Bacon and Warhol

Francis Bacon (1909–1991) and Andy Warhol (1928–1987) in one exhibition?
yes, indeed it can happen.

The Norwegian museum Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art will make this happen with their exhibition "Surrounding Bacon and Warhole" which will go on 5th of May 2011 and last until 25th of September 2011.

Andy Warhol (Born Andrew Warhola August 6th in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was one of the leading artists in the Pop Art-scene.
He's known as avant-garde filmmaker ,Record Producer, commercial designer, author, and not to forget painter.
Andy Warhol was credited as a producer on The Velvet Underground & Nico, which was a self titled LP that have come to be know as the banana album due to the design.

He joins the line of the renowned painters Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-August Renoir, Gustav Klimt and Willem de Kooning with achieving the benchmark "Selling a painting for $100.000.000", which he achieved when his canvas titled "Eight Elvises" from 1963 was sold. The transaction was reported in 2009, so sadly post mortem.
His merit list is way to long to be mentioned here, but as he was an awesome man, I suggest that you read more about him on WikiPedia as well as check out some pictures on Google Image Search


Francis Bacon was born on October 28th 1909 in Ireland.
His breakthrough came in 1944 with his triptych (A painting divided in three parts, hinged together and folded) Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (Tate Collection homepage).
He was a figurative painter "known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery."
Once again, check out his page on WikiPedia and Google Image Search

And check out the presentation on Astrup Fearnleys webpages, and do check out the exhibition between May 5th and September 25th!

Dan Colen - Peanuts

So, Thursday evening was the opening of Dan Colens exhibition "Peanuts" at the Astrup Fearnley Museum.
This is his latest and biggest exhibition so far.

I arrived a bit late, so the artist talk had already begun. Curator Hanne Beate Ueland was doing the interview, which was a nice one.
She seemed a bit tense from time to time though, and I got the feeling that she had a set of questions she had to get through no matter what. For Dan Colens sake, he didn't seem all to comfortable at the end of the artist talk, and was rather satisfied when it was over.
But it was an interesting and good interview in total, and we got a good feeling about Dan's thoughts regarding his art.

You can see an interview in two parts at Astrup Fearnley site: Part 1 & Part 2

After the Artist talk, we were informed that there would be a 15 minutes break, where we were welcome to enjoy some wine and mingle, which always is nice of course.

After the break, we were all seated again - well, at least the ones that were lucky enough to get a seat, as it was crowded way beyond the number of available seats.

Then curator Gunnar B. Kvaran held a minor speech introducing the art and artistic life of Dan Colen, and after a while presented Dan Colens good friend Aaron Bondaroff a.k.a. A-ron, the man behind the brand "aNYthing" (An awesome article about him in the NY Times)

A-ron held an awesome speech accompanied by an image reel that was showing in the background. As he said himself, he had asked several friends of Dan Culen to share some images, as he wanted to present the man Dan, and his life, not only the art he makes. The speech was awesome, and I figured that Aaron Bondaroff was a man I wanted to learn more about, as he seems like an interesting guy.

After the awesome speech, he introduced the band i.U.D., which performed two tunes, and in between the two, we were asked to get up on our feets, and closer to the stage, which sat the mood before we headed downstairs to take a closer look at his art.

For the sake of the art, and for the artist, I can only direct you to SLAMXHYPE, and the pictures they have presented there.

I have to say though: I really enjoyed the evening, so thank you Dan Colen, Astrup Fearnely, Aaron Bonadroff, i.U.D. and everyone else that made the evening to be awesome!