The Red Bull Art of Can exhibit debuted in Miami last night with a private gala that captured the energy of South Beach despite the unseasonable chill in the air. Traffic came to a standstill as the fabulous Elaine Lancaster made her grand entrance into the venue with a parade of Brazilian Batucada dancers to open the exhibit inspired by the iconic Red Bull can. The gala marked the opening of the event which is now open to the public on South Beach through March 14th. “Art is everywhere,” said Elaine Lancaster, Miami’s iconic diva in drag. “I’m walking, talking, living art myself so I feel right at home in the synergy of it all. And I think Miami will embrace anything artistic.” The collection is filled with striking pieces including a Hermes foot, a vibrant toucan spreading its wings and a captivating Medusa head. In addition to the forty-seven unique art pieces, guests were treated to couture wearable art created specifically for the gala by Project Runway alumni, Mychael Knight. Read more at pr-usa.net

Oregon Trail artifacts displayed

Holland and Terrell Libraries are hosting an exhibit with the belongings of a missionary wife.

The Daily Evergreen

Mary Richardson Walker’s life was laid bare for all to see Friday at a new art exhibit.

Walker was a missionary wife who traveled the Oregon Trail in 1838. The exhibit displays her personal artifacts, letters and diary transcripts.

About 50 people gathered at the opening at the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections at Holland and Terrell Libraries.

Thirty minutes in, MASC Interim Head Trevor Bond made his grand entrance, ringing a bell to get everyone’s attention. He thanked the curators responsible for bringing the show together. Jennifer Thigpen, assistant history professor, is the head curator of the exhibit. Walker’s artifacts were scattered all around campus when she started to put the exhibit together, she said. Read more at www.dailyevergreen.com

Turkey, Germany open exhibition on Ottoman art works

Hundreds of Ottoman works of art were restored and is on display in Germany’s Dresden Royal Palace for the first time in 70 years.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle and Saxony’s Prime Minister Stanislaw Tillich on Saturday inaugurated the exhibition “Turckische Cammer”, in Dresden, includes works that were diplomatic gifts or bought by German aristocrats. The Dresden Royal Palace hosts a large collection of Turkish artwork. Read more at www.worldbulletin.net

Road Trip: Houston Artists Showcase in San Antonio

This past Friday night, a group of Houston artists made their way westward on I-10 to represent the city’s art scene at San Antonio’s LoneStar Studios. The artists exhibited at the one-night event included: Kelly Alison, J. Todd Allison, Michael Collins, Rene Cruz, DumpTruck (Cory Wagner & Mat Wolff), Jack Erickson, Lauren Moya Ford, Ryan Geiger, Maria Guzman, Lane Hagood, Bill Hailey, Rick Illingworth, Sharon Kopriva, El Franco Lee II, Cody Ledvina, Jonatan Lopez, Nick Merriwether, Neva Mikulicz, Rahul Mitra, Eric Pearce, Brian Rod, Troy Stanley, David Wang, and Bill Willis.

he show was put on as a companion to the exhibit of San Antonio artists that opened the previous night at Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, the city’s first space devoted to contemporary art and which is now celebrating its 25th anniversaryRead more at houstonist.com

American Indian art exhibit now open at Museum of Art

CLEVELAND – A new exhibit, celebrating Native American artwork, is now open at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Art of American Indians: The Thaw Collection is a collection of artwork from tribes all over the country.

The artwork includes masks, painted and beaded works, and all include an interesting explanation of the pieces and the artists.

It has been a while since Indian art was featured at the Cleveland Museum of Art and some of the pieces will only be shown here in Cleveland.

For the opening the museum is also holding a Family Day, with free activities from 1 to 4 p.m.

Admission to this new exhibit is also free.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Read more at www.wkyc.com

Met Museum’s Guards Show Don’t Just Watch: They Paint, Too

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) Mar 8th 2010 at 5:02AM

The Upper West Side of Manhattan was once again home to an exciting and unique art exhibition last week. 25CPW, a temporary art gallery occupying a vacant retail space on Central Park West hosted an art show for a unique group within the Metropolitan Museum of Art: the guards. It turns out that some of the people protecting the masterpieces on the other side of Central Park also like to create, and from what I saw on Thursday night, when I attended the opening, they are pretty damned good at it. Read more at www.luxist.com

Art display captures war story of survival

By DON SHILLING

YOUNGSTOWN

About 150 people attended the opening of an art exhibit created by a woman who escaped capture by Nazi soldiers as her family was being deported to a concentration camp.

“Fabric of Survival: The Art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz” opened Sunday at the Butler Institute of American Art. It contains 36 needlework and fabric collage pieces that depict key scenes in the life of the artist.

“The quality of the stitching is absolutely beautiful,” said Sandra Smith of Poland as she studied a piece that represented Krinitz’s life as a girl before the Nazi occupation of her homeland.

Smith’s friend Mary Kay Driscoll of Poland noted the changing colors. Read more at www.vindy.com

A Struggling Detroit Art Museum Tries to Reach Out

By Steven Gray / Detroit Monday, Mar. 08, 2010

Imam Sohel Mangera photographs a Qur’an from about 1450-60 displayed at the Detroit Institute of Art in Detroit, part of the museum’s new permanent gallery of Islamic art.

Carlos Osorio / AP

Last week, the Detroit Institute of the Arts opened its newest permanent gallery, devoted to Islamic works. The collection, which features a Timurid Koran written on gold-flecked Chinese paper, and ceramic bowls from the 15th-Century Ottoman Empire, is a bold acknowledgment by one of the country’s most venerable museums of the breadth of Islam’s influence.Read more at www.time.com

Pancho Villa Rides Again Thanks To Mexican Archives

General Pancho Villa in Mexico City in 1914.

(Courtesy of Casasola Archives.)

“Riding with Pancho Villa,” a new photography exhibit, has just opened in Abilene, Texas, celebrating the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, and held in conjunction with events honoring the founding of the Republic of Texas (1836-46).

Hosting the events is Frontier Texas!, a nearly seven-acre Disneyland-meets-the-Wild-West historical theme park of sorts, designed to revive “the Old West with the help of state-of-the-art technology.” A museum in which visitors can get up close and personal, virtually anyway, with the “people who played out their lives on the Texas frontier.”Read more at blog.seattlepi.com

Who is the mystery collector?

Giacometti’s L’Homme qui marche sold for a record price but the buyer is still unknown

By Colin Gleadell, Daily Telegraph

February 6, 2010

In 1988, Christie’s sold an artist’s proof of Giacometti’s L’Homme qui marche for $5.87 million US to a collector from Japan. The bronze had been cast after the artist’s death in 1966, and is considered less desirable than a lifetime cast, such as the example sold this week. Nonetheless, the price was a record for the artist, and put him in a select group of about half a dozen of the most expensive modern artists at auction — a group that included Picasso, Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon and Roy Liechtenstein. Read more at www.vancouversun.com