Alive Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)

Located in Seoul, South Korea, the Alive Gallery uses advanced IT technology to enhance the visitor's experience.
This enables the interaction between visitors and the characters from famous western paintings, such as The Last Supper and The Arnolfini Portrait.
It's possible that you may not need to travel far to enjoy the experience, since there's the possibility of exporting this technology to other galleries and museums, or even being developed in your own country.

Social Networking for Artists

Over the last couple of years we have seen a constant appearing of social networking websites, permiting users to make themselves noticeable to connect with people sharing similar interests.

However one sometimes thinks to what extent people are finding a right balance between the time that they pass using those websites and the time shared in person with other people.

What The Art Inquirer wants to suggest is to use those social networks to bring people together, namely artists.

Instead of using those websites to only communicate, you can use them to arrange meetings with other artists and develop your artistic skills.

You can look for artists who share similar interests, or different ones if you want to learn new subjects or media, find them by using geographical options (if the network has that option) and so on.

This can work especially well for "plein air" painters or potential ones who have the desire to go paint outside but still didn't find the guts to or someone to go with.Of course that is advisable to have some information about the people that one is going to meet with and going with someone already known is advisable. One should also choose a non isolated spot, unless of course one already knows the person or group.

Working with other artists will enlight your artistic perceptions and develop your skills, besides the positive fact of doing new friendships.

Usually it's not permited to post links on comments, but if you have any ideas about this, are thinking about joining or forming a plein air painting group, or are already part of one, you are welcomed to leave a link.

image found at webtreatsmysitemyway

Museum of Chinese in America

Design by the artist and arquitect Maya Lyn (known for creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC), the new building of the Museum of Chinese in America was inaugurated this September 22nd.

Occupying a once machine shop at the 215 of Centre Street, the building features a sky-lit courtyard that opens onto exhibition galleries, a research center, an auditorium and a space for public programmes.

An historical look upon the chinese immigrant culture in the US and the museum's first exhibition of contemporary work by artists of chinese descent living in New York, "Here & Now: Chinese Artists in New York", are included in the inaugural show.

Organized into three parts, with the first one running until November 2nd and featuring the artists Cui Fei, Lin Yan, Xu Bing and Yun-Fei Ji.

The other two will open on November 19th and January 10th.

Casa das Histórias Paula Rego

The museum dedicated to the portuguese artist Paula Rego was inaugurated on August 18th with an exhibition dedicated to the work of the artist between 1987 and 2008, including paintings loaned by the Marlborough Gallery.
Featured are also other artworks such as "Life Painting" (1954), created when studying at the Slade School of Fine Art (London).
Many of those paintings depict the female model Lila Nunes, Paula Rego's favourite model since 1988 and who also was Victor Willing's nurse.
Design by the portuguese arquitect Eduardo Souto Moura, the Casa das Histórias de Paula Rego museum has 750sq. meters, featuring an auditorium with a capacity for 200 people, a library, bookstore and spaces for permanent and temporary exhibitions.
The artist has loaned several paintings to the museum, including 15 by her later husband Victor Willing (1928-1988). for a renewable period of 10 years.
Among the several works of art, including 257 etchings and 278 drawings, the visitor may see a large tapestry based upon the work "Alcácer Quibir".
With free admitance between 10am and 10pm, the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego museum will present two temporary exhibitions per year (Spring and Autumn).

Stop-Motion Animation by Eleanor Stewart

Hoedown from Rodeo from Eleanor Stewart on Vimeo.

Graduated by the Visual Communication at the Glasgow School of Art, Eleanor Stewart has created this cutout stop-motion animation inspired by Westerns.
The musical score is called "Hoedown", from the Rodeo Suite by Aaron Copland.
Eleanor did this work for her final year degree.

XVI Galeria Aberta - Beja 2009

Resulting from the colaboration between the city council of Beja and the Jorge Vieira Museum, the Galeria Aberta event has brought together artists and public througout the years, with a consistent increase of the number of participants and visitors.

Now on its sixteenth edition and with an aproximate number of three hundred artists and circa five hundred artworks, the opening of the 2009 edition has proven to be a well organized event, result of a dedicated group of people who have put their effort into turning this into a great experience for artists and visitors.

Such fact was noticeable through the judicious distribution of the artworks and a well thoughout catalog.

The Mayor of Beja, Francisco Santos, interacted in a very positive way, showing interest about the event, as well as the artistic director of the museum, Rui Pereira and the other people involved in this project, who's names are too many to mention but are equally important.

As a featured event, this year the Galeria Aberta hosts the works of the rewarded artists from the Contest/Exhibition "Banco dos Artistas da Cidade da Horta" in Azores.

The city council of Horta has been actively participating in cultural partnerships with the Jorge Vieira Museum and was represented by its culture department town-councilor Maria do Céu Brito.

The XVI Galeria Aberta - Beja 2009 is a cultural event without restrictions of style, medium or subject, where artists from several status and countries are invited to express their creativity.

Besides the Jorge Vieira Museum, the other participating venues are the Galeria dos Escudeiros, Galeria Desassossego and Casa da Cultura.

One of the most important moments of the day was the attribution of prizes and honourable mentions, with the winning artists receiving sincere applauses by their coleagues.

A final word must go to a detail that although not a key factor, is the proof that the organizers of this event did their best : the buffet was of very good quality.

The event takes place from September 12th, through October 24th.

Artist Bill Guffey Uses Google Street View

Bill Guffey is an artist born in Kentucky, where he now resides, with passings through Colorado and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Member of the Oil Painters of America, he was awarded a grant through the Kentucky Arts Council and was accepted into the All Kentucky Juried Fine Art Exhibition 2008.
Using Google Street View, Bill paints views from around the world, including european and north american cities. In fact, the artist has recently finished a series of one painting from each state, with the exception of Hawaii where Street View is not available yet.
The artist is also an author of the Virtual Paintout blog, to which artists can submit their Street View based artworks.
The online version of the Daily Mail has an interesting article where you can compare Bill's paintings with the virtual views.

A Short Story About Quality

Although the primary reason for doing art is usually the simple joy of doing it, one of the main objectives of most artists is to make money from it.
We all know how difficult it can be to gain visibility and being represented by a gallery, even with some good connexions.
The internet has permited artists to show their artwork to a vast public, but the competition is huge and many times people are reluctant about buying online.
How can you convince the public to buy from you ?
Besides the usual marketing strategies, there is one word that will help you alot : quality.
Your online presence must transmit quality to the viewer, not only in terms of your website or blog, but especially your artwork.
When you are selling online, most of the people visiting your website don't know you and the only thing that will probably make them want to buy your art is its quality.
But let me tell you about something that happened to confirm what you have been reading.
I sign a newsletter of an artist who's work I appreciate and when she posts a new painting on her blog, I get the news about it.
Yesterday I opened the newsletter and saw this painting that I truly enjoyed, it was of great quality and I even thought about acquiring it.
After I clicked the link, a word confirmed the quality of this painting : "SOLD".

The artist João Rodrigues Vieira passed away

Born in Vidago (Trás-os-Montes), October 4th 1934, João Rodrigues Vieira entered the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes de Lisboa ( Fine Arts Superior School of Lisbon) in 1951, where he attended the first two years of the painting course.
The artist starting exhibiting in 1956, the same year when he joined the group of the Café Gelo.
João Vieira shared a studio over this cafe with Gonçalo Duarte, José Escada and René Bertholo.
Later in Paris, these four together with Christo, Jan Voss and Lourdes Castro form the group KWY and publish a magazine with the same name.
In 1959 the Galeria Diário de Notícias presents his first individual exhibition and in that same year he receives a scholarhip from the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, permiting his return to Paris, where he starts working with Arpad Szenes, while maintaining his collaboration with the KMY group.
After a passage through London, where he teached at the Maidstone College of Art, João Vieira returns to Lisbon in 1967 and starts working as a set painter.
In what fine art is concerned, the artist becomes well known by his paintings of letters.
João Rodrigues Vieira passed away on August the 5th, 2009, after being submited to a heart surgery the day before.