World famous artist Jeff Koons is curating a show in New York City titled “Skin Fruit.” The exhibition features over 100 works of art from 50 different international artists, chosen from the collection of prominent art collector Dakis Joannou. Located at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, it will be open until June 6th. The exhibition ” explores the age-old preoccupation with the human body as a vessel and vehicle for experience, a distinctive focus of the collection. Koons’s title “Skin Fruit” alludes to notions of genesis, evolution, original sin, and sexuality. “Skin” and “fruit” evoke the tensions between interior and exterior, between what we see and what we consume.” More images after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

French artist JR has created a beautiful dedication to women in wartime from 70 different photographs, titled “Women are Heroes.” The chosen photographs were enlarged to a monstrous size and mounted up in separate sheets of paper, like an enormous jigsaw puzzle. They were placed all over Paris, on bridges and walls along the River Seine, and the video shows several time lapses of the giant expressions taking shape over the course of several days. Passersby are interviewed, asking their opinion on the artwork, and one asks what the point is, because it is paper and is eventually destroyed by the wind and rain. The destruction of JR’s work becomes as important as its creation, and the 8 minute video manages to capture a sense of wonder and loss in its brevity.

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“Portraits” at the National Portrait Gallery in London is a new exhibition dedicated to some of the most famous portraits by the late Irving Penn. Over his 70 year career, he photographed many important cultural figures of the 20th century, and featured in the exhibition will be Truman Capote, Salvador Dali, Christian Dior, T.S. Eliot, Duke Ellington, Grace Kelly, Rudolf Nureyev, Al Pacino, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso and Harold Pinter. Over 120 silver and platinum prints will be on display that range from his Vogue work in the 1940s to some of his last works before his death last year. “Portraits” will be on display until June 6th in London, then it will move to Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome from July 1st through September 19th, 2010.

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