Nov. 9, 2005 

REMBRANDT 2006, TEFAF MAASTRICHT IN THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands is gearing up for a rush of cultural tourism next spring, with the International Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, otherwise known as TEFAF Maastricht, and a series of exhibitions in Amsterdam celebrating the 400th anniversary of the birth of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69).

*TEFAF Maastricht 2006, Mar. 10-19, 2006, now in its 19th year, is growing in size, adding 24 new exhibitors and increasing the total number of dealers to 218, an increase of nine percent over 2005. Fifteen countries are represented. Thirteen new modern and contemporary galleries are making the trip to the typically Old Master fair, including Gagosian Gallery, Richard Gray Gallery, Galerie Jan Krugier, Achim Moeller Fine Art and PaceWildenstein.

Other first-time exhibitors include two that specialize in Asian art, Littleton and Hennessy, which has galleries in London and New York, and Grace Wu Bruce from Hong Kong, as well as one gallery that represents Art Deco, Vallois Mobilier from Paris. The fair is sponsored by AXA Art, the world’s only specialist art insurer. General admission to TEFAF is €40, and includes a copy of the catalogue.

* The year-long celebration of Rembrandt’s 400th birthday centers on the Rijksmuseum, with its extensive holdings of the artist’s works. As part of "Rembrandt 400 in the Rijksmuseum," a museum-wide celebration, the museum is organizing "The Masterpieces," Jan. 2-Dec. 31, 2006, a show of top works by Rembrandt, Jan Vermeer, Jacob van Ruisdael and Jan Steen from the museum collection; "All the Rembrandt Paintings from the Rijksmuseum collection," Jan. 26-Feb. 19, 2006, the first such exhibition; and "Really Rembrandt," Mar. 9-May 24, 2006, a comparison of genuine Rembrandts with fakes or paintings of questionable attribution.

In addition, the Rijksmusum is presenting "All Rembrandt’s Drawings in the Rijksmuseum," a show of 60 drawings presented in two sections: "Part I: The Storyteller," Aug. 11-Oct. 11, 2006, and "Part II: The Observer," Oct. 14-Dec. 31, 2006. Also on tap is Nightwatching, a theatrical installation by Peter Greenaway, June 2-Aug. 6, 2006.

* "Rembrandt - Caravaggio," Feb. 24-June 18, 2006, at the Van Gogh Museum, presents for the first time an extensive side-by-side look at works by the two tenebrist masters, via some 25 major paintings. Caravaggio’s works were last shown in the Netherlands in 1952. For details, see www.rembrandt-caravaggio.nl

* The Rembrandt House Museum, which is celebrating its 400th anniversary as well, has four exhibitions on tap: "Rembrandt and British Printmaking around 1900," Dec. 17, 2005-mar. 12, 2006; "Rembrandt -- The Quest of a Genius," Apr. 1-July 2, 2006, a show of works made in the house after the death of the artist’s first wife, Saskia; "Rembrandt, the Etcher," July 8-Sept. 3, 2006, a show of 290 etchings; and "Uylenburgh & Son, Art and Commerce in Rembrandt’s Time," Sept. 14-Dec. 10, 2006, an exhibition of works recreating the ambiance of a 16th-century art shop.

* "The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt," Nov. 10, 2006-Feb. 4, 2007, at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, an examination of Rembrandt’s Biblical scenes and other ostensibly Jewish subjects.

* "Rembrandt’s Documents," Oct. 15-Dec. 31, 2006, at the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, a show drawn from the 600 documents relating to the artist.

* "Rembrandt and the Bible, the Complete Etchings," Sept. 15-Dec. 10, 2005, at Amsterdam’s Biblical Museum, presents well over 70 etchings addressing Old and New Testament stories.

* "Rembrandt, the Musical," opening July 15, 2006, at the Royal Theatre Carré Amsterdam.

* "The Essence of Rembrandt," May 12-Aug. 13, at the Amsterdam Historical Museum, a show of drawings, etchings and the celebrated painting, The Anatomical Lesson by Dr. Deijman (1656).

NEW GALLERIES AT INDIANAPOLIS MUSEUM OF ART
Indianapolis is gearing up for a citywide celebration in honor of the new 25,000-square-foot contemporary galleries at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). Located on the museum’s third floor, the new galleries offer 66 percent more space. Starting on Nov. 15, 2005, 16 new acquisitions go on view, including works by Laylah Ali, Ghada Amer, Jean Arp, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Rudolf de Crignis, Do-Ho Suh, Kojo Griffin, Jawshing Arthur Liou, Andre Masson, Kenneth Noland, Stefana McClure, Michal Rovner and Fred Sandback. Two special exhibitions are also planned, by Assume Vivid Astro Focus in the museum’s "Off the Wall" series, and an installation by Ernesto Neto in the "Forefront Series."

The new galleries mark the midway point of the IMA’s $74-million, 164,000-square-foot expansion, which is giving the museum three new wings, 50 percent more gallery space and two new restaurants operated by Wolfgang Puck Catering. Galleries for African, Asian and European art are slated to reopen over the coming year.

Also on tap is a citywide public art project that is bringing Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Untitled (For Jeff), the late artist’s mournful, black-and-white billboard image of a photograph of the palm of an open hand, to the IMA façade, the exteriors of the Eiteljorg Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, the Indianapolis Art Center, the Indianapolis Artsgarden and 12 billboards throughout the city. The work is on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and goes on view Nov. 20, 2005-Jan. 29, 2006.

CHESS FEVER IN NYC
New York’s contemporary art world appears to be in the throes of a chess obsession. In addition to "The Imagery of Chess Revisited" at the Noguchi Museum [see "We Are Duchampians," Nov. 2, 2005), there is "The Art of Chess," Oct. 28-Dec. 23, 2005, at Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine gallery, featuring some ultra-contemporary takes on the game, including Yayoi Kusama’s pieces made from spotted ceramic gourds, Jake and Dinos Chapman’s set made from anus-faced, racially segregated figures of children and Mauricio Cattelan’s Untitled: Good versus Evil, a board that pits Superman, Che Guevarra and Martin Luther King, Jr. against Hitler, Cruella Deville and the snake from the Garden of Eden, among others.

All the sets from "The Art of Chess" can be purchased through RS&A Ltd., which collaborated on organizing the show (write info@r-s-a.co.uk for price info.)

For more chess, Glenn Kaino’s show "Of Passed Pawns and Communicating Rooks" opens at Projectile on 37 W. 57th St., Nov. 10-Dec. 22, 2005, while Gabriel Orozco’s current exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery, Oct. 6-Nov. 12, 2005, features a suite of his geometric paintings, the patterns of which are purported to be based on the knight’s move. Finally, don’t miss the Noguchi’s public event on Jan. 14, 2006, when 2004 women’s chess champion and Chess Bitch author Jennifer Shahade will challenge all comers at the Noguchi Museum.

WALCOTT AT JUNE KELLY
Author Derek Walcott is set to make his New York debut as a painter with an exhibition at June Kelly Gallery in SoHo, Nov. 18-Dec. 30, 2005. Dubbed "Another Life," Walcott’s show features deftly done watercolors and paintings "that celebrate a part of the world that he knows best, the Caribbean, with its natural beauty, fisherman, the markets and mountains and, always, the sea." Born in 1930, Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, and has published 11 books of poetry, from Selected Poems (1964) to Tiepolo’s Hound (2000). 

ROTHKO GOES TO CHINA
With U.S. pres George W. Bush getting booed off the stage the world over, it looks like the U.S. Department of State has remembered the effectiveness of using art tours to promote the American way of life. The State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has tapped the National Gallery of Art to organize a show of 27 works from its extensive Mark Rothko collection in China and Korea. Featuring works ranging from early representational paintings to his classic pure color abstractions, the exhibition premieres at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, Mar. 31-June 4, 2006, and subsequently appears at the Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, June 22-Sept. 10, 2006. 

$12 MIL FOR ISRAEL MUSEUM PHOTO DEPARTMENT
In what is described as the largest single monetary gift ever to a museum photography department, the photo wing of Jerusalem’s Israel Museum has received $12 million from the Harriette and Noel Levine Foundation. The New York-based couple -– Noel is a real estate and equity management millionaire -- are long-time patrons of the institution, having donated 85 signed Andre Kertesz prints in 1994. The Israel Museum intends to rename its photography department in honor of the pair, following in the footsteps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which already has a gallery named after them. 

DMG SNAPS UP SOFA
Is the media-consolidation trend hitting the art world? San Francisco-based DMG World Media, which is owned by the U.K.’s Daily Mail and General Trust plc group (DMGT), and which runs the Palm Beach! and Palmbeach3 antiques fairs, along with some 300 trade exhibitions worldwide, and publishes Art & Antiques, among other magazines, has paid $4.3 million to acquire Chicago’s Expressions of Culture, Inc., producer of the annual International Expositions of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art (SOFA) in Chicago and New York. EOC founder and director Mark Lyman continues to run the SOFA expositions from its current office in Chicago. Terms of the deal are confidential.

OEHLEN AT MIAMI MOCA
German "bad taste" painter Albert Oehlen is bringing his giddy collage-style digital abstract paintings to the pastel-hued city of Miami. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami presents "Albert Oehlen: I Know Whom You Showed Last Summer," Nov. 19, 2005-Jan. 8, 2006, featuring 30 canvases from 1988-2003 by the Krefeld-born artist. The show is curated by MOCA director Bonnie Clearwater.

BOROFSKY GOES PERMANENT AT NASHER
Maine artist Jonathan Borofsky’s inspirational Walking to the Sky, a 100-foot-tall slanted pole with several gravity-defying figures striding casually upwards along its length, has been installed at the Nasher Sculpture Park in Dallas. The sculpture debuted at Documenta in 2002 and appeared at Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2004.

PENNA ACADEMY WINS 2005 NATIONAL MEDAL FOR THE ARTS
President George W. Bush has awarded a 2005 National Medal of Arts to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the first visual-arts institution to receive the award. PAFA is celebrating its 200th birthday this year. Other winners of this year’s award include actor Robert Duvall, musician Wynton Marsalis and singer and songwriter Dolly Parton.

MAXSON WINS ARTHOUSE TEXAS PRIZE
Everything’s bigger in Texas, including art prizes. The "the largest regional visual arts award in the country," the $30,000 Arthouse Texas Prize for Contemporary Art, has gone to Houston-based video/installation artist Eileen Maxson. Works by Maxson and fellow prize finalists Robyn O’Neil, Robert A. Pruitt and Ludwig Schwarz are on view at Arthouse’s Jones Center facility in Austin, Sept. 10-Nov. 13, 2005. The award is given out every two years.

2005 REMA HORT MANN GRANTS
The Rema Hort Mann Foundation, dedicated to rewarding promising artists who need cash, has picked seven recipients for its 2005 round of grants, worth $10,000 each. The winners are John Carter, William Cordova, Chris Dorland, Robin Graubard, Matt Keegan, Katrin Sigurdardottir and Greg Smith.

NEW GALLERY FROM KIM LIGHT IN L.A.
Los Angeles art dealer Kim Light has opened a new gallery, dubbed LightBOX, at 2656 La Cienega in Los Angeles’ new Culver City art district. LightBOX inaugurated its 5,000-square-foot space with a show of work by Analia Saban, Oct. 29-Dec. 3, 2005, with Alika Cooper in the project room. Angelenos previewed the space last month, when Simon Watson and Scenic installed "The Passionate Image: The Body in Art and Advertising" (a show that opened at the Stephen Kasher Gallery in New York on Nov. 11, 2005). Patricia Faure Gallery, where Light had been director, is now directed by Heather Harmon and Samuel Freeman of the now-closed Cartelle gallery in Marina del Rey.

contact wrobinson @ artnet.com