"Monday" (2004) by Sharon Shapiro

"Monday" (2004) by Sharon Shapiro

See all posts on Sharon Shapiro. From the Tullman collection.

"Black Sun" (2005) by Christoph Schmidberger

"Black Sun" (2005) by Christoph Schmidberger, oil and acrylic on panel, 48 x 34 inches

Christoph Schmidberger (1974, Eisenerz, Austria) lives and works in New York, USA. From the Tullman collection.

"Mermaid" by Mona Kuhn

"Mermaid" by Mona Kuhn, Chromogenic Print, 20x20" Image, Unmatted, Edition of 10, Copyright © Mona Kuhn, 2006, All Rights Reserved

Beneath the calm relaxed surfaces of Mona Kuhn's (1969) photographs lies an explosive energy: the artist's controlled play with the power of sensuality. Kuhn does more than merely present the body to us viewers. The beauty and tension within her compositions and the flow of volume and focus planes, tempt the viewer, lure the eye and provoke the imagination. (source)

She'll have a new book out in 2007.

"Au Bord de la Mer" by Harmen Meurs

"Au Bord de la Mer" by Harmen Meurs (1891-1964), oil on canvas, 72 x 60 cm

"The artist left Amsterdam during the war and built a house near the town of Putten. His refusal to become a member of the 'Reichskulturkammer' resulted in total isolation of the artist, who had previously enjoyed international attention. During the war he occupied himself with anti-war subjects, such as his series 'Shot during the Escape'. After the end of the war Meurs spent some time travelling through France and Spain. There was a large retrospective exhibition of the artist's work in Rotterdam in 1953. Harmen Meurs spent his last years in rural seclusion, working incessantly." (source)

She looks kinda sad, doesn't she?

Two photos by Richard Williams

Photo by Richard Williams. Copyright Richard Williams & Diva Photography.

Photo by Richard Williams. Copyright Richard Williams & Diva Photography.

Richard Williams (London, England) is a "master of beauty and nude photography" with "an international reputation for quality and creativity, and his work is seen all over the world in print and on the web". (source).

These two photos from the "Creative Images of Women" series are not quite typical of his aesthetic erotic nude photography.

"Liguero (Garter Belt)" (2004) by Dr. Lakra

"Liguero (Garter Belt)" (2004) by Dr. Lakra, ink on vintage magazine page, 47.9 x 31.1 cm, signed "Dr. Lacra" lower right. This work is unique.

This work is from an auction.

Dr Lakra is a tattoo artist living and working near Mexico City. In his parallel activities here, however, Dr Lakra transfers his draughtsmanship onto the idealised figures in 50’s Mexican magazines. Pin-up girls, wrestlers, beauties and cuties are tattooed and 'enhanced' in ink with bats, demons, spiders and the faces of pouting vixens. Like pertinent graffiti, the relative innocence of another era is politicised and the images are infused with a relish for the diabolical. Beautification or social identification, the works are a carnival of the grotesque. Kitschy erotica, ancient ritual, and hallucinogenic visions are fused in a collage of ideologies. (source)

"Nicole, Großkugel" (1994) by Olaf Martens

"Nicole, Großkugel" (1994) by Olaf Martens, © Olaf Martens, Courtesy Galerie f5,6

The East German artist Olaf Martens (born 1963 in Halle, Germany) is interested in staging his pictures like a theatre play. In his often humorously constructed images, Martens combines a take on fashion, documentary, conceptual, social, and even animal photography and art historical and socio-political references. His work cannot be categorised but is a combination of what can be termed a kind of post-modern eclecticism.

Martens undermines the seemingly homogenous facade of the photographic. His works is characterised by uniting contrary details, and refiguring them in a very unique and hybrid manner. This leaves many questions to the viewer, not apparent on first glance.

Olaf Martens studied photography at the highly renowned Leipzig Academy for "Graphik und Buchkunst". His contemporaries are the well-known "Leipzig School" with artists such as Neo Rauch, Tim Eitel or Tilo Baumgärtel.

His work has been exhibited in many museum group exhibitions on contemporary German photography as well as in solo exhibitions at the Kunst Museum Bonn, Grassi Museum Leipzig, Moscow House of photography, Leopold Museum Vienna, German Historical Museum in Berlin, to name but a few. He has exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally. He is represented by Galerie f5,6. His work is included in collections such as the FC Gundlach Collection and the Sammlung Goetz, Munich.

His work has appeared in Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin, Der Spiegel, Art and Stern, Harpers Bazaar Russia and many more. He has published five books on his work.

"Bea Arthur Naked" (1991) by John Currin

"Bea Arthur Naked" (1991) by John Currin, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, © Private Collection

"Even in the case of one of Currin's most deservedly famous, or notorious, early paintings, Bea Arthur Naked (1991), the sitcom star preserves a certain restraint, dignity even, that militates against the overtly camp/kitsch (or possibly anti-feminist) readings of the picture that so readily come to mind. Perhaps the Arthur portrait is going rather against the grain of the Currin mode, even as it was only coalescing in the early 1990s - the exception that, maybe, proves the rule of perversion." (source)

From Saturday, November 11 – Friday, December 22, 2006 Gagosian Gallery in NY shows John Currin's first exhibition with the gallery.

From a review of the show:

So what shall we call these new hard-core paintings? Will “postporn” do? “Sublingual”? “Pre-op”? [..] Perhaps Currin is really a feminist who decided, even at this late date, to expose the “male gaze” once and for all, like Stanley Kubrick with Eyes Wide Shut. Or perhaps he is just another sexist pig who refuses to admit that he’s trying to keep this subject matter in male hands. Or perhaps he is simply making fun of his own penchant for Courbet. Or perhaps he really gets off on painting porn.

To mark this exhibition, Gagosian Gallery has published a comprehensive monograph of Currin's paintings, drawings and related source materials from 1988 to the present. John Currin includes essays by Norman Bryson, Professor of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego; Alison M. Gingeras, Adjunct Curator, Guggenheim Museum; and novelist Dave Eggers.

all posts on John Currin

Two photos (1073-1975) by Roswell Angier

"Candy, Mousetrap Cabaret" (1975) by Roswell Angier, Vintage gelatin silver print, 17 x 11 1/8 inches, $3,500. Courtesy Gitterman Gallery.

"Mr. and Mrs. Steve Mills, Pilgrim Theater" (1973) by Roswell Angier, Vintage gelatin silver print, 12 x 8 inches, $2,500. Courtesy Gitterman Gallery.

Educated at Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley. Roswell Angier has worked for commercial magazines and on numerous documentary projects. Books include A Kind of Life: Conversations in the Combat Zone (Addison House, NH, 1976). His work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and of the Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA. Angier's exhibitions include a solo show at Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston, and group shows at McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, MA; the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; and others nationally.

Angier is currently represented by the Gitterman Gallery in New York City. Be sure to look for Angier's "Train Your Gaze: a Contemporary Guide to Portrait-Making" (AVA Books) to be published in the Fall of 2006.

(source)

"Deux femmes courant sur la plage (La course)" (1922) by Picasso

"Deux femmes courant sur la plage (La course)" (1922) by Picasso

While visiting a beach in the south of France one day, Pablo Picasso was approached by a small boy brandishing a blank sheet of paper. The youngster had clearly been enlisted by his parents to solicit an autographed drawing...

Picasso graciously obliged but, tearing up the paper, drew a design on the child's back instead, signing his name with a jubilant flourish before returning him to his parents.

"I wonder," the artist later remarked, "whether they'll ever wash him again!?"

More Picasso anecdotes.