Willem de Kooning

Drops out of school to enroll as an apprentice in a craftwork and decoration firm in Rotterdam.

Attends classes in fine arts and craftwork at the Rotterdam Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen.

Moves to the United States, living in Hoboken, New Jersey, and working as a house painter.

Moves to New York, where he meets other artists, including Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and John Graham.

Begins to work on murals for the WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal Art Project. Meets critic Harold Rosenberg. De Kooning&#8217;s work is included in the exhibition New Horizons in American Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Designs the sets and costumes for the ballet Les nuages, performed by the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

Takes part in the exhibition American and French Painters at Macmillan Inc. in New York. Meets Jackson Pollock and Marcel Duchamp.

Begins work on the series Black-and-White Abstractions.

Has his first solo exhibition, at Charles Egan Gallery in New York. Teaches summer school at Black Mountain College near Asheville in North Carolina.

Presents the painting Excavation at the XXV Biennale di Venezia.

Writes the essay “What Abstract Art Means to Me.” The Art Institute of Chicago awards de Kooning the Logan Medal and Purchase Prize for his work Excavation.

Holds a solo show at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York.

Takes part in the XXVII Biennale di Venezia.

Participates in Documenta 2 in Kassel, Germany.

Becomes an American citizen. Holds a joint exhibition with Barnett Newman at Allan Stone Gallery in New York.

Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civil award given by the U.S. government. Participates in Documenta 3 in Kassel, Germany.

The first retrospective exhibition of de Kooning&#8217;s work is held at the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, Massachusetts.

The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam holds a retrospective of de Kooning&#8217;s work, for which he travels to the Netherlands for the first time since 1926. The exhibition later travels to the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Meets Francis Bacon in London.

Creates his first sculptures, formed of clay and cast in bronze, at a foundry in Rome.

De Kooning&#8217;s lithographs are displayed at M. Knoedler et Cie in Paris.

The Baltimore Museum of Art organizes the first exhibition of de Kooning&#8217;s sculptures.

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis presents a major exhibition of de Kooning&#8217;s sculptures and drawings that later travels to other museums in the United States.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters awards de Kooning a Gold Medal for his painting œuvre. 1978 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York holds a major exhibition of de Kooning&#8217;s recent works.

Awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Prize, accompanied by an exhibition of his work at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Named officer of the Orde van Orange-Nassau by the Dutch government.

Exhibits his latest work at the Xavier Fourcade Gallery in New York. Elected a member of the Akademie der Künste inBerlin.

Willem de Kooning: The North Atlantic Light, 1960-1983 is presented at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and later travels to several other museums in Europe. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York organizes an exhibition of de Kooning&#8217;s drawings, paintings, and sculptures that travels to the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and the Musée National d&#8217;Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris the following year.

Anthony d&#8217;Offay Gallery in London holds an exhibition of de Kooning&#8217;s paintings and sculptures. Receives the Kaiserring prize from the city of Goslar, Germany.

Receives the National Medal of Arts from the U.S. government.

Gagosian Gallery in New York exhibits a selection of de Kooning&#8217;s Abstract Landscapes.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., organizes a major retrospective of de Kooning&#8217;s work that later travels to Barcelona, Atlanta, and Boston.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., mounts an exhibition of de Kooning&#8217;s work that later travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art holds a retrospective of de Kooning&#8217;s paintings from the 1980s that later travels to Minneapolis, Bonn, Rotterdam, and New York.

Dies in his home in East Hampton on March 19.

Kooning, Willem de

Villa Borghese

Willem de Kooning’s biography and works on display at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Biografía y obras: Kooning, Willem de | Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Jeff Koons

Born in York, Pennsylvania to Henry and Gloria Koons. His sister, Karen, is three years older. His father owned an interior decoration business. Koons learns from him his aesthetic sense.

His parents encourage his creative streak and sign him up for drawing lessons.

Koons paints copies of Old Masters, which his father exhibits in the windows of his interior decoration store and sells to his customers.

Koons studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where he becomes interested in Byzantine painting and American folk art. He paints Surrealist-inspired scenes and landscapes. After calling Salvador Dalí at the St. Regis Hotel, Koons spends a day with him in New York.

Studies at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, where Koons is taught by artists Jim Nutt and Ed Paschke; he becomes close friends with Paschke.

ReceiveshisBachelorofArtsfromMICA.MovestoNewYork,wherehemixeswiththe downtown Manhattan music scene (Patti Smith, Talking Heads).

Artists David Salle and Julian Schnabel introduce Koons to gallery owner Mary Boone, who takes an interest in his work. In his apartment on East 4th Street, he creates sculptures with inflatables and mirrors. 
Works at the Membership Desk at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) recruiting new members and sponsors.

Begins his Inflatables series and the following year the Pre-New.

His first exhibition, The New, is exhibited in the window of The New Museum of Contemporary Art on Fourteenth Street. On display are three sculptures of vacuum cleaners affixed to fluorescent lights with a light box featuring the title of the series and show.

Begins his Equilibrium series, showing the realized works at his first solo gallery exhibition in New York, at International with Monument, and at Feature Gallery in Chicago. This series features his work Two Ball 50/50 Tank in which two basketballs are suspended in equilibrium, the technical challenges of which he achieved by consulting with Nobel Prize physicist Dr. Richard P. Feynman.

Works from Koons’s Luxury and Degradation series are exhibited in his second solo exhibition at International with Monument in New York, which explore class and social mobility. Immediately afterwards he creates his next series, Statuary, which includes his iconic stainless steel sculpture, Rabbit. 
Koons exhibits with a group of Neo-Geo artists at Ileana Sonnabend’s gallery, showing his famous Rabbit for the first time. Sonnabend Gallery represents Koons for over 20 years (with short break in mid 1990s).

The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York includes One Ball Total Equilibrium in their Biennial. 
The Saatchi Collection in London presents the work of a number of young American artists in an exhibition entitled New York Art Now. Rabbit is chosen to illustrate the cover of the exhibition catalogue. At the invitation of curator Kasper König, Koons creates the stainless steel sculpture Kiepenkerl for the Skulptur Projekte in Munster, Germany.

His next series, Banality, including the sculpture Michael Jackson and Bubbles, is exhibited at Ileana Sonnabend Gallery in New York, Donald Young Gallery in Chicago, and Galerie Max Hetzler in Cologne simultaneously. Koons announced the shows by starring himself in an advertising campaign that ran in four art magazines. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago presents an exhibition of his work.

Exhibits at the Rotterdamse Kunststiftung. 
For the occasion of the Image of the World exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Koons creates a billboard advertisement for an imagined film, starring himself and adult film star and Italian parliamentarian Ilona Staller (also known as Cicciolina). The image is displayed on Broadway in New York. Although the film was never created, this project launched his next series, Made in Heaven.

Participates in the XLIV Biennale di Venezia, where he shows the first paintings and a sculpture from his Made in Heaven series.

The complete Made in Heaven series, including paintings and sculptures made of porcelain, wood and glass are exhibited at Ileana Sonnabend Gallery in New York and Galerie Max Hetzler in Cologne. 
Marries Ilona Staller in Budapest.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam hold a retrospective exhibition of Koons’s work. During the Documenta Koons installs Puppy, a 40-foot- high topiary sculpture in the form of a West Highland terrier, in front of Arolsen Castle in Hesse, Germany. 
Publishes The Jeff Koons Handbook.

Begins the Celebration series, inspired by the milestones and festivities of a year’s cycle and created by large-scale production methods. 
Koons and Staller divorce in 1994. The legal battle to obtain custody of his son has a profound effect on him.

First solo exhibition in Paris at Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont. 
Puppy is acquired by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and is permanently installed outside of the museum on the occasion of its inauguration.

Exhibits at Sonnabend Gallery in New York and the Deste Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art in Athens. 
Production delays of the Celebration series prompt Koons to begin his series Easyfun, which incorporates paintings and reflective wall sculptures. The new works are shown at the Sonnabend Gallery.

Begins the series Easyfun-Ethereal. Paintings from the series are exhibited at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. 
Installs the topiary sculpture Split-Rocker at the Palais des Papes in Avignon, France. Another version of Puppy is temporarily installed at Rockefeller Center in New York. 
Receives the BZ-Kulturpreis from the Berliner Zeitung in Berlin.

Exhibits at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, and Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles. Works from the Easyfun-Ethereal series are exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the following year at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Jean-Jacques Aillagon, President of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, awards Koons the Legion of Honor at the instigation of President Jacques Chirac.

Begins his Popeye series, marking his return to readymades and inflatable objects. 
The Kunsthaus Bielefeld, Germany, organizes a show of Koons’s photographic and graphic work. Participates in the XXV Bienal de São Paulo, where he shows works from the Easyfun-Etherealseries. 
Receives the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Receives an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. 
Koons marries Justine Wheeler.

Exhibits in an Italian museum for the first time, at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli in Naples. 
Koons’s work is featured in From Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collections at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Unveiling of the first completed Popeyepaintings and sculptures in a solo show at Sonnabend Gallery in New York.

Exhibits at Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin. Retrospective exhibition at the Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst in Oslo, which travels to the Helsinki City Art Museum in Finland. 
Begins the Hulk Elvis series.

Nominated to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His Celebration sculpture Moon, is shown at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in its exhibition entitled Translation. 
For his 50th birthday, wife Justine and friend Jeffrey Deitch throw Koons a surprise party at Deitch’s gallery.

Koons’s work is shown alongside Antonio Canova’s in the exhibition Canova and Koons: Classical Subversion at Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. Balloon Dog is installed on the Grand Canal in Venice to mark the launch of the Pinault Collection at the Palazzo Grassi. 
His work Balloon Flower (Red), is unveiled at 7 World Trade Center.

President Jacques Chirac promotes Koons to Officier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris. 
Gagosian Gallery in London presents two exhibitions of the artist’s work simultaneously: Jeff Koons: Popeye and Jeff Koons: Hulk Elvis. Koons’s work is featured in the group exhibition Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. 
The Koons Family International Law and Policy Institute is developed to combat global issues of child abduction and exploitation.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, presents an exhibition devoted to the artist’s work. Balloon Dog (Yellow)(1994–2000), Coloring Book (1997–2005), and Sacred Heart (Red/Gold) (1994–2007) are the subject of an exhibition on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin exhibits works from his Celebration series. Château de Versailles opened its doors to a living artist for the first time with Jeff Koons: Versailles, where a selection of his works was presented within the Grand Apartments. 
Begins the Antiquity series.

Koons’s work is featured in the show Four-4 at the Black Cube Gallery in Barcelona and in The Unexpected: Van Picasso tot Penck, van Appel tot Koons at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. London’s Serpentine Gallery presents Koons’s Popeye series, and Artist Rooms, a collection of contemporary art jointly owned by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, tours until 2011. Koons receives the Governor’s Awards for the Arts (from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts), where he is given the Distinguished Arts Award.

Koons is made an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. 
His work is exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in New York and Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris. 
The nonprofit organization RxArt, with support from Kiehl’s, installs Koons’s work at the Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. 
The 17th BMW Art Car created by Koons competes at Le Mans, France.

Receives the Voice of Art Award from the F·E·G·S Health and Human Services System organization, and the Artist Icon Award in the Arts from the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut. 
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh inaugurates ARTIST ROOMS Jeff Koons.

Has exhibitions at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels. First solo show in a Swiss Museum at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel. 
Jeff Koons: The Painter opens at the Schirn Kunsthalle and at the same time Jeff Koons: The Sculptor at the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, both in Frankfurt. 
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton honors Koons with the Medal of Arts for his outstanding commitment to the Art in Embassies Program and international and cultural 
exchange.

Koons’s work is presented at Almine Rech gallery in Brussels, Belgium. Summer exhibitions include simultaneous shows in New York with new sculptures and paintings at Gagosian Gallery and David Zwirner presents for the first time, the Gazing Ball series.

A major retrospective opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It later travels to the Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Norwich Castle Museums &amp; Art Gallery in Norfolk opens Jeff Koons ARTIST ROOMS. Jeff Koons: A Retrospective opens at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in June. 
Gagosian West 21st Street in New York presents the series Gazing Ball Paintings. 
Works by Koons are on display at the Naturhistorischen Museum in Vienna, the Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza della Signoria in Florence, and Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna.

A major exhibition devoted to Koons is organized by Newport Street Gallery in London. 
Almine Rech Gallery in London exhibits the series Gazing Ball Paintings. 
Ballerina can be seen at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA).

Made an Honorary Member of University of Oxford’s Edgar Wind Society for Outstanding Contribution to Visual Culture in Oxford, UK. 
Gagosian Beverly Hills opens show with recent work by the American artist.

Awarded at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Gala, held in Washington, D.C. 
Perugino Madonna and Child with Four Saints, a work from the Gazing Ball series, is selected for the show Masterpieces, held at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). 
Gagosian West 24th Street in New York shows the series Easyfun-Ethereal, including loans from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Collection. 
Jeff Koons: Works from the Astrup Fearnley Collection is held at Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo. 
Gagosian Madison Avenue in New York presents recent work by Koons.

An exhibition featuring Koons’s iconic pieces is staged at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, UK.

His solo exhibition Jeff Koons: Absolute Value/From the Collection of Marie and Jose Mugrabi opens at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel.

Organizes Jeff Koons Mucem. Works from the Pinault Collection with Mucem-Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée in Marseille, France.
His piece Gazing Ball (Centaur and Lapith Maiden) is displayed at Gallerie d’Italia-Piazza della Scala, the Intesa Sanpaolo Museum in Milan.
Is one of the artists featured in Insights, a series of interviews with artists at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
Receives the U.S. Consulate General’s Award for Cultural Diplomacy at Palazzo Tornabuoni in Florence, Italy, and the Renaissance Man of the Year Award from the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation.

A productive year for solo exhibitions: Shine at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy, including a wide selection of Koons’s most celebrated works; Jeff Koons: Lost in America at QM Gallery – Al Riwaq, organized by Qatar Museums as Koons’s first exhibition in the Gulf region; and Jeff Koons: Apollo, presented by DESTE Foundation in Hydra, Greece, and marking twenty years since Koons’s previous solo exhibition in this country.
Receives Anniversary Medal for the completion of 200 years since the start of the Greek Revolution from the Mayor of Hydra in Greece.
Unveils Balloon Venus Hohlen Fels (Magenta) at the Pace Gallery in Palm Beach, Florida, USA. It is one of the largest sculptures in his Antiquity series.
Participates in Sections/Intersections. 25 Years of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection, an exhibition of works from the Museum Collection staged to celebrate the Museum’s 25th anniversary. His iconic flower sculpture Puppy takes on a special appearance and is clad in white to mark the anniversary. In addition, Perspectivas, the 25th-anniversary documentary produced by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and La Caixa Foundation, includes a section about Koons.

Guy Hepner presents the feature exhibition Jeff Koons: Gazing Ball, showcasing the artist’s ground breaking series created between 2016 and 2021.
Balloon Monkey (Magenta) is on loan at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, USA.
Is awarded the Premio Galileo 2000 at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy, and Menschen in Europa Art Award in Munich.

Art Intelligence Global presents Jeff Koons: 1979-1999, an exhibition examining the earliest period of Koons’s practice held in Hong Kong.

Koons, Jeff

1955 Born in York, Pennsylvania to Henry and Gloria Koons. His sister, Karen, is three years older. His father owned an interior decoration business. Koons learns from him his aesthetic sense.
1960 His parents encourage his creative streak and sign him up for drawing lessons.
1963 Koons paints copies of Old Masters, which his father exhibits in the windows of his interior decoration store and sells to his customers.

Puppy

Tulips

Jeff Koons’s biography and works on display at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Biografía y obras: Koons, Jeff | Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Jannis Kounellis

Has his first solo show, L&#8217;alfabeto di Kounellis , at Galleria la Tartaruga in Rome.

Begins to use found objects in his paintings.

Kounellis&#8217;s work is included in the exhibition Arte povera e IM spazio at the Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa, Italy. This exhibition is curated by Germano Celant, who coined the term &#8220;arte povera.&#8221;
Participates in the Biennale de Paris.

Presents eleven live horses in an exhibition at Galleria l&#8217;Attico in Rome.
Participates in the Biennale de Paris.

Kounellis&#8217;s work is included in the Tokyo Biennial.

Exhibits at Galería Enzo Sperone in Turin.

Has his first solo show in New York, at Ileana Sonnabend Gallery, where he will frequently show his work in the coming years. 
Participates in Documenta 5 in Kassel, Germany, and the XXXVI Biennale di Venezia.

Participates in the XXXVII Biennale di Venezia.

Exhibits in Athens for the first time, at the Jean and Karen Bernier Gallery. 
Exhibits at the Kunstmuseum Bern and at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Participates in Documenta 6 in Kassel, Germany.

The Städtisches Museum Abteiberg in Mönchen- gladbach, Germany, organizes an exhibition of Kounellis&#8217;s work. 
Receives the Premio Pino Pascali. 
Participates in the XXXVIII Biennale di Venezia.

Exhibits at the Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany.

The Musée d&#8217;Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris holds an exhibition of Kounellis&#8217;s work. 
Participates in the XXXIX Biennale di Venezia.

The Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, presents an exhibition of Kounellis&#8217;s work that later travels to the Fundación Caja de Pensiones in Madrid; Whitechapel Art Gallery in London; and Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden.

Participates in Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany.

Exhibits at the Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld, Germany. 
Participates in the XLI Biennale di Venezia .

CAPC, Musée d&#8217;Art Contemporain de Bordeaux presents a major exhibition of Kounellis&#8217;s work.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago holds a retrospective of Kounellis&#8217;s work. The exhibition later travels to the Musée d&#8217;Art Contemporain de Montréal.

Exhibits at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Nagoya, Japan.

Exhibits at the Museo d&#8217;Arte Contemporanea Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy. 
Participates in the XLIII Biennale di Venezia.

Exhibits at the Espai Poblenou in Barcelona.

Jannis Kounellis: Via del mare opens at the Stedeljik Museum in Amsterdam. 
The exhibition La stanza verde is shown at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag in the Hague; the Arnolfini in Bristol, England; the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London; and the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona.

Exhibits at the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust Studio at Dean Clough in Halifax, England.

Has exhibitions at the Belvedere Palace in Prague, Palazzo Fabroni in Pistoia, Italy, and Marian Goodman Gallery in New York. 
Participates in the XLV Biennale di Venezia.

Exhibits at Anthony d&#8217;Offay Gallery in London, Konrad Fischer Galerie in Düsseldorf, and Galerie Lelong in Paris. Installs a selection of his works from the previous thirty years in a boat called Ionion and moors it in the port of his birthplace, Piraeus, Greece.

Participates in the International Istanbul Biennial.

Exhibits at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. 
Kounellis: Die Front, das Denken, der Sturm opens at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. 
Kounellis&#8217;s work is included in the inaugural exhibition of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, The Guggenheim Museums and the Art of This Century.

One of Kounellis&#8217;s sculptures is permanently installed on Ponte di Tappia in Naples.

Il sarcofago degli sposi opens at the Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna.

Exhibits at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur and at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires.

Exhibitions of Kounellis&#8217;s work are shown at the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo, and at the Centro per l&#8217;Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, Italy.

Exhibits at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent, Belgium, and at the Galleria Nazionale d&#8217;Arte Moderna in Rome. 
Kounellis&#8217;s work is included in Process and Materiality in Art at the Mid-Twentieth Centuryat the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Exhibits at the Monastero Mechitarista dell&#8217;Isola di San Lazzaro degli Armeni near Venice and at the Kunstraum Innsbruck in Innsbruck, Austria.

Exhibits recent work at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford. 
The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens presents a solo exhibition of Kounellis&#8217;s work during the Olympic Games.

The retrospective Jannis Kounellis: Works,1958–2005 opens at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. 
Opus One opens at the Albertina in Vienna and later travels to the Musée d&#8217;Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole in Saint-Étienne, France.

Exhibits at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro in Milan and at the Museo d&#8217;Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples. 
Participates in the exhibition Homage to Chillida at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin presents an exhibition of the artist&#8217;s work. 
Recent work by Kounellis is shown at Galería Arte Contemporáneo in Málaga, Spain.

Participates in the 16th Biennale of Sydney. 
Shows at Galerie Lelong in Zurich. 
Kounellis&#8217;s work is featured in the exhibition Traces du sacré at the Musée National d&#8217;Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Participates in the 11th International Istanbul Biennial. 
Kounellis&#8217;s work is featured in the exhibition Antes de ayer y pasado mañana; o lo que pude ser pintura hoy at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Union Fenosa in La Coruña, Spain.

Il expose dans la Fondation Marcelino Botín, Santander, la Galerie Altxerri, Donostia-San Sebastián, la Meessen De Clercq, Bruxelles, et dans la Ambika P3, University of Westminster, Londres.

La Galerie Lelong, Paris, inaugure l&#8217;exposition Klein &#8211; Kounellis feu / contre-feu . Son œuvre est exposée dans la Sonnabend Gallery, New York, la Galleria d&#8217;Arte Moderna « Raccolta Lercaro », Bologne, les Abattoirs, Toulouse, et l&#8217;Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney.
Kounellis’s work is included in Selections from the Collection of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao II.

New site-specific works by Kounellis are shown at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens.
Jannis Kounellis: Artist Rooms travels across the UK, being exhibited at Tramway in Glasgow, and MIMA – Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
Giorgio Persano in Turin and Blain|Southern in Berlin display his works of art.

A number of solo exhibitions are on, like the one at City Art Gallery in Ljubljana and Jannis Kounellis in Korea, organized by Wooson Gallery in Daegu, South Korea.
Develops an installation for Trieste’s Salone degli Incanti, Ex Pescheria, in Italy.
His work is shown for the Oratorio de Sant Feliu, at Galería Kewenig in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Cheim &amp; Read in New York presents the artist’s recent works.

Solo exhibitions are hosted by MAMC – Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne, France, and Casamadre Arte Contemporanea in Naples.
Sprovieri Gallery in London shows an installation presented in August at the Palazzo del Vignola in Todi, Italy, in the context of the Todi Festival.
Untitled (1988) is part of the major group exhibition The Art of Our Time: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collections, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
MAMC – Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne, France, commissions a site-specific work for the Museum’s main gallery.

Works by Kounellis are included in Codice Italia, in the Italian Hall at the 56th Venice Biennale.
Galleri Bo Bjerggaard in Copenhagen organizes the largest exhibition of Kounellis’s work in the Danish capital.
Works by the Italian artist are selected to form part of a group exhibition The Elements, at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki.

Creates specific work for Kounellis: Relámpagos sobre México, held at MECA – Museo-Espacio Ciudad de las Artes in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Exhibition at the Negev Museum of Art in Beersheba, Israel.
White Cube organizes an exhibition focused on Kounellis’s early series Alfabeto.
La Monnaie and Galerie Karsten Greve, both in Paris, show Kounellis’s works.

Dies on February 16 in Rome.
His site-specific work Untitled (1993–2008) is permanently installed at the Polo Museale Regionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Palermo, in Italy.

Kounellis, Jannis

Untitled

Janis Kounellis’s biography and works on display at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Biografía y obras: Kounellis, Jannis | Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Yayoi Kusama

Born on 22 March into a conservative family dedicated to the cultivation of seeds, in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture (Japan), where she grew up surrounded by vast flower fields.

During World War II, she works in a parachute factory with other girls from her class. In the factory, she learns to sew, a skill that she will incorporate into her artistic practice later.

Moves to Kyoto with the intention of studying at Shiritsu Bijutsu Kōgei Gakkō, a preparatory school for entry into the Kyoto Faculty of Fine Arts. Her frustration with the conservatism of art studies leads her to teach herself oil painting.

Two solo exhibitions on Kusama’s work are held in Tokyo.

Participates in a collective exhibition in the USA  at the International Watercolor Exhibition, 18th Biennale organised by the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

Travels to Seattle with some smaller scale pieces. After exhibiting at the Dusanne gallery, she sells some of her work and decides to move to New York, the centre of the international avant-garde, where she hopes to find an audience that better understands her art.

Her first solo exhibitions are held in New York and Boston. In both, she shows for the first time the series of works that will later become known as Infinity Nets and which critics will praise.

Curator Udo Kultermann includes some of Kusama’s pieces in the collective exhibition Monochrome Malerei, held at the Städtisches Museum in Leverkusen, Germany.

Opens her first solo exhibition at the Stephen Radich Gallery (New York), including her Infinity Nets.

Creates her first sculptures by covering furniture with soft structures, made with stuffed fabric and painted white.

Exhibits at the Richard Castellane Gallery, where she presents her first mirror room, Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli&#8217;s Field.

Presents her first outdoor installation Narcissus Garden at the Venice Biennale. The event organisers interrupted this unauthorised action.

Begins to create multimedia performances based on her new concept of self-obliteration.

Organises happenings both in her studio and in public; most consist of painting polka dots on naked bodies.
The film Kusama’s Self-obliteration wins several awards at the fourth edition of the Belgian International Experimental Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Michigan) and the second edition of the Maryland Film Festival.
She sets up her own firm—Kusama Fashion Company Ltd—and begins selling her designs at Bloomingdale’s.

Stages her Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at MoMA (Otherwise Known as the Museum of Modern Art)—Featuring Their Usual Display of Nudes). The museum&#8217;s security guards eject the artist.

Returns to Japan for the first time with the intention of carrying out more nude happenings, which do not generate the expected attention.

Joseph Cornell, her best friend in the US dies. A year and a half later, she will have to face the loss of her father, Kamon.

Constructed mainly from collages, Message of Death from Hades is her first solo exhibition after moving back permanently to Japan.
In later years, a series of individual exhibitions will be opened in Japan, and Kusama will become critical of the American art world.

Publishes her first novel, Manhattan Suicide Addict.

Is a key year for Kusama’s career, as she begins to be represented by the famous Fuji Television Gallery, which would hold an individual show of her work and continue to exhibit her pieces regularly. Her previous work, which had previously damaged the artist’s reputation, starts to be validated.

Achieves her first major success following a happening at the Video Gallery SCAN in Tokyo. Self&#8211;Obliteration is broadcast on television and is considered one of the most remarkable artistic events of the year.
Publishes her second novel, The Hustler’s Grotto of Christopher Street.

Publishes her third novel, Sento Marukusu Kyōkai enjō (The Burning of St. Mark’s Church).

The first retrospective of her work is organised by the Municipal Museum of Art in Kitakyushu.

Her first international retrospective (Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective) is held at the Center for International Contemporary Arts (CICA) in New York.

Participates in the 45th Venice Biennale, this time officially. Kusama is the first female artist to have a solo exhibition in the Japanese pavilion.

Her work is featured in the exhibition Japanese Art After 1945: A Scream Against the Sky, the first time that postwar Japanese art has been exhibited in the US. The exhibition then travels to the Yokohama Museum of Art; and, between 1995 and 1995, to the Guggenheim Museum SoHo in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Japan Art Foundation, in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, put on the exhibition Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968, exploring Kusama’s contributions to the artistic movements of the 1960s. The exhibition is shown the same year in both museums, as well as at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The following year, it travels to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.

A touring exhibition organised by Le Consortium, Dijon, travels to five exhibition spaces in Europe and two in Korea. The exhibition includes Infinity Room—Fireflies on the Water, Kusama’s first mirror room in the 21st century.

Publishes her autobiography Infinity Net. The autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, a summary of texts she has developed throughout her career.
At the fourth edition of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, held in Brisbane, Australia, she is presented as a key figure in contemporary art. She has an individual exhibition devoted to her work, including a new mirror room, Soul under the Moon, as well as an interactive installation entitled The Obliteration Room.

She is named an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.

The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo organises the largest retrospective of her work so far, Yayoi Kusama: Eternity-Modernity, which will travel to the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art, the Hiroshima Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kumamoto Museum of Contemporary Art and the Matsumoto Municipal Museum of Art.

She is awarded the Praemium Imperiale, presented annually by the Japan Art Association.

Première of the documentary Near Equal: Yayoi Kusama-I Adore Myself, directed by Takako Matsumoto, who recorded Kusama while working on the Love Forever series.

Begins a new series of paintings, My Eternal Soul.

Creates Transmigration, one of her largest paintings to date.
The Yayoi Kusama retrospective is held, curated by Frances Morris, director of the international collection at the Tate Modern in London. The exhibition opens at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, travels to the Pompidou Centre in Paris and arrives at the Tate Modern in 2012, completing its tour that same year at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

She is named a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Kusama&#8217;s position as one of the most popular artists globally is reaffirmed through a number of touring exhibitions, such as Infinite Obsession, which travels to Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Chile; and Yayoi Kusama: A Dream I Dreamed, which visits different cities in South Korea, China and Taiwan.

She receives the Order of Culture, one of the highest civil honours awarded by the Imperial Family of Japan.

The Yayoi Kusama Museum, directed by Akira Tatehata, opens in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. The first exhibition is Creation Is a Solitary Pursuit, Love Is What Brings You Closer to Art. Infinity Mirrors, organised by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, offering a panoramic view of the Mirror Rooms of Infinity.

A comprehensive retrospective of Kusama’s work is held for the first time in Germany, organised in Berlin by Gropius Bau, which will then travel to the Tel Aviv Art Museum.
London’s Tate Modern presents Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms.

The exhibition Yayoi Kusama: From 1945 to today opens, presented in November at the M+, Hong Kong, and which will later be hosted by the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in 2023.
Her work is included in Sections/intersections. 25 years of the Guggenheim Museum Collection in Bilbao organised to commemorate the museum’s 25th anniversary and consisting of works belonging to its collections.

Kusama, Yayoi

Infinity Mirrored Room – A Wish for Human Happiness Calling from Beyond the Universe

Datos biográficos de Yayoi Kusama y las obras expuestas en el Museo Guggenheim Bilbao

Biografía y obras: Kusama, Yayoi | Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Jesús Mari Lazkano

Creates his first painting at the age of nine, using an easel and palette devised by his father.

Begins to study at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in Bilbao. 
Has his first encounter with the architecture of the Greater Bilbao, which he will later incorporate into his work.

Participates in the exhibition Tramesa postal at Galeria Metrònom in Barcelona and Espacio poético experimental at Casa de España in Paris.

Earns a fine arts degree from the Universidad del País Vasco in Leioa. 
Wins first prize in the XXV Certamen de Artistas Noveles de Guipúzcoa in San Sebastián, Spain.

Holds his first solo exhibition, at the Kutxa gallery in San Sebastián and the Galería Windsor Kulturgintza in Bilbao. 
Receives a grant for artistic creation from the province of Guipúzcoa.

Begins to teach painting in the faculty of fine arts at the Universidad del País Vasco in Leioa; he still teaches there. 
Exhibits at Sala Gran Vía, 21 in Bilbao.

Wins first prize for painting at Gure Artea 1985, sponsored by the Basque government. 
Exhibits at Galería Dieciséis in San Sebastián.

Receives the Premio Muestra de Arte Joven from the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

Has his first exhibition in Madrid, at Galería Gamarra Garrigues. 
Wins second prize for printmaking at Gure Artea 1987. Illustrates the cover of the book Arte en el País Vasco , published by Ediciones Cátedra.

Holds exhibitions at Galería Dieciséis in San Sebastián and at the Sala de la BBK in Bilbao. 
Historian Javier González de Durana compiles a catalogue raisonné of Lazkano&#8217;s work between 1977 and 1988. 
Travels to New York, where he begins a series of paintings of the city&#8217;s architecture.

Exhibits at Galería Antonio Machón in Madrid. 
Participates in the International Istanbul Biennial.

Receives a grant from Fundación Cultural Banesto. 
Creates a mural more than 600 yards long for the Bilbao Metro. 
Exhibits at Galería Antonio Machón in Madrid and Galería Windsor Kulturgintza in Bilbao.

Creates four stamps for the Spanish postal service, commemorating Madrid&#8217;s nomination as a European City of Culture.

Artists

K

Willem de Kooning

Jeff Koons

Jannis Kounellis

Yayoi Kusama

L

Jesús Mari Lazkano

Abigail Lazkoz

Sol LeWitt

Jacques Lipchitz

Richard Long

Maider López

M

Erlea Maneros Zabala

Anthony McCall

Asier Mendizabal

Metahaven

Henri Michaux

Juan Luis Moraza

Robert Motherwell

Juan Muñoz

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