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• The Salt Lake City edition of Examiner.com ran an article about one of Mondo's artists, John Bell.   Read more here.
• The Marina Abramovic retrospective show at the MoMA has caused a few museum-goers to forget one of the primary rules in art: Look but don't touch.  The show involves nude performers reenacting some of Abramovic's earlier pieces.  For more read the NYTimes.com article.
• The Detroit Institute of Art is hosting an exhibit "Through African Eyes."  The show presents the African view of Europeans through the last 500 years; that "Europeans remained at least as exotic to Africans as Africans were to them."  The show includes historical items such as toys made by children during South Africa's apartheid.  the NYTimes.com reports.
• The Whitney Museum is planning a temporary site specific show on the site that it may purchase as its second location.  This project will involve artists who have maintained good working relationships with the museum.  Read more here.
• El Museo del Barrio presents "Phantom Sightings," a show about post Chicano art.  Historically Chicano influence didn't have a large influence on society, but during the 1960s and 70s Chicano art established its influence.  The show will be on display through May 9, 2010.  Read more on E-Flux.com.
• "Manufacturing Today," a show questioning how art and art education are affected by art market institutionalization or the streamlining of the state.  The five year research project focuses on questions such as: "Are today's art schools simply places that produce students as a product for the market, and is there an alternative to this situation?"  The show opens in Kulturbunker Dora, Normay April 17, 2010 and runs through May 16, 2010.  Check it out here.
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• A series of talks about museums will take place through out the year at the Museum fur Moderne Kunst.  The talks focus on how running museums has changed from a place to exhibit to a place of production, research, and curatorial practice.  Read more on E-Flux.com.
• Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany has dedicated an extensive solo exhibition to Liam Gillick, a leading contemporary conceptual artist.  The show exhibits over 350 of Gillick's works and runs through August 8, 2010.
• For the last couple days HyperAllergic.com contributor An Xiao has been moderating a discussion via the HyperAllergic Facebook page about how artists produce "social media art."  Read some of the responses here.

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, an earthwork sculpture on the north end of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, turns 40 this month. In 1970 artist Robert Smithson created what many consider his most famous work, the Spiral Jetty.  He said of the site "As I looked at the site, it reverberated out to the horizons only to suggest an immobile cyclone."  The blood-red color of the water, caused by certain bacteria and algae, was also influential in deciding on the location.  This 'vision' was soon to become what we see today. For construction, Smithson hired a local contractor to haul the 6,550 tons of material into the lake.  Smithson used mud, precipitated salt crystals, and basalt rocks to create the 1,500 foot long, 15 feet wide installation in only six days. A few years after the jetty was built, the lake rose and submerged it for nearly three decades.  The jetty is now visible due to a drought in the state. To celebrate the birthday of it's creation, Mondo Fine Art will be coordinating a sunset field trip to the Spiral Jetty on Friday, April 30, 2010.  We will be meeting downtown Salt Lake City (location TBD) at 5:30 pm to carpool, or feel free to meet us there (approx. 7 pm). If you are interested in joining us, please email us at info@mondofineart.com by April 27th. If you can't make it with Mondo, head up there another time to see one of Utah's most famous links to the art world.  For driving directions click here.  Four-wheel drive vehicles are advised. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smithson http://www.robertsmithson.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/spiraljetty

• Galerie Lelong will host a commemoration show six months after the death of American artist Nancy Spero.  Spero became famous for her "War Series" in the late 1960s by attempting to "express the obscenity of war."  The commemorative show will take place Sunday April 18, 2010.  For more info click here.
• A visual arts professor at the University of California San Diego claimed civil disobedience as a form of art.  The professor helped stage an electronic "sit-in" as a protest to budget cuts.  Read more on ArtNet.com. 
• The Wall Street Journal reports that football and art are now complementary.  The Dallas Cowboys stadium reopened this year with art from 14 local and international artists, including Olafur Eliasson.
• Street artist Banksy is reported to have released a film, "Exit Through the Gift Shop," about himself.  The film attempts to establish Banksy as sincere in the art world despite some of the stunts he's pulled.  Critics are skeptical that the real Banksy even endorses the film.  Read the article on NYTimes.com.
• The Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Arts will host a show titled "PowerGames."  The exhibit will focus on how art affects society and politics.  The show runs through May 30, 2010.  Read more about artists and concepts involved on E-Flux.com.
• The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents two exhibits May-July 2010: "Perspectives 170: Cruz Ortiz" and "Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft."  For more info visit E-Flux.com or the museum's website.
• Art Cologne will open April 21-25, 2010 with large-format contemporary works.  Two halls will be turned into exhibition space for sculpture and installation.  Check it out on E-Flux.com.
• In Stockholm Sweden Bonniers Konsthall is hosting a show titled Runaway Train.  The show features Swedish artists who study or work abroad and how that affects their art.  Check it out here.

Eva Rorandelli is an extremely accomplished contemporary artist.  Eva has studied art extensively, including in Italy and New York.  Her works have been exhibited throughout the world in Milan, Florence, Paris, Torino, Sacramento, Vermont, New York, Rome, Beijing, San Francisco, and New Mexico. Someone who has specifically inspired Eva as an artist is German artist Anselm Kiefer.  Eva says "He has a wonderful view of philosophy, magic and alchemy in his work, and I love how he thinks three-dimensionally with his paintings. He works on very large scale ambitious pieces; they are at once contemporary and historical, filled with memory but not sentimental. These are all qualities that I am interested in maintaining in my own work." To see some of her available works with Mondo Fine Art, click HERE.

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  Whitney Museum

  The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is exploring the idea of opening a new museum to house a greater collection of art.  Currently the Whitney owns nearly 18,000 works of art and  has the capacity to show only about 150 at a time.  Two years ago when Leonard A. Lauder donated of $131 million, he requested that the museum keep the current location on Madison Avenue.  Talks of a new space have created a division in the museum's board.  NYTimes.com reports.
• LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Spain presents a show titled El Proceso Como Paradigma April 23-August 30, 2010.  The show focuses on the creative processes behind innovative contemporary art.  The artists begin to move into "the uncertain territory of unpredictability and successive live generation of form" to create new and innovative pieces.  For more click here.
• South Korea will host its first international art fair, Art Gwangju September 1-5, 2010.  The event is intended to bring together contemporary art and design and will take place in conjunction with the Gwangju Biennale.  For more info about the show, or the application process see the official website or E-Flux.com.
• A preview of the new reality show "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist" took place last week.  Read Michael Wilson's opinion on ArtForum.com.
• The European Artistic Reach Network is hosting a show, Tables of Thought, at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts April 28-29, 2010.  The show focuses on the "urge for disciplinary knowledge and the constant subversion of this by artistic thinking."  To learn more visit E-Flux.com.
  

  Flavio de Carvalho

• The Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo in Brazil is set to open new shows this week, running from April 15-June 13, 2010.  Each room will present different works, including those of Flávio de Carvalho.  The facade will also feature a mural by street artists.  For more check out the article on E-Flux.com.
• The Venezuelan government is supporting the political works of street artists.  The government is financing the art of several muralists and street artists in the capital city of Caracas.  Anti-American, pro-Hugo Chávez and many other political images adorn the streets of the city.  Check out the NYTimes.com article.

by Mary Cowan Ernesto Pujol's performance piece "Awaiting" ended Friday morning at 7:15 am.  Over 40 participants dressed in white, composed of University of Utah students and artists from Utah, walked for over 12 hours straight on the steps of the Utah State Capitol.  The performers walked slowly in a counterclockwise direction on the south stairs.  Pujol worked with these volunteers and local artist Rosi Hayes, who compiled the soundtrack for the event, to create his event. Although the performers were, for the most part, uniform in action and attitude, there were a few interesting deviations.  Just before the performance was to end, a woman gained some support through her last half hour of walking by who seemed to be a husband and daughter.  One performer picked up a pair of skis and boots he had brought (not part of the performance) and silently left the performance.  At 7:15 Friday morning, just as the clouds were beginning to turn pink with the sunrise, the performers slowly began to break their walking routine.  Silently, these performers who had walked or stood throughout the entire night slowly congregated at the bottom of the steps facing north.  All at once the silent walkers turned towards the city and then slowly began trickling back into the world as silently as they came. In an interview with 15 Bytes, Pujol talked about how time played an important role in the piece.  In a world where people expect things to happen instantaneously, and distractions are frequent, Pujol wanted viewers to know that "the first feature of durational performance art is an experience of time on the body of the performer, time on the body of the audience..."  This caused viewers to slow down and think about their own experiences with the passage of time.  Also, to wonder if it is even possible to be performing the same task for such an extended period of time. Pujol considers the culture in Utah as a culture of waiting.  He says "You toil, but then you wait for that work to somehow be blessed by a mysterious greater force... It is definitely not a passive waiting. It is about a very laborious, missionary, active people and space, but with waiting as its existential backdrop."  This piece was a reflection of people continuously working and walking and waiting. CatalystMagazine.net interviewed Ernesto Pujol to find out his inspiration.  "I was struck by the Hill," said the New York based artist, "as a high place in the city, a monochromatic background: the stone and marble and concrete. And as a kind of Jacob's Ladder of yearning—that vision of seeing bodies move up and down between earth and sky. Angelic bodies." Pujol also gained inspiration from his past experiences as a Trappist monk and with his current practice of Zen Buddhism.  The artist is "driven to focus on the persistent human desire for immortality."  Creating the performance in an outdoor arena forced the participants and viewers to feel a connection between the earth and the heavens.  The silence, the absence of distraction, allows the audience and the viewers to reflect on this connection between the elements and their individual desires for immortality. Ernesto Pujol and the "Awaiting" performers will meet again at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts Wednesday April 21 from 6-7 pm to discuss the experience in making this piece. Click here to see the UMFA details.

For more about Ernesto Pujol visit: http://www.ernestopujol.org

To see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i-npj7cgGI

• Artist Jeff Koons has been selected to design BMW's latest Art Car.  Koons has decided to paint the M3 GT2 with streaks of color, similar to those used in sci-fi movies, to denote movement and speed.  Koons researched the history of graphics on race cars and even rode in a few to understand the feeling of racing.  Check out other Art Cars here, or the article on NYTimes.com.
• The SFMoMA recently acquired 25 works from the collection of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo.  The works included five of Bruce Nauman's works.  The NYTimes.com has a short article.
• Amid the world wide economic downturn, museums are scaling back on major renovations and using cheaper local companies to do small scale work.  Read here for more info.
• In New York the MoMA is planning a discussion forum about the way theater and performance art effect the contemporary art scene.   The discussion, Audience Experiments, is on May 18, 2010.  E-Flux.com reports here.
• The Tate Modern in London is seeking a new director.  Applications are accepted through April 26, 2010.  Hopefully the new director can continue the Tate's success.  Click here for more information.
• The Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid  will create several "discovery spaces" in several locations to combine contemporary art with new cinema.  The event will bring in 30 artists and host numerous screenings.  For more, visit the official website.
• Sotheby's plans to host a second Turkish Contemporary Art fair after the success of the inaugural fair in 2009.   On April 15, 2010 the art sale of Turkish "modern masters" and contemporary art will take place.  Read more on ArtKnowledgeNews.com
• Research findings from the Guggenheim museums are now available online.  Objects of interest, records and notes from lectures are now posted for public use at Guggenheim.org.
• Acquavella Galleries in New York has acquired 44 pieces for a show featuring the collection of Robert C. and Ethel Scull.  Scull is known for aggressively collecting what turned out to be very valuable Pop-Art.   Read more on NYTimes.com.

• B.P.S.22 in Belgium is hosting a show dedicated to the sport of football (soccer).  The exhibit explores football as it could mirror the world as it is, and runs through July 11, 2010.  Read more about the primary pieces on E-Flux.com.
• An Australian art auction house, Duetscher and Hackett has created a joint venture with an online auction firm.  The venture is to make art available to a wider audience by merging physical auctions with online auctions.  The Art Newspaper posted a short article.
• HyperAllergic.com says that South African artist William Kentridge had numerous failures before he became the famous artist he is today.  After "failing" as a painter, actor and filmmaker Kentridge resigned himself to being an "artist."   Kentridge's work is currently on exhibit at the MoMA through May 17, 2010.  For more info on the exhibit and a list of his lectures check out the website.
• Installation artist Pae White will create a piece for the Tube in London.  The piece will involve Seasonal-Affective-Disorder lights, bringing "daylight to the underground."  Read more in The Art Newspaper's article.
• Rhizome.org reports that 3D film is becoming quite popular online, especially after the popular movie Avatar brought 3D movies mainstream.  Grab your 3D glasses and check out these videos.
• The New York Times has an article about the Henri Cartier-Bresson retrospective at the MoMA.  Cartier-Bresson traveled extensively taking photographs all over the world for nearly forty years.  Read more highlights of his life and accomplishments here.

Get to know John Bell, as he takes you through his studio, home, and creative process. To read more on John Bell and see available artwork, CLICK HERE.

• In conjunction with its show "Haunted" the Guggenheim New York presents a reception with five of the artists.  A short program, private exhibit viewing and reception will take place with each artist.  For info on dates and how to get tickets click here.
• The New York Times reports on Vollis Simpson, a 91-year-old self taught 3D artist who has gained fame in the short time he's been making whirligigs and windmills.  Although most of his art is relatively small, he was commissioned to complete a piece for the Inner Harbor in Baltimore that's nearly 55 feet tall.  To read more about his works check out the NYTimes article.
• The Museum Kunst Palast in Germany April 4,2010 - August 1, 2010 hosts a show of post-WWII abstract expressionism.  The show focuses on art which is described as "disjointed and disillusioned, but also highly motivated by moral and existential issues."  Read a short review on E-Flux.com.
• E-Flux reports on the Art Dubai fair as it closed.   The art fair was reported to be very successful in that it had a record attendance of 18,000 and sold much of the work.
• The BBC ran an opinion piece about artists depicting war.  Countries have been sending artists, in addition to journalists, to war to document the scene.  The article reports that wartime art has become increasingly popular.  Click here for more.
• An article in the TimesOnline highlights the resurgence of contemporary art into churches.  Although churches and cathedrals once commissioned artists frequently, the practice of hiring a contemporary artist to complete a piece for a church building has been in remission for decades if not centuries.  The author states that much of art history came from religious pieces and that artists would often rise to the occasion by making some of their best work.  Read more here.