Anne Leibowitz Exhibition at the Legion of Honor

It has been over a month since I went to see the famed Anne Leibowitz picture show, but it still sticks in my mind. The richness from which she works overrides your senses and keeps you captivated long after you are looking at the image. There are three days left before they take her immensely personal work from the walls of our beloved Legion of Honor and I highly recommend spending a few hours to go and see it.

Her portraits were my favorite part of the show, particularly the image of the original Bush Administration. A picture speaks a thousand words, but in this case an entire novel couldn't encompass everything that her camera picked up.

Another favorite is her portraits of Demi Moore when she was pregnant. In particular Demi's firm pregnant belly held by Bruce Willis's very masculine hands. A powerful image so simple with so many complex layers.

She is probably the most important modern photographer of our time.

Muses in the Arts-Continued

If you liked the other video you will love this YouTube. Women in Film shows all the famous female faces in film since its earliest days. Another seemless morphing display of canonized beauty through the 20th century. Watch the beauty of Vivien Leigh, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Elisabeth Taylor, Shirley MacLaine, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie meld into one another.
The URL is as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEc4YWICeXk

Muses in the Arts

I found this beautiful short video of the many famous muses throughout Art History on YouTube.com. Women in Art is a three minute video morphing one famous painted lady into another displaying the work of artists like Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Renoir, Monet, Matisse, Van Gogh, Dali, Mondrian, Modigliani and more. If you have a couple of moments watch how ideas about beauty change through the ages, yet remain remarkably the same. It is gorgeous to watch.
The URL is as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVawKZcyXZc&mode=related&search=

Kelly Tunstall's NY Exhibition

I recently came into contact with Kelly Tunstall, a San Francisco based artist, whose paintings can only be described as a breath of fresh air. Her style is colorful, elegant and comical in her commentary about femininity, fashion and flirtation. Her wide eyed caricatures and adoring little animal friends peaking up through soft eyes make me wonder if I am about to get a wink. Colorful swirls, light brush strokes and a balanced composition are charming and whimsical.

See her work and biography at www.kellytunstall.com or at her next exhibition in New York. The details are as follows.


Fuse Gallery is pleased to announce "Subterranea", the anticipated exhibition for San Francisco based artists Kelly Tunstall & Ferris Plock.

A site-specific installation and series of paintings, this group of works depicts an underground realm inhabited by a world of characters inspired by New York's subways, sewers and underground tunnels.

Subterranea at Fuse Gallery | August 25 - September 15, 2007
Opening Reception | Saturday, August 25th, 7 to 10 pm
93 2nd Avenue (between 5th & 6th Streets)
NYC, NY 10003
Subway: F train to 2nd Avenue

Women in the Arts

This month we are celebrating Women in the Arts and their influence on visual perspective. This comes during the centennial month of the great Mexican painter Frida Kahlo’s birth. Frida played a significant role in the art world. Not only was she a woman who endured many physical hardships and married to one of the great mural painters of the 20th century, Diego Rivera, but she was one of the defining artists in the Surrealist movement. She was able to communicate intense physical pain and internal chaos in her paintings; staying true to a very stylized colorful darkness and culturally passionate approach.

Most importantly Frida maintained a strong sense of her own artistic identity even though she was married to one of the greatest artists of that time. While Rivera focused on outward issues both political and social in his mural work, Frida maintained more internal and personal subjects displaying her own pain, sorrow and emotional turbulence. While Rivera worked in large scale murals taking commission around the world, Frida’s work was more intimate and small in scale, but equally impacting. This contrast between the masculine view of the world and the feminine ideas about reality resulted in a beautiful artistic balance between the romantic couple.

This balance is what we are missing in our art institutions. Most of the artists canonized by our museums and history books are men, where it has been reported that only 2% are women. There are only a select few female artists who have found their place in art history. Frida’s paintings reveal a vibrant view of relationships, love and the hardships of life. Celebrate artists like her and their contribution to our understanding of the world around us and help to create a place for female artists in your community.