Today is the last day to purchase tickets for the Miss Utah USA Gala, benefiting the Mondo Art Project in partnership with Youthlinc. It promises to be a great event and it’s all for a good cause!

The goal is to raise $10,000, half of which will be employed locally to enrich after school programs at Hser Ner Moo Center in South Salt Lake, adding an additional afternoon each week of art instruction and expression for teen refugees through the Youthlinc Real Life in SLC mentoring program.The other half of the funds will be expensed at $1,000 per Youthlinc international site, serving youngsters in small remote villages in Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Thailand, and Cambodia through MAP art projects, murals and sustainable art programs.

For more info and to purchase tickets, please visit the website here.

Thanks to all that made it out to “would you like to become a fan?” at the home of artist John Bell and made it such a successful event. We hope you enjoyed all the fantastic art and architecture. If you missed this show, but would like to still see the new artwork in person, please contact us at info@mondofineart.com and we would be happy to arrange a private studio visit for you with the artist.

All artwork from the show is available online: CLICK HERE to view.

Mondo Fine Art & Artist John Bell present “would you like to become a fan“, recent work by the artist, Saturday October 16, 2010 from 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. at the artist’s home — 3851 E. Sunnydale Lane (Emigration Township) Salt Lake City.

Bell will reveal several paintings that have recently been on display in Las Vegas and Miami during the renowned Art Basel international Art Fair, but rarely seen in Utah.

Bell’s home was just featured in 944 magazine.  To see the full article, CLICK HERE (page 16-17)

Don’t miss this opportunity to preview Bell’s work in the unique setting of the artist’s noteworthy mid-century modern home for one day only.
Directions:
3851 E. Sunnydale Lane(formerly 1645 Sunnydale Lane – one mile up Emigration Canyon).
Take Foothill or 800 So. (Which turns into Sunnyside Ave. at Foothill Blvd.)
Head east on Sunnyside Ave. — past the Hogle Zoo into Emigration Canyon
Sunnydale Laneis the first right off the canyon road (below Ruth’s Diner)
3851 Sunnydale Laneis halfway down on the left where you will see a dark grey louvered fence. Enter through fence door.

About the Artist:
Nationally emerging artist John Bell explores multiple movements of contemporary art all at once, creating a hallmark painting style that comments broadly on sociopolitical issues, the impact of social media, and the ever-fluctuating values of contemporary culture. Bell, lauded as an “indiscriminate genre-blender” fuses abstract expressionism, geometric abstraction, pop art and many other artistic styles. He employs recurring images of iconic popular culture, snippets of news feeds, and social media references set against a brightly hued color palette, hard-edge, tense geometric lines and ethereal back drops. His work has been placed in many private collections throughout the U.S. and has exhibited in countless group and solo exhibitions, including Art Basel, Miami, New York’s Time Warner Center, Southern Nevada Museum of Art, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City.

Bell’s work and mid-century home have recently been profiled in the Los Angeles-based, lifestyle, and culture-centric 944 Magazine. A profile of Bell will be published in the soon- to-be-released national fall edition of Blue Canvas Magazine. A cover editorial in Seven Magazine, (Las Vegas) entitledBeyond Pop; The man and message behind the paint. Hailed as an “artist on the rise” by Salt Lake Magazine, his work and home have been featured in a cover article in Utah Style & Design. He has received numerous acknowledgments and reviews in NY Art World, Blackbook, City Weekly, Salt Lake City, Seven and Deseret Companion magazines as well as a host of online publications. He is represented by Mondo Fine Art, Salt Lake City, Brett Wesley Contemporary, Las Vegas, Cancio Contemporary, Miami/New York.

If you haven’t already seen our video on John Bell, CLICK HERE and enjoy as John walks you through his creative process as well as gives you a peek into his home and studio.

Thanks for joining us for Road Trip: Landscape Perspectives last Thursday. We hope you enjoyed the show – featuring works by Angie Renfro and Aaron Bushnell.

If you missed the opening, you can still see the show, which will be up until Oct. 15th at Poliform (3016 South West Temple, Salt Lake City, UT). The works are also all online – there are still pieces available!

Special thanks to Poliform for hosting us in their beautiful showroom – it was the perfect space for this show. Also thanks to Elizabeth Gilman with Fleur de Sel for the culinary delights (as well as to Nancy Larson and Joan Kimball Steed for the tasty desserts) and to Mr. Jesse Walker for providing the great sound for the evening.

If you would like us to email you a price list for the show, please contact us at info@mondofineart.com.

Murakami, with some current work

• Painting and sculpture by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami goes on view today at Versailles in France, a retrospective that has some traditionalists protesting against the colorful, comic-style pieces being shown at such an incongruous location (for the record, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst have exhibited there). With most of his current work being made by assistants, Murakami now claims he will return to hands-on painting. Check out the story at The Art Newspaper.
• This weekend, Copenhagen will host its fifth annual Alternative Art Fair, an artist-organized experience “devoted to uniting and strengthening awareness of the self-organized and non-commercial exhibitions.” Much of the work will be produced on-site, through the duration of the fair. Read more about Alt_Cph at e-flux.
• England’s Lord John Sainsbury has made a donation of £25 million ($38.6 million) to the British Museum, the Daily Telegraph reports. The money will help fund an extension to the museum and preserve rare artifacts in the collection. Sainsbury’s is the biggest donation to the arts in England since Paul Getty gave £50 million to the National Gallery and £40 million to the British Film Institute in 1985. Click here for the full story.

Picasso's "Buste d'Homme a la Pipe" (to be sold), and von Lenkiewicz at work in his studio

• An exhibition of 20th and 21st century art, including four Picassos and an 1875 Cezanne, will be mounted at a London property near Reagent’s Park from October 12-20, in conjunction with the Frieze Art Fair. Around a third of the works on display will be offered for sale (amounting to around £20m), including pieces by Yves Klein, Egon Schiele, and Gerhard Richter. London based artist Wolfe von Lenkiewicz will curate the show, as well as present his own work. Click here to read the full article.

Yoshitomo Nara, "Untitled (1, 2, 3, 4 Man)"

• London’s Tate Modern has lost the financial backing of UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank and one of the museum’s largest sponsors in recent years. The Tate plans to build a $330 million extension, and has thus far raised “roughly half” of the funds. The museum’s director, Nicholas Serota, is confident that the new wing will be built in time for London’s Olympics in 2012. “There are undoubtedly people who have the resources to help us at the level required to complete this project.” Head to ArtForum to learn more.

• For the first time in the history of New York’s Asia Society Museum, the entire gallery space will be devoted to the work of a single contemporary artist for Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool, on view until January 2, 2011. The exhibition will explore the diverse oeuvre of the Neo Pop artist – paintings, drawings, sculpture and installation – with special attention paid to “the relationship of Nara’s art to rock and punk music, which has been an ongoing source of inspiration and prevailing reference point in his work.” Check out e-flux to read more.

Salt Lake City – Mondo Fine Art presents Road Trip: Landscape Perspectives, an exhibition of new works by San Francisco/Chicago artist Angie Renfro and Salt Lake City artist Aaron Bushnell. This show opening will take place on September 23 from 6 pm to 9 pm at Poliform Design Studio (3016 South West Temple). The exhibit will be up through mid October.

Please join us for this special opening night. Enjoy food, drink, music, and of course, the art. Both artists will be present for questions and discussion. The first 20 people will receive a signed copy of this month’s issue of Southwest Art Magazine.

About the Artists

The work of Angie Renfro focuses on oft-overlooked subjects. Her thoughtfully composed, richly layered paintings evoke a feeling of familiarity because the subjects are found on the periphery of every highway drive. Renfro’s new body of work for Mondo Fine Art is a collection of images from meandering road trips across several states. This compelling series of industrial landscapes – comprised of the complicated, heavy structures of factories – are tempered with a delicate sense of loneliness. “By transforming a telephone pole or a rusting factory into a lush, striking landscape, my work seeks to challenge conventional and naturalistic notions of beauty.”

Angie Renfro was named “Artist to Watch” by Southwest Art Magazine in October 2006, was showcased in the August 2008 edition of American Art Collector, and is now again featured in Southwest Art Magazine in this month’s issue, as well as in the upcoming October issue of American Art Collector.

Aaron Bushnell’s most recent paintings concentrate on the anxious energy of the city. “Urban areas create an overwhelming emotion of panic and fear within me. There is simply too much energy and movement in too small a space.” The disquieting character of these scenes is rendered with a playful handling of brushwork; at times childlike and explorative, at other times, well structured. His technique reveals certain color-field and abstract expressionist influences, combining a gentle attention to detail with “something like an attack… with oil paint. I find a selfish amusement in toying with that juxtaposition.” Aaron Bushnell was featured in the December 2009 issue of American Art Collector.

Special thanks to our host, Poliform SLC, for letting us use their beautiful space for this show.

We hope to see you there!

Pissarro, "Rue Saint Honore"

• A Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit may proceed for the return of a Nazi-looted painting from Spain’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation to its rightful owner, the heirs of Lilly Cassirer Neubauer. The painting, Pissarro’s Rue Saint Honoré—Afternoon, Rain Effect (1897), was relinquished to Nazi officials in 1939 to obtain visas for Neubauer to flee Germany. The case will proceed to trials court unless the US Supreme Court decides to review the ruling. Read the full article at The Art Newspaper.
• Japanese filmmaker and comic-book illustrator Satoshi Kon died on Tuesday in Tokyo, at the age of forty-six. Kon’s animated films, such as Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and more recently Paprika, received critical acclaim both in Japan and in the international community. Susan J. Napier, a professor of Japanese studies at Tufts University, identified Kon as “part of a line of great Japanese humanist directors and writers.” From ArtForum.
• “Big Sign – Little Building” is the name of a new exhibition at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, in Oslo. A curatorial statement claims the show will investigate the “expanded temporal and spatial field for cultural production resulting from the modern shift in the notion of landscape from the Kantian sublime to the space of leisure time.” Artwork by Robert Smithson, Ed Ruscha, Claes Oldenburg and other contemporary artists will be featured, along with the original glass slides used by the late architect Steven Izenour in his academic lectures. Check out e-flux for more information.
• Los Angeles Times art critic and “Culture Monster” Christopher Knight reports that the design submitted by architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro to Eli Broad for his forthcoming art museum contains the same “mistake” as Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (also designed by DS+R) – that the galleries are too distant from the front entrance of the museum. Read his interesting argument at the Los Angeles Times website.

Boston's ICA. Galleries located in the highest rectangular section, far from the entrance.