This Week’s Events: The Olympia Art & Antiques Fair, Hopper and Rothko, Mexican Modernism, Crazy Quilts & More
London
Olympia Art & Antiques Fair
June 26 - July 2, 2017
Olympia Exhibition Centre
Hammersmith Rd, London W14 8UX, UK
For more information, visit: www.olympia-art-antiques.com
Now celebrating its 45th year, the Olympia Art & Antiques Fair has long since established itself as the UK’s largest and most prestigious antiques fair. Once every June and again in December, over 30,000 antiques aficionados will flood the halls of the historic Olympia Exhibition Centre in London to feast their eyes (and extend their hands, if the price is right) on the prized possessions of 160 of the world’s leading art, antiques, and contemporary dealers.
“The Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia is London’s original, quintessential art and antiques fair,” says Mary Claire Boyd, fair director.
“Over four decades since the event was founded, we continue to pride ourselves on offering a wider choice of high quality, vetted art, antiques, furniture and collectibles than any other event in the capital.”
Elegant interiors, high-quality, vetted art, and an awe-inspiring cache of over 55,000 pieces will be showcased at this year’s fair, which will additionally feature a series of curator- and interior designer-led panels and a daily “Cocktails and Culture” gathering sure to help sway you toward purchasing that exquisite Tiffany necklace after all.
Germany
From Hopper to Rothko: America’s Road to Modern Art
June 17 - October 3, 2017
Museum Barberini
Alter Markt Humboldtstraße 5–6, 14467 Potsdam
For more information, visit: www.museum-barberini.com
Though New York City may be known as the center of the American art world now, it didn’t always hold such high clout. In fact, America’s artistic contributions in the realms of Impressionism, landscapes, and portraiture went largely unnoticed through the first half of the 20th century, and remains relatively unknown by its European counterparts to this day.
Thankfully, Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany, will be looking to restore some balance to this equation with From Hopper to Rothko: America’s Road to Modern Art. The exhibition, in collaboration with The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., showcases works collected by Duncan Phillips (1886-1966), who as an art critic and patron, helped shape the direction of modern art in the twentieth century.
Providing a panorama of styles ranging from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism (which helped put NYC on the art map following World War II), the exhibition will center around the works of Edward Hopper, George Inness, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe, taking viewers on an inspiring journey through the works and movements that came to define a nation.
New York
"David Smith: The White Sculptures” at the Storm King Art Center
Through November 12, 2017
Storm King Art Center
1 Museum Road, New Windsor, NY
For more information, visit: http://stormking.org
One of the 10 best museums to visit sculpture in the United States, the Storm King Art Center is a sprawling open-air museum and sculpture park located on 500 acres in the Hudson Valley region of upstate New York. Devoted primarily to large-scale displays of American and European modern sculpture from the mid-1940s to the present, the center kicked off its annual slew of outdoor art exhibits with a display of David Smith’s “The White Sculptures.”
The exhibition is the first from Smith’s extensive catalogue to critically consider the artist's use of the color white, and includes welded-steel sculptures that were left among the “sculpture farm” he had amassed around his Bolton Landing home by the time of his death in 1965. Having just held its annual Summer Solstice Celebration over the weekend, which brought together artists, art world patrons, politicians, and local luminaries to ring in the season, the showcasing of pivotal designs like Smith’s is just one of the reasons that young artists have begun to flock to the Storm King Art Center’s brilliant grounds over the past few years (well, that and its highly-touted artist residency program).
Designing a Vision
June 21, 2017
Rizzoli Bookstore, 1133 Broadway, New York, NY
From 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 21st, award-winning designer Jamie Drake (of Drake/Anderson) will be appearing alongside Janice Parker at the Rizzoli Bookstore for a conversation celebrating the publishing of the latter’s book, Designing a Vision.
Houston
Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950
June 25, 2017 - October 1, 2017
MFA Houston
1001 Bissonnet, Houston, Texas 77005
For more information, visit: www.mfah.org
Bonded by more than just profession, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are two of the most acclaimed and influential painters to ever come out of Mexico. The former earned his place in history as one of founders of the Mexican mural movement, but it was the latter who rose to become a feminist icon through her autobiographical and magically surreal self-portraits, eventually being canonized by the film industry in the 2002, Salma Hayek-starring Frida.
Starting this week, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston explore the subversive work of the iconic husband and wife duo, as well as Rufino Tamayo, David Alfaro Siqueiros and their contemporary counterparts like Carlos Merida and Alfredo Ramos Martinez, in a sprawling exhibition: Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism.
The most comprehensive exposition of modern Mexican art displayed in the United States in more than seven decades, Paint the Revolution will feature more than 175 works from the likes of Kahlo and her peers, including prints, photographs, easel paintings, and a trio of digitally-recreated historical murals by los tres grandes (“the three great ones”) Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros.
Indianapolis
Crazy Quilts: Stitching Memories
Through January 7, 2018
Indianapolis Museum of Art
4000 Michigan Road in Indianapolis
For more information, visit: www.imamuseum.org
It may have been short-lived, but there’s no denying the impact that “crazy” quilts — wherein traditional styles of square stitching were eschewed in favor of randomly placed, asymmetrical fabric pieces outlined with contrasting thread colors —of the 1880s had on not just quilts, but all textiles in the decades that followed. What began as a means for women to express their fashion sense and artistry through one of the domestic arts, soon bloomed into a trend that combined incredible needlework skills with powerful, personal "stories" that were wholly modern in their design.
Having spent the past 40-plus years amassing an impressive collection of these unique quilts, the Indianapolis Museum of Art will be hosting a special exhibition entitled Crazy Quilts: Stitching Memories through January of next year.
“We are excited to exhibit these elaborate, highly decorative patchwork quilts that showcase their maker’s artistic sensibility, fashionable taste and skillful embroidery techniques,” said Niloo Paydar, exhibition curator and the IMA’s curator of textile and fashion arts.