Cindy Sherman, Untitled #474. 2008. Chromogenic color print, 90 3/4 x 60" (230.5 x 152.4 cm). Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York © 2011 Cindy Sherman.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- The Museum of Modern Art will present the exhibition Cindy Sherman, a retrospective survey tracing the groundbreaking artist's career from the mid 1970s to the present, from February 26 through June 11, 2012. The exhibition will bring together more than 170 key photographs from a variety of the artist's acclaimed bodies of work, for which she created myriad constructed characters and tableaus. The first comprehensive museum survey of Sherman's career in the United States since 1997, it will draw widely from public and private collections, including the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art.
US Actor Sylvester Stallone in front of one of his artworks poses during a press conference ahead of an exhibition, entitled Sylvester Stallone. 35 Years of Painting. EPA/ARNO BALZARINI.
ST. MORITZ.- From February19th until March 15th 2011, artworks by Sylvester Stallone will be exhibited at Galerie Gmurzynska, St. Moritz. Stallone’s exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska is a retrospective of his work. The pictures will document different periods of the creative work. About 30 pictures of the action star will be presented, including various self-portraits. Stallone’s pictures are as action-packed as his movies: colorful, expressive and abstract. Referring to Automatism and abstract Expressionism, his paintings merge to a new, very personal expressive style. Thereby the Hollywood star uses the Expressionism concept of presenting art in a spontaneous manner without caring about conventional shapes.
As teenagers Sylvester Stallone and my brother John shared an art teacher and therapist, a wonderful man named Robert Semple III. Back in the 60s, Sly and my bro both attended the Devereux School in Berwyn PA, which was for troubled adolescents, as they say. They did not overlap, Stallone being a couple years ahead of John.
ReplyDeleteRobert was the first art therapist in the U.S. He was a fine artist (exhibited at the Guggenheim) and for many years a beloved charismatic mentor at Devereux, where he also ran the art studio. The kids all called him Robby.
During the Summer the students moved to a camp in Maine on Lake Embden, where Robert directed them in plays. On weekends he took them in groups to his home on Monhegan Island. I joined my brother for one of these trips, which is how I got to know Robert. But we had other connections, too. Robert began wintering in Sac Cristobal de las Casas in the 1970s, where he became friends with our buddy John Burstein.
Robert and I remained friends till his death aged 90 a few years ago. He was a conscientious objector in WW II, loved Mozart, cooked beautifully, lived for years with his companion Edgar in Phladelphia, and was as close to a saint as anyone I have known. For all his goodness, his conversational style was utterly acerbic, his ridicule heaped on whoever he was talking to.
According to Robert, his advice to Sly was to give up acting. But he said Stallone was a good painter.
This is really interesting, especially as I sit in Berwyn now, shivering. I paired Cindy and Sly because they basically showed up as paired news items on ArtDaily.org and the juxtaposition seemed funny. I'm much more pro-Sly, really. Take away (if one feels the need) all the mega-superstar-mumbo-jumbo -- he's a very talented man and an appealing actor whose Rocky creation really provided the template for any number of other (some of them good and appealing) movies. And part of his appeal is that his work feels real. I'm sure he could have a perfectly good discussion about "irony" if it suited the time/place/mood, but he doesn't make it the leitmotif of his expression. We had a very good day at the Philadelphia Museum, incidentally, final resting place (in a compromise location following the razing of JFK Stadium) of the Rocky statue. Think I'll go upstairs now, watch Inception, tweezing further subplots from the Main Event. Curtis
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