Whether you are an artist or an admirer of beauty, you should thank the lucky stars (and planets) for aligning once again to bring Palm Beach County robust art by local and international artists.
It is not the most exciting lineup ever, but as usual diversity is the big hero saving us from the villain: predictability. That there will be something for everyone is always good news. As previous seasons, historic and contemporary art will be presented through fashion, photography, video, sculpture and painting.
But first things first: late-night Thursdays are here to stay. And so is every other late-night or free-day incentive to get young people visiting the places they should have cared enough to visit and pay for in the first place. This mutation of art as night-life activity is starting to seem like a brilliant invention.
Not long ago, it felt more like an invasion to me, a violation of my rights (my rights as a museum visitor). If you still think it is, please keep this in mind: the crowds are showing up, which means the money will be there to enhance our local collections and put together better shows. Last time I checked, that was the goal. Learn to tune out the undesirable.
The Everglades theme is big this season with three venues naming shows after it. I am more looking forward to the Rembrandt prints and the High Tea show coming to the Norton Museum of Art as well as its fourth RAW exhibition featuring Swedish sculptor Klara Kristalova. And who would want to miss mythical creatures and robots taking over the Morikami Museum’s gallery rooms?
Equally intriguing is the Boca Museum of Art’s Surrealism and Magic exhibition and Altarations: Built, Blended, Processed, which will be shown at Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt Center Gallery and Ritter Art Gallery. This last one features contemporary artists blending photographic images and processes to create works that celebrate, contradict and undermine photographic traditions.
What the Olympics do for resolutions, this season should be able to do for local artists. It will get their artistic juices going or, at the very least, spark some conversation. In the words of Boca Museum’s new Executive Director Irvin Lippman, this season “will stimulate an ongoing dialogue in the community about art and the history of ideas.”
I’m not sure what that last part means, but it sounds good to me.
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach: For the fourth consecutive year, the museum took a two-week nap in September. It is a sort of beauty sleep during which magic happens and from which the museum awakens feeling hungry and refreshed.
This time, the lobby artwork comes courtesy of British artist Terry Haggerty, who works in the tradition of geometric abstraction and most recent wall installation include those at the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium, CCNOA in Brussels and Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The most fascinating aspects to Haggerty’s art are its incredible precision and minimalistic palette. The end result is very clean and dynamic. Its artwork will greet visitors until September 2015.
The Rudin Prize for Emerging Photographers is back, from Oct. 2-Jan. 11. This year welcomes Miriam Böhm from Mannheim, Germany; Rami Maymon from Tel Aviv; Renato Osoy from Guatemala City; and West African-born Delphine Fawundu from New York. Every other year, the museum asks a panel of renowned artists to nominate emerging photographers who show remarkable promise but have not had a solo exhibition at a museum.
The nominees share an exhibition but only one of them goes on to win the $20,000 Rudin Prize, named for the late New York City real estate developer Lewis Rudin. This year’s panel consists of Thomas Demand (Germany), Adi Nes (Israel), Luis Gonzalez Palma (Guatemala), and Deborah Willis (USA).
Before photographs, there were prints. An exhibition of more than 40 works on paper, including woodcuts, etchings, engravings and lithographs will explore prints’ role in society before the arrival of photography. The works cover five centuries and represent old and modern masters such as Rembrandt, Goya, Canaletto, Degas, Picasso, and Cézanne. Master Prints: Dürer to Matisse runs Nov. 6-Feb. 15, 2015 and features a video examining printmaking processes.
The chance to see the early work of fashion photography’s big names comes Nov. 20 through Feb. 15. Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast takes us through nearly 100 years of fashion imagery to highlight its evolution. The show contains about 150 images by 80 top fashion photographers including Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh and Baron Adolph de Meyer, who was the first photographer hired by Condé Nast in 1914.
The fourth Recognition of Art by Women (RAW) exhibition brings us Sweden-based artist Klara Kristalova’s freaky sculptures and drawings. The artist breathes form into abstract ideas inspired by memories and observations of daily life. Kristalova’s other inspirations are old fairytales, movies and music. Klara Kristalova: Turning into Stone runs Dec. 2-March 29 and is the first solo museum exhibition of Kristalova’s work outside of Sweden.
December bring us Pastures Green: The British Passion for Landscape, which narrates the development of landscape painting in Britain through more than 60 works that will be displayed. Drawn from the collection of the National Museum Wales, the exhibition includes pieces by artists such as Claude Lorrain, Salvador Rosa, Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Wright of Derby, John Constable, Claude Monet, and Richard Long. The works take us from the Industrial Revolution to our postmodern present. It runs from Dec. 23 through April 5.
Love is in the air starting Feb. 8 with The Triumph of Love: Beth Rudin DeWoody Collects. That’s present tense, as in still collecting. New York and West Palm Beach resident who acquired her first drawing in the 1960s, DeWoody has been involved in the art world for more than four decades. At one point, she even considered being an artist herself but decide to become a collector instead. The exhibition running through May 3 presents the collection she has cultivated so far.
Chocolates are better suited for February but there is no elegance and no ritual associated with it, which is why the museum is serving us tea instead with 125 tea-related objects. High Tea: Glorious Manifestations East and West (Feb. 19-May 24) highlights eight key cultures worldwide: China, Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Russia, England and America. Featured objects include ceramic and porcelain pieces.
Photography comes back from March 19 through July 12 with Imaging Eden: Photographers Discover the Everglades to celebrate photography’s contribution to the preservation and recognition of the Everglades as not only an important ecosystem but also a landscape of beauty. The show features commissioned work by four international contemporary artists, including Simon Norfolk, Jungjin Lee, Bert Tuenissen and Jim Goldberg, who used this environment as source of inspiration.
Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach: This will be the first season under the leadership of David W. Breneman, the organization’s new president and CEO. Parisian life and French art take center stage at the Esther B. O’Keeffe Gallery from Dec. 6 through Jan. 11 with Toulouse-Lautrec and La Vie Moderne: Paris 1880-1910.
Drawn from collections in Holland and France, the show features about 200 works reflecting the tendencies in French art at the turn of the 19th century. Featured artists along with Toulouse-Lautrec include Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Juan Gris and Mary Cassatt.
More than 50 works from the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine brings us back to America starting Jan. 24 through March 29. American Treasures from the Farnsworth Art Museum includes paintings and sculptures from George Bellows, Robert Henri, Childe Hassam, Fitz Henry Lane and Rockwell Kent, among others. Expect scenes of streams, fields, forests and fishermen.
Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton: Late Night Thursdays will continue this season, and there is more. Visitors will see a newly reinstalled second floor, a sculpture garden inviting them to relax and a redesigned museum store opening Nov. 1. Two separate ongoing exhibitions opening on the same day dramatically change the familiar path leading visitors to the museum.
This Color is Great by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock marks the first in a series of artist-commissioned banners to appear along the Amphitheater colonnade. Stih & Schnock are Berlin-based visual artists who create art in public spaces. Meanwhile, The Pursuit of Happiness by Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt involves an installation of vivid multi-colored ribbons in the interior gallery windows.
Works by Poland-born Theresa Bernstein, who exhibited her work in every decade of the 20th century and died at 111, will be on display from Nov. 9 through Jan. 11. The traveling exhibition Theresa Bernstein: A Century in Art features an abundance of paintings by an artist who addressed relevant subjects of her time and was known to change styles often. The exhibition should help us decide whether or not she deserves more credit.
Running alongside A Century in Art is a show titled Elliott Erwitt Photography, which includes more than 80 images selected by the Paris-born documentary photographer who served as Magnum Photos’ president for three years. Erwitt is known for the irony found in his work and iconic images of John F. Kennedy, Che Guevara, and Marilyn Monroe with her flowing white dress over the subway grate.
Oil paintings carrying incredible realism are the focus of Bryan Drury: Terrestrial Visions (Nov. 9-Jan. 11). It is not the first time Drury’s work is exhibited in the county. In 2010, the Norton’s Now WHAT? show included one of his hyper-realistic portraits. The Utah native likes to depict the physical flaws of his sitters and expose their vanity. Yes, that includes wrinkles.
The fourth exhibit running from Nov. 9 through Jan. 11 is a video installation by Japanese artist Shizuka Yokomizo: Forever (and Again). The two-screen video projection features elderly women playing a Chopin waltz while scenes of their homes and gardens are shown. According to Yokomizo, it evokes thoughts on eternity.
Izhar Patkin: The Wandering Veil presents works by this Israeli-born, New York-based artist from Jan. 26 through April 5. Mural-size paintings on tulle fabric will be the highlight of the show, which was inspired by late poet Agha Shalid Ali’s writings. The exhibition reintroduces us to an artist who, due to personal loss and tragedies, took some time away from art before deciding to make a comeback.
Sharing the spotlight with Patkin is Surrealism and Magic (Jan. 26- April 5), which includes paintings and works on paper by Kurt Seligmann, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington and Wilfredo Lam. Included in the exhibition are rare books, correspondence, music and film.
Salvador Dalí was only one of many who painted Helena Rubinstein, a Poland immigrant who became a businesswoman and art collector. Helena Rubinstein: the Power of Beauty (April 21-July 12) displays portraits by Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Andy Warhol and paintings by Joan Miró and Marc Chagall. African art, Ellie Nadelman sculptures, fine jewelry and couture clothes acquired by Rubinstein are also featured.
Making Connections: Selections from the Boca Raton Museum and Private Collections is an ongoing affair that rotates exhibitions throughout the year. Highlights include paintings by Ugo Rondinone, Urs Fischer, Kehinde Wiley, and Sterling Ruby. A group of pieces by surrealist painter Roberto Matta, photorealist works from the Beatrice “Buddy” Mayer collection and contemporary Hungarian art on loan are some of the other works coming to the museum’s second-floor exhibition space.
Flagler Museum, Palm Beach: Kiss of the Oceans: The Meeting of the Atlantic and the Pacific (Oct. 14-Jan. 4) tells the story of the most expensive project ever attempted up to 1914: the Panama Canal. With a price tag of hundreds of millions of French francs and nearly $400 million, the project involved 75,000 workers. This year marks the centennial of its opening. Photographs, objects and documents will examine its development and significance.
Mythology and fantasy were favorite themes of Adolphe William Bouguereau, the French painter featured next at the Flagler. Think nymphs and cupids. Bouguereau’s “Fancies”: Allegorical and Mythological Works by the French Master will bring together all three versions of the artist’s Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros: the full-sized salon version once owned by Henry Flagler, the reduced version once owned by Henry Walters, and a chalk-and-gouache drawing from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The exhibition runs from Jan. 27 -April 19.
Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens: With Japanese Design for the Senses: Beauty, Form and Function (Sept. 30-Jan. 18) the museum celebrates Japanese design aesthetics in a big way. Three exhibitions will feature objects that are meant to be admired for their beauty and purpose.
Touch of Gold: Lacquerware Boxes and the Paintings of Elaine Ehrenkranz features the painter’s comprehensive collection of magnificent Japanese lacquerware boxes ranging in date from the 15th to the mid-19th centuries. Meanwhile, a refined shelving and storage system is the focus of Ma: Defining Space: Studio Furniture of Yoko Zeltserman-Miyaji. A built-in storage system comprised of staggered shelves, chigai-dana is an integral part of Japanese domestic architecture. Katachi: The Essence of Aesthetic Form and Function in Japanese Furniture further explores this connection between the physical qualities of an object and its function using the museum’s own collection of Japanese furniture.
It is said that at one time every family in Kyoto owned a piece of Ōtagaki Rengetsu’s artwork. The Japanese Buddhist nun mostly known for his poetry often partnered with potters and other artists to design ceramics, folding screens and fans, among other objects. More than 120 of them will be on display Feb. 10 through May 24 with Poetry in Clay: Paintings, Calligraphy, and Ceramics by Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875).
Two new exhibitions about monsters and robots will take over the galleries from June 16 through Sept. 13. The Morikami Menagerie: Creatures in Japanese Art explores the mythical world of creatures in Japanese art. That includes shishi, the pair of temple guardian lion-dogs and kirin, the magical dragon-shaped deer. Japan’s Robot Kingdom: Mecha and Androids and Cyborgs, Oh My! examines Japan’s robot kingdom through vintage toys, figurines, and the Morikami’s own therapy robot, Paro.
Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach: Good news! The Art Center has expanded and exhibits are already in the planning stages for its Lake Worth Annex. In the meantime, visitors have plenty to see starting with Everglades and Yellowstone-People and Place (Oct. 18-Nov. 10).
In this joint exhibition, Inger E. Hansen, a painter, and Steve Horan, a photographer, explore the people, environments and histories of these two distinctive national parks. Running alongside Everglades and Yellowstone is National League of American Pen Women (Boca Branch) which features oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, porcelain ware, and mixed media works by members of the National League of American Pen Women.
Zammy Migdal/Gudrun Kemsa Lausberg Contemporary (Oct. 25-Dec. 6) is a combined exhibition featuring a sculptor from Tel Aviv and a German artist. Although Migdal works with metal, what we see here looks more like flowing ribbons dancing with the wind. He is also showing large polychrome steel sculptures from Oct. 25 through April 30. Space, time and movement are at the centre of Kemsa’s photographic works and video installations as is architecture.
125 Years: Women of Vision, National Association of Women Artists, Inc. is a multimedia show that celebrates the 125th anniversary of this not-for-profit organization. The show includes sculpture, painting, photography, ceramics and mixed media and runs from Dec. 6 through Jan. 10.
Michael Burges/Lausberg Contemporary (Dec. 13-Jan. 10) features the work of an internationally exhibiting German painter living and working in Dusseldorf and Italy. Burges works with 23.75-carat gold leaf using a unique technique of reverse glass painting, which results in a striking color presence.
The N.A.W.A. Florida Members Exhibition (Feb. 14-March 21) highlights N.A.W.A. members and scholarship recipients who are graduating seniors from the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts majoring in fine arts. The show will feature painting, photography, mixed media, ceramics and other contemporary arts. Running alongside N.A.W.A. is the Armory Faculty Show which is dedicated to the work of faculty members in all media. Works by their students will follow from March 28 through May 2 with the All Student Showcase.
After an eight-month residency, five emerging artists are ready to show their work during the Artists-in-Residence Exhibition (March 28-May 2). The visiting artists this season are Chris Pickett and Jessi Maddocks for ceramics, Lisa Johnson for jewelry, Hiromi Katayama for painting and drawing, and Woody Othello for sculpture.
The Lighthouse ArtCenter, Tequesta: The annual exhibition and fundraising event of artist-created bras, ArtyBras Fashion Show and Fundraiser runs through Oct. 21. Tying into the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the silent auction closing the event this year will benefit the Margaret W. Niedland Breast Center at the Jupiter Medical Center and the Lighthouse ArtCenter.
The 8th annual D’Art for Art Exhibition (Nov.1–8) is a chance for artists to donate works of art to be judged and displayed before the fundraiser event benefiting the ArtCenter. At this fast-paced event, art pieces are the party favors. Be ready. When your name is called, you are to “dart” to the piece of art you want to take home.
The ArtCenter reached out to several art clubs in country club communities to create a juried exhibition featuring their talents. Best of the Clubs (Nov. 17-Jan. 10) presents the work of 10 communities. This is also the time to check out the new works created by the faculty at the Faculty Exhibition.
Charlie and Linda Riggs Ceramics (Nov. 17-Jan.10) will display a variety of works ahead of the workshop with ceramic artists Charlie and Linda Riggs on Jan. 16-17. The 2nd Annual Plein Air Festival (March 12-15) will feature painting demos, a party for artists and collectors, and opportunities to buy quality local art while En Plein Air (Jan. 15-March 28) will invite artists with Impressionist tendencies to create works outside.
A French-themed juried exhibition featuring Artists’ Guild members comes with Vive la France! (March 9- April 16). This exhibition will be on display at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre in conjunction with the theatre’s production of Les Misérables.
Cultural Council of Palm Beach County: Upcoming exhibitions at the Council’s Lake Worth home include Monochrome (Oct. 31-Dec. 6), Paws and Claws: Animals in Art (Dec. 19-Feb. 21) and Sculpture Selections from the Studio (March 6-May 2). A number of solo exhibitions are also planned for the year. Featured artists include Dolores Kiriacon and Patricia Maguire (Oct. 18-Nov. 15) and Dena Lyons and Carin Wagner (Nov. 22-Dec. 20).
Cornell Museum, Delray Beach: Still not taking watercolor seriously? Head to the Florida Watercolor Society 43rd Annual Exhibition before Nov. 16 to see nearly 100 works by Florida artists and maybe that will help you decide.
Also ending on Nov. 16 is From the Borough to the Beach: Brooklyn-Based Art, which presents the works of three Brooklyn-based artists: Mike Cockrill, a painter whose works balance the sacred and irreverent, Will Kurtz, a figurative artist and sculptor who designs life-size paper sculptures of people and animals, and Jennifer Lilya, a fashion illustrator. The exhibition aims to celebrate contemporary artwork.
In time for Halloween comes Haunted! A Pop-Up Exhibit (Oct.1-Nov. 1), which features works by Liz Parrish, Yosiell Lorenzo and Brent Nolasco.
Palm Beach Photographic Centre: The West Palm Beach instructional center and gallery is still working on its 2015 schedule, but FOTOfusion 2015 will run Jan. 20-24.
Florida Atlantic University: The University Galleries in FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters begin the season with Common Ground: Artists in the Everglades (Sept. 20-Nov. 5) at the Schmidt Center Gallery. The show presents the works created by a group of artists who lived within the Everglades. The Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) program gives them the chance to live in the national park for a month. Sound Installation by Gustavo Matamoros will run in association with Common Ground from Sept. 20 to April 30.
Altarations: Built, Blended, Processed is an exhibition featuring contemporary artists that blend photographic images and processes to end up with works that celebrate, confront and challenge photographic traditions. It runs Nov. 21-Feb. 28 at the Schmidt Center Gallery and Jan. 15-Feb. 28 at the Ritter Art Gallery.
The New Faculty Exhibition opens on March 14 at the Schmidt Center Gallery until May 9. The Fall Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition (Nov. 14-Dec. 12) is the ultimate project for students earning this degree and will present works by about 20 students at the Ritter Art Gallery, which will house the Spring Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibition from April 24 to May 1.
The annual Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County, ImageMakers Photography Exhibition (Ritter Art Gallery, March 6-10) presents children’s photography from several Boys and Girls Clubs in the county. The Annual Juried Student Exhibition (Ritter Art Gallery, March 20-April 3) features works submitted by nearly 100 FAU students in and outside the Department of Visual Arts and Art History.
Art fairs: ArtPalmBeach celebrates its 18th anniversary at the Palm Beach County Convention Center from Jan. 22-25. ArtPalmBeach brings international galleries showcasing contemporary and emerging artists. A special highlight this time will be Plastic Dordianne in Love, a 20-minute performance by Beatriz Millar. Millar is an internationally renowned performance artist born in Switzerland who lives and works in Italy. The Plastic Dorianne of the title is Millar’s alter ego, a silicone life-size sculpture resembling the artist herself with enhanced features. Daily performances will be scheduled in a special Cabaret Club setting designed by the artist for the fair.
Following ArtPalmBeach is the 19th edition of the American International Fine Art Fair (AIFAF), which returns from Feb. 3-8 to offer modern and contemporary art and design, sculpture, paintings from old masters and exquisite jewelry. The largest of its kind in the nation, Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Fair will take over the Convention Center from Feb. 13-17 with its display of fine jewelry, exquisite artworks and lovely antiques. The 12th annual Palm Beach Fine Craft Show (Feb. 27-March 1) once again introduces us to unique works made by hand by American artists living in America.