A new contemporary art project has launched this month. The murmurART site launch will present 40 of the most talented emerging artists in the UK and exhibit their work for sale online. Many of the pieces will debut at the site’s launch. It is the first high quality online platform dedicated to the promotion of a handpicked selection of emerging artists.

Over the last six months murmurART, with the help of the former editor of Art Review, Catriona Warren, has searched through hundreds of the best artists who have emerged over the last few years to represent on the site.

Catriona and murmurART are committed to supporting emerging artists of outstanding potential and engaging the widest possible audience in contemporary art. As well as a place for collectors to source unfound talent, the site provides an open platform for newcomers to contemporary art.

Co-founder William Conibear explains “Although the thrust of the website is promoting quality emerging artists, it also provides the perfect platform for newcomers to the art world to discover, learn about and invest in contemporary art.”

Artists invited to showcase their work on the site include names such as Laurence Owen, Hugo Wilson, Kevin Harman, Giles Ripley, Emma Wieslander and Alex Robbins. murmurART have chosen from all practices including painting, sculpture, video art, photography, performance art and installation.

Catriona Warren highlights, “What is exciting about murmurART is the quality of work on the site: it features some of the strongest emerging artists of the last few years at a stage in their careers where their work is still affordable to collect.”

The project will also host online exhibitions of work selected by internationally established and emerging curators, as well as holding a London-based show this May with help from Creative Consultant Flora Fairbairn, organiser of the Concrete and Glass festival. The murmurART online magazine, covering the less established side of the contemporary art world, launches in February next year.

Colin Heavingham is now the artist in residence at the Old Boy’s Club at Dalston, UK.

Steve Savage, of the Old Boys Club, has purchased eight paintings of Colin Heavingham’s work and has hung them as a permanent exhibition. When other exhibitions take place the pictures can be privately viewed by emailing Steve.

The title of the exhibition is “Chaos and Nonconformity” and it deals with the “other” side of life, the people and situations that arise from disorganization or radical thoughts.

The “Nude Shopper” is an example, then the “I Love My Dog” painting is a cool look at sex on the net involving beasts. The “Bad Businessman” painting is a cartoon of the violent bully who wheels and deals and “The Puppet” is a picture of one puppet working another of another race.

The list of titles is available on request again by emailing Steve Savage.

Art For Urban Spaces aims to deliver cool urban pieces which encompass original artwork, funky prints and ultra cool furniture. They have just announced that Stuart Hampton is appearing as one of it’s guest artists.

Stuart was born in Bury in Greater Manchester and lived in Heywood until he moved to central Manchester where he studied for a degree in psychology at university. After university he spent some time in India. Upon returning to England, Stuart indulged his passion for the arts and became well known in many circles of artists and musicians for his surreal approach to both art and music.

During his time in Manchester he became active in the music scene and gained a lot of interest from local press for his music. Stuart always held a strong passion for the visual arts and painting and although he was painting during his time as a musician he felt that he wasn’t devoting enough time to cultivate his works so decided to leave the city and move to Cornwall.

Stuart says: “I now spend a lot of time painting and trying to create images that speak messages of peace, understanding, humility and appreciation for love and nature.”

Influenced by some of the great masters of painting such as Gauguin and more contemporary artists like Salvador Dali, Stuart tries to breakdown the borders of perception and reality and unite the imaginary with the real, creating powerful and provocative paintings.

Stuart’s paintings have created wide interest in art circles and in national and international press with exhibitions set to take place throughout 2009, Stuart is considered one of England’s most eagerly anticipated young talents.

This exhibition includes the following works: Hourglass, In A World Of My Own, Lot, Old Friends, Solace, Summer Came To Me, Time Well Spent & Transcendance. These paintings will not be available for long so take a look as soon as possible.

Virgin Trains has commemorated Tate Liverpool’s twentieth anniversary by naming a Virgin Pendolino train after it, in what is a rare accolade for a museum or gallery. The dedicated train was unveiled at Liverpool Lime Street station.

Tate Liverpool is the home of the National Collection of Modern Art in the North of England and is the most popular gallery of modern and contemporary art in the UK, outside London.

Tate Liverpool exhibits art from the Tate Collection alongside changing special exhibitions. These major exhibitions, such as Salvador Dali: A Mythology (1998), Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture (2002-03) and Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era (2005) have brought an important national and international focus to the city. To mark Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture Tate Liverpool presented an ambitious programme including the Turner Prize 2007, the first time the prize has been presented outside London since it began in 1984, and Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900 which attracted over 199,000 visitors in just 14 weeks. Both events attracted global media attention and research has shown that the Turner Prize 2007 contributed more than £10 million to the region’s economy. Tate Liverpool is also the proud winner of the Lever Prize 2008, an award for world-class cultural organisations, as chosen by North West business leaders.

Gene Shapiro Auctions has announced an important auction of Russian, European, and Latin American art, to take place on November 5, 2008 in New York. The catalogue for the auction has now been posted online and the printed full colour catalogue is available for purchase.

Gene Shapiro, President of the company, is confident that this sale will attract many buyers, “Due to the success of our last several auctions, we have been very fortunate to get numerous inquiries about consigning with us, especially from private collectors. This has allowed us access to many high quality works, which are fresh to the market. It has also allowed us to be more selective in our offerings. The total estimate of the November auction is approximately $4,000,000 – 6,000,000, and the per-lot average is more than $20,000. Your serious Russian collector will not want to miss this sale.”

Shapiro has also introduced some new works into his sale as well by including a Latin American segment, and several important European works as well. With the art market more global than ever, and buyers branching out from their own national artists, this seems to be a sign of the times. As Shapiro notes, “Certainly the majority of buyers of Russian art are Russian speakers, but these same Russian buyers are sophisticated collectors who also buy Western European art, Asian art, Latin American Art, and so forth. Likewise, it is interesting to see the growing trend of non-Russian speakers buying Russian art, whether it be 19^th Century, avant-garde or contemporary, as they become more aware of the importance of these Russian artists in the greater realm of art history.”

The Dan Schlesinger exhibition, “Recent Works”, which celebrates the extraordinary achievements of the American artist, will run from October 21^st through November 2^nd at 39 Earlham Street in Seven Dials, the heart of Covent Garden.

The paintings in the exhibition highlight the artist’s fascination with place, exploring the idea through the particular experience of travel and through reflection on landscape as a genre. The exhibition will be comprised of four series of paintings that take as their subject matter Africa, Italy, water and forest life. All four series are notable for Schlesinger’s use of pulsing, electric colours and his signature impastoed application of paint.

Exhibition hours are Monday to Saturday from noon until 8pm and Sunday from noon until 6pm.

Alan Aldridge embodied the spirit of the 60s and 70s. His evocative, psychedelic images epitomised the feeling and art of an era. As The Beatles lead an unstoppable assault on the global charts, it was Aldridge’s designs and visual identity that defined The Beatles image and music in a changing world. Still busy creating today – he was responsible for the look of the House of Blues in Los Angeles, Aldridge is an artist, an illustrator, a graphic designer, art director and film maker. He masterminded the seminal art book The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics and designed Andy Warhol’s iconic Chelsea Girls film poster. As Art Director at Penguin, Aldridge produced ground-breaking covers. Commissions for The Rolling Stones, Elton John and illustrations for the award-winning children’s book The Butterfly Ball and The Grasshoppers Feast will be included in the exhibition, the first complete retrospective of Aldridge’s work in the UK.

Born in London’s East End in 1943, Aldridge calls himself a ‘graphic entertainer’, his pioneering approach to graphic design fuses faux-naive images, bold colours, references to Art Nouveau and Surrealism with an unerring eye for an arresting image to produce an array of posters, album sleeves and picture books that appeal direct to the masses. Aldridge’s radical talent would define an era, as drabness was cast aside, new music and a new visual culture emerged.

Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum adds “Alan Aldridge is a remarkable talent: part Aubrey Beardsley, part rock star, responsible for some of the most memorable images of his time, the Design Museum is proud to present the first retrospective of Aldridge’s work in his home country.”

This exhibition will cover Aldridge’s career to date, from the early 60s when his whirling designs refreshed the somber tone of Penguin book covers, to his collaborations with The Beatles and their Apple record company, through to serving as creative director to the original Hard Rock Café. Commissions from Andy Warhol, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Elton John and The House of Blues will also be on display alongside photographs, sketch books and illustrations from his seminal children’s books.

The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes at London’s Design Museum runs from 10 October 2008 – 25 January 2009

An internationally renowned exhibition of contemporary photographs from the world famous Victoria and Albert Museum has opened in Coventry.

‘Something That I’ll Never Really See’ is organised by the V&A and features over 30 artists as well as new talents in a selection of 44 photographs.

Ludo Keston, chief executive of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, introduced guests to the exhibition at the city centre venue in Jordan Well, which will run until January 11, 2009.

The photographs in ‘Something That I’ll Never Really See’ are drawn from the V&A’s permanent collections and include some of the most innovative works created during a pivotal period in photographic history.

Dominic Bubb, exhibitions officer at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, said: “Something That I’ll Never Really See offers an exciting range of material which is thought provoking and innovative.

It draws together a diverse range of contemporary photographs that the V&A has collected during the last ten years and held in its permanent collection.

Our new galleries are ideal to host exhibitions such as this and we have every faith that they will attract strong interest from our visitors.”

A mini exhibition by three local community groups will also take place alongside ‘Something That I’ll Never Really See’.

The Grapevine drop-in centre for people with learning difficulties is the first of the groups to create photographs of their own communities, and will be followed by Cardinal Wiseman School in November and the School of Art and Design at the University of Wolverhampton in December.

‘Something That I’ll Never Really See’ will be at Gallery One of The Herbert until January 11, 2009 and admission is free.

Tate Liverpool and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, are organising a major retrospective of the work of Glenn Brown to be presented from 20 February to 10 May 2009 in Liverpool and from 28 May until the end of August in Turin.

One of the most revered painters of his generation, this exhibition will bring together the largest selection of the artist’s work to date. Brown borrows from art history and popular culture, working from the images of Dalí, Auerbach, Rembrandt, science fiction illustrators and many others to investigate the languages of painting and how images are read by the viewer. Brown is fascinated by how reproductions of paintings distort the qualities of their originals. Size, colour, surface texture and brushwork are elements by which original works are transformed from the familiar into the alien. Working from books or projecting reproductions onto a blank picture surface, Brown wildly embellishes his source material. Naturalistic colour becomes putrid or kitsch; figures are elongated or enlarged into the grotesque; and heavy impasto, although painstakingly copied, is rendered entirely flat.

The exhibition, which includes over sixty paintings, sculptures and several new works, will be arranged to reveal the artist’s diverse painterly strategies and preoccupations. Rooms will be dedicated to the artist’s obsessive and meticulous copying of brushwork with works including ‘You never touch my skin in the way you did, and you’ve even changed the way you kiss me’ (1994) and ‘Telstar’ (1995). His relentless appropriation of Auerbach, returning to the same work again and again in order to transform the head of a figure, is realised in works such as ‘Kill the Poor’ (2000) and ‘The Real Thing’ (2000). Further rooms will reflect Brown’s playful use of kitsch and the sublime, through which the artist radically displaces familiar works by Dalí, Fragonard and John Martin. Brown’s perceptive processes will also be explored. Often placing formal and aesthetic concerns over original subject matter and meaning, details from well known-works are isolated, manipulated, becoming subject matters in themselves.

Glenn Brown was born in Hexam in 1966. From 1984 to 1992 he studied at Norwich School of Art, the Bath College of Higher Education and then trained at Goldsmith’s College. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2000.

The Here and Now Gallery in Falmouth, UK, will present a solo exhibition of work by the Bristol based artist Ben Newman. The exhibition will run from 29^th September to 27^th October and will feature stunning graphic limited edition prints at affordable prices!

Ben Newman was born in 1982. His childhood was heavily influenced by American superheroes, the Beano and rope swings. In 2004 he graduated from the University of the West of England, Bristol, with a first degree honors in Illustration. After travelling around Asia, Ben has returned to Bristol where he currently resides and works as a freelance illustrator. He has exhibited in the UK, France and Germany and he received the “People’s Choice Award” at the Bristol Art Show 2006. Apparently Ben owns one desk, two pens, three pencils and a letter opener!