Sunday, April 19, 2020

The Must See Online Exhibitions Of The Moment

From Frida Kahlo and Versailles to cats in art history and the myth of Pompeii, take an online tour of the most beautiful virtual exhibitions to visit from the comfort of your own home.

Faces of Frida


In 2018, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London paid homage to the non-conformist Mexican artist with a major exhibition of clothing, archives and precious objects from her personal collection. And for those who were not lucky enough to discover this exhibition, Frida Kahlo's work is now accessible from your iPhone. How, you might ask? By connecting to the Google Arts & Culture platform, which has listed more than 800 paintings, photographs and objects belonging to the artist, which users can examine in the finest detail thanks to an ultra-precise magnifying glass system. Faces of Frida has come to light thanks to an exceptional collaborative efforts of Google and 33 museums worldwide.

Cats in Art History


Marvel at works of art honoring the cat, without going to a museum. This is what the Universal Museum of Art (UMA) in partnership with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais is offering with Cats in Art History, a virtual reality exhibition that can be visited in just a few clicks. Playful and instructive, the exhibition looks back at the place of the feline in art and its various symbols that have evolved over the centuries. As the centerpiece of a painting or discreet presence in the background, the cat wanders through many works of art, from a painting by Géricault to a poster for Rodolphe Salis's cabaret, not forgetting paintings from Ancient Egypt, where it was considered a true god. Overall, the interactive virtual reality exhibition aims to teach us a little more about our much-loved, enigmatic house panthers.

Louis Vuitton Foundation: Le parti de la peinture


From February 20 to August 26, 2019, the Louis Vuitton Foundation presented the exhibition Le parti de la peinture, a rich selection from its collection, which included works by Joan Mitchell, Alex Katz, Gerhard Richter, Ettore Spalletti and Yayoi Kusama. Among the highlights was her signature Infinity Mirror Room. Created in 1965 during her stay in New York, the installation Phalli's Field was Yayoi Kusama's very first Infinity Mirror Room, which crystallizes the hallucinations of the artist she has had since childhood, totally obsessed with peas. She often muses, “My life is a pea lost among thousands of other peas”, and the selection of works at the foundation encapsulates this idea. The exhibition was themed “A Vision For Painting”, in which a small room in entirely covered in mirrors, with psychedelic mushrooms sprouting from the ground and clusters of giant red peas peppered throughout. It is a dizzying immersion into a completely otherworldly hallucination, the mirrors reflecting into infinite, creating an overwhelming sense of endlessness. On Wednesday, April 1st, the Louis Vuitton Foundation is offering a virtual tour of the exhibition with commentary by its curators. See you on April 1 on the Foundation's website.

From Station to the Renovated Musée d'Orsay


The Musée d'Orsay, a former railway station that has become a temple of Impressionist, Realist and Pointillist painting, opened in 1986, today covers Western art from the second half of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, a period that is as short as it is rich. It also links the collections of the Louvre with those of the Centre Georges Pompidou. Among its treasures are L'Origine du monde by Gustave Courbet, The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia by Edouard Manet, Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh and The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet. Now closed during this period of confinement, the Musée d'Orsay is offering fun podcasts and virtual exhibitions. We are particularly interested in the exhibition entitled From Station to the Renovated Musée d'Orsay, which reveals the major stages in the museum's transformation, under the aegis of Google Arts & Culture.

In Tune with the World


In April 2018, the Fondation Louis Vuitton presented its major exhibition Au diapason du monde (In Tune with the World), which featured some of the great classics of contemporary art (one of Dan Flavin's neon radiant tubes), monochromes by Yves Klein, a series by Giacometti, canvases by Gerhard Richter alongside a video by Cyprien Gaillard and a suspended sculpture by Maurizio Cattelan in a didactic tour highlighting the connections between human, animal and plant life. The high point of the exhibition was the vast space devoted to Takashi Murakami, which explored themes dear to the artist, namely a Kawaii aesthetic that refers to the earthquakes that affected the country, such as the atomic bomb or the tsunami, through all the mediums he used (painting, sculpture and video). On Wednesday March 25, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, currently closed, will offer a virtual tour of this successful exhibition with commentary by its curators. We (at last) take a look back at its agenda for the good cause.

Pompeii


In 79 AD, the city of Pompeii vanished under the ashes of Vesuvius. Today, the world's most famous archaeological site is still fascinating. This month, the Grand Palais is devoting a fine exhibition to the lost city in a chronological tour that honors this city of flourishing arts and trade before the tragedy. The exhibition's main asset is the immersive 3D device that plunges visitors into the bustling streets of Pompeii on the day Vesuvius erupted. This spectacular experience is complemented by the rare display of life-size frescoes that decorated the sumptuous Pompeian villas and numerous discoveries from new excavations, such as a treasure trove of amulets, earthenware utensils, a marble rabbit and a mosaic of the nymph Ariadne and Dionysus. To make up for our current frustration, the Grand Palais decided to offer a preview of the contents of the exhibition on its website on March 25. On the programme, 4 immersive videos will plunge us into the heart of the new excavations, a mosaic restoration and the sumptuous discoveries of Orion's house. The best part? The podcast of the exhibition, which can be downloaded free of charge via the Grand Palais application.

Fashion at Versailles


Versailles is the birthplace of fashion. In the 1780s, during the reign of Louis XVI, men and women of the Court drew the outlines of a male and female fashion, which espoused every day's formal ceremonies. On its website, the Château de Versailles offers two virtual exhibitions dedicated on the one hand to the male cloakroom and its codes, and on the other to a study of the style of Marie-Antoinette, one of the first fashion icons as much adored as she was hated.

No comments:

Post a Comment