Artipedia - Arts News

Karl Benjamin, #17, 1970, oil on canvas, 56 3/4 x 56 3/4 inches

Louis Stern Fine Arts is pleased to present Dance the Line Paintings by Karl Benjamin. The exhibition opens on Saturday, September 29 with a reception for the artist from 6-9 pm and continues through Saturday, December 22, 2007.

Infinite would indeed seem to be the appropriate word for the extraordinary range and virtuosity of Karl Benjamin’s work. A dazzling practitioner of what critic Jules Langsner termed hard edge painting and one of the four artists featured in the landmark 1959 Abstract Classicists exhibition, Benjamin fills each canvas with meticulously orchestrated color. Throughout his exemplary 50-year career, Benjamin has re-defined the flat planes of his canvases with an infectious joie de vivre and a ruthlessly disciplined technique. Stripes morph into op art eye candy. Column-like shapes deconstruct themselves as if they were exploding stars. Circles re-align themselves with verticals to create rhythmic sequences worthy of the silkiest jazz imaginable. His intuitive sensitivity to the peculiar union of form and color produces works that defy reason and return the viewer to the singular delight of seeing.

The artist’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe and is included in a number of prestigious international private and public collections. Karl Benjamin is represented exclusively by Louis Stern Fine Arts. This exhibitions is accompanied by a hard bound, full color 125 page catalogue with text by Dave Hickey.

For further information contact Marie Chambers or Jenise Ramos.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Pere Portabella
September 26 - October 6, 2007
The Roy and Niuta Titus
1 and 2 Theaters

The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St.
New York, NY 10019

http://www.moma.org

MoMA PRESENTS RETROSPECTIVE SPANNING FOUR DECADES OF FILMS BY ICONOCLASTIC CATALAN DIRECTOR PERE PORTABELLA
Exhibition Includes U.S. Premiere of The Silence before Bach
New York University Presents Two-Day Symposium on Portabella

The Museum of Modern Art presents a retrospective of the films of veteran Catalan political filmmaker Pere Portabella (b. 1929, Barcelona). A director at the forefront of avant-garde Spanish cinema, Portabella has, over the past 40 years, produced a wide range of narrative and documentary works known for the formal beauty of their composition, a complex interrelationship of image and sound, and, often, their symbolic resistance to the 1939-75 regime of General Francisco Franco. Portabella has also expanded the expressive potential of the medium by subverting the notion of genre, particularly for horror films, fantasy films, and thrillers.

Presented from September 26 to October 6, 2007, in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, Pere Portabella features the director’s first appearance in the United States, for the U.S. premiere of his latest film The Silence before Bach (2007). A Portabella film was first screened at MoMA in 1972 (Vampir Cuadecuc [1970]), but the director was not permitted to travel to the U.S. to introduce it, as his passport had been revoked by the right-wing Spanish government for co-producing Luis Buñuel’s controversial
Viridiana (1961).

The exhibition is organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, and Mark Nash, Professor and Head of the Department Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, London.

The 14-film series features the avant-garde horror films Vampir Cuadecuc and Umbracle (1972), both starring Christopher Lee; the powerful documentary General Report on Some Interesting Facts for a Public Showing (1976); and The Silence before Bach, which explores the transformation of our experience of the world through music. Another highlight is a quartet of films chronicling the Catalan artist Joan Miró and his works.

In conjunction with MoMA’s retrospective, Portabella makes his first U.S. appearances at roundtable discussions. Dialogues take place at New York University on September 27 and 28, with Mark Nash and film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, and with Richard Peña, director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center; and at the world premiere of The Silence before Bach at MoMA on September 26, with Laurence Kardish.

Pere Portabella is made possible with the support of the State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX). Films and texts for the exhibition were lent by the MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona) and Portabella’s own production company, Films 59. Additional support and programs are provided by two New York University Centers: the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center and the Catalan Center. Additional assistance was provided by Anabel García and Marta Rincón of SEACEX, Marcelo Expósito and Jorge Ribalta of the MACBA, and Mary Ann Newman and Laura Turégano at NYU.

SCREENING SCHEDULE

Screenings begin Wednesday, September 26, and run through Saturday, October 6. For a complete screening schedule, visit http://www.moma.org or call (212) 708-9480.

For tickets, please visit http://www.moma.org

For press inquiries, please contact Paul Power at (212) 708-9847 or paul_power@moma.org

PUBLIC PROGRAM

Symposium
Pere Portabella: A Catalan Master Filmmaker in New York (At Last)
Thursday, September 27-Friday, September 28, 2007
The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center
New York University
53 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012

In conjunction with MoMA’s retrospective Pere Portabella, The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, The Catalan Center, and the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University present dialogues with Portabella and scholarly sessions with international film critics and experts in his films. For more information, please visit http://www.nyu.edu/kjc

September 27:
4:00-5:30 p.m. Portabella, Thirty Years at The MoMA
With Portabella, Jonathan Rosenbaum, and Mark Nash

September 28:
1:00-2:30 p.m. Portabella in Context
With Marcelo Expósito, Santos Zunzunegui, and Jo Labanyi

3:00-4:00 p.m. Portabella in the Catalan Context
Lecture by Fèlix Fanés

4:00-5:30 p.m. Portabella and the Creative Process
With Portabella and Richard Peña

In English, Spanish, and Catalan. Simultaneous translation will be provided. This event is free and open to the public.

For more information go to: http://www.moma.org

2nd Photo Festival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg

2nd Photo Festival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg
Reality Crossings
22 September to 21 October 2007

http://www.fotofestival-ma-lu-hd.de

The 2nd Photo Festival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg opens on 21 September. The three venue cities will be presenting the Festival until 21 October 2007 under the title Reality Crossings, which is also the subject matter of the exhibitions. The curator this year is Christoph Tannert, director of Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin and acclaimed exhibition organiser in the fields of the visual arts and photography.

Reality Crossings will show international photo and video art by eighty-two artists from thirty countries. A quarter of the listed artists are German while three quarters of the contributions are from abroad. Participating artists include Tacita Dean (GB), Peter Friedl (A) and Walter Niedermayr (I). They are joined by numerous young talents, some of whom are on the brink of discovery, such as Inês d’Orey (P), Nezaket Ekici (TR), Sadaf Rassoul Cameron (USA) and Juliane Eirich (D). Three artists from three different countries lived and worked in the three cities conurbation while preparing for the 2nd Photo Festival: Beth Yarnelle Edwards (USA), Michelle Sank (GB) and Kim Yunho (ROK) have realised exciting projects here, that will also be seen at the Festival. About a quarter of the participating artists will be presenting new works or works that are being shown for the first time in Germany. This group includes projects by Juliana Beasley (USA), Via Lewandowsky (D), Mari
ele Neudecker (D) and Frank Rothe (D).

With Reality Crossings Christoph Tannert has undertaken a relaunch of what used to be the Internationale Fototage, which moved from Herten into the Rhine-Neckar Triangle two years ago. Reality Crossings designates content converging on the media planes of cutting-edge photography with the realities of life surrounding us with both beauty and danger, often close to the abyss. The photographs and video works deal media-specifically with phenomena that are being currently discussed. They confront us with subjects and images that are usually — more or less consciously — screened out, overlooked or ignored. This year’s Festival will be more closely tied in with current trends in contemporary art than has previously been the case.

Unlike 2005, there will be no country quotas for participating artists. National bias was no longer an option for the curator.

Themed workshops and guided tours will also take place under the auspices of the Festival. Another Festival highlight will be the ceremony at which the DGPh (German Society for Photography) will award the Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Prize on 29 September 2007. This year’s prize winner is Letizia Battaglia from Sicily. She is to receive this distinction for her fight against the Mafia, in which the camera is her weapon and constant companion. Selected works by Letizia Battaglia will be shown at the Ernst Bloch Centre (Ludwigshafen).

The exhibits will be shown at thirteen different venues. This year the Festival is collaborating with various institutions in the three cities. Exhibition venues include the Kunsthalle Mannheim and the University of Mannheim, Schloss. Other exhibitions will be presented at the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (Ludwigshafen), the Ernst Bloch Centre (Ludwigshafen), the Palatinate Museum of the City of Heidelberg (Heidelberg), the Heidelberger Kunstverein and the Prinzhorn-Collection (Heidelberg). More works will be shown at selected venues in public spaces (for instance, Engelhorn, a department store, and the passage below the Ludwigshafen Mitte S-Bahn). A selection of video contributions will be shown at Cinema Quadrat (Mannheim), Karlstor Kino (Heidelberg) and Halle_02 (Heidelberg).

You will find more information at: http://www.fotofestival-ma-lu-hd.de

Press contact:
Goldmann Public Relations, Andrea Schmidt,
Zimmerstraße 11, 10969 Berlin, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)30-259 357 10, Fax: +49 (0)30-259 357 29,
e-mail: andrea.schmidt@goldmannpr.de
http://www.goldmannpr.de

For more information go to: http://www.fotofestival-ma-lu-hd.de