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IMAGE: Pinaree Sanpitak, Temporary Insanity, 2004, (installation detail taken at Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, 2004)

1. Pinaree Sanpitak: Temporary Insanity – Austin Museum of Art
WHAT: Exhibition of Southeast Asian artist, Pinaree Sanpitak, who combines organic symbols and brightly colored sculptural installations to reflect on themes of spirituality, femininity, and equality in the region.
WHEN: April 20-June 30, 2013
WHERE: AMOA-Arthouse
What to look out for: One hundred amorphous, squeezable sculptures that you can play with.

Lesley Dill. A Word Made Flesh...Throat, 1994. Gift of Stanley Freehling

2. The Artist and the Poet – Art Institute of Chicago
WHAT: Planned to coincide with the institute’s “Picasso and Chicago” exhibition, the array of prints and drawings reveal the collaborative relationship between artists like Pablo Picasso, Robert Motherwell and David Hockney and poets such as Max Jacob, Rafael Alberti and Wallace Steves, respectively.
WHEN: February 1st – June 2nd, 2013
WHERE: The Art Institute Chicago
What to look out for: ”Skin with O’Hara Poem” (1963–65), a print by Jasper Johns that was inspired by the poet Frank O’Hara.

mage: Shinique Smith, Swaying Beauty, 2007, clothing, foam, rope, and twine, 60 x 22 x 22 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Schiff Fine Art, © Shinique Smith.

3. Shinique Smith: Firsthand – LACMA
WHAT: A exhibition of Shinique Smith’s work that reflects on the artist’s Baltimore upbringing and early desire to work with fashion and design.
WHEN: February 8th, 2013 – ongoing
WHERE: Los Angeles Museum of Art
What to look out for: A combination of costumery and textiles tangled into sculptural installations like “Swaying Beauty.”

El Anatsui (Ghanaian, b. 1944). Earth’s Skin, 2007. Aluminum and copper wire, 177 x 394 in. (449.6 x 1000.8 cm). Courtesy of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

4. Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui – Brooklyn Museum
WHAT: The first solo exhibition in a New York museum by the Ghana-born artist El Anatsui.
WHEN: February 8th – August 4th, 2013
WHERE: Brooklyn Museum
What to look out for: Twelve giant wall and floor sculptures made from metal, wood and appropriated objects.

 

Thorne Anderson, Thawra, Baghdad, Iraq, April 18, 2003. Digital inkjet print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta. © Thorne Anderson

5. Eye Level in Iraq: Photographs by Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson – de Young, San Francisco
WHAT: The photographs of Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson, two American-trained photo journalists who documented the aftermath of the US-led allied invasion of Iraq in 2003.
WHEN: February 9th – June 16th, 2013
WHERE: de Young
What to look out for: Images taken outside the confines of the U.S. military’s embedded journalist program.

Kehinde Wiley (American, b. 1977) Marechal Floriano Peixoto (The World Stage: Brazil), 2009

6. Kehinde Wiley: The Memling Series – Phoenix Art Museum
WHAT: A new series of paintings by the New York artist Kehinde Wiley, who is known for his knack for re-envisioning classical styles of portraiture.
WHEN: February 20th – June 23rd, 2013
WHERE: Phoenix Art Museum
What to look out for: Eight paintings based on the work of Hans Memling, the Flemish master painter of the Northern Renaissance.

James Turrell, Acro, Green, 1968, projected light, the MFAH, Museum purchase. © James Turrell

7. James Turrell: A Retrospective – Museum of Fine Arts Houston
WHAT: A collection of the many light installations of American artist James Turrell, concurrently presented by the MFAH, LACMA and the Guggenheim
WHEN: June 9th – September 22nd, 2013 at MFAH (May 26th, 2012-April 6th, 2014 at LACMA and June 21st-September 25th, 2013 at Guggenheim)
WHERE: Museum of Fine Arts Houston
What to look out for: ”Vertical Vintage”, a grouping of a dozen interactive, light-based installations.

Claes Oldenburg. Pastry Case, I. 1961–62. Painted plaster sculptures on ceramic plates, metal platter, and cups in glass-and-metal case, 20 3/4 x 30 1/8 x 14 3/4" (52.7 x 76.5 x 37.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. © 2012 Claes Oldenburg

8. Claes Oldenburg: The Street and the Store – MoMA
WHAT: A retrospective of Claes Oldenburg, an artist who once rented a storefront in New York City and filled it with handmade, painted sculptures that mimicked the everyday commercial products sold in stores throughout the neighborhood.
WHEN: April 14th – August 5th, 2013
WHERE: Museum of Modern Art
What to look out for: A selection of Oldenburg’s past “Store” performances, seen through films projected throughout the exhibition’s halls.

 

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"Red, Yellow and Blue" by Orly Genger 2013 photo: flatironhotnews.com

According to the The New York Times: Over the last 10 years, Brooklyn based artist Orly Gender “has become known for creating ambitious installations from seemingly endless coils of rope that she crochets and teases into shapes that recall modern masterworks.”

"Red, Yellow, and Blue" by Orly Genger 2013 photo: flickr.com

“In 2007 Genger filled a Chelsea gallery with 250,000 feet of knotted, paint-saturated rope called “Masspeak”, creating a black, lava-y environment that suggested Walter de Maria’s “Earth Room.”

"Masspeak" by Orly Genger 2007 photo: larissagoldston.com

“The next year, using similar materials, she built an even larger installation entitled, “Whole”, for the lobby of the Indianapolis Museum of Art — a sly take on the aggressive metal stacks and cubes of Minimalists like Tony Smith and Donald Judd.”

"Whole" by Orly Genger, 2009 photo: designboom.com

“In 2010, for a show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass., Ms. Genger used 100 miles of red painted rope to create “Big Boss,” an 11.5-foot-high stack that burst through a gallery wall and bubbled over for 28 feet into an adjoining room — a giant Color Field painting run amok.”

"Big Boss" by Orly Genger, 2010 photo: museomagazine.com

“Now Ms. Genger, 34, has delivered her largest and most labor-intensive work yet, a public sculpture in Madison Square Park called “Red, Yellow and Blue.” On view through Sept. 8, it’s made of 1.4 million feet of hand-crocheted lobster-fishing rope, which she has used to create three towering enclosures, each painted a different primary color.”

"Red, Yellow and Blue" by Orly Genger, 2013 photo: flickr.com

“For the last two years, she and a team of assistants have spent almost every day in her studio cleaning lobster claws and fish bones out of the rope and crocheting it into the chunky scarflike strips, some 150 feet long, that she used as building blocks.”

"Red, Yellow and Blue" by Orly Genger 2013 photo: flickr.com

“Regarding the sculpture, Susan Cross, the curator of Mass MoCA curator who commissioned the piece “Big Boss,” says, “Everyone can relate to it, even though it’s this overwhelming size. You see that it’s rope, but you understand the labor involved. It really pulls people in.” Susan Cross also calls the artist, “a force of nature.”

"Red, Yellow and Blue" by Orly Genger, 2013 photo: flickr.com

“Read more about Orly Genger and her newly installed piece, “Red, Yellow and Blue.” The piece will reinstall it in October at the deCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Mass., where it will remain for a year.

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The Bedroom by Van Gogh photo: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/

According to the Wall Street Journal last week: The modern myth of the tortured artist was launched by the turbulent life of Vincent van Gogh, whose bold paintings have been viewed as spontaneous outpourings of an anguished soul. Now, results of research into van Gogh’s work habits shed new light on the Dutchman, who emerges as less a hopeless Romantic than a diligent technician.

Still life with Carafe and Lemons by Van Gogh photo: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/

A research project called, “Van Gogh’s Studio Practice,” culminates on Wednesday when its findings will be incorporated into a new exhibition, “Van Gogh at Work,” which opens the newly renovated Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Prior to this, there has never been such extensive research into van Gogh’s paintings and drawings.

Butterflies and Poppies by Van Gogh photo: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/

Among the key discoveries is an understanding of how van Gogh used something called a “perspective frame”—a wooden rectangle, crisscrossed with threads—to help him accurately capture the physical world.

The Sea at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer by Van Gogh photo: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/

Head of Collections at the Van Gogh Museum says the frame was threaded like a grid or alternatively, threaded diagonally like a Union Jack flag. Van Gogh would look through these at his subjects, and then transfer that regulated view onto the canvas. New infrared examinations revealed that he actually traced the outlines of the threaded frame right onto the canvas, fixing a sense of order early on, and giving a hidden rigor to paintings that are admired for their wild expressiveness.

show enlargment The Garden of Saint Paul's Hospital ('The Fall of the Leaves') by Van Gogh photo: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/

Van Gogh was not the only artist at the time using the device – Degas also used a perspective frame, but Van Gogh used it in a distinct way. Discoveries also show that Van Gogh reused canvases quite often leaving layers of paint on a single canvas.

View of Auvers by Van Gogh http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/

Until the mid-19th century, artists made their own paints, using traditional pigments. But van Gogh belonged to one of the first generations of artists who bought mass-produced paints sold in tubes. He then went on to refine his colors by mixing them together.

Van Gogh's palette photo: Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh experts have long known that some of these paints were vulnerable to fading. Until now, the experts have relied on descriptions in van Gogh’s letters to correctly identify original colors; they have also found clues in the bits of paint on the edge of canvasses, where the frames shielded the pigments from damaging light. Now, using a combination of technologies, the project has determined something like the original appearances of affected major works. Being able to see famous paintings in their original colors can be quite shocking after the public has been viewing them in a faded state for so many years.

Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds by Van Gogh photo: http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/

Visitors to “Van Gogh at Work” will be able to compare the new digital renderings [of paintings in their original colors], accessed on computer tablets in an educational section of the exhibition. In September, visitors will also be able to download an app on their own devices. In art history and conservation, fading paint has long been a problem. But now we’ll be able to see these works as the artists meant for us to see them.

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If you are at all familiar with social media, you know Pinterest. That ghastly site that makes you want to shop, bake, cook, craft, and workout all at once. Launched in 2010, the website acts as a virtual bulletin board and bookmark for everything you love, love, triple love on the Internet. Known as the first stop for DIY projects, home décor ideas, and wedding planning, the site has not only attracted 25 million users, but keeps them there… probably for several hours… a day.

What I love about Pinterest is its ability to be a one-stop shop for online browsing and “window shopping”. I can simultaneously shop for shoes for that dinner party while I plan my new bedroom with all the finishing touches, and be linked to products’ original websites. 

At Zatista we utilise the powers of Pinterest to share our art. We create boards geared towards our favourite timeless photography, American paintings, hand-pulled prints, as well as boards full of art that are meant to inspire thoughts of the coming spring weather, or remind us of the beach.

Many may not realise it, but Pinterest is an excellent resource for shopping for a finishing touch to a room. With access to original art marketplaces like our own, Pinterest brings multiple art suppliers to you in one neat webpage. But how do you go about finding art perfectly suited to your dazzling taste on Pinterest? Start by checking out some of Zatista’s boards and the works we’re loving, or just browse what Pinterest’s Art category has to offer. Many of the pins may not link to a product’s site, but this is the best place to start. Look for colours you want, styles, and even specific mediums.

To make your searching as simple as possible, we’ve tried to check off all your searching tactics – great gifts, artworks under a certain price, decoration for the man-cave. It’s all there on our Pinterest boards.

What’s great about Pinterest is not only does it bring you to original artwork you can invest in, but it is a center of ideas on how to introduce art into your home. It can teach you how to be an at-home curator, so to speak. When you check out our Pinterest boards, you’ll find ideas and inspiration for integrating original artwork into your home as well as ways to decorate with art, and around it.

Be sure to follow us on Pinterest. If you don’t know where to start when choosing which artwork is the best investment for you, Pinterest can be a great ease into the process. We swear… Pinterest can be Producti – OH! Look at that Cupcake recipe – sorry. Productive.

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Ever notice how the window displays at Anthropologie are completely out-of-this-world-awesome? Every time I go by, or go in (and sacrifice my pocket book to the altar of color, pattern and style) I just want to go live inside the magical world of those windows.

photo: plentyofcolour.com

Sure, I notice the clothes on the mannequins and often buy them, but in my heart of hearts the clothes are just a gateway to the amazing 3D artwork that frames them.

photo: plentyofcolour.com

Masterpieces of form, composition and color made from brilliant installations of objects ranging from ordinary found objects to marshmallows, these artful window displays always capture my interest and attention. Who’s with me here?

photo: plentyofcolour.com

I don’t know the story behind the artists who come up with the concepts or the artists who install the work, but I do know it sounds like a really fun job and these artists have imaginations that are inspiring people every day in cities across the country.

photo: plentyofcolour.com

Look at that color! Don’t you just want to eat it up? And also buy that jacket?

photo: plentyofcolour.com

If you are privy to Anthropologie’s secrets of fabulous window installation art – do tell. Anthropologie lovers here on WallSpin want to know. We like our original art on our walls at home, AND in our favorite stores. Thanks, Anthro – you could have been just another store with ordinary windows, but no – you take windows to another level.  Anthro – we love art and we love you!

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