Monkdogz Artblog

Recently there have been several issues with artwork with seemingly reasonable provenances being refused authentication by artists’ estate executors and foundations. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has gone one step further and suggested that a piece of work once disowned by Pablo Picasso is actually an original Picasso.

I am sure that when anybody creates over 50,000 pieces of work, they may forget one or two that they may have created, but how much more professional or expert can you get in authenticating a body of work than the artist himself? Surely, if an artist wishes to disown a piece of work, then everybody else should bow to his word? Even with scientific and mathematically analysis such as sparse coding analysis which claims to find a “fingerprint” or “signature” of an artist’s style, who is to say with absolute certainty that a piece of work is by a specific artist, if that artist is denying the fact?

The piece in question is titled” La Douleur” and also known as the “Erotic Scene” or translated literally as “The Pain” shows a naked women with her head on a reclining young man’s lap, doing who knows what. Declared “slapdash” by the Met Curator for Nineteenth- Century, Modern and Contemporary Art and Engelhard Chairman, Gary Tinterow, who also said that it was “not very good”. Pablo Picasso said that the painting was ‘a joke by friends” according to AP.

The artwork will be part of a landmark exhibition at the Met being the first time the complete collection of the museum’s holding’s of the artist’s work will be shown together. According to the website, the museum’s collection reflects the full breadth of the artist’s multi-sided genius as it asserted itself over the course of his long and influential career.

The exhibition “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” will run April 27th – August 1st 2010. The museum says that it won’t be the highlight of the show, but I bet a lot of people will want to have a look at it.

I was recently honored to be invited by barebrush to curate the upcoming November and December calendars. So I went down 5th Avenue to the historic Salmagundi Club near Washington Square. It’s a wonderful old building with fabulous facilities and a tremendous history going back 138 years.

I sat down to view over 800 images from over 60 artists and I was really impressed with the overall quality of work. There were numerous styles of drawings, paintings, photographs, mixed media work and sculptures. I was a little daunted by the sheer number of images, but Ilene Skeen set them up in a very effective format allowing me to easily view and review the works.

I always admire artists who take on the challenge of figurative nudes. It is a subject that really highlights the technical skills of the artist and also provides an ideal platform to showcase the ability of the artist to define emotional content. I found myself drawn towards several male and older subjects probably because of the definition and texture of their skin. However because I don’t want to spoil the anticipation, I shall not say anymore!

The November calendar will be available to members during the last week of October and on November 1st for everybody else. I hope you enjoy my selection.

Saadiyat Island or Island of Happiness is an island just off the coast of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.  The island is being developed at the cost of $27million as a cultural destination with a mix of residential, commercial and leisure facilities.

The Guggenheim is already building a new Frank Gehry designed museum which is expected to open in 2011 and will be the largest of the cultural institutions on the island.  There is also a Zayed National Museum which will break ground later this year, a Maritime Museum and a performing arts center in the plans.  The Louvre started construction today having charged $550million for the use of their name.  

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has been designed by award winning architect Jean Nouvel and is expected to open by 2013.  It is being hailed as the first International museum in the Middle East.  Works range from the Greek Classical Period to contemporary art.  Recent purchases for the museum have included Mondrian’s “Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir” (1922), which sold for €21.7m at the Yves Saint Laurent auction by Christie’s in Paris earlier this year.  The 19 acquisitions and a selection of works loaned by French national museums will be on exhibition in Abu Dhabi from today. 

Part of the contract with the Louvre, is that a team of curators from the French national museums will be assisting with the acquisition of art for the new museum.  The have an annual budget of more than $56million for acquisitions, according to Carol Vogel of the New York Times.  What a nice bit of spending money that is! 

The curators will also be responsible for organizing 4 special exhibitions a year for the next 15 years following the opening of the museum.  The project is expected to earn the French National Museums over €1billion over the next 30 years as well as injecting untold millions into the international commercial sector through acquisitions.  In this current economic climate, it is an exciting project to be involved in and a boost in the arm of the art world.