Empty Suits: The Art of Charles LeDray

The business world is full of what can be most kindly called “empty suits”—individuals who look the part but hollowly fulfill positions of power. In the art world, the empty suit isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially when the “tailor” is Charles LeDray. In Charles LeDray: workworkworkworkwork, an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art through February 13, 2011, one of the best kept secrets of contemporary art comes out into the open. An artist working alone on meticulously detailed miniatures of everyday life, LeDray speaks of larger truths through a materialism that continually reminds us of emptiness.

Groninger Museum

By the late 1980s, the Praediniussingel building that had accommodated the Groninger Museum for 100 years, had become too small for the museum’s modern and contemporary art, fashion and design, and historic arts collections and exhibits. By 1994, new premises on the Verbindings Canal in Groningen, in the northern Netherlands, were designed by the Italian Alessandro Mendini and guest architects Philippe Starck from Paris, Italian Michele de Lucchi and the Coop Himmelb(l)au group based in Vienna and Los Angeles.

Tom Fruin’s Outdoor Sculpture – Kolonihavehus

New York artist Tom Fruin’s outdoor sculpture Kolonihavehus in the plaza of the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen has the appearance of a friendly and colorful stained-glass house, yet it also evokes thoughts of churches and Charles Rennie Macintosh.

Why Street Art Matters

Some city councils get it, others don’t. Tapping the creative talents of street artists, illustrators and graphic designers is an effective and cool way to make bland public spaces, old buildings, bridges and car parks new again, and to freshen up the concrete jungle. It is also an effective way of keeping graffiti away. Plus it draws attention to the building or structure as “potential” not as something to be hated. Maybe it will even bring a buyer, a new occupant or additional creative ideas about how to revitalize the building? Anything but the current dilapidated state of abandoned spaces!

Winter’s three best art exhibitions around the world

The Huffington Post posted on its website a list of the three best art exhibitions in museums around the world, prepared by the art critic Edward Goldman:

1. ‘Ensor and Contemporary Art’ in Ghent, Belgium:

The beautiful ancient city of Ghent in Belgium is currently hosting James Ensor’s exhibition at SMAK (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst): Ensor and Contemporary Art, which runs through February 27. Even at the start of the 21st century, Ensor’s subjects and points of view remain resoundingly up to date. Such subjects as the mask and the grotesque, social critique, the self-portrait, the identification with Christ, the masses, satire and death have after all lost none of their relevance in the contemporary visual art.