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“CHRYSALIDE”: CELEBRATING THE POWER OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION
A recent exhibition at the Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève in Geneva, Switzerland, examined the multifaceted subject of transformation from points of view at once artistic and spiritual. Its accompanying catalogue — to be published soon — expands upon this central theme. Coming soon.
CAI GUO-QIANG IN TOKYO: LOOKING BACK AT IT ALL
Earlier in his career, the Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who is known for using fire and gunpowder to create spectacular artworks and events, lived and worked in Japan. Coming soon: Our photo-report about a career-spanning retrospective that was just on view at the National Art Center, Tokyo.
FRANZ JOSEF PONSTINGL: ONCE OVERLOOKED, NOW RESCUED
The little-known painter Franz Josef Ponstingl (1927-2004) created a singular body of work — fantastical visions of ancient or otherworldly civilizations, often accented with geometric motifs or abstract passages. We speak with John Munice, a collector who has saved this art from oblivion. Coming soon.
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HAROLD GRANUCCI: GEOMETRY = A PRECISE ARTISTIC VISION
Born in 1916, Harold Granucci worked as an accountant and furniture-store owner; after retiring, he dedicated his time to creating compositions rooted in mathematically modeled patterns. Granucci, who died at the age of 90, left an artistic oeuvre that is still surfacing and was recently presented at the 2023 Outsider Art Fair in New York (March 2–5). See our report, coming soon.
PHOTOMACHINÉES: VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHY IN SWITZERLAND
On view at the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland: More than 450 photographs dating from the late 1800s and well into the 20th century, all made by unknown image-makers, many of whom creatively manipulated their material to create fantasy pictures packed with personal or indecipherable meanings. A rich serving of vernacular photography. Coming soon.
MINORU YOSHIDA: AN INVENTIVE JAPANESE MODERNIST EMERGES
Minoru Yoshida (1935–2010), who was born in Osaka, began his art career in Kyoto in the early 1960s and soon joined the now-legendary, avant-garde Gutai Art Association. He incorporated forms resembling flower petals and primitive organisms into his paintings and later went three-dimensional. A recent New York gallery exhibition introduced these distinctive paintings by an artist whose work is still becoming known outside Japan. Coming soon.
LONDON: ALCHEMICAL ART IN AN AUTUMN-EQUINOX “HEXIBITION”
The British artist Cathy Ward and her aesthetic-spiritual consoeur, the Swiss painter Christine Sefolosha, will be showing their hauntingly lyrical, psychically potent paintings and drawings side by side in Efnniht Hexibition, a presentation opening on September 18 at the Atlantis Bookshop in London, a century-old center for magic-related resources and esoterica. See our exclusive preview, with a portfolio of the two artists’ creations.
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VIEW THE FILM, FREE OF CHARGE: “VALTON TYLER: FLESH IS FICTION”
The self-taught artist Valton Tyler (1944-2017) lived and worked in Dallas, Texas, and its environs. He created remarkable works — oil paintings, ink drawings on paper, complex etchings — that remain hard to classify according to existing style or genre labels. In 2017, Edward M. Gómez (brutjournal’s founder) and cinematographer Chris Shields made the first-ever film about Tyler’s life and art, which the artist saw before he died. This 42-minute-long film will reside permanently here, on the magazine’s website. It may be viewed in its entirety, free of charge. Watch it and get to know the bright, bizarre world of a techno-baroque visionary. Free access to the article and the film.
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