Recent Exhibitions

In a previous issue of this newsletter we highlighted a recent exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) that were inspired by his visit to New Orleans (see Worldwide 36218). Two more exhibitions are now taking a closer look at the celebrated American artist's work. The Art Gallery of Ontario is currently showing "Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time" (see Worldwide 36369), a retrospective featuring some 100 paintings and drawings from public and private collections in which Austrian curator Dieter Buchhart explores the images and symbols that the artist appropriated from the street. Buchhart also curated "Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks," which recently opened at the Brooklyn Museum (see Worldwide 36445). From 1980 to 1987, Basquiat recorded handwritten poems, lists, symbols, observations and drawings in a series of notebooks. The show features 160 pages of these rarely seen documents along with related works on paper and large-scale paintings.

The Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo owns a number of paintings by French Neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat (1859-1891). The museum recently presented an exhibition that included these Pointillist paintings as well as some 40 other paintings and drawings by Seurat and some 60 works by such artists as Maximilien Luce, Henry van de Velde, Theo van Rysselberghe and Jan Toorop that reveal the influence of Seurat's new style of painting. (Worldwide 36397)

Last fall, the Saatchi Gallery, London, presented "Premonition: Ukrainian Art Now," showcasing recent art by established and emerging Ukrainian artists. The show featured more than 70 pieces by 38 artists whose works reflect the complex issues and challenges facing Ukraine. (Worldwide 80337)

Also last fall, the two-part exhibition "Sacred Places, Sacred Books" took place in Antwerp, focusing on the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Centered around the theme of pilgrimage, the show at MAS, Museum aan de Stroom, featured such diverse works as Caravaggio's "Madonna of Loreto," on loan from the Basilica de Sant'Agostino; Marc Chagall's "Jerusalem," depicting the Wailing Wall; and a gilded lock and key from the Kaaba, holy relics from the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul (see Worldwide 36414). A concurrent show at the Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience examined the structure and content of the Tanakh, the Bible and the Qu'ran through 45 manuscripts and printed publications--15 for each sacred book--that illuminate their similarities and differences (see Worldwide 80775).

Until recently, the Bildmuseet at Umea University was showing contemporary art from Havana. The exhibition originally opened at the Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia in early 2014, where it was conceived as an update to a 1997 exhibition titled "Utopian Territories: New Art from Cuba" (see Worldwide 26125). The show featured works created since 2000 by such Cuban artists as Javier Castro, Sandra Ceballos Obaya, Ricardo Elias, Luis Garciga Romay and Lazaro Saavedra Gonzalez. (Worldwide 80666)