Winter Museum Preview: Top 10 Europe from artinfo.com

Courtesy Galerie Evergreene

Winter Museum Preview: Top 10 Europe from artinfo.com


By Chris Bors
Published: January 8, 2008

Seek and you shall find great art in Europe. Below are the Continent's ten best shows, as recommended by Museums magazine. Coming soon on ARTINFO are more recommendations, including the best current offerings in London, Boston, Philadelphia, L.A., and the U.S.

1. Lights, camera, action! “Action Painting” examines gestural painting made in the United States and Europe from 1945 to 1965. Check out work by such leading personalities as Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Wols, Morris Louis, Sam Francis, Pierre Soulages, Lee Krasner, and others. At the Fondation Beyeler in Basel through May 12.


2. The celebrated Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)—a master in several genres—is less known for his narrative pieces. “Velázquez’s Fables” is the first exhibition to highlight his work in this style. It’s on view in the artist’s adopted town of Madrid—where he lived as a court painter—at the Museo Nacional del Prado, through February 24.


3. The Kunsthalle Wien tackles the emotionally charged theme of love in “True Romance: Allegories of Love from the Renaissance to the Present.” The exhibition places such Old Masters as Parmigianino, Albrecht Durer, and Pieter de Hooch alongside contemporary practitioners Tracey Emin, Martin Kippenberger, Nicole Eisenman, and others. This show wears its heart on its sleeve until February 3.


4. When a new extension to Denmark’s Arken Museum of Modern Art opens to the public in January, the buzz won’t be all about the architecture. “Arken’s Collection” is a permanent presentation of the museum’s contemporary holdings, which rank up there with the best in Danish museums. Opens January 26.


5. Women do not always figure prominently in histories of the Impressionist movement, but they are an important part of the story, alongside Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, and the rest of the boys. “Women Impressionists” features 160 works by four leading female painters of the movement: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzales, and Marie Bracquemond. From February 22 through June 1 at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.


6. Painter Lucian Freud is best known for his portraits and nude studies, rendered with a trademark raw immediacy and brutal honesty. The exhibition “Lucian Freud” includes 80 paintings and works on paper, many never before shown in public. Through January 27 at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.


7. The artists in “P2P”—including Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, General Idea, Rodney Graham, Pierre Bismuth, and many others—focus on notions of multiplication and dissemination as they confront copyright issues, the loss of the original, and the creation of a discourse between individuals. Casino Luxembourg hosts this exhibition in two stages from January 19 through April 6.


8. A lively, thriving arts culture existed in Rio during the 1950s and ’60s, with writers, artists, musicians, architects, and filmmakers often collaborating and sharing ideas. Of course you can’t go back in time, but “Time & Place: Rio de Janeiro 1956–1964” is the next best thing. Experience this exceptionally fertile creative era in the Brazilian city at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, from January 19 through April 6.


9. The young German painter Thomas Scheibitz collects imagery from the media and puts it through a post-Cubist blender to create his canvases. While some of the architectural forms are discernible, his environments are flattened and abstracted, creating highly altered images. “Thomas Scheibitz: About 90 Elements” runs through January 27 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.


10. The tradition of Northern Romantic landscape painting has inspired more than a few artists working in contemporary video and photography. The Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin gathers seven artists who mine this chilly climate in their work in “True North,” on view from February 2 through April 13.


"Top 10 Europe" comes to ARTINFO from the Winter 2008 issue of Museums magazine.