Tag: museum exhibition

SXSW 2016: Frank Frazetta masterpieces exhibited at The Robert Rodriguez Museum

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  • Photography provided by The Robert Rodriguez Museum.
  • “Death Dealer” by Frank Frazetta. Photography provided by The Robert Rodriguez Museum.
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    “Earths Core” by Frank Frazetta. Photography provided by The Robert Rodriguez Museum.
  • “Man Ape” by Frank Frazetta. Photography provided by The Robert Rodriguez Museum.
  • “Dark Kingdom” by Frank Frazetta. Photography provided by The Robert Rodriguez Museum.

On Mar. 8, 2016 an official press release was shared by FONS PR announcing that Robert Rodriguez is curating a Frank Frazetta art gallery exclusively for The 2016 SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Conferences and Festivals in Austin, Texas. Original art pieces created by the infamous Frank Frazetta, the gallery is endlessly colorful, hypnotic, intense, enchanting and darkling. Showcasing Frazetta’s spellbinding fantasy artwork to the city of Austin and all the travelers from around the world attending SXSW. This spectacular and rare exhibition is open to the public for an entry fee of $10. Please note that SXSW badges are not necessary for entry to the museum.

FONS PR granted local Arts and Entertainment Examiner, Nicolette Mallow, with permission to replicate their official press release stated below to help spread the word of art to the city of Austin.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Robert Rodriguez curates museum featuring original Frank Frazetta masterpieces.

SXSW 2016 gallery event runs March 12-19, 2016 in Austin, Texas.

For a limited time only during SXSW 2016, Robert Rodriguez is proud to present a curated collection of original art, including twelve masterwork paintings by iconic artist Frank Frazetta, including original paintings like “Death Dealer”. Considered to be the most influential fantasy artist in history, Frazetta contributed iconic artwork to classic works of fiction for Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars among others. Other notable artwork being featured is artwork from the upcoming Rodriguez film “Fire and Ice” based on the works of Frank Frazetta.

The gallery will also feature an original “Sin City” masterpiece by Frank Miller, original art by Drew Struzan including his rendering of Sylvester Stallone for the movie poster “First Blood”, and original poster art for “The Thing”. Original paintings by New Pop Art master Sebastian Krüger including hyper real paintings of Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Danny Trejo. Bronzed art sculptures from Clete Shields. Shields’ work has been commissioned by Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez and Samuel L. Jackson.

In addition, the gallery will feature original movie props from Rodriguez’s films and painted portraits of characters from Rodriguez’s films between Rodriguez himself and his actors including paintings by Josh Brolin, Rosario Dawson, Lady Gaga, Bruce Willis, and Joseph Gordon Levitt. There will also be a selection of hand numbered giclée prints of Frazetta pieces photographed and printed by Robert Rodriguez available for purchase. Proceeds from the prints and merchandise benefit the preservation of Frank Frazetta’s art.

Robert Rodriguez has been touring Frank Frazetta original art at Comic Con and Wizard Con to continue the wish of Frank Frazetta, a friend and collaborator of Robert’s who always wanted audiences to see his paintings in person. The original Frazetta museum in upstate New York closed after the passing of Frank Frazetta in 2010. The Rodriguez museum features other world class artists Robert has also worked with and studied under over the years, with art that he’s collected himself, and others that are on exclusive loan for this event. The Frank Frazetta Collection has an unprecedented amount of original masterpieces including new additions “Moon Maid”, “Flash Gordon”, “Kubla Khan” as well as “Death Dealer 2”, “Egyptian Queen”, “At the Earth’s Core”, “Conan Man Ape” and “Dark Kingdom”, and a rare original painting Frazetta did for the movie “From Dusk Till Dawn” among others, 15 original masterpiece paintings total.

“I’m extremely excited to host this very special event at South by Southwest, featuring mind-blowing art by my favorite artists and collaborators,” said filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. “It’s the only place in the world where you can see original Frank Frazetta art, 15 masterpiece paintings total, alongside original art by Frank Miller, Drew Struzan, Sebastian Kruger and Clete Shields. There’s no other museum like this.”

The gallery will be open daily to the public until Saturday, Mar. 19th from noon to 5 PM. The gallery will have a $10 entrance fee benefiting the preservation of Frank Frazetta art. SXSW badges are not required for entry to the art gallery. The Robert Rodriguez Museum is located at 920 Congress Ave. in Austin, Texas.

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“Santanico” painting in progress by Eiza Gonzalez and Robert Rodriguez. Photography by Nicolette Mallow.

 Note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com in March 2016.

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The Crusader Bible: A Gothic Masterpiece illuminates The Blanton Museum of Art

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“Crusader Bible: A Gothic Masterpiece” – The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin.

Showcased by The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin, The Crusader Bible: A Gothic Masterpiece is a traveling art gallery highlighting an illuminated Medieval manuscript from the 13th century. Traveling to seven different countries in the world over a timeline of seven centuries, this French Gothic manuscript from the Middle Ages is created by seven anonymous artists. Depicting selected stories from the Old Testament, retold in the era and culture of Medieval period, originally this one-of-a-kind manuscript was designed to be a picture-book without any script. These colorful illustrations were intended to portray biblical stories without any annotations, explaining why each drawing is so very graphic, specific and characteristic. However, as the Crusader Bible journeyed seven times from France to Italy, Poland, Persia, Egypt, England and the United States: alterations were made and inscriptions were added in various languages, including Latin, Persian and Juedo-Persian.

Upon entrance into The Crusader Bible: A Gothic Masterpiece, the rooms of the gallery are glittering with 40 illuminated pages of gold leafs (pure gold that has been hammered down into thin sheets). The gold is still so remarkably shiny that it’s almost hard to believe this manuscript is nearly 1000 years old. Even under dimmed lighting within a museum, the gold leafs on the pages are so prominent and bold that the display cases within the gallery shine similarly to a jewelry display case. Fortunately the Crusader Bible has withstood the tests of time and it comes to no surprise that these handmade manuscripts are very challenging to make, often taking many years to complete. There is a very specific and thorough process to creating illuminated manuscripts, beginning with the preparation of the parchment paper. Parchment paper derives from animal skin and once it’s finished after weeks of preparation. Then scribes would begin inscriptions. Once the scribe had finished their task, the illuminator left its mark on the parchment paper before sending the manuscript over to bindery. An illumniator is the artist whom illuminated the manuscript with silver or gold leafing. They were responsible for lighting up the pages with precious metals.

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Silver, gold and colorful illuminations aren’t the only part of the Crusader Bible that catch the eye. The carbon black inscriptions also carry a dominant presence. Admiring all the various scripts in different languages is quite compelling because it notes the seven foreign locations and cultures the Crusader Bible ventured to. The number seven is believed to be a divine number of truth and mysticism within numerology studies and spiritual texts. Therefore it’s an interesting coincidence that the number seven plays such a predominant and powerful role in the history of the Crusader Bible. Furthermore, the black calligraphy is immaculate in every language and it took scribes endless hours to complete the script; using a quill pen to write the script and a knife to cut away ink errors when necessary. The carbon black ink used by the scribes is referred to as lampblack. And even though most of us cannot read Latin, Persian or Juedo-Persian. With the use of modern technology and an application called Layar, guests can scan the Medieval manuscript and the application translates it for you right that instant.

Additionally, this special exhibit also features European arms and armor, an illustrated book from Persia, and a large display case featuring many of the tools, rocks, metals and pigments used to inscribe, illustrate and illuminate the parchment paper. There is also a video to regard the process from preparing the parchment paper to the final result in bindery. The Crusader Bible: A Gothic Masterpiece will be on display until April 3, 2016. For more information regarding The Blanton Museum of Art and its hours of operation, admission, upcoming exhibitions or membership, please call 512-471-7324 or visit www.blantonmuseum.org.

“The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin presents The Crusader Bible: A Gothic Masterpiece, an exhibition of over forty unbound pages from the one of the most celebrated French illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. The illuminations include some of the most compelling visualizations of the Old Testament, bringing Bible stories to life through vivid images that reflect medieval culture and the world of the Crusades. Designed to resonate with thirteenth-century French viewers, biblical characters are depicted as battling knights, equipped with contemporary arms and armor, and situated within medieval French towns. Loans from the Metropolitan Museum, including a shirt of mail, sword, prick spur, and war hat, will augment visitors’ understanding of the weaponry featured in the Crusader Bible. On loan from the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, the Crusader Bible features Old Testament scenes in medieval settings, with brilliantly colored illustrations attributed to seven anonymous artists. To provide historical context for the Bible, the presentation features medieval arms and armor from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also included are sixteenth-century Persian illustrations from the Metropolitan and the Ardashīr-nāma, a seventeenth-century Judeo-Persian manuscript of Old Testament stories from The Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. The history of the Crusader Bible is fascinating, covering seven centuries and multiple continents. Likely created in Paris during the 1240s for King Louis IX of France— famous for building the Sainte-Chapelle and for leading two crusades— the Bible then passed to the king’s younger brother, Charles of Anjou, who took it to Italy. More than four centuries later, the Archbishop of Cracow acquired and offered it as a diplomatic gift to the great Shah of Persia, ‘Abbas I. By the eighteenth century, the manuscript belonged to an anonymous Persian Jew. After its journey from France to Italy, Poland, and Persia, the Bible traveled to Egypt, England, and finally to the Morgan Library & Museum in the United States. The Crusader Bible, which originally had no text, bears inscriptions in Latin, Persian, and Judeo-Persian. They function as evidence of its changing ownership throughout the centuries and reflect how each owner used his language to lay claim to the book, appropriating its imagery for assimilation into their respective cultures.”

Note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com in December 2015.  

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is immortalized by The University of Texas at Austin

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Pasaporte de Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1969-1976. Photography by Nicolette Mallow.

The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin has become a safe haven of archives in honor of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. A magical realism writer that created words of mysticism, beauty, love and tragedy; Marquez, also known as Gabo, had an eternal voice that was so unique it created its own genre of writing. Marquez takes readers to another dimension within reality, like magic, and he is able to evoke heartfelt emotions that linger like the smell of fine perfume in the air, or tender kiss on the skin.

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According to the Harry Ransom Center, “More than 75 boxes of documents constitute the archive of the Colombian-born author, journalist, screenwriter and key figure in Latin American history and politics. Researchers will have access to manuscript drafts of published and unpublished works, correspondence, 43 photograph albums, 22 scrapbooks, research material, notebooks, newspaper clippings, screenplays and ephemera.”

Also on display within the library and museum are a few glass encasings for viewers to admire entailing the following artifacts: Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s passport, edited transcripts, his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, a letter to US President Jimmy Carter, and edited chapters of his book. Within one of the display cases on the first floor, guests can regard the Smith-Corona 250 typewriter that Marquez used to write so many of his stories. To imagine his hands working on all those keys. Touching all those keys thousands upon thousands of times as he wrote stories that would fill the world with magic. It was a remarkable experience to see the typewriter that he used to write. And it was a delight to see his handwriting in Spanish amongst all the edited transcripts, letters and chapters of his books.

Born the year of 1927 in Colombia, last year in 2014 Gabriel Garcia Marquez died of pneumonia in Mexico City. A great artist was lost that day. The New York Times ran an article soon after the writer passed in 2014 that read, “Mr. García Márquez, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, wrote fiction rooted in a mythical Latin American landscape of his own creation, but his appeal was universal. His books were translated into dozens of languages. He was among a select roster of canonical writers — Dickens, Tolstoy and Hemingway among them — who were embraced both by critics and by a mass audience. Mr. García Márquez was a master of the literary genre known as magical realism, in which the miraculous and the real converge. In his novels and stories, storms rage for years, flowers drift from the skies, tyrants survive for centuries, priests levitate and corpses fail to decompose. And, more plausibly, lovers rekindle their passion after a half-century apart.”

In order to view the archives in the reading room, guests make partake in an online orientation video before requesting an appointment to visit. The display cases will be open to the public until November 11, 2015. For more information about the archives, the display cases or The Harry Ransom Center: please visit their website at http://www.hrc.utexas.edu.

“Así termino pensando en él como nunca se hubiera imaginado que se podía pensar en alguien, presintiéndolo donde no estaba, deseándolo donde no podía estar, despertando de pronto con la sensación física de que él la contemplaba en la oscuridad mientras dormía, de modo que la tarde en que sintió sus pasos resueltos sobre el reguero de hojas amarillas en el parquecito, le costó trabajo creer que no fuera burla de su fantasía.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (El Amor En Los Tiempos Del Colera).

“And so she thought about him as she never could have imagined thinking about anyone, having premonitions that he would be where he was not, wanting him to be where he could not be, awakening with a start, with the physical sensation that he was looking at her in the darkness while she slept, so that on the afternoon when she heard his resolute steps on the yellow leaves in the little park it was difficult for her not to think this was yet another trick of her imagination.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Love in the Time of Cholera).

Note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com in November 2015.

Viva la Vida: Mexic-Arte Museum honors Día de los Muertos festival for 32 years in Tejas

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La Catrina drawn by unknown artist at The Mexic-Arte Museum. Photography by Nicolette Mallow.

Since the doors first opened in 1984, the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin has celebrated thirty-two years of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festivities. This October the museum presents two seasonal exhibitions alongside its annual Viva la Vida festival featuring a grand procession, artist vendors, live music, and a grand sugar skull piñata float by local piñata artisans Monica and Sergio Lejarazu. The museum will also host a black-tie masquerade event known as the Catrina Ball that will debut at The Four Seasons Hotel.

The highlighted Día de los Muertos exhibition at the Mexic-Arte Museum, Community Altars: Ofrendas Inspired from the States of Mexico, is located within the main gallery and contains nearly a dozen altars to honor the lives of loved ones who are deceased. Adorning the altars are flowers, crosses, candles, angels, framed photographs, flags, hand-cut paper, skulls and catrinas. Echoes of a film directed by Jim Hill, Llamar a los Muertos a Casa (Calling Home The Dead), are heard as guests walk about the rooms. In the very back of the exhibition there is a bench to sit and watch the movie about the villagers of Lake Pátzcuaro. And viewers can learn why it’s believed this land is a doorway to heaven.

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Nicolette Mallow in La Catrina face paint at the Viva la Vida festival in October 2015.

Each altar represents the regional and cultural differences within diverse areas of Mexico, including the following states: Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Mexico D.F. and Coahuila. Admiring the similarities and dissimilarities between the altars is part of the appeal. Not a single altar is identical to another, and yet the holiday spirit Día de los Muertos is strong within every altar, unifying the exhibition at the Mexic-Arte museum.

In 2003, the 78th Legislature of the State of Texas awarded the Mexic-Arte Museum as the Official Mexican and Mexican American Art Museum of Texas. Also according to their website, “Día de los Muertos is an ancient, Mexican and Mexican American religious holiday with a historically rich tradition that integrates both pre-Columbian and Catholic customs. It is often celebrated in connection with the Catholic Holy Days of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day (dates and length of the celebration vary by state or region). In the celebrants’ minds, the holiday is a time to honor and greet their deceased relatives and friends, who make the journey back from Mictlan (the underworld in Aztec culture) to be with the living each year. These days are a time for families and friends to gather in celebration of life and death, embracing the circle of life rather than loss and sorrow.

Standing in a room of altars that pay homage and respect to the dead, it might not seem like a place of love and light to those unfamiliar with Día de los Muertos. However, there is an undeniable force of love and life flowing throughout the rooms. An intense and evocative kind of love that can be seen and felt like standing next to a bonfire on a frigid moonless night. Looking at the altars one-by-one, imagining the time it took to make it all by hand. Thinking about the fact that massive quantities of people from all over the country designate the time and energy each year to create memorials. Memorials that signify and represent their memories towards family members or loved ones no longer living is indicative of their selflessness, loyalty and respect. It’s indicative of their devout love. It’s very moving to the heart and mind as guests walk from altar-to-altar; absorbing a sense of each person, or persons, revered at every altar by those still living. Unlike a tombstone that only states a name and dates of life, these large altars are unique to each family member and give viewers are stronger sense of personality. Books, jewelry, baskets of black beans, blankets, pottery, Marlboro cigarettes, bottles of tequila, and guitars; various items are placed throughout the altars, humanizing and personalizing the interests and pleasures of each person’s life.

Additionally, bright lights and vivacious colors illuminate the altars. Color and light are key elements in this exhibition at the Mexic-Arte Museum. Blue, red, pink, yellow, green and violet are prominent colors seen throughout the altars in the main gallery. Marigold flowers are one particular item of deeper significance seen at every altar. “Marigolds guide the spirits to their altars using their vibrant colors and scent. It is believed that the spirits of the dead visit the living during the celebration. Marigolds, or flowers in general, also represent the fragility of life. The marigold most commonly used in Día de los Muertos celebrations is the Targetes erecta or African Marigold, otherwise known as cempasúchil or flower of the dead.”

To view the history of thirty-one prior Día de los Muertos celebrations at the Mexic-Arte Museum, please venture to the annex gallery. Exhibitions will be on display through most of the autumnal season until mid-November. Please note the Viva la Vida festival is a daylong, eight-hour event open to the public on October 31, 2015. Tickets to the Catrina Ball on October 17, 2015 can be purchased online. For more information regarding upcoming events, exhibitions, admission, memberships and hours of operation, please visit www.mexic-artemuseum.org or call 512-480-9373.

¡Viva Mexico & Tejas!

Note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com in October 2015. 

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‘Natalie Frank: The Brothers Grimm’ exhibition on display at The Blanton Museum of Art

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“Six Swans III” – Drawing by Natalie Frank. (Photography by Nicolette Mallow.)

Natalie Frank: The Brother’s Grimm is a current exhibition hosted by The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin. Located within five different rooms that are all interconnected, the gallery is adorned with dozens of gouache and pastel drawings showcasing Frank’s hypnotizing and graphic fairy tale art. Make no mistake; the Brother’s Grimm fairy tales are not reflective of the typical happily-ever-after stories that modern authors portray to our children today. Originally, these fairy tales were written for adults, not adolescents. Therefore, stand warned that Frank’s exquisite drawings are not necessarily child-friendly. Viewers with kids are advised to take a stroll before taking their children through the gallery.

“Looky, look, look at the shoe that she took. There’s blood all over, and the shoe’s too small. She’s not the bride you met at the ball,” (Grimm’s Fairy Tales).

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This fairy tale exhibition is a collection of otherworldly, unforgettable stories written hundreds of years ago. Magical, dark, haunting and spellbinding. The colorful illustrations tell the Brother’s Grimm stories of love, lust, death, tragedy and historical folklore. During an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Frank explains how she “delved deeper into the early, unsanitized editions, she saw why so many of the brothers’ story plots contained brutal violence and elements of shape-shifting magic: Their folk tales were actually being told and retold by women who had to navigate a 19th-century social and political world wherein they held almost no power over their fates. Marriages were typically arranged; death during childbirth was common. Suddenly, the princesses, hags and witches in the Grimm’s’ fairy tales felt grounded and complex to Ms. Frank, and she started making drawings that could reflect these characters’ vulnerabilities and strengths.”

Blood, castles, animals, metamorphosis, nudity, genitalia, nature and the supernatural can all be found in the artwork. The use of imagination within Natalie Frank: The Brothers Grimm is striking, unique, scary and disturbing. The imagery is very intense, such as Frank’s drawing “Brier Rose” depicting a woman that almost seems to be drugged or half conscious, missing clothing and unable to resist any advances. Her story entails a one-hundred-year-sleep caused by an evil witch; masked and blindfolded in a blood red veil as a half-man and half-beast creature weighs down upon her as if to approach her in a sexual manner.

These are not images one can easily forget.

Entranced by the images in the artwork, walking through the gallery lures viewers to step out of modern time for a while. To think these stories were told centuries ago, it’s fascinating and a bit creepy. Frank’s storybook illustrations are booming with bold and powerful colors that lighten the heaviness of the stories. The colors are so playful and bright like a children’s room, and yet the symbolism is so dark and grim. The gallery includes almost 20 stories, including the following: Snow White, Brier Rose, The Frog King, Rapunzel, The Juniper Tree, Endpaper, The Devil with The Three Golden Hairs, and Six Swans.

According to The Blanton Museum of Art, “Natalie Frank: The Brothers Grimm, is an exhibition of more than 30 gouache and pastel drawings by artist Natalie Frank, a New York-based Austin native. Organized by The Drawing Center in New York, this presentation explores the nineteenth-century fairy tales of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Drawing upon the history of illustrated books, figuration, and personal and political narrative, Frank’s drawings represent the largest collection of Grimm’s fairy tales ever illustrated by a fine artist.”

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in this realm is the fairest of them all? … You, my queen, may have a beauty quite rare, but Snow White is a thousand times more fair,” (Grimm’s Fairy Tales).

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“Brier Rose III” – Drawing by Natalie Frank. (Photography by Nicolette Mallow.)

The exhibition will be featured at The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin until November 15, 2015. The Blanton Museum of Art is a lovely university museum full of natural light, tall ceilings, blue tiling, installation pieces, statues and grand stairwells that facilitate the galleries. Over 17,000 works of art have become part of their permanent collection. However, due to the fact this particular gallery in the museum has no windows and flash photography is prohibited: It is strongly advised to visit the exhibition (and Natalie Frank’s website) in order to see her drawings in all their splendor and vivacity. Be sure to also check out storyteller Tom Lee on October 15, 2015 at 6:30 PM at The Blanton Museum of Art to perform selected stories from Frank’s illustrations. For more information regarding the exhibition, the museum or the artist, please visit www.natalie-frank.com or www.blantonmuseum.org.

Note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com in August 2015.