The Art Renewal Center (ARC), a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to skill-based training in the visual arts, announced recently that despite being unable to show the 14th International ARC Salon Exhibition live at Sotheby’s NY as planned, they would not lose this opportunity to showcase the 21st Century Representational Art Movement to the world, partnering with Sotheby’s to launch their virtual salon exhibit at Sothebys.com.
Seventy of their exhibiting artists have participated in submitting video interviews about themselves and their works, that ARC has fully edited into short 40 second to 3 minutes mini-films. The videos and 99 works included in the exhibition come from around the world and collectively form a powerful story of the Representational Art Movement, totaling two hours of edited video footage. All this footage has been embedded directly into their newly designed digital catalog, creating a uniquely engaging virtual experience.
Each artist is different, each story is different, but together they tell an overarching global story about the passion behind representational expression, life, and the human condition as reflected in the art itself.
Starting as only a murmur in the early 1980s, the Representational Art Movement has now become an undeniable force in the contemporary world, with thousands of students, thousands of artists, and scores of organizations reclaiming artistic elegance with poetry and grace.
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The virtual exhibition will be presented worldwide at Sothebys.com through July 31, 2020.
“There is an inborn awe… an innate reverence when one feels they are looking at a real person or object standing before them that is in truth, nothing but paint and canvas, graphite and paper or even earthen minerals like clay or bronze transformed.” Says Kara Lysanrda Ross, Co-Chair / COO of the Art Renewal Center. “Humanity has always had an innate desire to tell stories. Even before recorded history, we know story telling was used to pass knowledge from one generation to the next. It is a unique characteristic of our species, to tell stories. When someone asks, ‘how was your day today’, the response is usually a story of its own, of what we did or what we saw and heard… and through this storytelling comes the visual arts. From ancient cave drawings to Ancient Rome and the High Renaissance humanity continues to create visual representations of the world. A record of time, place, culture and the human mind interpreted though individual perspective. To human beings, this is an elevated form of primal communication, one that is protected and cherished in museums across the globe. Universally recognized as some of humankind’s greatest achievements. The techniques used to create representational works, like those studied and used by the old masters, almost forgotten in the 20th century are once again thriving.”
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I am an amateur artist and I have always advocated figurative and representational art. They are the foundations of good art. I am not decrying abstract art as a worthy art form but I think these days there are too many galleries who don’t even look at figurative or representational art. I don’t think any exhibition or gallery should be mutually exclusive. There is room for everything and I think that all art schools should teach figurative and representational art as a foundation. I’m glad the Representational Art Movement is becoming popular and I hope it continues to do so.