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last fall by director Graham Beal Record-Breaking Attendance resulted in the folding of two depart- PAGE ments into broader categories and at ADAA Art Fair the subsequent resignations by Lodz Biennale Launches This Fall Egyptian art curator William H. ach winter in New York some of the country’s best Several galleries Peck, his wife Elsie Holmes Peck, Eart dealers get together to show off their prized featured two-person curator of Middle Eastern art, and exhibitions. Jill oland’s inaugural Lodz Biennale, scheduled including many project sketches—were donated, possessions at “The Art Show,” an exhibition hosted Penelope Slough, associate curator Newhouse showed to run Oct. 2-31, will take place at the new at the artists’ own discretion, by participants in by the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). This P of Greco-Roman art. The reorgani- works on paper by 108,000-square-foot permanent home of the Construction in Process and other IAM exhibitions. year’s event, held at the Seventh Regiment Armory at zation is part of the museum’s reno- Bonnard and Vuillard; International Artists’ Museum (IAM), located in a The first Lodz Biennale is headed by director Park Avenue and 67th Street, Feb. 18-23, drew a vation and expansion, scheduled and Brent Sikkema recently converted 19th-century textile manufactur- Janusz Glowacki, an art historian and former curator for completion in 2006. record 13,000 visitors. The show’s preview, attended presented one of the ing complex. The city of approximately one million at the Museum Sztuki (Modern Art Museum). About by some 2,500, raised $900,000 to benefit the Henry Art Show’s best dis- inhabitants, chartered in 1423, has donated the half of the $510,000 budget comes from the city of Street Settlement, one of the city’s most venerable plays, pairing small facilities and will also help to sponsor a 12-day Lodz, with the remainder supplied by private social services organizations. All 70 participating deal- Russian Tycoon and medium-size preparation period (Sept. 20-Oct. 1), during which sources. Wasko, now dubbed executive director of ers reported brisk sales and enthusiastic responses to by St. Clair the roughly 90 invited artists can fulfill the biennial’s IAM, serves as official spokesman, while independent their offerings, which ranged from Rembrandt etchings Buys Fabergé Eggs Cemin with recent, signature requirement—namely that all works be curator Aneta Szylak is artistic director of the (presented by David Tunick) to recent video works by scaled-up canvases by newly created for the event, preferably on-site. “Polish Biennale” section, which will feature about Mary Lucier (on view at Lennon, Weinberg’s booth). n Apr. 20 and 21, Sotheby’s had Shahzia Sikander. The unconventional undertaking marks the culmi- 25 artists. Nine members of an international selec- planned to sell at auction one of At the Art Show entrance, visitors faced a striking Charles Burchfield, O There were some nation of a 23-year struggle by artist-organizer tion committee are each choosing seven artists. the season’s biggest treasure display by David McKee, featuring a large pink-and- Backyards in Golden troves, a group of nine jewel- black Philip Guston , Division (1975), flanked dazzling individual Sunlight, 1946-66, Ryszard Wasko, who conceived the artist-run IAM The panelists are Emmett Williams; New York at Kennedy. encrusted Fabergé Imperial Easter by Francis Bacon’s 1961 canvas Two Figures and pieces scattered Model of Serra’s planned installation in 1981, in the heyday of the Solidarity Freedom artists Leon Golub and ; Won-il Eggs consigned by the Forbes throughout the exhibi- for the Guggenheim Bilbao. Movement. Inviting well-known international practi- Rhee, artistic director of Media-City Seoul and chief small-scale but intense by Vija Celmins and Collection. The celebrated works tion. James Goodman, for example, brought a rare tioners to Lodz under the auspices of the largely fic- curator of the Seoul Museum of Art; critic and Harvey Quaytman. Another late Guston, Dark Room were expected to fetch around $120 early Mondrian portrait, Zeeland Girl (1909-10). An tional Archives of Contemporary Thought (consist- former director of ’s Zacheta Gallery of (1978), was the centerpiece of Richard Gray’s nearby million. In early February, extraordinarily large (4 by 4 feet) Charles Burchfield ing of an apartment closet filled with documents, a Contemporary Art, Anda Rottenberg; New York booth. Guston’s work was however, auction house offi- watercolor, Backyards in Golden Sunlight (1946-66), New Serras forfor typewriter and some letterhead stationery), he critics Robert C. Morgan, Gregory Volk and Lilly echoed in the series of cials announced that the radiated from the Kennedy Galleries booth. Robert launched Construction in Process, a freewheeling Wei; and director of the Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, eggs had been sold privately drawings by Mexican-born Miller presented a 1964 Pop-art gem by Tom Bilbao residency-cum-exhibition designed to engage local Zdenka Badovinac. To date, they have selected a to Viktor Vekselberg, a artist Enrique Chagoya, Poor Wesselmann, Landscape #3,a painted-panel work workmen and the general public, that has occurred wide range of artists, such as Polly Apfelbaum, Janet prominent Russian industrial- George (After PG), 2004, n what is billed as one of the most with collaged rubber elements showing a young couple seven times at sporadic intervals in locales ranging Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Patty Chang, Cai ist. Sotheby’s brokered the shown at George Adams; Iexpensive contemporary art pro- seated in a red convertible; the piece had never before from Munich to Melbourne to the Negev Desert Jin, Tara Donovan, Mona Hatoum, Kimsooja, transaction on behalf of the the politically charged jects ever undertaken, the Gug- Forbes family, which wel- been exhibited. [see A.i.A., Mar. ’91 and Mar. ’01]. Richard Long, Mariko Mori, Shirin Neshat, Marjetica images blasting Bush poli- genheim Museum Bilbao has com- comed the deal aimed at At DC Moore’s booth, a stone carving by William missioned to create a Altogether, Lodz hosted Construction in Process Potrc, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Karin Sander, Nancy cies were modeled after keeping the works together Edmondson, Two Birds (1939), had a kind of wistful football-field-size installation of his three times (1981, ’90 and ’93), and it is there that Spero and Fiona Tan. Guston’s Nixon-era “Poor and returning them to Russia. charm, while Jason McCoy’s display was punctuated signature curving steel sculptures for the International Artists’ Museum was officially Visitors will find Lodz—once an extremely pros- Richard” series. While the final sale figure by a vibrant abstract painting by Cora Cohen, A its Frank Gehry-designed facility. founded in 1990, with Fluxus veteran Emmett perous, multicultural manufacturing center—rich in was not announced, experts Among other outstanding Condition of Nature (2004). A highlight of June Kelly’s The monumental works will be locat- Williams as its president. IAM’s small, improvisational historical architecture, since the city largely escaped have suggested a sum of presentations, at Marian booth was Embrace (2003), a tall wood totemlike ed in the 427-foot-long “Fish” gallery, volunteer staff—headquartered in a 6,000-square- bombing during World War II. In the 1930s, it was about $110 million. Saving Goodman’s booth, a which the architect intended to abstract by Jane Schneider; a large colorful foot building until ousted by developers in 2001— home to an important group of Polish Construc- the costs of producing a cata- haunting Juan Muñoz accommodate large-scale works. Tom Wesselmann, digital photograph of a row of books, by Victor has since organized some 100 international shows, tivists, most notably Wladyslaw Strzeminski, logue and promoting the painted-bronze figure Serra’s Snake, also a Guggenheim works with exhibitions in New York Landscape #3, 1964, Schrager, was a standout at Edwynn Houk’s booth. including an artists-and-poets banner project at the Katarzyna Kobro and Henryk Stazewski, whose about 4 feet high (cast in commission, has occupied the space and London, not to mention avoid- at Robert Miller. L.A. Louver presented since the museum’s opening in 2001 , and coordinated a network of works form the core of the Museum Sztuki collec- 2003), Louisiana #1, stood ing the uncertainties of the shaky recent figurative paint- 1997, along with a rotating selection eight alternative spaces worldwide. All of the 1,500 tion. The principal galleries of cutting-edge work are before a large yellow-and- Man Ray and Marcel auction market of recent years, Duchamp, 64 in 46, 1946, ings by Rebecca of works from the permanent collec- pieces belonging to IAM—mostly works on paper, Atlas of Art and 86 Gallery. —Richard Vine white-striped painting by Daniel Buren, T11-332 (1966). Sotheby’s opted to forgo the auction at Zabriskie. Campbell, and James tion and with temporary exhibitions, and accept a 12-percent commis- Matthew Marks showed an unusually shaped untitled Graham & Sons showed among them a 1999 show of the sion for the private sale. Vekselberg 2001 pastel-on-paper tondo by Jasper Johns alongside artist’s “Torqued Ellipses.” plans to exhibit the works in Russia, Ellsworth Kelly’s large canvas Yellow/White (1961). those by Duncan As part of the new installation, Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras” from various departments. Citing although he has not yet designated At Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art’s space a pair of self- Hannah, along with Snake will be joined by seven new and “An American Legacy, A Gift to budgetary constraints brought on by a public venue. In order to help portraits by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera hung near abstract compositions sculptures, including a number of Curators Laid Off: New York.” a drop in revenue and the loss of a ensure that the works return to the Shooting Star,a classic 1944 painting by Wifredo Lam. by Nancy Lorenz, whose “Torqued Ellipses.” Designed and According to the Times story and $400,000 annual grant from the Lila country, the Russian government surfaces are inlaid with positioned in response to the NYC, SF & Detroit a similar report in the Art Wallace Readers Digest Fund, exec- A number of galleries devoted their booths to solo decided to waive all import taxes exhibitions. Sperone Westwater, for instance, pre- mother-of-pearl. gallery’s shape, the works will range Newspaper, Weinberg, who took utive director Ken Foster said that and duties on the gems. Officials in height from 12 to 14 feet, and vary n shake-ups at three major art insti- the helm last October, is working to none of the positions will be filled. sented works by Argentine painter Guillermo Kuitca; Ameringer & Yohe from the State Hermitage Museum brought along recent in weight from 44 to 276 tons. Itutions, a number of high-profile eliminate the curatorial specializa- Foster, who last fall replaced former in Saint Petersburg and the Kremlin and Tasende Gallery showed bronzes by the late small stripe paintings by Though its most prominent gallery curators have been laid off or have tion by period or medium that was director John Killacky, will take on Museums in Moscow, whose collec- British sculptor Lynn Chadwick. will be turned over to Serra, the resigned to protest changes. implemented by his predecessor, Pritikin’s role, working with current tion already contains 10 Fabergé PaceWildenstein’s booth was Kenneth Noland, and at Forum, a 2004 museum will still be able to show At New York’s Whitney Museum, Maxwell Anderson, which resulted visual arts curator Rene de Guzman Easter Eggs, have both expressed filled with recent small sculptures portrait study by Odd Nerdrum hung near Marla Prather was let go in large works in other spaces. in the departures under similar cir- and Berin Golonu, who joined the interest in housing the works. But by John Chamberlain. Glittering one of Charles Matton’s boxlike con- The $20-million commission is to January. She had been on leave cumstances of curators Thelma staff last July as assistant visual arts Vekselberg, a billionaire who made structions containing a tiny video. A key caring for a sick child. The news brightly, all were sold within three be paid for by Basque regional and Golden and Elisabeth Sussman. curator. Pritikin is known for his inno- his fortune in oil and aluminum com- attraction at Zabriskie’s booth was 64 in local governments, which cover the became public in a New York Additional changes at the Whitney vative programming, which included hours of the preview’s opening. panies, has stated to the press that Michael Werner presented a sur- 46, a wall-hung chessboard with peglike museum’s operating costs and Times story about new director are reportedly forthcoming, but fur- the launch in 1997 of a popular bien- the eggs might best be displayed in acquisitions as part of a 20-year Adam Weinberg and his plans for ther details were not available as nial survey of Bay Area artists. He vey of paintings and sculptures by pieces and a small wooden mannequin Yekaterinburg in East-Central attached near the top. A 1946 collabora- partnership agreement with the the museum. Prather joined the this issue went to press. will organize two exhibitions for the Russia. Vekselberg is currently Per Kirkeby, while CRG once again tion between Man Ray and Marcel Solomon R. Guggenheim Founda- Whitney staff as curator of postwar In mid-February, San Francisco’s center next year, “Big Deal,” featur- building a church in that city, on the devoted its booth to early ceramic tion. Fabrication and installation are art in 2000, after 13 years at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts ing large-scale works, and a show site where Czar Nicholas II and works by Lucio Fontana. Duchamp, 64 in 46 is the kind of excep- expected to take about a year and a National Gallery in Washington, announced that longtime chief cura- about magician Ricky Jay. other members of the Russian tional work that each year helps make half, with completion scheduled for D.C. At the Whitney she organized tor Renny Pritikin had been laid off, And at the Detroit Institute of imperial family were put to death by Piet Mondrian, Zeeland Girl, the Art Show one of the season’s most May 2005. —Stephanie Cash the recent “Unrepentant Ego: The along with eight other staff members Arts, a restructuring undertaken the Bolsheviks in 1918. 1909-10, at James Goodman. engaging events. —David Ebony

Photo: David Heald, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Art in America