PBase is designed for people who have cameras and want to easily display their work on the web.

PBase was conceived in July of 1999 after observing countless camera wielding people that take cool photos but find it difficult to share their work.
It was up and running by August,1999 at photobase.org with basic features.
I soon realized that this was definitely not a novel idea but here’s my version anyway.
The primary mission of PBase is to be the best place on the web to display photos.
All images are copyrighted by their owners.

Go to: PBase

On Saturday, April 1, the UCR/Sweeney Art Gallery will officially open its doors in a newly renovated space that places the gallery at the intersection of Main Street and University Avenue in Riverside.

“People for a Better Tomorrow,” from guest curator Meg Cranston, is the first exhibit in the new space, the nearly century-old Walling building that originally served as the headquarters for Riverside’s First National Bank.

“Instead of cash and gold, the gallery will house art exhibits that bring a new kind of valuable resource to downtown Riverside,” said Joel Martin, interim dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “The Sweeney joins the established UCR/California Museum of Photography and the planned Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts, providing additional space and energy and creative treasure to UCR and to the Riverside arts community in general.”

A curator’s walkthrough of the first exhibit, which showcases the work of eight dynamic and diverse artists dedicated to idea that art can transform society, is scheduled for 4 p.m. April 1 and the opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. that night.

Jim Isermann, associate professor of art history and a recognized artist in his own right, serves as the faculty director of the Sweeney Art Gallery. “We’re very excited about the gallery’s new location, and especially Peter Zellner’s design,” he said. “It’s high-profile and will help us attract the best art exhibits possible. As well, the location in downtown Riverside puts the gallery in the heart of the Inland Empire, and this increases our ability to reach out to the community well beyond UCR.”

For 43 years, the Sweeney Art Gallery has been offering exhibits on the UCR campus. The move downtown follows a renovation of the former bank into a modern gallery space by architect Peter Zellner, in association with Ontario based firm HMC Architects. Zellner is the founding principal of Zellner/Design Planning Research as well as a faculty member of SCI-Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture. His firm has completed several art galleries in both Los Angeles and New York City.

“What is provocative about the gallery’s setting is that it is located within a revitalized historic district tied to one of the fastest growing regions in North America, the Inland Empire,” Zellner said.

“From my perspective, that dynamic is not only unique but it also offers up a real challenge in terms of how we think about the relationship between art, commerce and urban redevelopment. What is so special about the new Sweeney is that its location in relationship to Main Street, Downtown Riverside and the UC Riverside campus blurs the distinctions between urban and suburban conditions. I think that fact alone will make the gallery a compelling place to test the disciplinary boundaries of art and curatorial practice.”

He said that the new Sweeney Art Gallery has the potential to become a model for other communities, as an adaptable, vibrant contemporary arts facility within a historic downtown setting.

“What I am very excited about is the special exhibition zone we created behind the windows along Main Street and University Avenue. These zones will function, in a way, as storefronts in a public corridor — offering artists the opportunity to create site specific installations that could potentially interact with pedestrian and vehicular traffic. I am really hopeful that this feature will really activate the street corner and give the Sweeney an important profile in the redevelopment of Downtown Riverside.”

UCR/Sweeney Art Gallery is located at 3800 Main Street, on the Downtown Pedestrian Mall in Riverside, California. The gallery is open to the public from Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Children 12 and under must be accompanied by an adult. For further information, please call the gallery during its hours of operation at 951-827-3755 or visit us at http://sweeney.ucr.edu.

Go to: UCR News

Withers accepted the D.C. Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline on behalf of her company, the Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, founded in 1974.

The Award comes at an appropriate time for reflection of Withers’ past accomplishments and artistic developments, and is fitting for Withers’ fortieth anniversary of teaching at GW.

Maida Withers was honored as an engaging and innovative experimental performer, holding a unique position in the international and DC art community. She holds a position as a GW dance professor and graduate program director.

Withers’ work is very distinct and often performance-based, and consists of large scale and collaborative projects. Withers was a self-proclaimed participant in the modern dance revolution, and in the generation of transition from the modern to post-modern artistic movement. Experimental dance emerged, moving away from classical performances to a more natural and organic nature.

Withers embraced this growing movement, and with her collaborative tendencies worked with other artists, experimental mediums and technology. Her early work was intensely political, outrageous and risqué; Withers became known for her blatant and eccentric performances.

In addition to her unique style, Withers also maintains direct connections with the artistic community and teaching, according to her company’s website. She has founded the DC International Dance Improvisation Plus+ Festival, among others, is on the founding board of directors of Washington Project for the Arts, and teaches international dance workshops.

She has received numerous recognitions, including the Pola Nirenska Life-Time Artistic Achievement Award presented by The Washington Performing Arts Society.

Withers explained the evolutionary nature of her work and “the long germination period of research” involved in each piece.

“I don’t decide to make works, the work itself comes after… sometimes taking years to emerge” she said.

Her process is developmental, she says, and heightens the translation of an artistic work. She is strongly focused on her collaboration, and cites the importance of their scientific, artistic and technological incorporations.

Collaborators add more than logistics in the completion of a project – they “must share in a vision, it requires a sense of openness.”

“You don’t want a submissive collaborator” Withers said. As such, for both Withers and collaborators the process “requires faith, you have to be fearless and delve into unknown territory.”

Withers has done just that, as indicated in her past and critically acclaimed works, such as her latest project, Aurora/2001: Dance of the Auroras. Incorporating a multi-media cyber world courtesy of Brazilian Tania Fraga and music from Norwegian Oystein Sevag, Aurora /2001 was an international mix of artistic mediums.

Her relationships and collaborations with other artists brings Withers across the world and spans over years. In Aurora/2001 Withers first went to Finland and later to Norway in search of composers who “knew the methodology and had the personal experience [of auroras].”

Later, another music producer suggested Oystein Sevag, a Norweigan composer with experimental tendencies as an ideal contributor. Withers also began working with Tania Fraga, a visitor to GW for computer science research, to incorporate a multi-medium cyber world. Together, and with the aid of a wireless mouse, they made the almost ethereal northern lights an interactive experience with the dancers.

As many of Withers’ experimental works require large undertakings, on-site locations, and other artists, spontaneous movement is largely incorporated.

“You get to a setting and start to notice the noise, traffic, and light and begin to make the work specific to the space. It only happens once. It’s authentic and takes more risk.”

“It incorporates skills and personality to see what happens- it creates a spontaneous discovery.”

Withers’ emphasis on improvisations is illustrative of her inclination towards the experimental and organic; traits that have made her a unique artist in the DC art community.

“There is not too much competition,” Withers jokes, “there aren’t too many interested in extreme and experimental performance.”

Though there is a lack of interest in actually performing experimental dance in DC, there is no lack of audience eager to watch. Countless rave reviews from The Washington Post and The New York Times, to name a few, have hailed Withers and her company as a commanding and premier Washingtonian artist.

Alan M. Kriegsman of The Washington Post writes,“ Picture the Washington dance scene without Maida Withers…how much duller, drier, and shorter on surprise the last decade would have been… [she is] a prime evangelist of the novel and strange byways of dance…”

In light of her awards and praise, Withers is grateful for her audiences and supporters.

Her “fantastic, exposed, political and well-educated” audiences and “vibrant artistic community have been a source of pleasure,” Withers reflects. She extends particular thanks to the African American art community in DC. “I am so grateful to that community for their good relationship and artistic culture.”

Withers also thanked the recognition when receiving The D.C. Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline. “I hope this award serves as a reminder of the importance of dance as an art form,” Withers said.

Maida Withers’ recent accomplishment and upcoming events are illustrative of the importance of art at GW and in the local community. She will be showcasing the development of her past work in a Retrospective, to be held beginning April 21 at the Dimock Gallery in Lisner Auditorium. More information is available at www.maidadance.com.

Withers elaborates and says that awards of this nature “allows for reflection and appreciation of those who have devoted their living to expression.”

This reflection can also be extended in supporting dance for building an artistic future.

“If only institutional art is supported, only the past is supported. Where is the room for experimentation and new directions?”

Withers concludes that such considerations are particularly important in a time of conflict over “what art is, and what it should be.”

She reminds, “There is a place for art at GW. It is there, has been and will be.”

Go to: The Daily Colonial

Works by Jeff Koons and Paul McCarthy were among those sold by Germany’s “punk princess.”

Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis likes motorcycles and rock stars, lavish parties and jewels. She is known among the international jet set as the “punk princess” who collects contemporary art. But sometimes, she cleans house.

On Monday night she put 50 works by some of today’s trendiest artists — including Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman and Paul McCarthy — up for sale at Phillips, dePury & Co. (Phillips auctioned 85 more works from her collection on Tuesday morning.)

Although the princess was not in attendance at Phillips’ Chelsea salesroom Monday, her two daughters, Elisabeth and Maria Theresia, were there, videotaping the proceedings. Their mother will no doubt be pleased by what she sees.

The sale totaled $6.3 million, or $7.4 million with Phillips’ commission. (Prices of record include the commission.) The high estimate was $7 million.

In 1993 the princess held a nine-day sale of furniture, art and objects from Schloss St. Emmeram, the family castle in Regensburg, Bavaria — everything from a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to 75,000 bottles of vintage wine.

That sale, which brought more than $19 million, went to pay inheritance taxes on the estate of her husband, Prince Johannes, who died in 1990.

In 1992, she had already sold much of the family jewels, also at Sotheby’s. Simon de Pury, chairman of Phillips, then chairman of Sotheby’s in Europe, presided over both events, and he and the princess became friends.

Buying with an eye for profit

De Pury recently put her on Phillips’ board. And Monday night she showed her support for him and for the company by weeding out much of her collection. (Art dealers familiar with her collection say she has held onto the best work.)

Before the auction, some dealers grumbled that the princess had bought many of the works recently in anticipation of turning them around at this auction to make a profit.

Many also said the offerings were mediocre in quality. But that didn’t seem to diminish the enthusiasm for contemporary art; even works made just months ago sold for strong prices. Records were set for eight artists.

But compared with the big-ticket postwar and contemporary artworks for sale at Sotheby’s and Christie’s this week, these offerings seemed cheap. In fact, no single item made $1 million.

The most expensive work was Paul McCarthy’s “Santa Long Neck,” a 2004 painted bronze sculpture of a distorted Santa Claus. It sold to a telephone bidder for $856,000, well over its $700,000 high estimate and a record for the artist at auction.

There was less competition for Koons’ “Yorkshire Terriers,” a polychromed wood sculpture of two dogs, one wearing a blue bow, the other a pink one. It is from an edition of three plus an artist’s proof that Koons made in 1991. Only one bidder wanted the sculpture, and the hammer fell at $550,000, just under the low estimate of $600,000.

Who got the joke?

Sometimes there was serious competition. The princess was selling two joke paintings — plain-colored canvases from the 1980s with the text of jokes — by Richard Prince, whose prices have skyrocketed over the past two years.

Stellan Holm, a Manhattan dealer, and Hyun Sook Lee, president of the Kukje Gallery, one of the most successful galleries in South Korea, fought over “Untitled (A Man Walks Into a Doctor’s Office)” from 1988.

Both wanted the painting badly, and the winner was Lee, who paid $475,200, far above its $350,000 high estimate. Prince’s “Why Are You Crying?” (1988) was less popular and less expensive. Todd Levin, the curator for the Manhattan collector Adam Sender, bought it for $296,000, above its low estimate of $250,000.

Photography sold, but not for tremendous prices. Among the best photographs was Andreas Gursky’s “Chicago Mercantile Exchange,” one of an edition of six from 1997. Three bidders went for the image, which sold to an unidentified buyer for $352,000, after a low estimate of $300,000.

The way even brand new works sold surprised many. Anselm Kiefer’s 2005 sculpture “XXI Claudia Quinta,” made of lead books stacked precariously and topped with a model ship and human hair, was bought by James Cohan, the Manhattan dealer, for $340,800, far above its high estimate of $300,000.

After the sale, de Pury said it did not represent the end of the princess’ collecting.

“It is her intention,” he said, “to keep buying art that is right now.”

Go to: Star Tribune

This Gallery is opened to artists to exhibit 9 of their artworks for a period of six months at no monetary costs. You are invited to leave behind your critique and you may also order prints of the shown artworks. BE OUR GUEST.

GALLERIES

In this category galleries have the opportunity to present themselves to thousands of visitors within the
“WWW Cyber Gallery” through a direkt link to their own web site for a period of three months.

Gallery Archive

Go to: ART channel

An auction of postwar art took $157.4m (£90.4m) in one day, the highest ever for a contemporary art auction, Christie’s said yesterday.
The auction on Tuesday evening hit auction highs for 18 artists. Mark Rothko’s Homage to Matisse was the top-selling work, going for $22.4m and setting a record not only for the artist but for any work of postwar art sold at auction. The red, orange and blue canvas was a favourite of the artist, who displayed it at his wedding.

It was also the first time a photograph sold for more than $1m at auction: Untitled (Cowboy) by Richard Prince, sold for $1.2m.

Go to: Guardian Unlimited

I collect DVDs and comic books. I like vampire myths, clever horror movies and smart comedies. I listen to oldies, classic rock, medieval music, pop and rock.

Please check out my [FAQ] if you have some more questions.

Tools of the Trade

Go to: 4VISIONS portfolio

At Cyber Gallery you can do a lot more than check your email or browse the World Wide Web.
You can use the Gallery’s computers, design tools, and office equipments
to create and print documents, presentations and artwork.

Our objective is to help you achieve great results by making better and more effective use of IT in your work.
Our friendly staff are always at hand to guide you through unfamiliar subjects or tasks.
You can feel free to seek their advice, discuss your requirements, and plan your work.

Check for our latest courses on offer. These can be arranged for groups or customised to individual needs.
You can either follow a computer based course at your own pace, or take part in tutor assisted sessions.

Subjects range from general introduction to Windows operating environment, standard office
applications likeWord, Excel, Access, to more specific and advanced graphics and web design packages.

Graphics & Web Design

You can book a session to work with an in-house designer or, if required, our designers will work to
your specifications to produce great looking graphics or web pages.

Computer Systems & Networks

There is in-house expertise in Windows, Mac, NT, and UNIX based systems. We can deliver cost
effective solutions for your hardware, software, and network requirements.

Recent Media Coverage

Time Out Guide to London’s top cybercafe’s including the Cyber Gallery - 23 February 2000
Canonbury News IT in Canonbury, Interview with Cyber Gallery - Spring 2000

Go to: The Cyber Gallery

http://www.cage.nl/

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