“Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper” at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art features 78 life-size, trompe l’œil paper costumes by Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave encompassing over 500 years of fashion history. OKCMOA is the exclusive regional venue for the exhibition.

Fashioning Art from Paper at the OKC MOA - photo by Dennis Spielman

“The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is honored to be one of co-organizers of this prestigious retrospective and national tour,” said President and CEO E. Michael Whittington. “This is the first time de Borchgrave’s four innovative paper fashion collections have been shown together and visitors will enjoy both the scale of the works and range of styles presented. From Marie de Medici to Coco Chanel to Les Ballets Russes, this exhibition is sure to amaze and delight.”

Fashioning Art from Paper at the OKC MOA - photo by Dennis Spielman

de Borchgrave (born 1946) is a prominent Belgian artist, painter and sculptor, best known for her paper costumes. Programming and events throughout the summer will be inspired by “Fashioning Art from Paper” including classes, camps, workshops, public tours and events.

The exhibition will run until September 9, 2018.

In commemoration of Bastille Day, The Oklahoma City Museum of Art continues its annual celebration of recent French cinema. Beginning on Thursday, July 12 and running through Sunday, July 15, Museum Films’ French Film Week series presents a curated showcase of crowd-pleasing hits and festival favorites.

“This year’s French Film Week lineup is one of our best yet,” said Dr. Michael J. Anderson, director of curatorial affairs. “We’re thrilled to be able to include bold, personal films by modern masters—like Olivier Assayas’s autobiographical youth-culture reverie, ‘Cold Water’ and Bruno Dumont’s post-modern rock opera, ‘Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc’ —alongside the work of relatively unknown rising stars like Valérie Massadian. ‘Milla,’ was one of the best films of 2017, and we’re very pleased to bring it to Oklahoma City.”

Tickets for French Film Week are now on sale. Prices are $5 for OKCMOA members, $9 for adults, $7 for seniors (62+), college students with IDs and teens ages 13 to 18.

French Film Week opens with a new 4K restoration of “Cold Water,” an acclaimed, previously unavailable early work by Olivier Assayas (“Personal Shopper”), making its long-awaited debut in U.S. theaters.

Other series highlights include Bruno Dumont’s staggeringly original biographical musical, “Jeannette”—which follows a determined young Joan of Arc as she sings, dances, and wrestles with her vocation—and Valérie Massadian’s graceful second feature, “Milla,” one of the most sensitive and wise depictions of adolescent experience and young motherhood in recent years.

Three siblings reunite to save their family vineyard in Cédric Klapisch’s sparkling comedy-drama, “Back to Burgundy,” a gorgeous, warm-hearted celebration of family, home and wine-county traditions. A highlight of the Cannes Film Festival’s “Un Certain Regard” program, Laurent Cantet’s “The Workshop” is a sophisticated literary thriller set in the beautiful port city of La Ciotat.

A stirring saga of love and survival set against the backdrop of WWI, “The Guardians” follows the women of the Paridier farm, who strive to maintain their livelihood and traditions while their loved ones are away at the front. Elevated by writer-director Xavier Beauvois’ sensitive screenplay and exquisite, painterly compositions, it features a delicate score by legendary composer Michel Legrand (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”).

French Film week concludes with a special preview of Xavier Giannoli’s “The Apparition,” which will screen at OKCMOA in advance of its official American release. An elegant, thought-provoking and beautifully acted fable about the price of faith and the possibility of miracles, “The Apparition” stars leading French actor Vincent Lindon as celebrated journalist recruited by the Vatican to investigate the veracity of a saintly apparition in a small French village.

For more information on the French Film Month programming, visit: http://www.okcmoa.com/visit/events/french-film-week-2018/

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s Third Thursdays program features live music, a special menu at the Museum Cafe, full bar on the Roof Terrace, and access to the Museum’s galleries. Admission is just $5; food and libations are available at an additional cost. This year, the Museum’s Roof Terrace will be open to the public only during Third Thursday events.

“Throughout the year, Third Thursday will be a fantastic way to visit the Museum and channel your ‘inner Michelangelo’ while enjoying great food and drinks in a unique atmosphere.”“The Museum has always been busy on Thursday evenings,” said E. Michael Whittington, President and CEO. “We are thrilled to offer even more reasons to visit with our new Third Thursday series presented by Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores. Throughout the year, Third Thursday will be a fantastic way to visit the Museum and channel your ‘inner Michelangelo’ while enjoying great food and drinks in a unique atmosphere. We are grateful to Love’s for their partnership in this innovative new Museum program.”

“We are excited to support a full year of Third Thursdays,” added Jenny Love Meyer, vice president of communications at Love’s. “The recent growth and development of our downtown area has been significant and Third Thursdays will continue to build on this momentum. We believe the arts are a vital part of a vibrant downtown and are committed to increasing access for everyone in our community.”

The Museum will continue extended hours and $5 admission every Thursday, but special programming and the opening of the Roof Terrace will occur only on the third Thursday of the month.

Admission to the Museum on Thursday evenings is $5, and no other discounts apply. Admission for Museum members is always free. More information about Third Thursdays, including how to purchase tickets, can be found on the Museum’s website, okcmoa.com.

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art will host “Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement” October 13, 2018, through January 6, 2019, and “Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts” June 22 through September 22, 2019. “Victorian Radicals” features 145 works of art representing the full spectrum of avant-garde practices during the Victorian period and “Van Gogh, Monet, Degas” includes more than 70 works by European masters such as Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau and Vincent Van Gogh.

“This season is yet another exciting year at OKCMOA,” said President and CEO E. Michael Whittington. “We are honored to work once again with our friends at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to bring ‘Van Gogh, Monet, Degas’ to Oklahoma City. It is through partnerships like this one that we are able to consistently bring excellent exhibitions to our community. From the revolutionary Pre-Raphaelites of Victorian England to the most celebrated French Impressionist and Modern artists, this season will offer unparalleled access to masterworks in Oklahoma City.”

Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement
Oct. 13, 2018 – Jan. 6, 2019

In the second half of the 19th century, three generations of young, rebellious artists and designers revolutionized the visual arts in Britain by engaging with and challenging the new industrial world around them. Known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, these artists and the champions of the Arts & Crafts Movement offered a radical artistic and social vision whose inspiration was in the pre-industrial past. Their work deeply influenced visual culture in Britain and beyond. Organized from the outstanding collection of the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom, “Victorian Radicals” will bring together an extensive array of works—many of which have never been exhibited outside the UK—to illuminate this dynamic period of British art.

Featuring works by pioneering artists including Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Sidall, “Victorian Radicals” will represent the spectrum of avant-garde practices of the Victorian era, emphasizing the response of Britain’s first modern art movement to the unfettered industrialization of the period. These artists’ attention to detail, use of vibrant colors and engagement with both literary themes and contemporary life will be illustrated through a selection of paintings, drawings and watercolors presented alongside outstanding examples of decorative arts.

The exhibition explores the ideas that preoccupied artists and critics at the time—the relationship between art and nature, questions of class and gender identity, the value of the handmade versus machine production and the search for beauty in an age of industry—issues that remain relevant and actively debated today. OKCMOA is proud to be the first museum to present this traveling exhibition of exceptional historical and visual richness.

“Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement” is organized by the American Federation of Arts and Birmingham Museums Trust. This exhibition is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding provided by Clare McKeon and the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation.

Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
June 22 – Sept. 22, 2019

Featuring more than 70 works by French and European masters such as Degas, Manet, Monet, Rousseau and Van Gogh, this exhibition celebrates Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon’s extraordinary gift of 19th and early 20th century French art to the VMFA. After first becoming interested in British sporting art, Paul Mellon began to collect 19th-century French art in the 1940s with his second wife, Rachel Lambert Mellon. While their collection largely consists of Impressionist paintings, it also includes masterpieces from every important school of French art—from Romanticism and the Barbizon School through Cubism and the School of Paris. Taken together, these works exemplify the Mellons’ personal vision and highly original collecting strategies, which provide a context for understanding this unique collection.

The exhibition will reproduce the invigorating experience of the Mellons’ collection, in which each work resonates with and gains greater strength from its lovingly created context. “Van Gogh, Monet, Degas” is presented in a series of sections including Cyphers of Modernity, Horses, Flowers, Views of Paris, People, Water, Interiors and Tables, The French Countryside, The Transformation of the Ordinary and VMFA: Toward Impressionism. Opening with Cyphers of Modernity, visitors will be introduced to two of the collection’s most characteristic paintings: Berthe Morisot’s “Young Woman Watering a Shrub” and Théodore Géricault’s “Mounted Jockey.” These paintings are emblematic of the collection in their commitment to modernism, as well as their subject matter, which appealed to Mrs. Mellon’s love of gardening and Mr. Mellon’s passion for horses and horse racing.

Exhibition organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

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Dennis Spielman

I'm Dennis Spielman, the Producer of Uncovering Oklahoma, which I started in 2009 as a way to show that Oklahoma isn't boring. As for about myself, I’m a creative person that writes imaginative stories. I also run The Show Starts Now Studios, which is my umbrella organization for all of my shows I create. Come join me on Patreon as I create content that adds adventure and wonder to peoples' lives. More about my stories and projects are at DennisSpielman.com