahos, Stephen Willats, Rolf Wolkenstein/Christoph Dreher, Amelie von Wulffen and Skylobby.
PUERTO RICAN CONCEPTUALISM IN HARTFORD
Hartford alternative space Real Art Ways is taking a look at the resurgence of Conceptual Art among a new generation of Puerto Rican artists. "None of the Above: Contemporary Work by Puerto Rican Artists" is being jointly organized by Real Art Ways curator Steven Holmes, El Museo del Barrio curator Deborah Cullen and independent curator Silvia Karman Cubi. Among the artists under consideration for the show are Allora & Calzadilla, Charles Juhsz-Alvarado, Ada Bobonis, Javier Cambre, Jose Luis Cortes, Cari Gonzales-Casanova, Ivelisse Jimnez, Jos Lerma, Nayda Colazo Llorens, Miguel Luciano Makia, Freddie Mercado, Ana Rosa Rivera Marrero, Arnaldo Morales, Jess "Bubu" Negrn, Ryan Rivera, Aaron Salabarrias Valle, Fernando Coln Gonzlez, Dhara Rivera and Chemi Rosado Seijo. The exhibition, which is slated to open in May 2004, has received $50,000 in funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation and $40,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts.
SEROTA DOES JUDD
Tate director Nicholas Serota has organized the major survey of work by Donald Judd (1928-94) that opens at Tate Modern, Feb. 5-Apr. 25, 2004. The exhibition features handmade paintings and works from the early 1960s, factory-made floor and wall works of the 1960s and '70s, highly colored wall pieces of bolted aluminum from the '80s and the artist's final colorful plywood and Plexiglas sculpture from 1993. The show is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Judd, Serota, Rudi Fuchs, Richard Shiff, David Raskin and David Batchelor, with catalogue entries by Chinati Foundation director Marianne Stockebrand.
MOMA ART TO BERLIN (FOR NOW)
Where are those masterpieces from the Museum of Modern Art while its new galleries are under construction? In Berlin, at least for the time being. Over 200 works from the New York museum's permanent collection go on view at the German capital's Neue Nationalgalerie in "MoMA in Berlin," Feb. 20-Sept. 19, 2004. At the same time, several Berlin institutions are presenting "American Season 2004," a series on 20th-century American theater, literature, film, design and architecture, which carries an overall price tag approaching 10 million and is coordinated by the Berliner Festspiele. "MoMA Berlin" is supported by Deutsche Bank.
BONK TO HEAD CULTURAL CENTER
East Village painter Keiko Bonk, who in her New York days exhibited her work at Piezo Electric gallery, has been named director of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii in Moiliili, Hawaii. Throughout the 1990s, Bonk was active in state politics as a member of the Green Party, serving on the Hawaii County Council before finishing second in the 2000 race for mayor of Hawaii. The Japanese Cultural Center recently completed a fundraising drive to retire a $9 million debut on its facility.
