C. Kirk preparing brand-new smaller pieces to accompany the larger works for his upcoming show “Building Character” at The 4th Wall Gallery / Dallas, TX
Show opens March 5, 2010 from 7-10pm
The 4th Wall Gallery
2925 Fairmount Street
Dallas, TX 75201
Filmed at C. Kirk’s studio, February 21, 2010
For more information, go to www.ckirkart.com and www.the4thwallgallery.net
Duration : 0:2:6
It’s one of the finest collections of modern art anywhere in the world, but you won’t find it in New York or Paris.
Dozens of works by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock — together valued at roughly $3 billion — are locked in a basement in Tehran.
Only a handful of westerners have had an up-close look at the underground archives in Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art. ABC News was granted exclusive access inside the vault that holds a priceless collection Iranian authorities choose to keep locked away.
What was revealed was astonishing: a series of paintings by Picasso; a wall’s worth of pop art by Roy Lichtenstein; Warhol portraits of Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger and Marilyn Monroe; a Diego Rivera self portrait; and a painting many consider to be the best Jackson Pollock outside of North America.
The collection was supposed to be a gift to the Iranian people. It was assembled by the Shah of Iran and his wife using public funds during the oil boom of the 1970s. Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art was inaugurated in 1977, designed to be one of the world’s landmark modern art institutions, with an international collection worthy of that ambition.
But just months later came the Islamic Revolution. The Shah was deposed, Ayatollah Khomeinei was became the country’s leader, and in the Revolutionary, anti-American climate the museum’s western art was banished to the basement.
Why aren’t the pieces shown to the public? The reasons are a mix of ideology and practicality.
The collection is huge and the museum small. Museum director Dr. Habibollah Sadeghi, himself a painter appointed by conservative President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, says there is no space to properly put the works on display.
Others question whether the museum could properly protect the valuable pieces from theft or damage were they displayed openly.
Conservative Muslim ideology — a powerful governing force in Iran — has played a similarly forceful role in keeping the pieces underground. Aside from the anti-Western overtones of Revolutionary Iran many of the pieces are considered too racy for a conservative Muslim society. When some of the collection briefly went on display in 2005 Andre Derain’s “Golden Age,” a 1905 painting of female nudes, was notably absent. Also hidden was the centerpiece of a Frances Bacon painting triptych. The center panel could be taken as homoerotic, showing two naked men asleep in bed.
There are plans to display the collection permanently once museum space is expanded, Sadeghi said. If those plans materialize — full-time public access to view the pieces — it would fulfill the dreams of art lovers worldwide. “In two or three years we can improve the museum and have a permanent exhibition,” said Sadeghi, adding that the museum is hoping to buy more Western works in the coming years to fill out the collection.
Duration : 0:2:0
Atlanta Georgia Artist Corey Barksdale large scale wall mural art.
Murals of sorts date to prehistoric times, such as the paintings on the Caves of Lascaux in southern France, and many ancient murals have survived in Egyptian tombs, and in Pompeii. The term became more famous with the Mexican “muralista” art movement (Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, or José Orozco). There are many different styles and techniques. The best-known is probably fresco, which uses water soluble paints with a damp lime wash, a rapid use of the resulting mixture over a large surface, and often in parts (but with a sense of the whole). The colors lighten as they dry. The marouflage method has also been used for millennia.
Murals today are painted in a variety of ways, using oil or water based media. The styles can vary from abstract to trompe-l’œil (a French term for “fool” or “trick the eye”). Today, the beauty of a wall mural has become much more widely available with a technique whereby a painting or photographic image is transferred to poster paper which is then pasted to a wall surface to give the effect of either a hand-painted mural or realistic scene.
Mural at the American British Cowdray Hospital in México D.F. by Veronica Ruiz de Velasco in 1989.
Murals are important in that they bring art into the public sphere. Due to the size, cost, and work involved in creating a mural, muralists must often be commissioned by a sponsor. Often it is the local government or a business, but many murals have been paid for with grants of patronage. For artists, their work gets a wide audience that otherwise might not set foot in an art gallery. For the city, it gets beautified by a work of art. Murals exist where people live and work and affect their daily lives.
Murals can be a relatively effective tool of social emancipation or achieving a political goal. Murals have sometimes been created against the law or have been commissioned by local bars and coffeeshops. Often, the visual effects are an enticement to attract public attention to social issues.
World famous murals can be found in Mexico, New York, Philadelphia, Belfast, Derry, Los Angeles, Nicaragua, Cuba and in India. [1] and have functioned as an important means of communication for members of socially, ethnically and racially divided communities in times of conflict. They also proved to be an effective tool in establishing a dialogue and hence solving the cleavage in the long run. State-sponsored public art expressions, particularly murals, are often used by totalitarian regimes as a tool of mass-control and propaganda. However, despite the propagandist character of that works, some of them still have an artistic value.
Many people like to express their individuality by commissioning an artist to paint a mural in their home, this is not an activity exclusively for owners of large houses. A mural artist is only limited by the fee and therefore the time spent on the painting; dictating the level of detail; a simple mural can be added to the smallest of walls.
Private commissions can be for dining rooms, bathrooms, living rooms or, as is often the case- children’s bedrooms. A child’s room can be transformed into the ‘fantasy world’ of a forest or racing track, encouraging imaginative play and an awareness of art.
Southern art is a broad term that applies to art of, about, and from the American South. The Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans houses the largest single collection of Southern art. In 1992, the Morris Museum opened in Augusta, Georgia, with a focus on Mid-Twentieth Century American Southern art.
Southern art refers to the sum of the work of artists who have lived in the American South. The core of the American South consists of the eleven states that formed the Confederate States of America: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Beyond these eleven states, there is some dispute as to which of the following six states should also be included: Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The city of Washington, D.C. is a special case. Though it was not part of the Confederate States of America, it is usually grouped as part of the American South.
Of these six “border” states, Delaware and Oklahoma probably have the weakest claim to be included in the American South. Though a slave-holding state until the end of the American Civil War, Delaware never seceded, and today is culturally closer to the urban Mid-Atlantic states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Oklahoma was a sparsely populated territory at the time of the Civil War, and though it contributed a regiment to the Confederate Army, it never was home to the kind of plantation life typical of the American South.
In 1975, Southern Arts Federation (SAF) was founded with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to support and promote arts and culture in the Southeast.
Duration : 0:7:9
Learn how to stretch fine art canvas paintings with a gallery wrap. Instruction by master acryllic artist Ginger Cook with the IfTheyCanICan.com series of instructional videos.
Duration : 0:8:34