MAJOR CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS DONATE WORKS TO THE 2010 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL ARTISTS AWARDS PROGRAM PRESENTED BY CHANEL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Artists Yoko Ono, Stephen Posen, Maira Kalman, Vik Muniz and Others Will Exhibit and Donate Original Pieces to 11 Winning Festival Filmmakers

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New York, NY [April 8, 2010]–The 2010 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), presented by American Express®, the Founding Sponsor of the Festival, today announced that 11 major contemporary artists will contribute pieces to the TFF 2010 Artists Awards Program, sponsored by CHANEL.  Works by Yoko Ono, Stephen Posen, Maira Kalman, Stephen Hannock, Vik Muniz, Clifford Ross, Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Maurizio Galimberti, Spencer Platt, Valerie Hegarty and Sheila Berger will be presented to 11 filmmakers whose films are selected by the TFF jury as winners in their respective categories. The Tribeca Film Festival Artists Awards Program was created by TFF co-founder Jane Rosenthal to celebrate New York artists. This year’s TFF will run April 21 – May 2, 2010.

The artwork, which consists of paintings, photographs, prints and sculptures, will be publicly exhibited free and open to the public from April 21 - 28 between the hours of 11 am – 7 pm Monday-Saturday and 12 pm – 6 pm on Sunday, at the CHANEL Boutique in SoHo, 134 Spring Street.  New Yorkers and festival-goers alike will be able to view the works before they are presented at the Tribeca Film Festival Awards Ceremony on the evening of April 29.

"CHANEL is very pleased to support the Artists Awards Program of the Tribeca Film Festival for the fifth consecutive year," said John Galantic, President and COO of CHANEL. "The support of both established and emerging artists is a tradition started by Coco Chanel and has remained an integral part of the House.  We are honored to be a part of the Festival this year."

“The Artist Awards Program demonstrates the importance of artists supporting each other across all mediums,” said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival. “We are so pleased to have these eleven respected artists continue the tradition of past participants who have not only supported the Festival but most importantly the filmmakers at Tribeca.”

“It's nice to know that our works are used to change the world! Yes. We can change the world for the better, together,” said Yoko Ono.

Following is a complete list of the artwork that will be contributed:

• Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh: Naughty, Lonely but Happy, intaglio and relief, 32 x 42 inches, 2009.



• Sheila Berger: The Joining, encaustic on panel, 10 x 8 inches, 2008.



• Maurizio Galimberti: New York Studio n.21, mosaico, Polaroid spectra film, 85cm x l 47cm.



• Stephen Hannock: Study: Northern City Renaissance (Mass MoCA 379K), commissioned by Sting, polished mixed media on panel, 10 x 15 inches, 2008.



• Valerie Hegarty: Seascape Frame, foamcore, paper, paint, glue, canvas, staples, gel medium, wire, 14 x 10 x 8 inches, 2009.



• Maira Kalman: Inauguration Angel, inkjet print, 17 ½ x 16 ¼ inches, 2009.



• Vik Muniz: Jorge, digital C-print, 24.8 x 20 inches, 2003/2009.



• Yoko Ono: A Box of Smile, bronze and mirror, 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 inches, 1967/89. 



• Spencer Platt: Fruits of War, digital C-print, 11 x 14 inches.



• Stephen Posen: Hour of the Wolf, digital ink jet on Ilford Paper, 15 ½ x 10 ¼ inches, 2009.



• Clifford Ross: Hurricane XLIX, archival pigment print, framed 24 x 33 inches, 2010.

About the Artists

• Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh have cultivated an artistic collaboration spanning more than 20 years. Their partnership seamlessly merges their two distinctive styles to create a dynamic visual vocabulary.  Amer was born in Egypt and moved to Nice, France, where she received a BFA and an MFA from the Villa Arson Nice, France.   Farkhondeh was born in Iran and received a BA in Economics. He subsequently received a BFA in painting at the Beaux-Arts de Dijon and an MFA from the Villa Arson in Nice, France.

Their exhibition Roses Off Limits—a coupling of erotic images, with floral patterns punctuated by the traditional craft of hand embroidery—ran at Pace Prints Chelsea in 2009.   Amer and Farkhondeh’s previous collaborative solo exhibitions include those at Tina Kim Fine Arts, New York, the Singapore Tyler Institute, and The Stedlijk Museum in the Netherlands, among others.

• Sheila Berger’s paintings are influenced by a lifetime of travel to some of the most remote parts of the globe. Part of Berger's pleasure in crafting these paintings is the celebration of a technique unchanged for thousands of years: the melting of encaustic, repeatedly painting her special custom-made wooden panels until they have the desired texture. The result is a tabula rasa awaiting Berger's impressions. The introduction of pigments builds each painting into a palimpsest of memories, moods and emotion, welcome emptiness incised, such varied signs of life. Berger was born in St. Louis, Missouri and educated at NYU, the Art Students League, and New York Academy of the Arts. She has shown her work everywhere from the Rubin Museum in New York and the Bemis Center in Omaha to the American Consulate in Istanbul, and the U.S. Embassy in Laos. Berger is represented by Paul Kasmin Gallery.

• Maurizio Galimberti was born in Como, Italy. He began winning photography competitions as a young man, working mainly in black and white, and in 1983 he developed a passion for the Polaroid camera, which he liked because he could not stand waiting for the results of his shoot. He realized as well that the colors were amazing, so he began researching and experimenting with this medium. In 1991 he began collaborating with Polaroid Italia, and in 1995 published Polaroid Pro Art, a true cult book for those passionate about Polaroid. He is also an “INSTANT ARTIST” for Summit Global Group, the part owner and licensee of Polaroid Imaging and Printing Products. Galimberti has been the official portraitist of the Venice Film Festival several times, and in 2003 his portrait of Johnny Depp landed on the cover of The Times Magazine in England. He has published books about New York, Venice, and Berlin and is currently working on a book about Milan for the 2015 Expo. Galimberti is a visiting professor at the Domus Academy and Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Milan.

• Stephen Hannock is an American luminist painter known for his atmospheric landscapes and incendiary nocturnes. He has demonstrated a keen appreciation for the quality of light and for the limitations of conventional materials and techniques for capturing it. His experiments with machine-polishing the surfaces of his paintings give a trademark luminous quality to his work. The larger vistas also incorporate diaristic text that weaves throughout the composition. His design of visual effects for the 1998 film What Dreams May Come won an Academy Award®. His works are in collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Hannock recently received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Bowdoin College.

• Valerie Hegarty’s latest exhibition, Cosmic Collisions, opened in March at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. Her previous solo exhibitions include Seascape (2006) and Landscaping (2005) at Guild & Greyshkul, New York; View From Thanatopsis, at Museum 52, London; and the 12×12 Room at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Her work has been exhibited in group shows at venues including New York’s Brooklyn Museum of Art, Artists Space, White Columns, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. She recently exhibited in New York Minute, curated by Kathy Grayson at the Depart Foundation, Rome; and Portugal Arte 09 in Lisbon. Hegarty received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002.

• Maira Kalman was born in Tel Aviv and moved to New York with her family at the age of four. She has worked as a designer, author, illustrator, and artist for more than 30 years without formal training. Her work is a narrative journal of her life and all its absurdities. She has written and illustrated 12 children’s books including Ooh-la-la- Max in Love, What Pete Ate, and Swami on Rye. She often illustrates for The New Yorker magazine, and is well known for her collaboration with Rick Meyerowitz on the NewYorkistan cover in 2001. Recent projects include The Elements of Style (illustrated), and a monthly online column entitled Principles of Uncertainty (2006-7) and The Pursuit of Happiness (2008-9) for The New York Times. She has had four exhibitions at the Julie Saul Gallery since 2003.

• Vik Muniz was born in São Paulo, Brazil and began his career as a sculptor, but gradually became more interested in photographic reproductions of his sculptures. Muniz uses unexpected materials to create portraits, landscapes, and still lifes—peanut butter, jelly, chocolate sauce, toy soldiers, paper confetti—which he then photographs. He has created larger-scale works, such as pictures carved into the earth or made of huge piles of junk. Muniz has exhibited his works internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil; Musée de l’Élisée Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Foundation Huis Marseille, Amsterdam. Muniz’s work is included in the collections of numerous museums, including MoMA; the Art Institute of Chicago; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Prato, Italy; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

• Yoko Ono is a multimedia artist who constantly challenges the traditional boundaries of art. Known for her groundbreaking conceptual and performance pieces, experimental films and music, Yoko’s creative influence and prolific artistic output continues to inspire new generations. In 2009, she was the recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale. Reflecting on her reputation for being outrageous, Yoko smiles and says, “I do have to rely on my own judgment, although to some people my judgment seems a little out of sync. I have my own rhythm and my own timing, and that’s simply how it is.”

• Spencer Platt joined Getty Images in 2001. Currently he covers news stories in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. His work has appeared in such publications as Time, Newsweek, Stern, Paris Match, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Platt has won numerous awards for his work throughout the world including Photography of the Year (POY) and the NPPA Year in Pictures. In 2006, Platt received the coveted World Press Photo of the Year award for an image in taken in Beirut. Spencer Platt grew up in Westport, Connecticut and attended Clark University. Platt lives in Brooklyn, New York.

• Stephen Posen is a painter who received his MFA from Yale and his BFA from Washington University. His exhibitions include The Drawing Center, Documenta 5, Whitney Biennial, the Jason McCoy Gallery, Robert Miller Gallery, and O.K. Harris Gallery in New York, as well as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Akron Art Museum, the Philbrook Art Center, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Posen’s work is in the collections of the Guggenheim, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, J.P. Morgan Chase, J.B. Speed Museum in Louisville, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, among others.

• Clifford Ross began his career as a painter and sculptor after graduating from Yale in 1974 with a BA in both art and art history. In 1995, he turned his attention toward photography and other media. Clifford invented and patented the "R1" camera in 2002 and made some of the highest resolution large-scale landscapes in the world. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others. His work has been the subject of the recent exhibitions Outside Realism: Clifford Ross Photography, a 10-year survey of his work at the Austin Museum of Art; Clifford Ross: Mountains and Sea at the MADRE/Museo Archeologico in Naples, Italy; and at Robilant +Voena Galleries in London and Milan, the Alain Noirhomme Gallery in Brussels, and Sonnabend Gallery in New York. Recent projects include a stained-glass wall for the new federal courthouse in Austin, Texas, his first new Hurricane photographs in eight years, Harmonium Mountain: A Photographic Opera, an imaginary landscape video based on one still image.

About CHANEL
The CHANEL commitment to the arts began with its founder Mademoiselle Chanel almost a century ago.  Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was a passionate patron and enthusiast of the arts.  She supported and collaborated with artists of her time in the art, theatre, ballet and cinema worlds—including Jean Cocteau, Sergei Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso and Jean Renoir.

The House of CHANEL continues to uphold Mademoiselle Chanel’s tradition. Karl Lagerfeld has designed costumes for many visually influential films, sustaining Coco Chanel’s precedent started in 1931 when she was contracted by MGM to design for Hollywood. CHANEL has also collaborated with filmmakers such as Joe Wright, Luc Besson, Ridley Scott, Roman Polanski and Baz Luhrmann, to create original short films for the brand.  CHANEL Boutiques across the country are deeply involved with their community by supporting arts-related organizations and helping them advance their artistic development. Additionally, the House has commissioned artists Joseph Stashkevetch, Peter Dayton, Ingo Maurer, Jean Michel Othoniel, Lalanne and Vik Muniz, to interpret CHANEL icons for works to be displayed in CHANEL Boutiques worldwide. CHANEL has also collaborated with artists to create original installations around new fine jewelry collections, most recently by Pierrick Sorin and Xavier Veilhan.

With art playing an integral role in CHANEL’s history, it is an honor for CHANEL to have the opportunity to support the Tribeca Film Festival and celebrate the artists of this year and years past.

CHANEL, the international luxury goods company, was founded in France by Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel in 1911 and remains one of the world’s preeminent fashion houses today. The company, which is privately owned, strictly controls all design, manufacturing, distribution and advertising to ensure the highest level of quality.

CHANEL offers a broad range of luxury products, including Haute Couture, Ready-to-Wear, fragrance, cosmetics, leather goods, accessories, watches and Fine Jewelry through a U.S. network of 24 boutiques on Mainland, Hawaii and Guam, and approximately 90 locations at select retailers. Haute Couture collections are presented exclusively in Paris. CHANEL maintains 151 freestanding boutiques worldwide, including the famous House of Mlle Chanel on the rue Cambon in Paris. Under the guidance of designer Karl Lagerfeld, the House of CHANEL remains dedicated to luxury, fashion, style and image.

In 1993, CHANEL launched the CHANEL Fine Jewelry Collection and opened a worldwide flagship Fine Jewelry boutique on 18 place Vendôme in Paris. There are eight Fine Jewelry boutiques in the U.S. and 32 worldwide.

About the Tribeca Film Festival:
Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2001 following the attacks on the World Trade Center to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music and culture.

The Festival’s mission is to help filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enable the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center. Tribeca Film Festival is well known for being a diverse international film festival that supports emerging and established directors.

The Tribeca Festival has screened over 1100 films from over 80 countries since its first festival in 2002. Since its founding, it has attracted an international audience of more than 2.3 million attendees and has generated an estimated $600 million in economic activity for New York City.

About the 2010 Festival Sponsors:
As Founding Sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival, American Express is committed to supporting the Festival and the art of film making, bringing business and energy to New York City and offering Cardmembers and festival-goers the opportunity to enjoy the best of storytelling through film.

The Festival is pleased to announce the return of its Signature Sponsors: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Apple, Bloomberg, Brookfield, Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), Delta Air Lines, Heineken USA, NBC 4 New York, NCM Media Networks, New York Nonstop, The New York Times, RR Donnelley, and Vanity Fair.  The Tribeca Film Festival is also honored to welcome the following new Signature Sponsors:  Caesars Atlantic City, LG Electronics USA, Stolichnaya Vodka, and Time Warner Cable.

EDITORS NOTE:  IMAGES OF EACH WORK ARE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.

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Anna Dinces
Rubenstein Communications, Inc.
212-843-9523
adinces@rubenstein.com

Tammie Rosen
Tribeca Enterprises
212-941-2003
trosen@tribecaenterprises.com