March UBS 12 x 12 at Chicago’s MCA Presents White/Light
CHICAGO, IL.- Exper­i­men­tal music duo White/Light — musi­cian Matt Clark and sound engi­neer Jeremy Lemos — cre­ate an inter­ac­tive music instal­la­tion at the Museum of Con­tem­po­rary Art (MCA), Chicago, as part of the monthly UBS 12 x 12: New Artists / New Work series. Two tape machines loop drone sounds and min­i­mal elec­tric gui­tar sam­ples in the dark­ened gallery, while a glow­ing micro­phone entices vis­i­tors into the space which trig­gers a sen­sor that alters the sound fre­quen­cies. Acclaimed musi­cians — includ­ing Steve Shel­ley of Sonic Youth, Dis­ap­pears from Chicago, Tim Kin­sella of Joan of Arc, and Lucky Drag­ons from Los Ange­les — join White/Light for spe­cial per­for­mances through­out the dura­tion of the exhi­bi­tion, that opens on the evening of March 5, 2010 dur­ing First Fri­days and runs through March 28. The electro-acoustic drone music is inspired by the French Musique Con­crète com­poser Pierre Scha­ef­fer and fea­tures twelve tracks of taped loop record­ings cre­ated by an ana­log syn­thes … More

Brook­lyn Botanic Gar­dens Presents a New Body of Work by Emile Clark, Its First Artist-in-Residence
BROOKLYN, NY.- A series of lush, fluid water­color and graphite amal­ga­ma­tions of flora and fauna are at the heart of My Gar­den Pets, a major new instal­la­tion by New York-based artist Emi­lie Clark at the Brook­lyn Botan­i­cal Gar­den (BBG). In the exhibition—on view from March 6 through May 23, 2010 as a fea­tured pre­sen­ta­tion of BBG’s 2010 Cen­ten­nial Celebration—Clark explores the work of the 19th-century Amer­i­can nat­u­ral­ist, Mary Treat, and the con­cept of ‘the ben­e­fi­cial insect.’ To cre­ate this body of work, Clark spent four months on site at the Gar­den as its first artist-in-residence, research­ing in its libraries and talk­ing to BBG hor­ti­cul­tur­al­ists, sci­en­tists, and other staff mem­bers. Her project deftly com­bines works on paper in which galls, thorns, canes, bee­tles, aphids, nema­todes, leaves and pods flow in and out of each other, in accu­mu­la­tion and trans­for­ma­tion, with an audio piece drawn from the exten … More

Evi­dence of Mor­mon Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Mex­i­can War Found
MEXICO CITY.- The recent find­ing of a 19th cen­tury sil­ver bracelet in Alamo Mocho, in the desert of Baja Cal­i­for­nia, rep­re­sents the first mate­r­ial evi­dence of pres­ence of the Mor­mon Bat­tal­ion, which camped at the site before inte­grat­ing to the 1847 Mexico-United States War (Mex­i­can War). The dis­cov­ery took place after a sand­storm uncov­ered archae­o­log­i­cal mate­r­ial. Spe­cial­ists of the National Insti­tute of Anthro­pol­ogy and His­tory (INAH) began explo­ration at the site after­wards. The jewel rep­re­sents a clear tes­ti­mony for Mex­i­can and Amer­i­can his­to­ri­ans that Mor­mons camped in Alamo Mocho approx­i­mately for 3 days, before their inte­gra­tion with the 1847 war, fact only stated in doc­u­ments until now. Archae­ol­o­gist Anto­nio Por­cayo Miche­lini declared this at the Baja Cal­i­for­nia Archae­ol­ogy Analy­sis Table that took place recently in Tijuana, Baja Cal­i­for­nia. He detailed that a bifa­cial stone knife was found as well, which could be more … More

Kem­per Museum Acquires Two Mag­no­lia Lau­rie Paint­ings from Causey Con­tem­po­rary
BROOKLYN, NY.- Causey Con­tem­po­rary announced that two paint­ings by Mag­no­lia Lau­rie are being acquired by the Kem­per Museum of Con­tem­po­rary Art in Kansas City, MO for their per­ma­nent col­lec­tion. Paint­ings, “Novem­ber Char­lie” (I am in dis­tress and require imme­di­ate assis­tance) and “To Aban­don My Ves­sel” (Alfa Bravo) were selected for the museum by cura­tor Bar­bara O’Brien after vis­it­ing Mag­no­lia solo exhi­bi­tion at Causey Con­tem­po­rary. The exhi­bi­tion enti­tled “All After: All Before” opened on Feb­ru­ary 12, 2010 and runs through March 13, 2010 at the gallery’s 293 Grand St. Loca­tion in the Brook­lyn neigh­bor­hood of Williams­burg. This acqui­si­tion will mark the first by a museum of Magnolia’s work. The two paint­ings headed for the Kem­per Museum of Con­tem­po­rary Art each fea­ture the color coded sig­nal flags that ships use to relay mes­sages to one another often when in dis­tress. Thus sug­gest­ing that the struc­tures de … More

News from the Near Future by Fiona Tan at Museum Kunst der West­kuste
AMSTERDAM.- Amsterdam-based pho­tog­ra­pher and video artist Fiona Tan (born 1966) has been a cen­tral fig­ure on the con­tem­po­rary art scene since the 1990s. In her video “News from the Near Future” (2003) a col­lage of his­toric film and audio mate­r­ial tells of man’s ambiva­lent rela­tion­ship with water as a force of nature. Draw­ing on the archives of the Ams­ter­dam Film Museum, Tan com­posed a nar­ra­tive crescendo start­ing off with idyl­lic impres­sions of the watery world and build­ing to increas­ingly men­ac­ing sce­nar­ios of an unleashed nature. Images of floods and churn­ing seas, of wild winds and storms, parade before our eyes the destruc­tive force of water. Tragedies at sea are reported in the style of old news­reels or radio shows, segue­ing into pic­tures of flooded cities that – as indi­cated in the work’s title – fore­bode future cat­a­stro­phes. The cin­e­matic reper­toire of waves, tides and floods acts as an his­tor­i­cal mem­ory, pre­sent­ing the sea as a metaphor for the flow o … More

The Weird and Won­der­ful Syd­ney Town Hall Col­lec­tion Geso on Pub­lic Dis­play
SYDNEY.- A trea­sure trove of intrigu­ing items from around the world went on pub­lic dis­play in Syd­ney Town Hall to help cel­e­brate the offi­cial reopen­ing of the iconic build­ing. UNVAULTED fea­tures fas­ci­nat­ing items from the Syd­ney Town Hall Col­lec­tion, many on pub­lic dis­play for the very first time, includ­ing a lock of Napoleon’s hair, a chair from the coro­na­tion of Queen Eliz­a­beth II and a lamp from one of the Japan­ese sub­marines which attacked Syd­ney Har­bour in 1942. “There are some 3,500 invalu­able items in our unique Syd­ney Town Hall Col­lec­tion which is the largest civic col­lec­tion in Aus­tralia,” said Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP. “We look for­ward to shar­ing this eclec­tic mix of offi­cial gifts and some of the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ries behind them. This Col­lec­tion demon­strates the City’s rich 160-year his­tory and some of these items have been kept in vaults for over a cen­tury.” UNVAULTED is curated by City of Syd­ney his­to­rian Mar­garet Bet­teridge and is the inau­gural exhi­bi­tion in the … More

Wadsworth Atheneum Begins Much Antic­i­pated Ren­o­va­tion
HARTFORD, CT.- The Wadsworth Atheneum announced the com­mence­ment of its highly antic­i­pated ren­o­va­tion project, which will yield 8,000 square feet of refur­bished gallery space in antic­i­pa­tion of the com­plete rein­stal­la­tion of the museum’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion. The project is slated to be com­pleted by the end of 2011. The Wadsworth Atheneum is Amer­ica first pub­lic art museum and is listed on the National Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places. Its five sep­a­rate, but con­tigu­ous build­ings were built over the span of 125 years. The ren­o­va­tion will address roof leak­age prob­lems and façade issues with the museum’s Mor­gan, Avery and Good­win build­ings, which date from 1910, 1934 and 1969 respec­tively. In addi­tion to address­ing struc­tural issues, the ren­o­va­tion will also improve the over­all vis­i­tor expe­ri­ence by pro­vid­ing a 14% increase in avail­able gallery space, which will be home to both per­ma­nent col­lec­tion instal­la­tions and spe­cial … More