This friendly result didn’t prevent what was a minor dispute from producing a certain amount of ugly talk of censorship and even about Canadian values versus American ones. Mikhail told the Citizen that the Chicago-based Merchandise Mart, which owns the Toronto International Art Fair, had been imposing "Bible Belt values" on the Toronto art scene, adding, "I’m seeing Americans coming in and imposing themselves on Canadian culture, and making decisions based on American values." Representatives of the Mart lobbed back that TIAF had become "more contemporary, more edgy, every year" under the organization’s leadership.

 

ALEXIS ROCKMAN RETRO SET

The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., presents "Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow," Nov. 19, 2010-May 8, 2011, the first major survey of the popular 40-something painter’s career. Almost 50 paintings and works on paper are included, many of them combining the artist’s signature sense of genetic fantasy with his concern for ecology and observation of the natural world (the title for the show, "A Fable for Tomorrow," is also the title of the opening chapter of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which similarly combines "mythic narrative and factual reportage"). The show is organized by SAAM contemporary art curator Joanna Marsh, and does not travel.

 

NEW LOOK FOR JFK MEMORIAL 

The next time you’re at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, take another look at the forlorn pedestal that has been empty since 2002. Back in its spot of honor is a bronze bust of John F. Kennedy by sculptor Neil Estern (b. 1926), who recrafted a new, larger version of his original sculpture, which was first installed in 1965. The plinth has been vacant since 2002 as part of a refurbishment of the site.

 

FRED WAGNER AT WOODMERE ART MUSEUM

The Philadelphia Impressionist painter Frederick R. Wagner (1864-1940) might be described as "little-known," if he didn’t have so much representation at galleries in his hometown (like the Caldwell Gallery and Jim’s of Lambertville), and if he didn’t have more than 100 lots in Artnet’s auction database. Still, museum attention to Wagner, in Philadelphia or elsewhere, has been limited -- till now.

 

Philadelphia’s Woodmere Art Museum is currently presenting "Fred Wagner: American Painter - A Family Perspective," Aug. 21-Oct. 17, 2010, including 21 paintings, largely later works from 1930 on but also including the markedly avant-garde Smoking Lady from 1913. As reported by Victoria Donohoe in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Wagner studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts starting in 1878, assisted Thomas Eakins in the anatomy department, and subsequently was a regular at the Philadelphia Sketch Club -- which plans a second show of Wagner’s paintings this fall, Nov. 1-13, 2010.

 

The exhibition coincides with the publication of a book, Fred Wagner, An American Painter, which is compiled by two members of Wagner’s family, Susan Smith and Cyndy Drue, and including an essay by Walter Robinson, editor of Artnet Magazine (Wagner was our grandmother’s uncle). For more info on Wagner, as well as the new book, see FredWagnerArtist.com.