Today we’re highlighting another Mondo artist, Lane Bennion.  Lane is a phenomenal artist who enjoys “finding beauty or poetry in the most mundane of objects, situations or scenes.”  His work typically portrays the mannequins or merchandise in a storefront.

Some artists who have influenced Lane’s work include Edward Hopper, Wayne Thiebaud, Paul Davis, David Dornan, and Doug Braithwaite.  Each of these artists have influenced Lane’s paintings and subject matter.  Lane says David Dornan “challenged me to find poetry in the most mundane objects and scenes.  [He is] one of the most inspiring people I know.”

Other artists that Lane likes vary in style and subject matter including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon, John Singer Sargent, Richard Diebenkorn, Odd Nerdrum, and Gustave Dore.

Lane says that he also loves artwork from classic space age and sci-fi magazines in the 1950s and 60s or scenes from Warner Brothers cartoons in the 1940s and 50s.  He sites a number of films and film makers: Classic Star Trek (and only Classic), Star Wars: A New Hope, Alice in Wonderland, animated shorts from 1970s Sesame Street (click here to view), and filmmakers David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick

“How do these influences bring me to paint Store Fronts?  I don’t really know.  I seem to like to study strange and fantastic things so I guess I find these stores strange and fantastic.”

Click HERE to see some of Lane Bennion’s paintings.

• Artist Kate Gilmore presents a sculptural and performance based piece, Walk the Walk,  in Bryant Park in New York.  A group of women clad in simple yellow dresses will act out their “work” by walking, shuffling, stomping or marching on the roof of an eight foot structure.  Viewers are encouraged to walk through the piece, which then becomes an audio piece.  Check it out here.
• A sale at Christie’s breaks another record.  One of Jasper John’s “Flag” paintings that belonged to writer Michael Crichton sold for $28.6 million.  This is the highest paid for a John painting at Christie’s.  Read more on NYTimes.com.
• Swedish artist Lars Vilks was physically assaulted at a university during a lecture about the limits of artistic freedom.  Vilks has received numerous threats over his controversial drawing of the Prophet Muhammad with a dog’s body.  The Associated Press reports here.
• The Pompidou arts centre opened a new branch in Metz.  The space will be devoted to 20th and 21st century art, but has  no permanent collection of its own.  The branch at Metz will show, in six-month or yearly rotations, parts of the vast collection of 65,000 contemporary works held by the Pompidou in Paris.  Read more here, or check out the pictures Guardian.co.uk.
• A UPS truck crashed into the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Monday night.  No one was present and no art was damaged.  Read more in the Washington Post.
• The MoMA in New York presents Art Institutions and Feminist Politics Now as part of the MoMA Talks series on May 21, 2010.  Learn more about this event here.

With this new body of work, artist John Bell is expanding on the three noted forms or phases of cubism:

English art historian Douglas Cooper describes three phases of Cubism in his seminal book, The Cubist Epoch. According to Cooper there was “Early Cubism”, (from 1906 to 1908) when the movement was initially developed in the studios of Picasso and Braque; the second phase being called “High Cubism”, (from 1909 to 1914) during which time Juan Gris emerged as an important exponent; and finally Cooper referred to “Late Cubism” (from 1914 to 1921) as the last phase of Cubism as a radical avant-garde movement.

In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism’s distinct characteristics.

With the use of photography & individual plastic cubes, Bell brings cubism into the new millennium making it not only three dimensional, but also playing within the time continuum, giving us 360 degree views of a subject at various times & places in their lives. “You get to see the subject aging & see different sides to their personalities” says Bell. “The photos in the first piece (self portrait, 2010) were taken months apart & at different locations. As time allows, I plan to photograph people over the course of months & years to ad greater depth to the work. It’s very interesting to me to see the subtle changes in someone over time & how different we appear in the multiple rolls we play in our daily lives. At work, at home, at play, indoors & out, each situation effects use in many ways. Mood, what we wear, if we cut our hair, shaved, lost or gained weight, what has changed: divorce, jobs, children, etc… The boxes themselves are a metaphor for the compartmentalization of self, how we see ourselves & how society perceives us”.

The works also appear as kinetic light sculptures. The boxes themselves play with & refract the changing light due to the nature of the surfaces injection molded manufacturing process. Bell also layers each level with sheets of colored Plexiglas which gives the work different moods depending on the changing light. “They’re fairly moody works” says Bell, “a lot like us”.

Featured piece: Literal Cubism – Self Portrait*
photos in acrylic cubes (4″ x 4″ x 2″ each)
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*This piece was created for our most recent show “Modern Values”, featuring works by John Bell and Carlisle and is currently on display (until May 22nd) at Light Spot, located on 2927 South Highland Drive, Salt Lake City, UT.

For more information on John Bell and to see all available works, click HERE

Angie Renfro, one of Mondo Fine Art’s talented artists, has created beautiful new works perfect for welcoming the Spring season.  These paintings are the latest in her popular bee and nest series.  If you are interested in acquiring either of these pieces, would like more info, or would like to provide feedback, please contact us at info@mondofineart.com or 801-971-6330.

Title: Let it all drop
Dimensions: 12″ x 15″
Medium: oil on panel

Title: That Much is True
Dimensions: 36″ x 18″
Medium: oil on panel

A native Texan, Renfro attended art school in San Francisco.  After receiving a BFA in 2002, she remained in the city to pursue a variety of artistic avenues. The experience she gained from working in various fields of design have had a tremendous influence on her work.  Renfro’s paintings are now carried in several galleries across the country. She was named “Artist to Watch” by Southwest Magazine in October 2006 and was a featured artist in the August 2008 edition of American Art Collector.

To see all available works by Angie Renfro, click HERE

• French artist Christian Boltanski’s piece “No Man’s Land” opens this Friday.  The piece was commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory and aims to inspire questions of mortality.  Thirty tons of used clothes, a giant crane and a soundtrack of thousands of human heartbeats fill the drill hall through June 11, 2010.  Read more on NYTimes.com.
• A new contemporary art space, ARTER, opened in Istanbul last weekend.  The space contains 160 works from 87 international and local artists.  ARTER aims to encourage production of contemporary artworks both nationally and internationally, which will in turn provide a platform of visibility for artistic practices, especially in Turkey.  The current show runs through September 18, 2010.  Read more on E-Flux.com.
• Public Art Norway (KORO) is extending a call for artists for pre-qualification for two commissions in “one of Norway’s most prominent political contexts.”  If you’re interested find out more here.
• The Festival of Regions is also looking for artists, specifically site specific or installation pieces.  Read more here.
• Mark Bradford is the featured artist at the Wexner Center through August 15, 2010.  Bradford is known for creating contemporary abstract paintings with many different materials.  Read about his exhibit here, or an interview with the Art Newspaper here.
• MUSEION of modern and contemporary art Bolzano opens two contemporary shows in June.  Gabriel Kuri presents Soft Information in Your Hard Facts and Nico Vascellari presents a monolith bronze cast piece that acts as a resonance chamber for percussion instruments he plays.  For more about the exhibit click here.
• Recently the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art asked the question “Is Photography Over?”    One artist stated that it is crucial to include all imaging technologies under the umbrella of photography, including snapshots from an iPhone to MRI scanning.  A panel discussed if photography is indeed over, or if it is a part of photography that is over.  Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle.

• Contemporary art collector Eli Broad made his first public comment on where he plans to house his collection.  Broad sited downtown L.A. as a prime place for cultural tourism, but also mentioned Santa Monica.  The L.A. Times reports.
• The Art Newspaper reports that the Tate Modern needs to expand its range in contemporary art.  The article states that exhibits “should be based on encounters with the unfamiliar and on exchange and debate.”  This exchange with unfamiliar can broaden the outlook of patrons.  Read the full article here.
• Rhizome.com reports on Field Broadcast, an event that takes place May 8-17, 2010.  The event consists of streaming video of over 30 artists working in fields.  This project inserts a “semblance of the natural or the organic into the virtual environment” of a desktop computer.  Read more here.
• Hauser and Worth present the first exhibit devoted exclusively to the drawings of Roni Horn.  Horn’s pigment drawings start with two drawings of similar forms, these two drawings are brought together through a process of cutting and pasting to create a new form and identity.  She uses doubling, paired form and repetition to create the identity of a piece.  Read more on ArtKnowledgeNews.com.

• The exhibition Art Always Has Its Consequences considers the “politics of exhibiting” and, includes historic works and new productions, archive material and research documentation, reconstructing and reinterpreting paradigmatic artistic and exhibition positions from the 1950s until today This shows the historical continuity of similar art experiments which question the social role of art.  The show runs from May 8-June 2, 2010.  Read more on E-Flux.com.
• In response to the planned closure of Middlesex Philosophy students have occupied Mansion House on campus.  Middlesex now announces the opening of an experimental and communal space for educational presentations and conversations at the interface between philosophy, theory, activism and art.  E-Flux.com reports.
• Record auction sale of Picasso at Christie’s brings in $106 million.  Read more on Guardian.co.uk.
• “You know how everyone’s claiming to be an artist these days?” writes HyperAllergic.com’s Kyle Chayka; well, apparently so are trees.  Read more here.
• The Guardian.co.uk reports that sound art is permanent.  Susan Philipsz, who works primarily in sound art, has been nominated for the Turner Prize short list.  Read more here.
• Emily Fisher Landau, a collector and philanthropist in New York, pledged over 350 pieces of work valued at $50-75 million to the Whitney Museum of American Art.  The collection includes several major artists including Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol.  NYTimes.com has the complete article.

The BYU Museum of Art in Provo, Utah is currently showing Mirror Mirror: Contemporary Portraits and the Fugitive Self.  The show features international contemporary artists who examine the way we view ourselves and the way we choose to represent ourselves to others.  The works use three different themes: rituals, facades/mirrors/masks, and the real self, to examine individual identities.  Several works also examine how new technologies, such as Facebook, explore new identities.  The show is free and open to the public but closes this weekend (May 8th), so check it out while you can.  For more visit the MoA website.

The BYU MoA is also opening a new show tonight,  Thursday May 6, 2010.  As A Rose: Sculpture by Adam Bateman opens in the MoA Sculpture Garden with sculptures created from farm sprinkler components.  The sculptures explore the relationship between Utahans and the desert landscape from Pioneer times when they wanted to make the desert “blossom as a rose” to the present state of conservation and Modernist landscape.  Also opening tonight is Bill Owen’s Suburbia, as well as BYU MoA’s new Electronic Media Gallery featuring Bill Viola, Vito Acconci, and Seoungho Cho.  Learn more on the MoA website.

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City presents Las Artes de Mexico: From the Collection of the Gilcrease Museum.  The focus is to celebrate the art, history and culture of Mexico featuring art from the ancient Mayans through contemporary art.  This show will run from May 6-September 26, 2010. For more about this show click here.

The UMFA also presents a new semiannual series titled SALT.  SALT 1 runs from May 6-September 26, 2010 and features 31-year-old Adriana Lara, a Mexico City resident who works in a range of formats and media, including videos or sculptures made of ephemeral or unusual materials.  This show represents the “cutting edge” of art being created in Mexico today.  For more visit the UMFA website.

The Springville Art Museum in Springville, Utah is hosting its 86th Annual Spring Salon.  The show displays over 200 works from Utah artists, including Mondo Fine Art’s Aaron Bushnell who was awarded a Merit Award for his piece “I Dream of Strawberry Sulfur” (below).  “There are some artists, like Aaron Bushnell, Cory Dangerfield, Brad Aldridge, Bryan Larsen, who have exhibited with us before but have really breakthrough pieces this year, ones that make you stop and say, ‘Wow!’ ”,  says Museum Director Vern Swanson  in this weeks Deseret News article. Other Mondo Fine Art artists in the show include Pilar Pobil and Michael Workman, both named among the Top 100 Most Honored Artists of Utah by the Springville Art Museum.   Head down to Springville to support our local artists  – the show runs through July 3, 2010.  Click here for more on the exhibit.

• California artist Jim Shaw, who attempts to visually explore the dark side of the American psyche, is showing fifteen enormous paintings in the CAPC Musee d’art Contemporain de Bordeaux.  Shaw uses a variety of mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, video, installation and performance to get across his message.  The show, Left Behind, will run from May 7-September 19, 2010.  For more on the show, including performance times, visit E-Flux.com.
• To celebrate it’s 10th anniversary the Tate Modern will host No Soul For Sale-A Festival of Independents May 14-16, 2010.  The Tate has invited over 70 innovative and independent art spaces to set up in Turbine Hall.  Check it out on the Tate Modern website.
• Investigations of a Dog, an exhibition including several world renowned contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Bruce Nauman, Paul McCarthy, and Kara Walker, opens next weekend.  The Ellipse Foundation presents over 40 works from artists who “ask themselves questions about the meaning of art making, [and are] spurred by a passionate emotional involvement in the society of humans.”  Read more on E-Flux.com.
• “Simply to hang a painting on the wall and say that it’s art is dreadful” – Martin Kippenberger.  Paddy Johnson discusses how art needs a “network” in order to truly be art.  Read the full article on ArtFagCity.com.
• Organic materials, such as cockroaches, are being used more frequently to create art.  Artists are going natural, “rummaging through the life sciences in search of materials, ideas, cosmic verities, tragicomic homilies, personal agency, a personal agent, a way to stand out in the crowd.”  Read more about artists using chicken bones, sardines or even their own blood on NYTimes.com.
• The Turner Prize shortlist has been announced.  To see more visit ArtForum.com.
• The Art Newspaper interviewed David LaChapelle about his return to fine art.  LaChapelle has become famous for “cutting, acerbic wit and layered symbolism in his celebrity portraiture, fashion and advertising images.”  LaChapelle recently fell out of love with fashion photography and switched to fine art photography.  Read the interview here.

• Aaron Bushnell, one of Mondo’s artists , was mentioned in the Deseret News in an article about  the Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art.  Read the article here. 
• The Flower of May, an exhibit to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the May 1980 Democratic Uprising in Gwangjuhas, been organized by Gwangju Biennale Foundation and Gwangju Museum of Art as a festival, separate from the Biennale.  It will include performance art and panel discussions.  Read more on E-Flux.com.
• The Sharjah Art Foundation is accepting submissions of arts in “media including sculpture, installation, time-based media, artist’s books and performance.”  The project is to allow artists to create imaginative works without the worry of economic or political restraints.  Read more on E-Flux.com.
• Art Forum’s May 2010 edition is now out in print.  Some of the articles highlighted in the edition include a critique on contemporary performance art as well as a preview of summer exhibitions.  Click here for the online edition.
• Platform Garanti, Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul is hosting My City.  The symposium covers Art and Public Space, this month’s focus is concerns and ideas about temporary monuments and the value of public squares, new public cultural spaces, unauthorized public interventions and public art biennials.  read more here.
• HyperAllergic.com reports on the Star Wars Modern article regarding the evolution of superheroes.  Read the post here.
• The push to help people realize the value of public art has “been won” in Australia.  Now the question remains: How much is too much?  Read more here.