The new art season in Palm Beach County will deliver some surprises as well as “safety objects.”
There are some firsts (see Norton’s pick for its RAW series) and there is the repetitious (the influence of Warhol, the legacy of Flagler), but I have to believe even these announcements are good news, for a museum never brings back shows that act as audience repellents. Let us trust their good judgment.
I’m personally looking forward to two exhibitions coming to the Society of the Four Arts. Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture will focus on a style of design not typically associated with this nation. Japanese Deco is practically unheard of, at least in the West. The second exhibit takes us even further back in time. Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible will feature pages from a commissioned Bible that took more than 10 years to make. The result is both old and new.
Two exhibitions that already seem to scream fun are the Morikami’s Breaking Boundaries, featuring trendy fashion walking the streets of Japan today, and the Norton’s The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation, which examines the influence of the instant photography —particularly Polaroid — on professional and amateurs.
I do not plan to miss these shows.
In the end, the usual risk-takers and the more conservative venues both provide a well-balanced calendar of events that you now get to pick and choose from.
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach: By now we should be used to the Norton’s flashy way of making a comeback. This year, the Norton has reconfigured its collection of American art (now arranged chronologically and thematically) and added a new espresso bar near the main entrance. Works by Mary Cassatt, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, William Michael Harnett, Winslow Homer and Charles Marion Russell will wave adieu to the storage room and say hello to the public eye for the first time in a while.
Its lobby is now featuring artwork by another New York-based artist: Mickalene Thomas, who is known for feminist themes, a figurative style and elaborate paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic and enamel. A Yale graduate, Thomas is the third artist to create a site-specific artwork for the museum lobby. This is the first mural-sized artwork she has created outside of New York. On display through Aug.31, 2014, the installation, titled faux real, includes a collage of Thomas’s photographs and other media on a painted vinyl background.
The reopening also brings us the final work in the museum’s Masterpiece of the Month series: Court Portrait of Yinli, Prince Guo, a 300-year-old Chinese masterpiece never before exhibited in public. Prince Guo was the 17th son of the Kangxi Emperor (reigned 1661-1722). Showing through Oct. 20, this is the earliest known portrait of him and the last one to be privately owned.
A work by a French painter living in Rome will be the focus of a two-month exhibition beginning Oct.10 and ending Dec. 8. A Rediscovered Masterpiece: Claude-Joseph Vernet’s The Fishermen explores one of eight canvases specially commissioned in 1746 by the Marquis Pierre Charles de Villette. It is one of two known to have survived to modern times.
The Norton will use this recent gift as an opportunity to discuss a painting’s journey from authentication through conservation. Additional works by French, Italian, and Flemish artists, such as Giovanni Paolo Panini, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi and Jan Frans van Bloeman will also be featured.
The range of video as an art form and its power to reach will be tested in L.A. Stories: Videos from the West Coast (Nov. 7–Jan. 12). The exhibition will bring together four artists whose work demonstrates the narrative potentials of video. Their projections and installations aim to tell personal tales as well as universal ones. The artists are Eileen Cowin, Judy Fiskin, Mark Daybell and Julie Orser.
Running simultaneously will be New Work/New Directions: Recent Acquisitions of Photography, which will showcase the Museum’s growing collection of photography and highlight the new additions. More than 350 new works have joined the photography collection during the past two years. The additions include pieces by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eileen Cowin, Holly Roberts, and Sam Taylor-Wood.
A recently acquired album of ink paintings of orchids and bamboo will run during the same time. The Four Princely Gentlemen: Plum Blossoms, Orchids, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemums (Nov. 14-Jan. 26) includes visual representations of four essential Confucian qualities (strong, humble, moral, and resilient) by the Qing dynasty scholar Qian Zai. After serving the emperor as vice minister of the Board of Rites in Beijing, Qian Zai returned to his hometown, in Zhejiang province, where he became renowned for his paintings of orchids and bamboo.
For its third RAW (Recognition of Art by Women) exhibit the Norton has chosen its first sculptor: Phyllida Barlow. Hoard (Dec. 3-Feb. 23) features some new pieces by this one-of-a-kind artist, who calls her work “anti-monumental” and favors materials such as cardboard, fabric and cement. Barlow’s sculptural style centers on her attention to, and experimentation with, elements that are easily overlooked and commonly found in the urban environment where she lives. Included in the show are sculptures seen only in Europe.
Of the exhibits planned this year, The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation (Dec. 19-March 23) is certain to be a favorite. The museum is dedicating three months to it. The exhibition brings together groundbreaking Polaroid pictures by 40 artists spanning the period from the initial release of the SX-70 camera in 1972 until the present. The influence of its invention on professional and amateurs as well as the wave of experimentation it caused are the central themes of the show.
The photographs displayed will present a wide range of approaches and sensibilities. Among the artists represented are: Ansel Adams, Chuck Close, David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol as well as a new generation of artists including Anne Collier, Bryan Graf, and Grant Worth.
The mastery of David Webb attracted big names such as Jacqueline Kennedy, Doris Duke, and Diana Vreeland. The new year will put 80 sparkling examples of his skill on display. David Webb: Society’s Jeweler (Jan. 16-April 13) will feature necklaces, rings, and other pieces rendered in hammered gold, jade, coral, enamel, and precious stones. Preliminary drawings, photographs and advertisements will place Webb within the visual culture of the 1960s.
Complementing the Webb exhibition will be Qing Chic: Chinese Textiles from the 19th to Early 20th Century (Feb. 6-May 4). It features a robe, embroidered silk panels, purses, and shoes that share Webb’s love of natural forms, particularly flowers and animals.
Not a year goes by without an Andy Warhol exhibit somewhere in Palm Beach County. This time, the Norton invites us to take a look at Warhol not just through his artwork but through one of the superstars to have come out of his Factory: Jane Holzer.
To Jane, Love, Andy: Warhol’s First Superstar (Feb. 2-May 25) explores the rise of Jane Holzer (“Baby Jane”) as a glamorous model and the deep enduring bond existing between these two confidants. The show aims to illustrate that Holzer was an important witness to the development of Warhol as an artist and media star. Comprising the exhibition are fashions from Holzer’s career as a model, photographs and Warhol’s films featuring “Baby Jane.” Also included is rarely seen material from Warhol’s Time Capsules celebrating the intersection of their lives.
Just when you would expect a landscape show in spring, the Norton serves us a feast of metal bridges, machines, waterways, industrialization. Industrial Sublime: Modernism and the Transformation of New York’s Rivers, 1900-1940 (March 20-June 22) will examine the shift to urban views of New York’s waterways between 1900 and 1940 as realists and modernists conceived a new pictorial language to treat American industrialism. Instead of majestic mountains, these artists painted cranes and ocean liners. Among them are George Bellows, Robert Henri, John Marin, Reginald Marsh, Georgia O’Keeffe, and John Sloan. The exhibition is organized by the Hudson River Museum.
The museum’s Masterpiece of the Month (May 2014-October 2014) series will continue to highlight significant works by iconic artists one month at a time. Each work is selected from a private collection by a Norton curator and will correspond to the five curatorial divisions of the Norton’s collection: American Art, European Art, Contemporary Art, Chinese Art, and Photography. The curators are now in the process of selecting the works to include this season.
Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach: Words and colors will come together this November to bring us Illustrating Words: The Wondrous Fantasy World of Robert L. Forbes, Poet, and Ronald Searle, Artist. This exhibition will feature more than 60 works combining the creative poetry of Robert L. Forbes and the watercolor art work of Ronald Searle, who was known as one of the world’s top illustrators, producing drawings for Life magazine, The New Yorker, and numerous British publications.
Forbes has published three books and is emerging as a major children’s author. Rich with color and fanciful detail, the drawings capture the spirit and essence of his poems. The exhibit will run through the summer of 2015 at the Mary Alice Fortin Children’s Art Gallery.
Also opening this year, but in the Esther B. O’Keeffe Gallery, is Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945 (Nov.23-Jan.10). Dedicated to Japanese Art Deco, this show is the first of its kind to be held outside Tokyo. In the pre-war and war eras, artists and patrons created a Japanese modernism drawing from the nation’s unique history and its cosmopolitanism. About 200 works including ceramics, wood furniture, woodblock prints and jewelry comprise the exhibition. They range from fine art objects made to impress to mass-produced goods made for the modern home. The exhibition is drawn from The Levenson Collection.
Following Deco Japan, the Four Arts will take us on a maritime journey. Large canvases of famous sea battles, ships at work, and portraits of heroic sea captains are said to be the highlight of The Coast and the Sea: Marine and Maritime Art from the New-York Historical Society (Jan. 25-March 9). The works range in date from 1750 to 1904 and are by eminent marine artists such as Thomas Birch, John Frederick Kensett and Charlton T. Chapman. Also in the exhibition are paintings of major trading posts in and around the Pearl River Delta, including Hong Kong. Some of these paintings were by a group of Chinese artists working in the European style specifically for the export market.
A total of 62 of the most important American marine paintings and artifacts will be shown.
Imagine a book with words handwritten on vellum (calfskin) using hand-cut quills fashioned from turkey, swan or goose feathers, and ancient inks hand-ground from natural minerals and stones such as lapis lazuli, malachite and vermilion. Its pages touched by 24-karat gold leaf, silver leaf and platinum. Such a book is the centerpiece of a 15-year project and exhibit opening March 22.
Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible will present 68 original pages from all seven volumes of the Saint John’s Bible, along with tools, sketches, materials and rare books that help to tell the story of its creation. The actual pages were created by a team of 23 professional scribes in a scriptorium in Wales, under the artistic direction of renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson.
This is the first handwritten, illuminated Bible to be commissioned by a Benedictine monastery in 500 years. The exhibition ends April 23.
Accompanying the Saint John’s Bible exhibit will be 19 photographs narrating the experiences of photojournalist Tony O’Brien during his year-long residency at Christ in the Desert Monastery. In 1989, while on assignment in Afghanistan, O’Brien was captured and imprisoned by the Afghan government. After his release, he sought solace and perspective at the monastery, a small Benedictine community founded in 1964. He returned again in 1994 to do a story and was granted rare access to photograph the daily activities and rituals. Light in the Desert: Photographs from the Monastery of Christ in the Desert by Tony O’Brien runs from March 22 through April 23.
Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton: The work of Marilyn Bridges continues to be on display until Dec. 29. Heightened Perspectives: Marilyn Bridges presents 16 photographs driven by personal vision and, it seems, a rush of adrenaline. Bridges obtains her unique perspective by photographing through the open doors of a single-engine plane. Each photo was taken in the 1980s, making the portfolio a visual summary of one decade of her almost 40-year photography career.
The evolution of Santa Fe as an art colony is the theme of Southwestern Allure: The Art of the Santa Fe Art Colony (Oct. 8–Dec. 29). What artists settled and helped convert this city into an artistic center? Why did they stay, and what styles emerged with their presence? The 40 artworks featured will answer those questions. Hint: Santa Fe’s majestic landscape had something to do with it.
Running along Santa Fe Art Colony will be giant inflatable sculptures offering a critique of the American cowgirl. This “supersized” series comes courtesy of Nancy Davidson, who is known for site-specific installations about American icons and gender issues. Like enormous puppets Davidson’s colorful conflations of boots, chaps, balloons, ropes, and sawdust evoke the grandeur of the rodeo. The exaggerated size of the works speaks of our society’s fascination with the overly large. Nancy Davidson: Let’er Buck runs Oct.8-Dec.29.
A complicated relationship still seeking balance and harmony will take over the museum on Nov. 23. Can human beliefs and religious ethics get along with technology? Questions of this sort are bound to come out while walking the James Rosenquist’s High Technology and Mysticism: A Meeting Point exhibit. The 7-prints portfolio will display Rosenquist’s typical use of varied images assembled in a dizzying collage and evoke some philosophical arguments at the very least. A Meeting Point ends April 6.
A new year will welcome Pop Culture: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation (Jan. 12-April 23) and with it another look at how this art movement has influenced contemporary artists and their productions. Pop artists and their successors abandoned traditions of high art in favor of creating work that is based on the conventionalized imagery of commercial graphics. They sought to challenge traditional conceptions of art making by incorporating consumer culture and everyday objects into their work. This exhibition merges art that reflects and comments on popular culture and vernacular of the 1960s until the present with selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.
Flagler Museum, Palm Beach: You may follow the news and read stories that will convince you that Florida is not all that great, but there was once a man who believed so much in this state that not even fastidious heat, mosquitoes and storms could keep him away. To that man the Flagler is dedicating its first exhibit of the season.
Man of the Century: The Incomparable Legacy of Henry Morrison Flagler (Oct. 15-Jan. 5) will reflect on Flagler’s legacy and his impact on Florida 100 years after his death. The exhibition will examine his work in the areas of industry, development, and philanthropy through photographs, maps, documents, and artifacts.
The museum’s second seasonal exhibit, Stories in Sterling: Four Centuries of Silver in New York (Jan. 28-April 20) will feature more than 100 pieces ranging from simple spoons to extravagant trophies from the New-York Historical Society, one of the finest repositories of American silver in the nation. The historic compelling pieces in Stories in Sterling represent several centuries and are sure to make our mouths drop open.
Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens: An assortment of trendy garments and accessories produced by Japanese street fashion brands such as Metamorphose and Baby the Stars Shine Bright will be part of an exciting exhibit opening Oct. 8.
Breaking Boundaries: Contemporary Street Fashion in Japan also includes a selection of photographs of stylish street wear captured on the fashionable boulevards of Japan. Visitors will find some of the most popular and imaginative clothing styles made and worn on its streets today. The outfits represented include cute Lolita fashions, Gothic-Lolita, punk, and many others. The exhibition ends Feb. 23.
Accompanying the chic clothing will be Contemporary Kogei Styles in Japan, which will explore a style that is traditionally used to express a mastery of artistic techniques and materials, but in contemporary Japanese art-speak it has come to define a faction of fine arts and crafts. On display will be about 90 contemporary arts and crafts or kogei-style works (ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, dolls, and works of metal, wood, bamboo, and glass) by 40 of Japan’s most influential and leading kogei artists.
Japanese Prints of the Shining Prince Genji (March 11-May 18) will feature over 50 such woodblock prints and books depicting scenes from the first novel in the world written more than 1000 years ago by Murasaki Shikibu, a Japanese court lady. Shikibu’s epic masterpiece, The Tale of Genji, was a popular source of inspiration for woodblock print and illustrated book artists in the 19th century.
Another exciting exhibition will follow with an array of samurai armors, swords and helmets fashioned during the Edo period. Samurai Culture: Treasures of South Florida Collections (June 3–Aug. 31) will also display paintings and prints made during both the Edo and Meiji period and depicting samurai life. Although the samurai class was abolished soon after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, many samurai families held on to priceless objects in commemoration of one of the most illustrious warrior classes in the world.
From A Quiet Place: The Paper Sculptures of Kyoko Okubo: While most of us are familiar with handmade Japanese paper or washi, incorrectly called rice paper, and the fascinating art of paper folding known as origami, few have seen Kyoko Okubo’s magnificent paper sculptures: delicate, intricately detailed and highly personal paper sculptures that she describes as “symbolic self-portraits.”
Touch of Gold: Lacquerware Boxes and the Paintings of Elaine Ehrenkranz (Sept. 16-Jan. 11) will feature the generous gift this painter and collector of Japanese lacquerware boxes gave the Morikami this year. For over 40 years, Ehrenkranz put together a comprehensive collection of these Japanese boxes and painted works inspired by them. The exhibit presents both the muses and the creations resulting from them.
Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach: A freelance photographer with 30 years of professional experience is currently being recognized with a show at the Armory.
Red Morgan: Witness: Gospel by the Cane Fields (Sept. 13-Oct. 26) features recent photographs depicting an intimate look into the religious practices by the New Zion Holiness Church’s Bishops, pastor, gospel singers, gospel band and congregation, on the outskirts of Pahokee. Morgan has worked with America’s best editorial magazines, corporations and advertising agencies and shot editorial stories for Time, Life, Newsweek, People, Forbes, Esquire, Town & Country and Sports Illustrated.
Abstract works are currently on display until Oct. 19 courtesy of Mark Cohen, an artist whose style combines drips and dips. Mark Cohen: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly features recent large-scale portraits of prominent contemporary and historical figures.
Collaboration: African Diaspora (Sept. 21-Nov. 9) is a joint effort by the Armory and A.T.B. Fine Artists & Designers LLC, bringing us a Harlem Renaissance-style art exhibition showcasing 25 visual and nine literary artists of African Diaspora. The African Diaspora concept is based on the historical background of the artists not necessarily the subject matter of the work.
Norman Berman: Awe and Reverence (Nov. 2-30) celebrates recent works by local artist Norm Berman whose subject matter ranges from Judaic themes and abstract works to pastoral landscapes. Running simultaneously will be Orlando Chiang: Son of a …, which presents sculptural works by longtime student and self-proclaimed adopted son of the Armory, Orlando Chiang. Provocative and whimsical, most of the works on view were created at the Armory or inspired by the classes he has taken over the years.
For the third time, the Armory will host YOU Are Here: DSOA Arts Alumni Exhibition (Dec. 21-Feb. 1) which will feature works by visual arts alumni of the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts (DSOA) from 1994-2013.
February will see the second installation of the Fashion ARTillery: 2nd Annual Wearable Art Runway Show. This is a one-night exhibition of wearable art pieces constructed from the most unusual materials. Last year, winning designs featured garments made from everything from recycled tires to copper pennies and even coffee filters. This year the event is scheduled for Feb. 6. And while you are at it, don’t forget to visit recent works by members of the Palm Beach Watercolor Society on display from Jan. 11 to Feb. 15.
Huguette Despault May & Kathleen Elliott (Feb. 22- March 22) will feature the large scale drawings of Huguette Despault May and glass sculptural works by Kathleen Elliott, who creates sculptures inspired by imaginary botanical forms that marry plant and human elements. May’s Hawser series speaks of the entanglements we experience as human beings by presenting us the massive rope used to moor large ships drawn in charcoal. We witness its unraveling, its rhythmic braiding.
The Lighthouse ArtCenter, Tequesta: Oct. 22 will mark the end of Photo Now!: an exhibition resulting from a call-to-artists that asked artists to submit whatever they were exploring at the moment. Nancy Brown, internationally known commercial photographer for over 30 years, served as judge. This is also the last day to see ArtyBras, an exhibition of artist-made bras and the accompanying silent auction benefiting the ArtCenter and Jupiter Medical Center.
From Sept. 27 until Jan. 8, works by members of the ArtCenter’s Artists’ Guild will be on display with Artists’ Guild Midtown Bash.
As it gets ready to celebrate its 50th birthday, the ArtCenter will present a call-to-artists exhibition (Nov. 14-Feb. 15) comprised of new and emerging talent within a 50-mile radius of the Tequesta center. Judging by the requirements, you can expect Spotlight on New Talent to celebrate the unexpected as well as unconventional mediums and techniques. The juror and guest curator of the exhibition is Bruce Helander.
Cornell Museum, Delray Beach: A collection of 35 large and rare on-air photographs of Elvis Presley will be on display beginning Oct. 10. ELVIS: Grace & Grit is comprised of candid photos taken by various CBS Television photographers. The exhibition, running through Feb. 2, documents the star before the Las Vegas years. Following Elvis, is FLASHBACK: A Retro Look at the ’60s & ’70s (Oct. 10-Feb. 2) which will invite visitors to reminisce and enjoy a fun display of music, movie and sports memorabilia on loan from the community.
Palm Beach Photographic Centre: The West Palm Beach instructional center and gallery hosts through Nov. 16 two exhibits focused on Cuba.
The first features the Centre’s artist in residence, Kadir Lopez, whose works in The Conflux of Eternities make commentary out of past and present in his native Cuba, such as a Monopoly board whose images feature photos of the island’s pre-Revolutionary past. It’s paired with An American Presence in Cuba, historic photos of celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway in the days when the island was almost an annex of the United States. (Call 253-2600 or visit www.workshop.org)
Florida Atlantic University: The University Galleries in FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters begins the season with the 2013 Biennial Faculty Art Exhibition (Schmidt Center Gallery: Sept. 21-Dec. 7; Ritter Art Gallery: Sept. 21-Nov. 9)
Featured are a wide range of recent artworks by faculty teaching in the Department of Visual Arts and Art History; School of Communication and Multimedia Studies; School of Architecture; and Jaffe Center for Book Arts. The works range from traditional drawing, painting and sculpture, to video and photographic works illustrating the prevalence of electronic and digital art works in contemporary art.
Following Faculty Art comes Films4Peace (Schmidt Center Gallery: Sept. 20-Dec. 7; Ritter Art Gallery: Sept. 21-Nov. 9). Curated by Mark Coetzee, this is an annual short film commission by PUMA.Peace, featuring 21 of today’s most innovative artists visually interpreting the subject of peace.
Coming back for the fourth time is southXeast: Contemporary Southeastern Art (Schmidt Center Gallery Public Space: Nov. 2-April 2014; Ritter Art Gallery: Jan. 25-March 1; Schmidt Center Gallery: Feb. 22-March 27). The show, representing high-quality work by artists living in the Southeastern United States, will be spread out throughout the year and represents specific studio art disciplines that are taught at FAU.
A traveling and possibly graphic exhibit will invite viewers to reflect on the present-day topic of genetic manipulation and the possibility of one day reaching human perfection.
Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race (Schmidt Center Gallery: Dec. 14-Feb. 15) is produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and takes us back to Nazi Germany and its regime’s “science of race.”
From Germany we turn our attention to the little ones in Palm Beach County. Boys & Girls Club of Palm Beach County ImageMakers Photography Exhibition (Ritter Art Gallery: March 7-March 11) is an annual show presenting children’s photography from several Boys and Girls Clubs in the county. The show is juried by volunteer experts from the community with the winners advancing to a national Boys and Girls Club competition.
Art fairs: Anticipated annual events will return to the Palm Beach Convention Center, starting with Art Palm Beach, which celebrates its 17th anniversary from Jan. 24-27, 2014. A preview is planned for Jan. 23rd. This year the influential fair will debut new exhibition programs including: “Focus: Asian Art,” “Art from the Americas,” “Emerging Galleries/Performance Art,” and “Update: Photography.” A citywide gallery walk is also in the planning with museum openings, private collectors and architectural tours. Art Palm Beach 2014 welcomes back many returning exhibitors as well as introducing newcomers to the Palm Beach art scene. The fair is comprised of over 80 international galleries presenting works of all forms of contemporary art including painting, design and video and installations. Last year the fair saw 26,000 visitors.
Now in its 18th season in Palm Beach, the American International Fine Art Fair (AIFAF) returns (Feb. 4-9) to offer modern and contemporary art and design, sculpture, paintings from old masters and exquisite jewelry. An informative educational and lecture program is also planned, as in previous years. It is the opportunity both residents and collectors wait for to get their hands on something precious. All works of art featured are carefully vetted by museum professionals ensuring that visitors may have complete confidence in their selections and purchases. In 2013, the fair began a transformation that will carry on to 2014 by adopting a more creative, simpler floor plan, a new restaurant and VIP facilities.
Another anticipated fair of the season, the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Fair, will return to the Convention Center on Presidents’ Day weekend (Feb. 14-18) bringing the works of over 180 international dealers. This show is the largest of its kind in the United States and features fine jewelry, exquisite works of art and fascinating antiques from across the globe.
Palm Beach Fine Craft Show will follow (Feb. 28-March 2) with works by American artists living in America. The show features works well conceived and made by hand or with the use of appropriate tools. Whether one-of-a-kind or limited production, the work should reflect the individuality of the artist.