By Natalie Blackbourne, to Museum Spotlight Europe
As the Summer days get longer, enjoy more time exploring your favorite venues! Some of the hottest exhibits this year range from pre-historical artifacts to famous collages. Treat yourself to these unforgettable galleries and learn something novel about your favorite artist – or find a new artistic master to appreciate.
If Vienna is on your list this summer, check out the surreal images of Mark Rothko. At the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria, you can peruse the works of the American abstract artist from the mid- 20th century. Rothko drew inspiration from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts, as well as the paintings of the Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age. Although he was very well-educated and spoke multiple languages, his artistic skills did not originate from formal training. A collection of over forty of the artist’s ethereal paintings from his early figurative works to the color-field piece that made him famous in the 1960s will be available until June 30th, 2019.
Fossils, sculptures, and Paleolithic engravings, oh my! Take a break from Modern works and stroll through the Centre Pompidou in Paris for their “Prehistory” exhibit. Did you know that Picasso, Miró, Cézanne, Klee, Giacometti, Max Ernst, Joseph Beuys, and Louis Bourgeois all drew inspiration from pre-historical art? This exhibition shows side-by-side the Paleolithic and Neolithic sculptures with their inspired twentieth century counterparts. Walk through halls of cave paintings to modern integrations such as the motion picture film, King Kong. Find this exhibit open until September 16th.
If you find yourself close to the Tate Britain in London, make sure to see Van Gogh’s inspiration of the great city itself: Van Gogh in Britain. As a young art curator, Van Gogh adored British culture, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and local artists. This exhibition includes some of his most famous works from all over the world – Shoes, Starry Night on the Rhône, L’Arlésienne, and two pieces he made while a patient at the Saint-Paul Asylum: At Eternity’s Gate and Prisoners Exercising. If you missed Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London’s National Gallery, you’ll be able to see it here alongside his lesser known works. The exhibition also displays British artists who were inspired by Van Gogh, including Francis Bacon, David Bomberg, and the young Camden Town Painters. Catch Van Gogh at the Tate Britain until August 11th.
For a truly unique and enthralling exhibit, take a look at “Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival” at the La Triennale Design Museum, in Milan, Italy. In this creative experience, the museum explores “design-based solutions to humankind’s fraught relationship with the environment,” and it includes more than 120 projects ranging from recycling initiatives to human and nonhuman collaborations. These “nonhuman collaborations” include an orb of bees that react to different chemicals and odors. In a remarkable piece,“The Great Animal Orchestra,” you can hear the sounds of wild habitats from the past thirty years. You can observe these delights until September 1st, 2019.
Speaking of Giacometti, Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain, has a display of the modern influencer’s artwork until July 7th. There are over eighteen sculptures and two oil paintings from both public and private collections. According to el Museo, Giacometti saw art as “a single and simultaneous place in which time past and present converged.” Most notably, the artist never actually visited Spain, while his artwork was heavily inspired by pieces on loan in Geneva from el Museo in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. This exhibition also includes some of the most profound creators who inspire Giacometti, like Dürer, Raphael, Tintoretto, El Greco, Goya, and Velázquez.
In an exhibit where poetry meets canvas, Anselm Kiefer’s Books and Woodcuts focuses on the connection between Kiefer’s art and literature. At the Astrup Fearnley Museet Oslo, you can see the aspiring poet’s works as his elegant depictions of books grace the walls. This exhibition of paintings, sculptures, woodcuts, and artist’s books will be at the museum until September 15th, 2019.
The first survey exhibition of collage, Cut and Past: 400 Years of Collage is at the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art from June 29th until October 27th, 2019. The exhibit boasts over 250 works rangings sixteenth-century anatomical “flap prints” to computer-based images, nineteenth century do-it-yourself collage kits to bits of film from the 1960s. These pieces are done by amateurs, professionals, and unknown artists. You can see collages from children side-by-side with cubist masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. While collage is considered to be a modern technique, the museum aims to show the history spanning over four hundred years.
Late Autumn and Winter can be a most enjoyable time in Europe – most tourists have left, and the weather is more enticing to spend time indoors. Take the opportunity to see some famous artists, along with some that are just recently arriving to the spotlight, all the way into early 2020.
If you find yourself in Venice, take a look at the artwork of Jannis Kounellis at the Fondazione Prada at Ca’ Corner della Regina. Kounellis was a leading figure of “Arte Povera,” a term used to describe young Italian artists who rejected traditional processes and materials. The seventy works include with canvases featuring numbers and letters mimicking those on the streets of Rome, to pieces incorporating everyday materials. This is the first major exhibition since the artist died in 2017, and it will run until November 24, 2019.
The National Gallery in London from October 26 to January, 2020 will host a highly anticipated show of over fifty pieces. This is the first exhibition ofPaul Gauguin’s portraits, and only his portraits. The feature will focus on the works from later in his life and career, where he moved from Impressionism to Symbolism. Stroll through paintings, works on paper, and three-dimensional objects in a variety of media.
In honor of the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo DaVinci, the Musée de Louvre pays tribute to the Florentine artist with an extraordinary exhibition. All five of the large Leonardo works will be on display, in addition to upwards of seventeen paintings now attributed to him, drawings, and international loans – including drawings from the Royal Collection of Queen Elizabeth II. There is also a number of sculptures from the great master, along with modern research and information on the Louvre’s latest restoration techniques. This exhibition runs from October 24–February 24, 2020.
At the Guggenheim Bilbao in Basque Country, Spain, from October 25th, 2019 – February 16th, 2020, you can peruse Masterpieces from the Collection of the Kunsthalle Bremen, which will be a mixture of pictures, sculptures, prints and drawings. This exhibit will emphasize art from Germany and France from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Representations from the Romantic era, Impressionism, Late Impressionism, the artist colony at Worpswede, and Expressionism will all be included. Famous works will be shown side by side: pieces by French Impressionists Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir will be close to their German counterparts: Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, and Max Slevogt. This conversation-starting event will be one not to miss!
