| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Saturday, January 14, 2023 |
| | | Why do some films get restored and others languish? A MoMA series holds clues | |
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The Letter. 1929. USA. Directed by Jean de Limur. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
by Ben Kenigsberg
NEW YORK, NY.- A frothy musical comedy from Weimar Germany, starring an actress whose unexpected death at 31 may have been a Gestapo murder. The first known Irish feature to be directed by a woman. An American drama from 1939 distributed to largely Black audiences, starring Louise Beavers as the progressive warden of a reform school. All these films might have disappeared forever, at least in their complete forms. But all are showing beginning Thursday in To Save and Project, the Museum of Modern Arts annual series highlighting recent preservation work. Some titles, like the opening-night selection, The Cat and the Canary, a popular silent film from 1927, were preserved by MoMA itself. Others have been flown in from archives around the globe. Decisions about which films become candidates for preservation or even what preservation means for any given movie are rarely clear-cut. They depend on a combination of commercial interests, historical judgments, economic consider ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day View of the exhibition Cache-cache at Perrotin Paris, 2023. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. Courtesy of all the artists and Perrotin.
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| A violinist prepares her next star turn: Festival leader | | A fossil flower trapped in Amber had a mistaken identity for 150 years | | Ann Gillen: Sculpting in plain sight |
Nicola Benedetti, who has made a career as a violin soloist, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Jan. 5, 2023. Benedetti is the first Scotland native and the first woman to serve as director of the storied Edinburgh International Festival. (Robert Ormerod/The New York Times)
by Hugh Morris
EDINBURGH.- Not long into an interview with violinist Nicola Benedetti, there was a knock at the door. Ohhh, chips! she whispered excitedly as a takeaway carton of haggis and fries entered the room. Ive been in meetings since 8 oclock this morning. Do you mind? A pattern quickly emerged: a question, a tidal wave of thoughts on the profundity of art, a pause for breath and then, eventually, a chip. I think Im in a good position to be saying, Heres why chips taste fantastic to somebody who hasnt tasted them, said Benedetti, who, in addition to her work as an acclaimed instrumentalist and educator, recently began her tenure as the director of the Edinburgh International Festival. She was describing her approach to the age-old question of attracting new audiences. That process involves the disarming of prejudice, she said, but doing so in a way that still absolutely has integrity ... More | |
An undated photo provided by CAROLA RADKE shows the largest-known fossilized flower to be preserved in amber. (Carola Radke/Museum für Naturkunde Berlin via The New York Times)
by Kate Golembiewski
NEW YORK, NY.- Eva-Maria Sadowski, a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, didnt have a particular agenda in mind when she decided to borrow the biggest fossil flower preserved in amber ever found. I did it without any expectations, I just did it because I was curious, she said. Her curiosity pulled the thread of a more than 150-year-long case of mistaken identity, resulting in a clearer picture of what the Baltic amber forest of Northern Europe looked like more than 33 million years ago. The preserved flower bloomed about halfway between the extinction of the last nonbird dinosaurs and the evolution of humans, who found it in the 19th century in territory that is now part of Russia. In 1872, scientists classified it as Stewartia kowalewskii, an extinct flowering evergreen. The Baltic amber flowers identity hadnt been revised until Sadowskis paper in Scientific Reports was published Thursday. ... More | |
The artist Ann Gillen at her SoHo apartment in New York, Nov. 25, 2022. (Lila Barth/The New York Times)
by Max Lakin
NEW YORK, NY.- Artist Ann Gillen, who has spent her career creating public sculpture, largely within New York City, lives and works in a SoHo loft as close to the romantic conception of a SoHo artist loft as can be imagined. Expansive and drafty, it has remained largely unchanged since 1973, when Gillen met its departing occupant, painter Norman Lewis, at a party and arranged to move in. She lives modestly, ceding much of her space to her work: sculptures spread across the well-worn wood floor, demanding you move around them. A small seating area has been colonized by Gillens prints and handmade artist books; a commanding aluminum triptych insinuates itself over the dining table. Toward the rear, a hand-built display case is neatly lined with hundreds of maquettes, pocket-size configurations of bent, vibrantly colored sheet metal a museum in miniature representing decades of proposals, some realized, many not. Gillen has had successes. She has completed 30 major public, private and corpo ... More |
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| Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoffmann to become new Managing Director at documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH | | William Forsythe donates his archive to the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe | | Lyman Allyn Art Museum acquires rare mid-19th century portrait |
Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoffmann, currently still Managing Director at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg. Image: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoffmann, photo: Götz Wrage.
KASSEL.- Cultural manager Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoffmann, currently still Managing Director at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg, is to become the new Managing Director of documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH. He will take up his position in Kassel on May 1, 2023. Until then, Dr. Ferdinand von Saint André, hired as interim Managing Director at the close of documenta fifteen, will continue in charge as agreed. "The decision to appoint the new Managing Director also charts the course for the future of documenta in Kassel," say Kassel's Lord Mayor Christian Geselle, Chairman of the Supervisory Board at documenta gGmbH, and his deputy on the Supervisory Board, Hesse's Minister of Art Angela Dorn. As a cultural institution of global significance, documenta must tackle questions of content and rise to structural challenges, he said. "The Supervisory Board is convinced that in Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoffmann we have found a cultural ... More | |
White Bouncy Castle, (detail). © Dominik Mentzos© Dominik Mentzos
KARLSRUHE.- For over 50 years, William Forsythe has influenced the perception of choreographic practice through his visionary concepts and productions. The award-winning U.S. choreographer is now transferring his extensive archive to the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, which will ensure the long-term preservation of the audiovisual media and documents and make them accessible to the public. William Forsythe (*1949, New York) has been active in the field of choreography for over 50 years. His work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st century art form. Forsythes deep interest in the fundamental principles of organization of choreography has led him to produce a wide range of projects including installations, films, and web-based knowledge creation. The ZKM | Karlsruhes and William Forsythes work is linked by their interdisciplinary experime ... More | |
Circle of Julien Hudson (New Orleans, mid-19th century), Portrait of a Youth, oil on canvas, 12 x 8 7/8 inches.
NEW LONDON, CONN.- The Lyman Allyn Art Museum announced the purchase of a portrait of a mixed-race youth, ca. 1830s-40s, a rare painting that speaks to the diverse community of free Blacks that existed in New Orleans before the Civil War. It is on view in the Museums American Perspectives gallery, having been installed just in time to add to the celebration of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. The intriguing portrait of a mixed-race young man is closely related to the portraiture of Julien Hudson, one of the earliest free painters of color in America. Hudson was born in New Orleans and his principal period of activity was from 1831 until 1844, when he died prematurely at age 33. A thriving community of free people of color existed in early 19th century New Orleans, unique to the American South. Within that community, Hudson was patronized by both white and mixed-race clients and is known to have taught students as well, althoug ... More |
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| Denny Gallery, NY, now presenting Judy Ledgerwood's exhibition 'Sunny' | | SFMOMA announces acquisition of 63 works across media by an international group of established and emerging artists | | Miyako Yoshinaga opens an online-exclusive exhibition featuring landscapes by four gallery artists |
Judy Ledgerwood, Footsteps, 2022. Images courtesy of Denny Gallery and the artist.
NEW YORK, NY.- Denny Gallery recently opened 'Sunny', a solo exhibition of new work by painter Judy Ledgerwood. On view at the gallerys New York location since January 7, it will continue to February 11, 2023. Ledgerwood is a renowned painter whose work has featured in numerous international exhibitions and is included in prominent public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, IL, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Hammer Museum Los Angeles and the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen Switzerland, among others. Ledgerwood has often employed the signifying aspects of color as a primary factor in her work, and a desire for a shared language of color drives this exhibition. In the last few years, the artist has felt the world becoming increasingly fragmented which leaves less room for group cohesion. The feeling of grow ... More | |
Derek Fordjour, Fearless Foursome, 2013; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase through a gift of the Carmel Barasch Family Collection and Sarah Hoffmann; © Derek Fordjour; photo Don Ross, courtesy SFMOMA.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) announced today that it has acquired, through purchase and gift, 63 works this winter for its expansive collection of modern and contemporary art. The works capture a vast spectrum of conceptual, aesthetic and material innovations and are made by a diverse range of artists from across the United States and the world. Among the acquisitions are works by 18 artists whose practices are represented in the museums collection for the first time, including paintings and works on paper by Troy Lamarr Chew II, Derek Fordjour, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Maja Ruznic; photographs by Yolanda Andrade, Emi Anrakuji, Anthony Lepore and Tokuko Ushioda; design works by Pentatonic and Peter Saville; an installation by Amalia Mesa-Bains; sculpture by Iman Issa ... More | |
Hai Zhang, Utopia, February 2006, on Highway 231 Near Troy Alabama, 2006 (detail). Archival pigment print on exhibition fiber paper, 10 x 10 in. 25.4 x 25.4 cm. Edition of 8 plus 2 artist's proofs.
NEW YORK, NY.- To kick off the new year, Miyako Yoshinaga is presenting Coexistence, an online-exclusive exhibition featuring landscapes by four gallery artists: Jonathan Yukio Clark, Koyoltzintli, Lisa Ross, and Hai Zhang. From documenting villages on the Hawaiian coast and the indigenous cultures in New Mexico to witnessing children at the winery near Helen Mountains and the Uyghur Region surrounding the Taklamakan Desert of China. This exhibition threads through each artists unique cultural perspective on the interconnections between the civil and wild world. These works disintegrate the barriers between nature and city, documenting their coexisting relationship across cultures and continents, and investigating our universally physical yet ephemeral footprints in the environment. Seeing dislocated furniture in the exterior shatters the conventional perception of civil space and urban life ... More |
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| Aaron Johnson's second solo exhibition with Almine Rech opens in Shanghai | | 'Everything Here is Volcanic' curated by Mario Ballesteros opened at Friedman Benda | | Fontaine's Auction Gallery to offer fine & decorative arts on January 28th |
Aaron Johnson, Star Light, 2022 (detail). Acrylic on canvas, 183 x 213 cm, 72 x 84 in. © Aaron Johnson. Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech. Photo: JSP Art Photography.
SHANGHAI.- Aaron Johnson's early interest in the creative risks of experimentation, the delicate balance between control and lack of it, is pivotal to his choices of alternative approaches to painting. In his new series of figurative color field paintings, the NYC-based artist is invested in harnessing the tension between unpredictability and mastership with fluid imagery created using a stain painting technique. Gradually, this opposition between two aspects of something evolved from being the backbone of his technical approach into becoming the conceptual core of the work comprising Day is Night. In this exhibition, Johnsons psychedelically colorful paintings reveal ethereal figures dissolving into hazes of disembodied color, as otherworldly fluid visualizations of the cosmic interconnectedness of all things. It's not rare that artists self-impose a challenge to their practice in an effort to push the boundaries in search of discoveries outside of their standard point of view ... More | |
Fernando Laposse, Mexican, b. 1988, Feliz Navidad, 2022. Cactus wood, cactus thorns, stained beech wood, 3D printed eco-resin, electrical components, patinated steel, 67.75 x 49.25 x 47.25 inches 172.1 x 125.1 x 120 cm.
NEW YORK, NY.- Friedman Benda presents its ninth annual guest-curated exhibition, the first dedicated to contemporary Mexico, entitled Everything Here Is Volcanic. Curated by Mario Ballesteros, the exhibition sparks from a statement by the radical Swiss architect Hannes Meyer, who lived in Mexico for over a decade from 1938 to 1949. Everything here (in Mexico) is volcanic, he wrote, bewitched by an unexpected yet somehow familiar mountainous land, entangled in deep sociopolitical change, in a letter to his friend and fellow architect Hans Schmidt. Meyer was referring to both the unpredictable geological conditions and the surrounding lava landscape, but also to the challenge of introducing an orthodox modernism in Mexico, a supercharged and superposed culture with deep roots and atemporal deviances, where an obsession with the past lingers in the drive for the future. Everything Here Is Volcanic encapsulates ... More | |
Lot 5: Highlighting a small but fine selection of paintings is this signed William Lester Stevens oil on canvas, Village in the Winter ($20/30,000).
PITTSFIELD, MASS.- Fontaines important Fine and Decorative Arts auction on Saturday, January 28, at 11 am, will tick off all the boxes for major collecting categories. There will be standouts among Tiffany lighting and leaded glass windows as well as diamond jewelry, paintings, bronzes, silver tea services, American and European furniture, porcelain and much more. The 550-lot auction sourced fine material from estates as far away as Los Angeles and Florida as well as up and down New England. Bidding is available via internet, phone and absentee methods. As is usually the case here, the glamorous and beautifully-executed designs from Tiffany Studios take center stage and there are over 75 lots of Tiffany items in this auction. Stellar Tiffany Studios floor lamps, in rich-colored leaded glass and patinated bronze, have performed quite well here in recent auctions. This auction presents such standouts as a Curtain Border ... More |
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New Worlds: Robert Whitman's First NFTs
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Holabird Western Americana Collections announces highlights included in 4-day auction
RENO, NEV.- Holabird Western Americana Collections, LLCs first live auction event of the year will be a four-day affair January 19th thru 22nd featuring collectibles in over a dozen categories, including bottles, railroadiana, Native Americana, mining, numismatics, art, stocks, militaria and general Americana, online and live in the Reno gallery located at 3555 Airway Dr. The auction, starting at 8 am Pacific time each day, is officially titled Pikes Peak or Bust! Western Americana, Bottles, Numismatics & More. With a healthy dose of exciting Colorado and Western states material, we decided to name this auction in honor of the great Colorado Gold Rush of 1859, said Fred Holabird, owner of Holabird Western Americana Collections. Featured collections and highlights will include Part IV of the Gary Bracken Collection more great offerings from the Ponca City, Oklahoma lawyer ... More
Three Lions' diversity on display at Guildhall Art Gallery in 'This Is England'
LONDON.- Following the 2022 World Cup, Black British artist Matt Smalls This Is England is on display at Guildhall Art Gallery, showcasing the diversity of the England football squad the most successful England mens team since the 1966 World Cup winners. Commissioned by the FA at the start of the Euros 2020 (held in 2021), 27 portraits by Small present the football players and manager that represented England at the Euros, highlighting and celebrating the multi-racial team, many of whom recently played at the World Cup. Players featured in This Is England include captain Harry Kane, rising talents Bukayo Saka and Jude Bellingham, star players Marcus Rashford MBE, Raheem Sterling MBE and Jack Grealish, and stalwart defenders Kyle Walker and Reece James, all alongside their manager Gareth Southgate OBE. The exhibition captures the proud ... More
Nicola Vassell Gallery opens Julia Chiang's 'Salt on Our Skin'
NEW YORK, NY.- I grew up with parents who didnt throw things away. Sometimes out of thrift, but a lot because my dad would give old things a new life. An old chair leg would become a new railing. A hand-painted wood carving would show up as a holder for some new kitchen gadget. Piles of newspapers in Chinese and English would be twined together, waiting for recycling, but there were too many piles to ever really disappear. There were textures and materials of all kinds put aside for later use, we just werent sure what. The idea of transformation, including our own, seemed to always be coming. To be better, to assimilate more, to be Chinese but more American. It was a strict household and making art was my time. I never got into trouble if I was drawing, making something, practicing handwriting. Doing it over and over, over and over, attempting to make the same mark ... More
Fran Siegel's 'Chronicle', curated by jill moniz, to open at Wilding Cran Gallery
LOS ANGELES.- Today, January 14th, Wilding Cran Gallery will open Fran Siegel's exhibition, Chronicle, curated by jill moniz of Transformative Arts. Chronicle is the culmination of recent works that express Siegels contemplation of place, dreams and perspectives. Chronicle, which will run until March 4th, features 216 small drawings on paper that Siegel started at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She visualized the discourse around the virus as extensions of her focus on pinwheel and maps, as a shorthand of place, and the aesthetics approaching abstraction. moniz pairs these ephemeral works with Siegels painted tapestries that incorporate porcelain as armatures, structural hardware that deciphers colonial appropriation and cultural production. The exhibition offers multiple entry points into dialogues that magnify how making transforms moments ... More
Australia's first Children's Art Library open for the school holidays at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
SYDNEY.- The Ashley Dawson-Damer Childrens Art Library the first of its kind in Australia has opened at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, providing a relaxing place of wonder for children and their families and carers during the school holidays. Welcoming, colourful and decorated with childhood illustrations by Australian artists including Grace Cossington-Smith, Grace Crowley, Adrienne Doig and Margaret Olley, the Childrens Art Library is a light-filled architecturally designed space with reading towers and terraced seating for children primarily aged 0-12 to enjoy while exploring books. Over 1400 titles have been purchased for the Childrens Art Library to provide delight, educate and spark the imagination of young visitors. These include books about artists and by artists, about art history featuring acclaimed illustrations, books in languages other than English ... More
Paul Johnson, prolific historian prized by conservatives, dies at 94
NEW YORK, NY.- Paul Johnson, a prolific journalist, historian, biographer, speechwriter and novelist whose public conversion in 1977 from Labour Party stalwart to bulldog defender of Margaret Thatcher and conservatism made him a divisive figure in British literary circles, died Thursday at his home in London. He was 94. His son Daniel announced the death, after a long illness, on Twitter. A writer of immense range and output, capable of 6,000 words a day when in harness, Johnson modeled his career after earlier English men of letters, like Thomas Babington Macaulay and G.K. Chesterton. With an affable prose style and supreme confidence in his own opinions, he was happy to deliver forceful judgments on almost anything: the tangled politics of the Middle East, his personal quest for God or the cultural meaning of the Spice Girls ... More
5 Broadway veterans on race and representation in theater design
NEW YORK, NY.- Design for live performance can cast a surreptitious spell, shaping an audiences perceptions with stimuli we might not even notice consciously: a change of light, a snatch of sound, a detail of costume or decor. Its encoded language, and we respond to it viscerally. To lighting designer Jane Cox, a Broadway veteran who directs the theater program at Princeton University, that dynamic makes design ripe for interrogation in the context of anti-racism. A course that she and playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins taught, about race and lighting design, was one of the seeds of a multidisciplinary symposium, Sound & Color The Future of Race in Design, taking place Saturday and Sunday at Park Avenue Armory. Organized by Cox and Tavia Nyongo, a curator at the Armory, it will include commissioned installations by young designers of color ... More
A showcase for up-and-comers, with some Vogueing (and shade thrown)
NEW YORK, NY.- The purpose of the American Dance Platform, an annual showcase at the Joyce Theater, can be found in its name. The idea is to give exposure during a week when many presenters are in town for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference to companies who could use some. This year, the showcase is curated by beloved choreographer Ronald K. Brown. Three companies each get two nights. In a program note, Brown recalls how much it meant when his troupe, Evidence, first appeared at the theater (where it returns next week). He wants to pay it forward. But when Evidence had its debut at the Joyce, more than 20 years ago, it was already apparent that Brown had a distinctive, extraordinary choreographic voice. During the first two programs of this years showcase, no such revelation was on the platform ... More
Shakespeare in the Park will stage 'Hamlet' this summer
NEW YORK, NY.- Winter has just begun in New York, but already the Public Theater is looking toward summer: The nonprofit announced Thursday that in June it would begin presenting an extended run of Shakespeares great tragedy Hamlet in Central Park. The production, which will be the fifth Hamlet in the 61 years of Free Shakespeare in the Park, will star Ato Blankson-Wood, a 38-year-old actor who was a member of the ensemble in a production of Hair in the park in 2008, and who has since starred there in musical adaptations of Twelfth Night and As You Like It. In 2020, Blankson-Wood was nominated for a Tony Award for Slave Play. Kenny Leon, a much-in-demand director who this season directed revivals of Topdog/Underdog and Ohio State Murders on Broadway, will helm the production, returning to the park after winning plaudits for his direction ... More
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PhotoGalleries
The Horror Show!
Lebbeus Woods
Yayoi Kusama
New Images in the Age of Augustus
Flashback On a day like today, French painter and lithographer Henri Fantin-Latour was born January 14, 1836. Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 - 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. His first major UK gallery exhibition in 40 years took place at the Bowes Museum in April 2011. Musée du Luxembourg presented a retrospective exhibition of his work in 2016-7 entitled "à fleur de peau". In this image: Henri Fantin-Latour, La leçon de dessin ou Portraits. Oil on canvas, 145 x 170 cm Musées Royaux des Beaux-arts de Belgique, Brussels.
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