Carnivora
Thursday, Sept 16th – Friday, October 8th
540 W 28th St (between 10th and 11th Avenues)
Opening Reception: September 16th, 6 PM – 10 PM
The Carnivora Portraits, photographed by cross-disciplinary artist Jason Covert, derive their inspiration from the 2004 groundbreaking discovery in Siorapaluk, Greenland of a series of rocky substrate slabs (now commonly referred to as “The Sacred Texts of Carnivora”), bearing pre-cuneiform myth fragments indicative of a hitherto unknown Proto-Eskimo language and culture.
CALL FOR ENTRIES: A JURIED COMPETITION for SMALL WORKS
This September TheGreatNude will host exhibition space on Governor’s Island as participants in the 2010 Governor’s Island Art Fair. The art fair will be open to the public every Saturday and Sunday, September 4th – 24th. Getting there is easy by ferry from Battery Park or Brooklyn.
ARTISTS, we are seeking SMALL WORKS in this juried show of nudes in almost any media. Go to www.thegreatnude.tv/smallworks to get more information and to apply online. Application Fee is $20. Commission on sales 40%. Space is limited. DEADLINE is August 20th.
Application Fee: $20. Jurists: Scott Goodwillie, Robert Curcio, Jeffrey Wiener Deadline: August 20, 2010
Daniel Maidman Sketches from the live nude at TheGreatNude Invitational
NEW VIDEO Daniel Maidman Sketches from the live nude at TheGreatNude Invitational
Daniel Maidman, one of TheGreatNude Invitational’s exhibiting artists, spent the weekend attending our drawing workshops with Sherry Camhy. Continuing his drawing marathon, Daniel joined our sketch party on Saturday night, and sketched from our two models that evening. We had a chance to ask Daniel some questions on his approach to drawing the figure.
Drawings by Daniel Maidman from the workshops at TheGreatNude Invitational are also available to view.
Corpus Hermeticum: Odd Nerdrum Exhibits at TheGreatNude Invitational
NEW VIDEO Corpus Hermeticum: Odd Nerdrum Exhibits at TheGreatNude Invitational
Curated by Leah Poller
The works of Odd Nerdrum presented in cooperation with the Nerdrum Institute, Norway
Watch a video interview with Curator/Artist Leah Poller. She discusses Corpus Hermeticum and exhibiting artist Odd Nerdrum. Additional commentary by fellow exhibiting artists Richard T. Scott, Adam Miller and Fedele Spadafora on their group exhibit at TheGreatNude Invitational and the use of the Nude in their work.
TheGreatNude Invitational opens May 14,15 and 16 at The Roger Smith Hotel. Featuring 25 international artists working with the nude. Online Ticketing now available!
MAY 14,15,16 – DAILY ADMISSION: 12pm-6pm, $10.
MAY 14,15 – EVENING ADMISSION: 6pm-11pm, $25. Includes our SKETCH PARTY featuring Nude Models.
TheGreatNude.tv just sent out our big Press Release (April 12, 2010) for our first annual Invitational figurative arts fair. Highlights include our recent developments, additional exhibitors, and an overview of the entire event. Review the online version here. There’s still room for a few more nudes, so give us a call or an email if you are interested in exhibiting.
Just wanted to share the advertisement we took out for TheGreatNude Invitational in the May issue of ART+AUCTION and Modern Painters magazines. We’re posting more artworks of exhibiting artists on the website if you’d like to preview. (We’re updating the official website with our next Press Release tomorrow.)
As you can see, we’ve got a great collection of artists who work with the nude. Exhibitors include Odd Nerdrum, Sherry Camhy, Daniel Maidman, Scott Goodwillie, Fedele Spadafora, Richard Stipl, Mary Larsen, Adam Miller and Richard T. Scott amongst others. If you want to see our online marketing kit, click here.
More artists are joining every day, so stay tuned.
Half-page advertisement in ART+AUCTION and Modern Painters magazines.
Peruvian artist Kukuli Velarde makes her debut at Barry Friedman LTD with an incredibly visceral show, making excellent use of the nude in her art. With boundless imagination and unbridled drama, the works are intimate, soulful compositions that are difficult to pass by. I highly recommend that everyone in the New York area make a point to expose themselves to the strong presence that is Velarde’s work.
The exhibition debuts Velarde’s work in two mediums. The first being her terracotta sculptures, and the second being her paintings on brushed aluminum. The sculptures are vessels to an antique nature, displayed as evidence unearthed from an anthropological dig. Entitled ‘Plunder Me Baby,’ the sculptures presentation, with museum-like signage, provokes an association to an indigenous cultures’ reaction to European colonization and subjugation. Each piece is categorized as to estimated date and region of ‘find.’ They are listed uncommonly, containing a quick description of personal quirks (“Bites, likes tough love”.) Both startling and amusing is the personification experienced from each piece’s face and limbs. Kukuli’s grasp of expression is remarkable as her sculptures appear if as on the verge of coming alive.
In her paintings – the ‘Cadaver’ series – Velarde uses images of conquered peoples in the context of European cultural and religious imagery. The expressions of the subjects, in comparison to Velarde’s sculptures, are less playful, but are equally as powerful. Referencing modes of accepted Western beauty such as the classical Venus, Velarde literally tries on their “skin”, inserting herself as the model in most of her primary figures. There is an uneasy marriage of cultures here, which is what makes this exhibition work so well. There is both homage and disgust, piety and betrayal, using Western culture and its iconographic art as props to make her own contemporary statements.
Finally there is a video of her late father with whom she shared a very strong bond, her passion as artist especially apparent in this emotion-filled work. Kukuli surrounds the projected video with wall drawings, referencing the time that her father caught her drawing on the wall of their home. He sensed a talent in his daughter which he encouraged over the years. The homage is creative and touching and the exhibit as a whole, remarkably fresh. Dad would be proud.
Sculptor Antony Gormley has continually impressed us over his more than quarter-century career as a visual artist. In most cases Gormley uses his own body as the main influence for his work, creating structures that radiate energy through his varied use of medium, and shape. Having shown all over the world, Gormley has recently finished an installation in Manhattan’s flatiron district.
The installation consists of a series of thirty-one statues, camouflaged on rooftops in the surrounding area. Each weighs close to 3/4 of a ton. They are designed to overlook the Flatiron district from different angles, creating a visual flow. Gormley did a similar showing in London in 2007.
Walking through the Flatiron district, you would almost have to know where you were looking to see the ominous works. Standing in the central partition, across the street from the Flatiron building, the statues gaze down on you powerfully, overwhelming you with a sense of greatness, growing as you continue to discover the works that appear to be greatly aware of you prior to your discovery of them. Provocative, and glorifying of the human form through its borderline abstraction, Gormley’s works are a manifest piece of culture, waiting to be discovered.
Click here for the New York Times article on Gormley’s exhibit.
During my walks through New York’s gallery districts there are times that I find myself anxious for something to take my breath away. And there are times when it gets taken away not once but three times, all from artists working with the figure in very different ways.
On view at Postmasters Gallery is the current body of work by Steve Mumford, who started his ‘Baghdad Journal’ at the outset of the war in 2003. In his travels with the American military in Iraq, he made quick sketches of his experiences during moments of combat and repose. These were in turn transcribed on canvas upon his return to the studio. The new works in this show reveal a more nuanced look at war, and how it is experienced from the perspective of jihadists and our occupying military personal.
There are two nudes in the exhibit to talk about here. The small portrait of a half nude woman on a bed might be a competently rendered but unremarkable work until you notice her right arm veiled in shadow has been amputated. This then invites more scrutiny of her expression and the thoughts of a young woman whose life has been permanently altered. It gives credence to the graffiti painting in the other room lamenting “wish I was, where I was, when I was wishing, I was here.”
A large striking painting in the main gallery titled Baqubah portrays a languid moment for a group of marines cooling themselves in a murky pool of water. Most are nude and expertly rendered. Mumfords’ understanding of anatomy is on display here even through multiple tattoos on one of the men. He delivers relaxed poses with great textural passages of paint and atmosphere. As with ballet or opera, sometimes the most natural seeming movements take the greatest dexterity to pull off. I’ve been following Steve’s work for some time now and feel this is some of his best to date.
