Note from the LA Times Culture Monsters:

Just over a year ago, New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum completed a three-year restoration project for its great landmark building by Frank Lloyd Wright. Among much else, the beautifully done project put a grayish white skin on the original corkscrew building, visually separating it from the undistinguished annex added in the rear in 1992.

The renovation was done in time for the Guggenheim's 50th anniversary celebration — and, happily, in time for the celebratory Vasily Kandinsky retrospective, on view now. Kandinsky (1866-1944) was among the small handful of authentic revolutionaries in Modern art. The big retrospective draws heavily on the incomparable Kandinsky collections at museums in Munich, Paris and New York, but the relationships between his achievements and Wright's remarkable building are one of the unique pleasures of seeing the show at the Guggenheim.

I'll have a full review of the Kandinsky retrospective in Sunday's paper.

– Christopher Knight

Photo: Vasily Kandinsky, “Impression III (Concert)” 1911. Credit: Guggenheim Museum

Originally posted here:
Art review: ‘Kandinsky’ at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

David Hockney is one of the most thoughtful and prolific artists of the late 20th century with own unique dialogue with southern California.

NOTTINGHAM.- A major exhibition of over 60 works by David Hockney from national and international museum collections will open Nottingham Contemporary , one of the most interesting new spaces for art in the UK. Designed by leading architects Caruso St. John, the public opening is on Saturday November 14, 2009. The exhibition will re-examine Hockney’s work 1960-1968, his early years in London and Los Angeles, in the context of art today. It is the first time the early work – finishing with the iconic Californian painting “A Bigger Splash” – has been brought together since the Whitechapel retrospective of 1970, nearly 40 years ago.

David Hockney

More on Ed Rusha in the moment from ArtDaily.org.

LONDON.- This autumn, the Hayward Gallery presents a major retrospective of Ed Ruscha’s paintings, in celebration of his 50-year career. Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) is widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential artists at work today and this exhibition traces the development of his paintings across five decades, from his contributions to Pop Art in the early 1960s to his paintings comprising words and phrases and his explorations of iconic American landscapes.

Detail of Ed Ruscha's Back of Hollywood

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Major Retrospective of Ed Ruscha’s Paintings at the Hayward Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- Through October 23rd, Acquavella Galleries is exhibiting Grands Formats (Large Scale) works by renowned twentieth-century Canadian artist, Jean Paul Riopelle (1923 – 2002). The current exhibition presents a selection of Riopelle’s large-scale paintings from the early 1950s through the 1970s in addition to four monumental works on paper from the 1960s. While many of the works have been shown in important exhibitions, such as the 1981 Riopelle retrospective that travelled from the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris to major museums throughout Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela….

Jean Paul Riopelle

Read the original article here:
Acquavella Galleries Shows Large Scale Works by Jean Paul Riopelle

NEW YORK, NY.- Kandinsky, a full-scale retrospective of the paintings of Vasily Kandinsky—the visionary artist, theorist, and pioneer of abstraction—will be presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from September 18, 2009, through January 13, 2010. This comprehensive survey comprising nearly 100 of Kandinsky’s most important canvases from 1902 to 1942 is drawn primarily from the three largest repositories of the artist’s work—the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau in Munich—as well as from significant private and public collections.

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Full-Scale Retrospective of the Paintings of Vasily Kandinsky Opens at the Guggenheim

This rare opportunity to see and purchase selected works of the late San Diego artist John DeMarco begins tonight with a reception hosted by friends and asociates at Mike Borelli’s Studio (4411 Park Blvd) in University Heights, starting right now!

In-the-studio video of Heather Reilly Hiemstra, a metalsmith and custom jeweler in San Diego, discussing her LifeChain jewelry project developed for the current “Little and Large” Exhibition. Organized at multiple art galleries throughout San Diego by the San Diego Visual Arts Network, the exhibition honors the Alexander Calder jewelry retrospective coming to the San Diego Museum of Art” this summer in Balboa Park.

Heather debuts the LifeChain this Friday night in Little Italy at NoLi Notte, the successor to Kettner NIghts in the new “NoLi” (North Little Italy) art & design district, with her husband John Hiemstra (paintings) and host furniture designer Joseph Bedford at Coalesce Gallery, 2360 India Street, Little Italy, San Diego.