What's on at Europe's Museums

Raw art in Spain

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao

The French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) described his pictorial style as "Art Brut" (raw art). A far cry from the typical French artistic tradition, his work depicts deformed creatures with disproportionate bodies and was criticised as many as barbaric. The surrealist artist himself remained adamant that his work questioned the deceitful notion of beauty “inherited from the Greeks and promoted by magazine covers.” It was partially inspired by the spontaneous art of self-taught, mentally ill artists.

The exhibition "Trace of an Adventure” runs until April 28, 2004. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Botero debuts in Paris

Musée Maillol, Paris

In an exhibition debut, the Musée Maillol in Paris is turning its attention to a collection of works by South America’s most celebrated painter, Fernando Botero. The 86 works on display are a colourful combination of paintings, pastels and drawings, which show his typically rotund characters in brothel scenes, bullfights and at picnics. But there are also some darker exhibits in which the artist pays pictorial testimony to the violence in his native Columbia. The works date from the past five years. Most of them have never been exhibited before.

The exhibition "Botero” runs to March 15, 2004. The museum is open every day except Tuesday from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Tribute to the Human Body

Albertina Wien, Vienna

Back in the Sixties, Günter Brus (photo) attracted some of the wrong kind of attention when his artistic actions landed him on the wrong side of the law. Today Brus is an important name in art history -- a retrospective at Vienna’s Albertina to mark the occasion of his 65th birthday makes that quite obvious. Hundreds of exhibits span the chronology of his work, covering the expansive range of subjects which have held his attention over the years. With the human body often at the core of his work, the exhibition presents drawings, photographic and film documents of his actions in the late Sixties, photo collages, pastels and a selection of four-part picture poems.

The exhibition “Work Orbit” runs from 7. November 2003 to February 8, 2004. The museum is open daily from 10.am to 6.pm and on Wednesdays until 9.pm.

Back in time with Giorgione

Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice

Although the Italian painter Giorgione (1478-1510) died of the plague at an early age, he is still considered one of the most talented painters of the Venice renaissance. Little is known about his life and only a few of his paintings have survived the rigors of time, making the exhibition, “Le maraviglie dell’arte” (The Wonders of Art) a rare opportunity to admire the gentle moods of the great master. For the first time in fifty years, the show brings together 25 Giorgione paintings, including the world famous altarpiece from the Castelfranco cathedral.

The exhibition “Le maraviglie dell’arte” runs to March 15, 2004. The museum is open every day except Tuesday from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Contemporary German Photography

Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

In a show opening this week in the new exhibition hall designed by Ieoh Ming Pei, 20th century German photography takes center stage. More than 300 works by 57 artists have been brought together as a “panorama of German photo art”. The focus of the exhibition is the polarity between the human body and architecture and the diversity of relationships between people and their surroundings over the last century.

The exhibition “Von Körpern und anderen Dingen” (From bodies and other things) starts on November 19, 2004 and runs through to February 16, 2004. The museum is open every day from 10a.m. - 6 p.m.