Jonathan LeVine Gallery exhibits a genre of work influenced by illustration, comic books, graffiti, street art and pop culture imagery. We represent a mix of emerging and mid-career level artists with an emphasis on cultivating new talent and creating an environment where artists can further develop their work. Stylistic and ideological tendencies shared by our artists create a fluid continuity within our program. Dissatisfaction with the conventional definitions of art and art making, an attraction to alternative subcultures and the creative energy inspired by the Do it Yourself ethic acts as a common thread. The works produced are primarily figurative with a strong sense of narration - the artist as storyteller.

The DIY attitude has helped shape our gallery's commitment to offering our space as one that encourages exploration. Bridging the gap between exhibiting artwork in the gallery setting, and ephemerally on the street, the challenge often faced by street artists is how to translate their imagery into a "whitebox" environment from it's context within the urban landscape. At Jonathan LeVine Gallery, artists are given complete freedom to fill the space with large scale pieces and incorporate the gallery walls into their work through complex and inventive installations. Past exhibitions have included alternative spaces in DUMBO, Brooklyn and mural projects throughout the city.

Since 2005, the first year established in New York, Jonathan LeVine Gallery has participated in a number of International Art Fairs during Art Basel week in Miami and Armory Arts Week in New York, cultivating an audience of international collectors and increasing visibility in the fine art arena. Additionally, the gallery's program has expanded beyond its space in Chelsea, collaborating with International galleries in presenting work by represented artists to new audiences overseas, in cities such as: Rome, Paris, London and Sao Paulo, Brazil. The goal is added exposure while creating a visual dialogue and cross-cultural exchange of ideas within our global community.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery remains focused on maintaining its mission of community, and commitment to providing our artists with a nurturing arena for experimentation and discussion.

Group exhibition
February 27 thru March 27

NEW YORK, NY (January 26, 2010) — Jonathan LeVine Gallery will celebrate its fifth anniversary with a commemorative group exhibition featuring exceptional and exemplary new works by thirty-six artists who are either currently represented by the gallery or who have exhibited at the gallery in the past five years. The exhibition will be on view from February 27—March 27, 2010, and there will be an opening reception on Saturday, February 27, from 7—9pm.

Since 2005, Jonathan LeVine Gallery has been an important venue for Street Art (ephemeral work placed in public urban environments) and Pop Surrealism (work influenced by illustration, comic book art, and pop culture imagery). As such, the pieces in this exhibition—comprised of paintings, drawings, and sculptures—will be primarily figurative with a strong sense of narration.

Artists in this exhibition have developed prominent creative voices for themselves as individuals, while also playing valuable roles within the historical context of the larger Street Art and/or Pop Surrealism movements. All of them have been influential in shaping the gallery’s program, creating work with a unique counter-culture point of view.

In LeVine’s words: “I believe that my program represents a generational shift, and that the artists who I work with will continue to define the evolution of this genre.”

About Jonathan LeVine

As a youth in the 1980s, LeVine recognized the appeal of countercultural aesthetics including punk flyers, comics, graffiti and tattoos. Beginning in 1994, LeVine became an independent curator, organizing exhibitions at punk and alternative rock venues in the NY/NJ area such as: CBGB, Webster Hall, Max Fish, and Maxwell's. By promoting these visual art forms through group shows in venues that were home to their musical counterparts, LeVine gave a home to this nascent art movement, early on.

In February 2001, LeVine opened his own gallery Tin Man Alley in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The gallery relocated to Philadelphia in late 2002. In January 2005, LeVine renamed and moved his gallery to the epicenter of the contemporary art world, Manhattan's Chelsea district.

Jonathan LeVine is pleased to continue cultivating new and long-standing relationships with featured artists and active collectors through his program at the gallery, participating in art fairs, and presenting special exhibitions in International locations.

For more info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net

Posted by rickyday at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Amistad Center for Art & Culture presents two to three exhibitions a year at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Exhibitions produced by The Center are exciting investigations of various issues relating to the African American experience. The educational programs that accompany these exhibitions not only present fresh perspectives about African American culture, but also encourage visitors to reflect upon their own perceptions. Admission to The Amistad Center for Art & Culture and The Wadsworth Atheneum of Art is free for members.

Current Exhibitions

Lincoln: Man, Myth and Memory Lincoln: Man, Myth and Memory
February 12, 2009 to July 5, 2009

In celebration of the Lincoln's Bicentennial, The Amistad Center for Art & Culture examines Lincoln's reflection in Black America with the exhibition Lincoln: Man, Myth, and Memory. With material drawn from The Amistad Center's historical collection as well as loans from contemporary artists, the exhibition explores Lincoln's role in the Civil War, his post-assassination emergence as a national celebrity, and the president's place in African American public memory.

The Amistad Center for Art & Culture founded in 1987 is a not-for-profit cultural arts organization, which owns a vital collection of 7000 items including art, artifacts and popular culture objects that document the experience, expressions and history of people of African American heritage. The Amistad Center for Art & Culture is housed at the Wadsworth Atheneneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. It is an independently incorporated 501 (c) 3 organization. Inspired by its collection, the mission of The Amistad Center is to interpret and celebrate African American arts and humanities and to educate the public about their importance and influence in American life.

The information in this post is provided via the Amistad's website.

http://amistadartandculture.org/index.php

ADMISSION for Individuals
MEMBERS FREE
ADULTS $10
SENIORS (age 62+) $8
STUDENTS (age 13–college with ID) $5
CHILDREN (age 12 and under, accompanied by an adult.) FREE
FIRST THURSDAYS (from 5:00–8:00 p.m.) $5

GROUP ADMISSIONS
For Group Prices, call Lee Oliver (860) 838-4046

HOURS
SUNDAY 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
MONDAY Closed.
TUESDAY Closed.
WEDNESDAY 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
THURSDAY* 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
FRIDAY 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
SATURDAY 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
*FIRST THURSDAYS 11:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.

Posted by rickyday at 01:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Rodin Museum

Jules E. Mastbaum, Philadelphia's great movie theater magnate and one of its best-known philanthropists, began collecting works by Auguste Rodin in 1923 with the expressed intent of founding a museum to enrich the lives of his fellow citizens. He set about assembling a complete view of Rodin's work, acquiring not only finished bronzes, but plaster studies as well as drawings, prints, letters, and books. By the time of his death in 1926, Mastbaum had brought together the greatest Rodin collection outside of Paris. He had also commissioned two great French Neoclassical architects working in Philadelphia, Paul Cret and by Jacques Gréber, to collaborate on a museum and garden, but did not live to see it completed.

The Rodin Museum, which opened to the public in 1929, houses 124 sculptures, including bronze casts of the artist's greatest works: The Thinker, perhaps the most famous sculpture in the world; The Burghers of Calais, his most heroic and moving historical tribute; Eternal Springtime, one of the most powerful works dealing with human love; powerful monuments to leading French intellectuals such as Apotheosis of Victor Hugo; and the culminating creation of his career, The Gates of Hell, on which the artist worked from 1880 until his death in 1917.

About the Museum's Garden

Over 60,000 visitors annually make the trip to see this spectacular Museum and the gardens which surround it. Designed by Jacques Gréber as part of the Museum's overall plan, the Rodin Gardens have remained a calm respite from the clatter of the city, even as the Parkway has changed over the years.

As Rodin himself knew, the appreciation of works of art is heightened by nature—and that is the goal of the Rodin Gardens. The reflecting pool in the garden courtyard evokes calm and echoes the cool beauty that the visitor will experience within the building.

About Auguste Rodin

It would be impossible to overstate the significance of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) to the history of art. More than any other sculptor since Michelangelo, Rodin changed the face of figurative sculpture and ushered in a whole new era of artistic expression. Many know Rodin for his famous controversies—the scandal around the Age of Bronze or the Monument to Honoré de Balzac—or for his unfinished projects, most famously The Gates of Hell. But few who recognize Rodin’s works have failed to be moved by them. The innovations he introduced into sculpture were elaborated by countless artists who followed him, including many who worked in his studio, such as Constantin Brancusi and Aristide Maillol.

Rodin was not educated at the École des Beaux-Arts, the most elevated school for the training of French artists, but his works achieved worldwide recognition in his own lifetime and his reputation continues to grow to this day. His genius was to express the inner truths of the human psyche and his gaze penetrated beneath the external appearance of the world. Exploring this realm beneath the surface, Rodin developed an agile technique for rendering extreme physical states which correspond to expressions of inner turmoil or overwhelming joy. Rodin was obsessed with myths, both ancient and modern, and his works commonly evoke classical mythology, the Bible, and the Divine Comedy of Dante, as well as the macabre modern Paris described in the poems of Charles Baudelaire. Deriving inspiration from such literary sources, Rodin sculpted a universe of great passion and tragedy, a world of imagination that exceeded the mundane reality of everyday existence.

Technically, Rodin introduced some very important innovations to the history of sculpture. His ability to make his figures lifelike caused him to be accused of modeling his sculptures directly from live subjects. The heightened expressive intensity of his works introduced a whole generation of artists to the potential for expressing internal depth through external features. In his Monument to Balzac, Rodin took his expressive technique to a new level, producing a figure of a great genius at the moment of his inspiration, wrapped in a cloak in the middle of the night. Though Rodin had made countless studies from life for this monument, he discarded these renderings in order to marry the expressive intensity of his modeling with the brilliance of the subject. This parallel between technique and subject, combined with the courage to throw away years of work in order to achieve a higher level of expression, mark Rodin as a unique and powerful artist.

For more information, please contact the Rodin Museum at (215) 568-6026.

Rodin Museum
Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 22nd Street
P.O. Box 7646
Philadelphia, PA 19101-7646

Driving Directions to the Museum
Directions to the Rodin Museum from Mapquest.

Hours
Tuesday through Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Closed Mondays and holidays.
(Hours subject to change.)

Admission
A contribution of $5 per person is suggested.

Free Public Tours
Free guided tours of the Rodin Museum are given to the public at 1:30 p.m. every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and on the first and third Saturdays of the month. Visitors should gather in the Main Entrance Hall. Please note: Tours are free after the suggested $3 admission donation.

Facilities
Wheelchair entrance, restrooms, and the Rodin Shop.

Accessibility
Parking and barrier-free access available. Listening enhancement system, touch tours, Braille and large-print materials available upon advance request by calling (215) 684-7602. TTY for Deaf and hearing impaired callers, (215) 684-7600.

Photography
Visitors are welcome to use hand-held cameras. Flash, strobe, and tripods are not permitted.

Posted by rickyday at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Check out this great museum in San Francisco, California.

An international museum, based in San Francisco, MoAD is committed to showcasing the "best of the best" from the African Diaspora. To facilitate this, MoAD reaches out and initiates collaborative ventures with institutions of similar vision from around the world. Already, the museum has forged rich relationships with the British Museum, the Museum of African Art (NY), Eileen Harris Norton and Peter Norton, and the University of California Berkeley, amongst others.

Drawing from the collections of museums, institutes, organizations, universities and private citizens, MoAD is a collector of stories—a repository of information to be shared with all who wish to know about the African Diaspora.

Embracing the newest applications in media technology, MoAD features an interactive theater and immersive exhibitions. This coupling of art, culture and technology enables MoAD to bring Africa, the African Diaspora and the world community closer together. Museum visitors and those experiencing MoAD through the Internet can exchange histories and stories, share and debate viewpoints, and find common expression in the many kinds of experiences that MoAD provides.
Using objects of art and culture as catalysts to tell the story of the African Diaspora past and present, MoAD is a virtual crossroads for people around the globe.

__________________________________________________________

Decoding Identity: I Do it for My People
January 23, 2009 – March 8, 2009

Forging a personal identity gives rise to a unique voice that transcends stereotypical barriers. The works of 20 diverse artists challenge cultural and ethnic prejudices and question issues of religion, sexuality, race, and gender. Ultimately, Decoding Identity heals the dynamic tension between individual and collective identities.

Includes works by: Lorraine Bonner, Ed and Linda Calhoun, Christopher Carter, Lalla Essaydi, John Yoyogi Fortes, Chaz Guest, David Huffman, Clint Imboden, Stephanie Anne Johnson, Annette Lawrence, Kelly Marshall, Wardell Milan, Ramekon O'Arwisters, Adrienne Pao, Jefferson Pinder, Dario Posada, Danny Ramirez, Manuel Rios, Blue Wade, and David Yun

__________________________________________________________

Visit the museum

We're located in the heart of San Francisco's Arts District at Mission and Third.

Address
Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission Street (at Third)
San Francisco, California 94105
phone: 415.358.7200
fax: 415.358.7252

http://www.moadsf.org/index.html

For my info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net

Posted by rickyday at 02:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is one of the oldest and largest non-profit contemporary art institutions in the United States. An exhibition space rather than a collecting institution, P.S.1 devotes its energy and resources to displaying the most experimental art in the world. A catalyst and an advocate for new ideas, discourses, and trends in contemporary art, P.S.1 actively pursues emerging artists, new genres, and adventurous new work by recognized artists in an effort to support innovation in contemporary art. P.S.1 achieves this mission by presenting its diverse program to a broad audience in a unique and welcoming environment in which visitors can discover and explore the work of contemporary artists. P.S.1 presents over 50 exhibitions each year, including artists’ retrospectives, site-specific installations, historical surveys, arts from across the United States and the world, and a full schedule of music and performance programming.

P.S.1 was founded in 1971 by Alanna Heiss as the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc., an organization devoted to organizing exhibitions in underutilized and abandoned spaces across New York City. In 1976, P.S.1 opened its first major exhibition in its permanent location in Long Island City, Queens, with the seminal Rooms exhibition. An invitation for artists to transform the building’s unique spaces, Rooms established the P.S.1 tradition of transforming the building’s spaces into site-specific art that continues today with long-term installations by James Turrell, Keith Sonnier, Richard Serra, Lawrence Weiner, and others.

For the next twenty years, the building was used as studio, performance, and exhibition spaces, in support of artists from around the world. After a building-wide renovation, P.S.1 reopened in 1997, confirming its position as the leading contemporary art center in New York. True to the building’s history and form, the renovation preserved much of the original architecture as well as most of its unique classroom-sized galleries.

In 2000, P.S.1 became an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art to extend the reach of both institutions, and combine P.S.1’s contemporary mission with MoMA’s strength as one of the greatest collecting museums of modern art. In addition to its home in Long Island City, P.S.1 continues to operate the legendary Clocktower Gallery in Lower Manhattan, which currently houses the headquarters of its online radio station, Art Radio WPS1.org.

A true artistic laboratory, P.S.1 aspires to maintain its diverse and innovative activities to continue to bring contemporary art to international audiences.

http://ps1.org/

For my info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net

Posted by rickyday at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm going to brave the ice, snow and cold and spend Christmas in Chicago. It's the first Christmas without my grandmother and Uncle for my Mother and I so you know I had to be there for her. While in town of course I'm going to check out some art. One of my stops will be the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA).

Now on View
The Museum of Contemporary Art Collection has outstanding examples of visual art from 1945 to the present with a strong focus on surrealism, minimalism, conceptual photography, and work by Chicago-based artists. These highlights from the 2,345 objects in the collection are arranged alphabetically by artist’s last name and range in media from painting, sculpture, and photography to installation and video. Each object is accompanied by an image and a short description. Although not represented here, the MCA also has nearly 2,500 examples in its collection of artists’ books.

Only a small percentage of collection works are on view at any given time and may be found in any of the museum spaces. These works are often used to create rotating thematic exhibitions.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is located at 220 East Chicago Avenue, just one block east of Michigan Avenue, in the heart of the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago.

General Telephone: 312.280.2660
Box Office Telephone: 312.397.4010
Admission Prices
Suggested General Admission $10
Students with ID and Senior Citizens $ 6
MCA Members and Children 12 and under, members of the military Free
Tuesdays - FREE Courtesy of TARGET

For my info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net

Posted by rickyday at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)