FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PicassoMio Gallery Madrid presents Love-Dolls Never Die: Bob Carlos Clarke

From April 27, 2006, to May 20, 2006, PicassoMio Gallery Barcelona will hold the exhibition “Love-Dolls Never Die”, featuring the work of well-known British photographer Bob Carlos Clarke.

Boca Raton, Florida, and Madrid, Spain (April 24, 2006) - From April 27, 2006, to May 20, 2006, PicassoMio Gallery Madrid will present the exhibition “Love-Dolls Never Die”, featuring for the first time since his recent and tragic death on March 6, 2006, the final work of Bob Carlos Clarke, a well-known British photographer synonymous with sex, fetishism and contemporary fashion.

Continuing with the plans made before the artist’s death, the exhibition "Love Dolls Never Die" will take place in Barcelona and will be an homage to the artist on behalf of PicassoMio.

The exhibition, which features the most recent work by Clarke and the last available photographs signed by the artist, has been critically acclaimed internationally and shows the artist’s vision of the 21st-century woman as a sensual and provocative predator.

Throughout art history, the partially or totally nude female body has been a dominant theme in all artistic disciplines. This constantly-recurring subject has been treated with the most diverse creative intentions: fertility idols, inspiring muses, goddesses symbolizing divine beauty, Olympias that offer us their bodies, or objectified bodies presented to the viewer as simple objects.

At first glance, the form in which Bob Carlos Clarke approached women could be labelled as fetishist or sexist; he photographed Love Dolls, plastic women clothed in latex suits with the appearance of immobile mannequins ready to be used. However, this innocent aesthetic is a double-edged sword. The Love Doll, once activated by remote control or by wind-up, gives way to a shark-woman that attacks without provocation, to a love-addict that can kill. It is the transformation of the woman-as-object into a powerful and unsatisfied woman, capable, in her role of complacent and submissive pleasure doll, of squeezing the life from a man, dominating him and even killing him, with her woman’s weapons or her domestic appliances for the modern housewife. Bob Carlos Clarke (Cork, Ireland, 1950 – London, UK, 2006) was at the peak of his career, having become one of the most highly-demanded photographers of fashion, portraits and advertising, creating campaigns for Smirnoff and Volkswagen, amongst others. Bob had published 5 books: “The Illustrated Delta of Venus” (1979), “Obsession” (1981), “The Dark Summer”, (1985), “White Heat” (1990), and “Shooting Sex” (2003). Recently his work was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London and PicassoMio Gallery Madrid. This exhibition includes twenty works, with prices between $1,000 and $35,000.

For more information and images, please contact us at press@picassomio.com.
Exhibition and works also available at www.picassomio.com/BobCarlosClarke/en/

PicassoMio Gallery, Madrid
April 27, 2006 – May 20, 2006
Tuesday through Saturday, 11.00 am – 2.000 pm and 4.30 pm – 8.30 pm
Opening Barcelona: Thursday, April 27, 2006. 8.00 pm

About PicassoMio.com/PicassoMio Galleries

With a presence in Europe and the U.S., PicassoMio.com / PicassoMio Galleries is an art company that operates the leading online gallery. In operation since 2000, PicassoMio.com has sold contemporary art to clients in over 50 countries, including artworks by over 1,000 selected artists. The company’s annual sales are in 7-figures and growing at a rate of over 50% per year.

At PicassoMio.com, one can find curated, one-of-a-kind or limited-edition works, including paintings, graphic prints, photographs and sculptures, by modern masters, such as Matisse, Chagall and Miro; contemporary masters, such as Damien Hirst, Hockney and Wegman, and hundreds of extraordinary emerging artists. Their current catalog online includes more than 30,000 different artworks valued at $125 million, with prices ranging from $100 to $100,000.

Every month PicassoMio.com receives approximately 1 million visitors and serves over a hundred clients. The average order size is approximately $1,500. Clients include private parties, businesses and trade companies, including interior designers and galleries and dealers. Customers are served by art consultants, all of whom have significant art business and art history experience.

The website’s powerful art search engine allows buyers to find the artwork of their choice by selecting from medium, style, theme, colour, price, etc. All clients are also assured of a 7-day, no-questions-asked return policy. The company contributes 5% of its gross profits, in cash or kind, back to the art world.

In 2005, El Pais called PicassoMio Gallery "the world’s biggest gallery", Emprendedores magazine selected PicassoMio.com as one of the “100 Best Companies”, the Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money magazine selected PicassoMio.com as the only recommended art website and Financial Times called PicassoMio.com the “Amazon.com” of the contemporary art scene.

In 2004, the company was nominated as a finalist for FAST50, organized by the prestigious Fast Company magazine, and was selected for the Gate-2-Growth forum, sponsored by the European Commission. In 2001, PicassoMio was nominated as a finalist in the pan-European “Milestones” Business Awards, coordinated by the Boston Consulting Group. PicassoMio has also been recommended by Real Simple magazine and ArtsWorld TV, amongst others.

PicassoMio was founded by Allan Majotra and Nicholas Marchalleck and has offices and galleries in Miami, Madrid and Barcelona. In 2006, PicassoMio plans to open two more galleries, in California and the United Kingdom.

For further press-related questions, PicassoMio may be contacted at press@picassomio.com or 1-877-212-5879 (USA) or +34 91 781 0789 (EU).
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