Daily art news

NEW YORK, NY.- From Thursday, March 3, to Sunday, March 6, 2011, iPhone-toting visitors to Pulse, SCOPE, VOLTA NY, Fountain, and Moving Image will experience the New York art fairs in a new way thanks to a "next-gen" mobile technology that recognizes artworks. 

The art fair visitor equipped with the Collectrium mobile app will be able to point her iPhone at any registered artwork exhibited at the fair and: 

• instantly receive extensive information on the artist and the piece; 
• add the artwork to "My Collection" favorites; 
• share with friends via Facebook, Twitter and email; 
• contact the gallery about the artwork. 
So, now, no more scribbled notes on postcards and flyers: after exploring the art fairs with the Collectrium iPhone app, the collector can leave with a browsable list of her favorite artworks at the fairs, complete with detailed information on each work, artist, and exhibiting gallery. Even if the collector snaps an unidentified artwork, she can easily enter the information and personal notes about the piece. She will have created her own virtual gallery and catalogue. 

MANCHESTER.- Internationally renowned, Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor creates sensual and beguiling sculptures from pigment, stone, polished stainless steel and wax. This brand new exhibition features two important early works by the artist from the Arts Council Collection, presented alongside around half a dozen of his more recent works, on loan from major UK collections and from the artist’s studio. 

This must-see exhibition is the first major show of Kapoor's work to be held outside London in over a decade and follows the artist's record-breaking Royal Academy exhibition in 2009. 

HOUSTON, TX.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents over 100 photographs in this first major retrospective in the United States devoted to Austrian photographer and scientist Heinrich Kühn (1866-1944), an important figure in the international Pictorialist movement of the early 1900s and closely linked to Americans Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen. Like his fellow Pictorialists, Kühn aspired to have photography recognized as an artistic medium and in his early work strived to create in his photographs the atmospheric effects of Impressionist paintings. He perfected printing processes, such as gum bichromate, that gave him the freedom to manipulate tones, add or eliminate portions of his negatives details, and print on papers with varied textures, giving him exceptional control over the final image. At times, the photographs had the character of etchings or charcoal drawings. Kühn became renowned for the simple elegance of his compositions and for subjects ranging from intimate portraits and nudes to still lifes and rural scenes.