Ward Shelley’s Unreliable Narrator at Pierogi

CHICAGO, IL.- Chicago-based, internationally-renowned multi-media artist Jessica Stockholder has been commissioned by the Chicago Loop Alliance (CLA) business organization to create a dramatic, three-dimensional public art installation this summer in the heart of the downtown “Loop.” Stockholder, who is a pioneer of multimedia installations that incorporate the architecture in which they have been conceived, will create “Color Jam,” a three-dimensional work of art containing flashes of color and geometric shapes that spill from building facades onto the sidewalk and streets of a prominent State Street intersection. (The exact location is to be announced at a later date.) “Color Jam” is the third installment in CLA’s annual Art Loop public art initiative. Stockholder, formerly of Yale University, is currently a Professor in Visual Arts and chair of the Department of Visual Arts at the

LONDON.- A satinwood, mahogany, sycamore and marquetry and parcel gilt secretaire cabinet, which was reconstructed from an important cabinet attributed to Seddon, Son and Shackleton reputedly for King Charles IV of Spain in 1793, is to be sold at Bonhams, New Bond Street as part of its Fine English Furniture and Works of Art sale on 7 March 2012. It has attracted a pre-sale estimate of £20,000 – 30,000. A remarkable survival, this cabinet is not only assembled from what was once described as one of the most spectacular late eighteenth century English cabinets ever produced (exhibited at the Franco British Exhibition in London, 1908 and the Plaza Hotel in New York, 1910), it was later acquired by MGM Studios in Hollywood for use on film sets. At some point in the twentieth century, the original `King Carlos IV’ cabinet was broken up and transformed into separate

LONDON.- A valuable collection of books by T. E Lawrence, including a rare first edition of his controversial work, The Mint, goes under the hammer at Bonhams Fine Books, Maps and Manuscripts sale in London on 27 March. In total, the collection could make over £55,000. Each volume is being sold separately. The Mint is Lawrence’s account of life in the RAF during the early 1920s. He began taking notes for the project soon after enlisting in August 1922 under the assumed name of John Hume Ross. His subterfuge was discovered and he was dismissed the following year although he was permitted to rejoin, in his own name, in 1925. He worked up his initial notes into a draft book which he sent to the literary editor Edward Garnett who showed it to Air Marshall Trenchard, often known as the ‘Father of the RAF’. At Trenchard’s request, Lawrence promised not to publish the book

STANFORD, CA.- A new movement of Native American painting emerged in the Pueblo communities of the southwestern United States in the early 20th century. Encouraged by anthropologists and teachers to record past and current scenes of their daily life on paper, the artists found inspiration in the centuries-old tradition of Pueblo painting seen in pottery, murals and archaeological remains. The earliest Pueblo artists were self-taught, and they struggled for recognition from the local and national art market. In the 1930s, the formation of the Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School formalized the training of generations of Native painters and secured the continuance and expansion of this new tradition of Native American easel painting. The resulting works were dynamic, colorful and decidedly modern. “Memory and Markets: Pueblo Painting in the Early 20th Century,” at

CHICAGO, IL.- Country Club presents the second exhibit for its Chicago program with Found Graffiti, featuring new works on paper and installations composed of stained glass by Ben Durham. Found Graffiti is presented in collaboration with Andrew Rafacz Gallery. In these two recent bodies of work, graffiti functions as an unofficial language that speaks directly of the people and the places where it was sprayed, scratched, or marked. It is a signature, an identity rendered as logo, and a dispossessed claim, not just of self, but of territory. It is a kind of real-time mapmaking akin to psychogeography in its frustrated attempt to achieve personal, spatial, and cultural orientation. In the Graffiti Map body of work, Durham has collected found graffiti imagery and transcribed them with graphite and ink onto the handmade paper surface. Layered to the point of nearly complete visual

PALM SPRINGS, CA.- The inaugural Palm Springs Fine Art Fair exceeded all first-year expectations, with a total Presidents Day Weekend attendance of 9,500 visitors and sales reaching into the millions of dollars during the February 16-19 event at the Palm Springs Convention Center. Beginning with an opening night gala that drew in art collectors and connoisseurs from across the United States-bolstered by a massive presence from the Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego art scenes, and the generous support and unprecedented turnout from the local art community-to benefit the Palm Springs Art Museum, more than 1,500 attendees toasted the more than 2,000 significant works of post-war and contemporary art on exhibit and sale at the fair. Attendance was steady throughout the three day event-which was founded by the Hamptons Expo Group (owners of the noted and successful Houston Fine Art, SF Fine Art Fair, ArtAspen

LOS ANGELES, CA.- On Wednesday, February 22, 2012, The Grammy Museum, in conjunction with the Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980, will unveil its latest special exhibit, Trouble In Paradise: Music and Los Angeles, 1945-1975. Located on the Museum’s fourth floor, the exhibit explores thirty years of the pop music scene of Los Angeles, and its related culture, politics, and popular art. The GRAMMY Museum has partnered with University of Southern California professor Josh Kun, who is serving as co-curator. “This is such a crucial, formative period in the history of music in Los Angeles,” says Kun. “It’s also a period of great social and cultural transformations, from the building of the freeways to multiple civil rights uprisings, and we hope to use this exhibit to highlight music’s role in shaping the city’s post-World War II identity.” The

WASHINGTON.- President Barack Obama and former first lady Laura Bush will celebrate the groundbreaking for a new national museum showcasing black life, art and history on the National Mall. The Smithsonian Institution announced that Obama will speak at the Feb. 22 groundbreaking for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Actress Phylicia Rashad will host the event. The ceremony, featuring remarks by President Barack Obama, will be webcast at http://nmaahc.si.edu/Events/Groundbreaking. The pre-ceremony music will begin at 9:00am ET, and the ceremony will begin at 10:00am ET. Early construction work has already begun at the museum site near the Washington Monument. Officials have

GRAND RAPIDS, MI.- Grand Rapids Art Museum is hosting three distinct exhibitions celebrating the work of American artist Robert Rauschenberg, beginning this February, providing a rich introduction to the defining aspects of Rauschenberg’s art. Rauschenberg in Context and Rauschenberg at Gemini are on view February 3 – May 20, 2012. Robert Rauschenberg: Synapsis Shuffle begins March 3, and runs until May 20, 2012. Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. He worked in a broad range of media as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, draftsman (drawing), photographer, performance artist, choreographer,

FRANKFURT.- Ironic, provocative, witty—since his beginnings in New York’s East Village in the early 1980s American artist George Condo has produced a distinctive body of work. His paintings, characterized by mordant humor, surrealist-tinged absurdity, and exuberant pathos, make repeated reference to the traditions of American and European art history of the last 500 years, from Velázquez by way of Picasso to Gorky. In partnership with the Hayward Gallery in London and curated by Hayward Director Ralph Rugoff, the Schirn presents a comprehensive retrospective of Condo’s art. Condo works in a style that can be described as artificial realism, and both his paintings and sculptures display his ongoing examination of human physiognomy and all-too-human mental states. Organized thematically and stylistically in groups, sixty-six important paintings from different creative periods, as well as a selection of roughly ten